For the forum, the format will be that the "Master" will lead the "students" towards nirvana, having the ear of the "Buddha", and reporting from the enlightened one a pair of words, one which is deemed to have the Buddha nature, and one which is not. Students will attempt to determine the rule of what constitutes the Buddha nature by means of suggestion of a pair of words, one of which is held as an example of a word which matches the rule, and one which doesn't.
For example, if the Buddha has determined the rule of worthiness to be only for words which begin with a letter in the first half of the alphabet and which end with a letter from the second half, the Master may report that the Buddha advises students to remember that a carrot is a flavoursome and nutritious vegetable, while a cabbage is not appreciated, being a smelly and foul-tasting food. Students may then attempt to determine the nature of the Buddha words, by making their own suggestions as to a pair of words, one of which is an example which adheres to the rule, and one which doesn't. A student who correctly suggests a pair of words which are held to show correctly the value of the Buddha nature and not, will earn the right to make a prediction as to the rule. If the student is correct in his or her prediction, then the student will take over the mantle of the Master and begin another teaching session, passing on new wisdom from the Buddha with examples of a another rule. The Master will respond to each pair of suggestions with the wisdom passed down from the Buddha, advising which words have the Buddha nature and which do not. From time to time, the Master may also provide other words which the Buddha has pronounced worthy or unworthy of the way, on such occasions as determined by the Buddha to be appropriate for the teachings of his students.
It should be remembered that students are attempting to discern the rule by means of comparison, and that in order to earn the right to pronounce the nature of the Buddha words, he or she must make it clear which are the words in question, and also which of them is held to be worthy, and which of them fails to meet the rule of the Buddha nature. Any means are acceptable to draw attention to which is which, as long as it is made clear to the current Master or Mistress. Formatting the words in colour (eg green and red) is helpful, but so long as they are identified appropriately then that would be valid, for example in the above situation the student may enquire whether a "carrot" is appreciated, whereas a "cabbage" is not. It would not be sufficient merely to ask if the Buddha approves of a "carrot" or a "cabbage". If the current Master or Mistress is unable to determine which words are intended as being worthy and unworthy of the Buddha nature will report the outcome as usual, but the student who offered such words without enough explicit information for the Master/Mistress will unfortunately not earn the right to make pronunciation of the Buddha nature with that attempt.
The current Master or Mistress should employ reasonable common-sense in indentifying what is offered by the students and held to be worthy and unworthy. When faced with two words highlighted in different colours, a basic convention of using "green-ish" and "red-ish", for example, would be perfectly indicative of the intention of the student. Using the same colour to highlight both words would not. Phrasing one's enquiry to cast one of the words in a "positive" light, versus another word pitched with a slightly "negative" tone (cf flavoursome and nutritious vs smelly and foul-tasting regarding the carrot and cabbage above) is also an appropriate distinction. Merely asking if the Buddha approves of one or the other is not. Nobody should be penalised for not being able to format words in colour, or for not making any other use of the forum code tags.
The rules will have nothing to do with the meanings * or pronunciation of the words, or with capitalisation.** Only the standard 26 letters of the English alphabet should be used. Extra kudos may be given for students addressing the Master with due respect and humble parlance, but is not a requisite for determining the rule.
* except in the case of certain rules such as that noted in http://www.puzzlebrains.co.uk/forum/vie ... 1094#p1094 which do not appear to be different words, but the meaning actually determines the structure and affects the rule.
** except in the case of certain rules as determined by the current Master or Mistress which should be explicitly stated at the outset of the new teaching session. For example in this game http://www.puzzlebrains.co.uk/forum/vie ... p=447#p447 a "p" has a descender below the baseline, while a capital "P" does not, which caused a special case to be generated.
For clarity, the current Master or Mistress should maintain a list of the worthy and unworthy words, as well as those students who have currently the right to attempt a declaration of the Buddha nature. When a new page is begun, the Master or Mistress should post the up to date list on the new page, preferably as near the top as possible, to save students hunting back through the forum for previously used words to compare.
The Buddha is patient but does not like to be pestered. One or two enquiries are happily entertained, perhaps a third with no displeasure. A student should wait for instruction before guessing too many times, however - although if they are not guesses, and the student wishes to draw attention to the fact that he or she may have found the way, then additional zeal will be happily indulged. Any number of students may individually seek simultaneous guidance - a student need not wait for another to receive his or her instruction before requesting consideration of his or her own submission.
As the first Master, I may advise that the way to enlightenment is tricky. While the path may show a little promise if it loops, that way is not true. A student should seek the pattern of the words in order to find the correct way. (I should also say that the Enlightened One informs that it is not necessary for Scurra to ask of the nature of apples and bananas in this teaching session, as the former are definitely worthy, but the latter are just curved, yellow, squishy things.)
Buddhalicious
accomplish accountant apples attempt bookkepper correct dropping giraffes hallo happy intelligent Mall ninny off paddles pattern puzzles riddles success suggest Wessex
Buddhafingers
bananas Bazaar brainbox choose cool elephants failure fool groovy hejsa helpful loops Northumbria oars seems sleep vacuum
Buddha buddies
Bunnylump (x2)
Cenwulf (x2)
giraffe (x2)
Laura
Scurra (x3)
another page wrote:to select colours, the simplest way is to highlight the words required, and then to wait for a moment so that the forum software catches up before clicking one of the coloured squares in the pane on the right. If the mouse pointer changes to a finger when it is over a coloured square, then it should work. I have noticed that if one selects the text and then clicks a coloured square too quickly, then it either ignores it or gives the wrong result, so it seems you may well have some tag codes in your message which do not each have a matching opening or closing tag to make a pair.
The more technical way is to note that just as one can use tags to show italics or bold, that the tags for colouring an item can be directly typed in, and are of the form:
[color=#0000FF] before the text to be coloured (the actual "number" indicates which colour to use), and [/color] immediately afterwards, to tell the browser to stop colouring. When you want to stop the colourisation, it is only necessary for there to be a "stop colouring" tag [/color] in order for the browser to switch back to the default text colour. You do not have to specify that everything should be coloured in (say) black to stop getting the red (or blue, or whatever colour you chose).
Please note the Americanised spelling of the word "color" and, if you prefer an anorak to an acolyte's robe, the colour code is made up of three "RGB" sections, which follow the # symbol to indicate that it's a number format (in hexadecimal digits). The first two digits in hexadecimal tell how much Red should be included in the colour mix. The next two digits say how much Green should be included and the last two digits say how much Blue. So the code #0000FF means, zero red, zero green, and as much blue as you can get. #FF0000 means all red and nothing else. Black would be #000000 and white would be #FFFFFF.
