Archive for Buddhism
Pandava Rathas, Mahabalipuram [jatp]
Posted in pictures, Travel with tags Bay of Bengal, BIRS-CMI, Buddhism, bulls, Chengalpet District, Chennai, Chennai Mathematical Institute, Dravidian culture, group tour, Hindu temples, Hinduism, India, jatp, Mahabalipuram, Mahabharata, Mamallapuram, monolith, Pacific Ocean, Pallava dynasty, Pancha Rathas, Pandava Rathas, Tamil Nadu, Unesco World Heritage List on July 6, 2025 by xi'an
rewriting history
Posted in Books, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags Bhutan, Buddhism, Chinese history, Communist Party of China, democratic elections, elections, Gengis Khan, gun violence, Le Louvre, Le Monde, monks, Musée d'histoire de Nantes, Musée du Quai Branly, Musée Guimet, museum, Nantes, Nepal, Oscars (Academy Awards), Paris, People's Republic of China, PRC, propaganda, Telluride Film Festival, The Monk and the Gun, Tibet, Toronto International Film Festival on September 24, 2024 by xi'an
a journal of the chaos, conquest, war, [far from] famine, and death year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags A Sun, anti-immigrant mob, Argentan, book review, Buddhism, calamare, Collège de France, comedy, comparative literature, COVID-19, dahl, Daniel Defoe, death penalty, Don Quixote, fennel, film review, Florida, Florida Keys, France Inter, gangster movie, gochugaru, Journal of the Plague Year, kimchi, mafia, Netflix, New Orleans, orecchiette, Paris, Russian invasion, Taiwan, William Marx on August 3, 2024 by xi'an
Read nothing new for a while as I got stuck finishing Babel at a sloth pace… But bought for the summer vacations Don Quixote de la Mancha (in French) and a commentary by Marx that I intend to use as a reading guide. Not The Marx, mind you!, but a professor of comparative literature at Collège de France who gave a guided reading of the masterpiece on the French public radio last summer…. (I gave up carrying the extra abridged Spanish version I bought in Oaxaca eons ago. And already carried for nothing on earlier vacations.) Still, went through a few BDs suggested by and borrowed from Andrew, like De Cape et De Mots, a nice take over Cinderella, Overseas Highway, a none-too-credible Florida-set mafia scenario with great drawings, and Une simple formalité, set in New Orleans with anti-Italian mobs overcoming the corrupted police, and further themes of my liking (as predicted by Andrew!).
Had one cooking marathon a Saturday aft (in the sense it lasted longer than my estimated time for a marathon!) when making new kimchi with cabbage, carrots, and turnips (and of course a large serving of powder gochugaru), matcha rice pudding, grilled peppers, rhubarb preserve, marinated calamare all at once! With markets approaching peek season in terms of offer of local vegetables, I also made plenty of dahls and pasta dishes, like the above panned fennel orecchiette serving.
Watched The Pig, The Snake and the Pigeon, a dark comedy around Taiwanese gangster movies, with the funny premise that the central character is “only” the third most wanted gangster in the country, hence wants to eliminate the first and second ones to achieve posthumous fame. There is not much more in terms of story lines, but loads of (unrealistic) action, and great characters. Not at the level of A Sun, by far, but enjoyable. I found out later that the title refers to a Buddhist tale about the three poisons: the “pig” corresponds to #3’s ignorance and obsession, “snake” to #2’s violence and hatred, and “pigeon” to #1’s greed.
[Warning: There will be a series of Journals posted in the coming days, as I wrote several in the past months, only to forget them in the draft section!]
Ankgor, encore [jatp]
Posted in Statistics with tags Angkor Wat, Buddhism, Buddhist temples, Cambodia, Hindu temples, jatp, monks, morning light, Siem Reap, tourism on March 1, 2019 by xi'an
Are we hard-wired for war?
Posted in Books, Kids with tags Buddhism, philosophy, religion, The New York Times, war on October 27, 2013 by xi'an“There is a story, believed to be of Cherokee origin, in which a girl is troubled by a recurring dream in which two wolves fight viciously. Seeking an explanation, she goes to her grandfather, highly regarded for his wisdom, who explains that there are two forces within each of us, struggling for supremacy, one embodying peace and the other, war. At this, the girl is even more distressed, and asks her grandfather who wins. His answer: “The one you feed.””
Another opinion piece from the New York Times I (also) read in the train to the airport bound for Warwick is about the Hume-an human (supposed) predisposition for war, hence the title “are we hard wired for war?” This question reminded me of my daughter’s philosophy dissertation of last week as war may appear as the ultimate example of the “nature vs culture” debate, wars resulting from societal pressures… until one thinks of the constant fighting in most animal societies, where from ants to chimpanzees, groups within the same species are fighting for supremacy. The paper in itself is rather inconclusive, with good feelings and little folk tales like the above replacing scientific evidence and deeper philosophical arguments (also missing from this post!)…
Something I just noticed when looking at both authors (of this tribune and the previous one on traditional Chinese medicine) is that they both mix a Buddhist approach with scientific arguments, Asma with his book Why I am a Buddhist, and Barash with his book Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science. It is thus no wonder they entertain the idea of an absence of boundaries between science and religion.
