Tara mantra

Tara is a female Buddha that comes in many forms, most common white or green.  White Tara represents compassion, long life, healing and serenity, while Green Tara is enlightened activity that removes obstacles, fears and worries.  All in all there are 21 emanations.  As John Blofeld points out, the Chinese Kuan Yin is not a female version of the male Avalokiteshvara but rather a Chinese version of the Tibetan Tara figure.

 

21 emanations of Tara above.

This Russian video about Tara certainly pulls out all the stops.

Roman Army

A few examples of Roman reenactments, the Germans and the British seem to be the most avid fans.

From the Sublime to the Silly

Having viewed a few blogs about pens I purchased a blue Kaweco Sport AL with medium nib a while back.  The AL I presume stands for aluminum, which is what the guy in the video is trying to remember at one point.  This is a fountain pen.  It is designed to hold their own ink cartridges only, and apparently many lamented there was no converter for it.  A converter is a device with a piston inside that enables one to use ink from a bottle, and is inserted in the pen where the original cartridge is located.  Recently I discovered Kaweco now makes a converter for its Sport pen, as explained in the video located at this site. For Kaweco Sport fans, this is a big deal as now they can use their favorite ink with it.

Kaweco sounds like a Japanese company but is actually German, it started in Heidelberg in the 1880's.  This particular pen is quite short but one can make it longer by placing the cap on the end when writing.

There are a lot of interesting pen blogs out there on the Internet, it seems that really good fountain pens quite often cost over a hundred dollars, so it can get to be an expensive hobby if one takes it seriously.  Another German pen that is popular but not so expensive is the Lamy Safari series, for example.  

 

Alan Watts on Buddhism

One of the great popularizers of Buddhism in the West, a man who like Allen Ginsberg created his own career out of his following his Muse. 

Yet More Moody Blues

"Have You Heard" track from 1969 album "On the Threshold of a Dream."  Some rather mellow lyrics:

Now you know that you are real,
Show your friends that you and me
Belong to the same world,
Turned on to the same word,
Have you heard?

Now you know that you are free,
Living all your life at ease.
Each day has it's always,
A look down life's hallways, doorways,
To lead you there.

Now you know how nice it feels,
Scatter good seed in the fields.
Life's ours for the making,
Eternity's waiting, waiting,
For you and me.
Now you know that you are real,
Show your friends that you and me
 
Belong to the same world,
Turned on to the same word,
Have you heard?


The verse: "Now you know that you are real," followed by "Now you know that you are free," and "Now you know how nice it feels" all sound almost like Gnostic or mystical sayings about some sort of spiritual realization.  Note the repetition of the word know.   It's not a statement of personal opinion but rather the certainty of some positive force one has encountered within and without oneself, presumably.  And as with many such numinous experiences, one encounters a sense of eternity that one would like to share with one's friends.  This might even be called the "eternal now" mystics talk about, as now is repeated just as often as the word know in the song.  One might say that nowness is the key to eternity.  For example: Living all your life at ease, Each day has it's always seems to reinforce this idea of the importance of living in the moment, the present blossoming into eternity.

Marcus Aurelius - The Stoic Emperor

Today is not only St. Patrick's Day but the anniversary of the death of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who died from the same plague that wiped out millions in the Empire at that time.  This was at Vindobono, modern day Vienna, on the Danube River, when he died in 180 AD after four years of holding back a Germanic incursion into the heart of the Empire.  Thus he kept the Roman Empire breathing room for a century before further problems developed, leaving the Empire vulnerable to outside incursions.

Rome had a running battle with barbarians almost from its start: the Gauls sacked Rome in 387 BC, they invaded in 225 BC, in 113 Germanic tribes defeated Roman armies and invaded Gaul and Spain, in 102 BC Marius defeated part of them, in 9 AD an entire legion was lost in the Teutoburg Forest, in the years up to 180 AD we have Aurelius preventing a breakthrough by Germanic tribes, in 255 Goths invade Macedonia and later Greece, in 378 Visigoths defeat the Eastern Emperor at Adrianople,in 410 they sack Rome. 

So aside from being a brilliant advocate of Stoicism in his Meditations, Aurelius sacrificed his comfort and life to preserve civilization from the recurrent barbarian incursions and thus kept the flame of Greco-Roman culture going longer than it might have.

Falchion sword

 

 

The falchion sword was popular in Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries.  At first modern historians thought it was a poor man's weapon, but later realized it was often used by knights as well.  Being a single-edged one handed weapon, yet not overly heavy, it could be wielded like a large meat cleaver with great effect.  It was primarily a cutting weapon, and could hack off limbs, but the sharp tip could penetrate chain mail as well.

Dinky Toys

A brief history of the company by a collector.  These toys, especially the military models, were popular with kids in the 1950's.  

My favorite, the Centurion tank.

Some pretty amazing restoration projects, a history of Dinky output in itself.

Wei Wu Wei

This is the cognomen adopted by Terence Gray, an Irish aristocrat who started publishing a series of mystifying books about mysticism during the 50's and 60's, which along with those of Reps and Alan Watts were Western takes on Zen.  Meaning action of non-action, a Taoist concept,  Gray writes about the paradoxical explanations of such teachers as Hui Neng, Ramana Maharshi, Padma Sambhava and Huang Po.  He especially elaborates what I consider the extreme stance of Shen Hui, who insisted that since enlightenment is sudden, there is no method or way to "practice" attaining it.  There is a nice paper by Hoyu Ishida on this, which takes Shen Hui to task for proposing that since humans are already enlightened there is no need for practice, i.e. meditation.  While other teachers have advocated the former proposition, they reject the latter.  Without the formal discipline of sitting meditation practice, realization of one's innate buddha nature will never happen, because the mind is too chaotic, not to mention seductive in assuring us all is well and good as long as we think we are already enlightened.  

Wei Wu Wei does offer many good down to earth explanations of obscure Eastern doctrines, such as anatta, or non-self.  He says for example: "We do not possess an 'ego'.  We are possessed by the idea of one."   There are a few examples quoted here at a website devoted to his teachings. 

American Pie Revisited

This seems to have been the first long narrative mysterious song that defied explanation for many, coming out in 1971.  There had been previous obscure songs by Dylan, for example Subterranean Homesick Blues and Mr. Tambourine Man, and the Beatles with Strawberry Fields and I Am the Walrus, but this one by Don McLean intrigued everyone.  Obviously it was a poetic history of rock and roll but interpretation was difficult.  There is one here that seems quite good, and goes on for a few more pages in a thorough explanation verse by verse. 

African Greys

These guys are pretty good.  I'll have to film my birds someday, they have a language of their own.

Padma Sambhava

Padma Sambhava, or Guru Rinpoche, is the all-around culture hero of Tibet, coming from the south in the 8th century.  He is famous for the introduction of tantric teachings which later became the foundation of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.  Many stories are told of his overcoming the opposition of the native shamanistic Bon religion, and at the end of his life, took his leave of his disciples and walked off into the mountains never to be seen again. 

The first video is so quirky I had to include it.  The second has great visual representations of Guru Rinpoche.  The third has his 7 line supplication in Tibetan.  In English it goes like this:

Hum
In the northwest of the land of Uddiyana
On a blooming lotus flower
You have attained supreme, wondrous siddhi
You are renowned as Padmakara
Surrounded by your retinue of many dakinis
We practice following your example
Please approach and grant your blessing
Guru Padma Siddhi Hum

The mantra that many Western Buddhists learn is: Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum, sometimes followed by Vajra Samaja Siddhi Phalam Hum Phat!  With a gesture of the hands folded together chest high, facing forward and shooting outwards on Phat!  An alternative is a snap of the fingers.  Or so I learned from one devotee.

Some Oldtime Bluegrass

Earl Scruggs in first two, then together with Lester Flatt below ...they had a band named the Foggy Mountain Boys that was pretty successful.  In the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? the band formed by the heroes is called the Soggy Bottom Boys, in tribute to the real band.

Crazy for Kokopelli

If you do an Internet search for Kokopelli, the browser might give you a list of possible choices associated with that word, such as: suites, wine, inn, golf club, images, bedding, meaning, trail and bed and breakfast.  This shows just how popular and widespread (mainly in the Southwest) Kokopelli has become.  Originally a fertility deity that caught on later with the  Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, it could represent Aztec traders from the South carrying sacks over their shoulders.  Often combining trade with storytelling and news, these men would announce their presence with flute playing before entering a village, to forestall any suspicions of the people. 

Japanese Koto Music

The koto, like many Japanese instruments, came from China, but evolved in its own way after that. It sits on the floor or is placed on a stand and measures over 6 feet in length.  It belongs to the zither family of stringed instruments.  Often used with shakuhachi flute to create so-called meditation music.

Shopping Cart Etiquette at the Market

If you look this subject up in an online search engine you will find quite a few entries from people in the form of blog entries, discussion groups, videos and so forth.  Obviously it is a hot topic, although a minor one from the point of view of the Big Issues of Life. Here is one site that analyzes all this in a practical manner.  But given the intensity of these entries or rants, it is an issue that doesn't go away, and unless one is wealthy enough to send others to do one's shopping, it is an irritation one has to always deal with. 

There are two subdivisions of this issue, that of parking lot problems with shopping carts, and that of maneuvering a cart within the store aisles.  I want to deal just with the latter issue.  Naturally there are the obvious problems of people blocking aisles with their cart and themselves while they wander away or stand staring at the shelves, or rolling along too fast through aisle intersections without slowing down.  One issue that I find appalling that isn't mentioned much is how shoppers stop their carts in front of the meat section or the cold foods compartments, preventing  anyone else from having access to about eight feet of that section, or being able to open the glass doors the compartment area.  

One of the things Buddhist meditation practice aims at is to cultivate mindfulness in what is termed the post-meditation experience, when we are finished with our formal sitting practice and we return to the world of our daily affairs.  If we can't avoid being a nuisance to others in the simple act of grocery shopping, then we haven't practiced properly.  The idea is to allow us to better see the play of our mind, its fickleness jumping from one thought to another, and to realize how heavy and compulsive much of this thought process actually is.  We would like our meditation practice to open us up a little, bringing a sense of lightness and upliftedness to our mind. In this way we can apply what we learn from meditation, the cultivation of a sense of spaciousness and egolessness, to the nuts and bolts of our daily routine.