SirPalomides

Hell Courtesan by Kawanabe Kyosai

It's actually a good question re: Lovecraft's work... his general outlook is one of an indifferent cosmos, personified by these monstrous beings, rendering all human endeavors, hopes, fears utterly insignificant, yet humans often play a pivotal role in their summoning or their vanquishing (e.g. ram a yacht into Cthulhu's head and he's back to sleep for another 1000 years).

This photo from May Day 1968 (Lvov, Ukrainian SSR) Happy May Day to all

Speaking of the first Opium War: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3082292/hong-kong-teachers-history-lesson-first-opium-war

Obviously the US intelligence community is a bunch of CCP trolls.

I've been curious for a while as to the exact relation between the mantra and the sutra-based chanting of Amitabha's name. I know there has been debate between Vajrayana and sutric Mahayanists about some of the claims made on the efficacy of Mahayana practice, e.g. I believe there was a brief episode of Chan being introduced to Tibet but in a debate the lamas poured cold water on Chan claims to sudden enlightenment. Do Vajrayana Buddhists see the sutra-based Pure Land Buddhists as mistaken somehow in their belief that faith in Amitabha and chanting his name is sufficient to be reborn in the Pure Land? Are the mantra, sadhana, phowa, etc. necessary to this end, or just more reliable, or...?

Zhang Xianzhong, a rebel leader from the end of the Ming dynasty, attempted to form his own Great Western dynasty in Sichuan in 1644. In 1646, threatened by Qing and Southern Ming forces, he decided to flee Chengdu, sailing up the Min river with ships packed with loot. He was ambushed by the southern Ming at Jiangkou where his fleet was destroyed. Locals have long held that there was treasure in the riverbed and archaeologists have now confirmed it. Check out pictures here: http://kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/202004/t20200429_5120571.shtml

From Mengzi, 2A:6

If you don't trust expertise then why bother posting views offered by "American doctors"? Wouldn't American insurance salesmen, catsitters, or butt-waxers equally qualify? Why, I dare say they are even more qualified because their lack of pretensions to medical expertise, and their avoidance of years of education pernicious indoctrination in medical school mass deception programming centers, recommend them as pure specimens of omniscient non-expertise! Bring on the butt-waxers, I say!

In case anyone failed to notice, the 19th and 20th centuries were one calamity after another. E.g. the Taiping rebellion- the most devastating war of the 19th century anywhere; the brutal war with Japan from 1937 on; the Cultural Revolution, etc. It takes quite a selective approach to single out metal rat, especially when 3 of the listed events began on earth pig years.

I love me some Odilon Redon

Phaethon, by Gustave Moreau

I was under the impression you had to do ngondro before doing that stuff, is that not necessarily the case?

As I understand it, there were two main strands of Pure Land in China- one advocated Pure Land practice as complementary to the other Buddhist practices, and it became common to see the nianfo practice incorporated with Chan, both as a way for Chan teachers to conduct popular outreach and also as a koan. This strand of Pure Land does not emphasize "other power" and, especially in the Chan presentations, posits Amitabha and the Pure Land as manifestations of the mind's innate purity. So this would accord with what CT says above, though a popular understanding of the Buddhas as independent beings is not strictly refuted. This is still the major form of Pure Land in China (and, I believe, Korea and Vietnam) and also exists in Japan with the Obaku Zen sect. The other main current is represented by Shandao who taught "other power" strictly. While maybe, in theory, he would have accepted the Chan/ Mind Only explanations as ultimately true, he thought it was no good to frame the practice this way as it led to doubt and confusion. Our deluded minds in the age of dharma decline could simply not handle even a drop of self-reliance. It was Other Power all the way. This strand of Pure Land did not survive persecution in the late Tang and its texts were lost in China. They survived in Japan where they were later read by Honen and Shinran and became the basis of Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu, the most popular forms of Buddhism in Japan. Recently (I think in the past century or century and a half) Chinese monks visiting Japan picked up these texts and brought them back, and there has been a revival of this strand of Pure Land in China too. They call themselves the Pristine Pure Land school and this is their website: http://www.purelandbuddhism.org/

I've been recently working with two translations of the Yijing- the Richard Lynn translation, with the commentary by Wang Bi, and the new Joseph Adler translation, with the commentary of Zhu Xi. I am far from fully familiarized with either book so I've just got preliminary thoughts so far. The Richard Lynn edition is scholarly but quite user-friendly; Wang Bi's comments are extensive and often very clarifying. On the downside they are interspersed within the text (marked off with curly brackets {}) so it sometimes feels a bit cluttered, and sometimes it is hard to keep track of which parts are his comments and which are the text. Adler's translation seems mainly oriented to scholars; for instance, while Richard Lynn's translation has a handy chart at the back for looking up hexagrams, Adler has none. Zhu Xi's comments tend to be briefer than Wang Bi's and it's a lot easier to see where the text ends and his commentary begins. He leaves more of the ambiguity in place in his remarks. A cool feature that Adler has included as an appendix is Zhu Xi's ritual for divination- he gives fairly precise instructions for setting up a divination altar, with a panel running lengthwise through the center where the yarrow stalks are kept in notches for easy counting. He gives a brief prayer for putting the question to the oracle, and then step-by-step instructions for counting out the stalks and forming the lines. With regards to the quality of the books as physical objects I have both in hardcover and have to say the Richard Lynn book is better made, with smyth sewn binding, whereas the Adler book has a glued binding. That disappointed me as the Adler book is pricy and, just like the Lynn book, published by Columbia University Press.

Hm, could work. She's always adding to her skull collection and they have to come from somewhere.

I mean, I figured, but I just thought I'd give you a chance to explicate some better motives. Well, I don't know if there are really dakinis waiting to be summoned, but if someone were to give you the correct method of doing it, with your current attitude, I can see two most likely outcomes: A. Nothing; B: A magic knife appears out of nowhere and castrates you, with ethereal laughter reverberating around the room.

And what are you hoping to gain from this, uh, encounter?

A common assumption in both Taoist and Confucian thought is that well-cultivated people naturally attract loyalty and bring order and stability to the world around them without seeming to do anything. That is how wu-wei is supposed to work as a governing approach. So Mencius talks about how he nourishes his "flood-like qi" which fills up heaven and earth. Of course the question naturally arises as to why so many sages did not become kings, so the state of the society one is in matters too, and in places where the Way does not prevail sages can become recluses.

Yeah but how much is he going to lose? Last I heard he had some ridiculous number like 85%. You can afford to alienate a lot of people with those numbers.

One day, when the great firewall comes down, videos like this will have a gajillion likes and the stupid comments would multiply a 1000 fold. People outside China say they want the firewall to come down but once they see the insanity of the Chinese internet pouring onto their news sites and forums they will beg the PRC to put the firewall back up. And it will be too late.

What would be news is if Duterte's approval rating actually took a dive and unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening no matter what he does.

I'm aware of the territory disputes, but the article in question is only peripherally about them. "Blow for China's virus diplomacy" as people on the internet do what they do everywhere. Does the reception of this song (which sucks hard, by the way, but then so does C-Pop generally) have any bearings on diplomacy? Of course not, but you have to have a dramatic headline to justify getting paid for watching YouTube videos and reading comments.

the wood, to grandmas- a trail of blood on the snow. Grandma looks hairy