SirPalomides

Well they were very civilized, and civilized people are very nasty.

Yeah one of the oldest forms of warfare- still practiced in a few places- is cattle raiding. Cattle raiders are generally attacking, and being attacked by, their neighbors. As a result the casualties tend to be relatively light because no one wants to ignite a blood feud. Though there is always the potential for things to get way out of hand.

For anyone interested I finally found something from the Plum Blossom method, as explained in Da Liu's book I Ching Numerology and some missing information supplied by Harmen Mesker. I'm not sure if it's quite what Taomeow was taught because it doesn't use yarrow stalks or coins at all. Basically there are two approaches called Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven, and the one I had in mind is the Later Heaven. The hexagram is determined by observing some object and taking note of the hour and direction. The object determines the upper trigram, the direction the lower trigram, and the hour, combined with the numbers of the trigrams, determines the moving line (there is only one moving line in the plum blossom method.)

When I was a lad I had a copy of Thomas Cleary's pocket I Ching that gave instructions for consulting it, not using coins or yarrow stalks, but selecting pairs of trigrams based on their appropriateness to the situation at hand and turning to the relevant hexagrams. He based this method on an ancient appendix which, in typical Thomas Cleary fashion, he neither named nor cited. I haven't seen this method mentioned anywhere else and wondered if others knew more about it.

In practical terms what would this look like, and how could I distinguish it from indifference/ apathy? I suspect this kind of detached equanimity is an aspiration whose time has come and gone.I think what Hegel said about stoicism has broad applicability: "…whether on the throne or in chains, in the utter dependence of its individual existence, its aim is to be free, and to maintain that lifeless indifference which steadfastly withdraws from the bustle of existence, alike from being active as passive, into the simple essentiality of thought... As a universal form of the World-Spirit, stoicism could only appear on the scene in a time of universal fear and bondage, but also a time of universal culture which had raised itself to the level of thought." There is of course the question, How can you judge a state of mind you have not experienced yourself? To which I would say, when we are choosing to take this or that path, when we are choosing to follow a teacher apart from other teachers, we necessarily make a judgment that what that path or teacher offers is desirable and valuable. If the goal so unintelligible to us at the start of the path then there is no way for us to reasonably embark on that path- its value is just one bare assertion among so many others. And from the little I know, a state of withdrawal or neutrality, whether attained as a momentary posture or as the result of long meditation, doesn't look like wisdom to me.

Yep. Mostly hideous. This is far from a problem for Hindus only!

Well the purpose of religious art is generally to convey some truth or transcendent ideal, or communicate the presence of the divine. So not being distractingly hideous doesn’t seem like such an unreasonable expectation.

21 to 50 days seems perfectly feasible for most people, no? Heck I haven’t gotten any in nearly a year 😝 But no, I haven’t tried it out and as a new dad probably won’t have time in the foreseeable future

I think there are some issues where taking an attitude of “the truth is somewhere in the middle” is dishonest, irresponsible, cowardly, and beneficial to oppressors. There are some situations where a supposedly niche or extreme position is actually the sanest one to take. I’d rather everyone make their positions clear than affect a vapid impartiality.

I don’t mind the use of automata if they actually look good and not like some shabby theme park attraction. I visited some Hindu temples in Malaysia and the statues there too looked like they had been sculpted and painted with the aesthetic sensibility of a five year old. Obviously Hinduism has produced some amazing art through the ages so I can’t imagine everyone is happy about this state of affairs.

Based on his very public Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/john.dolic) John Dolic certainly isn’t shy about his views so there’s no need to keep it anonymous. Is it possible to learn valuable things from charlatans and lunatics? Yes... but they definitely wouldn’t be my first choice.

It's beautiful. How do you define "quasi art"?

My uncle says Muslims on Borneo are chill and tolerant, and on the mainland they're fanatics. No doubt that's a big oversimplification but generally there seem to be fewer sectarian squabbles on the island.

Thanks. I have family in Malaysia but they live in the sticks in Sabah, very far from KL craziness.

I'm kind of curious about this- is this unusual where you are? In some Islamic cultures the restriction against alcohol has traditionally been relaxed or liberally interpreted. I remember reading about Arab traders scandalized when they witnessed Turkic Muslims drinking kumis and other alcoholic beverages- the version of Hanafi jurisprudence that prevailed in central Asia interpreted the prohibition as applying only to wine. In Turkey of course they love their raki which even if it isn't wine, is made from grapes. A Uyghur girl I knew had no problem downing beers with us at bars (though she wouldn't touch pork) and apparently this is not uncommon.

Thanks, I've heard good things about Yamazaki. I've seen the 12 selling for about $100 though that was a while ago.

My preferred drink is whiskey, my favorites being Laphroaig (scotch), Redbreast or Green Spot (Irish), Sazerac (rye), or Eagle Rare (bourbon). I also like absinthe though I haven't had enough varieties to say which one is better. Currently I have a bottle of Vieux Carre which is an absinthe distilled in Philadelphia, which I like very much. I like wine but could hardly be called a connoisseur. Recently I had a really delicious Georgian red wine, made from the saperavi grape, but I can't remember the name of the maker.

So much of American "Zen" in a nutshell there.

The love of poetry and painting, and an abiding interest in the phenomenal world (landscapes, animals, etc.), are probably the most Chinese (Daoist/Confucian) elements of Chan and related Chinese Buddhist currents like Huayan and Tiantai. Indian Buddhist texts, in my experience, tend to have am ambivalent or even indifferent attitude to natural beauty and to aesthetics. Their poetry tends to be very didactic and flatfooted. I am speaking in broad terms here though so don't take this as a rule either way.

I have a 2018 Corolla that has these features. The line-crossing beep can be switched off.

After years of planning to do so, I've finally started working through Adam McLean's Foundation Study Course on Alchemical Symbolism. The lessons start out with very, very basic principles (e.g. note the placement of symbols, note the opposites or fusion of opposites) and stubbornly discourage interpretation, McLean's concern being that readers will superimpose preconceptions from other esoteric systems and misread the emblems. Since my own background in esoterism (apart from general Platonism) is very shallow it is not really a concern for me but I am enjoying this patient, step by tiny step approach.

In the past few months I've been consulting the Yijing as a way of bypassing writer's block, consulting it to determine the theme or structure of a poem. Does anyone else do this?

Thanks Sketch. For some reason I completely forgot about PKD! I had heard of Burroughs cut-up method and I've also had a lot of practice with surrealist games and automatism. Looking back at my own writing I've found that my best stuff, even when it is very structured, germinates from disparate, random phrases or images. I am not very good at extensive, pre-planned plots. Actually they are agony for me.

There was no formal process of deciding the New Testament canon. Contrary to some popular accounts, the Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the New Testament canon, which wasn't even an item on the agenda. There was no meeting where a bunch of bishops sorted through stacks of books to determine which ones they liked. Some books which were treated as scripture, such as the Didache, remained authoritative even after they were finally left out of the New Testament. Other non-canonical books like the Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Nicodemus continued to be read and circulated and were hugely influential in Church theology and hymnography. Of course the writings of the apostolic fathers continue to be highly regarded in Christianity today, except among those Protestants who cling to an ahistorical and self-contradictory version of sola scriptura.

Yeah that's the Nakhchivan exclave. Sometimes dueling empires, ethnic cleansing, and nationalism combine to create some really stupid-looking maps.