Buddhism has a holistic view of the environment, recognizing the interconnectedness of all things. Buddhists believe that everything in the natural world is interdependent and that our actions have a direct impact on the environment. This view is reflected in the teachings of Buddhism, which emphasize the importance of living in harmony with nature and taking responsibility for our actions. ...
Vishnu’s avatars broadly evolve from fish to tortoise to boar to man-lion to small man to man to Rama to Buddha and Kalki, anon. Fascinating how they broadly follow the path of evolution.What should an individual do in the face of collapse? Broadly, your dharma, but what is that? The most common example of dharma is from the Mahabharata. In ...
Divine Thru, by Muvindu BinoyAs much as I decry life under Capitalism, we also don’t live under Capitalism. This contradiction is important to understand. Lived life is full of contradictions and to make sense of anything you have to understand this fact, and the relative nature of facts themselves. You have to hold more than two perspectives in your head ...
The church I was wed in, in the shadow of luxury condos and covered in bank advertisingInReligion In Human Evolution, Robert Bellah says “Religion is a system of beliefs and practices relative to the sacred that unite those who adhere to them in a moral community.” Modern, ‘educated’, consumers don’t live in such a religious community, but we still live ...
The Sony Ericcson P800, now fit for a museumWhen I took out a smartphone at a baseball game in 2002, I was the only one in the whole stadium. I looked weird as hell to my friends, chatting to someone in the UK over GPRS. Now everyone has a smartphone. Any stadium can instantly turn into a festival of flashes. ...
"How the Earth was Regarded in Old times", The Popular Science Monthly, March 1877This book should be 95% black, 5% gibberish, and just a question mark at the end. But such scrupulous truth is boring. Let's stay in the realm of stories, as I begin to tell mine...There was really only one moment of creation. Everything since has been recreational. ...
Soundgarden's Superunknown albumFor all of the time before time, in all of the space before space, I was unknowable. Before I was born a single time I was undead. So let me eat your brains....We, in our ignorance, call most of the universe dark. 'Dark' energy and matter are 95% percent of the universe. 'Black' holes are at the center ...
Some old script stuck in plastic in Oxford, I dunno, my wife saw itI’ve been thinking about reality a lot, or more specifically illusion. The Buddhist idea of self is not that there is no-self, but that the self is not all. Anatta means (not) self. Just as (not) Steve doesn’t deny the existence of Steven, An-atman doesn’t deny the ...
The 3rd edition of ThePapare Football Championship, powered by Sri Lanka’s No. 1 Sports Hub, ThePapare.com, will be conducted from 29th September to the 6th of November 2022. Being held after a lapse of nearly 3 years, the premier schools U20 competition in the Island will feature twenty of the best schools’ teams from all over the country. The Kings ...
One of the most thorny problems for self-styled liberals in Sri Lanka is that they use the liberal label as though it’s some kind of impenetrable shield, hiding behind which they take on specific enemies in accordance with preferred outcomes. Scratch them and you find some grotesque creatures. You would find colonial remnants, elitists who anything said or written ...
Flowers offered at a street-corner shrine to the BuddhaThe actual western development model is to steal from the rest of the world, which obviously isn’t going to work for the rest of the world. So they made some shit up about a development model which they never followedand used it to gaslight us into another few decades of exploitation.The actual ...
From the book ‘Baby Loves Quarks!’Iwatch the children run around with their cousins, or actually I don’t watch them. Like quarks, children have no position until they’re observed. They can’t be doing anything naughty until you see them, so I try to just not see.So, (out of the corner of my eye) I see them running around—endlessly amused at a ...
Offerings and sacrifices for blessings in return, Prayers and pleas, never-ending terms. Set by the Supreme One, regulations and rules, To argue? dare not, what’s right and what’s wrong. So many Gods, so many homes, So many different guides and notes, Is it to contend or is it to accept? The creator of us, what did he intend? Was it ...
Shiva Nataraja combines in a single image Shiva’s roles as creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe and conveys the Indian conception of the never-ending cycle of ti¡™me. The god holds in his upper right hand the damaru (hand drum that made the first sounds of creation). His upper left hand holds agni (the fire that will destroy the universe). ...
A modern depiction of Samsara, via PinterestWhen Prasanna woke up on judgment day he immediately thought ‘Shit!’ and then cursed himself for cursing. In front of ‘him’ (which was a vague concept, his body was more of a shape-shifting caterpillar), in front of him were many lines, like a set of supermarket queues. But which one to choose?Prasanna had been ...
The Buddha was a beggar tooSadness rings my doorbell almost every day. With each calamity, a new class of people become beggars. The construction workers tossed off job sites during the lockdown. The tourism driver out of work when the airport shut down. The lady weaving rugs that can no longer get supplies. These are people that were not beggars ...
