chartandwaters

Halloo. There are two new entries. Also, while keeping in mind that I've dated no one here, read the comments to "Well You Can Tell By the Way I Use My Walk" (by clicking on "8 comments") if you're one of those people who "love Michele" and want to crack up.

Per the comments of my family in the blog on Tibetan medicine, I definitely meant the fish turtle and pig develop over a period of weeks and not months. Also I meant not Mahayan but "Mahayana", see below if you want to know as much as I do about Mahayana Buddhism. Finally, speaking of conception, I did go back to the museum so I was able to record that "the course of conception is a fusion of the father's semen and mother's uterine blood with the consciousness of the intermediate state (Bardo) driven by its own past actions". On the Human Embryology tangka that showed the stages of the zygoteembryofetus fishturtlepig, there was an awesome little picture--one of the very earliest stages of course--of a man and a woman lying on top of each other in a little bed and a tiny man in a cloud (the conciousness of the Bardo) hovering above them involved in the proceedings.

Mahayana, says the internet, is a specific kind of Buddhism probably begun in the 1rst century BCE in northwest India. "Some of the areas in which it is practiced are China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan." Avalokiteshvara, the deity of compassion of whom the Dalai Lama is a manifestation, is a figure of Mahayana Buddhism and especially important in Tibetan Buddhism (for more on her see http://www.pilates-move.com/articles/Avaloketishvara). "The way of the Mahayana, in contrast with to the more conservative and austere Theravada school of Buddhism, can be characterized by:

* Universalism, according to which every individual is endowed with Buddha nature.
* Enlightened wisdom, as the main focus of realization.
* Compassion through the transferral of merit.
* Salvation, supported by a rich cosmography, including celestial realms and powers, with a spectrum of Bodhisattvas, both human and seemingly godlike, who can assist believers.

“Philosophical Mahayana” tends to focus on the first three characteristics (Universality, enlightened wisdom, compassion) without showing much interest for supernatural constructions, while “Devotional Mahayana” mainly focuses on salvation towards other-worldly realms." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana)

Finally, from a list someone has compiled of the best definitions of namaste at http://www.mlmgorilla.com/namaste/:

I honor the place in you
in which the entire Universe dwells,

I honor the place in you
which is of Love, of Truth, of Light and of Peace,

When you are in that place in you,
and I am in that place in me,
we are One.