[my error, not movable type; see below]
from http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/fms/202312/20231221153855374.pdf
4
造纸和
纸制品
业
082201J 造纸技术 1.宣纸的生产工艺
2.迁安书画纸的配方及生产工艺
also, item #6 is gunpowder; i think the chinese government wanted to remind the so-called west that all their wars have been fought with chinese technology for centuries
As for the technology used to fight wars, as early as the Ming dynasty, cannons were re-imported from Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongyipao . Technology transfer has rarely been a one-way street.
a lot of the particular traditional chinese medicines mentioned are not at all irrelevant to the west
aside from pharmaceutically interesting compounds, 龙血竭 has been commonly used in the 'west' as a furniture polish for centuries
Knowing of strychnine only as rat poison until today (I didn’t know about the uses in the Wikipedia page) may I ask — what happened to this person?
the overall summary is that we're not talking about powdered rhino horn here. traditional 'western' medicine contains a mix of treatments that are ineffective (unicorn horn, usually bleeding), effective but dangerous (calomel, aconite, cocaine), and effective and safe (magnesia, willow bark). the same is true of traditional chinese medicine. the things listed here are all effective, perhaps too effective. i've had nightmares about cordycepin ever since i was a little kid studying organic chemistry
My favorite passages:
“This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:”
“Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”
“So is all conditioned existence to be seen.”
Dependent origination (Skt: pratityasamutpada, Pali: paticca-samuppada) is also known as conditioned co-arising and several other terms. Buddhism teaches that everything that exists is conditioned—dependent on something else. This applies to thoughts as well as objects, to the individual as well as the entire universe. Nothing exists independently. Everything is conditioned.
This concept is illustrated in the Buddhist teachings of the chain of dependent origination, which describes the factors that perpetuate the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The twelve links in the chain are sequential, each factor causing the following one: Because of this, that arises. When this ceases, that also ceases.
The links form a never-ending cycle that binds us to suffering, and the goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from this vicious cycle. Though there is more than one version of the sequence of links, they commonly run this way:
- Ignorance - Mental formations - Consciousness - Name and form - The senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind - Contact - Feeling - Craving - Clinging - Becoming - Birth - Aging and death
Many people will argue that it's either:
- a cosmological system (which largely contradicts the intentions of Buddhism, where most cosmological questions are waved away as being irrelevant to the goal of eliminating suffering)
- an immedate series of one-after-the-other events describing the overall process of mind (which doesn't hold up to basic observational scrutiny).
In reality it's more of a graph of influencing factors that depend on each other. Tuning one's handling of each factor leads to the reduction of suffering in the whole system.By FAR the best discussion, with textual backing, is https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ShapeOfSuffering/Contents....
Thich Nhat Hahn also wrote a lot about interdependence in an accessible way (I read a lot of his books when I was 18 or 19).
Indra's net is a vast, cosmic lattice that contains precious jewels wherever the threads cross. There are millions of jewels strung together to make the net, and each jewel has many facets. When you look at any facet of any jewels, you can see all the other jewels reflected in it. In the world of the Avatamsaka, in Indra's net, the one is present in the all, and the all in the one. This wonderful image was used in Buddhism to illustrate the principle of interdepedence and interpenetration.
In that book, the cycle of twelve elements is easily explained.
so any one thing you examine will be “conditioned” on the previous things that cause it to appear
cause and effect basically
this has some philosophical implications, since all you are as a person is a bundle of emotions, mental patterns, etc that are ultimately conditioned
this leads to the buddhist view of no self, where there isn’t something that makes you “you”. just a bunch of responses to stimuli. some of those responses are thoughts of a self.
the diamond sutra's point aiui is that what we call a self isnt a self in that a true self does not exist independently (from the causes, such as its essential nature, its foundation, and its environment)
i might even say a self has an essential nature defined by an origin which is composed of relationships. you can find all examples in nature if you look a little.
The oldest complete dated document would seem better.
It's layered like an onion. One layer is meant to free people from illbeing. Another layer is for error correction codes and to make the message 'viral'. Another layer opened my eyes to incontrovertible truth about the noisy approximations and lossy signals that comprise the the human experience. So many layers read rather mystically at first, but you can always cut through it and find out it's not magic, it's really the way things are.
From another angle, it's a blob of metadata around a packet that contains instructions to all sentient beings -- in my words: "Relax. Be compassionate to yourself and others. All barriers to compassion are illusions. Tell this to other people. If you need to reformat the content as a listicle to get through to grandma, that's cool."
There's other angles. It's a fascinating document.
I believe the massively intelligent person(s) who composed it had a sincere objective to help all life.
It's impossible to change yourself without changing the world, because those two things are not separate.
Further, much of the world exists only as abstract ideas in my mind. When I change how I relate to and perceive them, I do change them in every way that matters.
To assert that your perspective is the only thing that matters is to assert that nobody else matters.
Do you remember which talk this quote is from ?
> To me, it's very funny. how can one read about all the absolutely galactic scale quantity of "merit" to be gained right next to explanations about the illusory nature of words without laughing?
It’s all part of one of the central themes that accumulating merit is for the phenomenal world and ultimately meaningless for the transcendent.
“A bodhisattva does not need to build up virtue and happiness… A boddhisatva gives rise to virtue and happiness but is not caught up in the idea of virtue and happiness.”
collorary: If you wonder if you are a bohisattva you are not.
doesnt say it's not an object
I feel confused about something.
Even though you've read the prajnaparamita sutra and words like 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form', you say there is a phenomenal world and a transcendent world. But the phenomenal world can't be impermanent if it is not born and doesn't die. Although possibly apocryphal, the sutra of immeasurable meanings has a sentence like the nature of true reality is that appearance and no appearance not apart from each other. That is to say, it seems that the things like Bodhisattvas referenced in the Lotus Sutra may need to be understood with the background training that transcendent wisdom means that the phenomenal world is the transcendent world. It isn't that they don't exist but that Buddha's enlightenment was explained, as you know, to not have been obtaining anything distinct. I take it to mean that enlightenment needs to be in and about the entirety of real life.
It's been said sometimes to be a waste of time to debate whether a certain thing exists or doesn't exist because, for one, a thing cannot be said to exist to anything else in the universe if it is totally isolated, i.e. not been localized by any other system yet, and cannot be entangled with. A controlled experiment could be said to basically mean "one unknown to vary (hopefully)". But entanglement is a reality.
"Anyone who, for even a moment, gives rise to a pure and clear confidence upon hearing these words of the Tathagata, the Tathagata sees and knows that person, and they will attain immeasurable merit because of this understanding."
"If you are caught up in the idea of a dharma, you are also caught up in the idea of a self, a person, a living being and a life span. If you are caught up in the idea that there is no dharma you are still caught up in the idea of a self, a person, a living being and a life span. That is why we should not be caught up in the idea of dharmas, or in the idea that dharmas do not exist."
The analogy I like to use is that of the waves and the ocean. You can look and see both. You can tell where one wave ends and another begins. You can see the waves forming and dissipating. But can you tell where the ocean ends and the wave begins?
The sutra strikes down the idea of dualism and yet it at the same time it says:
"Do not think that when one gives rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind, one needs to see all objects as non-existent, cut off from life."
It is most wonderful. :)
may i suggest moving onto the lotus sutra. it will clarify some stuff.
He has talked, incisively, and extensively, about many Zen and other Buddhist masters' words.
Most of his work is interesting, IMO. Some people feel shattered, because their dearly held beliefs are shattered by his words.
For topics, see an incomplete list at the bottom of the page linkrd above.
go attend logic 101 somewhere, pass it successfully, only then come back to talk. if you fail, don't come back.
>LOL
LOL yourself, to the power of infinity!
>"Bringing logic to a risk and uncertainty analysis."
Your word salad doesn't faze anyone, least of all me. And anyway, what do you think "risk and uncertainty analysis" is, except logic? Do you analyse things with your gut or your butt (!), rather than with your nut (aka head)? Pathetic.
As for cults, I have come across more than one, and don't give a shilling for any of them - pun intended, he he.
that means you are moving goalposts, a classic evasive technique used by people who know well that their arguments are not on solid ground. BIG FAIL, dude.
I asked, in an above comment:
>there is a contradiction between your second and fourth sentences. can you even see it?
you did not answer that question. you just tried to evade the topic by talking about cults and shilling for them. I am actually quite aware of cults and am totally against them, because they are fake and exploit people. I even have practical experience of them due to having lived in locations where they existed, though I was not a part of them. I observed them with interest, though, and made some observations and deductions, about both cults in particular, and human nature in general. some of those deductions are applicable to you, ha ha. go figure.
call me insulting? I think you are insulting instead, because you insulted my intelligence by using such a stupid and obvious evasive tactic, of moving the goalposts, and not answering a simple direct question that was asked of you.
so you are not only a liar, but you are stupid and a coward too.
also I notice that you sneakily avoided replying to the factual proof in my other comment, here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40895379
, referencing the Wikipedia article about rajneesh and the Oregon incidents, where it clearly says that he was the one who complained to the US authorities about Sheela and those crimes, etc., and that Sheela was convicted, not him.
I won't waste my time by addressing any of your other points or continuing on this thread, because you clearly are a donkey and prejudiced and have preconceived notions and don't bother to consider the facts.
har de har har har :)
pompous meaningless phrases of yours like the one I italicized above, are definitely word salad, and need to be highlighted and condemned as such, you joker. nobody except fake philosophers needs any fancy "frameworks" for such a simple discussion. you are clearly off your rocker. and I say joker on purpose. your stupidity and fakery made me laugh and made my day. is that the only thing you can do in your life, making up meaningless crappy phrases to try to impress or put down people. neither intention worked, dummy and loser. BIG FAILURE, you are.
If you call his following a cult, you had better first call the current Repugn(ant)icans / Resucknicans who asskiss draft-dodger Frump a cult, and who have done much more damage to the world, not just to the you-ess.
jeepers creepers!
or
creepers freakers!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh
[
In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon. The movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its success. In 1985, Rajneesh publicly asked local authorities to investigate his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close supporters for a number of crimes, including a 1984 mass food-poisoning attack intended to influence county elections, an aborted assassination plot on U.S. attorney Charles H. Turner, the attempted murder of Rajneesh's personal physician, and the bugging of his own living quarters; authorities later convicted several members of the ashram, including Sheela.[18] That year, Rajneesh was deported from the United States on separate immigration-related charges in accordance with an Alford plea.[19][20][21] After his deportation, 21 countries denied him entry.[22]
]
But in any event, isn't it possible that his commentary on religious texts (he was a religion professor first) is valuable even if he later became associated with controversial and/or toxic behavior?
Personally I don't look for saints in my religious pursuits. I look for beauty and good ideas. If you want a person to have no bad aspects I think you'll be disappointed with every person.
>he was a religion professor first
He was a professor of philosophy, not of religion. He disdained all religions, pretty much.
See this except from the Wikipedia article about him:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh
, under the section "University years and ...":
>Having completed his BA in philosophy at D. N. Jain College in 1955, he joined the University of Sagar, where in 1957, he earned his MA in philosophy (with distinction).[50] He immediately secured a teaching position at Raipur Sanskrit College, but the vice-chancellor soon asked him to seek a transfer as he considered him a danger to his students' morality, character, and religion.[13] From 1958, he taught philosophy as a lecturer at Jabalpur University, being promoted to professor in 1960.[13] A popular lecturer, he was acknowledged by his peers as an exceptionally intelligent man who had been able to overcome the deficiencies of his early small-town education.[51]
> A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
> A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
> A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
row row row your boat
gently down the stream
merrily merrily merrily merrily
life is but a dream
Ken recommends the Red Pine[3] and Thich Nhat Hanh[4] translations.
[0] https://unfetteredmind.org/ [1] http://berkeleyalembic.org/ [2] https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/practicing-the-diamond-sutra-w... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Sutra-Red-Pine/dp/1582432562/ [4] https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-That-Cuts-Through-Illusion/dp...
If you’re ever in London, you owe it to yourself to stop there. It’s a room on the first floor of the library, free to enter without any kind of ticket 7 days a week.
In this one room is the most incredible display of printed works you’ll ever find. Everything from a copy of the Magna Carta to Florence Nightingale‘s notebooks to Anne Boleyn’s Tyndale bible to Beatles lyrics on a napkin.
There’s no collection like it anywhere in the world and it’s all in one medium-sized room.
Sometimes those artifacts are not just historical, they have real world use today, like idols or religious objects used in active worship . They still don’t return it
British policies and views around this issue has always been terrible .
John Oliver had a segment summarizing the situation
https://youtu.be/eJPLiT1kCSM?si=BqGytuakYPC0O4Xw
many countries (especially China) have nationalization laws which makes the state the owner of any cultural artifact so claim of legal ownership by a British institution sketchy at best.
it would be quite difficult or even impossible to be able prove provenance. Highly doubt any religious or state institution which was the custodian of the piece pre British times , legally sold with documentation to anyone that can be proved today, so ownership would default to the state .
these are national laws not in UNESCO treaties so cannot be enforced outside national borders .
https://www.kuow.org/stories/bill-porter-port-townsend-zen-p...
https://janinafisher.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/structur...