Scale of Universe

The Scale of the Universe

Pointer via George Draffan.

Loss and Longing

Or life, love, loss.

Father and Daughter HD


Better to directly watch on the YouTube site for bigger video resolution - and make sure to turn the sound on...

Thanks to Youyou.

Amanda in Wonderland

Amanda Baggs is autistic. If you give her three minutes, she starts speaking/typing in our language:

In My Language



And from Alice:

Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on 'And how do you know that you're mad?'

'To begin with,' said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

'I suppose so,' said Alice.

'Well, then,' the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

'I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

'Call it what you like,' said the Cat.

Pointer via Caroline Birks on unmind.ning.com.

The Known Universe

Very well done and fantastic video.

Astronomy Picture of the Day has some comments.

The Known Universe by AMNH


Pointer via Pat Stacey/UM Ning.

New Blog: Unfettered Clips

Exactly a month ago I started a new blog which I was working towards (on and off) for much of 2009 and of which I was first dreaming since exactly the time of this blog post, 2009-01-01. It has been and is a team effort as there is a group of people that took great effort to transcribe (and they still do) a lot of audio files and also Ken McLeod supports these projects and generously makes his material freely available to the public.

So what is it?

It's a kind of The Best Of Ken McLeod's teaching classes. Ken McLeod is a Western Buddhist teacher and author of the book Wake Up To Your Life (which is also available in audio form).

Personally I find his material full of wisdom, insight, and also practical value. A friend wrote about it: "I always think Buddhism indeed is among the wisest religions, or rather philosophies regarding the attitudes towards life. It is easy to understand, but also easy to forget. Thank you for reminding me these deep wisdoms. Ken McLeod did a very nice job in communicating these ideas."
Personally for me it is the other way around:), counter intuitive and difficult to understand, but once understood easier to remember. But maybe that's why I need a Western translator.

So I hope you enjoy this stuff:

Unfettered Clips & Quotes
QUOTATIONS AND AUDIO CLIPS OF BUDDHIST TEACHER KEN MCLEOD

Clips already posted and that I want to mention explicitly as I consider them especially important are the following three:

- Basic Skills
- Progression
- Manifesting Things

Cheers!

You & Me

The Headless Way

Science’s Answer
What you are depends on the range of the observer. At several metres, more or less, you are human, but at closer ranges you are cells, molecules, atoms, particles… Viewed from further away your body becomes absorbed into the rest of society, life, the planet, the star, the galaxy… Science’s objective view of you – zooming towards and away from you - reveals a hierarchically organized system of layers that is alive at every level, intelligent and beautiful. Thus you have many layers, like an onion. You need every one of these layers to exist. Your human identity, vital and important as it is, is just one of these layers. You are also sub-human and supra-human. (See interactive panel on the left. See also: The Hierarchy of Heaven & Earth.)

What are you at the Centre of your many layers? The scientist cannot say because she can only observe you from a distance. However close she gets to you, she remains outside you. What or Who you really are, the Ground of your Being, remains a mystery.

Other People’s Answer
Other people are like the scientist because they cannot see what you are at Centre either, only what you are peripherally. Reflecting back to you what they make of you, their feedback is about you as a person.

Your Answer
You are not distant from yourself, not outside yourself. You – and you alone - are therefore perfectly placed to see what you are at Centre. All you have to do is look.

Well, while I think that indeed You alone are able to have the inside view, that doesn't mean You are perfectly placed without any blind spots or system immanent - because self-referential - limitations (Gödel anyone;).
Nevertheless, while You have this privileged position, why not have a closer look!

Via Unfettered Mind.

Arnold Toynbee

Via Unfettered Mind:

When historians look back at the 20th century, they won't have much interest in things like communism or capitalism: those will be ripples in the great historical picture. What will really be significant is the impact of Buddhism as it enters the West
—ARNOLD TOYNBEE, historian (1889-1975)

Don't know if he is any good, but this sounds like a smart statement. Communism has been knocked out already for a while, now capitalism is bringing itself down as well. We will see what remains after the current crisis. In both cases corruption fuled by reckless greed has brought the systems out of balance.

Talking of balance and the West, the other significant development of the 20th century, science and technology, has been transforming the East in return.

Intergalactic

Quite old and you might have seen it before (the book or the film in school), but in case you haven't, it is a must see (also nice for a refresher) and here it is at YouTube (who knows for how long):

Powers of 10


Did you know we (our Milky Way galaxy) are headed for a big crash with the Andromeda galaxy?! With huge consequences for both of them. Well, not sure anyone can explain what it means exactly. But as a buddy in the office responded when we first learned about this fact: "Well, it is not my biggest concern at the moment."
10 things you don’t know about the Milky Way Galaxy

Thanks to Alvis.

Talking of concers, well, looks like we will soon find out if the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will create mini black holes or other beasts or not (and if so how small and long lived they will be:).

2010-01-28

The video above has been removed from YouTube, but here it is again! Cheers.