"(T)he very foundations of our studies: The recovery and the study of texts as they are, regardless of our tastes and prejudices"- O.Neugebauer.
edwardwhite.mataroa.blog
Joined August 2019
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Edward W. retweeted
North Korea is the star example that you can be dirt poor & still have very high state capacity. In a way, since the state went rogue after the Soviet collapse, it's become first truly independent Korean state in foreign affairs since the Goguryeo dynasty. Glad I don't live there
Edward W. retweeted
So I have been reading a book about the religious rites held in the Imperial palace in Tokyo. Apparently they have their own way of celebrating setsubun. They say 福は内 (fortune stay inside) , but they don't say 鬼は外(devils outside) because of course there are no 鬼 (devils) at that location.
Edward W. retweeted
日本の例もあげると、日蓮宗僧侶の清水梁山は、『法華経』寿量品の本仏の正体は天皇だとして天皇本尊論を主張し、その梁山から影響を受けた高佐日煌は1930年代に皇道仏教行道会を設立します。高佐は戦後に九識霊断法という術を創出して大ヒットさせ、日蓮宗霊断師会は日蓮宗内で結構な勢力になり文字数
Edward W. retweeted
I want to try something. I want to try do channeled readings, like ill record a five minute reading for you if you’re interested and send it through. I dont know if ill be any good but it would be a fun psychic exercise. DM me to request, ideally people i havent interacted with before and so wont know pre-judgments!
Edward W. retweeted
Of course it’s hazardous to draw a straight line from a centuries-old classic to modern media. But my gut take is that the lesson is that alongside the rules of propriety, there must be space for expressing grief, anger, etc, with a realness (shi 實). As K-dramas say, 진심이야!
Edward W. retweeted
To summarise: the Queen asked me what I was doing at university. I told her about the Sasanian dynasty and related matters. She asked some questions, and then I explained that I was writing a thesis about the reign of Khusro Anushirvan in the sixth century. 'The sixth century,' she said, '...that's going back a bit.'
Edward W. retweeted
The Indians by and large calculated the start of a day from sunrise, while the Jews, Assyrians and Babylonians calculated the start of a day from sunset. The Chinese calculated it from midnight.
Really makes you think
Edward W. retweeted
I hate gay philosophy Halloween what do you mean you’re T. M. Scanlon’s ‘What We Owe To Each Other’
Edward W. retweeted
I'll just post this image here. On the right there is the glyph meaning "to castrate", which shows us that penis was pretty different from 心.
And think there's no need to show glyphs like 大, 天, 文, etc. to show that torso was also different from 心.
Edward W. retweeted
孔子謂「為芻靈者善」，謂「為俑者不仁」，不殆於用人乎哉？ Confucius said that the making of the straw figures was good, and that the making of [tomb effigies] was not benevolent. Was there not a danger of its leading to the use of (living) men? ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=e…
Edward W. retweeted
the other one I heard is 靈—— 霊 where the component of the word meaning shaman 巫 was changed to 亚 (inferior) but the character 亚 is also used to transcribe the sound "ah" so I guess its a sign of the shamans now screaming AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Edward W. retweeted
from this city was excavated a lot of cool daoist books like this copy of the 太上洞玄靈寶救苦妙經 homeinmists.com/Taiyi.htm and homeinmists.com/Taiyi3.jpg
Edward W. retweeted
so the strange mushroom-like plants in the Daoist 太上洞玄靈寶芝草品 (Most High Lingbao Cavern of Sublimity chapter on Zhi-plants) may actually exist (page 35) taolibrary.com/category/cate…
Edward W. retweeted
Its such a good practice its insane. I started by carrying a bag of stickers to hand to children. Then a small coin purse to give to beggars, so I'd always have *something*. Dana, like meditation, is a muscle and its okay to admit youre too (merit) poor to start with large bills. We HAVE to start training muscles at a low weight because theyre weak. Is lifting a 5lb weight gonna save someone from a burning building? No, and neither will some change help a beggar much. But you must start somewhere or youre never going to be able to help *anyone* cross the sea of suffering
Thanks to @_space_punk_'s prompting I've started carrying dollar bills and quarters so I at least have something small to give to beggars, and it showed me the lack of easy ways to get small change. I found a laundromat that has a machine I can use to get quarters