The $%*! frustration thread

[Truthordeal]

All it needs is a "thumb this up if you agree." Found this on a video containing Winston Churchill's "On the Beaches" speech. Most of the rest of the comments were arguing about the US's involvement in the war, almost all of them so glaringly wrong factually that I had a mini brain aneurysm.

Fuck, people are stupid.

[ZeaLitY]

No other real place to put this...

The Lord Buddha gave this reflection about why a monk wears a robe:

Properly considering the robe, I use it: simply to ward off cold, to ward off heat, to ward off the touch of flies, mosquitoes, simply for the purpose of covering the parts of the body which cause shame.

Okay, if there's no religious significance, then why does this persist:

http://mro.org/zmm/aboutus/teachers.php

Why shave your head and wear those robes? Especially if Zen is about getting over concepts, attachments, etc. and experiencing the world without mediation? Aren't donning those robes and rituals of yesteryear a form of hanging on to concepts and being attached to an idea?

[tushantin]

Okay, if there's no religious significance, then why does this persist:

http://mro.org/zmm/aboutus/teachers.php

Why shave your head and wear those robes? Especially if Zen is about getting over concepts, attachments, etc. and experiencing the world without mediation? Aren't donning those robes and rituals of yesteryear a form of hanging on to concepts and being attached to an idea?

Simple: You can't can't blame a Guru for his disciples' foolishness.

Also, those robes are cool.


Simplicity says that robes aren't important to be a monk, but simplicity also says that robes are important to help identify them if need be. You can practice Zen/Buddhism in civil clothes, but (if you choose to) you can also wear robes in temples so people could identify you as a practitioner.

Also, shaving your head is essentially to show your getting over attachment (such as hairdos). It's a dare to test your dedication (there's more to this, but I forget).

Also, just because experiencing the world without meditation is important doesn't mean meditation isn't important. XD

[Lord J Esq]

You can't can't blame a Guru for his disciples' foolishness.

Not only can you, but you should.

[tushantin]

You can't can't blame a Guru for his disciples' foolishness.

Not only can you, but you should.

Doing so is hardly rational; also, it sounds like you simply want to force an accusation/blame on someone, which is also irrational. So what is your reasoning behind your statement?

[Lord J Esq]

The success of a teacher lies in the success of the students. I don't "want" to blame anyone. Wanting has nothing to do with it. Why do you even bring that up?

It is appropriate to judge a teacher by the students--not so that we can give the teacher a trophy or a public shaming, but so that we can look to build better methods of teaching and, in a grander context, make people better.

I do grant that, at some point, it ceases to be relevant to judge the student in terms of the teacher. "Jesus" is not responsible for anything that happens in the world today. But good teachers will favorably bend the arc of history before fading from memory. Jesus, and Buddha, and so forth, did not achieve that. That much is still eligible for judgment.

[tushantin]

The success of a teacher lies in the success of the students. I don't "want" to blame anyone. Wanting has nothing to do with it. Why do you even bring that up?

That is because of the generality-attitude I've studied about various cultures.

Bah, I was just trying to provoke a response out of you in relevance to the Want factor.   It didn't work: either you're too smart for me or I'm an idiot. Anywhos, you have a few points correct and few not. For one, you are correct: The success of a teacher lies in the success of the students. But do note that, as children age, they tend to develop their own mind-frame and choose to follow diverse ideology, usually extremely different from their predecessors, no matter how good a teacher is. This diversity of thought is more common for adults than children, because adults usually have the power and advantage to steer their own life the path they choose and only accept what they feel is beneficial for them.

It is appropriate to judge a teacher by the students--not so that we can give the teacher a trophy or a public shaming, but so that we can look to build better methods of teaching and, in a grander context, make people better.

You win this round. *shakes fist*

I do grant that, at some point, it ceases to be relevant to judge the student in terms of the teacher. "Jesus" is not responsible for anything that happens in the world today. But good teachers will favorably bend the arc of history before fading from memory.

Same here.  

Jesus, and Buddha, and so forth, did not achieve that. That much is still eligible for judgment.

XD This is where things will get interesting. Tell me exactly; how compatible is grammar and definition from one language to the other? How accurate will it be to take two steps of compatibility conversion? Okay, now say a paragraph of your honest thoughts (word of mouth) to a bloke who lives in Portugese, and ask him to relay it to his fellow people in Portugese, then ask them to spread it out to Spain. Then Russia. Then China. Then India (it's gonna be one helluva curry). Then back to you.

...Exactly.   If you get what I mean, good. If not, let me know (and there goes an extra 40 mins of explanation *dies*). Knowing from Z's misinterpretation of Buddhism principles, I hope you see what I mean. It's one of the problems that the author Tarak Mehta was worried about, and another reason the Art of Pangai Noon was lost.

[Lord J Esq]

If you get what I mean, good. If not, let me know (and there goes an extra 40 mins of explanation *dies*).

I fear I should ask for elaboration rather than make assumptions at this point. Take your time in formulating a reply. My schedule is quite full today.

[tushantin]

AAAARGHHH!!!

T_________________T"

I worked my ass off on this art last night and saved it half-way, hoping to finish it the next day, but now it says "corrupted PSD". WAAAAAAAAHH!

P.S.: Ah, thank Ubuntu! It's Image Viewer reads any image format, unlike the one on Windows which is restricted. I was able to grab my file and save it as...

....a flattened image. Meh, it's better than nothing, I guess...

[FaustWolf]

Ugh.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.

 

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah. I was talking with my friend when I realized that Brazil's right-wing is left of the USA's Democratic party. The situation in this country is just completely fucking stupid. Most people are so deeply asleep in consumerism and religion that they've forgotten why things like social contracts and a centralized state with taxation are necessary.

I laughed playing a Sims offshoot today. You can buy a streetlight for your house, and the caption was, "remember when governments used to build infrastructure?"

[Truthordeal]

I laughed playing a Sims offshoot today. You can buy a streetlight for your house, and the caption was, "remember when governments used to build infrastructure?"

This right here is why so many are still without power from Hurricane Irene. I mean hell. Back in 1989 South Carolina got hit by a category 5 hurricane named Hugo that, by size and intensity alone, made Katrina look like a puny little bitch of a storm. Considering Charleston got hit head on by the storm, and it's below sea level at any given time of the year, this wasn't a very good situation. But we were out of power for a week. Just a week.

Now consider, this is 2011, 22 years after Hugo. Irene was never made it past being a fairly weak category 3, which can still do some damage but it's not that strong. North Carolina got hit head on, and the damage there was very minimal. Yes, they had more deaths than any other state, but the structural damage was relatively low. Meanwhile, you get to Virginia, and most of New England, and there's either a lot of infrastructural damage or people are STILL without power. How the HELL is any of this proceeding in the right direction!? I get that Vermont and New York don't get many hurricanes, but how can the power companies be THIS unprepared? How can the infrastructure of a coastal state be this weak against tropical winds?

It's damning.

[Lord J Esq]

Are you aware that many Republicans in Congress, led by none other than Eric Cantor--a member of the GOP leadership whose district actually got hit by the storm--are opposed to any additional disaster relief funding unless it's matched by cuts elsewhere in the budget? We live in an age where it's not just that the government isn't fulfilling its own infrastructural responsibilities or promoting an economic climate where private enterprise does its share...no, there's actually a sizable movement in our government to do even less!

[tushantin]

We live in an age where it's not just that the government isn't fulfilling its own infrastructural responsibilities or promoting an economic climate where private enterprise does its share...no, there's actually a sizable movement in our government to do even less!

Hmm, I better make a note on that.

I'm not much aware of the damages that may have been caused by the coming of Irene, but hopefully there are no life casualties. Suffice it to say (I don't know what that phrase means -- I'm just mimicking), the lack of power wouldn't be a frustrating aspect for the commoners in the Third World. Power gets cut in every rain fall, let alone a storm or hurricane.

[tushantin]

 

....

You guys have got to be shitting me. I stay away for a single day and there's so goddamned much for me to read... The Compendium has more words than the Torah and Upanishads combined!

Ah, well, it'd be an interesting read, anywhos. Keep em piling up!  

People suffering from Aspergers have it easy, but we dyslexics are the ones who are truly suffering. I wait for the bus for an hour, and several pass by that simply aren't what I'm after. An hour later I ask another bystander when does a bus for Pune Station arrive, and he tells me, "Are you blind man? Four buses for Pune Station passed by right in front of ya! I was thinking you were waiting for someone."

I bit my lip, punched myself in the face, and grabbed a rickshaw. Yes, I have that bad of a difficulty reading things, and it doesn't help that the source and destinations are specified in Devanagari.

(Note: Despite our late start in learning Devanagari at school, a student is capable of picking the reading up fairly quickly, simply because it is not only phonetically efficient, case independent, but is also structurally superior to English. Reason I'm so bad is because it took me a fuck load of time to learn English, let alone a new language.)

Also, and advise to anybody planning to travel via rickshaws in India: make sure you're good at math and geography, and great at spotting things out of the ordinary (such as a rigged meter). There's a good chance someone's trying to rip you off (not all cabbies be wicked; many are simply poor, but it's nice to stay cautious).