Best Of
Re: Zazen is good
" They have not lived in vain who dies the day they are told about the Way."
It's Confucius but hey.
I'm not sure progress and improvement conflict with the practice as much as a set goal may. It sounds like you're on the right path for you, but then, could it be otherwise?
Re: Buddhist Economics
It is tragic what you mention but, I can assume, it is very much the same here. For decades the island thought they recycled plastic, only to find out that it ended up with the rest....meaning going to a huge landfill and at some point getting burnt...
I am trying to use less and less plastic, as well as I am currently since the 1st of June in a one year no buying practice. For me now the problem is milk (comes in tetra bricks) and yoghurt. There is one local yoghurt brand called SANDRA. They use local milk, as well producing and manufacturing locally their recipients and, tantantan, use paper instead of plastic. There is though a debate whether this is a better alternative than plastic. I remember once reading of ho switching from plastic to paper bags has certain risks, particularly how much more water the latter consume in order to be produced...
I am also walking to the office and it is becoming my plogging route. Hopefully the day will come that I can walk way and back without seeing any litter. So far the culprits are the usual: cigarette packages, alcoholic beverages (glass & aluminium cans) and A LOT of plastic bottles.
Nice to see you back by the way!
Kotishka
Re: Buddhist Economics
I personally believe recycling plastic to be pointless. Here in the UK, only 12% of plastic thrown out, ends up recycled. The remaining 88% is either incinerated, or exported. To whom, or where, I do not know, but fewer and fewer countries are willing to take on OUR rubbish...I used to take my own containers to the supermarket, to transfer my purchases into. This fell by the wayside when I moved in with Mother. It is difficult to organise one's own life when you occupy space in that of another's... but we do recycle paper, card, metal and glass.. plastic bottle tops go to a local organisation, who somehow turn them into useable items like benches, chairs, tables and play equipment for children/schools. Our famous British Pharmacy, Boots, collects medicine blister packs, to salvage the aluminium. Given that my mother is on a good quantity of prescribed medicines, they do OK by us.
I knit, but sadly use acrylic yarns, because using real wool, is costly.
Managing both my, and my mother's finances, is a constant juggling process... I honestly believe teaching kids how to deal with money is a sound objective, and should start early - but I digress.... my scant presence here shows my much-reduced use of the Internet. Social Media isolates, it doesn't conjoin...
federica
Re: The worth of things…
This is a burden I might prepare for... if the natural order of things pans out as Life and Nature intend, I will not only have a great number of boxes of my own personal stuff to sort; I will also have my mother's antiquities, goods and chatels to dispose of.
4 piles: keep, sell, charity, chuck.
I have 2 brothers to consider, but the older one is disinterested, and estranged from my mother and me. The younger has moved to Michigan, and lives in a beautiful home, replete with everything he could ever want. Besides, transferring stuff across the pond is not without problems, financing, being the main one.
Of course, my daughters will also want something, perhaps, as shall close, loving friends. But the majority of her possessions will go to auction. My heap of 'stuff' will also need sorting, but 'want' and 'need' will be driving factors. Yard sales and Car Boot sales are great social events if nothing else!
federica
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
I harvested the tomatoes the hedgehog gardeners have produced. There is a patch of land that was used as a landfill that we cleared up and added some fresh soil to put some plants and started watering the area and leaving catfood and water for the hogs. Well...loads..heaps of tomato plants have emerged and managed to harvest two or three different types of tomatoes...all because those hogs ate tomatoes somewhere else and pood the seeds. Good creatures!
Kotishka
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Researchers have discovered that at least one species of whale has a complex learned language similar in character to Chinese. That is to say, tonal. The otherwhale species may also have their own complex language. However, only one has enough data to confirm so.
Lionduck
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
My Neighbours are having a barbecue. They kindly warned me that the music would be finished by 10PM. Luckily I have music in various formats to play and a room which rarely hears for example efforts at karaoke and endless gibbering.
I may stay around to sniff the barbecue.
Luckily the house is completely empty so I have many choices as guests start to arrive, replace broken glasses etc. If I was evil (sadly not too much lately) I would use the time for doing some chainsaw wood cutting with my electric chainsaw.
May watch 'Dust Bunny' or some noisy film such as 'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die' or similar... Better prepare now 
Looking forward to night which tends to be very quiet even on a Saturday night.
lobster
Re: The worth of things…
A great many of the miscellaneous bric-a-brac (about 97.5%) in my house is just filling space. I am in the slow jettison era. It is an ongoing situation as my toss out often fall behind my "well whay's new." But going from 99% to 97.5% I consider progress...slow, granted, but progress.
Who knows, I may get to 96.3% this year. 
Oh!, Lobster, my cherished beliefs are in bin XXYZX-123-A2-1A-3Z .
Or maybe tha was.....There somewhere...
Peace toall
Lionduck
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
@Lionduck said:
Researchers have discovered that at least one species of whale has a complex learned language similar in character to Chinese. That is to say, tonal. The otherwhale species may also have their own complex language. However, only one has enough data to confirm so.
The early attempts to monitor whales using networks of acoustical receivers and a database fed into an AI related to what they use for the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence radio monitoring program is very promising.
Jeroen