Best Of
Re: The AI tsunami
My mother got scammed by a UK-based "savings" company (widely reviewed online as a scam) that charged her around 20 euros per month for 3 years without her realising it. When buying an airplane ticket, she apparently clicked something or failed to unclick something. She insisted I try to recoup the money, while I was highly sceptical it would work, with the argument that they'd certainly covered themselves from a legal perspective. However, with the help of AI, I sent the company such professional and (I hope) scary e-mails, that after 5 or 6, and them offering ever more to settle, they paid her back 80% of what they took 
marcitko
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
@marcitko said:
I've been working towards losing weight. As of today, I'm officially under 90kgs (-5 kgs) and going by BMI, not obese anymore, just overweight!
That’s a significant milestone worth celebrating! Congrats.
Jeroen
Re: Seven Factors of Awakening
Just adding:
Know you will stumble
Know you will face obstacles - some external, some self-made
Know that this is normal
When you stumble, get right back up
Obsticles mean you are advancing.
Lionduck
Re: Seven Factors of Awakening
I thought the topic wanted a slightly wider expansion of the terms… yes, it is from Wikipedia. As far as I know Osho never taught on it. But I have been meeting these factors more in my day to day life recently, some more, some less, and I thought I would have a look at the list.
Jeroen
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
I've been working towards losing weight. As of today, I'm officially under 90kgs (-5 kgs) and going by BMI, not obese anymore, just overweight!
marcitko
Re: Tonglen
Thank you. Interesting question. I can be rather melancholic. But I'm the kind of person who tries to be in touch with his emotions as much as possible, I use them for introspection, for creativity, etc. So I feel just as positively about crying than about laughing for example. And I've struggled with depression for most of my life, so I'm not exactly sure how the kind of equanimity you're referring to would be different from things I've experienced in the past. If you mean a lack of passion, a reduced drive to fuel and satisfy desires, a general mood of ambiguity by it... well, the artist in me would certainly see it as a loss and my wife could get worried over such. But I'm not too eager to get there just yet. These are my baby steps into Buddhism. I'm at around week 1 of not eating meat, after almost 39 years. Half my life I didn't bother myself about the ethics of how I watch my movies and stuff. I almost never meditate and I've yet to visit a sangha for the very first time. Think of me as a tourist who's looking for a rental for an unspecified time, people who move to a new country experience some sort of a low after a first few months or years of high and I'm not yet anywhere near that experience with Buddhism and spirituality of any sort and people I encountered in the past who came across as strict "you either do it like this or there's no point doing it at all", "meditation is not supposed to make you feel good, don't become a buddhist to be happier, drop all the new age bs" etc only made me defiant. In most things I'm an autodidact with lots of procastination. But que sera, sera. And yes, Tibetan Buddhism and Mahayana seems to appeal to me most (I don't think I'd start with Zen, but I did get a zen circle tattoo many years ago, before I even knew about its deep connection to religion, I simply liked its possible interpretations as a symbol).
RobinH
