Best Of
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Well it's Friday and my season break has just begun...Oh what fun..Oh what fun.
Shoshin1
Re: Best Xmas gifts of 2025
Yes, I bought for my mother a Shokz Openrun Pro 2 bone conduction headset, on the off chance that it might bypass her hearing loss and allow her to experience music again. It was a slightly expensive gift, and a bit of a gamble… for some types of hearing loss it works well.
Jeroen
Re: Best Xmas gifts of 2025
Very nice. Calvin and Hobbes is one of my favorites. As I probably mentioned before, I took a few online courses to give better massages for the wife. I also ordered a book about 800 essential oil recipes for her and bought tickets to a musical, but unfortunately we didn't feel well enough to go. These days she's the only one I exchange gifts / presents with, but she makes wonderful crochet stuff for online gift exchanges with people.
RobinH
Re: For the coming year
It was a thread mostly about breathing, but I think a few New Year’s resolutions wouldn’t go awry. The more the merrier!
Jeroen
Re: Unusual mantra?
Hello person!! I’ve been a way for along time, it seems, lol. Great idea to try Google translate - I’ll give it a shot! 
Sile
Unusual mantra?
Hello folks!
Someone found this mantra (?) inside a pendant (sadly, I don't have a photo of the pendant or access to it).
On the other side of this paper there are 5 stripes: violet, white, red, green and yellow
It seems to be sort-of Sanskrit (possibly another Indian language altogether?), but I found myself wondering whether it was actually code; maybe to get a message past Chinese censors, disguised as a mantra?
The less exciting alternative is that the non-Tibetan pendant seller simply wanted to sell the pendant and scribbled this out, lol, but it looks a little too competent in some ways for that.
Very curious - would love to hear what you think, and thank you!
I have for the first part (clumsily on my part no doubt):
Om thunk'a thhubba' bba' thbarth'a bbaha tha tṛṣā thha bbaod thurga thha bb[X] tsge med
Another person offered:
Om thunk'a thhubba' bba' thbarth'a bbaha tha ṭ.hya-śa thha gbo-ta thurga thha bb[X] tsge med.
We think possibly "bbaod" or "gbo-ta" could be crypto-spellings for "bod" (Tibet).
Very intrigued to see what you all think!
Warm regards,
Sile
Sile
Re: For the coming year
When you give attention to your breath with friendliness and love, you get to recognise the wisdom of the body. It just breathes in a shallow way, taking in just enough breath to keep the body functioning when you are at rest. It doesn’t breathe deeply or bring in lots of oxygen when it isn’t necessary — it knows when enough is enough.
Sometimes I find that the in-breath generates energy and tension, and the out-breath is a moment of release and relaxation, then my in breath is short, and my out breath is long, and I find myself in a tremendous space of let-go.
Jeroen
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology." ~ Edward O Wilson
person