Best Of

@lobster said:
Being kind is a wonderful direction @Shoshin1
It does not make us a doormat (though in a sense that is the ideal)
Rather it is the capacity to recognise that our contrary and opposing nature is harming no one but ourselves.

And yes, I find picnic tours of the hell realms have no element of fear for the truly brave, empowered, human...

Remove the blindfold and imagine a list of people and wrathfuls that are the enemies of good as we perceive it. Now hug them horribles.

That is the essence of Tantra.
https://buddhaweekly.com/tantric-wrathful-deities-the-psychology-and-extraordinary-power-of-enlightened-beings-in-their-fearsome-form/

For some reason the idea of wrathful forms brought to mind the saying the emperor has no clothes. I asked AI if it was kind and it said no, but it also said it may sometimes be more appropriate. Then I'm wondering what IS kindness exactly? Is it fundamentally sweet and gentle? Is it kinder to let a friend walk around with spinach in their teeth or kinder to tell them even though in the moment it causes them embarrassment? Can telling someone they have spinach in their teeth be done kindly or cruelly? Can not telling them be more about our comfort than our friend's? What kind of hierarchy of values exists? Kindness, honesty, integrity, beauty, patience, equality, discipline, justice, courage, creativity, balance.

Such an ethnically diverse country.

Had to watch this in spurts due to interrupts @Shoshin1. It was amazing, the diversity of cultures/languages etc. Great history of part of the Silk Road used by Marco Polo but from the Chinese perspective. Brief mention of the introduction of Buddhism, remnants of Persian Islam and Zoroastrian religions. May watch the next part of the journey into Xizang/Tibet/Trump Highlands (or whatever name they are festering over) ...
https://blogs.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/2024/12/11/tibet-must-stand/

I watched about 15 minutes of the docu, @Shoshin1 … enough to get an impression of what it was like there. It’s tragic, and it makes me unhappy to see it, although I felt the docu also shows a bit of what ordinary life still goes on there, the little market stalls that have sprung up.

Where China Meets Central Asia

Such an ethnically diverse country.