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Best Of

Re: The deathless

No birth, no death;
No permanence, no annihilation;
No sameness, no difference;
No coming, no going.

Just this

QuangKsanti

Re: All things Sport(s)

Here Eileen Gu briefly describes her conversion.
Not sure about the Mandarin details...

https://www.sinchew.com.my/20220513/谷爱凌：我已信仰佛教-摆脱外界舆论与声誉的影响/amp/

Meanwhile the extreme sports continue... with the Marathon monks and beyond
https://newbuddhist.com/discussion/24247/the-marathon-monks-and-myth-building

lobster

Re: The taint of evil

Everyone is capable if great good and great evil.
The same person may commit actions of great good and of great evil.
The same person may commit minor actions and of minor evil.
A good people may commit evil through words, deeds or actions, even with good intent.
An evil person may commit good through words, deeds or actions, even with evil intent.
There was a woman in the early part of the 20th century who meant no evil. But, as a food service worker, was responsible for several outbreaks of a deadly disease.
There is the story of a professional thief, having robbed a number of people, was fleeing, being closely pursued by the authorities. As he was fleeing, he paused to pull a child from in front of a car or bus, to safety.
Although the latter was an imaginary event used as part of the illustration of a person even in the state of Ashura, Animality or Hunger still possesses the life state of Bodhisattva , it also shows that "evil" persons are still capable of performing acts of good.
Now, as for the pelicans and the princess, the analogy os of evil, destroying and consuming represent evil - that which brings harm and loss to others.The Princess is then, clearly, the good. In destroying the pelicans, she is saving the souls thet the pelicans would have devoured.
Each of us carries both the pelicans and the princess. Do we fall to the pelicans of fear, hate, mistrust, distrust, arrogance, Ashura? Or, do we rise as with the princess to the greater power of love, compassion, mercy, benevolence, trust. Do we choose he pathe of Ashura and the lower worlds, the Pelicans, or do we take the path of the Fire Princess, striving as for the higher worlds, ultimately the path of Bodhisattva and Buddha?
Each day, each moment, consciously or unconsciously, we each make that choice between the Pelicans and the Fire Princess.
Another story, "Cave of the Fireflies", tells a story of a young man, with good intentions, who succumbs to the path of of his own "Pelicans" with tragic consequence.

Just an old man's wandering thoughts.

Peace to all