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Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Well this rogue sheep broke away from the flock and did a runner, it's been on the run for a few days now....I first spotted it a couple of days ago, leisurely munching away on some grass on another property up the road...not a care in the world...
Run sheep run, enjoy your freedom while it lasts ...
I was meeting up with @Jeroen to go to the newbuddhist group, ( it from what I gather from the dream was a physical in real life group and of all places was on the island-perhaps the mind was associating it with the local Buddhist group here), anyhow @Jeroen drove up in a beach buggy, got out and opened my car door and put two big blue holder bags inside, then got in and we drove off...
Then the next minute I was on an electric bike with @Jeroen sitting behind me and as we were going up an hill, it was raining and water was gushing down the road towards us, so I turned the bike around and started to move back down the road, and all of a sudden @Jeroen turned to jelly and stated to wobble all over the place....Then I woke up because I needed to wee...I put it down to the cheap baked beans I had yesterday...the acid content in the tomato sauce must have been quite high, which must have inflame my bladder causing me to get up and. wee a lot during the night...
The other day when out op shopping, I spotted a pair of Ecco shoes for $15NZD, it was their colour coordination that got me ...They are made from Yak's leather...( I only buy leather things secondhand-would never buy new )
I gave them a bit of a polish with bees wax...really comfortable to wear...
I love op shopping where most things are affordable...there's even one local op shop which has a free section, where one can find some really good stuff...plus all the books are free, I've picked up a few Dharma books there over the years...
Went over to the city yesterday afternoon...
On the way back I became mesmerised by the sky and clouds...
Leaving Downtown Auckland with the Harbour bridge in view...
Just arriving in Matiatia bay you can see some of Auckland city's tall building in the distance
I stopped to take this of the sunsetting over Matiatia carpark
And last but not least ...I drove past my driveway and followed
the sunsetting over Owhanake bay and the beautiful cloud colours..
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Well @Shoshin1 I’m flattered you dreamed of me, even if I did turn to jelly and wobbled all over the place! Maybe it was a sign of some sort…
I was thinking of this bit of Shakespeare’s play As You Like It yesterday,
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely Players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts”
It seems to me one of those quotes which make you change your viewpoint relative to the world, similar to this bit of the Diamond Sutra:
"So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."
Despite being crazy, I am working on a new website (Have not done one for years). Was looking for some of my most ancient logos. Most have sunk into the void ...
Will let you know when I have something. Anyhow in my searches I came across this olde link
@Shoshin1 said:
Went over to the city yesterday afternoon...
On the way back I became mesmerised by the sky and clouds...
Leaving Downtown Auckland with the Harbour bridge in view...
Just arriving in Matiatia bay you can see some of Auckland city's tall building in the distance
I stopped to take this of the sunsetting over Matiatia carpark
And last but not least ...I drove past my driveway and followed
the sunsetting over Owhanake bay and the beautiful cloud colours..
Wow! @Shoshin1 your neck of the woods is beautiful. What a beautiful part of the world you live in. 💚🙏💚
Managed to get in another dip...the water was a bit cooler, but still warmer than usual for this time of year...There has also been quite a few jellyfish around the bays...A few reports of swimmers getting stung....Their stings can be bloody painful...
Rain clouds started to gather and moved in then showers , so I called it a day...
Over the last two weeks I've picked up off the road, three dead mice, two dead ducks, and one pukeko and in the last month a couple of dead rabbits...All roadkill, by reckless drivers...
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited April 18
Yesterday I was in Zwolle, a beautiful old town in the east of the Netherlands, and I visited the bookstore and remarked to a sales lady about the number of hardcover books in the store. She said, the younger generation these days have to be enticed into buying books, and that was why there were beautifully bound and illustrated hardcover copies of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet on the shelves. Makes you wonder about the future of books.
Each morning as I leave the property for my jolk, I'm greeted by these fellows...
Some morning the Pukekohes (the black blue and white coloured bird) are on my bedroom roof making a racket or fighting on the driveway....
Well it's been quite cool temperature-wise and overcast for most of today...
This morning's jolk
This afternoon after a visit to one of the op shops.
And last be not least ...a monkey apple tree
The Kereru (native wood pigeon) loves the monkey apple berries, and now so do I...For many years I've watched the Kereru feasting on the berries all the while thinking that they were poisonous to humans, that was until just recently when a client at work asked if he could pick some monkey apples from the big tree on the property ...anyway he picked some and offered some to me, it turns out they taste a bit like guava, quite nice...All those monkey apple years gone to waste....
Went shopping for a new car.
Was looking for a late model used low mileage economic car.
Ended up with an SUV - NEW - 24 city, 31 hwy
360 and backup camera, semi leather, blah, blah..
only in hoc for 5 or 6 years at 0%.
Dtr and G'dtr love it. (Mitsubishi Outlander)
have to admit, the Black Brick looks good, rids well
OK, OK! Its a nice car, at only twice my original budget.
Consolation prize: I still have my RE int650.
@Lionduck you iz luxury inclined Buddhist. Tee Hee! I think I may go over budget on something for the sake of Tantric competence.
Maybe time to think of getting a camper van again? Don't think I need to go anywhere. Will have to get a yearly resident street parking licence. Maybe I can just get a white van and paint it in rainbow graffiti? Then I could call it, 'mobile dharma' and go and park outside Aunty Feds latest hideaway (I could literally be her 'dharma stalker'). Too naughty?
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It was like a Winter's morning this morning....
With a chill in the air...but it's warmed up now...
Just under three weeks to the official start of our Winter...
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It seems to me that attempts to systematise the human world end up in division, hierarchy, judgment and unhappiness. Take nations for example, or corporations where the worst performing 10% are made redundant each year. Yet we are included in many of these systems over our lifetimes. It’s all about a quest for efficiency, where these systems are treated like machines and people like cogs.
Perhaps monasteries are the exception to the rule…
My attempts at systematizing the world is just a mind trying to empire build.
To function effectively in this land robbery, all a mind needs to do is extend its fiefdom over the terrain that would otherwise be jointly shared by any of the other sense gates.
The degree to which I allow such a power imbalance to occur is the same degree to which the delusionary foundation of the human condition is empowered.
The degree to which such a power imbalance is no longer supported is the same degree to which the birthright of our objectivity & equanimity emerges in its place.
What you describe of the world, also describes any nano-moment of meditation.
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Graham Hancock’s banned-and-deleted TED talk is the audio for this, it’s really rather good.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited May 9
I would say that marketing, lobbying and money have combined with democracy to create something pretty disastrous. The people are not ruled by the best of men.
We have planted Hybrid French Marigolds (Tagetes patula nana). They should come up in seven days. I'll give them ten days. Then I am planting them in pots or ground.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It seems to me that the fact that there is so much violence on TV and film shapes the notion that we live in a violent world. If you’re confronted in your entertainment with so much gun violence, murder, crime, war, then it’s inevitable that you start to feel surrounded by it.
Anyone else blown away by the strength of the northern lights last night. I think it was one of the best light shows I've seen, this far south in my life.(48th parallel) We climbed one of the local mountains in the dark to get as far away from the city lights for the best viewing.
@Fosdick said:
Here in Alaska, winter doesn't want to leave. Snowed yesterday, close to freezing last 3 or 4 nights.
What's your Summer temperatures normally like there in Alaska @Fosdick
0
Fosdickin its eye are mirrored far off mountainsAlaska, USAVeteran
Oh, I dunno - around 60 -65 degrees F. perhaps, with a few warmer days. Rains a lot. Last year we got a few days up around 80, which may well be the warmest we've seen since we've lived here. I rarely see northern lights here - too much cloudy.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Yes the aurorae were visible here in the Netherlands as well, which is pretty unusual. It seems to be down to some abnormal solar activity…
The steam rising off the ocean at the far end of the beach this morning..
The warmer air is cooled beyond the dew point and can no longer hold as much water vapor, so the excess condenses out. The effect is similar to the "steam" produced over a hot bath or a hot drink, or even an exercising person. Sea smoke has a turbulent appearance and may form spiraling columns.
It was another really cold morning this morning 8*C, but warm in the sun...
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
8 degrees is cold? We had nights that were freezing not long ago, with a proper chill in the air first thing in the morning. And in the winter we get cold snaps going to minus 12.
For the island , 8* C is bloody cold ...It can get a lot colder overnight and first thing of a morning during Winter, we have had as low as 1/2* C at times, but during the day it warms up to double figures, averaging 14/16*C...
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Pfff, the Dutch entry at Eurovision got disqualified… I didn’t know there was such a thing! Ridiculous. Bit of a disaster really.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This surprised me. Wiley, the academic publisher, has temporarily closed a range of journals after finding over 11,000 compromised papers which apparently had been generated in whole or in part by AI. That’s a simply astonishing number.
Why? They found a mere tip of the iceberg. Why not write an AI helped article/book yourself?
We can host it as a free or paid for dharmic resource on our website, (when available).
Well there was a big storm last night (just after midnight) after which came what felt like a mini tornado, very powerful gusts of wind shook my apartment, I was laying in bed and it felt as if the building would collapse...Fortunately it didn't last long...
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
We had a major thunderstorm here last Thursday night… buckets of rain, winds and big claps of thunder up close. I even disconnected my Mac from the power in case of an electric surge.
Comments
Well this rogue sheep broke away from the flock and did a runner, it's been on the run for a few days now....I first spotted it a couple of days ago, leisurely munching away on some grass on another property up the road...not a care in the world...
Run sheep run, enjoy your freedom while it lasts ...
I had a weird dream
I was meeting up with @Jeroen to go to the newbuddhist group, ( it from what I gather from the dream was a physical in real life group and of all places was on the island-perhaps the mind was associating it with the local Buddhist group here), anyhow @Jeroen drove up in a beach buggy, got out and opened my car door and put two big blue holder bags inside, then got in and we drove off...
Then the next minute I was on an electric bike with @Jeroen sitting behind me and as we were going up an hill, it was raining and water was gushing down the road towards us, so I turned the bike around and started to move back down the road, and all of a sudden @Jeroen turned to jelly and stated to wobble all over the place....Then I woke up because I needed to wee...I put it down to the cheap baked beans I had yesterday...the acid content in the tomato sauce must have been quite high, which must have inflame my bladder causing me to get up and. wee a lot during the night...
I told ya it was a weird dream
Well it's a beautiful Autumn's day, so I'm making the most of it...l
The beach is almost deserted...
This. may be the last skinny dip of the season...
The other day when out op shopping, I spotted a pair of Ecco shoes for $15NZD, it was their colour coordination that got me ...They are made from Yak's leather...( I only buy leather things secondhand-would never buy new )
I gave them a bit of a polish with bees wax...really comfortable to wear...
I love op shopping where most things are affordable...there's even one local op shop which has a free section, where one can find some really good stuff...plus all the books are free, I've picked up a few Dharma books there over the years...
Went over to the city yesterday afternoon...
On the way back I became mesmerised by the sky and clouds...
Leaving Downtown Auckland with the Harbour bridge in view...
Just arriving in Matiatia bay you can see some of Auckland city's tall building in the distance
I stopped to take this of the sunsetting over Matiatia carpark
And last but not least ...I drove past my driveway and followed
the sunsetting over Owhanake bay and the beautiful cloud colours..
Well @Shoshin1 I’m flattered you dreamed of me, even if I did turn to jelly and wobbled all over the place! Maybe it was a sign of some sort…
I was thinking of this bit of Shakespeare’s play As You Like It yesterday,
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely Players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts”
It seems to me one of those quotes which make you change your viewpoint relative to the world, similar to this bit of the Diamond Sutra:
"So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."
Despite being crazy, I am working on a new website (Have not done one for years). Was looking for some of my most ancient logos. Most have sunk into the void ...
Will let you know when I have something. Anyhow in my searches I came across this olde link
https://newbuddhist.com/discussion/20446/do-schizophrenics-live-in-parallel-universes-is-this-dangerous
search engine (3rd most popular in the world ...)
https://yandex.com
Wow! @Shoshin1 your neck of the woods is beautiful. What a beautiful part of the world you live in. 💚🙏💚
In the village yesterday after work...
This afternoon after work...
What a difference a day makes....Autumn is truly here...
Managed to get in another dip...the water was a bit cooler, but still warmer than usual for this time of year...There has also been quite a few jellyfish around the bays...A few reports of swimmers getting stung....Their stings can be bloody painful...
Rain clouds started to gather and moved in then showers , so I called it a day...
Over the last two weeks I've picked up off the road, three dead mice, two dead ducks, and one pukeko and in the last month a couple of dead rabbits...All roadkill, by reckless drivers...
Yesterday I was in Zwolle, a beautiful old town in the east of the Netherlands, and I visited the bookstore and remarked to a sales lady about the number of hardcover books in the store. She said, the younger generation these days have to be enticed into buying books, and that was why there were beautifully bound and illustrated hardcover copies of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet on the shelves. Makes you wonder about the future of books.
Each morning as I leave the property for my jolk, I'm greeted by these fellows...
Some morning the Pukekohes (the black blue and white coloured bird) are on my bedroom roof making a racket or fighting on the driveway....
Well it's been quite cool temperature-wise and overcast for most of today...
This morning's jolk
This afternoon after a visit to one of the op shops.
And last be not least ...a monkey apple tree
The Kereru (native wood pigeon) loves the monkey apple berries, and now so do I...For many years I've watched the Kereru feasting on the berries all the while thinking that they were poisonous to humans, that was until just recently when a client at work asked if he could pick some monkey apples from the big tree on the property ...anyway he picked some and offered some to me, it turns out they taste a bit like guava, quite nice...All those monkey apple years gone to waste....
Went shopping for a new car.
(Mitsubishi Outlander)
Was looking for a late model used low mileage economic car.
Ended up with an SUV - NEW - 24 city, 31 hwy
360 and backup camera, semi leather, blah, blah..
only in hoc for 5 or 6 years at 0%.
Dtr and G'dtr love it.
have to admit, the Black Brick looks good, rids well
OK, OK! Its a nice car, at only twice my original budget.
Consolation prize: I still have my RE int650.
@Lionduck you iz luxury inclined Buddhist. Tee Hee! I think I may go over budget on something for the sake of Tantric competence.
Maybe time to think of getting a camper van again? Don't think I need to go anywhere. Will have to get a yearly resident street parking licence. Maybe I can just get a white van and paint it in rainbow graffiti? Then I could call it, 'mobile dharma' and go and park outside Aunty Feds latest hideaway (I could literally be her 'dharma stalker'). Too naughty?
This I thought was interesting…
I just love the brushstroke white (clouds) over the sky blue...
Here down under, it's the merry month of May or May be not where you are just yet...
Beautiful morning
Beautiful rainbow
The Southern hemisphere capturing the last of the warm Summer sunshine, before the Northern hemisphere steals it from us ....
It was like a Winter's morning this morning....
With a chill in the air...but it's warmed up now...
Just under three weeks to the official start of our Winter...
It seems to me that attempts to systematise the human world end up in division, hierarchy, judgment and unhappiness. Take nations for example, or corporations where the worst performing 10% are made redundant each year. Yet we are included in many of these systems over our lifetimes. It’s all about a quest for efficiency, where these systems are treated like machines and people like cogs.
Perhaps monasteries are the exception to the rule…
@Jeroen
My attempts at systematizing the world is just a mind trying to empire build.
To function effectively in this land robbery, all a mind needs to do is extend its fiefdom over the terrain that would otherwise be jointly shared by any of the other sense gates.
The degree to which I allow such a power imbalance to occur is the same degree to which the delusionary foundation of the human condition is empowered.
The degree to which such a power imbalance is no longer supported is the same degree to which the birthright of our objectivity & equanimity emerges in its place.
What you describe of the world, also describes any nano-moment of meditation.
Graham Hancock’s banned-and-deleted TED talk is the audio for this, it’s really rather good.
I would say that marketing, lobbying and money have combined with democracy to create something pretty disastrous. The people are not ruled by the best of men.
We have planted Hybrid French Marigolds (Tagetes patula nana). They should come up in seven days. I'll give them ten days. Then I am planting them in pots or ground.
They are companion plants. Great if you have no available people ... I am told companions are needed for mental health. They'll have to do ... also, you can eat them ...
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/are-marigolds-edible
It seems to me that the fact that there is so much violence on TV and film shapes the notion that we live in a violent world. If you’re confronted in your entertainment with so much gun violence, murder, crime, war, then it’s inevitable that you start to feel surrounded by it.
So @Jeroen, kill your TV and film addiction (I have that, so a fine one to talk). Ah! Peace to last ... at last ... ? The Sangha have it right?
It was a cool 7°C first thing this morning......
But not cold enough to stop some from taking a morning dip....
Anyone need a Buddhist dharma spiritual AI 'Friend'
Here you go ...
https://norbu-ai.org/
8*C this morning saw another brave soul taking a dip...Winter has arrived early...
Here in Alaska, winter doesn't want to leave. Snowed yesterday, close to freezing last 3 or 4 nights.
Anyone else blown away by the strength of the northern lights last night. I think it was one of the best light shows I've seen, this far south in my life.(48th parallel) We climbed one of the local mountains in the dark to get as far away from the city lights for the best viewing.
Wow that must have been an amazing sight @how ....I missed the light show here in Aotearoa "Stunning aurora lights up Aotearoa skies"
What's your Summer temperatures normally like there in Alaska @Fosdick
Oh, I dunno - around 60 -65 degrees F. perhaps, with a few warmer days. Rains a lot. Last year we got a few days up around 80, which may well be the warmest we've seen since we've lived here. I rarely see northern lights here - too much cloudy.
Yes the aurorae were visible here in the Netherlands as well, which is pretty unusual. It seems to be down to some abnormal solar activity…
My storker is now stalking me at the beach...
The steam rising off the ocean at the far end of the beach this morning..
It was another really cold morning this morning 8*C, but warm in the sun...
8 degrees is cold? We had nights that were freezing not long ago, with a proper chill in the air first thing in the morning. And in the winter we get cold snaps going to minus 12.
For the island , 8* C is bloody cold ...It can get a lot colder overnight and first thing of a morning during Winter, we have had as low as 1/2* C at times, but during the day it warms up to double figures, averaging 14/16*C...
Pfff, the Dutch entry at Eurovision got disqualified… I didn’t know there was such a thing! Ridiculous. Bit of a disaster really.
This surprised me. Wiley, the academic publisher, has temporarily closed a range of journals after finding over 11,000 compromised papers which apparently had been generated in whole or in part by AI. That’s a simply astonishing number.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/14/24156653/a-surge-in-fraudulent-research-papers-is-shutting-down-scientific-journals
AI =Artfully Intelligent
Why? They found a mere tip of the iceberg. Why not write an AI helped article/book yourself?
We can host it as a free or paid for dharmic resource on our website, (when available).
eg.
... and so on
The seaghouls were not happy this morning...
I guess some of you Northern Hemisphere guys and gals will be coming out of hibernation around now....
Nice weather, 12 degrees C at night, 23 degrees C during the day.
Today has been cold, overcast and rainy...Winter is here. today's high was around 16*C...
To be honest I miss the winter… it’s so cozy. And snow, we only had one day of snow this winter.
Well there was a big storm last night (just after midnight) after which came what felt like a mini tornado, very powerful gusts of wind shook my apartment, I was laying in bed and it felt as if the building would collapse...Fortunately it didn't last long...
We had a major thunderstorm here last Thursday night… buckets of rain, winds and big claps of thunder up close. I even disconnected my Mac from the power in case of an electric surge.