Sogyal Rinpoche on precious human birth: “Every spiritual tradition has stressed that this human life is unique, and has potential that ordinarily we hardly even begin to imagine. If we miss the opportunity this life offers us for transforming ourselves, they say, it may well be an extremely long time before we have another. Imagine a blind turtle, roaming the depths of an ocean the size of the universe. Up above floats a wooden ring, tossed to and fro on the waves. Every hundred years the turtle comes, once, to the surface. To be born a human being is said …
Euan Semple has a wonderful encounter: “Coming home from work tonight I followed two middle aged, middle class ladies up the stairs into the multi story car-park. One of them was carrying a banner mounted on a stick printed with an anti- Bush slogan. I asked how it had gone today and she said: ‘I wanted to go on the last one. I wasn’t there today but these sticks are really good for my dahlias’” He then wonders about the appropriateness of this posting in light of the death and destruction in Istanbul. I am currently reading Thich Nhat Hahn’s …
In an inspired move, the National Hockey League today staged two games outdoors in Edmonton. The temperature was -19 Celsius, and over 57,000 crammed into Commonwealth stadium for the Heritage Classic. The first game, a 30 minute affair, featured players from the great 1980s Edmonton Oilers teams and the 1970s Montreal Canadiens teams. Edmonton won 2-0. The regular season game between the current versions of those two clubs had Montreal ekeing out a 4-3 win with goalie Jose Theordore looking cooler than anyone in his mask and touque. There is not a pro hockey player in the world that did …
If I disappear for a while, it’s because I have become completelyy immersed in this website, Research on Place and Space. Astounding, is perhaps the best word to use to describe it. “This set of resources draws together work from a variety of disciplines on the concept(s) of place and space. The term ‘place’ does not necessarily have the same implications or meanings in the different disciplines. Furthermore, other terms are sometimes used in place of place, such as home, dwelling, milieu, territory, and of course, space. None of these, though, are necessarily equivalent to the notion of place. The …
Run, don’t walk, to the CBC Radio webiste for Ideas where you will discover that this year’s Massey Lectures are by Thomas King on the “The Truth About Stories, a Native Narrative.” for you to savour. The lectures run all this week on Ideas, which can be heard on the web. Possibly they will show up in the archive for a spell too, but I doubt it. However, as they do every year, House of Anansi has published the book and I picked it up today and read four of the five lectures. They are stunning. Get engaged with this …