Over 2,500 years ago today, The Buddha expounded the Dhamma, and exhorted us to use it as a tool to free ourself from suffering. Today, we “Buddhists” remember him as we celebrate (sic) Vesak, by lighting up lanterns and decorating the city with colored light bulbs. Actually, our priests, as the official custodians/guardians of the Buddha word, should probably be pointing out that what we are doing isn’t exactly Buddhism, but it appears they are busy.
Ultimately, Buddha’s doctrine (Dhamma) was mostly about suffering, the cause of suffering, the path that leads to the end of suffering (noble eightfold path).
Modern Myths in Buddhism Buddha = God: Despite the Buddha clearly stating that he is not God, and that there is no such person (a creator), some people still believe that Buddha is/was a/the God, or something
Life: Buddha preached that people should refrain from taking the life of living things (other animals and humans). The reasons were 1. Living things love life just as much as we do, and 2. (for the more practical), taking the life of a living thing is considered an act of negative karma.
These days, the belief is that ‘life’ in the above argument refers to big animals like Cows. And even then, its quite OK to get someone to kill them for you. So, if you don’t personally kill any cows, you are a good Buddhist, and it’s OK to slap more mosquitoes than you can count. After all, they don’t count as animals.
Meditation: in Buddhism, meditation was originally used as a method of realizing the truth, i.e. by concentration and practising various methods of meditation, people were able to realize some of the deeper thruths of Buddhism such as Impermanence.
Today, the aim of Meditation, is simply to become a good meditator. At meditators conventions everyone talks about how “so and so can sit for four hours without moving” and his “Inner Buddha is all awakened”…
Buddhism isnt about getting Ping.
[Ed: Ping or Pin refers to ‘merit’ or cosmic bonus points. In modern day Sri Lanka, Buddhists spend a lot of time and money trying to get this stuff…]
These people do good things for the sake of getting Ping. This is counter intuitive, as the entire idea behind doing something good should be altrustic.
Final Thoughts
In Sri Lanka (and many other “Buddhist” countries), Buddhism is not what it used to be. It is now a prepackaged modern religeon which can be mass marketed and broadcast via loudspeakers.
So, Idol 2006 season 5 is drawing to a close.. chris is out.
That leaves Elliot Yamin, Taylor Hicks, and Katharine McPhee.
So who’s it going to be?
Well let’s see… In the last episode Katharine and Chris were the bottom two contestants, and Chris was voted out… So, as far as crowd favorites go, it’s all about Taylor Hicks, and Elliot Yamin.
So who will it be? As far as guys go, Taylor has more personality (or crazyness?) while Elliot really shone in the last few songs he sang.
As far as pure singing skill goes, right now, IMO, Elliot Yamin is the best, and he just may win.
Next week, I think either Taylor or Katharine will leave.. Personally, I think Taylor sucks and I hope he is out in the next week, leaving the final to be Elliot vs Katharine, though I have a feeling it will be Taylor vs Elliot, with Elliot winning.
[Ed. some clarifications may be necessary for ordinary (normal) people…]
Overclocking: The art of running parts of your PC, preferrably the CPU, faster than original manufacture specifications.
Why? - Overclocking started because computers were really slow, but these days we have fast systems so it isn’t that necessary always, but hey, It’s fun, and beating a £600 cpu with a £79 CPU is enough to make most die hard techies smile.. it’s that “I converted my lada into a Ferrari feeling” Also those who are into rendering/3D/Games can never have enough speed.
The celeron 300 was famous for being crazily overclockable. This processor appears to match or beat that celeron’s capabilities, as far as overclocking goes..
Note: These results were achieved using a really high quality motherboard, water cooling, and the best memory/psu/etc money could buy. Don’t expect to rush out to unity plaza and achieve the same results
Ed: the best overclock I’ve ever achieved was running a 1.5Ghz wilamette at 2.0, with normal air cooling. I bet I could have achieved better results if I was using a Northwood.. as always, I’d love to hear other peoples overclocking stories..
Royal Rocks!, also known as Blue and Gold 2006, is a major carnival and music festival organised by Royal College.
It will be held on Friday the 7th, Saturday the 8th, and Sunday the 9th of July 2006.
It will be held at the Race Course Grounds, and each night will feature a live musical concert featuring some of Sri Lanka’s hottest musical talent!
Friday night will feature a rock music theme. Stigmata and Tantrum have been booked to perform. Stigmata of course need no introduction… Tantrum are the 2005 winners of TNL Onstage.
(unrelated) video of the moment: Mallika I hate you
On a lighter note, here is a roundup of some of my favorite music videos…
Like to hear your feedback if you like any of the songs here.
Enjoy
Addictive - truth hurts
For: The song may suck but the hot black African American chicks who dance in the background sure make it look cool… High point: Just the chicks in the background. Especially the twins.
It Just Wont Do - Tim Deluxe feat. Sam Obernick
For: Brazilian beach volleyball girls. Enough said. Mmm Mmh mmh (as prose would say). Since Darwin’s time, nobody quite explained evolution and sexual selection in such an interesting way.
Tim Deluxe turned out to be a one hit wonder, which is more than I can say for my next hot favorite:
For: Truck driving russian lesbian schoolgirls. What’s not to love? High points: Ay Caramba! ALT: English version (MTV Video music awards) All the things she said - Tatu
For: All that lesbian kissing. High point: see above
Lady Marmalade - Moulin Rouge
For: The whole crotch clutch dance. That and seriously kinky lingerie. High point: Pink, Mya and the rest are smoking hot, as someone points out..
Crazy Sexy Marvellous - paffendorf
For: The song aint great, but all that making out sure looks fun..
Everybody - be cool - paffendorf
For: The music is so good, that and the beach looks surreal
Beyond the invisible - Enigma
For:If this ice bound sexscapede doesnt please you, the dirty naked girl in the tree should.
Also see: this
