Category Archives: …and other stuff

miscellaneous postings by Lawrence R. Spencer

...and other stuff, ART, BULLSHIT, MOVING PICTURES

ANCIENT CULT RECRUITING

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Some priests will do or say anything to recruit devotes into a cult.

Kunga Legpai Zangpo (1455 – 1529), was also known by other names such as Drukpa Kunley, Drukpa Kunleg, and “The Divine Madman of the Dragon Lineage” Kunga Legpa. He was a great master ofMahamudra in the Buddhist tradition, as well as being a famous poet.  He was known for his crazy methods of enlightening other beings, mostly women, which earned him the title “The Saint of 5,000 Women“. Women would seek his blessing in the form of sex. However, the female consort had/has an important (albeit secret) role in many monasteries in the East.   (Wikipedia.org)

Poem about happiness

I am happy that I am a free Yogi.

So I grow more and more into my inner happiness.

I can have sex with many women,

because I help them to go the path of enlightenment.

Outwardly I’m a fool

and inwardly I live with a clear spiritual system.

Outwardly, I enjoy wine, women and song.

And inwardly I work for the benefit of all beings.

Outwardly, I live for my pleasure

and inwardly I do everything in the right moment.

Outwardly I am a ragged beggar

and inwardly a blissful Buddha.

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

THE SECRET

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FOCUS YOUR ENERGY

Socrates (Greek: 470/469 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Plato’s dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is “hidden behind his ‘best disciple’, Plato”.

Through his portrayal in Plato’s dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. Plato’s Socrates also made important and lasting contributions to the field of epistemology, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains a strong foundation for much western philosophy that followed. — Wikipedia.org

...and other stuff, ART, BULLSHIT, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, POETIC NONSENSE, SOUNDS, UNIVERSES

SEVENLY DEAD SINS

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I am a great fan of the paintings of  Hieronymus Bosch and his best-known follower, Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  I appreciate the in-your-face-honesty of their paintings, which were produced during a period of extreme religious and political repression that gripped Europe.  The macabre, grotesque reality of the people and superstitions of the age are eloquently illustrated with masterfully satirical potency.  Here is a marvelous animation, constructed from “The Seven Deadly Sins”.  They were “deadly” because the Catholic priests would murder you if you refused to buy into their monstrous superstitions designed to control the population for political and financial gain.  From my perspective — 500 years later — our lives have certainly improved, but they are still essentially macabre and grotesque.

The Seven Deadly Sins (2011) is a video animation by Belgian artist Antoine Roegiers based on The Seven Deadly Sins by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  Bruegel is the best-known Bosch follower and Karel van Mander called him “Pieter the Droll” in his Schilder-boeck:

“Oock sietmen weynigh stucken van hem, die een aenschouwer wijslijck sonder lacchen can aensien, ja hoe stuer wijnbrouwigh en statigh hy oock is, hy moet ten minsten meese-muylen oft grinnicken.”
“There are few works by his hand which the observer can contemplate solemnly or with a straight face. However stiff, morose or surly he may be, he cannot help chuckling or at any rate smiling.”

– Here reprinted in F. Grossmann’s translation (Bruegel, The Paintings, [London, Phaidon Press, n.d.], pp. 7 ff.)
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Thanks to Jahsonic’s Macroblog