Edward w

The old and new blasphemy law It was never about God

Blasphemy is in the news today after Hamit Coskun's conviction for burning the Qur'an was quashed.

I've written an article on what people get wrong about the old blasphemy law and why things have changed less than you might think:

pagesfromahistoriansnotebook.substack.com/p/the-old-an...

There are two ways to write 'Germanium' in Chinese. The older one is 鈤, composed of 'metal' 金 and ri 日, short for Ri'erman 日耳曼 ('Germanic'). The newer way of translating it doesn't show the national/ethnic link and has 者 (zhe) as phonetic element for Ger-: 鍺 /

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽 ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽 ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽唵嘛呢叭咪吽 ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་

In Spring 2014 Searle gave an endowed lecture at UC Berkeley on universal human rights. Somehow his opening anecdote involved a lot of carping about the stoner kids who would toke up downwind of his office off Strawberry Creek. Never told him it was me, I was one of those kids 😆

the last undisputed head of the Celestial Master Daoists lived to see the moon landings

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|

made a bag for them!

stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself stop embargoing yourself

Image shows magnifying globe highlighting the vajra and bell.

The central figure, looking directly at the camera, holds both a ritual vajra and bell; he is also a real Tibetan monk.

Historian Clare Harris has identified this figure as Sherab Gyatso, the abbot of Ghoom Monastery located on the outskirts of Darjeeling. 5/6

Mistaken for the Buddha? Illustrated European books from the 18th century mistakenly treated this image as the Buddha; it started as an image of a Sri Lankan king...

Did Chinese Kiss? It may seem like a silly question, but a new book by scholar Hu Wenhui tries to resolve the debate over whether kissing has always been a part of Chinese courtship.

Did Chinese kiss?

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|

Those having faith in formless God
do not worship statues of Stone.
The grinding stone in their houses
is better than the stone*

*[as it feeds people]

From the Bheem-Ambedkar-Shatakam.

www.sanskrit.nic.in/DigitalBook/...

CC: @skillfulmean.bsky.social

Armed with tiny doses of analgesia, homemade splints and a freezer full of chicks, I spent the next weeks reading what little literature there is concerning owl rehab, force-feeding him (the only way to initially feed a wild owl), and nursing his leg with 3 daily sessions of improvised owl physio.

The government want more coercive powers for the state against protests, and the main opposition party wants more coercive powers for the state against migrants.

Our political-media culture continues in a loop where the response to every perceived problem is yet more coercive powers for the state.

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|

Namgyalma mantra OM NAMO BHAGAVATE / SARVA TRAILOKYA PRATIVISHISHTAYA / BUDDHAYATE NAMAH / TADYATHA / OM BHRUM BHRUM BHRUM / SHODHAYA SHODHAYA / VISHODHAYA VISHODHAYA / ASAMA SAMANTA / AVABHASASPHARANAGATI / GAGANA SVABHAVA VISHUDDHE / ABHISHINCHANTUMAM / SARVA TATHAGATAH SUGATA PRAVACHANA / AMRITA ABHISHEKAIH / MAHAMUDRA MANTRAPADAIH / AHARA AHARA / MAMA AYURSSAMDHARANI / SHODHAYA SHODHAYA / VISHODHAYA VISHODHAYA / GAGANA SVABHAVA VISHUDDHE / USHNISHA VIJAYA PARISHUDDHE / SAHASRA RASHMI SANCHODITE / SARVA TATHAGATA AVALOKINI / SHATPARAMITA PARIPURANI / SARVA TATHAGATA MATE / DASHABHUMI PRATISHTHITE / SARVA TATHAGATA HRIDAYA / ADHISHTHANA ADHISHTHITE / MUDRE MUDRE MAHAMUDRE / VAJRA KAYA SAMHATANA PARISHUDDHE / SARVA KARMA AVARANA VISHUDDHE / PRATINIVARTAYA MAMA AYUR VISHUDDHE / SARVA TATHAGATA SAMAYA / ADHISHTHANA ADHISHTHITE / OM MUNE MUNE MAHA MUNE / VIMUNE VIMUNE / MAHAVIMUNE / MATI MATI MAHAMATI / MAMATI SUMATI TATHATA / BHUDHAKOTI PARISHUDDHE / VISPHUTA BUDDHE SHUDDHE / HE HE JAYA JAYA / VIJAYA VIJAYA / SMARA SMARA / SPHARA SPHARA / SPHARAYA SPHARAYA / SARVA BUDDHA ADHISHTHANA ADHISHTHITE / SHUDDHE SHUDDHE / BUDDHE BUDDHE / VAJRE VAJRE / MAHA VAJRE SUVAJRE / VAJRA GARBHE JAYA GARBHE / VIJAYA GARBHE / VAJRA JVALA GARBHE / VAJRODBHAVE / VAJRA SAMBHAVE / VAJRE VAJRINI / VAJRAM BHAVATU MAMA SHARIRAM / SARVA SATTANANCHA KAYA PARISHUDDHIR BHAVATU / ME SADA SARVAGATI PARISHUDDHISH CHA / SARVA TATHAGATASH CHA MAM / SAMASHVASAYANTU / BUDDHYA BUDDHYA / SIDDHYA SIDDHYA / BODHAYA BODHAYA / VIBODHAYA VIBODHAYA / MOCHAYA MOCHAYA / VIMOCHAYA VIMOCHAYA / SHODHAYA SHODHAYA / VISHODHAYA VISHODHAYA / SAMANTANA MOCHAYA MOCHAYA / SAMANTA RASHMI PARISHUDDHE / SARVA TATHAGATA HRIDAYA / ADHISHTHANA ADHISHTHITE / MUDRE MUDRE MAHAMUDRE / MAHAMUDRA MANTRAPADAIH SVAHA / OM BHRUM SVAHA / OM AMRITA AYUR DADE SVAHA

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|

LESSONS ON MYSTICISM FROM A FORGOTTEN MASTER

Charles Seymour was one of the great figures of 20th century esotericism. Very few people have heard of him.

For the first time, I have made the writings that he produced for students available online. I've also written an introduction to his ideas.

/1

The image shows a black and white photograph of a Guanyin statue with multiple arms, centrally placed within a room. The statue is elaborate, with several radiating arms each holding different objects. It stands on a pedestal in front of an intricate backdrop that appears to include swirling cloud-like patterns. Surrounding the central figure are smaller statues or carvings located on two tiers of platforms resembling a theater or gallery setting. The upper tier seems to contain seated figures in rows, while the lower level hosts standing figures clothed in traditional attire. The room appears to be part of a temple or monastery, characterized by wood and stone structures. Sort available posts on Bluesky using #Buddhasinthewest | All posts archived here: tinyurl.com/4kmcwp87 🔍 🗃️ 📜

Located in the mountains of Yunnan, China, the Qiongzhu Temple houses a collection of fantastic Buddhist statues.

This Thousand-Armed Guanyin icon is surrounded by over 200 arhat disciples, comprising part of a Five Hundred Arhat image collection over a century old. 🧵
🗃️ 📜 #Sinology #筇竹寺

I spent Tuesday night at a vigil for Datch in Hong Lim Park. Years ago, Singaporeans could gather outside Changi Prison for vigils for death row prisoners. These days, no matter how small the gathering outside the prison, people will be subject to police investigations and risk criminal prosecution.

Reflections from the launch of Death Row Literature, a collection of poetry by Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, a Malaysian national on death row in Singapore: www.wethecitizens.net/death-row-li...

this post will probably make sense to only one person I am following here.

yes I read selden society books to distract myself from my actual degree please dont kinkshame me

its somewhat annoying that the Selden society's translation of _fleta_ is in 3 volumes , numbered II, III and IV.
Volume I, which was to be the introduction, was never published. the intro was subsequently published with volume IV

seldensociety.ac.uk/publications...

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|

A nice pre-Reformation hangover within England is that many commercial rents are still due on the "usual quarter days" being the feasts of Michaelmas, Christmas, the Annunciation & John the Baptist.

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👻唵嘛呢叭咪吽 😈唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🌍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🌏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 唵嘛呢叭咪吽ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་| ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་|