#philosophy

[typhlonectes]

[philosophybits]

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

Frederick Douglass, "The Significance of Emancipation in the West Indies (1857)"

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Le but d'un écrivain est d'empêcher la civilisation de se détruire.

- Albert Camus

[escuerzoresucitado]

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

Carl Jung

[yoga-onion]

Legends and myths about trees

Trees in Buddhism (3)

The Golden Wheel King – Maitreya appearing once every 3,000 years with the the flowers of the udumbara (Ref)

His body colour is gold, crowned with a crown of seven treasures, and light emanates from its entire body. He makes a sign and sits in the full lotus position on a lotus flower decorated with the seven treasures. The lotus flower on which he is seated has a jeweled crown and a treasure pond beneath it.

The most outstanding of the Wheel-Turning Kings, the Golden Wheel King, has an extremely superior merit of the buddhosnisa (the superior brain of Tathagata, the divinity of the intellect to save people).

According to the description in the Buddhist scriptures, the concept of the Wheel-Turning King (Pali: chakravarti, Skt. cakravartin) was roughly as follows.

The world goes through cycles of prosperity and decline. In times of prosperity, the human lifespan is 80,000 years, but as human virtue is lost, the lifespan becomes shorter, and in the age of darkness, when all good is lost, it is 10 years. Thereafter, human virtue is restored, and once again we enter the age of prosperity, when the lifespan is 80,000 years.

It is during this age of prosperity that the transmigration of the Wheel-Turning King will emerge, as a result of his good deeds in his previous lives. He has the same 32 auspicious signs (Ref), signifying a great being like the Buddha, and rules the earth up to the four oceans with the power of the law, without using force of arms.

There are 4 types of Wheel-Turning Kings: the Golden Wheel King, the Silver Wheel King, the Bronze Wheel King, and the Iron Wheel King. The Iron Wheel King has the Iron Wheel and rules over one of the 4 continents that were considered to exist on the earth in the ancient Indian worldview. Likewise, the Copper Wheel King has the Copper Wheel and rules over two continents, and the Silver Wheel King has the Silver Wheel and rules over three continents. The Golden Wheel King, the highest Wheel-Turning King, has the Golden Wheel and rules all 4 continents. For this reason, the Golden Wheel King, like the Wheel-Turning Kings, is surrounded by his seven attributes.

The seven treasures and four divine virtues of the Wheel Turning Sage King:

Chakraratna wheel: rolls in all directions and makes the king level the earth.

Elephant treasure (hatthiratana): a pure white elephant that also flies in the sky.

Horse treasure (assaratana): pure white horses that also fly in the sky.

Octagonal gem treasure (maniratana): jewels whose luminous emanations can reach as high as 1yojana (7mi/12–15 km).

His queen (itthiratana): a dutiful and chaste queen with good looks and fragrance.

Finance minster (gahapatiratana): wealthy citizens who support the state.

General treasure (parinayakaratana): a wise, capable and skilled general.

They are also said to possess the four divine virtues:

good looks

long life

Fewer illnesses, fewer worries

Respect from Brahmin Gahapati and compassion for them

木にまつわる伝説・神話

仏教の樹木 (3)

金輪王 (こんりん‐おう) 〜 3000年に一度、うどんげの花（参照）とともに現れる弥勒菩薩

体色は金色で七宝冠を戴き全身から光を放つ。印を結んで七宝で飾られた蓮の花の上に結跏趺坐する。座っている蓮華の下に輪宝、さらにその下に宝池がある。

転輪聖王のうち最も優れた金輪王は、仏頂尊 (如来の優れた頭脳、人々を救済する知性を神格化したもの)の霊験が極めて優れている。

仏典の記述によれば、転輪聖王 (てんりんじょうおう、転輪王とも)の概念とは大まかに以下のようなものであった:

世界は繁栄と衰退の循環を繰り返し、繁栄の時には人間の寿命は8万年であるが、人間の徳が失われるにつれて寿命は短くなり、全ての善が失われた暗黒の時代には10年となる。その後、人間の徳は回復し、再び8万年の寿命がある繁栄の時代を迎える。

転輪聖王が出現するのはこの繁栄の時代であり、彼は前世における善行の結果、転輪聖王として現れる。ブッダのような大いなる存在を意味する32の希少で特別な身体的特徴（参照）を持ち、4つの海に至るまでの大地を、武力を用いる事無く、法の力を以って統治する。

転輪聖王には金輪王、銀輪王、銅輪王、鉄輪王の4種類がある。鉄輪王は鉄の輪宝を持ち、古代インドの世界観で地球上に4つあるとされた大陸のうち、1つの大陸を支配する。同様に銅輪王は銅の輪宝を持ち、2つの大陸を、銀輪王は銀の輪宝を持ち、3つの大陸を支配する。そして最上の転輪聖王である金輪王は、金の輪宝を持ち、4つの大陸全てを支配するという。そのため金輪王の周りには、転輪聖王が従えるという七つの宝が配置されている。

転輪聖王は七種の宝と徳性を持つと言う：

輪宝 (ﾁｬｯｶﾗﾀﾅ)：四方に転が���、王に大地を平定させる。

象宝 (ﾊｯﾃｨﾗﾀﾅ)：空をも飛ぶ純白の象。

馬宝 (ｱｯｻﾗﾀﾅ)：空をも飛ぶ純白の馬。

珠宝 (ﾏﾆﾗﾀﾅ)：発する光明が1由旬(12–15 km)にも達する宝石。

女宝 (ｲｯﾃｨﾗﾀﾅ)：美貌と芳香を持つ従順かつ貞節な王妃。

居士宝 (ｶﾞﾊﾊﾟﾃｨﾗﾀﾅ)：国を支える財力ある市民。

将軍宝 (ﾊﾟﾘﾅｰﾔｶﾗﾀﾅ)：賢明さ、有能さ、練達を備えた智将。

また四種の神徳を持つと言う：

美貌

長寿

少病少悩

バラモン・ガハパティからの敬愛と彼らに対する慈愛

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Me, trying to explain what I think about things: There's all this really dark fiction, but the intellectual framework behind it is still basically taken from the 1980s....

Me, pausing for effect: And a lot of it is horny, sometimes involving furries --

My parents: *shrug*

[liberatingreality]

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska the Bolshevik Empress

[matt-w-blogging]

You Can Do Nice Things For "Selfish" Reasons.

Doing something nice for a "selfish" or self-serving reason doesn't cancel out the fact that you did a nice thing. Unless you tell them, nobody knows your motivation behind doing the nice thing.

It makes no difference to them.

Bring home-baked goods to a gathering so people compliment your food and tell you how incredible at baking you are. Donate to charity to impress people. Smile and be kind and polite so people like you. Compliment people in the hopes they'll compliment you back. Help someone pick up their things because it makes you feel like the main character. Let a stressed parent with crying children cut ahead of you in line because you just want the loud kids to be gone as soon as possible.

People don't know why you did it.

People do know what you did.

People know you brought home-baked goods to a gathering. Charity got a donation. People know you were smiling and kind and polite to them. People know they got a compliment. People know someone helped them pick up their things. The parent knows you did a kind thing for them.

Whether you do it selflessly or self-servingly, your action doesn't change, nor does its impact.

Not doing nice things because you "just want something in return so it's selfish" is worse than doing nice things for self-serving reasons.

Putting good vibes out into the world because you want to pretend you're a dashing and chivalrous young lad whose wealthy family tragically passed leaving you to inherit the mysterious family mansion and all the men admire you and all the ladies talk about what an honest, good young man you are and all the nonbinaries get gender envy from you and the unlabeled and agender folks just think you're really cool and everyone attracted to men fancies you is good and harmless and fun.

You can other peoples' days and your own day better simultaneously. So do it.

[skaldish]

Not only can your spirituality evolve, but it should.

[typhlonectes]

[philosophybits]

Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.

Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia

[blackswaneuroparedux]

C'est injustice d'excuser la jeunesse de suivre ses plaisirs et défendre à la vieillesse d'en chercher.

- Michel de Montaigne

[beardedmrbean]

[mattobsidian]

Today I was thinking about bruising and how we all carry bruises both seen and unseen. Bruises and scars. Callouses and contusions. The calcification of our nerve endings. We get born in puddles of blood and shit, and from that we crawl, and forge connections, and touch the lives of others, sometimes insignificantly and sometimes with such significance that in the eyes of such a vast and cosmic unknown it cannot be called anything but fate, and we grow old and senile and forget it all, but still our touch remains. Traces of us, impressions of our existence remain, in some tiny, perhaps imperceptible way. Until we’ve reached our end though, we carry the bruise of every scolding, and the weight of every lost love. The never-ending hurt of our condition but our inability to quit despite the odds. It’s those very odds that define us. The odds of you being brought into the world at all are so small that the very number is near unfathomable. One in 400 trillion, a conservative estimate. And yet here you are, carrying the lineage of human history on your shoulders, the same DNA that was here 140,000 years ago and even further back, existing in you now, firing off every autonomic function and its response, the blood coursing though your veins and collecting and pooling beneath your skin as life beats on you with clenched fists. The last kiss shared between you and your beloved. Fated. Written in the stars. The same stars we occasionally look up at and wonder with reverence who else is staring up at them. One in 400 trillion. More than the number of stars we can observe in the sky. And yet, we carry the bruises. We wear them until the fade. We are our bruises and so much more.