黃艋舺 (Xena Crystal LC Huang)
FB asked what's on my mind?
Well, I am thinking to make a new series of posters for myself, and if you are also interested in learning together?
黃艋舺
This writing is far far beyond my capacity to express well. I am just quite curious about the power of faith/belief/religions playing out in human history. I read a few sacred scriptures of different faiths/religions and refer to different versions of the Sociology of Religion. This writing focuses on Buddhism. Why? I think because I am so touched by my mother's genuine, pious, pure, and somewhat, superstitious heart when she communicated with many kinds of Daoist-Buddhist deities when life beat her beyond comprehension. It seems to me that it was the only way she found the release of her suffering from the troublesome world, even though she did not know about theologies, faiths, and religions, for she could not read nor write, but understood through her soul.
Though partially, common sense, from my understanding, Buddhism mainly is a deep philosophy of constructing Purity - pure mind, body, heart, soul (if you believe in this one), and society, with many detailed pro-active "Action-Plans" (for example, the "proper" yoga practice is one of them), to pursue Wisdom and end (or alleviate) suffering.
In order to meet with the majority of people's needs, the later sects (e.g., Sukhavati, Pure Land/浄土宗), disciples or practitioners hybridize/mashup the philosophical contents with religious flavors.
Let me begin with the most fundamental term in Buddhism: "無明, wu ming", similar to the preprogrammed, genetic/predetermined instincts, needs, desires, motives, willfulness, (or sin in Christianity? These physical-psychological terms have different definitions): the source of obscures and the Saha ignorance - the origins of suffering. 無明 in Sanskrit is Avidyā, Parli：avijjā, the source of all the human phenomena, which is an important theory of the Buddha - the very first factor of the Twelve Nidānas: 十二因缘（निदान Nidāna）or 12 缘起支（Sunskrit：pratītya-samutpāda-aṅga，Pali：paṭicca-samuppāda-aṅga) which will be explained in the next section. All the human and non-human sentient beings begin with 無明/Avidyā. Or, close to the bottom line in the Hierarchy of Needs (a theory developed by many philosophers - in particular, the Buddha, socio-psychologists, and culminated in Maslow), humans, and animals are equalized at this lowest level.
Students who have taken Sociology and Psychology are familiar with the attached chart.
The 12 缘起支 is hard to find an equivalent word in my language, approximately- Twelve sequentially interplayed Factors or causes which chain the past with present and future with
a. genetic factors,
b. 8 senses (not only 6, but 8, form sensations, perceptions and beyond),
c. institutionalized human behaviors (desires with consequences),
d. physical (in fact, mental) formation, decaying and annihilation of 4 eternal truths
(also called 四諦: 苦集滅道) which are the basic tenets of Buddhism.
The first one is human sentient beings’ Craving and Clinging (Desires) to impermanent states and things that trap people into endless suffering (苦). The cause of suffering is desire (集: Dukkha) which is "incapable of satisfying" and painful. Thus, living beings are plunged into Saṃsāra (滅), the endless cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha and dying again. The Buddha provides emancipating approaches (道) to end such cyclical suffering to liberate them by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path and reaching Nirvana.
Stay tuned. A poster will be made.
黃艋舺Another basic term is "業", in Pali：कर्मन्: action, work, or deed, which is energy and engagement embedded with manifest, latent and dysfunctional consequences (from Sociological perspectives), like karma. I tend to relate it to the physical phenomenon -
The Law of Conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of MATTER and ENERGY (like body, heart, mind, soul, if you believe in the last item), the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system's mass cannot change, so the quantity can neither be added nor be removed.
I think the Buddha applies this law to illustrate and release one of the great fears of sentient beings - " death" into "Thou shall never die."
A poster will be made soon.
As a lay-learner, not in the religious sense, this is a humble opinion:The best way to understand Buddha's theories and practices (the Buddha himself is a great Yogin) is in The Heart Sūtra (Sanskrit: प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya or 心經 Xīnjīng) which is a popular (and comprehensive too) sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Its Sanskrit title, Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, can be translated as "The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom".《般若波羅蜜多心經》(Sunskrit：प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदयसूत्र Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya sūtra）是闡述大乘佛教的空相和般若思想的經典，又稱《佛說摩訶般若波羅蜜多心經)、《摩訶般若波羅密多心經》，簡稱《般若心經》、《心經》。本經是大品般若及小品般若為一切法實相教理，是《大般若波羅蜜多經》加以濃縮後成為二百餘字的極精簡經典，因此是般若經系列中一部極為重要的經典，常被認為是可以與般若經類的《金剛經, Sanskrit ：वज्रच्छेदिकाप्रज्ञापारमितासूत्रvájra-cchedikā-prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra》相互詮釋。It anatomizes the physical, metaphysical, psychological, epistemological and philosophical sources, origins of human constructs - this Kaleoeiscopic world (娑婆, Saha, mundane) sandwiched between eons of the past and eons of the future.
Thus, every life form, every action COUNTs in and beyond this mundane world.
In addition to reading several versions of Faith Studies (e,g., Sociology of Religion), currently, I am trying to translate Monk Ben Zong's (斌宗法師) interpretation of the Heart Sutra. If something nice to share, I will do so.
黃艋舺 Recently, I got an interesting question from one of my folks:
Why are most Buddhist countries "poor", not like the Christian ones? :)
黃艋舺 Another interesting question from friends is - Why there seems not so much strong institutional support (of Buddhist societies) or institutionalized campaigns into mass societies as other faiths do?
One more: Seemingly, Buddhism focuses on Pessimism, is that true?
黃艋舺 Welcome your input. I do have my own opinions too.黃艋舺 In my opinion, the Buddha (566?– 480 b.c.e.) could be the first founder of the Open University with MO"O"Cs (mass open on-ground courses) curriculum and provides OER (open educational resources) learning materials :)? Socrates (470 – 399 b.c.e.) uses much verbal pedagogy/andragogy with, probably, free tuition to those who are willing to ask questions for debate.
This teaching quality does not appear in Confucius, perhaps, neither, the Buddha.
Confucius (551–479 b.c.e.), his enrollments, all together, are about 3000 during his lifetime, and the tuition is based on the enrollee's capacity and willingness. The main feature of his pedagogy is to avoid epistemological or ontological issues, which makes the pragmatic-ethical doctrines effective.
There are 2 commonalities among these three educators/teachers:
1. they either come from an intellectual background or are from an aristocratic/noble family.
2. the early stage's enrollees tended to come from upper-class, aristocrats, or monarchs with very small class sizes through authentic face to face andragogy. Later, they grew into bigger... till today, stimulating some students who may desire to see a real teacher/educator in a real classroom (expensive, too) :D!
Now, regarding the 3rd important concept, is "Reincarnation"/Punarjanman (in Sanskrit: पुनर्जन्मन्) meaning "rebirth, transmigration". This is a very hard and rejectable idea to the most scientific or liberal minds of contemporary societies.
After my youngest sister passed away in 2016, the deep psychological denial, traumas, and sorrow is still occupying every bit of my heart, mind, and perhaps, soul. I continue searching for some comforts and answers to my abysmal grief. From many sources, a Buddhist's view on death and rebirth gave me some ease, even though I have been involving in understanding the theories and practices of Buddhism since I was a college student in Taipei.
Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang expressed on one occasion:
"As a Buddhist monk, working as a Buddhist chaplain at several of Melbourne's hospitals and as well as Melbourne assessment prison, I have witnessed many personal tragedies faced by the living and of course the very process of dying and that of death and many of these poor people faced their death with fear, with misery and pain before departing this world. With the images of all these in my mind, on this occasion, I wish to share my view from the perspective of a Buddhist and we hope that people would feel far more relaxed in facing this inevitable end since it is really not the end of life, according to our belief."
The venerated monk continued:
"To Buddhism, however, death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of one’s past actions."
To take the above statements seriously, one needs a premise that reincarnation is an adamant belief. Then, what about my perspective on the idea of Reincarnation? Even though I tried so hard to deny a secret of my belief that my sister had been through metempsychosis of migrating into a butterfly flying over the funeral ceremony, who stayed on my 3rd sister's hand for a period of time in an unusual and surprising way. It was the only butterfly hanging around the whole auditorium, coming from nowhere during that season. That was an unexplainable mystic, though not without skepticism of coincidence.
As mentioned above, regarding reincarnation, for it to be explainable, requires to grasp a similar mindset as described in Kant's categorical imperative if one truly wants to sail over the enigmatic sea of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era.
As we know, Reincarnation tends to be considered mystical, but not purely out of nowhere. It derives from Latin, literally meaning, "entering the flesh again". It was recorded in the early Hebraic practice. גלגול הנשמות, (Plural: גלגולים Gilgulim), a concept in Kabbalistic esoteric mysticism. In the Hebrew term for reincarnation is gilgul, “rolling,” that is, the soul “rolls” through time from one body to a different body. Souls are seen to cycle through lives or incarnations, attached to different human bodies over time. The Greek equivalent, as mentioned above, is metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις), which means to derive from meta (change) and empsykhoun (to put a soul into), developed by Pythagoras. Another way to see it is through transmigration which implies migration from one life (body) to another, like, "my sister transmigrated into a butterfly." For several ancient civilizations believe that butterflies are symbols of the human soul. Some other cultures believe that a new human soul is born each time an adult butterfly emerging from its cocoon; others, butterflies are also considered to be the souls of those who have passed away.
(Note: The other less relevant, yet contentious and problematic notion is transworld identity—identity across possible worlds.
In the cybernetics, people are able to experience the intermingling, boundary blurry worlds in the life time via technologies, such as, augmented reality (AR), by adding digital elements to a live view; virtual reality (VR), implying a total immersion experience that shuts out the physical world, such as sing VR devices of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard, users can be transported into a number of real-world and imagined environments. And the third is in a mixed reality (MR) experience, combining elements of both AR and VR, real-world and digital objects which interact. Mixed reality technology is just now starting to take off, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens, an early mixed reality devices.
The other common phenomenon is dream which could be perceived as identities without matters and properties. In day-dreams, night dreams, people change and experience multiple identities in phantoms.
Regarding an individual existing in more than one possible world, David Lewis proposed the counterpart theory with the claim that although the individual exists in one world only, it has counterparts in other worlds, where the counterpart relation does not have the logic of identity. Refer to https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-transworld/#WhaTraIde).
In short, reincarnation is a philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being starts a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death, and is a part of the Saṃsāra - the doctrine of the cycle of death and rebirth.
Why should I reject right away to the above mythologies when, at least, they provide me with messages of comfort during my long period of grief - till today, and the unknown future...?
Does this notion help people with less fear of Death and reducing the sorrow in missing the deceased loved one?
Nevertheless, if the notion of metempsychosis that I imagined (made-believed) happening to my youngest sister, could reduce part of my suffering (trapped by the impermanent affection to her), it is still leaving more skepticism to my "illusory" concern. My youngest sister is a pious and genuine Buddhist, a little Buddha since she was a child. That's the main reason why my emotional attachment is undetachable and the suffering of losing her is never ceased from my heart.
A believer of Buddhism usually sees rebirth that can occur in six realms of existence (六道輪迴),
Witnessing the butterfly phenomenon, my illusory emotions plunged into the state of a minor release of sorrow with strong skepticism. Then, why is a butterfly which, according to the wheel of the realm, falls into one of the negative realms? A mental state of greed, expecting more, better of transmigration occurred in my mind. Yes, it is greed, one of the 3 detrimental poisons that bring forth all kinds of Wuming (avidya; ignorance) that turns the wheel of the defiled mundane world rolling.
Both Mahayana, or Theravada (two major schools) assert that the three poisons (貪嗔痴: greed/attachment, aversion, and ignorance ) are the primary causes that keep sentient beings trapped in samsara (cycle of suffering and rebirth). The unenlightened, unawakened sentient beings endure the cycle of suffering, ill, decaying, and death in the 6 realms based on the intensity of the attached 3 poisons. In short, it can be said, to be enlightened, one is through eons of mental, moral/ethical, spiritual challenges and refinements, and not all the good dead reincarnate into a good realm instantly. Though my youngest sister has a very kind, helpful and generous heart, a clear and intelligent mind, and an as pure as Buddha's soul (but with a frail body structure due to my mother giving birth to her at the age of 45 when she was ill and the baby was born very weak. Poverty and ignorance played a big role in the origins of this suffering).
In Buddhism, the three poisons are said to be the root of all of the other "kleshas". Kleshas, in Sanskrit: क्लेश, romanized: kleśa; Pali: किलेस kilesa, are mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc. In English, they can be translated into words like afflictions, defilements, destructive emotions, disturbing emotions, negative emotions, mind poisons, etc.
I do know some emotional kleshas troubling my youngest sister even to her last breath at the hospital and I, witnessed the most painful moment, could not do anything to help her...
Maybe, this is the main reason that the metempsychosis into a butterfly, not yet transcending beyond the wheel of realms is the best way to condole every sorrowful mind around her - a beautiful butterfly waving her elegant wings, slowly and steadily flying beyond the 6 realms?
Whenever missing of my youngest sister goes uncontrollable, my other sisters will comfort me by saying, "Our little sister has risen into the Pure Land. She has become a Buddha." I, then will keep my eyes wide open, looking into heaven and see her smiling. I know, "You don't belong to the realms. "
Bertrand Russell proclaims that only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. To me, finding comfort to cure my deep despair, or being skeptical, the butterfly mythical happening offers me a beautiful made-believe.
Here are a couple of other thoughts from of Russell's writing helping me to face my own deep grief with ambivalence: "... Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little. and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence toward the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found an indubitable answer to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it..."
"The past alone is truly real: the present is but a painful, struggling birth into the immutable being of what is no longer. Only the [deceased] exist fully. The lives of the living are fragmentary, doubtful, and subject to change; but the lives of the [deceased] are complete, free from the sway of Time, the all but omnipotent lord of the world. Their failures and successes, their hopes and fears, their joys and pains, have become eternal—our efforts cannot now abate one jot of them. Sorrows long buried in the grave, tragedies of which only a fading memory remains, loves immortalized by Death's hallowing touch these have a power, a magic, an untroubled calm, to which no present can attain. ...On the banks of the river of Time, the sad procession of human generations is marching slowly to the grave; in the quiet country of the Past, the march is ended, the tired wanderers rest, and the weeping is hushed". Yes, my night-sobbing needs to be hushed...
After my youngest sister passed away in 2016, the deep psychological denial, traumas, and sorrow is still occupying every bit of my heart, mind, and perhaps, soul. I continue searching for some comforts and answers to my abysmal grief. From many sources, a Buddhist's view on death and rebirth gave me some ease, even though I have been involving in understanding the theories and practices of Buddhism since I was a college student in Taipei.
Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang expressed on one occasion:
"As a Buddhist monk, working as a Buddhist chaplain at several of Melbourne's hospitals and as well as Melbourne assessment prison, I have witnessed many personal tragedies faced by the living and of course the very process of dying and that of death and many of these poor people faced their death with fear, with misery and pain before departing this world. With the images of all these in my mind, on this occasion, I wish to share my view from the perspective of a Buddhist and we hope that people would feel far more relaxed in facing this inevitable end since it is really not the end of life, according to our belief."
The venerated monk continued:
"To Buddhism, however, death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of one’s past actions."
To take the above statements seriously, one needs a premise that reincarnation is an adamant belief. Then, what about my perspective on the idea of Reincarnation? Even though I tried so hard to deny a secret of my belief that my sister had been through metempsychosis of migrating into a butterfly flying over the funeral ceremony, who stayed on my 3rd sister's hand for a period of time in an unusual and surprising way. It was the only butterfly hanging around the whole auditorium, coming from nowhere during that season. That was an unexplainable mystic, though not without skepticism of coincidence.
As mentioned above, regarding reincarnation, for it to be explainable, requires to grasp a similar mindset as described in Kant's categorical imperative if one truly wants to sail over the enigmatic sea of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era.
As we know, Reincarnation tends to be considered mystical, but not purely out of nowhere. It derives from Latin, literally meaning, "entering the flesh again". It was recorded in the early Hebraic practice. גלגול הנשמות, (Plural: גלגולים Gilgulim), a concept in Kabbalistic esoteric mysticism. In the Hebrew term for reincarnation is gilgul, “rolling,” that is, the soul “rolls” through time from one body to a different body. Souls are seen to cycle through lives or incarnations, attached to different human bodies over time. The Greek equivalent, as mentioned above, is metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις), which means to derive from meta (change) and empsykhoun (to put a soul into), developed by Pythagoras. Another way to see it is through transmigration which implies migration from one life (body) to another, like, "my sister transmigrated into a butterfly." For several ancient civilizations believe that butterflies are symbols of the human soul. Some other cultures believe that a new human soul is born each time an adult butterfly emerging from its cocoon; others, butterflies are also considered to be the souls of those who have passed away.
(Note: The other less relevant, yet contentious and problematic notion is transworld identity—identity across possible worlds.
In the cybernetics, people are able to experience the intermingling, boundary blurry worlds in the life time via technologies, such as, augmented reality (AR), by adding digital elements to a live view; virtual reality (VR), implying a total immersion experience that shuts out the physical world, such as sing VR devices of HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard, users can be transported into a number of real-world and imagined environments. And the third is in a mixed reality (MR) experience, combining elements of both AR and VR, real-world and digital objects which interact. Mixed reality technology is just now starting to take off, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens, an early mixed reality devices.
The other common phenomenon is dream which could be perceived as identities without matters and properties. In day-dreams, night dreams, people change and experience multiple identities in phantoms.
Regarding an individual existing in more than one possible world, David Lewis proposed the counterpart theory with the claim that although the individual exists in one world only, it has counterparts in other worlds, where the counterpart relation does not have the logic of identity. Refer to https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-transworld/#WhaTraIde).
In short, reincarnation is a philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being starts a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death, and is a part of the Saṃsāra - the doctrine of the cycle of death and rebirth.
Why should I reject right away to the above mythologies when, at least, they provide me with messages of comfort during my long period of grief - till today, and the unknown future...?
Does this notion help people with less fear of Death and reducing the sorrow in missing the deceased loved one?
Nevertheless, if the notion of metempsychosis that I imagined (made-believed) happening to my youngest sister, could reduce part of my suffering (trapped by the impermanent affection to her), it is still leaving more skepticism to my "illusory" concern. My youngest sister is a pious and genuine Buddhist, a little Buddha since she was a child. That's the main reason why my emotional attachment is undetachable and the suffering of losing her is never ceased from my heart.
A believer of Buddhism usually sees rebirth that can occur in six realms of existence (六道輪迴),
Witnessing the butterfly phenomenon, my illusory emotions plunged into the state of a minor release of sorrow with strong skepticism. Then, why is a butterfly which, according to the wheel of the realm, falls into one of the negative realms? A mental state of greed, expecting more, better of transmigration occurred in my mind. Yes, it is greed, one of the 3 detrimental poisons that bring forth all kinds of Wuming (avidya; ignorance) that turns the wheel of the defiled mundane world rolling.
Both Mahayana, or Theravada (two major schools) assert that the three poisons (貪嗔痴: greed/attachment, aversion, and ignorance ) are the primary causes that keep sentient beings trapped in samsara (cycle of suffering and rebirth). The unenlightened, unawakened sentient beings endure the cycle of suffering, ill, decaying, and death in the 6 realms based on the intensity of the attached 3 poisons. In short, it can be said, to be enlightened, one is through eons of mental, moral/ethical, spiritual challenges and refinements, and not all the good dead reincarnate into a good realm instantly. Though my youngest sister has a very kind, helpful and generous heart, a clear and intelligent mind, and an as pure as Buddha's soul (but with a frail body structure due to my mother giving birth to her at the age of 45 when she was ill and the baby was born very weak. Poverty and ignorance played a big role in the origins of this suffering).
In Buddhism, the three poisons are said to be the root of all of the other "kleshas". Kleshas, in Sanskrit: क्लेश, romanized: kleśa; Pali: किलेस kilesa, are mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc. In English, they can be translated into words like afflictions, defilements, destructive emotions, disturbing emotions, negative emotions, mind poisons, etc.
I do know some emotional kleshas troubling my youngest sister even to her last breath at the hospital and I, witnessed the most painful moment, could not do anything to help her...
Maybe, this is the main reason that the metempsychosis into a butterfly, not yet transcending beyond the wheel of realms is the best way to condole every sorrowful mind around her - a beautiful butterfly waving her elegant wings, slowly and steadily flying beyond the 6 realms?
Whenever missing of my youngest sister goes uncontrollable, my other sisters will comfort me by saying, "Our little sister has risen into the Pure Land. She has become a Buddha." I, then will keep my eyes wide open, looking into heaven and see her smiling. I know, "You don't belong to the realms. "
Bertrand Russell proclaims that only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. To me, finding comfort to cure my deep despair, or being skeptical, the butterfly mythical happening offers me a beautiful made-believe.
Here are a couple of other thoughts from of Russell's writing helping me to face my own deep grief with ambivalence: "... Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little. and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence toward the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found an indubitable answer to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it..."
"The past alone is truly real: the present is but a painful, struggling birth into the immutable being of what is no longer. Only the [deceased] exist fully. The lives of the living are fragmentary, doubtful, and subject to change; but the lives of the [deceased] are complete, free from the sway of Time, the all but omnipotent lord of the world. Their failures and successes, their hopes and fears, their joys and pains, have become eternal—our efforts cannot now abate one jot of them. Sorrows long buried in the grave, tragedies of which only a fading memory remains, loves immortalized by Death's hallowing touch these have a power, a magic, an untroubled calm, to which no present can attain. ...On the banks of the river of Time, the sad procession of human generations is marching slowly to the grave; in the quiet country of the Past, the march is ended, the tired wanderers rest, and the weeping is hushed". Yes, my night-sobbing needs to be hushed...
Darn, the skepticism and the cold rationality!
So, a wretched mind and soul by sadness, attachment, and endless grief like mine, shouldn't I catch this last straw of my made-believed mythological-butterfly tale to keep my head above the sorrowful water?
Learning Buddhism together will be continued...
