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snow feb 07

snow feb 07
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view from balcony during snow days

net tv

want more movies and cartoons? check those out:

peekvid
showstash

Kunsteoff

Kunsteoff
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Kunsteoff med D Jam

Basefree

Basefree
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Video of Basefree by the BOC.

Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives

CHENJIAYUAN, China — For many Chinese, an ancestor is someone to honor, but also someone whose needs must be maintained. Families burn offerings of fake money or paper models of luxury cars in case an ancestor might need pocket change or a stylish ride in the netherworld.

But here in the parched canyons along the Yellow River known as the Loess Plateau, some parents with dead bachelor sons will go a step further. To ensure a son’s contentment in the afterlife, some grieving parents will search for a dead woman to be his bride and, once a corpse is obtained, bury the pair together as a married couple.

The rural folk custom, startling to Western sensibilities, is known as minghun, or afterlife marriage. Scholars who have studied it say it is rooted in the Chinese form of ancestor worship, which holds that people continue to exist after death and that the living are obligated to tend to their wants — or risk the consequences. Traditional Chinese beliefs also hold that an unmarried life is incomplete, which is why some parents worry that an unmarried dead son may be an unhappy one.

In some villages, a son is eligible for such a spouse if he is 12 or older when he dies. None of the people interviewed considered the custom shameful or overly macabre. Instead, it was described as a parental duty to a lost child that reflected Confucian values about loyalty to family.

“Parents have a sense of responsibility for their son,” said one woman, Li Yinlan. She said she had attended ceremonies where the coffins were placed side by side and musicians played a dirge. “They have this custom everywhere,” she said of her region.

The Communist Party has tried, with mixed success, to stamp out beliefs it considers to be superstition. But the continued practice of the ancient custom in the Loess Plateau is a testament to the region’s extreme isolation. In other parts of rural China, it is difficult to know how often, if at all, the custom is followed.

for full article go here.

Bodhidharma: the blue eyed barberian

For today, here is a bit of the story of the Blue Eyed Barbarian, the son of a Indian King, who chose monkhood over governing a state.

Travelling across mountains, through winds and skies, he came from India to China to share a sutra which was until then unknown by the then established buddhists schools, Bodhidharma belongs to the Buddhist legend. Some writings give him up to 150 years, and even see him walking around India’s counry side after his death, a shoe in his hand.

For 7 years he sat in front of a wall, in a cave, practicing the wall meditation, that is sitting in zazen with no words or no outside contacts. On the 7th year, he fell alseep, and angry at himself he pulled out his eyelid and threw it on the floor, creating the tea leaf to keep monks awake.
The 28th patriarch of buddhism, a direct line from the Buddha himself, the 1st Zen/Chan patriarch, a form of Mahayana buddhism, some call him the fundator of Kun Fu, the martial art practiced in Shaolin temples.

Here is a fine exemple of buddhist humor, in the legendary meeting between Bodhidharma and the ruler of the time, Emperor Wu, an emperor who happened to be a devoted buddhist of the Liang Dynasty (around 520 on the gregorian calendar).

The emperor asks Bodhidharma:
"What is the highest meaning of noble truth?"
"There is no noble truth." answers Bodhidharma.
The emperor then asked Bodhidharma:
"How much karmic merit have I earned by ordaining Buddhist monks, building monasteries, having sutras copied, and commissioning Buddha images?"
"None."
The emperor out of patience with the Blue Eyed Barbarian then asked Bodhidharma:
"Who is standing before me?"
"I don't know."

Links:
Bodhidharma in wiki
Painting by Qiao Seng
Article in french

Point of Departure

Un peu d'anarchie avec Point of Departure.
Textes en anglais.

Salut l'abbé.

Article en francais ici.

A good bye and good trip to Henri Grouès, also called the Abbé Pierre.
Voted for many years as the French favorite man; a wwII resistant, a rebel Capucin priest who dared saying yes to condoms, a direct disorder to the Pope's orders; creator of Emmaus, an international organization helping the needy; an inspiration leaves this world for his next trip.
Famous for his cry out to help in the cold winter of 1954, when a woman died freezing in the snow after getting evicted from her room. From this event he fought to pass a law that made it illegal to evict someone during too cold weathers.
L'abbé Pierre died at 94, living this world a better place for all those he helped, and for those that will be helped by his services which will outlast him by many thanks and prayers.

Bon voyage l'abbé...

Quotes from the abbé:

"Hell is the others" wrote Sartres. I am intimately convinced that it is the opposite. Hell is oneself cut from the others. "

"The responsability of each of us implies 2 things: to want to know and to dare saying it"

"We can not, under the pretext that it is impossible to do everything in one day, do nothing at all"

"L'Abbé Pierre (born Henri Antoine Grouès in Lyon) (August 5, 1912 - January 22, 2007), France. Abbé (which means father and is also found in abbot) is a courtesy title given to a Catholic priests...."
Read the rest of his bio here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abb%C3%A9_Pierre

Picture by Henri Cartier Bresson:
http://www.henricartierbresson.org/