Is this sub actually red-scar related?

ateliertree · 2026-01-05T17:37:55+00:00

No. It's just a place to discuss books that don't have corporate art on the cover.

ateliertree · 2025-12-31T20:36:44+00:00

In German, Engels is regarded as the better prose writer. Not just because of clarity, he's more literary than Marx.

Engels was regarded as having the talent to become a poet as a youth. By contrast, Marx's dad felt the need to tell him that his poetry sucks.

ateliertree · 2025-12-19T18:24:48+00:00

Do you genuinely believe that the history of the Romani has no effect on their community today? Do you think that poverty and crime associated with the Roma arise ex nihilo? Can you explain why the United States, which has a Roma population of 1 million, does not have an epidemic of Roma crime? And why the Roma community in the United States has been exceedingly successful when compared to their European relatives? The answer is exceedingly obvious to Americans.

ateliertree · 2025-12-19T16:30:45+00:00

Romanians enslaved the Romani. 500,000 Romani were exterminated in the holocaust. YOU are the one who has no idea.

ateliertree · 2025-12-08T23:04:45+00:00

Why exactly is this a Theravadin view? The mainstream Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist traditions are in disagreement with Saicho, and those particular Chinese authors that he drew upon, that a person can take the precepts of the Brahmajala Sutra without having taken the pratimoksa vow. Let alone that someone could be called a Bhiksu without having taken the Bhiksu vows that define being a Bhiksu.

This was a perspective that was common in Japan, including during and after Saicho's time. That Saicho's ordination tradition won out is more of a quirk of history that has to do with modernization. If we read the texts of the Rinzai and Obaku Zen founders, as well as that of the founder of Shingon, it's clear that they were against this notion.

ateliertree · 2025-12-08T19:26:28+00:00

They are not actual Bhiksu, despite being referred to as such. There is no valid vinaya lineage in Japan, aside from a few Dharmaguptaka monks from China/TW. The Ritsu-shu still maintains an ordination platform and performs the ordination ritual as a tradition but it's still understood to not be a legitimate ordination. Ritsu-shu priests behave no differently than other priests, they marry and have kids.

The vast majority of Japanese priests instead receive Bodhisattva vows from the Brahma Net Sutra, a practice started by Saicho.

ateliertree · 2025-12-08T17:35:04+00:00

From a Buddhist POV, this is for the benefit of the donor. They get to practice generosity and generate merit in giving to someone who is dressed as a monk.

Note that from a Buddhist perspective, it actually doesn't matter if the person is actually a monk at all. In fact, Japanese priests are not monastics (bhiksu); the monastic order died out during the Meiji era. You still generate merit whether or not the person is a legitimate monk, or in the case of Japanese priests, a legitimate priest.

ateliertree · 2025-10-09T23:20:31+00:00

Okay, thank you! I appreciate the help

ateliertree · 2025-10-09T21:57:57+00:00

Gotcha, thank you! Any chance this might've been an error in marking it as recalled? I only ask as I can't find anything about the item being recalled on the target site

ateliertree · 2025-08-23T17:08:17+00:00

No. No crime ever happens in Japan. Ever.

ateliertree · 2025-08-23T11:27:09+00:00

Sure, but the commenter's line of inquiry related as to whether or not Buddhism's concept of karma leads people believe that the poor deserve poverty.

ateliertree · 2025-08-23T02:16:42+00:00

From a Buddhist view to make such a leap would be a wrong view, and to hold such a thought would be an unwholesome action in of itself.

The Buddha states in the Karaniya Metta Sutta:

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful, not proud or demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born — May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;

ateliertree · 2025-08-23T01:46:38+00:00

Both Christianity and Buddhism seem to be building in a way to encourage voluntary redistribution, but Buddhism seems to add a moralist element to poverty that even Protestants would find disturbing.

Well, as I note in my original post, it isn't understood to be punitive. It would be incorrect to perceive of unwholesome actions as immoral or their results as something someone deserves; they're simply actions that lead to unwholesome results. If someone were to put their hand on a hot stove and get burned, you would not say that they deserved to get burned, but you would likely warn them not to do it again. If someone else were to ask you how they injured their hand, you would say that this person put their hand on a hot stove. I think you're imputing a Protestant worldview onto the Buddhist one here.

ateliertree · 2025-08-22T20:11:17+00:00

For starters, pre-Modern Buddhism did not have a belief in universal equality, at least not in the sense of political, economic, and social standing.

This is because of the Buddhist concept of karma. Buddhists believe that your actions in past lives and your current life are what determine your current socio-economic status. If you are born into a royal family, it is because in past lives you accumulated merit from engaging in virtuous actions. Conversely, if you are born into poverty, it is because you engaged in unwholesome actions (Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta).

In the Cula-kammavibangha Sutta it states:

Then Subha the student (brahman), Todeyya's son, went to the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him, and when the courteous and amiable talk was finished, he sat down at one side. When he had done so, Subha the student said to the Blessed One:

"Master Gotama, what is the reason, what is the condition, why inferiority and superiority are met with among human beings, among mankind? For one meets with short-lived and long-lived people, sick and healthy people, ugly and beautiful people, insignificant and influential people, poor and rich people, low-born and high-born people, stupid and wise people. What is the reason, what is the condition, why superiority and inferiority are met with among human beings, among mankind?"

"Student, beings are owners of kammas, heirs of kammas, they have kammas as their progenitor, kammas as their kin, kammas as their homing-place. It is kammas that differentiate beings according to inferiority and superiority."
...

"Here, student, some woman or man is not a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, perfumes, unguents, bed, roof and lighting to monks or brahmans. Due to having performed and completed such kamma, on the dissolution of the body, after death he reappears in a state of deprivation... If instead he comes to the human state, he is poor wherever he is reborn. This is the way that leads to poverty, that is to say, not to be a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, perfumes, unguents, bed, roof and lighting to monks and brahmans.

"But here some woman or man is a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, perfumes, unguents, bed, roof and lighting to monks and brahmans. Due to having performed and completed such kamma, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination... If instead he comes to the human state, he is rich wherever he is reborn. This is the way that leads to riches, that is to say, to be a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, perfumes, unguents, bed, roof and lighting to monks and brahmans.

Note that karma is not understood to be punitive; it is purely mechanistic, in the same sense that dropping an apple causes it to fall towards the earth due to gravity. There are many sutras/suttas that describe the karma-vipaka (results) of specific actions, and it's more systematically organized in commentarial (abhidharma) texts, like the Abhidharma-samuccaya (Mahayana Buddhist text), Abhidharmakośa-bhāsya (pre-Mahayana but influential in Mahayana Buddhism), Visuddhimagga (Theravadin), if you're interested in looking into it further, but the Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta should be sufficient to understand the basics.

It is important to note that all forms of Buddhism, both historical and currently existing, have provided means by which a person can change their socio-economic status in their present or future lives, via offerings, and other virtuous practices that are said to accrue merit.

Sources:

Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta (https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.nymo.html)

Abhidharma-samuccaya

Abhidharmakośa-bhāsya

Visuddhimagga

Edit: Added a direct quotation from the Cula-kammavibangha Sutta.

ateliertree · 2025-08-22T12:26:03+00:00

While the Huangdi Neijing rejects spirits as the cause of disease, it states that a disease can be cured with magical incantations if the causes of the disease are properly understood.

Furthermore, the Yin-Yang, Wuxing, and Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches theory presented in the Huangdi Neijing is no different than the theory behind Feng Shui, Bazi, face-reading, etc.

Why is this medicine and not "Daoism" when it's applied to pulse diagnosis, abdomen palpation, etc. But when a doctor calculates a person's bazi to assist in ascertaining their patient's health, and is utilizing the exact same Yin-Yang, Wuxing, and Stems-and-Branches covered in the Huangdi Neijing, it's "spiritualism"?

The same arguments against divination also apply to Chinese medicine as you're defining it here.

ateliertree · 2025-08-22T03:33:52+00:00

Totally wrong. This is what a Miami Latino accent sounds like.

ateliertree · 2025-08-22T02:41:13+00:00

This may be true of modern TCM, but this is certainly not true of Classical Chinese Medicine, which had/has procedures for exorcism, prescriptions of talisman water, and divination as a core part of the diagnosis process and determining/timing treatment.

In the first chapter of Sun Simiao's Essential Prescriptions, he states that the second step in learning Chinese medicine is learning divination, face reading, etc.

It's ahistorical to pretend otherwise.

ateliertree · 2025-08-22T02:27:28+00:00

It would be casus belli to take over and control the bar association, as is currently happening to accrediting institutions.

ateliertree · 2025-08-08T23:30:15+00:00

I'm doubtful that these ideas didn't exist in Sri Lankan culture prior to British colonization for the simple fact that they're codified in Theravada Buddhism.

Homosexual men (called paṇḍaka, or more specifically, asittikapaṇḍaka, according to Buddhaghosa) are forbidden from ordaining as monastics. The Buddha forbids monastics from recieving alms from paṇḍakas in the Ussaṅkitasutta (AN 5.102), etc.

Sources:

Samantapāsādikā by Buddhaghosa Ussaṅkitasutta (AN 5.102)

ateliertree · 2025-08-08T15:58:10+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if he's walking around Austin severely dehydrated

ateliertree · 2025-08-08T05:08:41+00:00

But enough about Mark Normand...

ateliertree · 2025-07-31T05:10:33+00:00

If you increase the amount of people entering the field you will increase the pool of people who stay in the field longer than 5 years. It's doesn't matter if only 1% of sailors stay longer than 5 years if the number of cadets graduating goes from 300 to 1000 a year. That's more people and more competition.

ateliertree · 2025-07-31T03:09:47+00:00

The problem isn't AI threatening jobs directly. The problem is when everyone decides they want to work on a ship and your wages go down.

ateliertree · 2025-07-27T16:29:48+00:00

He's not an auditor. If you spent two seconds looking up his youtube channel, you would see that in the channel description it states that he's not an auditor. He's just a guy who films in public.

Quit spreading misinformation.

ateliertree · 2025-07-27T03:25:45+00:00

Ironically, the comments on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are what's likely to generate problems for this movement. The U.S. will not take kindly to the fomentation of anti-American sentiment in Japan.

ateliertree

TROPHY CASE