What are you reading now? - Page 32

The Don · 02-11-2012, 11:18 AM

Couldn't quite get into Consent, so I've put that on hold.

Reading 2 books now;

Hitchikers Guide, by Adams. Felt it was time. I've heard lots of good stuff about it.

The other book is one of the most interresting I've read in a while. A book about literary criticism. My Danish teacher lend it to me after I expressed interrest in the subject.

It gives introductions to the different methods. Just got done with the Biographical Method, and now we're on to New Criticism. Can't wait for Deconstruction and Post Colonial! WOOO!

Galt · 02-11-2012, 11:19 AM

Pulled it off the shelf in my father's study when I was ten or eleven, but didn't finish them all til I was almost twenty. Your seemingly endless quest to make sense of it all struck me as being well suited to the exercise.

George Gurdjieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All and Everything - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting man and interesting stories. I believe you may enjoy learning of both.

**SageTree** · 02-11-2012, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galt

Pulled it off the shelf in my father's study when I was ten or eleven, but didn't finish them all til I was almost twenty. Your seemingly endless quest to make sense of it all struck me as being well suited to the exercise.

George Gurdjieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All and Everything - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting man and interesting stories. I believe you may enjoy learning of both.

Thanks Galt, those are the pages I read as well, looks like good stuff.

I don't know if I'd say I'm trying to make sense of it all.... but would tone it down a notch and just saying I try to practice meaning making in a light-hearted way.

Here is a story from Tibetan Buddhism about going with the flow and still living an intentional life:

First a little back ground, make of it what you will, then the story...

Quote:

A prayer wheel, or mani wheel, is a wheel filled with innumerable mantras and inscriptions wrapped clockwise around a central axis. Some prayer wheels are tiny, like tops; others are huge, filling an entire room, and one turns the wheel by holding its handles and walking clockwise around it. Others are attached to running streams or waterfalls so that they can harness the natural energy and spread benedictions throughout the land. The faithful believe that spinning these prayer wheels or hanging prayer flags in the wind actualizes the inscribed prayers.

The Tibetan province of Kham is akin to America’s Wild West. The people of Kham are great equestrians, and like all who ride regularly, they love their horses. Until about a century ago, Kham was carved into dozens of smaller kingdoms, each of which had its own army, raised by forcible conscription.

Quote:

There was once an old man in far eastern Kham known as the Mani Man because day and night he could always be found devotedly spinning his small homemade prayer wheel. The wheel was filled with the mantra of Great Compassion, Om Mani Padme Hung.

The Mani Man lived with his son and their one fine horse. The son was the joy of the man’s life; the boy’s pride and joy was the horse.

The man’s wife, after a long life of virtue and service, had long since departed for a more fortunate future. Father and son lived, free from excessive wants or needs, in one of several rough stone houses near a river on the edge of the flat plains.

One day their steed disappeared. The neighbors bewailed the loss of the old man’s sole material asset, but the stoic old man just kept turning his prayer wheel, reciting “Om Mani Padme Hung,” Tibet’s national mantra.

To whoever inquired or expressed condolences, he simply said, “Give thanks for everything. Who can say what is good or bad? We’ll see…”

After several days the splendid creature returned, followed by a pair of wild mustangs. These the old man and his son swiftly trained. Then everyone sang songs of celebration and congratulated the old man on his unexpected good fortune.

The man simply smiled over his prayer wheel and said, “I am grateful…but who knows? We shall see.”

Then, while racing one of the mustangs, the boy fell and shattered his leg. Some neighbors carried him home, cursing the wild horse and bemoaning the boy’s fate.

But the old man, sitting at his beloved son’s bedside just kept turning his prayer wheel around and around while softly muttering the gentle mantra of Great Compassion.

He neither complained nor answered their protestations to fate, but simply nodded his head affably, reiterating what he had said before.

“The Buddha is beneficent; I am grateful for my son’s life. We shall see.”

The next week military officers appeared, seeking young conscripts for an ongoing border war.
All the local boys were immediately taken away, except for the bedridden son of the Mani Man.

Then the neighbors congratulated the old man on his great good fortune, attributing such luck to the good karma accumulated by the old man’s incessantly spinning prayer wheel and the constant mantras on his cracked lips. He smiled and said nothing.

One day when the boy and his father were watching their fine horses graze on the prairie grass, the taciturn old man suddenly began to sing:

“Life just goes around and around,
up and down like a waterwheel;
Our lives are like its buckets,
being emptied and refilled
Again and again.

Like the potter’s clay,
our physical existences
Are fashioned into one form after another:
The shapes are broken
and reformed again and again,
The low wall will be high,
and the high fall down;
the dark will grow light, and the rich lose all.

If you, my son, were an extraordinary child,
Off to a monastery
as an incarnation they would carry you.
If you were too bright, my son,
Shackled to other people’s disputes
at an official’s desk you would be.

One horse is one horse’s worth of trouble.
Wealth is good, but too soon loses its savor,
And can be a burden, a source of quarrel, in the end.

No one knows what karma awaits us,
But what we sow now will be
reaped in lives to come; that is certain.
So be kind to one and all
And don’t be biased,
Based upon illusions regarding gain and loss.
Have neither hope nor fear, expectation nor anxiety;
Give thanks for everything, whatever your lot may be.
Accept everything; accept everyone;
and follow Nature's infallible Law.

Be simple and carefree,
remaining naturally at ease and in peace.

You can shoot arrows at the sky if you like, My son,
but they’ll inevitably fall back to earth.

As he sang, the prayer flags fluttered overhead, and the ancient mani wheel, filled with hundreds of thousands of handwritten mantras, just kept turning.

Then the old man was silent.

Galt · 02-11-2012, 01:05 PM

That was quite beautiful - thanks.

Qui-Bong Jinn · 02-11-2012, 01:33 PM

I'm still stuck on a Story of Ice and Fire, I feel I'm going to be reading this series for a while, I'm about 500 pages into a Storm of Swords, its quite good, though I fear for Arya for some reason. I need to start setting more time aside for these excellent books.

Qui-Bong Jinn · 03-16-2012, 04:55 PM

So I just started a Feast of Crows or whatever, about 300 pages into and all I can say is what I boring piece of shit this is, I don`t give two shits about any of the characters in it so far except for Arya, I want killing and stuff not connecting stories and back plots.

Also, a Storm of Swords was by far the best book so far, I threw that book down out of anger a few times.

The Rev · 03-16-2012, 05:52 PM

"Things Pertaining To Bodhi : The Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment"
by Chan Master Sheng Yen

Buddhists LOVE making lists!

The Rev

blondiee21 · 04-16-2012, 07:39 PM

Currently reading Propaganda by Edward Bernays and The Twentieth Century: A People's History by Howard Zinn.

**SageTree** · 04-16-2012, 07:44 PM

Leafing through the essay section in the back of my Oxford Annotated Bible,
As well as several essays on the theology of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Roach · 04-16-2012, 08:23 PM

"200 Original Shop Aids & Jigs for Woodworkers"

a non-fiction.

AnimalLover420 · 04-16-2012, 09:01 PM

This...

...and it is creeping me. the phuck. out.

Oh and this too, which balances it out a bit. Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan

420smokeman · 04-20-2012, 09:21 AM

im reading "the watchmen" graphic novel By Allan Moor, Its Very good Imo.. i love the graphic novels Allan Moor writes...

The Rev · 04-20-2012, 10:52 AM

The Rev

**SageTree** · 04-24-2012, 10:40 AM

'Dreams of my Father' Barack Obama
'Ishmael' Daniel Quinn

Actually hope to talk a little about each other these in Higher Thoughts threads at some point.

SmokeaJoint · 04-24-2012, 10:47 AM

I finished Michael Crichton's Micro last night. It's a well researched ficton story about nanotech. Very well written and co-authored by Richard Preston, another author I really like.

Today, I'm reading R.A. Salvatore's Neverwinter. I think its book 2 of 5(?), either way a damn good read from a fantasy author I've been following since I was in 7th grade.

carpenterboy · 04-29-2012, 10:33 AM

James Joyce, Ulysses (again). Taking a class in it at the University, even though I am an old phart compared to the folks at school.

eldizle · 04-29-2012, 08:38 PM

Finished up to the current wheel of time, the last volume in A Memory of Light is apparently coming out january 29th. Brandon Sanderson released a couple paragraphs of the prologue a couple days ago. Not enough to say anything about the book really, but definitely builds tension.

Starting a book I picked up in Tampa: Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It feels a little dated and I sometimes find myself disagreeing with his conclusions, but it's something to read and makes me think about the way I see the world, so it can't be all bad.

Not far enough in to say whether i'm really fond of it yet.

Rereading the Game of Thrones series, and totally ruining the show for myself. Not really, but stifling the inner nitpicking proves annoying, even when I can marvel at how they gloss over and blend details to compress an 800 some odd page book into maybe a dozen hours of footage. They do a pretty good job when I look at it in that light.

Having a hard time finishing Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. I dig fantasy, but this last one has really had me dragging. Lots of distractions at the moment, and the story just doesn't grab me like it used to.

Something I like to keep around for bathroom reading/frustration/inspiration is a copy of Emotional Intelligence 2.0. It's not so much a self help book as a self analyzation book. Teaching yourself to be aware. We're ignorant of so many things, and oftentimes the subject of this ignorance can be our interactions with others. I used to get frustrated when I met dicks in my job or on the street. Now I learn from these folks. whether a lesson on the kind of human I want to avoid being, to lessons on perhaps how I treated someone in the past, and need to be mindful to avoid repeating the same.

It's a good book, not preachy. Helps introverts like myself understand the sometimes confusing world of emotions and interactions.

(and practice makes better, of course!)

Terry · 04-29-2012, 08:43 PM

[I]Kraken[I] by China Mieville.

Weird Lovecraftian book about a cult that worships a giant squid that may just bring about the end of the world. Good stuff.

toastyroach · 05-01-2012, 06:57 AM

Just starting "a new earth" by YahooKas favorite author, Eckhart Tolle!

**SageTree** · 05-01-2012, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eldizle

Starting a book I picked up in Tampa: Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It feels a little dated and I sometimes find myself disagreeing with his conclusions, but it's something to read and makes me think about the way I see the world, so it can't be all bad.

It's one of those books for better or worse everyone should read at least once.
A journey no doubt, but lots of good stuff in there too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by toastyroach

Just starting "a new earth" by YahooKas favorite author, Eckhart Tolle!

Favourite author

Don't drink too much all at once

02-11-2012, 11:18 AM	#621 (permalink)
The Don You follow? Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 11,151 Thanks: 544 Thanked 781 Times in 426 Posts	Couldn't quite get into Consent, so I've put that on hold. Reading 2 books now; Hitchikers Guide, by Adams. Felt it was time. I've heard lots of good stuff about it. The other book is one of the most interresting I've read in a while. A book about literary criticism. My Danish teacher lend it to me after I expressed interrest in the subject. It gives introductions to the different methods. Just got done with the Biographical Method, and now we're on to New Criticism. Can't wait for Deconstruction and Post Colonial! WOOO! __________________ I am genuienly sad about my thanks:post ratio

02-11-2012, 11:19 AM	#622 (permalink)
Galt Si fecisti nega! Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: In the Great State of Denial Posts: 567 Blog Entries: 2 Thanks: 309 Thanked 318 Times in 209 Posts	Pulled it off the shelf in my father's study when I was ten or eleven, but didn't finish them all til I was almost twenty. Your seemingly endless quest to make sense of it all struck me as being well suited to the exercise. George Gurdjieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia All and Everything - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Interesting man and interesting stories. I believe you may enjoy learning of both. __________________ "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) _________________ "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

02-11-2012, 01:05 PM	#624 (permalink)
Galt Si fecisti nega! Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: In the Great State of Denial Posts: 567 Blog Entries: 2 Thanks: 309 Thanked 318 Times in 209 Posts	That was quite beautiful - thanks. __________________ "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) _________________ "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

03-16-2012, 05:52 PM	#627 (permalink)
The Rev Clear Light Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: In my head, somewhere. Posts: 17,867 Thanks: 5,019 Thanked 5,421 Times in 2,865 Posts	"Things Pertaining To Bodhi : The Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment" by Chan Master Sheng Yen Buddhists LOVE making lists! The Rev __________________ Budforce - My Friend August 29, 1973- May 25, 2012

04-16-2012, 07:44 PM	#629 (permalink)
SageTree ~Kalyāṇa-mitrā~ Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: In Love Posts: 23,414 Blog Entries: 26 Thanks: 13,070 Thanked 6,769 Times in 4,664 Posts	Leafing through the essay section in the back of my Oxford Annotated Bible, As well as several essays on the theology of the Coptic Orthodox Church. __________________ "What's oppressive is letting your life be confined by old definitions of what everything is." -Zen Meister my_scatterheart YaHooka is.... Cannabis lovers from around the world pulling up a comfy chair, picking up a vaporizer, a bong, a brownie, a pipe, or a joint, getting high, stoned, buzzed or healthy. Uniting our minds in conversation...While Portraying a Positive Image of marijuana and marijuana users to the world. Treat your fellow YaHookans with kindness,respect and tolerance.

02-11-2012, 01:33 PM	#625 (permalink)
Qui-Bong Jinn Jedi High Council Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Kingston, Ontario Posts: 2,135 Thanks: 911 Thanked 501 Times in 372 Posts	I'm still stuck on a Story of Ice and Fire, I feel I'm going to be reading this series for a while, I'm about 500 pages into a Storm of Swords, its quite good, though I fear for Arya for some reason. I need to start setting more time aside for these excellent books.

03-16-2012, 04:55 PM	#626 (permalink)
Qui-Bong Jinn Jedi High Council Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Kingston, Ontario Posts: 2,135 Thanks: 911 Thanked 501 Times in 372 Posts	So I just started a Feast of Crows or whatever, about 300 pages into and all I can say is what I boring piece of shit this is, I don`t give two shits about any of the characters in it so far except for Arya, I want killing and stuff not connecting stories and back plots. Also, a Storm of Swords was by far the best book so far, I threw that book down out of anger a few times.

04-16-2012, 07:39 PM	#628 (permalink)
blondiee21 Old School Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 10 Thanks: 3 Thanked 10 Times in 7 Posts	Currently reading Propaganda by Edward Bernays and The Twentieth Century: A People's History by Howard Zinn.

04-16-2012, 08:23 PM	#630 (permalink)
Roach Victoria Aut Mors Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7,184 Thanks: 2,372 Thanked 1,987 Times in 1,509 Posts	"200 Original Shop Aids & Jigs for Woodworkers" a non-fiction. __________________ לזיין את הקופים

04-16-2012, 09:01 PM	#631 (permalink)
AnimalLover420 Love Junkie Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: US Posts: 2,442 Thanks: 716 Thanked 1,067 Times in 448 Posts	This... ...and it is creeping me. the phuck. out. Oh and this too, which balances it out a bit. Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan __________________ ****************************************

04-20-2012, 09:21 AM	#632 (permalink)
420smokeman CannabisConnoisseur Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: BC Posts: 1,575 Thanks: 202 Thanked 149 Times in 100 Posts	im reading "the watchmen" graphic novel By Allan Moor, Its Very good Imo.. i love the graphic novels Allan Moor writes... __________________ cause there aint nothing else to do and any where i go i know im you and i keep coming back forward through to myself

04-20-2012, 10:52 AM	#633 (permalink)
The Rev Clear Light Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: In my head, somewhere. Posts: 17,867 Thanks: 5,019 Thanked 5,421 Times in 2,865 Posts	The Rev __________________ Budforce - My Friend August 29, 1973- May 25, 2012

04-24-2012, 10:40 AM	#634 (permalink)
SageTree ~Kalyāṇa-mitrā~ Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: In Love Posts: 23,414 Blog Entries: 26 Thanks: 13,070 Thanked 6,769 Times in 4,664 Posts	'Dreams of my Father' Barack Obama 'Ishmael' Daniel Quinn Actually hope to talk a little about each other these in Higher Thoughts threads at some point. __________________ "What's oppressive is letting your life be confined by old definitions of what everything is." -Zen Meister my_scatterheart YaHooka is.... Cannabis lovers from around the world pulling up a comfy chair, picking up a vaporizer, a bong, a brownie, a pipe, or a joint, getting high, stoned, buzzed or healthy. Uniting our minds in conversation...While Portraying a Positive Image of marijuana and marijuana users to the world. Treat your fellow YaHookans with kindness,respect and tolerance.

04-29-2012, 10:33 AM	#636 (permalink)
carpenterboy YaHookan Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Sea of Galilee, Planet Earth Posts: 8 Thanks: 2 Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts	James Joyce, Ulysses (again). Taking a class in it at the University, even though I am an old phart compared to the folks at school.

04-29-2012, 08:38 PM	#637 (permalink)
eldizle Love. Share it. Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Inside a Microgram Scale Posts: 5,207 Thanks: 978 Thanked 591 Times in 423 Posts	Finished up to the current wheel of time, the last volume in A Memory of Light is apparently coming out january 29th. Brandon Sanderson released a couple paragraphs of the prologue a couple days ago. Not enough to say anything about the book really, but definitely builds tension. Starting a book I picked up in Tampa: Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It feels a little dated and I sometimes find myself disagreeing with his conclusions, but it's something to read and makes me think about the way I see the world, so it can't be all bad. Not far enough in to say whether i'm really fond of it yet. Rereading the Game of Thrones series, and totally ruining the show for myself. Not really, but stifling the inner nitpicking proves annoying, even when I can marvel at how they gloss over and blend details to compress an 800 some odd page book into maybe a dozen hours of footage. They do a pretty good job when I look at it in that light. Having a hard time finishing Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. I dig fantasy, but this last one has really had me dragging. Lots of distractions at the moment, and the story just doesn't grab me like it used to. Something I like to keep around for bathroom reading/frustration/inspiration is a copy of Emotional Intelligence 2.0. It's not so much a self help book as a self analyzation book. Teaching yourself to be aware. We're ignorant of so many things, and oftentimes the subject of this ignorance can be our interactions with others. I used to get frustrated when I met dicks in my job or on the street. Now I learn from these folks. whether a lesson on the kind of human I want to avoid being, to lessons on perhaps how I treated someone in the past, and need to be mindful to avoid repeating the same. It's a good book, not preachy. Helps introverts like myself understand the sometimes confusing world of emotions and interactions. (and practice makes better, of course!)

04-29-2012, 08:43 PM	#638 (permalink)
Terry Hello Darkness Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Moscow, Idaho Posts: 8,538 Thanks: 2,130 Thanked 2,392 Times in 1,189 Posts	[I]Kraken[I] by China Mieville. Weird Lovecraftian book about a cult that worships a giant squid that may just bring about the end of the world. Good stuff. __________________ I don't know but I've been told, If you never die you'll never grow old

05-01-2012, 06:57 AM	#639 (permalink)
toastyroach clan stark Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: the unmanifested Posts: 3,791 Thanks: 289 Thanked 405 Times in 238 Posts	Just starting "a new earth" by YahooKas favorite author, Eckhart Tolle! __________________ "I'm gonna pray for deadhead as well even though I'm not religious, just super committed to trolling." Terry

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