Fasting once a week feels easier than fasting once a month. Why is that?
Teacher of EAP & business English, Buddhist (Gelugpa), amateur translator (Tibetan>English), lover of nature, believer in social equity. Preference for music that goes bleep/grrr/toot. (he/him) 🏳️🌈🇪🇺🇬🇧🇹🇼🇰🇷🇮🇳🇳🇵🇴🇲
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Fasting once a week feels easier than fasting once a month. Why is that?
Clever. It references, without actually using, the much more cutting US version, "You dumpster full of Trumpsters"
Funny that it was 3 times. Agion, agion, agion...
Man resplendent, more like. Just keep being you, the right people will find you.
I'd watch the hell out of The Princess Bride of Frankenstein.
Let's hope this was at least intended for the 'beyond' section.
Of course, mādana (alcohol/intoxicant as a noun, or intoxicating/exhilarating/maddening as an adejctive) is in the same family too. Vajrayāna Buddhists will be familiar with mādana. Apparently, it's the reason Maitrīpāda got expelled from his monastery!
TIL an interesting Sanskrit word family: pramāda = negligence (a mental factor) apramāda = conscientiousness (another mental factor) pramādavat = negligent/intoxicated/insane Fascinating to see the linguistic link between intoxication and negligence, the very reason Buddhists avoid alcohol.
So distressing, not even the image of a guy grinning weirdly at a fish can distract from it.
My list of five aggregates now reads: form, feeling, identification, formations & consciousness. (I'm not entirely comfortable with 'formations', but it's better than 'compositional factors'. This is for another rabbit hole on another day, I suspect.)
I used to favour 'discernment', but I now see that's a much better fit for the Advaita term viveka, which is about discerning an absolute truth behind illusory appearance. Buddhists, of course, use prajñā for that, usually translated as wisdom. Saṁjñā, however, is just identifying what a thing is.
Today's rabbit hole has led me to a new understanding of the mental factor (and aggregate) of saṁjñā, often translated as perception (too vague) or discrimination (too negative in modern usage). I'm now leaning towards 'identification', which fits well with both definition & etymology.
You've got about 3–5 seconds.
Morning cuppa contemplation medium.com/@katwijkron/...
For people who do Yoga and also bake, here's a useful metaphor for you: in the context of the five internal energy 'winds', prāṇa is basically the raising agent of living beings.
It's kicking of in Kathmandu! BlueSky doesn't appear to be on the block list. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
That looks more like a peahen than a phoenix, though. What's Latin for 'love triangle'?
Today's rabbit hole led me to a maxim for my translation work: Respectful of tradition yet responsive to present needs. It could have much more broader application, too, as a principle for how to engage authentically with inherited wisdom while staying grounded in the reality of contemporary life.
The wording 'worship services' suggests a bias of viewing all religions through the lens of Christianity.
There are few things more disconcerting than Joanna Lumley Devi approximating an American accent.
It's true of other aspects of culture, too. I used to have a Pakistani neighbour who was shocked by how conservative British Pakistanis seemed compared with the average person in Islamabad. Expats tend to cling onto traditions, which makes them more conservative.
I thought that might be anachronistic, but couldn't resist
Bread and Ribena—they were Methodists
There is indeed! I wonder if those missionaries had to listen to endless repetitions of kimchi's health-giving qualities, too.
맛있게 드세요!
They'd need a fleet of them. 😉
How long until the self-driving bins are in charge of Silicon Valley?
It might sound somewhat cynical, but I rather like how it turns our normal perspective on its head to view life as simply what happens prior to death and our next cycle of churn in samsāra.
Today's rabbit hole: the 4 states of being in Buddhism, usually listed as birth, life, death & intermediate state. The term for life actually means 'prior time' and it took me ages to find a way to capture this in English, but I think I've settled on 'pending state'.
Today's rabbit hole was about 'non-lexical vocables'. There's real beauty in the ugliness of that term.
Frown power!
It does, but ought to be listed separately as a cultural reference (even if it's about playing the guitar rather than singing, originally)
Does rule 2 preclude Queen songs?
How did you miss rule 6? No Stairway to Heaven (Denied!). I guess it's covered by rules 1 & 5, but it seems worthy of a rule of its own.
Based on your description, God Module is also a great exemplar of CIRCUS/CLUB
"I love furious shouting over goofy bleep bloops" is the most relatable thing I'm likely to read all day. Perfect description of half of my musical taste. (The other half is angelic vocals over grrrrr.)
Milk and honey and cardamom make robusta coffee considerably more palatable.
Can't imagine doing any further study in my current field (TESOL) simply because of Harvard referencing. I really miss footnotes and would much rather be studying a subject that uses them. The difference is particularly pronounced with ebooks!
When I was a kid, these seeds reminded me of Dracula's armour in the Gary Oldman film.
This is the BEST explanation of this. 100/10 no notes
The ubiquitous water bottle people seem to love lugging around with them all day is a modern-day kamaṇḍalu.
Can we vaccinate against brainwashing? Pleasure doing this campaign on #inoculation against misinfo for the WHO! Watch me apply manipulation tactics to myself! Incoherence: Sander is totally incompetent but also responsible for a complex global plot to control the information space, remarkable!
It's true. They say /dʊk/ in the East Midlands and /daks/ in Estuary English.
It's Clippy all over again
Or non binary: They Who Must Not Be Named
Research seems to show that we can comfortably learn a 2nd language at ~500 words per year (or ~10 words per week). At that rate, it takes 5–6 years to know enough to be able to have a reasonable conversation.
Linguists! Educators! For the love of all that is good in this world, please stop referring to "testees"; they are "test takers". (This will also boost your word count.)
#CropDiversity - crucial for #FoodSecurity. We have to get away from industrial agriculture. "Black peas are more ecologically resilient and have higher protein levels, as compared to the introduced cash crop green peas." phys.org/news/2025-08...
What incredibly brave people, real heroes, and so genteel with it! www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
At my age, this is important news. Welcome, too, considering these are all things I enjoy and have frequently. theconversation.com/how-tea-choc...
Why do people keep misusing 'Luddite' in this way? The Luddites weren't anti-technology, they were anti-exploitation, as we all should be.
Never thought a tree would throw my mind back to the Fast Show, but here we are.
This is exactly what Seoul needs, but would undoubtedly cause societal collapse there too. I have no sympathy for the majority of people who choose to drive personal vehicles in a city with such public transport, though.
You know you've lived outside the Anglophone world too long when that looks like a play on 'foreign' not a portmanteau of 'pour' & 'origin'
The air quality is great today, but it's moving so fast it's tricky to inhale it.
Especially considering rhubarb's broad lexical range wordhistories.net/2022/01/28/r...
Similar one for the UK: Most of Britain's rhubarb is grown in Yorkshire's 'rhubarb triangle' between Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford.
Some of the best bishops were also the most reluctant ones. Ambrose and Cuthbert immediately spring to mind.
I mean, if it works for labradors...
Got to love how parochial the news in Taiwan can be sometimes. Such a relief from all the international doom.
Says more about media bias than anything, really. Can't have a healthy democracy when the narrative is in the hands of a small handful of obnoxiously wealthy expats.
Man of Buns of Steel
Such a goth. But even goths need a little nourishment.
Technically a simile. Milk by Agnes is pure metaphor, albeit a specific kind, in the tradition of Kelis.
Hey now
This one definitely didn't intimidate you
Never mind tariffs, the civilised world should be imposing sanctions on the US.
Seriously rattled by a car driver negligently driving my bicycle off the road just now. There are so few legitimate reasons to own a car these days, it just baffles me why so many people still insist on bombing around in these murder weapons.
Looking at ways to render 'samaya' in English. As a regular word, 'agreement' seems right. In the Vajrayāna Buddhist context, it sometimes gets translated as 'bond', but that's such an obvious cognate of 'bandha' it feels off. I'm settling on 'commitment', which encapsulates both senses.
Is that for psychopaths or Carthaginians?
This sounds divine! Do this!
Sounds like you need a refined version of a cheese & pineapple hedgehog
Can't find a Tom Lehrer one either, but my brain won't let me get past him rhyming 'Harvard' with 'discovered'. What an absolute (loveable) rogue!
Hah! Never ever noticed that. I guess the brain goes straight to meaning when processing a 1st language, so different senses of the same word must get processed as separate words.
The same is true for Western converts to Eastern religions (& vice versa); they tend to mangle everything by assuming it'll fit into the same shapes and patterns.
Thank you so much for sharing this, it's brought a little unexpected joy to my day. They're right about the bucket hats, though.
In healthy societies, this is illegal.
Let's be realistic, humanities graduates are not better off, they're less badly off.
Perhaps you're right. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with humanities degrees, and the kinds of articles you shared have a vital function in pushing back against the strong political inclination to defund everything except STEM, but... (tbc)
Fascinating stuff, and some of it very encouraging. None of it explains why a tiny and ever-shrinking proportion of my own circle of friends (admittedly, that's anecdata, but it does appear to be a common pattern) manage to earn enough to thrive on (which should be the goal in 'rich' countries)
Is that what they mean by "raw dogging"?
Proof that ducks are OG lotus eaters
Avatar of Garuda?
They do 'Man bites dog' differently in India
Sure, lots of people keep saying this, but I never see any concrete evidence. In reality, these things aren't actually valued, certainly not to the point of influencing compensation, they just haven't been automated yet.
I think you know I mean examples of jobs where those qualities are valued and equate to better remuneration.
Can you give some examples?
Sounds fascinating! The blurb makes it sound very US-focussed. Is that how it reads, or is it worth people in the rest of the Anglophone world picking it up?
Such a beautiful word
Savannah sounds like good grazing, because it provides some shade that animals increasingly crave as our world gets hotter.
I heard this referred to as mob grazing. Advocates claim that it helps lock even more carbon into the soil, because the animals turn the aerial parts of the plants into dung, some of which gets pulled down into the soil by various small creatures.
Gosh, that did not make comfortable reading. Really grateful for your sharing this, it's useful.
No thank you.
Can you share a bit more about this bit, please? I'm a bit out of the loop.
For pity's sake, just wear trousers. Doesn't matter what colour your pants are if no one can see them.
Gen X agrees with you. If you're going to leave the Bad Place, don't look back.
I'd like to assure you that you didn't, but then again, how would I know? Dream people (oneself and others) appear with their own history.
Five nine and three quarters
On behalf of non-rhotic speakers everywhere, it is my duty to inform you that those two spellings are homophones.
Also, saw your caption before the picture and thought you were talking about the late, great Ozzy Ozbourne, albeit somewhat insensitively.