Interesting Buddhist stuff
Dec. 4th, 2012 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI no longer recall what I was looking up when I sat down, but I found lots of interesting stuff along the way.
I like Buddhist art. I started out with the art before I knew much of anything about Buddhism. It's all made of symbols and you can read it like comic book characters, you know which story they are by what they carry and what colors they are.
I like Acala, or Fudo Myo-o, the Immovable One. He sits on a rock with engulfed in flame. He carries a sword and handcuffs, or maybe a lariat, or sometimes something with a loop on one end and a weight on the other that I haven't seen a name for in an English language page but it reminded me of a meteor hammer so I went off looking those up again. (I found that practice meteor hammers are made with monkey fist knots on the end of ropes, maybe with a weight inside them. The same knot-and-weight combination was called a slungshot when used as an improvised weapon, mostly by sailors. It is very illegal in several states of the USA. But really easy to make and conceal.) Sometimes he has a sword with a dragon twirled around it, all on fire: a Kurikara. Fudo is one of the fierce sorts of bodhisattva, not a quiet contemplative sort, but someone for getting rid of impediments and cutting through delusions. The sword is a sword of wisdom and the rope is for restraining violent passions, or binding demons. The flames are purification, and the rock is solid faith.
I also looked up the name for the bodhisattva of the hell beings, which I'd forgotten, though I remembered his vow to stick around until all the hells are empty. Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, or Jizo, carries a 'wish fulfilling jewel' to light up the darkness, and a big stick with jangly rings on, a khakkhara. Buddhist monks carry that while they travel so the jangling can warn all the small creatures to get out of the way and not get stepped on. Also all the buddhist believers that there's a monk who could do with some alms in earshot. It's efficient like that. I have seen the stick in other contexts but didn't know what it was for. I thought I would quite like it, but then I remembered how I have to tuck in all my key chains and other jangly things or they drive me a bit nuts. I think if travelling monks have to jangle I'd be a staying still monk instead. But it's a nice idea. It's also useful for prying things open, like the gates of hells, apparently. It's for the breaking of ignorance, and it's your classic warrior monk stick. Presumably very handy if you're heading into hells. Ksitigarbha is sometimes also portrayed with a dog. Apparently when his mum died he went looking for her in the underworld but found she'd already come back as a female dog, so they hung out together that way. ... the bodhisattva of the hell beings is officially a son of a bitch? Got to love religion...
Ksitigarbha usually wears monk robes. I have been learning about Buddhist monk robes. There's a pattern like a rice field they're meant to be made in, and they're not supposed to be made of all one cloth. They should be from leftover cloth nobody else wants. Except that includes donated cloth, so there's a lot that end up being brocade and shiny things. I don't quite get the idea of donating shiny things as a way to accumulate merit. Donating food and warm clothes, yes, making things shiny, not so much. I guess the shiny attracts people who wouldn't turn up just for the thinking good thoughts about all living beings. But it's like when I went looking for a Buddha statue and they didn't look right until I found a little carved wooden one. It was pocket money cheap, but it was Buddha looking pretty happy doing meditating, so that was just right. I wrapped it in a pretty cloth when I got home because maybe Buddha likes rainbows too. But mostly I guess I think of the teachings as the important part, and the rest as ways to access them. So making shiny monk robes seems odd, because why need shiny covers? I like the simple ones that just look patchwork and leftover. Plus I maybe watched too many Chinese martial arts movies, because grey robes look right to me, not all those orange and red sorts. Beige is okay too. But I guess orange to me looks like a show off fabric again, even though it got started because over there it's a really easy dye to make. Still, grey is sort of calm and not drawing attention to itself.
... probably I mostly like it because of the Shaolin movie. That was a really good movie.
... probably religious interest shouldn't so much be steered by really good kicking movies...
My telling is probably not very accurate, even compared to my sources. Most of this is off wiki. I've been going around saving pictures then poking wiki for more keywords.
It's a good thing Tuesdays are budgeted for doing a whole lot of nothing much.
... lately, most days are for doing nothing much. I guess I should try meditating instead, then I'm doing nothing in a way that's meant to reprogram my mind to being more happy.
Also I need to think of ways I can help others, because it's no fun feeling like no help, especially when I can see all that bad stuff happen all many places. But they would have to be quiet ways that do not involve interacting with humans much. Which is a puzzler.
I like Buddhist art. I started out with the art before I knew much of anything about Buddhism. It's all made of symbols and you can read it like comic book characters, you know which story they are by what they carry and what colors they are.
I like Acala, or Fudo Myo-o, the Immovable One. He sits on a rock with engulfed in flame. He carries a sword and handcuffs, or maybe a lariat, or sometimes something with a loop on one end and a weight on the other that I haven't seen a name for in an English language page but it reminded me of a meteor hammer so I went off looking those up again. (I found that practice meteor hammers are made with monkey fist knots on the end of ropes, maybe with a weight inside them. The same knot-and-weight combination was called a slungshot when used as an improvised weapon, mostly by sailors. It is very illegal in several states of the USA. But really easy to make and conceal.) Sometimes he has a sword with a dragon twirled around it, all on fire: a Kurikara. Fudo is one of the fierce sorts of bodhisattva, not a quiet contemplative sort, but someone for getting rid of impediments and cutting through delusions. The sword is a sword of wisdom and the rope is for restraining violent passions, or binding demons. The flames are purification, and the rock is solid faith.
I also looked up the name for the bodhisattva of the hell beings, which I'd forgotten, though I remembered his vow to stick around until all the hells are empty. Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, or Jizo, carries a 'wish fulfilling jewel' to light up the darkness, and a big stick with jangly rings on, a khakkhara. Buddhist monks carry that while they travel so the jangling can warn all the small creatures to get out of the way and not get stepped on. Also all the buddhist believers that there's a monk who could do with some alms in earshot. It's efficient like that. I have seen the stick in other contexts but didn't know what it was for. I thought I would quite like it, but then I remembered how I have to tuck in all my key chains and other jangly things or they drive me a bit nuts. I think if travelling monks have to jangle I'd be a staying still monk instead. But it's a nice idea. It's also useful for prying things open, like the gates of hells, apparently. It's for the breaking of ignorance, and it's your classic warrior monk stick. Presumably very handy if you're heading into hells. Ksitigarbha is sometimes also portrayed with a dog. Apparently when his mum died he went looking for her in the underworld but found she'd already come back as a female dog, so they hung out together that way. ... the bodhisattva of the hell beings is officially a son of a bitch? Got to love religion...
Ksitigarbha usually wears monk robes. I have been learning about Buddhist monk robes. There's a pattern like a rice field they're meant to be made in, and they're not supposed to be made of all one cloth. They should be from leftover cloth nobody else wants. Except that includes donated cloth, so there's a lot that end up being brocade and shiny things. I don't quite get the idea of donating shiny things as a way to accumulate merit. Donating food and warm clothes, yes, making things shiny, not so much. I guess the shiny attracts people who wouldn't turn up just for the thinking good thoughts about all living beings. But it's like when I went looking for a Buddha statue and they didn't look right until I found a little carved wooden one. It was pocket money cheap, but it was Buddha looking pretty happy doing meditating, so that was just right. I wrapped it in a pretty cloth when I got home because maybe Buddha likes rainbows too. But mostly I guess I think of the teachings as the important part, and the rest as ways to access them. So making shiny monk robes seems odd, because why need shiny covers? I like the simple ones that just look patchwork and leftover. Plus I maybe watched too many Chinese martial arts movies, because grey robes look right to me, not all those orange and red sorts. Beige is okay too. But I guess orange to me looks like a show off fabric again, even though it got started because over there it's a really easy dye to make. Still, grey is sort of calm and not drawing attention to itself.
... probably I mostly like it because of the Shaolin movie. That was a really good movie.
... probably religious interest shouldn't so much be steered by really good kicking movies...
My telling is probably not very accurate, even compared to my sources. Most of this is off wiki. I've been going around saving pictures then poking wiki for more keywords.
It's a good thing Tuesdays are budgeted for doing a whole lot of nothing much.
... lately, most days are for doing nothing much. I guess I should try meditating instead, then I'm doing nothing in a way that's meant to reprogram my mind to being more happy.
Also I need to think of ways I can help others, because it's no fun feeling like no help, especially when I can see all that bad stuff happen all many places. But they would have to be quiet ways that do not involve interacting with humans much. Which is a puzzler.