Mahayana Buddhism – Thoughts on the “Great Vehicle”

I revised this just before deciding to merge earthpages.ca with earthpages.org. It mentions my old Aunt Nora (indirectly) who was a lot of fun and smart too.

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Image – Pinterest

Going through my list of entries I see it’s time to update Mahayana Buddhism.

My interest in Buddhism has been casual at best. I had a great aunt who worked in a Cleveland library and when she passed my parents inherited her books.

One of the books that stood out for me was a small but learned paperback on Buddhism edited by Richard A. Gard. This was my first scholarly introduction to Buddhism and in my teens and twenties, I dabbled in its esoteric ideas. The notion that we live many lives and return for more seemed sort of cool to a younger me.

Today, my cosmology is more complicated than a simple linear map of time and personal development. But I’ve talked about that elsewhere. Looking over these entries (links below) I realize my views have evolved since originally posting them.¹

• Temporal Paradoxes, Retro-Causality, Time

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The Medicine Wheel – Yesterday, Today and… ?

Another revision of an older piece. Watching Canada: A People’s History helped to give me a better feel for the indigenous material.

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Image – Pinterest

When I first wrote this entry some years ago, thinking of the medicine wheel called to mind images of Commander Chakotay of Star Trek: Voyager. Even today, an entire web page is devoted to this sci-fi treatment of the concept.

• http://www.jetclover.com/tri/wheel.htm

I’m no expert but it seems the Star Trek version isn’t too far from reality.

The medicine wheel comes in several variations. Essentially it’s a wheel-shaped pile of stones with radiating spokes built by several different Native American cultures.

Just as the Christian cross is both a symbol and a physical representation, the medicine wheel is a metaphor and monument for a variety of spiritual ideas.

Wikipedia says the term “medicine” was not meant to imply that physical healing was associated with the medicine wheel. Instead, the term apparently suggests that the sacred site and rock formations were associated with religious, spiritual and perhaps numinous

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Thorium – A safer, more efficient and abundant energy source for the future?

Another new piece by Roy Carter.

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Image – Pinterest (click for full size)

By Roy Carter

With an ever growing population and therefore demand for energy, many different options out there are available to power us well into the future. This article I will be focusing on a less known alternative known as thorium reactors.

Although not without its problems this alternative has the potential to replace nuclear power as a molten salt reactor can be prevented from the catastrophic meltdowns of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. Thorium reactors use a molten salt mix which in a worse case scenario can be diffused into tanks, safely using seals while preventing contamination and de-pressurization explosions such as it’s nuclear counterparts.

These reactors provide much more energy than regular nuclear reactors at a substantially efficient rate. Thorium has its issues such as the fact it still produces radioactive isotopes and has been dubbed “Economically non-viable” by those who champion conventional nuclear power…

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Solar Orbs – A Potential Contender for the Marketplace of Tomorrow

Roy Carter is a new contributor to earthpages.org. His work is brimming with enthusiasm and a very welcome addition!

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By Roy Carter
Image – Pinterest

There are many challenges that face our ever-increasing demand for energy. The Sun gives us an amazing abundance of power, harnessing it could help propel us into a golden age of civilization. Yet our approach to the typical photovoltaic cells have changed little since the 1800’s and due to the laws of physics, the average 250-watt panel in the peak average of 4 hrs of sunlight only offsets your bill 1kw/hr on average per panel each day.¹

So although having many solar panels can help cut budgets and even help pay for your residential bill (depending on your electric company), there’s still a lot to be desired for many homeowners. Now don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for those who do make the investment and find their panel setup works fine for them. But when you add the government as…

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Meditation, science and the future

I worked pretty hard on this today. Basically, a revision of an older entry at earthpages.ca now merged with earthpages.org 🙂

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The term meditation has different meanings, each influenced by a given psychological, philosophical, religious or spiritual belief system.

Image – ipnos.com

To say “she meditates” can mean almost anything. The late rap artist Guru (1961–2010), for instance, rapped in the song “Living in this World“:

I’m growin’ tired of the trickery
And the misery, it’s makin’ me kinda sick you see
But now I meditate, so I can get it straight
My thoughts penetrate, so I control my fate.¹

For René Descartes, meditation involves thinking, as evident in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

Descartes outlines a philosophical ‘method of doubt’ containing six meditations and the famous line cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am (originally Je pense, donc je suis).

However, Descartes’ view of meditation does not rule out the idea of faith and his belief in God’s goodness is essential to his overall…

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Urban Moon

Fantastic weather tonight. I went for a walk by the old school, which actually used to be in that empty space in the center of the photo. It was torn down and is now in the base of the left condo. They're going to do the same thing with the church directly across (behind my...

Is North America Really Devoid Of Culture?

I once had a professor who came to Canada from a communist occupied European country. How he got out of there, God only knows. He was a tight-lipped, taciturn fellow and generally hard to talk to. One day I tried to talk to him about where he came from. He admitted the standard of living...

Nice Chillout App

Back in the day, people used to walk downtown or go to malls and "window shop." It was a good way to kill time, see what's out there, and not break the bank because generally, you didn't buy anything, you just looked. Today I searched and the appropriate term for doing the same thing is,...

My Decapitated Laptop

This is an old laptop with only 512mb RAM and a mobile Sempron processor. For the most part, it was a pretty crummy laptop. About a week after the one-year warranty expired, the hinge broke that holds the screen to the body. When I got a new laptop, I put this old laptop to rest....