Andy Lowry @AndyLowry@qoto.org
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
@jayarava
As I'm sometimes a little slow on the uptake, I only just now noticed that you are here. Thanks for mentioning it on your Raves site, as I would probably not have thought to try to search you out otherwise. Delighted to see you, and I look forward to your commentary and insights.
Andy Lowry
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Tomorrow is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and in anticipation of the usual confusion and righteous indignation about the dates for our seasons I'm giving this diagramme, which I made about six years ago, it's first airing on @mastodonie
#solstice #equinox #calendar #meteorological #astronomical #celtic #Mastodaoine
Andy Lowry
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@PenguinJunk @ccferrie @mastodonie
IMO the supposedly "4" seasons are jamming two different categories of thing together.
Summer and winter are astronomical and take up half a year each. Spring and autumn overlap the join and are about whatever the vegetation is doing where you are.
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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Around 4,300 years ago, an ancient Egyptian craftsman sculpted a little frog, a grasshopper, and a dragonfly. Lovely details from nature depicted on a wall relief in the Tomb of Kagemni at Saqqara, Egypt. Dynasty 6, c. 2345-2323 BC. 📷: my own.
“Heart Sutra”, own translation*
After a couple of years of research, I’m finally comfortable enough with this work to feel like it’s finished. It’s been two or three months since I made any edits to it, so I’m calling it done.
The two main commercial translations, from Red Pine and Kazuaki Tanahashi, make the same egregious error in pretending that a back-translation from Chinese into Sanskrit around the time of Xuanzang (who was apparently responsible for the first Chinese version) is somehow the “original work,” despite Jan Nattier clearly demonstrating otherwise in her paper of 1992. That forced me to undertake my own stab at it whether I wanted to or not. I’ve avoided as much as possible any frilly or poetic language, ‘cause the simplest Classical Chinese is the best Classical Chinese.
With much gratitude to Nattier, Jayarava (whose extensive research on this work astonishes me), and Matt Orsborn. In the unlikely event that anyone would find this interesting enough to ask questions about, I’d be delighted, and would welcome any arguments against my approach or result.
*Not really a sutra, but everybody calls it that. It’s more like a Reader’s Digest version of a much longer work in the Prajnaparamita collection.
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Avalokitesvara bodhisattva, when practicing deep perfection of wisdom, saw that the five aggregates are completely empty of self-existence and was released from all forms of suffering.
Sariputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness is exactly form. The same is true for sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness.
Sariputra, all experience is defined by emptiness; not life, not death, not defilement, not purity, not increase, not decrease. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no volition, and no consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no shape, sound, smell, taste, or thought. No element of vision leading to conceptual consciousness, no ignorance and no ending of ignorance, and even no ageing and death and no exhausting of ageing and death. No suffering, source, relief, or path. No wisdom and no attainment: because of non-apprehension.
The minds of bodhisattvas reliant on perfection of wisdom are without hindrance. Being without hindrance, they are free from fear and dread. They abandon upside-down, dreamlike thinking and finally awaken. All Buddhas, past, present, and future, depend on the perfection of wisdom and attain perfect enlightenment.
You should therefore know the great dharani of perfection of wisdom; the unexcelled dharani, the dharani equal to the unequalled which heals all suffering and is real, not imaginary— the dharani of perfection of wisdom spoken thus:
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!
Andy Lowry
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@RitchieTorres Welcome, Congressman Torres. Could you pleased post a link to your official website, & post your Mastodon handle on your website?
That’s how verification work here: blue checks ate just another emoji. (& it would be confusing if people started mixing your account up with all the @RichieTorres accounts I’ve opened on other instances. ) (That’s a joke, but the need for self-verification isn’t.)
Andy Lowry
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@ahacker any Mastodon user account generates an RSS feed. E.g. https://mastodon.online/@ahacker.rss
You can then use what WordPress offers to show RSS feeds on it. Hope that's helpful.
Andy Lowry
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#Introduction. I'm Izzy. Born in Carlow, lived in Dublin for many years, in Leitrim since 2002.
I came out as a lesbian in 1982, have been involved in LGBTQI+ community building since then. Founding member of Dublin Pride, Northwest Pride & Dublin AIDS Alliance. Resolutely #LGBwiththeT! Writer & speaker, occasional contributor to GCN & The Beacon. Ten years a-tweeting, but ready for a change.
I work in social care with homeless men in Dublin - have done for the past 22 years.
I follow back!
Andy Lowry
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[time traveler returns from mission]
Time traveler: I got bad news I killed Grammar Hitler by mistake
Commander: That aint what we had you go back for do
Andy Lowry
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New word for Christmas 2022
Amazonesia:
When you forget what you ordered.
Andy Lowry
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This is my first post on Mastodon. I’m hoping to find like-minded progressive humans. If you beleive anthropomorphic climate change is real, COVID is not over, masks work, meritocracy is a myth, the Land was stolen and we need to give Land back, love is love, and poverty is a direct result of oppression, please like this post so I can follow you. Together we can make this world a better place. ❤️🌈♾️
Andy Lowry
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A couple of previous essays by way of more personal introduction:
https://nymag.com/article/2020/12/i-was-always-terrified-of-wasting-time.html
Andy Lowry
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Well, folks. I'm going to try to do some live tooting / posting of the 1/6 hearing. Let's see how it goes...I've been doing this in the Other Place up until now.
Andy Lowry
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A partial list of our reporters you can follow on Masto:
•Caroline Chen @carolinechen
•Annie Waldman @AnnieWaldman
•Perla Trevizo @Perla_Trevizo
•Jeremy Schwartz @JeremySchwartz
•Emily Hopkins @emilyhopkins
•Ken Armstrong @bykenarmstrong
•Mariam Elba @mariamelba
•Jessica Lussenhop @lussenpop
•Ellis Simani @emsimani
•Justin Elliott @elliottjustin
•Max Blau @maxblau
•Andy Kroll @andykroll
•Kartikay Mehrotra @kartikay
•Jeremy Kohler @jeremykohler
•Neil Bedi @neilbedi
Andy Lowry
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Who could have foreseen that a white South African who is obsessed with colonizing places would have had such a lack of consideration for a community he ruled over?
Andy Lowry
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@tchambers
has started a spreadsheet of journos on Masto, You can look there:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13No4yxY-oFrN8PigC2jBWXreFCHWwVRTftwP6HcREtA/edit?resourcekey=undefined#gid=1320898902
Andy Lowry
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Just downloaded a desktop client called TheDesk for Mastodon, more flexibility with my columns. Very barebones but I much prefer this
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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@juddlegum "I'm going to continue making money for Musk until I get banned." is how I heard what you just said. I subscribe to your newsletter, but journalists have to bite the bullet and leave #twitter - it's not a site of free exchange of ideas anymore.
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
