Meaning And Marketing - The Hurricane

The locals insist that if a giant straightened out all the wrinkles in New Zealand, it would be the size of Australia! Thats a stretch for sure, but the country really does have few flatlands. The South Island even has Colorado inspired snowcapped mountains! The homes and streets in Wellington were surprisingly no different from a middle class neighborhood in Des Moines, very Americanized, but with no street signs! When I inquired about this apparent oversight, I was told that I should know where Im going. . . . Hmm.

Photos. Not only can photos be faked, but, having lived here in Thailand for five years now I can tell you that when looking at amulets just a half inch from their surface with a jeweler's loupe, it is often impossible for me to tell whether the amulet I am looking at is a copy or real. Photos are worthless when trying to assess the value of the amulet being represented.

Here are some tips you can use to help decipher whether the Thai amulet you are about to purchase is an original from a theravada Buddhist temple in Thailand - or, a fake worth a couple of pennies because they are made and sold in tremendous bulk.

The Noble Truth of Suffering: Refers to a short-lived happiness that we experience through life, which is plagued with inevitable factors, such as sickness and old age. Death cannot be avoided and we all eventually experience sorrow, pain and grief.

Do your best to let your body breath, after all it does it all by itself 24/7 since you were born. All you are doing is paying attention to the process. Maybe the process changes because you are paying attention but let go of trying to control the breathing.

There are many Thai amulets sold each day online. A very high percentage of these amulets are non-genuine amulets and generally worthless. I have found bronze and copper amulets for 4 cents each in bags of 500 pieces in Chinese stores in Thailand that I have later seen sell for $19.95 at Ebay. Are you buying four cent amulets for 500 times their worth too?

BN: Laughing. We may be getting some goats soon. You know the economics of this? They milk the goats. The female goats give birth to billy goats, but there is no use for the billy goats. So after 40 days, they kill the male goat to eat. So we are going to adopt a male goat. And see from there if we can add more. We do eat seafood here, but I'd like the monastery to become completely vegetarian. We still follow the practice of not eating after noon.

Also I think that Batchelor has to be clearer about his criteria for what is to remain and what is to be taken out of the Tipitaka. Just because the idea of rebirth was previous to the time of the Buddha doesn't mean that the Buddha did not accept a form of rebirth. Yes, the Buddha taught rebirth in a completely different way. In Buddha's first discourse he says that regarding the Four Noble Truths that he realized things before unknown to him. That means he found out from his own experience; nobody taught the Buddha. He did not take the teaching from other people. One of his insights was that there is a rebirth in the sense that there is a continuity of mind.