Monday 19 October 2015

Poetry. Something different.

This shall be a bit different than usual. Enjoy original poetry.

This world, it shines on evening nights
With a spectrum stricken to awe;
The Sun, she sets on waves of clouds 
That cut and pierce, and bruise the sky.

Here we are in the midst of it all,
The trees, the birds, all these strange oddities:
The roads, the bells, odorous smells-constant calls to calamity.

Stop here. Stop here and take a quick breath; the moon is they way, follow her sway
Down the corridors into the shed.

Darkness stirs. Darkness breaths deep and low- feel the gravity pull, hear all there is to know
In silence of mellow, dull moments,
When no candles are lit,
No comfortable place to sit,
When it feels like there is nothing good that exists.

Behold the strange line of eccentrics,
Men and women and children who have caught
Something so close to our hands,
Sometimes we got it, sometimes we keep sinking into the sands.

The lungs are only burning--
The sand is not real. Stand up and breathe
The air that is clean.

Behold the strange line of people who laugh when given the scent
Of the blossoming lotus as it reveals
What we didn't expect, 

Aha! Behold the long way round into ourselves,
The road is treacherous, evil abounds,
Yet in the quest for stillness there is no way around
The soft call of Shanti-- shall be found.

Wednesday 14 October 2015

Democrats Debate: What do Buddhists think?

Google trends during and after the Democratic Debate. Click here for a larger version.
Upon a quick perusal of my facebook news feed today, three names come up the most: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O'Malley.

My feed, curated no doubt by my likes and clicks and facebook's algorithms, features mostly young(ish) and early middle-aged folks. The broad sense from these folks is that they still love Bernie but feel an ever-stronger "inevitability" around Hillary. Both, they say, did a very good job in the debate. O'Malley (I still don't know him well enough to call him Martin, or Marty) came out as a surprisingly strong performer.

The above graph from US News and World Report shows google trends during and after the report, with Sanders standing out as a strong "winner".

What were your thoughts? Are there issues in particular that appeal to you as a Buddhist? What about the candidates? Or do you see yourself as more apolitical?