I think the red shirts have just sent stronger message than ISEAS (plus ANU next week) to the military in this country. With the Asia Update TV relaying live a soccer match in Phnom Penh Saturday afternoon in which red top guns rub shoulders with Hun Sen and his men, this is meant to warn Prayuth what will happen next if the latter tries to stage another coup : http://www.asiaupdate.tv/live-2
The impact is strong and clear and no need to wait for next year.
R. N. England: I think you are being a bit over the top in your criticisms here. The academics who participated in this workshop include some of the most active academics I know in terms of getting their opinions out in the public domain. At the same time, it is very common to present a paper at a workshop/conference in a form that is not ready for publication or wider circulation. The re-writing process can give authors a chance to enage with the material that others presented at the conference, and issues raised by the audience. It is also very common for institutes hosting such events to want to get a published volume out of the occasion. Academics who present at such events are very aware of the time delay that causes, and that can certainly cause some frustration, but formal publication will remain a part of the academic enterprise for a while yet and when dealing with very current events it can help produce material that benefits from more prolonged research and reflection.
The key then, as I see it, is for academics to maintain a mix of relatively immediate and more formal/delayed types of publication. That is exactly what most of the academics who presented at the workshop try to do.
Mr. Mazard, please stop dodging the issue and criticizing me for not reading your article. If ├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi’s translation is wrong, and if you really can read Pali, please offer an alternative translation. It is completely unconvincing – and bad practice – to criticize others without offering an alternative. At present I am not shocked or even slightly tickled by this offering, but I suppose it is quite funny that somebody would write such nonsense.
Bring up Anapanasati with such a controversial interpretation (translation) was bound to turn it into lighting rod for comments and thus drawn the attention away from the larger thesis of the paper, a thesis I agree with and so did not comment on (I would like have commented further and to be more active on NM and other forums I simply don’t have the time). I replied to this article because I think there is big problem which your translation-interpretation of apana.
On the other hand, I did not comment on your Paticcusamuppada article because I agree with it in most aspects and in fact I have been arguing as much to colleagues for some time, but now I e-mail your article because you explain Paticcusamuppada as rebirth in the womb (or do you take it as only birth and there is no rebirth?) with more precision and detail than I.
“Air pressure” is still looking for a material cause that is not in yogic theory, in yogic theory pr─Бna/ap─Бna cannot be completely reduced to a material factor though they manifest in the material. It appears that you are using material reductionism as an analytical model, here biological reductionism, in that there must be a verifiable biological factor that gives rise to erroneous and thus nonexistent religious-philosophical belief and speculation (I simply do not have the time go into theories of religion so I leave that where it is). I am not saying prana as a ‘supernatural’ force exists; I am saying that it does ‘exist’ as a non-biological force (biology in Western terms) for yogic theory. In yogic theory pr─Бna cannot be only air pressure because air pressure has no place in pr─Бna-maya-kosha after death (and what do we reduce the other kosha?). Air pressure like other physical elements would be an active part in the anna-maya-kosha. Also, air pressure is not reincarnated like the pr─Бna-maya-kosha and the three higher kosha. There is a complete disconnect between your theory and yogic (and I realize this theory may not be applicable to ancient Indian traditions any more than yours). Of course one can deny the validity of this yogic theory of the body as it is not materially verifiable, but I argue that whether pr─Бna, kosha etc actually exist or not, reductionism does not explain these theories/beliefs it merely explains them away.
Eisel: “I don’t really see any basis for the rather arch and combative tone of this reply of yours –except, of course, for the fact that you hold teaching certificates for “Hatha-yoga”, etc., and thus I imagine that you might not regard these text with the same detachment as myself”.
Why did you not mention my certificates and note that they give me valuable practical experience with the world of Hatha-yoga rather than insinuating that the experience taints and biases my analysis. Participant observation is an established data gathering method in Western academics, though like all methods of observation and analysis, included being detached, it has its pluses and minuses. Actually my tone is much more in response to your general arch and combative tone in your articles and responses, witness your reply to me. Reread your own writing on NM, but then again if you don’t know by now how your writing comes across rereading it will do no good.
Eisel: […] “I wonder why you haven’t challenged the PTS translations yourself in a similar article? I wonder why you haven’t gone through the same sources, and challenged the dictionaries and the textbooks?”
May I ask, are you using a denigrating tone? To answer: 1. I am not interested enough to do the work, I prefer to read others work; 2) I don’t have the technical skill to do it in any timely manner. So, is that the answer you were looking for? and is it at this point that I tip my hat to your knowledge of Pali and texts written in Pali? That a gladly do as your knowledge of Pali and Pali texts is superlative, but this knowledge in no way necessarily means that your argumentation and analysis of all things Pali are irreproachable”.
Eisel: […] “if you genuinely expect me to accept a supernatural existence of pr─Бс╣Зa as something “outside material existence and scientific proof” (as you say) you’re doomed to disappointment”.
See above, and I do not expect you to change your mind, I simply argue that your interpretation of apana as biological factors does not explain anything about yogic theory and by extension an─Бp─Бn─Бsati.
Eisel: “The thesis of the article is not that pr─Бna is “nothing but a fart” (as you complain)”.
Why is my statement a “complaint” while similar such statements by you, such as other translations of ap─Бna are “prudish”, are to be considered sound analysis?
Eisel: “Given all this, and also that my actual thesis concerns the problems arising from the apotheosis of the dictionary (not of farting), it is quite wrong for you to say that I’m offering “a long proof that ap─Бna means ‘fart’ or ‘farting’ apparently insisting that ap─Бna can have no other meaning””.
The fact that your main thesis offers a long proof into the great problems of mistranslation, orientalism, cultural bias etc does not change that fact you do offer a long proof that apana is nothing but flatulence. And this proof is your example for your main thesis, so it is of the utmost importance.
Eisel: “I’m not denigrating the primary sources, old boy, and I’m not denigrating you. Try to re-read the thing, and try to follow what my thesis actually is here; both living authors and dead deserve to be looked upon with detachment”.
This statement is denigrating and not detached.
Since you’re getting all biblical on us Plan B, how about “By their fruits you will know them”? I’d say most people would agree that the Republican era of China was one of the worst periods in Chinese history, or at least recent Chinese history. A Kachin friend recently pointed out to me that the percentage spent on education during that era in China is roughly what the generals in Burma are spending now. In both cases, it is a shamefully small amount. I sure you’ll find some way to try to blame it on the villains in the West, and while they might in some way be to blame for the overall amount, the percentage spent of the overall national budget spent on education is purely the generals’ choice.
“In their council let me never set foot, their assembly my presence shun. For in their fury they slaughtered men, at their pleasure they tore down ramparts. Cursed be their fury so fierce.” Genesis 49:6-7 Robert Alter’s translation.
Everybody knows that the cost of publishing has dropped to zero, yet these dinosaurs are still trying to hold the information to ransom. It is time governments compelled academics and their institutions to publish, on the Web without charge, all information obtained at taxpayers’ expense. The academic publishing companies should be allowed to go broke, and the parasites that infest them should go and do something useful.
The enlighted-jurist group has offered their version of fixing the 19 Sep coup by nulling any of the coup leader legacy, treating it as a none-event. Basically what that will do is all the legal cases and law that has been create by the coupe leader will be treat as “never happen”. No more computer crime act and the 2007 constitution. The new constitution should be based on the 1932 version one and so on.
Unsurprisingly the very first people that go against the idea were Abhisit and Prayuth. The funny part is, the group invite Abhisit for a debate for his comment “р╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╣Ар╕Чр╕ир╕Хр╣Йр╕нр╕Зр╕Бр╕▓р╕гр╕Щр╕┤р╕Хр╕┤р╕гр╕▒р╕Р р╣Др╕бр╣Ир╣Др╕Кр╣Йр╕Щр╕┤р╕Хр╕┤р╕гр╕▓р╕йр╕Ор╕гр╣М”тАЛ(The country need rule of law not not laws of people?*not sure how to translate the р╕Щр╕┤р╕Хр╕┤р╕гр╕▓р╕йр╕Пр╕гр╣М). Unfortunately Abhisit decline the invitation. The most irony part is, Abhisit has been talking about the Rule of Law a lot but he seems to be okey with the coup which is the most unforgiving violation in the rule of law. Furthermore, based on his comment, I suspected that he didn’t know the group very well.
Derek, old boy, what I’m telling you is that while it is especially striking that “breathing out” does not at all mean “breathing out” in these translations, it is also true that “breathing” in general does not mean “breathing” here. All of these passages reflect assumptions about the body that are ancient (and yet kept current, mutatis mutandis, by the modern culture of Yoga, of which Matthew Kosuta is a practitioner and representative) –cf. my comparison to the European tradition of melancholy = bile amongst the bodily humors, etc.
├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi are wrong (and I do address ├С─Бс╣Зamoli as an example in the article above… did you read the whole thing? e.g. “I am left to wonder whether or not ├С─Бс╣Зamoli avoided the English term ‘exhale’ because he was implicitly aware of the same problem in the primary source texts”, etc.); the dictionary is wrong, too, although this varies somewhat with what dictionary you’re using, as I’ve noted; given all these factors, it is not clear to what extent figures like ├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi are themselves misled, or to what extent they decided to be intentionally misleading. This is what makes an historical example like Vajira├▒─Бс╣Зa so interesting: he knew that he was wrong, and footnoted it, but proceeded to propound the wrong interpretation for many pages anyway.
If anything is worth meditating on, old boy, it is just this. You may well laugh at this article (it has been written with a sense of humor, and with an awareness of how shocking it would be to some) –anon, you will have to laugh at yourself. This is one of the great canards of the last 300 years of European (mis-)interpretations of Buddhist philosophy, and it has had ramifications both secular and sacerdotal.
Re: The papers delivered at the ISEAS conference but not available to anyone who did not attend the conference
In this age of Scribed, pfd files, iPads, blogs, etc., it does seem kind of lame to be sitting on the ISEAS Thailand conference papers until a book can be printed up and distributed.
What’s the point exactly, to somehow get credit for publishing the book or papers? Vanity?
Meanwhile, important and timely information and analysis of the fast-moving Thailand situation is lost in the void. In fact, by the time the book actually comes out, who knows, maybe there will have been another coup and the present government and situation will no longer exist. Or maybe a certain personage who cannot be mentioned will have passed on, again dramatically changing the ongoing situation.
The best solution really is to publish the papers immediately on the internet and publish the book whenever it is ready.
Without following the news in detail … just from cursory overview … it seems as though Aung San Suu Kyi is slipping gracefully into an Elder Statesman role.
If that’s the case, then she might not be the hoped-for spearhead for change. Maybe the best hope for the country will be when an intelligent younger generation of army officers and civilian professionals decide that change is necessary. Education is key.
Which is probably what people like Professor Taylor have been saying all along.
If villains are defined by their villainy than the generals wins hands down.
Plenty described here and repeatedly so @ New Mandala.
Never given the benefit of Moe Aung’s “ad infinitum”et “ad nauseum”.
How about the well know villainy of the west’s policy that not only effect the intended but never even alluded to “the unintended”?
There will never be victors, knowing well what the generals, Daw Aung San Suu as well as yourself will be doing, having Burmese blood running in your vein!
Confirmed here again the ill conceived, useless careless Sanctions have been for the benefit of Daw Aung San San Kyi.
But can’t Dr Walker at least do the kind of analysis that I suggested a couple of days ago in the context of the Prachatai case — what was said that couldn’t have been if the conference had been in Thailand.
Of course, by the time the book comes out in Singapore, it will not include what should not have been said there. Small book, seriously outdated, as Khun Lee says, by the time it hits paper.
The author states: ‘So-called “breathing meditation” is not at all what millions of Buddhists have been lead to believe: many passages of the PTS translations (old and new) are grossly misleading, and, in one important aspect least, they are flatly wrong (e.g., PTS MN vol. 1, p. 55 et seq.; D.N. vol. 2, p. 290 et seq.; S.N. vol. 5, p. 141 et seq.; and, in translation, e.g., Woodward, 1930, p. 287 etc. etc.).’
Since he is so critical of the PTS and other translations, perhaps he could explain himself by giving a rough translation of the following Pali from the Mah─Б Satipaс╣нс╣нh─Бna Sutta (M I.56):
so sato va assasati, sato va passasati. d─лghaс╣Г v─Б assasanto ‘d─лghaс╣Г assas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti, d─лghaс╣Г v─Б passasanto ‘d─лghaс╣Г passas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti, rassaс╣Г v─Б assasanto ‘rassaс╣Г assas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti, rassaс╣Г v─Б passasanto ‘rassaс╣Г passas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti…
(Bhikkhus ├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi translate this as follows: ‘ever mindful he breaths in, mindful he breathes out. Breathing in long, he understands ‘I breathe in long’; or breathing out long, he understands: ‘I breathe out long.’ Breathing in short, he understands: ‘I breath in short’; or breathing out short, he understands: ‘I breath out short’.)
Could this text possibly be about anything other than breathing meditation? Absolutely not – there is a better chance of pigs flying.
I have just received my copy in the post today. I have to say, at first sight it looks like an extraordinary labour of love. Beautifully illustrated and annotated, and delightfully bound; I can’t wait to delve in. I’m going to take a chance and heartily congratulate Chris Baker and Khun Pasuk Phongpaichit before I’ve read a word.
Glad to hear that, Gordon.
There’s this one of my favourite English expressions: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And it’s still the very same outfit in power still dripping with the blood of both Burman and ethnic minorities. I hear Hitler was a lovely uncle.
Yeah, right. The generals have nothing to do with the real victims. Whose victims? Who preys on them? It must be the ‘useless careless west’. Is this what’s known as fuzzy logic? Cool, nay, wicked!
The citizenry must be too stupid to realise it’s the Western sanctions and not military misrule that keeps them on the lowest plane of human existence whilst at the same time the rulers and their cronies have joined the ranks of $ billionaires. Don’t they recognise a paradise on earth when they see one being created? I guess they ain’t letting the riff raff in.
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Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
I think the red shirts have just sent stronger message than ISEAS (plus ANU next week) to the military in this country. With the Asia Update TV relaying live a soccer match in Phnom Penh Saturday afternoon in which red top guns rub shoulders with Hun Sen and his men, this is meant to warn Prayuth what will happen next if the latter tries to stage another coup : http://www.asiaupdate.tv/live-2
The impact is strong and clear and no need to wait for next year.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
R. N. England: I think you are being a bit over the top in your criticisms here. The academics who participated in this workshop include some of the most active academics I know in terms of getting their opinions out in the public domain. At the same time, it is very common to present a paper at a workshop/conference in a form that is not ready for publication or wider circulation. The re-writing process can give authors a chance to enage with the material that others presented at the conference, and issues raised by the audience. It is also very common for institutes hosting such events to want to get a published volume out of the occasion. Academics who present at such events are very aware of the time delay that causes, and that can certainly cause some frustration, but formal publication will remain a part of the academic enterprise for a while yet and when dealing with very current events it can help produce material that benefits from more prolonged research and reflection.
The key then, as I see it, is for academics to maintain a mix of relatively immediate and more formal/delayed types of publication. That is exactly what most of the academics who presented at the workshop try to do.
Flatulence and breathing meditation
Mr. Mazard, please stop dodging the issue and criticizing me for not reading your article. If ├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi’s translation is wrong, and if you really can read Pali, please offer an alternative translation. It is completely unconvincing – and bad practice – to criticize others without offering an alternative. At present I am not shocked or even slightly tickled by this offering, but I suppose it is quite funny that somebody would write such nonsense.
Flatulence and breathing meditation
Bring up Anapanasati with such a controversial interpretation (translation) was bound to turn it into lighting rod for comments and thus drawn the attention away from the larger thesis of the paper, a thesis I agree with and so did not comment on (I would like have commented further and to be more active on NM and other forums I simply don’t have the time). I replied to this article because I think there is big problem which your translation-interpretation of apana.
On the other hand, I did not comment on your Paticcusamuppada article because I agree with it in most aspects and in fact I have been arguing as much to colleagues for some time, but now I e-mail your article because you explain Paticcusamuppada as rebirth in the womb (or do you take it as only birth and there is no rebirth?) with more precision and detail than I.
“Air pressure” is still looking for a material cause that is not in yogic theory, in yogic theory pr─Бna/ap─Бna cannot be completely reduced to a material factor though they manifest in the material. It appears that you are using material reductionism as an analytical model, here biological reductionism, in that there must be a verifiable biological factor that gives rise to erroneous and thus nonexistent religious-philosophical belief and speculation (I simply do not have the time go into theories of religion so I leave that where it is). I am not saying prana as a ‘supernatural’ force exists; I am saying that it does ‘exist’ as a non-biological force (biology in Western terms) for yogic theory. In yogic theory pr─Бna cannot be only air pressure because air pressure has no place in pr─Бna-maya-kosha after death (and what do we reduce the other kosha?). Air pressure like other physical elements would be an active part in the anna-maya-kosha. Also, air pressure is not reincarnated like the pr─Бna-maya-kosha and the three higher kosha. There is a complete disconnect between your theory and yogic (and I realize this theory may not be applicable to ancient Indian traditions any more than yours). Of course one can deny the validity of this yogic theory of the body as it is not materially verifiable, but I argue that whether pr─Бna, kosha etc actually exist or not, reductionism does not explain these theories/beliefs it merely explains them away.
Eisel: “I don’t really see any basis for the rather arch and combative tone of this reply of yours –except, of course, for the fact that you hold teaching certificates for “Hatha-yoga”, etc., and thus I imagine that you might not regard these text with the same detachment as myself”.
Why did you not mention my certificates and note that they give me valuable practical experience with the world of Hatha-yoga rather than insinuating that the experience taints and biases my analysis. Participant observation is an established data gathering method in Western academics, though like all methods of observation and analysis, included being detached, it has its pluses and minuses. Actually my tone is much more in response to your general arch and combative tone in your articles and responses, witness your reply to me. Reread your own writing on NM, but then again if you don’t know by now how your writing comes across rereading it will do no good.
Eisel: […] “I wonder why you haven’t challenged the PTS translations yourself in a similar article? I wonder why you haven’t gone through the same sources, and challenged the dictionaries and the textbooks?”
May I ask, are you using a denigrating tone? To answer: 1. I am not interested enough to do the work, I prefer to read others work; 2) I don’t have the technical skill to do it in any timely manner. So, is that the answer you were looking for? and is it at this point that I tip my hat to your knowledge of Pali and texts written in Pali? That a gladly do as your knowledge of Pali and Pali texts is superlative, but this knowledge in no way necessarily means that your argumentation and analysis of all things Pali are irreproachable”.
Eisel: […] “if you genuinely expect me to accept a supernatural existence of pr─Бс╣Зa as something “outside material existence and scientific proof” (as you say) you’re doomed to disappointment”.
See above, and I do not expect you to change your mind, I simply argue that your interpretation of apana as biological factors does not explain anything about yogic theory and by extension an─Бp─Бn─Бsati.
Eisel: “The thesis of the article is not that pr─Бna is “nothing but a fart” (as you complain)”.
Why is my statement a “complaint” while similar such statements by you, such as other translations of ap─Бna are “prudish”, are to be considered sound analysis?
Eisel: “Given all this, and also that my actual thesis concerns the problems arising from the apotheosis of the dictionary (not of farting), it is quite wrong for you to say that I’m offering “a long proof that ap─Бna means ‘fart’ or ‘farting’ apparently insisting that ap─Бna can have no other meaning””.
The fact that your main thesis offers a long proof into the great problems of mistranslation, orientalism, cultural bias etc does not change that fact you do offer a long proof that apana is nothing but flatulence. And this proof is your example for your main thesis, so it is of the utmost importance.
Eisel: “I’m not denigrating the primary sources, old boy, and I’m not denigrating you. Try to re-read the thing, and try to follow what my thesis actually is here; both living authors and dead deserve to be looked upon with detachment”.
This statement is denigrating and not detached.
Sheridan and Selth on Burma today
Since you’re getting all biblical on us Plan B, how about “By their fruits you will know them”? I’d say most people would agree that the Republican era of China was one of the worst periods in Chinese history, or at least recent Chinese history. A Kachin friend recently pointed out to me that the percentage spent on education during that era in China is roughly what the generals in Burma are spending now. In both cases, it is a shamefully small amount. I sure you’ll find some way to try to blame it on the villains in the West, and while they might in some way be to blame for the overall amount, the percentage spent of the overall national budget spent on education is purely the generals’ choice.
“In their council let me never set foot, their assembly my presence shun. For in their fury they slaughtered men, at their pleasure they tore down ramparts. Cursed be their fury so fierce.” Genesis 49:6-7 Robert Alter’s translation.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
Everybody knows that the cost of publishing has dropped to zero, yet these dinosaurs are still trying to hold the information to ransom. It is time governments compelled academics and their institutions to publish, on the Web without charge, all information obtained at taxpayers’ expense. The academic publishing companies should be allowed to go broke, and the parasites that infest them should go and do something useful.
The coup: five years on
The enlighted-jurist group has offered their version of fixing the 19 Sep coup by nulling any of the coup leader legacy, treating it as a none-event. Basically what that will do is all the legal cases and law that has been create by the coupe leader will be treat as “never happen”. No more computer crime act and the 2007 constitution. The new constitution should be based on the 1932 version one and so on.
Unsurprisingly the very first people that go against the idea were Abhisit and Prayuth. The funny part is, the group invite Abhisit for a debate for his comment “р╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╣Ар╕Чр╕ир╕Хр╣Йр╕нр╕Зр╕Бр╕▓р╕гр╕Щр╕┤р╕Хр╕┤р╕гр╕▒р╕Р р╣Др╕бр╣Ир╣Др╕Кр╣Йр╕Щр╕┤р╕Хр╕┤р╕гр╕▓р╕йр╕Ор╕гр╣М”тАЛ(The country need rule of law not not laws of people?*not sure how to translate the р╕Щр╕┤р╕Хр╕┤р╕гр╕▓р╕йр╕Пр╕гр╣М). Unfortunately Abhisit decline the invitation. The most irony part is, Abhisit has been talking about the Rule of Law a lot but he seems to be okey with the coup which is the most unforgiving violation in the rule of law. Furthermore, based on his comment, I suspected that he didn’t know the group very well.
Flatulence and breathing meditation
Derek, old boy, what I’m telling you is that while it is especially striking that “breathing out” does not at all mean “breathing out” in these translations, it is also true that “breathing” in general does not mean “breathing” here. All of these passages reflect assumptions about the body that are ancient (and yet kept current, mutatis mutandis, by the modern culture of Yoga, of which Matthew Kosuta is a practitioner and representative) –cf. my comparison to the European tradition of melancholy = bile amongst the bodily humors, etc.
├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi are wrong (and I do address ├С─Бс╣Зamoli as an example in the article above… did you read the whole thing? e.g. “I am left to wonder whether or not ├С─Бс╣Зamoli avoided the English term ‘exhale’ because he was implicitly aware of the same problem in the primary source texts”, etc.); the dictionary is wrong, too, although this varies somewhat with what dictionary you’re using, as I’ve noted; given all these factors, it is not clear to what extent figures like ├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi are themselves misled, or to what extent they decided to be intentionally misleading. This is what makes an historical example like Vajira├▒─Бс╣Зa so interesting: he knew that he was wrong, and footnoted it, but proceeded to propound the wrong interpretation for many pages anyway.
If anything is worth meditating on, old boy, it is just this. You may well laugh at this article (it has been written with a sense of humor, and with an awareness of how shocking it would be to some) –anon, you will have to laugh at yourself. This is one of the great canards of the last 300 years of European (mis-)interpretations of Buddhist philosophy, and it has had ramifications both secular and sacerdotal.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
Re: The papers delivered at the ISEAS conference but not available to anyone who did not attend the conference
In this age of Scribed, pfd files, iPads, blogs, etc., it does seem kind of lame to be sitting on the ISEAS Thailand conference papers until a book can be printed up and distributed.
What’s the point exactly, to somehow get credit for publishing the book or papers? Vanity?
Meanwhile, important and timely information and analysis of the fast-moving Thailand situation is lost in the void. In fact, by the time the book actually comes out, who knows, maybe there will have been another coup and the present government and situation will no longer exist. Or maybe a certain personage who cannot be mentioned will have passed on, again dramatically changing the ongoing situation.
The best solution really is to publish the papers immediately on the internet and publish the book whenever it is ready.
Interview with Professor Robert Taylor
Without following the news in detail … just from cursory overview … it seems as though Aung San Suu Kyi is slipping gracefully into an Elder Statesman role.
If that’s the case, then she might not be the hoped-for spearhead for change. Maybe the best hope for the country will be when an intelligent younger generation of army officers and civilian professionals decide that change is necessary. Education is key.
Which is probably what people like Professor Taylor have been saying all along.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
And I should have asked, who are the yellow shirts above?
Sheridan and Selth on Burma today
Victims. villain, all the V’s but no victors.
If villains are defined by their villainy than the generals wins hands down.
Plenty described here and repeatedly so @ New Mandala.
Never given the benefit of Moe Aung’s “ad infinitum”et “ad nauseum”.
How about the well know villainy of the west’s policy that not only effect the intended but never even alluded to “the unintended”?
There will never be victors, knowing well what the generals, Daw Aung San Suu as well as yourself will be doing, having Burmese blood running in your vein!
Confirmed here again the ill conceived, useless careless Sanctions have been for the benefit of Daw Aung San San Kyi.
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/06/23/disparate-sanctions-us-sanctions-north-korea-and-burma/
So are the supporters of the villains, and their villainy, villains as well?
“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
KJB Matt. 12:30.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
But can’t Dr Walker at least do the kind of analysis that I suggested a couple of days ago in the context of the Prachatai case — what was said that couldn’t have been if the conference had been in Thailand.
Of course, by the time the book comes out in Singapore, it will not include what should not have been said there. Small book, seriously outdated, as Khun Lee says, by the time it hits paper.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
I wrote to Singapore asking about the availability of the papers from the “Five Years After” conference…
They’ve decided to become irrelevant. No one will care what was said on this topic at this conference by next year.
Forget the censors, the Academic Industry seems to be The Main Obstacle to the free dissemination and discussion of ideas.
Flatulence and breathing meditation
The author states: ‘So-called “breathing meditation” is not at all what millions of Buddhists have been lead to believe: many passages of the PTS translations (old and new) are grossly misleading, and, in one important aspect least, they are flatly wrong (e.g., PTS MN vol. 1, p. 55 et seq.; D.N. vol. 2, p. 290 et seq.; S.N. vol. 5, p. 141 et seq.; and, in translation, e.g., Woodward, 1930, p. 287 etc. etc.).’
Since he is so critical of the PTS and other translations, perhaps he could explain himself by giving a rough translation of the following Pali from the Mah─Б Satipaс╣нс╣нh─Бna Sutta (M I.56):
so sato va assasati, sato va passasati. d─лghaс╣Г v─Б assasanto ‘d─лghaс╣Г assas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti, d─лghaс╣Г v─Б passasanto ‘d─лghaс╣Г passas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti, rassaс╣Г v─Б assasanto ‘rassaс╣Г assas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti, rassaс╣Г v─Б passasanto ‘rassaс╣Г passas─Бm─л’ti paj─Бn─Бti…
(Bhikkhus ├С─Бс╣Зamoli and Bodhi translate this as follows: ‘ever mindful he breaths in, mindful he breathes out. Breathing in long, he understands ‘I breathe in long’; or breathing out long, he understands: ‘I breathe out long.’ Breathing in short, he understands: ‘I breath in short’; or breathing out short, he understands: ‘I breath out short’.)
Could this text possibly be about anything other than breathing meditation? Absolutely not – there is a better chance of pigs flying.
Siamese love, sex and war in Canberra
I have just received my copy in the post today. I have to say, at first sight it looks like an extraordinary labour of love. Beautifully illustrated and annotated, and delightfully bound; I can’t wait to delve in. I’m going to take a chance and heartily congratulate Chris Baker and Khun Pasuk Phongpaichit before I’ve read a word.
Interview with Professor Robert Taylor
Glad to hear that, Gordon.
There’s this one of my favourite English expressions: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And it’s still the very same outfit in power still dripping with the blood of both Burman and ethnic minorities. I hear Hitler was a lovely uncle.
Sheridan and Selth on Burma today
plan B,
Yeah, right. The generals have nothing to do with the real victims. Whose victims? Who preys on them? It must be the ‘useless careless west’. Is this what’s known as fuzzy logic? Cool, nay, wicked!
The citizenry must be too stupid to realise it’s the Western sanctions and not military misrule that keeps them on the lowest plane of human existence whilst at the same time the rulers and their cronies have joined the ranks of $ billionaires. Don’t they recognise a paradise on earth when they see one being created? I guess they ain’t letting the riff raff in.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
Yes, any podcasts?
Pavin Chachavalpongpun at the ANU
By the way, any chance that we’ll get to see/hear recordings from NUS on 19 September 2011 ?