Steven > Recent Status Updates

At the risk of reading too many things at one time, I'm reading this commentary in preparation of the ley rung that I am planning on doing this upcoming year. Zasep Tulku Rinpoche is a wonderful teacher, despite his connections to "that deity." And frankly, I often think that issues concerning "that deity" are mostly political in nature and don't have much to do with the actual practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

This book has thus far done an excellent job at reframing the conversation about inequality of all kinds. 120 pages of setting up the argument is a bit long in my opinion, but at the same time, the authors are doing a careful job of persuading the reader that this is even a conversation we should be having in the first place. The evidence and examples provided are wonderful and thought-provoking.

Alert!! The authors are name dropping Yuval Noah Harari and saying that he's wrong. I'm in heaven

My first impression of this book is that it's a YA novel, and historically I am not a fan of that genre. We need to get to the gay sex within at least 75 pages in order for me to keep reading.

This book is very compelling so far. The authors argue that any discussion about the source of inequality falls into a conservative trap, because it assumes that there was an amorphous, totally equal society in the past (usually this idea refers to indigenous societies). However, that idea was mostly invented by Europeans, and there has never been a society where that was the case.

I'm needing a good fiction selection, and this one has been on my list for a long time, so better late than never! Give me all that steaming hot Trojan warrior sex magic. And tragedy of course

Shelving because I'm really not focusing on this practice right now. Will finish at a later date when the Guhyasamaja completion stage becomes relevant to my practice

I'm not even 50 pages into this book and I've already learned so much. Instant non-fiction classic.

I'm not even 15 pages into this book and the authors are already throwing shade at Francis Fukuyama. Am I in heaven?

Shelving this book because it's more of a reference book than anything. I'm focusing on my Buddhist practice right now, so maybe I'll come back to this book once I sign up for qigong or kung fu lessons.

I'm shelving this because the case studies are just too dry for me. I understand why they're necessary, but I'm halfway through the book and we still haven't gotten to the good stuff. Maybe going out to find fossils and coral is very exciting, but to me, it's just not that interesting to read about.

I'm shelving this because the case studies are just too dry for me. I understand why they're necessary, but I'm halfway through the book and we still haven't gotten to the good stuff. Maybe going out to find fossils and coral is very exciting, but to me, it's just not that interesting to read about.

Got the empowerment for this practice today, looking forward to recording it and finally practicing!

I'm starting to read this commentary because I am receiving this empowerment this upcoming weekend. I don't want to get too far into it though because I don't want to accidentally start visualizing the main sadhana before the empowerment, so I think I have to stop here.

From what I've seen it seems like a very beautiful practice

God, this section on body isolation is dragging. I'm sure it'll become relevant once I actually start practicing the completion stage, but right now Tsongkhapa is giving me a snooze fest

This book gets more and more depressing as it progresses. How fun!

I'm not really enjoying some of the excerpts where she describes field excursions. I get why it's necessary but... It's a little dry. Not sure how she could write these field excursions better though; sometimes archeology is just boring I guess

Skipped a bit more of the commentary on how many stages the practice should be dividing in. This might be important for scholars but for practitioners the information is simply contextual. Frankly, I don't care how previous authors divided the teachings, I'm mostly interested in how Je Tsonkhapa presents the teachings