Steven > Recent Status Updates

Gerry Adams is also a slimeball! Leave it to an authsoc to reject every loyalty he's ever had

Similarly to my last note, Tsongkhapa also says that just because emptiness can be established through analytical thought does not mean that it is truly existent. Just as to say that something is not black, does not imply that it is white, similarly, to say that an object is essenceless does not imply that essencelessness is some kind of substratum. Prasangika philosophy merely asserts an external negation of essence

Tsongkhapa makes another refutation in these three pages. He says that although emptiness must be arrived at via analytic thought, it is still an authoritative cognition rather than a mental elaboration. He says that just because a manifest phenomenon is occult doesn't mean that it isn't directly perceived. For example, time is manifest through direct cognition, but you can't see time itself as a tangible object

Tsongkhapa is making some VERY complicated arguments in this section. Basically, he's refuting people who say "if true existence is empty of essence, isn't emptiness also empty of essence--Therefore, essence exists?" He points out that this is a logical error because emptiness can only be arrived at through analytical thought, which is not inherently existent in and of itself. It's an improper instance of affirmation

Some of these ethnographic descriptions are snoozers that I don't think need to be in the book. There seems to be a lot of evidence for not a lot of payoff, and I think they could have edited some of the information out while still having the overall message of the book make sense.

The British government sucks! That's all I have to say. The ways they attempted to hold on to their colonies all around the world was completely deplorable, and ultimately, most of their attempts failed. Womp womp.

This is so well written. I'm trying to decide if the author is too sympathetic to small-L liberalism, but it's not overtly coming across that way so far. As a leftist, I reserve some of my harshest criticism for other leftists, and the IRA is no different. The RUC and the British Army should have been their main concern rather than nabbing random protestants. That kind of behavior among revolutionaries is a red flag.

I may just post my notes in status updates here since this text is so impenetrable (for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike)--Basically this entire section I just read was a takedown of both Vedanta and Shentong philosophy. Tsongkhapa is insisting that dependent arising would be impossible if phenomena were truly existent. Similarly, he says that emptiness is not the same as nihilism, as some Vedantins like to assert.

Everyone was reading this one a few years ago so now it's my turn! The Troubles as a subject is one of the topics I find most fascinating in world history, particularly as an anti-colonialist and anti-fascist. I think the IRA was certainly justified in its desire for an end to British rule, but how they went about their campaign for a united Ireland left a lot to be desired (and a lot of people dead).

For when I need to engage my politically thinking mind. This is relatively short so hopefully it won't take too much time to finish in addition to the other stuff I'm reading at the moment

This is much more dense than I was expecting but then again, I don't know why I expected anything less. It will likely take quite a while for me to absorb all of the commentary Tsongkhapa is making here, but that's okay because it's extremely important

I'm really excited to dig into this one. I admire Tsongkhapa for his piercing intellectualism and his insistence on using air-tight logic. I have a feeling that if I had the chance to meet him directly while he was alive, I would likely become one of his ardent followers. Fortunately, my teachers have carried on his legacy, and I have been blessed to receive teachings from his lineage. Om ah ra pa tsa na dhih

The last quarter of this book is beginning to feel like a slog, but only because I don't personally care about the history of syndicalism. It doesn't detract from the overall purpose of the book though, so it's not a cause for a ratings decrease or anything like that