Nun of Your Business

Hypothesis: Sentient life is nature's recording machine. This morning, we are watch Mo Rocca's Innovation Nation , on which one of Mo's quiz answers was the invention of the video recording machine--what enabled television shows to be replayed later instead of live.  Add to this the fact that I'm currently reading a work of post-apocalyptic fiction-- The Second Sleep --in which all the information we've been storing online is lost, and only fragments of written works remain. And, include my previous interest in the durability of oral records--Buddhist works being passed down through the ages by memory and recitation, the works of Homer possibly being memorized recitations before they were written down, etc. Magnetic Core Memory These things stirred my mind to think that sentient lifeforms, and particularly human beings with our facility for language, might be nature's recording machine. We witness the world, we remember it, and we speak it. Generations pass on

... a work in progress It doesn't have to be perfect.

My friends who are trying to decide how to spell mantras that are coming to us from Sanskrit through Tibetan script are frustrated about when to use the letters B, V, and W. Here are the troublesome letters: Chart by Drimay. Part of the issue is Tibetan and Indian pronunciation , but another related issue is the evolution of our alphabets .

In a recent class, we were learning the Vajrasattva mantra. During the break, somebody asked how the Sanskrit word vajra  becomes benza  in Tibetan pronunciation. I typed these notes on the screen. Notes about Vajra > Benza Vajra in Tibetan script, i.e., Badzra. Va jra – V is not really V. It’s usually a W or a B. Nepalese and Tibetan people understand it to be a B in this context. Ba jra – J is not really J. In the Tibetan alphabet there is a Ch row and a Ts row of consonants. This Sanskrit J is spelled with the Tibetan letter that we write (in Roman letters) as DZ (which is in the TS row – TS TSH DZ NY). Ba dzra – so, badzra is a completely legitimate spelling

Some of us have a hard time remembering how old we are once we get up there in years. Recently my friend and I were trying to calculate her age and we found an age calculator online .

To get the screen notes that were typed at the Mexico retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, go to this folder: LZR Mexico 2015 The notes from all sessions, all teachers, have been combined, totalling 157 pages. You can save either the PDF or the Word DOCX file. Other resources, such as the Bodhicitta Mindfulness list will be there, too. Update: I added a file with the notes typed into the Daily Meditation , including Blessing the Speech, from when Rinpoche gave the lung  (oral transmission). Click on the same link above and you'll see all the files. Caution: The screen notes are not a transcript. Sometimes things were missed because of not understanding, Rinpoche speaking very quickly, other things interrupting the typing, or the typist's fatigue. Also, we were just typing notes for the audience; we weren't trying to get every word. In addition to Lama Zopa Rinpoche's talks, there were also sessions by Venerable Steve Carlier (the retreat leader), and Venerable