So, I've been semi-away from the internets for the past four days. His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama was in town. He gave some teachings for the first three days and a public talk on Sunday ( Read more... )

Boris, the great hunter, caught a mouse yesterday! I found him pawing at a shoe box in my closet, opened the box, and out came the mouse! It scurried into a corner, then into the bathroom, with Boris in hot pursuit. I have to be honest and say that I screamed like a five year-old girl. Which is sort of funny, because I used to work with rats and ( Read more... )

What a great hockey game yesterday afternoon! I am, of course, really happy about Canada getting the gold. :) (Yeah, I know, I said I was rooting for people and all that jazz, but in hockey, it's Canada all the way). In fact, Canada did extremely well in the medal count, and even got the most gold medals ever won by a country during winter Olympics ( Read more... )

That was actually said to me by my husband. So I guess I have to write.

Snow day! Well, not really. It's going to get much worse in the afternoon, apparently.

Last night we almost adopted a second kitty. Boris was sitting on the windowsill, staring at something outside. I looked out the window -- there was a black-and-white kitty right outside. We ( Read more... )

Lots of delicious Japanese food this weekend. On Friday night, I finally satisfied my insane craving for oden. I had to satisfy it by myself, since my husband thinks oden is just alien body parts in broth and should not be eaten. He had some miso mackerel with rice, as I recall.

On Saturday, after eating leftover rice in the form of onigiri (by the ( Read more... )

So, with all those vacations and holidays and work and kanji wars and watching Torchwood from episode 1, I haven't been sitting much. This is pretty noticeable. Insanity kicks in. The brain starts making up crazy stuff like 'this sucks and will suck forever' or 'I am running out of time and must get pissed off if I waste even 10 minutes of it' ( ( Read more... )

I finished Anam Thubten's No Self, No Problem. I picked it up at the Tibet House during the retreat last week. It's a simple book. It is honest and very to the point (probably because he wrote it in English). In a sense, it is a brutal book that tells you to get off your ass and stop delaying you enlightenment. His message is: you are already ( Read more... )

The weekend was spent at Tibet House with Anam Thubten Rinpoche. We meditated, recited the Heart Sutra, chanted, and listened to him talk about emptiness (shunyata). Rinpoche is a funny guy (actually, I think he is a big geek, since he managed to mention both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings in his teachings). On the second day of the retreat I got ( Read more... )

Today is day 14 of The Sit. It's been going pretty well, I even managed to sit during the weekend when we had guests. I think it makes me more emotionally stable and helps me relax after work, since I usually sit in the evening.

I finished reading Andrew Skilton's Concise History of Buddhism. A couple of thoughts: first of all, it's much more ( Read more... )

I managed to do 10 minutes on day three of The Sit. :D I have to say, those 10 minutes were more illuminating than some of my longer sittings.

The Irish is over until the middle of April. This gives me a few weeks to forget everything I've learned.

I just finished Thomas Laird's The Story of Tibet: Conversations with Dalai Lama that I picked up a ( Read more... )