arkiuat - Network

renter problemsSo, for the second time in a row, the domicile I'm renting has been sold and I'm expected to vacate June 1. Last...

renter problems

So, for the second time in a row, the domicile I'm renting has been sold and I'm expected to vacate June 1. Last time, the new landlord wanted to renovate and re-rent. This time the new landlords are expecting to owner-occupy my unit. I turned 55 a while ago and really should have been trying to find one of those low-rent-for-people-over-55 type deals last time I was forced to move: I guess now is my opportunity to do so.

hatha yogaOf course, when I started doing it a couple of weeks ago, at full stretch my toes were dangling in the air very high above the...

hatha yoga

Of course, when I started doing it a couple of weeks ago, at full stretch my toes were dangling in the air very high above the ground. I've made a lot of progress, and even though my toes still don't come all the way down to the ground, my back is doing *much* better.

hatha yogaWhen I was observing my mom, I tried the Plow a few times and thought "that's easy, what's the big deal?" But...

hatha yoga

When I was observing my mom, I tried the Plow a few times and thought "that's easy, what's the big deal?" But that was back when I was rubbery and young. Now I'm glad that the idea wasn't completely unfamiliar to me when time came that I needed it.

hatha yogaI sure am glad that I took an interest in my mom's weird yoga practices when I was a kid. I've always thought my...

hatha yoga

I sure am glad that I took an interest in my mom's weird yoga practices when I was a kid. I've always thought my hamstrings were tighter than they ought to be, but in the last year or two I've started developing a troubling stiffness in my lower back that was getting to be a real problem. I messed around with a few different ways of stretching, but then one time I tried the Plow asana, and wowzers, it turned out to be *precisely* the stretch that I needed.

v local mn.us winter (barely) bikingAnd my apologies to all the snow lovers who are very sad that all the snow got melted, but at least I...

v local mn.us winter (barely) biking

And my apologies to all the snow lovers who are very sad that all the snow got melted, but at least I get to enjoy going to fetch groceries with my bike without having to make a big production out of it the way I would at -12 degrees with sheet ice on the pavement and a sharp wind.

v local mn.us winter (barely) bikingI'm pleased to find that they've finally widened the bike passage along 10th Ave S from Lake St...

v local mn.us winter (barely) biking

I'm pleased to find that they've finally widened the bike passage along 10th Ave S from Lake St to 31st. I mean, I had already been using it for years, but now it's slightly less like threading a needle.

awoo!

awoo!

buddhist textsEvery single stanza ends with that same line: "live alone like a horned rhino." Apparently it's from very early...

buddhist texts

Every single stanza ends with that same line: "live alone like a horned rhino." Apparently it's from very early days, when wandering new buddhist monks and nuns were so thin on the ground they hadn't started living together in communal vihaaras yet, or something. I guess it's important to disentangle oneself from the very annoying and very distracting kind of folks.

buddhist textsHere is just one stanza of it, of the Khaggavisaaṇasutta (Suttanipaata 1.3) from Bh. Sujato's translation at...

buddhist texts

Here is just one stanza of it, of the Khaggavisaaṇasutta (Suttanipaata 1.3) from Bh. Sujato's translation at
https://suttacentral.net/snp1.3/en/sujato

Having burst apart the fetters,
like a fish that tears the net and swims free,
or a fire not returning to ground it has burned,
live alone like a horned rhino.

Sandaalayitvaana saṁyojanaani,
Jaalaṁva bhetvaa salilambucaarii;
Aggiiva daḍḍhaṁ anivattamaano,
Eko care khaggavisaaṇakappo.

buddhist textsThe Rhinoceros Sutra is blowing my mind.

buddhist texts

The Rhinoceros Sutra is blowing my mind.

We human beings are mammals, which I guess means that we're closer cousins to the elephants and whales than we are to the giant squid or...

We human beings are mammals, which I guess means that we're closer cousins to the elephants and whales than we are to the giant squid or the many octopuses.

weird ancient historyIt weirds me out so much when westerrn historians proclaim the Gupta to be the golden age of India. It's just so...

weird ancient history

It weirds me out so much when westerrn historians proclaim the Gupta to be the golden age of India. It's just so obvious to me that the time when India alone held more than half the world's human population, as Asia does today, was about 2500 years ago, long before the Gupta. And there were some interesting events around that time.

religion (Buddhism)This definitely started some kind of Thai-forest-Buddhist-books trend for me, because since then I've been reading a...

religion (Buddhism)

This definitely started some kind of Thai-forest-Buddhist-books trend for me, because since then I've been reading a lot from a completely different bhikkhu from that tradition, Bh Sujato. I just finished reading his /A History of Mindfulness/. It's a scholarly deep dive into the whole Buddhist canon (meaning both Pali *and* Chinese) to critique the dry-insight and vipassanaa-only schools of meditation-teachers.

pro sports (Minnesota)Lynx win!

pro sports (Minnesota)

Lynx win!

youtube (two random bits)Google has indeed become extremely evil, but I keep finding neat stuff on Youtube:The best way to count is not...

youtube (two random bits)

Google has indeed become extremely evil, but I keep finding neat stuff on Youtube:

The best way to count is not seximal but binary? https://youtu.be/rDDaEVcwIJM?si=PzIQMeuZ9pSljeNt

Somebody made a gorgeous visualization of the song "The Great Curve," from Talking Heads's _Remain_in_Light, and now I finally know ALL the lyrics, including the places where three different sets of words are being sung simultaneously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTyfMDnK-k

Minnesota local (Metro Transit)What is going on with the hardcore fare enforcement? I've been riding my bike everywhere all summer and...

Minnesota local (Metro Transit)

What is going on with the hardcore fare enforcement? I've been riding my bike everywhere all summer and today was my first time on the Green line in months, but there were farecheckers on board both outbound and return.

vi (text editor)But I spend about as much time editing text in that MacOS-style interface as I do in vi (sometimes more, sometimes less),...

vi (text editor)

But I spend about as much time editing text in that MacOS-style interface as I do in vi (sometimes more, sometimes less), and this may be the reason why.

vi (text editor)I think I abandoned emacs for vi about twenty years ago, and I've also thought of myself as a bit of a vi snob ever...

vi (text editor)

I think I abandoned emacs for vi about twenty years ago, and I've also thought of myself as a bit of a vi snob ever since then, but I just realized that I have yet to learn to use vi's native undo/redo interface with the same facility that I use undo/redo in the standard MacOS text editing interface, which I kind of loathe in the same way and for the same reasons that I love vi.

The web strikes back! (at proprietary apps, I guess)https://web.dev/explore/progressive-web-appsKinda sus that it comes from "the...

The web strikes back! (at proprietary apps, I guess)

https://web.dev/explore/progressive-web-apps

Kinda sus that it comes from "the Chrome team," but still, if developing in this mode catches on, we might still have the web when Chrome finally goes away (when international antitrust law finally catches up with the 21st c?)

religion (Buddhism)#ThanissaroBhikkhu

religion (Buddhism)

#ThanissaroBhikkhu