This is not Oliver but a happy moon bear snoozing in the sun at the Animals Asia Sanctuary in Vietnam, this is Oliver, 30 years kept in a cage for bile extraction, rescued in old age for a happy retirement. Watching this six minute video with its soothing music and Oliver trundling around finding food made the politicians go away with all their ridiculous nonsense - almost over thank god.
Sentient beings, we forget that we are all animals in this world, and I reach to David Abram's book 'Becoming Animal' for words, and of course another reading of his books.
Voice, the breath's tooth
Thought:the brain's bone
Birdsong; an extension
of the beak. Speech
the antler of the mind.
Robert Bringhurst
As spring unfolds around us, occasionally we should look back at our own western culture from the other side of the world and weep for its stupidity as our politicans concentrate on wealth and acquisition as if that will give us any protection from natural disasters as has happened in Nepal, or indeed happiness.
I have been reading about the village of Langtang deeply moved by this account given by two young female English archaeologists as they escaped to the comparative safety of a hotel with their guides. They are now trying to raise funds for this now destroyed village. Nepal is such a beautiful country but geographically almost impossible to get from one place to another. There is another earlier fund for a Buddhist Tibetan monastery, and the people of Langtang before the terrible earthquake wiped out their village were collecting stone and wood from high in the mountains for restoring this monastery, I wonder if it still survives?
"Langtang Gompa was founded by the Tibetan lama Mingur Dorje, a highly respected and renowned Gelung-pa master, and reincarnation. The monastery was sited overlooking and honouring Langtang Lirung mountain (7234m), a local god in pre-Buddhist Tamang culture. Extensive Thanka murals cover the interior, concentrated on the eastern second storey and dating from the original construction phase. Following six hundred years of dedicated use, the Langtang gompa has reached a state of dangerous disrepair."
For now I shall concentrate on what is happening in one small part of the world, and take pleasure in the small, unimportant things ;)
Link to the PDF on the Langtang Monastery
Edit; Langtang completely wiped out by the earthquake - BBC news
I have been reading about the village of Langtang deeply moved by this account given by two young female English archaeologists as they escaped to the comparative safety of a hotel with their guides. They are now trying to raise funds for this now destroyed village. Nepal is such a beautiful country but geographically almost impossible to get from one place to another. There is another earlier fund for a Buddhist Tibetan monastery, and the people of Langtang before the terrible earthquake wiped out their village were collecting stone and wood from high in the mountains for restoring this monastery, I wonder if it still survives?
"Langtang Gompa was founded by the Tibetan lama Mingur Dorje, a highly respected and renowned Gelung-pa master, and reincarnation. The monastery was sited overlooking and honouring Langtang Lirung mountain (7234m), a local god in pre-Buddhist Tamang culture. Extensive Thanka murals cover the interior, concentrated on the eastern second storey and dating from the original construction phase. Following six hundred years of dedicated use, the Langtang gompa has reached a state of dangerous disrepair."
For now I shall concentrate on what is happening in one small part of the world, and take pleasure in the small, unimportant things ;)
Link to the PDF on the Langtang Monastery
Edit; Langtang completely wiped out by the earthquake - BBC news
How much I agree with you Thelma. Somehow it is almost as though only those who have experienced suffering first hand are the ones who appreciate how jolly lucky we are over here and how the politicians go on and on about things which are of such secondary importance.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI think we have a love to learn from other cultures Pat.