20 Aug 2017 sye
» (Apprentice)
Entrusting vs. Reasoning
“Sentient beings” are so called because they have sensations, feelings and emotions, which are invariably arbitrary, defiled and self-indulgent. Hence the terms “defiled emotions” and “obsessive emotions.” Passions are the roots of various afflictions. We see that emotional and sentimental people tend to suffer more from the vexations of life. In order to curb vexations, one turns to reasoning. To reason means to think, act and make decisions and choices in a calm and rational way, so as to avoid impulsive behavior.
“Don’t get emotional, be rational” is a universal guiding principle, including for Amitabha-reciters of the Pure Land school. However, this approach to life is at a lower plane than “entrusting”: to dedicate our lives totally to Amitabha Buddha and have complete faith in his deliverance. It is a quest for true life and an awakening. It transcends reason and emotions, yet includes and does not reject rational and passionate expressions. Sentient beings come in different capabilities and aptitudes -- some are more emotional while others more rational.
Schools of the Sacred Path place greater emphasis on being rational. We learn from the Surangama Sutra that if a person “is endowed purely with rational thought, he will soar in the air and be reborn in heaven.” However, “he will descend into the hell domain if his mind is dominated by extremely volatile passions.” The Pure Land path, however, transforms emotions skillfully. In the Contemplation Sutra, we see that Queen Vaidehi was a highly emotional and foolish ordinary being. When tormented by extreme suffering and feeling despondent, she cried out for mercy and yearned for a new life from the core of her being: “I beseech you, World-Honored One, to reveal to me a land without sorrow and affliction. I should seek rebirth there. I do not wish to live in this defiled and evil world of Jambudvipa anymore.”
Entrusting our lives to Amitabha Buddha is largely viewed as a manifestation of emotion. This is because sentient beings are inherently oriented to sentiments. They perceive Amitabha’s deliverance as benevolence and loving-kindness. Even our weariness of the Saha world, our delight in the Pure Land and aspiration for rebirth there can be said to be a form of emotion.
Compared with reason, sentiments are more susceptible to being defiled and clinging. Normally, the anguish experienced by those who are fettered and hurt by love is heart-breaking, much more so than that felt by those who are pained by a conundrum of rational thinking. For most people, the vitality and sensation they feel from passions are much more intense than those experienced from an obsession with reason. As a result, they are much more eager and motivated to be rid of afflictions brought by passions, compared to those who are preoccupied with rationality.
The Pure Land teachings skilfully steer passion-ridden ordinary beings towards purity and serenity. For example, in the Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth in the Pure Land, Master Tanluan uses the metaphor of “making a fire on ice” to explain that even the most degraded beings who do not know that the intrinsic nature of existence is non-birth would, if they recite the name of Amitabha Buddha and aspire to be reborn in his Pure Land, have the fire of their wrong views spontaneously extinguished, since the Land of Bliss is a realm of non-birth. The deluded views are like a fierce fire which melts the ice; when the ice melts, the fire is extinguished. This is why Pure Land practice is also called the Easy Path.
That said, we Amitabha-reciters should strive to be more rational than emotional, while not losing sight of the paramount importance of entrusting our lives entirely to Amitabha Buddha and his deliverance. In any event, if we recite his name, our minds will naturally become more peaceful and rational as we are being embraced by Amitabha’s light. The result is that our afflictions and troubles will be minimized.
-- Master Jingzong
(English translation by Foying, edited by Fojin)
归命与理性
众生又称“有情”，即有情识、情感、情绪。众生之情总是主观的、染污的、执著的，故说情染、情执。由情生出种种苦恼>。现实所见情绪比较重的人，总比别人多一重烦恼。为对治情绪，故说理性。理性，乃是按事物本来之理，冷静合理思维>、行动、判断抉择等，以减少情绪冲动。
“理性不情绪”是所有人的通则，净土念佛人当然也不例外。但这是次一级层面的，更深层面的是“归命”，即全副生命归投>弥陀救度，这是生命的渴求与觉醒，超越理性、情绪的层面，也包含、不拒绝理性、情绪的表现。因众生根机不等，或重>情绪，或较理性。
圣道法门更重理性，《首楞严经》言：“纯想即飞，纯情即堕。”净土法门巧化情绪，《观经》韦提希夫人即是情绪很重、>不理性之凡夫，为苦恼所逼，无路可走，才从生命之底发出呐喊、渴盼，“唯愿世尊，为我广说无忧恼处，我当往生，不乐
阎浮提浊恶世也。”
归命阿弥陀佛往往表现为情感的成分多，这是因为有情众生本来偏重于情，弥陀慈悲救度在众生边也多体会为慈爱温情，>乃至厌秽欣净、愿生净土也是一种情。
情、理相比，情较染著，粘腻，为情所困、所累、所苦者往往锥心刺骨，其觉受更甚于迷于事理者，于多数人，情之生命>力表现、觉受，以及欲脱情苦之盼望、动力或更甚于迷理者。
净土门善用凡情入于清净，如《论注》冰上燃火喻所明，故是易行道。
话虽如此，在全副生命归投弥陀救度前提下，念佛人亦当注重理性不情绪，这也是佛光照摄心念趣于平静理性之表现，由>此会减少很多不必要之烦恼。
Machine-translation:
Fate and reason.
" empathy that is, empathy, emotion, emotion. All beings are always subjective, stained, obstinate, and. All sorts of afflictions. The reality is that people who are more emotional than others are more upset than others. To be rational, to be rational. Rationally, it is a matter of logic, calm and rational thinking, action, decision-making, and so on, so as to reduce emotional impulses.
"irrational emotion" is the general rule of all, of course, of course. But this is a sub-level, and a deeper dimension is "Life-saving that is to say," life is life that is the thirst and the awakening of life, beyond rational and emotional dimensions, and not to be irrational and emotional. Performance. Because of the creation, or the emotion, or the rationality.
The Holy Spirit is more rational and rational, " first :" " Pure, pure, pure, pure, pure, pure, pure, pure and simple. Not,, no, no,, keen, keen, keen, keen, and. Yan floating is a bad man."
The fate of the Buddha is often shown as an element of emotion. It is because of the emotions and compassion, Amitabha, compassion, compassion and compassion, as well as the warmth and warmth of the people.
In Comparison, it is more painful, sticky, tired, tired, tired and tired of all those who suffer and suffer more than their minds, in the majority, in the life of the people. And the desire, the power, or more than the riddler.
It is an easy way to make good use of the land of pure land, for example, when it comes to light.
Having said that, under the premise of the heavily of life, the Buddhist people also focus on rational and irrational behaviour, and this is also a manifestation of calm and rational behaviour in the light of the Buddha, which will reduce many unnecessary worries.
6 Aug 2016 demo
» (Apprentice)
http://advogato.org/article/476.html
Posted 9 May 2002 at 17:57 UTC by alan Share This
Imagine if artists were not paid for every internet 'radio' broadcast of their music. That might sound a bad thing for musicians but when you break out of the current music world assumptions that isn't neccessarily a bad thing for the musician or the radio station.
Currently the royalty system reflects a historical state of the industry along with certain goals of efficiency and prevention of monopoly abuse (and copyright is a monopoly). The royalty system in place serves to prevent labels exercising tight control over what may be played and to get money to the label and the artists for each play.
This makes an interesting assumption. It assumes that the radio station gains through this transaction and the artist does not, or gains less. For a small artist I question that assumption. Does the artist gain as much from the radio play as advertising as the radio station does from playing the work ? Is it in fact perhaps fair to say that both the artist and the radio station are paying a media company for the priviledge of advertising a work ?
As a musician why would you want to lose radio royalties? Let us consider a case where a new order of things might make sense. In order to drive sales of an album there are several conditions you want to meet
That the work is available
That you know how to obtain the work
That you know you like or think you would like the work sufficiently to pay the cost (including time and effort).
That the work is not (legally) available for free.
The big challenges to any small band are 2 and 3.
The chances are you don't know who bands like "Madra Rua" or "Show of Hands" are. You've probably never heard their music either. To drive sales many of these bands already offer tracks or clips on their web site. You didn't know they existed or had a website until I told you about them.
As an artist you probably don't want someone downloading your entire albums - although some bands do this for older albums nowdays. The clips and some tracks approach used by web sites works well as is obvious by its continued and growing use.
We've established four things:
You need to know the band exists.
You need to know their website to buy the music.
You need to know you like the music
Providing a few tracks for free does not harm the band (in business terms it is an acceptable value leak)
If enough bands are willing to license tracks for free internet radio play on condition that the band, the track, the album and the web site are stated before or after each radio or internet streaming play maybe new music can go around the entrenched barriers instead of taking a huge hit going through them.
The technology to sell music on the internet exists, and the technology to stream it freely exists[1]. It seems the opportunity is there.
[1] And yes you can get ogg down to 24-32kbits/sec if you hack an additional highpass filter into the player side, and give it a reasonably low Q.
For Small Bands, Wrong Approach, posted 9 May 2002 at 18:54 UTC by RyanMuldoon »
I have been thinking a lot about the various radio models lately. As I (probably naively) see it, there are a few distinct groups in the Radio world: ClearChannel (in other words, commercial radio), Community Radio, Internet Radio, and Satellite Radio. I think ClearChannel is not going to help anyone but the already famous acts, so we may as well disregard them for this discussion. Satellite Radio is interesting, because advertising is a less-big deal, since users pay directly for the priviledge to listen. If it works, great. The radio companies will have a lot more range to choose what they want to play, and can subsudize the "indie" channels of music with more popular/quality/consistent stuff that people are paying the premium to get to, because they already know that they will like it. Community Radio has the basic problems of funding, because as it stands, royalties are expensive, and equipment is expensive, and they are competing against NPR for the already small niche of people that avoid commercial radio. Internet Radio has the possibility to really broaden people's horizons, but I think that licensing is a small part of the actual problem (except for the new DMCA-related rules that are fairly draconian for internet radio broadcasts...but that is a separate issue).
What is the hard problem is for people to find out about the not-well-known music that they would probably like if given a chance. But just playing a lot of cool indie music on a radio station isn't going to draw people in unless they are already predisposed to wanting indie music. Which really isn't very many people. To solve the discovery problem that is pointed out in the article, we need a better solution. The thing that I have been thinking about a lot lately is Amazon.com, and how they could utterly conquer the music downloads world if they decided to. Things like radio are nice and all, and napster and whatnot are great for getting things that you know you like, but how do you find out about stuff that you've not heard of? That is hard, unless you have friends with particularly good taste. But, the best feature of amazon.com is its recommendations system. I've bought enough from them that they make pretty damn good guesses at what I am going to like. Lately I've been using gnutella to download mp3s of bands that they suggest, then if I like it I buy the album. I bought 5 cds just last week. It works that well. All amazon needs to do is make a single or two a free download, the rest of the album like 25 or 50 cents a song, and then if you like them, buy the album from amazon, and you get a 50-100% deduction of what you already spent on the mp3s. Radio is great, but ultimately it is meant as a promotional tool for music. Maybe the Internet gives us a better model for finding out about new music. I'm all for streaming servers, but I don't think that they are actually going to be the savior or indie music. I'd rather see indie labels have streams of their catalog on their own websites....that way the legalities are a lot easier. They can even build in the (lack of?) compensation into the artists contracts directly, if it serves to benefit them.
For small bands, for artistic individuals..., posted 13 May 2002 at 01:01 UTC by sye »
I am afraid music is simply too great to be sold like any other professions for artistic souls in every individuals. I certainly hope that internet 'radio' broadcast will put those popular but not too great music out of their business. Time has proved again and again that people will sooner or later realize that true work of art is what makes our life worth living. My measurement of what composes a true work of art is that it has the power to turn whoever it touches into an artist himself for that moment. If measured that way, people will always want to hold on to real art. I will buy a hard copy of a book that really speaks to me even if i already have its entire content on my computer. I know a person who will buy several different renditions of the same concerto because he is knowledgable and very picky on the performers and conductors. Repetition only kills pseudo art or consumer media products. It will never kill true work of art.