scarletwoman

scarletwoman's Journal

January 31, 2012

Apples and oranges. Juries aren't 'replacing' mods, they are an entirely different paradigm.

As others have said above, juries have no need of "institutional memory", their job is to consider a single post within the context of the thread in which it appears.

It is, in fact, far better that juries do NOT consider the history of a poster, since they are supposed to be looking at the alerted post on its own merits, outside of other considerations that do not not involve the actual thread in which the post appears. The worst jury decisions are those which are justified with statements to the effect that "the person (who was attacked by the poster in the alerted post) deserved it." Juries ought NOT be making decisions from institutional memory!

The one exception that must be allowed for is that which I will call the "taterguy exception": http://www.democraticunderground.com/124029095

January 10, 2012

The Heart Sutra

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom, saw clearly that the five aspects of human existence are empty*, and so released himself from suffering. Answering the monk Sariputra, he said this:

Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.
The other four aspects of human existence --
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness --
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.

There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and so with no delusions,
they feel no fear,
and have Nirvana here and now.

All the Buddhas,
past, present, and future,
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and live in full enlightenment.

The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra.
It is the clearest mantra,
the highest mantra,
the mantra that removes all suffering.

This is truth that cannot be doubted.
Say it so:

Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!

Which means...

Gone,
gone,
gone over,
gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it!

Profile Information

Gender: Female
Hometown: Minnesota
Current location: up north
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 31,893

About scarletwoman

I'm an old white woman, born in November, 1949. My parents lived through the Depression and WWII (my dad's a veteran). I've witnessed a lot of history firsthand, plus I carry the stories handed down to me by my parents, aunts and uncles from their generation, and my grandparents from their generation. Basically, my memory is a depository for most of the 20th century of U.S. history, plus the 2 decades (so far) of the 21st century. //////Important quote: Milos Forman (film director, b. 1932, d. 2018) - "I hear the word "socialist" being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Barack Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, "Obamacare is socialism!" They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism." (He lived in Czechoslovakia under Communism before emigrating to the U.S.A.)