Monday, July 16, 2012

Time lines

I've been looking at time lines of Buddhism, and I came across this photo of all religions:

timeline of religion (WIP)


You can see my linking of timelines in my twitter feed.

I'm reading Mythology by Edith Hamilton, and I was looking at Greek timelines, and then I moved to Buddhist timelines.  There's some amazing information out there, presented visually.  I watched Ken Burn's documentary on baseball, so I've been thinking more about history.  Of course his one on the Civil War is, I think, his best one, but the Jazz one is also awesome because there's nothing else like it.  He can get a little stuck on Armstrong in my opinion.  And his others documentaries are great too, the one on the Brooklyn Bridge is pretty good.  He's really quite amazing, even if I was a bit bored at the beginning of the baseball one, at times.  He puts it at a leisurely pace, he doesn't pack information in at a breakneck pace.  These were all done before the internet took off, I think.  I think now I'm used to being bombarded with information.

In a side note, seeing Bhante on Skype yesterday, in NYC, Aryaloka and Mexico City, was awesome.  I didn't learn anything new (not the point anyway) but did have some human contact with him.  I did however learn he likes Sea-Drift, from Leaves of Grass.  I didn't know he liked Whitman.  I'd just read that he didn't like Walden, so it's good to see he does like some American.

It's hard to imagine he came out with Survey of Buddhism: Its Doctrines and Methods Through the Ages
 in 1947, which for my money has the most spiritual heat of any book on the earth.

If I could have gotten one question to ask him, I would have asked him what it felt like when he went forth, that first step after he'd given all his stuff away, and went off into India.  Must have been liberating and scary, exciting and worrisome.  Where am I going to sleep tonight would be my first question.  Going forth...  awesome.  

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