AntrygR's photostream

I'm a gnostic buddhist.

Not of the "schools" of buddhism that are common nowadays, but rather some kind that seems to've died-off in the last couple of thousand years:
buddhism is the
SCIENCE/Perceiving of Mind/Time/Space & how it works and the
ENGINEERING/Making of freedom from obliterator/entropy-mind/reincarnation-deaths.

To me it isn't a "religion" ( doesn't require believing, is objective rather than cultural, etc. ).

It is simply the Perceiving that happiness is founded on the substance you CAN take with you: development of heart, self-command, extravagance of consciousness, integrity developed of experience, etc, ... and NOT-based on the substances you can't, like money or "status" or authority-over-others.

Then, based on that fairly-blunt Perceiving, Making it happen, by opposing the development of ignosis, until ignorance/ignosis releases its grip on one's Eternity.

buddhism assumes that Cause->Effect is a Universal: it affects all matter/energy/mind, not just matter and energy-that-isn't-mind, as Scientism assumes.

I'm a former much-of-the-time-catatonic ( late '80s -> very-early-'90s ), a former street-person, a survivor of a kind of "abuse" that pushed me to open both wrists with a scalpel at 9 years old
( not messed-with for anyone's sexual gratification: it was boundary-violation for others authority-gratification, which is equally-effective at eradicating independent human validity )
and a person who doesn't have much "tolerance" for abuse.

I hold that Reflective Law is the divine law:
Exactly as Cause->Effect expresses, if an object fires a cannonball up, then that cannonball must come down .. preferably ON the cannon that fired it.

If a continuum commits a meaning into Eternity, then THAT continuum is going to experience THAT meaning in the future-eternity.

Some use the sanskrit word "karma" for Cause->Effect, but that just makes Cause->Effect easier for those of scientism to dismiss ( because then it's a Label with "new age" associations, instead of the *meaning* of Cause->Effect, which is a valid meaning! .. idiocy. )

I don't believe souls/buddha-nature are created by matter, nor do I believe they are created at birth: evidence that convinced me ( experience ) shows that there are 3 minds in any successful "conception": the minds of the Mother, some mind-energy from the father, and some mind from the new continuum.
All 3 minds contribute to the DNA-dance that expresses the genetic-*potential* of the new-life.

Notice it takes exceedingly-little energy to modify a life, at that merging-DNA phase.

Whatever: that's some of the sense of "me", for anyone who cares.

I recommend that anyone who wants to UNDERSTAND their Eternity, and their Realization study the meanings of those who've gone before, and solve their-own sense of how their Eternity works:

"Geshe Kelsang Gyatso" gives us the means of realizing, using Tibetan buddhist mode/method.

Japanese buddhism gives us the Clarity & Conciseness I so love.

"Elisabeth Haich" & "Selvarajan Yesudian" give us both an understanding of the What & Why of Life/Universe/Everything & an understanding of what Yoga is/means/does.

Vivekananda was ( *after* he got through his difficulties/obstacles ) a near-Enlightened genius whose yoga got 'im to *personally-experience* the energy/Mind we call "Ocean of buddha" or "God", depending on one's "tradition": he wasn't buddhist, he was Hindu, which is more of a religion than my buddhism, by far...

"Martin Rees" for those of scientism who would like to read an excellent & bright mind ( of an astrophysicist ) who GETS IT ( & rejects bogus reasoning wherever he finds it )... he's probably Christian, again much more of a "religion" than my path, but what an exceptional mind!

Cheers!

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/27518313@N08/favorites/page1/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27518313@N08/favorites/page10/

My "Faves" show what I like, for whatever reason, in this life, better than words do.

Since the Flickr system sorts 'em chronologically by addition, please consider *all* pages of Faves this has shown:
Sometimes I browse particular subjects, but no single subject represents me, so the *other* subjects depicted outnumber the subject I was considering Right Then...

DoubleCheers.

PS: for the Strobist stuff...
If you want to UNDERSTAND photography/strobism, you NEED:
1. a camera that shows you, right on the LCD, whether you're dead-on, or over/underexposing this shot, and by how much. The Canon G10 does this.
2. a methodical/systematic mind, that likes conquering knowing
3. an off-camera flash that can be fired by the camera's-flash ( which you can set to minimum, so the off-camera flash is the significant factor ).
The Sunpak PF20xd is one ( about $55 US ), with a built-in "optical-slave", and the Vivitar 285HV is another ( get a Morris optical-slave for it ) is much more powerful, but twice the price.

With these 3 things, you can set up each shot like this:
a) set up the subject
b) put the ambient-light where you want it ( want it to dominate? make the exposure nearly dead-on. want to nuke it? make the exposure underexposed by more than 2 stops. want a mix? make the exposure underexposed by some... )
c) put one's off-camera flashes so that they angle the light the way one wants ( look from the position of the flash, itself, to see what part of the subject its light is going to hit ), &
d) put the flash-power so that it brings the *total*-exposure up to proper exposure, so that the ambient-light is put in its place as a *component* in the image.

There. That's It: the *essence* of Strobism.

Filters correct the color of one's strobes/flashes, light-stands make holding several for the shot easy, and diffusers/umbrellas etc soften the light, but that bit above is the *heart* of Strobism.

Subject, Ambient, Strobes, Shoot.

Have a Terribly Nice Day, eh?

: D