1. “Three things cannot be hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”
No matter how much
you try to conceal the truth, it will be known one day or the other.
It’s foolish to cover up lies because the truth reveals itself in the
most honest way.
2. “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”
Anger is a lethal weapon. Apart from slaying the enemy, it also slays you. When you’re angry,
your words deceive you and they hurt others. Therefore, it’s advisable
to remain silent and not speak when something annoys you.
3. “You can search throughout the entire
universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection
than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You,
yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love
and affection.”
We
often expect to receive love and affection from others. In that
process, we start neglecting ourselves. We try too hard to get
attention. However, we forget that loving one’s own self comes before
loving others. You cannot love selflessly, until and unless you
understand yourself.
4. “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
The
message here is to think happy thoughts that will keep you happy
throughout the day. Being optimistic is better than having negative
thoughts. Seeing the glass half-full is a way better perspective than
seeing the glass half empty.
Getting
attached to a thing is the biggest mistake we can make in our lives. It
is when we get too dependent on it that we start losing it.
6.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no
matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your
own common sense.”
Indeed
an enlightening quote! Here, Buddha wants us to learn from our own
experiences and not from the reviews of others. What suits one person
may not necessarily suit another.
7. “Physical charms attract the eyes, goodness attracts the mind.”
Good
looks are an asset - however, a good character is an identity. It’s
completely wrong to judge someone only by their looks and not by their
character.
8.
“Just as on a rubbish heap swept up on a main road a purely fragrant,
delightful lotus might there spring up, even so amidst those rubbish
heaps (of men) does the savaka of the Perfectly Enlightened One outshine in insight the blind puthujjana”
Even
if you’re surrounded by filth, but you’re strong enough to resist the
bad, you will grow like a lotus in a mud lake. If you’re a student, with
hard work, you will outshine all other ordinary students.
9. “When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily.
Buddha teaches us the difference between love and lust. In love, you nurture a relationship. In lust, you only satisfy your physical needs.
Starting
small is the mantra for finishing big. It doesn’t matter if your start
is a small attempt. If you keep at it steadily, you will achieve what
you want to one day.
Life
is one big journey and you’re a traveller. It’s better to live and
travel well, than thinking about the future and losing your peace of
mind. Living the fullest in the present is the best way to enjoy life,
rather than living in the past or the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RblJLKC-V8M
Digha Nikaya 9 Pottapada Sutta - About States of Consciousness Part 1
The Digha Nikaya (”Collection of Long Discourses”) is the first of the five nikayas (collections) in the Sutta Pitaka. Some of the most commonly referenced suttas from the Digha Nikaya include the Maha-parinibbana Sutta (DN 16), which described the final days and death of the Buddha, the Sigalovada Sutta (DN 31) in which the Buddha discusses ethics and practices for lay followers, and the Samaññaphala (DN 2), Brahmajala Sutta
(DN 1) which describes and compares the point-of-view of Buddha and
other ascetics in India about the universe and time (past, present, and
future); and Potthapada Sutta (DN 9), which describe the benefits and practice of samatha meditation (calm meditation).
">Digha Nikaya
Die Digha Nikaya (”Collection of Long Discourses”) is die eerste van die vyf nikayas (versamelings) in die Sutta Pitaka. SommigeSilakkhandha-vagga
Brahmajala Sutta (1) “The Great Net” of die universele net (van
Maha-padana Sutta (14) Die Sublieme Verhaal van die Boeddha Gotama en sy ses voorgangers; ook die diskoers op die Buddha Vipassi; sy afkoms van die Tusita-hemel tot aan die begin van sy missie.
Patika Sutta (24) Storie van die dissipel wat ander onderwysers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elqihPA1yhc
Albania Chant Music
">Digha Nikaya
Digha Nikaya (”Koleksioni i Diskurse të gjata”) është i pari nga pesë nikayas (koleksionet) në Sutta Pitaka. DisaSilakkhandha-vagga
Brahmajala Sutta (1) “Rrjeti i Madh” ose rrjeti universal (i
Maha-Padana Sutta (14) Historia Sublime e Buda Gotama dhe gjashtë paraardhësit e tij; gjithashtu Diskursin në Buda Vipassi; prejardhje nga qielli Tusita deri në fillimin e misionit të tij.
Patika Sutta (24) Tregimi i dishepujve që ndjek mësuesit e tjerë, sepse Buda nuk bën mrekulli ose mëson origjinën e gjërave.
">ዳጄ Nikaya
ዳጊ ናዚ (”የረጅም ጊዜ ንግግሮች ስብስብ”) በሶታ ፓፒካ ከሚገኙት አምስት ናኪዎች (ስብስቦች) ውስጥ የመጀመሪያው ነው. ከዱጋሲልኩሀንሀ-ቫጋ
ብራህማሃ ሰዋው (1) “ታላቁ መረብ” ወይም ዓለማቀፉ መረብ (ዓለማቀፍ), እንደ ዓሣዎች ያሉን ፍጥረቶች
Maha-padana Sutta (14) የቡድሃው ጎዱና እና የስድስቱ ቀዳሚዎቹ ታሪክ የቡድሀ ቪፒሲ ንግግሮች; ከቱሳ ሰማይ ወደ ተልኮ ተልእኮው እስከሚጀምርበት ጊዜ ድረስ.
ፓቲካ ሱት (24) ቡዱክ ሌሎች ተዓምራትን ስለማይሠራ ወይም ስለ ሌሎች ነገሮች ስለማስተማር ሌላ መምህራን የሚከተል ደቀመዝሙር ታሪክ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix3yMWjjA0w
Best Sufi Meditation Music… Vol. I موسيقى صوفية
5,195,593 views
">ديغا نيكايا
ديغا نيكايا (”مجموعة من الخطابات الطويلة”) هو الأول من نيكاياس خمسة (مجموعات) في سوتا بيتاكا. بعضSilakkhandha-vagga
براهماجالا سوتا (1) “الشبكة العظيمة” أو الشبكة العالمية (من
مها-بادانا سوتا (14) قصة سامية من بوذا غوتاما وأسلافه الستة. أيضا الخطاب حول بوذا فيباسي؛ هبوطه من السماء توسيتا إلى بدء مهمته.
باتيكا سوتا (24) قصة التلميذ الذي يتبع المعلمين الآخرين لأن بوذا لا يعمل المعجزات أو تعليم أصل الأشياء.
https://www.youtube.com/watch…
Relaxing Armenian music with duduk
">Դիգա Նիկայա
The Digha Nikaya («Հավաքածուների երկար հավաքածու») առաջին հինգ nikayas (հավաքածուներ) է Sutta Pitaka. DighaՍիլակհանդա-վագգա
Brahmajala Sutta (1) «Մեծ ցանցը» կամ համաշխարհային ցանցը, որում
Maha-padana Sutta (14) Բուդդա Գոթմանի եւ նրա վեց նախորդների գերագույն պատմությունը. ինչպես նաեւ Բուդդա Վիպասսի մասին զրույցը. նրա ծագումը Տուսիտայի երկնքից մինչեւ իր առաքելության մեկնարկը:
Patika Sutta (24) Աշակերտի պատմությունը, ով հետեւում է մյուս
">Digha Nikaya
Digha Nikaya (”Uzun Məsləhətlər toplusu”) Sutta Pitaka-da beş nikayanın (kolleksiyaların) birincisi. DighaSilakkhandha-vagga
Brahmajala Sutta (1) Balıq kimi bütün canlıları və dünyanın digər
Maha-padana Sutta (14) Buddha Gotama və onun altı sələfinin ən böyük hekayəsi; həmçinin Buddha Vipassi haqqında söhbət; onun Tusita cənnətindən onun vəzifəsinin başlanmasına qədər çıxması.
Patika Sutta (24) Digər müəllimləri təqib edən şagirdin hekayəsi, çünki Budda möcüzə yaratmır və ya şeylərin kökünü öyrədir.
http://www.thehindu.com/…/why-abba-must…/article20376164.ece
[Seeding is just one of the many barriers that the ABBA has created in
the smooth functioning of the PDS. The ABBA requires that family members
be enrolled for Aadhaar and correct seeding. At the time of purchase,
the ABBA requires power supply, a functional PoS machine, mobile and
Internet connectivity, State and Central Identities Data Repository
(CIDR) servers to be ‘up’, and for fingerprint authentication to be
successful.
…
What most people don’t realise is that the ABBA
has no role in reducing corruption. If the ABBA helps reduce corruption,
it might be worth fixing these failures. Quantity fraud is the practice
of cheating on quantities sold. Neither seeding nor the ABBA can stop
quantity fraud. In a survey in Jharkhand, dealers continue to swindle
people by cutting up to a kg of their grain entitlement despite
successful ABBA authentication. Identity fraud, for example in the form
of duplicate ration cards, only requires Aadhaar-seeding; the ABBA is
unnecessary. Two caveats on seeding: it can be foolproof against
identity fraud only in a universal system. More seriously, it raises
privacy issues.
Further, in Aadhaar’s rulebook for example, an
elderly person asking a neighbour to fetch their grain would count as
identity fraud. In fact, it is flexibility that is lost when the ABBA is
made mandatory.]
http://www.thehindu.com/…/why-abba-must…/article20376164.ece
OPINION
Why ABBA must go
Reetika Khera
NOVEMBER 13, 2017 00:00 IST
UPDATED: NOVEMBER 13, 2017 03:33 IST
Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication does nothing in the battle against graft — there are better alternatives
In a sickening way, October 2017 was like October 2002.
Fifteen years ago, in Rajasthan’s Baran and Udaipur districts, there
was a spate of starvation deaths. The government of the time made up
fanciful stories to deny that the deaths had anything to do with hunger
or government failure.
In October 2017, the death of an
11-year-old Dalit child, Santoshi Kumari, of Jharkhand, was widely
reported. She had been pleading with her mother to give her rice as she
slipped into unconsciousness and lost her life. The government insists
that she had malaria but in video testimonies, her mother, Koyli Devi,
says she had no fever. After Santoshi’s death, more hunger deaths have
been reported, of which at least one, Ruplal Marandi, is related to the
government’s Aadhaar experiment.
The starvation deaths in 2002
became the springboard for positive action on many fronts, which
included the passing of judicial orders and even political action. Since
then, there has been a perceptible improvement in programmes of social
support including, but not limited to, the Public Distribution System
(PDS). In Baran, it led to a recognition of the vulnerability of the
Sahariyas — a tribal community in Baran — and a special PDS package
consisting of free pulses and ghee being announced.
Similar
action is required today. Instead, the government remains in denial. The
Food Ministry in Delhi issued an order in late October that is silent
on the crucial issue of reinstating wrongly cancelled ration cards and
makes token concessions (with no guarantee of implementation).
Targets and the reality
For months, the Central government has been insisting on 100% Aadhaar
“seeding” across schemes such as the PDS, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and pensions. Seeding refers to the
practice of entering Aadhaar numbers for each household member on the
ration card. It is a pre-requisite for the Aadhaar-based Biometric
Authentication (ABBA) system, the practice of using an electronic point
of sale (PoS) machine to authenticate each transaction. The government
has made seeding and the ABBA mandatory in the PDS. As explained below,
the distinction between seeding and the ABBA is important.
In
their zeal to achieve 100% Aadhaar-seeding targets, some field
functionaries just deleted the names of those who did not submit Aadhaar
details. Others waited till the deadline and then struck off names. The
government claims that all of these were “fake”, detected due to
Aadhaar, thus saving crores of rupees. Santoshi’s family was one such
example. According to the State Food Minister, their ration card was
cancelled in July because they failed to seed it with Aadhaar.
Exclusions are not savings
Some people blame the aggrieved for failing to seed Aadhaar. But many
of them are unaware of the seeding requirement. When pensions in
Jharkhand suddenly stopped for many pensioners, they had no idea why. No
one had told them about Aadhaar. In some cases, the middlemen had
seeded it wrongly. Others still had tried repeatedly and failed. Seeding
is not as simple as it sounds.
Seeding is just one of the many
barriers that the ABBA has created in the smooth functioning of the PDS.
The ABBA requires that family members be enrolled for Aadhaar and
correct seeding. At the time of purchase, the ABBA requires power
supply, a functional PoS machine, mobile and Internet connectivity,
State and Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) servers to be ‘up’,
and for fingerprint authentication to be successful.
Ruplal
Marandi’s family passed the first two hurdles, enrolment and seeding,
but was tripped at the last stage by the ABBA. For no fault of his own,
the Marandi family was excluded from the PDS. His daughter told
journalists that he had died of hunger as the family could not collect
rations because of a biometric mismatch at the PDS shop.
There is
enough evidence to show that the ABBA does not work. The Finance
Ministry’s latest Economic Survey, based on micro-studies, reports high
biometric failure rates.
In Rajasthan, government data for the
past year show that around 70% of cardholders are able to use the system
successfully. The rest have either been tripped up by one of the ABBA
hurdles or, less likely, they did not attempt to buy PDS grain. In
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the ABBA’s poster child States, it is used
to disburse MGNREGA wages and pensions: biometric failure rates are
between 8 and 14%. In some months, one in four pensioners returns
empty-handed.
A case against ABBA
What most people don’t
realise is that the ABBA has no role in reducing corruption. If the ABBA
helps reduce corruption, it might be worth fixing these failures.
Quantity fraud is the practice of cheating on quantities sold. Neither
seeding nor the ABBA can stop quantity fraud. In a survey in Jharkhand,
dealers continue to swindle people by cutting up to a kg of their grain
entitlement despite successful ABBA authentication. Identity fraud, for
example in the form of duplicate ration cards, only requires
Aadhaar-seeding; the ABBA is unnecessary. Two caveats on seeding: it can
be foolproof against identity fraud only in a universal system. More
seriously, it raises privacy issues.
Further, in Aadhaar’s
rulebook for example, an elderly person asking a neighbour to fetch
their grain would count as identity fraud. In fact, it is flexibility
that is lost when the ABBA is made mandatory.
Thus, each month,
people are being forced to cross five meaningless hurdles in the form of
electricity, functional PoS, connectivity, servers and fingerprint
authentication in order to have access to their ration. Failing any one
hurdle even once causes anxiety in subsequent months. Think of the ATM
running out of cash, post-demonetisation, just when it was your turn.
The resultant anxiety defeats the very purpose of such forms of social
support. Failure in consecutive months leads to people giving up
entirely. They stop trying. States such as Rajasthan were planning to
treat such households as dead or non-existent.
The ABBA must be
withdrawn immediately from the PDS and pensions in favour of alternative
technologies such as smart cards. This will allow us to keep the baby
(offline PoS machines with smart cards) and throw out the bathwater
(Internet dependence and biometric authentication).
If the
government continues to insist on the ABBA, there is only one conclusion
that can be drawn. That it is actively trying to sabotage the PDS,
which, quite literally, is a lifeline for the poor.
Reetika Khera is Associate Professor (Economics) at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
—
Peace Is Doable
http://indianexpress.com/…/supreme-court-diminished-judici…/
Supreme Court, diminished
The judiciary has created a crisis of institutional credibility for itself
Written by Pratap Bhanu Mehta |
Published:November 14, 2017 12:39 am
The Supreme Court of India is facing its worst crisis of credibility
since the Emergency. With an occasional exception, the quality of the
court’s reasoning, the inconstancy of its judgment, the abdication of
its constitutional role in some cases, and its overreach in others, are
already denting its authority. But the institutional crisis that the
Supreme Court has now created for itself will puncture more holes in the
authority that it so valiantly tried to exert. It will also create the
conditions under which it will be easier to legitimise diluting judicial
independence.
The current crisis was occasioned by an order
passed by Justice J Chelameswar to constitute a five-judge bench in a
petition filed by CJAR that demanded that a SIT be constituted to look
into an alleged corruption scandal pertaining to a case involving a
medical college. There are two issues: Can the chief justice be part of
the hearing, since the scandal allegedly implicates a judgment the CJI
wrote, even though he has not been named in the FIR? Second, could a
constitution bench be constituted bypassing the chief justice in
violation of the current procedure through which such benches are
constituted? This is not the place to recount the ugly sequence of
events that transpired. But consider the different ways in which the
judiciary has now rendered itself vulnerable.
First, there is the
vulnerability that arises from the CBI itself. There are issues of
corruption in the courts. The judiciary has failed to find a mechanism
to deal with allegations of corruption within its ranks. Every justice
in the court needs to be above suspicion. But a lot of care needs to be
exercised so that the anti-corruption measures taken do not undermine
the independence of the judiciary. This is not a very popular thing to
say, but we should also consider the possibility that the threat of
being investigated by the CBI, or speculative naming (or suggestion in a
CBI report), can itself also be an instrument of seeking recusals or
undermining the independence of judges, as is sometimes done with other
government officials. This subtle institutional challenge to the
judiciary is not outside of the realm of possibility. More than the
conduct of Justices Misra and Chelameswar, the judiciary will have to
think of how it will deal with instances where the Chief Justice of
India or other justices becomes hostage to possible CBI innuendo.
The challenge of fighting corruption in the judiciary will be this: How
do you do this in a way that does not make the judiciary vulnerable to
implicit blackmail and leads to undermining its independence? But a
clamour for reforms that undermine independence in the name of
accountability will be a natural consequence of the current chain of
events.
It is precisely because such a danger looms that the
judiciary’s conduct needs to be above board. And here, the judiciary has
made itself doubly vulnerable. A court carves out its authority by the
compelling character of its reasoning on behalf of constitutional
values.
We have had a succession of chief justices who have failed
to exercise intellectual leadership and the present chief justice is no
exception. It is not difficult to understand the chief justice’s
consternation. He has not been named in an FIR, and the prospect of a
CJI’s integrity being questioned on the basis of an unaccountable CBI is
not a prospect we should relish. He was also institutionally humiliated
by one of his brother justices, who disregarded existing court
procedure and appointed a constitutional bench. But notwithstanding
this, this is clearly a chief justice who seemed not to understand the
concept of conflict of interest. He let his consternation on a
procedural matter get the better of his judgment in a cringingly
unbecoming way. He also gave the impression of not giving counsel a
proper hearing. In the way he has constituted benches, he has also shown
deep distrust in the capabilities of his senior colleagues. By setting
himself up as a judge in his own cause and setting up a bench whose
composition looks arbitrary, he has undermined the authority of the
judiciary.
But Justice Chelameswar’s order setting up a
five-judge bench also made the judiciary vulnerable. Surely, there were
better ways of securing the recusal of the chief justice and setting up a
bench in a way that did not depart from existing court procedure or
humiliate the chief justice. The danger is that the pursuit of justice
and the need to project virtue often results in a grandstanding in its
own right. Rather than build a robust judicial consensus, judges project
their own individual heroism.
Between a chief justice who does
not recognise conflict of interest, and justices who think the only
recourse is public grandstanding, the judiciary will not be able to
survive. Many learned counsel have defended Justice Chelameswar’s move
by invoking Article 142 that gives judges the power to do whatever it
takes to secure justice. But the use of Article 142 has also become a
sign of immense judicial indiscipline, where judges can easily ride
roughshod over other procedural proprieties.
Taken together, both
the chief justice’s and the judge’s conduct highlights one obvious
fact: There is no Supreme Court left any more. In expanding its powers,
the Supreme Court first replaced the rule of law with the rule of the
court (they are not the same thing); now the rule of court has been
replaced with the anarchic will of individual judges. The Supreme Court
has effectively ended an institution. There is no real command structure
left. On procedural matters, whether it is protocols for appointing
judges, or handling conflicts of interest, the court is all over the
place.
Communication between judges seems to have broken down to
the point where the senior leadership of the court is incapable of
getting together and coming up with common sense procedural solutions to
cases like this. The distrust amongst judges, as evident in the ways
benches are being constituted, seems extraordinarily high. And the sense
of injured virtue amongst individual judges seems to be trumping any
consideration of the reputation of the judiciary as a whole.
There are lots of legal nuances to the case at hand. But the court’s
loss of external credibility combined with internal anarchy does not
bode well for Indian democracy. Instead of becoming a constitutional
lodestar in our turbulent times, the court has itself become a
reflection of the worst rot afflicting Indian institutions.
The writer is vice-chancellor, Ashoka University. Views are personal
—
Peace Is Doable