Enlightenment
 

About three years ago I got a tattoo on my arm in tibetan sanskrit saying "love, compassion and the aspiration for enlightenement". As I have been getting more and more cynical I have wondered whether I still believe in that or not......

Then the other day i was cycling to work at 7am, past the grey people at the train station waiting in the rain in their suits. As the rain soaks through my shorts I become comfortable and begin to accept the situation - after all, it's only water. I cycled past the mile-long queues of cars with their engines running, trying not to inhale their poisonous fumes too much. Then, as I reached an open stretch of road, and increased the pressure I felt the most at peace I think I ever have. Maybe I do still believe in it after all.

I'm dressing as a bat at halloween.

Beard

hate to tell you this, but Sanskrit existed as a language long before the Tibetan language was constructed in the 1700's, as far as I know, they are two separate languages

I like poetic people, and I think this board can benefit from (more of) them...

Agreed. I'm glad to hear that other people in the world think like myself. Keep it up beard.


Cheers

Definitely tibetan. Guess its not sanskrit then. Got it from a book called Tibetan Mysticism by a buddhist monk.

i feel you man. have fun_

i have found cynicism to be the byproduct of most paths of enlightenment with regards to living in everyday reality....

I'm a big fan of it myself ;)

I'm generally cynical, but I hear you about the bicycle thing.

The other day it was absolutely torrential, the tail end of one of those hurricanes. One of my coworkers came in after me and said she was pretty sure I'd passed her. She ordinarily rides in, but couldn't stand the thought of the rain, so she drove. She said she felt really guilty when she saw me go by.

I told her I wouldn't have had it any other way. There's a serenity to it. You go out at first and you get wetter and wetter, and that's not so pleasant. But then at a certain point, you realize you're as wet as you're going to get and it's still not so terrible. You've achieved a happy equilibrium and you can once again enjoy the ride.

Like the Budhist said to the hotdog vendor, "Make me one with everything."

CONTINUATION....

The vendor made up a hot dog with onions, relish, tomatoes,
etc., and gave it to the monk. The monk gave the vendor a $20
bill. The vendor took the twenty and started to help the next
customer.


The monk said,"Wait, where's my change?"


The vendor smiled and winked and said, "Change comes from
within."

the written form of the the tibetan language is in fact sanskrit-derived. i have some on my arm, too:

compassion (nying-je)

Cool, thanks habitus. Where's yours? Mine wraps around myright forearm, just below the elbow.

tibetan script is derived from the common sanskrit devanagari script, sanskrit was written and spoken by the ancient arayans who invaded modern india around 1500 bce or thereabouts. sanskrit is an indoeuropean language, however tibetan is not; it is part of another language family. tibetan adapted the devangari alphabet to write their own spoken language which developed independently from sanskrit and indo-iranian languages. so the script is sanskrit derived, however the language is not.

you stole my f***ing costume.

jerk

and yet ANOTHER poetic type

you know, the few days i get these feelings more than make up for the many that i don't.

There has been a fad for about the last five years where people get Asian characters tattooed on various body parts, thinking the message has to do with bringing good fortune or some such thing, but do they really know what the characters mean ? What if the tatto artist is playing an evil joke, and the characters really translate to something like "I am a stinky, hairy Caucasian". Just an unsettling thought...

It's happened before. Don't remember anything about the specific instances, but I'm sure its on the web somewhere.

More typically it's a grammatical error. I have a friend who lived in Japan for several years, so he can read the kana scripts and some kanji. He says the reverse is true as well, Japanese kids would get tattooed with some stupid poorly constructed English phrase.

tibetan is actually a part of the language family known as "tibeto-burman"
while the script is definitely derived from sanskrit it's different in many ways
the languages are similar, but tibetan is still spoken very widely, though the dialects are mutually incomprehensible...
most likely what you have tattooed on you is central lhasa dialect tibetan, but that all depends on the region of tibet that the monk who wrote the book is from...as far as i understand it the alphabets are still pretty much the same for each dialect the differentiation is on pronunciation, use of honorifics, and grammar usage.

I'd love to talk with any of you on here that are into indo-tibetan studies, I'm a south asian studies dork and will be working in this field for the rest of my natural born life

the wrapping must look nice. mine's on my left forearm, no wrapping, three letters.

oh i forgot...
I have a stylized vajra split down the middle...one half on the underside of my left forearm w/ the lotter "om", and the other on the right arm with the letter "hum/hung"

I've got a "wrathful vajra" on the back of my right calf...old tibetan symbol with a javra floating above a lotus, enwreathed in flames

tibetan script for "removal of anger" above the calf tattoo

white tara on the right side of my right calf, from knee to ankle....now i just need to figure what to put on the left side to finish my calf sleeve

" As the rain soaks through my shorts I become comfortable and begin to accept the situation - after all, it's only water."

I got a North Face Summit series Large XCR Goretex jacket that's barely a year old. This is the shell only without the zipin fleece liner. Only worn a few times. totally light weight and waterproof, and breathable. Black and dark grey color. Looking to dump for $65. Will provide pics. figured I'd offer my fellow fixers before ebaying it. Winter's coming.

I know Kung Po