Podcasts about Tibet

◆སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་བོད་ཀྱི་བདེན་པའི་མཐའ་གསལ་ཆེད་རྒྱ་ཆེ་མི་མང་མུ་མཐུད་རྡོག་རྩ་ཆིག་སྒྲིལ་དགོས་པའི་བཀའ་ཕེབས་པ། ◆ སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་སྐུ་ཞབས་ཇག་ཌིབ་དྷན་ཁར་མཆོག་རྒྱ་གར་གྱི་སྲིད་འཛིན་གཞོན་པར་བདམས་ཐོན་བྱུང་བར་དགའ་བསུའི་འཚམས་འདྲི་མཛད་པ། ◆ དཔལ་ལྡན་ཚོགས་གཙོ་མཆོག་གིས་ཀྱང་རྒྱ་གར་གྱི་བདམས་ཐོན་སྲིད་འཛིན་གཞོན་པ་མཆོག་ལ་འཚམས་འདྲི་ཞུས་པ། ◆ འཕྲོད་བསྟེན་ལས་ཁུངས་ནས་ས་གནས་ཀྱི་གནད་ཡོད་མི་སྣ་རྣམས་ལ་སེམས་ཁམས་འཕྲོད་བསྟེན་གྱི་གོ་རྟོགས་ལས་གཞི་ལེགས་པར་མཇུག་སྒྲིལ་བ།

The recent U.S. equity rally pauses with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 both closing lower ahead of tomorrow's inflation report. Chip maker Nvidia issues a Q2 profit warning due to slumping gaming sales. In China, there are further Covid flare-ups with authorities locking down in parts of Tibet and Xingjiang, just a day after restrictions were imposed on the tourist island of Hainan. Norway has warned that it may ration electricity exports to Europe following low summer rainfall affecting its reservoirs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you are an avid cyclist who has dreamed about traveling the world, meet Joe Diomede. Better known as Bicycle Joe, this cyclist has pursued his passion for seeing the world on two wheels and has authored a book about his many adventures.Cycling has changed Joe's life, and he has spent many years working and living on his bicycle. Inspired by his bike life, Joe recounts incredible memories he and his family have had while cycling and living in various countries.Joe has spent time in Africa helping provide bikes for people in need and believes the best part of cycling is that it is accessible to everyone. Joe thinks any story that explores the infinite possibilities cycling can add to life is an empowering story.5 Fun Facts to Know About Joe:He was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. He used to be a motorcyclist but saw his first mountain bike in Japan in 1987 and never looked back. Back then, Joe and some friends put together the first dropped handlebar mountain touring bikes.He spent nine years traveling and working worldwide, with his bicycle being his primary means of transportation.He met his wife 26 years ago on The Tibetan–Chinese border. He was on a bike, and she was traveling with friends by bus. He talked her into buying a bicycle and traveling with him into Tibet. 26 years later, they still ride their bikes, tour, and are Warmshowers hosts.His bike life led him to work in and own bicycle shops for over a quarter of a century. He never stopped traveling, mainly by bicycle. He and his wife have two children who grew up on bicycles and in bike shops, and now they are both mountain bikers and work in bicycle and ski shops in The Pyrenees in France, where the family now lives.He has written a book recounting the central part of his two-wheel travel life. He also has a cycling article in a British magazine called Permaculture Magazine, Issue No. 111.Learn more about Joe and follow his adventures on his website, Cycles of a Traveler, and on YouTube.Join our community at Warmshowers.org, follow us on Instagram @Warmshowers_org and visit us on Facebook. Contact Tahverlee directly at Tahverlee@Warmshowers.org.Theme Music by Les Konley | Produced by Les Konley Happy riding and hosting!

◆ སྤྱི་ནོར་༸གོང་ས་༸སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་བོད་ཀྱི་བདེན་མཐའ་གསལ་ཏེ་གཞིས་བྱེས་་མཉམ་འཛོམས་བྱུང་ངེས་ཡིན་ཞེས་བཀའ་སྩལ། ◆ སློབ་ཕྲུག་གྲངས་ ༣༠༦ ནས་ ༢༨༧ ལ་ཕྱི་ལོ་ ༢༠༢༢ ལོའི་ཤེས་ལྷན་གྱི་སློབ་ཡོན་ཐོབ་རྒྱུ། ◆ རྒྱ་གར་བོད་དོན་རྒྱབ་སྐྱོར་ཚོགས་པས་བོད་དོན་ལས་འགུལ་ཤུགས་ཆེ་རུ་གཏོང་ཐབས་ཐད་ཚོགས་འདུ་བསྐོང་ཚོགས་གནང་། ◆ སློབ་གྲྭའི་སློབ་སྤྱི་ཚོར་སློབ་མའི་བདེ་འཇགས་དང་སྲུང་སྐྱོབ་སྐོར་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གནང་།

Bar-headed Geese, champions of high-altitude migration, leave their nesting grounds in Tibet and scale the Himalayan range on their way to wintering grounds in the lowlands of India. How do they do it? These geese have a breathing structure that extracts oxygen from thin air, even at 30,000 feet. Inhaled air passes through the lungs and is temporarily stored in several sacs, then circulated back through the lungs. The capillaries in their breast muscles are more numerous than in other birds, providing the muscles with a greater supply of oxygen.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

Batman Begins is my favourite standalone Batman movie. It set a precedent for the kind of grounded serious superhero movie that I would love going forward. So let's dig in an talk about it. Over the next three episodes, I'll be covering the Dark Knight Trilogy, but it all begins here with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. ----more---- (Player control to listen to this podcast at bottom of page) Transcript Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I'm Adam David Collings The author of Jewel of The Stars. And I am a nerd. This is episode 92 of the podcast.   Today, we're talking about the movie Batman Begins.   The description on IMDB reads After training with his mentor, Batman begins his fight to free crime-ridden Gotham City from corruption.   The story for this movie was written by David S. Goyer The screenplay was written by Christopher Nolan. It was directed by Christopher Nolan And it first released in June 2005  In order to share my thoughts and reactions to Batman Begins, I need to very briefly talk about my past experience with Batman. Much like Superman, Batman has always been a part of my consciousness. I can't remember a time in my life before I knew about Batman. He was just always there.   The first version of the character that I actively remember engaging with was the 60s TV series, although I'm sure there was awareness before that. I wasn't alive in the 60s, of course, but I saw the show on repeats. Remember Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s? Our local TV station did their own Saturday morning show, and amongst all the cartoons, they always showed one live action show. At one point they showed the Beverly Hillbillies. At another point, it was Adam West Batman.   I enjoyed the show, but I think even at the time, I was aware that it was incredibly cheesy and silly. But to me, Superheroes were not silly. I took them very seriously.   When news of the 1989 Tim Burton movie came out, my ears pricked up. I didn't see the movie at the cinema. We just didn't really go to the cinema much when I was a kid. We watched everything on Video. And that's how I eventually saw this movie. But I remember seeing the marketing. And I had a hardcover book about the making of the movie. I remember looking at the darker aesthetic and thinking, wow. This is a gritter, more serious take on Batman. I was VERY interested. Would this movie take the character as seriously as I did?   When I finally saw the movie, I enjoyed it. It was more grounded. I liked how they explained the Joker's smile. He had to have his skin stretched after his accident, so he used makeup to make it less weird. At least, that's how I interpreted it. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realised that the normal skin tone was actually the makeup, and the white skin was real.   This movie was much closer to the kind of Batman I wanted, but it still had more campiness than I expected. Most of that came from the Joker. Seeing him prance about with his goons spray painting the museum, it felt like I was right back in Adam West land. But it was more than that. There was a thick veneer of un-realness over them, especially the second. It was the architecture, the people, the 1930s cameras, Penguin's father's monocle.   And the movies in that series got progressively more and more silly. I don't want to speak too disparagingly about that series, because there's lots of good stuff to like.   But when they announced that the Batman movies were getting rebooted, I was very interested once again.   And this time, they really were taking it seriously. Batman Begins was a more serious grounded Batman. This was a movie that took the character as seriously as I did. It treated him like a person and really fleshed out Bruce Wayne as much as it did Batman. This was EXACTLY what I'd been looking for. And to this day, Batman Begins is still my favourite stand-alone Batman movie. It'll be interesting to see if that still holds after I re-watch The Dark Knight, which I've only ever seen once. I say standalone because Batman V Superman was a multi-hero movie. But Batman Begins primed me for Zack Snyder's work. Batman Begins made me fall in love with the grounded serious Superhero movie. And I've never looked back.   So let's dig in and talk about it.   So the movie begins with a shot of the sky with bats flying everywhere, and Batman's logo revealed in the background. That logo is so recognisable that you really don't need any text. That's something the marketers knew even back in 1989.   Bruce is running around his garden as a child. Most Batman stories begin with Bruce walking through the alley with his parents at night, but this is a different take. This is Bruce before the tragedy. It's all bright colours and sunny. Bruce has a big smile on his face as he plays with his childhood friend Rachel. But he's a bit of a little ratbag. Rachel has found something cool, it's an old arrowhead, and he snatches it from her. It seems that child Bruce has developed a sense of, I can have what I want, because I'm rich. Not exactly the lesson his parents would want him to pick up, we'll see later that they're really good people. But this is an attitude that could easily develop in a child raised in an environment like this, unless much care was taken to help him unlearn that kind of stuff.   As Rachel chases him, Bruce falls through a hole into an old boarded up well. rachel runs to get help from her Mum, who is in Wayne Manor, which looks really cool. I'm surprised they didn't take more care to fence it off or something. This well connects to a cave system underground, and it is filled with bats. Young Bruce freaks out as they flap around his face, giving him a life-time fear of bats. This is an important element that will come back later in a way that I thought was really cool.   That's when we cut to Bruce waking up as an adult.   Now I've heard from some sources, some criticisms of this movie and it's realistic take. Pointing out that there are things in it that are far from realistic. Bruce's fall without apparent injury could be classed as one. Although we'll later learn that he did break his leg, but a bit more visible pain on his face would have helped.   For me, when I say I love this movie for its realistic take, it's not about every little moment being perfectly realistic. It's about the realistic take on the characters. It's about the world feeling like ours, rather than having that thick veneer of fakeness plastered over it like the previous movie series. As I said before, it's about this movie taking itself seriously.   This is a Bruce Wayne we've never seen. He's got a beard. He's lying in a foreign prison. Okay, What is going on here?   Most Batman stories do the parents' death and then cut straight to Batman fully costumed and operating in Gotham. But there's a big jump between those. How do you get from one to the other? That was the big promise of this movie. They were going to delve more deeply into Batman's origin story, a story that had never really been told on screen before. We see how Bruce as a young man goes off in search of his destiny, and finally finds it. Finds a way to deal with the pain of his parent's death, and ultimately, becomes the Batman we know. This was a story that was completely new to me, and I loved it.   We don't yet know what Bruce is in here for, but another of the prisoners has it out for him. Is bullying him. I quite like it when the bully refers to himself as the devil, and Bruce says, “you're not the devil. You're practice.”  That tells you so much about Bruce's mindset here. He's using everything around him, every experience, to learn and develop. To become what he wants to become. And that's very Batman.   We get to see a nicely done fight scene. It's fierce and brutal. When the guards drag Bruce away “for protection” and then reveal it's not for him, it's for all the thugs he beat up, I audibly laughed. A little humour, but not the kind of humour that pulls you out of the seriousness of the scene.   Somebody is waiting for him in his cell. A well-dressed Liam Neeson calling himself Ducard. He says something very interesting. “Are you so desperate to fight criminals that you get yourself locked up so you can take them on one at a time.” This gives us a lot of insight into who Bruce is at the moment, and what's going on in his head. Did he deliberately get himself locked up in here? I wouldn't put it past this version of Bruce Wayne.   Of course, Ducard has figured out exactly who Bruce is. And he says he works for Ra's al Ghul, a name I hadn't heard before I watched this movie the first time.   Bruce has been exploring the criminal underworld, but in the process, he's become lost. Rotting in a foreign prison. He may be learning about criminals here, but he's certainly not going to do anybody any good.   Ra's al Ghul can offer him a path. Something he needs but isn't yet convinced about. The path of the League of Shadows.   Ra's al Ghul shared Bruce's hatred of evil. He can provide a way to serve true justice. So a vigilante. Bruce isn't sure that's what he wants to be.   But Ducard sees al Ghul differently. A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. Kinda like Bruce right now. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely. A legend. There's some good dialog in this film.   And now he's got Bruce's attention. Because he's offering a concrete way to become what Bruce really wants. A way to truly make a difference against the kind of evil, so rampant in his home city, that destroyed his life.   This is as good a time as any to talk about a theory I have. You see, the whole idea of a man dressing up as a bat to fight crime is absurd. It's ridiculous. You might even say, it's pretty stupid. So why does it work? How do you make it work?   When you're adapting a comic book to a movie, and you come across something in the comics that's silly, there's two main ways you can deal with it.   The first is to basically hang a lantern on it. This has become quite popular in recent time, but has been for a long while. The MCU did this when Hawkeye says “I'm fighting robots with a bow and arrow. None of this makes any sense.” I really don't like this approach. It's the acknowledgement, of, this is silly, we know it's silly, but let's just go with it, yeah?   Even Zack Snyder's Justice League does this a little bit, when Aquaman derides Bruce for “dressing up like a bat” and later says “I dig it.”   At the other extreme, you've got the approach that Batman Begins takes. When you find something that's silly, you either find a way to make it work, to make it less silly, or you eject it.   An example of this is the penguin. I believe Christopher Nolan has been quited as saying that The Penguin would never have worked in his trilogy because the character just wouldn't fit with the more realistic take he'd developed.   But right here, in this scene, we're seeing that Batman Begins is going to try to explain why an orphaned boy grows into a man who eventually wears a bat costume, in a way that doesn't feel silly. And for me, personally, it works really well.   Ducard has arranged for Bruce to be released from prison tomorrow. He's instructed to find a rare flower that grows on the mountain. If he can pick one, and bring it to the top of the mountain, he may find what he's been looking for all this time.   I'm liking the character development they're already doing with Bruce. He knows he's looking for something, and he's been stumbling around the world trying to find it, but so far he's failed. This is exactly the kind of person that Ra'as al Ghul would try to recruit. And yes, Bruce may have finally found what he's been searching for.   The scenery in this next sequence is quite beautiful. The grassy plains and the snowy mountains.   He makes his way up the mountain, past villages. They warn him to turn back. I guess there are stories about the questionable people who live up at the top.   Bruce is being put through a physical challenge to reach his destination. It's one thing to want to fight injustice, but it's another to have the strength of body and will to do so. Bruce first has to prove himself capable. Which he does.   Bruce finds an old asian man sitting in a chair when he finally reaches his destination. “Ra'as al Ghul?” he asks. And you'll notice the man doesn't answer. He speaks in another language, and Duard translates. I'm not sure exactly what country this is. I get the impression it's somewhere like Tibet or maybe Nepal.   Bruce is asked “What are you seeking?” “A means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.” Bruce sounds like somebody who has already given a great deal of thought to the answer to that question. We know he's been seeking this for some time.   He presents the flower to Ducard.   “To manipulate fears in others, you must first learn to control your own.” Which seems to make sense.   Bruce can barely stand after his climb, but is still expected to defend himself. Ducard is testing him. He learns that Bruce is afraid, but not of him. Bruce has been in fights with thugs so many times before. He used to that. When Ducard asks him what he fears, we cut back to that childhood memory. Being rescued from that cave full of bats.   We learn here but Bruce did indeed break a bone, so points back for the realism thing. We also see that Rachel's mother works for Wayne as a maid. Importantly, we see Bruce hand the rock back to Rachel as they go past. It seems he's learned a lesson of sorts through this experience. Maybe life isn't all about having everything you want, and taking the things you desire from others.   His father is trying to impart an important lesson to Bruce. “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.” That's a lesson that adult Bruce has really taken to heart, which is how he's survived so long in this lifestyle. But he'll have to re-learn it later.   In this scene, we get our first glimpse of Michael Caine as Alfred. Superhero movies are usually cast with unknowns. That makes a lot of sense, especially for the titular heroes. But Christopher Nolan deliberately cast a lot of big name stars in this movie. Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes.  Nolan's thinking was, why shouldn't a superhero movie deserve to have the very best actors available. Of ourse, star power isn't always directly equal to acting ability, but these actors all do amazing jobs in their roles in this movie.   I was a little sceptical about someone as famous as Michael Cain playing Alfred. Would I really be able to see the character through the famous face? But it absolutely worked for me. All these actors sold me on their characters, and after this, I couldn't imagine anybody else ever playing Alfred. Who could possibly top Michael Cain? Of course, then Jeremy Irons blew me away in Batman V Superman, but that's another story.   Bruce is having recurring nightmares about the bats. They've really scared him. His father explains that they attacked him because they were afraid of him. All creatures feel fear - especially the scary ones. This conversation will really shape who and what Bruce will become.   And then his father shows him a pearl necklace he plans to give Bruce's mother. That's ominous. We know what those pearls mean. Right?   The next scnene gives us some great insight into who Thomas Wayne is. He's not only a good father, he's a good man. The people of Gotham have been going through hard times. He's used his money to provide cheap transport for the city, and he's not above using it himself, by the way. He owns Wayne Enterprises, a big successfully company, but he doesn't take an active role in running it. Instead, he chooses to spend his time working in a hospital as a doctor. In his own way, Thomas Wayne is a hero. He instilled a lot of values into his son.   There's been one or two interpretations of Thomas Wayne where he's a corrupt businessman. Not a nice guy at all. And while I appreciate the grittiness of that approach, I prefer this version of Thomas. The idealistic nice guy who established a legacy for Bruce to follow.   And notice that Thomas is wearing a tuxedo, and Martha is wearing the pearls. We know what's coming.   The actors in the opera seem to be dressed as bats. It's freaking poor Bruce out. There's a little exchange between father and son. First of all, he says “Can we go?” And that just comes across as any restless child who is bored and wants to leave. My response to that would be a quiet firm “No.” But his face shifts and he says “please” in a pleading kind of way. And Thomas sees what's really going on inside Bruce. And being the good father he is, Thomas leaves the show, something he probably spent good money on, something he was probably enjoying himself. But for the sake of his child, there's no question.   Martha hasn't picked up on it the way Thomas did. She asks what is wrong, and Thomas covers for him. I'm not sure exactly why he felt the need to do that. Maybe so as not to embarrass Bruce over his fears. I got another chuckle when Thomas said “A little opera goes a long way, right Bruce.”   So they've left early and are walking through the alley, and that's when it happens. The inevitable moment that defines Bruce's life.   When the mugger appears, Thomas is calm. He's willing to hand over whatever this guy wants. Again this shows the man's values. He cares about his family far more than money. And he's trying to calm the mugger.   But when the wallet drops, the mugger gets jumpy. The mugger wants the jewelly as well. He raises his gun toward Martha. And suddenly it all happens so fast. The previously calm Thomas reacts on instinct. It's not about the pearls. Somebody is pointing a gun at my wife. I must protect her. He stands in front of her. The sudden movement spooks the mugger and he fires. It's all so tragic. They were so close to getting out of this without anybody getting hurt.   Somewhere along the way Martha is shot as well.   And the poor kid is left there in an ally all alone, next to the dead bodies of his parents.   And it's all because they left early. It's all because Bruce was afraid of the bats. That's got to hurt. This is a good addition to the mythology because it drives that knife even deeper into Bruce's heart. And it's that pain that pushes him to become Batman.    The death scene is done pretty well here, but I have to say, after seeing the version Zack Snyder did in Batman V Superman, well, this just can't compare to that. That haunting music! And the lack of blood seems to detract from the realism somewhat.   We get our first look at Commissioner Gordon, although he won't be a commissioner at all during this movie. Right now, he's just a uniform cop. Probably a constable. I don't know exactly how police ranks work in America. You can tell right away he's a good cop. He shows a lot of compassion and empathy for Bruce.   The detective delivers the good news. They got the guy who did this. But that's got to be very little comfort to a child who has just lost his parents.   One of the Wayne Enterprise executives promises they'll be watching over the empire until he's ready. Again, that's the last thing that Bruce cares about.   Bruce breaks down and admits the guilt he's feeling to Alfred. And we see the beginnings of the father figure that Alfred will be from now on. That's a dynamic that I really like.   Back in the present, Ducard asks Bruce if he still blames himself for his parent's death. He says that his anger outweighs his guilt. Honestly, I'm not sure which is healthier.   Bruce has buried his guilt with that anger, but Ducard is going to help him confront it and face the truth.   Next we get something of a training montage. Not quite a montage because there's snippets of dialogue through it.   Bruce has come a long way with his own training, but Ducard will take what he can do and take it to new levels. There are a lot of similarities between Batman, the way he operates, and a ninja. Both use stealth. This movie digs into that and outright makes ninja training a part of Batman's background. I imagine a lot of this is drawn from comics, but I'm not familiar enough to know exactly what. I'm still pretty early the comics-reading journey I recently started.   But it's all good stuff.   One little detail that I love is that during their sword fight, Ducard is wearing armoured spikes on his arms, these are a famous part of Batman's costume.    There is an emphasis on theatricality and deception. These also lead very naturally into what Batman will be and lend believability to the whole thing that I really appreciate.   When Bruce is shown a criminal in a cage, we get some insight into the zero-tolerance that the league of shadows have for crime. Ducard says “criminals thrive in the indulgence of society's understanding.” We'll see shortly the kind of justice that they believe in.   The next conversation explores this idea of guilt and blame.   Ducards says “Your parents' death was not your fault. It was your father's. He failed to act.” Bruce defends his father. “The man had a gun.” “Would that stop you?” “I've had training.” “The training is nothing. Will is everything. The will to act.”   So Ducard is placing the blame firmly on Thomas, for not having the strength of body and will to stop the mugger. This is a very interesting perspective.   The truth is, there are a thousand different things that contributed to them being there at that moment. Bruce's desire to leave early, their decision to go to the opera, Thomas's gift of jewellery to his wife, probably many factors that lead the mugger to choose that particular night, that particular alley.   But ultimately, the blame for his crime, in my opinion, has to fall on the mugger. He made the moral choice to steal from these people, and he made the moral choice to kill them. The responsibility for that crime rests on him.   There's another nice quiet character scene with Bruce and Ducard around a campfire. Ducard displays a keen insight into the kind of pain Bruce has at the centre of his life. The anger he has wrapped around the guilt. The way it has affected him. He shares a little of his own story. He knows Bruce's pain because he shares it, because of the death of his wife.   Then he says something important. “Your anger gives you power, but if you let it, it will destroy you.” And isn't that the truth!   When Bruce asks what helped Ducard, he says vengeance. And I'm going to have to dispute that one. From what I've observed, Vengeance rarely makes people feel better. It doesn't take away the pain. We talked about this in Stargate Universe when Rush took revenge on Simeon for killing Amanda Perry and Ginn.   Bruce says vengeance is no help to him. He asks why Bruce never took revence for his parents.   And that leads us to another flashback. Bruce is now a young man, probably just out of his teens. He's been attending Princeton, which I believe is a pretty high profile university, but he's back home with Alfred for a hearing. Related to the man who killed his parents. Justice works very slowly. But that's probably a good thing. If there's one thing where you don't want to risk making a mistake, it's the justice system. Sadly, of course, no matter how slow and careful they are, there are still mistakes made.    Bruce is not returning to Princeton. Apparently, he hasn't ingratiated himself to the staff there. But he can't see Wayne Manor as his home either. This is his father's house. A mausoleum. Alfred doesn't see it that way. This house has been home to six generations of the Wayne family. Many times, it has passed from parent to child. The child becoming the new master of the home. Moving into the master bedroom is symbolic of that. The only difference is, Thomas's death happened so young, and so tragically.   Bruce doesn't understand why Alfred cares so much. But Alfred cares very much about this family, and thinks of it as his own. We see the same thing with Jeremy Irons' Alfred too. Thomas made Alfred responsible for that which was most precious to him. Bruce. Alfred takes that responsibility very seriously.   And then we find out why Bruce has little regard for his future. We see what Bruce plans to do. He has a hand gun.   But there's a lot more to it than just wanting revenge for killing his parents. We learn that Rachel works for the DA, and the DA is letting the mugger, Chill, go free. He shared a cell with Carmine Falcone. He's testifying against that crime boss in exchange for early parole. So this isn't the sentencing after all. I Guess justice doesn't move THAT slowly.   This is hard one. I understand why the justice system needs to make deals like this. You reward the small fish for helping you catch the big fish. The truth is, Carmine Falcone is a much greater threat to the safety of the people of Gotham than Chill is. If they can bring down Falcone, then a lot of lives can be saved. A lot of crime can be prevented.   But what about Bruce? What about his parents? Where is the justice for them? That's why Bruce feels somebody should be there to represent his parents at this hearing. To remind the world that Chill's crime had consequences. That his crime broke Bruce's life in a way that can never be repaired.   And this is also why he's planning to take justice into his own hands with that gun.   I'm not sure I noticed this when the movie first came out, but watching it now, as a 44 year old, Rachel almost looks too young to be a lawyer. Katie Holmes was famous as a teenage actor in the TV show Dawson's Creek. I didn't watch that show at the time, but I saw a little of it with my wife some time later. I'm still very much seeing that teenager in her face here in this movie. Of course, this movie came out in 2005. It feels like it was just yesterday, but that's actually 17 years ago. My first child was born in 2005. Anyway, I guess the moral of that, which I'm trying to say is that Katie Holmes retained her youthful look, so good on her, and … well….I'm getting kind of old.   As the DA, makes his case, he mentions a depression. To my knoweldge, the only depression that has occured in the last few centuries, was the great depression between the two world wars. We've had a number of recessions, but that's a lesser thing, right? And depression isn't something that just affects one city. A depression affects nations. Multiple nations. So that's a departure from real-world history.   Chill speaks of his regret for his crime. Yes, he was desperate, but that doesn't change what he did. I believe his remorse. It comes across as genuine. After 14 years of paying for the crime, how could you not come to regret it?   We all know regret right. I've been torn up by regret over all sorts of things. But none of them close to the severity of what Chill did.   When the judge announces that a member of the Wayne family is present, and invites Bruce to speak, the actor playing Chill does some great stuff with his face, showing the emotion that the character is feeling in that moment. The shame and guilt. The regret. How do you face the living victim of your murder?   But Bruce doesn't speak. He stands and walks out. And gets his gun ready. Bruce walks toward Chill, gun hidden in his sleeve, but he never gets the chance. Somebody else shoots Chill dead. No doubt somebody working for Falcone.   Bruce and Rachel talk about the difference between justice and revenge. Bruce posits that sometimes they are the same thing. Rachel says that justice is about harmony. Revenge is about making you feel better. But Bruce points out her impartial system is broken, which, it is. We talked about that, the imperfection of humans.   So Rachel decides to give him a real lesson. She takes him into the slums. She shows him the people living in poverty. Falcone floods the streets with violence and drugs. He makes these people desperate. The real villain in Bruce's story may not be the man who pulled the trigger. It's Falcone, who made Chill desperate enough to want to steal. (Which obviously doesn't exonerate Chill for his terrible crime). Rachel knows exactly where Falcone hangs out. He's there in that bar every night. But through corruption and threats, he keeps the police at bay. Nobody will touch him. They're all too afraid.   This scene is foundational to Bruce becoming Batman. This movie shows there's so much more to it than just the death of his parents and training to be a ninja. There's some real depth to the story in Batman Begins, and I love it.   Bruce admits to Rachel that he's not one of her good people. Shows her the gun. She gives him the slap he deserves. And she's right. His father would be ashamed of him right now.    So Bruce storms right into Falcone's bar and walks up to the crime boss. I like how the first half of this movie uses Falcone as its primary antagonist. In the grand scheme of things, he turns out to be a minor foe for Batman, but at this point in his life, Falcone is an untouchable, insurmountable foe to Bruce.   The conversation between Falcone and Bruce is fantastic. More great dialog. Falcone has the kind of power where he wouldn't hesitate to shoot Bruce in the head, right here, in front of cops and judges. That's power. The power of fear.   In a few quick sentences, he reminds Bruce how much he actually does have to lose. Rachel, his butler. He thinks he knows pain, but he knows nothing of desperation. It's ironic that Falcone is the cause of so much desperation in this city, but he understands it. He lives amongst it. Bruce doesn't yet comprehend that type of desperation.   But as we've seen earlier in the movie - he will.  This encounter with Falcone is the impetus he needs to go and start learning about desperation and fear. To begin his long training toward becoming Batman. So he can be one of Rachel's good people. A good person who won't just do nothing.   I don't know if Bruce will ever think of himself as good. He's too morally gray. But he's going to stand against the evil that has infested his city. Like his father did before him, in a very different way.   As soon as he's thrown out of the bar, Bruce begins to shed the trappings of his privileged life. His wallet, his cards. His fancy clothes. He sells his nice coat to a homeless man, exchanging it for a ratty old one. His journey has begun.   During this training, he lost a lot of assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong. But he never fully gave in to it all. He didn't become one of them. He stole, but technically, the things he stole belonged to his company anyway. He still had a moral line.   So back in the present, Ducard is using drugs to teach Bruce a lesson. He must become more than a man. He must become an idea. He must use fear against his enemies. The drug is from that purple flower that grows on the mountain. It has hallucinogenic properties.   Ra's Al Ghul is satisfied that Bruce has overcome his fear. He's ready to join the league of Shadows and lead these men. But first, he has to prove his commitment to justice.   He has to behead a criminal in front of them all. But this is one of those lines Bruce has set. He's not an executioner. He won't kill this man. That's not justice. That's what Rachel tried to teach him.   This is where he differs from the League of Shadows. He'll fight men like this in Gotham. But he won't kill them. Ducard brings up a classic objection. “You compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.” And Bruce has a good comeback. “That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.”   Ducard makes a point that Bruce knows well. Legal systems are corrupt. They are often not fit to dispense true justice. Bruce has seen this first hand in Gotham. The League has turned their sights on Gotham. That city has become so corrupt, it's time for it to die. And Bruce, as their “Prince” as Falcone called him, “is the perfect one to deliver that justice.” They plan to destroy the entire city. As they believe, this is necessary.   And so is born this Batman's no-kill rule.    I have no problem with this Batman having a no-kill rule. I quite like it. This Bruce still has some idealism left. I like idealism. I also have no issue with Ben Affleck's Batman having no such rule. That's Bruce at a very different time of his life, in a very different situation. Batman has certainly killed before, in comics, and in other movies. Remember that time when Michael Keaton's Batman casually murdered a minor goon and then cracked a joke over his corpse?   Bruce attacks the league to make his escape, burning the temple, and saving Ducard's life. Because he's still a good person.   Now Bruce is ready to be Batman. It's time to go home. Alfred is very happy to see him as he arrives in a private jet. People need a powerful symbol to shake them up. He can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, he can be ignored and destroyed, but as a symbol, he can be indestructible.   We get a nice little moment of humour as Alfred expresses some concern over his safety with Bruce's new endeavour. We also learn that Bruce was declared legally dead by the Wayne Enterprise shareholders. They wanted his majority share, but luckily, he left everything to Alfred, who is now a wealthy man in his own right. The overhead view of the Gotham skyline shows us a very realistic looking city. A place we can well believe exists. A far cry from the gothic cartoonish Gotham we've seen in previous Batman movies. This was a breath of fresh air to me. I could never really connect with the setting of the previous movies. The city just felt so overwhelmingly fake and non-real.   Now, before we see the birth of Batman, we need to meet a new character, One who will be an important villain in this movie going forward. Doctor Crane. The psychologist that gets all of Falcone's thugs declared insane, and transferred to his care, rather than facing criminal justice.   Rachel is onto him, of course, as probably everyone else is. But she's the only one with the courage to do something about it. Interestingly, Rachel seems to be taking on something of the role that Jim Gordon generally fills in the comics. The one brave good person who is willing to stand up when everyone else just looks away, either for money, or out of fear.   Of course, we see Jim Gordon doing that as well in this movie, but so far, he's been largely absent.   Rachel is warned to back off by one of her colleagues. You can't take on somebody like that. You just have to pretend it's not happening.   Bruce's first step is research. And that's a very Batman quality. Preparation. He needs to know if he'll have any allies out there. He finds some newspaper clippings about Gordon.   And that's when he sees the bat. And after all that Ducard taught him, he has an idea. He goes down the well that he fell into as a child, and finds the cave.   The cave is very rustic. It's not a habitable place, as caves generally aren't. I love the waterfall. As Bruce stands up, allowing the bats to flap all around him, he finds that he has overcome his fear of them. Now that he has it under control, it's time to share that fear with his enemies.   Despite his bravado, Rachel actually has Crane a little spooked. He has a deal with Falcone. He gets his thugs off the hook, and Falcone brings in a shipment of something for Crane. Falcone is more interested in favours than money, and for somebody like him, that makes a lot of sense. Falcone has plenty of money, but it's the favours, the connections, that make him who he is. That's the basis of his power. Other people doing what he wants so he remains untouchable. Anyway, Falcone is gonna take care of Rachel for him.   We see in the board meeting, that they are wrestling with the idea of going against the kinds of business practices that Thomas Wayne believed in. One of them argues that after 20 years they should be able to stop thinking about what Thomas Wayne would have done. And …. In part….. I think he does have a point. Thomas is no longer alive and hasn't been involved in this company for two decades.  They're the ones running this business. They need the freedom to take it in their own direction.   But, in terms of values, that's a little different. Thomas Wayne clearly set precedent for the kinds of moral and ethical values that Wayne Enterprises stands for. And those values are something that perhaps should endure. Especially when you're carrying on the legacy of your founder.   Bruce says he's not here to interfere with the company. He just wants a job to get to know the company his father built. He's interested in the applied science division. Of course, he has something of an ulterior motive here.   And this is where we get to meet Lucias Fox. Now as I understand it, this character was created for the movie, and he became so beloved, that they actually added him into the comics. This kind of thing has happened before. Batgirl was first created by the Adam West TV show, and later became part of the comics. Harley Quinn, as well. I think it was an animated series for her.   Anyway, I like Lucias Fox, and it's hard not to when he's played so warmly by the one and only Morgan Freeman.    Fox is surprised Bruce would want to be here. This division is a dead end, to keep Fox from causing any trouble for the board. A whole bunch of prototype technologies, not in production. Exactly what a young Billionaire needs when he wants to come a superhero vigilante.   This scene is great because it legitimises all of Batman gadgets. His suit is an advanced body armour, not used in active duty by the military because it's too expensive. But perfect for a vigilante who only needs one or two.   I've often heard the criticism that Batman can't have body armour any more advanced than what the US Military use in real life because they always have the best that has been invented. I think this scene goes some way to help address that.   This is what I was talking about earlier. You find something that's kind of silly in a superhero's story. In a movie like this, you either make it feel believable, or you dump it.   And that's the key. Making it feel believable, even if it's not strictly 100% realistic. That's not the point. It needs to feel sensible, not silly. It needs to give you enough to help you suspend your disbelief.   And for me, Batman Begins does that perfectly.   I love how Fox sees completely through Bruce's excuse. But all this stuff belongs to him. If he wants to use it, why not?   Alfred gives us another nice little bit of texture. Back in the civil war, Bruce's great-great-grandfather was involved in the secret railroad, helping free slaves. The caves under the mansion came in handy. There is already a passage down into them. Another nice touch that adds an extra veneer of believability to this whole thing.   Bruce is now making his suit. Painting the body armour and adding the arm spikes he learned about with Ducard. Alfred helps him figure out the logistics of ordering the materials he needs to assemble everything without raising suspicion.   We check back in with Jim Gordon. He's in an interesting situation. He's not that courageous good man standing against corruption yet. He refuses to take bribes himself, but he does sit idly by while his partner Flass collects his money. He even assures Flass that he's no rat. He won't tell anyone about the bribes. He's resigned to the fact that there's nobody to rat to.   Gordon is in a small way still part of the problem. He's definitely not yet a part of the solution.   But Bruce pays him a little visit.   I like how on Bruce's first time out, he doesn't have the full cowl. He's just wearing a balaclava. I kind of like it when origin stories do that. The slow build-up to the real suit.   Jim needs a little push. It's not until Bruce tells him about Rachel that he really considers taking a stand himself. Bruce wants to take Falcone down for the drug shipments he brings in each week. The shipments that nobody does anything about.   Bruce definitely lacks the elegance we'll come to expect from Batman as he clumsily falls and crashes around the city. He's gonna need more stuff from Fox.   The memory cloth that will form the basis for Batman's cape is pure science fiction. But couching it in science fiction terms once again gives it that sensible believability to me.   I like the exchange between Bruce and Fox. Fox is happy with the plausible deniability of it all. He knows Bruce is up to something. Bruce knows he knows. They don't have to keep pretending otherwise.   And that's when Bruce notices the tumbler.   I love the tumbler.   Designed as a bridging vehicle. They could never get the bridge to work, but the vehicle itself is fine. Perfect for Bruce's needs. I love how they introduce the batmobile in this way. I love how you first see it in Army cammo colours, but Bruce asks if it comes in black. I love everything about the tumbler. The batmobile is one of the silliest things about batman. That name especially. Thank goodness that term is never spoken aloud in this movie, or in the Synder movies. You don't need to call it that on screen, it just needs to be present. I always thought the idea of Batman driving around in a car was pretty silly. But this thing? Now you're talking!   Now, there are some issues with the tumbler in the second movie, which we'll get to. But just looking at Batman Begins in isolation, this is absolutely perfect.   You can see a defined difference between the way Bruce is approaching Falcone now, as opposed to how he did it as a young man. Back then, he was hot-headed. He burst into Falcone's bar armed with nothing but anger and emotion. And he was humiliated. Now, he's taking his time. Doing surveillance. No longer a child, Bruce has become a man. There's still a lot of emotion driving him, of course, but that emotion is no longer in the driver's seat. Bruce has learned to control it.   In reality, this isn't just a drug shipment. There are drugs, but there's also something special for Crane. Flass is actively helping Falcone protect the shipment. And he's all but offered to kill Rachel. And this is where we first see Batman in action. I love this scene. It takes all the tropes of a horror movie and inverts them. It's the bad guys that are being terrorised, and Batman is the monster. In a lot of ways, this scene defined for me, who and what Batman is. I remember playing the Arkham Asylum game. This scene was in my mind as I played that. It impacted how I played the game.   The crooks are vanishing one by one. Being taken by something in the shadows. It's creepy and it's cool. Possibly the best scene in the movie. I love when the crook screams “where are you you?” And then we hear that gravelling voice behind him, as an upside-down Batman says “here.”   They actually use the “hide the monster” trope here, but in the way I like, not in the way I hate. Because the crooks don't get a good glimpse of Batman. Not until right at the end, we finally see Batman in all his glory, as he pulls Falcone out of the car.   Bruce saves Rachel's life, and gives her the leverage she needs to get the judge to do the right thing.   It seems everything is all wrapped up. In one night, Batman has taken down Carmine Falcone, something the police in Gotham haven't been able to do in 20 years.   So Falcone is strapped to a massive floodlight. Making the image of a bat on the clouds. It's this movie's take on the bat signal.   This is a moment that gets criticism. Those floodlights get extremely hot. In reality, Falcone would be burned to a very dead crisp. And I can't argue against that. First of all, I'll point out that this light is hardly at full strength. You can tell just by looking at it that the light is pretty dim. But then, there's no way it'd be able to project that image up into the sky to be visible like that. This scene is a cheat. I'll admit that.   I always found the bat signal pretty silly. I never liked the idea that Gotham police had Batman on speed dial. Gordon, sure. But he needs a much more subtle way of getting in touch with him.   I'll admit this moment doesn't quite work, but given the overall tone of the rest of this movie, I kinda don't care.   The point is, we've established just how powerful Bruce has become, in his new persona. Up until this point, Falcone has been the big bad of the movie. He was the primary villain. And he seemed a very powerful, very intimidating villain. How can one man bring down somebody like that?   But Batman has done what that young Bruce could never have conceived of. He's brought down Falcone, and it feels kind of effortless.   Bruce Wayne has come of age.  But they've already laid the seeds of a greater challenge that Batman will face. This movie actually has an escalating scale of villains, three different levels. Bruce has just cleared level 1.   And the way the movie has done it, taking all of this time to establish Bruce's journey, it convinces me. The idea of a man dressing up as a bat and running around with a cape at night no longer feels ridiculous and preposterous. The journey has sold it. That's really important to me.   I've always been primarily a Superman fan, but looking back, while I'd always liked Batman, I think it was this movie that really made me love Batman. This movie gave me a version I could believe in. This movie finally delivered on the promise that I first saw when they started advertising the 1989 movie on TV.   Rachel has a rock-solid case. Batman has given her everything she needs.   But the police chief wants Batman off the streets. This is the tension I like. Batman is doing the right thing, he's getting the job done, and Gordon sees the value in that, but officially speaking, Batman is a criminal, pursued by the police just as much as any of his rogues are. That's what Batman was designed to be.   Alfred has some good advice for Bruce. If he's going to live this double life, he's going to have to put some effort into his Bruce Wayne persona as well. Just as Supermam cultivates an akward nerdy Clark Kent, Batman needs to cultivate a frivolous playboy Bruce Wayne to throw people off his scent. Now we introduce a new but important element. A microwave generator has been stolen from Wayne Enterprises. Designed for desert warfare, it vaporises an enemy's water supply. This is more science fiction. But again, I'm okay with science fiction. This is still a superhero movie, after all. And that's what this movie does so right. You establish the silly elements of the story in a believable sensible way, and then you have room to suspect disbelief over things like this. I don't mind a little science fiction, in fact, I welcome it. What I don't want is silliness and cheese. That's why when people criticise the realism of elements like this, I think they're missing the point.   Bruce's appearance at the hotel, with the weird skinny-dipping ladies goes a good way to establishing Bruce as a frivolous playboy, the last person you'd expect to be Batman. Why those women decided to get naked and hop in the water feature I'll never comprehend. Maybe Bruce paid them to do so.   Bruce is willing to be seen in this light in order to protect his true self. But there's one person whose good opinion he doesn't want to lose. Rachel. He tries to tell her, without telling her. “Inside, I am more.” But she's not buying it. “It's not what you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.” And this is a very thematic statement for the whole movie. I partially agree with what Rachel says here. While, I think we are defined by more than just what we do, What she's getting at is the whole idea of putting your money where your mouth is. You can have the best of intentions inside, but if your actions don't match your intentions, then those intentions aren't worth much, are they? It actually reminds me of James chapter 2 in the Bible. Faith without actions is dead.   Falcone wants Crane to get him off on the insanity plea, just as he has with his goons. But more than that. He wants in one whatever Crane and his mysterious boss are up to.   But this is the moment that Crane replaces Falcone as the primary villain. Crane gases Falcone and Falcone goes genuinely insane from whatever is in that gas.   It's obvious at this point, that Crane is the Batman villain Scarecrow.   And this is the moment it really becomes a comic book movie. Weird gas that makes people go crazy? But because everything has been established in such a grounded sensible way up until now, I'm willing to buy it, I mean fully buy into it.   We won't be seeing Falcone again. He's done with. But we've learned how sinister Crane is. He's doing experiments with his patients, using whatever was in that shipment Falcone brought him.   Bruce already knows some of the shipments went elsewhere. He wants to know where. He'll get it out of Flass. Which he does. Batman is a pretty effective interrogator. And Flass is a coward.   So he tracks the shipment to Crane. The shipment is what he uses to make that gas, not to mention the microwave generator. We see that the gas amplifies people's fears. Makes them see what they're afraid of.   Bruce jumps out of a window many stories up, while on fire. And miraculously survives the fall without even a broken bone. That's not realistic. I call valid criticisms on this moment. But the funny thing is, they have their explanation for that. The memory cloth can turn his cape into a glider. Why didn't this scene use that device?   Under the influence of the gas, Bruce becomes that scared helpless little boy again. He cries out to Alfred for help. And of course, Alfred is there for him.   Bruce recognises the hallucinogen. He's felt it before, but this is more concentrated. Weaponised.   Fox has invented an antidote.   Bruce is supposed to have a birthday party tonight, but Rachel is heading to Arkham Asylum to figure out what's going on with Falcone. And she's gonna need backup from Batman to keep her safe.   Why does Crane show Rachel the truth of his whole operation? I know he drugs her afterwards, but why show her what he's doing? He's pouring that hallucinogen into the city water supply.   Batman crashes the party and uses Crane's own gas on him. I love how he sees Batman as a weird human/bat hybrid creature. The gas allows this movie to do some crazy sci-fi/fantasy looking stuff that would otherwise not fit in a movie like this at all. And we learn that Crane's mysterious boss is none other than Ra's Al Ghul. But isn't he dead? Didn't he die when that temple turned?   Bruce calls in the bats presumably using pheremons to attract them, so he can get away wtih Racel, to give her the antidote. Not sure the bats would smell the pheromones from that distance, though.   This is when we first get to see the Tumbler in action. Bruce uses the bridging vehicle's ability to jump to his advantage.   There are a couple of moments of humour that work for me in the chase. It's a pretty cool action scene. Anyway, he gets Rachel to the cave in time to the cave, where Fox has left the antidote waiting.   Crane has dumped his entire supply of this stuff into the water supply. Been doing it for weeks. But it hasn't affected anyone because it needs to be absorbed through the lungs. So why dump it in the water?   Crane is in custody. Bruce uses Rachel to get the antidote to Gordon so he can protect himself and mass produce it.   Level 2 cleared. The final ultimate villain will soon be fully revealed.   Alfred is concerned that Bruce is losing himself in this monster. Bruce argues he's using the monster to help others. But this can't be personal or else he's just a vigilante.   The mansion is full of guests. Bruce wants to get rid of them. There's too much going on right now. Alfred doesn't want Bruce to destroy his father's name. It's all that's left of him. The playboy persona is one thing. But Thomas's legacy is important and shouldn't be tarnished. And, Bruce agrees, for now.   Fox figures it out. The microwave emitter would allow somebody to disperse the toxin into the air supply. He's just been fired for asking too many questions about it.   And now we meet the final boss. The true villain of this entire movie. Bruce is introduced to a Mr. Ra's Al Ghul. It's Ducard. He was Ra's all along. The man Bruce watched die was just a decoy.   Bruce wants Ra's to let the guests go. They're innocent. His only reply “You can explain the situation to them.” And so, in order to save their lives, he must offend them. Dragging his father's name through the mud. They'll never know what he sacrificed to save their lives.   Crane's toxin was derived from the blue flowers on the mountain. He wasn't a member of the league of shadows, just a pawn. Ra's plans to vaporise the toxin and watch Gotham tear itself apart. He said near the start of the movie that he planned to destroy Gotham. He was serious. The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. They sacked rome, released plague rats, and burned London to the ground. When a civilisation reaches the peak of decadence, they come in to return the balance.   But you can't fight evil with evil. They may think they're the good guys, but they've murdered billions of innocent people along the way. Bruce believes Gotham isn't worth saving. He wants more time. Ra's rgues the very fact they've been able to do what they're doing is proof of its corruption.   We're seeing here that everything from the start of the movie is coming full circle. It's almost poetic. I love it.   As his goons burn the mansion to the ground, Ra's drops another bombshell. They tried to destroy Gotham in the past, through economics. Create so much hunger that everyone becomes a criminal. See them rip themselves apart.   But Bruce's parents got in the way of that plan, by helping alleviate the poverty where they could. It was Ra's al Ghul who created the circumstances that lead to his parent's death. Falcone was only a piece of that.   We see here how alike Bruce and his father are. Both, in Ra's opinion, are misguided idealists trying to save the city that deserves to be destroyed. There's a lot of symmetry in this movie, and I love it.   Alfred saves Bruce from the burning house. Bruce feels he's destroyed everything his father left behind, but Alred reminds us what we've just learned. The Wayne legacy isn't bricks and mortar. It's that idealism that tries to save Gotham. Ultimately, Thomas failed, and now so has Bruce. And then that line from his childhood returns. “Why do we fall?”  “So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”   I think Thomas would be proud to see what a fine father figure Alfred has become.   Ra's activates the microwave generator and the gas bursts out of the ground. Right under the narrows - the worst part of Gotham.   Fortunately, Gordon has the antidote.   Everything has gone to hell. All the riot cops are on the island already, and they've been affected by the gas. There's nobody left to send. And just as Commissioner Loeb says that, the tumbler bursts through the air behind him. That's a very effective shot. Love it.   The monorail follows the path of the water mains. They're gonna load the generator on the train and infect the entire city.   Batman is going into battle. He may die. Rachel at least wants to know his name. He replies with that same line “It's not what I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” And this, of course, has a double meaning. In one sense, it means, it doesn't matter what my identity is under this suit. It only matters that I'm trying to help. But, of course, by using that phrase, he's letting her know exactly who he is.   The shot of Batman gliding in like a giant bat and landing is awesome.   A lot of people are getting infected while Bruce struggles to catch the train. More with every metre. This brings us to the climactic fight scene. It's suitably tense. I like it. Gordon uses the tumbler to take out part of the monorail. It's interesting that ultimately he's the one that saves the day. Bruce is there to make sure Ra's doesn't go on to cause havoc another day.   And now we reach that controversial moment. Has Bruce finally learned to let go of his compassion? Ra's asks. “I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.” Many people feel this is a betrayal of the “no-kill” rule that Bruce established for himself early in the movie. And strictly speaking, it is. Bruce is cutting that moral hair mighty thin.   But I don't see this as a negative to the movie. Bruce is a morally gray character. This is when he really steps into that. This is why he and Superman never get on, because they are different. Yes, Batman may be an idealist compared to the likes of Ra's al ghul, but he's not as cut and dry as Superman. And even Superman is forced into some of those gray areas, which I'm also fine with.   The train is stopped, and Ra's al ghul is finally dead. But there's still a lot of people out there who will need that antidote. A lot are gonna get hurt and killed before they get it. It's Batman. It's messy.   The next scene is very satisfying. The company went public, but Bruce bought up most of the shares through various charities and trusts. He's placed Lucious Fox in charge as the new CEO, the previous one, who fired Fox, is out.   Rachel comes to see Bruce, who she has newfound respect for. Bruce thanks her for giving him that first lesson that started him on his journey of transformation.   Now that she knows the type of man Bruce truly is, she's started to hope. They grew up as childhood friends, but there's a lot more between them than just friendship. They've loved each other for years, in some form. The movie probably could have done a better job of portraying that romantic undercurrent of their relationship, though. But there's a problem. Bruce has changed. He's a good man, but the real Bruce that she remembered is gone. Maybe he'll come back someday when Gotham no longer needs the Batman. And that line perfectly sets up the primary conflict of the next movie.   Bruce is going to rebuild his father's house, but it might be a good opportunity to do some work on the foundations.   The bat signal re-appears at the end. Gordon is going to use it when he wants to summon Batman. There's a lot of trouble still out there.  Gordon teases the villain of the next movie by mentioning a thief and murdurer who leaves a calling card - a joker.   And the credits roll.   This movie changed everything. It created a new era for DC comics movies, and started the journey that would eventually lead us to the Snyder Cut.   Without Batman Begins, there would be no Man of Steel. No Batman V Superman.   This movie presented a new way of portraying superheroes. They were no longer something to laugh at or make fun of. They were something to take seriously.   This movie made realistic, those things it could, which made the speculative elements all the more easy to accept. It was a perfect balance.   It's like Christpher Nolan reached into my soul and said “Let's create the perfect Batman movie for Adam Collings.”   There was a lot in this movie. Heaps to talk about. And there'll be plenty more to talk about next time, in a movie I've actually only ever seen once. The Dark Knight.   Have a great two weeks, Live long and prosper, Make it so.  

Every time you see him, he's laughing. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, a Nobel Prize winner, and a hugely sought-after speaker and statesman. If you ask him if he's happy, even after so much loss, the Dalai Lama will give you an unconditional yes. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life and that the very motion of our life is toward happiness. How to get there has always been the question. The Art of Happiness is the book that started the genre of happiness books, and it remains the cornerstone of the field of positive psychology.★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

◆ ཨོ་སི་ཀྲོ་ལི་ཡའི་གྲོས་ཚོགས་གོང་མའི་འཐུས་མི་ལྕམ་སྐུ་ཇི་ནི་ཊ་ རཱེ་སི་ མཆོག་གིས་བོད་མིར་དྲང་བདེན་ཐོབ་རྒྱུར་རྒྱབ་སྐྱོར་དགོས་པའི་འབོད་སྐུལ་གནང་། ◆ ཐའེ་ཝན་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་ཀྱིས་ཨ་རིའི་གྲོས་ཚོགས་འོག་མའི་ཚོགས་གཙོ་ལྕམ་སྐུ་ནེན་སི་ པེ་ལོ་སི་མཆོག་མཇལ་འཕྲད་ཞུས། ◆ ཡུ་རོབ་དཔལ་ས་སྐྱའི་འཇིག་རྟེན་ཞི་བདེའི་སྨོན་ལམ་ཆེན་མོ་ཐེངས་གཉིས་པ་ལེགས་གྲུབ། ◆ དཔལ་ལྡན་སྤྱི་འཐུས་ཚོགས་གཙོ་མཆོག་ལ་དྭགས་སུ་གཞུང་འབྲེལ་ཕྱོགས་ཕེབས་གནང་རྒྱུ། ◆ འཕྲོད་བསྟེན་ལས་མིའི་ནུས་སྟོབས་གོང་འཕེལ་གཏོང་ཐབས་སུ་སྨན་ཞབས་པ་གསར་འདེམས་ཚོར་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གནང་།

All hail Angela Mao! And that Wong Fung's alright too. Also throw in Sammo, Carter, the great mayonnaise vs. salad cream debate and Ian from accounting, and you've got yourself another fine podcast from Darren and Clive. Musical breaks include: Mao by Don Sornrabeab, Short Shorts by The Royal Teens, Flesh Balloons of Tibet by Sun City Girls and Mayonnaise by Jack Ruby.

◆དབྱར་དུས་བོད་ཀྱི་སྐད་ཡིག་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་ཐོག་མཉམ་ཞུགས་གནང་མཁན་བོད་རིགས་གཞོན་སྐྱེས་རྣམས་ནས་དཔལ་ལྡན་སྲིད་སྐྱོང་མཆོག་མཇལ་འཕྲད་གནང་བ། ◆ ཉི་ཧོང་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་ཀྱིས་ཉི་ཧོོང་གི་ཨོ་ས་ཀ་གྲོང་ཁྱེར་ས་གནས་གྲོས་ཚོགས་འཐུས་མིའི་བོད་དོན་རྒྱབ་སྐྱོར་ཚོགས་པའི་ཚོགས་གཞོན་མཆོག་དང་མཇལ་འཕྲད་གནང་བ། ◆ ཆེས་མཐོའི་བརྡ་ཆད་གཏན་འབེབས་ལྷན་ཚོགས་ཐེངས་སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གཅིག་པ་ལེགས་གྲུབ་ཟིན་པ། ◆ དགེ་བཤེས་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྣམ་གྲོལ་ལགས་ཐའེ་ཝན་བོད་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་ལས་ཁུངས་ཀྱི་ལྟ་གྲུབ་སློབ་དཔོན་དུ་བསྐོ་གཞག་ལས་བཅར་ཞུས་པ། ◆ ཡོངས་དགེ་མི་འགྱུར་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག་གིས་Sao Paulo གྲོང་ཁྱེར་སེར་སྐྱ་མང་ཚོགས་ལ་ནང་པའི་སྒོམ་གྱི་ཉམས་ལེན་སྐོར་ངོ་སྤྲོད་གནང་བ། ◆ལ་དྭགས་བོད་ཁྱིམ་སློབ་གྲྭའི་དགེ་ལས་རྣམས་ལ་བྱིས་པའི་ཀློག་རྩལ་དང་འབྲེལ་བའི་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གནང་བ།

Chers auditeurs de Course Epique, comme vous avez pu le constater la période estivale est arrivée. Je vais donc en profiter pour faire une pause dans la production du format habituel de Course Epique pendant 2 petites semaines. Je vous donne donc rendez-vous pour notre prochain épisode original le mercredi 17 août avec comme le veut la tradition, un extrait de l'épisode dès le lundi précédent, le 15 août.Mais je ne vais bien sûr pas vous laisser seuls au le bord du chemin pendant ces 2 semaines, je vous propose donc aujourd'hui de découvrir un format revisité d'un épisode déjà réalisé. L'idée est de vous proposer une plongée en immersion dans la course épique de mon invité. C'est un format plus court dans lequel vous ne m'entendrez pas mais comme vous vous en doutez, je ne suis jamais très loin, et dans lequel nous avons ajouté pas mal d'habillage sonore. C'est une tentative éditoriale que j'avais envie de vous proposer, n'hésitez pas à me faire vos retours sur Instagram, Facebook ou ailleurs pour me dire ce que vous en avez pensé.Pour ce 1er épisode au format récit, je vous propose de partir à la découverte de l'incroyable défi de l'aventurier explorateur au très grand coeur Rémi Camus.Rémi a réalisé des défis sportifs et d'aventure incontestablement hors du commun : il a notamment effectué un Tour de France à la nage en 2018, parcouru le Mékong, du Tibet au Vietnam, en hydrospeed pendant 6 mois, ou encore traversé l'Australie en courant, seul et sans assistance. C'est cette dernière aventure que Rémi partage avec nous aujourd'hui dans ce format récit.Une aventure de 5400 kilomètres riche en surprises dans l'outback australien qui a également été pour lui l'occasion de collecter des fonds pour l'Association française du Syndrome de Lowe.Mais je ne vous en dis pas plus Rémi, va vous raconter tout ça bien mieux que moi.Bienvenue dans cet épisode au format récit de Course Epique.***Course Épique, c'est le podcast running et trail qui vous fait vivre dans chaque épisode une histoire de course hors du commun.Pour ne rien manquer de notre actualité et vivre les coulisses du podcast, suivez-nous sur Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/courseepique.podcast/ Voir Acast.com/privacy pour les informations sur la vie privée et l'opt-out.

　チベットの自然と文化に触れた心の旅を、紀行文の形でまとめました。古代チベット王の霊廟や宮殿、ヤルツァンポ川の流れ、チベット仏教の寺院、神秘の湖、ポタラ宮とダライラマの離宮などを巡りました。付録として西安の大雁塔、楊貴妃で有名な華清池、始皇帝陵についても触れました。 　以下のリンクからダウンロードして下さい。Tibet.epub　iTunesからダウンロードする場合は、ミュージック→iTunes→iTunes Music→podcasts→当該のフォルダの下に、ファイルが入..

◆ ལ་དྭགས་ཞི་བའི་ཚལ་ཕོ་བྲང་དུ་ཉིན་གསུམ་རིང་སྩལ་བའི་བཀའ་ཆོས་རེ་ཞིག་ལེགས་གྲུབ། ◆ ཨོ་ཌི་ཤ་གཞིས་ཆགས་སུ་ས་འཐུས་ཚགས་ཚུད་དང་སྲ་བརྟན་ཡོང་སླད་ལས་དོན་བྱེད་ཕྱོགས་ཀྱི་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་མཇུག་སྒྲིལ། ◆ སྦེལ་ཇམ་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་རིག་འཛིན་ཆོས་སྒྲོན་དང་ཐའེ་ཝན་གྱི་སྐུ་ཚབ་མིང་ཡན་ཚའི་ལགས་གཉིས་མཇལ་འཕྲད། ◆ བཙན་བྱོལ་བོད་མིའི་ཤེས་ཡོན་ལྷན་ཚོགས་དང་ཤེས་ཡོན་སློབ་སྟོན་ཚོགས་ཆུང་ནས་བོད་པའི་སློབ་གྲྭ་ཁག་ལ་གཟིགས་སྐོར།

Last time we spoke, the Qing took Beijing and immediately set out a campaign to destroy the nemesis of the Ming and man who had broken them, Li Zicheng. The Qing smashed his Dashun army and caught the bandit leader ending his life. Yet as they did so a new threat emerged, that of the South Ming Regime. A few Ming princes took the Dragon Throne, each bickering with the next until the Qing smashed each one. Last left standing was Emperor Yongli, who promptly fled for his life at every sight of the Qing enemy. With the South Ming regime on the ropes, the Qing began to focus on quelling the hundreds of peasant uprisings against their new state. But the more they suppressed the peasants, the more the peasants fought on even harder. Now we will tell the horrifying tale, of a man who many of the peasants flocked to, and with that I actually think I will give the audience a graphic content warning.   This episode is the holocaust of Zhang Xianzhong   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   Before I start I would just like to make a little acknowledgement. To those listeners who learnt of the man I am about to talk about in the education system of mainland China, I apologize if my take on him does not mirror exactly what you might have learnt. I do not in anyway pretend what I am telling is the facts at all. I read 2 vastly differing accounts of Zhang Xianzhong and I mean vastttttly different. One portrays him as a peasant revolutionary who fought for the rights of the peasant class and was misconstrued later on by the Qing who placed blame upon him for crimes against humanity they performed during the unification period. That account was written by a Chinese historian of the PRC and I will just outright say it, it was written more so for political ideology than history in my opinion. Another source I read was by a renowned Historian of Chinese history and he states that Zhang was undeniably responsible for an unreal amount of crimes against humanity. The truth is probably a gray, I did my best to use both sources anyways on with the show. Ok so way back when many episodes back you might remember the name Zhang Xianzhong. He was basically the rival to Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng and his Dashun army managed to take Beijing, while Zhang Xianzhong and his Daxi army moved further southeast, fortunately for him considering the Qing blew the door open. Zhang Xianzhong's operations at the offset were brutal to say the least, he had a reputation for cruelty. He also acquired some of the best military bandit leaders under his banner. One was named Sun Kewang, a native of Yanchang, and although he had a peasant upbringing, he knew how to read and write which proved very valuable. There was also Li Dingguo who was a tall and sturdy man, kept himself clean at all times and was extremely gifted in leading armies. He ended up being one of Zhang Xianzhong's most trusted commanders who was able to restrain Zhang or his other colleagues when necessary. It is said while others raped and butchered cities after taking them, Li Dingguo prefered to avoid these activities and restrained his men. Then there was Liu Wenxiu and Ai Nengqi, each not as famous as the previous two, but equally were formidable commanders who earned the loyalty of their men.    In the year 1643, Zhang Xianzhong entered a new phase of his career. He had gained valuable experience in both siege and naval warfare, moving beyond commanding just a mere bandit army. He led some 100,000 or so men and was regarded on an equal level to Li Zicheng, the de facto largest bandit army leader. Unlike Li Zicheng however, Zhang was not as successful at building a regime and tending to just pillage and move on. Now the last time we mentioned Zhang Xianzhong he was raping and pillaging Hunan province. He had a bit of a dilemma, he had plans to take Nanjing, the secondary capital of the Ming, but Li Zicheng and the Ming commander Zuo Liangyu made it impossible to get near Nanjing. Zhang's forces though enormous at this point, some estimates indicating possibly half a million were under him, were taking heavy casualties. With so many men, he was concerned primarily with how to feed his army and he began to speak to his commanders. They all spoke to him about “heaven's storehouse”, a name given to Sichuan province. Many of the commanders pointed out the geography of Sichuan and how it would prove a better base of operations against Li Zicheng's Dashun forces. Thus Zhang Xianzhong abandoned Changsha which he had been occupying for some time and moved with his army upon Sichuan province. And here is the horrifying story of what happened to the people of Sichuan.    In 1644 Zhang camped in western Huguang capturing Xianyang and dozens of towns in its vicinity. Rumors spread in Sichuan that Zhang Xianzhong was leading an army 400,000 strong to sweep the province at any moment. The South Ming officials in Sichuan had completely ignored their own defenses. They lacked supplies because of a shortage of funds, corruption was rampant in all levels of government, they bickered amongst another and there were barely any disciplined troops to make much of a stand. As a result Chongqing was left with only 3000 troops to defend it. To make matters worse, like many cities in Sichuan, Chongqing had been infiltrated by bandit spies serving as the “eyes and ears” of Zhang's men.    The defense of Sichuan's capital, Chengdu was commanded by Zeng Ying. Zeng Ying was a large imposing man with a huge mustache, greatly feared by his enemies for his spirit and conviction in battle. Zeng Ying and his Ming general colleagues fought many battles against Zhang's invading forces. Zeng won a significant battle at Zhongzhou killing over 1000 of Zhang's bandits and sinking 100 boats, but overall the Ming were simply outnumbered and out gunned in Sichuan. Over the course of quite a few battles it is estimated the Ming loyalist armies would lose up to 100,000 men. Zhang eventually dislodged Zeng armies from Fuzhou where Zeng was wounded by arrows. Ming fronts began to collapse and Zeng had to withdraw Wangjiang pass, killing many during his retreat. With Zeng gone, Chongqing was open for the taking. Zhang's vanguard was 100,000 strong backed by 200,000 in reserve. He began his attack on Chongqing with probes while he built floating bridges. Zhang was eager to take Chongqinq as by this point in time, he received word that Li Zicheng had captured Beijing, and in Zhang's mind it was only a matter of time before Li Zicheng turned his army upon Sichuan.    Once he had constructed 100 boats his men sailed force with great yellow banners proclaiming dengqing Chuan yue” “quelling the disturbances in sichuan”. As told by  Historian James Parsons “the rebels converged on Chongqing from 2 directions: 1 force continued the advance up the Yangtze, and another, under Zhang's personal command went overlord and approached the city from the west. The magistrate of Chongqing, Chen Shiqi, was undoubtedly demoralized by the fall of Beijing to Li Zicheng and the suicide of the Chongzhen empror. He made no attempt to defend the approaches to the city, apparently because he was afraid that his troops would flee if he allowed them outside the city walls. Thus, in July 1644, Chongqing was completely surrounded. The outcome of the content was apparent, for Zhangs forces outnumbered the defenders, and he had by now acquired great skill in attacking walled towns. But fighting continued for several days with both sides using cannon as well as the more conventional, and probably more effective, bows and arrows. Finally the rebels succeeded in digging a large hole in the wall and filling it with gunpowder, which was exploded by a means of a fire arrow. Thus they were able to gain entrance to the city and all resistance was overcome on July 25, 1644”.    As the walls fell, the invaders swarme in like ants and the Ming defenders tried to repel them leading to blood street fighting, but all were cut down. The magistrate and commander of the defenses of Chongqing, Chen Shiqi was captured by Zhang who offered him the opportunity to surrender and join him. Chen spat “if a petty little official of the seventh grade doesn't fear death, how can I, who am still a court official of the second grade and a high frontier minister, submit to you a bandit?”. Zhang in fury tortured Chen before having him publically flayed. In the words of the Jesuit priest Gabriel de Magalhaens who heard the story secondhand “they begin the butchery with the toes until they complete it at the top of the head, cutting off small pieces of flesh, some smaller and some larger depending on the orders of the tyrant, which ranged ordinarily from 300, 500, 1000 and 10,000 pieces, a butchery so inhumane, prolonged from sunrise to sunset on one man”. The bloodbath of Chongqing is one of the most infamous moments of Zhang's rather dark career. Zhang began taunting Prince Rui asking if he was fiercer than Li Zicheng before telling him that heaven gave him a message in the form of lightning that he had to kill him an thus he executed him. Then it is said he ordered all the defenders of the city, 37,000 soldiers to have their sword arms severed off, though those who submitted peacefully “merely” had their ears, noses or hands cut off. Some accounts state Zhang severed the left arms of the women in the city so that couples would be matched sets, wow. Tales of people being strung up to walls and trees and used as target practice are told, countless thousand were butchered filling the rivers with blood.  Its hard to gauge what's exaggeration or not in these tales, but one thing is for sure, Zhang killed a significant amount of people for both strategic and psychological purposes. As seen countless time in history, engaging in one great atrocity might well convince others to submit without fighting, thus preserving resources and allowing someone like Zhang to capture cities intact further down the road. But in the case of Zhang, this behavior seems to persist and more and more massacres will occur. It should be noted that Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang were said to try and curb Zhang's murderous side when possible.    After Chongqing, Zhang's forces fanned out and attacked the localities, and in a short time 47 districts and prefectures fell to his men. Many independent bandit groups such as the Yao-Huang bandits would come to join his forces bolstering him by another 50,000 men. Then Zhang set his eyes upon Chengdu which he thought would make a perfect capital for his new regime. At Chengdu Prince Shu made the same mistake as his cousin, Prince Rui at Chongqing, he sat upon his treasure rather than spend it to bolster the cities defenses. The city's defenses were organized by Liu Jiachong and Yang Zhang who raised a force no larger than 10,000. They dug moats, repaired walls and trained the troops as best they could.    Zhang's troops approached Chengdu from 3 directions. At this point, the official Shen Yunzuo, fed up with the greed and incompetence of Prince Shu, gave up trying to press the prince for funds and raised a funds from other officials instead acquiring enough to hire a mercenary force of 2000 troops. They would not make much of a difference. As with Chongqing, Zhang first offered the city a chance to submit sending envoys ahead, but the envoys were executed. Li Dingguo pushed Zhang to slip some spies into the city to learn of its defenses which proved very useful. Zhang's army hit the city from all 4 sides on the first day. The initial assault of ladders was repulsed by the commander Liu Zhibo. Soon Zhang's men set to the old strategy of finding weak points along the walls and setting sappers in to use gunpowder to blow them up. Always reminds me of the Scene in Peter Jackson's LOTR two towers, sorry had to say it. As the charges went off , several parts of the walls collapsed and the bandit soldiers clambered through the breaches. The Prince of Shu tried to escape but failed, so he drowned himself in an old well when he heard the rebels had entered the city.  It is alleged Zhang Xianzhong began to systematically massacre the population of Chengdu for 3 days, though the numbers are disputed. Reports of bodies being tossed into the river or left on the streets to rot made for a horrific scene. But a lot of accounts also state that after the 3 days some sort of order was established. Some scholars argue Zhang's generals began to protest all the killing, such as Sun Kewang who said to Zhang “My king has fought battles for over a decade and has repeatedly slaughtered without acquiring an inch of territory to defend. Your generals and soldiers can no longer follow this way of thinking. Now we'd risk ten thousand deaths to see the completion of our king's enterprise. But if you kill the masses, who will be left to implement your plans? I beg my king to put up your sword and spare the common people from death.”. Eventually the other generals  joined in to convince Zhang to make Chengdu his new capital and stop killing its populace. Soon Zhang proclaimed himself emperor Da Shun. This of course was ironically the same title as Li Zicheng who was of course his former rival. His kingdom was called “Da Xiguo” the great western kingdom and Chengdu was renamed Xijing “western capital”.    Zhang then appointed special titles for his 4 adopted sons as he called them. Sun Kewang was made “pingdong Jiangjun” generalissimo who pacifies the east in charge of conquering Shandong, Liaodong, the coast and Korea.  Li Dinggou was generalissimo of the west in charge of conquering western Sichuan and Tibet. Liu Wenxiu was generalissimo of the south in charge of conquering Guizhou, Yunnan, Burma, Thailand and Southeast Asia. Last was Ai Nengqi generalissimo of the north in charge of conquering all northern provinces and Mongolia. Pretty ridiculous tasks, but the more you learn of Zhang Xianzhong, who might I add talked to himself in third person, heard and saw things no one else could, well it makes more sense. Zhang restricted his entire military into 120 camps and appointed countless commanders with 5 chief military commissions similar to the Ming Dynasty military structure. His force is loosely estimated to have grown at this point to 600,000 to a possible million strong. With such incredibly high numbers of mouths, a ton of feeding was required and this is the crux of a horrid story. Zhang soon had to form an intensively strict government designed specifically to maximize resource acquisition and find any semblance of sedition. Districts were organized into units which were expected to inform Zhang's authorities if there was any seditious talk or activity, failure to do so could result in execution of that person and or their entire families.  Light punishments could be a good old flogging, for example if you enter the wrong door or face the wrong direction during certain events. Then if you were caught lets say hoarding anything, well you could expect a ear, nose, a hand or foot cut off, so a more moderate punishment? If you did something a bit worse than that, there was decapitation, even worse crimes met with slower deaths, dismemberment for example. If you did something really bad, Zhang's favorite was to flay someone alive.  It is said the outer walls of Zhang's palace were decorated with flayed skins of offenders and piles of severed body parts, divided by type amassed in front of his residence…remember that last part because oh boy it comes around later.    Zhang had secret police everywhere, strict curfews were enforced, people required travel passes and if anyone was caught messing about it was a quick execution. The populace could be arrested and questioned for anything. It is alleged from the year 1644 to 1647 the land of Sichuan was drenched in blood. Yet despite the horror, Zhang apparently had plans for a peaceful administration of Sichuan. Seals of office were used, government organs operated all the while the citizens were threatened with death if they fled or resisted. Zhang set his army to work, hunting any Ming royal family members or supporters who were to be brought back to Chengdu, for some gruesome endings I imagine. His army fanned out into the countryside scouring for resources, anything that could be eaten or traded for food. It was reported that all cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs and even rats if it's to be believed were scavenged by his armies. Commoners were forbidden to hoard livestock or valuables and you can imagine how many would die as a result. It is alleged that Zhang “deemed a day without killing a wasted day” and he began to refer to himself as “heaven's executioner” claiming he had a divine mission to kill. Now I want to make another point like I did at the beginning of this episode. Modern Chinese historians stress the positive aspects of Zhang's regim, after all if you read between the lines you see how he was redistributed wealth and …well…for the most part the higher classes were the ones being squeezed the most, cause the peasants could only offer so much. There were many aspects of his government that seemed like they worked, surely everyone was kept in line. Zhang was extremely paranoid, we are talking Stalin levels here, he tried to control everything. His army was enormous and their tasks were even larger than them, this required an incredible amount of resources, which shows an incredible amount of capability…however it was done in quite a horrifying and irresponsible way. Regardless many of these modern Chinese scholars argue the merit for Zhang's promotion of the peasant class, one could see great revolutionary here. But their arguments are laid out with endless excuses for what is a known fact, one of the most insane death tolls imaginable for the people of Sichuan. They say, it was the Qing invaders who eventually show up, other bandit groups, climate problems and drought, which might I add is true, the climate at this time is responsible for unbelievable famine and death. But why do we face so many sources telling of unbelievable atrocities performed by a man, who quite frantically is seen to be the harbinger of doom. Anyways I wanted to give some of their side in this, cause from here on, its going to heavily skew to the anti-Zhang side. A Jesuit priest who was with Zhang had this to say of his early reign and I find it a bit revealing “His wisdom and perceptiveness are vast and exceed that of most people. He is certainly capable of governing a state.” “He began to govern at first with such liberality, justice, and greatness that all were taken by him; however, this benignity did not endure, because little by little he began taking off his human disguise and showing his ugly countenance of cruelty.” “So immense was this man's ferociousness that from the beginning of the world right up to the present day there has never existed a tyrant so wild and so inhuman.”.   Zhang made claims to those around him that he could see entities, ghosts or spirits if you were, because of his capacity as the Son of Heaven. At times these entities or better said heavenly spirits told him to commit slaughter. He would also go on to say the people he killed sometimes came back to speak to him and in his frustration he could not kill the entities.     After only a month of establishing his new Kingdom, matters began to spiral out of control. This would lead to 2 years which would go down in the annals of Chinese history as some of the bloodiest and in Sichuan, Zhang would earn the moniker “the butcher”.  Between 1646 and 1649, Sichuan which some called “heaven's storehouse” would become a charnel house. Zhang's forces lashed out all over Sichuan hunting anyone down who did not hand over food, funds or anything else necessary for the regime. Anyone who tried to flee Zhang proclaimed “would be regarded as a rebel in the eyes of the law”. He proclaimed to the countryside that he would punish bad officials and reassess land taxation for the peasants which did swing some of the peasants to him. Despite his best efforts to fleece the rich, there was such general chaos that tax collection or the conduct of official business was in quite disarray. Despite all of this his forces for at least the first month of the regime remained quite disciplined and many prohibitions were in place to stop looting, rape and pillage. But many  historians argue this was the work of his subordinates trying to build local level support and not so much Zhang himself.    Four different regimes were competing for Sichuan, Zhang's regime, Li Zichengs Dashun kingdom based at Xi'an, the Qing regime in Beijing and the Hongguang South Ming Regime in Nanjing. Zhang's northern forces managed to repel Li Zicheng's incursions on multiple occasions, the Qing were not yet this far south, but the South Ming regime remained a constant thorn. The South Ming loyalists were fighting back tooth and nail against the Zhang's Da Xi army on all frontiers. The Ming loyalist commander Yang Zhan soon established a base of operations in southern Sichuan. He inspired the locals to help resist Zhang Xianzhong's regime and harassed multiple cities under Zhang's control. Southern Sichuan soon became a hotbed for resistance against Zhang's rule furthering others to do the same. Another fire was the Ming commander Zeng Ying who also began raising forces in resistance and reclaiming some lost territory. Zeng Ying managed to recapture Chongqing and greatly bolstered its strength. To add to this injury, other bandit groups such as the Yao-Huang bandits within Sichuan began to rebel against Zhang in retaliation for his massacres upon the people. Some estimates suggest the Yao-Huang bandits numbers in Sichuan could had been up to 100,000, so this was no minor issue. Soon Xuzhou fell to the Ming loyalists and the more Zhang lost the more furious he became and unhinged. He soon sent his commanders with orders to indiscriminately kill, which was not a popular policy for them. Zhang had local militias rising up against him, Ming loyalist armies and soon the Qing would descend upon Sichuan.   On March 8th of 1645 he suddenly began multiple campaigns in all directions as Zhang declared his intention to recover vast lost territory. His 4 great generals went off in their respective directions. Liu Wenxiu was sent to pacify Chongqing, Sun Kewang and Ma Yuanli were sent into the north and Ai Nengqi was sent into the south.  It is said by the time their eradication campaigns had finished ““One could travel for a thousand li and see only red earth and in ten thousand homes there was no smoke [from cooking fires]. Travelers encountered no one living in Shu; there was land but no people, and the environment made it hard to stay there.”  Ai Nengqi won a few battles in the vicinity of Yazhou, driving the Ming forces further south, but it was only temporary as they kept coming right back recapturing lost territory. Its said half the residents of Yazhou died at the hands of Ai Nengqi's army before the Ming retook the city.  Liu Wenxiu with a force of 30,000 men hit Chongqing by land and water, but Zeng Ying sent 2 riverine units and land forces pincer attacking Liu's main force at Duogongcheng and smashed his army, apparently 3000 of Liu's men would survive. Zeng Ying was promoted vice commander and made an earl of Jinpingkou by Prince Fu for the great victory and his forces allegedly grew to 100,000. This was the first major defeat for Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan. Xuzhou was captured soon by other Ming loyalists, taking the lives of 2000 Daxi soldiers. One of Zhangs commanders, Feng Shuangli retook Xuzhou only to lose it again to Yang Zhan who burnt Feng's boats not allowing him to retreat and killing most of his forces. Yang Zhan would follow this up by ambushing a force led by Zhang XianZhong's younger brother, capturing tons of men, money and supplies. With the booty in hand he soon hired 8000 more mercenaries and many spies to send into Zhang's armies to cause mayhem. Even Buddhist monasteries began joining the resistance against Zhang in Sichuan.     Zhang was livid at the reports and sent more and more forces out to kill indiscriminately. Zhang began to form repeated conferences with his advisers and noted that Chongqing needed to be rid of the Ming so that Zhang could refocus his attention upon the Dashun army in the north and the Qing even further north of them. By this point Zhang only really controlled an area of 30 miles around Chengdu. As he faced more and more defeats, his fury grew and massacres mounted. Corpses piled outside the offices of the Ministry of War as Zhang vented his rage. He began to purge his eunuch cohort, killing 280 out of a possible 300, possibly because he suspected them of being spies for his enemies. The courtyards and grassy areas around the palace were said to be stained with blood and the stench of rotting flesh. Official appointments became death sentences.   By the time Zhang's armies had finished their campaigns which can be better described as eradication campaigns all he had really done was create more and more resistance. As his enemies multiplied so did his paranoia. This is where you find a ton of sources talking about Zhang seeing and hearing things. In the early part of 1645 it is said he was seeing headless ghosts stalking the halls of his palace, he claimed at one point to one of his advisers that one of the ghosts stole food from his plate…perhaps a starving servant? He complained that he kept hearing the cries of those flayed outside his halls at night. It was around this time where Zhang became fixated with what he called his divine mission to slaughter. He claimed to receive directions from a “tianshu” “divine book” that only he could read and understand. He would rant “There are too many commoners in China, and their wickedness is unchecked. Therefore the Lord of Heaven has sent old Zhang to the world to kill people. . . . I want to fulfill the charge of Heaven, so my plan is to kill all the evil people in China.”. He told the populace of Sichuan to cleanse themselves lest he be forced to do it for them “His majesty is truly acting on behalf of Heaven. All of you, officials and commoners alike, must wash your hearts and cleanse your thoughts in order to avoid Heaven's wrath.”. It was after stating this to the Sichuan populace that we get that famous line he told his subordinate Wang Zhaolin about how “if a day went by and he did not kill somebody, then he was really unhappy”. How much of this is real and what is exaggerated or blemishing of character I leave up to you, but man does it make for a hell of a story.    It's frowned upon to give psychology diagnosis for people too far back in history who we cant really know how they were like, secondary sources and all. Even myself with a degree in neuroscience, not sure if I ever mentioned that hear on the podcast, bit bizarre to hear, my first degree is neuroscience and my second is in history, don't ask long story there. Anyways Zhang's condition based on these sources indicates he was at minimum suffering from paranoid delusions if not full blown schizophrenia. His apparent delight in the torture and murder of so many also indicats typical behaviors of anti-social personality disorder aka psychopathy.    Another account form the Portuguese Jesuit Gabriel De Magalhaens tells us “It seems that he ate and drank with greater gusto when people were being skinned alive or being cut up into pieces in his presence and at the same time that the pieces of human flesh were being cut off and dropping to the ground, he would be cutting up and eating the meat on his plate. And while the blood dripped, he drank his wine.”Things got so bad in Chengdu that Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang complained the capital had become a cemetery.    Things got much worse when Zhang began the practice of having soldiers submit severed body parts for rewards and promotions. Apparently Zhang was enticed by this practice because of a subordinate under Sun Kewang who showed up with 1700 hands to show his work. Chengdu became a scene of horror as shipments of hands, ears, and noses started coming in and piling up around the city. As one could imagine, with so many body parts came scavengers and soon the city became filled with scavengers such as wolves, leopards and tigers.    Now a lot of modern scholars point at Zhang's insanity leading to the desolation of Sichuan, but there is also another aspect I have mentioned. Zhang had an enormous army that required an enormous amount of food. Zhang was estimated to have a force of 600,000 to a possible million which required nearly twice what all of Sichuan's annual crop yields could manage. As the old saying goes, killing the chicken to get the eggs led to disaster. Zhang's men might have killed many on their own accord simply to acquire food and yes if you were wondering there were widespread reports of cannibalism.  As seen with so many tyrants throughout history, the policy of killing to overawe reached a breaking point. Local bandits, Ming Loyalists and commoners were resisting all over in greater numbers. Da Xi soldiers and officials alike were being killed wherever they went. Zhang's armies would systematically come to places, “pacify” them and as soon as they left the areas were in the words of Li Dingguo “as soon as we leave these righteous armies spring up. The officials we appoint are killed one by one and after 3 or 4 months they are all dead. If the previous dynasty had not tried to do this to us, we never would have survived. So we must prioritize protecting the people”. What could make matters worse for Zhang you might imagine, how about the new enemy finally reaching the scene, the Qing. The Qing finally managed to kill Li Zicheng and his Dashun army, well most of them defected to the Ming loyalists. At the same time the Qing also defeated Zuo Liangyu who would defect to them. Zuo Liangyu's defection bolstered the Qing with 100,000 troops, 40,000 boats and soon Henan, Huguang and Jiangxi were looking like easy grabs for them. Yet in order to take these places it was viewed that Sichuan required pacification as Zhang Xianzhong was a major menace with his giant army.    In 1645 the Dorgon sent emissaries to persuade Zhang Xianzhong to surrender proclaiming “everything Zhang Xianzhong's army had done during the Ming Dynasty was over, let bygones be bygones”. Provided Zhang Xianzhong and his army surrender, he would be appointed an official and his children would enjoy honor and wealth within the Qing dynasty. Well Zhang Xianzong chose to adopt a wait and see attitude, not surrendering, to no surprise the Qing were not too happy. Sun Kewang and some other generals began to complain to Zhang that the massacres of the population were creating more enemies and pushing them into the arms of the Ming and Qing. Zhang retorted simply that those who resisted must be slaughtered.    In the beginning of 1646 the Qing sent an expedition against Zhang Xianzhong, but it never reached Sichuan as it got held up by various Ming loyalist armies along the way. Then the Qing sent a 2nd expedition led by the Prince of Suqin, Haoge and Wu Sangui to march south and attack the Daxi army in Sichuan.    Now as bad as Zhang has been to the people of Sichuan thus far, it was at this point with the Qing coming to his doorstep where Zhang performed some of the most horrible atrocities against the people of Sichuan. Our portuguese man on the ground, Magalhaen claimed that Zhang's hatred for the people of Sichuan stemmed from his belief that their perfidy had undermined his campaign in Hanzhong the previous year. For whatever reason, Zhang resolved to kill all Sichuanese people. Specifics are hard to gauge, but it is estimated Zhang would kill 140,000 people in only 4 days. Just to showcase again the character that was Zhang during his regime in Sichuan, here is a little story.   Zhang was known for his cruelty and horribly stories are attributed to him, such as Shu Bi's story about Zhang's “heavenly-candles”. The story goes that Zhang got sick and vowed that if he recovered from his illness he would offer 2 heavenly candles as a sacrifice. No one understood what he meant at the time, but when he recovered, he ordered the small bound feet of many women to be cut off and placed in 2 large piles. The feet of one of his favorite concubines were unusually small and he had them served and placed at the very top of each large pile. Oil was poured on the piles and they were ignited fulfilling his vow to offer 2 heavenly candles. Have to say I've read some gruesome things but this one was particularly gross. According to Shu Bi Well that was just 1 story, during Zhang's rule in Sichuan, now let us talk about how he quote “engaged in one of the most hair-raising genocides in imperial history”.    When word came that the Qing were sending an army against him in Sichuan, Zhang ordered the massacre of all Sichuanese people. Zhang had people skinned alive, with their bodies stuffed with straw and sent ahead to their home villages to spread terror.  People were killed for the slightest offenses, like not cutting weeds in their courtyards or miscopying characters in official documents. Some people were simply pulled off the streets and executed for allegedly using seditious words like “defeat” in public. Magalheans wrote this of the decaying situation “There was no exchange among friends, no one visited anyone; even though they were relatives there could be no conversation between two men under pain of being skinned alive immediately. When doors were shut for the night, so were mouths. If a door was left open or a fire kindled in one's house, if one word were spoken, punishment was swift, not just for the culprit, but for those living in the ten neighboring houses on both sides of the guilty one's house. Parents accused children and children their parents, and those who did this were highly praised by the Tyrant. If a large group of people were talking together even though there were the mandarins living in the royal palace, spies would immediately arrive on the scene, if they weren't already there, and ask what was being discussed. This caused such horror and fear that these men no longer resembled living men but mute statues and portraits of death itself.”.   People were killed indiscriminately if seen outside their homes after dark. Women were being raped enmasse. If you had a lock on any of your doors, you died, if a Dr failed to cure any of Zhang's official, they died, if you failed to show travel papers you died, you get the picture. At one point someone lit a literary temple on fire and Zhang took this as an omen that he must kill all scholars in Chengdu…..cause of course. When Sun Kewang heard the order to kill all scholars he said “The intellectuals are scattered all over. How can we kill them all?”. Well here is a story of how Zhang figured out how to solve that problem.    During 1 incident it is said he organized an imperial examination at the Qingyang Daoist Temple under the guise he was recruiting scholars for his regime's new administration, only to have the an estimated 5 to 23 thousand candidates butchered. Apparently they entered through the east gate of the temple and were “processed” out of the west gate. Bodies were tossed into the nearby river and their exam writings were “piled up like a mountain in front of the temple”. Zhang followed this up by inviting Buddhist monks for ordination ceremonies at temples only to kill them. People were tied to horses to be torn apart at the blast of a cannon. Zhang men went into the countryside to purge and at Qiongzhou alone, Liu Wenxiu reportedly killed 10,000 refugees and 1000 Buddhist and Daoist monks. It was said that for 50 miles around Qiongzhou “the plains were awash with flesh and blood”. Another incident alleged Zhang killed 4975 out of his 5000 corut eunuchs because 1 of them used his given name at a banquet, that one I have a hard time believing, but these are the stories I read.   On january 8th of 1646 Zhang held a military conference and said that the massacre of the entire populace of Chengdu would commence the very next day “not a single person will be spared”. Accounts say the river of Chengdu was crimson red with blood and rose several feet up on the city walls. It got so bad, Zhang had to order his men to go in boats downriver from Chengdu to unclog it and the smell of decaying flesh filled the air for miles, imagine doing that job. Sun Kewang wrote of the massacres “This truncates our wishes. After all weren't our years of rebellion on behalf of the peasants? Now we're roaming back east and for what? If our fatherly king acts like this, then he's really not pondering things deeply. Our fatherly king should regard the peasants of Sichuan like his head, like the trunk of looting heaven's storehouse his body. Now if you've already cut off your hands and feet, how can the head survive? What kind of state has a king without subjects? Is this not only a king in name?”. After a couple of days of massacre, Zhang summoned all his court ministers, separating the Sichuanese from the rest and executed the Sichuanese ones. Chengdu was virtually empty by the end of the year and Zhang's armies fanned out into the countryside. All the while he proclaimed his forces were preparing to face against the Qing. Some have made comparisons to this moment to that of Hitler pursuing the holocaust while neglecting his military aims during the last years of WW2. Zhang was fixated on the extermination of the people of Sichuan over all other goals it seems. Some accounts go as far as to claim Zhang had fetuses ripped out of the womb and children rounded up for systematic executions. Mountains of hands and feet piled up outside Zhang's palace in Chengdu “like Mount Fenghuang”. Zhang is said to have been seen stalking his palace at night with his sword trying to kill ghosts. Zhang told advisors he was seeing disembodied hands stealing food from his plates, headless females playing instruments in rooms and all the while he heard the cries of the dead. Zhang began to believe Chengdu itself was haunted and had all his highest ranking officials flogged to break the curse.    Zhang had begun a new military program where his soldiers could be promoted based on how many limbs they brought to him. Feet, hands, heads, ears and noses were stacked in separate piles and Zhang would supposedly gather the severed heads together for banquets. Promotions and ranks for his soldiers were based on the number submitted. 200 pairs of hands and feet got a rank of squad commander, 1700 pairs could get you promoted from vice commander to commander. If 1 soldier killed hundreds in a single day, he could be promoted to supreme commander. According to Shun records for 4 months in 1646 alone, Sun Kewang, Liu Wenxiu, Ai Nengqi and Li Dingguo each killed around 10 million people, an exaggeration of course. Records state they razed up to 8 towns a day seeking grisly trophies. Anyone above the age of 3 was said to be subject to attack. Zhang would even kill disloyal soldiers, and it is said “that the trail of corpses extended for seventy li north and south of Chengdu and the “lands ran red with blood and bones piled up like mountains.”.    Jesuits in Sichuan claim that Zhang left the city in the summer of 1646 for a military campaign and spent 40 days on a killing spree in the countryside before returning to Chengdu and killing 25 out of 30 of his high officials, including his minister of war. Civilians were rounded up and killed in the central park in Chengdu. Children were cut to pieces, and officials were flogged without reason. Zhang then ordered his soldiers to kill their own wives and daughters so they would be less encumbered by them in the upcoming campaign. To set an example he killed 23 of his 300 serving maids and concubines. People were killed for drinking tea, soldiers were flayed for trying to flee, mandarins were killed for sleeping at a banquet, and more servants were killed for smoking tobacco. Hoarding a single tael meant decapitation, hoarding ten meant death by flaying. Some were even cut open and their skin stretched to resemble bird's wings.    The modern Chinese scholar Zheng Guanglu estimates that from 1.8 to 2 million people died in Sichuan between 1644 to 1645 out of a total population of around 3 to 3.6 million. He concluded that 1 million died as a result of direct military operation and the rest died from starvation, disease, marauding wildlife eeeek, and other factors. 40-50% of the Sichuanese population had been killed in just a few short years. Sichuan would see up to 75% of its population decline from death and people fleeing. It was a combination of the massacres and also drought and famine that led to the flight. This by the way occurred before and after Zhang, many Chinese scholars argue it may have been the Qing armies who performed many of the atrocities that may have been attributed to Zhang. For example in Chengdu a stele (stone carving) known as the Seven kill stele holds the inscription “Heaven brings forth innumerable things to nurture man. Man has nothing good with which to recompense Heaven. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.” In the summer of 1646, Zhang was receiving word of the military situation from Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang that both the Ming loyalists and the Qing were making significant inroads. Zhang had spent too much time and effort on his insane butchering of the people and not enough against the Ming loyalists. The Ming loyalists controlled south and east Sichuan now, the most fertile and productive areas. They drained Zhang's resources and drew the attention of the Qing towards Sichuan. They also controlled Chongqing which was the transport hub of the province especially by river.    Zhang gathered his officials and proclaimed “I've been in Sichuan for two years, but the Sichuanese haven't accepted my kindness, nor do they dread my awesomeness. The more I pacify, the more they rebel. As I consider what I can do, I've decided to abandon Sichuan and go to Shaanxi [lit. leave Shu for Qin] so I can take Chang'an [Xi'an] and use it as a springboard for recovering the central plain. This was my base of origins before, and my generals and soldiers are all folk of Qin. I can rely on Qin as the place to strengthen my troops and war horses. So my master plan is to return to Shaanxi and then follow the river south into Huguang and then come back into Sichuan.”. Sun Kewang argued they should not so easily abandon Sichuan and that they should begin extending relief to its people, in his words “replace killing with kindness”. With that perhaps they could restore a new government, to throw away all they had done in Sichuan would be such a waste. Li Dingguo concurred with his colleague and this forced Zhang to think a bit more on his decision. However in the end Zhang concluded he would follow through with what he proclaimed.  Thus Zhang prepared a sortie, spending months gathering all the treasure he could find or loot from all around stored on boats. He then ordered Chengdu burnt to the ground, which also allegedly took months. Zhang began to send out boats filled up with treasure and sent his 600,000 strong army forth by land and river southeast. Zhang made a rather bizarre strategic error and decided to attack Yang Zhang and seize his controlled territory, despite being hampered by his treasure and massive numbers of refugees.    Well Yang Zhan who had countless spies amongst Zhang's forces found out about Zhangs plan and ambushed him by land and river at Jiangkou near Pengshan. Yang managed to cut Zhangs fleet off from the shore and set fires to his boats. The battle almost immediately turned into a rout with most of Zhang's navy being sunk to the bottom of the river. It is said Yang Zhan would spend months salvaging tens of thousands of taels worth of treasure and supplies from the bottom of the river. Yang would use all of his new found funds to pay his own army and help refugees in southern Sichuan. Yang pursued Zhangs forces all the way to Hanzhou, but upon seeing the scene of rotting corpses everywhere he apparently turned back in horror, who can blame him. Zhang then attempted to take back Chongqing but was defeated by Zeng Ying yet again. It was around this time, Zhang's commanders began to lose the stomach for his campaigning and many deserted. This also prompted as you can imagine, Zhang to kill those who seemed to be faltering. He had 13,000 of his followers executed and apparently Liu Wenxiu captured 6000 soldiers trying to desert and flayed them alive.    Zhangs Da Xi army moved east, but he left many subordinate commanders to garrison key locals, but most were defeated by Ming loyalist armies. Zhang's army was so large and difficult to feed that he soon feared illness would spread amongst them and apparently he ordered his 4 great generals to kill anyone who looked sick. Allegedly this would see 4000 of his men butchered by their own commanders. Zhang reached Shunqing and besieged the city for 3 days before Zhang's cannons broke its walls and he burnt the city to the ground killing an estimated 100,000 people inside. When his army continued to march on, he sent forces into the mountains and forests to forage for food and any who came back without a required quota of food each day were executed.    Zhang then made his way to Mount Fenghuang located outside the city of Xichong. He attacked a fortified mountain stockade which was garrisoned by 2000 troops. Once he took the mountain he began to construct defensive works and built boats to try and head southeast on Haguang. But then his massive army ran out of food and he sent them fanning out to plunder, starting a wide array of massacres. It is at this point we get a lot of accounts of cannibalism amongst the troops. It is alleged Zhang had more visions telling him to kill more people and that at some points he was killing 10 to 20 thousand per day, beginning with Sichuanese, but soon people from Huguang and then Shaanxi. Supposedly he is said to have killed half of his own men in under 2 months, which has to be exaggerated. It is reported some of his advisers would often find Zhang talking to himself saying things like “Heaven has instructed me to kill. I dare not avoid killing.”.   Around the time Zhang and his army occupied Xizhou, Emperor Yongli took the throne at Zhaoqing and Emperor Shaowu at Guangzhou. Thus the Qing had plenty of work on their hands with the south east and soon appointed Prince Haoge to focus his attention on defeating Zhang Xianzhong.    Prince Haoge soon captured Xi'an and continued to march south into Sichuan. The Qing began proclaiming to all the areas the occupied that no one was to be killed and that they would protect them. As you can imagine many of the populace fled into the arms of the Qing immediately. One of Zhang's commanders Liu Jinzhong had an army of mostly Sichuanese who for understandable reasons did not want to butcher Sichuanese people and he decided to defect to the Qing, most likely fearing for his life. Liu Jinzhong fled north and met with Prince Haoge telling him the exact location of Zhang. Liu told him “to save the people from fire and water” and that he would guide Prince Haoge and his men to Zhang personally. Thus Prince Haoge and Liu's armies marched together into northern Sichuan finding roads strewn with bones. This prompted Prine Haoge to ask Liu if all of Sichuan was like this and Liu sighed and replied “For years Sichuan has endured the local bandits Yao and Huang and been trampled underfoot and since been subjected to the massacres of my old lord Xianzhong.”. Haoge replied “As soon as we encounter Huang, Yao, and the Zhang bandits, we must extinguish them immediately so as to alleviate the people's suffering.”. In early January of 1647, Prince Haoge was led by Liu to Mount Fenghuang and Prince Haoege sent his most elite bannermen as a vanguard to find Zhang Xianzhong.  Zhang got word of the incoming Qing force  and initially disbelieved his own scouts, in fact he killed them. He then exclaimed “The Awe of the Eighth Great King encompasses the realm and my name resounds over the Four Seas. Who comes here to die? I will personally go forth to greet them.”. Then Zhang emerged from his tent, grabbed a spear, mounted his horse and went to investigate with only 10 men. They reached the Taiyang Creek and saw enemy troops on the other side of the creek. As Zhang galloped into view, Liu allegedly pointed him out to he Qing force, prompting a Qing archer to shoot Zhang through his torso with a single arrow killing him. Prince Haoge recovered the body and decapitated it, cut him up and burned all the pieces on the spot. It is alleged when they cut Zhang's body open he had a heart that was as black as ink and that he had no liver. Stories told of strange thorns growing in the spot of Zhang Xianzhongs deaths and that a black tiger guarded his gravesite. OhhhhhHHhhHHH.    One of Zhang's men fled back to the army camp, relating what had happened. Upon hearing of Zhang's death, Zhang's surviving commanders immediately served under Sun Kewang who became the de-facto leader. They attacked Chongqing and managed to take this city this time and killed Zeng Ying. It seems Zeng Ying had finally made a tactical error and underestimated their force going out to fight them in the field and lost. Sun Kewang did not stay long in Chongqing, fearing the Qing pursuit and fled south taking Qijiang where Sun Kewang attempted to reorganize the Da Xi army and resurrect some form of government. They then marched on Zunyi and it is here, the former bandit army of Zhang Xianzhong had a change of heart. They began to join forces with the Ming loyalists, moving even further south to Guizhou. The Qing for their part had to abandon the pursuit rather quite owing to lack of supplies as Sichuan was a barren wasteland. They soon pulled up to Baoning where they butchered 10,000 of Zhang's former men.   Meanwhile the hardship of Sichuan would go on for many years. Famine was rampant in Sichuan as a result of Zhang's chaos. It was said “women of good families offered their bodies in exchange for food but could find no takers”. The land of Sichuan was desolate, people resorted to cannibalism and allegedly human flesh was sold by vendors and that bandits were making “lamb stew” out of their victims. There were tales of people looting coffins of the recently deceased for flesh. One source lamented “because of the long period of disorder, the cattle were all gone, so people replaced cattle”. Disease and pestilence sprang up everywhere as a result of malnutrition. Recorded illnesses such as “big head boils, horse eye disease, horse trot disease” were reported. Apparently in Sichuan the number of tigers increased 100 fold as did packs of wolves and wild dogs…so yeah on top of everything else imagine being chased by a tiger while your family is starving? I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. Will she or won't she? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is traveling in Asia, but hasn't confirmed whether her itinerary will include Taiwan. It's better. After all, China's dictator Xi Jinping has made this a throw- down and President Biden is, once again, in full appeasement mode. If the Speaker complies with their respective demands that she skip a stop in Taiwan, it will not avoid a conflict with the Chinese Communist Party. It will guarantee it, later if not sooner. To her credit, Nancy Pelosi has in the past robustly opposed the CCP's brutality towards its own people and those of Tibet. In recent years, however, her husband has made a fortune doing deals with Party-controlled companies. The legacy of Ms. Pelosi's Speakership will be enhanced by a tangible demonstration in Taiwan that – unlike Joe Biden – she's not among those “elite-captured” by Beijing. This is Frank Gaffney.

In this episode of the Wisdom Keeper podcast I'm delighted to be joined by scholar and Tibetan medical practioner Erik Jampa Anderson who takes us on a magical journey into the realms of synchronicity, mythology, and animism. Eric pulls back the curtain on his upcoming book Unseen Beings where he traces the root cause of the break down of our civilization to the prevalence of anthropocentrism. Are human beings really at the center of it all, seemingly in control of a mechanistic world? Are we suffering the loss of enchantment? While people's movement across the planet strive for greater equity and inclusivity, Erik makes a bolder leap forward to suggest that our expanding consciousness must begin to include the rights of plants, spirits, and the earth herself. This conversation proposes an inspiring innovation that combines spiritual practice and activism. Erik Jampa Andersson, founder and director of Shrimala, is a scholar practitioner of Sowa Rigpa, colloquially known as Tibetan Medicine, based in London. He is a graduate of the Shang Shung Institute of Tibetan Medicine, and one of a rare and distinguished members of a small cohort of Westerners who has studied the four classical medical tantras. His first book, Unseen Beings, is due to be released by Hay House publications in Spring 2023. A Buddhist practitioner since 2005 (at the age of 14), Erik found an early home in the Tibetan tradition under the close guidance of Lama Tsultrim Allione, founder of Tara Mandala retreat center in Colorado, and numerous teachers from Tibet and Bhutan. While pursuing a degree in religious studies at Naropa University, he was inspired to change course and enroll in a five-year Tibetan Medicine program at the Shang Shung Institute, in which he was trained extensively under notable senior physicians including Dr. Phuntsog Wangmo, Dr. Namgyal Tsering, Dr. Nyima Tsering, and other Sowa Rigpa experts in America and Asia. His Website is: https://www.shrimala.com/ Erik and I discuss:  • The murder of Erik's brother that brought on an existential crisis in early childhood  • How J.R.R. Tolkien opened up a portal into the mythological dimension of life • The loss, purpose, benefits, and necessity of a mythology perspective • Magic in Tibetan Buddhism, and his synchronistic encounter with Lama Tsultrim Allione • Do demons and spirits exist or are they merely psychological archetypes? • The Tibetan Buddhist ritual practice of Chöd or Feeding Your Demons.  • The global and personal consequences of our anthropocentric paradigm • The history and power of animism, and how to relate to unseen beings. • Working with racism, patriarchy, and anthropocentrisim. • Global healing through inclusivity with unseen beings including plants, animals, and the spirit world. • Root cause of the ecological crisis and the possibility of transformation. **** The Wisdom Keeper Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify CONTEMPLATIVE STUDIES PROGRAM Courses, Community and Buddhist Pilgrimage https://www.gradualpath.com/ 25% off all courses with coupon code WISDOMKEEPER More about Dr. Miles Neale on his website https://www.milesneale.com/ Follow Miles Neale on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/milesneale/

Join us on Monday, August 1 @ 2pm EST for an enlightening conversation with Robert Thurman, a talented popularizer of the Buddha's teachings and the first Westerner Tibetan Buddhist monk ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  A charismatic speaker and author of many books on Tibet, Buddhism, art, politics and culture, he was named by The New York Times the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, and was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri Award in 2020, for his help in recovering India's ancient Buddhist heritage. Robert served as the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University for 30 years, until 2020. He is the founder and active president of Tibet House US, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan culture, and of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, a non-profit affiliated with the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and dedicated to the publication of translations of important artistic and scientific Tibetan treatises.

Conrad Anker and Alex Lowe were best friends and climbing partners. Alex Lowe, who was called the mutant because of his high level of ability in the mountains, was a married man and father of three. Conrad Anker was engaged but he had no children. Neither of them or their families could ever imagine what the future would hold for them after a fateful trip to Tibet changed everything.(commercial at 13:31)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:https://www.the-sun.com/news/4498648/alex-lowe-death-conrad-anker/

Conrad Anker and Alex Lowe were best friends and climbing partners. Alex Lowe, who was called the mutant because of his high level of ability in the mountains, was a married man and father of three. Conrad Anker was engaged but he had no children. Neither of them or their families could ever imagine what the future would hold for them after a fateful trip to Tibet changed everything.(commercial at 12:52)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:https://www.the-sun.com/news/4498648/alex-lowe-death-conrad-anker/

Am Abteilfenster ziehen Millionenstädte und atemberaubende Landschaften vorbei. Und trotz staatlicher Kontrollen sind auch Begegnungen mit anderen Passagieren möglich. Ein Ehepaar erzählt von seiner Zugreise durch China.

Theme: Transformation Artwork: Wheel of Life; Tibet; early 20th century; Pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; [http://therubin.org/34z] Teacher: Sharon Salzberg The Rubin Museum presents a weekly online meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is a recording of the live online session and includes an opening talk and 20-minute sitting session. The guided meditation begins at 12:47. This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. To attend a Mindfulness Meditation online session in the future or learn more, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation. If you would like to support the Rubin Museum and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member and always attend for free. Have a mindful day!

Theme: Transformation Artwork: Wheel of Life; Tibet; early 20th century; Pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; [http://therubin.org/34z] Teacher: Sharon Salzberg The Rubin Museum presents a weekly online meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is a recording of the live online session and includes an opening talk and 20-minute sitting session. The guided meditation begins at 12:47. This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. To attend a Mindfulness Meditation online session in the future or learn more, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation. If you would like to support the Rubin Museum and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member and always attend for free. Have a mindful day!

In this episode I am joined by Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche, Dzogchen master, teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, and author of over 15 books. Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche recounts his nomad upbringing in Amdo, Tibet including his family circumstances, early education in his local tent school, and more. Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche recalls, the spiritual influence of his mother, his rigorous religious education under the mahasiddha Lama Tamcho Gyatso, and the early signs of his being a tulku. Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche also describes his love of books and reading, and how the circumstances of his early life have shaped him today. … Video version: https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/160-nomad-master-tulku-yeshi-rinpoche 
Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'. … Topics include: 00:00 - Intro 00:44 - Nomad upbringing in Amdo, Tibet 11:08 - Early education in a tent school 16:43 - Further education at boarding school 26:36 - Mother's religious influence 28:13 - Reopening of the local temples and monasteries 30:34 - Studies with the mahasiddha Lama Tamcho Gyatso 36:45 - Rigorous learning regime in the monastery 38:36 - About Lama Tamcho Gyatso 44:16 - Receiving the name ‘Yeshi Gyatso' 45:12 - Early signs of being a tulku 54:51 - A love of books and reading 01:02:28 - Journey to India … To find out more about Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche, visit: - https://www.facebook.com/HerukaInstitute/ - https://www.herukainstitute.org/ For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James

Opening with a meditation on the Greek myth of Atlas, the Titan condemned to hold up the earth, heavens & sky for eternity, Robert Thurman gives a teaching on the power of letting go and developing self compassion in meditation in order to change our relationship to our mind, our thoughts and to the world around us. This episode includes a short overview of the Buddhist perspective on spiritual evolution, instructions on developing the transcendent attitude as taught in the Tibetan Lam Rim tradition along with an introduction to the seven limbs of communion or ways to connect with jewel refuge tree, and concludes with an extended guided Jewel Refuge Tree meditation. “Tibetans call their cherished tradition of Buddhism a wish-fulfilling jewel tree for its power to generate bliss and enlightenment within all who absorb its teachings. This path to enlightenment, it is taught, requires more than a sitting meditation practice alone. With “The Jewel Tree of Tibet”, honored scholar and teacher Robert Thurman brings these insights to you as they were meant to be transmitted through the spoken word.” – Text from “The Jewel Tree of Tibet” This episode is an excerpt from “The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism” 12-Part audio retreat by Robert Thurman, available from www.soundstrue.com. Atlas, Buddha & Letting The World Go: The Jeweled Treasure of Tibet Episode 300 of the Bob Thurman Podcast Image of Atlas via www.shutterstock.com.

China's government has illegally occupied Tibet for over 60 years. It has refused to negotiate with Tibetan leaders for more than a decade. But a new bill in Congress will pressure China's officials to get back to the negotiating table.

◆ སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་བོད་མི་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་མཐའ་གཅིག་ཏུ་འཚེ་བ་མེད་པའི་ལམ་ནས་བདེན་པའི་འཐབ་རྩོད་བྱེད་ན་རིམ་པས་བདེན་མཐའ་སེལ་ཐུབ་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་པ་བཀའ་ཕེབས་པའི་སྐོར། ◆ བོད་མི་ཚོང་པ་བསྟན་འཛིན་ཆོས་འཕེལ་ལགས་ལ་རྒྱ་ནག་གཞུང་གིས་ལོ་ ༡༨ བཙོན་འཇུག་གི་ཁྲིམས་ཐག་བཅད་པ། ◆ བོད་མིའི་སྒྲིག་འཛུགས་ཤེས་རིག་ལས་ཁུངས་ནས་འཛིན་རིམ་བཅུ་པ་དང་བཅུ་གཉིས་སློབ་ཕྲུག་ཡོངས་དང། འབྲེལ་ཡོད་དགེ་རྒན་དང་ཕ་མ་རྣམས་ལ་འདི་ལོའི་ཡིག་རྒྱུགས་གྲུབ་འབྲས་གང་ལེགས་བྱུང་བར་འཚམས་འདྲི་གནང་བ། ◆ མཆིན་པའི་གཉེན་ཚད་གོ་རྟོགས་ཉིན་མོ་སྲུང་བརྩི་ཞུས་པ། ◆ སྦེལ་ཇེམ་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་ནས་དཔལ་ས་སྐྱ་གོང་མ་ཁྲི་ཆེན་རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་མཆོག་དང་ཁྲི་འཛིན་ཞེ་གཉིས་པ་རཏྣ་བཛྲ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག་རྣམ་གཉིས་ལ་ཕེབས་བསུ་སྣེ་ལེན་ཞུས་པ།

Olivier Gasselin est journaliste. Il est le rédacteur en chef adjoint de Mon Quotidien et de l'actu, les journaux pour les enfants et les ados. Dans ce 3e épisode, il nous parle de la panthère des neiges, un autre animal mythique, comme l'ours, comme le panda. On parle beaucoup de la panthère de neiges en cette fin d'année 2021. Le film de Marie Amiguet mettant en scène la quête de Sylvain et Vincent Munier Munier sur le plateau du Changtang au Tibet n'y est pas pour rien. Il resterait autour de 6 000 individus dans la monde sauvage. Il y en a environ 600 dans les zoos du monde, pour lesquels elles représentent une manne, comme l'Ours, comme le Panda. Comme beaucoup d'animaux, elles font l'objet d'une politique d'échanges pour assurer la reproduction et le brassage génétique, qui est crucial. Bien que protégée, elle est toujours chassée pour sa fourrure ou pour différents organes entrant dans la pharmacopée chinoise. _______  

◆ སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་བྱང་ IRELAND གི་བློན་ཆེན་དང་པོ་ནོ་སྦེལ་ཞི་བདེ་གཟེངས་རྟགས་བཞེས་མྱོང་མཁན་སྐུ་ཞབས་ LORD DAVID TRIMBLE དགོངས་པ་རྗོགས་པར་ནང་མི་བལྟོས་བཅས་ལ་ཐུགས་གསོ་མཛད་པ། ◆ ཐབས་ཇུས་འཆར་འགོད་ཚོགས་ཆུང་གི་ཚོགས་འདུ་ཐེངས་གཉིས་པ་འཚོགས་པ། ◆ ཤེས་རིག་ལས་ཁུངས་ནས་བྷེལ་ཇམ་བོད་ཀྱི་སྐད་ཡིག་དང་རིག་གཞུང་སློབ་གྲྭའི་དགེ་རྒན་རྣམས་ལ་སློབ་ཁྲིད་འཆར་འགོད་སོགས་དང་འབྲེལ་བའི་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གནང་བ། ◆ ཆོས་ལུགས་ལ་མ་བརྟེན་པའི་བཟང་སྤྱོད་སློབ་སྤེལ་གྱི་གོ་རྟོགས་ལམ་རིམ་དབུ་འཛུགས་གནང་བ། ◆ ཁེ་ཊ་གྷི་ལེན་རྒྱལ་སྤྱིའི་གླེང་སྟེགས་ཐོག་ཐའེ་ཝན་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་མཉམ་ཞུགས་གནང་བ།

བོད་ཀྱི་བརྙན་འཕྲིན་གྱི་ཉིན་རེའི་གསར་འགྱུར། ༢༠༢༢།༧།༢༦ Tibet TV Daily News – Jul. 26, 2022 ◆སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་ལ་དྭགས་ཁྲིག་རྩེ་ཤེས་རབ་སྐྱེད་ཚལ་གླིང་དཔེ་མཛོད་ཁང་དུ་རབ་གནས་དང་བཀའ་སློབ་བཀའ་དྲིན་བསྐྱངས་པ། ◆ སློབ་གྲྭའི་ནང་མྱོས་རྫས་ཀྱི་དཀའ་ངལ་གདོང་ལེན་བྱེད་ཕྱོགས་ཐད་བསྐྱར་ཞིབ་ཚོགས་འདུ་དང་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་ཞིག་གོ་སྒྲིག་གནང་བ། ◆བོད་མི་མང་སྤྱི་འཐུས་རྒྱུན་ལས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ཚབ་སྤྱི་འཐུས་རྒྱལ་ལྡོང་ཕུར་པ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ལགས་ཀྱིས་ཁམས་པའི་སྨྱུག་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་དྲ་རྒྱ་དང་འབྲི་ཆུ་འདོན་ཐེངས་ལྔ་པ་དབུ་འབྱེད་གནང་བ། ◆བོད་ཀྱི་སྨན་རྩིས་ཁང་གི་སྐོར་སྐྱོད་ཚོགས་ཆུང་གི་ཚོགས་མི་རྣམས་ནས་བཱ་ར་ཛིལ་ཁུལ་དུ་བོད་ཀྱི་སྲོལ་རྒྱུན་སྨན་རྩིས་སྐོར་གོ་རྟོགས་སྤེལ་བ།

བོད་ཀྱི་བརྙན་འཕྲིན་གྱི་ཉིན་རེའི་གསར་འགྱུར། ༢༠༢༢།༧།༢༥ Tibet TV Daily News – Jul. 25, 2022 ◆སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་ལ་དྭགས་ནང་པ་དང་ཁ་ཆེ། ཡི་ཤུ་བཅས་ཀྱི་ལྷ་ཁང་དང་མཆོད་ཁང་དུ་གནས་གཟིགས་མཛད་པ། ◆ ཐའེ་ཝན་དུ་བོད་བརྒྱུད་ནང་བསྟན་དང་སེམས་ཁམས་སྨོན་བཅོས་པའི་བགྲོ་གླེང་ཐེངས་དང་པོ་དབུ་འཛུགས་གནང་བ། ◆བོད་མིའི་སྒྲིག་འཛུགས་ཀྱི་འགན་འཛིན་སྡེ་ཚན་ཁོངས་ཀྱི་སྲི་ཞུའི་ལས་བྱེད་ཁག་ཅིག་གི་འགོ་ཁྲིད་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་ལེགས་པར་མཇུག་སྒྲིལ་བ། ◆ཡུ་རོབ་ནང་ཁུལ་བོད་མིའི་རྐང་སྤོལ་འགྲན་བསྡུར་ཐེངས་ ༡༢ པ་ལེགས་པར་མཇུག་སྒྲིལ་བ།

Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls Check out StandUpwithPete.com to learn more Maura Quint  is a humor writer and activist whose work has been featured in publications such as McSweeneys and The New Yorker. She was named one of Rolling Stone's top 25 funniest twitter accounts of 2016. When not writing comedy, Maura has worked extensively with non-profits in diverse sectors including political action campaigns, international arts collectives and health and human services organizations. She has never been officially paid to protest but did once find fifteen cents on the ground at an immigrants' rights rally and wanted to make sure that had been disclosed. She was the co founder and executive director of TaxMarch.org  Dexter Tiff Roberts is an award-winning writer and speaker serving as a Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council's Asia Security Initiative, a Fellow at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center, and an adjunct instructor in political science at the University of Montana. He is a regular commentator on the U.S.-China trade and political relationship. Previously he was China bureau chief and Asia News Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek, based in Beijing for more than two decades. He has reported from all of China's provinces and regions including Tibet and Xinjiang, covering the rise of companies and entrepreneurs, manufacturing and migrants, demography and civil society. He has also reported from North Korea, Mongolia and Cambodia, on China's growing economic and political influence. His recent reporting has focused on how legacy policies from China's past, including its household registration system, are leading to growing inequality and social tension, and are holding back the country's development. Check out his Substack !  Roberts has won numerous journalism honors, including Overseas Press Club awards, the Sidney Hillman Foundation prize, Human Rights Press awards, and Society of Publishers in Asia editorial excellence awards. He has a bachelor's degree in political science from Stanford University, where he was a National Merit Scholar, and a master of international affairs focusing on China and journalism from Columbia University, where he was a recipient of the New York Financial Writers Association Scholarship. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and studied at National Taiwan Normal University's Mandarin Training Center in Taipei, Taiwan. Roberts' first book, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, The Factory, and The Future of the World, was published by St. Martin's Press in March 2020, the audio version, was published by Tantor Audio on July 31, 2020, and the Chinese edition, 《低端中國：黨、土地、農民工，與中國即將到來的經濟危機》was published by Gusa Publishing on March 31, 2021. He has launched a China trade newsletter titled Trade War and is represented by Macmillan Speakers Bureau.  Pete on YouTube Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Buy Stand Up by Jon Carroll 

Theme: Renewal Artwork: Tara in Her Pure Realm, Khadiravana; Tibet; 19th century; Pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; [http://therubin.org/34y] Teacher: Tracy Cochran The Rubin Museum presents a weekly online meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is a recording of the live online session and includes an opening talk and 20-minute sitting session. The guided meditation begins at 20:18. This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. To attend a Mindfulness Meditation online session in the future or learn more, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation. If you would like to support the Rubin Museum and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member and always attend for free. Have a mindful day!

In this episode I host a dialogue between Tibetologist and Tantric Buddhist Lama Glenn Mullin and doctor of Tibetan Medicine and Yuthok Nyingthig spiritual teacher Dr Nida Chenagtsang. Lama Glenn and Dr Nida discuss impact of three key revolutionary figures in Tibetan Buddhism from historical and doctrinal perspectives: Padmasambhava, Atisha, and Tsongkhapa. The discussion extends to include the history and evolution of the famous 6 Yogas of Naropa. Both Lama Glenn and Dr Nida are known to teach these hitherto secretive practices relatively openly, and they discuss the issues that have influenced them to do so, including prophecy, the true meaning of secrecy, and the importance of including the body in religious practice. Lama Glenn and Dr Nida also discuss subjects such as the geomancy of Samye and the surrounding areas, the pros and cons of the multiplicity of religious sects in Tibet, similarities between Buddhist lineages and Western psychological schools, and more. …

 Video version: www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep159-meeting-of-ngakpas-lama-glenn-mullin-dr-nida-chenagtsang 
Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'. … Topics include:
 00:00 - Intro 01:10 - Jimi Hendrix and Je Tsongkhapa 03:29 - 3 revolutionaries: Padmasambhava, Atisha, Tsongkhapa 09:38 - Tsongkhapa's 5 stages of the Dzogrim vs 6 Yogas of Naropa 14:13 - Padmasambhava's big breakthrough 18:07 - Civil war, religious persecution, and Muslim invasion 20:08 - Why was Atisha special? 21:09 - Sect consciousness 21:41 - Tsongkhapa and the Sarma Renaissance 23:27 - Importance of historical perspective in understanding Tibetan Buddhism 26:16 - Samye College & the 5 Perfections 29:27 - Similarities with psychology schools 31:07 - Milarepa and experiential learning 35:38 - Core of all the schools 37:24 - Pros and cons of many schools 41:16 - The geomancy of Samye and Tibet 48:26 - Geomancy and dream yoga 51:36 - Historical evolution of the 6 Yogas of Naropa 56:34 - Why secrecy? 59:06 - Experiential vs academic learning 01:04:07 - Completion stage secrecy doesn't make sense 01:08:08 - Body liberation is essential in tantra 01:12:47 - Physical activity is important 01:15:07 - Subtle body yogas of vajrayana 01:23:29 - Glenn's closing remarks on the pros and cons of recent spread of Buddhism 01:33:19 - Nida's closing remarks on social awareness and finding balance in Buddhist teaching 01:41:14 - The need for female teachers 01:43:32 - BONUS: Lama Glenn & Dr Nida's first meeting (in Tibetan) … Previous episodes with Lama Glenn Mullin: - https://www.guruviking.com/search?q=glenn%20mullin Previous episodes with Dr Nida Chenagtsang: - https://www.guruviking.com/search?q=chenagtsang … 
To find out more about Lama Glenn Mullin, visit: - http://www.glennmullin.com/ - https://www.facebook.com/Maitripa.Glenn To find out more about Dr Nida Chenagtsang, visit: - https://www.facebook.com/DoctorNida/ - http://www.skypressbooks.com/ … For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James

Trotz Krieg Sommerstimmung in Moskau - Wie weit geht die Unterstützung für Putin? | In New York beginnt erneut das Parkplatz-Ballett | Das Geschäft mit dem Raupenpilz in Tibet

◆ སྦེལ་ཇམ་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་ཀྱིས་ཡུ་རོབ་མཐུན་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་ཀེ་ཊ་ལོ་ནི་ཡའི་གཞུང་གི་སྐུ་ཚབ་དང་མཇལ་འཕྲད་གནང་བ། ◆ ཚན་རིག་དགེ་རྒན་རྣམས་ལ་ཚན་རྩིས་འཕྲུལ་གསུམ་གྱི་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གནང་བ། ◆ ༧རྒྱལ་བའི་སྐུ་ཕྱྭ་དང་བོད་ཀྱི་བསྟན་སྲིད་བདེ་ཐབས་སླད་ཞབས་རིམ་ཁག་ཅིག་གསོག་སྒྲུབ་དགོས་པའི་བཀའ་ལུང་ཕེབས་པ། ◆ མོན་གྷོ་འདོད་རྒུ་གླིང་དུ་རིན་མེད་མིག་བརྟག་དཔྱད་དང་གཤག་བཅོས་སྨན་སྒར་གོ་སྒྲིག་གནང་བ།

Quests and Chaos Presents the Great Dane Society playing Call of Cthulhu Children of Fear. Join this Actual Play campaign live on Twitch, uploaded to Youtube, and here on the Quests and Chaos Podcast Network. Time for a Spring hike through the mountainous terrain of Tibet. Happily, the plateau is mostly hills and valleys, but Derge will be a long trek up into the mountains. But first, the Danes must rebuild some measure of trust, and figure out how to control Eugene and his progeny. -Support The Channel- Join our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/questsandchaos (https://www.patreon.com/questsandchaos ) Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/questsandchaos (https://www.twitch.tv/questsandchaos ) Join our discord: https://discord.gg/7gJKxnv (https://discord.gg/7gJKxnv ) T-shirts, mugs, coasters and more available at: https://questsandchaos.com/merch (https://questsandchaos.com/merch) Join our Youtube: https://youtube.com/QuestsChaos (https://youtube.com/QuestsChaos)

Quests and Chaos Presents the Great Dane Society playing Call of Cthulhu Children of Fear. Join this Actual Play campaign live on Twitch, uploaded to Youtube, and here on the Quests and Chaos Podcast Network. Time for a Spring hike through the mountainous terrain of Tibet. Happily, the plateau is mostly hills and valleys, but Derge will be a long trek up into the mountains. But first, the Danes must rebuild some measure of trust, and figure out how to control Eugene and his progeny. -Support The Channel- Join our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/questsandchaos (https://www.patreon.com/questsandchaos ) Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/questsandchaos (https://www.twitch.tv/questsandchaos ) Join our discord: https://discord.gg/7gJKxnv (https://discord.gg/7gJKxnv ) T-shirts, mugs, coasters and more available at: https://questsandchaos.com/merch (https://questsandchaos.com/merch) Join our Youtube: https://youtube.com/QuestsChaos (https://youtube.com/QuestsChaos)

བོད་ཀྱི་བརྙན་འཕྲིན་གྱི་ཉིན་རེའི་གསར་འགྱུར། ༢༠༢༢།༧།༢༠ Tibet TV Daily News – Jul. 20, 2022 ◆བོད་ནང་ལྷ་ས་གྲོང་ཁྱེར་སྤྱི་བདེ་ཉེན་རྟོག་ལས་ཁུངས་ཟེར་བས་གསལ་བསྒྲགས་ཤིག་སྤེལ་ཏེ་ཁྲིམས་འགལ་གནས་ཚུལ་མཁོ་སྤྲོད་བྱས་ན་བྱ་དགའ་སྤྲོད་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ལུགས་སོགས་བརྗོད་བཞིན་སྤྱི་ཚོགས་ནང་བརྡབ་གསིག་ཤུགས་ཆེ་རུ་གཏོང་བཞིན་པ། ◆བྱང་ཨ་རིའི་སྐུ་ཚབ་དོན་གཅོད་ཀྱིས་ཨ་རིའི་བོད་མིིའི་སློབ་ཡོན་ལས་གཞིའི་འགོ་ཨ་རིའི་མཐོ་སློབ་ཏུ་སློབ་གཉེར་གནང་བཞིན་པའི་སློབ་མ་ཁག་ཅིག་དང་མཇལ་འཕྲད་གནང་བ། ◆བཙན་བྱོལ་བོད་མིའི་འཕྲོད་བསྟེན་བསྐྱར་ཞིབ་ཚོགས་འདུ་ཐེངས་ ༧ པ་དེ་ལེགས་པར་མཇུག་སྒྲིལ་བ། ◆འཕྲོད་བསྟེན་ལས་ཁུངས་ནས་འཕྲོད་བསྟེན་ལས་མིའི་ནུས་སྟོབས་གོང་འཕེལ་གཏོང་ཐབས་ཀྱི་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གོ་སྒྲིག་གནང་བ།

Background Music for Sleep, Meditation, Relaxation, Massage, Yoga, Studying and TherapyHi everyone, this is Jim Butler and welcome to the Deep Energy Podcast - 1023 - Tibet - Part 2…….I have a brand new podcast. ‘Slow Piano for Sleep' A weekly podcast of my own solo ambient piano pieces. Available wherever you listen to podcasts and at the link belowhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slow-piano-for-sleep/id1626828397https://open.spotify.com/show/5BD3upRDysHNAKctGODPKT?si=18ca97b89ccb4d39If you would like to find out more about me and my music, head on over to www.jimbutlermusic.com or you can e-mail me at jimbutlermusic@gmail.com. On the website you will find links to all of my social media including FB, FB fan page, IG and Twitter and any live appearances I am making in the Keene, NH area. My YouTube page has all of the podcasts if you like listening that way, plus various other videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/JimButlerMusicI now have a merchandise store with a collection of mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, hoodie's and a ton more… you can find it at www.deepenergy.threadless.com This podcast is ad supported, if you would like to listen to the podcast without ads or speaking, please go to my Bandcamp page and most of the podcasts are there. If you would like a podcast and you don't see it, just send me an e-mail and I will get it uploaded ASAP.www.jimbutler.bandcamp.com Please share, subscribe, rate and review (helps more people find the podcast) through however you listen to the podcast including:Spreaker, Stitcher, Apple Podcast App, Castbox, Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, Luminary, iHeart Radio, Radio.com, Deezer, YouTube, Alexa and Siri and many other podcast providers.Thank you for listening. Until the next time, please be kind to one another, peace, bye…

Can you learn to let go? This is what Kyle Cease challenges Doe Paoro to do in their interview together in this episode of Podsongs. New York Times Best Selling author Kyle Cease has a gift of merging comedy with personal transformation. As a comedian, Kyle had two #1 Comedy Central specials and was voted as #1 ranking on Comedy Central's Stand-up Showdown. After leaving his job as an award-winning comedian, Kyle dedicated his life to helping others and created Evolving Out Loud, which is a growing community with over 400 thousand members worldwide. Kyle has personally coached over fifteen thousand people and his YouTube videos have been watched over 60 million times. http://kylecease.com/ Working under the name Doe Paoro, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Sonia Kreitzer blends elements of soul, R&B, dubstep, and dark-toned pop. After earning critical accolades with her self-made first album, she signed to Anti-, working with members of Bon Iver and making her label debut with 2015's After. Slow to Love Following a trip to Tibet, the Syracuse native began recording under the name Doe Paoro, folding Tibetan opera vocal influences into her own minimalist pop sound. https://www.doepaoro.com/ Stream the song: https://ffm.to/doeletgo LET GO Well I never had the sense of a road No no no no And I gave up all of my knowing A long time ago Yeah I tried To let go Of what could not hold Well I promised myself a love That wouldn't rely On anyone else's choosing me This love never dies Yeah I tried To let go Of what was a love so many times I had to let go so many times I had to let go of so many lives I had to let go of so many so many so many lives So many times I had to let go I had to let go I had to let go Of so many lives So many times Well I walked to the edge Gave my prayer to the stars What if the thing that I want most Is breaking my heart Well I tried, yes I tried to accept what is hard Yeah I tried to accept what is hard I had to let go So many times I had to let go of so many lives so many lives // SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL // Newsletter, donations and download the song for €/$1 @ https://podsongs.com // LINKS // Website: https://podsongs.com Podcast episodes: https://podsongs.com/podcast-episodes Songs: https://podsongs.com/music Spotify artist: https://open.spotify.com/artist/32FYyRx1y1ex3jHHAgLMC7?si=4Nv7WW85SbSPZvCsj1o7Ig Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6sN1viy82HPiNTVX2YBxpq?si=1b84c2b9bdea4656 // SOCIAL // Twitter: https://twitter.com/podsongs Instagram: https://instagram.com/podsongs Facebook: https://facebook.com/podsongs --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/podsongs/message

Background Music for Sleep, Meditation, Relaxation, Massage, Yoga, Studying and TherapyHi everyone, this is Jim Butler and welcome to the Deep Energy Podcast - 1023 - Tibet - Part 2…….I have a brand new podcast. ‘Slow Piano for Sleep' A weekly podcast of my own solo ambient piano pieces. Available wherever you listen to podcasts and at the link belowhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slow-piano-for-sleep/id1626828397https://open.spotify.com/show/5BD3upRDysHNAKctGODPKT?si=18ca97b89ccb4d39If you would like to find out more about me and my music, head on over to www.jimbutlermusic.com or you can e-mail me at jimbutlermusic@gmail.com. On the website you will find links to all of my social media including FB, FB fan page, IG and Twitter and any live appearances I am making in the Keene, NH area. My YouTube page has all of the podcasts if you like listening that way, plus various other videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/JimButlerMusicI now have a merchandise store with a collection of mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, hoodie's and a ton more… you can find it at www.deepenergy.threadless.com This podcast is ad supported, if you would like to listen to the podcast without ads or speaking, please go to my Bandcamp page and most of the podcasts are there. If you would like a podcast and you don't see it, just send me an e-mail and I will get it uploaded ASAP.www.jimbutler.bandcamp.com Please share, subscribe, rate and review (helps more people find the podcast) through however you listen to the podcast including:Spreaker, Stitcher, Apple Podcast App, Castbox, Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, Luminary, iHeart Radio, Radio.com, Deezer, YouTube, Alexa and Siri and many other podcast providers.Thank you for listening. Until the next time, please be kind to one another, peace, bye…

◆ ལོ་འཁོར་མཧཱ་གུ་རུའི་འབུམ་ཚོགས་འགོ་འཛུགས་གནང་བ། ◆ སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གིས་སི་རི་ལངྐའི་དཀའ་ངལ་མགྱོགས་མྱུར་སེལ་ཐུབ་པའི་ཐུགས་སྨོན་མཛད་པ། ◆ ༸གོང་ས་མཆོག་གིས་ལ་དྭགས་གླེ་རུ་ཉིན་གསུམ་རིང་ཆོས་འབྲེལ་སྩལ་རྒྱུ། ◆ བོད་མིའི་སྒྲིག་འཛུགས་གྱི་འགན་འཛིན་སྡེ་ཚན་གྱི་སྲི་ཞུ་བར་འགོ་ཁྲིད་ཟབ་སྦྱོང་གནང་བ། ◆ ཉི་ཧོང་བོད་མིས་སྲིད་བློན་ཟུར་པ་ཞིང་གཤེགས་སྐུ་ཞབས་ཤིན་ཛོ་ཨ་བྷེ་མཆོག་གི་ཆེད་མཆོད་འབུལ་སྨོན་ལམ་ཚོགས་པ། ◆ ཨིན་ཡུལ་དུ་པཎ་ཆེན་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་གནད་དོན་སྐོར་ཞུ་གཏུག་འགོ་འཛུགས་གནང་བ། ◆ སོ་ནམ་སློབ་སྟོན་པར་རྩི་ཤིང་ཐོན་སྐྱེད་སྐོར་དམིགས་བསལ་སྦྱོང་བརྡར་ཞིག་གོ་སྒྲིག་གནང་བ།

Join me, Clara, on guided meditations for nature lovers to help with relaxation and sleep. Each episode is an audio escape into a natural environment or setting blending storytelling, AMSR and music. Somewhere, beyond Tibet, in the Himalayan mountains, lies a mythical paradise of harmony and ineffable peace known as Shambala. This guided story for sleep is inspired by a dream about Shambala and the actual Taktsang Palphug Monastery perched on a cliffside in Bhutan. Visualization is a gentle but powerful meditation technique that will enable you to use your imagination to help you relax. Please practice the series in a safe, quiet place that is free from distraction. Your Sleep Guru™ is available for free on Google Play and the Apple App. Store. www.yoursleepguru.com. Your Sleep Guru Podcast™ is an independent podcast written, narrated, produced, and edited by Clara Starr. I want you to know I'm taking a break from podcasting for a few weeks. In the meantime, I will be rerunning some of my all-time favourite episodes! If you want to stay in touch and follow along with my summer adventures, you can subscribe to Your Sleep Guru App in the apple store or on google play. I'll be posting some fantastic footage there!  

Background Music for Sleep, Meditation, Relaxation, Massage, Yoga, Studying and TherapyHi everyone, this is Jim Butler and welcome to the Deep Energy Podcast - 1022 - Tibet - Part 1…….I have a brand new podcast. ‘Slow Piano for Sleep' A weekly podcast of my own solo ambient piano pieces. Available wherever you listen to podcasts and at the link belowhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slow-piano-for-sleep/id1626828397https://open.spotify.com/show/5BD3upRDysHNAKctGODPKT?si=18ca97b89ccb4d39If you would like to find out more about me and my music, head on over to www.jimbutlermusic.com or you can e-mail me at jimbutlermusic@gmail.com. On the website you will find links to all of my social media including FB, FB fan page, IG and Twitter and any live appearances I am making in the Keene, NH area. My YouTube page has all of the podcasts if you like listening that way, plus various other videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/JimButlerMusicI now have a merchandise store with a collection of mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, hoodie's and a ton more… you can find it at www.deepenergy.threadless.com This podcast is ad supported, if you would like to listen to the podcast without ads or speaking, please go to my Bandcamp page and most of the podcasts are there. If you would like a podcast and you don't see it, just send me an e-mail and I will get it uploaded ASAP.www.jimbutler.bandcamp.com Please share, subscribe, rate and review (helps more people find the podcast) through however you listen to the podcast including:Spreaker, Stitcher, Apple Podcast App, Castbox, Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, Luminary, iHeart Radio, Radio.com, Deezer, YouTube, Alexa and Siri and many other podcast providers.Thank you for listening. Until the next time, please be kind to one another, peace, bye…

Background Music for Sleep, Meditation, Relaxation, Massage, Yoga, Studying and TherapyHi everyone, this is Jim Butler and welcome to the Deep Energy Podcast - 1022 - Tibet - Part 1…….I have a brand new podcast. ‘Slow Piano for Sleep' A weekly podcast of my own solo ambient piano pieces. Available wherever you listen to podcasts and at the link belowhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slow-piano-for-sleep/id1626828397https://open.spotify.com/show/5BD3upRDysHNAKctGODPKT?si=18ca97b89ccb4d39If you would like to find out more about me and my music, head on over to www.jimbutlermusic.com or you can e-mail me at jimbutlermusic@gmail.com. On the website you will find links to all of my social media including FB, FB fan page, IG and Twitter and any live appearances I am making in the Keene, NH area. My YouTube page has all of the podcasts if you like listening that way, plus various other videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/JimButlerMusicI now have a merchandise store with a collection of mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, hoodie's and a ton more… you can find it at www.deepenergy.threadless.com This podcast is ad supported, if you would like to listen to the podcast without ads or speaking, please go to my Bandcamp page and most of the podcasts are there. If you would like a podcast and you don't see it, just send me an e-mail and I will get it uploaded ASAP.www.jimbutler.bandcamp.com Please share, subscribe, rate and review (helps more people find the podcast) through however you listen to the podcast including:Spreaker, Stitcher, Apple Podcast App, Castbox, Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, Luminary, iHeart Radio, Radio.com, Deezer, YouTube, Alexa and Siri and many other podcast providers.Thank you for listening. Until the next time, please be kind to one another, peace, bye…