Podcasts about Vassa

This episode we will finish up the travels of Xuanzang, who circumnavigated the Indian subcontinent while he was there, spending over a decade and a half travelings, visiting important Buddhist pilgrimage sites, and studying at the feet of learned monks of India, and in particular at Nalanda monastery--a true center of learning from this period. For more, check out our blogpost page:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-122 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 122:  Journey to the West, Part 3 The courtyard at Nalanda was quiet.  Although hundreds of people were crowded in, trying to hear what was being said, they were all doing their best to be silent and still.  Only the wind or an errant bird dared speak up.  The master's voice may not have been what it once was—he was definitely getting on in years—but Silabhadra's mind was as sharp as ever. At the front of the crowd was a relatively young face from a far off land.  Xuanzang had made it to the greatest center of learning in the world, and he had been accepted as a student of perhaps the greatest sage of his era.  Here he was, receiving lessons on some of the deepest teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist sect, the very thing he had come to learn and bring home. As he watched and listened with rapt attention, the ancient teacher began to speak….   For the last two episodes, and continuing with this one, we have been covering the travels of the monk Xuanzang in the early 7th century, starting around 629 and concluding in 645.  Born during the Sui dynasty, Xuanzang felt that the translations of the Buddhist sutras available in China were insufficient—many of them had been made long ago, and often were translations of translations.  Xuanzang decided to travel to India in the hopes of getting copies in the original language to provide more accurate translations of the sutras, particularly the Mahayana sutras.  His own accounts of his journeys, even if drawn from his memory years afterwards, provide some of our most detailed contemporary evidence of the Silk Road and the people and places along the way.  After he returned, he got to work on his translations, and became quite famous.  Several of the Japanese students of Buddhism who traveled to the Tang dynasty in the 650s studied under him directly and brought his teachings back to Japan with them.  His school of “Faxiang” Buddhism became known in Japan as the Hosso sect, and was quite popular during the 7th and 8th centuries.  Xuanzang himself, known as Genjou in Japan, would continue to be venerated as an important monk in the history of Buddhism, and his travels would eventually be popularized in fantastic ways across East Asia. Over the last couple of episodes we talked about Xuanzang's illegal and harrowing departure from the Tang empire, where he had to sneak across the border into the deserts of the Western Regions.  We then covered his time traveling from Gaochang, to Suyab, and down to Balkh, in modern Afghanistan.  This was all territory under the at least nominal control of the Gokturk empire.  From Balkh he traveled to Bamyan, and then on to Kapisa, north of modern Kabul, Afghanistan.  However, after Kapisa, Xuanzang was finally entering into the northern territories of what he knew as “India”, or “Tianzhu”. Here I would note that I'm using “India” to refer not to a single country, but to the entirety of the Indian subcontinent, and all of the various kingdoms there -- including areas now part of the modern countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.  The Sinitic characters used to denote this region are pronounced, today, as “Tianzhu”, with a rough meaning of “Center of Heaven”, but it is likely that these characters were originally pronounced in such a way that the name likely came from terms like “Sindhu” or “Induka”.  This is related to the name of the Sindh or Indus river, from which India gets its name.  Xuanzang's “Record of the Western Regions” notes that the proper pronunciation of the land should be “Indu”.  In Japan, this term was transmitted through the Sinitic characters, or kanji, and pronounced as “Tenjiku”.  Since it featured so prominently in the stories of the life of the Buddha and many of the Buddhist sutras, Tenjiku was known to the people of the Japanese archipelago as a far off place that was both real and fantastical. In the 12th century, over a thousand stories were captured for the “Konjaku Monogatarishu”, or the “Collection of Tales Old and New”, which is divided up into tales from Japan, China, and India.  In the famous 9th or 10th century story, “Taketori Monogatari”, or the “Bamboo-Cutter's Tale”, about princess Kaguya hime, one of the tasks the princess sets to her suitors is to go to India to find the begging bowl of the Buddha.  Records like those produced by Xuanzang and his fellow monks, along with the stories in the sutras, likely provided the majority of what people in the Japanese archipelago knew about India, at least to begin with. Xuanzang talks about the land of India as being divided into five distinct parts—roughly the north, south, east, west, and center.  He notes that three sides face the sea and that the Snow Mountains—aka the Himalayas—are in the north.  It is, he says, “Wide in the north and narrow in the south, in the shape of a crescent moon”.  Certainly the “Wide in the north and narrow in the south” fit the subcontinent accurately enough, and it is largely surrounded by the waters of what we know as the Indian Ocean to the west, the east, and the south.  The note about the Crescent Moon might be driven by Xuanzang's understanding of a false etymology for the term “Indus”, which he claims comes from the word for “moon”.  Rather, this term appears to refer to the Indus River, also known as the Sindh or Sindhus, which comes from an ancient word meaning something like “River” or “Stream”. Xuanzang also notes that the people of the land were divided into castes, with the Brahman caste at the top of the social hierarchy.    The land was further divided into approximately 70 different countries, according to his accounts.  This is known broadly as the Early Medieval period, in India, in which the region was divided into different kingdoms and empires that rose and fell across the subcontinent, with a total size roughly equivalent to that covered by the countries of the modern European Union.  Just like Europe, there were many different polities and different languages spoken across the land – but just as Latin was the common language in Europe, due to its use in Christianity, Sanskrit was the scholarly and religious language in much of India, and could also be used as a bridge language.  Presumably, Xuanzang understood Sanskrit to some extent as a Buddhist monk.  And, just a quick note, all of this was before the introduction of Islam, though there were other religions also practiced throughout the subcontinent, but Xuanzang was primarily focused on his Buddhist studies. Xuanzang describes India as having three distinct seasons—The hot season, the rainy season, and the cold season, in that order.  Each of these were four month long periods.  Even today, the cycle of the monsoon rains is a major impact on the life of people in South Asia.  During the rainy season, the monks themselves would retreat back to their monasteries and cease their wanderings about the countryside. This tradition, called “Vassa”, is still a central practice in many Theravada Buddhist societies such as Thailand and Laos today, where they likewise experience this kind of intensely wet monsoon season. Xuanzang goes on to give an in depth analysis of the people and customs of the Indian subcontinent, as he traveled from country to country. So, as we've done before, we'll follow his lead in describing the different locations he visited. The first country of India that Xuanzang came to was the country of Lampa, or Lamapaka, thought to be modern Laghman province in Afghanistan.  At the time it was a dependency of Kapisa.  The Snow Mountains, likely meaning the Hindu Kush, the western edge of the Himalayas, lay at its north, while the “Black Mountains” surrounded it on the other three sides.  Xuanzang mentions how the people of Lampa grow non-glutinous rice—likely something similar to basmati rice, which is more prevalent in South Asian cuisine, as compared to glutinous rice like more often used in East Asia. From Lampa he headed to Nagarahara, likely referring to a site near the Kabul River associated with the ruins of a stupa called Nagara Gundi, about 4 kilometers west of modern Jalalabad, Afghanistan.  This was another vassal city-state of Kapisa.  They were still Mahayana Buddhists, but there were other religions as well, which Xuanzang refers to as “heretical”, though I'm not entirely sure how that is meant in this context.  He does say that many of the stupas were dilapidated and in poor condition. Xuanzang was now entering areas where he likely believed the historical Buddha had once walked.  In fact, Lampa was perhaps the extent of historical Buddha's travels, according to the stories and the sutras, though this seems unlikely to have been true.  The most plausible locations for the Historical Buddha's pilgrimages were along the Ganges river, which was on the other side of the subcontinent, flowing east towards modern Kolkatta and the Bengal Bay.  However, as Buddhism spread, so, too, did stories of the Buddha's travels.  And so, as far as Xuanzang was concerned, he was following in the footsteps of the Buddha. Speaking of which, at Nagarahara, Xuanzang mentions “footprints” of the Buddha.  This is a Buddhist tradition found in many places.  Xuanzang claims that the Tathagatha, the Englightened One, or the Buddha, would fly, because when he walked the land itself shook.  Footprint shapes in rock could be said to be evidence of the Buddha's travels.  Today, in many Buddhist areas you can find footprints carved into rock conforming to stories about the Buddha, such as all the toes being of the same length, or other various signs.  These may have started out as natural depressions in the rock, or pieces of artwork, but they were believed by many to be the actual point at which the Buddha himself touched down.  There are famous examples of these footprints in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and China.  Of course there are also traditions of creating images of the footprint as an object of worship.  Images of footprints, similar to images of the Great Wheel of the Law, may have been some of the earliest images for veneration, as images of the Buddha himself did not appear until much later in the tradition.  One of the oldest such footprints in Japan is at Yakushiji temple, and dated to 753.  It was created based on a rubbing brought back by an envoy to the Tang court, while they were in Chang'an. Like Buddha footprints, there are many other images and stories that show up multiple times in different places, even in Xuanzang's own narrative.  For example, in Nagarahara Xuanzang also shares a story of a cave, where an image of the Buddha could be just barely made out on the wall – maybe maybe an old carving that had just worn away, or maybe an image that was deliberately placed in the darkness as a metaphor for finding the Buddha—finding enlightenment.  This is not an uncommon theme in Buddhism as a whole.  In any case, the story around this image was that it had been placed there to subdue a naga. Now a naga is a mythical snake-like being, and  we are told that this particular naga was the reincarnation of a man who had invoked a curse on the nearby kingdom, then threw himself from a cliff in order to become a naga and sow destruction.  As the story went, the man was indeed reborn, but before he could bring destruction, the Buddha showed up and subdued him, convincing him that this was not right.  And so the naga agreed to stay in the cave, where the Buddha left an image—a shadow—to remind the naga any time that its thoughts might turn to destruction. Later in his travels, at a place name Kausambi, Xuanzang mentions another cave where the Buddha had subdued a venomous dragon and left his shadow on the cave wall.  Allowing for the possibility that the Buddha just had a particular M.O. when dealing with destructive beings, we should also consider the possibility that the story developed in one region—probably closer to the early center of Buddhism, and then traveled outward, such that it was later adopted and adapted to local traditions.  From Nagarahara, Xuanzang continued to the country of Gandhara and its capital city of Purushapura, aka modern Peshwar.  This kingdom was also under vassalage to the Kapisan king.  Here and elsewhere in the journey, Xuanzang notes not only evidence of the historical Buddha, but also monasteries and stupas purported to have been built by King Kanishka and King Asoka.  These were important figures who were held in high regard for spreading Buddhism during their reign.  Continuing through the region of Gandhara, he also passed through Udakhand and the city of Salatura, known as the birthplace of the ancient Sanskrit grammarian, Daksiputra Panini, author of the Astadhyayi [Aestudjayi].  This work is the oldest surviving description of classical Sanskrit, and used grammatical and other concepts that wouldn't be introduced into Western linguistics for eons.  Daksiputra Panini thrived around the 5th or 4th century BCE, but was likely one of the reasons that Sanskrit continued to be used as a language of scholarship and learning even as it died out of usage as the day to day language of the common people.  His works and legacy would have been invaluable to translators like Xuanzang in understanding and translating from Sanskrit. Xuanzang continued on his journey to Kashmira, situated in the Kashmir Valley.  This valley sits between the modern states of Pakistan and India, and its ownership is actively disputed by each.  It is the namesake of the famous cashmere wool—wool from the winter coats of a type of goat that was bred in the mountainous regions.  The winter coat would be made of soft, downy fibers and would naturally fall out in the spring, which the goatherds harvested and made into an extremely fine wool.  In the 7th century and earlier, however, the region was known not as much for its wool, but as a center for Hindu and Buddhist studies.  Xuanzang ended up spending two years in Kashmira studying with teachers there.  Eventually, though, he continued on, passing through the country of Rajpura, and continuing on to Takka and the city of Sakala—modern day Sialkot in the Punjab region of modern Pakistan.  Leaving Sakala, he was traveling with a group when suddenly disaster struck and they were accosted by a group of bandits.  They took the clothes and money of Xuanzang and those with him and then they drove the group into a dry pond in an attempt to corral them while they figured out what they would do—presumably meaning kill them all.  Fortunately for the group, there was a water drain at the southern edge of the pond large enough for one man to pass through.  Xuanzang and one other went through the gap and they were able to escape to a nearby village.  Once they got there, they told the people what had happened, and the villagers quickly gathered weapons and ran out to confront the brigands, who saw a large group coming and ran away.  Thus they were able to rescue the rest of Xuanzang's traveling companions.  Xuanzang's companions were devastated, having lost all of their possessions.  However, Xuanzang comforted them.  After all, they still had their lives.  By this time, Xuanzang had certainly seen his fair share of life and death problems along the road.  They continued on, still in the country of Takka, to the next great city.  There they met a Brahman, and once they told him what had happened, he started marshalling the forces of the city on their behalf.  During Xuanzang's stay in Kashmira, he had built a reputation, and people knew of the quote-unquote “Chinese monk”.  And even though the people in this region were not necessarily Buddhist—many were “heretics” likely referring to those of Hindu faith—the people responded to this pre-Internet “GoFundMe” request with incredible generosity.  They brought Xuanzang food and cloth to make into suits of clothes.  Xuanzang distributed this to his travel companions, and ended up still having enough cloth for 50 suits of clothes himself.  He then stayed at that city a month. It is odd that they don't seem to mention the name of this location.  Perhaps there is something unspeakable about it?  Still, it seems that they were quite generous, even if they were “heretics” according to Xuanzang. From the country of Takka, he next proceeded to the kingdom of Cinabhukti, where he spent 14 months—just over a year—studying with the monks there.  Once he had learned what he could, he proceeded onwards, passing through several countries in northern India until he came to the headwaters of the sacred Ganges rivers.  The Indus and the Ganges rivers are in many ways similar to the Yellow River and Yangzi, at least in regards to their importance to the people of India.  However, whereas the Yellow River and Yangzi both flow east towards the Pacific Ocean, the Indus and Ganges flow in opposite directions.  The Indus flows southwest, from the Himalayas down through modern India into modern Pakistan, emptying into the western Indian Ocean.  The Ganges flows east along the base of the Himalayas and enters the eastern Indian Ocean at Kolkatta.   At the headwaters of the Ganges, Xuanzang found a Buddhist monk named Jayagupta and chose to spend the winter and half of the following spring listening to his sermons and learning at his feet. From there he continued his travels, and ended up being summoned by King Harshavardhana of Kanyakubja, known today as the modern city of Kannauj.  Harshavardhana ruled an immense state that covered much of the territory around the sacred Ganges river.  As word of this strange monk from a far off land reached him, the King wanted to see him for himself.  Xuanzang stayed in Kannauj for three months, completing his studies of the Vibhasha Shastra, aka the Abhidarmma Mahavibhasha Shastra, known in Japanese as the Abidatsuma Daibibasharon, or just as the Daibibasharon or the Basharon, with the latter two terms referring to the translations that Xuanzang performed.   This work is not a sutra, per se, but rather an encyclopedic work that attempted to speak on all of the various doctrinal issues of its day.  It is thought to have been authored around 150 CE, and was influential in the Buddhist teachings of Kashmira, when that was a center of Orthodoxy at the time.  This is what Xuanzang had started studying, and it seems that in Kannauj he was finally able to grasp everything he felt he needed to know about it in order to effectively translate it and teach it when he returned.  That said, his quest was not over.  And after his time in Kannauj, he decided to continue on. His next stop was at the city of Ayodhya.  This was—and is—a city of particular importance in Hindu traditions.  It is said to be the city mentioned in the epic tale known as the Ramayana, though many argue that it was simply named that later in honor of that ancient city.  It does appear to be a city that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, visited and where he preached.  It was also the home of a famous monk from Gandhara who authored a number of Buddhist tomes and was considered, at least by Xuanzang, a proper Boddhisatva.  And so Xuanzang spent some time paying homage to the places where the Buddha and other holy figures had once walked. “Ayodhya” appears in many forms across Asia.  It is a major pilgrimage center, and the city of “Ayutthaya” in Thailand was named for it, evoking the Ramayana—known in Thai as the Ramakien—which they would adopt as their own national story.  In Silla, there is a story that queen Boju, aka Heo Hwang-ok, wife to the 2nd century King Suro of Geumgwan Gaya, traveled to the peninsula all the way from the foreign country of “Ayuta”, thought to mean Ayodhya.  Her story was written down in the Gaya histories and survives as a fragment found in the Samguk Yusa.  Members of the Gimhae Kim, Gimhae Heo, and Incheon Yi clans all trace their lineage back to her and King Suro. From Ayodhya, Xuanzang took a trip down the Ganges river.  The boat was packed to bursting with some 80 other travelers, and as they traveled towards a particularly heavily forested area, they were set upon by bandits, who rowed their ships out from hiding in the trees and forced the travelers to the shore.  There the bandits made all the travelers strip down and take off their clothing so that the bandits could search for gold or valuables.  According to Xuanzang's biography, these bandits were followers of Durga, a Hindu warrior-goddess, and it is said that each year they would look for someone of particularly handsome features to sacrifice to her.  With Xuanzang's foreign features, they chose him.  And so they took him to be killed.  Xuanzang mentioned that he was on a pilgrimage, and that by interrupting him before they finished he was worried it might be inauspicious for them, but he didn't put up a fight and merely asked to be given time to meditate and calm his mind and that they perform the execution quickly so that he wouldn't even notice. From there, according to the story, a series of miracles occurred that ended up with Xuanzang being released and the bandits worshipping at his feet.  It is times like this we must remember that this biography was being written by Xuanzang's students based on stories he told them about his travels.  While being accosted by bandits on the river strikes me as perfectly plausible, we don't necessarily have the most reliable narrators, so I'm going to have to wonder about the rest.  Speaking of unreliable narration, the exact route that Xuanzang traveled from here on is unclear to me, based on his stated goals and where he was going.  It is possible that he was wandering as opportunities presented themselves —I don't know that he had any kind of map or GPS, like we've said in the past.  And it may be that the routes from one place to another were not always straightforward.  Regardless, he seems to wander southeast for a period before turning again to the north and eventually reaching the city of Shravasti. Shravasti appeared in our discussion of the men of Tukhara in Episode 119.  With the men of Tukhara there was also mentioned a woman from Shravasti.  While it is unlikely that was actually the case—the names were probably about individuals from the Ryukyuan island chain rather than from India—it is probably worth nothing that Shravasti was a thriving place in ancient times.  It was at one time the capital city of the kingdom of Kosala, sharing that distinction with the city of Ayodhya, back in the 7th to 5th centuries BCE.  It is also where the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was said to have spend many years of his life.  This latter fact would have no doubt made it a place of particular importance to Xuanzang on his journeys. From there he traveled east, ending up following the foothills of the Himalayas, and finally came to some of the most central pilgrimages sites for followers of the historical Buddha.  First, he reached Lumbini wood, in modern Nepal, said to have been the birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.  And then he visited Kushinagara, the site where the Buddha ascended to nirvana—in other words, the place where he passed away.  From there, he traveled to Varanasi, and the deer park monastery, at the place where the Buddha is said to have given one of his most famous sermons.  He even visited the Bodhi tree, the tree under which Siddhartha Gautama is said to have attained enlightenment.  He spent eight or nine days there at Bodhgaya, and word must have spread about his arrival, because several monks from the eminent Nalanda Monastery called upon him and asked him to come to the monastery with them. Nalanda Monastery was about 80 km from Bodhgaya.  This was a grand monastery and center of learning—some say that it was, for a time, the greatest in the world.  It had been founded in the 5th century by the Gupta dynasty, and many of the Gupta rulers and others donated to support the monastery, which also acted as a university.  After the fall of the Gupta dynasty, the monastery was supported by King Harsha of Kannauj, whom Xuanzang had visited earlier.  It ultimately thrived for some 750 years, and is considered by some to be the oldest residential university—meaning that students would come to the temple complex and stay in residence for years at a time to study.  According to Xuanzang, Nalanda hosted some 10,000 monks. Including hosts and guests.  They didn't only study Buddhist teachings, but also logic, grammar, medicine, and divination.  Lectures were given at more than 100 separate places—or classrooms—every day.  It was at Nalanda, that Xuanzang would meet the teacher Silabhadra, who was known as the Right Dharma Store.  Xuanzang requested that he be allowed to study the Yogacharabhumi Shastra—the Yugashijiron, in Japanese.  This is the work that Xuanzang is said to have been most interested in, and one of the works that he is credited with bringing back in one of the first full translations to the Tang dynasty and then to others in East Asia.  It is an encyclopedic work dedicated to the various forms of Yogacara practice, which focuses on the mental disciplines, and includes yoga and meditation practices.  It has a huge influence on nearly all Mahayana schools, including things like the famous Zen and Pure Land schools of Buddhism.  The Yogacharabhumi Shastra is the earliest such encyclopedic work, compiled between the 3rd and 5th centuries—so even if the monk Faxian had brought portions of it back, it was probably not in the final form that Xuanzang was able to access. Silabhadra, for his part, was an ancient teacher—some put his age at 106 years, and his son was in his 70s.  He was one of the few at Nalandra who supposedly knew all of the various texts that they had at the monastery, including the Yogacarabhumi Shastra.  Xuanzang seems to have been quite pleased to study under him.  Xuanzang stayed at the house of Silabhadra's son, Buddhabhadra, and they welcomed him with entertainment that lasted seven days.  We are told that he was then given his own lodgings, a stipend of spices, incense, rice, oil, butter, and milk, along with a servant and a Brahman.  As a visiting monk, he was not responsible for the normal monastic duties, instead being expected to spend the time in study.  Going out, he was carried around by an elephant.   This was certainly the royal treatment. Xuanzang's life at Nalandra wasn't all books: south of the monastery was the city of Rajagrha, the old capital of the kingdom of Magadha, where the ancient Gupta kings had once lived, and on occasional breaks from his studies, Xuanzang would venture out to see the various holy sites.  This included the famous Mt. Grdhrakuta, or Vulture Peak, a location said to be favored by the historical Buddha and central to the Lotus Sutra, arguably the founding document of Mahayana Buddhist tradition. After all, “Mahayana” means “Greater Vehicle” and it is in the Lotus Sutra that we see the metaphor of using different vehicles to escape a burning house.   We've already talked a bit about how the image of Vulture Peak had already become important in Japanese Buddhism: In Episode 112 we talked about how in 648, Abe no Oho-omi had drums piled up at Shitennoji in the shape of Vulture Peak. But although the sightseeing definitely enhanced his experience, Xuanzang was first and foremost there to study.  He spent 15 months just listening to his teacher expound on the Yogacarabhumi Shastra, but he also heard expositions on various other teachings as well.  He ended up studying at Nalandra Monastery for 5 years, gaining a much better understanding of Sanskrit and the various texts, which would be critically important when it came to translating them, later. But, Xuanzang was not one to stay in any one place forever, and so after 5 years—some 8 years or more into his journey, he continued on, following the Ganges east, to modern Bangladesh.  Here he heard about various other lands, such as Dvarapati—possibly referring to Dvaravati, in modern Thailand, as well as Kamalanka and Isanapura.  The latter was in modern Cambodia, the capital of the ancient Chenla kingdom.  Then Mahacampa—possibly referring to the Champa region of Vietnam—and the country of Yamanadvipa.  But there was still more of India for Xuanzang to discover, and more teachings to uncover, and so Xuanzang decided instead to head southwest, following the coast.  He heard of the country of Sinhala, referring to the island of Sri Lanka, but he was urged not to go by ship, as the long journey was perilous.  Instead he could stay on relatively dry land and head down to the southern tip of the subcontinent and then make a quick hop from there across to the island.  He traveled a long distance, all the way down to Kancipuram, the seat of the Pallava dynasty, near modern day Chennai.  From the seaport near Kancipuram, it was only three days to Sinhala—that is to say Sri Lanka—but before he could set out, he met a group of monks who had just arrived.  They told him that the king of Sinhala had died , and there was a great famine and civil disturbances.  So they had fled with some 300 other monks. Xuanzang eventually decided not to make the journey, but he did talk with the monks and gathered information on the lands to the south, on Sri Lanka, and on the islands south of that, by which I suspect he may have meant the Maldives.  While Sri Lanka is an area important to Buddhist scholarship, particularly to the Theravada schools, this likely did not impress Xuanzang, and indeed he seemed to feel that his studies in Nalanda had more than provided him what he needed.  Sri Lanka, however, is the source of the Pali canon, one of the most complete early canons of Buddhism, which had a huge influence on Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. So Xuanzang took plenty of notes but decided to forego the ocean voyage and headed northwest, instead.  He traveled across the breadth of India to Gujarat, and then turned back east, returning to pay respects once more to his teacher in Nalanda.  While there he heard of another virtuous monk named Prajnabhadra at a nearby monastery.  And so he went to spend several months with him, as well.  He also studied with a layman, Sastrin Jayasena, at Stickwood Hill.  Jayasena was a ksatriya, or nobleman, by birth, and studied both Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts.  He was courted by kings, but had left to continue his studies.  Xuanzang studied with him for another couple of years. Xuanzang remained at Nalanda, learning and teaching, expounding on what he had learned and gathering many copies of the various documents that he wished to take back with him, though he wondered how he might do it.  In the meantime, he also acquired quite the reputation.  We are told that King Siladitya had asked Nalanda for monks who could refute Theravada teachings, and Xuanzang agreed to go.  It isn't clear, but it seems that “Siladitya” was a title, and likely referred to King Harsha of Kannauj, whom we mentioned earlier.  Since he was a foreigner, then there could be no trouble that was brought on Nalanda and the other monks if he did poorly.  While he was waiting to hear back from Siladitya's court, which was apparently taking time to arrange things, the king of Kamarupta reached out to Nalanda with a request that Xuanzang come visit them.  While Xuanzang was reluctant to be gone too long, he was eventually encouraged to go and assuage the king. Kamarupta was a kingdom around the modern Assam region, ruled by King Bhaskaravarman, also known as King Kumara, a royal title.  This kingdom included parts of Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.  Bhaskaravarman, like so many other regents, seems to have been intrigued by the presence of this foreign monk, who had traveled all this way and who had studied at the famous Nalanda Monastery in Magadha. He invited Xuanzang to come to him.  Xuanzang's teacher, Silabhadra, had exhorted him to spread the right Dharma, and to even go to those non-Buddhists in hopes that they might be converted, or at least partially swayed. King Bhaskaravarman was quite taken with Xuanzang, wining and dining him while listening to him preach.  While there, Xuanzang learned about the country of Kamarupta.  He also learned about a path north, by which it was said it was a two month journey to arrive at the land of Shu, in the Sichuan Basin, on the upper reaches of the Yangzi – a kind of shortcut back to the Tang court.  However, the journey was treacherous—possibly even more treacherous than the journey to India had been. Eventually word reached the ears of King Siladitya that Xuanzang was at the court of King Bhaskaravarman, and Siladitya got quite upset.  Xuanzang had not yet come to *his* court, so Siladitya demanded that Bhaskaravarman send the monk to him immediately.  Bhaskaravarman refused, saying he'd rather give Siladitya his own head, which Siladitya said he would gladly accept.  Bhaskaravarman realized he may have miscalculated, and so he sailed up the Ganges with a host of men and Xuanzang to meet with Siladitya.  After a bit of posturing, Siladitya met with Xuanzang, who went with him, and eventually confronted the members of the Theravada sect in debate.  Apparently it almost got ugly, but for the King's intervention.  After a particularly devastating critique of the Theravada position, the Theravada monks are blamed for trying to use violence against Xuanzang and his fellow Mahayana monks from Nalanda, who were prepared to defend themselves.  The King had to step in and break it up before it went too far. Ultimately, Xuanzang was a celebrity at this point and both kings seem to have supported him, especially as he was realizing it was about time to head back to his own country.  Both kings was offered ships, should Xuanzang wish to sail south and then up the coast.  However, Xuanzang elected to take the northern route, hoping to go back through Gaochang, and see that city and its ruler again.  And so the Kings gave him money and valuables , along with wagons for all of the texts.  They also sent an army to protect all of the treasures, and even an elephant and more – sending him back in style with a huge send-off. So Xuanzang retraced his earlier steps, this time on an elephant.  He traveled back to Taxila, to Kashmir, and beyond.  He was invited to stay in Kashmira, but because of his retinue, he wasn't quite at leisure to just go where he wanted.  At one point, near Kapisa—modern Bagram, north of Kabul—they had to cross a river, and about 50 of the almost 700 documents were lost.  The King of Kapisa heard of this and had his own monks make copies to replace them based on their own schools.  The King of Kasmira, hearing that he was in Kapisa, also came to pay his respects. Xuanzang traveled with the King of Kapisa northwest for over a month and reached Lampaka, where he did take some time to visit the various holy sites before continuing northwest.  They had to cross the Snow Mountains—the outskirts of the Himalayas, and even though it wasn't the highest part of the range it was still challenging.  He had to dismount his elephant and travel on foot.  Finally, after going over the high mountains and coming down, he arrived back in the region of Tukhara, in the country of Khowst.  He then came to Kunduz, and paid his respects to the grandson of Yehu Khan.  He was given more guards to escort him eastward, traveling with some merchants.  This was back in Gokturk controlled lands, over a decade later than when he had last visited.  He continued east to Badakshan, stopping there for a month because of the cold weather and snow.  He eventually traveled through the regions of Tukhara and over the Pamir range.  He came down on the side of the Tarim Basin, and noted how the rivers on one side flowed west, while on the other side they flowed east.  The goings were treacherous, and at one point they were beset by bandits.  Though he and the documents were safe, his elephant panicked and fled into the river and drowned.  He eventually ended up in the country of Kashgar, in modern Xinjiang province, at the western edge of the Taklamakan desert. From there he had two options.  He could go north and hug the southern edge of the Tianshan mountains, or he could stay to the south, along the northern edge of the Himalayan range and the Tibetan plateau.  He chose to go south.  He traveled through Khotan, a land of wool and carpets.  This was a major trade kingdom, and they also grew mulberry trees for silkworms, and were known for their jade.  The king himself heard of Xuanzang and welcomed him, as many others had done.  While he was staying at the Khotanese capital, Xuanzang penned a letter to the Tang court, letting them know of his journey, and that he was returning.  He sent it with some merchants and a man of Gaochang to deliver it to the court. Remember, Xuanzang had left the Tang empire illegally.  Unless he wanted to sneak back in his best hope was that the court was willing to forgive and forget all of that, given everything that he was bringing back with him.  The wait was no doubt agonizing, but he did get a letter back.  It assured him that he was welcome back, and that all of the kingdoms from Khotan back to the governor of Dunhuang had been made aware and were ready to receive him. With such assurances, Xuanzang packed up and headed out.  The king of Khotan granted him more gifts to help see him on his way.  Nonetheless, there was still a perilous journey ahead.  Even knowing the way, the road went through miles and miles of desert, such that in some places you could only tell the trail by the bleached bones of horses and travelers who had not been so fortunate.  Eventually, however, Xuanzang made it to the Jumo River and then on to Dunhuang, from whence he was eventually escorted back to the capital city. It was now the year 645, the year of the Isshi Incident in Yamato and the death of Soga.  Xuanzang had been gone for approximately 16 years.  In that time, the Tang had defeated the Gokturks and taken Gaochang, expanding their control over the trade routes in the desert.  Xuanzang, for his part, was bringing back 657 scriptures, bound in 520 bundles carried by a train of some 20 horses.  He was given a hero's welcome, and eventually he would be set up in a monastery where he could begin the next part of his journey:  Translating all of these books. This was the work of a lifetime, but it is one that would have a profound impact on Buddhism across East Asia.  Xuanzang's translations would revolutionize the understanding of Mahayana Buddhist teachings, and students would come from as far away as the Yamato court to study under him and learn from the teacher who studied and taught at none other than Nalanda monastery itself.  His school would become popular in the Yamato capital, and the main school of several temples, at least for a time.  In addition, his accounts and his biography would introduce many people to the wider world of central and south Asia.  While I could go on, this has already been a story in three parts, and this is, after all, the Chronicles of Japan, so we should probably tune back into what is going on with Yamato.  Next episode, we'll look at one of the most detailed accounts we have of a mission to Chang'an. Until then, I hope that this has been enjoyable.  Xuanzang's story is one of those that isn't just about him, but about the interconnected nature of the entire world at the time.  While his journey is quite epic, there were many people traveling the roads, though most of them didn't write about it afterwards.  People, artifacts, and ideas traveled much greater distances than we often consider at this time, well before any kind of modern travel.  It was dangerous, but often lucrative, and it meant that various regions could have influence well beyond what one might expect. And so, thank you once again for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan

نناقش في هذه الحلقة من برنامج "بلا قيود" على أثير إذاعة "سبوتنيك"، أهم الملفات الساخنة على الساحتين العربية والدولية، مع خبراء في السياسة والاقتصاد.أوكرانيا توافق على الاقتراح الأمريكي بوقف إطلاق النار لمدة 30 يومًا،بدء جولة جديدة من المفاوضات بشأن غزة،الخارجية الروسية، تؤكد التزامها بتطوير التعاون في القطب الشمالي مع الولايات المتحدة،المفوضية الأوروبية تنفذ إجراءات ضد الواردات الأمريكية،العلامة الروسية للأزياء VASSA&Co تنظم عرضا لمجموعتها في موسكو.التفاصيل في الملف الصوتي... إعداد وتقديم: نغم كباس

For episode two of our third Cinderella era, Cassie is joined by Matt to discuss Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter, a retelling of the Russian Cinderella-esque story Vasilisa the Beautiful. When Vassa's stepsister sends her out to buy lightbulbs in the middle of the night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters―and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and ferocious cunning. With Erg's help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch's curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. Join us as we discuss the original Russian tale, complicated modern family relationships, anthropomorphized pangolins, and the nature of grief.Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and Spindles Book Club, Discord, exclusive polls, monthly bookmarks, Zoom hangouts, and more! https://patreon.com/ofslippersandspindles Visit our our merch store, Facebook group, Instagram, and more! https://linktr.ee/ofslippersandspindles We love to hear from you! You can reach us at ofslippersandspindles@gmail.com Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com  

Welcome to the first day of December, a month brimming with creative opportunities and festive surprises. Join us as we delve into exciting new releases and intriguing social media advent calendars, starting with Jerry Carroll's captivating storyline on X. Discover the unfolding adventure of an actor embarking on their next career move, and stay tuned as the story progresses. On Instagram, Alan Kite unveils the first clue in a December adventure of poetic and cryptic wordplay that promises to engage and entertain. Meanwhile, book lovers can rejoice in the launch of "Foxes on the Edge," an e-book exploring a mystical Welsh village. Reflect on the year's aqueous escapades with a look back at the provocative play "Vassa," an interactive theatrical experience rooted in water themes. Discover the power of physical theatre, where audiences turned storytellers through their own energy. As we immerse in this season's festivities, appreciate the diversity of artistic expressions shared under #SundayFringe on social media, celebrating landscapes through evocative and accessible art.

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your hosts are Oz Austwick and Sinead KimberleyIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.Competition ends on 28th November 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: Download The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - https://rubbercheese.com/survey/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sineadwaldron/Sinead Kimberley is the Senior Client Success Manager of Rubber Cheese and has a background in digital marketing, engagement software and all things client satisfaction. She guides clients through the various stages of their project, ensuring they have the information they need when they need it, as well as being the link between our developers and clients. https://rubbercheese.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatmarketingbloke/ Oz Austwick is the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, he has a somewhat varied job history having worked as a Blacksmith, a Nurse, a Videographer, and Henry VIII's personal man at arms. Outside of work he's a YouTuber, a martial artist, and a musician, and is usually found wandering round a ruined castle with his kids. Transcription:  Oz Austwick: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Oz Ostwick. In this episode, Sinead and I are going to talk a lot about the third Annual Rubber Cheese website Visitor Attraction survey. So, firstly, I just want to say, hi, Sinead. Sinead Kimberley: Hello. Oz Austwick: Sinead's been struggling a bit with a cold and I dragged her onto the podcast anyway, so I should apologise to her, but she'll be great. Sinead Kimberley: She always is, always fun to join. Oz Austwick: I'm gonna start by asking you a couple of questions. We're not gonna do the icebreaker thing that we do with guests, but when Paul and I host an episode, we like to talk a little bit about where we've been, what attractions we've been to. So how about you? Where have you been recently? Sinead Kimberley: I've been to Stockholm, in Sweden, actually. That is not an attraction in itself, although it's beautiful there. But we did try to go to a few attractions, so we tried to go to the Paradox Illusion Museum. We very excitedly got to the front, asked for two tickets and they said they're completely fully booked for the entire day, and we couldn't get in, which was surprising. I kind of didn't really factor in that it would be a numbered visit thing. I thought, “just, it's open, come and have a wonder.” But I guess the structure of it is you have to have so many people in a room to be able to enjoy the paradox of it. So it made sense in the end. Oz Austwick: Yeah, I guess. It's interesting, isn't it, that wasn't clear? Sinead Kimberley: Our research was essentially looking. We knew we wanted to go there. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Sinead Kimberley: What's the address? And can Google get me there? That was my research. Oz Austwick: Okay, so really can't really blame them for that, then. Sinead Kimberley: No, we cannot blame them. But we had a similar thing as well where were also trying to go to an escape room because were there to visit friends. So we didn't want to go to all the museums we've kind of already seen, although they have some incredible ones there, the Vassa being one of them. Very similar, I think, to Mary Rose Trust. They've got a massive ship that sunk pretty soon after coming out of the bay and the King wasn't very happy about it, but we thought, we'll go and just try and escape room, just to kill a couple of hours. And I looked for every escape room I could find in Stockholm that we could physically get to. And then once you go into one of those sites, you then pick the Room, then the day, then the time. Sinead Kimberley: And you have to go room to room in each of these websites to see if they've got any availability on the day you want and time you want. And I really wished. And maybe this is a thing that exists that I just don't know about, but I wish there was one place I could go and just say, I want to go to an escape room in Stockholm on this day, roughly this time. What is available? Because I gave up after about half an hour of searching through every single one. Different rooms, different places, it was impossible. So we didn't go in the end. Oz Austwick: That's quite interesting because I suspect that trying to book for half an hour is probably quite a lot. I guess most people probably wouldn't last that long. But not being able to search for something by availability seems a bit odd that you have to say, I want this specific room. And then you have to go into it and say, “Oh no, that's not available.” And then you have to go and find another one and go into. Yeah, it would be really nice to be able to look at something like that and just say what's actually available. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. And I feel like I'm not that big on the. I don't have that many brainwaves, so I imagine someone's already done this. If anyone knows and can point me to it.Oz Austwick: Certainly interesting. And maybe there's a lesson there for people who are listening that are working in attractions that can. If somebody wants to come, can they search by when it's available or do you have to pick a day and look to see if there are any times free? Maybe that's something we'll talk about because we're going to talk about our report and I think maybe that booking process is something that might crop up again. So did you actually make it anywhere at all or did you just give up and not visit anywhere? Sinead Kimberley: We went to a chess bar in the end, so they had a very swanky, very kind of trendy feeling Chess bar. And apparently some very famous chess player was going to go there and have a tournament against somebody from YouTube. I'm not in with all the YouTube stuff, so I don't know who it was, but my husband and friend played chess for about three hours and me and another friend drank wine instead of any visitor attraction. Oz Austwick: Sounds like a pretty ideal attraction to me. It's interesting, is it? Because there are definitely quite a lot of Scandinavian, maybe Swedish chess players. And where's Magnus Carlsen from? Is he Swedish? I know he's Scandinavian. But when he's. He's the best, he's the best player out there at the moment. But I know there are a number of quite famous YouTubers. Anna Kramlin is. Sinead Kimberley: Yes, that was the one. Oz Austwick: Was it? Okay. Oh, she's. She's brilliant. Sinead Kimberley: I think she was going to be there. Oz Austwick: She's got an amazing YouTube channel where she just travels around and plays people at chess. She goes to America and plays chess hustlers in the park and she's an international master, I think. But her parents are both grandmasters at chess and every now and again her mum just comes along and she's this lovely softly spoken lady who just sits down and utterly destroys people at chess. Brilliant watching. So, yeah, I very much doubt Anna Cramling is watching this or listening to this podcast, but if she is, good for you, Anna. Keep it up. Yeah. So where have I been? It's a bit of a cop out because this is something we do quite often, but we live a few minutes drive from Petworth, so we quite often go and park up and go for a walk around the park. Oz Austwick: And we say park, it's thousands and thousands of acres and it's absolutely lovely. It's a bit like stepping into Pride and Prejudice and going for a walk around and seeing the herds of deer just grazing in the landscape. And it's a Capability Brown thing. And you see the house on the hill overlooking, it's absolutely beautiful. We go there a lot. The kids love running around and my teenage daughter, it's a bit special to her because she's got a very serious boyfriend at the moment. They've been together for almost a year and that was where they went for their first date. They went for a walk around the grounds at Petworth and it was absolutely delightful. All very Jane Austen. Sinead Kimberley: That's a lovely first date. Oz Austwick: Well, this isn't it, you know, I mean, at that point I'm going, “Well, yeah, he's okay, he can stay, we like him”. And he came up and introduced himself and shook my hand and I'm just like, wow, okay. Is this what dating's like now? Because it's. I'm pretty sure it wasn't like that back in my day. But yeah, it's a lovely place. Can't recommend it enough. You need to either be a member of the National Trust or pay for your parking, but there's usually a coffee van in the car park so you can have a nice coffee and walk around a lovely estate. So it's pretty much perfect for me. We should probably talk about the elephant in the room, or rather the elephant that isn't in the room. And I'm sure I'll get in trouble for calling Paul an elephant. Oz Austwick: But he's not here today. He's off at the Historic Building Parks and Gardens event, which is an absolutely new one for me. I've not even heard of it before. So we hope you're having a lovely time, Paul, and thanks for letting us loose with the podcast. So what else is going on in the world of visitor attractions at the moment? Sinead Kimberley: ASDC, is it coming up? Oz Austwick: ASDC, yes, the Association of Science and Discovery Centres have their big annual event soon and there's something really special happening at it this year, which is we're going to record an episode of Skip the Queue live on stage. We're not going to broadcast it live because there's a distinct possibility we'll mess it up and we'll have to do bits again. But we are going to record it and it's going to be really interesting. And that one's going to be hosted by Paul, which is probably why he's letting us loose without him. And, yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be quite interesting to get out and about because I've been out to record on site and nobody else has managed it yet. So this will be Paul's first on site recording. Sinead Kimberley: That'd be very cool and hopefully I'll be able to join you for the event at least, as the audience.Oz Austwick: Yeah, I certainly hope. Yeah, that would be great. So if you're listening to this and you've got a venue and you'd like us to be there, please do let us know. We'd love to come and see you. I had an amazing time recording at Trentham Monkey Forest, so if you've got monkeys, then let me know. I'd love to come and meet your monkeys too. But it's probably fair to say that the. The annual survey and the report has taken up a lot of our time recently and we're actually able to talk about it now because it's been released. We know that some of you came along to our launch webinar, but a lot of you didn't. So we'd like to talk about some of the really interesting things that are in the survey. Oz Austwick: I guess it's probably reasonable to start off by talking a little bit about how it's different this year compared with previous years. And there are a few things we've done differently. There are a few subjects that we've brought into the survey to ask people about that weren't in there before. So the use of AI and sustainability. I know we're going to talk a little bit more about sustainability later. That's something that Sinead's quite focused on. But one of the major things is that we've introduced some multi site operators into the database of attractions that we use to produce the report and I think that's probably changed the way the report looks a little bit, wouldn't you agree? Sinead Kimberley: Definitely. I think it's compared to the reports before there are sections of it that maybe look a bit more complex because you've got different tabs you can move between and you can see the data both with all of the data we have. So with the multi sites and without. So if you are maybe a smaller attraction the without might be more interesting for you to have a look and benchmark yourself against. But I think it's really interesting to see how very different the results are. If you look at our normal kind of attractions that we get survey results from compared to when you look at the multi sites. In nearly every single one, the biggest tech within whichever category is usually completely different between the two different kind of data sets, which I thought was really interesting. There's very little crossover really. Oz Austwick: It really isn't it? And the question you need to start thinking about at that point is the tech different because multi sites need different tech or is it different because multi sites actually have the financial ability to be able to say this the absolute best. So that's the one we're going to use. And I don't think we can say for sure one way or another at that point. We can say that the biggest, most successful venues tend to use these things but we're not really in a position where we're able to say and this is why. So I think that's quite interesting. I think there were a lot of discussions when were trying to produce the report about how we use this data because there are definitely different types of multisites out there. Oz Austwick: There are those relatively small local groups where you get maybe two or three local museums that all used to be run by the same council and now are run by a charity. But then you've got some of the multi sites that have some of the biggest and most famous venues in the country that all have their own websites but the decisions are clearly made at a group level and then you've got the massive multi site operators with hundreds and hundreds of venues where they're all done through the same site, the same website. And the question is, then, is that, say, 600 venues or is that one website? And that makes it a really difficult thing because if we look at it and say it's 600 or so venues, then that's 600 venues, all using the same technology. Oz Austwick: But if it's one website, that's only one website using that technology, and that hugely changes the way that it's reported. So I think you're absolutely right to look at it, look at both and see how it applies to you as an attraction. And if you're unsure, drop us a line, talk to Sinead, talk to me, talk to Paul. We've got a huge amount of information and we've put what we think is the most important things out there in the report. But there's a lot more we can talk to you about and we'd love to, because, you know, we're kind of sick of talking to each other about it, wouldn't you say? Sinead Kimberley: Not just yet. Not sick of you just yet, but I would say when it comes to, as well, coming to talk to us, I think one of the areas that, I mean, I can be useful in and that I'd love to have conversations with my clients in the ones I'm not already talking to about it, is sustainability. And this is one where Oz is probably sick of hearing me talk about constantly. But I think the thing that I find most interesting, if you look at sustainability on its own, you can maybe see it as something we should be doing, but is very hard and, like, how do you do it? Well. But the report looks into how it links really well with performance as well. Sinead Kimberley: A lot of what makes something sustainable also makes it highly performing load faster, and that ultimately gives you a better user experience on the website. So for those who are maybe kind of grappling with how do we make something sustainable in an industry that can find this very difficult because of the nature of what you're doing? Looking at it more from that performance perspective, I think helps maybe give it a little bit momentum, a bit more enthusiasm towards doing something that will have material benefits for you later on, as well as making you a bit more kind of conscious and environmental in the website. So I thought putting those two things together was really interesting in the report. Oz Austwick: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point, isn't it? It's not just about ticking a box for sustainability. ”Oh, look at us. Isn't our website brilliant?” And it feels a bit like just patting yourself on the back for the sake of it. Almost everything you do to make your website more sustainable is making you more successful and your site more efficient and hopefully making you more money as well. So I think that's definitely something to bear in mind. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. And I think the activities that you can do to make it more sustainable and therefore more highly performing and a better user experience, they're reasonably simple. So we have a lot of our customers at the moment are going through that process with us of our team, reviewing the site, checking where can we make those quick wins to boost you up the kind of score. And so in the report, we talk about the average attraction being at F, which is the worst score along the whole score grade, that kind of data shows us. And it doesn't take a whole heap of stuff to get you even just above that average line. But mostly kind of C, B, A, they are all achievable to get to those kind of grades with things that you would. Sinead Kimberley: If you went to look at your site after we have made changes to make it more sustainable, you'll notice it loads a little quicker, hopefully, but you won't really notice anything else that's changed. So a lot of it is the smart little tech things you can do in the background that, you know, we didn't know were possible, maybe when the sites were built originally or, you know, we've just not heard about, we're focusing on something else perhaps. So I think that was. I hope people can see how easy it can be to just get both of those quick wins, the sustainability and the performance, without changing too much. You know, the design team are not going to be unhappy after we've kind of had a go with that. Oz Austwick: Yeah, and I think it's, it's probably worth saying that one of the reasons that I think sustainability has been a conversation that people have backed away from having is that it feels like it's going to be really complicated. And the reason it feels like it's really complicated is because it's quite technical. But if you're talking to someone like you and the team of developers that you work with, then this is really simple stuff for them. Being able to look at a list of things that are causing your site to not rank very well, sustainability wise. They can say, “Oh, well, we can do those three really quickly. That's only half a day's work to get that fixed.” And that can have a huge tangible difference to the site, definitely. Oz Austwick: Okay, so moving on from sustainability to very much a related subject is the booking process. We've talked a bit about trying to make the site more efficient and make it load faster and therefore make it more sustainable. That does feel very much like it's connected to the booking process, because one of the things that seems fairly clear, looking at the report, is that people are still expecting their visitors to go through a lot of steps and that hasn't really changed year on year. We've said before that if you reduce the steps in your booking process, it will make you more money. And we can see that really clearly from the reports we've done in the past. And yet the average is still really high. Oz Austwick: It's seven steps to be able to book a ticket and that feels like we're making people do a lot. Sinead Kimberley: I think if you look at other industries as well, they have really run down that avenue of reducing the steps. If you look at Amazon, it's scarily easy to go, just “Buy now”. Admittedly, they've taken details earlier on in the process that are slightly different, but any new site that I go on to where I'm trying to buy something or I'm trying to kind of plan something, even if I can do everything on my phone and even when it comes to, say, Apple Pay, if I can just do two clicks and my payments done, I don't need to put in, you know, manually enter my details and things like that. I feel more happy after that experience. I don't feel like I've had to go and find my purse and get my card. Sinead Kimberley: I haven't had to go and remember whatever detail it is, or checked, you know, my husband's details, if he's coming along with me or anything. And the easier you can make it, I think the better. I know we've got a few colleagues who have children and Steve in particular will tell me how on a Thursday evening, he sat on the sofa, maybe after putting the kids to bed. After dinner, you're a bit tired, you've had a full day of work, you want to just go, “Oh, I need to do something on the weekend”. You pick up your phone and find where you want to go, quickly book it, get back to the TV or whatever other relaxing activity you were doing. And the quicker you can do that, the more it takes stress out of what is potentially a stressful thing as well. Sinead Kimberley: Not even thinking about when it comes to obviously, the more sales that you get because you're then somewhere they think of as easy to go to, easy to book. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Sinead Kimberley: So, yeah, I think the survey highlighted that really, really well. Oz Austwick: Absolutely, yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I love this idea of Apple Pay or Google Pay being more used because A, that allows you, as an attraction, to get that data without having to specifically ask for it. But also as a visitor, the amount of times I've got my phone out and I've literally, I've been out and about, I've been doing something, maybe I've taken one of the kids to a swimming lesson or, you know, I'm sitting at the back of a concert waiting for my daughter to come on and do her bit and I think, “Oh, I'll just book that thing.” And it says, “Oh, you've got to put your car details in.” Oz Austwick: I've lost count of the amount of times I've been stood in a car park with my phone balanced on the back of the car trying to find a credit card so I can. I don't want to do that. Sinead Kimberley: How many times have you put the phone down? You've not even carried on that booking. Because I'll do it later, if later comes.Oz Austwick: Yeah, I mean, if later comes, definitely. Sometimes, without a doubt, I would much rather be able to just say Google Pay and give it my fingerprint and let it do it for me. And I think the question we need to be asking ourselves as an industry as a whole is why are we asking for this information? And there's a really interesting thing in the survey which I think highlights that we're asking for information from people that A, we don't need. And you and I, we both know this. We talk to people who book things and it annoys them all the time. And people are asking for information so they can market to us and get us to come back. They can upsell, they can sell more things to us. Oz Austwick: But we've got some really clear data looking at where traffic to your website comes from. And the absolute lowest source of traffic to a website to a visitor attraction website comes from email marketing. So we're literally putting people off buying tickets to a venue to get information from them so that we can market to them and get them to come to the venue again. And the numbers just don't hold up.Sinead Kimberley: Don't make sense, no. For the bigger venues, at least hundreds of thousands of pounds, you could get more in revenue if you were to remove some steps. And yet we hold on to those steps for potentially email marketing, which is not where you're getting your hundreds of thousands of pounds back from. In the end, it doesn't add up, but I think it maybe goes into what we spoke about a while ago, where you do what you've always done, you don't think about the why. Why are you asking for the information? Why are we doing this? Why? You know, is email marketing still the big thing that we are trying to do all the time? Oz Austwick: Yes. Yeah. There's a huge amount of perceived wisdom within the industry. And even now, going to events and listening to people talk about how you should market your venue, and it's all really arbitrary. It's like, this is clearly what you should do, this is how you should do it. And there's no justification for that. There's no reason behind it. There's no proof that if you do it this way, this is what will happen. And I think that's one of the things that the survey now, in year three, is becoming more and more able to show you that these things are changing. We've got actual trends, we've got figures, we've got data that is indisputable, and we can see how that data is changing over time. Oz Austwick: So we can look at the fact that in year one, when we knew how many people have tested their site for mobile optimisation. That doesn't tell us an awful lot. It just tells us that some sites have and some sites haven't. But now we've got three years worth of data, we can see that this is still a really important thing and it's getting more important every year. And so we know for a fact that if you aren't testing your site for mobile usage, then you're probably suffering, I think. Sinead Kimberley: Was it 80% of visits to the site are on mobile? Oz Austwick: Yeah. Sinead Kimberley: So if you've never tested that. Oz Austwick: But yeah, it's something ridiculous, like less than 20% of sites have actually bothered to test the mobile version of their site to see if it works the way they think it works. And that's an easy win for you. Get a small group of people together, get it tested, run them through the process and find out if it's. If it's good or not, and look at the steps. And I think it's probably worth mentioning that while we're talking about taking steps out of your booking process, what we're not looking at doing is putting all of those complex decisions into a fewer number of steps. So we don't go from having seven steps to book a ticket to three steps to book a ticket, but those three steps are now infinitely more complex. Oz Austwick: We're actually saying, look at the questions you're asking and say, do you actually need to ask Them? Yeah, like you said, you know, if I want a toaster, I can buy a toaster from Amazon in maybe two clicks and if I buy it from someone else that accepts Google Pay, maybe it's three clicks. But I'd really like to be able to take my kids out for the day without having to go through seven or eight different clicks and then fill in different ages for all of the kids and, you know, putting everybody's names and I just, I'm not interested. I'd much rather.Sinead Kimberley: If they welcome me at the door by saying, hello, Sinead, it's nice to see you. Is this Adam who you mentioned? Carry on. But I don't think that's in many attractions. Oz Austwick: No. And I would much rather get an email with my tickets in it with a little link in the email saying, we'd love to know a little bit more about you. If you fill in this form, we'll give you a free coffee. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And then I'm like, oh, great. Yeah, okay. And I've already got my tickets. It's not going to put me off. But I think that does link beautifully into the subject of discounts because that's something we asked about and we featured in the report and I think it's quite a surprising result, wouldn't you say? Sinead Kimberley: Definitely. Oz Austwick: We know for certain that discounts make more sales.Sinead Kimberley: By quite a substantial margin. It's kind of double the number of sales if you have discounts versus if you don't. Oz Austwick: And I know there are a lot of people out there, people running attractions, people who are involved in the industry, who feel really passionately that you shouldn't offer discounts, that it devalues what you're offering. And yet the numbers don't necessarily agree with that. Sinead Kimberley: No. And I think I can understand having a concern that when we're saying how the data from our survey revealed that. I think it was maybe might have to correct me on these later, But I think 2.9 thousand sales via discounts versus 1.2000 sales or something. So it's quite a substantial difference if you are offering a discount versus not. And then my worry if I kind of take myself out of my role is if the price per ticket is a lot lower, what's my ultimate kind of revenue at the end of that? Have I sacrificed revenue? Am I taking in ultimately less because of the discount? But I don't think anyone is really proposing, you know, 50% discounts on a ticket. Sinead Kimberley: So really from that data, the revenue would be increased by discounting, which feels like opposite things to hold in your brain at the same time, but it is enticing people. I think sales work in every other industry, we know they work. We love sales. You see it and there is a bit in your brain that just reacts to it. Even if you're not interested, you might notice it more. And so I think to ignore it entirely without checking it or testing just feels like maybe not thoroughly investigating it enough based on the data we've seen, at least. Oz Austwick: Absolutely. And the data is really clear, just like you said, that the number of sales that are made is just so much higher when you're offering discounts. But what we're not able to show in the survey is what sort of discount people are offering, what level of discount they're offering. And we know really very clearly that every attraction is different and the way your audience reacts is different and the way you interact with them is different. So we're not saying go and knock 50% off your ticket, we're saying have a think about discounts and look at what you can offer and test it and see if it works for you. Because it's clearly working really well for some people. Hugely well. Sinead Kimberley: And I think on that kind of knowing your audience and seeing how you think they will actually react to this. I think if I think of any place where I've been and if I felt like I got a good deal, I don't have to think I know, stole my ticket. But if I feel like I got a good deal and I then also have a lovely experience there, I have a lot more reason to go and try and recommend that to a friend or go back even again, because I feel like I got treated well essentially in a considered way of maybe what I would find beneficial. Sinead Kimberley: And if that starts with my interest being piqued by a discount and then it goes on to me actually now being part of that audience that maybe I wouldn't have been otherwise, that also has a knock on gain rather than if I saw a price that I saw no discount to, no benefit to, then I wouldn't maybe go in the door in the first place. So you don't just miss that first discounted sale, you might miss the next full price sale of a ticket. Maybe. So there's so much to think about, depending on the audience that you're looking at. Oz Austwick: Absolutely. And I guess I kind of fall into the group where if I'm going to go somewhere, I'm probably going to go there. If you offer a discount or not, I'm probably still going to go. Getting my family to a venue is quite a big job. You know, logistically it's quite tricky. There are a lot of us and we go out a lot, so going somewhere, we tend to travel a little way to get to somewhere a bit special. And we'll have made the decision before I go to book the tickets, but if I can book the tickets and I say, “Hey, I've saved 20 quid doing this”, then in my head what I'm actually thinking is I can spend 20 quid when I get there. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. Oz Austwick: Maybe we don't have to buy a picnic from a supermarket on the way and save money that way. Maybe we can eat on site. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. Oz Austwick: So I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect that my overall kind of purchase value is more when somebody offers me a discount up front. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. Oz Austwick: But again, you know, test it. Your mileage may vary. Sinead Kimberley: Yeah. Oz Austwick: So I guess, I mean, we've talked about this for quite a long time now and I think that we probably shouldn't go on too much but to stress, you know, if I can give you anything to take away from this discussion. It's a, that you really need to get hold of this data and look at it and see how it applies to you and test it, you know, look at what people who are making success out of their venue are doing and see if you can do the same thing. Oz Austwick: But also come and talk to us. We'd love to talk to you about this stuff. There's so much data and there's so many ways you can look at it and we're really able to break it down in a really granular way to say, “Oh, this is what animal based attractions are doing. This is what aquariums or this is what historic homes are doing, this is what theme parks are doing, this is what museums are doing.” We can do all of that. We can't put all of that data out there. Sinead Kimberley: No, it'd be very long. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I mean, it would be ridiculous. And I strongly suspect that our designer would leave when, in fairness, I might too, if we had to make a report that was five times as long as the one that we've done. But, you know, if you're a client of ours and you want to talk about how you can do better, you know, hit up Sinead, drop her an email. If you, if you're not a client and you want to talk, then talk to Sinead, talk to me, talk to Paul. We'd really love to kind of go through this with you and help you be more successful. That's kind of why we're doing it. Sinead Kimberley: Exactly. I think that on the just talking about it as well, if it's one of those things where it feels very big and you're thinking, I've got 300 other things I'm meant to be doing, how am I meant to go and look at sustainability and reducing the steps and all of these other things, I think you can almost maybe be led as well by what people are increasingly doing, which is looking at the user experience and getting information from whoever is using your site. Because I was really happy when I saw the increase this year in people who are testing the site. And if you even can't get to that point where you can't do a big user experience testing thing, go and talk to all of the partners you're working with. Sinead Kimberley: Because the vast amount of knowledge in the kind of community that's formed around all of these attractions, us included, particularly for our clients, even just asking us, you know, go internally and let me know how people experience booking on the site. Partners, I think, will be happy to help have a look at that. Even if it's only a small sample of feedback points that you get that you can maybe incrementally just try and change slowly. But I think opening up that question, however big or small you're able to do it, will mean that by the time we ask you these questions next year, you're that slight step forward from where you want to be. And you don't just look at the report and think, oh, again, I wish were further up. Sinead Kimberley: I wish we could benchmark ourselves closer to the average or the higher end of the results we're getting. So, like Oz said, just come and have a chat about it. We might say, it's brilliant, it's perfect, there's nothing you could improve. Or we might, say, make the CTA bigger. Small things or big things. Just start the conversation about it, I think, and start thinking about it. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's probably fair to say that as an organisation, we. We're really trying to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to visitor attractions. So if you follow Robert Cheese on Instagram, you'll probably have seen that Sinead that I, that Steve, our project manager, that Paul, we're all going out and visiting attractions and actually trying to experience that booking process as a visitor. And you may well be surprised if you give us a bell or drop an email and say, we'd really like to talk about our website, we can say Great. Because when I booked tickets to come and see you, this bit was really difficult. And there's definitely some personal experience in there as well. So, yeah, talk to us. Oz Austwick: And if you want to talk to me, I'll come to you happily, as long as you make me a coffee. I'm a sucker for a coffee. So do we have any Calls to Action? Sinead Kimberley: Talk to us. We're not needy, honest. But please talk to us. Oz Austwick: We are a little bit needy. Oh, I know what it was I wanted to say Sustainability Action Group. We're very aware that sustainability is of growing importance and yet it's relatively new. And this is something that we're going through ourselves. We're currently reworking our own website and we're helping a of our clients to do those. So what we're trying to do is put together a group of people who are all kind of going through the process together. And this isn't us saying we're the experts at this and we'll help you do it. We've got the technical expertise and we can help with that, but we're all going through the process. Oz Austwick: So if you want to go through that process and you want to improve the sustainability of your website, then we are putting together a group of people that want to work together and share their wins, share the things that haven't gone as well for them, and hopefully we can all lift each other at the same time. Drop me an email or reach out to us on social media and we'll get you involved if you want to do that. So before we wrap it up for good, I want to ask you the question that we ask everyone that nobody's asked you yet, which is, do you have a book recommendation? Sinead Kimberley: I do. And not to keep banging on about sustainability, but I will keep banging on about sustainability. Oz Austwick: She really will. Sinead Kimberley: Just ahead of Black Friday and all of that madness. I love the visit attractions versions of Black Friday because you're not selling a thing, you're selling an experience when you have your tickets that I love. Keep doing that. But I read a book recently by Patrick Grant, who is in the British Sewing Bee, and his book was called Less. And he has made my life very difficult because now I'm not allowed really to buy things because of my what I've done to my brain. But essentially the book looks at how to buy what you need and look after it and not constantly just need, need more and more. Sinead Kimberley: And the way he describes pots and pans and jumpers from his gran and all of these other lovely homely feeling things really made me think about where you put your money and what you're getting back out of that. And so when it comes to, for example, when were in Stockholm, were thinking, what do we want to do? We don't want to go shopping. We do want to go and try and do an escape room. We want to go into the Paradox Museum. We want to go do something, experience something. I feel like it makes sense to put the money there rather than buying another thing that you don't really need. And so maybe ahead of Black Friday as well. Sinead Kimberley: I think I'll try and keep that in my mind when I see all of those Amazon sales with things that I definitely want but don't necessarily need right now and try and look instead at experiences you can get from it. So, yeah, I think read that book or listen to it on BookBeat or any of the others that are available. But yeah, it really opened my eyes a little bit to the free Black Friday things you're seeing around you, I think as well. Oz Austwick: Amazing. I mean, I've not read it, so I will definitely. I'll get a copy and have a read. And if you're listening to this and you want a copy for free, get onto Twitter X and be the first person to say, I want a copy of the book Sinead has recommended and we'll stick one in the post to you. So thanks so much for talking to me for agreeing to come on when you're not feeling 100%. I really appreciate it. I've had a lovely time chatting and maybe we should just attack Paul. What do you think? Sinead Kimberley: Yeah, might as well. He's not here to argue.Oz Austwick: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! Help the entire sector:Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsFill in your data now (opens in new tab)

Ajahn Amaro gave this reflection on 16 October 2024, during a community's meditation retreat towards the end of Vassa, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. The post The Dhamma Knows ‘Me' appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Amaro gave this reflection on 14 October 2024, during a community's meditation retreat towards the end of Vassa, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. The post Open-heartedness appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Amaro gave this reflection on 13 October 2024, during a community's meditation retreat towards the end of Vassa, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. The post Is That the Mood or the Reality? appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Amaro gave this reflection on 13 October 2024, during a community's meditation retreat towards the end of Vassa, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. The post Is That the Mood or the Reality? appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Amaro gave this reflection on 14 October 2024, during a community's meditation retreat towards the end of Vassa, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. The post Open-heartedness appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Amaro gave this reflection on 16 October 2024, during a community's meditation retreat towards the end of Vassa, at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. The post The Dhamma Knows ‘Me' appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Minns du det härliga 90-talet när det innebar svårmod och kråsskjorta att vara vampyr? Det slog sannerligen Ted Nicolaou mynt av när han körde på med sin vampyrfranchise Subspecies, med den väsande grönlänningen Anders Hove som elakingen Radu. Vi tar oss med hjälp av författaren Sara Bergmark Elfgren till Rumänien, med en avstickare till Serbien, för att titta närmare på de sex filmer som (hittills?) utgör Subspecies-serien. Vassa tänder, helgonblod och häftiga skuggeffekter är bara några av ingredienserna i denna härliga gryta. The post #231 – Subspeciesalisterna appeared first on FromBeyond.se.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.enrakhoger.seI dagens podd pratar jag med Olle Lidbom som är medieanalytiker och skribent. Han driver också mediebloggen Vassa eggen och utgör ena halvan i Mediepodden. Men i dag handlar samtalet om hans nya bok med titeln “Skolplattformen – en sann historia om miljarder, konsulter, föräldrar och barn” (Fri tanke). Det är …

I dagens podd pratar jag med Olle Lidbom som är medieanalytiker och skribent. Han driver också mediebloggen Vassa eggen och utgör ena halvan i Mediepodden. Men i dag handlar samtalet om hans nya bok med titeln “Skolplattformen – en sann historia om miljarder, konsulter, föräldrar och barn” (Fri tanke). Det är en oerhört välskriven bok om hur nästan 1,3 miljarder skattekronor i Stockholm slösades bort på ett digitalt skolsystem som aldrig fungerade. Inte bara det. Dessutom fanns så stora säkerhetsbrister att bland annat skyddade personuppgifter läckte ut. Bli prenumerant!Men Olle Lidboms bok handlar också om hur några föräldrar blev så frustrerade att de skapade en egen app som faktiskt fungerade. Vilket fick tjänstemännen på Utbildningsförvaltningen att svara med polisanmälan och IT-sabotage. De förstörde på kuppen sin egen app ännu mer, bara för att kunna sabotera för den app föräldrarna byggt som faktiskt fungerade.Så vem är ansvarig? Det är som att när summorna blir så astronomiska som i det här fallet och tillräckligt många är involverade så förlorar vi förmågan till ansvarsutkrävande. Om detta och mycket annat handlar dagens podd.Prenumerera på hela Rak höger och ta del av texter och podden Under all kritik också! Klicka på länken. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

„La nuit des églises“ - „Bažnyčių naktis“ pastaraisiais metais tapo privalomu renginiu daugeliui Prancūzijos katalikų ir tiems, kurie nori pažinti savo šalies krikščioniško paveldo grožį. Nuo birželio 22-os iki liepos 7 dienos daugelis Prancūzijos bažnyčių sutemus atvers duris meniniams ir kultūriniams renginiams, kuriuos nuo 2011 m. organizuoja Prancūzijos vyskupai. Pagal Bažnyčios ir valstybės atskyrimo įstatymą, Prancūzijoje bažnyčių pastatai nuo 1905 m. priklauso savivaldybėms, o katedros – valstybei, taigi, vyskupijos ir jų dvasininkai naudojasi pastatais kaip pamaldų vietomis. Todėl „La nuit des églises“ organizuojama bendradarbiaujant parapijoms ir merijoms, prie renginių prisideda ir paveldo išsaugojimo asociacijos. Plačiau - vedamojo skiltyje.Apie atnaujintą Vilniaus Universiteto Filosofijos fakulteto religijos studijų programą pasakoja prof. Rita Šerpytytė.Spaudos apžvalga: naujasis apaštalinis nuncijus Baltijos šalims arkiv. Georgas Gaensweinas ir ortodoksų vienuolė-influencedė sesuo Vassa (parengė Giedrius Tamaševičius).„Tėvo Antano pasakojimai“: kunigas Antanas Saulaitis SJ apie švenčiantį ir žaidžiantį žmogų.Filosofo Povilo Aleksandravičiaus radijo esė „Bažnyčiai reikia naujo pagrindo“.Laidos redaktoriai Rūta Tumėnaitė ir Julius Sasnauskas.

This week we bring you Italian DJ and Producer Federico Scavo . He's got a unique style of "House a bit 'funky, but also influenced by electro/Tech newest and most innovative;with references to the seventies that are mixed with bursts of tribal music. "Tracklist:1)Federico_Scavo,_Roxy_-_Ilusión_feat._Roy_Paci_Extended_mix AREA94 records2)CID & BURNR - Turn it Up (Extended Mix) [Night Service Only (NSO)]3)Chris_Lake,_Gotye,_Kimbra,_Sante_Sansone,_FISHER_(OZ)_-_Somebody_(2024)_(Extended_Mix)4)Fatboy Slim ft. Dan Diamond & Luca Guerrieri - Role Model (Extended Mix) [South Fried Records]5)SAINTPAUL, THE CUBE GUYS, ELIZA G 'Touch Me' (Club Mix)6)WK, Federico Scavo - Ella Quiere Mari (Extended Mix)7)Vassa & Leone - Dale Dale (Extended Mix)8)Robbie Rivera  - This Groove is Crazy - Extended Mix [Dvision]9)Piero Pirupa, Marco Lys - I Got To Move (Extended)10)Luigi Rocca & Manuel De La Mare - Mach 10  (Original Mix)11)James Hype - Wild (Matt Sassari Remix) (Extended Mix)12)KC Lights, Kye Sones - Hold On (Extended Mix)

She lived in virginity in Rome during the reign of Valerian (253-260) — as the Prologue says, 'expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity.' She voluntarily presented herself to the pagans and announced herself to be a Christian, for which she was tortured to death. Her friends Vassa, Paula and Agathonica took her relics to Sicily for burial. A church was built there in her name, and many miracles were worked there.

She lived in virginity in Rome during the reign of Valerian (253-260) — as the Prologue says, 'expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity.' She voluntarily presented herself to the pagans and announced herself to be a Christian, for which she was tortured to death. Her friends Vassa, Paula and Agathonica took her relics to Sicily for burial. A church was built there in her name, and many miracles were worked there.

Modeskapare som Vivienne Westwood och Valentino har fått rosor uppkallade efter sig. Det har, förstås, även Christian Dior fått. Och nu har rosorna blommat upp inom modet igen. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Rosen är en av de mest sexualiserade växterna genom tiderna. Den har symboliserat allt från oskuld till het passion och inte sällan liknats vid den kvinnliga kroppen, eller snarare dess underliv. Men inte bara, förstås. Den har trots allt hängt med i flera tusen år och varje tid har haft sina tolkningar, och användningsområden för rosen.Men i mångt och mycket är den förstås förknippad med kärlek, och lite smärta. Enligt en myt kom den röda rosen till då den grekiska gudinnan Afrodite rev sig på taggen från en vit ros, som färgades röd av hennes blod.Många är de modeskapare som låt sig inspireras av rosor. Den brittiske designern Alexander McQueen är en av dem. Inte minst valde han ut en ros som en hyllning till sin musa, Isabella Blow, efter hennes självmord. Det är en korallrosa ros, vald med omsorg för att symbolisera henens färgstarka personlighet, kärlek till mode och överdådiga klädstil. Rosen heter numera ”Alexander's Issie”.Och rosorna fortsätter att blomma upp bland modeskapare, och alltid på lite nya sätt. Den unge brittiske designern Richard Quinn har till exempel gjort sig känd för digitala rosentryck – och för att han förra året lät parfymera en visning genom tusentals riktiga rosor. Och till våren och sommaren har flera modehus och smyckedesigner gjort moderna tolkningar av rosor där taggarna ofta finns kvar som en bokstavlig udd, så att det inte blir för romantiskt och sött. Det gjorde till exempel modehuset Balmain vars vårkollektion var fylld med vackra, men taggiga rosor. Dess chefsdesigner Olivier Rousteing, sade sig ha inspirerats av en av modehusets rivigaste gamla kunder, Gertrude Stein och hennes dikt “Sacred Emily” från 1913, i vilken den berömda raden ”Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” förekommer.I veckans program träffar vi floristerna Johanna Larsson och Christoffer Broman, som berättar om rosens status och popularitet bland kunder idag. Vi pratar också med litteraturvetaren Agneta Rahikainen och formgivaren och konstnären Martin Bergström som är aktuella med boken Flora Poetica. I den möter Edith Södergrans dikter Martin Bergströms bilder av torkade blommor. Vi reder ut poetens relation till just rosen. Vi får också följa med till plymmakaren Tim Mårtensons ateljé där han inte bara skapar fjäderkreationer utan även sidenblommor, precis som de tillverkades under 1800-talets glansdagar, då hattar prydda av blommor och fjädrar var superpopulärt.

Join the celebration with the beloved Sister Vassa of "Coffee with Sister Vassa" as we mark a milestone on our podcast journey. In a heartwarming commemoration, we navigate the entwined paths of the saints and our own faith journeys, discovering how these venerated figures from the past continue to shape our contemporary spiritual lives. As we laugh and muse together, Sister Vassa imparts her engaging wisdom on making saintly narratives resonate with the modern believer, turning historical icons into relatable companions for anyone seeking to follow in Christ's footsteps.Our conversation takes a contemplative turn, delving into the humanity of these exemplary individuals and the rich lessons drawn from their devotion and perseverance. We humorously confront the trials of aspiring to holiness in a secular world and share insights on weaving the essence of these holy lives into the fabric of our daily routines. As these stories unfold, we're reminded of the original influencers who still beckon us closer to the divine, inviting listeners to imbibe the wisdom of the saints and let their legacies inspire our steps toward a life in Christ.Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!

This talk is republished with permission by Metta Centre, teaching retrieved from http://Dhamma Talks – Metta Centre. In this panel, three respected monastics will discuss the question of responsibility for our own happiness and suffering to shed light on the causes of misery. The panelists will examine how our own thoughts, speech and actions can shape our experience of the world and influence our well-being. One encompassing method of purifying the mind to overcome the causes of misery is through the cultivation of the Brahma Viharas, namely loving kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), joyful appreciation (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha), known as the Four Sublime Abodes. However, these wholesome mental states are widely misinterpreted and misused to justify unwholesome actions and thoughts, often under the disguise of spirituality by way of spiritual bypassing. Such misunderstandings may potentially lead to harmful consequences. This panel will discuss how to identify the causes of these misconceptions and explore ways to truly nurture and grow the pure four immeasurable qualities of the mind for the benefit of oneself and others. Ajahn Nissarano was born in 1952 in Perth, Western Australia. In 1997, he was ordained by Ajahn Brahm as a novice monk and a year later took full ordination. This year was his 26th Rain's Retreat, Vassa. He lived in Sri Lanka from 2006 to 2019, for a total of 13 and half years. During that time, he lived for 8 years in a cave on the side of a mountain, surrounded by forest and going for alms round to the village below. He returned to Australia regularly to teach, primarily at the Buddhist Society of Victoria. In January 2021 he became the Senior Monk at Newbury Buddhist Monastery, outside Melbourne, which is run by the Buddhist Society of Victoria. Bhikkhuni Ayya Kārunikā is currently the senior resident monastic at Santi Forest Monastery and has been in monastic life for over 12 years. She received her full ordination as a bhikkhunī in 2014 at Dhammasara Nuns monastery in Western Australia where she lived and trained for over a decade with Ajahn Hāsapaññā. She is also a student of Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Brahmali. Ayya Kārunikā is able to articulate the Buddhist teachings in a way that is practical and comprehensible to people of all ages and has experience in conducting day retreats for both adults and youth. While she has a PhD in Microbiology and worked as a scientist, she has also been the building project manager for the construction of Dhammasara main monastery complex and has worked with many volunteers over the years. Ayya Kārunikā was born in Sri Lanka but has been living and working in Australia for over 2 decades. She has a passion to share her experience and knowledge and loves working with people and also doing creative projects. Venerable Bhante Sanathavihari Bhikkhu is a Mexican-American Theravāda monk at the Sarathchandra Buddhist Center in North Hollywood, a Sri Lankan center. He is a student of the late Dr. Bhante Punnaji, and the director of Casa De Bhavana – an outreach project to bring the Dhamma to the Spanish-speaking world. He is also the co-author of Buddhism in 10 Steps. He represents a new generation of Spanish-speaking monastics who are extensively employing digital communication methods and social media, which is turning out to be extremely effective for spreading the Dharma in Spanish. Bhante is a U.S. Air Force veteran and served in the army for 9 years. After three deployments to Afghanistan, he was ordained as a novice in the Theravada tradition, at the age of 30, in the lineage of the Amarapura Nikaya monastic fraternity. In 2015, he received higher ordination at the Sarathchandra Buddhist Center of the Maharagama Bhikkhu Training Center (Maharagama Dharmayathanaya) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Today, Bhante Sanathavihari is the leader of Casa de Bhavana, a Theravada organization devoted to spreading the Dharma and promoting the practice of meditation. Bhante Sanathavihari has a B.A. in Religion, and is a Mindfulness researcher at Mount St. Mary University, Los Angeles, and a Graduate Student in Counseling Psychology at Mount St. Mary University. More info can be found at https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features... ** About Metta Centre ** To find out more about the Metta Centre & how you can support us you can visit https://www.mettacentre.com #buddhism #dharmatalk #dhammatalk Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon. To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Ukončenie vojny v číslach: Výhra Ruska by pre Slovensko znamenalo takmer iste bankrot. Výhra Ukrajiny rozvoj. Aký má byť mier na Ukrajine a aká veľká má byť naša podpora Ukrajiny? Téma, ktorá vzbudzuje emócie a rozdeľuje spoločnosť. A to nielen rodiny a blízkych, ale aj odborníkov. Jedni z nich sa preto na vec pozreli v úvodzovkách „egoisticky“ alebo povedzme pragmaticky. Skúmali, aký vplyv na našu pokladnicu, teda verejné financie by mal každý z troch možných scenárov ukončenia vojny a nastolenia mieru na Ukrajine. V podcaste denníka Pravda si vypočujte autorov analýzy Jána Mykhalchyka Hradického, prezidenta Globsecu Róberta Vassa a bezpečnostného analytika Daniela Hoštáka. #pocuvajtepravdu 

07:26 https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hiddensaints/vassa_of_edessa feeds@ancientfaith.com (Fr. Steven

The annual three months 'Rains Retreat' period ('Vassa') abserved by the monks and nuns is also an excellent opportunity for the lay community to enhance their level of effort and commitment in their Dhamma practice. Ajahn Dhammasiha discusses a wide range of options to increase one's 'bhāvanā' (mental cultivation), e.g.: - Coming more regurlarly to the monastery - Offering food, other requisites, or financial donations - Staying as guest in the monastery on retreat - Purifying one's observance of the 5 precepts - Doing one day a month (usually around full moon) on 8 precepts, or perhaps even one day a week - Determining to do regular evening/morning chanting - Learning chanting by heart, at least parts, in Pāli or English - Perhaps even studying Pali - Studying the Suttas, the original teachings of the Buddha (in translation) - Listening more regualrly to Dhamma Talks on Youtube, Spotify and so on. - Making a resolution to sit formal meditation at least 30 min every day, or perhaps even one hour, or two hours (depending how much one is already regularly doing) - Doing lots of walking meditation - Determining: for these three months, whatever happens, whatever anyone may do, or not do, or say or write to me, I will not get angry. And even if I get angry, I will not speak any angry words... Our Podcast on our own Dhammagiri Website, no need for any special app, just listen in any browser: https://www.dhammagiri.net/podcast More about Dhammagiri Forest Hermitage: https://www.dhammagiri.net/news Our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dhammatalksatdhammagiri8724 Our email Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/dhammagiri/archive Our Podcasts on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0SHWfWEGkO8OAtSWNJlqyD Our Podcasts on Apple/itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dhammagiri-buddhist-podcasts/id1534539834 .

Giuliana Schiavi"L'incredibile storia di Olaudah Equiano, o Gustavus Vassa, detto l'Africano"Olaudah EquianoOccam Editorehttps://occameditore.itOlaudah Equiano ha undici anni quando viene rapito nel villaggio di Essaka, da qualche parte in Africa occidentale. L'unica vita che conosceva non c'è più: prigioniero su una nave negriera diretta nel Mar dei Caraibi, verrà venduto come schiavo a un capitano della Royal Navy. Inizia così una traversata delle zone di confine fra la vita e la morte in cui la natura umana si manifesta – come forse a nessun'altra latitudine – con assoluta brutalità. Ma Equiano decide di non abbandonarsi alla disperazione. Decide di vivere. Insieme al suo padrone, lascia le Americhe e percorre le vie del mondo: naviga fino in Inghilterra, solca l'Egeo e il Mediterraneo, visita la Turchia, l'Italia, la Spagna, ritorna in Africa, partecipa a una missione diretta al Polo Nord, convinto (con Orazio) che «chi va per mare cambia cielo, non animo». Combatte contro i francesi nella guerra dei Sette anni, commercia rum nelle Indie Occidentali, impara a leggere e riscatta la propria libertà. Questa autobiografia è del 1789. Equiano la scrive per denunciare gli orrori dello schiavismo che oggi, in un mondo di migrazioni irreprimibili, ricordano altri orrori – a noi vicini.A cura di Giuliana SchiaviGiuliana Schiavi insegna Traduzione dall'inglese all'italiano e Teoria della traduzione presso la SSML di Vicenza (di cui è rappresentante legale) dove coordina anche i master di traduzione editoriale e tecnico–scientifica dall'inglese e di traduzione editoriale–letteraria dall'arabo; è stata più volte workshop leader ai seminari di traduzione letteraria del British Centre for Literary Translation della UEA, University of East Anglia, di Norwich, UK. Traduttrice e teorica della traduzione, si occupa da anni di strutture discorsive, argomento sul quale ha pubblicato alcuni articoli. Dal 2013 è membro del CdA della Fusp – Fondazione Universitaria San Pellegrino. Ha tradotto vari autori fra cui W M Thackeray (Il libro degli Snob), Henry James (Un bambino e gli altri; Giro di Vite); W D Howells (L'ombra di un sogno); Olaudah Equiano (L'incredibile storia di Olaudah Equiano, o Gustavus Vassa, detto l'Africano); K Moele (Stanza 207).https://traduzione-editoria.fusp.it/docenti/giuliana-schiavi_44.htmlIL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.itQuesto show fa parte del network Spreaker Prime. Se sei interessato a fare pubblicità in questo podcast, contattaci su https://www.spreaker.com/show/1487855/advertisement

She lived in virginity in Rome during the reign of Valerian (253-260) — as the Prologue says, 'expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity.' She voluntarily presented herself to the pagans and announced herself to be a Christian, for which she was tortured to death. Her friends Vassa, Paula and Agathonica took her relics to Sicily for burial. A church was built there in her name, and many miracles were worked there.

She lived in virginity in Rome during the reign of Valerian (253-260) — as the Prologue says, 'expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity.' She voluntarily presented herself to the pagans and announced herself to be a Christian, for which she was tortured to death. Her friends Vassa, Paula and Agathonica took her relics to Sicily for burial. A church was built there in her name, and many miracles were worked there.

We discuss the inspo for some new characters that appear this week taken from Slavik folklore and Elain makes sourdough! Please read up until Chapter 44! DGWE featuring Kara Klenk and Amber Nelson.These Deep Dives are based on novels by Sarah J Maas. Intro music by Ryan Connor. Cover art by Jeff Nitzberg.

  Z Bratislavy sa na tri dni stane akési intelektuálne laboratórium, v ktorom sa bude hľadať odpoveď na jednu z najvážnejších otázok dneška – na Putinovu agresiu proti Ukrajine a na jej možné dosahy. Emanueal Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, Zuzana Čaputová alebo Petr Fiala a Ľudovít Ódor. Ale aj Michail Chodorkovskij či Svetlana Cichanovská. Prezidenti, premiéri, či opoziční lídri Ruska a Bieloruska. Tiež šéfovia diplomacií, generáli, predstavitelia think tankov… Mozgový trust s dosahom na aparáty štátov či medzinárodných organizácii. To všetko je v skratke obranná medzinárodná konferencia Globsec, ktorej osemnásty ročník odštartuje práve dnešný pondelok. Ako môže prispieť k vyriešeniu krvavej vojny tesne za hranicami Slovenska a Európskej únie? Téma pre zakladateľa a prezidenta tohto fóra Róberta Vassa.   Globsec 18 ročný „Globsec sme zakladali pred osemnástimi rokmi s cieľom, aby sme priniesli svet do Bratislavy“, spomína Robert Vass na začiatky. Hovorí rovnako o ambícii „dať Slovensku hlas v medzinárodnej diskusii“. „Slovensko je síce malá krajina, no môže prispieť zásadným spôsobom do globálneho diskurzu“, hovorí.   Bezpečnosť zoširoka „Bezpečnosť my definujeme široko, hovoríme o kybernetickej, energetickej, hospodárskej bezpečnosti. Dokonca počas pandémie sme zaviedli nový program verejného zdravia. Videli sme totiž ako jedna globálna padnémia môže zásadne ovplyvňovať fungovanie spoločnosti“.   Ako na bezprecedentnú nestabilitu? Tohtoročné tématické zamerania konferencie Globsec sa sústredí na prekonanie nestability, akú sme tu podľa Vassa dávno nemali. „Nikdy tá nestabilita či krehkosť nebola väčšia ako teraz“, hovorí. Zásadný narušením rovnaváhy bola Putinova agresia voči Ukrajine.   Ak mier tak len spravodlivý Tohtoročná konferencia Globsecu bude hostiť francúzskeho prezidenta Emanueala Macrona, či šéfku európskej komisie Ursulu von der Leyen. Do Bratislavy príde aj generálny prokurátor Ukrajiny Andrij Kostin. Práve s ním bude na Globsecu diskusia o vojnových zločinoch. „Mier nikdy nebude spravodlivý bez potrestania vojných zločinov“, tvrdí Vass. „Ak by sa tak nestalo, bol by to zlý signál pre všetkých budúcich agresorov“.   Dnes sa podľa Vassa aj na Ukrajine bojuje za odmietnutie princípu politiky sfér vplyvu.   Slovensko na chvoste podpory Ukrajine Globsce pravidelne mapuje vývoj trendov v postoji k vážnym globálnym trednom. Aktuálne sú to postoje k vojne na Ukrajine či dôvere k inštitúciám.   Hlavnú zodpovednosť za vojnu na Ukrajine podľa prieskumu Globscecu pripisuje Risku 40 percent ľudí. Je to najmenej z krajín strednej a váchodnej Európy. 34 peccent vidí pôvodcu konfliktu v Západe, podľa 17 percent ju spôsobila Ukrajina.   „Toto je tiež dôsledok politických hádok a chaosu v krajine“, vysvetľuje Vass.   Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

Z Bratislavy sa na tri dni stane akési intelektuálne laboratórium, v ktorom sa bude hľadať odpoveď na jednu z najvážnejších otázok dneška – na Putinovu agresiu proti Ukrajine a na jej možné dosahy. Emanueal Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, Zuzana Čaputová alebo Petr Fiala a Ľudovít Ódor. Ale aj Michail Chodorkovskij či Svetlana Cichanovská. Prezidenti, premiéri, či opoziční lídri Ruska a Bieloruska. Tiež šéfovia diplomacií, generáli, predstavitelia think tankov… Mozgový trust s dosahom na aparáty štátov či medzinárodných organizácii. To všetko je v skratke obranná medzinárodná konferencia Globsec, ktorej osemnásty ročník odštartuje práve dnešný pondelok. Ako môže prispieť k vyriešeniu krvavej vojny tesne za hranicami Slovenska a Európskej únie? Téma pre zakladateľa a prezidenta tohto fóra Róberta Vassa.   Globsec 18 ročný „Globsec sme zakladali pred osemnástimi rokmi s cieľom, aby sme priniesli svet do Bratislavy“, spomína Robert Vass na začiatky. Hovorí rovnako o ambícii „dať Slovensku hlas v medzinárodnej diskusii“. „Slovensko je síce malá krajina, no môže prispieť zásadným spôsobom do globálneho diskurzu“, hovorí.   Bezpečnosť zoširoka „Bezpečnosť my definujeme široko, hovoríme o kybernetickej, energetickej, hospodárskej bezpečnosti. Dokonca počas pandémie sme zaviedli nový program verejného zdravia. Videli sme totiž ako jedna globálna padnémia môže zásadne ovplyvňovať fungovanie spoločnosti“.   Ako na bezprecedentnú nestabilitu? Tohtoročné tématické zamerania konferencie Globsec sa sústredí na prekonanie nestability, akú sme tu podľa Vassa dávno nemali. „Nikdy tá nestabilita či krehkosť nebola väčšia ako teraz“, hovorí. Zásadný narušením rovnaváhy bola Putinova agresia voči Ukrajine.   Ak mier tak len spravodlivý Tohtoročná konferencia Globsecu bude hostiť francúzskeho prezidenta Emanueala Macrona, či šéfku európskej komisie Ursulu von der Leyen. Do Bratislavy príde aj generálny prokurátor Ukrajiny Andrij Kostin. Práve s ním bude na Globsecu diskusia o vojnových zločinoch. „Mier nikdy nebude spravodlivý bez potrestania vojných zločinov“, tvrdí Vass. „Ak by sa tak nestalo, bol by to zlý signál pre všetkých budúcich agresorov“.   Dnes sa podľa Vassa aj na Ukrajine bojuje za odmietnutie princípu politiky sfér vplyvu.   Slovensko na chvoste podpory Ukrajine Globsce pravidelne mapuje vývoj trendov v postoji k vážnym globálnym trednom. Aktuálne sú to postoje k vojne na Ukrajine či dôvere k inštitúciám.   Hlavnú zodpovednosť za vojnu na Ukrajine podľa prieskumu Globscecu pripisuje Risku 40 percent ľudí. Je to najmenej z krajín strednej a váchodnej Európy. 34 peccent vidí pôvodcu konfliktu v Západe, podľa 17 percent ju spôsobila Ukrajina.   „Toto je tiež dôsledok politických hádok a chaosu v krajine“, vysvetľuje Vass.   Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

Bridget, Caitlin, and Hilda continue their coverage of Sarah J. Maas' ACOTAR series with book 3, "A Court of Wings and Ruin." In a shocking turn of events, a lot happens in this book, and they have a lot to say about it. Use our special link https://zen.ai/btmm12 to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!

Podden gästas av Sven Lindström från Midsummer för en diskussion om solpaneler, utökad produktionskapacitet och den aktuella nyemissionen, samt vad pengarna ska användas till. Dessutom är det äntligen rapportsäsong och veckans avsnitt bjuder på spaningar i verkstadsbolagen. Utöver detta har vi fem analytiker som delar med sig av sina bästa uppdateringar i Volvo, Elanders, Mentice, Beijer Alma och SaveLend. Detta fullspäckade avsnitt leds av Alexander Gustafsson.

Published with permission of Treasure Mountain Podcast. Please visit Treasure Mountain Podcast, Treasure Mountain website and Treasure Mountain facebook page. In this episode of Sage Advice we have as our guest, Ajahn Nissarano who is coming to us from Newbury Monastery, which is just north-west of Melbourne, Australia. Ajahn Nissarano was born in 1952 in Perth, Western Australia. In 1997, he was ordained by Ajahn Brahm as a novice monk and a year later took full ordination. This year will be his 25th Rains Retreat, Vassa. He lived in Sri Lanka from 2006 to 2019, for a total of 13 and half years. During that time, he lived for 8 years in a cave on the side of a mountain, surrounded by forest and going for alms round to the village below. He returned to Australia regularly to teach, primarily at the Buddhist Society of Victoria. In January 2021 he became the Senior Monk at Newbury Buddhist Monastery, outside Melbourne, which is run by the Buddhist Society of Victoria. Ajahn Nissarano joins us on this episode of Sage Advice to discuss the topic “our most urgent task”. We are so busy these days, we often lose sight of the big picture. And we can become so distracting that we don't even see what our most urgent task in life is. In this interview Ajahn Nissarano offers advice on what is most essential and urgent for us to focus on if we are to really develop the spiritual qualities. Links from this episode: Newbury Monastery, Victoria - https://www.bsv.net.au/monastery/ Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon. To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.  

This reflection was given by Ajahn Amaro during the ending of the Vassa at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, UK. The post Plans appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

This reflection was given by Ajahn Amaro during the ending of the Vassa at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, UK. The post Cessation Of Becoming appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

This reflection was given by Ajahn Amaro during the ending of the Vassa at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, UK. The post Present appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

This reflection was given by Ajahn Amaro during the beginning of the Vassa at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, UK. The post Self View appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

This reflection was given by Ajahn Amaro during the beginning of the Vassa at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, UK. The post The Unconditioned appeared first on Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

Each year on Pavarana, the day that marks the end of the Vassa (the three month rains residence), the Anagarikas, Samaneras, Navaka and Majjhima Monks (monks of less than 10 years in the robes), are asked to give Dhamma reflections. 0:00 Introduction by Ajahn Ñāṇiko 0:29 Anagārika Justin 9:42 Anagārika Trevor 19:28 Anagārika Kevin 29:15 Tan Sampanno 37:40 Tan Yasa 51:31 Sāmaṇera Obhāsī 59:47 Sāmaṇera Tejasāro 1:09:21 Anagārika Mike 1:21:42 Sāmaṇera Sivako 1:29:42 Tan Rakkhito 1:44:27 Tan Sudhīro 1:52:45 Tan Cittapālo These talks were offered on October 10, 2022 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Aquaman "Trio of Terror" Aquaman and Aqualad deal with a three prong attack from The Brain, Vassa, and Black Manta. John and Dan Greenfield of 13th Dimension get back to the Hall of Justice and open another case from The Filmation Files. They talk about the need for toys based on the villain's vehicles, how cool and useful Tusky is as an animal sidekick, and the actual plot that is seen in this particular episode as opposed to the gimmick that many of these stories had. We'll be back in two weeks with our Super Friends review of the second episode of the second season.

She lived in virginity in Rome during the reign of Valerian (253-260) — as the Prologue says, 'expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity.' She voluntarily presented herself to the pagans and announced herself to be a Christian, for which she was tortured to death. Her friends Vassa, Paula and Agathonica took her relics to Sicily for burial. A church was built there in her name, and many miracles were worked there.

Cassian begins his new role. He visits Jurian, Vassa and Lucien. And surprise, Eris is there! There is tension brewing, especially with our newly made, old, queen fae. And Beron, he's up to no good.

Welcome to episode one of our four-part mini-series, Vassa Obscura! We played The Quiet Year to explore the story of Vassa Natura during the war against Morpholomew. It went interesting places, to say the least! To see the map for this episode, check out our Patreon! Hosts: Jordan Quiverns  Essay Manaktola  Ila Alexei  SPECIAL GUEST: Crimson Dylan Quiverns  Interested in the game we played? It's The Quiet Year, by Avery Alder!  Our music, as always, was provided by Louie Zong. All this episode's music is from the album Gators! Intro - Here Comes the Gator Man; Midtro - Swamp Strut; Outro - Country Croc.

Bratislava hostila 17. ročník medzinárodnej bezpečnostnej konferencie Globsec. Je to úspech: dlhá tradícia podujatia s globálnym významom, s účasťou lídrov z celého sveta. Čo prináša Globsec Slovensku? Je obdobie vojny na Ukrajine aj finančnej krízy, hrozí potravinová kríza. Vznikli na Globsecu dohody, ktoré pomôžu riešiť tieto problémy? Braňo Závodský sa rozprával s prezidentom organizácie Globsec a šéfa bezpečnostnej konferencie Globsec Róberta Vassa.

She lived in virginity in Rome during the reign of Valerian (253-260) — as the Prologue says, 'expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity.' She voluntarily presented herself to the pagans and announced herself to be a Christian, for which she was tortured to death. Her friends Vassa, Paula and Agathonica took her relics to Sicily for burial. A church was built there in her name, and many miracles were worked there.

This week Whitney and McKinsey discuss A Court of Silver Flames Part 1 (Chapters 1-24). During this episode, we discuss: Nesta's journey in the Cauldron, Cassian coming to Nedra's apartment, Nesta's funky sheets, Nesta self deprecatin, their Mother treating the girls differently, lack of portraits of Nesta and their mother, Amren telling Nesta brutal honesty, the ultimatum, Amren's lie about court membership, McKinsey no longer hating Nesta, how complex Nesta is, Rhys concerned about Nesta's powers, Whitney's growing appreciation of Cassian and irritation with Mor, us needing more info on their mother, Tomas‘ attempted rape, Lord Devlon's belief that Nesta is a witch, Cassian being embarrassed, Amren's advice to Cassian, our dislike of Eris, the hounds in Autumn Court, Koschei is the one keeping Vassa, theories on Koschei and Nesta, Eris throwing shade, the dam stairs in the House of Wind, Rhys' mom queen of punishment, Cassian's memories of the cabin, Nesta meets Emerie, Whitney's love of Buffy, we meet Gwen, the House personified, Cassian steals Nesta's cake, Cassian loses it on Nesta, Cassian and Feyre's bond, Cassian makes a bargain with Nesta, Nesta clearing her head, Nesta and Cassian clear the air, annoying Merrill, priestesses never leave the library, Nesta helps Gwen, Valkyrie info, a glimpse of Gwen's history, Cassian‘s need of allergy meds, Tamlin in beast form, Nesta spoiled by the House, something stirring in the pit, Gwen doesn‘t feel worthy of wearing her stone, Clotho as Rita Skeeter from HP, Gwyn and Nesta really bonding, Cassian's early childhood, First Gods and Lanthys, Cassian asking Nesta to be real with him, Nesta asks about the Blood Rite, Illyrian warrior hierarchy, Nesta recruiting priestesses, Elain comes to visit, Nesta and Cassian get physical, Cassian summoned to the River House for intel, the Dread Trove, Elain snippy with Nesta, Feyre announces her pregnancy, Magic chooses heirs?, the bat boys talk about babies, Lord Cassian, Nesta training in the library…faking her ability to throw a punch, Nesta views herself as a failure, and finally Gwen adds her name to the training list. Contact Us: IG/TikTok/Patreon: @dejalupodcast Email: dejalupodcast@gmail.com Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

A two part series of Dhamma talk by Bhante Sunyo on Mindfulness in the early texts on the 21 November 2021, at the Buddhist Society of Victoria (BSV).  Part 1 link: http://podcast.bswa.org/e/mindfulness-in-the-early-texts-sutta-discussion-part-1-bhante-sunyo-14-nov-2021/ Bhante Sunyo is staying at Newbury Buddhist Monastery for the 2021 Vassa. He usually resides at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia, under Ajahn Brahm. Please visit the BSV Podcast Channel and BSV YouTube Channel Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon. To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

A two part series of Dhamma talk by Bhante Sunyo on Mindfulness in the early texts on the 14 November 2021, at the Buddhist Society of Victoria (BSV).  Bhante Sunyo is staying at Newbury Buddhist Monastery for the 2021 Vassa. He usually resides at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia, under Ajahn Brahm. Please visit the BSV Podcast Channel and BSV YouTube Channel Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon. To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.