Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

We don't just have one, we have many hells!

"I didn't think there was a hell in Buddhism," I said.
"Oh yes," Jinpa said, with a tut. "We don't just have one, we have many hells! We have one where it's hot, one where it's cold, eighteen different hells in all. Everyone is terrified of ending up there."
"I seem to remember reading that, according to the Buddha, hell is more like a state of mind," I said.
"Do you mean to say there really isn't a hell?" Jinpa looked at me, thunderstruck. "Then what is the point of walking all the way around Mount Kailash?"

E. Fatland, High (2020), 503

Wednesday, 20 November 2024

To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd

The fact that the Viceroy of India was sending telegrams about the fate of frontier livestock to the Secretary of State (and hence the Cabinet) shows the flimsiness of the justifications he was putting forward for invading Tibet. To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd. It shows the way Curzon was willing to use almost any excuse to obtain sanction for a further advance into Tibet, so certain was he that the Russian bear needed to be checked.

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 193