M. Simon
@totallygone.bsky.social
210 followers 550 following 220 posts
X refugee. Raised #E17, schooled #Glasgow, live #Nice06, #France. Lean left, #LGBTQ+++, speak franglais. Woke? Still haven’t slept. Pron: darling 🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺
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totallygone.bsky.social
Cutting up other drivers and cyclists without warning, especially across cycle lanes, is so much more thrilling than pétanque, n’est-ce pas?
totallygone.bsky.social
Great to see your post, @aaronbalick.com - it got me thinking and reading, instead of doomscrolling!! merci!!
totallygone.bsky.social
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that this sheet of paper is full of clouds. Without the cloud, there will be no rain; without the rain, the trees cannot grow; and without the trees, we cannot make paper. So the cloud and the paper inter-are.”
totallygone.bsky.social
Comparing and contrasting (🤓) Thích Nhát Hahn’s concept of “interbeing” (‘The Heart of Understanding’, 1960)

“Emptiness does not mean nothingness. Emptiness means interbeing. We cannot be by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be.”
totallygone.bsky.social
Cf. the sutra itself (trans. Conze)

“Form is not different from emptiness,
emptiness is not different from form.
The same is true of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.”
totallygone.bsky.social
That which is void is precisely form, and that which is form is precisely void."
totallygone.bsky.social
We always know what we mean by contrasts. Because of the inseparability of these opposites they always go together, this as it were hints at some kind of unity that underlies them. Space and form in that sense go together as the fundamental things we're dealing with in this universe.
totallygone.bsky.social
But to suggest how very powerful and important this nothing at all is, let me point out to you that if you didn't have space you couldn't have anything solid. To begin with, if you didn't have space outside the solid you wouldn't know where the solids edges were.
totallygone.bsky.social
"We tend to think of space as nothing. Space as such, that is to say whatever it is that lies between the earth and the moon and the earth and the sun, is considered to be just nothing at all.
totallygone.bsky.social
Here, in ‘The Nature of Consciousness’, he addresses the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom that illuminates the form/emptiness relationship directly:-
totallygone.bsky.social
I’m not sure *this* is the best; while it illustrates the concept of impermanence beautifully, equating emptiness and nothingness oversimplifies the concept of ‘sunyata’ to one that our language is, with a single word, unable to express.
Reposted by M. Simon
gtconway.bsky.social
Chicago priest Father Michael Pfleger: "The state of emergency is in AMERICA, not Chicago. It's birthed from this president and his admin's reign of terror."

( ht: @mikenellis.bsky.social )
Reposted by M. Simon
totallygone.bsky.social
Preoccupation, even 😉
totallygone.bsky.social
Existence has a lot to answer for. I blame mine - and everyone else’s - for my ADHD. When, that is, I have time.
totallygone.bsky.social
Right now, I’m reflecting upon whether, given how the world might look in 30, 20 or even 10 years, whether that extra decade is even worth passing on fries, ketchup and mayo. #longevity -vs- #philosophy
newscientist.com
Evidence shows that eating a longevity diet can dramatically lengthen your lifespan – and the sooner you start, the more of a difference it makes
The science revealing how the right diet can add a decade to your life
www.newscientist.com
Reposted by M. Simon
montanaroots.bsky.social
A photo of the California #Nebula I took from my driveway… if you dropped the Earth into this scene, it wouldn’t even be the teeny tiniest speck… #astronomy #astrophotography #perspective
totallygone.bsky.social
She’s been radicalised as a Woke Left Liberal Feminist Feline.
Reposted by M. Simon
atrupar.com
Kimmel: "The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he cannot take a joke."