Trainspotting is a 1996 British black comedy drama film directed by Danny Boyle, starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, and Kelly Macdonald in her film debut. It is written in English and Scots [3]. Based on the 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh, the film was released in the United Kingdom on Feb. 23, 1996 [6].
The film follows a group of heroin addicts in an economically depressed area of Edinburgh, Scotland, and their passage through life. Beyond drug addiction, other themes in the film include an exploration of urban poverty and squalor in Edinburgh [7]. Trainspotting was released to critical acclaim and is today regarded by many critics as one of the best films of the 1990s.... More
Born Jeffrey Block (Dec. 10, 1944), now known as Bhikkhu Bodhi [a], is an American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk, a major inspiration for Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal, educated in California, ordained in Sri Lanka, and now teaching in New York and New Jersey.
Long ago at BPS, Bhikkhu Bodhi authorized our Dharma editor to promote his mail order Buddhist course called The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is, a ten-cassette set he recorded in the basement of the Washington Buddhist Vihara with glossary and notes. To reach a wider audience, we took it online with millions of views, our dhamma-dana.
Block was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1944 to Jewish parents. He grew up in Borough Park, where he attended elementary school P.S. 160 [4] and graduated from New Utrecht High School [5]. He then worked as a door-to-door salesman selling paintbrushes [6].
In 1966, he obtained a B.A. in philosophy from Brooklyn College, where he first encountered Buddhism in books at the bookstore [6]. In 1972, he obtained a doctoral degree (PhD) in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University [7, 8] in Southern California before deciding to move to Asia to ordain as a monk. More
(Nippon Television News Japan) Nov. 5, 2025 #佐々木朗希 #大谷翔平 #山本由伸
Fans across Japan -- home of three of the best Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki -- celebrate the contribution of these pivotal Japanese players following the Dodgers’ victory in the 2025 World Series. Latest news and full transcript: ntv.co.jp/englishnews
Heavy metal rocker, motorcyclist, arch conservative, anti-feminist, Iron Maiden-loving new prime minister of Japan. Feminism has sure helped a lot of anti-feminists without being appreciated.
PM Sanae Takaichi becomes Japan's first female prime minister
Dragon Iron Lady PM Takaichi
(CBS News)
Oct. 21, 2025: (Average tenure of a new prime minister is currently 16 months, so good luck, Iron Lady. She's conservative, very conservative, so will she be a female Trump?) Japan's parliament elected the country's first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, 64, on Tuesday morning (Oct. 21). CBS News foreign correspondent Anna Coren has more details.
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Former NFL player Mel Owens is the new Golden Bachelor | GMA
In our desperate search for love and fulfillment, some even go lesbian like author of Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert, who suffers from clinging (upadana) and severe intimacy/sex issues.
(Good Morning America) Former NFL player Mel Owensnamed "The Golden Bachelor" for Season 2.
The hit show has been renewed for a brand-new season on ABC and Hulu, with Owens taking on the role of leading man, Disney announced at Hulu's inaugural Get Real House event on Tuesday.
According to a press release, Owens is a 66-year-old Detroit native from a "close-knit Midwestern family." He attended the University of Michigan and was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams as the ninth pick in the 1981 NFL Draft.
Read more: goodmorningamerica.com/cu...
(Bachelor Nation on ABC) Sept. 4, 2025: #TheGoldenBachelor Going gold, going bold. [Getting old, getting sold...down the river to increase ratings as so many of us in our Golden Years still yearn and seek for The One.] Meet the INCREDIBLE women of #TheGoldenBachelor Season 2, premiering Sept. 24, 2025, on Disney's ABC. Stream it on Hulu.
Bachelor Nation on ABC, Sept. 4, 2025; GMA, April 23, 2025; ET; The View; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Crystal Q., Sheldon S., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Sex is a sticky subject. Uh, mmm, icky finicky touchy (not touchy) sticky subject -- ooh, it's nasty. Don't talk about it! What's brown and sticky? A tree. We aim to unstick it.
See her weekly (Wednesday night) Peace Class at prs.org. The subject this warm month? A theme of passion, romance, getting down and dirty, and summer love with an OPEN MIC segment running throughout the reading. That means YOU can come and read, too.
What is the sound of one hand... Uh, mmm, no, what is the sound of 1,000 jaws dropping?
Just say "no," Adults. No one should have sex. Better those energies were expended following something far more useful. But what could possibly be more useful, or more enjoyable, than sex?
Once the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) reflected, "Why do I, being subject to aging and death, also seek things that are subject to aging and death? What now if I were to seek out that which is beyond aging and death?"
But if everyone dies and everything eventually passes away, what is not subject to aging and death? What is beyond impermanence?
There is one element that has overcome aging and death and that transcends all suffering, that has overcome sorrow, lamentation, and disappointment. And that is the unconditioned element called nirvana.
Nirvana is better than sex? Nirvana is better than anything. Everything else is ultimately disappointing. Why? Everything else is subject to incessant arising and passing away. We cling. It fades. We hurt. We are left empty and dissatisfied. Things reveal themselves to be impersonal, unable to stand independently.
As close as nirvana is, realization of it is a long way away from those who do not practice, who do not apply themselves, who do not determine to realize it in this very life.
Even for such people, there is serenity or samatha meditation, which gives access to amazing levels of bliss, serenity, and -- by adding vipassana on top of right samadhi -- degrees of liberating-insight.
As close as calm-and-insight meditation are, realization serenity or wisdom are a long way away for those who do not practice, who do not determine to realize them in this very life.
There's a reason to sit, a better form of pleasure?
Even for such people, there is virtue, which is a more sublime form of joy (piti, rapture, pleasure, bliss) beyond reproach, beyond blame, worry, or any remorse.
As close as virtue is, it is a long way away for those who do not practice, who do not determine to realize it in this very life.
For such people, endowed with virtue, they may enjoy sex that harms no one and does not involve anyone dependent on others. For those who are independent, self-supporting, who are capable of consenting and making their own decisions. Let's talk about sex between them.
Hey, did you ever consider Tantra?
One need not imagine that sex brings one closer to enlightenment -- as Great Vehicle (Mahayana and esoteric Vajrayana) practitioners following the pre-Buddhist Indian path of yogic Tantra may imagine.
As ordinary householders living in the world -- interested in wealth, prosperity, and personal satisfaction through gain, fame, and endless distractions -- sex may serve that purpose.
It of necessity will be disappointing (dukkha). If it were not, the Buddha would never have pointed out a better path to pursue, a way thing to strive for, a superior form of pleasure. There is another way that goes against the stream (the current, the flow), does not pull one by the floods, does not entangle one in the revolving wheel of rebirth and redeath (samsara).
Is anyone going against the stream?
Noah Levine, scandalized founder of Dharma Punx, Against the Stream, Refuge Recovery
A path to go against the stream
The path of the spiritual revolutionary is a long-term and gradual journey toward awakening (enlightenment, bodhi). If we want a quick fix or easy salvation, this is not it. Turn back now, plug back into The Matrix, and enjoy that delusional existence. The Buddha's Dharma is a path for real rebels, malcontents, and truth seekers. The wisdom and compassion of the Buddha is available to all, but the journey to personal freedom is arduous. It takes a steadfast commitment to Truth and, at times, counterintuitive (against instinct) action. We have at our disposal everything we need to undertake this journey. There is only one prerequisite -- the willingness to play, to do the practice, to follow the path through the darkest recesses of our minds and hearts, to stand in the face of great resistance and fear and continue in the direction of freedom. For those who are willing, the ability is a given. The Buddha isn’t a god or deity to be worshipped. He was a rebel and ford finder (who rediscovered the way crossing over), an overthrower, destroyer of ignorance, the Master Physician who re-found the path to complete freedom from suffering. The Buddha left a legacy of Truth for us to experience for ourselves, not to believe in him. The practices and principles of these Teachings, the Dharma, lead to our direct experience of knowledge, wisdom, compassion, and full liberation. This is not a faith-based philosophy, but an experiential one. The point of the spiritual revolution is not to become a "good Buddhist," but to become a wise and compassionate being, to awaken from our life of complacency and delusion and ignorance and to be a buddha, an awakened being. In order to do this, it is helpful to study the life and teachings of the original rebel, the Wandering Ascetic Sid — the Buddha.
What about love and relationships? That is different. We are talking about sex.
Love is grand. Most people have nothing higher to live for. And as an English word we confound it with all kinds of loves, when it only refers in this context to romantic love, which feels great but is not what people really mean. It is like referring to the prestigious and selfless faculty when one really means the greedy and despised administration or the mishmash of students. "School" means all three, but we put the best face on it.
The same with relationships. They can be great educators, harder to endure than a monastic life. But most are not. We pretend they are because they can be. But most of them, most of the time are not. Yet everyone claps and says "Awww" when anyone gets engaged. Awww, what? Awww, they're going to be so unhappy, and then the world can say to them, "Welcome to the club."
So let's stick to the subject and talk about sex.
Men want sex, it is said.
Yes, so do women -- even though it is said that they do not.
Well, if they repeatedly indulge and stress about it, they will be caught up in stress and disappointment. But that stress is the only happiness they know.
Right! It's like the Buddha comparing sexual craving to a leper's itch. The itch gets so bad, the sores so itchy, that placing an arm over an open fire can feel like a downright relief. Fire cauterizes the wound and so soothes the itch. It keeps one from going crazy, even at the cost of great pain or disfigurement.
If only there were a way not to feel crazy yet not get burned.
We don't have to have wait for heartbreak to feel "burned."
Oh, totally. Good sex, great sex, unreal sex is still disappointing, to say nothing of the mediocre sex we mostly all settle for.
Should independent people have sex?
If they want to. They're free to. They can even do it while practicing virtue (sila). There is no reason for guilt, self-recrimination, or holding wrong views about it. Abstain, it's better, but indulge with a clear conscience that we are not "forbidden" to do it. One day, some days, meditate, too.
They might succeed in meditation.
Successful meditation (jhana, absorption) is better than sex -- full of rapture, joy, and supersensual bliss called piti.
I've heard. But how could bliss be supersensual?
There's a higher bliss, a better form of pleasure that is not dependent on the body or bodily feelings and pleasant sensations.
You think?
I know.
Then why would anyone go back to sex as a source of relief or attempted-happiness?
Those blissful states aren't always available to everyone; they take practice, which takes persistence and a little commitment. They are not permanent or reliable all the time. I mean, they are always there but not always available to everyone. We have base cravings and very strong habits.
Restraint is good.
Yes, it is great. But that's not always what the mind wants. And the mind usually gets what the mind wants.
That's for sure. The body is weak compared to the mind even when the spirit is willing.
How To (video); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly, orig. 12/15/11-4/23/24; Noah Levine on going against the stream (edited by Wisdom Quarterly)
(Studio Croma Animation) BOLOGNA. An old man is sitting on the edge of a bed in a bare room with stoned walls, his face furrowed with deep wrinkles and his unkempt beard, gnarled hands still full of life, curved shoulders: he is alone and thoughtful. A small and ramshackle window with bars is the only outlet to the outside.
In front of him he has a mysterious suitcase. Opening it the man finds himself in his hands the photographs and the personal effects of a whole life. Thus begins the sequence of memories and visions, synapses of the mind that come to life and invade the room of the elderly bringing him back in time, first adult then boy, finally child.
Better than other La Valigias. PRIZES:
-BornShort Film Festival 2014: Best Animation Award
Corto Dorico 2014: Best short film
-BazzaCinema 2015: Best Screenplay
-Lo Spiraglio FF 2015: Best Film
-Premio Morandini Corti d'Autore: Winner
Nastri d'argento - Corti 2015: Fifth finalist
David di Donatello 2015: Fifth finalist
Kalat Nissa Film Festival 2015: Best Animation Film
ShorTS Int. Maremetraggio 2015: Best Italian Production
Cast Film Festival 2015: Special Award
Best movies
Pázmány Film Festival 2015: Best Italian Film
Arno Stream Fest: Best short movie
Genova Film Festival 2015: Critics Award
Toko Film Festival 2015: Best Screenplay
Metricamente Corto 2015: Best Screenplay
Corto di Sera 2015: Special prize. F.N.C. Gold frame
Ke Corto Film Festival 2015: Best animated short film
Parma Intl. Music FF 2015: Best Renaissance 2.0 soundtrack
DIRECTOR
Pier Paolo Paganelli
SUBJECT AND SCRIPT
Laura Castaldini, Pier Paolo Paganelli
WITH
Roberto Herlitzka
Rodolfo Bianchi
Alex Polidori
Riccardo Suarez
PRODUCED BY
Ivan Olgiati, Stefania Marconi, Daniele Paganelli
ASSOCIATED PRODUCER
Gloria Giorgianni per Anele
PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR
Gianmarco Rossetti
EDITING
Davide Rossetti
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Guglielmo Trautvetter
ANIMATION
Giacomo Giuriato
SOUNDTRACK
Matteo Malferrari
PUPPET MACKER
Matteo Burani
POST PRODUCTION
Jacopo Gaustini, Luca Lazzarin
DIGITAL VIDEO EFFECTS
Sara Passuti
SOUND
Giovanni Frezza
PROMOTION
Stefania Marconi, Chiara Galloni
DISTRIBUTION
Paolo Pellicano.
Studio Croma Animation, "The Suitcase," Jan. 24, 2021; Ven. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche; UnJaded Jade; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly
If Black don't crack and Asian don't raisin, could THC in cannabis be part of the reason?
Smoke THC, who TCH? (Thom in 2004)
Thom Hartmann or TCH (Thomas Carl Hartmann, born May 7, 1951) is now pro-THC? The American is a progressive radio personality, author, businessman, and nominal liberal [pro-Bernie, pro-Hillary, pro-Democrat] political commentator [1, 2]. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, "The Thom Hartmann Program," since 2003 and between 2010 and 2017 hosted a nightly television show, The Big Picture. More
AUDIO: Brain boost from THC in weed? When you think of cannabis, improving brain health might not be the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, you’ve probably heard the old trope that cannabis fries your memory... (The Mercury News)
It finally arrived. Today, American comedic actor Betty White (The Golden Girls, Mary Tyler Moore Show) gets her own US Post Service "forever" stamp. And that's as good a reason as any to binge some TGG, particularly the Best of Rose Nylund, Scandinavian dunderhead, her character on the famous American TV show. All hail the great feminist pioneer Bea Arthur (Maude, Dorothy Zbornak) for keeping White on the hit show.
Betty White celebrated with USPS ‘Forever’ postage stamp
(TODAY) Nov. 18, 2024: Legendary actor Betty White’s legacy is being celebrated with a new USPS Forever postage stamp, meant to honor her iconic career and advocacy work saving animals. #BettyWhite #USPS #PostageStamp
Who? There's this British guy, a old hippie, who became famous for his bluesy caterwauling in front of Jimmy Page's magnificent guitar work. Robert Plant was the frontman for the biggest rock band in the world (ahead of pop stars like The Beatles, The Stones, The Black Flag, and LA's own Wasted Youth, plus a million other small bands few have ever heard of). The great thing about Plant was not just that he was a good singer and a rockstar, but rather that he may have written some intelligent lyrics for the band, words akin to the intelligent stuff Pink Floyd was putting out in London's Acid Scene in the Sixties.
Has been Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame plays live, even though most of the world has not seen him. They'd like to, of course, but that's assuming he's backed by Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham. That reunion may take a while. However, Plant is singing live for an audience in May 2025.
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Just say "no," Adults. No one should have sex. Better those energies were expended following something far more useful. But what could possibly be more useful, or more enjoyable, than sex?
Once the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) reflected, "Why do I, being subject to aging and death, also seek things that are subject to aging and death? What now if I were to seek out that which is beyond aging and death?"
Nirvana is better than anything. Everything else is ultimately disappointing. Why? Everything else is subject to incessant arising and passing away. We cling. It fades. We hurt. We are left empty and dissatisfied. Things reveal themselves to be impersonal, unable to stand independently.
