Castrated Constitution

Castrated Constitution,
Consequential Presidency,
Conditioned hellhole assembly,
Confused Constituency,
Country void of scientific philosophers
Wasting the golden opportunity
For the vision of the 21st century
Are the manifestation of
Senile politicians bickering 
For power
That brings nothing 
But Momentary Insanity
To our Body Politics 

Bugger the constitution 
Which buggered us
For 38 years
With a tool called
Two third majority

And another tool called

Referendum which is not worth

The ballot it is printed on

And casting a vote on it

Is a colossal waste

On the common sense

Of not so common voter behaviour

Which is flimsy and fragile

And evaporating by the minute

With very poor and

Lasting memory in store

The Common misinterpretations of a Pali Verse that states the body decays but the Name and the Tribe does not

This verse I have heard many politicians of yesteryear utter in tandem with political speeches, I often wonder from where it originated.

Rupam Jirati Majjanam

Nama Gottam Najirathi

 It should be stated as

Rupam Jirati Majjanam

Nama Gottam Jirathi Va

The face value seems all Buddhist in nature but its implication in modern day is really disruptive to the nature of Dhamma as stated in the Tripitaka (the Three Baskets). 

There is no problem with the first statement. 

The second statement destroys the whole of Dhamma in entirety.

In Buddhist phenomenology self (Nama or Soul) does not exist and the tribe (Gothra) is an illusion that originate from the above wrong premise.

I have to restate the same with my own invention as below. 

The meaning I am trying to derive at is that the Mind State does not vanish at death but (Patisandhi) re-link with the next Bhava using Kamma as the vehicle or the driving force.

Rupam Jirati Majjanam

Nama (means Mind here) Kittam (means Kamma) Najirathi

(The Gotham is substituted with Kittam-Kriya)

In Abhidhamma context it is realistic to use the above version of the verse (even though I am not a Pali scholar) to express the conditional existence of Bhava. 

The term Nama Rupa (stated above in first chapter) occurs frequently in Abhidhamma and Nama is used interchangeably with the Mind. 

The term for body is corporeality and not Rupa in Pali context.

Who perpetuated this myth is immaterial but the damage it has done is enormous. 

In that context writing something of my own contradicting the statement is appropriate even though it is a departure from the original tenets of this book.

This I think originated with the British rule. 

It is common for us to blame the British for every little mishap we are going through in our modern history. 

But this one is a direct antecedent. 

They are the one who started naming the streets even in Kandy with British names of inheritance and their Governors. 

All the streets in Colombo have some relevance to British authorship. 

In their tradition it is a normal and is all welcome by every British administrators big and small.

What went wrong was that we adapted this tradition without scrutiny in the post-colonial period and continue to do so even now. 

Instead of naming the street with some meaningful road traditions like main street, cross street, first lane or second lane we started adapting our own names. 

Politicians in turn for their gain started naming these streets with the names of their kith and kin. 

They invented and used the above jargon riddled Pali verse for the propagation of the political agenda. Even though the tradition is British the wrongful doing is our own ill vision, political patronage and heritage.

Butterfly Effect

12, June 2015

Butterfly Effect

I am one who vent an air
Of protest that
When a few butterflies
Flutter their wings
On my side of the world
Would ignite a chain reaction
On the other side of the world
In the far corners of the globe
In the Arctic or the Antarctic

Come what it may be
In philosophical sense
With a scientific slant
And in an investigative mind
But not to stir up
The potential political undertones
But when I ask myself the question
How clean the clean air?

And when I get the answer
That there are 1000 minute particles
Of dust in every cubic metre density
On this planet
But not in the clear looking Iceland
Or the Antarctic
Gets the credit for
Such an accolade
In this contemporary world
When somebody asks me
Are asking the right question?
Lest you get the wrong answer
Of some sort
By the Coal Power Merchants
Of the modern world
Who continue to discover
The latest technology
To clean my air and breath
Sans how to dispose
The vast amount of ashes and sediment
That get deposited
On this tiny Island Paradise

One who was brought up
With the tradition of zero tolerance
In life and matters of discordance
And purity par excellence
Having forced to go
From macro to micro to nano-tolerance
Of the 21st century macroeconomics
Driving me mad
To go to the outer space
For the safety limits of tolerance
In the Dead Space of my lung
But not the Vital Capacity
Which is fast receding
With time and age

But when I think
Of the virulent fungi
That grow endlessly
In the closed tubes
Of the artificial respiratory tracts
Of the Space Station
I wonder
I could be born again
In another Planet
Outside this Solar System
As an alien being of some sort
Bringing the alien wisdom
To this Island Paradise
 
Is it a wishful thinking of mine?

Debian 8.1.0 is OUT=Update

Debian 8.1.0 Update
This is to report that I have downloaded and installed Debian in my old IBM and it configured my system correctly in spite of me having a hard disk which might fail at any moment (hard disk problem with problem with master boot record).
This is the beauty of Linux it can boot up from any partition.
What I do now is to boot from a DVD and search (get) the grub file and boot various distributions, I have installed.
Debian 8 is different.
It reminds me of the old time SuSe which lets you install several desktops.
I have installed gnome (the new gnome is elgent and it has classic version too), KDE plasma and LXDE.
If you have mastered Knoppix (read my blog post) the next thing you ought do is to install Debian.
It has individual desktop versions too.
I have downloaded them too.
I received the Linux Magazine yesterday but its DVD had Debian 8 without updates.
Internet is moving very fast the print media cannot keep pace with.
Make sure you install while connected to the Internet.
It was breezy installation.
Unlike the Chinthanaya Regime which used to listen to our private telephones and tap into our emails with very slow internet, thanks to our Election commissioner who got the Telecoms to upgrade the service, the internet is breezy and fast.
Downloading and installing took little over one hour.
Enjoy Linux freedom.

Debian 8.1.0 is OUT
Debian 8.1.0 is out with some
It has all the versions from standard to specific desktops by torrent for all the architectures including Apple MaC-PPCI am currently downloading LXDE and Gnome desktop versions.
Current Linux Magazine I got today has Debian 8 and Ubuntu 15.04.
Thanks guys and girl for all the hard work.

Make sure YOU download and become a seeder.

Water Lilies

Water Lilies

I am new to water lilies.

It is still in my learning curve.

I brought an expensive water lillie from an open market with the plastic container 2 years ago.

My wife put it an attractive container and pruned it and it died a natural death.

After two years I perseverance I got its yam to sprout a leaf or two.

They disappeared tangled with algae mesh.

I kept on removing the algae and after six months, I managed to get the first flower blooming.

The beauty is that it opens up everyday till the next flower blooms.

Few things I learned over the last three years.

1. They need lot of sunshine.

2. They are slow to domesticate.

3. If you meddle with them they go into long hibernation.

4. They yams are versatile probably to withstand dry spells hidden in mud.

5. They are vulnerable and sensitive.

This is my worry the vendors at temples (they think it is a commercial item) vandalize them for profit.

Nominal Buddhists now only think of PROFITS and Image but no conviction in precepts but indulge in CHEAP Practice and politics.

I met only one guy in Colombo who had studied this with conviction.

6. He told me that some varieties spread by seeds.

7. I am trying my best for the last three years to get a new sapling but failed.

8. The latest discovery is I have a lillie that is over 15 years old but not yet had flowers.

9. It goes int periodic hibernation but sprouts again.

10 I must confess the love for lilies I acquired from my wife.

11. She brought the first young sapling.

12. Now to the discovery. The first sapling is still in the original place but not in good condition (nutritionally deficient).

This has its own history.

The cement tank belongs to my mother in law who used it for mixing herbal medicines.

It is very heavy and I do not know how it was brought to the highest ground level it is stationed now.

It was not moved an inch from its orbit of influence, first from my mother in law and now from gravity.

I twisted her fingers and quietly made it to a fish tank.

My wife managed to get a tiny tortoise and it loved sun bathing on a little rock (it was nursed in one of my fish tanks and when it was goggling my fish, it was transfered to the cement tank)placed inside the tank.

13. I did not know my father in law hated the tortoise and it disappeared from the tank when we were in Colombo for few days.

I never inquired about it.

The story was it escaped or eaten by crows.

I never believed it but figured out that it was released to the Mahaveli river and died an unnatural death.

It was too tiny to survive in the wild.

It was pity my father in law did not know the biology of it and it was a foreign species made stunted not by design but by (genetic manipulation) inbreeding.

We have eaten all our tortoises as a taste for illicit toddy (Kassipu) and even the Kandy lake has none now.

14. It was blessing in disguise sine they live long and looking after a tiny tortoise was not my choice either.

15. I had to give up fish keeping nearly 15 years to avoid pscine tuberculosis.

16. It took 2 years for me to diagnose it.

Nobody in Sri-Lanka knew it then.

I believe it is endemic in inland fisheries, now which the government is hiding the facts.

17. Coming back to the fish tank, it was all taken over by my wife for the last two years and she had not put any fish in it.

18. The bottom line and the biological fact is that lilies need lot of nutrition and that has to come from fish URINE.

But I have to feed the fish with high protein fish food for the lilies to bloom.

The this ecology is hard to reproduce in an artificial environment indoors.

That is why we have to protect our Will Pattu from human habitat and encroachment.

Will Pattu means (1000) thousands of little pools of water in the wet land.

Then only we will have tens of thousands of lilies blooming.

We are destroying every inch of our ecosystem in the name of shoddy development and Chinthanaya cronies.

The Golyas making Kassipu are still in evidence in these 'will patulas'.

Wisdom and Science

Wisdom and Science

To travel ahead thou shall become the path itself.

The path (Science) and the path finder (Scientist) shall blend into one.

Live to benefit mankind, not to benefit oneself.

Just take little steps to help the fellow beings.

One need not have to take giant steps for reconciliation.

'Hillary and Tennyson conquered the Mount Everest by little steps at a time.' 

One has to be mindful of each of the little steps one takes but the first step bound to be the most difficult in reconciliation.

Email Etiquette

Email Etiquette

Web is full of suckers.

Most of them pretend to be your Advisor or Saviour.

This is true with obtaining VISA.

But they are suckers.

They are out there to get your money and email and more importantly your personal details.

They use your identity to get involved in undesirable activities.

Beside your government or its stooges are the most untrustworthy.

For example your Grama Niladari is not innocent.

He/She provides your information (sometimes incorrect) to the politicos and often leave important documents lying around.

Not in a safe or safe place.

In that way I am against this new trend in e-governace and e-commerce.

They provide these information to third parties and there are no legislation in this country to prevent them doing so.

Most of is done under the name of prevention of terrorism but now used for political mileage.

The police is not selective but they are corrupt.

They have no mechanism to anticipate and prevent disaster.

They are always after the fact and slow to respond.

So with this background my advice is simple.

1. If you do not need an email or not competent enough in using please do not open one.

2. If you do have one do not share it with others.

It is private property like an address.

Like our politicos you cannot have more than one birth certificate or more than one identity card.

3. Hackers are out their to use you as a Zombie.

Identity theft is a serious offense.

Our politicos operate in this way.

4. If you are opening an email, you should have at least two not one, for good reason.

I forgot my password for my private email it took three months for me to recover.

I forgot the 'the pet phrase' and the document that I wrote them was misplaced.

After three months, my memory recovered by accident and the pet phrase (now I have a pet phrase recovery method) was typed in to get back to the normal working order.

This was time I was migrating from Microsoft (dual booting) to Linux so my memory loss was not due to sickness but due to work overload and lack of sleep.

Trying to do too many things one at the  same time and wasting my time downloading Linux at night.

It was appallingly slow and University download was even worse and was restricted.

This was the time I had a university email and it was hacked by a guy who worked there for a while (temporary may be) and did some damage due probably to personal vendetta after leaving the university.

He took the password and the email password document of a particular faculty with him.

This was the time of mistrust and terrorism in its peak and with the most bizarre password (it was stolen) of all, I had was stolen.

The password was file was stored in a Microsoft Server which was available for the hacker/s.

So my conviction to go for Linux for the sake of Security was of paramount importance and the university was slow to adapt to Linux.

I never used university portals for my work and developed my own little private network which is practically dismantled to save my electricity bill NOW.

My daughter's Microsoft computer at home with 

wireless connectivity was hacked most probably by a guy in the Engineering Faculty but never ventured to capture the culprit / guy but changed my tactics to be secure.

Coming back, if you forget your password, the easiest way is to give the service provider the alternative email so that they send an instant email for you to have a new password.

This simple technique was not there 15 years ago.

5. The use of alternative email gives you flexibility.

6. I have many emails and one email is for money transactions only and I do not give it to anybody.

7. Another is to keep track with my batch mates and I always get the sad news of demise of another guy with serious illness.

8. Another one for all the academic / magazine articles.

9. The email what I regularly use is called the Junk Email. So anybody who sends an email to it is considered a JUNK MAN / WOMAN.

10. My biggest problem is when I kick the bucket who will be responsible for them.

I have already forwarded them to Apaya Director to take appropriate action since I will be in Apaya as a guest speaker since I have done nothing to stop the Sri-Lankan National / International criminals who go scot free from all their crimes and his / her / their balance of crimes have been credited to my account by accident.

I need to clean my balance sheet at Apaya before I think of my next birth.

Not Sri-Lanka again by default.

I am tired living with criminals, including Cyber criminals.

Mini Garden Concept

Mini Garden Concept

Mini Garden Concept was something built into my sphere of activity but failed to materialize due to constant movement related to my work assignments.

It actually dawned on me that living in the topic is a luxury.

My family hated skyscrapers and confined living quarters.

I always bargained for a good house / garden even if the job was in a far remote corner of this planet.

Once, I had few exotic plants on the windowsill and had to come home for my father's funeral, for 10 days in winter.

None of the plants survived.

I gave up any miniature adventure with plants until I landed in the West Coast of New Zealand south island.

Even there I never saw any ladybirds in the garden.

They use lot of insecticides in agriculture and one day drove with the family past Reefton to collect few specimens but they never survived in the semi-urban garden.

Even here in Kandy we used to have many different ladybirds but not anymore due to liberal and unscientific use of insecticides and poisonous imported fertilizes.

But our children were enthusiastic and we always had mini garden and collecting specimens were their task.

Tray used for collecting rubber latex was the base.

On top of the soil mount in a corner was a plastic water tank.

The water was supplied with a plastic saline bottle hung on a tree branch.

All the tubes (saline tubes perforated with safety pins) were hidden under soil.

The design was left for them to manicure.

It was total success but a mini garden in a bottle was bit of a miss.

Rock garden was another concept.

We even had a big jute plant but it is no more.

I got busy, they grew up and the concept went into hibernation till lately.

The strangest thing I noticed recently was that all those tiny specimens we collected are still in our tiny garden after 30 years.

How they survived without any attention, I cannot figure out.

I know my friends from Colombo when they visit us take few specimens of ferns for indoor decorations but they die a natural death.

I counted at least 7 types scattered all over.

When the domestic aid and the cleaning man comes (he is not a gardener but weeder) I have to give special instructions not to uproot and upset the tiny tots (ferns) in the ecosystem.

Strangely my rooftop water garden also have few specimens taking root.

Mini garden is a workable concept but need constant attention.

Can Dogs Go to Heaven?

The pontiff came and went but the question whether dogs could go to heaven, remains unanswered.

One must not blame the pontiff since he came during our election campaign.

I think one has to follow my simple solution.

Convert them to Hindu or Buddhist before their demise.

Can Dogs Go to Heaven?

The simple answer is Yes.

They are the only ones that can be trusted in heaven, if they happen to be from Sri-Lanka.
 

The answer to that question is very simple.

But there is a caveat.

If the dog is Hindu or Buddhist by descent there is no problem.

Most of them go to heaven (if the master is not a Sri--Lanka politicians with ministerial posts who deal with heroin, Kassipu or other major vices, they go to hell with them) by default, especially if it is a Paraya (stray) dog.

But if the dog is Catholic, it has to wait till the present pontiff re-defines humanely the plight of dogs according to the scriptures and interpretations made by predecessors.

But, I have a suggestion for the pontiff who visits us next year.
There is an easy solution without going into scriptures.

Please make all Catholic dogs of Sri-Lanka blessed and converted to Buddhist or Hindu at the time of their demise.

There is no harm they remain as Catholic, in their active life.

After all Catholics in Sri-Lanka need them for their security with B.B.B (until Bodu Bala Sena is proscribed) in action like a pack of rabid dogs.

What remains to be done for the dogs of Muslim descent of Sri-Lanka is a difficult preposition.
They cannot be converted to any other religion at the time of their demise.

It is sacrilegious!

I have a plausible strategy.

These dogs must be made a permanent member of one of the many branches (not Shea or Sunni sectors) of their political parties before their death.

Then at the time of the demise, there should be an affidavit to the effect that they switched allegiance to the ruling party.

By this subtle method blasphemy can be politically avoided and the religion can be safely bypassed (after all they are animals they need not have a religion).

After all, dead dogs are only valid to the ruling party for propaganda.

They are mortally scared of the living dogs, anyway.

That is why they unleash violence while preaching Avihinsa (non violence).

But if the dog belongs to an atheist, the owner should go to a psychologist and get his advice before writing his Will.

The question is why does an atheist needs a dog, if he or she is not fearing hell or heaven?

Perhaps, she / he may be fearing another atheist from another planet.

Or is he or she fearing all the religious guys and girls on this planet.

Sir, Bertram Russell had to flee from England to China in 1930s.

He feared England more than Hell and Heaven.

When he was in coma (down with double pneumonia) an obituary was published but he recovered to the displeasure of the saints.

He lived to 97 or 99 with no help from any religion.

That is amazing!

This is the debate they are having at present.

Can animals go to heaven?

Some people all over the world have been excited in recent days about reports by news agencies worldwide -- including one from CNN -- declaring that Pope Francis apparently believes they can.

It turns out it's unclear what he believes about this.

A previous pope, Paul VI, had no doubts. "One day we will again see our animals in the eternity of Christ," Paul once told a boy grieving the loss of his pet.

That quote, from the pontiff who reigned from 1963 until his death in 1978, was inaccurately attributed to Francis.

The confusion may have begun when Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera referred to Paul's quote in a story that carried the headline, "The pope and animals: 'Heaven is open to all creatures.'"

The story itself does not indicate Francis said that. Instead, it refers back to Paul VI.

The writer for the newspaper pointed to something Francis actually did say: "Sacred Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this marvelous plan cannot but involve everything that surrounds us and came from the heart and mind of God."

That remark, the writer suggested, "widened the hope of salvation" to animals and all of creation.

The headline on the article quoted Francis as saying, "Heaven is open to all creatures." But there's no sign Francis said that.

A search through the current Pope's writings and remarks showed no immediate sign that he has taken a clear position on the question.

Dog Shit as a Meditative Object

Dog Shit as a Meditative Object

All dog lovers should read this.

I was to write about my 'Mini Garden Concept' but this is more urgent matter to deal with.

It was only yesterday, I was walking down our foot path and there was a little tussle brewing.

I generally avoid such encounters like, I avoid dog shit on our path.

This guy was a old polio case with a big limp and at the street level with direct eye contact.

I knew him as a casual labour when young not for good reason.

He refused to cut grass as fodder for the young cattle (cow and a bull) my wife had saved from the slaughter house.

His refusal did not deter me doing this menial job of looking after them for over seven months.

The other was a wife of a policeman who died recently as a pensioner.

She was on top flight of the steps.

I did not look up but diverted the guy's attention to me.

Then he said that dog shit was on his steps everyday.

He knew, I love dogs and feed all the stray dogs I meet on my walkaway.

The lady, in a second retreated to her house.

This guy is living at a higher level and there is another guy who is very friendly with me because of his reading habits.

He is relatively poor but I make a point to buy a book or two of his choice, if I meet him in a bookshop.

I like him since he always has a question or two for me to answer or expand upon, which sometime end up as a blog piece.

I have this canny habit of rephrasing his question to make his next question more vulnerable.

He is caring for all the dogs (now partially stray) that come to his house from the neighbourhood.

I told him the other day, that he is stupid and with the cost of living as it is, feeding dogs is not a minor matter.

I told him, I feed stray dogs on the street but never take them home as my company.

These dogs have the uncanny habit of pleasing you with a drop of a hat.

I tell him, follow me, when I see dog shit in my garden, I clean them up immediately in meditative mode (my dog never does it on the steps) since my wife has a big aversion.

Mind you dog shit is dog shit and smelly if your dog is not a vegetarian dog (there aren't any vegetarian pedigree dogs).

My dog has limited space but his shit is small and in pellets formation and easy to cast away like a bad though in meditative mode.

His only problem is constipation both he and I suffer due to dehydration (extremely hot weather even in Kandy).

So dog shit is a meditative object for me but for many Buddhists in this country dog shit is enough to start a war now that the ethnic war is extinguished (but the mad hatters are harping on).

I was able to stop the tussle, just yesterday.

But I won't try it once the parliament is dissolved.

All our political stray dogs are there cohabiting with shit on the floor of the house with p words.

I was looking down from my balcony and there were five or six dogs on the road making their territorial marks.

It just reminded me one of our present minister's pedigree dogs were poisoned for political reasons.

So they (now he is just a citizen with lot of spare time on his hands) will be busy igniting the ethnic war while at the same time visiting Buddhist temples.

How can these Buddhist monks practice meditation not on 'dog shit' but on 'ethnic purity shit'? 

This theme is called 'territorial integrity' which dogs possess in abundance.