Tibetan Buddhist Nuns: Damcho Pema's prostrating pilgrimage to Lhasa

Introduction This paper1 tells the story of Damcho Pema (dam chos pad ma)2,a Tibetan Buddhist nun from Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province,and her almost 2000 km prostrating pilgrimage to Lhasa.Before coming to the pilgrimage itself it describes the long road she first had to travel to become a nun,thereby illustrating some of the difficulties facing Tibetan women who decide to become nuns and highlighting contemporary social attitudes towards them.     

Greening cultural policy

Abstract

This article focuses on greening cultural policy within a sustainable development context. We examine shortcomings of major public-policy responses to the ecological crisis, linking this to the ambivalent philosophical heritage of anthropocentric worldviews that underpin ideas about the relation of culture to non-human nature. This ambivalence is reflected by weak environmentalism in the cultural policy arena, exemplified by surprisingly non-green cultural platforms espoused by green political parties. Green thinking is further hampered by the widespread adoption of digitisation within cultural organizations, which we contextualise in the broader political economy of digital capitalism and the attendant myth that high-tech culture is a low emissions business. Green cultural policy necessitates intensive self-examination of cultural institutions’ environmental impact, at the same time these institutions deploy art, education, entertainment, sports, and news to raise awareness of ecological crisis and alternative models of economic activity. We cite the efforts of activist artists’ resistance against fossil fuel corporations’ sponsorship of arts and cultural organizations as a welcome provocation for greening cultural policy within cultural organizations and green political parties alike.     

Nuns of the Unique Joyul(gcod-yul)Sect of Tibetan Buddhism

The Joyul tradition,which was founded in the 11thcentury,was one of the most important sects of Ti-betan Buddhism.This tradition may trace its originsback to Pha Dampa Sangye,a well-known monk whowas a native of South India,and was founded by MacikLabdron(ma-cig lab-sgron),a famous Tibetan Yogini(a female practitioner of the Yogachara school).It wasthe only sect founded by a female in the history of Ti-betan Buddhism,and this is also rarely seen in the worldhistory of world religions.The sect had a unique doc-trine and methods of intensive meditative practice.Therefore,it was a distinctive sect in the TibetanBuddhism.It not only had deep impact on other sectsof Tibetan Buddhism,but also had great influence on     

Mountains

Glacier ice from the south and west invaded upper Strathspey forming an ice sheet not less than 700m thick as it submerged the entire landscape. When the ice sheet wasted away, its meltwaters created complex sequences of fluvioglacial landforms. During the final stages of deglaciation, deposits left by the wasting ice mass were eroded by water, terraces spread out, gorges cut and the broad, low‐lying corridor on both sides of the River Spey was formed. There is evidence of a later, local readvance of the glaciers in three of the tributary valleys.     

Talents in Deep Mountains

BidingChina'sreformprogramtoaffluenceisaStatepolicyandalsoacatchwordfortoday.OurrecentvisittoeasternTibetshowedhowcertainpeoplearedoingagoodbusinesseveninthedeepmountains.No.1GrainProduceryenifallthethreshersavailableareusedforthreshing,itwouldtakethemalmostthreemonthstocompletethework,declaredQezholmawithgreatpride.IhaveaterrificharvestthisyearQezholma,afarmerfromXomoTownship,BorneCountyineasternTibet,hascontracted13hectaresofland.Overthepastdecade,hehasdeliveredatotalof100,000kgofgra…     

天赐瑰宝落基山脉

<正>1978年,邓小平访美,为了表示敬意,卡特总统邀请了当时最著名的乡村音乐家约翰·丹佛演唱了一曲《高高落基山》,从此,歌曲中的落基山,也渐渐为中国人所知。落基山脉,南北纵贯4500公里,从加拿大一直延伸到美国的新墨西哥州,是北美的脊梁;     

崀山魂

<正>世界上丹霞地貌主要分布在中国、美国西部、中欧和澳大利亚等地。其中以我国分布最广,尤以峎山最具代表性,是一座天然的丹霞地貌博物馆,被地质专家们誉为"丹霞之魂"。崀山,国家地质公园、国家自然遗产,重点风景名胜区——位于湖南省邵阳市所辖新宁县境内,距邵阳市区约150多公里。崀山之地名源于远古时舜皇所赐。     

Midwest Archaeological Conference 2014 Distinguished Career Awards

This paper presents and contextualizes the results of recent research at the Cedar Creek Earthworks (AaHq-2) in Essex County, Ontario, one of the few remaining Late Prehistoric earthen enclosures in the western Lake Erie region. First documented in the 1930s, the site consists of a unique semicircular berm and ditch feature to which has been appended three earthen projections or “nodes.” Despite a combination of remote sensing, testpitting, and targeted test excavations both within and beyond the earthworks, a dearth of material culture remains and subsurface features (including evidence for a palisade) suggests the site did not serve as a village and raises questions regarding the role(s) Cedar Creek played in the lifeways of past aboriginal populations.     

天赐瑰宝落基山脉

<正>1978年,邓小平访美,为了表示敬意,卡特总统邀请了当时最著名的乡村音乐家约翰·丹佛演唱了一曲《高高落基山》,从此,歌曲中的落基山,也渐渐为中国人所知。落基山脉,南北纵贯4500公里,从加拿大一直延伸到美国的新墨西哥州,是北美的脊梁;     

Men in the Communities of Dominican Nuns – Sister‐Books Discussing Priests and Friars

This article discusses the relationship between Dominican nuns and their caregivers (priests and friars) with the help of sister‐books written by the Dominican nuns themselves in the first half of the fourteenth century. My main focus will be on analysing the way religious men were described in these books and asking how this discussion was related to the everyday life of the nuns in the Dominican convents. I will suggest that the sister‐books can give a new and perhaps unexpected view of the relationships between Dominican nuns and their spiritual caregivers, as these texts suggest that nuns preferred local secular priests over the friars, even though they accepted the religious authority of the latter. I will argue that although the sister‐books were literary products, they had a close connection to the lived reality of nuns and that they can tell us about the interaction between nuns and religious men in their service. However, these texts also formed the ideas of nuns and kept the old attitudes towards priests and friars live, even when the interaction might have already taken other forms in practice.     

Trajectories for Greening in China: Theory and Practice

This edited volume argues that China's development poses the greatest ever environmental challenge for the modern world in terms of speed, size and scarcity. The volume is organized around the greening of the Chinese state and society: can the inclusion of sustainable development principles into governance, management and daily practices by social actors lead to sustainable development per se? This introduction sketches the different scholarly camps around greening and sustainable development, ranging from sceptical to radical environmentalism. The contributions demonstrate that China is showing clear signs of greening as new institutions and regulations are created, environmental awareness increases and green technologies are implemented. However, the question remains whether this is sufficient to effectuate long‐term sustainable development. The key factors here are the sheer speed of China's economic growth, the size of its population, and the relative scarcity of its natural and mineral resources. Chinese development presents compelling reasons for rethinking the viability of greening. It is necessary to move beyond both alarmist visions of an environmental doomsday, and optimistic notions that incremental changes in technology, institutions and lifestyles are sufficient for sustainability. It might be more fruitful — and not only for China — to consider ‘precautionary’ rather than ‘absolute’ limits to growth.     

Lhoba Village in Deep Mountains

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