Indian Mythology - Wordsmith.org

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I always enjoy the WAD e-mail, but the story that came with this week's opener couldn't have come at a better time. I'm a first year coach at a local high school and this week I plan to introduce the concept of visualization to my team. The story of the bird's eye is ideal. (It doesn't hurt that I'm a sucker for mythology.)

Thanks again, Anu (and Ananya)!

Welcome, Jen. One hopes that you will enjoy the discussion(s) on this Board as much as you do the missives from Anu.

Back when I shot bow-and-arrow, I practiced pretty regularly at a nice indoor range. The guy who sorta took me under his wing gave me similar advice about aiming (maybe he knew the story?). I found an interesting benefit to focusing only on the x-ring of the target. When I was at full-draw, there was nothing else going on anywhere in the world other than the 20 yards between my arrow tip and the little X. No problems, no hassles at work. When I was done practicing, I was quite relaxed.

its an idea that works for many thing.

when i learned to sew, i learned to look down the seam (as one might look down a road, and see a straight row of stitches, and then to just sew on top of the stitches. its also true for skating, if you look down, you fall down, hold your head up, look where you want to go, and trust your feet to get you there..

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its an idea that works for many thing.

... I'd say this is true, but also its reverse: really fixing your gaze where there is nothing. When I was learning to drive I had an instructor that would continuously yell his head off at me, not for any perilous manoeuvres but because it was his way of giving indications (once I understood that, it was actually quite funny). One day he yelled at me to drive down a very narrow street, with cars parked on one side and a small lorry wrongly sitting astride the kerb on the other side. I said to him "You know, I don't think the car will squeeze between those", so he started yelling some more. And I have never forgotten what he yelled at me that time: "Look at the gap! Just look at the gap! When in life you meet difficulties on either side, you look at the gap!!". That's what I did, and I got the car through without a scratch on her.

figure ground.

good stuff.

I have to say, my initial reaction to this story was, "How cruel to the poor bird"--before reading that it was clay. But it still strikes me as rather odd that a culture that has so many vegetarian people would even think of shooting an arrow at a bird. Kind of hurts my image of them as a gentle people.

Indeed, Jackie. 'Tis murder most fowl.

Alex, come up here a minute, will you?

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I have to say, my initial reaction to this story was, "How cruel to the poor bird"--before reading that it was clay. But it still strikes me as rather odd that a culture that has so many vegetarian people would even think of shooting an arrow at a bird. Kind of hurts my image of them as a gentle people.

The Mahabharata is a tale of fratricide and civil war on such a grand scale that, at least in South India, some devout Hindu familiies will not let it be read inside the home, preferring the Ramayana instead. Of course, the fact that the Ramayan isn't 100,000 verses long probably helps its case, too.

Re : Parthian Shot

What a coincidence ? Today's story refers to Arjuna, PARTH also his name !! so a Parthian Shot , I believed, to be a shot by Arjuna !

Mahendra

It does, however, provide a possible explanation of the title of a good independent film I saw within the last year, "The Clay Bird," the story of a boy in a Madrasa in India.

A belated happy Festival of Color to those of you who celebrate it.

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A belated happy Festival of Color to those of you who celebrate it.

Why not just call it Holi?

Because I'd forgotten the name, though I just saw it a couple of days ago. Thanks for the link.

> A special drink called 'thandai' or bhang is also consumed sometimes, which actually contains small amounts of marijuana [/wiki]

That's my kind of holi communion!

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> A special drink called 'thandai' or bhang is also consumed sometimes, which actually contains small amounts of marijuana [/wiki]

That's my kind of holi communion!

A month or two back I watched an entertaining Hindi comedy from the early 80s which used a plot device bhang pakore - sort of Bollywood hash cookies, I guess.