Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for September 21, 2015

As Emperor, Marcus Aurelius’ legions, in three separate wars, killed thousands and enslaved tens of thousands, sacking and looting cities with abandon and raping and murdering the populace.

Some Zen ideal, eh? Field Marshall von Rundstedt would be better. I postulate than Aurelius’ legions killed, raped and enslaved a greater percentage of enemy populations than the Nazis did.

On the other hand, you find the enslavement of millions of Africans something to be admired and honored.

At the time of Aurelius he believed Rome was the light in an otherwise darken world.It was an ideal but not the reality.The aim was a unified world.

Maybe it would be infinitely more powerful to start each day expecting great energy, health, abundance, happiness and the company of wonderful people, and then deal from that reservoir of energy with any contretemps knowing you can overcome and harmonize it. Not purely Zen, but what have you got t lose aside from a siege mentality? Great art, Gavin, far superior to the philosophy.

The glowing orbs and hand reminded me of the good guys in the book “Alice in Zombieland”.

SPYDERRED I would hazard a guess that T Smith was making an assumption about why sully2000 has a confederate battle flag as his icon. Since he has the confederate battle flag instead of the flag of the confederate states then I would guess T Smith is making an assumption from ignorance of what sully2000 is meaning with his icon. I may have misunderstood or T Smith could be showing his lack of understanding and his prejudice (I say that because he did not query what the icon meant but instead made a statement in a public arena that presumed to know what sully2000 thought)..

I am just a dog and I will be until the day that I pass a way.

A traveling exhibit at the museum had lots of wise poetic quotes on peace and love from Genghis Khan. They want us to know that all that killing and pillaging was not personal, just business.