Creative Work'S Studio'S 2015 Weekly Planner And Art Calendar: Fill & Download for Free

The University of Nalanda.Nālandā was an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India. The site of Nalanda is located in the Indian state of Bihar, about 88 kilometers south east of Patna, and was a Buddhist center of learning from the fifth or sixth century CE to 1197 CE.The complex was built with red bricks and its ruins occupy an area of 14 hectares.At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from as far away as Tibet, China, Greece, and Persia.Nalanda was ransacked and destroyed by Turkic Muslim invaders under Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193.Libraries: The library of Nalanda, known as Dharma Gunj (Mountain of Truth) or Dharmagañja (Treasury of Truth), was the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world at the time.Its collection was said to comprise hundreds of thousands of volumes, so extensive that it burned for approximately more than 6 months when set aflame by Turkish invaders.The library had three main buildings as high as nine stories tall, Ratnasagara (Sea of Jewels), Ratnodadhi (Ocean of Jewels), and Ratnarañjaka (Delighter of Jewels).Curriculum: The Tibetan tradition holds that there were "four doxographies" (Tibetan: grub-mtha’) which were taught at Nālandā.According to an unattributed article of the Dharma Fellowship (2005), the curriculum of Nalanda University at the time of Mañjuśrīmitra contained:...virtually the entire range of world knowledge then available. Courses were drawn from every field of learning, Buddhist and Hindu, sacred and secular, foreign and native. Students studied science, astronomy, medicine, and logic as diligently as they applied themselves to metaphysics, philosophy, Samkhya, Yoga-shastra, the Veda, and the scriptures of Buddhism. They studied foreign philosophy likewise.In the 7th century, Xuanzang records the number of teachers at Nālandā as being around 1510. Of these, approximately 1000 were able to explain 20 collections of sūtras and śāstras, 500 were able to explain 30 collections, and only 10 teachers were able to explain 50 collections.Xuanzang was among the few who were able to explain 50 collections or more.At this time, only the abbot Śīlabhadra had studied all the major collections of sūtras and śāstras at Nālandā.Facts taken from Wikipedia and other sources, emphasis mine.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda

FILMSArrival: Originally a short story by Ted Chiang. This film blends sci-fi, philosophy, and a sprinkle of mysticism and weaves a slow-paced and yet unforgettable sequence.Edge of Tomorrow: A sci-fi/action film that you wouldn’t expect to be outrageously creative, and yet it is. I’ve shown this film to friends numerous times now, and each time I respond to their questions with: “The film’s going to answer that.” It’s almost what you would get if you took Donnie Darko on a cyclical, alien rollercoaster. There’s also this film’s technique of storytelling that I love, especially the scene where Emily Blunt says, “Find me when you wake up.” It’s in the beginning, so I didn’t spoil anything ;). But how that scene was done and how the implications of that scene play out are incredible and so f**king thrilling to watch.LITERATURELetters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke): Rilke implores us to live out our questions until we find, in some distant day, that we have lived our way to its answers. So much wisdom in such a short collection of letters that it feels criminal to have to persuade you to read them. I almost want you to encounter it serendipitously yourself. Take a chance and read one of the letters—they’re all online. Every piece of wisdom Rilke offers is timeless, and it’s also multifaceted. His thoughts are like seeds that grow within you if you digest them well.Our Town (Thornton Wilder): A meditation on the fragile grasp we have on the moments of our waking life. We are conscious of so little, and we are so settled in that consciousness. To imagine that the infinite is present in every moment seems too fictional for daily life. But it is there, and Wilder explores the implications of mortality and humanity in the context of infinity, timelessness and eternity.“Let's really look at one another!...It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed...Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up [after]. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?”The Wisdom of the Heart (Henry Miller): A collection of short stories penned by Miller. I highly recommend “Creative Death” and “The Cosmological Eye”. They are brilliant odes to the trials and tests of one’s poetic journey. In “Creative Death”, Miller compares one’s poetic essence to that of a tree. When you produce works, or even wisdom, your personality is flowering in the spring of your soul. But when you cling to these productions, you lose sight of the cycle of life. When autumn enters, leaves must fall; one must release the works of one’s craft and in their mourning prepare for another spring. That’s just one of many, many beautiful thoughts Miller offers.Marriage of Heaven and Hell (William Blake): Oh Tyger, which immortal hand framed thy fearful symmetry? That’s a line I’ve remembered since my freshman year of high school. Blake offers questions with the weight of damnation nested in them. He’s asking if we realize that our divine creator has penned both birth and death, both gentle lamb and fierceful tiger. You can’t ask these questions and expect to ease into conformity or submission. In this work, Blake argues that the freedom of energy is the highest pursuit, and constraints on energy are deemed “conventionally good” but are disastrous to accessing the eternal delight of life. I’m still in the middle of this work so I’ll come back for a more conclusive description.Anything by Alan Watts.Works on Nietzsche: Before you dive into Nietzsche’s words, try to read some scholarly interpretations of his work. Nietzsche’s body of work is incredibly contextual and responsive to the climate of his time, and scholars do a great job of briefing you on all of that info that’ll help in you not eventually misinterpreting Nietzsche like most people do. So read some works on Nietzsche before you end up reading Beyond Good and Evil or Thus Spoke Zarathustra and missing all of Nietzsche’s intentions behind his translated words. Oh, and my pitch on Nietzsche: This guy postured himself to ask questions that teetered between nihilism and life-affirmation. In doing so, he’s earned a slot in the eternal present with all the other thinkers we adore and hate and remember forever. He’s also the guy who penned the phrase, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Reading him is like rolling with all the punches life comes with, and then realizing that all these tribulations have made you become who you are, and that who you are is the result of a constant overcoming of change and struggle and transformation—and that that’s what life is really about. Selves fighting selves until the emergent self contains all of the elements of the fight, and so is resilient and powerful.MUSICChopin’s Winter Wind: I absolutely love the movement of this piece.Jeff Buckley: Okay, okay, hear me out. I know he’s been hailed by many and forgotten by even more, but let’s not even consider the masses. I recommend not only listening to Buckley’s songs, but listening to the scraps of his interviews scattered around the Internet. Check out his penmanship too. He’s an individual who - although plagued by an early death - dove into his poetic essence and really gave himself to his craft. He regularly performed at the Sin-e in New York after he moved to NYC from California. He was a clown at times; he always broke into bizarre tangents. And this is only what he shared with the public. I know nothing about Buckley as a person, but, as an artist, he’s got an infinite reserve of inspiration to offer. The lyrics in “Grace”, “Mojo Pin”, and “Lover, You Should Have Come Over,” are so elegant and touching. Ah. I got love for the guy. Let’s move on.Jordan Rakei: Check out “Nerve”, “Still”, and “Lucid.” Rakei’s voice is rich and commanding, and his lyrics are spiritually evocative. He’s got a whole world he delivers in his music. “I was scared and unaware / Moving out of darkness, darkness / I was trapped in the flesh,” When you listen to the depths of his voice, and the lyrics softly guide you in his direction, you’ll feel like you’ve lived a thousand years in another dimension.Moses Sumney: Another spiritually evocative artist. “Plastic” and “Don’t Bother Calling” are my favorites. “I’m not a body, the body is but a shell / I disembody but suffering is sovereign still,” Sumney’s lyricism is concise and yet so imaginative. “The world is a wonderland scene,” indeed. Or at least Sumney’s artistic world is.“I Know It’s Over” (The Smiths): An ode to the last moments of one’s living. You gaze back on all the double meanings of past events. Memories of beginnings, graduations, weddings, trivial Monday mornings, have hints of both destiny and death interwoven in their textures. You taste it all. Things that once seemed so finite and distant are now reconfigured in a larger scheme of understanding. They say the future is already here, scattered indefinitely in the present, only we do not have the eyes to see it. “I Know It’s Over” captures the waves of emotion one feels when one finally sees the past, present, and future in one’s life. A moment before it all ends, one last song to commemorate the inexhaustible complexity of life’s particularities.“If you’re so funny, then why are you on your own tonight? And if you’re so clever, then why are you on your own tonight?…I know, because tonight is just like any other night. that’s why you’re on your own tonight. With your triumphs and your charms, while they’re in each other’s arms.”