Atisha, also known as Dipamkara Srijnana, was an Indian monk and scholar who arrived in Tibet around the year 1038. He’s credited with reintroducing Mahayana Buddhist texts, practices, and ethical principles to a region where Buddhism had been largely reabsorbed and rendered almost unrecognizable by Tibet’s indigenous Bon religion and numerous shamanistic cults.
This is what happens to the imagination when you grow up on Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends and suddenly find yourself over 40.
America has a problem in happiness. We all want to be happy, all the time. And whenever we do feel happy, we’re sooner or later unhappy that we’re not happier still. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
The book is The Travels of Lao Can by Liu E (1857-1909). Lao Can is "Mr. Derelict," and the book was written in 1905 when Liu E was feeling rather derelict himself, beginning what was to be the final down slide of his fourth and last career, as a kind of public works adviser on mines, railways and, especially dear to his heart, the annual flooding of the Yellow River. His first three career attempts, scholar, physician and businessman, hadn’t turned out that well either.