Absolutely disgusted by Britain and by Labour

Fair enough!

Seems to me that the sign's talking about the second world war, but if we're talking about the first then: no, of course German soldiers weren't Nazis, but again there's plenty of evidence to show that soldiers on both sides believed strongly in what they were fighting for.

The average German soldier was absolutely a Nazi. There's plenty of research on this now. The Wehrmacht was full of true believers. They fought so hard, and kept on fighting for so long, because they believed in the cause.

Herodotus says that they were precisely the kind of people who did not write shit down (horsemen who had only conquered major cities in the previous generation). Not much seems to have survived in Old Persian and the Achaemenids don't feature at all in later Persian texts (e.g. Ferdowsi).

Congratulations!

And there's much more supernatural stuff in Buddhism (all branches except the most recent secularised forms, I suppose) than many people suspect.

My (recent) interest in Buddhism is almost entirely cultural and historical. It's fascinating stuff. But you won't find me meditating in the New Forest. Partly because I've never cared much for the New Forest, but also because, personally, I don't believe in the supernatural. Hardcore materialist.

Indeed! Very narrow approach, quite typical of that era. Like how the Tibetan Book of the Dead represented all of Tibetan Buddhism to a lot of Westerners back then

Fascinating stuff

Oh yes - very old-school & self-orientalising. I found the chapters on (then-)contemporary Zen practice more interesting than the theoretical parts

I read D. T. Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism the other day - I had the afternoon off so I just chugged the whole thing in one go - and my overall conclusion was that I would never want much to do with Zen Buddhism myself. Certainly not my cup of tea.

Curious coincidence: I was reading about upekṣā/upekhā this morning.

That also tracks!

Always interesting to see these kinds of connections between old-school Sanskritists and Indian nationalists

I suppose he didn't feel comfortable popping into Lyndhurst or Beaulieu to beg for alms. There isn't much in the New Forest aside from pony droppings and gorse

I don't have much contact with Theravada anything really (because of the mainland vs maritime thing) but this feels right

I grew up in Hampshire on the edge of the New Forest. I wonder where exactly his hermitage was...