[Buddha-l] buddha-l gathering

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Richard,

Enjoying North Europe? I regret not having been around for your  
pilgrimage to Antwerp. 
I hardly ever pronounce my first name, others take care of that, mostly 
in very creative ways. My friend from Taiwan is the nearest to the right 
pronunciation. He calls me Yo Yi. Now if you manage to remove the "i" 
from the second syllable (which it doesn't have originally) of my name, 
you'd probably beat my friend's pronunciation.

As for the difference between obtain and attain, if the French can be of 
any help as Franz and others seem to suggest, attain has a strong 
spatial notion to it. If you attain Nirvana, you probably travelled 
there. If you obtain it, you must have been begging for it on your 
knees, manoeuvring people and using your influence etc. and you haven't 
been taking no for an answer. Most of the time Nirvana doesn't 
appreciate people like that. It likes to play hard to get.

This is the best French online dictionary I am aware of at the moment.

http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/tlfiv4/showps.exe?p=combi.htm;java=no;