America's Buddhist burial mound at Sedona

Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; photographers Pete/Karevil, Glen Carlin

Vajrayana Buddhist prayer flags flying over Boudhanath, Nepal (Pete/Karnevil/flickr)

 

Wisdom and Compassion

The dome at the base of Boudhanath Stupa ("Enlightenment Reliquary," a UNESCO World Heritage Site) outside Kathmandu, Nepal represents the entire world. When a person awakens (represented by the opening of the eyes of wisdom and compassion) from the illusory bonds of the world, that person has reached the state of enlightenment. Complete liberation (nirvana) awaits and is already visible when this is accomplished.

America needs a great Buddhist stupa!
Xochitl, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Sedona's Buddhist Stupa, Sedona, Arizona (Glen_Carlin/flickr.com/collage)

 

Flags over Sedona Stupa (Glen Carlin)

We have one! We have other smaller ones, too. Every Buddhist temple in America wants its own old-world reliquary, a white mound to entomb spiritual treasures.

Pagodas, dagabas, chortans, mandala-mounds, and so on all house priceless reliquary objects -- either minute amounts of the historical Buddha's funerary ashes or relics (strange physical byproducts of enlightenment manifesting as beautiful glass-like beads and other formations that survive or are produced during cremation) or the remains of arhats, honored teachers, and world rulers (chakravartins).

Then there's the great Tibetan stupa at SMC in Colorado, too (shambhalamountain.org)

• 

  Small side-chortan in Sedona

  Wait a minute. How in the world could there be so many of the Buddha's cremation ashes to supply all the world's stupas? It's ludicrous; it's like all that wood the Medieval Christians sold as authentic bits of Christ's own Roman cross. The answer is very simple. If we begin with one cup of actual cremation remains, then we can divide that, but as with any precious powder, it is watered down with a neutral substance: one part relic ashes with one million parts neutral ashes = 1,000,001 parts authentic Buddha ashes. Stranger still, "relics" multiply, so they are not limited to what was available the first day. Moreover, not only the Buddha's remains are used but those of many arhats. There are still arhats, still funeral pyres, cremation remains, and so long as the Dharma is practiced even by one person, there is a chance for more.

Amazing Anasazi (Hopi) ruins at Tuzigoot, Clarkdale, Arizona (americansouthwest.net)

 

Wooden Buddha (Glen Carlin)

City councils are very reluctant to approve of such building requests. There is a campaign to bring one to Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara.
 
But one already exists, built by Tibetan Buddhists in northern California. Across the USA there are small ones and plans, or at least dreams, for more.

Buddha profile (Glen Carlin)

However, there is at least one great one already: It is in our spiritual center where Native Americans recognized vortices of power and energy, Sedona, Arizona.

Wisdom Quarterly visited with Xochitl and Dr. Rei Rei to visit the Anasazi sites and this amazing hidden gem hidden on the west side of the American Southwest's most beautiful town.

To visit, choose the cooler months. Sedona is amazing year round, with winter snows the blanket the red rocks. It is one of the most picturesque landscapes in the world, a lower extension of the once Buddhist Grand Canyon. (How could the Grand Canyon ever have been Buddhist? It was).

• VIDEO: Native Buddhist artifacts, Grand Canyon
• Were the Anasazi [Native Americans] Buddhists?
• Buddhist cave temples found in Grand Canyon
• AUDIO: Ancient Egyptians in the Grand Canyon 
• Grand Canyon's secret underground Buddhist temple?  
• Native American Buddhism and Tibet 

Hovering above the massive stupa is a gorgeous wooden Buddha carving surrounded by many American offerings: trinkets, flowers, incense, glass beads, Native American jewelry, coins, notes, flags...adding to the splendor of the U.S. Southwest (Glen_Carlin/flickr.com).

Sedona, Arizona is "the most beautiful place on earth" (visitsedona.com)

Were Anasazi [Native Americans] Buddhists?

Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Hendon Harris (chinesediscoveramerica.com)

The most famous building in the entire Tibetan plateau, Potala Pueblo, Lhasa (HCC)

Tibetan store (Aaron Berkovich/flickr)

Were the Anasazi, who are known to many as the Native Americans of the Southwest, Buddhists? 

 

Buddhism began in the sixth century BCE in India [although the Buddha was from neighboring Afghanistan -- the ancient northwestern frontier of Gandhara and to points west -- where the Dharma quickly took hold among his familial clan simultaneous with its spread in Magadha/modern Bihar, India].

It soon spread to ancient Greece and parts of its empire in Central Asia [Bactria, Sogdiana, etc., where Alexander the Great left yet another "Alexandria" in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when it was part of the Hellenic Empire], the geopolitical Middle East, and some believe to Europe (Kalmykia) as far north as Scandinavia and even North America, which was partly ancient Mexico, a spread Rick Fields documented in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America and Edward P. Vining's Inglorious Columbus, which recounts how a group of Afghan Buddhist monks led by Chinese Buddhist missionary Hwui Shan  "discovered" America and therefore interacted with the Native Americans long before the genocidal, Polish, Jewish Christopher Columbus].

This is where the Native Anasazi (or Ancestral Puebloan people, such as the Hopi, Hisatsinom, and others) come in.

• Did they leave temples and treasures here?

One piece of evidence is the ancient Buddhist proclivity for carving building and shrines into mountains and creating distinctive rock formations. They are now found all over the world and bear a likeness to that favored by Vedic Hinduism/Buddhism. Buddhism ultimately reached China in the first century ACE, after it had made a grand impact on Greece bringing in many Eastern philosophical idea -- the atom (kalapa), democratic voting and rudimentary parliamentary rules of order (Sangha organization according to the Vinaya), and so on.

 

The Anasazi culture mysteriously appeared in North America at an undetermined time and disappeared about 1300 ACE. Where did these incredibly advanced people come from? How and why did they just as mysteriously disappear? We know they were astronomers because we have found some of their observatories. We know they were road builders because we have found their roads. We know they were incredibly proficient at stone carving and masonry because we have found evidence of their work and architectural styles in the Four Corners area of the Southwest.

 

Native American indigenous Apache, remnant Anasazi spirit dancers, 1887 (Native Skeptic)

 
These architectural styles and art carved in stone provide the best evidence that the source of the Anasazi culture with its advanced knowledge and artistry was Vedic Asia.

 

This is a provocative statement likely to offend a few scholars. However, if one takes the time to examine the art and architecture, compare examples from each culture side by side, it will provide clear evidence of their connection.

 

Rock cliffs of the Grand Canyon, Arizona

If one were to start by using the image search terms “Were the Anasazi people Buddhist?” one would find that the architectural styles of the Puebloan people (Anasazi) and Chinese Buddhists are so similar that they show up interchangeably on the image page clearly demonstrating that they used the same techniques for carving out rock caves. (See examples of rock caves carved high on the cliffs of Bandelier National Park, New Mexico. They bear an incredible likeness to Asian Buddhist caves). 

Further search “Architecture-Pueblo complexes and Great Houses” or “Bandelier National Park Rock Cave Images” to see more). Compare these to the Caves of Dunhuang and the Longmen Caves in China or to the recently discovered Shangri-la Buddhist Caves of Nepal all of which are carved high up on rock faces.
 

Luoyang Shaolin Buddhist temple (G-W-H)

For evidence of IDENTICAL construction techniques used in ancient China and in ancient North America “zoom in” on these pictures of the rock-cut caves at Bandelier National Monument, USA and the Caves at Dunhuang, China.  Both locations, separated by the vast Pacific Ocean, show identical horizontal rows of small bored holes cut into the cliff faces perhaps to insert wooden pole frames for shade canopies for each location thousands of miles apart.

 

Tibetan structures are like Puebloan dwellings of the Southwest. This American adobe complex was likely built between 1000-1450 AD near Taos, New Mexico, USA (wiki).

  

Rock-cut remains, Bandelier, NM, USA

Ancient Buddhists seem to have been fascinated by rocks shaped a particular way. Here is a very unusually shaped rock in Thailand and an almost identically shaped rock in the Bisti Badlands, New Mexico. 
 
The Bisti Badlands are an interesting place in the Four Corners region, where the Anasazi people lived. However, the common opinion is that “The Canadian Goose Bisti,” “The Sleeping Lizard Bisti,” “The Flying Turtle Bisti,” and so on are simply random acts of erosion. A more plausible explanation is that these rock formations are ruins of a people exhibiting a Vedic cultural heritage because of at least three different types of rock formations there.

1. Mushroom rocks like the ones found at Mushroom State Park, Kansas are found throughout these 45,000 acres of badlands. “Mushroom Rocks” are the chattra symbols of ancient Buddhism. Chattra is the Sanskrit word for “mushroom,” which is also the word for the Parasol, one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism. More

Did the Buddha dance? (video)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Ou Lu Yang, Xochitl (ed.)

Don't lecture us, venerable sir, just show us that dance again (Dietmar Temps/flickr.com).

Tibetan Vajrayana lamas engaged in meditative Tai Chi-style movements.

Native American Apache spirit dancers, 1887, traditional ceremony (Native Skeptic)

  

Dancing Tara (liveauctioneers)

Why do human beings dance? Synchronized movements, particularly to rhythmic music or a unifying beat as our cue, are a natural ritual for nonverbal expression and communication.

 

We are making use of these incredible bodies, which may seem feeble now in the Kali Yuga but were certainly much more incredible in earlier and future Golden Ages. (It's cyclical, so all ages repeat).

Shakyamuni Buddha was not Shiva Nataraja ("Dancing Shiva," lit. "Shiva Lord of the Dance [of Life]"). According to Hinduism the Buddha was the ninth avatar of Lord Vishnu, the great sustaining god. 

 

The Buddha, however, made it very clear that he is NOT a god/deva, not a messenger angel, not a mythical being, no longer an ordinary human being, and not an anything other than "AWAKENED" (Dona Sutra, AN 4.36). Because of this, he came to be called the Buddha, a title which means the "Awakened One."

 

Shiva's cosmic dance, not the Buddha's

But if GOD (Brahman, godhead) is an acronym, G.O.D. -- the Generator (Brahma), Operator (Vishnu), and Destroyer (Shiva) of the universe -- then by this logic the historical Buddha was a force for the steady maintenance of this world-system, our universe or, at least, our solar system.

• Buddhism and the God-idea

(According to whistleblower and former CIA pilot John Lear, our solar system actually has more than 30 planets, which if true might correspond to Buddhist cosmology's 31 Planes of Existence, assuming a "world-system" is only the size of a solar system rather than a galaxy, constellation/celestial sphere like Orion, or a universe).

 

So did the Buddha dance? 

Dancing 1,000-armed Kwan Yin Pusa (CTG)

No, the Buddha did not dance. There is no need to for one who has transcended materiality and mentality and reached the stillness of absorption and become the quintessence of enlightenment, no longer a slave to intellect and emotion, to clinging and suffering, to identity and to social constraints. 

 

Dancing is also outside of the Discipline (Patimokkha and  Vinaya and even excluded in the Training Rules of intensive lay practitioners during the lunar observances).

 

Dancing Tara Bodhisattva, Nepal (ebay.com)

But that is not to say Buddhists do not. Buddhists do dance! Buddhists (even bodhisattvas) do all sorts of things. Look at Kwan Yin, look at Tara, look at high lamas and other vow takers. 

 

A better question one might ask is, Did Siddhartha (the Buddha-to-be) dance? There were more than enough musicians and dancing girls in the palaces and at the parties, so he must have.

 

Should we as American Buddhists be stoic and guilt-ridden like our Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish cultural forbears (as typified in James Joyce's The Dead)? No, let's not do that.

 

Prince Siddhartha and the palace dancing girls

Let's be alive. Let's have bodies rather than separating from them the way early childhood trauma encourages us to do. Being "present" means being here, in the body. That is what Ram Dass meant when he distilled the message of Zen and Buddhism in general with the simple expression BE HERE NOW.

 

Flexible yogini in sitting pose (Caroline Klebl)

Let's loosen our hips. Raja (Ashtanga, Integral) Yoga and even gentle Hatha Yoga helps with that. Unclenching sphincters also helps. We are so uptight, pushing ourselves to seem ever-busy, seeming to get so much done to fulfill ourselves by waving bucket lists with lots of check marks.

 

"Breathe," Pink Floyd advises, "breathe in the air. Don't be afraid to care. Leave. But don't leave me. Look around. Choose your own ground. How you live and how you fly, the smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry, all you touch and you see is all your life will ever be...."

 

Dancing, remembering, and letting go

Then there's the advice of Deadmau5 featuring Kaskade: "Feeling the past moving in/ Letting a new day begin/ Hold to the time that you know./ You don't have to move on, but let go./ Remember turning on the night/ And moving through the morning light./ Remember how it was with you./ Remember how you pulled me through./ I remember, I remember, I remember.../ Hold to the love that you know./ You don't have to give up to let go." (Extended dance mix)

 

Dancing shakes off excess cosmic energy (shakti, feminine power, yin) from the body's spinning chakras. Then Shiva resorts to the bliss (piti and sukha) of samadhi.

  

Tibetan Monks' Trance Dance 

OuLuYang edited by Wisdom Quarterly

You should do like this, not do like that. And don't laugh, I'm serious. You're recluses now, and right and wrong must be very clear to you! Do you hear me? (overgrownpath.com)

  

The video above is a dance performed by young monastics at Ganden Sumtseling Gompa, a Buddhist monastery located north of the city of Zhongdian (Shangri-La) in Yunnan province on the southeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

 

The dance begins with one lama emerging from the main temple. His routine initially faces the temple then faces all of the directions of the wind then spirals around a central point where there is a dark quilt and wooden square (symbolizing a demon).

 

The beat of the shaman's drum (Budddhism and Bön), Lamayuru, Ladakh (Dietmar Temps)

  

The shaman's ancient drum far from Tibet

The dance accelerates and incorporates jumping. In its finale, dozens of monks join in to perform the circular dance around the quilt until, in the end, they all crowd around its center. 

 

The dance concludes with pairs of monks taking leaps at the temple, praying toward its entrance, praying away from its entrance, then jumping inside. Altogether it takes about three hours. The dance is performed annually, during a ritual in which monks dress in elaborate costumes and masks and dance around a large effigy of the demon rather than a quilt. It is very reminiscent of Native American (Hopi, Anasazi, Apache, Puebloan peoples) ceremonial dances.

 

The purpose of the dance is to contain the angry spirit of the demon, possibly to recreate the Tibetan myth of the subjugation of an angry Himalayan goddess by an Indian monk, which popularized the monk and allowed for the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet. This video is an amalgamation of clips recorded during the initial monk's rehearsal for the ritual.

Native American Buddhism and Tibet

Ashley Wells, Xochitl, Maya, Wisdom Quarterly; Hendon Harris  ASK MAYA

Pueblo/Gompa Lamayuru high in India's Himalayas, Ladakh (DietmarTemps.com)

  

See that pueblo? - Yes, pa. - It's Tibetan. (CM)

In response to Buddhism among the Pueblo Indians, USA, Hendon Harris (Chinese Discover America) writes: Thank you, Wisdom Quarterly, for your kind words regarding my work on Native Americans and Tibetan Buddhism. 

The more research I do, the more I am convinced that Hwui Shan and his four fellow Buddhist clerics from Gandhara (Indo-Pakistan/Afghanistan) actually made it to North America (Fu Sang) in 458 CE as he reported.

• Inglorious Columbus; or, Evidence that Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century, A.D. (Edward P. Vining, 1885)
• Why Afghanistan? The Buddha was born in Afghanistan

Native American (SuperG82/flickr)

I understand your objection to my use of the [portmanteau] term "Vedic Buddhism." You are technically correct.

The reason I have used those words together is to make a point. Buddhism began in a Vedic environment and as a result shares much in common even to this day with Hinduism and the other Dharmic religions of ancient India. 

A proper understanding of the cultural connections between these religions, particularly in ancient times, is essential for understanding the mix of symbols and customs that show up today dating from ancient times here.

Tibetan dancer, monk (CD)

[Well, Hendon, it is certainly true that Buddhism/Jainism and Hinduism share many themes, symbols, motifs, and cultural roots, yoga being the result of the influence of shramanic religions (Buddhism and Jainism being the two most popular and long-lived) on Brahminical Vedantic "Hinduism" (all of the traditions of the Indus River area taken by the British who coined the term "Indus-ism" as one post-Indus Valley Civilization conglomerate no matter how different they are) -- taking it from temple priesthood and intermediaries between people and God(s) into a forest tradition and direct personal experience. May we suggest "Indian Buddhism" or "Buddhistic Hinduistic"?]

Buddhism went "West" from Gandhara!

The Native American Seven Step Seven Vow Wedding Ceremony is a Hindu tradition. Phallic symbols (lingam) are common to ancient India's Dharmic religions as are mandalas, mantras, and manjis (swastikas) [-- not to mention the very name "Indian" referring to both disparate populations]. I have to be able to explain the cross section of evidence.

REPLY: Hendon, as for your central question -- "Did the Chinese discover America?" -- the answer is yes: Buddhism In America, Part 1, Buddhism in Mexico before Christianity, Mexican Buddhists (BBC)... It is all laid out by Rick Fields in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (Shambhala.com), which could have been titled how Chinese Buddhist monks stumbled onto the American continent (Mesoamerica) a thousand years ago, centuries before Columbus brought conquest and Catholicism or the British sent pilgrims and capitalism. Who really discovered America? According to historians, the Chinese were here before Columbus.

Chinese discover America (in 1421) long before Europeans

Siberian Vajrayana Buddhist animist in teepee, Tsaatan wigwam, Mongolia (Hamid Sardar)

The Tibet-Pueblo [American Indian] Connection

Xochitl, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Tricycle Magazine (tricycle.com)

The world's largest and most famous pueblo: Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet (Adam Lai/flickr)

Tibet's Potala Palacet under construction? No, this is the side of a Zuni pueblo complex in New Mexico, which serves as home and ceremonial center (Timothy H. O'Sullivan/GEH).

From the Roof of the World to the Land of Enchantment: The Tibet-Pueblo Connection

We look nothing like our brothers and sisters in the USA...except for many obvious signs

   

“When the iron bird flies,
the Dharma will come to the land of the red man.”

-Ninth-century prophecy by Guru Rinpoche

They look nothing like us (Elk Foot)

In the incongruous atmosphere of the Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, an extraordinary encounter took place in 1979. During the Dalai Lama’s first visit to North America, he met with three Hopi elders. 

 

The spiritual leaders spoke in their native languages. Delegation head Grandfather David’s first words to the Dalai Lama were: “Welcome home.”

 

The Dalai Lama laughed, noting the striking resemblance of the turquoise around Grandfather David’s neck to that of his homeland. He replied: “And where did you get your turquoise?”

 

Hopi Kachina artifacts (scpr.org)

Since that initial meeting, the Dalai Lama has visited Santa Fe to meet with Pueblo leaders, Tibetan lamas have engaged in numerous dialogues with Hopis and other Southwestern Indians, and now, through a special resettlement program to bring Tibetan refugees to the United States, New Mexico has become a central home for relocated Tibetan families.

 

As exchanges become increasingly common between Native Americans and Tibetans, a sense of kinship and solidarity has developed between the cultures. While displacement and invasion have forced Tibetans to reach out to the global community in search of allies, the Hopi and other Southwestern Native Americans have sought an audience for their message of world peace and harmony with the Earth.

Thangka of Six Realms of 31 in the Wheel of Samsara, the cycle of rebirth and death

  

Vajrayana, Hopi? There's a relation (wn.com)

These encounters have created a context for the activities of writers and activists who are trying to bridge the two cultures. A flurry of books and articles have been published, arguing that Tibetans and Native Americans may share a common ancestry.

 

The perception of similarity between Native Americans of the southwest and the Tibetans is undeniably striking. Beyond a common physicality and the wearing of turquoise jewelry, parallels include the abundant use of silver and coral, the colors and patterns of textiles, and long, braided hair, sometimes decorated, worn by both men and women.

 

Book of the Hopi (Frank Waters/goodreads.com)

When William Pacheco, a Pueblo student, visited a Tibetan refugee camp in India, people often spoke Tibetan to him, assuming that he was one of them. “Tibetans and Native American Pueblo people share a fondness for chile, though Tibetans claim Pueblo chile is too mild,” says Pacheco.

 

Even before most Westerners knew where Tibet was, much less the extent of its people’s suffering, and almost 20 years before the advent of the Tibetan diaspora, cultural affinities between these two people were noted by Frank Waters in his landmark work Book of the Hopi (1963).

 

Waters’ analysis went below the surface, citing corresponding systems of chakras, or [subtle] energy spots [wheels] within the body meridians, that were used to cultivate cosmic awareness. 

 

Native American dancers, New Mexico

In The Masked Gods, a book about Pueblo and Navajo ceremonialism published in 1950, Waters observed that the Zuni Shalako dance symbolically mirrored the Tibetan journey of the dead. 

 

“To understand [the Zuni Indian Shalako dance’s] meaning, we must bear in mind all that we have learned of Pueblo and Navaho [sic] eschatology and its parallels found in the Bardo Thodal, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, in The Secret of the Golden Flower, the Chinese Book of Life, and in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.”

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (HB)

Many Earth-based cultures steeped in a shamanic tradition share spiritual motifs (hence the broad comparison made by Waters).
 
This could account for some similarities, such as Navajo and Tibetan sand painting, and cosmic themes found in Tibetan and traditional Pueblo dances. More