Buddhist SPORTS: "brainball" at Sera (video)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; KL.Lau (wiki); TricycleMag (video)

"When the Iron Bird Flies: Buddhism for the West" (with Richard Gere) from BPS/Sera:

The Fix Is In (Brian Tuohy)

The pitch (field) was crackling. Everyone was suited up. Game books in hand, teams formed, star players and cheerleaders, then it was game on.

  

Take that! No, you take that! Click and clack, fripp and frap, with vorpal sword (vajra) in hand. Now you've gotten yourself in a bind you'll never be able to get out of! Here's my retort; now you're trapped! Bam, take that right back! Lama on lama and the rinpoche can referee.

Sacred thunder bolt: Vajra

Here is a poetic play-by-play of an idealized match for The Phörpa (Cup):

One, two! One, two! And through and through,

The vajra hand goes snicker-snack!

He left him slumped, and with his head held high,

He went galumphing back.

- Lewis Carroll's imagination

Diagram of the pitch (mandala) for a match (debate) in the head space of reality.

The debate is on. Bam (hand clap)! Try to get yourself out of that one! (KL.Lau)

.

Debating Buddhist scriptures － Tibet's Sera Monastery 西藏色拉寺 

They'll get it when they meditate (KL.Lau)

Sera Monastery (gompa or Himalayan lamasery) is one of the great three Gelukpa sect university monasteries in Tibet. It is located 1.25 miles (2 km) north of the capital, Lhasa. The other two are Ganden and Drepung.

 

Sophistry? The only way to debate is to study, question, and contemplate (KL.Lau)

 .

Gamble? Larceny Games

The origin of the name "Sera" is attributed to the fact that the site of the monastery was once surrounded by wild roses (Tibetan se ra) in bloom. The original Sera was located in Lhasa about 3 miles (5 kms) north of the Jokang and is responsible for some 19 hermitages, including four nunneries, all located in the foothills north of Lhasa.

Sera Monastery is a complex of structures with a Great Assembly Hall and three colleges, founded in 1419 by Jamchen Chojey of the Sakya Yeshe of Zel Gungtang (1355-1435), a disciple of Tsongkhapa.

During the 1959 revolt in Lhasa, Sera suffered severe damage, its colleges destroyed, and hundreds of Buddhist monks killed. After the Dalai Lama escaped and found asylum in India, many of the Sera monks who survived the Chinese invasion moved to Bylakuppe in Mysore, India.

When Iron Bird Flies (Ayya Khema)

After initial tribulations, they established a parallel Sera with Sera Me and Sera Je colleges and a Great Assembly Hall similar to the original monastic complex with help from the Indian government. There are now more than 3,000 monks living in India's Sera, and the community has spread its missionary activities to several other countries by establishing Dharma centers propagating knowledge of Bon shamanism and  Buddhism known as Himalayan Vajrayana, Indian Tantra, Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, and Lamaism. [This is what was bound to happen "when the iron bird flies," according to Tibetan lore.]
 

Ven. Trijang, Dalai Lama's tutor, Sera Mey

The Sera in Tibet and its counterpart in Mysore, India are noted for their dramatic and very animated "monastic debates." This stylized form of intellectual combat is meant to enhance learning and reflection on the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha and elaborated, Hindu-synthesized Buddhist philosophy (aka Mahayana). Sera developed over the centuries as a renowned place of scholarly learning, training hundreds of scholars, many of whom have attained fame in Buddhist countries.
   

After the match everyone gathers for a group photo at Sera Me Tratsang College  "stadium"

Protests rage in Venezuela

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC.co.uk

Mr. Lopez's wife is calling for the release of her husband at marches attended by thousands.

 

Venezuela country profile (BBC)

Anti-government protesters in Venezuela have erected barricades in the capital, Caracas. They placed burning rubbish and furniture on main roads in an attempt to bar access to the city.

 

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles had earlier asked his supporters not to follow a call for a "national blockade" circulated on social media.

 

Nat'l hero led independence from Spain (AFP)

The blockades are the latest in a series of opposition protests in which 13 people have died. There have been reports of similar blockades in the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia.

Protesters also banged pots and pans in the early hours of the morning to show their opposition to the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

They say they will continue with their wave of protests, which started more than two weeks ago, until Mr. Maduro resigns. More than 130 people have been injured and an opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, has been arrested on charges of inciting violence. More

 

Anti-government protesters erect barricades in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas (AFP).

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Peruvian Buddhism, oldest in South America

Ashley Wells, Xochitl, Wisdom Quarterly; Annie Murphy, The World (PRI.org/BBC)

Peru is a land of ancient mysteries and Japanese Zen immigrants (apoturperu.org)

 

Buddhist meditation in Peru (pri.org)

A small group of people from the Japanese community recently gathered at the temple in Lima to chant and make offerings to their deceased relatives.

On the altar were plates of sandwiches and cakes, even a bag of Lay’s potato chips.
 
One of the unintended consequences of Peru’s booming economy is that life in the capital is becoming more stressful. Lima is covered in construction sites, competition for the best jobs, and housing is brutal, and traffic is horrendous. Still, people there are finding creative ways to relax in the midst of all that. Some of them are turning to Buddhist meditation.

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In 1903, Zen Buddhism arrived (SZ)

The oldest Buddhist temple in South America is just outside Lima, in a town called Cañete. It’s one large room with tile floors that feel cool under bare feet. The enormous altar is filled with incense, flowers, and small wooden statues that represent members of Japanese families that started migrating here in the early 1900s. Some families have also chosen to leave actual remains, in urns wrapped in knotted bundles of white cotton.

“Those urns contain remains of the first immigrants who came to Peru,” says Carmen Toledo, the temple caretaker, pointing to a few urns on the highest shelf.

She tells me that after Brazil, Peru has the second largest Japanese population outside of Japan. They hung onto a lot of traditions, Toledo says, building this temple and also incorporating Japanese food into Peruvian cuisine. More

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  There, all along the coast of Peru, all over the Isthmus and North America, in the... as to the splendour of the temples, palaces, and cities of Mexico and Peru,.... modern ruins, and the images of Buddha and of some deities [devas], not to mention our.... existence of the largest and most ancient forests growing on the buried cities.

Buddhism arrived very early

Ordinary alcohol works like gas (petrol)

Wisdom Quarterly; David Blume (alcoholcanbeagas.org)

Running cars on alcohol is better than hydrogen or non-solar electricity (ACBAG)

 

Anyone can become energy independent with alcohol fuel. Reverse global warming. Survive the end of Peak Oil. Alcohol fuel is "liquid sunshine" not controlled by trans-national corporations.
 
Anyone can produce alcohol for less than $1.00 (1 USD) a gallon using a variety of plants and waste products from algae to stale donuts. It is a much better and cleaner fuel than gasoline.

Motors were invented before gasoline (petrol) was, originally using alcohol. That is what car engines were invented to use. It can go into cars right now! No adjustments or modifications are needed. But Big Oil has scare tactics and powerful lobbyists.

Alcohol can also generate electricity. Alcohol burns so cleanly that, by law, gasoline must be added before using it in cars. It must be denatured so that people will not drink it. Brazil already uses it widely in as high as a 90% mixture. Ethanol would be added in the US, but the petrochemical industry worries about how that would affect its bottom line.

Alcohol fuel production is ecologically sustainable, revitalizes farms and communities, and creates huge new opportunities for small-scale businesses. Its byproducts are clean and valuable. Alcohol has a proud history and a vital future.  Learn more with the 5-minute video "Alcohol Fuel Overview," or view the Two-Minute Summary, and see the Alcohol Can Be a Gas! book and DVD.

Science DOESN'T want to take God away

Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly;  Marcelo Gleiser (13.7 Cosmos & Culture, NPR.org)

 
Can science inspire the same level of passion as religion?
I was once invited to give a live interview on a radio station in Brasília, the capital of Brazil.

The interview took place at rush hour in the city's very busy bus terminal, where poor workers come in from rural areas to perform all sorts of jobs in town, from cleaning the streets to working in factories and private homes.
 

The experience would mark me for the rest of my life and set a new professional goal that I had not anticipated early in my career: to bring science to the largest number of people possible.

• Buddhism and the God-idea

(Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images)

The interviewer asked me questions about the scientific take on the end of the world, inspired by a book I had just published called The Prophet and the Astronomer: Apocalyptic Science and the End of the World.

 

There are many ways in which science can address this question. We can see, from the devastating effects of Typhoon Haiyan, that the forces of nature are beyond our control, even if we pride ourselves on "taming" the world around us.

 

But the focus of my book was on cataclysmic celestial events and how they have inspired both religious narratives and scientific research, past and present. In particular, note the many instances that stars and fire and brimstone fall from the sky in the Bible, both in the Old (e.g., Book of Daniel, Sodom and Gomorrah) and the New Testament (e.g., Apocalypse of John), or how the Celts believed that the skies would fall on their heads to mark the end of a time cycle.

 

God's handiwork? The devastating effects of Typhoon Haiyan (fastcompany.com)

  

A priest of the new religion

Back to the interview, I mentioned how the collision with a six-mile-wide asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula of modern-day Mexico had [allegedly] triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

I made a point of explaining how that event changed the history of life on Earth, freeing the small mammals of the time from predator pressure and culminating with the evolution of humans. My point was that there is no need for divine intervention to explain these very essential episodes in our planetary and collective history.

 

It was then that the hand went up. A small man with torn clothes and grease stains on his face asked: "So the doctor wants to take even God away from us?"

 

I froze. The despair in that man's voice was apparent. He felt betrayed. His faith was the only thing he held on to, the only thing that gave him strength to come back to that bus station every day to work for a humiliatingly low minimum wage.

 

Jesus and Vishnu on a cloud ("Family Guy")

If I took God away and put in its place the rational argumentation of science, with its empirical validation, what would that even mean to this man? How would it help him go on with his life? How could science teach him to cope with life in a world without the magic of supernatural belief?

 

I realized then how far scientists are from the needs of most people; how far removed our discourse is from those who do not already seek science for answers, as surely most of you reading this essay already do. And I realized that, in order to reach a larger audience, to bring the wonders of science to a much larger slice of the population, we must... More

World Cup: Iceland, Ireland's 33rd county

Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Producer Clark Boyd (TheWorld.org)

Icelandic bhumi-devi and pop idol Bjork's call for Tibetan freedom at a Shanghai concert unnerves Chinese communist officials (Hannah Johnston/Getty Images/Epoch Times).

  

Kill 'em all in the name of my lord!

It’s nail-biting time for many soccer fans out there -- the World Cup playoffs. Over the next week, national teams will do crippling, brain-trauma inducing, war-like battle to try and snag one of the few remaining tickets to next year's World Cup in Brazil.
 

The smallest nation with a dog still in this fight is Iceland, who plays Croatia on Friday. Now, Iceland has a very small population, and thus a small pool of professional players to choose from. And yet, they have a chance, however slim, of making it to Brazil. That's more than IRELAND can boast.

 

Yay, we have Saint Patrick's blessing! We have Saint Patrick's blessing! (theworld.org)

  

Not my Iceland, Patty, no way! (DMSI)

The Irish national [soccer] team has already been eliminated, and most Irish fans are already looking well beyond Rio. But not Eoin Conlon.

 

Over a drink of yeast-contaminated carbs with a Brazilian co-worker in Dublin recently, Conlon started wondering out loud about throwing his support behind ICELAND.

 

“And we kind of laughed, saying: ‘Well, that’s as close as Ireland's going to get to Brazil. It's only a letter difference. A “c” for an “r.” We might as well be brothers,’” says Conlon. Conlon and his friend work for a digital agency, so they did what comes naturally. They built a website in support of Iceland's soccer team.

 

Then, they started a Twitter feed urging Irish soccer fans to back Iceland. The campaign is called County Iceland. Ireland already has 32 counties. So, Conlon says, why not make Iceland the 33rd?

 

“There are only about 320,000 people in Iceland. So if they were a county in Ireland -- I'm calling them the 33rd county -- it would [be] only the fifth-largest county in Ireland. It's incredible the success they've had. And I hope it continues,” he says.

 

Conlon says the website is just a bit of fun. All a visitor has to do is click a "support" button. LISTEN