Showing posts with label hungry ghosts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hungry ghosts. Show all posts

Friday, 11 July 2014

Obon means ghosts and remembering the dead

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Japanese-city.com; NHBT

I went into the sanctuary and could feel the ancestors around me (rpv-team/flickr).

What is Obon?
Animist, Buddhist, Pagan, and Catholic Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles may have the Day of the Dead (just after all ironic, nominal Christians celebrate Halloween).

But Japanese Buddhist and Shinto practitioners have much the same thing in this month's Obon Festival, which is being celebrated concurrently with the unrelated Lotus Festival and commencement of the annual Rains Retreat just a few miles apart.

Obon is an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's ancestors. It is believed that each year during Obon, the ancestors' spirits return to this world in order to visit their relatives.
 
Traditionally, lanterns are hung in front of houses to guide the ancestors' spirits, Obon dances (bon odori) are performed, graves are visited, and food offerings are made at house altars and temples. 
 
At the end of Obon, floating lanterns are put into rivers, lakes and seas in order to guide the spirits back into their world. The customs followed vary strongly from region to region.

Obon is observed from the 13th to the 15th day of the 7th month of the year, which is July according to the solar calendar. However, since the 7th month of the year roughly coincides with August rather than July according to the formerly used lunar calendar, Obon is still observed in mid August in many regions of Japan, while it is observed in mid July in other regions. 
 
The Obon week in mid August is one of Japan's three major holiday seasons, accompanied by intensive domestic and international travel activities and increased accommodation rates. In recent years, travel activity in mid August.
  • Event Location: Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple
  • 815 First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
  • Obon Festival + Bon Odori Schedule: http://bit.ly/bLkTf
Japanese Obon Festival and Bon Odori Schedule
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    Monday, 27 January 2014

    Everyone loves a good ghost story

    Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Roger Clarke (Telegraph.co.uk)
    I don't see anything because I'm not looking to the left. OH NO! Shapeshifter!
    Ghosts/phantoms permeate European culture through and through (telegraph.co.uk)
     
    "Hungry ghosts" (pretas) depicted in Asia
    It’s the time of year [the dead of winter] -- a little before that other time of year -- when many people’s minds turn to spooks and ghost stories. Once, the parish bells rang out on Hallowe’en to scare away such prowling phantoms and demons speeding forth from what M.R. James, the Victorian ghost-story writer, would call “sequestered places.”

    But now, a commercialized Hallowe’en presents itself, imported from the United States, which in turn took its antecedents from an Irish Catholic celebration of seasonal misrule.
     
    Ghosts are real. Just ask Dr. Gabor Mate.
    Up to the 19th century, it was often said in rural England that none but a “Popish priest” could lay -- or exorcise -- a ghost, and much of traditional English belief in ghosts comes from the unquiet spirit of hidden Catholic traditions. 
     
    In earlier centuries, for example, to say you believed in ghosts was to identify yourself as a Catholic, or at the very least a religious dissident, since early Methodists believed in the same thing also.
     
    The infamous Cock Lane ghost that so convulsed London in 1762 was very much gingered up by a parish priest with Methodist inclinations; all of society, including Horace Walpole (who wrote the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto), flocked to a house in Smithfields to hear the ghost that scratched out pronouncements on the living and dead. 
     
    Ghosts can cook (M.A. Winkowski)
    The founder of the Methodist faith, John Wesley, came from a haunted family. The account of the Epworth Poltergeist in 1716 is one of the classic ghost stories in the canon, and it took place in the Lincolnshire rectory while 14-year-old Wesley was away from home. In letters to John’s brother Sam, his mother detailed how the arrival of two new servants at Martinmas (the feast of St. Martin on Nov. 11) was the beginning of... a whole panoply of terrifying sounds, groans and crashes that not even a sceptical father could explain. John Wesley’s father, a bad-tempered man who was constantly at war with his own parishioners, finally decided that these sounds came from Old Nick himself. More

    Real "ghosts" (shadows, poltergeists)
     (COMMENTARY)
    Seance faked hand image (Museum archive 1920)
    Ghosts (Sanskrit pretas, Pali petas) are real, though mostly harmless. They are unfortunate "spirits" (with subtle physical forms and often the power to appear in various shapes and guises). All of them lived before -- like all beings everywhere, just revolving and revolving in endless cycles of samsara.
     
    It is rebirth that can be brought to an end and, with it, all suffering (dukkha, disappointment) once and for all. But people are not interested in that. We're interested in trying to get ahead on this plane of existence. Just below us are the animals suffering terribly. No one cares. The ghosts have it even worse, though not nearly as bad as the ogres (yakkhas), cruel titans (asuras, "demons") and hellions (narakas).

    Shapeshifting "Old Hag" ghosts
    Just the other night I was accosted by "ghosts" due to the "Old Hag Syndrome." The female ghosts (not old, not hags) held my hands down against my will while I was conscious, upset, awake, and struggling. Because there was sleep paralysis, people will say d'uh it was "sleep" and therefore a dream. While dreamlike, it is not semiconscious, closed eye sleep. We can trigger paralysis through deep relaxation without actually being in a sleep state. The struggle to come out of paralysis lasted for what felt like ten minutes.

    (paranormal.about)
    Of course, it couldn't have helped that Mesmerist/hypnotist Rick Collingwood (mindmotivations.com) was on Coast to Coast talking about Hypnosis and Evil Spirits. He was not a believer until he hypnotically exorcised a "speed spirit" (a possession resulting from the use of speed such as meth or cocaine), which so weakens a person as to make him/her susceptible to entities seeking to attach or to behave parasitically as energy vampires).
     
    The fireplace will keep them away
    As usual, these usually-unseen beings seemed more mischievous than malevolent. But they are very happy to scare a person, as if to feed on the distress. If there are shining beings on the Abhasvara Plane who feed on joy, why not miserable eaters who zap energy away? So I cultivate compassion and annoyance rather than fear or actual malice ready to banish them with positive and protective energy.
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    Thursday, 16 January 2014

    Fukushima exploded; State says never mind


    "Radiation Raining Death" in the US (Hagmann & Hagmann Report)
     
    California's last big disaster
    Dr. Len Horowitz and Jim Lee discuss the public relations side of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear meltdown in long form radio interview (or see longer video). Judging by the plume at the time of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown disaster, there was an nuclear explosion. What are the implications of the massive contamination of Japan with radioactive caesium? What about ten years of Fukushima radiation crossing the Pacific Ocean? What are the 10 Most Radioactive Places on Earth? The best way to find out about nuclear reactor leaks around the world is by live radiation monitoring.

    Fukushima update: January 2014
    Nuclear energy experts Scott Portzline, Arnie Gundersen, and Kevin Kamps (C2C, 1-6-14)
    Hiroshima and Nagasaki are Japanese cities. US war crimes extended to dropping nuclear bombs over noncombatant civilian populations for the first time in history (kootation.com).
      
    Three experts discussed the status of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, the cover-ups of scientific data, and general issues about nuclear waste and power. 
     
    How much fallout is too much? (CR)
    Last week there was a spate of reports about Fukushima's Unit 3 having new radiation plumes. The reports of steam emissions and people living on the West Coast of the US needing prepare for evacuation were false, according to Scott Portzline. It was a hoax, but the climate of uncertainty is very real. It has been created by the lack of truth from TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), the US government, and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), he explained. "In my opinion, Fukushima is a Level 8 on the international nuclear event scale; the levels normally only go up to 7," Portzline emphasized. He continued: There are multiple sources of radiation, and the situation requires international assistance and monitoring.
    "Yes we scan!" Obama to help NSA (dw.de)
    Arnie Gundersen concurs. Fukushima is a dire situation -- in contrast to Chernobyl (USSR) and Three Mile Island (USA). The "spigot" isn't turned off yet, and radiation continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean. Fish are picking up extraordinarily high levels of radioactive materials. Gundersen claims he will not eat any fish that comes from the West Coast. In Japan, "the epidemiological data that will develop over the next 30 years [will show that] somewhere between 100,000 and 1 million new cancers will develop as a result of this." But the nuclear industry can hide behind the fact that a high percentage of people get cancer anyway, he points out. Stressing the importance of stopping the groundwater contamination with radioactive waste, Gunderson suggests building a trench of zeolite to absorb the radiation surrounding the plant.

    Kami in Shinto (mondojapan.net)
    Kevin Kamps points out that 72,000 gallons of contaminated water a day is flowing into the ocean. That radioactivity adds up over nearly three years since the accident. Making matters worse, Kamps explains, Unit 4 may be on the brink of collapse. Some countries, such as Germany, are wisely phasing out dangerous  and expensive nuclear power entirely after the lessons of Fukushima and Chernobyl, Kamps explains. As an alternative, wind power is being tapped as having a great deal potential. And the first offshore floating wind turbines were just installed in the Gulf of Maine, which could provide as much electricity as five atomic reactors, Kamps asserts.

    Zen Buddhism will live on. But this may be the end of Japan as a country. Inhabitants will die off or emigrate off the island nation and leave it to the kami (the pre-Buddhist shapeshifting mountain monsters of Shinto Japanese lore).
     
     
    Living in a Police State
    Part 4: Chase Madar (pasadenaweekly.com), edited Wisdom Quarterly
    David Brooks smoked illegal cannabis (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

    Snowden: fake controlled-disclosure for NSA?
    There is digital over-policing. For a time the Internet was new territory, free of overly aggressive law enforcement. Not anymore. The late Aaron Swartz, a young Internet genius and activist affiliated with Harvard University, was caught downloading publicly subsidized scholarly articles from an open network on the nearby campus of MIT. Swartz was federally prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for violating a “terms and services agreement.” It was a transgression that anyone who has ever disabled a cookie on a laptop has also committed, technically. Swartz committed suicide earlier in 2013 while facing a possible 50-year sentence and up to $1 million in fines.
     
    The NSA has a message for the world.
    (Why? That is how the corporations wanted it; it sends a message). Recently, thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, we have learned a great deal about the way our country's NSA “stops and frisks” us. It apparently does the same to other citizens -- stealing copies of all digital communications (encrypted or not), 200 million texts a day, emails, telephone calls, meta-data, every and anything electronic in nature. The security benefits of such indiscriminate policing are zero, despite the government’s pretense that that is why our spies are allowed to violate laws and international agreements. What comes into sharper focus with every volley of new revelations is the emerging digital infrastructure of what can only be called a police state.  More
    CODE PINK FOR PEACE
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    Tuesday, 10 December 2013

    Supernatural Iceland (video)

    Viking Up Helly Aa (Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images/theatlantic.com)
    "Elves, Ghosts, Sea Monsters, and ETs in Iceland -- Investigation into the Invisible World"

    Nagas, devas, dragons, and fairies (M9)
    "Enquête Sur le Monde Invisible" is a documentary by French director Jean-Michel Roux. In Icelandic towns like Hafnarfjörður and Reykjavik, a large percentage of the population believe in devas (subtle unseen beings), elves, ghosts of the dearly departed, and other paranormal entities. In fact, many claim to have seen and interacted with them. And some even claim to engage in frequent contact with them. This rare documentary is the first outside look at the strange but seemingly common events that take place on this small and remote island country. Note the similarity with mysterious island nation Ireland and its wee people and extraterrestrials. Irish slaves, in fact, were brought to Iceland.
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    Friday, 29 November 2013

    Lust, desire, and craving (video)

    Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Wikipedia edit raga
    "Greed" lust as lobha in "Mondo Amore" (Williams/laluzdejesus.com)
      
    Craving?
    Young Buddhist Lisa Simpson fails to comprehend wanting stuff. While craving (tanha) is a source of disappointment (dukkha), it is typical of living beings, particularly beings like us living in a Sense Sphere (kama loka) world. Not ALL wanting is unskillful. The wish or desire, for example, for enlightenment (bodhi), complete-liberation (nirvana), wisdom (paññā), or compassion (karuna) is wholesome. Such a wish leads one to strive and eventually find them, even if one must let go even of that beneficial-wish rather than grasping at it to actually attain it. Letting go too soon is a big mistake. In the Parable of the Raft, one fashions a floating device for "crossing over" from enslavement to freedom. The time to let go is once meditation is something one looks forward to and the goal is at hand. Until then, keep doing it until you want to.
     
    GREED (Pali lobha or raga, Tibetan 'dod chags) is usually translated as "attachment," "passion," "lust," or "desire." But this is far too kind. It actually refers to craving, clinging, grasping, or hankering.

    It is craving things within the three spheres of existence, which produces immediate frustration and eventual disappointment.
     
    We crave for what is lasting, pleasurable, and personal in worlds that are radically impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal

    Indian words have a broad range of meaning, and this is true of lobha, which runs the gamut from bias or preference to agonizing lust and hoarding behavior. It is easy to see how hoarding and being unable to let go is harmful, but it is almost impossible for an ordinary person to perceive how the very arising of a preference sets one up for disappointment and dissatisfaction.*
     
    Greed is identified as a factor in the following contexts:
    I lust you. - I love you.
    The Theravada commentarial text the Path of Purification (XIV, 162), which is analogous to the Path of Freedom preserved by Mahayana sources (although likely simply an early draft by the very same author), gives the following definition of "greed" (lobha):
     
    ...[G]reed has the characteristic of grasping an object like a monkey trap [a device where a monkey sticks its hand in a hole to get salt but can't get it out because of its grasped fist, which it never thinks to let go of even as it is captured by approaching hunters]. Its function is sticking, like flesh put on a hot grill. It is manifested as not letting go, like the dye of lamp-soot. Its proximate cause is seeing enjoyment [but not danger] in things that lead to bondage. Swelling with the current of craving, it should be regarded as sweeping (beings) with it to states of loss, just as a swift-flowing river sweeps to the great ocean.

    Lust, lust, lust
    I'm just saying, Tone it down. I was once young, too. - Mom, shaddup. You don't even know!!!
      
    "Why is lust talked about so much in religion? We have to have desire to survive." It is not that lust is the only problem we face on the road to freedom and happiness. Most of us think lust is happiness, or a desperate emptiness that gives us something to fill, which feels good doing.

    The Buddha talked a great deal about sensuality, and sex is promoted to the rank of poster child for the class of sense pleasures. But "greed" includes them all. What is usually translated as sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara) actually, more broadly, refers to kāma or sensual misconduct.
     
    Go on, take it; it makes me feel like a man. - OMG, my mom warned me about this!!!
     
    What is sensual in this sense? Everything related to the five senses is sensual as is abuse of the sixth sense thinking about again and again enjoying the other five: (1) sights, (2) sounds, (3) tactile sensations [sex would be mostly here but can, of course, encompass all of the senses], (4) tastes, (5) fragrances, and (6) thoughts (or mind/heart as a sense that perceives or stands in for the other senses or takes in its own unique objects not accessible to the other five).
    • Most people think we only have five senses, but we have far more than that. The Buddha talked about six, but that is not a limit, just a handy convention. This is true of other numbers in Buddhism: If one looks carefully, the Five Aggregates of Clinging are not limited to five; those five groupings are pedagogical and can be extended to as many groupings or heaps as one wishes to define. More heaps will not change the fact that there is no being behind them experiencing the process; there is only the process. What are our other senses? According to Vsauce they include, proprioception or kinesthesia, balance, acceleration, temperature, pain reception, time lapse, pulmonary stretch, peripheral chemo reception, distension, esophageal reception, pharynx mucosal reception... If we were, or become, sea mammals we'll gain echolocation (which some humans already enjoy), thermal reception and/or broadened light reception to see in the dark, and so on, and if and when we become devas we will gain refined senses and psychic faculties, and so on, which some people and hybrids (like some Chinese children) already possess. What do chimeras possess?
    What is "sexual misconduct" anyway?
    As ordinary living beings, even as good Buddhists, we will enjoy and delight in the world (whether it be this one or the many superior worlds above it). In moderation and harming no one, this is fine. Lisa, it's okay! In the Sigalovada Sutra ("Advice to Householders," DN 31) the Buddha advises young Sigala the householder to make use of money earned by partitioning it into four parts: one to enjoy, one to pay expenses, one to restock shelves/promote one's livelihood, and one to save for times of need. This is enlightened self-interest: Enjoy now, and make sure there is something to enjoy in the future.

    But in ultimate terms, this will never do. When one wishes to transcend the world (cyclical wandering through birth, death, rebirth, redeath, misery unutterable, and the uncountable lives already lived in worlds of staggering diversity, one must overcome bondage. One must break free of ALL "suffering" (disappointment, dissatisfaction, woe, ill, misery, tragedy, lack of fulfillment, loss, crying, pain, unhappiness...). That means putting away the toys for a minute, so to speak. One cannot attain enlightenment in the thick of one's mental defilements, defilements of the heart (broadly speaking, one's greed, hate/fear, delusion in their various manifestations).
     
    The Buddha taught us to see what he saw.
    One can, however, enjoy sensual pleasures after stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment. Having uprooted the main bonds and weakened others ensures that one will reach full enlightenment and final nirvana within seven lives. Even a once-returner can enjoy all these things and do so without grossly harming others. A non-returner can look forward to rebirth in the Pure Abodes, exclusive enlightened worlds where life is long and things are good yet the beings strive for final knowledge and liberation from rebirth. The Buddha spoke of these rarefied worlds, which should never be confounded with ordinary conceptions of heaven (sagga). They likely led to the devotional extremes of Pure Land Buddhism, a prominent bhakti tradition in Mahayana Buddhism which is an awful lot like the Brahminical conception of the World of Brahma in Hinduism.
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