VAS: Buddhist "Rains Retreat" period begins

Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Abbot Dhammarama, Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara LENT/VAS 2014

How shall I spend the rainy season, hopping around or meditating? (onebigphoto.com)

On Sunday, July 13, 2014 from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara (LABV) temple will celebrate the commencement of the Rains Retreat period, often called "Buddhist Lent."

It is a period of intensive practice for monastics and a time when lay practitioners visit temples, monasteries, and pagodas to hear the Dharma (Teachings), engage in devotional activities, meditate, and establish their ties with monastics.

LABV will have weekly Dharma talks open to all on Sundays followed by Sri Lankan island cuisine. Many visiting monastics will deliver sermons, hold question and answer sessions, and be available to clarify points of controversy and uncertainty regarding the Buddha's teachings.
 

Sunday is the Super Moon of the ancient month of Asala. The lunar observance for those dressed in white includes an all-day virtue (sila) program where visitors are invited to observe the Eight Precepts for the day according to ancient Indian tradition from at least the time of the Buddha.

Rains Retreat

According to the ancient Theravada Buddhist tradition, the Asalha Full Moon Day marks the beginning of the Vas (Vassana) Season. Supporters of the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara will formally invite the resident monastics to observe Rains Retreat at 5:00 pm. Those observing the Eight Precepts earlier in the day are also invited to attend this auspicious and meritorious event.

There will be an opportunity to listen to the Dharma and practice meditation to enhance every practitioner's direct knowledge of the  Dharma and develop inner peace during the three months of this season. Weekly programs during this period will be:

• Dharma sermons,
• Sutra discussions,
• Meditation practice,
• Bodhi devotional ceremonies,
• Atavisi Buddha puja and more

Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara

920 N. Summit Ave., Pasadena. CA 91103

(626) 797-6144

But why?
Wisdom Quarterly wiki edit

Buddhist monks traversing Pongua Waterfalls in Vietnam (sun-surfer.com)

 
The three-lunar-month annual retreat observed by Theravada practitioners during the Indian rainy season is called Vassa between July and October. In English, it is often glossed as Rains Retreat or Buddhist Lent, the latter by analogy to the Catholic/Christian Lent (which Buddhism predates by at least five centuries). For the duration of monastics reside at one monastery rather than traveling around. In some monasteries, they dedicate this time to teaching the Dharma or to intensive meditation. Some lay Buddhists choose to observe the period by adopting more ascetic practices, such as giving up alcohol, meat, and smoking if they are already engaged in these harmful activities. It may casually be called "Buddhist Lent," others object to this terminology. It is, after all, more of an obligation for monastics than lay Buddhists. How long someone has been a monk or nun is actually calculated not by calendar years but by how many Rains Retreats one has successfully observed. Most Mahayana Buddhists do not observe it, though many Seon/Thien monastics in Korea and Vietnam observe an equivalent retreat of three months of intensive practice in one location, and in Tibetan Buddhism this period of intensive retreat is called Yarne.

Free your mind, the rest will follow

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; David G Allen, Wise Up (BBC.com, 6-2-14)

“You can’t shut it up by trying to shut it off.” [Observe it without judgment.] (Thinkstock)

 

Is it Zen, or just the art of getting things done?

The new hot trend in Silicon Valley office culture is a Buddh-ish encouragement of workplace mindfulness. Guided meditation is the new free cafeteria meals.

 

But David G Allen, author of the international bestselling productivity bible, Getting Things Done, has been teaching people how to reach higher levels of cognitive thinking for almost two decades. Like Eastern [Buddhist] mindfulness, his solution is simple but challenging to fully implement.

If that doesn’t raise any follow-up questions you can stop reading and get to it. But the truth is most people don’t know how to clear their mind.

 

Combat expat homesickness

Buddhism encourages you to focus on the breath or a single thought to calm the mad monkey screeching in your skull. Such practice has been empirically shown to strengthen emotional resilience and increase happiness.

 

But then the nagging thoughts start to creep in. You know the ones. Not big thoughts, but the mundane, seemingly benign nagging mental memos: “Did I send that email?” “I need to tell my boss something before the meeting.” “What was that idea I had this morning in the shower?” “I know I’m forgetting something.”

 

“We have to shut the mundane up,” Allen said to me in a phone interview a few months after we met on a stage in Austin, Texas, in the US at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival to discuss his well-known productivity method. Allen’s route to freeing the mind of its detritus is a more practical one than prescribed by most religions.

 

Would you work here?

“The strange paradox is you actually have to use your mind to shut your mind up,” he said. But not by meditation or mantras. “You can’t shut it up by trying to shut it off. What you have to do is [ask yourself,] ‘Why is this on my mind?’” More

Taming the Mind and Heart (Part 2)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Buddhist Publication Society

Meditation (#LightBoxFF/Tierney Gearon's Instagram Family Album/time.com)

  

The Gradual Training

SEE PART 1

..."It is possible, Brahmin, to lay down a gradual training, a gradual doing, a gradual practice with respect to this Dharma and discipline.

 

"Brahmin, even a skilled trainer of horses, having taken on a beautiful thoroughbred, first of all gets it used to the training with respect to wearing the bit. Then one gets it used to a further training -- even so, Brahmin, the Tathagata [the Buddha referring to himself], having taken on a person to be tamed, first of all offers the discipline thus:

 

Virtue

The Buddha as a mountain in China: Leshan, Sichuan Province (Qasimism/flickr)

 
"'Come, meditator [monastic or intensive lay meditator], be virtuous in habit, live controlled by the control of the Obligations [training rules, Code of Discipline, Patimokkha], endowed with [proper] behavior and method, seeing peril in even the slightest fault and, undertaking them, train yourself in the rules of training.'

"As soon, Brahmin, as the meditator is of virtuous habit, controlled by the control of the Obligations, endowed with [right] behavior and method, and seeing peril in the slightest fault and, undertaking them, trains oneself in the rules of training, the Tathagata offers further discipline saying:

Sense-control

"Bhikkave, this is the path of practice."

"'Come, meditator, be guarded at the doors of the sense-organs: Having seen a material shape with the eye, do not be entranced with the general appearance, do not be entranced with the detail.

"'For if one dwells with the organ of sight uncontrolled, covetousness and dejection, unwholesome, unskillful states of mind [heart], may flow in.

"'So fare along controlling it, guard the organ of sight, achieve control over the organ of sight. Having heard a sound with the ear... Having smelled a fragrance with the nose... Having savored a taste with the tongue... Having felt a touch with the body... Having cognized a mental [heart] state with the mind [heart], do not be entranced with the detail.

"'For if one dwells with the organ of mind uncontrolled, covetousness and dejection, unwholesome, unskillful states of mind, may flow in. So fare along controlling it; guard the organ of mind [the mind-door, the heart, the seat of consciousness, of knowing], achieve control over the organ of mind.'
 
Moderation in eating

Strawberry-flavored processed cereal or strawberries? Tough choice (portalsmag.com)

  

Learning to avoid extremes

"As soon, Brahmin, as a meditator is guarded at the doors of the sense-organs, the Tathagata offers further discipline, saying: 'Come, meditator, be moderate in eating.

"'Take food while reflecting carefully, not for fun or indulgence or personal charm or beautification, but taking just enough for maintaining this body and keeping it going, for keeping it unharmed, for furthering the supreme-life [the "Brahma-faring," the purified and undistracted spiritual lifestyle of a celibate recluse], with the thought: Thus will I crush out an old [painful] feeling, and I will not allow a new [painful, or attachment-inducing, or sleep-producing] feeling to arise, and then there will be for me subsistence and blamelessness and abiding in comfort.'

Vigilance

The Buddha reclining in the "lion's posture," as he did during his final nirvana, seen here in golden robes in Theravada Burma's Chauk Htat Gyi shrine (myanmartours.us).

 

"As soon, Brahmin, as a meditator is moderate in eating, the Tathagata offers further discipline, saying: 'Come, meditator, dwell intent on vigilance: During the day while pacing up and down, while sitting down, cleanse the mind [heart] of obstructive mental states.

 

Lion Posture, resting sleep-free (elwetritsche)

"During the middle watch of the night, lie down on the right side in the lion posture, foot resting on foot, mindful, clearly conscious [clearly comprehending], reflecting on the thought of getting up again'. During the last watch of the night, when you have arisen, while pacing up and down, while sitting down, cleanse the mind of obstructive mental states.'

Mindfulness and clear consciousness

Having tamed the mind, the Buddha reflects ("Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds," REM Pub. Ltd.)

  .

I'm going to do it at work (AA)

"As soon, Brahmin, as a meditator is intent on vigilance, the Tathagata offers further discipline, saying:
 
'Come, meditator, be possessed of mindfulness [bare awareness] and clear consciousness, acting with clear consciousness whether you are approaching or departing, acting with clear consciousness whether you are looking ahead or looking around, acting with clear consciousness whether you are bending in or stretching out [the arms], acting with clear consciousness whether you are carrying the outer robe, the bowl or robe, acting with clear consciousness whether you are eating, drinking, munching, savoring, acting with clear consciousness whether you are responding to the calls of nature, acting with clear consciousness whether you are walking, standing, sitting, asleep, awake, talking, or remaining silent.'

Overcoming of the Five Hindrances

There are many techniques: pick one; do it.

"As soon, Brahmin, as one is possessed of mindfulness and clear consciousness [comprehension], the Tathagata offers further discipline, saying: 'Come, meditator, choose a remote dwelling in a forest, at the foot of a tree, on a mountain slope, in a glen, a hill cave, a cemetery [charnel ground], a woodland grove, in the open, or on a heap of straw.'

"On returning from alms-gathering after the meal, the meditator sits down crosslegged, holding the back erect, having made mindfulness rise up in front. And getting rid of covetousness for the world, one dwells with a mind [a heart] devoid of covetousness, as one cleanses the mind of covetousness.
 
"Getting rid of the taint of ill-will, one dwells benevolent in mind. Compassionate and merciful towards all creatures and beings, one cleanses the mind of ill-will.

"Getting rid of sloth and torpor, one dwells [energetically and vigilantly]. Perceiving the light [an apparent reference to a nimitta, the meditator's "counterpart sign," an inner light that arises in the mind's eye], mindful and clearly conscious one cleanses the mind of sloth and torpor.

"Getting rid of restlessness and worry [stress and remorse, hyperactivity and misgivings], one dwells calmly. The mind inwardly tranquil, one cleanses the mind of restlessness and worry.

"Getting rid of doubt, one dwells having crossed over doubts. Unperplexed as to which states are skillful [kusala, also translated as beneficial, salutary, profitable, or karmically-wholesome], one cleanses the mind of doubt.

Meditative Absorptions (jhanas)

The walls of a Buddhist temple at Borobudur, Java, Indonesia (TrevThompson/flickr)

 

This is the way to wisdom (A)

"By ridding the mind [heart] of these Five Hindrances [see The Five Hindrances and Their Conquest, Wheel No. 26], which are defilements of the mind and deleterious to intuitive wisdom, aloof from coarse pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskillful states of mind, one enters and abides in the first meditation [the first "absorption," the first jhana], which is accompanied by initial and sustained attention, is born of aloofness [mental and physical withdrawal] and is rapturous and joyful.

"Overcoming initial and sustained attention, one's mind subjectively tranquilized and fixed on a single point [usually the subtle breath at the nostril which has, by concentration on it, transformed and become the nimitta], one enters and abides in the second meditation, which is free of [the effort of] initial and sustained attention, is born of concentration [collectedness] and is rapturous and joyful.
 

It can be done, I can do it! (Han La Suave)

"By the fading out of rapture [to something more subtle and blissful], one dwells with equanimity, attentive and clearly conscious, and experiences in one's person that joy of which the noble ones [ariyans, according to the Path of Purification, those who have reached the noble attainments, the stages of enlightenment] say: 'Joyful lives one who has equanimity and is mindful.' And one enters and abides in the third meditation.

"By getting rid of anguish, by the going down of one's former pleasures and sorrows [by overcoming the bliss of the preceding absorptions, a supersensual pleasure that now feels coarse by comparison, and one moves to something subtler], one enters and abides in the fourth meditation, which has neither anguish nor joy, and which is entirely purified by equanimity and mindfulness [and singlepointedness of mind].
 
"Brahmin, such is my instruction for those meditators [female and male lay practitioners, nuns, or monks] who are learners [those in training] who, perfection being not yet attained, dwell longing for the incomparable security from all bonds [liberation, emancipation, freedom, nirvana].

"But as for those meditators who are perfected ones [arhats], the cankers destroyed, who have lived the [Brahma-faring] life, done what was to be done, shed the burden, attained to the goal themselves, the fetters of becoming utterly destroyed, and who are freed by perfect profound knowledge [wisdom] -- these things conduce both to their abiding in ease here and now as well as to their mindfulness and clear consciousness."
 
Does everyone make it?

Doing it in Sweden (yogameditation.com)

When this had been said, the Brahmin Ganaka-Moggallana said to the [Buddha]:
 
"Now, on being exhorted thus and instructed thus by the good Gotama, do all of the good Gotama's disciples attain the unchanging goal [accanta-nittha, accanta can also mean "utmost, culminating, supreme"] -- nirvana, or do some not attain it?"
 
"Brahmin, some of my disciples, on being exhorted and instructed in this way by me, attain the unchanging goal -- nirvana. Some do not attain it."
 

I have a childlike question. - Ask it, Brahmin.

"What is the cause, good Gotama, what is the reason that -- since nirvana does exist, since the way leading to nirvana exists, and since the good Gotama exists as adviser -- some of the good Gotama's disciples on being exhorted and instructed in this way by the good Gotama, attain the unchanging goal -- nirvana -- but some do not attain it?" More

"Effort" to practice Buddhism (sutra)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka Thera, Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (4th Edition edited by Ven. Nyanaponika, BPS.lk)

The Buddha in gold, brass, and stone, Thailand (MarmaladeToast flickr.com)

  

Under a sprawling pipal tree -- bodhi!

The Four Right Efforts (samma-padhāna), which together form the sixth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, are the effort: (1) to avoid, (2) to overcome, (3) to develop, and (4) to maintain. That is to say:

One endeavors, strives, makes an effort to avoid unwholesome states (generally, those states motivated by greed, hatred/fear, or delusion/wrong view) that are not yet present.

One endeavors to overcome unwholesome states that arise. 

One develops wholesome states (generally, those motivated by nongreed, nonhatred/nonfear, and nondelusion) -- such as the Seven Factors of Enlightenment.

 

One endeavors to maintain (and consummate, bring to culmination, fruition) wholesome states that have arisen. 

SUTRA 

"Numerical Discourses of the Buddha" (Anguttara Nikaya)

Intensive sitting meditation is one kind of striving (meditationguidance.com)

 
"The meditator rouses the will to avoid the arising of harmful, unwholesome things not yet arisen... to overcome them... to develop wholesome things not yet arisen... [and] to maintain them, without allowing them to disappear, to bring them to growth, to maturity, and to the full perfection of development. One makes (a balanced) effort, rouses energy, exerts mind/heart, and strives" (AN IV, 13).  
 
NOTE: It is critical to bear in mind that overexertion is not right effort. The Buddha did not succeed under the Bodhi tree by overexerting as so many assume by not reading carefully. It is exactly because of struggling and overexertion that he could not succeed. Only when Siddhartha relaxed and began making a balanced-effort, which included the purifying meditative-absorptions (jhanas) he had fearfully been avoiding for years, did he finally reach the path to insight and enlightenment. He let go, allowed bliss of absorption and, remaining attentive, emerged to practice Dependent Origination -- the systematic pursuit of the 12 causal links that make up suffering. Siddhartha had set originally off to find the solution to the problem of suffering, so he asked: "Why is there suffering?" The practice of Dependent Origination answers this question through mindful application, insight-practice (vipassana), which begins as the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (on body, feelings, mind, and mind states). In this connection, the Buddha once taught a famous lute player to neither over-tighten nor under-tighten the strings of the instrument. Balance is the way to get the right sound -- balance between overexerting and underexerting.

Hi, I'm meditating (Kirsten Johnson)

(1) "What now, O meditators, is the effort to avoid? Perceiving a form, or a sound, or an odor, or a taste, or a bodily or mental impression, the medtitator neither adheres to (clings to, is entranced by) the whole nor to its parts. And one strives to ward off that through which harmful and unwholesome things might arise, such as greed and sorrow, if one remained with unguarded senses. And one watches over the (six) senses, restrains the senses. This is called the effort to avoid.

 

(2) "What now is the effort to overcome? The meditator does not retain any thought of sensual lust, or any other harmful, unwholesome states that may have arisen. One abandons them, dispels them, destroys them, causes them to disappear. This is called the effort to overcome.

 

(3) "What now is the effort to develop? The meditator develops the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, bent on solitude, on detachment, on extinction, and ending in liberation (deliverance, emancipation, nirvana), namely: mindfulness, keen investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration (collectedness of mind), and equanimity. This is called the effort to develop.

 

OK, breaktime! (Vincenzo Rossi/flickr)

(4) "What now is the effort to maintain? The meditator keeps firmly in mind (attention) a favorable object of concentration, such as the mental image (nimitta) of [light, or the cemetery meditations of] a skeleton, a (very repulsive) corpse infested with worms, a corpse blue-black in color, a festering corpse, a corpse riddled with holes, a corpse swollen up. [In this way, one frequently given to lust is temporarily freed of lust so insight may dawn and permanently free one of hindrances, fetters, and defilements.] This is called the effort to maintain" (AN IV, 14).

"How to Clear Your Mind" (Allure Magazine)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Andy Puddicombe (GetSomeHeadspace.com), Brooke Le Poer Trench (Allure.com, Oct. 2013 issue); ilanadonna (video)

Mind racing? Focus on something concrete -- like the sensation of touching something.
 

"Insider's Guide," p. 142 (Oct. 2013 issue)

The former Buddhist monk Puddicombe cofounded Get Some Headspace and is the author of Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day.

Everyone feels overwhelmed at some point... But what is the most profitable way to respond? We can react -- follow patterns dictated by habit, neurosis, or social conditioning. We can also respond purposefully, try a new way of coping, enter upon a mindful solution.

The thing is, we would first have to be aware. And the habit of bare awareness with clear comprehension (sati-sampajañña) is not the habit most of us have been developing. But it is the  good habit the Buddha recommended on the path to enlightenment.

Even on the path to mundane success, mindfulness is useful. There is no such thing as too much mindfulness. In the development of five crucial factors for success in meditation, there can be too much confidence (faith), there can be too much wisdom. One should temper the other. There can be too much energy, there can be too much concentration. These, too, should be balanced, one by the other. 

Definition
But the fifth, this sati, which we translate as "mindfulness" (bare awareness, thoughtless awareness, nonjudgmental awareness, vigilance, diligence, wakefulness, nondistractedness, effortless mono-tasking, nonforgetfulness, remembering to remember, childlike presence of mind or beginner's mind, etc.), cannot be overdone.

• Mindfulness has a separate meaning with which it should not be confused. "Recollection" or active-contemplation is the "memory" or remembering/bringing to mind side of "mindfulness." It is the turning, thinking over, pensively considering or "rotating" a theme in mind. This rotation (ratiocination, cogitation) is the actual meaning of the English word "meditation." The Buddhist word we commonly translate as "meditation" is bhavana, which has the much broader meaning of cultivation, development, or literally "bringing into being." There are three other words that might better be translated as "meditation" in this older English language sense -- janeti (from jhana, getting to "absorption"), kammatthana (field to be cultivated or worked or acted upon, from kamma, karma, one's meditation subject or theme), and anussati (pondering, recollecting, contemplating, from anu = "scrutiny" + sati = "mindfulness," i.e., long consideration or "consideration all the way around"). More

One is aware-and-clear as one goes about one's day, as one sits on a meditation cushion, as one thumbs through Allure and gets to page 142. Mr. Andy Puddicombe explains the rest, showing how just 10 minutes of practice a day can change a life.

(US.Macmillan.com) A former Buddhist monk with over 10 years of teaching experience, Puddicombe has been acknowledged as the UK's foremost mindfulness meditation expert. Like so many of his students, he began his own meditation practice as an ordinary, "busy" person with everyday concerns. He has since designed a program that fits neatly into a jam-packed daily routine proving that just 10 minutes a day can make a world of difference.

Beautiful Mindfulness

Is Allure good reading? Not really.

Body News: Beautified Minds 

(Allure/Lois B. Morris) Does plastic surgery actually make people happier? Yes... Ugh, actually it's hard to tell because we now cannot wipe these stupid expressions off our Botoxy faces.

Mood News: Open Minded

Can something as simple as twisting on a faucet or spinning the wheel on an iPod have a psychological impact? Hmm, let me hold my chin and scratch my head while I think about that. 

Body News: Mind, Body, Colds

(Allure/Kristin Sainani) Meditation and exercise help prevent colds and flu, research suggests. 

Mood News: Night Lights 

Does exposure to brightness at night affect your mind? 

Body News: Hunger Games 

A woman's mind-set while eating may influence her metabolism, surprising research has shown.

Mood News: Romance Risk

When women have romantic relationships on their mind, they're more likely to consider unhealthy ways of enhancing their appearance.

Mood News: Seeing More Clearly 

It's possible to improve your eyesight by changing your mind rather than your prescription. 

Insiders' Guide: How to Get a Great Facial

A facial can make or break your skin. Keep a few rules in mind and your skin will glow.

Scents of Self

Everyone knows fragrances [stink of chemical odorants and flavorants and pungent volatile organic compounds that harm the brain with excitotoxic effects. But did they know that...]

The Beauty Queen (sutra)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly, based on Ven. Thanissaro translations, Sedaka Sutta "At Sedaka" (SN 47.20) and Ittha Sutta, "What is Welcome" (AN 5.43)

Beauty contest winner and sextortion victim Cassidy Wolf (Tim Harbaugh/AP)

All beauty pageants lead up to the ultimate competition for Miss World (Firdia Lisnawati/AP)

  

Thai beauty (A1eatoire/flickr.com)

Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One was residing among the Sumbhas, in the Sumbhan town of Sedaka. There the Blessed One addressed the monastics, "Meditators!"

"Yes, venerable sir," the monastics replied. Then the Blessed One said:

 

"Suppose a large crowd of people comes thronging together saying, 'The beauty queen! The beauty queen!' Suppose further that the beauty queen is highly accomplished, a singer and dancer, such that an even greater crowd comes thronging saying, 'The beauty queen is singing! The beauty queen is dancing!' 

Afghan beauty (Nat Geo)

"Now suppose someone comes along, desiring to live, shrinking from [even the thought of] death, craving pleasure, abhorring pain. The crowd says to that person:

"'Now look here, friend: Take this bowl filled to the brim with oil and carry it on your head between this great crowd and the beauty queen. Someone with a raised sword will follow right behind you, and wherever you spill even a drop of oil, right there will your head be cut off.' 

"What do you think, meditators? Will that person, not paying attention to the bowl of oil, likely give in to external distractions?"
 

The Buddha's mother, Maya Devi, dreaming of conception (DharmaDeshana)

   

The Philippines are full of beauty

"No, venerable sir!"

 

"I give you this parable to convey a meaning: The bowl filled to the brim with oil stands for mindfulness immersed in the body. Train yourselves: 'We will develop mindfulness immersed in the body. We will pursue it, hand it the reins, and take it as a basis, grounding it, steadying it, consolidating it, cultivating it well.' That is how you should train yourselves."

Miss World 2013 in Bali, Indonesia (AP/Firdia Lisnawati/thejakartapost.com)

 

Beauty is Welcome

"What is Welcome" (Ittha Sutra, AN 5.43)

Megan Young Miss Philippines is now Miss World

Anathapindika the [millionaire Buddhist] householder went to the Blessed One, bowed, and sat respectfully to one side. Seated there the Blessed One said to him: 

 

"These five things, householder, are welcome, agreeable, pleasant, and hard to obtain in the world:

1. Longevity is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, hard to obtain in the world
2. Beauty is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, hard to obtain in the world.
3. Happiness...
4. Status....
5. Rebirth in heaven(s)....

I Used to Care

"But I say these things are not to be obtained by prayer [petitioning] or wishing. If they were, who would not have them? 

"It is not fitting for a follower of noble ones [the enlightened, the exalted] who desires longevity to pray or to delight in praying for it. Instead, one should follow a path of practice leading to longevity human or divine. By doing so, one will attain longevity.

 

"It is not fitting for a follower of the noble ones who desires beauty to pray or delight in praying for it. Instead, one should follow a path of practice leading to beauty human or divine. By doing so, one will attain beauty. [The same is said for happiness, status, and superior rebirths.]

 

"Long life, loveliness, influence,

Honor, heaven, high birth --

For those who delight therein,

The wise praise heedfully making merit.
 
"The wise thereby,

Heedful, acquire right

A twofold security, here and beyond,

Breaking through, indeed one is wise.
  

Our Indian Miss America 2014

Miss America, Nina Davuluri, responds to racist remarks...Too "Asian" for TV?

  

Thinking: Thank you, Goddess Lakshmi?

We would have voted for Sacajawea, the beauty on the American dollar, but the gatekeepers went East Indian rather than Native American. So much for indigenous beauty at the national US pageant. 

Instead, a so-so Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss America 2014 in New York on September 15, 2013. She is the first female of Indian descent ever to take the tiara.

Native (faceofgold.com)

But racist America will not stand for diversity in beauty (using international standards) when all those beauties of Northern European descent are sitting at home getting chubby eating CheesyPoofs and watching cartoons (before purging). And we sure aren't going to stand for an indigenous American winner! We would sooner go around the world and honor anyone whose parents migrated here from far off land than recognize the amazing beauty already here before the arrival of the genocidal conquerors and colonial slave rulers.

Selling out to The Man to get ahead in America: the Julie Chen story on CIA-controlled CNN

 

(CNN) She's the second consecutive New York beauty queen to take the Miss America title, but she's the first Indian-American to wear the national crown -- tiara -- atop her perfectly coiffed head

 

"I was the first Indian Miss New York, and I'm so proud to be the first Indian Miss America," Nina Davuluri said after she won.  Davuluri's resume goes considerably deeper than her heritage, however.

 

Mindlessly racist tweets begin right away

The 24-year-old native of Fayetteville, New York was on the dean's list and earned the Michigan Merit Award and National Honor Society nods while studying at the University of Michigan, where she graduated with a degree in brain behavior and cognitive science.

Her father, who emigrated from India 30 years ago, is a gynecologist, and Davuluri said she'd like to become a physician one day as well. More

• Miss America: Butt glue, "Breaking Bad" jokes, and highlights

Mindfulness, Suffering, Engaged Buddhism

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Thay (Plum Village), Krista Tippett, OnBeing.org, NPR

Mindfulness, Suffering, and Engaged Buddhism

Host Krista Tippett (onbeing.org/CCP)

Vietnamese Zen master, peace activist, and poet Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay, "teacher") was forcibly exiled from his native country more than 40 years ago. On Being (NPR's discussion of faith and existence) visits the Buddhist monk at a Christian conference center in a lakeside setting in rural Wisconsin.

• Listen to the On Being radio show PODCAST
• Learn more On Being (Speaking of Faith)
• Deer Park Monastery, California

ON TOUR NOW (tnhtour.org)

Thay offers stark, gentle wisdom for living in a world of anger and violence. He discusses the concepts of "engaged Buddhism," "being peace," and "mindfulness." This message gets through to violent, hyper-vigilant police officers eager to kill at a moment's notice. Thay agrees to lead them on a Buddhist mindfulness retreat that manages to change their lives and their capacity to carry guns as "warrior" or "fierce" bodhisattvas (beings bent on enlightenment, not as Tippett defines it already enlightened beings staying on Earth). A person may take vows to become a bodhisattva, which generally means refusing enlightenment and liberation for the presumed sake of helping others. It would make more sense to help oneself and others by striving for enlightenment. But such is Mahayana Buddhist logic that martyrdom has been mistaken for a nobler goal. This historical Buddha was a bodhisattva not forestalling his own enlightenment but for the sake of becoming a supremely enlightened teaching buddha. This meant foregoing attaining as a disciple or as a nonteaching (pacceka) buddha. But it never meant dissuading others from attaining or from striving to reach the goal as quickly as humanly possible, bringing the ten perfections to maturity. More

Thich Nhat Hanh comes to Pasadena, CA on Oct. 4, 2013