7 animals that are not DINOSAURS (video)

CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; SciShow (Facebook/YT/TT, May 1, 2014)

Buddhist nagas are reptilians from the view of the terrifying Crocodile Cage (wiki)

Getting most information about ancient animals from vintage cartoons? If so then it may come as a surprise that a lot of beings we think of as "dinosaurs" actually aren't. Learn the definition of true dinosaurs and the evolutionary relationships shared by the non-dino reptiles that lived on land, in the sea, and in the air on this quick excursion into the world of Western science.

Like SciShow? Support it: get things to put on walls, attach to torsos, and hold liquids by checking out the awesome products at DFTBA Records or help support by subscribing on the Subbable page. Enough of "science"; it's time to journey into Eastern mysticism.

• VIDEO: A living dinosaur in Africa today (Monster Quest)
• VIDEO: Frankenstein labs: chimera pig-human-baboons
• VIDEO: THE NEW YORK MONSTER (History.com)
  The "Monster of Whitehall" lives in upstate New York. Sightings of this 800 lb. bipedal creature culminated in several police officers encountering it. It haunts the area to this day. However, sightings of these humanoid giants go back many hundreds of years to Native American (Algonquian and Iroquois) accounts and that of French explorers in the 1600s in a wilderness that runs all the way up to the Canadian border.

The Monster of Whitehall is not a single creature but a concentration of them in upstate NY.

 
Sutra: the Reptilian Mucalinda

John D. Ireland (trans.), Mucalinda Sutra (Udana 2.1, BPS); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.)

Theropod dino egg nest discovered (news.nationalgeographic.com/Museu da Lourinha)

 

Mucalinda the naga (khanh_huynhtuan/flickr)

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha (Bhagava, the "Blessed One") was staying at Uruvela next to the river Nerañjara at the foot of the Mucalinda Tree, having just realized full enlightenment.
 
At that time he sat cross-legged for seven days experiencing the bliss of liberation. Now it happened that there occurred a great rainstorm. For seven days there was unseasonable weather with rain clouds and cold winds.
 
Then [the magical dragon] Mucalinda the Naga-King left his dwelling and with his coils encircled the Buddha's body seven times. He stood with his great [cobra] hood spread over the Buddha's head (thinking) to protect him from cold and heat, from gadflies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, and the touch of creeping things.
 

At the end of seven days the Buddha emerged from that profound concentration (samma-samadhi). Then Mucalinda the Naga-King, seeing that the sky had cleared and the rain clouds dispersed, removed his coils from the Buddha's body. Transforming his appearance (shape-shifting) and assuming the appearance of a youth, Mucalinda the Naga-King stood in front of the Buddha with his hands placed together (añjali mudrā) venerating him.
 
Then realizing its significance, on that occasion, the Buddha uttered this inspired utterance, this verse of uplift:
 

Blissful is detachment for one who is content,

For one who has found Dharma [Truth] and who sees;

Blissful is non-affliction in the world,

Restraint towards all living creatures;
 

Blissful is passionlessness in the world,

The overcoming of sensual desires;

But the abandoning of the conceit "I am" —

That is truly the bliss supreme!
 

The seven are the five mentioned in the SciShow video (above), the "Monster of Whitehall" (an American Sasquatch), and the reptilian Muclinda. Mokele Mbembe is real and is a non-extinct dinosaur frequently seen in the Congo river in basin of Africa.

Mindfulness: Business and Behavioral Sciences

CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; KPCC (SCPR.org), The Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, The Crawford Family Forum

Mindfulness - where business and the behavioral sciences intersect

Innovation and creativity are understood as necessary skills for thriving in a dynamic economy, but what is often left out is the role of transforming the mind itself -- as the Buddha recommended.

Today's overwhelming challenges require leaders to move beyond "being effective" to fundamentally change themselves and how they see and relate to the world. How can individuals and organizations let go of ego and transform mindsets to evoke creativity, productivity, and innovation?

In this edition of Southern California Public Radio's Drucker Business Forum series SCPR hears about a new model for creative and productive leaders, a model in which innovation is actually a complete mentality, not a business-led process.

Nick Udall, Ph.D., is CEO of nowhere (now-here.com) and chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership, puts it this way: leaders have to "stop taking up space and start making and holding space" to help their organizations deal with facing the unknown.  They must turn the notion of leadership on its head and move beyond their own egos. Udall sits down with Drucker School Assistant Professor of Practice Jeremy Hunter, Ph.D. (Claremont Graduate University, co-author chapter "Making the Mindful Leader: Cultivating Skills for Facing Adaptive Challenges" in the new The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Leadership, Change, and Organizational Development.  They will explore how transforming the way leaders and groups relate, learn, and organize can lead to new patterns of thought and innovative action.

This insightful conversation will draw on their personal and organizational skills to show how awareness, perception, consciousness, and mindfulness can lead to more purposeful, sustainable, innovative -- and successful -- organizations.

 

Nick Udall works with CEOs and executive leaders of global businesses to develop breakthrough strategies and build cultures of innovation; Chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership. His new book, Riding the Creative Rollercoaster: How Leaders Evoke Creativity, Productivity and Innovation, is out this month.

• WATCH live video stream, 8:30-9:30 am Feb. 13, 2014
• After event, let's go drink at DUMB Starbucks
• Cop goes undercover to talk to suspect in custody

PART 2: The Platform Sutra (Red Pine)

Red Pine (translator); Sixth and Last Patriarch Dajian Huineng; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly, Roshi Jeff Albrizze (PasaDharma.org)  MAHAYANA/HINDUISM

Tian Tan Buddha, a massive statue of Buddha Amoghasiddhi, completed in 1993, located at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, Hong Kong (Robert Montgomery/flickr.com)

 

Kwan Yin Bodhisattva (Avalokitateshvara/Wiki)

[PART 1] The Platform Sutra occupies a central place in Zen (Ch'an) Buddhist instruction. It is often linked with The Heart Sutra and The Diamond Sutra to form a trio of texts that have been revered and studied for centuries.

 

Delivered at Tafan Temple in Shaochou by the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng, compiled and recorded by Fa-hai, recipient of the Formless Precepts and advocate of the Dharma.

 

The Platform Sutra

...This nature of ours in which the ten thousand dharmas [literally, "things," "phenomena," or Dharmas, "teachings"] are present is what we mean by the pure dharma body. Those of you who take refuge [sarana actually means to "seek guidance"] in yourselves, if you get rid of bad thoughts and bad practices, this is called taking refuge.

What do we mean by the myriad-fold transformation-body? If we didn't think, our nature would be utterly empty. When we think, we transform ourselves. If we think evil [i.e., unskillful, unprofitable, motivated by greed, hate/fear, or delusion] thoughts, we turn into the denizens of hell(s). If we think good [skillful, profitable, wholesome, motivated by nongreed, nonhatred/nonfear, or nondelusion] thoughts, we turn into the deities of heaven(s).

Malice turns us into beasts. Compassion turns us into bodhisattvas [beings-bent-on-enlightenment]. Wisdom transports us to the higher realms, and ignorance sends us into the lower depths. Our nature is constantly transforming itself, but deluded people are unaware of this.

Once we think of goodness, wisdom arises. One lamp can dispel a thousand years of darkness, and one thought of wisdom can end ten thousand years of ignorance. Stay in the present (rather than wasting this precious moment, which is all that ever exists, by casting the mind back to past events). Keep thinking about what's next. 

 

When your next thought is always good, this is what we call the realization body. One bad thought results in the destruction of a thousand good ones. But one good thought results in the annihilation of a thousand years of bad ones. In the face of impermanence (अनित्य), if your next thought is good, this is what we call the realization body. CONCLUDES IN PART 3