The Zen of Field Tripping ($10 tour)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Wisdom Quarterly; The Buddhist Progress Society (hsilai.org)

Hsi Lai Temple ("Going West" Monastery), Hacienda Heights, suburban Los Angeles, CA

Hillside parking lot, main entrance, Hsi Lai (Jesse Kaplan/TheGuibordCenter.org)

  

Courtyard with dining hall behind

PasaDharma provides a place to practice Zen. With an idea of having no ideas but "just sitting," the trip often remains on the mat. However, on Saturday (March 29) the local sangha will take up mats and walk around the grounds of the largest Buddhist temple complex in the western hemisphere: Hsi Lai ("Going West") on a hill that separates the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles from Orange County. This is a field trip.

Carpooling provided from Pasadena at 10:30 am. Those driving themselves are invited to meet at the temple at 11:00 am or join the carpool caravan going east to the temple. Chinese vegetarian lunch at 11:30 am. Tour starts at 1:30 and concludes at 3:00 pm.

• Saturday March 29th, 2014
• 3456 S. Glenmark Drive
• Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

What is Hsi Lai?

WQ at Hsi Lai full moon observance

This massive Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist temple encompasses 15 acres and a floor area of 102,430 square feet. The temple's dynastic Ming (1268-1644 CE) and Ching (1644-1911 CE) architecture is reflected in its buildings, gardens, fountains, and statuary. Chinese speakers may regard Hsi Lai as "Coming to the West," signifying the dedication of the Buddha's Light Mountain (Fo Guang Shan) Buddhist Order to spread the teachings of the Buddha to the Western world. It is incluseve and provides Theravada as well as Mahayana teachings, having established the first Buddhist universities (University of the West) in the US. The founder, Ven. Master Hsing Yun, had previously established Fo Guang Shan, the largest monastery in Taiwan, which encompasses over 600 acres.

Going West under a full moon (WQ)

The temple was built to serve as a spiritual and cultural center for those interested in learning more about Buddhism and Taiwanese/Chinese cultural practices. This form of Mahayana came to be called "Humanistic Buddhism" aimed at creating a "Pure Land" on Earth. Built to fulfill these goals in the USA, the temple's objectives are to benefit society through charitable programs, nurture missionary activity through education, spread Dharma through rich cultural observances, and to edify people through traditional Buddhist practices.

RSVP (Roshi Jeff Albrizze at 626.529.4074 or jeffalbrizze@hotmail.com) so an advanced count can be provided to the temple.

CARPOOL: Meet at the Pasadena School District parking lot, 351 S. Hudson Ave., Pasadena, cross street East Del Mar Blvd.

MEET: Main entrance outside first Buddha Hall at 11:00 am; the group will then proceed together to dining hall for lunch, followed by tour starting at the Information Center at 1:30 pm.

DRESS: Out of respect dress comfortably but appropriately: avoid tank tops, shorts, or mini-skirts, smoking, and please avoid bringing meats of any kind or outside foods and beverages.

DONATION: $9 (cash only) per person covers delicious all-you-care-to-eat buffet Chinese vegetarian lunch. Museum admission is an additional $1. There is also a temple gift shop with prayer beads (malas), Dharma books, statuettes, souvenirs, and art.

Humanistic Buddhism & Leadership Online Certificate Program (uwest.edu)

Shocking US military secrets revealed (video)

Douglas Dietrich (douglasdietrich.com); Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; John B. Wells (coasttocoastam.com); Sean Stone (Buzzsaw)

Death (Greek, Thanatos) rules American military leadership and its imperial missions (US).

Douglas Dietrich, military historian, appeared on Coast to Coast on Nov. 13, 2011

Who is historian Douglas Dietrich?

Douglas Dietrich was a D.O.D. (Department of Defense/War) Research Librarian for almost a decade, responsible for incinerating highly classified materials on critical historical topics such as Pearl Harbor, Roswell, Vietnam, and various ethnic holocausts.

He was also paid to destroy documents exposing the reality of vampires, zombies, Soviet psychic warfare operatives, and other "occult" phenomena. 

Summoning demons and devils

Volumes of notes on Nicolai Tesla, H.P. Lovecraft, Scientology's L. Ron Hubbard, the seat of Catholicism, the Vatican, and the United Nations were destroyed, along with reams of reports detailing everything from military/intelligence-sponsored drug-smuggling operations to experimental CIA mind-control programs.

Records plundered from both Allied and enemy states revealed the hidden objectives of modern mass-movements such as Nat-Zism, Zionism, Izamicism (Wähhä'bīst/Islamist Fundamentalism[s]), Vouhodouxnism ("Voodooism"), and other ideologies.

 

Let's bring it! - Bring what? - Death! (DT)

Dietrich's post was El Presidio Real de San Francisco's Western Defense Command Center, a large military base with many military families which was seething with Satanism, child sexual abuse (more than a 1,000 cases resolved by reassigning families to other bases around the world), and controversial human medical experimentation. 

An assassination plot on presidential candidate William Clinton was even attempted. Since the base's closure, Dietrich's background in military reference and his experiences in mercenary/security enforcement exposed him to startling insights into geopolitics, our current demographic apocalypse, and the medical-industrial complex thanatizing our future.

 

My leadership is doing what!? (army.mil)

"Weapons of Mass Deception" were unleashed generations ago by increasingly self-deluded American elites. They have since warped the U.S. electorate's perception of reality. According to Dietrich, NOW is the time for TOTAL disclosure.

Pentagon, Pentagram, and Satanism

(22:29) Sean Stone interviews Douglas Dietrich about devil worship in military

(Sept. 9, 2013) The Pentagon and high-level Satanic magic are discussed in addition to the unusual history surrounding 9/11, Aleister Crowley, the anti-gods, and more are discussed in the final part of Douglas Dietrich's Buzzsaw interview with Sean Stone, son of Director Oliver Stone. How is the military able to manipulate 50% of the government's discretionary budget and keep total power as they put the world on a collision course with destruction? The answer is surprising.
 

Douglas Dietrich was a Research Librarian for the Department of Defense at El Presidio Real de San Francisco Military Base in California. There, along with his primary duty of destroying secret documents, he alleges he was assigned to locate and access incredibly rare occult grimoires for the officially recognized Satanic Chaplain of the United States Army, Lt. Col. Michael A. Aquino. Dietrich is a historian, whistleblower, writer, speaker, and activist.

• VIDEO: H.A.A.R.P., the military's earthquake machine
• VIDEO: Understanding the HAARP weapon (History Channel)

COMMENTS
(Miranda Thomson) Even though historian Dietrich makes a few errors on time spans in his oratory, his knowledge is encyclopedic! I have few if any doubts as to the veracity of his statements, including the use of atomic weapons by Japan immediately after Nagasaki against the Russians. I doubt the Americans would have had any problem with that. Something stopped the Russians, and it certainly wasn't a fear of the U.S. using an atomic bomb against them. We were still "allies," after all. The Russians would have not have quit if something had not made them quit. And neither the U.S. nor the Japanese could have stopped them with conventional weapons: The bulk of U.S. soldiers were in the European theatre, not the Pacific. The Russians had promised the U.S. and Britain to enter the war within three months of Germany's defeat, which happened on May 8, 1945. That would make it August 8, 1945. I just watched the History Channel's "Japanese Secret Weapons of WW II," and although it said nothing about Japan's nuclear capabilities, it did mention that the Russian military juggernaut could not be stopped by the U.S. or Japan. What stopped them? It seems it was Japanese nukes!

(Zipcrazed) I have wondered why as Americans we are not taught in public school about the atrocities Japan visited on China (in the late 1930s to early 1940s), when they exceeded the atrocities visited by Nazis on Jews, Poles, gays, Gypsies, and other "undesirables."  I bet everyone knows why....

Autumn Festival: story behind the cakes (sutra)

CC Liu, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Zen Vuong (Pasadena Star-News); Pacific Asia Museum

The glorious harvest moon refulgent with yin energy (donnalewisconan)

  

Father and son make lantern

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates harvest, family reunions, and hope for another year of good fortune.

Some believe the celebration’s roots originated from the Chinese rebellion against the Mongols, who detested moon cakes. The Chinese rebel leader, Zhu Yuanzhang, had a hard time organizing a coup because large gatherings were outlawed, reports ChinaTravel.com. So the rebels baked a slip of paper into moon cakes. It ordered insurgents to attack on the 15th day of the 8th lunar year. Thus the Chinese eat moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival to celebrate this successful overthrow.
  

Tea with dense, sickly sweet cakes.

Thanksgiving [means] the centerpiece for this Chinese and Vietnamese harvest celebration doesn’t include a bulky dead bird. During Zhongqiu Jie, or the Mid-Autumn Festival, people give family, friends, and colleagues moon cakes, a small but filling pastry embossed with a description of its innards or the name of a bakery. Others have patterns of clouds, the moon, or a rabbit [a lucky symbol of the moon]....

 

“It’s almost like a Christmas fruitcake. It’s a traditional gift...,” said Becky Sun, a Pacific Asia Museum spokeswoman. “Adult children give them to parents and seniors. Friends and business partners give them to each other...” More 

The Miserly Treasurer

Ken and Visakha Kawasaki (trans), Illisa Rebirth Tale (Jataka 78)

The miser didn't enjoy his riches either

This story was told by the Buddha while at Jetavana Grove about a tremendously rich royal treasurer.

He lived in a town called Sakkara near the city of Rajagaha and had been so tightfisted that he never gave away even the tiniest drop of oil that could be picked up with a blade of grass. Worse than that, he wouldn't even use that minuscule amount of oil for his own satisfaction. His vast wealth was actually of no use to him, to his family, or to the deserving people of the land.

 

Moggallana, however, led this miser and his wife to Jetavana, where they served a great meal of cakes to the Buddha and a large number of monastics. After hearing words of thanks from the Buddha, the royal treasurer and his wife attained stream-entry.

That evening the monastics gathered together in the Hall of Truth. "How great is the power of Ven. Moggallana!" they said. "In a moment he converted the miser to charity, brought him to Jetavana, and made possible his attainment. How remarkable is the elder!" While they were talking, the Buddha entered and inquired as to the subject of their discussion.

 

When they told him, the Buddha replied, "This is not the first time, monastics, that Moggallana has converted this miserly treasurer. In previous days too the elder taught him how deeds and their effects are linked together." Then the Buddha told this story of the past [past life].

 

The best cake is raw vegan berry cheesecake California-style (TheRawtarian.com)

 

Long, long ago, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benaresaranasi, there was a treasurer named Illisa who was worth 80 crores of wealth. This man had all the defects possible in a person. He was lame and hunchbacked, and he had a squint; he was a confirmed miser, never giving away any of his fortune to others, yet never enjoying it himself either.

 

Interestingly enough, however, for seven generations back his ancestors had been bountiful, giving freely of their best. When this treasurer inherited the family riches, he broke that tradition and began hoarding his wealth.

 

One day, as he was returning from an audience with the king, he saw a weary peasant sitting on a bench and drinking a mug of cheap liquor with great gusto. The sight made the treasurer thirsty for a drink of liquor himself, but he thought, "If I drink, others will want to drink with me. That would mean a ruinous expense!" The more he tried to suppress his thirst, the stronger the craving grew.

 

The effort to overcome his thirst made him as yellow as old cotton. He became thinner and thinner until the veins stood out on his emaciated frame. After a few days, still unable to forget about the liquor, he went into his room and lay down, hugging his bed. His wife came in, rubbed his back, and asked, "Husband, what is wrong?" "Nothing," he answered. More

Under a Full Moon: Hsi Lai Temple

Wisdom Quarterly; Hsi Lai "Coming West" Temple (hsilai.org); EarthSky.org; Huff Post

Attend Wisdom Quarterly's public meeting to discuss story ideas, statistics, and the future.

  

Bodhidharma points at the Moon (ofandfrom.com)

Look. The Moon. It's full.

 

"That's not a moon, fool."

Oh, what is it?

"Looks like a finger."

 

No! That is merely the pointer. Look at what is being pointed at!

"OH. What's that?"

 

That is the Moon emerging from the clouds.

 

"Aah. I see."

 

Now you see? What were you seeing before?

"Well, a nice manicure mostly. But now more of what you previously said makes sense."