Lucid dreaming in Buddhist Bali (Part 2)

Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Lillian Pierson; Robert Waggoner; Nina Persson

Stupa uncovered revealing Buddha inside a bell, Borobudur, Indonesia (sun-surfer.com)

 

What does it mean, "lucid dreaming"?

Buddhist Indo looks over Indonesia

Lucid dreaming is the practice or ability to be aware of dreaming in a dream. There is astral projection, and there is mastering "reality." If life is an illusion, a "dream" (maya), then being lucid means becoming aware of how much we are controlling or contributing to what's going on.

Why Buddhist Indonesia?

Sakka, King (Indo) of the Devas

Ciara is going this summer, and we would like to go. But whereas she can go on a plane, we may have to find other means. For one, we can study history. "Indonesia" was once a Buddhist land, "Indo" being an apparent reference to Sakka, King of the Devas (a.k.a. Indra), the famous Buddhist raja-deva or "archangel" (Michael in Christianity, Maghavā of Macala in a past life when he performed the karma that resulted in being reborn as a "Sakka," which is a cosmic station occupied by various individuals), an "extraterrestrial" who looks after this planet from the celestial World of the Thirty-Three and the nearby Realm of the Four Great Regents or Sky-Kings.

I had my first transcendental meditation experience just now at The Yoga Barn, Bali. I was definitely in an altered state of body and mind... Some major blessings were received (a pink heart lotus), and some heavy fears were roused during the class (Lillian Pierson).

When was this part of Asia, thousands of islands spread over such a vast distance, Buddhist and Hindu?

Eventually Islam conquered and overran the island chain, approximately 400 years ago. But Bali is still partly Buddhist. DhammaCakraTra says Theravada Buddhism is indigenous. History books say it was once all Mahayana Buddhist and animist. Whatever the form of Islam, it is still very much influenced by its Dharmic past, as if it were an extension of the Khmer Empire, Cambodia, or Asoka's Indian Empire, which probably included modern Afghanistan, the land of the Buddha's birth and early life.

Borobudur Buddhas hidden in bell stupas, hazy Indonesia (Fuerst/flickr.com)

 

Why Indonesia today?

It may have been that Elizabeth Gilbert reintroduced us to this great land. Or it may be that it is miraculous that the largest Buddhist temple is here -- bigger than Angkor Wat, Cambodia, though maybe not as big as unexcavated Mes Aynak, Afghanistan -- at Borobudur. But dreaming now often gets romantic, as author Gilbert found out. Why do we travel thousands of miles to find a wise person living in a saintly hermitage only to ask her or him, "What do I do about my relationship?" We get out into the world, travel far, and that's still the main thing we think about? Apparently.

Do you think about that, too?

Yes. I mean, for all the other things I think about, this Cardigans song washes over me from time to time over someone I love or think I love.

Which song?

"Nasty Sunny Beam," which is infantile and über sweet:

Bali is a spiritual land of light and love, a healing, spiritual place for cleansing and renewal.

i can't get out of bed/ can't get my dreams out/ of my sleepy head/ i open up my eyes/ and wonder where you are/ but soon i realize/ that you're not real/and i am/ in between a day and dream/ life and death, a lazy stream/ in between a day and dream/ hello, goodbye,/ you nasty sunny beam/ i try to seal my mind/ and get back to where you were/ oh, you were that perfect kind/ you drove me crazy/ somewhere/ in between a day and dream/ life and death, a lazy stream/ in between a day and dream/ hello, goodbye,/ you nasty sunny beam/ i'm floating down again/ and my world is a syrup waterfall/ i can't remember when/ or where/ or why!/ in between a day and dream/ life and death, a lazy stream/ in between a day and dream/ hello, goodbye,/ you nasty sunny beam!

 

Lucid Dreaming Experience

Interviewer Robert Waggoner with Chad Adams (dreaminglucid.com/lde/lde3_1.pdf)

First Meditation in a Lucid Dream (1997)
I stand on the beach, and small waves lap on the sand. It is dark out, and everything is tinged in a deep purple except the sand, which is a brilliant glowing blue. The sky overhead is luminescent with a vast [number] of stars and what looks like the Milky Way Galaxy.

 

I become lucid [aware that this is in fact a dream] and immediately want to try a new experience of practicing meditation while lucid in a dream. I sit down on the sand, cross my legs, and close my eyes. Strange that immediately upon closing my eyes I become extremely aware of my mind as bi-local, or being in two places at one time. I sense myself lying on my bed and here, meditating on a beautiful beach at night in a lucid dream. I push that thought away and begin clearing my mind of all thought. Time passes.

 

Tibetan Dream Yoga, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal

I feel a presence. I open my eyes and stand. Someone or something is standing above me. (I cannot recall what it looked like.) It doesn't speak; instead, it motions me to follow. We walk down a path winding through the sand dunes and enter a cave. The interior is lit with an orange light, which has no source. To our right a ramp leads up towards an archway, above which is a sculpture of an eye etched from the rock wall of the cave itself.

The eye is very reminiscent of the one on the back of a dollar bill. I know I am to go through the archway and go under what I later realized was a symbol of my third eye. I walk the stone ramp, underneath the eye. Suddenly, I lose my footing and I'm sliding down a slippery "tunnel slide" that has the texture and appearance of loose skin. It startles me, but doesn't yet scare me.

 

Guided Online Workshop, Robert Waggoner

When I come to a stop, I find myself in a tiny room the size of a small shower. On all six sides [up, down, and all around] I am surrounded by the texture and feel of skin flowing like a thick curtain. Again, there is a subtle light illuminating the tiny area, but I haven't thought of its source for I am beginning to panic. Everywhere I place my hand, my foot, everywhere I push, it gives slightly, like elastic. I am really scared now as there is no way out. The panic overrides the knowledge that I am in a dream, and I feel as if I am to suffocate and die in this place. It seems unending.

London, Ireland 2014 (gatewaysofthemind.com)

The realization of the utter uselessness of panic hits me. There is nothing to be gained in the fear. It has gotten me nowhere. And when the fear of enclosure dissipates, I am released. I slow down and slump to the floor.
 

At first I feel resignation then a bit of guilt for giving up, but it is quickly replaced by a feeling of complete peace. A feeling like a close friend is there and will always be there. The walls, the ceiling, the floor...fall away. I am infused by a blissful euphoria, floating in no-time. There is nothing around. Fear seems to be a historic past. I remember asking myself how I could possibly be afraid of anything that is so...so wise, so teaching, so... More

• Lucid Dreaming Experience, Vol. 3, No. 1, June '14
• VIDEO: Kingdom of the Little People, China

Addiction: Indonesia and Iboga (video)

VICE/HBO; Seven, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (ATS), Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Gabor Mate

The world's biggest Buddhist temple is in Borobudur, Indonesia. It is a mandala shaped like a pyramid topped by stupas or reliquaries and strange "bells" with Buddhas inside, similar to German Die Glocke time-travel technology from WW II (Wisdom Quarterly).

NICOTINE: Tobaccoland

Shamans can cure (I-M)

The dangers of smoking are no secret in the U.S., but in Indonesia, the tobacco industry goes virtually unregulated. The result? Over two-thirds of all males are smokers and tobacco (nicotine with sugar used in curing the leaves, a preservative that makes it much more addictive than in its natural form) addicts. It is commonplace for children as young as six to take up the habit and buy cigarettes legally. Tobacco is a $100 billion industry here, with TV and print ads everywhere. Investigating this phenomenon in Malang, VICE visits a clinic that promises cures to a plethora of modern ailments using tobacco and smoking -- with an intrepid correspondent getting the full "smoke-therapy" treatment.

IBOGA: Underground Heroin Clinic

Heroin is one of the most easy-to-become addicted to substances on Earth. While it cannot be said to be addictive itself, according to Dr. Gabor Mate, many susceptible individuals certainly do become addicts, utterly dependent on it even as it brings about their ruin. ["Addiction" is the interaction of susceptibility from childhood trauma and introduction of the substance to the nervous system, usually for self-soothing rituals]. Some people will do anything to kick the habit.

Enter Ibogaine -- a drug made out of the African iboga root (T. iboga), whose intense, entheogenic and hallucinogenic properties make it a Type-A felony drug (Schedule 1, regarded as having no medicinal or redeeming qualities by the Big Pharma-influenced medical industry as part of the "military-industrial pharmaceutical complex" that pushes artificial, for-profit chemicals and allopathic "treatments" rather than any actual cures).

Bamboo bridge and waterfall (sun-surfer.com)

But many swear iboga is the most effective way to kick heroin and other substance addictions like alcohol -- especially when combined with shamanic rituals that involves a human guide who enters into trance, interacts with the spirit world, does face painting, chanting, and engages in other traditional practices. VICE follows the journey of one heroin addict who travels to Mexico, where Ibogaine is legal, to finally quit drugs.

• Addiction? (recovery)
• Buddhism: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
• Mind/Body Health
• When the Body Says No
• Childhood Development & Parenting
• AD(H)D (attention deficit)
• Scattered Minds
• Hold On To Your Kids
• Bon Shaman Buddhism: Ven. Wangyal
  

Sacred SEX in Muslim-Buddhist Indonesia

Maya, Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Rebecca Henschke, Marco Werman, The World (PRI)

Sacred Tantric Yoga practices enhance intimacy and a sense of union with a partner.

Java, Indonesia's Borobudur is the world's largest Buddhist temple (TrevThompson/flickr)

Colorful Muslim girls visit the massive infidel shrine of Indonesia's history (TrevThompson)

Next let's visit sexy Gunung Kemukus? Asian Muslim tourists at Borobudur (TrevThompson)

 

Elizabeth Gilbert's salvation

"Eat, pray, love" the American Elizabeth Gilbert famously advised.

She had just come back to the U.S. from Hedonistic-Catholic Italy and Hindu-Buddhist India and Bali (Indonesia).

But Islam now dominates the massive island nation. Its remaining traditionally Theravadan Buddhists will gladly tell anyone about it from Southern California (visit: Facebook, DhammaCakraTra.org).

In Indonesia, people seek "salvation" at shrine to anonymous sex

Housewife Fitri has come up to the mountain for a good Friday night out. She hooked up with Ishlam, who is here to improve the fortunes of his small business (Rebecca Henschke).

 

Sex, okay. Sexual misconduct, not okay.

(PRI) Every 35 days, Muslims from across Indonesia flock to a hilltop Islamic shrine in central Java. They come to find blessings and good fortune -- through a ritual that involves adulterous sex.
 
When they arrive at the shrine, known as ["the ritual of the hill"] Gunung Kemukus, they offer prayers and flowers at a sacred grave. Then, they find a stranger for anonymous sex.

• Question: Didn't this "sacred [sex work]" happen in ancient Greece? In Corinth, Delphi, in Athens and even Sparta, with The Oracle (the living Goddess Pythia, like the virgin Kumari of Nepal) and the temple priestesses, who were the Greek-version of Geishas called Hetairai? The Old World knew how to live better than our Puritanical shame and guilt about sex allows us to live now in a world saturated with porn.

Undress Me (Susan Gilman)

When I arrive there, darkness is starting to shroud the hillside. By candlelight, people are sitting on mats around sacred dewadaru trees.

• [These are not the American deodara/Asian devadaru trees, both of which are favored haunts of woodland fairies or dryads called devas in Buddhism and Hinduism, a Sanskrit word (cognate Latin deus, dīvus, Spanish dios, French dieu, Proto-Indo-European deiwos), a term at the root of our English diva, deity, and divinity].

Siddhartha and deva-like maras under Bo tree

And they are sitting amidst the twisting roots of massive fig trees [like the Buddha sat under a sacred fig, Ficus religiosa or peepal, that became the Bodhi tree]. There are lots of women standing by themselves and lots of men in groups.

Pak Slamat is one of the men. He is balding, has a moustache, wears a leather jacket and glasses, and is reading from the Koran [Muslim Bible]. He's married, but hasn't told his wife he is here because she wouldn't let him come. [Ehem.] She thinks he has gone somewhere to pray [but he's really here to eat and love or just love].

 

Buddhist monastic follows Siddhartha's steps

"In all the rooms around here there are couples," he says. "They are small-business people, and, if you ask them, they say it works -- that before business was slow and now it's good. This is the work of Allah, through our traditional ways. I am keen to do the ritual; it's just a matter of finding someone who wants the same thing."

• Sacred Buddhist sex? Tantra, Tantric Yoga, Tantric sex, and Tantrikas, (not clothes). Why not dance instead?
• The marvels of Buddhist Sewu Temple, Java
• Tracing the Buddhist path (The Jakarta Post)
• Burmese Buddhists, Muslims brawl in Indonesia

AUDIO (The World)

Echoes of the celestial devis, or Apsaras (Indonesian Bidadari) Angkor Wat (Andreadaddi)

  

History of infidelity

Pilgrims on stairway to "heaven" (Ali Lutfi)

Like tens of thousands of others, Slamat has come to be blessed in a ritual that dates back hundreds of years.

 

The ritual's origin is a legend about a young royal, Prince Pangeran Samodro, who was raised in the court of Demak, a Muslim sultanate on Java’s north coast. He fell in love with his stepmother, Nyai Ontrowulan. The two ran off to Gunung Kemukus [this hill, with stairs leading to the shrine], where they were discovered by soldiers from Demak and slain. Their bodies are supposedly in a grave at the shrine.

• The Swinger's Guide to Islam (The Global Mail)
• Is swinging "sexual misconduct" in Buddhism?

Ancient romance on walls

According to some versions of the story, the couple didn't finish having sex before they were discovered, so the ritual sex completes their union.

 

In another version, the ritual helps minimize the shame of their act by offering a more shameful act to [to compare it with? After all, no one brings a stepparent, taking instead an anonymous partner]. Regardless, many believe that coming to Gunung Kemukus provides a blessing that can boost one's fortune -- an incentive that seems to have special appeal for needy workers, like bus drivers, farmers, or small-market traders.

 

I'd do it, I'd totally do it! How much? lol

Ibu Winda is a grandmother in her early 60s and is dressed in a gold jacket with flowers, a short mini-skirt, and leather jacket. For makeup, she wears bright red lipstick and has powdered her face.

She runs a small food stall in her hometown and has been coming here for ten years. "Ever since I have come here, business has been good and life has been easier," she says. "Praise be to Allah."

 

I love both of you; that's why it tears me apart! Borobudur (TrevThompson/flickr.com)

 

At 10:00 pm, it's very dark, and the area around the grave is full of older people -- some women with headscarves [hijabs like they used to wear in the Islamic Republic of Iran], others with barely any clothes on, and a lot of middle-aged men in leather jackets.

Lois, my leather jacket is too tight (Family Guy)

[All this talk of leather must be a reference to a ritualized sexual fetish object picked up from the decadent West.] Everyone is starting to pair up now underneath the trees.

 

Sexy figurines of Borobudur

This ritual [is Islam but] isn't Islam as most would recognize it. It is a mix of Islam with earlier Hindu, Buddhist, and traditional [animistic] beliefs -- something that is typical in Indonesia, and especially Java.

 

"Indonesia is amazing because whatever religion comes into Indonesia, it changes its color," says Kunijoro Soeparno, a professor of sociology who’s been researching these traditions for decades. 

 

In to me see for intimacy (Tantric Yoga)

"The Islam is not just Islam like it is in Arab countries. Hinduism is different here to what it is in India. Buddhism is different from China. The Catholic Church is different from in Rome," he says. [It's just like Gilbert said -- Rome, India, Buddhist Asia -- all of the ingredients to eat, pray (ecstatically meditate), and love!] More

The most amazing thing about jungle Borobudur is not its massive size or pyramids, but its many "Time Travel Bells" (stupas, Die Glocke) with Buddhas inside at dawn (TrevThompson).

 

Buddhism in Indonesia
CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (Wikipedia edit)

Buddhist monastics on path under a sacred Bodhi tree, Sewu Temple, Indonesia (TJP)

 

Buddhist Borobudur, Indonesia (TrevThompson)

Hinduism and [Hindu-saturated] Mahayana Buddhism arrived in Indonesia from India [where Indo, or Indra (Sakra) was a prominent Buddhist deity, one important to the Sailendra] in the 4th and 5th century, as trade with India intensified under the south Indian Pallava dynasty [Guide to the Temples of Java (Indonesia), Approach Guides, David Raezer and Jennifer Raezer].

 

From the 7th century, the powerful Srivijaya naval kingdom flourished as a result of trade and the influences of Hinduism and Buddhism that were imported with it (Indonesia: Peoples and History, Jean Gelman Taylor,  2003, Yale University Press; M.C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia since c.1300, 2nd Ed., 1991, MacMillan).

From earthquakey Aceh in the west to Papau (not New Guinea) in the east (wiki)

Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the agricultural Buddhist Sailendra and Hindu Mataram dynasties thrived and declined in inland Java, leaving grand religious monuments such as Sailendra's Borobudur and Mataram's Prambanan. The Hindu Majapahit kingdom was founded in eastern Java in the late 13th century, and under Gajah Mada, its influence stretched over much of Indonesia [Peter Lewis, "The Next Great Empire," Futures 14 (1): 47–61, 1982].

Sewu, 2nd only to Borobudur (will-on-board)

Although Muslim traders first traveled through Southeast Asia early in the Islamic era, the earliest evidence of Islamized populations in Indonesia dates to the 13th century in northern Sumatra (Ricklefs, 1991, pp. 3-14). Other Indonesian areas gradually adopted Islam, and it was the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end of the 16th century... More

Balinese Buddhism in Bali, Indonesia

Ven. S. Dhammika (DM/BuddhaNet); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The spirituality and unique character of religions in Indonesia (destination-asia.com)

Pura Tanah Temple, Bali, Indonesia  (Jos Dielis/dielis/flickr.com)

 

Buddha, Bali (Robert Scales/flickr)

Much attention has been given to how far west Buddhism extended in ancient times. 

 

The most westerly Buddhist monument [not that that marks how far it got, only how far it made such an impression that monuments were erected to it] that can be is the foundations of a large stupa [Buddhist burial mound and sacred reliquary] in the south east corner of the ancient citadel of Khiva in Turkmenistan [Central Asia, formerly Russia].

Small communities of Buddhists may have existed beyond this. But if they did, they would have been insignificant [too insignificant to erect permanent stone religious structures], isolated, and exceptional. We can say therefore that the outer edge of [early] Buddhism in the west was what is now eastern Iran [the seat of the Solar Dynasty mentioned in Rhys Davids' translation in "The Story of the Lineage" from Buddhist Birth-Stories: Jataka].

Undersea Bali, Buddha statues in the coral reef, Indonesia (Robert Scales/flickr.com)

 
But how far to the east did Buddhism spread its gentle and civilizing influence? [Did it get] to the outer islands of Indonesia, to Australia, or perhaps beyond? 

 

The Buddhist hero Satusoma (buddhanet.net)

In the 1920's a superb bronze bust of the Buddha was found on Sulawesi, one of the larger islands that make up Indonesia [a massive stretch of islands between India and Australia]. This is the eastern most point that any Buddhist antiquity has ever been found. 

 

There is, though, no evidence of an enduring Buddhist presence either on Sulawesi or beyond it -- no ruined temples or monasteries [hidden in the dense jungles as keep being discovered in Cambodia], no inscriptions, or references to it in the historical records. 

 

However, only a few hundred miles southwest of Sulawesi is the small island of Bali, where archeological, epigraphical, and literary evidence shows that Buddhism existed alongside Hinduism for about 700 years.

 

Buddha under the sea, Bali, Indonesia (Robert Scales)

Indian merchants first arrived in Bali in about 200 BCE, and it was probably these people who introduced Buddhism and Hinduism.
 
A Balinese work of uncertain date called the Naga-rakrtagama by a Buddhist monk lists all of the Buddhist temples in Bali, 26 altogether, and mentions that in 1275 King Kretanagara underwent a Tantric Buddhist initiation to protect his kingdom from an expected invasion by Kublai Khan.

Kublai Khan conquers Asia and goes overseas to keep going (pic2fly.com)

 

Trade routes to Indonesia and back

The island's history is scant until 1343, when it was conquered by and absorbed into the Majapahit Empire of Java-Sumatra. Hinduism and Buddhism both received state patronage, although the type of Buddhism that prevailed gradually became indistinguishable from Hinduism [such is the case around the world for Mahayana Buddhism].

A Javanese Buddhist work from about the 12th century contains this telling verse: "The one substance is called two, that is, the Buddha and Shiva. [Tantra is a merging of Shakti and Shiva, conflating Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, particularly esoteric Vajrayana] They say they are different, but how can they be divided? Despite differences there is oneness."

Sanur, Bali (MickJim/flickr)

Clearly at the time these words were being composed, some Buddhists were struggling to maintain the uniqueness of the Dharma, while others were stressing its similarity with Hinduism [which metamorphosed to be much more similar to Buddhism under the Buddha's radical influence bringing the Vedas back to life and on the Brahmins of his day].

Eventually in both Java and Bali the integrators prevailed. Incidentally, the phrase "Despite differences there is oneness" (Bhineka tunggal ika) has been taken as the motto for the Republic of Indonesia. With the collapse of Mahapahit [Hindu empire] in 1515 and the ascendancy of Islam, Java's old intellectual and religious elite, including the last surviving Buddhist monastics and scholars, sought refuge in Bali.

My Trip to Bali

Traveling round the world (destination360.com)

In January 2004 I fulfilled a long-standing wish to visit the island that Nehru eulogized as "The Morning of the World." I planned to visit all the sights that other tourists like to see, but my main intention was to search out the traces of Buddhism and find out something about Bali's small [surviving] Buddhist community. My first stop was the Bali Museum in Dempasar, the capital of the island. More

• Destination Asia: Buddhism in Indonesia
• Suvarnadvipa: Persian sea trade, Indonesia, Kalki kings (W)
• Deep Anthropology: Notes on a Balinese cockfight
• Buddha at the Crossroads: Indonesian Buddhism
• Dhammacakratra: Theravada Buddhism, USA
• Dhammacakratra, Ontario, California (facebook)