Comedian Russell Brand on "Mind Shift" (video)

Xochitl, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Daniel Pinchbeck ("Mind Shift," Gaiam TV)

Brand with the Dalai Lama

(GaiamTV) Daniel Pinchbeck interviews comedian and actor Russell Brand ("Messiah Complex"), who alludes to ex-wife Katy Perry when he gently jokes about our Reptilian Overlords, whom he laughs about as being just another frequency like us. Also in this episode, feminist and activist Eve Ensler ("V-Day," "Vagina Monologues") brings progressive momentum to the show promoting kindness and egalitarianism.

The Most Evil Man in the World

Wisdom Quarterly; PerezHilton.com

You leave my reptile alone! He's a good boy!

What do these men have in common? God-Kings? Retiring from political life to lead a more spiritual existence? No, they were painted by an infantilized madman. And that man, we maintain, is the very face of evil. He's no mover or shaker, no architect of his own rise, no brilliant tactician or orator -- but instead the mouthpiece of a thousand points of light, the New World Order's answer to the gramophone, a Hitler to Rove's Goebbels. You know who.

FREE Buddhist film archive (video)

Dhr. Seven and CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Donna Beresford (meridian-trust.org)

The CIA, Democrats, Republicans, almost everyone loves the Dalai Lama, seen here in the White House with Nancy Pelosi (left) and shaking hands with John Boehner (Newsweek.com)

In 1985 the Dalai Lama urgently asked the West, through the Meridian Trust, to preserve Tibetan culture at a time when its very existence was threatened by China.

In an effort to fulfill a promise to the Dalai Lama, it would be an accomplishment to transform a Buddhist Film Archive into a FREE online learning resource.

This would be for the benefit of all living beings on the planet. For the last 18 months, the Meridian Trust - Buddhist Film Archive has been digitizing, editing, and encoding more than 2,500 hours of rare film footage on Tibetan culture, traditions, artistic practices, and teachings. 

FREE TIBET prayer flags (komodo.co.uk)

The mission is to put this unique archive online -- fulfilling a promise made to the Trust's patron, the 14th Dalai Lama, more than 30 years ago. 

The Trust is a few days into its Kickstarter campaign with a target to raise £10,000. This is what is needed to build a Website through which all of the material can be viewed. 

More information about the Meridian Trust and this project can be seen here. Help support the effort through Kickstarter, Twitter, blogs, posts on NSA spying media, and news outlets. Share it with fans, followers, and friends. Download a banner.

 

You be nice to my Michelle and Jo Boner, and stop killing people with drones! - Mm-hmm.

Help transform Buddhist films into a FREE online learning resource making the insights of Buddhist wisdom available to all (meridian-trust.org/kickstarter.com).

Dalai Lama: "Road to Peace" (screenings)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; KPFK.org, HopeDance.org, RoadtoPeace.com

"Road to Peace"

This intimate documentary candidly reveals the Dalai Lama's nature and wisdom and shows how he inspires millions of people of all nationalities and spiritual paths to live more meaningful lives in harmony with one another and with our nurturing planet.

Saving Tibet by appeasing China and working with the CIA? A rock and hard place (RC)

"Road to Peace" is available to watch here from anywhere or by DVD from Wisdom Books.

• Friday, March 21st, 2014, 7:00-9:30 pm
• Location: Center of the Heart, Goleta
• 487 N. Turnpike Rd., Santa Barbara, CA 93109
• Contact: (805) 762-4848, HopeDance.org

• Friday, March 28th, 2014, 7:00-9:30 pm
• Location: Green Lotus Center, Morro Bay
• 550 Morro Bay Blvd., Morro Bay, CA
• Contact: (805) 762-4848, HopeDance.org

A Brewing Controversy

Dalai Lama, stop lying (dorjeshugden.com)

Will angry Tibetan Buddhist monks, nuns, and laypersons who worship Dorje Shugden be protesting the event? Probably not, but they might in order to bring attention to their plight. Organizers might then quote Tushar Gandhi, "The message of peace and non-violence will be taken into homes hearts and minds" to overcome the "Dalai Lama's WikiLeaks shame."

Buddhist Brains: Meditation and Science (video)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Anne Harrington (hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion and Psychology at Boston University's Danielsen Institute)

(BU) Eastern Brains: Probing the Partnership Between Buddhism and and Brain Science

  

MRI brain scan of meditating monk (BBC)

Harvard University's Professor Anne Harrington (Ph.D., Oxford University) discusses the relationship between Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) and the brain. The presentation was hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion and Psychology at Boston University's Danielsen Institute.
 

Want me to concentrate or bliss out? (MR)

She refers to the research of the University of Wisconsin's Dr. Richard Davidson on the brain functions of Buddhist monastics during long periods of meditation as well as American fascination with the Eastern-style of meditation of the human 1960s and 1970s counterculture.
 
She covers Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the Dalai Lama's first visit to the U.S. as well as why he was so important to the West's academic and scientific investigation of mystical meditative states.
  

The Tibet-Pueblo [American Indian] Connection

Xochitl, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Tricycle Magazine (tricycle.com)

The world's largest and most famous pueblo: Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet (Adam Lai/flickr)

Tibet's Potala Palacet under construction? No, this is the side of a Zuni pueblo complex in New Mexico, which serves as home and ceremonial center (Timothy H. O'Sullivan/GEH).

From the Roof of the World to the Land of Enchantment: The Tibet-Pueblo Connection

We look nothing like our brothers and sisters in the USA...except for many obvious signs

   

“When the iron bird flies,
the Dharma will come to the land of the red man.”

-Ninth-century prophecy by Guru Rinpoche

They look nothing like us (Elk Foot)

In the incongruous atmosphere of the Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, an extraordinary encounter took place in 1979. During the Dalai Lama’s first visit to North America, he met with three Hopi elders. 

 

The spiritual leaders spoke in their native languages. Delegation head Grandfather David’s first words to the Dalai Lama were: “Welcome home.”

 

The Dalai Lama laughed, noting the striking resemblance of the turquoise around Grandfather David’s neck to that of his homeland. He replied: “And where did you get your turquoise?”

 

Hopi Kachina artifacts (scpr.org)

Since that initial meeting, the Dalai Lama has visited Santa Fe to meet with Pueblo leaders, Tibetan lamas have engaged in numerous dialogues with Hopis and other Southwestern Indians, and now, through a special resettlement program to bring Tibetan refugees to the United States, New Mexico has become a central home for relocated Tibetan families.

 

As exchanges become increasingly common between Native Americans and Tibetans, a sense of kinship and solidarity has developed between the cultures. While displacement and invasion have forced Tibetans to reach out to the global community in search of allies, the Hopi and other Southwestern Native Americans have sought an audience for their message of world peace and harmony with the Earth.

Thangka of Six Realms of 31 in the Wheel of Samsara, the cycle of rebirth and death

  

Vajrayana, Hopi? There's a relation (wn.com)

These encounters have created a context for the activities of writers and activists who are trying to bridge the two cultures. A flurry of books and articles have been published, arguing that Tibetans and Native Americans may share a common ancestry.

 

The perception of similarity between Native Americans of the southwest and the Tibetans is undeniably striking. Beyond a common physicality and the wearing of turquoise jewelry, parallels include the abundant use of silver and coral, the colors and patterns of textiles, and long, braided hair, sometimes decorated, worn by both men and women.

 

Book of the Hopi (Frank Waters/goodreads.com)

When William Pacheco, a Pueblo student, visited a Tibetan refugee camp in India, people often spoke Tibetan to him, assuming that he was one of them. “Tibetans and Native American Pueblo people share a fondness for chile, though Tibetans claim Pueblo chile is too mild,” says Pacheco.

 

Even before most Westerners knew where Tibet was, much less the extent of its people’s suffering, and almost 20 years before the advent of the Tibetan diaspora, cultural affinities between these two people were noted by Frank Waters in his landmark work Book of the Hopi (1963).

 

Waters’ analysis went below the surface, citing corresponding systems of chakras, or [subtle] energy spots [wheels] within the body meridians, that were used to cultivate cosmic awareness. 

 

Native American dancers, New Mexico

In The Masked Gods, a book about Pueblo and Navajo ceremonialism published in 1950, Waters observed that the Zuni Shalako dance symbolically mirrored the Tibetan journey of the dead. 

 

“To understand [the Zuni Indian Shalako dance’s] meaning, we must bear in mind all that we have learned of Pueblo and Navaho [sic] eschatology and its parallels found in the Bardo Thodal, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, in The Secret of the Golden Flower, the Chinese Book of Life, and in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.”

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (HB)

Many Earth-based cultures steeped in a shamanic tradition share spiritual motifs (hence the broad comparison made by Waters).
 
This could account for some similarities, such as Navajo and Tibetan sand painting, and cosmic themes found in Tibetan and traditional Pueblo dances. More

Dalai Lama: 21st Century Compassion

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; The Lourdes Foundation; L.A. Forum

Public Talk: "21st Century Compassion," Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014, 12:15 pm, LA Forum

  

For a mere $65.30 per nosebleed seat ticket you, too, can see the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist "pope" and former god-king (simultaneous secular and religious leader), who lives in exile in the Himalayan city of Dharamsala, India, much to the aggravation of militant Chinese oppressors. 

• What we don't hear about Tibet (The Guardian)
• Friendly Feudalism: the Tibet Myth (Michael Parenti)

I decided political and spiritual matters. - Wow!

The XIVst Dalai Lama is not remunerated, instead offering Buddhist teachings freely. So he is not to blame for ticket prices. That responsibility falls on the host, which this year is not the Long Beach Tibetan Temple (Gaden Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling), but the Lourdes Foundation. The lamas in Long Beach always gave out tickets to monastics and devotees and others for Long Beach Civic Auditorium appearances; one can only hope the Lourdes Foundation is doing the same.

If only the world will cultivate compassion

What will the audience see? Not an enlightened being, unfortunately. By his own admission, Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, XIV in line, is not enlightened. He is but a humble ruler of the great former Himalayan Buddhist kingdom (or feudal "serfdom" according to Chinese propagandists, but denied by Phayul.com) of Tibet with a massive Western following. He is a "simple monk," he claims. Or maybe he is a great rinpoche (teacher), the supreme prelate of the Gelug (Yellow Hat) sect, and a mahasattva (great being or vajrasattva), perhaps even an "incarnation" (by some self-willed rebirth) or manifestation of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion (originally appearing in male form as Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva). He is semi-retired -- unlike ex-Pope Benedict XVI, who was fired or forced to resign for his crimes and misdemeanors, from worldly matters. Others now rule and advocate for Tibet, China. But "His Holiness" is involved in co-writing books and presenting teachings. He is the world's most beloved and recognizable Buddhist, and what he says is generally wonderful (mixed reviews), full of compassion and distilled wisdom all Buddhist traditions can agree with.

Dalai Lama and The Lourdes Foundation

[We are] uniting different worlds under one language. The Dalai Lama is a man of peace. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet from Chinese invaders. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. He also became the first Nobel Laureate to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems. This event will be hosted at The Forum in Inglewood, California, on Feb. 25. Tickets are on sale via the Ticketmaster corporation.

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Angel is attending Dalai Lama at The Forum

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	Michael is attending Dalai Lama at The Forum