Showing posts with label naga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label naga. Show all posts

Monday, 18 August 2014

The Burning Continues across USA

CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; SCPR.org; TheGuardian.com

Ukraine tired of police abuse then lost Crimea
A wildfire burning in a steep, remote area of the Angeles National Forest is 90 percent contained and no flames were showing.
 
Forest spokesperson Justin Tyler says crews made good progress Friday against the fire that has charred 190 acres of dry brush and chaparral. He says crews are busy dousing hotspots.
 
The blaze was reported shortly before 1:00 pm Thursday above the foothill city of Glendora, northeast of Los Angeles. No buildings are threatened.
 
Two firefighters received heat-related injuries and a third was cut while battling the flames in hot, dry weather. The cause of the fire is under investigation.



Saying NO to Israel
(We Blocked the Boat!)  Blockade succeeds as word spreads that ship is off the coast of California, closer to Santa Cruz, and will not be docking that day

An Israeli ship that was scheduled to dock at the port of Oakland in California on Saturday [Aug. 16, 2014] remained at sea as between 2,000 and 3,000 pro-Palestinian Northern California activists streamed towards the port entrance, chanting and waving flags. The protesters intended to form a picket line to prevent work crews from unloading the ship. Activists had originally planned to meet at 5:00 am for a blockade of the Zim Integrated Shipping Services vessel, but word that its arrival had been delayed prompted organizers to push the protest back until later in the afternoon. More

When Pigs Surf


Jesus Christ lizard running across stream
(GoPro) Kama can hang ten in Hawaii because pigs, like other four-legged animals, can swim simply by walking in (not on) water. Except for the Jesus Lizard the Basilisk, who can walk on water (like naga-dragons or snakes who fly in Southeast Asia). How is it this gentle man can go from loving a piglet, one of the smartest and most sensitive creatures in the animal realm, yet eat it with an apple in its mouth or as bacon or as thoracic area "ribs" with BBQ sauce? Guess most people only think they "love" animals until their conditioning kicks in. Our minds being colonized to think flesh eating is "normal," we simply follow this training which goes against our nature, which is basically good.

Friday, 16 May 2014

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

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Was the Buddha a God? (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly translation, Dona Sutra (AN 4:36); Bhikkhu Bodhi (the defilements); Ven. Thanissaro (explanatory note); Justalittledust.com
A golden Buddha rises from the forest in Thailand (Thai-on/flickr.com)
The Story of Dona the Brahmin as a hymn by MOD (TBCM.org.my, Malaysia)
  
Gandharan scroll (justalittledust.com)
[Thus have I heard.] At one time the Blessed One was traveling along the road between Ukkattha and Setabya while the Brahmin Dona was traveling along the same road.

The Brahmin Dona saw in the Blessed One's footprints thousand-spoked wheels, together with rims and hubs, complete in all of their features. On seeing them, the thought occurred to Dona, "Amazing and astounding, these are not the footprints of an ordinary human being!"
 
Then the Blessed One, leaving the road, went to sit at the root of a tree -- legs crossed, body erect, establishing [the four foundations of] mindfulness before him.
 
The statue is massive (Thai-on/flickr.com)
And Dona, following the Blessed One's footprints, saw him sitting there at the root of that tree -- confident and inspiring confidence, with senses calmed, heart/mind calmed, having attained the utmost self-control and tranquility, tamed, with senses restrained and guarded, a great being (naga).
  • [Naga is a term used to describe similar great beings, like tusker elephants or magical and/or extraterrestrial dragons. It was adopted by early Buddhists as yet another epithet for the Buddha and enlightened Buddhist disciples.]
On seeing him, Dona went up to [the Buddha] and asked, "Master, would you be a divine light being (godling, divinity, deity, deva)?" [See note below].
  
"No, Brahmin, I am not a divine light being."
 
"Would you be a divine messenger (angel/os, spirit, gandhabba)?"

"No, Brahmin, I am not a divine messenger."

"Would you be a mythical creature (yakkha)?"
 
"No, Brahmin, I am not a mythical creature."

"Would you be an ordinary human being?"
 
"No, Brahmin, I am not an ordinary human being."
 
Chiang Mai, northern Thailand (YR Journey/Arsenal1886london/flickr.com)
 
"When asked if you are a deva, gandhabba, yakkha, or an ordinary human being, you answer: 'No, Brahmin, I am not.' What sort of being are you then?"
 
"Brahmin, the defilements [asavas/taints and samyojanas/fetters] by which -- had they not been abandoned -- I would be a deva, gandhabba, yakkha, or an ordinary human being -- those are abandoned, their roots eradicated, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future rearising.
 
"Just like a red, blue, or white lotus -- born in water, grown up in water, rising above the water -- stands unsmeared by water so, too, I -- born in the world, grown up in the world, having risen above the world -- live unsmeared by the world. Remember me, Brahmin, as 'awakened.'
 
"The defilements by which I would go to [be reborn in] a deva-state, or become a gandhabba [angelic deva-messenger] in the sky, or go to a yakkha-state [becoming a "caretaker of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots," according to the Encyclopædia Britannica (2007)], or a human-state -- those have been eradicated by me, uprooted, their stems removed.

"Like a blue lotus rising up -- unsmeared by water -- unsmeared am I by the world, and so, Brahmin, I am awake."
Golden Buddha, mouth of Dambulla Cave, Sri Lanka (Richard Silver/rjsnyc/flickr.com)
 
Note: Now or in the future?
Noted by Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff, Abbot, Wat Metta) edited by Amber Larson (Wisdom Quarterly)
Tan Geoff's best translation
Dona's question is phrased in the future tense, which has led to a great deal of discussion as to what this entire dialogue means: Is he asking what the Buddha will be in a future life, or is he asking what he is right now? The context of the discussion seems to demand the present: Dona wants to know what kind of being would have such footprints. And the Buddha's image of the lotus -- which is born in muck but rises above it to spread its beauty and wondrous fragrance -- describes his present state. Yet, some might argue that the grammar of Dona's questions seem to demand the futuret. A.K. Warder in his famous book, Introduction to Pali (p. 55), notes that the future tense is often used to express perplexity, surprise, or wonder about something in the present. We do it in English as well: "What on earth would this be?" This seems to be the sense here. Dona's earlier statement, "These are not the footprints of a human being," is also phrased in the future tense yet does not mean "What would they be in the future?" The mood of wonder extends throughout Dona's conversation with the Buddha.

It is also possible that the Buddha's answers to Dona's questions -- which, like the questions, are phrased in the future tense -- are a form of word-play, in which the Buddha is using the future tense in both its meanings, to refer both to his present and to his future state.
 
The Buddha not identifying himself as a human being relates to a point made throughout the Canon, which is that an awakened person can no longer really be defined in any way at all. On this point, see MN 72, SN 22.85, SN 22.86, and/or the article "A Verb for Nirvana." Because a mind/heart with clinging is "located" by its clinging, an awakened person is trapped, fettered, or located in no place at all in this or any other world: This is why one is unsmeared by the world (loka), like the lotus which is unsmeared by water it springs from.

The defilements left behind
Bhikkhu Bodhi (In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon/Wikipedia.org asava), edited by Dhr. Seven (Wisdom Quarterly)
Various points about various definitions of the mental defilements, defilements of the heart, obstacles to insight and enlightenment and liberation are collected and summarized by the American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi:

The āsavas or taints are a classification of defilements considered in their role of sustaining the forward movement of the process of [re]birth and death.

The commentaries derive the word from a root su meaning "to flow." Scholars differ as to whether the flow implied by the prefix ā is inward or outward; hence some have rendered it as "influxes" or "influences," others as "outflows" or "effluents."

A stock passage in the suttas  [Pali "discourses," sutras] indicates the term's real significance independently of etymology when it describes the āsavas as states "that defile, bring renewal of existence, give trouble, ripen in suffering, and lead to future birth, aging and death" (MN 36.47; I 250).

Thus other translators, bypassing the literal meaning, have rendered it "cankers," "corruptions," or "taints." The three taints mentioned in the Nikāyas [discourse collections, volumes] are respectively synonyms for craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance. [The fourth āsava, attachment to views, appears in the commentaries.]

When the disciple's mind is liberated from the taints by the completion of the path of [enlightenment] arhantship, one reviews this newly won freedom and roars a lion's roar:

"Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what [was] to be done has been done; there is no more coming back to any state of being" (In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon, edited and introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2005, p. 229).
 
Earlier British Buddhist scholars Rhys Davids and William Stede (1921-25) state in part that "Freedom from the 'āsavas' constitutes full enlightenment" [entry on āsava (pp. 115-16)].

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

If I were the Buddha (video and cartoon)

Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
Great Buddha, central Buddhist Island, Kandy, Sri Lanka (Tam Church/flickr.com)
 
Photog Tam Church in Sri Lanka
If I were a buddha the first thing I would do is enjoy it. When the historical Buddha gained great enlightenment -- maha bodhi, the awakening of a supremely enlightened teacher rather than just the liberation of a disciple arhat -- he is reputed to have said:

"I who wept with all my brothers' tears laugh and am glad for there is liberty!" There is a way to the "end of all suffering," to nirvana.

There is a problem: things are unsteady, unreliable, aching, heart breaking, disappointing, unfulfilling, lacking any kind of lasting satisfaction. That is a big problem. Is there a bigger solution? If there is there has to be a cause(s) of all this disappointment (dukkha).

(SubscriptionFreeTV) David Grubin documentary, narrated by Richard Gere, about the Buddha's life, full of great art and sculptures across two millenia. There are insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and the Dalai Lama. Learn more about meditation, the history of the Dharma, and how to incorporate the Buddha's teachings on compassion and wisdom into daily life.

Buddha drawing (Arkiharha/flickr.com)
The ascetic Siddhartha rediscovered that there is a cause (craving rooted in ignorance) and therefore a way out. There is a solution: nirvana, freedom, liberation (moksha), emancipation.

If I were a buddha, the second thing I would do is formulate my own Four Ennobling Truths. Real nobility is not a Boston Brahmin birthright. It is based on one's actions in this life. Some karma ennobles us, some debases, some is neutral and leaves us just the same.
Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Magadhi -- the Buddha's languages and dialects might have readily understood negatives. English cannot. Their connotations are too pessimistic, gloomy, emphasizing the wrong thing. For example, when in English we say, "It's not that we don't like you..." we don't like you, even as we're saying we don't dislike you. Double negatives confuse the mind, which does not seem to happen in these Asian languages. So my Four Noble Truths would become:
  1. There is liberation from suffering.
  2. There is a Way to liberation.
  3. There is a big problem (suffering).
  4. There is a cause of the problem.
The medical establishment of the day, Ayurvedic or Allopathic, might not like it. But I think the people would appreciate the emphasis on liberty.

The Buddha cartoon
The third thing I would do after enjoying it and formulating my Dharma dispensation in a nutshell is start kicking some reptilian (naga) butt and demonic (yaksha) derriere like Saint Sakka/Saint Michael, not violently but rather like Maha Moggallana's display to subdue a disgruntled dragon when the Buddha and others ascended into space.

Monday, 16 September 2013

NSA/Cryptozoology: The Frog Mystery (audio)

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker (karlshuker.com), radio host George Knapp (coasttocoastam.com, 9-15-13); DisclosureChannelTV2
The NSA and us, crocodile and the frog, South Africa (photography.nationalgeographic.com)


Frog meditation (indervilla.com)
In another as yet unexplained miracle on the planet, there are frequent occasions when living frogs are found living completely encased in rock. How this happens, why this should happen, how they survive, or what they eat are all mysterious. Nevertheless, it happens. And now that it is "1984," we are being illegally spied on by the NSA.

NSA - rogue power in surveillance state
NSA: farming out our national "security" to private corporations like Booz-Allen
  
The National Security Agency is out of control spying on law abiding citizens, breaking encryption codes, making credit card transactions transparent to the NSA as well as thieves (who perpetrate fraud in the billions every year) while never allowing protective steps to become so good that they keep the information secret as promised and intended...

NSA headquarters - a building full of cubicles
(C2C) Charles R. Smith, author of Deception, is a specialist in cyber warfare and technology. He talked with George Knapp last night about shocking NSA revelations and their affect on American society and the tech industry worldwide.
 
"There's panic in the halls of Fort Meade at the moment," as the NSA "would prefer to operate in the darkness...away from the light of the public," Smith declared.
 
The NSA is on damage control with the corporate mainstream press, their political allies in both parties, and they are putting out disinformation about their capabilities to muddle the issue, Smith reveals. Originally established as a secret military agency by the Truman administration, the NSA was all about foreign espionage during the Cold War. Now that has been turned on civilian citizens.
 
Today the NSA is a "bureaucratic behemoth, almost like a dinosaur, or Godzilla that has no brain," he comments, "and it will just continue to lumber on." We need to pull in the reins and dispose of the entire mission of the NSA, which has taken on illegal projects. Years ago the NSA tried to get legislative approval to install a "back door [spying] chip" on all tech equipment, Smith recounts.
 
But when that failed in Congress, the NSA instead covertly managed to spread a wide variety of back doors (secret access points that bypass protective measures) in both software and hardware, including intentional flaws in encryption that can be exploited throughout the tech industry by foreign governments (like China using Windows 8 to spy as easily as if they were the NSA), according to documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. More
Toads in the Hole
Mark Pilkington (The Guardian, 1-19-05)
Toad, frog, amphibians (bookbzzz.com)
Among the wonders on display at London's 1862 Great Exhibition was a lump of coal dug from a seam 300ft below Newport, Monmouthshire. With it was a frog that miners claimed to have found alive, encased in a lump of coal presumably millions of years old.

Their claim enraged the naturalist Frank Buckland, who demanded in the Times that the frog be removed from display. As a result, Professor Richard Owen, then superintendent of the British Museum's natural history department, received so many specimens of toads and frogs found in rocks that he appointed his wife to deal with them.

Using tools, umbrella (onebigphoto.com)
Written records of animals, predominantly amphibians, found encased in solid rock date back to at least the 16th century. The usual story is that workmen digging in a quarry or mine find the creatures inhabiting a cavity roughly their own size. Whether they fell down a crack which was then sealed over, were dropped, flowed or blown there as frogspawn, as was once thought, or even placed into the cracks by humans is anyone's guess.
 
Of course, in some cases, their discoverers may have made a leap of judgment on finding the creatures hopping around as they struck a particular stone. More recent reports describe creatures living in concrete. More
Zoology 2013 and Beyond
Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology
Zoologist, media consultant, and non-fiction science writer Dr. Karl Shuker knows the bizarre. There are anomalous creatures of every conceivable kind (and many more inconceivable ones). He explores them in his mirabilis book Mirabilis.
 
The menagerie is composed of what science calls "cryptozoological" specimens. For the time being, they are "mysteries." Until science finds them, it does not matter who else does. Many creatures are known to ethnic populations long before a Western trained, usually "white male" scientist certifies their existence to the Western world. Why believe the "barbarians"?

One such creature, which Shuker dubbed Trunko, was reportedly a huge tusked animal that had elements of both an elephant and a bear. However, its habitat was curious: It was said to battle whales off the coast of South Africa in the 1920s. Shuker later determined that Trunko was actually a misidentified "globster," when a gelatinous sack of it washed ashore -- a dead whale with connective tissue that looked like long white hair.

The mysteries and myths of the forest
Some ancient mythological creatures, such as the Kraken, are described as tentacled sea monsters, some as large as an island (in Buddhism referred to as nagas, or enormous sea serpents). These were likely based on the giant squid, which was not discovered by scientists until the 1800s. It is no surprise that science is so late to the game; it did not find the megamouth shark until the 1970s when one was unintentionally caught using an anchor as a hook.

Shuker knows of a mysterious mammal called the Sukotyro, which was described as having huge tusks emerging from near its eyes. He noted a similarity to a wild pig called the babirusas known to live on Java. For some strange as yet unexplained reason many creatures have a Sumatra/Indonesia connection, whether they be Komodo dragons, Asian bigfoot (or Wild Man of the Forest, a long sought after and often spotted bipedal primate), or something connected to the epicenter of massive quakes and tsunamis as secret-science tinkers with time travel attempts and other anomalous manipulations as were once common in Montauk, New York, until those efforts nearly killed the researchers.

In search of the lost frog of Colombia (Lucy Cooke/telegraph.co.uk)
 
Shuker also speaks of enormous turtles, frogs living encased in solid rock, gigantic spiders (the size of monkeys), as well as the North American Bigfoot, Asian Yeti (Abominable Snowman of Tibetan Buddhist lore), and Thunderbirds of the Southwest United States (which Shuker classifies into two kinds -- eagle-type birds and others said to resemble presumably extinct pterodactyls). The coelocanth, the jungle men, shapeshifters, and so on.