Kim, Kali, Kwan-yin, Kumari, Mary K (video)

Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Sonia Narang ("The World," PRI.org, 6-18-14); KFIam640.com; Christian Today; New York Daily News

The new Madonna and Child, Kim Kardashian and North West, June '14 (hiphollywood.com)

Holy cow! Kim Yin Kardashian is now a goddess deified by American artist Hannah Kunkle

Kim, Kwan Yin, the Virg Yin as manifestations of the Goddess (Hannah Kunkle/Splash/KFI)

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Kim as black as Kali, bad tan (guyism.com)

US artist Hannah Kunkle's digital paintings feature reality TV star Kim Kardashian (Mrs. Kanye West) as various religious icons.

They were featured in an exhibition entitled "The Passion of Kim Kardashian" that opened in Brooklyn. Kunkle, 23, admits she is "strangely fascinated" by Kardashian.

Kanye and Kim, the FUTURE couple

"It's art. It's supposed to be wild and, not offensive, but prying," she told a US newspaper after various religious leaders slammed her work.
 

Father Michael Perry of Our Lady of Refuge Church in Flatbush, Brooklyn told the New York Daily News the show was "dumb and stupid." Kardashian is also portrayed as the Hindu goddess Kali, Jesus the Christ, Catholic nuns, Joan of Arc, and a Satanic priestess [like Mary Kay but selling Khroma]. More

We've just about had it with Kardashian-West, just about, but the West needs goddesses, too

Kim Kardashian Satanic high priestess with her own altar (animalnewyork.com)

Satanic priestess: Kim drops in on Kanye at Bonnaroo 2014 in seductive top (Daily Mail)

. 

I'm still a young hybrid (M-C)

The artist explains why she did it: "I think she is almost a patron saint of pop culture," Kunkle told the Daily News.

"She's everywhere." And in an April 2014 interview, she went beyond statements of admiration: "Kim Kardashian is God," she told VICE.

• Future goddess Honey Boo Boo is "a tiny, dimpled monster"
• VIDEO: Kim flashes lots of skin as she goes braless: Kim Kardashian stepped out in New York wearing another daring outfit and revealing [that she must be trying to become the new Madonna].
• The 5 Principles and 10 Commandments of Hinduism 
• What does it mean when one says I'm Shia or Sunni?
• Fun with fungi: the lurid bolete (wiki)
• FEMEN.org: Topless female activists

The Living Goddesses of Nepal

Sonia Narang (The World, PRI, 6-18-14); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Along a busy thoroughfare near Kathmandu, Nepal, a passageway leads into a large, open-air courtyard. In the back corner, there’s a modest home with a red sign outside that simply reads, “Living Goddess.”

 

Kumari blessing at festival (Sonia Narang)

A narrow wooden staircase leads up to the second floor, where the goddess spends much of her childhood. She’s called a Kumari (Ku Mary), and she’s [adored] by Nepali Hindus and Buddhists, who believe she's the [embodiment] of the Hindu goddess Durga [with the power to kills one's demons].
 
In Nepal, this centuries-old tradition of choosing a young girl as a goddess continues to this day. Now, people from around the world flock here to get a glimpse of her.


 

Are there Himalayan pools in Nepal?

I got to know the mother of this Kumari after several visits to her house.
 
Her name is Shobha Bhajracharya. She has a full, round face with a sweet smile.
 
I ask her how she felt when her daughter Samita was chosen to be a Kumari a few years ago. She laughs shyly.
 

Kumari is so cool! Choose me! I can morph.

“I felt both happy and sad,” she says.

“On one hand, I felt happy because when your daughter becomes god, having a god in the home is a delightful thing.

But [on the other hand] I also got scared because I wasn’t sure if we would be able to follow all the rules.” More

Who is the Buddhist Goddess Kwan Yin?
ReligionFacts.com; edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Goddess Kwan Yin buddha-to-be with a  thousand arms (chinatourguide.com)

 
Kwan Yin (also Kuan and Guan Yin) is the bodhisattva of compassion. [A bodhisattva is a person who has vowed to develop the perfections to become a buddha].

I wear white! Goddess power!

She venerated by East Asian Buddhists [particularly in the very Hindu-influenced Mahayana school, having morphed from the Hindu god Avalokitesvara].

Commonly known as the "Goddess of Mercy," Kwan Yin is also revered by Chinese Taoists as an Immortal. The name Kwan Yin is short for Kuan Shih Yin (Guan Shi Yin), which means "Observing the Sounds of the World [One Who Hears the Cries of the World]."

Braless in Paris, France (M-C)

In Japanese, she is called Kannon, or more formally Kanzeon; the spelling Kwannon, resulting from an obsolete system of romanization, is sometimes also seen. In Korea, she is called Kwan-um or Kwan-se-um. In Vietnamese, she is called Quan Âm or Quan Thế Âm Bồ Tát [Kwan Yin Bodhisattva].

Kuan Yin is the Chinese name for the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. However, folk traditions in China and other East Asian countries have added many distinctive characteristics and legends [to the original Brahminical/Hindu legend]. Most notably, while Avalokitesvara can be depicted as either male or female, Kuan Yin is usually depicted as a young woman, whereas Avalokitesvara in other countries is usually depicted as a man.

My make up is optional! No, Kim!

Along with Buddhism, Kwan Yin's veneration was introduced into China as early as the 1st century CE, and reached Japan by way of Korea soon after Buddhism was first introduced into the country from the mid-7th century.
 
Representations of the bodhisattva in China prior to the Song Dynasty (960-1279) were masculine in appearance. Images which later displayed attributes of both genders are believed to be in accordance with the Lotus Sutra, where Avalokitesvara has the supernatural power of assuming any form required to relieve suffering and also has the power to grant children.
 

I don't git it! - I'm "Kim Yin" now. (PH)

Because this bodhisattva is considered the personification of compassion and kindness [more like Princess Diana of Wales or the original Goddess DIANA, who now appears in the form of the Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence], a mother-goddess and patron of mothers and seamen, the representation in China was further interpreted in an all female form around the 12th century. In the modern period, Kuan Yin is most often represented as a beautiful, white-robed woman... More

 

Kwan Yin in Theravada Buddhist Thailand, Wat Plai Laem, Ko Samui (sandrobisaro.com)

But I want to be the All-American Goddess! Notice me! I'm Lindsay "The Luóhàn" Lohan!

  
NY to legalize medical marijuana
[Hey, Lindsay,] New York is poised to become the 23rd state to legalize medical marijuana, but smoking it will not be allowed under... [So why don't you move there?]

Mother's Day: The Buddha's Three Mothers

Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (AN 2.32)

Mother's Day in America in 12 comics from The New Yorker (newyorker.com)

 

The birth of Siddhartha with Mother Maya

The historical Buddha had three mothers in that final rebirth when he made an end of all suffering.

Most people will have heard of Siddhartha's second mother, his birth-mother, Maha Maya Devi ("Great Queen Maya"). She was a queen, the wife of his father a [rich Afghan Chieftain] King Suddhodana, whose riches derived from the Silk Road that brought wealth, merchants, and spiritual travelers to the faraway capital of Kapilavastu, the Buddha's hometown.

Birth mother: Queen Maha Maya Devi

Maya's beauty was like a "dream," and in fact the name maya derives from the Sanskrit and Pali word for "illusion" (taken in Mahayana-Hinduism as māyā, two religions that so influenced one another as to be the same thing with different deities, one buddhas the other avatars]. An illusion, of course, is fleeting. She passed away seven days after giving birth to Prince Siddhartha. There are reasons given for this -- the most spiritual being that she only took a human birth as a volunteer to give birth to him. We enter life knowing on some level those individuals who play the role of parents, partners, relatives, friends, and enemies. But that is a truth bigger than most can digest.

• 

  The Maya of Mesoamerica are related

  The words "Maya" -- the name of Native Americans from Mexico and Central America with that famous "calendar" -- and "Gautemala" in Mesoamerica derive from the name of the Buddha's mother and his surname Gautama and mala (garland). See Rick Fields' How the Swan Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America in which these and many more connections are drawn showing Buddhism's arrival in the Americas long before the Conquistadors and Catholicism.

Maya, Mariah (Mary), a queen in heaven

And she was reborn as a devaputra (born-among-devas) in Sakka King of the Devas' celestial realm, the World of the Thirty-Three in space. There her former son Siddhartha, after becoming the Buddha, thanked and repaid her for her help in this life by teaching her the liberating-Dharma. The other devas of that world also benefited, although Sakka their ruler was already a stream-enterer and therefore a devoted follower of the Buddha.

Our parents do so much for us that, according to the Buddha, the only way we can ever repay them is by teaching or leading them to the ennobling Dharma.

 

Repaying our Parents (sutra)

Wisdom Quarterly translation (AN 2.32)

Shravana Kumar carries his aged and poor blind parents on his shoulders (Ramayana) More

 

Come on, dad. You, too, mom. Get on up here!

"Truly I say, meditators, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Who? Mother and father. Even if one were to carry one's mother on one shoulder and one's father on the other for a century, and one were to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, and rubbing their limbs, even as they defecated and urinated where they sat [the shoulders], one would not by that pay or repay one's parents. Moreover, if one were to establish mother and father in absolute sovereignty over this great Earth, which abounds in the seven treasures, one would not by that pay or repay one's parents. Why is that? Mother and father do much for their children. They care for them, they nourish them, they introduce them to this world.

 

"But anyone who rouses one's unbelieving mother and father, settles and establishes them in conviction (saddhā); rouses one's unvirtuous mother and father, settles and establishes them in virtue (sīla); rouses one's stingy mother and father, settles and establishes them in generosity (danā); rouses one's foolish mother and father, settles and establishes them in wisdom (paññā): To this extent one pays and repays one's mother and father."

Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff) summarizes: This sutra (AN 2.32) shows that the only way to repay parents is to strengthen them in four qualities: confidence (faith), virtue (morality), unselfishness (generosity), and wisdom (discernment). To do so, of course, we have to develop these qualities in ourselves, as well as learning how to tactfully employ them in being an example to our parents. As it happens, these four qualities are also those of a kalyana-mitta or "noble friend" (AN 8.54), which means that in repaying our parents in this way we become the sort of person who would be a noble friend to others as well.

The Other Mothers

Foster mother: Maha Pajapati Gotami

Many will also have heard of the Buddha's foster or stepmother related by blood, Queen Mahā Pajāpatī Gotami (Sanskrit Gautami). As Mother Number 3, she was Queen Maya's sister and co-wife. 

Both were married to King Suddhodana. She stepped forward to care for the newborn Siddhhartha to the detriment of her own son, Nanda, the Buddha's brother (they shared a father, their mothers were sisters, and she nursed and adopted him at age 7 days, which would seem to make her a little more than a stepmother or Nanda a half-brother; she also had a daughter, the Buddha's rarely mentioned half-sister, Sundari Nanda) -- She was the mother of Nanda, but it is said that she gave her own son to nurses and herself nursed the Buddha.

 

Not his mother: Princess Bimba (Yasodhara)

She is much more famous in this world than Maya because Pajapati (Sanskrit Prajapati) went on to become the first Buddhist nun. The Buddha's brother and sister also ordained and became enlightened.

This was in addition to Siddhartha's wife, Rahulamata ("Rahula's mother"), Princess Bimba Devi, much more popularly known as Yasodhara.

Rahula, Bimba, Siddhartha

What we are never told as we hear the story of the Buddha's life repeated is the fact that he did not "abandon" his family. Far from becoming a deadbeat father, having a good old time in the wilderness as an extreme ascetic, he saved his family: He came back enlightened and led his mother, father, wife, son, brother, sister, foster mother, cousins, and extended family members to liberation, to enlightenment and nirvana. He even remembered his birth mother and visited her where she was reborn. Such was the reverence of the Buddha for his parents, and many monastics followed suit. For example, there is the famous case of one of the Buddha's chief male disciples, Maha Moggallana, visiting his mother in hell to help her.

Of course, the Buddha's former wife, now the Buddhist nun and famous disputant Ven. Bhaddakaccānā, is not the Buddha's mother. How could she be the Buddha's mother? She was their son Ven. Rahula's mother.

First Mother

Questionable quote (Lotusing/flickr)

No, the Buddha's "first mother" is a stranger story of rebirth. In brief, it runs as follows. One day the Buddha was walking down a road with his monastic disciples when he passed an elderly couple. The man called out to him, "Son! Your mother and I have been missing you! It has been a long time since you visited us!"

The monastics thought this was very strange. Stranger still, the Buddha approached them and spoke to them in a very kindly way with gratitude. The monastics were confused, Why is the teacher letting these strangers talk to him this way and addressing him as "son"?

The Buddha later explained that for many (500) lives this couple had been his parents. Over and over, the karma of the three being such, they were born together. She raised him over and again. And here she was in that last life running into him apparently out of the blue but not really by accident. The nuns and monks may have been surprised to hear it but, in fact, the Buddha taught something far more surprising:

So long is this samsara -- this "continued wandering on" through births and deaths -- that it is difficult to ever meet anyone with whom one has not already shared all relationships. Look around; those people have already been one's mother, father... How much gratitude do we owe them? While this seems preposterous, it seems so only because we do not know how long an aeon (kalpa) is, how many there have been, or how many times we have already been reborn, how many existences we have already lived, how much we have already suffered. We have little to no idea. For if we knew, we would not be so eager to continue to cycle and revolve in ignorance again and again.
 

Kwan Yin as Mother Goddess (D)

In that final existence, the Bodhisattva (the Buddha-to-be) had taken rebirth in a special way to accomplish his goal of becoming a world-teacher Supremely Enlightened Teaching Buddha, and Maya had volunteered to serve the world-system in the capacity of giving birth to such a great being.

But here in the world, already existing, was the Bodhisattva's long time mother, his mother many times over, and now she had again found him. Our mothers, even when they do not give birth to us this time, are all around (fathers too). Our nurturers are here, and still they nurture us -- sometimes they attack us perhaps due to our lack of gratitude or their lack of understanding -- and stranger still we, too, are former mothers and fathers of others. Such is the incomprehensible working out of karma, an imponderable (acinteyya) thing.
 
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms -- and we mean ALL of them including you -- from Wisdom Quarterly.

Jesus was married, papyrus shows (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; NPR; ABC News via Yahoo News

ABC News reporting on authentic papyrus referring to Jesus's wife (abcnews.com)

Gospel of Jesus's Wife: "Jesus said to them, 'my wife...' " and "she will be able to be my disciple" written in the Coptic language of Egypt, the fragment contains the phrases.

 

In 2012 [a year of revelations], the discovery of a tattered papyrus fragment rocked the biblical studies community after some alleged its text proved that Jesus was married.

 

Now tests show the fragment is not only likely legitimate -- it's also very old.

 

The controversial fragment known as the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" dates to between the sixth and ninth centuries, and could possibly date back as early as the second to fourth centuries, according to a newly published study in the Harvard Theological Review.

Of course my rabbi son was married

The fragment -- which contains the words, "Jesus said to them, 'my wife'" -- first came to light several years ago.
 
Harvard University Divinity Professor Karen L. King, who announced the fragment's existence at a conference in 2012 [declared by the Vatican to be "fake"..."probably" (NY Times)], was quick to point out that the fragment does not prove that Jesus had a wife. [See below as the eminent religious scholar Princeton University Professor of Religion Elaine Pagels weighs. See also as Bart D. Ehrman (author of How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee), Mark Jordan, and King discuss the god's marriage.]

 

Jesus was not Nordic but African

"The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus -- a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued," King said in a statement.

 

The document first came to King's attention in 2011. She had it examined by Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. Bagnall's initial findings were that the fragment was ancient, which lead to more testing.

From Harvard University:

Wait, my lord God made love and everything?!

Over the past two years, extensive testing of the papyrus and the carbon ink, as well as analysis of the handwriting and grammar, all indicate that the existing material fragment dates to between the sixth and ninth centuries CE. None of the testing has produced any evidence that the fragment is a modern fabrication or forgery. More

Mary Magdalene's Secrets (Discovery and other new documentaries)

 
Prof. Elaine Pagels
Robert Siegel, All Things Considered (NPR.org, Sept. 19, 2012)

Revelations (timedoesnotrest)

When the existence of the papyrus was announced in 2012, another scholar of early Christian texts, Princeton's Elaine Pagels was on NPR to saying that the papyrus suggests that at the time it was written "apparently, there were stories going around that [Jesus] may have been" married.
 

More Revelations (Elaine Pagels)

"[It] may also suggest that Jesus is using a symbolic language as he is in other Gospels that we know of from the second century, like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Philip," Pagels told All Things Considered. LISTEN

Does it matter if Jesus was married?
(BDE) Professors Dr. Karen King, Dr. Bart Ehrman, and Dr. Mark Jordan address the question, "Does it matter if Jesus [St. Issa] was married?"

• True Tales: Early Christendom and Hitler's Germany
• VIDEO: "Misquoting Jesus in the Bible" (Ehrman)
• VIDEO: How Jesus became God (Christian radio) 
• Albuquerque, NM pattern of police state abuse
• Stephen Colbert to take over "Late Show"

7-Day Kwan Yin Ceremony (March 9-16)

Dhr. Seven, Ven. Abbess, D. Tan, Wisdom Quarterly; Ling Yen Mountain Temple, California

Kwan Yin Bodhisattva, Kwannon, Avalokitesvara (Mig_T_One/flickr.com)

In celebration of Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s BIRTHDAY as well as that of beloved Ven. Master Miao Lien, Ling Yen Mountain Temple is conducting two 7-Day Guan Yin Dharma Services.

Kwan Yin Bodhisattva, Mu Ryang Sa Temple (WileyImages.com/flickr.com)

• To save all beings from Hell (Ksitigarbha)
• Adventures in Mahayana: Ling Yen Mountain

The legend of Goddess of Mercy Kwan Yin

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Tecnica (t3cnica/Flickr, Facebook, Getty); HolyMtn

Linh Phuoc Pagoda ("Dragon Pagoda"), Da Lat, Vietnam

Golden Buddha in Dragon Pagoda

When first stepping into this area, one notices the cool atmosphere, which is in stark contrast to the blazing sun outside the compound. One can see the giant statue of Guan Yin Bodhisattva, the Buddhist "Goddess of Compassion." She is accompanied by many smaller statues and an interior of beautiful in-laid terracotta dragons (nagas) and porcelain mosaics.

THE LEGEND OF QUAN YIN

Goddess of Mercy

Kwan Yin figurine (Holy Mountain Trading Co.)

One of the "deities" most frequently seen on altars in China's temples is Kwan Yin (also Quan Yin, Kuanyin, Guanyin). In Sanskrit, her name is Padma-pâni, or "Born of the Lotus." Kwan Yin, alone among all Buddhist devas, is universally loved. She is the model of Chinese beauty.

 

Regarded by the Chinese as the "Goddess of Mercy," she was originally male until the early part of the 12th century and has evolved since that time from her prototype, Avalokiteshvara, "the merciful lord who looks down [from on high]," an Indian enlightenment-being (bodhisattva), who chose to remain on Earth to bring relief to those suffering rather than enjoying for himself the ecstasies of complete-liberation (nirvana).

 

One of the several stories surrounding Kwan Yin is that she was a human Buddhist who through great love and sacrifice during life had earned rebirth in [a paradise] after death.

 

Avalokiteshvara

However, like Avalokiteshvara, while standing before the gates of paradise, she hears a cry of anguish from the Earth below. Turning back, she renounces her reward of bliss but in its place finds immortality in the hearts of the suffering. In China she has many names; she is also known as "Great Mercy, Great Pity, Salvation from Misery, Salvation from Woe, Self-Abiding, Thousand Arms, Thousand Eyes," and so on. 

 

In addition, she is often referred to as the Goddess of the Southern Sea -- the Indian Archipelago -- and has been compared to the Virgin Mary. She is one of the San Ta Shih, or the "Three Great Beings," renowned for their power over the animal kingdom or the forces of nature. These three bodhisattvas or P'u Sa as they are known in China, are Manjusri (Sanskrit) or Wên Shu, Samantabhadra or P'u Hsien, and Avalokiteshvara or Kwan Yin. More

Who are the Pope, Mary Magdalene? (video)

Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Brooke Gladstone (OntheMedia.org)

Did I beat Miley Cyrus? That's all that matters.

This week, Time Magazine named Catholicism's current papal CEO and head of the Holy Roman Catholic Empire, Pope Francis, 2013's person of the year. Brooke Gladstone looks at the how the new Pope has been received by the media and how his messaging seems to have gone viral. through retweeting. (Martin Palmeri, Misa A Buenos Aires - Sanctus), guests: Daniel Burke, Maureen Fiedler, and Rocco Palmo. LISTEN: AUDIO

(Dsicovery/USAGnosticChurch) A documentary about Mary Magdalene and how incredibly important she is to the history of early Christianity and the modern world.

The spiritual couple: Radha-ji and Chrishna

Was Mary Magdalene murdered? Did the Catholic Church conspire to eradicate the holy bloodline from existence? To some Mary Magdalene was the wife or consort of Rabbi Yahshua (Jesus Christ), because every good rabbi would have taken a wife. The infamous Da Vinci Code has firmly put this idea back into the popular arena along with the idea of a holy bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary.

(RE) Who murdered Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth's wife?

Ancient Greek goddess

In this unique film we journey to places never before researched in connection with the story. We venture into the heart of ancient Lincoln, England, and uncover a tale so mysterious, so at odds with the accepted norm that we are forced to question everything we previously held to be true. 

The unknown texts are tracked down, a journey or treasure hunt across Lincoln County unfolds, and the final resting place of Mary Magdalene herself is discovered.