Dharma, sutras, and commentarial interpretations of interest to American Buddhists of all traditions with news that not only informs but transforms. Emphasis on meditation, enlightenment, karma, social evolution, and nonharming.
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The band -- releasing their fourth studio album Love, Lust, Faith, and Dreams
tomorrow -- is doing just that. Jared Leto announced exclusively on KROQ that
Thirty Seconds To Mars will be playing a Church of Mars show for free in
Los Angeles TUESDAY evening (May 21, 2013) in honor of their record
release. Details below.
In a conversation with a KROQ DJ this afternoon, frontman Jared Leto
said that he was “happy” that he “managed to get through it without
collapsing,” partially because he was afraid to lose his voice, but also
because hometown shows make the seemingly cool-headed actor get a
little “nervous.”
In an earlier interview with DJ Kat Corbett, Leto that he’d seen greats like Radiohead, Oasis, and Blur
at different Weenie Roasts throughout the years as just a music fan.
Now it’s Thirty Seconds To Mars’ turn to influence the future Jared
Leto’s of Southern California.
“I’m entirely grateful to the rock gods for letting me finish the
show,” said Leto. “It was lovely to see all the freaks in California
that are our family that we love so much and it was a great way to
start. So, really happy to be part of the festivities.”
Leto opened up Thirty Seconds To Mars’ portion of the festivities by
playing “The Kill” acoustic in the middle of the audience and admitted
that he loves to “break down that wall between the band and the
audience.” More
TICKETS: Looking to “climb into your subconscious and take a hallucinogenic journey into the unknown,” look no further. The free concert with take place at 8:00 pm on Tuesday, May 21st at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Los Angeles (UULA). Tickets are FREE, but fans must e-mail officialmarstickets@gmail.com to request tickets.
Tornado's trail of destruction, Moore, Oklahoma, 5-20 (Richard Rowe/Reuters/Landov/NPR)
Prayers needed. Large, violent tornado plowed
through Moore, OK. We intercepted it from a half mile by
South Moore High School. Complete destruction. Imagine a lawnmower blade 2.5 miles wide coming down on a city. That's what we had here.
The "world," dependent on interaction with awareness, is constantly coming to an end. That is the nature of the flux (anicca) the Buddha pointed at as a liberating-insight that, comprehended correctly, can result in enlightenment.
Although this radical impermanence generally goes unseen throughout one's life, there is another kind of destruction that it is commonly confused with, and that is the external dissolution we meet with everyday.
Everyday is today in the Midwest. Oz. Kansas. Oklahoma, Texas, and those large swaths of grassland and prairie where dinosaurs once roamed, giants built mounds, and ancient seas left countless layers of calcified deposits are being torn asunder. Is HAARP being tested or is climate chaos (aka global warming) finally showing itself in a way the Bible Belt can believe in? Humans affect the weather? That's preposterous!
Who cares if we have more combustion engines going than people? Who cares if ruminant animals are being mis-fed (grains, meat, and other things they would not eat since they want grass, sprouts, and greens) then slaughtered, both of which lead to the creation of powerful greenhouse gases?
(That is one inconvenient truth rancher-multi-millionaire Pres. Al Gore conveniently left out of his famous film since he, his friends, and family all profited from the mass mutilation of mammals industry).
But all chickens and cows come home to roost eventually. Welcome to the New Age. Is God absent, are the weather-gods (devas) in their vimanas on vacation? Are we thinking bad thoughts and committing crimes the Westboro Church would condemn us for in our wars of empire?
Dorothy and Toto start in Kansas (aka, this world) and are transported a dimension away to Oz (Wyrd) via flux produced by tornado -- Hollywood fiction for mass consumption.
Tornadoes Clobber Kansas
(CNN, May 19, 2013) At least one person was killed
Sunday when a string of tornadoes ripped through four American states, tearing
roofs off homes, downing power lines, and tossing trees like matchsticks.
The death happened in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, said Sheriff Mike Booth. He had no details. Booth said that two other people are missing at a trailer park in that county.
Deva or nat, elemental fairy, depicted as Burmese marionette (Swanksalot/flickr.com)
[This has been happening since the White Man moved to the "New World" and displaced the indigenous nations who lived in peace with Nature and out of the way of tornadoes. Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz was transported and teleported due to the strange electromagnetic flux sometimes produced and reported in the hyperdimensional physics (anti-gravity) of spinning metals, water, and spiraling fields that leave cows standing on fences, cars in impossible positions, pieces of soft straw embedded in dense telephone poles, and babies moved from here to there without a scratch. Of course, no one will heed such experiential reports when they do not agree with the top down processing of our archaic theories approved and affirmed by our gate-keeping knowledge-filtering scientists and academics.]
Rescue crews were picking through the mangled metal remains [which, when spun, create a natural magnetic of enormous power] of mobile homes as darkness fell Sunday [May 19, 2013].
As
many as 26 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, and
Iowa [and Texas would soon also be affected], according to the National Weather Service, with Oklahoma and
Kansas being the hardest hit.
Some of those reports might have been of the same tornado.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency Sunday for 16 counties.
One
touched down near Wellston, Oklahoma, taking out power lines and
damaging several homes, according to video from CNN affiliate KFOR. The
affiliate's helicopter pilot estimated the funnel cloud to be about a
half-mile wide.
"It's tearing up everything," the pilot said. "Just ripping everything up in its sight."
Aerial
video from KFOR and CNN affiliate KOCO showed severe damage near
Wellston and near Carney, Oklahoma. Roofs were ripped from homes,
branches stripped from trees and roads were filled with debris.
Tornadoes were also reported east of Dale, west of Paden, and near Prague in Oklahoma.
Part
of Interstate 40 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, was shut down in both directions
Sunday night after a tornado touched down there, overturning multiple
tractor-trailers.
Still more tornadoes were spotted in Iowa, near Earlham, Huxley and east of Dallas Center, according to the weather service.
It did not mince words, telling people to take cover there, as elsewhere.
"You
could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter. Complete
destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying
debris will be deadly to people and animals," it said in its Kansas
advisory.
The twisters are part of a severe weather outbreak that
is sweeping through parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Missouri as the
storms sweep east.
Baseball-sized hail, wind gusts, and tornadoes are threatening to pummel parts of the central Plains and Midwest through Monday.
Beyond
the Midwest, other areas were already seeing severe weather on Sunday.
In Atlanta, serious flooding was reported amid storms producing heavy
rainfall.
This Pali-Buddhist word is sometimes translated as "perversions" of the mind; I find this language too strong and prefer the expression
"distortions" of the mind.
The term is composed of a prefix (vi-), which carries the sense of division, separation, or removal, another prefix (pari-) meaning around or complete (as in our related word peri-meter), and a verb (-as),
which can be taken as meaning "to throw." Putting all this together, we
have the image of the mind or heart taking something up, turning it around, and
throwing it back down -- a perversion or distortion of reality by the
perceptual and cognitive apparatus of the brain [or wherever the seat of consciousness may be located, more likely the whole body or physical heart]. More
Gil Garcetti vs. [winner] Wendy Greuel (LA's first female mayor): She's a personal friend of Bill Clinton, unions, Gil, LAPD brass, progressives, independents, and secret-conservatives.
LA Mayor Villa-Raigosa and Police Chief Beck
LOS ANGELES (CNS) Despite a close race for Los Angeles mayor
and hotly contested battles for City Council, city attorney, and city
controller, only 22.7percent of registered voters [one in five] returned vote-by-mail
ballots as of today, with polls across the city opening tomorrow.
Election
officials issued 739,117 vote-by-mail ballots and 167,657 have been
returned so far, Kimberly Briggs of the City Clerk's office said.
Hollywood-area City Councilman
Eric Garcetti will square off tomorrow against Controller Wendy Greuel.
The two candidates took part in a flurry of last-minute, "get out the
vote" events over the weekend to wake up voter interest.
[Anti-cannabis] City
Attorney Carmen Trutanich is waging an uphill battle to keep his job,
trailing in recent polls behind former assemblyman Mike Feuer with as
many as 18 percentage... More
Afghan
worker excavates ancient Buddhist city at Mes Aynak, Feb. 2013.
Afghanistan is believed to be sitting on massive cultural, mineral, and metal
deposits, but obstacles prevent large-scale mining (Matthew C.
Rains/MCT/Landov).
Emerging treasures of Mes Aynak (B. Huffman)
For years, reports have suggested that Afghanistan is sitting on
massive deposits of copper, gold, iron and rare earth minerals valued up
to $3 trillion. This provides hope for a future economy that would not
have to rely so heavily on foreign donations.
But with an
uncertain political, regulatory and security environment, international
investors are hesitant. And it could be many years before Afghanistan
begins extracting its mineral wealth.
The Afghan Geological
Survey office in Kabul is one of the few agencies in the country that
measure up to international standards.
Journalist walks by mineral exhibit on the way to news conference by Afghan minister of mines, Kabul 2010 (Musadeq Sadeq/AP).
Here, a U.S. government task
force is helping train and advise Afghan geologists in processing
samples from potential mining sites.
On a recent day,
technicians are busy cataloging core samples from North Aynak in Logar
province, about 30 miles south of [the war torn capital of] Kabul. Afghan and U.S. geologists are
evaluating the site's potential as a copper [and rare earth] mine.
Long thin cylinders of greenish rock from the site are lined up in cases. After they are cataloged and photographed, they go to the cutting room, says geologist Mohammed Idrees Ahmadi.
"We
cut them, we can see the mineralizations, the structures, and the
textures of minerals or rocks that are in the sample," he explains. More+AUDIO
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Why do the Irish have a reputation of telling the best stories? Is it possible we are eager to entertain and delight others to distract them from us? Is there a half-conscious motive to conceal ourselves?
Do we stay private as part of the aftermath of near annihilation by the British, whose atrocities and occupation continued for...? Some might say it still continues, and certainly the hegemony persists. So much so that it once drove the first European to ordain as a Buddhist monk in faraway Asia. (See video).
Irish-Americans have returned to the Emerald Isle with Buddhism. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Rhys Davids, I.B. Horner, Woodward, and the Pali Text Society (P.T.S.) with its influential Journal, and even more influential Dictionary of Buddhist-Language Terms, the Dharma arrived on Albion and the Continent more than a century ago.
The Lost Irish Buddhist
Who was the first European Buddhist monk? An adventurer, an Irish rebel, a hobo, an inner-freedom fighter, a world traveler, and finally a famous
Buddhist in Asia. He blazed a trail but died, it seems, is ignored by
history. Why?
This enigmatic, free-thinking Dubliner used various aliases. As a monastic he was known as Ven. Dhammaloka ("Dharma Realm"), The Irish Buddhist. He converted to his adopted path-to-liberation about 1900. He came to be widely known
throughout Asia and in the process managed to fall afoul of the colonial
establishment and Christian missionaries.
Uncovering
Ven. Dhammaloka's unique story has taken inspired detective work on the
part of UCC's Professor Brian Bocking and his colleagues. But
their efforts have been fruitful.
The lost Irish Buddhist emerges
after all these many years as one of the earliest Western Buddhist monks,
pre-dating many others who claim the title. Prof. Bocking guides us through his amazing odyssey.
Now, with or without the Perks family, Wisdom Quarterly will represent Celtic Buddhism in Los Angeles at ScotsFest 2013.
This year will feature a Saturday Night Closing in the Nan Daley Highland Dance Pavilion with all three Grade 1 pipe bands: Dowco Triumph Street, Alberta Caledonia, and the LA Scots (and no closing massed band in the main arena).
Celtic Celebration, Los Angeles
Memorial Day Weekend
May 25-26, 2013
Orange County Fair and Event Center
Scooter/Wheelchair/Stroller Rentals available. More entertainment added. See Highland Dance entry form now available. More
Dhr. Seven,Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (Wikipediaedits, reader's report from Burma)
Sakka (St. Michael) slaying the asura (demon) king ornaga (dragon) by Tadolini
Kyauktan Yay-Le Pagoda, Burma
Thagyamin (Burmese, from Sanskrit Śakra), the "King of the Nats," is identified with the Buddhist deva (literally, "shining one")Sakka and the Hindu deity Indra, identified by Wisdom Quarterly as the source of the mythological Christian/Catholic figure Archangel Michael (Sakka, Makha of Macala).
The Nats are pre-Buddhist animistic spirits -- dryads, elemental fairies, earthbound devas -- feared and revered in Burma. As in India they are supplicated, worshipped, and appeased in exchange for "favors" or what European and American Wiccans might call "boons."
Sujata and the nat/"dryad" Siddhartha
Siddhartha was once mistaken for a nat or tree spirit in the flesh (as shown here) and offered a rich meal of milk rice by the maiden Sujata.
This enabled him to gather the strength to pursue the goal of full enlightenment, which is accomplished by a balance of ease-and-effort. He began to care for his body and so was able to use it to reach the highest insight into the cause of suffering and freedom from it. He triumphed over the ultimate foe -- Mara, the personification of the defilements of the heart/mind (greed, hatred, delusion, and fear).
Sakka King of Devas victory over naga (serpent)
He is often portrayed sitting atop a three-headed white elephant, holding a conch shell in one hand, and a yak-tail whisk in the other (traditional signs of royal authority and prestige). In traditional Burmese Buddhist belief, Thagyamin rules Buddhist cosmological nat or deva plane called Trāyastriṃśa (Tavatimsa).
Thagyamin was designated the leader of the official pantheon of nats by the Burmese King Anawrahta in the 11th century in an effort to streamline animist practices among the populace and merge these practices with Theravada Buddhism. He is the only nat in the official pantheon not to have undergone a sudden and violent death.
Growing up Roman Catholic in Buddhist-majority Burma (called Myanmar by the dictators), identifying as Christian, it is interesting to discern the common themes in Abrahamic and Brahminical/Dharmic studies of angels (devas).
Elsewhere on the Web, I discovered that even Protestant Christian reformers "could not imagine dying without [an] angelic presence." (This is a reference to Catholic funeral rites and other parts of the standard liturgy).
Michael on naga (catholictradition.org)
One of the Catholic Church's approved Burmese liturgical texts is called St. Michael, Thagyamin, the Burmanized form of Buddhism's Sakka. (Burmese Catholic texts also borrow the word sangha, "clergy/monastics," when referring to the clergy).
On a more personal level, Thagyamin Michael is indeed an efficacious intercessor between me and the Christian/Abrahamic God.
Tripura is the third-smallest state in India, bordered by the states of Assam and Mizoram and by Bangladesh. The Kokborok-speaking Tripuri people (children pictured) are the major group among 19 tribes and many subtribes; Bengali people form the ethno-linguistic majority.
WorldFest is a solar-powered celebration of music, the environment, animals, and humanity.
The
WorldFest 2013 Earth Day Festival will be held at the beautiful outdoor
setting of Woodley Park in Lake Balboa, California, in The Valley. All are welcome to
a magnificent day filled with entertainment, education, and
enlightenment. on the other side of the hills from the Hollywood sign and UCLA.
Great music, empowering speakers,
environmental, humanitarian, and animal welfare non-profit organizations, kids'
activities, and a delicious vegan food court make for an Earth-friendly
experience that is sure to be inspiring and enjoyable.
The KROQ Weenie Roast 2013 webcast is now LIVE. The first warm-up band goes on at 1:30 pm PT. See all set times below.
Watch complete live and uncut performances
from The Black Keys, 30 Seconds to Mars, Vampire Weekend, Of
Monsters And Men, Jimmy Eat World, Silversun Pickups, Imagine Dragons,
AWOLNATION, Atlas Genius, Fitz and the Tantrums, The Neighbourhood, C2C,
Capital Cities, New Politics, and Twenty One Pilots!
Kent Brockman of "The Simpsons" fame can offer some advice (FOX TV)
The interstate Super Lotto Mega Jackpot is overheating. No one beat the odds, and the pot is rolling over -- with a payout of over half a billion dollars.
The arhat Ven. Sivali
This means long lines at liquor stores all over Los Angeles (City of Dreamers) and throughout the Golden State, which now accounts for 11% of sales. After just a few short weeks of being in the official POWERBALL dreamer-tax scheme, aka "lottery," California is set to set the records on sales without a single win.
So you've decided to gamble. It's only $2.00, and the excuse is that it's fun, when in fact it is a reasonable investment with a slim chance of winning but big rewards if the "karma gods" (gloss devas) will allow it.
"You've got to be in it to win it," the propaganda goes. One needn't be since one might find a stub if it were "meant to be," or one might receive a gift of a ticket. No, the only thing that's sure is that the buyer is becoming a gambler. Therefore, to maximize the odds, here are four easy steps to follow:
The enormity of Anathapindika's monetary dana (generosity)
STEP 1. Get a hold of two dollars because ONE ticket is enough. (Do not borrow them). Contrary to what mathematicians and actuaries can clearly "prove," one does NOT double one's chances by buying a second ticket. One may, in fact, be jinxing oneself with doubt. One ticket is enough.
STEP 2. Generate uninterrupted thoughts of being deserving based on past wholesome karma (kusala kamma), such as acts of generosity, reverence, contemplating the Marks of Existence, veneration of the enlightened, giving peace to others, and so on. (There are at least Ten Courses of Wholesome Action). Tap into the karma of others -- such as the Buddha, the arhats, Ven. Sivali, Anathapindika, and other accomplished individuals -- by bringing it to mind then approving and applauding their acts, which is wholesome mental and verbal activity for the one so engaged.
NOTE: Karma is NOT "cause and effect," a definition which stipulates an "equal and opposite reaction." It is not that. Karma is exponential, redounding in deisrable and undesirable consequences, like a rock thrown at a target that continues on its path, initiating a cascade of effects (karmic results, of which there are two distinct kinds, fruits or phala and mental-resultants or vipaka) and further causes.
STEP 3. Choose numbers intuitively rather than deductively, going with unthought-through series of selections. Each number is an individual choice. Of course some numbers do occur more frequently, particularly those in the 40-49 range. This is denied by officials in spite of the fact that there have been many complaints. Unless one is prepared to conduct a statistical study for no remuneration, which is a lot like purchasing tickets weekly or more often, it is best to follow one's heart. If one is able to hold uninterrupted thoughts (beneficial memories) of well-done deeds, then do a quick-pick, that is, allow the computer to choose the numbers. Otherwise, come prepared with the number choices written out and confirm that those are what the purchased ticket show.
STEP 4. Now preparing one's heart to win is vital if one is going to follow it. For "it will be a long time before the mind knows in detail what the body already perfectly understands." The best preparation is purification through concentration.
Motivated by greed or karmic-result?
"Concentration" (samadhi) does not mean straining, but rather soft focusing, bringing attention back to a single point or object until it delights in the stillness and remains absorbed as all other stimuli drop away. Samadhi means something like altogether whole, with consciousness working undiluted. It may be possible to pull the numbers from a more natural hypnogogicstate when one is awakening from sleep in the morning or from a nap. (Binaural beats may accomplish the same thing).
NOTE: Will an intentional bubble of protection before opening in meditation as there are inimical influences around that can take advantage. And aspire to meet with the results of all beneficial acts, the greatest being those of one's own development.
Sivali amulets/charms from Thailand
For example, the Buddha said contemplating radical-impermanence for the duration of a finger snap was more beneficial and fruitful than a great deal of generosity and giving to unenlightened beings such as gods, spirits, moral individuals, ordinary persons, immoral individuals, and inferior being on lower planes. But he meant practicing insight/vipassana in line with the 12 Links of Dependent Origination after emerging from absorption/jhana, not simply thinking "Things are impermanent" in a prompted or unprompted manner.
RECAP: 1. Get two dollars, 2. again and again reflect and contemplate the merit or wholesome karma accrued over many lives, 3. choose the numbers intuitively while doing this or hold it powerfully when the computer is randomly generating a quick-pick, and 4. rather than hoping to win or staying in a state of lack give gratitude. Time is mutable, and what we choose now affects the past by means of what Europeans called the way of the wyrd. Reality is strange. Hold an intention, and it will have a way of manifesting that could not be mapped out by the mind/heart wishing it.
KARMA "It's Everywhere You're Going To Be"
SPECIAL NOTE: According to an enlightened Buddhist nun and teacher alive today, winning will be a kind of spending or cashing in on merit (good karma), which can then be enjoyed for 50 years or less, depending one when one wins. If, instead, that merit were to come to fruition as one was passing on, it would lead to a fortunate rebirth that might last millions of years, with celestial bliss. Therefore, when you win, earn more: Keep generating more and more merit, more and more wholesome karma in addition to enjoying yourself. It will come in handy everywhere and in every endeavor through the cycle of endless rebirths prior to nirvana.
WARNING: Greed (lobha), counterproductive longing, and profanity!
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