Voices of Women in Sacred Music (video)

Prof. Anne Harley, Scripps College (voicesofthepearl.org), YouTube, John Schneider ("Global Village," June 21, 2018, KPFK 90.7 FM); Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddhist Therigatha is 2,600 years old.

On today's episode of Global Village, John Schneider hosts some incredible female musicians. The first is Yale-educated Anne Harley talking about ancient Buddhism in Dunhuang (Central Asia as it abuts Western China with its own Research Academy). She talks about Buddhist nuns of the two dominant schools and Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, a Western mystic, poet, composer, and musician. Hildegard opened scholars' minds as to how much women contributed to spirituality through music. Are women capable of enlightenment and mysticism (direct experience of the divine)? These women prove they are. LISTEN (Global Village - Thurs, June 21, 2018, 11:00 AM)

 

Professor of Music Anne Harley (Scripps)

Voices of the Pearl, in newly commissioned song cycles,  traces the tenuous lineage of women who dared to encounter the unmediated divine.

Their efforts span time, religion, nation, and culture. This project commissions, performs, and records musical works from composers across the world, setting text by and about female esoterics from world traditions throughout history, reclaiming these lost voices and the tradition of female spirituality.

By juxtaposing and performing four to five cycles by living composers, a full-length evening of portraits is created of female esoterics, traversing time and geography.

 

Ayya Tathaloka, California Theravada nuns

The performance of several different cycles over the course of an evening focuses audiences' attention on the musical portraits of women negotiating the intersection of heaven and earth, in a variety of world traditions: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist.

• [The section on Buddhist nuns is particularly striking as it sets to music rare and ancient Buddhist texts known as the Therigatha or "Verses of the Nuns," which are songs about individual enlightenment experiences of theris or female-elders, an "elder" being anyone with ten or more rains retreats in the robe. Harley gathered these texts from "female monks" in Theravada Thailand, the are fully ordained nuns. But "nun" has another, lower-status meaning of the Maechi or White-Clad Ten Precept Nuns, like Srirasmi Suwadee is treated, who are not fully ordained.]

Goddesses (devis) can teach and sing.

The female esoteric practitioner is twice marginalized in the world’s traditions. First, the mystic’s direct contact with the divine threatens the hierarchical [and patriarchal] structures of organized religion, so they are sometimes labeled heretical.

Second, women are often considered by religious traditions incapable, due to their female bodies, to attain an authentic [enlightenment or] direct mystical contact with the divine.
 
[The Buddha said they could and made them "nuns," wandering female ascetics, but that did not stop sexist societies from doubting them and them doubting themselves.] 

Voices of the Pearl traces the tenuous lineage of women who dared to encounter the divine directly. More

Voices of the Pearl: Vol. 1, Secret Book of Sun Bu'er: Step 5: Cultivating the Elixir (養丹)

Global Village, Thursday, June 21, 2018, 11:00 AM

Listen now: This episode will only be available for 90 days in the KPFK Archives

Artist	Song Title	Album	Label	Played
Joan Huang	Along the River During the Gingming Festival (Bustling Market)	Festive River, East Meets West	Cambria Music	11:01 AM
Anne Harley, Steve Thachuk	Voices of the Pearl, excerpts	Live In-Studio	Live In-Studio	11:15 AM
Anne Harley, Steve Thachuk	Voices of the Pearl, excerpts	Live In-Studio	Live In-Studio	11:

Cleanse, Nourish, Heal (Dr. Christopher)

Dr. Christopher (drchristopher.com); Xochitl, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

 

Cleanse then eat well = heal.

Dr. Christopher’s common sense approach to natural health is based on three vital processes. He taught his students that cleansing is the first and most important stage of restoring a healthy body.
 
The ultimate purpose of cleansing is to prepare the body for natural healing through purification of all the body’s organs down to the cellular level.

This protocol is designed to naturally bring the body to its normal weight range, whether the body is overweight or underweight by first eliminating any accumulation or retention of putrid matter in the bowel.
 
Perspiration is a natural action of the sweat glands. Sweat throws off toxins, which can be restricted by the use of synthetic drying deodorants. Once the body is purified, it is ready to accept the highest vibratory quality foods. Now natural healing can take place as nature intended!

Second, nourishment from live, nutritious, foods supports the body’s natural function by balancing everything from the PH of an overly acidic body to restoring the natural glow of the largest organ of the body -- the skin.
 
Third, healing occurs naturally, sometimes quickly but sometimes slowly, as the body continues to eliminate impurities and strengthen itself through proper nourishment.

One of the signs of healing comes with periodic aches and pains in the areas where the cleansing action is most acute. Patience is required as the body cycles through these three phases. More

Culture Clash’s "Bordertown Now" (Pasadena)

PasadenaPlayhouse.org, Bordertown Now; Crystal Quintero (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Twenty years after their searing hit Bordertown [Then] premiered, LA’s own Culture Clash returns to the southern border to investigate the state of affairs once again. Re-imagined, remixed, and fully reloaded, Bordertown Now is an irreverent look at the people at the center of one of America’s most hot-button controversies and the walls that divide us all. Infused with their trademark comedic approach, the nation’s premier Chicano/Latino performance trio joins an Obie Award-winning artist and to redefine the boundaries of theater and break down the divisions between cultures. By Ric Salinas and Herbert Sigüenza with new material by Richard Montoya. Directed by Diane Rodriguez. More

• Get Tickets: $25+

It's summer! Beach Trip Meditation (potluck)

Ananda M. (Dharma Meditation Initiative), Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Jen, Wisdom Quarterly

There's nothing to do in summer but have fun.

June 21 is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the official start of summer. It's a great time to start meditating. Dharma Meditation Initiative will take a virtual trip to Pasadena's Sandy Beach.

Wear your summer attire and bring a towel and/or yoga mat.

We'll gorge on vegan POTLUCK summer treats -- chips, dips, salad, watermelon, sudsy kombucha in red cups on ice...

Look forward to a balance of guys and gals as well as:

• serenity relaxation
• a few yoga stretches
• deep guided meditation
• interactive hugs
• comedy and laughs
• music
• mindful expression
• sharing.

This even is suitable for beginners. Come to have fun, leave on a natural high.

For outdoorsy types, on Saturday June 23, we take a field trip: Mass Meditation Initiative - DisclosureFest in DTLA, the "Coachella of meditation events."

• Summer Solstice: Beach Trip Meditation
• Dharma Meditation Initiative
• 6:30-8:30 PM, Thursday, June 21, 2018
• Sequoyah School Rm. 23 @ Neighborhood Church
• 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena 91103
• FREE/donation for those who RSVP in time

Summer 77: "White Punks on Dope" (video)

The Tubes live on the Sunset Strip; Seth Auberon, Crystal Quintero (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

WARNING: Cussing, shocking antics, excesses of the 1970 people would rather forget!

Teenagers had a race for the night time, spent my cash on every high I could find, wasted time in every school in L.A., getting loose, I didn't care what the kids say.

CHORUS: We're white punks on dope. Mom and dad live in Hollywood, hang myself when I get enough rope. Can't clean up, though I know I should. White punks on dope...

("TV-Glotzer" in German*) Nina Hagen's spinon a classic tune, late 70s

 

Other dudes are living in the ghetto (wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-ooooo), but born in Beverly Hills don't seem much better (wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-ooooo).

I go crazy 'cause my folks are so bleeding rich (wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-ooooo), have to score when I get that rich white punk itch. Sounds real classy, living in a chateau (wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-oo-wa-ooooo). So lonely, all the other kids will never know. CHORUS. White punks on dope...

"White Punks on Dope" Nina Hagen version

*GERMAN TV-Glotzer: Alone! The world has forgotten about me. I am hanging around. F*cked it up with everyone. No desire to do a thing. I feel old, like my grandma in a swamp. I turn on the [TV] box: the Daltons, Waltons, everyone. I stare from East to West, 2, 5, 4. No way I can decide. Everything here is so beautifully colorful! I stare at the TV. (She stares at the TV). I stare at the TV. (She stares at the TV). Wow! I am so dead! Was this my life already? My beautiful imagination! My sensors all have had it! I turn on the box, happiness, smooth smooth, fun fun! I stare from East to West, 2, 5, 4. No way I can decide. Everything here is so beautifully colorful! I stare at the TV. (She stares at the TV). I stare at the TV. (She stares at the TV). Yeah! I am going nuts. I won't touch another book. Literature? Puke, puke! Makes me sick. And the medical novels I've read with twelve. Boy, I am so well-read! Hey! And the refreshment waffles have leaked, gag gag. And this f*cking chocolate makes me fatter and fatter and fatter and fatter and, oh dear! I turn on the box -- happiness, smooth smooth, fun fun! I stare from East to West, 2, 5, 4. No way I can decide. Everything here is so beautifully colorful! I stare at the TV...TV TV TV TV is a drug. TV is addictive. TV TV TV TV...

Is America a POLICE STATE yet?

Wisdom Quarterly Watch; KFI (iheart.com); Associated Press (ap.org)

B'cuz I'm ordering you, motherfather, that's why! If you were black, you'd be dead already.

Happy birthday, Lana Del Rey, who found a way never to be in trouble with the police. Yikes.

Summer Solstice: Summer begins! (The Path)

Acharya Buddharakkhita (trans.), Dhammapada XX, Maggavagga, "The Path"; Pink Floyd, "Time"; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly


The worst thing is looking back with regret, having left undone what should be done, having done what should not be done, having wasted one's time, having learned nothing, having gained zip, youth spent, none the wiser, and no closer to enlightenment (bodhi) or freedom (nirvana).

It's like Pink Floyd sings in that famous song on constant repeat in Asia. All shoestring travelers hear it at hippie hangouts and hostels. Y'know the one: "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town waiting for..."
 
If that's the worst thing, then a very good thing is to stand here, project to that time in the future, look back, feel how much it sucks, and avoid it! You're young, life is long, and there is time enough today. But then there's that other line, the problem:

"Waiting for someone or something to show you the way," The Path, the thing no one lets us know unless we seek it out.

I suppose we always thought we'd find it ourselves. Teacher? We don't need no stinking teacher! Hey, teacher, leave us all alone, ah, but that's another song.

.

Verses on "The Path"

Should we worship Time or do surya namaskar, yoga's "sun salutation"? (Stonehenge)

.

Dhammapada (Dharma Path)

273. Of all the paths, the Noble Eightfold Path is best; of all truths the Four Noble Truths are best; of all things, dispassion is best: of humans, the One Who Sees is best.

274. This is the direct [possibly the only] path; there is none other for the purification of insight; tread this path, and you will bewilder Mara [Death, the Deceiver, who ruins the possibility of enlightenment and liberation].

275. Walking on this path, one will make an end of all suffering. Having discovered how to pull out the thorn of craving [lust, clinging, desperate hankering, passion], I make known the path.
 

276. You yourselves must strive; the Buddhas only point the way. Those meditative ones who tread the path are released from the bonds of Mara.
 

277. "All conditioned things are impermanent" -- when one sees this [reality] with direct insight, one [automatically] pulls away from suffering. This is the path of purification.
 

278. "All conditioned things are unsatisfactory" -- when one sees this with direct insight, one pulls away from suffering. This is the path of purification.

279. "All things are impersonal" -- when one sees this with direct insight, one pulls away from suffering. This is the path of purification.
 

280. The idler who does not exert oneself when one should who, although young and strong, is full of sloth, with a mind/heart full of vain thoughts -- such an indolent person does not find the path to liberating wisdom.
 

281. Let a person be watchful of speech, well controlled in mind [thought], and not commit harm in bodily action. Let one purify these three courses of karma (action) and win the path made known by the Great Sage.
 

282. Wisdom springs from meditation [cultivation, development, bringing into being]; without meditation, wisdom wanes. Having known both of these paths -- of progress and decline -- let a person conduct oneself that one's wisdom may increase.

283. Cut down the forest (lust), but not the tree; from the forest springs fear. Having cut down the forest and the underbrush (desire), be passionless, O meditators!

• [20: (Verse 283) The meaning of this injunction is: "Cut down the forest of lust, but do not mortify the body."]

284. For so long as the underbrush of desire, even the most subtle, of a person towards another person is not cut down, one's mind is in bondage, like the sucking calf to its mother.
 

285. Cut off your clinging in the manner of a person who plucks with hand an autumn lotus. Cultivate only the path to peace, nirvana, as made known by the Exalted One.
 

286. "Here shall I live during the rains, here in winter, here in the summer" -- thus thinks the fool. One does not realize the danger (e.g., Death might intervene).
 

287. As a great flood sweeps away a sleeping village, so death seizes and carries away the person with a clinging mind/heart, doting on one's children and cattle [family and wealth].
 

288. For one who is assailed by death, there is no protection by kinsfolk. None there are to save one -- no sons, nor father, nor relatives.
 

289. Realizing this fact, let the wise person, restrained by virtue, hasten to clear the path leading to nirvana.

• ← Previous chapter   Next chapter →

Free Summer Buddhist Meditation Retreat, June 30, 2018, Los Angeles (DMI)

Sy Hersh on Vietnam War, My Lai (video)

Seymour Hersh, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez (democracynow.org, June 20, 2018); Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sy Hersh: Media, how about covering US's War on Yemen and Trump policies rather than being distracted by tweets?

• The US is currently involved in 76 wars. - Sy Hersh, 6/20/18

Working with Gene McCarthy shaped my life

(June 20, 2018) Remembering the US military's massacre of My Lai: Sy Hersh on uncovering the untold horrors of U.S. mass murder in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos In 1970, U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on how the U.S. slaughtered more than 500 innocent Vietnamese women, children, and old men in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. The event became known as the My Lai Massacre. He speaks from NYC today. Video

• VIDEO: Full June 20th, 2018 episode (59 mins)

I, Sy: Reporter: A Memoir

“Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News,” Pres. Trump tweeted last week, in his latest attack on the nation’s free press. A week earlier, federal prosecutors revealed they had secretly captured years’ worth of phone and email data from journalist Ali Watkins, who broke several high-profile stories related to the Senate Intelligence Committee. A former top aide on the committee, James Wolfe, has been charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with the press. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders recently dropped the U.S. to Number 45 in its annual ranking of press freedom. When the group first published its list in 2002, the U.S. came in at Number 17. Sy Hersh has a new book, Reporter: A Memoir, looking back on his more than half-century of scoops and digging up secrets. More

• I, Sy: Hersh's memoir of a life making the mighty sweat

Cheney is not the only Dick: Sy Hersh: I knew Richard Nixon BEAT his wife in 1974, but did not report the story

Sy Hersh: Former Sec'y of State and Nat'l Security Advisor Henry Kissinger must “count burned and maimed Cambodian and Vietnamese [Buddhist] babies” in his sleep

Seymour Hersh on torture at Abu Ghraib and secret U.S. assassination programs

• “Trump CREATES crises and preys on FEAR”: Rep. Jayapal on policy separating kids and parents

June 19, 2018: Caged children and terrified infants: Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee describes “acts of indecency” [by Obama and now by Trump] at southern border

• June 19, 2018: As demonstrators demand Nicaraguan president’s resignation, government accuses opposition of coup
• June 18, 2018: Meet the migrant child detention center whistleblower speaking out against [racist] family separations
• Web Exclusive, June 19, 2018: Extended conversation with Nicaraguan government Minister Paul Oquist on escalating crisis
• June 18, 2018: Democratic lawmakers join family separation protests at detention centers from Texas to New Jersey
• June 18, 2018: With spotlight on migrant families separated at the border, will Democrats push to abolish ICE?

Anthony Bourdain: Apocalypse Now, Cambodia

Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour, S.01, Ep.06) via Learn2Travel; Alex Jones via OpenMind Jun 9, 2018; Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly



Eating on the Edge of Nowhere
Buddhist Cambodia and Japan (two places destroyed by the US military in the US war on Vietnam and WW II): Taking his obsession with the film Apocalypse Now a little too seriously, Food Network/CNN Celebrity Chef Anthony Bourdain (addict and author of Kitchen Confidential) sets out for Pailin, in Theravada Buddhist Cambodia, on the Mekong River, in one of the last strongholds of the murderous Khmer Rouge, reputed to be one of the most dangerous towns on earth. It is still full of U.S. landmines maiming and killing many every year decades after America's undeclared, secret war on Cambodia and Laos, unfortunate neighbors of Vietnam. After his journey, he returns to Zen Buddhist Japan or what's left of it after suffering three nuclear scenarios (Nagasaki, Hirsoshima, and Fukushima*) at the hands of the U.S.
 
[*No one can deny we -- well, not us but the military, private corporations, and clandestine services we support, which together are called the "military-industrial complex" headed by the CIA -- targeted and murdered the civilian populations of the first and second, yet most may still not know how involved we were with causing the third disaster. Look it. We covered the why and how at length.]

(Urban Moving, June 13, 2018) Confirmed: Anthony Bourdain killed in hit to cover up Pizzagate, Part 2: Who discovered the body, the chef friend or the hotel assistant? The media does not know or agree but is more than happy to write this off as "suicide" by self-strangulation (not hanging) and move on, "case closed."

OpenMind

We are not fans of Alex Jones, who is a kind of joke, but sometimes he says things that are true. Here he talks about many more people than CNN's superstar Anthony Bourdain, 61 -- Elon Musk, D. Trump, Hillary C., Henry Kissinger, Kanye West, Harvey Weinstein, and others. Jones has sources just because he has a big audience, a venue to put things out when no one else will tell the world.This video is a mirror of what Alex Jones put up in case he gets pulled, taken down completely, or eliminated altogether now that he has outgrown his usefulness to the powers that be. There is shadow government sex trafficking, and this is too hard for people to face. So if anyone mentions it, believes it, entertains the thought, they must be shunned to preserve our sense of peace. More (amazon.com)

• AUDIO: Comedian Adam Corolla explains rise of Trump

Something is not right: The Mercers (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Jen Sorensen; Impossible Channel; DW.com


Something is wrong, mal-.
Something is not right.
I'm in a handbag on a trip to...
and I'm feeling uptight.

Kiss your what? No way! Pee on me.

In the famous book series by Douglas Adams known as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he proposes that the purpose of a ruler, such as Trump, is NOT to wield power but to draw attention away from the real wielders of power.

In the series there is a charismatic Lothario, who is funny, foolish, idiotic, with an extra head.

"Ballcap Semiotics" (jensorensen.com)

He is always getting in trouble, with a head full of subversion but knowledge enough to know that if he ever talked like that, they [billionaires Robert and daughter Rebekah Mercer in Trump's case] would put a stop to it and to him.

So he's had a lobotomy of sorts and become the greatest leader ever because all he does is crazy things that keep people talking. He, like Pres. Trump, is supremely suited for this job.
 
The Mercers, who elected, also control Trump

Under so much stress, addicted to junk food

The Mercers met Breitbart (Breitbart News Network) and through him met Bannon, who took over when Breitbart suddenly died. Bannon was the Mercers' de facto political adviser (The New Yorker). The Mercers invested millions in Breitbart and gained a large stake in the company. The billionaire family originally funded [Mitt Romney in 2012 then] Ted Cruz's presidential campaign, before switching to Trump after his Republican primary win. Then he cinched the Republican nomination, and the Mercers called for "all hands on deck" to ensure his victory against Hillary Clinton. The  right-wing family donated money to influence the campaign, hiring Cambridge Analytica to put Trump in the White House. More

Who controls the media?

Who/what really killed Anthony Bourdain?

A Call For An Uprising, June 10, 2018; Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Illuminati? We were a happy power-couple with a child and, anyway, he was going to talk.

A depressed, tormented addict finds financial and critical success and then meets and dates a beautiful witch, a real "red witch" out for power and full of martial arts expertise. Her name is Asia Argento and together they had a beautiful daughter, not yet a teenager.

Strange headline in India making connection

Surprise, surprise, she is a high-ranking witch, a part of the beautiful #metoo movement [which we love but agree may have already been co-opted and misused to promote some other agenda(s) or to work against the very thing it says it's working for]. This Christian, "A Call for an Uprising," gives his take. Maybe he has a phobia about feminism, yoga, meditation, and New Age stuff, but in the end Bourdain is dead, leaving behind a child he loves to fend for herself with a single mother. Who can believe he "strangled" himself? Are there "demons" (rakshasas, yakkhas, nagas, pretas, asuras, kumbhandas)? If so what do they do when someone leaves them an opening by doing rituals or wearing inviting symbols? More

• Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Avicii "suicides": a week of coincidences or something more?
• Confirmed: Anthony Bourdain killed to hide Pizzagate (2)