Path to Nirvana; WQ reaches milestone

Here, Johnson poses at the opening green carpet for the 21st Zurich Film Festival on Sept. 25, 2025, in Zurich, Switzerland (Andreas Rentz, Getty Images for ZFF)

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Dakota Johnson was a vision in blue at the Zurich Film Festival, and her jaw-dropping, see-through Gucci gown stole the spotlight. Johnson was on stage at the screening of her latest film, "Splitsville," at the 2025 Zurich Film Festival on Sept. 25, 2025, in Zurich, Switzerland. Artistic Director of the ZFF Christian Jungen awarded Johnson the Golden Eye Award during the screening. More:

• Dakota Johnson's sheer Gucci gown stuns at Zurich Film Festival | USA Today
• ZFF: Dakota Johnson and other stars at festival opening

Blue is the color, invisible to the ancients

Blue is the color. It represents a kind of cosmic intelligence or wisdom, to the extent any color (rate of vibration or frequency) can convey resonance or a mood. The seven main chakras (energy nexuses or "wheels") along the spine represent the aspirations of humans.

We go from the base (muladhara) with our coiled energy waiting to be expressed, where we ground ourselves, aspiring upwards to release (spiritual liberation) at the crown chakra. They are called wheels because they are turning, guiding kundalini energy upward.

Milestone

What the students wrote

What is the milestone? It is another tremendous mass of views. Without realizing it, Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal crossed yet another big tick on the ticker. With each such bundle of hits or views, most of them taking place in just the past month, we are filled with gratitude for our enlightened teacher and his successful American student (to preserve her privacy, let's call her Kalyani, the noble friend), who are inspirations that we, too, can attain such things as are described in the Buddhist texts, particularly the Abhidhamma preserved and made practical in little known Burmese Theravada tradition of the great Pa Auk Sayadaw. (All forms of Buddhism may be beautiful and exotic, counterintuitive and koan-like, but how many produce enlightenment and liberation, bodhi and nirvana, in this very life?) However, in our worldly foolishness, we tend to intellectualize everything. And for that we have our root teacher, American JuBu Bhikkhu Bodhi (BAUS.org).

What is the Path to Enlightenment?

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Seven energy-wheels or chakras of the body

The "path" (Pali magga, Sanskrit marga) may be summarized in many ways. Because Buddhism as recorded in ancient, memorized recitations (the oral tradition of proto-India before most people read and wrote), there are lists. So it's fun to play with them so long as one knows the map is not the terrain, only an indicator along the way. If only ONE thing were needed to awaken to enlightenment (bodhi), that

1. one thing would be insight (wisdom, direct knowing-and-seeing, panna, Sanskrit prajna).
2. If the list had two things: Serenity (jhanas) and Mindfulness (satipatthana) producing liberating wisdom.
3. Three things: Compassion, Tranquility, and Mindful Attention to the Four Foundations.
4. Four things: The Four Ennobling Truths. ("Noble" = Aryan = "Enlightening").
5. Five things: Finding a suitable teacher, giving ear, mental attention, applying oneself, and perseverance until success.
6. Six things: Sitting, calming, absorption (jhana), emerging, and immediately mindfully placing attention on phenomena (ultimate mentality and materiality, discerning cittas and kalapas), and reflecting.
7. Seven things: The Seven Factors of Enlightenment.
8. Eight things: The Ennobling Eightfold Path....
9. Thirty-seven things: (The Seven Requisites of Enlightenment or the bodhipakkhiyādhammā, all the key things, or dhamma, the historical Buddha taught pertaining to awakening that leads to knowing nirvana).

• USA Today; Editors, Wisdom Quarterly