Why does media denigrate Iran? (Eli)

• Russian Correspondent Eli from Russia, redhead in Persia

Foods Mexico's Aztecs gave us: chocolate

Still Standing (Business Insider); Unsung History; Vanessa Romo (LAist.com and SCPR.org/NPR.org 10/13/21); Crystal Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Aztec recipe legacy: Unearthing the xocolatl (chocolate) story | AztecZone.com

Meet the "shaman" using ancient chocolate rituals to revive Mayan traditions

(Still Standing | Business Insider) Oct. 15, 2021: Cacao has been a spiritual symbol for Indigenous people in Mesoamerica and Central America (Olmecs, Maya, and Aztecs) for thousands of years. When the modern European chocolate industry took over, many of the plant's sacred uses were lost. Today, people in Guatemala (the country just south of Mexico) are bringing back the ritual of drinking pure cacao (coffee-like tropical-spice "bitter water"). #StillStanding #Guatemala #Cacao. Both Izaias and Keith sell their cacao online: lavalovecacao.com, keithscacao.com.

Guatemala is interesting because it takes its name from the historical Buddha Gautama and the Indian word for string of beads mala, according to American anthropologist Rick Fields in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America. The Buddha did not come to America, but Buddhism arrived before Catholicism, Christianity, or Columbus, apparently getting here in various waves, the most famous of which was, according to American Edward P. Vining (1885) by Chinese and Afghan Buddhist missionaries, as documented in the excellent text An Inglorious Columbus.

An Inglorious Columbus; or, Evidence that Hwui Shan and a party of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century, AD (Edward Payson Vining, 1847-1920)

Mexican moms make it better, from warm corn tortilla wraps to spicy centers to sweet cocoa.

You're taking our hot xocolatl for your cold European climate? Add chile to make it spicy.

Love potatoes, tomatoes, or chocolates? Thank Indigenous Latin American cultures

West addicted to sugar + caffeine

Some of the best tasting foods out there are indigenous to Latin America, but over the centuries they have become associated with imperialist European countries that stole them.

We thought it was time to set the record straight. Mmm...chocolate! It was invented in Mexico, like most other popular American foods.

Television commercials and magazine ads make it seem that the Swiss or Belgians must somehow be connected to the very origins of chocolate, but the caffeine laced treat's history stretches back millennia to what is now southeastern Mexico.

Whites like Wonka invented chocolate, right?

In fact, Smithsonian Magazine reports that the very word stems from the Aztec xocolatl, which referred to the bitter drink brewed from cacao tree seeds that was often mixed with chilis, special herbs, honey, and flowers.

The liquid (now called "hot cocoa") was beaten into a foam and both inhaled and drunk as part of sacred rituals called cacao ceremonies.

(Unsung History) We take the present-day word "chocolate" from the Mayan word xocolatl, which translates to as "bitter water," and that is an accurate description of the traditional and highly popular everyday Mayan cocoa drink. Aztecs added amendments to the theobromine.

Our pyramids and massive cities are still being found by LiDAR under the jungle canopy.

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"Chocolate" comes from these fruit seeds.

It's well documented that the drink has been around for 2,000 years, but anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania say they have found an even earlier use of cacao — the source of modern day chocolate — somewhere between 1400 and 1100 B.C.E.

Ancient pottery discovered in present day Latin American country Honduras indicates that cultures there made a fermented, alcoholic beverage from the sweet pulp of the cacao fruit.

Add spices and sweetness

"Legend has it that the Aztec King Montezuma welcomed the Spanish explorer [Conquistador] Hernando Cortes with a banquet that included drinking chocolate, having tragically mistaken him for a reincarnated deity [deva] instead of a conquering invader," according to Smithsonian.

It makes sense then that the cacao seed or bean made its first appearance in Spain during the mid-1500s. A century later, sweetened chocolate had become a fashionable and expensive commodity across Europe.

• Potatoes make fries and mash and pancakes and can be baked and stuffed and added to everything!

So many ways to enjoy potatoes with ketchup

We'll be taking the gold, silver, chocolate, tomatoes, and potatoes. Here's a cross for you.

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The all-American French fry in raw form

While the humble and hearty potato is inextricably linked to Ireland in many people's minds, the American tubers were first domesticated in present day Peru and Northern Bolivia nearly 8,000 years ago, according to the BBC.

The Inca and other indigenous people consumed potatoes in many of the same ways we do today. But they also commonly made something called chuño, which is made by repeatedly freezing potatoes in the cold Andes night air then thawing them the next day.

Who wants bland chuño when we have tasty xocolatl?

People would squeeze out all of the moisture, which made them light, soft, and juicy and added years to their shelf life.

The preservation process made them perfect for long expeditions and provided security against future bad harvests — both qualities that appealed to the Spanish upon their invasion in the region in 1532.

Chocolate fruit is better than the fatty seeds.

"The invaders took tubers [the underground parts of the plant we call potatoes] across the Atlantic, as they did with other crops such as tomatoes, avocados, and corn, in what historians call the Great Columbian Exchange. For the first time in history, the potato ventured beyond the Americas," the BBC reports.

Since then, the BBC says, the potato has become the world's fourth-most important crop after [the grains or grass seeds] rice, wheat, and [American] maize, starchy potatoes being the first among non-grains.

On the subject of tomatoes...

Euro-Americans find profitable use for tomatoes

What's Italian food without tomatoes? Yet, like the other foods on this list so far, the thin-skinned fruit (not a vegetable) originated in the Andes Mountains of present-day Peru and Ecuador and is believed to have been domesticated by Mexicans before Columbus, Britannica tells us.

Similarly, the Aztecs would argue that it is neither pronounced \toe-may-toe\ nor \toe-mah-toe\ but rather tomatl.

The Spanish European invaders later translated [taking the -tl at the end of many Aztec words and turning them into -te for the Spanish version or pronunciation of the same words) as tomate as they began exporting the tasty round fruit ball to Europe during the mid-1500s. More

Wait, what about hot chili peppers?

Our space brothers, the "gods" or Star People, helped us find most of these delicacies like Theobroma cacao or cocoa beans to make chocolate.

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They also gave us this cosmic calendar.

To clarify, what we Americans call "chocolate" comes from the Aztec word xocolatl, via the Spanish chocolate (\cho-koh-la-teh\). The Latin binomial of the tree seed used in cocoa is Theobroma cacao, which literally translates as "chocolate, food of the gods." Who were the "gods"? They were devas, visitors from the sky or space (possibly from the hollow earth and Aztlan) coming down and really developing a taste for this sweetened bitter seed. We have to give heaven/space credit.

• The world has potatoes, tomatoes, and chocolates thanks to Indigenous Latin American Cultures | LAist

Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-
American Recipes for Health and Healing

WARNING: According to Dr. Steven Gundry, tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, chiles, eggplants, tobacco, and such plants are nightshades and should be avoided because of the plant lectins they contain.

These are irritants to the body, as the plant uses them to protect itself from consumption. The worst plant lectin is gluten found in wheat, barley, rye, oats, and buckwheat (which contain avenin, gliadin, and fagopyrins that are even more detrimental than wheat gluten, a gluey protein that wipes out the cilia in the intestinal tract and leads to malabsorption of food, skin irritation, and uncomfortable problems. (See criticalhealthnews.com and the work of Dr. Joel Wallach). One need not have celiac disease to be harmed by gluten. In fact, the gluten problem is much worse for everybody now due to Big Agra (industrial agriculture) breeding plants with more and more gluten, which is a squishy and binding in ways our mouths have been made to crave.

Even corn is not what it used to be. It was regarded as a famine food and, back then, was much smaller and much more natural. It is now a Frankenfood due to the meddling of American corporations like Monsanto and Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Many of these foods are high in starch, which is quickly converted into sugar leading to diabetic problems. It is far better to decolonize the diet to pre-Columbian days, when the Indigenous people were largely vegetarian and vegan and living in mythical Fusang, having come from the hollow earth world of Aztlan. This is a good book for popular California pre-Spanish foods. Eat in moderation, move your body regularly (yoga, walking, swimming), and find the real plants the Native Americans ate: amaranth, raw agave, medicinal and culinary herbs, quinoa, purslane (verdolagas), the Three Sisters using various corn plants of other colors, and so on. More than anything, enjoy it.

Buddhist Summer School: 10 Lessons (audio)

Ven. Bodhi (BM/BAUS); Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Buddhist hall, Thrangu Monastery, Richmond, BC, Canada (nathanbauman.com)

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Wisdom Quarterly's Buddhist Summer School starts Monday, June 20, 2016. It is open to all and taught by our principal teacher, American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi. Place a note in the comments section.

Some of Bhikkhu Bodhi's many books (Amazon)

American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi -- the famous translator of many Buddhist sutra collections into English such as the Middle Length Discourses -- created a series of ten recordings on the fundamentals of what the Buddha taught. Those audio lessons covered are linked below.
 

If Ven. Rahula's What the Buddha Taught is the best single book to read to learn about Buddhism, these are the best lectures to listen to. These are the fundamental teachings of Early Buddhism.
 
Wisdom Quarterly traveled to Sri Lanka to the headquarters of the Buddhist Publication Society where Ven. Bodhi was formerly editor in chief to ask him if we could distribute these teachings free to the world. He agreed.

How can I learn Buddhism in one summer?

The series, "The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is," is HERE to stream online (free). Originally these recordings came with a set of study guides full of key terms, helpful if one wishes to see the words being used.

The talks are in the “public domain” to copy and distribute freely rather than sold or commercialized. For what is the value of the Buddha's Dharma? If one charged its true worth, no one would be able to afford it. So let it be given freely. Let the true Dharma be free. (Beware of anyone who ever charges money to point out the path to enlightenment).

TEN AUDIO LECTURES

1. The Buddha
2. The Four Noble Truths
3. The True Nature of Existence
4. Dependent Origination
5. Rebirth and Karma
6. Nirvana
7. The Noble Eightfold Path
8. Meditation
9. The Social Teachings of Buddha
10. The Sangha

Lesson 1: The Buddha

"The Buddha's Teaching As It Is" by Bhikkhu Bodhi (bodhimonastery.org)

2012 Mayan meditation on Death

Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Xochitl, Wisdom Quarterly (COUNTDOWN CLOCK: -8)

Mayan meditator sits cross-legged in earth-witnessing gesture (news.discovery.com)

World knows (indianetzone)

Buddhism came to America long enough ago to affect the various empires that ruled what is now Mexico and Central America -- the Maya and Aztecs, possibly the Olmecs, Toltecs, and other predecessors as well. 

"Impossible! Preposterous!" those who have not read How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America  (Rick Fields, Shambhala) will say. But those who have read it will understand that the country Guatemala may derive from the name Gautama (the Buddha's surname) + mala (meditation beads, rosary). 

 

"Maya" (Mayans) comes from the Buddha's beautiful mother, Maya. The word literally means "illusion," a nod to her illusory/unreal/too-goo-t-be-true beauty. So much of our Western culture is doubly influenced by Buddhism without most of the Western world noticing. (Scholars in the past may well have discovered this, but they buried the finding to prop up Christendom and exaggerated the East-West divide).

Buddhism entered ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, before going to China. 

 

What will 12-21-12 mean? A new cycle.

Moreover, Alexander the Great created a united Indo-Greco empire that included parts of northwestern India as a Hellenistic realm (Bactria, Scythia, Sogdiana, Parthia, etc.). This occasioned a great cultural exchange, East (India and beyond) and West (now called Central Asia but once ancient Greece), planting many of the precious ideas we take as uniquely Greek contributions:

Democracy and the atomic theory, which the Buddha taught as the Monastic Order's Disciplinary Code (the parliamentary procedures regulating the Sangha) and kalapas or the theory that qualitatively different elementary particles form the basis of materiality. That is only the beginning.

 

"Do not let craving for pleasure distract you from meditation or the Path. Free yourself instead from both pleasure and pain" (H-K-D/flickr.com).

 
All of this may seem impossibly difficult to accept. But it is in line with the Buddha's claim that there are Four Imponderables, the first of which is the extent of the influence of a samma-sam-buddha (a supremely awakened teacher of liberation from all suffering). 

The Mahayana message -- having formed in India and been imported by China, which sent missionaries to the holy land to gather more of this marvelous Dharma -- took Eastern teachings attributed to "the Light of the East" out into the world.

But by this time the Dharma was already successfully being supplanted by Brahmanism (later folded into Hinduism) ideas the Buddha had troubled himself greatly to correct. 

Therefore, Mahayana Buddhism, early Christianity, and modern Hinduism have a great deal in common. It is not coincidence. They all took and blended the historical Buddha's message combining it with Vedantic Brahmanism and Mithraism (Zoroastrianism of Thus Spake Zarathustra fame).

Meditation
Okay. That's the backdrop. Now the question is, How to meditate? There is an old-timey Southern Christian saying: "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."

How can we enter the new without leaving behind the old? 

The New Age awaits. And we ourselves are ready to go. But, oh, the baggage! Let go, let go, let go, repeating "letting go" is not letting go. We CANNOT let go as a simple act of will. However, here is something we can do, something the Buddha recommended.

Star Trek's Spock, the West's idea of exotic Eastern "cool" (anhedonia)

 

Spock and Modernism (Age of Intuition)

It was a brilliant realization Siddhartha had under the Bodhi tree. Why not reflect on the unsavory aspects of the things we are attached to that hold us behind? All things have multiple aspects, savory and unsavory, a flipside, a hidden danger. We struggle to keep the pleasant in mind, fall into depression not being able to ignore the unpleasant. But there is a better way, even better than Spock-like dispassion. Let's look at the repulsive (asubha) with a view to letting the mind/heart shake itself free of all bonds.
  

WARNING: Foul! Not suitable for any age! Meditators only!

 
Lust, Lust, Lust

"Lust, lust,lust!"

What are we attached to? Bodies? Lust for form, beauty, sensuality? Most of us are attached to something as basic as this.
 
(A recent scientific study found that Americans like Sex, Alcohol, and other distracting pleasures best. Science can be fun if this constitutes a study. Of course, pleasant distractions are no solution).

Pleasure is fun, and we've had tons of fun, not only in this life but in countless lives before this. The pain has been enormous. At some time it gets to feeling pointless and unprofitable. Things can happen so that great suffering comes our way, we forget what we've learned, and we swirl out of control on a downward spiral. That is a danger during the good times.

(death skull/tumblr.com)

Becoming a partial "saint" (stream entry and beyond) in Buddhism is not the end of pleasure. Sakka, ruler of the devas, lives in the Sense Sphere space world enjoying a great deal of sensual pleasure. And yet, for all that, he is destined for complete freedom (nirvana) without ever being reborn below the human plane. Why? He is a stream-enterer assured of complete enlightenment within seven lives.

Reflecting on the 32 parts of the body instantly cures craving and pining for sensual lusts. (The way to bring lust back is unwise reflection on the attractive aspects of bodies, but neglect and carelessness also work very well). 

Moreover, reflecting on the inevitability of death -- or better yet contemplating the death that is happening right now and cannot be stopped or slowed down, which is the knowing-and-seeing of anicca or "radical impermanence" -- has a wonderful healing effect: 

For a moment, maybe only an instant, the mind/heart lets go!

It opts not to cling to the (partly) repulsive, the utterly futile, the insidiously painful.

Don't worry; ignorance and illusion quickly reassert themselves, and we can know something full well in the mind without being affected in the heart: We just ignore until we forget, and the veil comes over our eyes us again. So this is a very safe meditation. 

The only way to get it to work permanently is to develop neighborhood-concentration or full-absorption (jhana) first followed by insight-practice (vipassana) based on the at purifying-intensifying meditative foundation.

A beautiful death? (Zemotion.Deviantart.com/Zhangjingna.com)

Reflecting on Death
(10 Mindful Recollections, Path of Purification, VII)

(KenLeePhotography.com)

''Recollection of death, developed and frequently practiced, yields great reward, great blessing, has deathlessness (nirvana) as its goal and object. But how may such recollection be developed?

"As soon as the day declines, or as the night vanishes and the day is breaking, the meditator reflects: 'Truly, there are many possibilities for me to die: I may be bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion or a centipede, and thereby lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me. Or I may stumble and fall to the ground, or food eaten may not agree with me; or bile, phlegm, and piercing bodily gases may become disturbed, or people or ghosts may attack me, and I may lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me.' Then one has to consider: 'Are there still to be found in me unsubdued harmful, unwholesome things which, if I should die today or tonight, might lead me to suffering?' If one understands that this is the case, one should use the utmost resolution, energy, effort, endeavor, steadfastness, diligence, attentiveness, and clear-mindedness in order to overcome these harmful, unwholesome things" (A VIII, 74). More

The real meaning of "Vesak" (Buddhist Xmas)

Dharmachari Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (May 5, 2012)

"Vesak," referring to the ancient Indian month of Vaisakh, has a full Moon.

The Buddhist lunar observance day it marks is the most special one of all. Three things happened under it:

1. Siddhartha was born among humans on Earth.
2. He awoke to unsurpassed enlightenment, becoming "the Buddha," a title that means supremely Awakened One.
3. And he passed into final-nirvana, bringing an otherwise endless cycle of rebirth and disappointment to an end.

These three extraordinarily rare events, which shook this entire world system, took place over a span of 80 years.

But what's so special about Vesak?

Its real significance is that it commemorates the story of how an ordinary human being reached enlightenment and nirvana. We can take the same essential path, set off on a quest for ultimate truth, and find complete freedom at the end of it.

Partial freedom awaits us from the beginning of our quest. But just ask anyone what should be a simple and straightforward question: "How did Siddhartha become enlightened?"

What is likely to come back is everything but the crucial detail. That detail is in the story yet nearly everyone focuses on the extraneous elements instead. People will speak of "Siddhartha," the title character in Herman Hesse's famous novel Siddhartha. That character did not become the Buddha; he merely met him. The world assumes the two are one in the same since the novel parallels one with the other. Watch the gorgeous movie.

The most important story ever told

It is the "most important" because it holds the instructions we can use.

Siddhartha is born under a sal tree.

Seven or so years later, he is set down under the shade of a rose apple tree.

There while others are attending a festival, he spontaneously goes into meditative "absorption," which is called by different words in different languages pronouncing the same thing: jhana, dhyana, zen, ch'an, thien, seon. That lasts part of the day, but he forgets about it. 

While unusually sensitive and kind, he is not religious. He goes to school, gets a white pony, leads a very sheltered life, is married off, has dancing girls and entertainers (as depicted above), enjoys himself with all kinds of sensual pleasures for years, then gets his wife pregnant. But he is not ready to settle down to a life of taking over his father's job. He has noticed something. His life has been an illusion -- chasing pleasures and plans that left him disappointed.

And he had it good growing up. What of the others, so many others in far worse circumstances, what will become of them? They suffer (are disappointed), he suffers. They grow old, become incapacitated, get sick, meet with many losses, store up with much bad karma (driven by attraction, aversion, and delusion), die, are reborn, experience the results of karma, and the same will happen to him.

How can he help? He must become a wandering seeker of truth and find the answer to one burning question: "What is the end of all suffering?" He renounces his great circumstances, lets go of his family ties, his position, his riches. It breaks his pony's heart, his young wife is miserable, his father clings to his grandson as his only hope of an heir, his step mom cries, and his friends are sad as he leaves their territory to wander in robes in strange lands living as a recluse (shamana) in search of a teacher. He finds one. He learns meditation.

Living a pure life far from distractions with the companionship of others on a similar quest, he follows that teacher's instruction to the apex. But the height is not the final end to all suffering. He leaves in search of another teacher. He finds one. He masters that teaching and that, too, is not the answer. He sets off with five fellow seekers convinced that if anyone is going to reach the goal, he is the most likely. They practice austerities, an ancient custom of spiritual seekers. He practices them harder than anyone ever. He ruins his body, his mind is dim, life force is leaving him, he is not meditating well, he collapses. A woman revives him, feeds him, nurtures him, and he realizes this is not "spirituality" (relating to breath, spiritus, life force, chi, prana).

He needs this body. It is a vehicle to the higher-spiritual. He had been abusing it -- first for the sake of sensual pleasures then for the sake of penitent mortification as if it were to blame for the roots of unskillful karma rather than the heart/mind. Now he used it to wisely support his goal: "What is the end of all suffering?" Rejuvenated and restored, abandoned by his disappointed companions, he finds a beautiful grove, sits under a magnificent bodhi tree, and wonders what to do. He remembers that time when he sat under the rose apple tree in childhood. He had entered that blissful absorption, which he was now inclined to avoid as "pleasure." 

But he realizes there is nothing wrong with happiness detached from sensual craving, and he wonders if this could be the path to enlightenment rather than strong effort. He lets go. It happens. It wasn't him. He progresses through the eight absorptions, which temporarily purify him. He emerges and turns his attention to Dependent Origination, that is, based on what is suffering coming to be? He has resolved not to get up from his seat until he finds the answer. He traces it back: This entire mass of suffering -- not for him alone but for everyone -- is due to a cause, which itself is due to a cause, and so on, and so on, extending into past lives.

Of all those 12 links in the causal chain, he notices that craving (grasping, clinging, desire) can be stopped right now. He can break this endless chain. It's easy. The truth will set him free. What is he craving? Base desires have disappeared from practicing the absorptions. His mind/heart is lucid and luminous, and he is mindfully contemplating. Insight dawns about the true nature of everything he craves (everything he grasps and clings to): It is of a nature to pass away, just as it is of a nature to arise. Experiencing the futility and foolishness of holding on, heart and mind spontaneously let go. He does not do it, he does not let go by an act of will but by wise attention. And it happens. They pull back. He is freed. 

Light arises, knowledge arises, he glimpses nirvana, and suffering and every "thing" resolves. But he is no ordinary arhat (fully enlightened being). He is a supremely fully awakened being (samma sam buddha). This means his great enlightenment (maha bodhi) comes with psychic powers and knowledge of the imponderable working of karma, physics, the minutiae of psychology (later compiled in the Abhidharma), past lives, the routes to all kinds of rebirth destinations, the coming to being of galaxies, the "continued wandering on" of beings driven by greed, oppressed by hatred, clouded by delusion.

This remarkable breakthrough -- hinging on not using his own effort but instead allowing the absorptions to occur without clinging to them then using their temporary power of purification to uproot gross and subtle defilements using insight generated by four kinds of mindfulness -- has not gone unnoticed by Mara (the Killer or personification of Death), upset that someone has rediscovered the route that goes beyond his grasp. There's an epic battle. But it's no use. Siddhartha, now THE BUDDHA, has broken through. Mara will stalk him for the next 45 years looking for an opening and keeping an eye on earthlings and sense sphere celestials (akasha-devas).

Nirvana

The Buddha-to-be's birthday would have been enough to make Vesak famous, a "Buddhist Xmas" worthy of grand festivals. But the Buddha is worthy of honor seeking guidance (sarana) due not to having been born. He attained to the final goal on Vesak as well.

• Buddhist temples across America will be celebrating for weeks.
• Later Buddhist schools, like Zen, sometimes celebrate the Vesak events separately.