Saturday, February 14, 2026
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Is it love or obsession? How to stop
Monday, November 24, 2025
Saturday, October 7, 2023
Buddhist Transformation of Yoga
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| Yoga ("Union" with Breath or Supreme Consciousness) became more about real liberation. |
Theravada Meditation: The Buddhist Transformation of Yoga has 5.0 out of 5 stars with 4 ratings. The first book in English to relate modern forms of Theravada meditational practice to its Indian roots, Theravada Meditation: The Buddhist Transformation of Yoga rectifies the publishing imbalance toward Mahayana and Zen.
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| Buddhaghosa in Sri Lanka studying ola texts |
- Preface
- Yogic Factors in Gotama Buddha's Enlightenment
- Conditions
- Preparations and Lower Levels of Meditation
- The Jhanic and Formless States
- The Jhanic Related "Buddhist" Meditation
- Vipassana Meditation
- The Attainment of Cessation (Nirodha-Samapatti)
- Contemporary Theravada Meditation in Burma
- Appendix "A Buddhist Pilgrim's Progress"
- Notes
- Selected and Annotated Bibliography
- Index
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Life of Siddhartha before Buddhahood (Sims)
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| Charioteer Cunda and Prince Siddhartha see a pyre (simsfiction.wordpress.com) |
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| Prince Siddhartha, 29, on the verge of quest |
As much as he tried, the opulent life in the palace could not fulfill him. It was disappointing and so had to get bigger and bigger. Siddhartha was growing tired of his lavish lifestyle.
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| Yasodhara (Bimbadevi, Rahulamata...) |
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| Aging, the first sign/divine messenger |
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Buddha dies; Swine Sacrificed out of FEAR
The Buddha's last meal from which he became sick and passed away was at the house of Cunda, the blacksmith's son (buddhist-elibrary.org).The following story illustrates a great Buddhist truth. All wrongdoing (harmful karma) has only four sources, four motivations, four roots: delusion, greed, aversion, and fear.
Egypt to Slaughter all of its Pigs out of Fear
Health worker sprays chemicals to disinfect local pig farm in Cairo, 4/27/09. Authorities will kill about 350,000 pigs (AP/Mohammed Ahmed).The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers, who came to slaughter the animals. And the workers left without carrying out the government order.
"It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population. More>>
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Friday, October 17, 2008
New Buddhist History revealed
SPECIAL NOTE: WQ has no vested interest in the Buddha's birthplace being anywhere other than Nepal. (In fact, we prefer Nepal, a lovely and mysterious land which already claims the other biggest thing in the world). However, we do have a keen interest in the truth -- whatever it may be. We are therefore eager to entertain, explore, and question evolving scholarship on the subject.
...This new religion propounded by Gomata is Buddhism, which proves beyond any doubt that "Gaumata" was the true Gotama. There are many other references to Gotama in Persian and Jewish sources that have not been recognized. Tattenai (6th-5th century BC), who was the Persian governor of the province west of the Euphrates River (eber nari, "beyond the river") during the reign of Darius I, was Gotama, whose [self-referential title] was "Tathagata."
The Book of Ezra (V: 3,6) states that he led an investigation into the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem about 519 B.C. He sent a report to Darius, who responded with instructions to allow the work to proceed. Tattenai is cited in a cuneiform tablet of 502 B.C. A. Kuhrt refers to the "good Iranian name" of "Bagapa" the satrap of Babylon during Darius' reign and even considers the link with "Tattanu" but is unaware that "Tattenai" and "Bagapa" could be Gotama's [popular titles] "Tathagata" and "Bhagava."
The Book of Ezra also cites the names "Shether" and "Boznai," which agree with Gotama's [other] names "Shiddhartha" and "Buddha." The name "Shethar" occurs in the Book of Esther. The name Buddho-Dana of Gotama given by Al-beruni puts him in the same bracket as Daniel the Jew, who was a contemporary of Nebuchadrezzar-II.
It can be seen that Prophet Abraham was also from the abode of Gotama and Zoroaster. The startling discoveries of Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur in Sumer had such a dazzling effect on scholars that it was not realized that this could not be Ur Kasdim, the home of Abraham. W. F. Albright disagreed with Woolley but no one realized that Ur of Abraham was Urva, one of the sixteen good regions of the Avesta.
It is indeed uncanny that the patently absurd notion of the rise of Buddhism in Nepal has survived scholarly scrutiny for nearly a century. Sir Aurel Stein, whose untiring efforts established the material basis of Buddhism, found nothing in Nepal. The vanishing of Buddhism from India may be due to the fact that after Afghanistan and Seistan [map, also called Sistan, a border region between E Iran and SW Afghanistan, a part of the Persian Empire once called Drangiana before Alexander the Great's conquest] ceased to be parts of "India," Buddhism was seen as an extraneous creed.
R. G. Bhandarkar blamed the decline on the rise of the Mahayana, which weakened it from within. It is significant that Mahayana, from its very inception, was an essentially "foreign" doctrine. The Mahayanists were often hostile to the Bhakti cult and other forms of Hinduism. Yet, the generally tolerant approach of the Buddhists to other faiths resulted in the assimilation of Buddhism in a reformed Hinduism. In this sense Buddhism did not disappear from India.
Gandhara-style Buddha (Western features, toga wearing), a Greco-Indian fusion, when India was an empire of much greater extent including Afghanistan and Seistan (Norton Simon museum)
Friday, August 8, 2008
Origins of the Lankavatara Sutra
The title seems to have derived from the legendary story passed down among the Theravada practitioners of the island (modern Sri Lanka), which is recorded in the Dipavamsa ("Royal Lineage of the Island Lanka"), a history they compiled.
- (1) nine months after attaining enlightenment ("awakening")
- (2) five years after and
- (3) eight years after.
(1) When the Buddha saw all the world with his fivefold eyes, he saw the island, where yaksas (spiritual apparitions, literally "something quick") and raksasas (when yaksas get angry they are said to be "flesh-eating goblins" or raksasas, literally, "anything to be guarded against") were abiding and afflicting people, groaning loudly and sucking human blood. The Buddha was afraid some strange teachings might flourish in that situation to worry people further. Using supernatural power, he came from India and expelled the terrible yaksas and furious raksasas by having them shift their dwelling place to a lonely island named Giri far out in the ocean. He then returned to Urvela in the state of Magadha, India (Chp. I).
The real Adam's Peak, Island of Sri Lanka, where the Buddha landed and left a footprint
(2) After he left, in the island's highland mountains, land-snakes and marine-snakes struggled for sovereignty over the island, both being nagas [reptilians, dragons, supernatural serpents] with supernatural power, violent and cruel, arrogant and drunk with power, though different in size. The situation worsened to the extent that wherever they went, everything became contaminated and burned out. The Buddha, far away in India, felt he could not leave things as they were. Again he came to Lanka, which he had emptied of yaksas. He put both parties of snakes under control, reconciled them, and returned to the Jeta Forest (Chp. II).
(3) Three years later, the king of the Lanka snakes, Maniakkhika, invited the Buddha together with five hundred disciples to the island in return for the Buddha's work as peacemaker. The party came flying from the Jeta Forest. The Buddha went to Mahamegha Forest and predicted that in the future the very Bodhi Tree beside which he had attained buddhahood would be planted at the site in Lanka where bodhi trees had grown for previous buddhas (Chp. II).
There is no doubt that such stories were made on the basis of other more historical stories, also recorded in the Dipavamsa, that the transmission of the Buddha's teaching [the Dharma] to the island had begun during the reign of King Devampiyatissa (B.C. 241-207). In response to the gift of treasures from the Lankan King Tissa, King Asoka sent messengers from India with a gift and a message that he had taken refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
King Asoka's son, Mahinda, who was an elder monk (mahathera), came (Chp. XI), and King Tissa of the island had a temple complex -- the famous Mahavihara -- built in the suburbs of his capital, Anuradhapura, as the center for practice and study for monks under Mahinda's guidance (Chps. XIII, XIV).
Ven. Mahinda had a messenger sent to King Asoka, and had him bring back a portion of the Buddha's relics. Then a dome (stupa, pagoda) erected for them (Chp. XV). Mahinda's sister, Ven. Sanghamitta, also came to Lanka. She brought a branch of the Bodhi Tree and had it planted in the woods of Mahamegha, near the Mahavihara (Chp. XVI). Mahinda died in B.C. 199 (Chp. XVQ), and Sanghamitta passed the following year (Mahavamsa, Chp. XX).
Indian Epic
The legendary stories of the Buddha's three visits to the island, however, seem to derive from one of the famous epics of India, the Ramayana.
Rama, the hero, came to attack raksasas on the island. He killed Ravana, their chief, and returned home to India with his beloved wife Sita, who had been abducted and forcibly taken to the island.
The Buddha was a hero equivalent to Rama, an avatar of Vishnu. But unlike Rama, the Buddha killed no one. He expelled "evil" spirits who had been devastating Lanka.
The role of peacemaker played by the Buddha for the two snake groups also seems to be rooted in the Ramayana. There, two groups of monkeys followed Rama and helped him in his attack on the Lanka demons, because Rama had worked as peacemaker for them during conflicts on the Indian subcontinent.
"Entering Lanka"
Thus, we know that the Theravada document, the Dipavamsa, invented the story of the Buddha entering Lanka on the basis of history and legends. But we need to consider what was meant by the Mahayanists' use of the title "Entering Lanka" (Lanka-vatara) for their famous scripture.
The Lankavatara Sutra, in the Gunabhadra version, begins with the description of the spot where the Buddha, the Sangha, and the bodhisattvas met, and how one bodhisattva named Mahamati from among other "bodhisattvas of mahamati" (see note) stood up and asked the Buddha for a teaching.
"On one occasion the Buddha stayed for a while in the town of Lanka on a mountain top, on the coast of the southern sea..."
Now the Bodhisattva Mahamati, who together with [other] "bodhisattvas of mahamati" (i.e., of great wisdom), with an attendant in every "Buddhaland," through the Buddha's influence stood up from his seat... Read more
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NOTE: The word "mahamati," used here both as a common noun and a proper noun, reveals a close connection between the Lankavatara Sutra and the Dipavamsa. In the latter, the word was used only as a common noun, to show a deep respect when excellent mendicants were referred to...
