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| First Western Buddhist monk: Irish U Dhammaloka (Wisdom Quarterly) |
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| Methinks me should be a monk |
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| Irish documentary about pioneer U Dhammaloka |
The Dharma Bum is a feature-length, partially animated documentary film that tells the tantalizing true story of Dubliner Laurence Carroll, who became Venerable U Dhammaloka.
- Any relation to Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland? Of course not, because "Lewis Carroll" is the nom de plume (pen name) for Irish-connected Oxford don Dodgson, the author of classic literature for little Alice Liddell.
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| Dharma Bum Temple, San Diego |
This freethinking, un-Catholic, un-Christian, atheist activist worked the shipping route from San Francisco, California, to Japan.
- Dharma Bum Buddhist Temple, Southern California
- The Dharma Bums by Irish American Buddhist and Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac:
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| Irish American Buddhist J. Kerouac |
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| How Buddhism came to Britain |
The Dharma Bum found himself on the beach, hungover and homeless, after being kicked off the vessel for drunk and disorderly conduct.
He eventually made his way to Theravada Buddhist Burma, where he was helped by compassionate local Buddhist monks.
After five years as a monastic apprentice, he became the first Western man to ever don the saffron robes of a Theravada Buddhist monk.
After five years as a monastic apprentice, he became the first Western man to ever don the saffron robes of a Theravada Buddhist monk.
- Carroll was not the only amazing Irish-American Buddhist monastic: There was also Zen Buddhist "saint" (bodhisattva) Maura Soshin O'Halloran
- American Buddhist Journal: POEM: "Finnegan's Awake"
Irish Zen Bodhisattva Soshin O'Halloran
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| Irish-American female Zen Buddhist saint (bodhisattva) in Japan: Soshin O'Halloran |
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| Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind |
*Maura "Soshin" O'Halloran (May 24, 1955–Oct. 22, 1982) was an Irish Zen Buddhist nun [1]. She is known for her book Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind, which was posthumously published by her family.
She is also famous for being one of the "first of few Western women allowed to practice in a traditional Japanese Zen monastery" [2].
BIOGRAPHY
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| Hojo Takatoki Harakiri-Yagura, Tōshō-ji Temple |
An Irish Girl
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| Irish Zen Buddhist nun Soshin |
The snow begins across the mountains
Covers the rice fields
Down below a woman awakens
Her breath is frozen in the early morning
Out on the freezing streets
With bell and bowl she goes
People come to see the face
People come to feel the light
Of an Irish Girl
Everything in the world is new
Everybody I tell wants to know you
Soshin… Soshin…
She washes noodles by the open window
Wet and soft between her fingers
The air of spring blows on her face
And the moment is eternal
Maura sits in the dark womb-like stillness
She’s thinking ‘How can I die or cease to be?
I am eternal, I am Roshi!’
Everything in the world is new
Everybody I tell wants to know you
Soshin… Soshin…
She may not change a blade of grass
Nor light the flame for souls to see
But in this silent Easter morning
She has found a friend in me
Adapted from the expanded edition of Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind, Wisdom Publications, with permission (Lion’s Roar)
Ven. U Dhammaloka: First Westerner to ordain as a Buddhist monk
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| I'm glad I became a Buddhist and did so much to spread freethinking against the British Empire. |
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| The Dharma Bum (documentary) |
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| UK-occupied Northern Ireland |
U Dhammaloka was erased from history. His existence lay dormant for over 100 years. Why? The reasons are explored in the film.
This Irishman caused quite a stir in his life, as he singlehandedly took on the might of the Christian British Empire in colonial Burma.
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| Teach those Brits not to mess with the Celts |
- [George Orwell was also decrying British colonial crimes against humanity in Burma and England for which he wrote Nineteen-Eighty-Four, and he wrote about the city monks of Burma -- eviscerating the layabouts -- in an essay "Shooting an Elephant"].
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| The Legend of the 6th Century Irish monk who may have sailed so America (grunge.com) |
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Happy St. Paddy's Day?
Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit
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| The Patrician Roman Patriarch Patty? |
Saint Patrick (Gaelic Pádraig, Latin Patricius, "father of the people") was a 5th-century Romano-British anti-pagan, Christian missionary, and patriarch named bishop of Ireland by an outside entity.
Known as the "Apostle of Ireland," he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints being Brigid of Kildare and Columba. Patrick was never formally canonized [2], having lived before the current laws of the Catholic Church on these matters.
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| We may have been better off as pagans. |
He was a slave in Ireland for years, escaped back to England then seems to have returned to extract his revenge as a patriarch to impose Roman church law on the Emerald Isle.
Patrick is credited with forcing Christianity on Ireland, converting a pagan society in the process, despite evidence of an earlier Christian presence [7].
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| We defend Catholicism b/c the British don't like it |
After becoming a cleric, he returned to spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about where he worked.
By the 7th century, he had already become the "patron saint of Ireland." His feast day is observed on March 17th, the date of his death not his birth. It is celebrated in Ireland and among the worldwide Irish diaspora as a cultural holiday celebrating all things Irish.
It is hardly as a religious observance nowadays, but in the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation, even if pagans mourn the genocide he wrought upon the island.
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| Good John Riley's flag of the Mexican regiment |
So much is this connection felt that there are Los Patricios ("The Patricks" not Patricians), who were US mercenaries ordered to fight Mexico, but when they understood the fight, led by John Riley, they took the side of Mexico and fought against the US, as anyone who champions the underdog might well have done. More
- Who wrote the Vulgate?
- TheDharmaBum.eu, Dana.IO/thedharmabum; Irishman U Dhammaloka (aka Laurence Carroll); Lion's Roar; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit originally published March 17, 2024
