The female Bruce Lee? Kickboxer Kimura

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(K-1 Worldwide) Mona Kimura vs. Marine Nicol | full fight | K-1 World Max 2026 Women's Flyweight.

Mona Kimura (Japanese 木村 萌那, Kimura Mona, born April 12, 2001) is a Japanese kickboxer and former amateur boxer who is currently signed to K-1. She represented Japan at 2022 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships... More

In the future, will killbots fight humans?

(Frankie LaPenna) The future is here: first Human versus. Robot fight in history (full length)

Native American giants found in Patagonia

Christian God forbids blood, raw meat

According to Antonio Pigafetta [7], one of the Ferdinand Magellan expedition's few survivors and its published chronicler, Magellan bestowed the name Patagão (or Patagón) on the GIANT inhabitants they encountered there.

Pre-Aztec giants built Cholula Pyramid in Mexico?

The name "Patagonia" refers to the region, the land of giants with giant feet and footprints.

Modern Afghan cannibal cave giant (yakkha)

Although Pigafetta's account does not describe how this name came about, subsequent popular interpretations gave credence to a derivation meaning "land of the big feet."

However, this etymology is questionable. The term might be derived from an actual character name, "Patagón," a savage creature confronted by Primaleón of Greece, the hero in the homonymous Spanish chivalry novel (knight-errantry tale) by Francisco Vázquez [63].

Chronicle's many more details

(The Lore Lodge) The giant cannibal Patagonians of South America

No giants have ever existed.

This book, published in 1512, was the sequel of the romance Palmerín de Oliva; it was much in vogue at the time and a favorite reading of Magellan.

Magellan's perception of the natives, dressed in skins and eating raw meat, may have recalled the uncivilized Patagón in Vázquez's book.

European meets American giants

Novelist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin suggests etymological roots of both Patagon and Patagonia in his book, In Patagonia [64], noting a tenuous similarity between "Patagon" and the Greek word παταγος, which means "a roaring" or "gnashing of teeth."

(In his chronicle, Pigafetta describes the Patagonians as "roaring like bulls"). More

There are really giants on earth?

Giants Unearthed: The Hidden History of the Nephilim and Gigantic Civilizations (YouTube)

Siberian Asian Clovis DNA: not first

(Discovery Future) Clovis culture Anzick-1 DNA found and analyzed. The Clovis were not the first Americans, not the first arrivals on the continent (the Americas). There have been older finds such as Monte Verde, Chile and the older White Sands footprints in New Mexico

• Universe Inside You; The Lore Lodge; Discovery Future; Xochitl, Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha's Feet (Pho Temple)

hotography by Aidan McRae Thomson (flickr.com), Pho Temple, Bangkok, Thailand

The temple treasures

Wat Pho is the largest and oldest temple complex in Bangkok. Along with the temple of the royal palace, it is also the most visited. The sprawling complex covers a huge area. It is easy to lose oneself within its gateways, courtyards, and stunning buildings.

The present-day complex dates back to 1788, having been founded in response to the plundering of the former Thai capital of Ayutthaya by the Burmese in 1767. A similar complex was destroyed at that time and recreated here.

Massage and funny foreigners
Wat Pho is a famous place of learning. And instruction is not limited to monastic training. It has a renowned school of Thai massage, which combines Indian Ayurvedic, traditional Chinese medicine, and Southeast Asian innovations.

One enters the complex through gateways guarded by huge Chinese statues, believed to have been imported as ballast aboard ships trading with China. The outer gates have fierce warrior figures, whereas the inner courtyards have the bizarre figures of farang (Western "foreigners") with their peculiar top hats, believed to represent the first European visitors to the East.

The Buddha's Feet
Many of the inner courtyards are surrounded by a cloister containing over 400 sculptures of the seated Buddha. The main bot, the spiritual nucleus of the temple, is beautifully decorated with frescoes of rich landscapes in red and gold.

The biggest and most spectacular attraction of the complex however is the Hall of the Reclining Buddha, housing an enormous gilded figure of the Buddha entering final nirvana. It is over 160 feet long, filling the entire center of the chamber.

Feet, Why Feet?
Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

In India and much of Asia, the feet are considered debased and dirty. The brahmins considered the filthiest peeople as being born of the soles of Brahma's feet. But even the lowest parts of a holy person are sacred.

The Buddha had special feet. Not only were they soft, proportional, and beautiful, they bore many of the Marks of a Great Person (Sanskrit mahāpuruṣa lakṣaṇa, Pali lakkhana) he was famous for: He had "level feet" which were "pliant," with thousand-spoked wheel signs on them. His toes were finely webbed with full-sized heels, arched insteps, golden-hued, with soft and smooth skin, well-rounded soles, holding him erect and upright.

In addition to these major marks, there are 80 minors marks that include: beautiful, well-proportioned, tube-shaped toes, with rosy tinted toenails that are slightly upturned at the tips, smooth and rounded without ridges, with ankles that are rounded and undented, each foot of equal length giving him a beautiful and stately gait, like that of a king-elephant or king-lion or swan, a majestic gait, like that of a royal ox, led by the right foot when walking with skin that is unwrinkled, spotless and without lumps, unblemished, free of impurities, radiant, exquisitely sensitive to touch, with the scent of sandalwood.

These features are not exaggerations or additions. They are documented characteristics that defined one as a World Monarch (chakravartin ruler) or Buddha. What they looked like or how important they are, that indeed is subject to exaggeration.

But the signs themselves are spoken of in the ancient Vedas (Books of Knowledge) and the lore was familiar to brahmin priests who asserted their supremacy.

Warrior-caste (kshatriyas) Nobles vied with brahmins for supremacy when Siddhartha was born. Brahmin priests read these signs for the Buddha's father, warrior-caste King Suddhodana, to foretell the prince's great future.

Throughout India and in many Theravada countries (Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Khmer-Empire era Cambodia, etc.), the Buddha's feet are venerated. In Sri Lanka, for example, there is an imprint of the Buddha's foot at the top of Adam's Peak. (It is actually a very large carving). These depictions are embroidered with stories and signs, symbols of fortune and royalty.

The tradition of sacred feet extended to Jesus Christ (St. Issa, a.k.a. Yus Assaf, of formerly Buddhist Kashmir), whose burial site is marked by feet, a tradition unknown to Judaism and Islam. (Yes, good St. Issa, not having died on the cross, returned to India and is buried in a tomb now co-occupied by a Muslim figure and off-limits to Westerners).

• Physical characteristics of the Buddha
• VIDEO: Jesus in Kashmir documentary (BBC)
• Mahayana "Bodhi Day" transgender tribute
• Buddha's blue eyes, common for Central Asians
• The Afghan girl with green eyes: a life revealed
• Buddha's origins in Central Asia (West India)
  

An American on adapting to monastic life

MySinchew.com

Ajahn Sumedho, a Western student of Ajahn Chah in the Theravada Thai forest tradition, who now leads a mostly White Sangha in California at Abhayagiri monastery.

Q: Ajahn ["teacher"], you are an American that ended up in Northeast Thailand as a Buddhist monk in the 1960's. Can you share some of your experiences?

A: Being an American brought up with an egalitarian ideal of freedom and equality, I felt an incredible frustration in being suffocated by the system (Vinaya, the strict monastic codes). I was living in an hierarchical structure based on seniority. Because I was the most junior monk there, I had to perform certain duties for those who were senior to me.

Learning to acknowledge and to take an interest in performing them was quite a challenge. There was a selfish side in me that wanted to live a monastic life on my own terms. I was willing to perform duties if it was convenient for me, but much of the time it wasn't. I felt a kind of resistance and rebelliousness.

• Answers extracted from the article "Life is Like This" by Ajahn Sumedho (forestsangha.org)

Q: For example?

A: The custom of washing the feet of the senior monks when they returned from the alms round. After they walked barefoot through the villages and rice paddies, their feet would be muddy. There were foot baths outside the dining hall. When Ajahn Chah would come, all the monks--maybe twenty or thirty of them -- would rush out and wash Ajahn Chah's feet.

• What is the Thai forest tradition?
• Ajahn Chah Remembrance Day (ajahnchahrd.com)

When I first saw this I thought, 'I'm not going to do that -- not me!' Then the next day, thirty monks rushed out as soon as Ajahn Chah appeared and washed his feet -- I thought, 'What a stupid thing to be doing -- thirty monks washing one man's feet. I'm not going to do that.'

The day after that, the reaction became even more violent... thirty monks rushed out and washed Ajahn Chah's feet and... 'That really angers me, I'm fed up with it! I just feel that is the most stupid thing I've ever seen -- thirty men going out to wash one man's feet! He probably thinks he deserves it, you know -- it's really building up his ego. He's probably got an enormous ego, having so many people wash his feet every day. I'll never do that!'

I was beginning to build up a strong reaction, an overreaction. I would sit there really feeling miserable and angry. I'd look at the monks and I'd think, 'They all look stupid to me. I don't know what I'm doing here.'

• Answers from "The Four Noble Truths" by Ajahn Sumedho

Q: Ajahn, those were pretty strong feelings?

A: Yes indeed. But then I started listening. And I thought, 'This is really an unpleasant frame of mind to be in. Is it anything to get upset about? They haven't made me do it. It's all right; there's nothing wrong with thirty men washing one man's feet. It's not immoral or bad behavior, and maybe they enjoy it; maybe they want to do it -- maybe it's all right to do that... Maybe I should do it!'

So the next morning, thirty-one monks ran out and washed Ajahn Chah's feet. There was no problem after that. It felt really good: that nasty thing in me had stopped. More>>

• abhayagiri.org

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Giants Among Us