(Guardian News)
Streamed live Nov. 9, 2026: SOUTHWARK CROWN COURT, England - Wigged judge delivers sentencing remark to Russell Brand for raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others.
(The Pause) How to become a Buddhist: the truth about conversion. [How would a Westerner become an official "Buddhist"? As in any of the Dharmic religions, people convert to Buddhism. Here is a list of prominent converts.
People new to adhering to Buddhism, traditionally, do so at a minimum by Ti-Sarana ("Going for Guidance" to the Three Guides) and adopting the Five Precepts.
This is frequently mistranslated as "Taking Refuge," expressing confidence in the Three Guides, Three Treasures, Three Gems or Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) in front of a monk, nun, or similar representative often of the monastic community (sangha), the nobles ones (Ariya-Sangha), and the community of practitioners (other Buddhists), in attendance.
Throughout the timeline of Buddhism, conversions of (adoption of Buddhism by) entire countries and regions to Buddhism were frequent, as Buddhism (the Buddha-Dharma) spread throughout Asia. For example, in the 11th century in Burma, King Anoratha converted his entire country to Theravada Buddhism.
At the end of the 12th century, King Jayavarman VII set the stage for conversion of the Khmer people to Theravada Buddhism.
Mass conversions of areas and communities to Buddhism occur up to the present day. For example, there was the modern Dalit Buddhist Movement in India. Indeed, there have been organized mass conversions.
Exceptions to encouraging conversion may occur in some Buddhist movements. In Tibetan Buddhism, for example, the current Dalai Lama discourages active attempts to win converts [35, 36]. In fact, Buddhism is not evangelical and does not promote pushing religion on anyone. However, Buddhism was the first missionary religion, long before Christianity, and sent out "apostles" who taught and won many people over to this path-of-practice and way of being, which many can argue is not even a real "religion." Of course, that depends how we choose to define "religion."
The Truth is true no matter who believes or does not believe, who adheres or does not adhere, who converts or does not convert. The Buddha was a representative of Truth, and many were attracted to him and what he was saying. It was, in fact, the first "world religion," a universal spiritual tradition that accepted all. But the Buddha did not go around trying to make anyone a Buddhist or a follower. He only wanted them to realize what was true, knowing that the Truth sets one free. Have you considered Hinduism? More: Religious conversion
What does Shohei (翔平) mean? Shō (翔) means to "soar or glide," and hei (平) means to be "level, in the sense of being calm or peaceful." Hei is also a common ending for male names. His surname's initial character Oh (大) means "great or large" and tani(谷) means "valley." One who glides peacefully in a grand valley (like a stadium)? Source
He's the G.O.A.T. (the "greatest of all time), we say, which in Japanese is yagi ("goat").
World Series Game 3 HIGHLIGHTS | Blue Jays versus Dodgers - Oct. 27, 2025
The Greatest of All Time: TheYagi
(SPORTSNET) Oct. 28, 2025: DODGER STADIUM, Los Angeles. In one of the most unbelievable games of professional baseball anyone will ever see, featuring every manner of drama, the Los Angeles Dodgers bested the Toronto Blue Jays by way of a Freddie Freeman walk-off homer after 18 grueling innings, taking a 2-1 World Series lead in the process.
The G.O.A.T. Shohei "Yagi" Ohtani was spectacular. But the game lasted seven hours, ending about midnight. Even diehard fans, many of them Proles outside the luxuries of the Inner Party, had to get home and get to work the next day, possibly nursing hangovers from a day at Distraction Ball.
The grind continues, and the Dodgers are down, maybe making this the closest World Series in a long while. What started off with rumors of a sweep, the Dodgers taking the series in four straight wins, diverted and has made them really work for it.
It is possibly all scripted to milk billions in bets with bookies and offshore gambling agents. The fix is in. So don't gamble based on statistics and math. That's how they get a bettor. The best laid plans of mice and men do not pan out or else everyone would bet by the numbers. It's bound to be a counterintuitive ending to make the house the most money. Here, seven hours are condensed into about seven exciting minutes of play without all the milling about and nail-biting.
Best baseball player is Buddhist?
Sorry Ladies and Gents, he's taken.
Wisdom Quarterly has yet to conclusively demonstrate that the Yagi (Japanese for "goat") is a Japanese Buddhist from Orange County, where he played for the Angels. But what is the circumstantial evidence? Let's see.
The all is empty, devoid of self.
Nearly everyone in Japan is Buddhist, at least by tradition as are a great number of Asian Orange County residents, with only San Francisco and Los Angeles serving as home for expat Buddhist communities from Japan (where many were brought more than a century ago to work in building the railroads then unceremoniously locked up in gulags to sit out WW II, where the humiliation of forced internment has not been forgotten. But Japan has more than Zen Buddhism.
Shinto priest bows, placates kami
The older tradition is Shinto or kami (spirit) worship/tending. And the newer tradition is Pure Land faith-based Buddhism usually called Nichiren Shōshū. There are of course colonial remnants of Christianity and modernist agnosticism and atheism, but deep down most every Japanese person adheres to ancient Buddhist tradition along with observance of other spiritual legacies. While it might be wise for Ohtani to keep it a mystery and rake in nearly a billion dollars in his stint with the Dodgers, we bet that just beneath the surface he bows, prays, meditates, focuses Zen-like, and welcomes the help of the unseen world of kamis and blessings wherever he can get them from the Old Country and his new home. After all, he did not succumb to a Hollywood manager-arranged public relationship for the press. He traveled back to Nippon (Japan) and found a traditional wife to accompany him on his rise to stardom and his life as a living legend. Can Babe Ruth or Fernando Venezuela compare?
If we were world-famous bonsai tree growers in Japan, we'd put it out that we were pro-business NinjaSamurai capitalists, so everyone would know we were proud Americans but very open to Japanese traditions like the lore of Bushi warriors. No cents in offending the locals with our brash Americans...and very few dollars.
It might be orchestrated to maximize gambling and drunkenness: Toronto bounces back in Game 4
The Fix Is Still In (B. Tuohy)
What will Halloween in Canada be like? The Dodgers will soon find out. Why? Whoever is writing this sports script would want to stretch out the suspense, sell more tickets, raise more money betting, and making the win more of a surprise with cries of "next year" in case of an upset. It's rudimentary in a corrupt capitalist system of American sport.
How dare anyone question the honesty, integrity, and above-board directness of the MLB and all its players, who would never do anything just for the money. Balderdash! Who could think such a thing or say it out loud?
The new Margaret Cho? Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka [the u's are silent] is known for finding humor in the dysfunction of her immigrant family.
Born in Taiwan to Japanese and Taiwanese parents, she traveled from Japan to Los Angeles with her grandmother and mother when she was 8 for what she thought was a short vacation.
In fact, they were moving.
It would be years before Okatsuka saw her father again. She later described being "kidnapped" by her grandmother on a 2023 episode of This American Life.
"My grandma and I hadn't really talked about it in depth until [then]," she says. "And it helped that I got to do with Ira [Glass, host of This American Life] and the thousands and thousands of thousands of listeners at the same time, then I'm really not alone." More + AUDIO
Israeli Jews converting to Islam in record numbers since October 7th [inspirational]
(The CJ Werleman Show) Jan. 29, 2024: Conversions from Judaism to Islam are on the rise in Israel since October 7th, and this is a tragedy for Israel it is fighting with terrorism, violent raids, and threatening Jews, particularly secular Jews and Zionists.
CJWS urgently needs help to counter injustices in the Muslim world, so please support CJ's journalism and CJWS here: ▶ cjwerleman
or via YouTube here: ▶ @thecjwerlemanshow. One-time donations can be made here: ▶ paypal.me/cjwerleman. #Palestine #freepalestine
Big thanks to folks who turned in some killer voiceover performances: Alexander Avila @alexander_avila, Karin Hazé cinemafeast.com, Stushi @stushi, Abigail Thorn @PhilosophyTube
Lady Emily @LadyEmilyPresents
Lola Sebastian @LolaSebastian
This famous picture of the Buddha is said to actually be Mahavira, who is usually depicted bald.
Oh, you April Fool's Day pranksters!
Who had the first nuns?
One of the most remarkable, and largely inexplicable, things about Jainism is how similar it is to Buddhism, how much the life of the Buddha mirrors the life of Mahavira -- so much so that the British in India translating the ancient texts always assumed the stories were talking about one person. In fact, even though we know better now, it is very reasonable to postulate that the reason they are so similar is because they were the same historical figure and a schism divided Buddhism between strict vegetarian wandering ascetic purists (the Jains) and more reasonable (Middle Way) sectarians. Each built up its own camp and back story.
Bald, naked ascetic under a tree: Mahavira
While this may sound preposterous, note the curious detail that Siddhartha was not always called the Buddha ("Awakened One") but was previously called Mahavira ("Great Hero"), a common epithet, just like Bhagavan ("Blessed One") or Tathagata ("Wayfarer"). They both led sramana (wanderer) traditions that rebelled against the supremacy of the Vedas (ancient "wisdom books") of the temple-bound Brahmin priests. Both talked incessantly about karma (deeds). Both emphasized the necessity of direct experience of the Truth, not mere faith (saddha), moral observances (sila), book learning (suta), or scholarship or relying on intermediary "priests" to dispense blessings, boons, good luck charms, viewings (darshan), or magical transmissions, as they have come to do because people for ages have been looking for an easier and easier Path to Freedom.
Jainism explained
(Cogito) Jainism, some call it the world’s most peaceful religion. Mahavira (the Nigantha Nattaputta as he is known in Buddhism) was a contemporary of the historical and slightly younger Siddhartha Gautama who became the Buddha. They led the two "wandering ascetic" Indian traditions to survive to the present.
[Most peaceful? Except perhaps for the fact that as Jains do not engage in any harmful work, many have become investors investing in the worst trades weapons, alcohol, drugs, funding every kind of harm known to humankind. Is it wrong to invest and profit from arms sales? Cattle raising? Big Pharma sorcery? Pesticides? Weapons R&D? AI technology?]
Jain monastics (sramanas or wandering ascetics, both nuns and monks, and there are possibly more females since Mahavira was the first to ordain women) are famous worldwide for their strict adherence to ahimsa or “non-harming,” “non-violence.”
Going as far as to sweep the floor with a dust broom as they walk to avoid stepping on any tiny lifeforms, covering their mouths as to not swallow [small bugs] or breathe hot air on [unseen] living creatures, and following a strict vegetarian diet that bans:
all meat,
all fish,
all eggs
all potatoes (and root vegetables and some fruits).
Who wouldn't prefer naked founder?
So what is Jainism, and why is it considered the world’s most peaceful religion?
The ancient Jain philosophy has garnered the eye of the modern world as their ideas of non-violence, strict vegetarianism (with many now becoming vegans), and what could be called an environmentalist outlook are strikingly relevant.
Jains have been highly influential in India for thousands of years, shaping its vegetarian-friendly diet and lending the concept of ahimsa to Gandhi's independence movement against the colonial British empire.
Naked Jain monk honors 24 Tirthankaras of history, jinas and mahaviras, Jains and great heroes
Hey, Mahavira, really is naked.
A “Jain” (Jaina) is someone who accepts the teachings of the Tirthankaras, the “Ford-makers or Ford-finders.”
“Jainism” comes from the word Jina. Tirthankaras, those who cross over and bridge this dangerous side of the river and that safe side, allowing followers to move from samsara to moksha, from endless-rebirth to liberation.
They, the teachers, are the most important people in Jainism. They have removed all attachments to the world and during their lifetimes have managed to break free from the endless cycle of rebirth and death. It is this cycle, this endlessly turning wheel (samsara), that Jains believe keeps souls trapped in the world, going from one birth to another.
[Naked? White-clad versus sky-clad]
White clad vs. sky clad? Mahavira
There are two kinds of Jains, the Svetambaras and the Digambaras, the more mellow reformed and the strict orthodox. Some wear white cotton robes, whereas the others go about naked like severe ascetics from the time of the Buddha. They own nothing (niganthas), cling to nothing, not even castoff bark cloth rags to protect against the elements and for the sake of modesty. These "sky-clad" ascetics and their followers were the vegetarian gymnosophists mentioned by the ancient Greeks. (Gymnos means "nude," which is what one did in the ancient Greek gymnasium, and sophist means "philosopher" or "teacher" as in sophistry or philo-Sophia, the "love of wisdom").
(Amazon.com put a copy limit on this, so I couldn't export my notes, and it took me hours to do it manually, and it made me angry, and this is the only way I can vent. Good book though 8/10, 9/10 with rice).
QUESTION (John D.): How could Wisdom Quarterly turn their backs on the truth and follow some other dharma teacher?
ANSWER (Ashley W.): Well, it was either Mahavira and Jainism or Apollonius of Tyana the wandering sage of Saint Issa/Jesus' time and Mysticism. No one voted for Judaism, even the Ultra-Orthodox kind or the mystical Kabbalah, and Shamanism, which did get a lot of votes, is just so amorphous. We don't need more Occult mumbo-jumbo or Seeking but an actual path.
QUESTION (Reese Tarded): Have you thought about your future and God's plan for your salvation? I'd like to talk to you about eternity and the love waiting for you if you just accept this short little creed.
ANSWER (Ashley W.): Take a hike, Reese.
QUESTION (Reese Tarded): Are you saying Wisdom Quarterly is NOT converting to Jainism or anything else?
ANSWER (Ashley W.): Yes, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Happy April Fools' Day. I still think we should have gone with the wandering sage Apollonius of Tyana personally; then it might have been more obvious we were being facetious. But Jainism is nice and Mahavira, if it weren't for the Buddha, would have been the greatest teacher of his day.
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Why have you scrolled this far down? No one reads down here. #India #Jain#Jainism#IndianHistory#Jains #VPN #NordVPN Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator. All images are taken from Creative Commons or used in accordance with fair use. If an image has been used without proper attribution, please contact by email or on twitter, and that will instantly bed resolved.
Cogito (video), Aug. 31, 2019; Editors, Wisdom Quarterly: American Jain Journal,April 1, 2024
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, converted to Jewish atheism
I would do anything to become an American sex symbol and finally be loved, Daddy.
I'm an LA girl from an LA world.
Marilyn Monroe was born in Los Angeles, living in 12 foster homes and an orphanage, getting married at 16 to escape all that. She divorced then dated gaunt, Jewish, nebbish writer Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman) and identified with Jewish people as a "dispossessed group."
She got engaged to Miller and wanted to convert to Judaism to make herself part of Miller's family [206]. She was instructed by Rabbi Robert Goldberg and converted on July 1, 1956 [205].
However pretty our food, it comes out the same.
Monroe's interest in Judaism as a religion was limited: She called herself a "Jewish atheist" and did not practice the faith after divorcing Miller, though she did retain some religious items [205].
Egypt lifted her ban after her divorce was finalized in 1961 [205]. Then she married baseball star and Italian Catholic Joe DiMaggio.
She's Catholic. Don't let anyone tell you different, like my sainted mother.
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