Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: craving for nonexistence continued existence

Showing posts with label craving for nonexistence continued existence. Show all posts

Friday, August 15, 2025

Why does something exist, not nothing?

Buddhism Podcast

Saturday, July 26, 2025

What is the purpose of being human?

(Buddhism Podcast) What is the purpose of being human? The Buddha's answer

Aristotle’s Theory of Eudaimonia or Happiness

Eudaimonia (/u-die-moan-ee-uh/, Ancient Greek εὐδαιμονία]) is a Greek word that literally translates to the state or condition of good spirit, commonly translated as "happiness" or "welfare." In the works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in older Greek tradition. It is the aim of practical philosophy-prudence, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider and experience what this state really is and how it can be achieved. It is therefore a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic philosophy, along with the terms aretē (most often translated as "virtue" or "excellence") and phronesis ("practical or ethical wisdom") [1]. Discussion of the links between ēthikē aretē ("virtue of character") and eudaimonia (happiness) is one of the central concerns of ancient ethics and a subject of disagreement. As a result, there are many varieties of eudaimonism. More

Monday, May 19, 2025

Fertility Clinic Bomber hits Palm Springs

KTLA exclusive interview with Palm Springs bombing suspect's father

Only suspect killed in Palm Springs explosion left behind 'anti-pro-life' writings, officials say

Alleged perpetrator and anti-natalist

(KTLA 5) May 18, 2025: The FBI has identified [alleged anti-natalist attention-getter] Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, of Twentynine Palms, California, as the suspect in Saturday's domestic terrorist bombing of the American Reproductive Centers' clinic in Palm Springs.

His father, Richard Bartkus, 75, spoke to KTLA5 News for the first time. KTLA's Gene Kang reports live on May 18, 2025. Details: KTLA.com.

NewsNation; KTLA 5; ABC7; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Monday, January 27, 2025

Bhikkhu Bodhi, what is NIRVANA?

Bhikkhu Bodhi's surprising and profound description of nirvana (nibbana)

(Daniel Aitken) In this profound Dharma Chat, renowned American Theravada Buddhist monk, scholar, and translator Bhikkhu Bodhi sheds light on the ultimate goal of the Buddhist path: nirvana (nibbana). Join him as he navigates the intricacies of this elusive concept in three ways, unveiling its multifaceted nature and dispelling common foolish misconceptions about this reality. Watch the full episode at dharmachats.com.

Nirvana (the Unformed)

Arhats in nirvana are not in nothingness

The beautiful thing about this short answer is that it is what Bhikkhu Bodhi was saying decades ago in his landmark series As It Is, ten taped lectures. The "Nibbana" lecture (Number 6) goes into detail to show that nirvana is NOT nothingness as so many people have concluded. It is not "emptiness." It is not negative, though described by excluding what it is not, which makes it sound like exactly that. Anyone wishing to intellectually grasp nirvana, because direct realization of it (which is the best way of understanding it) is a little way off, will enjoy this talk:

Nirvana (the Deathless)

Nibbana (Nirvana) lecture by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Dhamma, Buddhism

Bhikkhu Bodhi, Daniel Aitken, Dec. 28, 2023; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Friday, March 3, 2023

Poem: In death we do NOT die

Clare Harner (not Mary Elizabeth Frye), "Immortality"; PJ, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Funny vintage picture, retro historic photo, humorous gift, wall mount art decor

Get a load of this, Kevin. Have they made a "You are my Hart" shirt? - Don't get cocky, Rock.

Do not stand

By my grave, and weep.

I am not there,

I do not sleep —

I am the thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond glints in snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning’s hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight,

I am the day transcending night.

Do not stand

By my grave, and cry —

I am not there,

I did not die.

Women are scandalous, aren't they? I love your girlfriend's tee-shirt, Man.

Married women are anonymously confessing the biggest secrets they're keeping from their spouses, and OMG!

Monday, January 9, 2023

A Gift Given to Everyone (Trudy Goodman)

Dr. Trudy Goodman, PhD; Ananda, Dhr. Seven (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Meditating during the holidays helps more than doing it when everything is calm.

Gift Given to Everyone with Trudy Goodman

I would meditate, but I don't have time.

The holidays can be demanding and stressful as well as being a time for celebration, reflection, and gratitude.

One thing I’ve been reflecting on this week is that we often take the "gift" of existence for granted. This gift, both mundane and miraculous, is given freely to everyone who is alive.

Did we create ourselves? Did we call ourselves into being? None of us consciously did that. We are born a gift, and our existence is given to us [by our previous karma?] as a gift.

Sunday Community Sit: A Practice Group with Trudy Goodman - InsightLA Meditation

This is the generosity of life creating life [in the endless wheel of samsara]. I feel a deep and primal gratitude for this life, even with all the intensity of existing in this world.

Being aware of our breathing can bring us into the present moment of this existence with a calmer mind/heart. This is especially helpful during the holidays. We might be feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and too busy when what we really need is some rest.

With the breath, it only takes a few minutes to step out of the hustle and bustle and be just where we are. With each in-breath you receive the gift of aliveness; each out-breath encourages our heart to relax and rest in the deep release of simply existing [being and becoming].

Mindful awareness

InsightLA Founder Dr. Trudy Goodman, Ph.D.

To practice mindfulness-of-breathing, find a comfortable seated position and lower that gaze so as to not be distracted. Bring full attention to the breath as it moves into and out of the body.

Notice the sensation of the breath as it moves through the nose, throat, chest, and belly. We can place one hand on our heart and one hand on our belly to help us focus on feeling the movement of our breath in the body as it ebbs and flows [like waves on the seashore].

Mindfulness of breathing is a simple and powerful way to remember the gift of existence and find some inner peace during the holiday swirl.

These few minutes of practice can help to bring us into the present moment – and can be practiced anywhere and anytime.

Each mindful breath is an invitation to appreciate the love and generosity of existence itself. We may discover a new dimension of gratitude for our precious human birth.

All blessings for a loving, mindful, healthy and strong New Year, Trudy Goodman

ABOUT: Trudy Goodman is the founding teacher of InsightLA. Join her Sunday mornings for a warm community gathering at her special weekly practice group, Sunday Community Sit: A Practice Group with Trudy Goodman.

(Classes are on Sundays from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm PT)

Give the gift of mindfulness this season! YES, I want to make TWICE the difference this holiday season. Please use my gift to provide mindfulness and meditative programs to those who need it most and to support all the work of InsightLA!

Friday, August 26, 2022

Birthday: Continuation Day (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Happy Birthday message to the birthday gal traveling in Asia: Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Your Birthday is a Continuation Day | Thich Nhat Hanh

(Plum Village) New Hamlet, Plum Village - Are you sure you were reborn on your birthday? Are you sure you are not yet redying? Thich Nhat Hanh explains his insights into Buddhist teachings on being reborn and dying.

Happy Continuation Day! (Samsara)

On our so-called birthday, instead of singing Happy Birthday, we can sing Happy Continuation Day. It’s closer to the truth. Happy Continuation Day! The day of our conception is also a continuation day. The day of rebirth is also a day of continuation. And how about the other days? We have already spent many days — 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 80 years already, and what can we call these days? All of them are continuation days. And we die and we are reborn every day.

Support by donating: plumvillage.org/support or helping to caption and translate: amara.org/en/profiles... or youtube.com/timedtext... Help caption and translate this video: amara.org/v/C2vT1.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Samsara: Rebirth or Redeath? (video)

Weixingli; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

What a terrible thing is this painful cycle, but nirvana is the blissful end of all suffering.

(Weixingli, zhengxintang.com) Go Beyond Samsara. See full description of this short film down below.

Symbolic Tibetan Buddhist representation of samsara

Saṃsāra (lit., "the continued wandering on") in Buddhism, according to Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal, is the disappointment-laden cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and redeath without discernible beginning or end.

It is also referred to as the "wheel of life and death" (bhavacakra) or cycle of existence and so on. It is often mentioned in Buddhist texts with the term punabhava (rebirth, re-becoming, reappearing). The Buddha mentioned that the worlds one is wandering through may be going from

dark to bright
bright to bright
bright to dark
or dark to dark.

Nirvana (freedom) is liberation (moksha) from this miserable cycle. Nirvana is the foundation, the most important purpose of the Buddhist path [109, 110, 111].

Samsara is considered impermanent in Buddhism and other Indian or "Dharmic" traditions like Jainism, the old Vedic Brahminical religion, modern Hinduism, Sikhism, and to some extent syncretic Sufism.

Karma and vipaka (deeds and results, seeds and ripening fruits) drive this impermanent cycle according to Buddhism.

Interpreting Jain representation of samsara: a human delights in sweet sensuality (honey), hanging on to unreliable roots being nibbled at by rats and about to plummet into unimaginable worlds of horror, the consequences ill done deeds, which is not only another death but many more rebirths. The flowering tree of delights is being knocked over by a mighty naga (elephant), Death. Meanwhile, "shining ones" (heavenly light beings, devas) look down from one of their ships (vimana). We are oblivious to our predicament because we are obsessed with sense pleasures.

Oh no, not again!!! Why am I here?

Paul Williams states that "short of attaining enlightenment, in each rebirth one is born and dies, to be reborn elsewhere in accordance with the completely [in an ultimate sense] impersonal causal nature of one's own karma; this endless cycle of birth, rebirth, and redeath is Saṃsāra" [112].

The Four Noble Truths, accepted by all Buddhist traditions, are aimed at ending this Samsara-related re-becoming (rebirth) and associated cycles of suffering [113][114][115].

Like Jainism, a fellow wandering ascetic tradition that has survived down to this day, Buddhism developed its own samsara theory.

It evolved over time the mechanistic details on how the wheel of mundane existence works over the endless cycles of rebirth and redeath [116][117].

In early Buddhist traditions, saṃsāric cosmology consisted of 31 planes through which the wheel of existence recycled [109].

This cosmology includes from the bottom up hells/purgatories (niraka/niraya), demons (asuras, yakshas), hungry ghosts (pretas), animals (tiryak), humans (manushya, which exist in many more places than on this planet), and shining ones (devas, asuras, celestial light beings) [109][116][118].

In later Mahayana traditions, this list grew to a list of six realms of rebirth, adding demigods (asuras), who are also seen as titans, demons, and angry or jealous beings [109][119].

The "hungry ghost, heavenly, hellish realms" respectively formulate the ritual, literary and moral spheres of many contemporary Buddhist traditions [109][116].

How to ascend 31 planes and get out?

The concept of saṃsāra in Buddhism envisions that these 31 planes spoken of as six realms by lumping all of the shining ones above the human plane as one group even though they are very diverse, are interconnected.

Everyone cycles life after life. Death is just a transition to yet another an afterlife, often with a layover in an intermediate state (called a bardo in Tibetan Buddhism) as a spirit being (as a preta, deva, gandharva) through these realms or worlds called lokas.

This is because of a combination of ignorance, craving, and karma (deeds) or virtuous and unvirtuous actions [109][116].

"Nirvana" is typically described as freedom from rebirth and the extinction of all forms of suffering/disappointment. Only this complete freedom, called the "unconditioned," is an alternative to the staggering diversity of samsara, the "conditioned" world, in Buddhism [120][121].

However, Buddhist texts developed a more comprehensive theory of rebirth, according to Steven Collins, from fears of redeath. Another way to speak of nirvana is by using synonyms like amata (Sanskrit amrita, "the deathless") and sarana ("refuge," "safety from all bondage"). These states are considered synonymous with nirvana [120][122]. More

FILM: Go Beyond Samsara
Weixingli 2011 (zhengxintang.com, v.youku.com)

The film at the top examines our existence.

Trying to tell the truth about the world we live in, Go Beyond Samsara was banned by YouTube. Samsara means "life cycling around in the Six Realms," from birth to death, redeath to rebirth... This film tries to answer three philosophical questions from a Buddhist point of view:

Who are we?
Where are we from?
Where are we going?

Moreover, it tries to reveal the true face of our lives: Is there fate? Who is ruling our fate? What happens after death? Are there really heavens and hells?

03:08 Story of the annihilation of the Shakya [Scythian] tribe
05:41 Asking the questions: Why am I here? Who am I? Where am I going?
08:00 The Wheel of Samsara
09:04 Three Poisons: ignorance, craving, hatred
12:29 Good Karma and Evil Karma
12:55 The Six Realms [31 Planes of Existence]
18:19 The Twelve Links (Nidanas)
19:43 The first two and a half links of past lives
26:56 The next seven and a half links of current life
42:55 The last two links of the new life
43:46 Review of the Cycle of Samsara
46:24 The Ruler of Death

Download English subtitles (dl.dropbox.com/u/8053958...). Find a mistake in the subtitles? Send a message. Thank you! Copyright reserved by zhengxintang.com.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

There are Four Floods (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Ven. Thanissaro (trans.) Ogha Sutra: Floods (1) (SN 45.171)

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was residing in Savatthi...where he said: "Meditators, there are four 'floods'! What are the four?

The flood of sensuality
the flood of becoming
the flood of views
the flood of ignorance.

"These are the four floods. And this Noble Eightfold Path is to be developed for directly knowing, comprehending, totally ending, and abandoning these four floods.

"What is this Noble Eightfold Path? Here a meditator develops right view depending on seclusion, depending on dispassion [the result of seeing things as they truly are], depending on cessation, and resulting in letting go.

"One develops right intention... right speech... right action... right livelihood... right effort... right mindfulness... right concentration depending on seclusion, depending on dispassion, depending on cessation, and resulting in letting go.

"This Noble Eightfold Path is to be developed for direct knowledge, for comprehension, for the total ending, and for the abandoning of these four floods."

See also SN 1.1; AN 4.10; Sn 5

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Buddha, what happens when we die? (video)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; The Journey of Purpose

According to science, when you die you know you are dead: Mind continues (CBSN).

What did the Buddha teach?

The Wheel goes on.

The impersonal process of "consciousness continues after death," science finds. So what happens when we die? There are two wrong views living beings typically hold. They sound like opposites, yet they are both wrong.

The first is annihilationism (uccheda-view), the view that when we die it's lights out and everything is over, that the self is annihilated at death. This is wrong. Life goes on.

The second is eternalism (sassata-view), the view that when we die it's lights on and everything continues, that the self lives on eternally in one state or another (an eternal heaven, hell, or intermediate state). This is wrong. Life ends at every moment of being, which is actually becoming (and re-becoming) and never static "being." What is right view? What did the Buddha teach?

Birth completes in death, death in rebirth...

First, we must ask, What exists now? (The answer is the Five Aggregates Clung to as Self). There is no self to die or live on endlessly. So what exists?

There's ignorance and the "suffering" (woe, disappointment, unsatisfactoriness) that proceeds from it; there is this impersonal process.

The Truth is far stranger than the fictions we imagine. So we cannot rest easy thinking it will all take care of itself. It won't. Nor should we worry thinking there is nothing that can be done. There is. There is a Path to the end of all suffering and all future rebirth.

Why/how am I reborn? Dependent Origination

But clinging to the hankering and pursuit of sensual pleasures, we remain in bondage to this wheel samsara -- this near-endless round of becoming, this impersonal process of birth, death, rebirth (relinking), redeath...

All the while we are ensnared by craving, hounded by hate, and clouded by delusion about what's actually going on by ignorance.

Ignorance, which supports hate/fear (aversion) and craving (attraction), has a permanent antidote: enlightenment leading to liberation.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Science: first hint of "life after death" in study

Wisdom Quarterly; Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent, Telegraph.co.uk, "Life after death"

The Buddha-to-come, Maitreya, sitting in Himalayas as he sits in Tusita (DevonPucel/flickr)

Holy cow, the other worlds are really, they're actually real, countless worlds on 31 planes!

Life after death, world of the Thirty-Three

Death is a depressingly inevitable consequence of life [not because we'll die but because we will be reborn again again and again], but now scientists believe they may have found some light at the end of the tunnel.

The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.

Even good Mahavira could see rebirth

It is a controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread skepticism.

But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US, and Austria.

And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of "awareness" during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

[We are certainly not our bodies, yet ultimately we are not our spirits, life force, or minds either, but that too big for most of us to wrap our heads around, what the Buddha introduced as the truth of anatta, "egolessness," without the realization of which there is no enlightenment, no nirvana, no final liberation from rebirth and suffering.]

Some cardiac arrest patients recalled seeing a bright light; a golden flash or the Sun shining

Move toward the light! Scientific study says there is life after death after all.

One man even recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his resuscitation from the corner of the room.

Despite being unconscious and "dead" for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the machines.

[This is common and has been reported many times in hospitals all over the world, but it is very difficult to isolate under scientifically empirical conditions.]

“We know the brain can’t function [without blood, oxygen, glucose, and electrical impulses] when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr. Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.

“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.

“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.

“He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.”

Of 2,060 cardiac arrest patients studied, 330 survived, and 140 said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated. More