Showing posts with label dhutanga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dhutanga. Show all posts

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Deadly? Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: retreat


Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: Vipassana Meditation Retreat
Diary of a Buddhist Yogi (Kindle Edition)
Author Dhammaloka ("Dharma-world" or "Dharma-light or white") Viriya ("energy") knows that liberation (vimutti, moksha, vimokkha) from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) comes from the Awakening (bodhi-ification) of the (ennobling = enlightening) Truths.

To be awakened, one needs to practice mindfulness-meditation (satipatthana) by relinquishing attachment to the six senses, which will eradicate the clinging to all [of their attendant] phenomena, before the Dhamma (Truth, Teaching, Doctrine) eventually reveals itself to the practitioner.

Once the practitioner catches a glimpse of the Dhamma, the Ultimate Truth, through direct knowing-and-seeing, the practitioner will know there is no more falling back into the mire of this mundane world.

The Buddha pointed out the way to end of all suffering through mindfulness (sati) practice, and many practitioners since the Buddha’s time have reached that bliss and release from practicing in accordance with it.

However, in the author’s observation, although practitioners in this age find the practice fulfilling, they do not experience the awakening moment and therefore do not see the fruition as they hope to.
Find out in this book, which is the first-hand experience of a yogi ("practitioner") who went through the trials and tribulations of a vipassana ("insight") meditation retreat at a forest monastery to see for himself the ultimate truths of
  1. non-self (that all phenomena are impersonal),
  2. disappointment (that all phenomena are unsatisfactory and unable to fulfill),
  3. impermanence (that all phenomena are constantly hurtling toward destruction).
Directly knowing-and-seeing these Three Universal Truths produces a life-changing experience.
  • NOTE: Not all vipassana meditation retreats are affiliated with Indian S. N. Goenka (dhamma.org). Burmese monk U Ba Khin's star student and businessman just popularized it worldwide with a free, volunteer-based, 10-day structure.
You can do "mindfulness" wrong? - Yes.
WISDOM QUARTERLY COMMENTARY
There are dangers in this Wheel?
The Buddha in the usual list we call the Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Eightfold Path called one of those factors samma-sati not sati. What's the difference? One might think one is being mindful, but is it what the Buddha or the noble ones call "right" mindfulness? (If there's a right, that implies there's a wrong way to go about it or fool oneself that one is doing it at all). If "mindfulness" only meant awareness, then I'm being "aware" (conscious) right now, right? Yes! Am I being mindful? Probably not. There's a difference, a big difference. Retreat leaders and personal teachers should talk about it more and stop taking it for granted that one will just figure it out or that it is so patently obvious that it needs no defining or delimiting. It does, at least for over-thinkers. Sure, there are some people who will just take to it like guppies or ducklets to water. (They've likely extensively and successfully practiced in past lives).
We don't know what we're doing, but we got a groupon
Therefore, the most important thing before embarking on a vipassana retreat (whether it's Goenka-based or not), know that it is being defined as satipatthana. That means the fourfold setting up of mindfulness, which is explained in great detail in two sutras (Pali canon discourses or suttas). However, and this is the maddening part, almost nothing is said to define mindfulness (Buddhist sati). That is the most important thing to know, but it gets taken for granted. Or very weak definitions are offered, such as defining it as "awareness." We are aware right now, and more than 99% of us are not being mindful about it. For an extensive definition, see the academic work of Western Theravada professor-monk Ven. Analayo.

The Buddhist version of "mindfulness" called sati, as we understand it, is "bare awareness" with detachment, looking on, dispassionate watching. Sounds easy, but it is very hard because it goes against our deeply ingrained habits and traits. Usually when we are aware of anything, we taint that awareness with the Three Poisons of the heart/mind: liking, disliking, indifference (from the roots of all bad karma poorly translated as "greed, hatred, and delusion."

Three Poisons mutually supported wheel hub
Look up lobha, dosa, and moha. And what becomes apparent is that Pali and Sanskrit terms have wide valence, a range of meaning for a single word. "Greed" or lobha does not mean our idea of greediness. It means liking, preferring, welcoming, grasping, attaching, and getting clingy about pleasant phenomena. "Hatred" or dosa does not mean intense fury or anger; it means disliking, having an aversion to, fearing, avoiding, repressing... It is our customary reaction to any and everything we find unpleasant.

Then there's "delusion" or moha, the worst one, the most embedded one, the hardest one to see. It refers to all the wrong views we hold, consciously and unconsciously, distortions of reality, perversions (seeing what is unpleasant as pleasant, what is repulsive as attractive, what is transient as lasting), confusion, not knowing, not understanding, not fathoming, not knowing, not seeing. This is practically our whole existence, if we think about it, but it might be summarized as failing to notice the Three Characteristics of Existence in all things -- that they are ultimately radically impermanent, eventually disappointing (unable to ever fulfill us), and (no matter how impossible it is to conceive, believe, fathom, or accept) altogether impersonal.


I think I get it, Lisa. - Beginner's luck, Bart!
So to be mindful (to see clearly, which is to practice vipassana) is to look on, watch everything without giving in to the unconscious pull of these old habits. Just watch. Just notice. Just maintain attention. Note how when something is pleasing, greed for it arises. When something is displeasing, aversion with regard to it arises. When something is neutral, dull, confusing, hard to grasp, or boring, delusion arises, which is to say we space out, fall asleep, wander to something more interesting, even if it is a very unpleasant memory. Better than boredom. We do everything but be here now when this is the only real place there is to be. There's only now. The past is done. The future will take care of itself. But all our power is here, now. Let's attend to it. Let's finally see it for what it has always been so as to be liberated by the truth. The truth will set us free. What truth? The Truth, sometimes summarized as the Four Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Truths, the ultimate (paramattha) Truth, the true nature of existence (personally penetrating the Three Marks of Existence already mentioned). Need a list? There are the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment (the bodhipakkhiyādhammā). That Truth sets one free here and now, immediately.

But there's something every and anyone who embarks on Buddhist meditation needs to know beyond a good grasp of the meaning of "mindfulness" (sati). And that is that one will meet Five Hindrances whenever one tries to sit still or rest the mind or walk and move about with constant attention to the here and now, which does not involve "thinking" about the here-and-now, just watching it dispassionately.


The Five Hindrances one will meet in meditation (and their antidotes)
This is stupid! It doesn't work! Buddha was wrong!
The historical Buddha taught that there are Five Hindrances (paƱca nÄ«varaṇa, Pali paƱca nÄ«varaṇāni), mental factors that hinder, obstruct, derail progress in meditation and ruin daily life [1].

The Theravada Buddhist tradition identifies these factors as specific obstacles to "meditation," which is defined as jhāna (eight stages of stillness, unification, samadhi, concentration, coherence, superconsciousness) in practice.

Contemporary insight meditation teachers identify the Five Hindrances as obstacles to mindfulness meditation and obstacles to samma-samadhi ("right concentration," though "concentration" is problematic because we have many assumptions about what that means). "Stillness" is better, when the heart/mind has settled out, is silent, lucid, observant, directly knowing-and-seeing. But concentration is sometimes useful because ekaggata (singlepointedness or one-pointedness) is a factor of jhana.

The Five Hindrance are part of two types of obstructions (Sanskrit āvaraṇa, i.e., obstacles to insight, realization, awakening, buddhahood), afflictive obstructions (Sanskrit kleśā-avaraṇa, which include the Five Hindrances) and cognitive obstructions (jƱeyā-avaraṇa, which bodhisattvas are trying to uproot) [2].

The classic list of Five Hindrances is [3, 4, 5, 6]
  1. craving, desire, lust (kāmacchanda): seeking pleasure through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and tactile sensation
  2. aversion, ill-will, annoyance, anger (vyāpāda, byāpāda): feelings of hostility, resentment, hate, bitterness
  3. sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha): mental-and-bodily lassitude, laziness, weakness, lack of energy to strive, half-hearted action with little or no effort, attention, concentration
  4. restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): the inability to allow the mind/heart to calm down, relax, become tranquil (passaddhi), serene, unflappable, steady, restful, undistracted, attentive, and focused, diligent, vigilant, energetic
  5. Skeptical doubt (vicikiccha): lack of confidence, conviction, faith, trust that one has understood the instructions, the path, or one's abilities to successfully proceed. More
The antidotes are called the Five Factors of Absorptions, the jhana-anga (limbs or factors). By the way, right mindfulness immediately dispels delusion instantaneously.

Or psycho girlfriend might try something crazy like (pushing it off cliff to convert to ad campaign)
  • Dhammaloka Viriya (diary); Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (commentary), Ashley Wells (editor) and Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) selection of video shorts, Wisdom Quarterly

Saturday, April 25, 2026

Japan's mummy monks and Kundalini


Yamabushi (山伏, one who prostrates oneself on the mountain) are Japanese mountain ascetic hermits [1]. They are generally part of the syncretic Shugendō religion,* which includes Tantric [Vajrayana] Buddhism and the indigenous Shinto [2].

Their origins can be traced back to the solitary yamabito ("wild hill people") and some hijiri (聖) ("wandering Buddhist ascetics and renunciants") of the eighth and ninth centuries [3].

According to American writer Frederik L. Schodt:
  • "These positively medieval-looking nature worshipers carry metal staves and conch shells and wear straw sandals and sometimes a hemp cloth over-robe with the Heart Sutra written on it. They follow a mixture of esoteric or tantric Buddhism mixed with Shinto, the native animistic religion of Japan" [4]. More
Kundalini Gone Wild
(Vismaya) Kundalini Gone Wild: the real cases
  • Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy
    Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man
     by Gopi Krishna HAS 4.7 out of 5 stars with 230 reviews: Coiled like a snake at the base of the spine, "Kundalini" is the spiritual force that lies dormant in every human being. Once awakened, often through meditation and yogic practices, it rises up the spinal column and finds expression in the form of spiritual knowledge, mystical vision, psychic powers, and ultimately, "enlightenment." [This is not real enlightenment or bodhi as defined in Buddhism, but what other traditions consider "enlightenment."]
  • This book is the classic first-person account of Gopi Krishna, an ordinary Indian householder who, at the age of 34, after years of unsupervised meditation, suddenly experienced the awakening of kundalini during his morning practice.
  • The story of this transformative experience, and the author's struggle to regain balance amid a variety of powerful psychic and physiological side effects, forms the core of the book.
  • [This condition afflicts an estimated 100 or so Westerners a year who visit India and go "crazy" from either exposure to energies, the Himalayas, the Moon, mystics, god beings (possibly extraterrestrial or interdimensional), artifacts, or dedicated practice... It has happened to two young blond Americans we know of and one we met who, like Gopi Krishna, regained stability, earned an advanced degree, and tries to counsel victims to bring the chakras back into balance and stabilize this energetic kundalini force. One really can make it back to normal.]
  • His detailed descriptions of his dramatic inner experiences and symptoms such as mood swings, eating disorders, and agonizing sensations of heat—and of how, with the help of his wife, he finally stabilized at a higher level of consciousness—make this one of the most valuable classics of spiritual awakening available. More
A new syncretic religion in Japan
What the Buddha Never Taught
*Shugen-dō
 (修験道, lit. "the Way [of] Trial [and] Practice," the "Way of Shugen or Gen-practice") [1] is a syncretic Esoteric Buddhist religion, a body of extreme ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan, having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines, and ritual systems drawn primarily from
The final purpose of Shugen-dō is for practitioners to find supernatural power and save themselves and the masses by conducting religious training while treading through steep mountain ranges. Practitioners are called Shugenja (修験者) or Yamabushi (山伏, lit. '"Mountain Prostrator"') [2]. More

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Peace Walk ends: Buddhist monks reach DC

Aloka: So we turn around and start to walk back now? There are so many people I want to see.
TODAY'S LIVESTREAM





Venerable Buddhist monks touch hearts during Walk for Peace in Virginia en route to DC
(ABC 7 News - WJLA) Feb. 6, 2026: “If you’re not at peace, where are we?" said Caroline County resident Sue Iszczenko while she and her daughter Kayla waited for the venerable Buddhist monks to walk past them on their route from Texas to Washington, D.C., promoting inner and world peace.


Hi, I'm Aloka the Peace Dog
In a time defined by [Trump] turmoil, with a nation fractured, hundreds came from far and wide, gathering roadside in rural Caroline County to witness 20 Buddhist monks [and a dog named Aloka] journey a portion of 2,300 arduous miles – from Texas to D.C. – advocating for harmony in a world gone haywire. More: wjla.com/news/local/venerable...


So sweet — when Buddhist monks walking for peace make everyone smile
(AmeriScope) Feb. 5, 2026: Some moments don’t need to be explained. We see them — and we smile spontaneously. This video captures one of those moments. It is so sweet in its simplicity that Americans naturally slow down and feel lighter, even if for just a moment.

 
Nothing here is planned. Nothing is performed. The sweetness comes from small, human interactions — the kind that happen when kind people are present and open. A smile appears unexpectedly. Gestures are genuine. Someone pauses, not because they have to but because they want to.

These moments change the world little by little because inner peace expresses as world peace. They change the moment. As part of the Walk for Peace, scenes like this appear along the road — not loud or dramatic, just quietly heartwarming. People notice without trying. They react without thinking. And suddenly, the space is warmer.


Aloka the Peace Dog is the big star walking
This movement isn’t about distance, destination, or purpose. It’s about feeling. It’s about how sweetness shows up when no one is trying to impress or persuade.
  • What is the way to such "sweetness"? The Buddha taught four sublime meditations called the Four Supreme Abidings:
  1. loving-kindness (metta)
  2. compassion (compassion)
  3. joy in the joy of others (mudita)
  4. unbiased looking on (upekkha)
It happens when people are simply themselves. In a world that often feels rushed and heavy, moments like this land differently. They do not demand attention. They invite a smile. Sometimes that’s enough. This is a reminder that kindness doesn’t always look serious. Sometimes, it just looks sweet.

What was the last small moment that made you smile without expecting it? #PeaceWalk #AlokaDog #Texas #WashingtonDC #SweetMoments #EverydayJoy #LittleThingsMatter #FeelGoodVideo #WarmMoments #LifeAsItIs
  • Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Sayalay Aloka (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sunday, February 1, 2026

Peace Walk in freezing cold: Global warming?


(Walk for Peace) Ajahn never sleeps lying down in as a dhutanga practice

Freezing snowstorms could be climate chaos.
Is "global warming" real? Who dares to say that it is not? The mainstream media shoves that message down our throat whether we like it or not. University researchers are enticed to find those results and punished when they find anything else. And no one seems to be counting the artificial manipulation of the weather with chemtrails, H.A.A.R.P., and other secret means. Humans are warming it, but it is a concerted effort to warm it and say in an alarmist way that that warming is galloping out of control now. We ignore our eyes. We ourselves do not review the data. When the meteorologist who founded the Weather Channel (weather.com) looked at the data, he did NOT find much of a rise. And he asked his colleagues about. There has been about a 1 degree rise in our lifetimes. Where are all the other headlines coming from and why? They will make us believe and demand that they intervene. We will not only give up our rights, we will demand they be taken away. There may be a mini ice age on the way, but we'll never hear about that above the din of alarmism and artificial youth movements kickstarted to promote an agenda. Natural global warming being brought on by consumer activity? Unlikely. Being brought on by corporate officials and their masters? Obviously.

(AmeriScope) Love travels quietly across the country and into Virginia



Stray dog karma

Saturday, January 24, 2026

COLD: Walk for Peace (Buddha's Wisdom)



As protests [against Dictator Trump] turn violent, Buddhist monks walk together for peace

120 DAYS. 2,300 MILES. ONE MEAL. BUDDHIST MONKS' WALK FOR PEACE changing AMERICA
(Buddha's Wisdom) Jan. 22, 2026: šŸ™ THEY WALK PEACEFULLY WHILE THE WORLD KEEPS FIGHTING.

In October 2025, twenty Theravada Buddhist monks began the Walk for Peace, a 120-day barefoot pilgrimage from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, DC.


Jesus was Buddhist monk
Walking in noble silence, carrying nothing but robes and alms bowls, depending entirely on strangers for food and shelter, these Theravāda monks (bhikkhus) are practicing a 2,600-year-old tradition on modern American highways.

As of January 2026, they're passing through the Carolinas, approaching their destination at the U.S. Capitol on February 13th, 2026.

This is not a protest, not a march, but an ancient Buddhist practice brought into the modern world.


DISCOVER
  • Why Buddhist monks are walking 2,300 miles in silence while the world keeps fighting
  • How this pilgrimage traces back to the historical Buddha’s original way of life
  • The ancient sane ascetic practices (dhutaį¹…gas) these monks follow (one meal per day, sleeping outdoors, walking barefoot)
  • How Aloka, their rescue dog, became a viral symbol when he needed surgery in Charlotte, NC
  • The deeper meaning of dāna (sharing, non-clinging, letting go, generosity) in a divided society
  • Why this walk matters now as U.S. war, political tension, and global unrest escalate
TIMESTAMPS
  • 00:00 Two Symbols of Peace
  • 01:49 The Monastery That Moves
  • 08:37 The Teacher Who Never Stopped Moving
  • 12:23 Walking Through Fire
  • 16:13 Two Symbols
  • 19:30 What Peace Becomes
FOLLOW, SUPPORT WALK FOR PEACE šŸŒ
☕ Support channel: buymeacoffee.com/buddhaswisdom šŸ™ First time here? Buddha’s Wisdom explores timeless Buddhist teachings and their relevance to modern life but in this case makes an exception for an extraordinary current event. This is happening now.

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