 |
| Mammoth Cave tour, Kentucky, Deep South |
 |
| Who would return to tending the land after processed foods, booze, and casino money? |
 |
| Stop killing and eating us. We can work together. |
 |
| White men shoot bison for genocide of Indians |
 |
| South Carolina's Lizard Man may have been captured in new images | Daily Mail Online |
 |
| One may laugh at the Silurian Hypothesis, but reports of snake people (Nagas) are ancient. |
 |
| These massive cave systems are newly found |
 |
| Reptilians are big and strong. |
 |
| The apocalypse came and went for a new beginning. |
 |
| When creating a new ecosystem, add all of the elements or step out of the way and let Nature do it because, when upset, things can go very bad, but Mother Nature knows how to get back to yin-yang homeostasis (Gary Larson/The Far Side). |
 |
| One ant's hell is another's heaven. |
 |
| What were the "sky gods" thinking? |
 |
| I don't know. Gas entered the environment then blew up. |
 |
| For God so loved the world that He gassed it. |
 |
| Hahamongna Watershed Park, Upper Arroyo, City of Pasadena surrounding JPL |
 |
| Dharma Meditation Initiative, Los Angeles |
Siddhartha left Kapilavastu, the territory of his family, cut off his hair, discarded his fine clothes, crossed the river in a simple garment and went in search of yogis in the wilderness.
He found Alara Kalama and then Uddaka Ramaputra, wandering ascetics who taught him to meditate in the tradition of mental serenity. This led to a great accomplishment -- self control and a clear heart/mind.
What the Buddha realized is what "everybody" knows now: The body is not to blame, but rather attachment and clinging, which are defilements of the mind/heart. Insight brought Siddhartha to this realization. And that realization made him the Buddha.
"No," Siddhartha aware of their conversation said to them, "that won't be necessary. People think that I am fasting, and were I to be living on subtle deva nourishment, it would be deceiving them." But this encouraged Siddhartha to nourish his body with human food.
He came to understand that it was not by rejecting the world and such facts as the constraints of materiality (e.g., the need for nutrition) that one finds freedom. Instead, it is by practicing serenity-and-insight, Zen and Vipassana one can say. The first prepares the mind/heart through concentration (calm, collectedness, intensification, and focus). The other aims the laser singularity of consciousness on mindful contemplation of four things that lead to freedom here and now.
They lead the heart to realize nirvana and the complete end of suffering.
Realizing it and deciding to teach others the path of purification, the path to freedom, he walked to another forest in Sarnath, in a deer park outside of the famous ancient Indian city of Varanasi. There he instructed the first Five Disciples, who had formerly practiced austerities with him trying to reach liberation.
"Here in this Dharma (this Teaching), a meditator who has gone to the forest, or to the foot of a tree, or to an empty place, sits down cross legged, holding the back sustainably erect [not too stiff, not too lax], arousing mindfulness in front."
To gain concentration (samadhi) to the level of full-absorption one needs mindfulness, which simply means constant-bare-awareness, nonjudgmental attention, non-evaluative holding in consciousness. One avoids two extremes, rigidity and laxity, and balances in the blissful middle, awake but serene.
The Buddha often taught lay people and rulers outside of cities, villages, and hamlets while residing in groves and orchards.
The Buddha in a bamboo grove, Malaysia(Esani/Flickr.com)Bolivia's new Mother Nature Law
Environmentalism is finally being taken seriously. Steps are moving in the right direction to protect nature and reverse climate chaos. One intriguing idea, spearheaded by Bolivia, is to give legal rights to natural systems: Bolivia’s "Law of Mother Nature" is set to pass, which will redefine the mineral riches as “blessings.” It is expected to lead to radical new conservation of these resources.
“It has to happen. We have to be able to give legal protection and consideration to the rest of the natural world,” said Patricia Siemen, executive director of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence. “It’s in the human best interest, as well as the larger natural world’s.”
The first article of the Mother Nature Law (translated from Spanish) states that every human activity has to “achieve dynamic balance with the cycles and processes inherent in Mother Earth,” with Mother Earth defined as “a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains, and reproduces all beings.” A Nature ministry will be formed and issues will be addressed thoroughly. More
Explorer inside tunnels alleged to have been found beneath the pyramids in Egypt.British explorer claims he found lost underworld of the pharaohs
(MSNBC.com) An enormous system of caves, chambers, and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs. Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the Pyramid field at Giza. "There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow," British explorer Andrew Collins said. More>>
