Showing posts with label human suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human suffering. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Lost Cat: Cats from space? (Sumerian)


Can a big monkey find li'l kitty for rare hottie?
"How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise" is a beautiful saying. A few adjustments made it poetic but ruined its original meaning. What it really means, in plain English, is: "It feels horrible to know something when the person who finds out can't do anything about it."

Pasadena is part of Los Angeles, which is part of a giant mountainous forest called the Angeles National Forest, which is probably why it is full of coyotes (and bears, deer, rams, and man-eating lions). "Them coyot's is some wily varmints," the common wisdom goes around town. They'll pick a cat right off the street or out of a yard. It's like cats-and-dogs outside because, after all, these are felines and canines, wild or feral.

Skulking loners and organized packs of canines lope around the streets, particularly in the foothills of Altadena and other communities, coming down in search of water, bowls of dogfood in yards, and anything on four legs wandering around at night. Coyotes will grab a human baby as quickly as a dingo would if no one is watching.

Bad Kitties worse than Good Boys?
(Cat Dog Diary) Imagine a freaked-out rescued kitten meets a fluffy puppy

Can you help me find my kitty?
When my beautiful neighbor asked me what I thought happened to her Fitzgerald, I diverted: "It's not important what I think. What's important is how we're going to find him before it's too late."

"So you'll help me search by walking around the block for hours, calling out, 'Here, kitty-kitty"?

"No, I won't do that. It hasn't worked for you, and Fitz loves you. I was thinking we go divine."

"Go 'divine'? Kill ourselves and look for Fitzy in heaven?"

"No, of course not! Cats don't go to heaven. Everyone knows that. That's a place for dogs."

"Where do they go then?"

"Well, that's what I intend to find out through some urban shamanic divination procedures. They'll tell us were to look or reveal the whereabouts of all that remains of frisky Fitzy the coyote's Pemican."

"Coyote chow?"

"Possibly. Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, I must have closure!"

"Well, if that's all you need, Dr. Deborah King told me we can do it ourselves. We can cut the dysfunctional energetic ties that bind and give ourselves relief."

"Just find my cat...or else."

She wasn't having it -- skeptic, doubter, distruster, faithless -- so she pushed me to do the only thing I could, which was to go behind her back to meet with a pet detective, a psychic familiar with these sorts of cases.

I only asked the psychic as a favor. She offered her services, saying she had a knack for dealing with beloved pets. I showed her some photos then we took a walk around the block to see if Fitz would run out of wherever it was hiding and come to the psychic like a magnet. That's what she claimed happened before in the rescue of both a pet cat and a tortoise.

"How does anyone lose a tortoise?"

"It was stuck under the fence, which I moved in my search, and it ran to me," she explained.

Not exactly magic, but I would gladly take it in this case.

Closure came for me quickly, and I wasn't even looking. The psychic said pictures and walking were no longer even necessary. She already had a clear story to tell. Coyotes were not to blame, except to the extent that they may have scared, startled, panicked, chased, terrified, or injured Fitz, but not killed and consumed it. This 9-year-old fur baby was driving her human caretaker to distraction, and she was near insanity. But she wouldn't listen.

It was going to be a tough case because I put limits on the remote viewing protocol and told the psychic to stuff her preconceived telepathy and start answering a series of commonsense questions.

She said, "You're being too rigid."

And I said, "Yes, I am, and I want you to narrow your impressions, visions, and telepathic communications with the cat to just answering what I ask. Force yourself to only reveal a tiny slice of all that you know, none of which is being helpful. If you can find it in yourself to answer, just find it physically without answering or saying anything. Just go straight to it or, better yet, just get the cat to run out and throw itself at you like you claim the tortoise did."

She could not, so we started with a flood of potentially useable intel, which sent us across the boulevard to a cul de sac then a yard then a yard then a shack. Wouldn't you know? We poked around...and she wasn't there. She may have been there before, hiding out under the shed, but we didn't find her or any tangible proof she had been there. Now the messages began to come in more strongly. The psychic was saying the cat was alive.

How'd cat cave-dwelling pets begin?

Maybe magic and devis can locate this cat
Personally, I took it for a goner, a tuft of colorful hair in a lump of coyote scat. But we found no such lump. I had already asked 80 people at a nearby church meeting; not one of them had seen the cat.

But one church woman was sure she could imitate its voice, and this allowed me to ask the cat questions about why it left. It answered, vaguely: "I was being smothered." That made sense, but was it any reason to leave? My neighbor says their love was mutual. Seems the cat didn't think so.

The owner of the shed wasn't home, so we could only look around the yard and come back to go through the shed, empty it, just as soon as we could get permission. I returned alone (because the psychic claimed not to be feeling well) at 10:00 pm. The owner still wasn't home, and his sympathetic neighbor couldn't grant permission for a search of it. I wandered up and down the alley, calling out, "Here kitty-kitty" like a darn fool, ending up doing what I told her was pointless. I tried reasoning with the cat, sending out my own intuitive feelers for the slightest hint.

Everything Everywhere All at Once
Meanwhile, my nagging neighbor was on the phone, who promised a big reward she never really intended to pay out. She was doubting and demanding answers. The psychic started texting, sending new messages, saying the injured, hungry, thirst, confused cat had moved on. Work needed me to drive to the other side of the county for an important assignment. Isn't it just like the universe to all coincide and bombard us with nonsense from all directions (i.e., Everything Everywhere All at Once)?

The three were unrelenting, pulling me in all direction. All I could do was lope and skulk very suspiciously in an alley and around the property for an hour like a cat burglar casing a joint and hoping to catch video of the cat alive to at least have a reason to hope and continue the search. It would have been better to meet with the Council of Coyotes and ask it if any member had made off with a pretty angora calico Afghan tabby furball.

The Buddhist cats of ancient Japan
"How terrible is human attachment, tenacious clinginess, and our utter inability to let go. Such is the plight of humans on this vast plane of existence, the Buddha realized and proclaimed. But how can we let go?

The Buddha answered that. "Cultivate mentally-purifying calm the develop insight. When we see the true nature of things, the heart/mind, seeing the true nature of existence, automatically lets go with no effort on our part to separate. Let me repeat, we do not need to make any extra effort to relinquish. Seeing reality as it is is enough to discard and abandon everything we are consciously and unconsciously clinging to that is bringing about our suffering (dukkha).

E. Hicks
Abraham-Hicks (a council of 12 entities as channeled by Esther Hicks with the help of her very supportive husband Jerry) says that everything we want is downstream. Let go to get it. Stop fighting the way upstream. We are not salmon.


She called and texted me, demanding to know if it was the coyotes who tore and devoured her precious kitty. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the truth was worse than that.

The psychic said the scared cat had been found, wandering and drained, by someone who took it in and loved it better, kept it safer, and gave it so much love that it didn't even want to return "home" now. "Home is where the heart is," everyone knows that. She pushed and pushed me, and all I could say was, "You say you don't want it, this reality we're in [where the cat is dead], but you don't, you don't really mean it. You say you won't stand for it, this circus we're in, but you don't, don't really mean it. What if the truth is worse than that?"


"Coyotes?"

"No, that's what you already think happened. You want 'closure' to accept that. What if it's worse? What if Fitz doesn't want to come back?"

"Impossible! Fitzgerald needs me, can't live without me..."

"Well, I don't know about that. Wouldn't it be worse to find out that Fitz is fine but not coming back, alive and happy but not with you?"

"What the h*ll are you talking about?! I'll break Fitz out! Who has my cat?! Who's keeping him hostage and away from me?!"

"Why are you asking me? You don't believe in cat psychics, remember? Who cares what she said? You ask me for the 'truth,' but you don't, you don't really mean it."

"Spark"
[My neighbor] she's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of a light in the dark
It's 6:58 are you sure where my Spark is?
Here, here, here

She's convinced she could roll back a glacier
But she couldn't keep fluffy alive
Doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere
Here, here, here

CHORUS: You say you don't want it
(this reality we're in), again and again
But you don't, don't really mean it!
You say you don't want it, the circus we're in
But you don't, don't really mean it
You don't, don't really mean it!

If the divine Master Plan is perfection [by rebirth]
Maybe next I'll give Jewish a try
Trusting my Soul to the Ice Cream Assassin
Here, here, here

[CHORUS]

How many Fates turn around in the overtime?
Ballerinas have fins that you'll never find
You thought that you were the bomb
Yes, well so did I

[CHORUS]

She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of a light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my Spark is?
Here, here, here
  •  Eds., Wisdom Quarterly, July 4, 2026 (a true story with details changed to protect the guilty and innocent, a learning experience about human nature beset by clinging and ignorance)

Saturday, July 4, 2026

Taoism vs. Buddhism: Four big differences


COMMENTARY
Wisdom Quarterly
  • All those who quote Lao Tzu and speak of the "Tao" are not teaching the historical Buddha's message of liberation from suffering and samsara
  • Anyone who says "nirvana is samsara" speaks ill of the Buddha's message of liberation in this very life, in this body, in this world
  • Syncretism (blending traditions) is beautiful, but it will not likely produce the result of either path. If the Tao is the "way," then the Eightfold Way (magga) the Buddha talked about is a very different use of the word
  • If the true Tao is everything, then there is no sense in talking about it
  • The Buddha defined the problem, defined the cause, assured is there is a solution, and pointed out the path, the Middle Way, to that solution: dukkha, samudaya, nirodha, magga
  • The problem is disappointment (suffering)
  • The cause is ignorance bound up with craving and aversion
  • The extinction of suffering is the extinction of ignorance
  • The path leading to this extinction has eight parts
  • Buddhism and Taoism may blend beautifully like milk and water, but they are not the same

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

The Matrix: Inception's hidden Buddhism: prison


Hollywood writers on dreaming
(Buddha's Wisdom) Inception's hidden Buddhism: The real prison was never the "dream" (maya).

Inception is an American science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced it with his wife Emma Thomas.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious of targets.

To whom are we still hopelessly attached?
He is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.

The ensemble cast includes Ellen Page [now living as Elliot Page], Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Dileep Rao, and Michael Caine. More
Buddhism in The Matrix

That's the guy from Little Buddha
Buddhism in The Matrix goes deeper than most of us think (other than Wachowski Brothers). The Wachowskis built this film on Buddhist philosophy—but Neo (Keanu Reeves, who played the Buddha in Little Buddha) goes on a journey that reveals something most viewers miss: Taking the red pill isn't enlightenment, it's just the beginning. This video explores what The Matrix gets RIGHT about Buddhism, what Neo gets WRONG about awakening, and why the ending is actually the most Buddhist part of the entire trilogy. More (See The Matrix Trilogy)

HOW do we get out of this prison?
We are trapped in a prison of our own making. Realizing it does NOT free us. Letting go does. But how can we let go? We can't. It isn't an act of willpower. It's by seeing things as they are. Okay, okay, that makes sense! How are they? This is not a belief-system to believe. We must go in and see kalapas and cittas, particles and mind-moments, which means we must first cultivate samadhi (stillness, absorption) to purify and intensify the instrument of seeing (the mind). Then when we really know-and-see what is there, letting go happens by itself free of effort. The mind/heart lets go when it sees all things are marked by Three Universal Characteristics.


Monday, June 1, 2026

Ram Dass: How to keep Heart open in Hell

 
Remember: Be Here Now (Ram Dass)
(After Skool) It's all perfect by Ram Dass (formerly Prof. Richard Alpert, Ph.D., Harvard University)

RAM DASS ("God's Servant or Slave") was born Richard Alpert on April 6, 1931 and lived until December 22, 2019) [1]. He became a hippie and is also known as Baba ["Father"] Ram Dass. He was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga [2], academic psychologist, and writer of Be Here Now, his best-selling [3] 1971 book, which has been described by as "seminal" [4, 5, 6].


Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert)
With the help of his scandalous but loving sex guru Neem Karoli Baba, he helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West [7]. He authored or co-authored a dozen more books on spirituality over the next four decades, including Grist for the Mill (1977), How Can I Help? (1985), and Polishing the Mirror (2013).
Aren't you supposed to be a Jew?
Once when he was teaching with his long hair, beard, and linen garments, someone in the crowd asked him why he dressed like a guru from India when he was really a Jew from the U.S. Without missing a beat, his retort was, "I'm only Jewish on my parents' side." Ha ha ha, exactly!

We are born into a faith, and it's usually rammed down our throats before we have a chance to do anything but swallow. And most of us won't question it. But some of us vomit it up, leave or examine, sometimes even come back to it later.

Harvard professors Dr. Timothy Leary and Dr. Richard Alpert (cool squares rounding out)
 
However, it seems the job and duty of any human to question it, test it, attempt to validate it, argue against it, learn from it, grow from it, reject it all together, or make peace with it. There's a world of spirituality out there to explore. We usually need a floor, a ground, by which to test things. And almost all major religions have a mystic component or sect. That's a place to start.

Parents, what am I to do but follow my heart?
But question we must, and explore we will, and find? That remains to be seen. We are on a spiritual quest. And maybe the whole rest of the world can't be. But if Americans can't, what the F are you calling yourself an "American" for? Life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness is all you were promised -- and you're not even going to pursue it? Truth means nothing? Just taking sides? Just being controlled by your government, schools, and parents, the "powers that be"? Pathetic. Human up, and get searching.

Hell: all the people Ram Dass hated

Ram Dass' brothers and sisters with Baba
Ram Dass was personally and professionally associated with hippie Dr. Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s. Then known as Richard Alpert, he conducted research with Leary on the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs.

In addition, Alpert assisted Harvard Divinity School graduate student Walter Pahnke in his 1962 "Good Friday Experiment" with theology students, the first controlled, double-blind study of drugs and the mystical experience [8, 9].


While legal at the time (and not yet criminalized), their research was controversial and led to Dr. Leary's and Dr. Alpert's firing from Harvard in 1963.

In 1967, Alpert traveled to India and became "Ram Dass," a disciple of Hindu Guru Neem Karoli Baba, who gave him the name Ram Dass, meaning "Servant of Ram," but usually rendered simply as "Servant of God" for Western audiences.

Hi, I'm Neem Karoli Baba (Sculpture in Ram Dass Library) sculpted to look like sweet Budai
 
In the following years, he co-founded the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. From the 1970s to the 1990s, he traveled extensively, giving talks and retreats and holding fundraisers for charitable causes.

Remember: Be Here Now (Ram Dass)
In 1997, he had a stroke, which left him with paralysis and expressive aphasia which would be better characterized as "fluent, anomic-like with hesitations and word finding difficulties at the conversational level with grossly intact auditory comprehension for high level, low-context information" [10, 11].

He eventually grew to interpret this event as an act of grace, learning to speak again and continuing to teach and write books. After becoming seriously ill during a trip to India in 2004, he gave up traveling and moved to Maui, Hawaii, where he hosted annual retreats with other spiritual teachers until his death in 2019. More

Thursday, April 30, 2026

Reality comes before thought (podcast)


We believe we are experiencing reality. But by the time we notice anything — a sound, a face, a feeling — the mind has already named it, judged it, labelled it, and wrapped it in a story.

The Buddha traced this [nearly automatic] process with extraordinary precision, showing how a single moment of sensory contact explodes into an entire world of speculations, fears, and suffering.

He also showed where the stifling chain can be broken — and what remains when we stop adding to, embellishing, and distorting what is already here.

This teaching changed Bāhiya of the Barkcloth's life in a single breath, as he achieved enlightenment more quickly than anyone in the recorded history of Buddhism, having heard a single stanza from the Buddha.

It might change the way we see our own "reality."
  • 00:00 - The question that stops the mind
  • 03:47 - The trap: searching for a pure reality behind thought
  • 07:27 - So what is actually happening?
  • 13:29 - Seeing clearly: the space where freedom lives
  • 19:08 - The teaching to Bāhiya: the ultimate answer
  • 25:52 - The lesson that changes everything
  • Reality Before Thought: Buddhism on Seeing Things as They Are

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Sex and Suffering on Valentine's Day

(Matt on Buddha's Wisdom) SEX in BUDDHISM: not a moral rule but a deeper question

Valentines is a heart-shaped box of chocolates
Valentine's Day (aka Saint Valentine's Day, Feast of St. Valentine [1]) is celebrated annually on February 14th [2].

This celebration of going from Lust to Love like the Go Go's, it originated as a Christian feast day honoring a martyr named Valentine, and through later folk traditions it has also become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world [3, 4].


Cupid is Mara and Kama
There are a number of martyrdom stories associated with various Saint Valentines connected to February 14th [5], including an account of the imprisonment of Saint Valentine of Rome for ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire in the third century [6, 7].

According to an early tradition, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his jailer [8]. Numerous later additions to the legend have better related it to the theme of love: Tradition maintains that Saint Valentine performed weddings for Christian soldiers who were forbidden to marry by the Roman emperor [7]. An 18th-century embellishment to the legend claims he wrote the jailer's daughter a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell before his execution [9].

Will consumers buy cheap cards?
The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14th [10, 11]. The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries, when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the "lovebirds" of early spring.

In 18th-century England, it grew into an occasion for couples to express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").

Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid [who acts like the India god Kama, Greek Eros and Aphrodite, Roman Venus, and Buddhist Mara].

No sex please. We're Ameboids 'n Gatchularians
In the 19th century, handmade cards gave way to mass-produced greetings [12] thanks to capitalism. In Italy, Saint Valentine's keys are given to lovers "as a romantic symbol and an invitation to unlock the giver's heart" as well as to children to ward off epileptic fits (called Saint Valentine's Malady) [13], which could be thought of as an overwrought lover's obsessive mania, like St. Vitus' Dance. More

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Awaken outside comfort zone? (Eckhart Tolle)


Climb that mountain! Transforming challenges into growth with Eckhart Tolle
(Eckhart Tolle) Feb. 20, 2024: Eckhart Tolle explores the journey -- outside our usual comfort zone -- of personal and collective spiritual evolution through painful challenges.


He discusses how facing physical, psychological, and situational obstacles can be the catalyst for growth and heightened consciousness.

He also explains why embracing (radically accepting) difficulties is essential for our spiritual progress and how adversity can lead to awareness.

Find this video helpful? Want more peace of mind or to bring more Presence into days, work, and other areas of life? Join Eckhart Tolle NOW through Eckhart’s online community and get access to his new in-depth teachings every month, practical Q&A sessions with Eckhart, and member-only discounts on Eckhart’s online programs. Enjoy a FREE 10-DAY TRIAL to Eckhart Tolle Now: members.eckharttolle.com/10-d...

Monday, January 19, 2026

Eckhart Tolle: Why we suffer: Life is here to...


The real purpose of life | Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now (Wiki)
(Eckhart Tolle) Life doesn’t stay comfortable for long. Expecting it to do so creates a lot of frustration. In this talk, Eckhart Tolle explains why challenges are built into life and how they can become a doorway to deeper awareness.

🌟 Find new meaning and purpose after personal crisis
🌟 Currently navigating a period of intense difficulty?
🌟 Unsure of what to do or which way to turn?

Never be irritated again!

Through six hours of carefully curated teachings and practices [that seem very Buddhist even though Tolle does not claim they are] with Eckhart, discover the unique potential for spiritual growth that presents itself during the dark night [of the soul].

Life tests us, does not make us happy