Female enlightened masters went 'insane'?

Four female enlightened masters who went completely “insane”

Taoist Master Sun Bu'er

(Asangoham) May 28, 2026: #egodeath #consciousness #nonduality Four women throughout history were called "insane," possessed, and heretical. But each one had broken through to a level of awakening most people never touch.

This is the story of mystics who looked mad on the outside but were actually living proof of the deepest spiritual truths ever discovered.

1. Sun Bu'er destroyed her own beauty to escape the prison of the ego and became the only woman among the Seven Immortals of Taoism.

• 

  Young Sri Anandamayi Ma

  QUESTION: Gurudev, what does Asangoham [the name of this channel] mean? Gurudev, kindly explain the meaning of Asangoham (a phrase often chanted by Gurudev in the Advanced Meditation or Silence Course).
• ANSWER (by Gurudev @SriSriRaviShankar ji): "I am not this," that is what Asangoham means. For example, I am wearing the cloth, but I am not the cloth...I am not the body. I am not the thoughts, I am not the mind. Like this you go on to negate one by one all the layers of identity. And finally when you ask, "Who am I?" You will find nothing. "I am nothing..." That is what Asangoham is. Sangoham means "being one with it." If I think I am my clothes, then that is a problem. I am beyond all these layers of existence. If I think that I am my thoughts, my emotions, my sensations then I lose track of my vast nature. Therefore, to reach the realization of our vastness we say, "I am not this and I am not th[at]," repeatedly.

Atma-shatakam (with lyrics) by Rishi Nityapragya | Rejoicing Rishi-ji

• Gurudev sings: Mano Budhyahankaar Chittani Naaham, Na Cha Shrotra Jihve Na Cha Ghraana netre Na Cha Vyoma Bhumir Na Tejo Na Vayuh, Chidananda Rupah Shivoham Shivoham (from the Atma-shatkam by Adi Shankara-Acharya): "I am not the mind, intellect, memory, or ego. I am not this, not this, not this. This is the way of negating and going into that hollow and empty space. This shiva tattva is what I really am. This realization is what meditation is, that is samadhi.
• [EDITOR'S NOTE: Buddhism goes further to the realization that ANY identification is in error, and because there is no-self (no-atman, anatta, no soul, no self, no ego to cling to, in the ultimate sense, one lets go, ceases to cling, as is liberated to Truth, to enlightenment, to nirvana). But because the Old Vedic Religion and later Hinduism are not aware of this, they call Atma-shatkam Nirvana-shatkam as this level of "self realization" is the highest attainable for them. Were they to practice in line with what "Lord Buddha" taught, they might well make an end of all further rebirth and suffering, but ordinary worldlings, even the spiritual kind, are not interested in that. They long for rebirth in the heaven they deem supreme, the World of Brahma, and fail to grasp what Brahman is. No one should ever mistakenly think Vedic Hinduism and Buddhism teach the same thing. They are worlds apart for all their shared language and history.]

2. Anandamayi Ma surrendered her freewill so completely that she became a living puppet of the divine.

• [NOTE: Wisdom Quarterly loves Sri Anandamayi Ma (Anandamayi Ma Indian saint) not only because of her spectacular beauty and realization but because she was a favorite of Swami Paramananda, the founder of our local Ananda Ashram. (Yelp).]

Valenciennes. Marguerite Porete, une héroïne médiévale méconnue

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3. Marguerite Porete [French Christian mystic] smiled as she burned at the stake for teaching that the awakened soul outgrows religion itself.

Bernadette Roberts (Enlightened People)

 

4. Bernadette Roberts [Carmelite Catholic nun] lost God, lost her self, and walked straight into the void to discover the raw truth of pure consciousness.

“Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know [God], for that in us which knows God, is God.”

— Bernadette Roberts

How sweet to glimpse the Truth

This deep dive explores non-duality, ego death, enlightenment, and the terrifying spiritual awakenings that the world mistook for insanity.

Drawn to Advaita Vedanta (nondualism), Taoist internal alchemy, Christian mysticism, consciousness, and the [true] nature of the self? This journey into the minds of history's (herstory's) most misunderstood mystics will stay with you.

Subscribe to Asangoham for more on consciousness, spirituality, enlightenment, and the hidden masters who saw through the illusion.

⏱️ CHAPTERS

• The woman who burned her own beautiful face
• The puppet of the divine
• The smiling heretic
• The nun who lost God
• HOME | ANANDAMAYI MA INDIAN SAINT

Women, just like men, can do this.

#egodeath #spirituality #nonduality #enlightenment #consciousnes Script: Sid. Edit: Joana Cruz. Voiceover: Rohit Dave. Original score: @asangvani.

DISCLAIMER 01: All ideas expressed on this channel are for entertainment and general information purposes only. There is no advice on what an individual should or should not do. Any response made by anyone after hearing this communication is their interpretation and is their responsibility. Ideas expressed by this channel should not be treated as a substitute for medical advice or professional help. If expert assistance or counselling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

DISCLAIMER 02: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. If anyone is, or represents, the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have an issue with the use of said material, please send an email to: doseofquotes02@gmail.com. Copyright © 2025 Asangoham. All rights reserved.

• Archaeologists found an ancient Maya map of the universe carved into bedrock (Popular Mechanics)

Departed Parent's Day: Transfer of Merits

Bhante Ven. Sumitta Mahathera (Lankarama Buddhist Institute), Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

I just won the jackpot: pregnant, soon to be blessed with a grateful family of my own!

. 

I like these Indian Buddhist traditions!

It was exactly three years ago that my mother passed away after living a memorable life of 80 years.

She had seven children and worked for 38 years as a dedicated instructor in many parts of rural Sri Lanka.

She started her career as a school teacher in Kurunegala Namalalanga Vidyalaya and retired from teaching after serving at Halkandaliya Vidyalaya, Nivitigala, Ratnapura.

She opened the eyes of many thousands of children and was known to about 1,000 Buddhist monks all over Sri Lanka as a staunch Theravada Buddhist upasikā (lay female devotee).

I am grateful and thankful to her, for she was an amazing mother. She is the one who is most responsible for most I am today, a longtime Buddhist monk and the abbot of Lankarama Buddhist Institute.

Meditation Hall, Lankarama Institute, L.A.

Like everyone with regard to his/her loving parents -- I, too, am short of words to express my gratitude to the mother in particular. She gave birth to me and took good care of me without complaint as if I were no burden at all.

I take this opportunity to transfer to her all the merits I have accrued so far in my life and throughout my sojourn in Samsara (the "cycle of rebirth" according to Buddhism).

May all these meritorious deeds become one united power to bless her, help her, protect her, and guide her towards her final Samsaric goal -- the supreme bliss of liberation, of nirvana (nibbana), a Buddhist's ultimate goal.

A Salutation to One's Mother

(Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition)

Dasa māse ure katvā

Posesi vuddhi kāraṇaṃ

Āyu dīghaṃ vassa sataṃ

Mātu pādaṃ namāmahaṃ.

"Having cherished me in your womb, divine

cradle, for nearly ten lunar months time,

you raised me up, wishing me all success.

Dear mother, please allow me to bow

at your feet, wishing you all the best!"

Transferring Merits to Departed Relatives

Idaṃ me ñātinaṃ hotu – Sukhitā hontu ñātayo. (x 3)

"Let this merit be with our relatives, and may they be well and happy!" (x 3)

This is not limited to children acting on behalf of their parents. Parents may also benefit their departed children. It is not too late in the long run, and one's relatives (in the larger sense of the word the Buddha stipulated extending out seven generations) are benefitted. And in any case one benefits from giving. More

The Native American Ghost Dance movement

Host Mitch Jeserich, Louis S. Warren (Letters and Politics, Berkeley KPFA/L.A. KPFK 90.7 FM, 10:00-11:00 AM, May 3, 2017); Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pan-Native American Ghost Dance Movement

Shaman Wavoka (J. Wilson)

KPFA Host Mitch Jeserich (“Letters and Politics”) speaks with Louis S. Warren about his book God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America, which describes the pan-Indian Ghost Dance (Nanissáanah) religious movement led by the Paiute American prophet Wavoka or Jack Wilson that swept across the west and the great plain as a form of resistance and reconciliation or accommodation to colonialism. This book is critical to understanding how… More

• AUDIO: May 3, 2017 (L&P on KPFA.org)

God's Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion
Amazon.com edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Ghost Dance by Oglala Lakota at Pine Ridge (illustration by Frederic Remington, 1890/Wiki)

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In 1890, on Native American reservations across the West, followers of a new "religion" danced in circles until they collapsed into trances [which allowed them to see the "spirit world," other dimensions overlapping our own].

In an attempt to suppress this peaceful new faith movement, the US Army massacred over 200 Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek.

Louis S. Warren's God's Red Son offers a startling new view of the religion known as the Ghost Dance, from its origins in the visions of a Northern Paiute named Wovoka (called "Jack Wilson") to the tragedy in South Dakota.

To this day, the Ghost Dance remains widely mis-characterized as a "primitive" and failed effort by Native American militants to resist imperial American conquest and return to traditional Native ways.

In fact, followers of the Ghost Dance sought to thrive in the modern America forced on them by working for wages as ordered, farming the white man's land, and educating their children in the white man's schools [the purpose of which was to wash the "Indian" out of Native Americans], tenets that helped the religion endure for decades after Wounded Knee.

God's Red Son powerfully reveals how Ghost Dance teachings helped Indians retain their identity and reshape the modern world. Source

Book Review 
Kirkus Reviews edited by Wisdom Quarterly

This is an enlightening and scholarly study of Native American/Indian history that gets at the root tensions underlying the 1890 massacre [of 200 Lakota by the U.S. military] at Wounded Knee.
 
Why were the white Americans so concerned about the Ghost Dance religion practiced so enthusiastically by the Lakota Sioux and other Great Plains tribes in the 1880s?

In this astute new appraisal, Prof. Warren (Western U.S. History, University of California at Davis, author of Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show, 2005, etc.) finds something to this religion:
 

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Based on messianic visions by a northern Paiute Native American in Nevada named Wovoka [white name "Jack Wilson"] offered a shred of hope for Indians denuded of their ancestral power and land, herded onto reservations, and stripped of their ability to live by the hunting-and-gathering [and deeply spiritual] methods of their Native elders.

The Ghost Dance took elements of Christianity, such as the messiah figure [of Judaism, Mithra of Mithraism/Zoroastrianism derived from the older Buddhist Maitreya concept], and wove them into a joyful communion involving movement and visions of horses and buffalo [and lost family members living happily in the Other World].
 

Mound Builders (Cayce)

Though the dancers could become frenzied and fall insensate [with their consciousness expanded in ecstatic states of samadhi], Warren insists that it was essentially a peaceful dance, stressing harmony within this jagged new age of American industry, wage work, and deracination.

However, many Americans -- since Indians were not considered citizens until 1924, Warren does not include Indians as Americans here -- felt threatened by the dances and banned the gatherings as being warlike, leading to the tragic "misunderstanding" [or purposeful misinterpretation] between the military and hundreds of Lakota at the Pine Ridge Reservation in late 1890. More

Fall Equinox: Chumash Celebration (Malibu)

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Wishtoyo.org via Tim Martinez (ArroyoSage)

How we used to dance without judgment, all-inclusive, everyone a member of the tribe.

OPEN TO ALL: Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, 4:00, 33904 PCH, Malibu, CA 90265 (wishtoyo.org)

• Wishtoyo Benefit Dinner, Oct. 26, Malibu Chumash Discovery Village! Details
  

Exploring the Hills of Mt. Washington

Tim Martinez (The Arroyo Sage)

Last week, my friend and Arroyo Seco Foundation colleague Scott Cher took me on a walking tour of Mt. Washington [in the foothills of Los Angeles near Pasadena], which he has long called home.

 

Nestled in the hills behind the majestic Southwest Museum, Mount Washington is a historic L.A. neighborhood [above gentrified Highland Park crowned by the Self Realization Fellowship mother center] with commanding vistas and surrounded by nature.

 

We set out to explore the open spaces and habitat in the area that have been set aside, preserved, and some still in need of protection

 

Shuttered Southwest Museum languishing under Autry Museum management (AS)

We began our walk by hiking through Moon Canyon Park. Moon Canyon is an unmaintained Los Angeles City park with great potential for habitat restoration. The canyon's slopes are home to the rare California Walnut tree, which Mt. Washington is known for. More

 

Moon Canyon Park surrounded by residential area, L.A. (Tim Martinez/ArroyoSage)

The Truth About Religion (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; the Right Reverend Alan Watts (alanwatts.org)

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, which truth is the truest of all?"

The Episcopalian minister turned Zen Buddhist priest Alan Watts blows the lid on the real meaning of religion as it is practiced in the West and East. It is staggering what we have come to in the West looking to the insights of the East for guidance. Watts originally delivered this two part talk under the name "Democracy in the Kingdom." Part 2 will be played on the first Sunday in July at 8:00 am. This one was aired on June 29, 2014 at 8:00 am. AUDIO: PLAY

Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to... (Zen)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Don, Ron, Richard, Pasadharma.org; Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

There are four traditional vows in Zen, a Mahayana Buddhist sect of the Ch'an school as it developed in Japan. They are customarily translated as:

1. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
2. Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
3. The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them.
4. The Buddha-Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

A practitioner at ZCLA (Zen Center of Los Angeles) recently called this translation into question hoping to change it to a new and improved four:

1. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to serve them.
2. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
3. The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to practice them.
4. The Buddha way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it.

Why would anyone tamper with tradition? While Zen Buddhism as practiced in the US is iconoclastic and tends toward rebellion, is it any reason to make this gatha less of a conundrum?

  

Some Zen Buddhists are recovering fundamentalist Christians. And whenever they hear, "Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them," they can only assume it refers to sex. Population control advocates (who seem to im0plicitly favor mass die offs helped along by government interventions) might be put off by the first vow. And similarly the remaining two vows present their own difficulties.

In thinking about these changes for a few weeks, it seems to me that there are several perspectives about this old Sanskrit hymn (gatha) to sit with.

The old version has always been a bit of a koan, an inscrutable riddle that might lead one to enlightenment when one breaks free or lets go of linear reasoning. 

   

Each vow is impossible to fulfill. Yet, many of us have chanted them daily for many years. They speak of a spiritual intention, a higher aspiration. They are a manifestation of attaining the unobtainable. In this way, "Zen" is bigger than I am, bigger than I can wrap my mind around.

  

Do we change them now to make them more accessible? Does making them more palatable by using a more devotional translation take away from the spirit intended?

Admittedly, the old translation is a bit cryptic, even clunky. There is a better flow, a clearer connection between the first state mentioned and the vow that flows from it.

What do folks think about this debate?

Lunar Observance Days (Uposatha)

AccessToInsight.org (BUDDHIST CALENDAR); Wisdom Quarterly

Moon phases (pattykamson.wordpress.com)

 

Uposatha  or traditional Buddhist observance days mark renewed dedication to Dharma practice.

  

Such weekly days are observed by lay and monastic Buddhists throughout the Theravada Buddhist world.

  

Monastics may engage in more intensive contemplation and meditation. In many monastic residences physical labor (repairs, construction projects, cleaning) is curtailed.

  

On new and full moon days the fortnightly recitation and confession of the Patimokkha (monastic discipline) takes place.

  

Lay Buddhists may observe the Eight Precepts as a means of supporting their meditation practice and as a way to reinvigorate commitment to the Dharma. 

  

Whenever possible, lay people use these days as an opportunity to visit the local abbey to make special offerings to the Sangha, listen to the Dharma, and practice meditation with good companions (kalyana mitta) late into the night.

  

For those without a local monastery, one may step up one's meditation efforts while drawing inspiration from millions of other practitioners around the world.

  

• Discourse on the Roots of Uposatha (AN 3.70)
• Discourse on Uposatha Observance (AN 8.41)
• Discourse to Visakha on Uposatha (AN 8.43)
• To the Sakyans (on Uposatha) (AN 10.46)
• Ven. Ñanavara's Q&A about Uposatha
• Lay Buddhist Practice (Ven. Khantipalo, BPS)

The observance day calendar is calculated using a complex traditional formula loosely based on the ancient lunar calendar. This means that the resulting dates do not always coincide with the actual astronomical dates. Further complicating matters, each sect within the Theravada tradition tends to follow a slightly different calendar.

  

But several full moon days hold special significance on the Buddhist calendar: The most significant of all is Vesak (Visakha Puja) usually in May.

This day is sometimes called "Buddha Day" since it commemorates three key events in the Buddha's life all of which took place on the full moon day: birth, enlightenment, and final nirvana. 

2012 and the Kali Yuga (video)

Bruce Fenton* (2012rising.com); edited by Wisdom Quarterly

(LINK) Mayan calendars point at Dec. 21st, 2012, suggesting the end of the world as we know it -- another Dark Age or a new Golden Age? Who was the blue eyed, white haired Kukulcan (asura)? What is the great pyramid at Chichen Itza? When will feathered serpents (nagas) plunge into our hollow Earth?

One of the most interesting calendar coincidences in relation to the Mayan 2012 information is the similarity between the start dates of the last long count cycle of the Mayan system and Hinduism’s Kali Yuga (the cyclical Dark or Decadent Age).

Yugas are vast periods of time, epochs that relate to the Earth's journey around a cosmos' central sun. The four yugas (Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga) together make up an entire world age (aeon, kalpa) between formation and disintegration events, calculated to be about 4,320,000 years in total duration.

The Hari Krishna movement derived this view of the Kali Yuga from the Vedanta. Why are disparate cultures telling essentially the same tale? It is because extraterrestrial visitors seeded imperial cultures across the globe. But the ancient astronauts are now mythologies of "gods," angels, and demons.

While most Dec. 21, 2012 researchers are aware of the 3114 BCE start date of the current long count cycle, few are aware that the Kali Yuga -- a predicted era of moral decline and spiritual bleakness -- began in the year 3102 BCE.

It is startling that there are only 12 years difference between systems on different sides of the planet. The Brahma Vaivarta Purana Sutra from ancient (Vedic) India depicts a period which has many of the failings visible in our modern society. Such is the backdrop of the spiritual decline in the Kali Yuga.

It is, however, a mistake for people to seek a link between the Mayan 2012 end-date and the closing of the Kali Yuga. Although their starts may be similar, their ends do not. (Although some suggest this is an error).

Buddhism
The Kali Yuga is set to continue for a vast period, at least 432,000 years, well eclipsing the 5126 years of the Mayan long count calendar. Scholars from Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and from religions such as Brahmanism (Vedic Hinduism), often suggest that ages are many millions of years long, vast kalpas (aeons, of which there are a variety of differing spans).

There is an excellent Buddhist parable that attempts to explain the staggering length of a kalpa. The Buddha said it was hard to say in terms of years, centuries, of millenia but that nevertheless an idea could be conveyed: The vivid description of an aeon is far more effective than a string of numbers.

It can be likened to a mass of flawless marble the size of mythical Mount Meru (Sumeru). And once every a bird whets its beak on top of the mountain with a fine Varanasi cloth. Carrying on in this way, that mountain of stone would sooner be completely worn away and yet a single kalpa would not have elapsed.

It is worth noting that Buddhist philosophy does not tend to hold to the idea that a time of any great universal significance will happen in our near future. Every moment carries the same inherent flaws and their solution is present, even if it is only revealed very rarely by universal teachers (buddhas) who rediscover and make known the Dharma.

The only significant events predicted or prophesied are the ending of vast epochs and the extremely rare and intermittent arising of new buddhas. There have been suggestions in relation to 2012 that the next Buddha (Maitreya) will arise at this time in a Judeo-Christian (Messiah) end of days scenario.

Unfortunately, anyone familiar with Buddhist lore will recognize that it is made clear that fully enlightened teaching buddhas only arise millions of years apart -- not on a regular interval or when needed but after vast stretches of geological time.

(ShiftOfTheAge) "Shift of the Ages" film is an authentic story of the Maya, the Mayan Calendar, 2012, and the turbulent times in which we are living told through living Grand Elder Wandering Wolf, who is also known as Don Alejandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj. It will be Maya's first official discourse to the world (shiftoftheAges.com),

Buddhism (the Dharma) is prophesied to completely disappear during the Kali Yuga. And during that time it will be virtually impossible for seekers to find any opportunity for spiritual realization (breakthrough to the stages of enlightenment) at all by any system now available.

Only when such utter darkness has shrouded the world will another being become fully realized wholly by unprompted effort and without any guidance to become the next supremely enlightened teacher, the Buddha Maitreya.

The most notable discussion on the Kali Yuga by Buddhist teachers actually refers to how lucky a living being is to be reborn as a human at any time when the Dharma still exists and how much rarer to ever see a buddha or even an enlightened individual (arhat).

To quote the Tibetan teacher Pabongka Rimpoche, “Most important of all through this physical rebirth you are able to achieve the state of Vajradhara [unification of the illusory body and great bliss] within one short lifetime in this degenerate age; otherwise it would take thee countless great aeons to achieve. Thus this rebirth is worth more than one thousand billion precious jewels.” Dec. 21, 2012 may close a cycle... More

• VIDEO: 2012 Solar Storms and DMT
  

*(VajraGuru333) Bruce Fenton introduces 2012Rising.com.

Buddhism and Shamanism Today

Traditional Indian shramana (ascetic, yogi, saddhu) in search of enlightenment

Is Shamanism a Path to Enlightenment? "The shamanic path is not a path traditionally intended to achieve enlightenment,” explains Dr. Michael Harner of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

• Listen Now (podcast)

Buddhist Shamans?
Seven Jaini (Wisdom Quarterly)
But it is certainly compatible with the quest. The word "shaman" is thought to derive from the Buddhist-Sanskrit term shramana, a recluse, ascetic, or wandering monk. This path of anti-establishment practices continues to be prevalent in modern India. There as elsewhere they are healers and communicators between worlds. The idea applies to mystics in search of truth and enlightenment often on their own terms -- utilizing yogic asceticism, entheogens, and a stringent moral code that promotes a free, independent, reclusive lifestyle.

These practices were around long before Buddhism as part of India's longstanding sannyasin tradition. Buddhists and Jains (and other lesser known movements that did not survive like the followers of Makkhali Gosala) prominently rejected the infallible authority of the Vedas.

Modern shamans, while less formal than Buddhist shramanas or Hindu sannyasins, are not a reaction to brahmin temple priests as Buddhism was. Nevertheless, even urban shamans are trying to directly connect with the Earth, nature spirits, and a direct experience of oneness. Shamans have existed in every traditional society from the Pagans of Europe (such as the Sami of Sweden) to the pygmies of Papua New Guinea.

• The Sound of Rushing Water (Dr. Michael Harner)
• The Jivaro Indians of the Ecuadorian Amazon believe that [negative magic] is the cause of the vast majority of illnesses and non-violent deaths. The normal waking life, for the Jivaro, is simply "a lie," or an illusion [Buddhist maya], while the true forces that determine daily events are supernatural and can only be seen and manipulated with the aid of hallucinogenic [entheogens]. A reality-view of this kind creates a particularly strong demand for specialists, who can cross over into the supernatural world at will to deal with the forces that influence and even determine the events of the waking life. These specialists, called "shamans" by anthropologists...
• Articles (Center for Shamanic Healing)
• Why Shamanism Now? (PR)

Coping with Death

(Experience Festival) "According to Hinduism, when a person dies, one either travels to heavenly worlds or to the ancestral worlds depending upon one's previous deeds.

"We are told that the departed souls can be elevated to higher planes of existence and pushed further [along] on the scale of evolution if their direct descendents on Earth, especially the male progeny, perform some annual rites and make sacrificial offerings to them. With such rites, not just one but the entire family of ancestors would be benefited and spiritually uplifted."

While the same cannot be applied to Buddhism, it looks like that's what was happening here. It was kind of intense. Mourners walked out of the temple as a Buddhist monk was ringing a gong lightly and chanting softly. The family walked to a furnace and placed three medium sized bags in before lighting them on fire. It was hauntingly cool.

Translated message to the world by "Buddha Boy," Palden Dorje, Halkhoriya Jungle, Nepal

Obama almost doesn't pardon turkey

Obama reluctantly pardons Courage, sentences it to Disneyland (CBS News video link)

"You know, there are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office," Obama [a Buddha-like president trying to prove he's a real man's man] exclaimed today. "And then there are moments like this, where I pardon a turkey and send it to Disneyland."

With a light tone and his daughters in tow, Mr. Obama participated in a relatively recent tradition on the day before Thanksgiving: the presidential turkey pardon. Though he eventually raised his hand over "Courage," the bird in question, to offer a pardon, the president suggested he was somewhat reticent to do so.

"That's a good looking bird," Mr. Obama said, later stating that his daughters convinced him to go through with the pardon. "Thanks to the intervention of Malia and Sasha, because I was planning to eat this sucker, Courage will also be spared this terrible...fate." More>>

IGNORANCE

unification.net

Many religions regard the evils of the human condition as a result of ignorance. Being ignorant of the truth about Ultimate Reality and the purpose of life, people's values become confused, and consequently they act unbeneficially. In Buddhism, this ignorance (mithyajnana) leads to grasping after self, and hence to error. In Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism this blindness (avidya) is what binds people to the Wheel of Birth-and-Death (Samsara). Taoist sages condemn knowledge of worldly things as a source of confusion about true values, and similarly many scriptures warn against the illusory goals and vanities that infect worldly life.

This selection of passages is arranged in roughly the following order: the practical observation that ignorance of Ultimate Reality spurs evil and detrimental behavior. Next, according to the religions of India, it is due to ignorance that humans are bound to suffer on the wheel of Samsara, going through continual deaths and rebirths. Spiritual blindness is the subject of the third group of passages, passages which describe ignorance as a veil that obscures insight. Other passages describe humanity's blindness by such metaphors as frogs in a well and moths drawn to perish in a lamp. In our blindness, we are attracted to the vanities of this world which are ephemeral and deceiving, according to the next group of passages. Concluding passages reason that even evil itself is an illusion or a bad dream.

The fool says in his heart,
"There is no [Sakka]."
They are all corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none that does good.
The Lord looks down from [the] heaven[s]
upon the children of men,
to see if there are any that act wisely,
that seek after [Sakka].
They have all gone astray,
they are all alike corrupt;
there is none that does good,
no, not one.
Have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?
--This mirrors Buddhist mythology on the custom of Sakka the "king of kings" and the Four Great Kings who regularly visit earth (two to three times a month) to check in on human progress in virtue as summarized in Judaism and Christianity in Psalm 14.1-4

The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth.

"There is no God," they say, "no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?" Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.

Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, "Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer."

Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings.

"I got this today," they say; "tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity." This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell.
--Hinduism. Bhagavad Gita 16.7-16

He who does not clearly understand Heaven will not be pure in virtue. He who has not mastered the Way will find himself without any acceptable path of approach. He who does not understand the Way is pitiable indeed!
--Taoism. Chuang Tzu 11

This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns, and never stops. As long as the individual self thinks it is separate from the Lord, it revolves upon the wheel in bondage to the laws of birth, death, and rebirth....

The Lord supports this universe, which is made up of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual soul, forgetful of the Lord, attaches itself to pleasure and thus is bound.
--Hinduism. Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.6-8

By reason of the habit-energy stored up by false imagination since beginningless time, this world is subject to change and destruction from moment to moment; it is like a river, a seed, a lamp, wind, a cloud; like a monkey who is always restless, like a fly who is ever in search of unclean things and defiled places, like a fire which is never satisfied. Again, [thought] is like a water-wheel or a machine: it goes on rolling the wheel of transmigration, carrying varieties of bodies and forms... causing the wooden figures to move as a magician moves them. Mahamati, a thorough understanding concerning these phenomena is called comprehending the egolessness of persons.
--Buddhism. Lankavatara Sutra 24

Intoxicated by the wine of illusion, like one intoxicated by wine; rushing about, like one possessed of an evil spirit; bitten by the world, like one bitten by a great serpent; darkened by passion, like the night; illusory, like magic; false, like a dream; pithless, like the inside of a banana-tree; changing its dress in a moment, like an actor; fair in appearance, like a painted wall--thus they call him.
--Hinduism. Maitri Upanishad 4.2

Owing to delusion, one again passes through cycles of birth and death. In this unbroken chain of births and deaths, delusion keeps cropping up again and again.
--Jainism. Acarangasutra 5.7-8

Few see through the veil of Maya.
--Hinduism. Bhagavad Gita 7.25

Long is the night to the wakeful; long is the league to the weary; long is Samsara to the foolish who know not the sublime Truth.
--Buddhism. Dhammapada 60

This world is as a juggler's show,
Wherein various disguises he assumes.
As he puts off his makeup, ended is His expanse [of creation].
Then is left the Sole Supreme Being.
How many various guises has He assumed and cast off?
To where have they gone? From where did they come?
From water arise innumerable waves;
From gold are shaped ornaments of various forms;
Many are the kinds of seeds sown:
As ripens the fruit, again is left the Sole Supreme Being.
Into thousands of pitchers falls reflection of the one sky;
As the pitcher is broken, the sole Light remains.
While thoughts of Maya last, doubt, avarice, and attachment are found;
When illusion is lifted, only the Sole Supreme Being is left.
--Sikhism. Adi Granth, Suhi, M.5, p. 736

Within the Essence of Mind all things are intrinsically pure, like the azure of the sky and the radiance of the sun and the moon which, when obscured by passing clouds, may appear as if their brightness had been dimmed; but as soon as the clouds are blown away, brightness reappears and all objects are fully illuminated. Learned Audience, our evil habits may be likened unto the clouds; while Sagacity and Wisdom are like the sun and the moon respectively. When we attach ourselves to outer objects, our Essence of Mind is clouded by wanton thoughts which prevent our Sagacity and Wisdom from sending forth their light.
--Buddhism. Sutra of Hui Neng 6

Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking themselves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind.
--Hinduism. Katha Upanishad 1.2.5

Confucius said, "In vain I have looked for a single man capable of seeing his own faults and bringing the charge home against himself."
--Confucianism. Analects 5.26

Blind is this world. Few are those who clearly see. As birds escape from a net, few go to a blissful state.
--Buddhism. Dhammapada 174

On a certain occasion the Exalted One was seated in the open air, on a night of inky darkness, and oil lamps were burning. Swarms of winged insects kept falling into these oil lamps and thereby met their end, came to destruction and utter ruin. Seeing those swarms of winged insects so doing, the Exalted One saw the meaning in it and uttered this verse of uplift,

They hasten up and past, but miss the real;
a bondage ever new they cause to grow.
Just as the flutterers fall into the lamp,
so some are bent on what they see and hear.
--Buddhism. Udana 72

Men think much of their own advancement and of many other worldly things; but there is no improvement in this decaying world, which is as a tempting dish, sweet-coated, yet full of deadly gall within.... It is as intangible as a mist; try to lay hold of it, and it proves to be nothing!
--Hinduism. Yoga Vasishtha

The Tathagata [Buddha] knows the polluted minds of beings for what they are. For he knows that the minds of ordinary people are not actually polluted by the polluting forces of perverted views, which, being nothing but wrong ideas, do not really find a place in them.
--Buddhism. Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines 12.3

The power that is not good--that is, the power that causes misfortune--is, after all, only a bad dream.
The life that is not good--that is, disease--is, after all, only a bad dream.
All discords and imperfections are, after all, only bad dreams.
It is our bad dreams that give power to disease, misfortune, discord, and imperfection.
It is like being tortured by some demon in our dreams;
But when we awaken, we find that there is actually no such power,
And that we had suffered at the hands of our own mind.
--Seicho-no-Ie. Nectarean Shower of Holy Doctrines