The Buddha's foremost FEMALE disciple

G.P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Pali Proper Names (Pali Tet Society, 1988-1973) edited by Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Uppalavanna Theri, the Buddha's chief female disciple foremost in magical powers.

Modern Theravada Buddhist nun, Ven. Tathaloka, in California wilderness (bhikkhuni.net).

Fragrant lotuses rise above their muddy pond water unstained (dingtwist.com)

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Lotuses arise from mire untainted (FM).

The enlightened Buddhist nun Ven. Uppalavannā Therī was one of the two chief female disciples of the Buddha. The daughter of a banker, she was born in Sāvatthi, an ancient kingdom in what is today northern India.

She received the name "Uppalavannā" because her skin was the color of the heart or calyx of a blue lotus. When she came of age, kings and commoners from all over India sent messengers to her father asking for her hand in marriage.

Not wishing to offend any of them, he suggested that Uppalavannā should leave the world, that is, go forth and become a nun. Because of her past karma acting as a decisive support (upanissaya), she very willingly agreed and was fully ordained.

White lotuses in a pool (mrwallpaper.com)

Soon it came to her turn to perform certain duties in the hall on lunar observance days (weekly visits by lay people for intensive practice of one meal then fasting the rest of the day based on phases of the moon). Lighting the lamp, she swept the room. Taking the flame of the lamp as her visible meditation object, she developed fire-kasina.

 

Then attaining to absorption (jhāna) thereby, she became fully enlightened along with the four special attainments call the analytical knowledges. She became particularly versed in the mystic power of transformation, shape shifting (iddhi vikubbana).

Magic powers

How could a lotus bud be the womb of a baby? The power of merit (passport-love.com).

 

When the Buddha arrived at the gandamba-tree to perform the Twin Miracle, Ven. Uppalavannā offered to perform certain miracles herself, if the Buddha would allow it, but he declined, seeing great danger in disciples who possess them publicly exhibiting magical powers (ThigA.190, 195).

 
Later, at Jetavana, in the assembly of the Monastic Community (Sangha), the Buddha declared her to be a chief disciple, "foremost in supernormal (iddhi) powers (A.i.25), like Ven. Maha Moggallana among male disciples.

According to the Dhammapada Commentary (iii.211), the miracle which Ven. Uppalavannā volunteered to perform at the gandamba-tree, was the assumption of the form of a world ruler (cakkavatti), with a retinue extending for 36 leagues and the paying of homage to the Buddha, with all the ruler's followers, in the presence of the multitude.

The Verses of the Nuns (Therīgāthā, vv.234-5) contains several verses (gāthās of the theris or senior nuns, lit. monastic elders) attributed to her. Three of them were uttered in anguish by a mother who had been unwittingly living as her daughter's rival (or co-wife) with the man who later became the monk Ven. Gangātīriya.

Ven. Uppalavannā repeated these verses to help her reflect on the harm and vileness of sexual and sensual desires, which can reduce one to depravity. Two others are utterances of joy -- verses of uplift (udana) -- on the distinctions she had won; another records a miracle she performed before the Buddha, with his consent.

What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place...

The rest contain a famous conversation between her and Māra Devaputra, the tempter, a beautiful Cupid like deva intent on frustrating the enlightenment of eminent individuals, a kind of Satan or fallen Lucifer figure.

This conversation, which more or less identical with the foregoing, is recorded in S.i.131f, wherein she tells Mara that she has passed completely beyond his power and influence, his temptations and trickery.

Rape

Oh my goodness, the karmic consequences!

The books give several episodes connected with Ven. Uppalavannā. Once a young man named Ananda, who was her cousin and who had been infatuated with her during her life as a layperson, hid himself in her hut in Andhavana. In spite of her protests, he deprived her of her chastity as a nun.

No. Desist, fool, for what has this body to offer bu what great danger in your lust?

 
It is said that as a result of this heinous crime he was swallowed up by the fires of Avīcī, the lowest of the hells known as the "waveless deep." From that time onwards, nuns were forbidden to live in Andhavana (DhA.ii.49f; the incident is referred to in Vin.iii.35), a forest grove used for monastic living and practice in the early forest tradition prior to there being formal nunneries and monasteries (viharas).
 

It is said (e.g., DhA.iv.166f) that this incident gave rise to the question of whether even fully enlightened being (arhats) enjoyed the pleasures of love and wished to gratify their passions. Why should they not? For they are not trees nor ant-hills, but living creatures with moist flesh.

The Buddha most emphatically declared that thoughts of lust never enter the hearts of arhats (fully liberated "saints" freed of all bondage and mental defilements).

Flesh

On another occasion, Ven. Uppalavannā came across some meat left behind in Andhavana, which was obviously meant for her. It was left by a kindhearted thief. Having prepared the meat, she took it to make an offering to the Buddha at the Bamboo Grove (Veluvana).

Finding him away on alms round, she left the meat with Ven. Udāyi, who was looking after the monastery (vihāra), to be given to the Buddha. But Udāyi insisted that Ven. Uppalavannā give him her inner robe as a reward for his services (Vin.iii.208f).
 

Mention is made of a pupil of Ven. Uppalavannā, who followed the Buddha for seven years, learning the monastic disciplinary code or Vinaya (Vin.ii.261).

The other chief female disciple

The Buddha declares that Ven. Khemā Theri (foremost in wisdom" like Ven. Sariputra among the monks) and Ven. Uppalavannā are the measure of his female disciples, and that the believing nun, if she would aspire perfectly, should aspire to be like them (A.i.88; ii.164; S.ii.236).

Past lives

In Padumuttara Buddha's time Uppalavannā saw a female disciple who was declared to be "foremost among those possessed of supernormal power," and wished for herself a similar rank in the dispensation of a future buddha.

In the time of Kassapa Buddha, she was one of the seven daughters of Kikī, king of Benares (Varanasi, India), and having done many good deeds, was reborn in a heavenly world.

Later, she was reborn in the human world and had to work for her living. One day she gave an offering to a nonteaching (pacceka) buddha, who had just risen from deep absorption (samādhi). She made an offering of a meal of fragrant rice in his bowl and covered it with a beautiful lotus.

She had prepared the meal for herself. The beautiful lotus she afterwards took back but again replaced it, asking the pacceka buddha's forgiveness. She expressed a wish that she should beget as many sons as there were grains of rice in her offering and that lotuses should spring up under her feet as she walked.

Lotus born

Red and blue lotus blossom, symbolic flower of the East (devwijewardane)

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Born in a lotus blossom

In her next rebirth she was spontaneously reborn inside of a lotus. An ascetic who found her as an infant adopted her as his daughter. But when she grew up to be a great beauty, the king of Benares, hearing of her beauty, asked the ascetic for her hand in marriage and made her his chief queen, calling her Padumavatī.

• Sophal1 explains that the Abhidharma describes three modes of conception: womb born, born of flowers, fruit, or tree-hollows, and spontaneously born [apparently of mind powered by karma with no intervention of parents].

The king's other wives became very jealous of her beauty, and when the king was away to quell an uprising of border tribes, they concealed in caskets her many sons, chief of whom was Prince Mahāpaduma.

They hid everyone born to Padumavatī and told the king that Padumavatī was a nonhuman who had given birth to a log of wood.

Padumavatī was sent away in disgrace, but later through the divine intervention of Sakka (King of the Devas), their deception was exposed, and Padumavatī regained all of her former power and glory. (Her temporary downfall was due to her having withdrawn her lotus gift to the pacceka buddha).

Later, when Prince Mahāpaduma and his brothers became pacceka buddhas, Queen Padumavatī died of a broken heart and was reborn in a village outside Rājagaha (modern Rajgir, India, a royal city surrounded by a ring of seven hills where Vulture's Peak is located).

There some of the pacceka buddhas who had been her sons discovered her, and they all came to a meal offering at her house. At the conclusion of the meal, she offered them blue lotuses and expressed the wish that her complexion should be like the calyx of the blue lotus.
 

This account is a summary of the Therīgāthā Commentary, pp.182ff; AA.i.188ff; but see also DhA.ii.48f.

 

The Collection of Monastic Stories (Apadāna) account of the past lives of Uppakavanna differs from the above in several details (ii.551, but vv.1-15 quoted in the Therigatha differ from those in the Apadāna and agree with the Therigatha account).

Reptilian

Naga princess (allexandramonica)

According to this account, in Padumuttara Buddha's time, she was a reptilian (nāga) maiden named Vimalā and was impressed by the supernormal-powers displayed by a nun, hence her wish for similar powers.

The Apadāna also mentions Uppalavannā's birth as the daughter of a banker of Benares in the time of Vipassī Buddha. She gave great alms to the Buddha and monastic disciples and made offerings of lotuses.

She was the second daughter of Kikī, and her name was Samannaguttā. In her next rebirth she became the ravishing daughter of Tirītavaccha of Aritthapura. In her last rebirth she became an arhat within a fortnight (two weeks) of her ordination as a nun.
 

Uppalavannā's name occurs several times in the Jātakas, the Rebirth Tales of the Buddha:

• 

  Jataka Tales (Rhys Davids)

  In the Kharādiya Jātaka (J.i.160) she was a deer, the sister of the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be).
• In the Tipallatthamiga Jātaka (J.i.164) she was the mother of Rāhula (the Buddha's son), then reborn as a stag.
• She is identified with the old woman, the foster-mother of Ayyakālaka (J.i.196),
• with the queen Mudulakkhanā (J.i.306),
• the female Brahmin in the Sārambha Jataka (J.i.375),
• the courtesan in the Kurudhamma Jataka (J.ii.381),
• the Brahmin's daughter (and sister of Rāhula) in the Dhonasākha Jataka (J.iii.168),
• Siridevī in the Sirikālakanni Jataka (J.iii.264),
• the goddess in the Bhisapuppha Jataka (J.iii.310),
• Manoja's sister in the Manoja Jataka (J.iii.324),
• the ascetic's daughter in the Kumbhakāra Jataka (J.iii.383),
• the deity in the Jāgarajā Jataka (J.iii.405), in the Sankha Jataka (J.iv.22), and in the Kiñchanda Jataka (J.v.11),
• the sister in the Bhisa Jataka (J.iv.314),
• Sutanā in the Rohantamiga (J.iv.423),
• the younger sister in the Jayaddisa Jataka (J.v.36),
• Kundalinī in the Tesakuna Jataka (J.v.125),
• Ummadantī in the Ummadantī Jataka (J.v.227),
• Hiridevatā in the Sudhābhojana Jataka (J.v.412),
• the goddess of the parasol in the Mūgapakkha Jataka (J.vi.29),
• the ocean spirit in the Mahājanaka Jataka (J.vi.68),
• the goddess in the Sāma Jataka (J.vi.95),
• Selā in the Khandahāla Jataka (J.vi.157),
• Accimukhī in the Bhūridatta Jataka (J.vi.219),
• Bherī in the Mahā-ummagga Jataka (J.vi.478), and
• Kanhajinā in the Vessantara Jataka (J.vi.593).

It was Ven. Uppalavannā who ordained Anojā and her companions by the express wish of the Buddha (AA.i.178).

Ancient Buddhist Caves of Ajanta (video)

Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly; Ancient Aliens (History.com)

Ajanta Caves, India: 2,000-year-old caves used sophisticated and unexplained technology possibly provided by Sakka and/or other akasha devas.

  

The jungle from Borobudur

These amazing stone structures are carved directly into the mountainside cliff. But they are much more than art pieces or symbols. Were these stupas (bell-shaped chambers) representative of, or actually-functioning, Die Glockes (time-and-space-traveling-bells, technology later seen in the hands of German scientists developing sophisticated extraterrestrial technology from the akasha-deva space world)? These extravagant monuments were much more than monastic complexes. Note the similarity of stone structures in far away Borobudur, Java, Indonesia and secret Nazi military projects claiming an extraordinary new form of travel, scientific developments which were subsequently confiscated and hidden from the world by Western powers for the benefit of the military-industrial complex.

 

Time-travel stupa "bells" (Die Glockes) seen as the dawn sunlight breaks through the clouds at Borobudur Buddhist temple, Java, Indonesia (TrevThompson/flickr.com)

DEAR MAYA: Ancient Nuns?

Dear Maya, Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal

Now that Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips, a.k.a. "Abigail Van Buren") and her sister Ann Landers have gone, WQ readers may ask ANYTHING.

 

Maya, the editors, and contributors will endeavor to answer. (Post your questions to the COMMENTS SECTION).

In response to a previous post titled Making Female history: from Sangha to Superpower leadership, The Awakening Forest Hermitage asks: 

 

Q: "Would you share your reference for the bhikkhuni/bhiksuni disciples of prehistoric buddhas please?"
  

A: Yes. We have the advantage of having access to prehistoric information on buddhas and their chief disciples thanks to the Buddha himself (as well as information that comes from devas and prominent disciples with well developed psychic abilities) as recorded in one sacred scripture in particular:
 
In an amazing, albeit questionable, text called the "Story of the Lineage" translated more than a century ago by the British Pali Text Society's Prof. T.W. Rhys Davids in his Buddhist Birth-Stories: Jataka Tales.

It is not one of the rebirth tales, but rather a commentarial introduction entitled Nidanakatha ("The Story of the Lineage") originally translated from V. Fausböll's edition of the ancient Pali language text by T.W. Rhys Davids as it appears in the new and revised edition by Mrs. Rhys Davids (PTS, England, 1878).

This amazing book gives incontrovertible evidence that the Buddha's jatakas are the basis of Aesop's Fables, which were drawn from various cultures where Buddhism had permeated as it went west out of India and Afghanistan (Shakyan Janapada, Kapilavastu, Gandhara) to the ancient Near East, Central Asia, and Middle East. 

• See also The Story of the Epochs in the Life of the Buddha (Nidanakatha Jatakatthakatha)

I was raised by wild monkeys!

Piper Weiss, Shine (Yahoo! "Women Who Shine"); Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Cute monkeys are savages with base appetites -- but they also exhibit compassion and other emotions. Here they are seen in Bali molesting another mammal (odditieszone.com).

  

TRUE STORY: When Vanessa James was a little girl, her mother would tell her bedtime stories of growing up like Tarzan in the jungle raised by a colony of monkeys.

  

As James got older, she learned those accounts were not fantasy but part of her mother's unbelievable history.
 
Between the ages of four and ten, Marina Chapman's family consisted of 20 or so Capuchin monkeys, native to the jungles of South America. Her memory of how it all started is hazy: She remembers sorting peas in her village when in an instant a hand covered her mouth and she awoke in the jungle.
 
"All she can remember is being chloroformed with a hand over her mouth," James, told London's Sunday Times this past week. "It's assumed that the kidnap went wrong,"

Two days after fending for herself, she was approached by a colony of monkeys who taught her by example to forage, feed, and survive as one of their own [thereby saving the life of a fellow mammal].

  

"Acting entirely on instinct, she tried to do what they did: she ate what they ate and copied their actions, and, little by little, learned to fend for herself," according to a press release for the Marina's memoir, The Girl With No Name, to be released in 2013 by Pegasus Books.

• Buddhist Global Relief: compassion in action
• Why some people adopt monkeys, dolls as children
• What monkeys can teach us about our babies

As Chapman adapted to jungle life, she lost any language she had learned in her early years and instead developed an inhuman ability to scale trees and to communicate with creatures native to the forest. 

  

Marina Chapman (thesundaytimes.co.uk)

After more than five years, she was discovered by hunters who sold her into slavery in exchange for a parrot. (Help victims of child sex trafficking; here's how.)
 
A year later she escaped, narrowly avoiding a life of prostitution. She then lived off the streets in Colombia, relying on her stealth knowledge gleaned, in part, from her education in the jungle.

   

In her 20's while working as a household staff for a Colombian family, she was brought on a trip to Bradford, England. There she met her future husband at a church, a bacteriologist named John Chapman, and she never left. [Karma works in mysterious ways, unimaginable to our logic-bound, linear minds.]

   

Together they raised two children. She worked as a cook and later in social services she helped at-risk youth.

  

Over the past five years, her daughter Vanessa, now a 23-year-old film composer, has been devoted to transcribing her mother's memory -- matching the nuts and berries and wildlife in Chapman's jungle recollections with those native to the area she was abandoned in.

  

Recently, mother and daughter traveled back to Colombia to find Chapman's long-lost family, reconnecting with some surrogates who took her in in her teens. She even tried re-entering the jungle before being stopped by military officials.

 

After Vanessa was convinced she'd pieced together her mother's journey, the next challenge was convincing a co-writer, literary agent, and publisher that Marina's unbelievable accounts were true.
 

Humans return the favor (imprint.printmag.com)

Lynne Barrett-Lee came on board as the ghostwriter after poring over Vanessa's mounds of research and meeting face-to-face with Marina, whom she immediately understood to be a woman with no ordinary past. Publishers at Pegasus Books, too, claim to have gone through an exhaustive verification process before claiming the title.

There have only been a handful of modern-day accounts of feral children surviving this unique upbringing and ultimately assimilating back into human life. In 1999, a young boy was rescued in the Uganda jungle after being raised by monkeys. It took him eight years to learn to speak again. More

• Monkey-woman Marina Chapman's memoir, The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys, compiled with her daughter, ghostwritten by Lynne Barrett-Lee, will be released in April 2013 (Pegasus Books)
• Me Tarzana, Queen of the Jungle (Sunday Times)

Does Dalai Lama approve of killing Osama?

It's not so strange for a Buddhist to endorse killing [Oh yes it is!]
Stephen Jenkins (Guardian.co.uk)

The Dalai Lama's attitude to Bin Laden's death should not be too surprising – Buddhism is not as pacifist as the West fantasizes, claims Jenkins. [We beg to differ: bracketed rebuttal and commentary by Wisdom Quarterly.]

The Dalai Lama [a CIA asset] said Osama bin Laden deserved compassion but his killing was "understandable" (AP/Jim Mone).

How could the Dalai Lama, who hesitates to harm mosquitoes, endorse killing Osama bin Laden? The terrorist deserved compassion, the Dalai Lama said, but "if something is serious…you have to take counter-measures."

[If China, a criminal state with little regard for human rights, points out that Tibet's traditional god-king ran a religious oligarchy and ruled a kingdom of "serfs," then taking "counter-measures" that include killing opponents, we suppose, makes sense. It seems His Holiness is being consistent, wrong and anti-Buddhist, but consistent.]

The apparent inconsistency here is with idealistic Western fantasies of pacifist Buddhism, not with Buddhism itself. [Of course, "Buddhism" is what the Buddha taught. It needs to be distinguished from what "Buddhists" practice or what we in the West imagine should be taught or should be practiced.]

The power of those fantasies is so strong that it even affects Tibetans themselves. Some young refugees blame Buddhism for losing Tibet. [This Dalai Lama in private blames Bon-era black magic practices allegedly continued by the Shugden Movement. There wasa no freedom of religion in Tibet under the Dalai Lama system.]

Saying "we were warriors once," they invoke their history of empire [Tibet's former Vatican-style leadership had far-reaching influence like an empire] and incorrectly think their ancestors did not resist Chinese invasion. Those fantasies also cause us to fail to appreciate how extraordinary the Dalai Lama is. [He's a pope and a politician, a spokesperson for peace and a secret CIA operative fighting China.] We take his values as those of a typical Buddhist or a typical dalai lama, and he is neither.

Buddhists work out their values through stories of Buddha's past lives [Wrong, wrong, wrong! Values are laid out explicitly in sutras (such as the Sigalovada Sutra for laypeople) and monastic disciplinary guidelines (Vinaya), whereas Buddhist Birth Stories (Jataka Tales) are fables that illustrate various moral truths. If Buddhist values depended on Buddhists cherry picking and interpreting their values from animal stories and Aesop Fables, there wouldn't be a Buddhism], which show him in myriad roles, such as a battle-elephant or minister defending his besieged city.

The following story is analogous to a terrorist situation. It is known throughout northern Buddhism. [The historical and canonical Jatakas are Theravada or "Southern Buddhism" texts, so it's interesting that later apocryphal Birth Stories start justifying and promoting non-Buddhist ideas, like China making war against Korea. Of course, Jenkins may not be aware of these subtleties, he does not seem to go out of his way to investigate the matter by asking anyone would know. That's not good journalism as he implicitly undermines Buddhism's view of peace and compassion, mars the super-politically correct Dalai Lama's actual words, and promotes the killing of anyone deemed a "terrorist."]

Communists even used it to rouse Chinese Buddhists to fight in Korea. The Buddha, in a past life as a ship's captain named Super Compassionate, discovered a criminal on board who intended to kill the 500 passengers.

[The "Buddha" only lived once. The Buddha does not appear in any Birth Story since every life recounted in the Jatakas is about the Bodhisattva, the "being trying to become a buddha"; in no way are the characters in the fables, fairy tales, and simplified histories the actual "Buddha" or Buddhist saints, even if they were to evolve into such figures much, much later in future lives. It would be like considering the acts of an infant the same as that of that same person as an adult; there is not a "soul" or "self" that persists through time to be called the same person. One arises dependent on what came before but is different from it. So these figures are not meant to be used as guides on how to behave. Often the opposite is true; they are cautionary tales on how not to behave. The sutras themselves give examples of what the Buddha and exemplary Buddhist nuns, monks, lay disciples, and good non-Buddhists did.]

If he told the passengers, they would panic and become killers themselves, as happened on a Southwest Airlines flight in 2000. With no other way out, he compassionately stabbed the criminal to death.

[It can never be "compassionate" to intentionally kill someone. Misguided by delusion by misunderstanding, one might imagine killing or euthanasia were justified. But when that karma bears its result, or sees it with the divine eye bearing its result for someone else, one will clearly understand one made a mistake. By not thinking of the person we harm, focusing instead on the good one imagines one is doing for others, it is possible for a more or less "good" person to kill. And we might all understand that -- but it is not justified, it is not okay, it is not good, nor is it without painful result, nor would a buddha or any arhat praise it or excuse it as okay. "Understandable," yes, but okay, no way! And in Jenkin's Guardian article, the Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying he finds the executing of Osama bin Laden "understandable," not good or acceptable as Jenkins seems to be suggesting.]

Captain Compassionate saved the passengers not only from murder, but from becoming murderers themselves. [And of course it's not as if Super Compassionate in this apocryphal Jataka could have conked him on the head, or arrested him, or otherwise stopped him. Does anyone believe he had to be stabbed "to death"? If one stabs to stop and the person dies, that is not murder as such. Manslaughter, harming, or something not good, but it's a far cry from "murder."

Unlike him, they would have killed in rage and suffered hell. He saved the criminal from becoming a mass murderer and even worse suffering. He himself generated vast karmic merit by acting with compassion.

[It's a wonderful make believe story ripe for abuse by governments: "Hey, soldiers, go be like Super Compassionate and kill out of compassion. Then it won't be 'killing,' so have at it! Let's go wage war against those terrorists in Korea for the glory of our peace-loving China!" What a wonderful spin Jenkins and Chinese generals are putting on Mahayana (or "Northern") Buddhism. The American military used this exact same sophistry in Vietnam, right, when some young soldiers zealously following CIA/FBI/Military Intelligence orders "burned a village to save it" from Communism.]

The story is double-edged. Killing protects others from the horrific karma of killing. At Harvard in April 2009, the Dalai Lama explained that "wrathful forceful action" motivated by compassion, may be "violence on a physical level" but is "essentially nonviolence."

[If he did, and if this is what he meant, then the Dalai Lama is wrong. It's very simple. People imagine that the Dalai Lama is "holy" and speaks infallibly as the pope of Buddhism. He is not. He is not the Buddha. He may not even be a bodhisattva, someone reborn purposely to become a buddha, but we hold out hope that he has vowed to be one, and that the correct tulku, or incarnation, was found. Even so, he does not represent Buddhism. He does not even represent all Tibetan Buddhists. He is stained by his association with the CIA, military resistance to grave Chinese crimes, and his position as a god-king, who of course recently stepped down from his position as king.]

So we must be careful to understand what "nonviolence" means. Under the right conditions, it could include killing a terrorist. [It could never include intentionally acting to kill someone, not even bogeymen, "demons" (yakkhas, asuras, nagas, pretas) or Mara, the very worst being in Buddhism. If killing could be "compassionate," would not the Buddha have killed Mara? Would he not have at least instructed a powerful disciple like Maha Moggallana to kill him? No, far from it. He would not even allow Maha Moggallana to slay a terrible dragon (a naga or powerful reptilian who encircled the world and threatened the Buddha and a company of saints in space.]

People fail to appreciate how extraordinary the Dalai Lama's commitment to nonviolence is. After all, he is a Buddhist and [as a bodhisattva and leader] the manifestation of Avalokiteśvara [the Bodhisattva of Compassion], the deity of compassion.

But Buddhist values are not simply pacifist, and Buddhist scripture and legend inform us that Avalokiteśvara readily takes a warrior's form when needed and supports the warfare of righteous kings.

[It seems to us that Buddhist values are, by and large, pacifist even if Buddhist behavior is not. One may defend oneself; one may do anything. But one will not thereby evade the karmic results of such actions because "one had to" or "had a right to." The Buddha taught what he understood would bring suffering -- when it came to fruition -- and what would bring happiness. In our shortsightedness, we imagine that the immediate visible results of what we have done are the karmic results. That is incorrect. That karma has had no time to mature. A buddha, a far-seeing teacher, someone versed in the Dharma tells us what is difficult to see, difficult to perceive, difficult to guess: Actions are like seeds. They are shaped by intention and categorized this way. When we think, speak, or act with an "impure" mind -- intentions tainted by even residual amounts of greed, hate (aversion, fear, disgust), or delusion -- then the karma laid down will ripen in unpleasant and unwelcome ways. This does NOT make "common" sense. The Buddha was not blithely uttering commonplaces and easy-to-swallow truisms. Many things he taught were hard to see, hard to accept, hard to finally understand.

[For example, if I steal, what will happen? I will be richer to the extent of what I've stolen. But later, when that act ripens, I will be poor. When will that act ripen? It will ripen when it finds the opportunity, which could be aeons. So it may not be "me" (the personality, name, and form who did it) who will bear the result and consequence but some future version of "me" at the time (a personality, name, and form who did not steal). Likewise, I am rich, beautiful, healthy, and influential now. What did I do to deserve it? Not much. But in the past, it is possible to trace someone who did do such things as now ripen. I call that person "me," but it is not me. And I call this person "me," but it is not me either. I call the line of beings passing away and being reborn "my soul," but it is not one thing, and it is not me. There is action (karma and cetana), and there will be result (vipaka and phala). That is, deeds and intentions are willed and carried out, and when they mature there are mental-resultants and fruits to be experienced. But we personalize it, imagine it is happening to an immutable entity that cannot die or change when it is dying and changing every moment leaving us nothing worth clinging to.

[There are things that if done will bear a bad (painful, unpleasant, unwelcome, unwished for) result. What are those things? Five of them are universal: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and taking intoxicants that occasion heedlessness). It's not a punishment from the Buddha, God, or anyone else. It's a natural ordering of things referred to as karma. Understandably, it's hard for us to imagine anything being impersonal. But the personal gets mixed in there. People are not satisfied to wait for our karma to come back onto us; they taint themselves by helping it along through revenge or engaging in things that hard us and them.]

Buddhist cultures, including Tibet, have not historically been pacifist.

["Buddhist" cultures have not historically been Buddhist. Long before Buddhism entered anywhere, there was a culture. Buddhism could not solve the root societal problems of greed, hatred, and delusion. It could, however, solve the root personal problems of these poisonous internal motivations for those who practiced Buddhism. But good luck curing society or a culture just because it adopts Buddhism as a religion. Nevertheless, wherever it went, the people became kinder, more generous, and far more peaceful. Kings still crave greater influence (territory and honor), more material goods (war booty), and more of everything. And in their blind ambition, whether Buddhist or not, they instigate their populations to fight for these ends. That in no way means "Buddhism" advocates them. Even intentionally killing in "defense" is not defensible, which is to say even such an "understandable" act will have a negative consequence. One would be wiser to find another solution, as hard or fleeting as that other solution may be.]

The previous dalai lama strove to develop a modern military. So the current one's dedication to nonviolence should not be taken as a matter of course. He was influenced by Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer whose pacifism was rooted in Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. His nonviolent approach is exceptional for a Buddhist political leader and integrates Indian and western concepts of nonviolent struggle. More

Past Life Prophecies (Sixteen Dreams)

Wisdom Quarterly (translation)

The Buddha flanked by protective nagas (eyefetch.com)

[Sixteen Dreams...] When the Buddha had reassured King Pasenadi and given prophecies to explain his 16 dreams, he added: “It was neither truth nor love that motivated your brahmin advisers to make the prophecies they did. It was greed and selfishness that led them to prescribe animal sacrifices.”

“You are not the first to have had these dreams,” the Buddha added. “They were dreamed by rulers in the past as well. Then, as now, brahmin advisers found in them a pretext for sacrifices.” At King Pasenadi’s request, the Buddha then recounted this story of the past:

Past Life Prophecies (Jataka 77 cont'd)
Long, long ago, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisattva was born into a brahmin family in the North Country.

When he grew up, he renounced the world and became a hermit. Having attained a high level of meditation [jhana, "absorption"], he acquired supernatural powers.

One day, King Brahmadatta dreamed 16 mysterious dreams and asked his advisers about them. The brahmins, his court chaplains, explained that the dreams foretold catastrophe and began preparing great animal sacrifices.

Seeing this, one of the pupils of the chief brahmin, a youngster of considerable learning and wisdom, approached his teacher and said: “Master, you have taught me the Three Vedas. Don’t our sacred texts say that it is never a good thing to take life?”

“My dear boy,” answered his teacher, “this means money to us -- a great deal of money. Why are you so anxious to spare the king’s treasury?”

“Do as you will, Master,” he replied. “I will no longer stay here with you.” With those words he left the palace and went to the royal gardens.

That same morning the Bodhisattva had thought to himself, “If I visit the king’s garden today, I will save a great number of creatures from death.”

(travelpod.com)

The young brahmin found the ascetic as radiant as a golden image sitting on the king’s ceremonial stone seat in the garden. He sat down at an appropriate distance, paid respects to the hermit, and entered into friendly conversation with him. The hermit asked the youngster if he thought the king ruled righteously.

“Sir,” he answered, “the king himself is righteous, but his brahmin advisers are leading him astray. The king consulted with them about the 16 dreams he had, and the brahmins jumped at the opportunity to offer blood sacrifices a the solution. Venerable sir, how good it would be for you to explain to the king the real meaning of his dreams! Your explanation will save many animals from cruel death!”

“I do not know the king, nor does he know me. If he comes here and asks me, however, I will tell him.”

“Please wait here, sir, and I will bring the king,” pleaded the young brahmin. He hurried to the king and told him there was a wondrous ascetic who would interpret his mysterious dreams. He pleaded with the king to pay the hermit a visit.

The king immediately agreed and went to the garden with his retinue. Paying respects to the ascetic, he sat down and asked if the ascetic could tell him what would come of his dreams.

“Certainly, sire,” he answered. “Let me hear the dreams as you dreamed them.”

The king proceeded to tell the dreams exactly as King Pasenadi told them to the Buddha.

“Enough,” said the Bodhisattva. “You have nothing to fear from any of these dreams.” Having reassured the king and having saved a great number of creatures from death, the hermit levitated in midair, taught the king to observe the Five Precepts, and concluded by saying: “From this time on, sire, do not join the brahmins in slaughtering animals for sacrifice!”

Remaining firm in the teaching he had heard and spending the rest of his days in alms-giving and other good works [merit, profitable karma benefiting oneself and others], the king passed away to fare according to his good deeds.

Bringing this story of the past to a conclusion, the Buddha said, “Sire, you too have nothing to fear from these dreams. Stop the animal sacrifice!” Then the Buddha identified the rebirths in the story by explaining, “Ananda was the king in those days, Sariputra was the young brahmin, and I was the hermit.”

The February Full Moon in Buddhist History

Translated by Wisdom Quarterly (Sri Lanka Guardian, Feb. 17, 2011)

Vulture's Peak, Rajgir, which has never had vultures just rocks reminiscent of them.

The moonth's full moon lunar observance day (called the Navam Pura Pasalosvaka Poya Day by Sri Lankan Buddhists) is associated with two very significant incidents in Buddhist history.

The Sangha (Order of Monastics) congregated officially for the first time to convene the First Buddhist Council on this day, and the Buddha's two chief male disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, were appointed. (When he appointed the two chief female disciples, Khema and Uppalavanna, is not clear).

The first Buddhist Council was held three months after the passing into final nirvana of the Buddha. It was chaired by one of the senior most monks of the Order, the brahmin Mahakassapa.

A large number of monastics participated in the council. Mahakassapa kept a vacant seat for Ananda, who was not yet fully enlightened. He strained to realize the liberating truth and upon relaxing, before his head could hit the pillow, he awakened to the utmost becoming an arhat on the eve of the council. He participated and played a key role in the council, reciting the sutra portion.

• The discourse collection contains more than 10,000 sutras (teachings) attributed to the Buddha. They begin with Ananda saying "Thus have I heard" to indicate that he heard and learned them directly from the Buddha.

The astounding memory he exhibited was the result of more than 20 years as a monk rehearsing in the oral tradition and verifying his memory as the Buddha's attendant. Ananda, one of the Ten Great Disciples, whose brother was the infamous Devadatta (the Buddhist "Judas"), was a cousin of the Buddha. Moreover, they had been affiliated over many lives (as recorded in the Jataka Tales).

The commentaries tell how this First Council collected together the monastic disciplinary code (Vinaya) and the Dharma in five collections. (The Abhidharma, "higher teaching," a systematic treatment of the Buddha's teachings that assumed a prominent position in Buddhism later, although legend has it that it was composed by the Buddha in a space world for the benefit of his deceased mother and other devas in the Realm of the Thirty-three).

Related to the English word suture, sutra literally means a thread or single strand. This thread contains prosaic texts or "jewels" strung together on a theme. The discourses are ascribed to Ananda, who we suppose retained them in memory through the traditional Indian recitation method (which systematizes sutras into a streamlined form using stereotype texts and shorthand references that are unpacked in the customary Indian commentarial tradition).

Ananda chanted them at the council; he was, however, not the only one in possession of them. Many bands of monastics had been assigned sections to commit to memory, practice, and recite for others.

The Buddha's India, the "Middle Country" in the Rose Apple Land (Jambudvipa), mostly in the mahajanapada of Magadha.

The First Council was held in Rajagaha, the royal city ringed by seven hills on the Gangetic plains, near the modern town of Rajgir, in the Patna District, in the Indian state of Bihar. It was at that time the capital of the ancient kingdom of Magadha, one of the most prosperous and bustling cities in ancient India.

Vulture's Peak is one of the seven hills as is the famous Isigili. A large monastery, the famous Bamboo Grove, the ruins of which are still intact, is found just outside the city gates.

According to late commentarial accounts, King Ajatasatta (the son of the enlightened King Bimbisara, a devoted supporter of the Buddha) sponsored the First Council. Tradition holds that the council was held in a hall erected by Ajatasatta outside Saptaparni (also Sattaparnaguha and Sattapanniguha) in Rajgir.

Mahakassapa presided over the First Council. Following Ananda, Upali, yet another of the Ten Great Disciples, recited the disciplinary rules and likely also their origin stories. Upali was known as foremost in observing the precepts, having joined the Order at the same time as Anuruddha, Ananda, and Devadatta.

The brahmin seekers Upatissa (who had recently become a stream-enterer) and Kolita, who came to be called Sariputra and Moggallana, with their retinue.

The other important incident that is commemorated on this lunar observance day is the appointment of the brahmin friends Sariputta and Moggallana as chief disciples.

He announced that they were his chief disciples when he first spotted them approaching from a distance, which upset and puzzled monks of long standing who were closer to him.

As he explained, his designations were not his doing. In a sense, those foremost in various abilities or predilections (and there were at least 80) appointed themselves long ago in past lives. Their wish to be designated, their merit, and the sure prediction they received led to their finding their way to a buddha to realize their goal.

It was simply the working out of very meritorious karma and interacting with the Bodhisatta as a cohort over various lives. (Why we meet people, why we jibe, why we act out in certain ways -- all of this is rooted in past habits that became traits that became "destinies" of sorts, or so we learn from sutras and Jataka Tales).

Merry Solstice! ("Rain" in a change of season)

Wisdom Quarterly

Winter has officially begun in the northern hemisphere on the same day summer starts for the southern side of planet Gaia. But it actually arrived days ago in Los Angeles, which has been experiencing more rain (our equivalent of lowland snow) in these few days than it usually gets in a year.

So the time of the Prophetic Visions, in a rare case of Buddhist dream interpretation (Jataka 77), seems to have arrived with the eclipse of the Moon:

The Reason for Weather Disturbances

"The Sixteen Dreams" (Mahasupina Jataka) derived from Ken & Visakha Kawasaki

"Tell me your tenth dream," the Buddha invited King Pasenadi, who reigned over Kosala. "I saw rice boiling in a pot but not being done," the king explained. "By not getting done I mean that it looked as if the cooking was taking place in three parts: One was wet, another hard and raw, and a third looked perfectly cooked. This was my tenth dream. What does it foretell?"

"This is a dream of future events," the Buddha explained. "In days to come rulers will become unrighteous. The nobles will follow the ruler's example, and so will the intellectuals (brahmins). The townspeople, the merchants, and at last even the farmers will become corrupted. Eventually, everyone in the country [mahajanapada, a tribe's territory or ruling clan's foothold], the sages and even the earthbound-devas [akin to mischevious Greek demigods], will become immoral.

"Even the winds that blow over the realm of such an unrighteous ruler will grow cruel and lawless. Because even the skies and the sky-devas over that land will be disturbed, they will cause drought.

"Rain will never fall on the entire country all at once. It may rain in the upper districts, but in the lower it will not. In one place a heavy downpour will damage the crops, while in another area the crops will wither from drought. The crops sown within a single country -- like the rice in the one pot -- shall have no uniform character" (Jat. 77). More>>

• In a rarity, both lunar eclipse and winter solstice today
• Spiritual lessons on an extraordinary winter solstice

Winter Solstice
Wisdom Quarterly with help from Chiff.com

The winter solstice marks the longest night of the year. (Summer solstice marks the longest day). In the north, the predictably gloomy weather around the winter solstice has been responsible for many symbols, ancient myths, and religious beliefs.

In ancient Rome, the original "Xmas" was a Pagan celebration called the Feast of Saturnalia, in honor of the Roman "god" or "titan" (Buddhist deva or asura) Saturn. In pre-Christian England, the end of December centered around the Pagan Yule log holiday tradition, a special piece of wood blazing to defrost winter's handiwork.

Nowadays, of course, festive corporations have co-opted our natural desire for relief from the winter doldrums (as the triumphant pharmaceutical industry advocated for a DSM entry, S.A.D., that allows it to inflate its obscene profits from the joyous insurance companies when staring at light is known to safely remedy wintertime blues). We are convinced we are meant to be "consumers" who need buy our way to "celebrating" and enjoying Christmas, in honor of the Roman "god" the Sun.

So the West was taken from Kronos to Kristos to Kwanzaa in a modern festival of lights, to overcome the dark, and a lively social feast, to overcome the effects of Mother Nature's dormant season. Even Buddhists in India celebrate a festival of lights, Diwali. And because Buddhists in China have Bodhi Day, we say: Let there be light! Merry Winter Solstice from Wisdom Quarterly to one and all!

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