Do all Teachers realize the same thing?

(Finding Meaning Project) They all discovered the same thing?

Weds. Peace Class w/ Mandy Kahn (Zoom)

Mandy Kahn, Heartsong (Meetup); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Mandy Kahn | Los Angeles Meetup

Peace Class is a free, interactive online gathering to manifest inner peace and establish world peace. It is led by Mandy Kahn and takes place every Wednesday night at 6:00 pm (Pacific Time) via Zoom. ALL are welcome to attend.

The building of world peace is the establishing of inner peace. So our global contribution, as a participant in this peace circle, is profound.

Each class meeting includes a short talk that focuses on one aspect of the nature of peace, followed by journaling as a peace-building practice. This provides each participant the opportunity to develop a set of peace-building skills that may be used at any time.

Friends MLK Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh on peace

Each class is an hour and includes a brief peace meditation, teachings about pioneer peacebuilders like Peace Pilgrim, and the opportunity to share personal peace-building discoveries with the group.

The peace circle is grateful to be joined by peace advocates from around the world in this love-filled, supportive space.

What part of peace, love, and understanding are you not understanding? Hugs for everyone!

.

Gandhi was inspired by Jesus, MLK by Gandhi

Each meeting is a stand-alone lesson. Feel free to drop in for a single class or the entire series.

Participants also have the option of keeping Zoom cameras off and just observing, if that contributes to a feeling of greater comfort.

This class is an online how-to, exploring a range of topics that include:

• How to engage the healing perspective of a peace mind
• How self-love builds world peace
• How stepping out of the guilt cycle allows inner peace to occur naturally
• How to build a healing ceasefire
• How inner peace evolves our physical bodies
• How to use the mantra “I honor all beings” to build world peace.
• How peace enters the collective consciousness to heal ancient wounds

Details

Practicing inner peace leads to equanimity.

Peace Class is a FREE, weekly, Zoom-based gathering presented by the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) and led by teacher Mandy Kahn.

• Every Wednesday night at 6:00 pm Pacific
• Attendees welcome to participate or just watch
• Bring something to write on and something to write with
• Anyone is welcome to attend with or without signing up ahead of time

ABOUT: Who is Mandy Kahn?

Peace Piece (film by Courtney Sell)

Mandy Kahn is a peace advocate and poet, author of two collections of poems — Glenn Gould’s Chair and Math, Heaven, Time — both published by London-based press Eyewear.

Her work has been included in the Best American Poetry anthology series and in former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s syndicated column "American Life in Poetry."

Kahn is the writer-in-residence at the Philosophical Research Society, a center for spiritual discourse founded in 1934 by wisdom scholar Manly P. Hall.

The World Peace Diet (Tuttle)

She teaches for PRS with a weekly online class on the nature of peace and regularly presents peace-building concerts on the PRS grounds in Hollywood, which feature poetry, classical music, and immersive performances.

She is the subject of Courtney Sell’s feature-length documentary Peace Piece: The Immersive Poems of Mandy Kahn, released by Indie Pix and available on DVD and available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, and elsewhere.

She has given readings at Cambridge University, the London Review Bookshop, and Shoreditch House in the UK, at Motto in Berlin, at Colette in Paris, at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, at the New School in New York, at the Barrick Museum in Las Vegas, and at many venues in Southern California.

In addition to writing books, Mandy Kahn regularly presents immersive poems: live works of literature that incorporate performance, audience participation, and musical technique.

Yoko Ono, John Lennon, the Beatles love peace

In 2019, she presented a program of immersive and interactive poems at the Getty Museum called “Gateways to Peace,” which was performed by a cast of seven actors and three opera singers.

Kahn has been interviewed by BBC Radio, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Flaunt magazine, among others. She is the recipient of the 2018 Shakespeare Prize in Poetry. (The Shakespeare Prize is awarded annually to a poet or playwright based in Los Angeles County; other recipients include Tom Stoppard, Ray Bradbury and Poet Laureate Dana Gioia).

• FREE TO RSVP: Peace Class | Meetup

• 

  This is a peaceful protest. Put the weapons down

  MAR 20 @ 6 PM PDT
• MAR 27 @ 6 PM PDT
• APR 3 @ 6 PM PDT
• APR 10 @ 6 PM PDT
• APR 17 @ 6 PM PDT
• APR 24 @ 6 PM PDT
• MAY 1 @ 6 PM PDT
• MAY 8 @ 6 PM PDT
• MAY 15 @ 6 PM PDT
• MAY 22 @ 6 PM PDT

Mandy, if peace and asking nicely don't work, we're ready to roll and give war a chance.

Jesus vs Buddha (FULL COMEDY SHOW)

Aidan Killian, Dec. 31, 2014; Pat Macpherson, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

This is Irish comedian Aidan Killian's full DVD "Jesus versus Buddha" (aidankillian.com) All he wanted to create was a powerful, hilarious, yet conscious comedy show. But this is what happened. #AidanKillian:

• Get social with Aidan on twitter, facebook, youtube
• Google+: google.com/+AidanKillianComedian

"A Journey into Buddhism" (Part II)

Elizabeth J. Harris, A Journey into Buddhism; A. Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha, Kanthaka, and a Christian saint, maybe Mary, maybe Jay (Ginger Mayerson)

 
2. Non-Retaliation

And this mudra means "peace"!

In one sutra in the Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya), one of the five divisions of the sutra collection that make up the Pali canon, the Buddha says to his disciples:
 

"Meditators, as low-down bandits might carve you limb from limb with a two-handed saw, yet even then whoever sets mind at enmity, that person for that reason is not a doer of my teaching (Dharma).

"This is how you must train yourselves: neither will my mind become perverted, nor will I utter unskillful speech, but kindly and compassionate will I dwell, with a mind/heart of friendliness and free of ill will."

The vividness of this picture has always moved me -- a criminal hacking off my arms and legs with a saw. And it isn't that far-fetched. War involves such butchery. The denial of human rights under totalitarian regimes produces similar horrors, and so does the obsessional urge of a serial killer or multiple murderer.

Get her! She has a look on her face!!

Fear, terror, or violent retaliation in self-protection would seem the natural reactions to such an attack, the way we're taught in Christendom (though not by Jesus), a reaction programmed into our bodies.
 
Yet, the challenge of Buddhism here is to not retaliate, not to hate, no to grow angry or seek revenge. Instead, it is to show compassion to all people even if they are about to kill you.

It is a challenge that reaches out from other religions also. Jesus of Palestine, suffering the agony of being nailed through his flesh to rough wooden posts, forgave his killers and even felt compassion for them [due to the karma they were accruing] in their blindness.

But does this imply that Buddhism advocates that we should never protect ourselves or others from violence, that we should submit to whatever exploitation we are subjected to, that in the face of "evil" forces we should remain passive?

To answer "yes" is to misread Buddhism and all true religion. Buddhism does not support hopeless passivity in the face of violence and evil. Rather, it encourages a mental attitude which can face and oppose violence without fear or hatred or delusion.
 
Nowhere in the Buddhist texts is it suggested that we should remain inactive when we or others are suffering. Nowhere does it say we should refrain from action if someone is murdering our son, daughter, neighbor, or colleague in front of our eyes.

In such situations, harm must be relieved, violence denounced, interceding or self-sacrifice might even be demanded, though the Buddhist texts also warn that to meet violence with violence brings a vicious circle of spiraling further violence.

What the Buddhist texts do say is that to hate, to feel anger towards the doer of violence, is self-defeating. It harms both and harms the hater even more than the hated.

In the ancient Buddhist texts, we come across many stories of non-hatred deflecting violence and making it powerless.

One woman, because she refuses to feel hatred, is unharmed when burning oil is poured over her by a jealous co-wife. And when a monk dies of snakebite, the Buddha says he would not have died if he had radiated loving kindness (metta) to the four families of snakes. (See the khanda paritta for protection from snakebites).

This might seem utopian in a world shot through with violence. The skeptic can point to the deaths of Gandhi in India, Oscar Romero in El Salvador, and Michael Rodrigo in Sri Lanka to show that the most compassionate of beings are sometimes unable to escape violent deaths caused by the greed and hatred of others.

• [The fact that the chief disciple Maha Moggallana could not avoid such a death shows the power of past karma to bear its results when it gets the opportunity. This disciple was fully enlightened and foremost in the practice of magic yet could not always avoid karma consequences (vipaka and phala). What then of ordinary unenlightened beings without magical powers?]

But the force of these spiritual teachings will remain. Violence is not overcome by violence. Hatred is not defeated by hatred. Our lives are not made more secure by wishing to protect them [or by harming others in that effort.]

To face death without hatred or fear, even towards our killers, is the path of sainthood (arhatship, full enlightenment). These are eternal truths. More

Can a Buddhist be a Christian?

Text by John Suler, Rider.edu, Zenstory; Wisdom Quarterly

Jesus the Christ and Siddhartha the Buddha from the awesome Japanese manga 聖☆おにいさん。or "Saintly Young Men" (Gerald Ford)

Christian Buddhist
John Suler, Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors
One of Master Gasan's monks visited the university in Tokyo. When he returned he asked the master if he had ever read the Christian Bible.

"No," Gasan replied, "please read some of it to me." The monk opened the Bible to the "Sermon on the Mount" in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

After reading Christ's words about the lilies in the field, he paused. Master Gasan was silent for a long time.

"Yes," he finally said, "Whoever uttered these words is an enlightened being [one attained to the level of stream enterer or higher]. What you have read to me is the essence of everything I have been trying to teach you here!"

(In another version of this old Zen tale, a Christian reads the Bible passage to Gasan.)

Reactions to the Story

"This story held no interest for me. I don't believe in the existence of God and therefore believe that the Bible is a bunch of bologna!"

"Maybe the point is that we don't need Bibles OR Zen teachers to find enlightenment. We already have it within ourselves."

"It's so sad that wars are fought over differences in 'religion,' when in reality all the world's religions are saying the same essential things. If nations really took religion to heart, so many lives would be saved."

"'Lilies of the field' is a rather zen story, encouraging naturalness acceptance of being."

"Universalism is an extremely faulty world view. All the worlds religions do not teach the same thing. Religion is not about being good to your fellow man, or doing nice things to other people. So many of these comments seem to think that because most religions teach that, in general, you should'nt kill people, and you should'nt steal, and that you should feed the poor, etc., that its all the same thing. That misses the point entirely, and trivializes a vast amount of the most deeply held beliefs of the world's populace...."

"It is interesting that when presented with the Bible, the Master was open to listening. I don't find the same to be true when the situation is reversed, . It feels very comfortable to me to be Buddhist and still feel at peace with others who do not share my views."

"If what is true for you is true, and what is true for me is true, than really nothing is true. If there are no absolutes in the universe higher than our own opinions or experiences, than we live on an ever shifting sand. True truth is true whether we know it, or believe it. It is absolute, unchanging, and independent of our reactions to it. God is God and we are not him. I believe this story is an attempt to dilute the hard division line that the Bible deliberately draws. Our culture trys to offer solutions that do not offend anyone. I wonder how Master Gasan would react to Christ's words "no one may come to the Father but by me." Or "the kingdom of heaven advances violently, and violent men lay hold of it"?

"This comment is not about the story but about the other comments: Taken collectively, they illustrate Martin Luther's observation, 'A book is like a mirror -- if an ape looks in, no saint will look out!'" More

• Westerners speak out on Zen stories

Concentration
After winning several archery contests, a young and boastful champion challenged the old Zen master who was renowned for his skills as an archer.

The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try then split that arrow with a second shot.

"There," he said to the old monk, "see if you can match that!" Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain.

Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high up the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a single shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto this perilous and unsteady bridge, the old master picked a far off tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean and direct hit.

"Now it is your turn," he said as he gracefully stepped off the log and back onto firm ground.

Staring with terror into the bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log nor in any way focus on trying to hit a target.

"You have much skill with your bow," the master finally said, sensing his young challenger's predicament, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot." Reactions

Strkingly similar: Buddha and Jesus (video)

BBC; Drana1975; Wisdom Quarterly

How could there be so many similarities in two lives separated by so many miles and years?

If Jesus and the Buddha were to meet, they would recognize one another as fellow teachers because they were teaching the same truths.

Both stayed in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights and were tempted by evil, Jesus by Satan and the Buddha by Mara and his daughters.

Jesus's original teachings promoted peace and turning the other cheek, passive resistance rather than aggression or armed insurrection. Marcus Borg, a Christian and Jesus scholar, focuses on this basic aspect of Christianity by selecting a range of quotations from the gospels and pairing them with parallel sayings by the Buddha.

For example, whereas Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," the Buddha says, "Let us live most happily, possessing nothing; let us feed on joy, like the radiant devas."

It is surprising for readers familiar only with the Bible to find how similar the words of the two religious teachers actually are. When one compares two ancient spiritual traditions like Buddhism and Christianity, what one finds is a striking similarity between the narratives of the founders.

One very important parallel is in the lives of the founders as the essence of their teachings demonstrates. For example, the essence of the Buddha's teaching boils down to the Four Noble Truths:

1. There is suffering (disappointment).
2. It has an origin, a cause.
3. It can be brought to a complete end.
4. There is a path leading to its end.

The truths are explicitly taught and exemplified in stories of the life of the Buddha. It is no accident that they are emphasized, just as aspects of Jesus's life are used to tell a larger story of finding a means of salvation. The essential practices and teachings are exemplified as the life narrative of a godman.

In both lives it is through commitment and dedication in the face of hardship, standing firmly on principle, that one grows spiritually and attains liberation from suffering. The Buddha did not consider rebirth in heaven "salvation" as other religions do because those worlds also fall away and are not actually permanent, even though they are incredibly long lived. Nirvana is permanent, but it is not a heaven, not a rebirth, not a conditioned state. It is the unconditioned.

In addition to apart living a simple life, there are other similarities. The Buddha searched for a way that all living beings might bring about the end of suffering. Centuries later Jesus later sought it as well, but his followers made him the way.

The Buddha went on an epic quest for truth. Jesus went on one as well, but his followers made him the truth. Interestingly, they went from west to east, from the mountainous Afghan/Kashmir area into the thriving spirituality of ancient, ancient India

The Buddha searched for the "deathless state." Jesus sought it as well, but his followers made him the life and added that no one comes before Brahma, the celestial father, except through this one son (devaputra). Deva-putra means (literally god-son), "one reborn among the devas," that is, reborn in heaven, in the presence of Brahma, as a radiant being. It is a common designation in India.

There is even a Mara Devaputra (Cupid), a misguided being who lives in a high heaven atop the Sensual Sphere who considers himself supreme, quite like the early Lucifer.

The Buddha was of royal descent; Jesus's followers found a way to make him part of a royal bloodline and attributed to him the claim that he was King of the Jews. (Interesting research recasts the entire story as one of pharaohs exiting Egypt and fighting).

In fact, they came to the same place (India), and Jesus met the Buddha's teachings. Of course, what is written documentary evidence in the face of clinging to views out of bias with the help of corrupt church histories?

Celestial beings announced their human births. Both were tempted by devil figures. Both experienced supernatural events. Both knew the thoughts/hearts of others. Both healed others and claimed that many afflictions were due to previous unprofitable karma, which Jesus used an archery metaphor, "sin," to explain. The word means "miss the mark."

Both suggested to their disciples the value of renouncing worldly possessions. The Buddha may have had 80,000 monastic followers over the 45 years of his teaching the multitudes. Jesus had at least 14 dedicated apostles (some replaced others, so the number is definitely not 12). Both had a disciple who walked on water and themselves could walk on water, a common feat among yogis in India, which both were.

Did Jesus Christ learn Buddhism?

Did Jesus learn what he knew from India ? Where was Jesus and what was he doing from ages 12-30? What happened to him after Crucifixion? Why does the Bible leave out this important information?

News of the Day: Buddhism, Earth, Credit

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Did Jesus Study Buddhism? (BBC)

(BBC) Did Jesus learn what he knew from India? Where was Jesus and what was he doing from ages 12-30? What happened to him after his Crucifixion? Why does the Bible leave out this important information?

• Buddhism, Jesus is Buddhist, Unknown life of and Christianity, Jesus's End

Bodhisattva Jesus (Issa)

(annhuey.com)

In Mahayana Buddhist terms, Jesus (Issa) may be regarded as a bodhisattva. The designation explains why some people regard Mahayana Buddhism as a form of messianic Asian Christianity. The term reveals striking doctrinal similarities, while covering the fact that Mahayana Buddhism came first. Christianity and Catholic doctrine followed. Jesus Christ was trained in India during his "lost years," something that was no secret to Vatican elders or Greek Orthodox scholars who inherited redactions of the tradition that very deliberately omitted Biblical references to this at the Council of Nicaea.

(mypages.blackvoices.com)

Jesus as traditional Yogi

Jesus was clearly influenced by Indian spiritual custom. Hinduism is the bedrock of "the Wisdom of the East." Jesus' strange practices are not at all strange in a Hindu context. Walking on water (siddhis), "praying" (japa and mantra meditation), being viewed or viewing himself as "god incarnate" (avatar), and so on. Hinduism had its most radical transformation and revivification due to the Buddha's teaching, so much so that he is regarded as part of their tradition even as he utterly rejected some of its central doctrines. The Buddha was, after all, not a temple Brahmin declaring the sanctity of the Vedas and the primacy of the god Brahma. Rather, he was a samana ("wandering ascetic," a shaman, shramana) rejecting the authority of the Vedas (the religious convention of his day) and declaring a level, casteless, egalitarian path to liberation that can be directly experienced without the mediation of priests (or absolution).

(geocities.com/thejesusanomaly)

Is Jesus a Buddhist?

The similarities to Jesus' doctrine are strikingly clear, and much has been made of them in the scholarship of comparative religions (e.g., see a comparison of sayings). If one looks more deeply into the core teachings, one recognizes Jesus as behaving like a yogi and bodhisattva. He perhaps was under the sway of a messianic complex, being seen or seeing himself as Maitreya Buddha come again. Even today it would not be difficult to idealize him as a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

Mahayana Shakyamuni Buddha with Jesus of Nazareth (consciouslivingfoundation.org)

TEACHINGS IN INDIA

• CHAPTER IV

8. The divine child, to whom was given the name of Issa, began from his earliest years to speak of the one and indivisible God, exhorting the souls of those gone astray to repentance and the purification of the sins of which they were culpable.

9. People came from all parts to hear him, and they marveled at the discourses proceeding from his childish mouth. All the Israelites were of one accord in saying that the Eternal Spirit dwelt in this child.

10. When Issa had attained the age of thirteen years, the epoch when an Israelite should take a wife,

11. The house where his parents earned their living by carrying on a modest trade began to be a place of meeting for rich and noble people, desirous of having for a son-in-law the young Issa, already famous for his edifying discourses in the name of the Almighty.

12. Then it was that Issa left the parental house in secret, departed from Jerusalem, and with the merchants set out towards Sind,

13. With the object of perfecting himself in the Divine Word and of studying the laws of the great Buddhas.

• CHAPTER V

1. In the course of his fourteenth year, the young Issa, blessed of God, came on this side of Sind and established himself among the Aryas in the land beloved of God.

2. Fame spread the reputation of this marvelous child throughout the length of northern Sind, and when he crossed the country of the five rivers and the Rajputana, the devotees of the god Jaine prayed him to dwell among them.

3. But he left the erring worshippers of Jaine and went to Juggernaut in the country of Orissa, where repose the mortal remains of Vyasa-Krishna and where the white priests of Brahma made him a Joyous welcome.

4. They taught him to read and understand the Vedas, to cure by aid of prayer, to teach, to explain the holy scriptures to the people, and to drive out evil spirits from the bodies of men, restoring unto them their sanity.

5. He passed six years at Juggernaut, at Rajagriha, at Benares, and in the other holy cities. Everyone loved him, for Issa lived in peace with the Vaisyas and the Sudras ["outcastes"], whom he instructed in the holy scriptures.

6. But the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas told him that they were forbidden by the great Para-Brahma to come near to those whom he had created from his side and his feet;

7. That the Vaisyas ["laborers"] were only authorized to hear the reading of the Vedas, and this on festival days only;

8. That the Sudras were forbidden not only to assist at the reading of the Vedas, but also from contemplating them, for their condition was to serve in perpetuity as slaves to the Brahmans [Brahmin priestly caste], the Kshatriyas [administrators, warriors, nobles], and even the Vaisyas.

9. "'Death only can set them free from their servitude' has said Para-Brahma. Leave them then and come and worship with us the gods, who will become incensed against thee if thou cost disobey them."

10. But Issa listened not to their discourses and betook him to the Sudras, preaching against the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas.

11. He inveighed against the act of a man arrogating to himself the power to deprive his fellow beings of their rights of humanity; "for," said he, "God the Father makes no difference between his children; all to him are equally dear."

12. Issa denied the divine origin of the Vedas* and the Puranas*. "For," taught he to his followers, "a law has already been given to man to guide him in his actions; *[The Abhedananda version of the Himis transcript does not include this denunciation.]

13. "Fear thy God, bend the knee before him only, and bring to him alone the offerings which proceed from thy gains."

14. Issa denied the Trimurti and the incarnation of Para-Brahma in Vishnu, Siva*, and other gods, for said he: *[The Abhedananda version of the Himis' transcript does not include this denunciation.]

15. "The Judge Eternal, the Eternal Spirit, comprehends the one and indivisible soul of the universe, which alone creates, contains, and vivifies all. *Inasmuch as Jesus' closest disciple, John, begins his Gospel with a quote from the Vedas, "In the beginning was the Word . . . " the authenticity of this passage may be questioned. (Notation added by Notovitch)... Read more

Detail of mudra and dillo (annhuey.com)