Zen's Bodhidharma on the ONE method

The ONE practice that contains every spiritual method | Bodhidharma's breakthrough sermon

(ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE) April 17, 2026: What if one single practice contained every other spiritual method within it?

In this final chapter of the series, the First Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma [from India] reveals the most essential teaching of his entire lineage — and it begins with beholding the mind.

 

This video is a direct transmission of Buddhist Wisdom that cuts through centuries of misunderstanding about what spiritual practice truly means.

Discover why temples, rituals, chanting, and good deeds alone cannot free us — and what actually can.

In this sermon, Bodhidharma teaches

→ The single method that contains all other methods

→ The three hidden poisons (greed, anger, delusion) — and how they silently run our life

→ The six "thieves" operating through our own senses, robbing us of peace every day

→ Why "three asankhya kalpas [aeons of indeterminate length]" of hardship is not what most people think

→ The true meaning of the six perfections (paramitas), the three sets of precepts, and invoking the Buddha

→ How to behold our own mind and free ourselves from suffering — in this very lifetime.

This is not a lecture. This is Buddhist Wisdom spoken directly — clear, unfiltered, and as alive today as it was 1,500 years ago.

📌 THIS SERIES

• Chapter 1 — Blood Stream Sermon (watch first)
• Chapter 2 — Wake-Up Sermon
• Chapter 3 — Breakthrough Sermon (you are here)

🔍 TOPICS COVERED

• Bodhidharma teachings | Breakthrough Sermon | Beholding the mind | Three Poisons in Buddhism | Six Perfections (paramitas) explained | Buddha Nature | Zen Buddhism | Buddhist Wisdom for modern life | First Zen Patriarch | Liberation from suffering | Three sets of precepts | Six thieves of the mind | Enlightenment teachings
• Bodhidharma: between myth and reality (Penglai Martial Arts)

Every week, this channel brings rare Buddhist Wisdom drawn from the original [Mahayana] teachings of the great masters — Bodhidharma, Bankei, Linji Yixuan, and the earliest Zen patriarchs. If the ancient path to liberation is what one are looking for [that person might try Theravada, a back-to-basics Buddhist movement that holds the teachings of the historical Buddha in the highest esteem over subsequent Mahayana interpretations and apocryphal inclusions, distortions, and additions], subscribe and turn on notifications to never miss a teaching.

This video is best experienced in a quiet space, and with full attention. #BuddhistWisdom #Bodhidharma #ZenBuddhism. How this was made: auto-dubbed and audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated.

Why do good things happen to bad people?

Reckless driver gets instant karmic result? - AI: Fish killers kill tuna then get eaten by shark

(Buddha's Wisdom) What the Buddha NEVER said about KARMA | The Western Lie

Karma is so complex a topic that trying to fathom the "working out of karma" is something on a scale so staggering that it is considered one of the Four Imponderables in Buddhism. Only a buddha can begin to navigate the intricacies, probabilities, and intrepidities of how any deed (action) will meet its many results.

Therefore, the comic above is very funny. Of course, we do not see things working out! We are, for one thing, looking on too infinitesimally small a timescale. For another, imagine just the balls on a billiard table. They are all more or less equal, except for positioning.

One ball bangs into them, and no one can predict where they will go -- not even the one with the stick banging one into the others in a very controlled setting. Now take the countless variables associated with any single deed -- the intention behind it, the thoughts after it, the unknowable impacts on others... It's just too much.

Even the Buddha, when he looked into the future, did not give an exact date when things would happen. But he did know that when this or that sign appear, the results are coming, and that was on a grand scale of collective karma.

More importantly he knew that it was not possible for bad karma (such as the breaking of the Five Precepts) to produce a welcome result. This seems like nonsense to us because we get pleasant results from breaking them all the time.

What we don't know is that that result is not the karmic result, the vipaka. When that resultant ripens, woe. If we knew that, what we shrink back from the unskillful, the unwholesome, and the unwise courses of action, of which there are ten, the Ten Courses of Unwholesome Action.

The Four Imponderables

The acinteyya are identified in the Acintita Sutta (AN 4.77), as follows [8]. There is the:

1. buddha-range of buddhas [i.e., the range of powers a Buddha develops as a result of becoming a buddha];
2. jhana-range of one absorbed in jhanas (the meditation absorptions) [i.e., the range of powers that one may obtain while absorbed in the jhanas];
3. [precise working out of the] results of karma;
4. speculation about [the origin, etc., of] the cosmos.

These four are imponderables that ought not to be speculated about [as doing so may lead one to become unhinged and nevertheless not understand them, when the path-of-practice that is the purification of the mind/heart is here and yields insight into all these things and why they are imponderable in the first place].

• NOTE: (SN 56.41 develops this speculation as the ten indeterminate).

Acinteyya literally means "that which cannot or should not be pondered or thought about, the unthinkable, the incomprehensible, the impenetrable, that which goes beyond the limits of thinking and over which therefore one should not ponder.

These Four Imponderables (unthinkables) are:

1. the sphere of a buddha (buddha-visaya),
2. the sphere of the meditative absorptions (jhāna-visaya),
3. the sphere of karmic-results (kamma-vipāka),
4. brooding over the world (loka-cintā), particularly over an absolute first beginning of it. (See A.IV.77).

SUTRA

"Therefore, O meditators, do not brood [fret, preoccupy, waste time, become distressed] over the world as to whether it is eternal or not eternal, finite or infinite (limited or endless)...

"Such brooding, O meditators, is senseless, has nothing to do with genuine good conduct (see ādibrahmacariyaka-sīla, "supreme or higher morality"), does not lead to turning away, letting go, extinction [of delusion and suffering], nor to peace, full comprehension, awakening (enlightenment), and nirvana, and so on" (S.56.41).

• Buddha's Wisdom (video); Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary; commentary and editing by Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Short Attn Span Theatre: Karma, Jake Paul

New Year's message: Time and Karma

(The Theory of Samsara)

The Time Experiment (explained)

• Michel Siffre experiments on chronobiology
• Michel Siffre: The man who went into a cave and accidentally invented an entire field of biology (IFLScience)
• Michel Siffre: This man spent months alone underground – and it warped his mind (New Scientist)

The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life

The social psychology of time?

Author Stanford University Social Psychologist Dr. Philip Zimbardo and Dr. John Boyd have 4.4 out of 5 stars (with 326 reviews).

Our every significant choice -- every important decision we make -- is determined by a force operating deep inside our mind: our perspective on time -- our internal, personal time zone.

This is the most influential force in our life, yet we are virtually unaware of it. Once we become aware of our personal time zone, we can begin to see and manage our life in exciting new ways.

Be Here Now (Dr. Ram Dass, Ph.D.)

In The Time Paradox, Dr. Zimbardo and Dr. Boyd draw on 30 years of pioneering research to reveal, for the first time, how our individual time perspective shapes our life and is shaped by the world around us.

Further, they demonstrate that our and every other individual's time zones interact to create national cultures, economics, and personal destinies.

No matter our time perspective, we experience these paradoxes. Only by understanding this new psychological science of time zones will we be able to overcome the mental biases that keep us too attached to the past, too focused on immediate gratification, or unhealthily obsessed with future goals.

Time passes no matter what we do; it's up to us to spend it wisely and enjoy it well. More

Why do men look so much younger now?

(Jamel_AKA_Jamal) Why did men used to look older? Make It Make Sense | REACTION

Touch me now. It doesn't matter. I've got breast armor. I'm failed pop idol Catty Purry Brand.

.

I wish, I wish I were Daisy from Great Gatsby

It seemed to begin when I was a kid in middle school. I couldn't wait to get to the ninth grade so I could be all grown up like the seniors. They had mustaches, cars, and girls fawning all over them. But a strange thing happened, and I saw and noticed it in slow motion. Neither I nor my classmates were ever getting any older. We were the same people being promoted through the grades. The older kids left school never to be seen again, so there was no direct comparison. But in my I remember thinking that by the 9th grade, there was no real noticeable change. Sure, there was progression. We didn't freeze in time. What I mean is, we didn't become them. The 7th graders did NOT grow up to look like the 9th graders of our youth. What was going on? It might all be perspective, but everyone began to notice.

Japanese pederast gave us K-Pop looks (hormones)

San Fran pedophile whitewashed faces gave us it.

British perv or international comedic genius?

When we were kids, all the "kids" on TV were actually adults in the role of children. So if we saw ourselves in them, we were deceived. Just think of Dawson's Creek, Romeo + Juliet (with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes), My So-Called Life with Jared Leto, Strangers with Candy (the only honest show, featuring young Old Lady Amy Sedaris and young sparkly gay couple Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert (the gay version), MTV shows like Undressed (a sexy adult soap opera for tweens), Saved by the Bell (with sexpot Tiffani [Amber] Thiessen), to say nothing of my favorite show.

Attention whurs strippers stole the US sitcom?

That would be Mr. Show with Bob and David that gave us Sarah Silverman, Jack Black (who must have sold his soul to the Devil to be looking like he does), David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Brian Posehn, SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny)... They were old and balding then, so what to make of now?

Tell them then give the people what they want.

There was also Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with breakout superstars Julia Butters, Margaret Qualley, and a virtually unknown bleach blonde with Barbie tendencies and a taste for extreme metal, I think going by the name Margot Robbie.

Now we're all dying, and we're not even rich, famous, or part of the Hollywood (Illuminati) elite.

It's almost as if the Buddha were right:

1. All things are hurtling toward destruction (radically impermanent),
2. unable to satisfy or ever fulfill us (disappointing), and
3. utterly impersonal (not self).

These are called the Three Characteristics of All Conditioned Phenomena. We are conditioned phenomena (mind-body nama-rupa psycho-physical, well, not so much "entities" as "trans-i-ties."

There must be a "self"! Or else who's writing -- and who's reading? - There is a self, an atta or atman. Touch your chest; there's the self. It does no good to think, "Is there a 'self' or is there not a 'self'?" What is useful is to ask, What is the nature of that "self" that for sure is existing right here right now?

It is (as impossible as it will ever actually be to believe but actually possible to see) utterly impersonal. This is why Buddhism is not a faith.

• CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS "NOT SELF" BUSINESS? IT SEEMS LIKE A JOKE. - Yes. It is possible to explain with an analogy. Let's say I say, "There's no such thing as a 'car.'" Then pointing you'll say, "You're crazy. It's right there! They're everywhere. Cased closed!"
• But I'll say, "I didn't say there isn't anything that looks like a 'car.' The illusion exists, and it's quite useful to designate assemblages of things and cling to them as real entities, but the fact is -- in an ultimate sense -- there is no such thing as a car. You might ask, "What is there then?"

• To that I will point to all the parts that, when put together, give the illusion of a new thing coming into existence. It sure seems to come into existence. It can do things the parts couldn't, and conventionally speaking, it is new to existence. But it never really makes it. It is unreal, an illusion.
• "What's the proof?" you say.
• I say, "Let's take it apart and find it." We proceed to disassemble the whole assemblage, and when we come to the last two pieces and separate them, do you think a 'car' will fall out?
• No, it was never like that!
• Exactly! And what was it like? Let's say a car is composed of 5,000 pieces but really only needs five (5): wheels, frame, motor, steering wheel, and brake. Is there a 'car' in there, or do these exist independently?
• They exist independently. We don't need those particular pieces. Any set of wheels, frame, motor, steering device, and brake will do.
• Do you see? The 'car' does not come into being and, of course, never goes out of being, in an ultimate sense. An illusion arises, and an illusion goes away, and this "illusion" is a convenient descriptor of that assemblage.
• I don't get it.
• Let's make it easier. Fire does not exist.
• That's easier?
• Yeah, because now you can point and say, "You're crazy. That's it right there. There's fire everywhere. Case closed!"
• I will then counter by pointing out that what we call "fire," what we regard as real and existing and being "fire," is actually an illusion that arises utterly dependent on five factors.
• What five? It is just one thing, a fundamental element!
• Not at all. The five (and there can be more, but let's keep it to five fundamental ingredients which, when present, reliably give the persistent illusion of fire): fuel, heat, oxygen, wick, and the mysterious process-of-combustion. (We can go on and on analyzing "fire" into parts, but the one thing that is sure is that it is all parts, not a compact thing in itself).
• How do we know that?
• We know that because when present, Bam! The illusion arises. When any is missing, the illusion goes away. Put the five together (in a functionally coordinated way) and there it is, "fire." Take any way, and where has it gone? Where does fire go when it goes out?
• Up? No, I don't know, into oblivion?
• Does it wait in oblivion to come back? Because, let's say we remove oxygen, it will go right out. Add the oxygen back, and it will roar back. Where was it in the meantime?
• It was not anywhere. It does not actually "go" out. It becomes unmanifested.
• It becomes nonexistent, except it doesn't really come into and go out of existence either. It just seems to. Why? Because it is conditionally originated, that is, dependently originated. When this is, that comes to be. When that is not, it does not come to be.
• Oh, I kinda get it. I don't believe it! I think people, and fire, and cars are real. Real REAL.
• Can you begin to see, however, how and why someone might say they're unreal?
• Not really. That's crazy.
• It's crazy to our conventional way of worrying and needing to cling to illusions. But let's say we wanted to be free of illusions, then wouldn't it be great to disillusion ourselves?
• Disillusion?
• Awaken, enlighten, clearly see what's really there?
• Well, yeah, sure if we could be sure that that really is the Truth.
• We can. The Buddha saw it, pointed to it, and invited us to come and see, to clearly see the Truth, not to believe him or anyone else. We with our own purified and intensified eyes, heart, mind could come and see. Where is the car before the parts-of-a-car are assembled?
• It isn't anywhere.
• Where will it go when disassembled again?
• It won't "go" anywhere.
• Now you're getting it! It doesn't come or go because it was never really what it seemed to be. Illusion arises, that's for sure, and the illusion of the loss of it, that, too, is sure. But it isn't reality.
• Why would anybody talk like this?
• One (such as the Awakened One, the historical Buddha) would talk like this because we are clinging to pain (suffering, distress, disappointment) and the unreal. He wanted to move us to reality, and that means waking up to what's REALLY there and what's been there all along.
• What's that?
• Self and not-self.
• Aha! So there is a self?
• Yes, conventionally speaking. But ultimately speaking, no. There is no self.
• You're crazy. It's right there. I'm pointing at it. Case closed.
• And what are you pointing at?
• At you, Dummy! I can also point to myself, Smarty.
• Good, good. I say you're pointing at a body.
• Well, sure, but within that body there's a soul, and that's the self!
• Good, very good. The body is an illusion; you can see that much. Now let me disassemble the soul/self you're sure is in there. What are the components of "self"?
• There are no components! It's a highly mysterious fusiform whale carcass thingy with feelings.
• Ha ha ha. There is a body; that's one thing, but it is no thing. It is components. We can disassemble, reassemble, add, subtract, but still it's just a functional assemblage of parts. The "self" is partly that and partly four other things.
• Things? What things?
• Invisible things -- feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and a mysterious process we call consciousness. Whatever else we want to add to "self," it is at least these fundamental five things, these Five Aggregates clung to as "self."
• Oh. I think I'm starting to see. You're not crazy, but you're speaking dangerously. Aren't you afraid you're going to vanish in a puff of unsmoke for talking like this?
• What would vanish, the illusion? I'd be glad to get rid of it. It has cause incalculable misery (dukkha) and disappointment, chasing after things for it, never being able to satisfy or fulfill it. Ah, to be free!
• Free of "self"?
• No, free of the persistent illusion of "self" traveling and rearising life after life in this samsara, this Wheel of Rebirth, of Life and Death, of endless suffering (unsatisfactoriness)!
• Yeah, I guess that would be good, but what about taking rebirth in a permanent heaven and having a good time all the time till the end of time?
• Nice alternative, but it doesn't exist. The longest most enduring heavens all come to an end eventually. It may take a great aeon (maha-kalpa), but beings (dynamic becomings) fall away to continue on according to their just desserts which we call karma. And because of greed, hatred, and delusion (lust, aversion, and ignorance), our many unskillful deeds in pursuit of things will yield many painful results for a long, long time. It would be far better to awaken to the Truth.
• Well, I won't argue with that. But who can say what the "Truth" is?
• The Awakened One, the Buddha, and those enlightened ones who have awakened by practicing the Teaching (the Dharma) of the Awakened One(s).

Faith (saddha, confidence, truth, conviction) is useful but not nearly as important as a shamanistic attitude to actually come see the Buddha's Teaching, investigate it, and confirm it. It won't liberate us because it's true; it will liberate us because we PRACTICED whether or not we "believed" (had faith) in advance. Better to doubt and question AND practice than to completely "believe" and not practice.

• Modern Buddhists try to explain this away by various analogies, many of which amount to Hinduism with different gods and bodhisattvas. It's actually very easy to grasp intellectually and not be confused, almost impossible to accept, as if by accepting we would instantly disappear in a puff of unsmoke (as in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). We will not. The habitual tendency or "conceit" (māna) to conceive, think, and speak in terms of I-and-other is very strong and not easily wiped away, but actually wiping it away is key to awakening from illusion and clinging and suffering. It is the missing key to enlightenment.
• Even Mahayana, which often speaks like a school of Hinduism, could understand this if it only paid attention to its most prized and popular discourse, the Heart Sutra. It's not about love, feelings, and emotions; it's about getting to the heart of wisdom through the perfection of wisdom.
• What is there if not a self/soul? - There are Five Aggregates clung to as self. - Who clings?! - The aggregates, steeped in ignorance, cling and have aversion/fear. Released from the illusion (disillusioned), there is freedom and realization that the ultimate Truth was always true. - How does [the illusion of] self arise? - It comes about through Dependent Origination.
• Talking about "Emptiness" (Śūnyatā) and "Suchness" (Tathātā) obscures the fact that what the Five Aggregates clung to as self are devoid of is an abiding, enduring HEART, core, essence. Conditioned things do not last even one moment because in the sub-moments there is arising, turning, and falling away. This is true at a submicroscopic level of atoms (kalapas) and mind-moments (cittas), mind and body, name and form.
• All that is "self" bears the Three Marks of Existence mentioned above.
• And this is great news because to really see it, even for a moment, transforms the heart/mind, releases us from illusion, as we are able to effortlessly let go of clinging and be free through the perfection of wisdom, the direct experience of the Truth.
• This does not happen by accident. It happens by higher training.

Erin Brockovich, WQ: ABJ racked up another million views.

China's great empire before religion

(Audio Point) How ancient China survived without a single holy book. Can a human society survive Freedom from Religion?

• Confucianism
• Taoism
• Chinese shamanism (Pantheism)
• Mahayana Buddhism
• Meritocracy
• Empress Dowager Cixi

A woman was able to rise to supreme power?

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara Clan who had de facto but periodical control of the Chinese government in the late Qing Dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 years, from 1861 until her passing in 1908. Selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence, she gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's passing in 1861, his 5-year-old son became the Tongzhi Emperor, and Cixi assumed the role of co-empress dowager alongside Xianfeng's widow, Empress Dowager Ci'an. Empress Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed the regency along with Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875. Ci'an continued as co-regent until her death in 1881. More

The Buddhist way to give for Christmas

The Buddhist Way to Give at Christmas | No stress, just pure joy

(Buddha's Wisdom) Dec. 23, 2025: What if we could give at Christmas without stress, guilt, or keeping score?

• 🎁 CHRISTMAS DOESN'T HAVE TO FEEL HEAVY.
• DISCOVER HOW BUDDHIST WISDOM CAN TRANSFORM GIVING.

For 2,600+ years, Buddhists have practiced dāna (letting go, giving, sharing, generosity, charity), the art of generous giving that liberates both giver and receiver.

This ancient wisdom offers a profound alternative to the anxiety, obligation, and reciprocity calculations that often shadow modern Christmas giving.

Through Buddhist teachings, human psychology, and everyday Christmas moments, this video shows how giving without attachment changes not only the holiday season…but the mind/heart behind it.

📿 DISCOVER:

• The ancient practice of dāna and its three stages of joy (before, during, and after giving)
• Why expecting gratitude turns giving into stress
• Why the Buddha said the "gift of Dhamma [the Teaching, Doctrine, Dharma] surpasses all other gifts" and what this means for our Western pagan holiday we call Christmas (Christ's mass)
• The three moods of giving: reluctant, calculated, and free (and which one we're actually practicing)
• The hidden emotional contracts behind Christmas gifts
• How to give, and receive, without pressure, debt, or obligation

🙏 If this changes how you experience Christmas this year, subscribe to Buddha's Wisdom for weekly explorations of ancient practices that address modern life. The next video might be exactly what someone needs

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

• 00:00 Christmas magic meets Buddhist wisdom
• 01:19 The Christmas giving paradox
• 03:19 What is Dāna? The Buddhist art of generosity
• 06:13 The three moods of giving
• 11:01 How to practice dāna at Christmas
• 17:29 The ultimate Buddhist Christmas gift
• 19:30 The one gift experiment

📱 JOIN COMMUNITY: Instagram (buddhaswizdom), Facebook (buddhaswizdom), X (x.com/BuddhasWizdom), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/5ndnBU5...), TikTok (buddhas.wisdom). ☕ Support the channel: buymeacoffee.com/buddhaswisdom

#Buddhism, #Christmas, #BuddhistWisdom, #Dāna, #MindfulGiving, #StressFreeChristmas, #BuddhistTeachings, #Generosity, #SpiritualWisdom, #christmasgiving #Mindfulness #NonAttachment #HolidayStress #InnerPeace

📚 SOURCES AND FURTHER READING:

PRIMARY TEXTS:

• The Dhammapada (verse on the gift of Dhamma)
• Early Buddhist texts in the Pāli canon (teachings on dāna and generosity)
• Accounts of Anāthapiṇḍika's generosity (Vinaya Piṭaka)
• The Buddha's final teaching (Mahāparinibbāna Sutta)

SCHOLARLY CONTEXT:

"Dāna: The Practice of Giving" - Selected Essays from Early Buddhist Texts

"Generosity in Early Buddhism" - Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations and commentaries

"Buddhist Ethics" - Damien Keown (Oxford University Press)

MODERN APPLICATIONS: Studies on mindful giving and psychological wellbeing

Research on gratitude practices and stress reduction

Comparative religious studies: Generosity across traditions

© Buddha's Wisdom - Making ancient wisdom accessible for modern life.

• Buddha's Wisdom (YouTube), Dec. 23, 2025; Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Sheldon S., Crystal Quintero, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Reincarnation: What about MY past life?

(True Lives)

My past lives are me, right? I mean, that's "me" as much as this is, isn't it? How could the answer be that, ultimately speaking, I'm neither those people nor this one if, conventionally speaking, I'm as much that one as this one -- and bear the karma (the weight of deeds done good and ill in the past) of both, of all I have been? Answer? Be here now.

REBIRTH: patisandhi, literally "relinking, reunion," is one of the 14 functions of consciousness (viññāna-kicca). It is a karma-resultant type of consciousness that arises at the moment of conception, that is, with the forming of a new life in a mother's womb.

• REBIRTH: (punabbhava) literally, "re-becoming, again-becoming, rearising, "renewed existence," is a sutra term for "rebirth," which in later literature is mostly referred to as patisandhi.

Immediately afterwards consciousness sinks into the "subconscious stream of existence [becoming]" (bhavanga-sota). It is conditioned. Therefore, ever and ever-again, corresponding states of subconsciousness arise. Thus, it is really rebirth-consciousness that determines the latent character of a person.

"Neither has this (rebirth-) consciousness transmigrated [traveled] from the previous existence to this present existence, nor did it arise without such conditions as karma, karmic-formations, propensity, object, and so on.

That this consciousness has not come from the previous existence to this present existence, yet that it has come into existence by means of causes and conditions included in the previous existence, such as karma and so on, this fact may be illustrated by various things, such as:

• the echo,
• the light of a lamp,
• the impression of a seal,
• the image produced by a mirror
• [the movement of a wave across the ocean].
• [Doesn't a tsunami wave travel, after a massive quake, from Japan to California?]
• [No, never. The influence of it travels, but never does a single drop of water move from there to here. Stare at a wave. It seems to be a moving column of water moving across the ocean. But that is not what it is. What is it? It is one water molecule compressing another next to it and so on and so on. This compression and expansion, in a sense, is the "wave," not any particular drop of water. Strange but true.]

For just as the resounding of the echo is conditioned by a sound and so on and nowhere in the process is there a transmigration of sound has taken place, just so is it with this consciousness.

Furthermore, it is said: "In this continuous process, no sameness and no otherness can be found." For if there were full identity (between the different stages, past and present), then also milk could never turn into curd. And if there were a complete otherness, then curd could never come from milk....

If in the continuity of existence any karma-result [vipaka, phala] takes place, then this karma-result neither belongs to any other being, nor does it come from any other (karma), because absolute sameness and otherness are excluded here" (The Path of Purification, Vis, XVII 164ff).

In The Questions of King Milinda or Milindapahna (Mil.) it is said: "Now, Venerable Nāgasena, the one who is reborn, is that person the same as the one who has died, or is that person another?"

"Neither the same nor another" (Pali na ca so na ca añño).

"Give me an example."

"What do you think, O King: Are you now, as a grown-up, the same as you had been as a young and tender babe?"

"No, Venerable sir. Another person was the young and tender babe, but quite a different person am I now as a grown-up man."...

"...In the first watch of the night, is one lamp burning, and another in the middle watch, and yet another in the last watch of the night?"

"No, Venerable sir. The light during the whole night depends on one and the same lamp.''

"Just so, O King, is the chain of phenomena linked together. One phenomenon arises, another vanishes, yet all are linked together, one after the other, without interruption. In this way, one reaches the final state of consciousness neither as the same person nor as another.'' More: patisandhi

• True Lives (video); Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Vedas: Forbidden Archeologist Michael Cremo

(Gregg Braden Channel) Kali Yuga survival: What the Vedas say about the Reset | Michael Cremo

• Michael Cremo (and remote viewing), Coast to Coast, 11/6/25

Michael Cremo

Researcher and author Michael "The Forbidden Archeologist" Cremo discusses his latest work on consciousness and intriguing discoveries challenging conventional paleoanthropology. A focal point of the conversation is the recent discovery of a species of pachycephalosaur dinosaurs in Montana, USA, known for their distinctive domed skulls. These herbivorous dinosaurs measured about 10 feet long and lived approximately 75 million years ago, before being wiped out by an asteroid impact near the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Cremo challenges the long-held belief that humans and dinosaurs never coexisted. He cites evidence of human-like footprints dating back to the Cretaceous period and describes a "Jurassic dinosaur bone...with cut marks...like somebody had taken some sharp instrument and used it to strip the flesh off this dinosaur bone." These findings suggest a possible overlap between humans and dinosaurs, a position dismissed by mainstream scientists.

Currently involved in the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium project in India, Cremo says he is developing exhibits that explore concepts such as cyclic time and the soul's journey through different bodies (reincarnation) in different planetary systems.

He emphasizes the need for new explanations of human origins that incorporate all of the data -- particularly ooparts (out of place artifacts) and the concept of consciousness.

Having attended the Science of Consciousness Conference in Barcelona, Spain, he quotes one scientist from the conference who likened theories of consciousness to "toothbrushes," noting: "Everybody has one, but nobody seems to want to use the other person's," highlighting the fragmented and inconclusive nature of current scientific understanding.

Cremo argues that ancient civilizations had a sophisticated grasp of consciousness and the "self" (atman, ego) as distinct from the physical body. He points out that many ancient texts, such as the Vedic scriptures of the Brahmin priests claimed by Hinduism, describe a multidimensional universe (multiverse) with conscious selves transmigrating through various planes of existence.

"In the Vedic texts," he notes, "they speak of 400,000 human-like species scattered throughout the universe, some with amazing powers and abilities beyond what we are able to accomplish."

The Vedas also indicate there have been interactions between these entities and humans for vast periods of time called yugas, kalpas, and maha-kalpas (epochs, aeons, and great aeons). More

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