Lost cursed Buddhist temple, Cambodia

(PraveenMohan) The cursed temple that saw our end | Praveen Mohan

• Hindu deity (avatar) Kalki
• Who is Manu?
• Manu (Hinduism): the progenitor of humankind

Monks' Peace Walk: Meet Aloka the Dog

(WFMY News TV) Where will the monks be on MLK Day, Jan. 19, 2026? In Greensboro, NC

(WFMY News 2) Day 86: Ven. Pannakara full speech in High Point, NC

(FOX 8 WGHP) Buddhist monks' Walk for Peace with Aloka the Dog crosses into High Point

(WFMY News 2) Monks walk peacefully to Greensboro on East MLK Jr. Dr. at I-7 on MLK Day

(AmeriScope) 2,300-mile Peace Walk through state capitals across USA is touching a nerve

Aloka's 2,300-mile route goes through ten states and their capitals all the way to DC.

(US Current Affairs) Buddhist monks walk 2,300 miles for peace - America stops to watch

(WACH FOX) Buddhist monks reach South Carolina on their U.S. "Walk for Peace" to DC

(WBTV News - Charlotte) Hundreds of Americans travel to Pineville to see Buddhist monks on their Walk for Peace

• (Snehashis Priya Barua) Aloka find his way back: a heartwarming reunion

(WBTV News - Charlotte) Buddhist monks' Peace Walk through the Carolinas: Sitting down with the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara

This story is easy to do because the men at Wisdom Quarterly are dog people, who love dogs and fish and only recently warmed up to the wonder of cats. Who would have guessed that a dog can be a monk's best friend?

I need good human companions on this path.

Aloka is a very special male Buddhist rescue dog of Indian origin, who has become widely known as "Aloka the Peace Dog" in 2025–2026. Why? It is due to [the karma of] accompanying a group of Theravada Buddhist monks (bhikkhus) from Chùa Hương Đạo Temple on a Walk for Peace across the United States [1].

• Animals in Buddhism
• Karma (the deeds we do) in Buddhism
• Buddhist concept of friendship
• Photo: Sam Dixon | Facebook

(WCNC) 'Life-changing speech': Chris Mulcahy shares experience visiting

monks on 'Walk for Peace' (mindfulness versus our 'lover' smartphones)

(WBTV News - Charlotte) Buddhists walking thousands of miles for peace

(WSPA 7 News) Day 73: Monks cross from Georgia into South Carolina

It is believed to be a Pariah dog originally living as a stray when it encountered a group of Vietnamese American Buddhist monks in 2022 [2], participating in a peace pilgrimage across India.

Excellent medical care for best friend Aloka

According to the monks, Aloka began following them during their walk and despite facing hardships – including being hit by a car and falling seriously ill during the journey – it (he) repeatedly rejoined the peace procession.

• PHOTOS: Aloka the Peace Dog recovering from surgery after being injured during peace walk with Buddhist monks
• Aloka the dog had leg surgery. Will he [be able to] rejoin [the Buddhist] monks on Walk for Peace?

• FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
• Walk for Peace | Facebook
• Aloka the Peace Dog | Facebook
• Aloka the Peace Dog (@alokathepeacedog) • IG
• Abbot: Bhikkhu Paññākāra (chuahuongdao.org)

The monks then adopted the dog, named it Aloka (guiding light), and brought it back to the United States [3, 4].

Can we make peace? (insightla.org)

Aloka's prominence grew when it joined a larger American initiative called the "Walk for Peace." This event began on October 26, 2025, when a group of approximately 19 Theravada Buddhist monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, set out on a roughly 2,300‑mile walk from Texas to Washington, D.C.

You love dogs? - I love ALL living beings.

Aloka has walked alongside the Buddhist monks, sometimes on foot and other times riding in a support vehicle when needed [3].

It has a distinctive heart‑shaped marking on its forehead and has amassed a large following on social media platforms [5]. More

Map of the monks' spiritual journey (yatra) from Fort Worth, TX, to Washington, DC

• Aloka the Peace Dog joins Buddhist monks' Walk of Peace, becomes viral star (People magazine)
• What happened to Aloka the peace dog? What we know following surgery
• Aloka the Peace Dog recovering from surgery after being injured during a peace walk with Buddhist monks

• (The Week) Meet Aloka, the dog who is accompanying 19 American Theravada Buddhist monks from Southeast Asia on a 37,000 km peace walk to spread peace and kindness throughout the USA
• As a literal mark of skillful karma performed in the past, one is reborn (due to some heavier unskillful karma) in the Animal Realm below the human plane of existence but with beauty and marks on the fur, skin, or feathers. Behold the perfectly formed white heart on Aloka's third eye/forehead.
• Aloka literally means "light" and is sometimes used as a synonym for "white"
• Aloka the Peace Dog recovering from surgery after being injured during a peace walk with Buddhist monks
• Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center | Fort Worth TX | Facebook
• Huong Dao Temple (92 photos) 4713 E Rosedale St, Fort Worth
• Instagram
• The Week (India); Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Sex w/Denny: Neanderthal-Denisovan

The ‘big head’ people: Scientists uncover a lost human species in Asia // 300K-year-old skull found in China unlike any early human seen before | CNN

.

Ancient humans (4 species) had a wild sex life

(Intrigued Mind) Ancient human species had wild sex lives with each other, creating hybrids

Female scientist discovers a hybrid girl with DNA from two different human species

(Did You Know?) Aug 30, 2024: Did You Know. Scientists discovered a human hybrid (half-breed) girl with DNA from two different human species -- Denisovan and Neanderthal. She's a real hominin.

• "Denny" hybrid hominin girl from Denisova

Ancient giants, other humans, and strange artifacts kept hidden from us

Join this family for more exclusive content and perks: @duknow-media. Also watch: Man walks 20 miles to work until one day cop follows him and sees why. #did_you_know

The Thug Life Sutra (discourse)

"Latin Thugs" by Cypress Hill with Mexican B Real, Scandinavian DJ Muggs, and Black Sen Dog, et al.

The Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is with a powerful simile of a turtle and a floating wooden ring.

Dhr. Seven (trans.), Ashley Wells (ed.), Chiggala Sutta, "A Hole 1," Sacca Samyutta (SN 56.47) via suttafriends.org, Beth Upton (bethupton.com) recommendation

Karma: Giselle Bundchen saves sea turtle

“Meditators, suppose a person were to throw a piece of wood with a single hole in it into the ocean -- and there were a blind turtle in that ocean who popped up only once every hundred years.

“What do you think? Would that blind turtle, popping up once every century, ever poke its neck through the hole in that piece of wood?”

“Only after a very long time, venerable sir, if ever.”

“Meditators, I say, that blind turtle, popping up only once every hundred years, would poke its neck through the hole in that piece of wood sooner than a foolish person who has fallen into [rebirth in] the lower worlds would be reborn again as a human being.

[The thug life]

“Why is that? Meditators, it is because in lower worlds there is no Dharma practice or accruing merit.

“In the lower worlds [subhuman rebirths known as the downfall*], they just prey on each other, preying on the weak.

“Why is that? It is because they have not seen the Four Noble Truths. What four [ennobling truths]?

1. the ennobling truth of suffering
2. the ennobling truth of the origin of suffering
3. the ennobling truth of the end of suffering
4. the ennobling truth of the path that leads to the end of all suffering.

I look nothing like a turtle! (Mitch McConnell)

“Therefore, meditators, make an effort to understand: ‘This is suffering.’ Make an effort to understand: ‘This is the origin of suffering.’ Make an effort to understand: ‘This is the end of suffering.’

“Make an effort to understand: ‘This is the path that leads to the end of all suffering.’”

• Human beings in Buddhism
• A Buddhist Response to Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence (Bhikkhu Bodhi)
• "A Hole 2" (SN 56.48) Dutiya Chiggala Sutra (Sutta Friends)
• Chiggala Sutta: "The Hole" (Ven. Thanissaro, accesstoinsight.org)
• The Playboy (masturbation with Chester Brown)
• *"Subhuman rebirths"? (niraya or "downward path" of animals, asuras/demons, hungry ghosts, and the many hells or naraka in Buddhism)

The Root-Races of Humankind (video)

Gary Lite (June 24, 2018); Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

THE ROOT RACES OF MANKIND

Blavatsky, Buddhistic psychic, Theosophist

This is my (Gary Lite) own presentation of the story. I encourage all to investigate for themselves rather than taking everything said and shown here literally

The book The Root Races of Mankind by Scott Ramsey (awarenessofnothing.com) explains that there are seven "root-races" or evolutionary cycles through which humanity evolves.

Each root-race is divided into seven minor cycles called sub-races, which are again subdivided into seven branches or family races. These sub-divisions are related to the modern concept of races and ethnicities.

It must be stressed that the sub-races refer to cultural qualities and not to the level of evolution of the people. They are different evolutionary stages humanity as a whole goes through successively. The same individuals that compose the current humanity have been reborn in all of the previous root-races.

The root races are stages in human evolution in the esoteric cosmology of theosophist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, aka Madame Blavatsky, as described in her book The Secret Doctrine (1888). Theosophy was an early Buddhistic Eastern-Western syncretism, teaching what Blavatsky was told by her invisible spiritual teacher and realized by her own psychic intuition.

These races existed mainly on now-lost continents. According to Blavatsky's writings, there will be seven root races assembled for our Earth. Each root-race is divided into seven sub-races. Only five root races have appeared so far; the sixth is expected to emerge in the 28th century.

We are presently at the fifth stage, referred to as the "Aryans." Aryan is a Sanskrit word that means "noble." It is unfortunate that the term "Aryan" was adopted and perverted by Adolf Hitler and his intellectual predecessor's fantasies of an "Aryan Superman” and is still used today by right-wing white power extremists.

Hitler and his inner circle also perverted some genuine ancient symbols, like the swastika (an ancient Vedic and Buddhist symbol).

There have been on Earth many civilizations of which we know nothing. These races evolve from ether to material. So every living organic species of animal and vegetation changes with every new root-race. Every sub-race and nation has its cycles and stages of developmental evolution repeated on a smaller scale.

Our race then has, as a root-race, crossed the middle line of the root-races and is cycling onward on the spiritual side. The periods of the great root-races are divided from each other by great convulsions of nature and by great geological changes.

Every root-race is separated by a catastrophe, a cataclysm -- the basis and historical foundation of the fables woven later into the religious fabric of every people, whether civilized or primitive, under the names of “deluges,” “showers of fire,” and the “great flood.”

Our present continents have been submerged and had the time to reappear again and bear their new groups of humankind and civilization. At the first great geological upheaval, at the next cataclysm, in the series of periodic cataclysms, that occur from the beginning to the end of every round [samsaric revolutions or cycles], our known continents will go down, and ancient continents will arise again.

It must be remembered that the Theosophical concept is that "souls" develop through an evolutionary process from: (1) Mineral to (2) Plant to (3) Animal to (4) Human. There is no transmigration backward so that a human cannot go backwards to an animal or plant for example.

Francis Bacon (whom Theosophy considers to be the legendary Count of St. Germain) in his work The New Atlantis (1627) describes a potential future civilization which lives on a land called Bensalem.

The first root-race (Polarian)

The first root-race was "ethereal" [deva]. They were composed of etheric matter. They reproduced by dividing like amoeba. Earth was still cooling at that time.

The first mountain to arise out of the stormy primeval ocean was Mount Meru [as it is known in Buddhist cosmology, also called Mt. Sumeru].

The earth on which the first race lived was more ethereal than it is today but relatively hard and condensed in comparison with those non-self-conscious "human" protoplasts.

They had huge translucent or transparent bodies, ovoid though somewhat fluid in form, with no bones or organs, and no hair or skin. They slowly grew more solid but remained ethereal until the end.

 

Website for universal truth: 369universe.com 369news.net. Small donations accepted by clicking here: paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... Thanks 🙏💗.

Do animals help each other? (video)

Happiness Kingdom, 4/2/17; Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Sheldon S., Wisdom Quarterly

Is this mongoose bumming a ride on this bird, or is something more sinister aloft? Whatever's happening, it has to be a great day for the mongoose flying. This is famous footage, and what happens is not what it seems. But for one moment, a bird became a plane, a mammal sprouted wings, and no one would believe it without video to prove it.

Animals Help and Harm Other Animals

Animals, while not human, can be very humane and heroic. Animals sometimes help save one another. They have saved humans. How did they know? Our faith in animals, which we tend to know as children, can be restored. Humans to be human must be humane. 

• (Euthanasia is murder in the guise of "humane" treatment with horrendous karmic results. Our own distress at seeing an animal or human suffer causes us to kill and pat ourselves on the back as "humane" when it is murder with the karmic results of killing, running counter to the first precept).

Animals feel, they love, they form attachments, they care for one another, help one another, and they matter. Would a swan feed a fish? Would a cat save a fish? Would a dog? Would a bear save a baby? Would a bear save a crow from drowning? Would a dog swim out to save a baby bird? Would a bird save a bird or a tortoise a tortoise? Do elephants bother to say goodbye to the dead? Do dogs suffer broken hearts or desperately try to "wake up" their dead friend? Would cat try to resuscitate an injured cat? Yes.

Letting Go (sutra)

Ven. Nyanaponika Thera (trans.), Pahana Sutra (SN 36.3), Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Right view leads heart/mind to stop clinging.

"In the case of pleasant feelings, O meditators, the underlying tendency (proclivity, anusaya) to lust (greed, craving, clinging, holding on to) should be let go.

"In the case of painful feelings, the underlying tendency to resistance (hatred, aversion, dosa) should be let go.

"In the case of neutral feelings (neither-painful-nor-pleasant), the underlying tendency to ignorance (delusion, wrong view,confusion) should be let go.
 

The Struggle of Letting Go (BPS.lk)

"If a meditator has let go of the tendency

• to lust with regard to pleasant feeling
• to resistance with regard to painful feelings, and
• to ignorance with regard to neutral feelings,

then that person is called 'one who is free of (unwholesome) tendencies,' 'one who has the right outlook (right view).'

 

"Such a person has cut off craving, severed the fetters (that bind one to rebirth and suffering), and through the full penetration of conceit,* one has made an end of all suffering."

• "Conceit" refers in particular to self-conceit (asmi-mana), that is, "personality view," on both intellectual and the emotional levels.

What is the right view to be able to let go?

"If one feels joy, but knows not feeling's nature, bent towards greed (clinging), one will not find deliverance.

"If one feels pain, but knows not feeling's nature, bent toward hate (aversion), one will not find deliverance.

"And even neutral feeling, which as the peaceful Lord of Wisdom has proclaimed -- if, in attachment, one should cling to it -- one will be stuck in the Round of Rebirth and Suffering.

"And having done so, in this very life will be free from defilements, free from taints. Mature in knowledge, firm in Dharma's ways, when once that person's lifespan ends, this body breaks up, all measure and concept one has transcended.

• Catalan: pro-independence by exiled Carles Puigdemont
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah founder of Pakistan from India 1948

The Buddhist Attitude Toward Nature

Lily de Silva (BPS.lk/ATI); Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Wise attention and wise reflection

The Cakkavattisihanada Sutra (DN 26) predicts the future course of events when human morals undergo further degeneration. Gradually human health will deteriorate so much that life expectancy will diminish until at last the average human lifespan is reduced to ten years, marriageable age to five years.

 

At that time all delicacies such as ghee, butter, honey, and so on will have disappeared from the Earth; what is considered the poorest coarse food today will become a delicacy then. Buddhism maintains that there is a close link between human morals and the natural resources available.

 

According to a discourse in the Numerican Discourses (AN), when profligate lust, wanton greed, and wrong values grip the heart of humans and immorality becomes widespread in society, timely rain does not fall. When timely rain does not fall, crops are adversely affected by various pests and plant diseases. Through lack of nourishing food, human mortality and morbidity rates rise (A. I, 160).

 

Several sutras from the Pali canon show that early Buddhism believes there to be a close relationship between human morality and the natural environment. This idea has been systematized in the theory of the Five Natural Laws (niyamas, pañca niyama-dhamma) in the later commentaries (Atthasalini, 854).

There are five natural laws or orders: seasons, seeds, mind, karma, and Dharma.

.

According to this theory, in the cosmos there are Five Natural Laws, orders, regularities, or forces at work, namely: utu-niyama ("season-law"), bija-niyama ("seed-law"), citta-niyama ("mind-law"), kamma-niyama ("karma-law"), and dhamma-niyama (Dharma-law). 

They can be translated as physical laws, biological laws, psychological laws, moral laws, and causal laws, respectively. While the first four laws operate within their respective spheres, the last-mentioned law of causality operates within each of them as well as among them.

 

This means that the physical environment of any given area conditions the growth and development of its biological component, that is, the flora and fauna. These in turn influence the thought pattern of the people interacting with them.

Modes of thinking determine moral standards. The opposite process of interaction is also possible. The morals of humans influence not only the psychological makeup of the people but the biological and physical environment of the area as well. 

So the Five Laws demonstrate that humans and nature are bound together in a reciprocal causal relationship with changes in one necessarily bringing about changes in the other.

 

The commentary on the Cakkavattisihanada Sutra goes on to explain the pattern of mutual interaction further (Dh.A III, 854). 

• When humankind is demoralized through greed, famine is the natural outcome;
• when moral degeneration is due to ignorance, epidemic is the inevitable result;
• when hatred is the demoralizing force, widespread violence is the ultimate outcome.

Nature is sacred and spiritual (jiuzhaigou1/tenlivingcities.org)

 
If and when humankind realizes that large scale devastation has taken place as a result of our moral degeneration, a change of heart takes place among the few surviving human beings. With gradual moral re-generation, conditions improve through a long period of cause and effect and humankind again starts to enjoy gradually increasing prosperity and longer life.

 

The world, including nature and humans, stands or falls with the type of moral force at work. If immorality grips society, humans and nature deteriorate; if morality reigns, the quality of human life and nature improves. 

So greed, hatred, and delusion produce pollution within and without. Generosity, compassion, and wisdom produce purity within and without. This is one reason the Buddha has pronounced that the world is led by the mind, cittena niyati loko (S. I, 39). So humanity and nature, according to the ideas expressed in early Buddhism, are interdependent.

Human Use of Natural Resources

For survival humankind will have to depend on nature for food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and other requisites.

 

For optimum benefits humans have to understand nature so that he can utilize natural resources and live harmoniously with nature. By understanding the working of nature -- for example, the seasonal rainfall pattern, methods of conserving water by irrigation, the soil types, the physical conditions required for growth of various food crops, and so on -- humans can learn to get better returns from our agricultural pursuits.

But this learning has to be accompanied by moral restraint if we are to enjoy the benefits of natural resources for a long time. Humans must learn to satisfy our needs and not feed on our greeds. The resources of the world are not unlimited, whereas human greed knows neither limit nor satiation. 

Modern humans in our unbridled voracious greed for pleasure and acquisition of wealth have exploited nature to the point of near impoverishment.

 

Ostentatious consumerism is accepted as the order of the day. One writer says that within forty years Americans alone have consumed natural resources to the quantity of what all mankind has consumed for the last 4000 years (Quoted in Vance Packard, The Waste Makers, London, 1961, p. 195). More

Was the Buddha a God? (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly translation, Dona Sutra (AN 4:36); Bhikkhu Bodhi (the defilements); Ven. Thanissaro (explanatory note); Justalittledust.com

A golden Buddha rises from the forest in Thailand (Thai-on/flickr.com)

The Story of Dona the Brahmin as a hymn by MOD (TBCM.org.my, Malaysia)

  

Gandharan scroll (justalittledust.com)

[Thus have I heard.] At one time the Blessed One was traveling along the road between Ukkattha and Setabya while the Brahmin Dona was traveling along the same road.

The Brahmin Dona saw in the Blessed One's footprints thousand-spoked wheels, together with rims and hubs, complete in all of their features. On seeing them, the thought occurred to Dona, "Amazing and astounding, these are not the footprints of an ordinary human being!"
 
Then the Blessed One, leaving the road, went to sit at the root of a tree -- legs crossed, body erect, establishing [the four foundations of] mindfulness before him.
 

The statue is massive (Thai-on/flickr.com)

And Dona, following the Blessed One's footprints, saw him sitting there at the root of that tree -- confident and inspiring confidence, with senses calmed, heart/mind calmed, having attained the utmost self-control and tranquility, tamed, with senses restrained and guarded, a great being (naga).

• [Naga is a term used to describe similar great beings, like tusker elephants or magical and/or extraterrestrial dragons. It was adopted by early Buddhists as yet another epithet for the Buddha and enlightened Buddhist disciples.]

On seeing him, Dona went up to [the Buddha] and asked, "Master, would you be a divine light being (godling, divinity, deity, deva)?" [See note below].
  

"No, Brahmin, I am not a divine light being."

 
"Would you be a divine messenger (angel/os, spirit, gandhabba)?"

"No, Brahmin, I am not a divine messenger."

"Would you be a mythical creature (yakkha)?"
 

"No, Brahmin, I am not a mythical creature."

"Would you be an ordinary human being?"
 

"No, Brahmin, I am not an ordinary human being."

 

Chiang Mai, northern Thailand (YR Journey/Arsenal1886london/flickr.com)

 
"When asked if you are a deva, gandhabba, yakkha, or an ordinary human being, you answer: 'No, Brahmin, I am not.' What sort of being are you then?"
 
"Brahmin, the defilements [asavas/taints and samyojanas/fetters] by which -- had they not been abandoned -- I would be a deva, gandhabba, yakkha, or an ordinary human being -- those are abandoned, their roots eradicated, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future rearising.
 
"Just like a red, blue, or white lotus -- born in water, grown up in water, rising above the water -- stands unsmeared by water so, too, I -- born in the world, grown up in the world, having risen above the world -- live unsmeared by the world. Remember me, Brahmin, as 'awakened.'
 

"The defilements by which I would go to [be reborn in] a deva-state, or become a gandhabba [angelic deva-messenger] in the sky, or go to a yakkha-state [becoming a "caretaker of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots," according to the Encyclopædia Britannica (2007)], or a human-state -- those have been eradicated by me, uprooted, their stems removed.

"Like a blue lotus rising up -- unsmeared by water -- unsmeared am I by the world, and so, Brahmin, I am awake."

• Human beings in Buddhism
• Revisiting Dona (Gandharan scroll) 
• In the Buddha's Words (preview of anthology)

Golden Buddha, mouth of Dambulla Cave, Sri Lanka (Richard Silver/rjsnyc/flickr.com)

 
Note: Now or in the future?
Noted by Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff, Abbot, Wat Metta) edited by Amber Larson (Wisdom Quarterly)

Tan Geoff's best translation

Dona's question is phrased in the future tense, which has led to a great deal of discussion as to what this entire dialogue means: Is he asking what the Buddha will be in a future life, or is he asking what he is right now? The context of the discussion seems to demand the present: Dona wants to know what kind of being would have such footprints. And the Buddha's image of the lotus -- which is born in muck but rises above it to spread its beauty and wondrous fragrance -- describes his present state. Yet, some might argue that the grammar of Dona's questions seem to demand the futuret. A.K. Warder in his famous book, Introduction to Pali (p. 55), notes that the future tense is often used to express perplexity, surprise, or wonder about something in the present. We do it in English as well: "What on earth would this be?" This seems to be the sense here. Dona's earlier statement, "These are not the footprints of a human being," is also phrased in the future tense yet does not mean "What would they be in the future?" The mood of wonder extends throughout Dona's conversation with the Buddha.

It is also possible that the Buddha's answers to Dona's questions -- which, like the questions, are phrased in the future tense -- are a form of word-play, in which the Buddha is using the future tense in both its meanings, to refer both to his present and to his future state.
 
The Buddha not identifying himself as a human being relates to a point made throughout the Canon, which is that an awakened person can no longer really be defined in any way at all. On this point, see MN 72, SN 22.85, SN 22.86, and/or the article "A Verb for Nirvana." Because a mind/heart with clinging is "located" by its clinging, an awakened person is trapped, fettered, or located in no place at all in this or any other world: This is why one is unsmeared by the world (loka), like the lotus which is unsmeared by water it springs from.

The defilements left behind
Bhikkhu Bodhi (In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon/Wikipedia.org asava), edited by Dhr. Seven (Wisdom Quarterly)

Various points about various definitions of the mental defilements, defilements of the heart, obstacles to insight and enlightenment and liberation are collected and summarized by the American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi:

The āsavas or taints are a classification of defilements considered in their role of sustaining the forward movement of the process of [re]birth and death.

The commentaries derive the word from a root su meaning "to flow." Scholars differ as to whether the flow implied by the prefix ā is inward or outward; hence some have rendered it as "influxes" or "influences," others as "outflows" or "effluents."

A stock passage in the suttas  [Pali "discourses," sutras] indicates the term's real significance independently of etymology when it describes the āsavas as states "that defile, bring renewal of existence, give trouble, ripen in suffering, and lead to future birth, aging and death" (MN 36.47; I 250).

Thus other translators, bypassing the literal meaning, have rendered it "cankers," "corruptions," or "taints." The three taints mentioned in the Nikāyas [discourse collections, volumes] are respectively synonyms for craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance. [The fourth āsava, attachment to views, appears in the commentaries.]

When the disciple's mind is liberated from the taints by the completion of the path of [enlightenment] arhantship, one reviews this newly won freedom and roars a lion's roar:

"Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what [was] to be done has been done; there is no more coming back to any state of being" (In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon, edited and introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2005, p. 229).
 
Earlier British Buddhist scholars Rhys Davids and William Stede (1921-25) state in part that "Freedom from the 'āsavas' constitutes full enlightenment" [entry on āsava (pp. 115-16)].