Heat in Southwest, snowstorm in Midwest

(Bari Weiss' CBS Evening News)

(Professor Jiang Classroom) Why the US could lose war with Iran | Professor Jinag Analysis

• The Jimmy Dore Show

How karma chooses our next life

(Buddha's Wisdom) How karma (our deeds) chooses our next life: Can we still change it?

Man turns into body-modification alien (video)

Kingofwierd; Cassandra Yorgey, Exemplore/MSN, 2/6/23; edited, expanded by Wisdom Quarterly

Look, I chopped off my fingers to be more "alien"! Isn't it cool? Soon they'll take me up!

Man undergoes extreme body modification to turn “alien”

Let's make out, KOW!

A body modification "enthusiast" says chopping off two of his fingers made him feel "complete." [Who are you to judge?]

He believes this is an “evolution project” to become less human and more alien, and he claims he’s less than halfway done. [He's 46% there and a nut. We'll let common sense be the judge.]

Madonna? (MSN)

He began is bod-mod journey at the age of 27, when he looked like the sort of large-muscled hunk that TV shows lead us to believe we will meet if we just buy a gym membership in January.

• Madonna looks like unrecognizable monster at Grammys
• How would religion react to proof of intelligent alien life? | Unveiled (Dailymotion) [Answer: After stringing up Neil DeGrasse Tyson for lying, people would probably burn down the churches Norway-style.]
• Scientific research may prove that humans are indigenous to outer space and, therefore, we're the aliens! (MSN)

Tell me I'm still beautiful! Tell me!!!

He had a nose ring and pierced ears, but little by little he pushed the boundaries far past the predictable or expected.

He cut off his nose, ears, upper lip, and two of his fingers; he split his tongue; he dyed his teeth purple, cut a hole in the bottom of his lip, and added implants to various parts of his body such as a raised spiral around his forearm under his skin.

He claims all of these changes have boosted his "self-confidence." [When the aliens land and round everybody up, they'll give me a higher position than the other prisoners, right King of Wierd?]

Please like me! Please! I'll hire an airbrush artist to make me look human again! Please!!

.

When asked what’s next, he says he’s ready to “take the leap” with leg amputation along with cutting off two more fingers. [You know there's a gal out there who loves it, gets it, and wants a relationship with KOW. She's probably champing at the bit just reading this. Yes, "champing," not "chomping." Look it up.]

While these changes certainly achieve the desired visual effect, none of these modifications will be passed on to offspring genetically, making it a misnomer to refer to it as any kind of “evolution.” [He could just take chemical drugs and harm his DNA and possibly pass that damage on.]

Some companies are attempting to make genetically-viable new species capable of reproduction through gene modification, although human testing would be wildly irresponsible at this point [unless done in secret at US and Chinese labs, as is certainly being done thanks to the CIA, DARPA, and similar secret police and spy agencies].

The company [named Colossal] intends to try and resurrect extinct species such as the dodo bird, Tasmanian tiger (thylacine), and Dumbo the furry elephant (woolly mammoth). More:

• Man undergoes extreme body modification to turn “Alien” (Exemplore News)
• Scientific research may prove humans are space aliens on earth (MSN.com)

@kingofwierd #duet with @thefeedski this guy is doing all this stuff to try to make himself look like an alien. let me know what you guys think about this. maybe he really is an alien and he's just trying to get back to his roots. who knows. I haven't looked into it much but this is kind of bizarre. I hope you enjoy the video. #alien #aliens #ufo #wearenotalone #conspiracy ♬ original sound - TheFeedski

Myths we've been told our whole life (video)

Ven. Ñanamoli; Pablito's Way; Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Kids, you'll go blind, I tell you, blind. - C'mon, dad, what are you talking about?

What are some myths we've been told our whole life? That Eve gave Adam an apple as the forbidden fruit?  [More likely, according to textual clues, it was a magic mushroom; DMT="magic"; the Christian Apocrypha states that it was a grape from which came alcohol, the ruin of Man.] That we can see the Great Wall of China from space? Find out more about lies that we've been told.

"Whatever IS will be WAS."

— Ven. Ñanamoli

 

Everything is permanent?

Ven. Ñanamoli, The Three Basic Facts of Existence: I. Impermanence (Anicca), Wheel No. 202/203/204 (Buddhist Publication Society, BPS.lk) edited by Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Here, Adam, have a flower. - Thank you, my love, but I'm really in the mood for fruit.

Wow, Serpent was right about 'shroom fruit.

If we contemplate even a tiny stretch of the vast range of life, we are faced with such a tremendous variety of life's manifestations that it defies description.

Yet, three basic statements can be made that are valid for all animate existence, from the microbe up to the creative mind of a human genius. 

These three features common to all life were first found and formulated over 2,600 years ago by the Buddha, who was called a "Knower of the Worlds" (loka-vidu). They are the Three Characteristics of Existence, that is, characteristics or marks of all that is conditioned (dependently arisen). These three basic facts of all existence are:

1. Impermanence (anicca): All things change.
2. Disappointment (dukkha): All things are unsatisfactory.
3. Not-self (anatta): All things are unsatisfactory.

The first and the third apply to inanimate existence as well, while the second (disappointment) is, of course, only an experience of the animate.

The inanimate, however, can and very often is, a cause of unsatisfactoriness for living beings. For instance, a falling stone may cause injury, or loss of property may cause mental pain. In that sense, the three are common to all that is conditioned, even to what is below or beyond the normal range of human perception. 

• Adam was NOT the first human, for the Bible tells us Genesis makes it clear that Adam was not the first... 
• Adam and Eve weren't the first humans, According to the Bible... “Paul certainly assumed that Adam was a person and the progenitor of the human race... 
• Geneticist searches for DNA of "Adam," the first human (National Geographic) Geneticist searches for DNA of "Adam," the first human. "Our DNA tells the story of the journey of our species." DNA studies suggest that all humans descended from a single African ancestor who lived 60,000 years ago.

Existence can be understood only if these three basic facts are realized, not only logically but by one's own direct experience. Insight-wisdom, which is the ultimate liberating factor in Buddhism, consists just of this thorough-going experiential perception of the Three Characteristics applied to one's own physical and mental processes, which is deepened and matured in vipassana or "insight meditation."

 

To see things as they really are means seeing them consistent with the Three Characteristics. Ignorance of these three, or self-deception about them, is by itself a potent cause of disappointment -- by knitting, as it were, the net of false hopes, of unrealistic and harmful desires, false ideologies, false values and aims of life, in which we are caught.

Ignoring or distorting these three basic facts only leads to frustration, disappointment, and despair. But we ignore or distort in hopes of relief, escapism, and happiness.

 

Hence, from a positive and negative angle, this teaching on the Three Basic Facts of Existence is of vital importance. — Ven. Nyanaponika More

(TheRichest) 90 Amazing Facts To Make On Instantly Smarter

Karma and its Fruit

By Nyanaponika Thera

I.

Most writings on the doctrine of karma emphasize the strict lawfulness governing karmic action, ensuring a close correspondence between our deeds and their fruits. While this emphasis is perfectly in place, there is another side to the working of karma — a side rarely noted, but highly important. This is the modifiability of karma, the fact that the lawfulness which governs karma does not operate with mechanical rigidity but allows for a considerably wide range of modifications in the ripening of the fruit.

If karmic action were always to bear fruits of invariably the same magnitude, and if modification or annulment of karma-result were excluded, liberation from the Samsaric cycle of suffering would be impossible; for an inexhaustible past would ever throw up new obstructive results of unwholesome karma.

Like any physical event, the mental process constituting a karmic action never exists in isolation but in a field, and thus its efficacy in producing a result depends not only on its own potential, but also upon the variable factors of its field, which can modify it in numerous ways. We see, for example, that a particular karma, either good or bad, may sometimes have its result strengthened by supportive karma, weakened by counteractive karma, or even annulled by destructive karma. The occurrence of the result can also be delayed if the conjunction of outer circumstances required for its ripening is not complete; and that delay may again give a chance for counteractive or destructive karma to operate.

II.
It is, however, not only these extraneous conditions which can cause modification. The ripening also reflects the karma's "internal field" or internal conditions — that is, the total qualitative structure of the mind from which the action issues. To one rich in moral or spiritual qualities, a single offense may not entail the weighty results that the same offence will have for one who is poor in such protective virtues. Also, analogously to human law, a first offender's punishment will be milder than that of a re-convicted criminal.

Of this type of modified reaction the Buddha speaks in the continuation of the discourse quoted above:

"Now take the case when a minor bad deed has been committed by a certain person and it takes that person to hell. But if the same minor offense is committed by another person, its result might be experienced during this lifetime and not even the least (residue of a reaction) will appear (in the future), to say nothing of a major (reaction).

"Now what is the kind of person whom a minor offense takes to hell? It is one who has not cultivated (restraint of) the body, not cultivated virtue and thought, nor developed any wisdom; one is narrow-minded, of low character and even for trifling things suffers. It is such a person whom even a minor offense may take to hell.

"And what is the person by whom the result of the same small offense will be experienced in one's lifetime, without the least (future residue)? One who has cultivated (restraint of) the body, who has cultivated virtue and thought and who has developed wisdom; one is not limited by (vices), is a great character and lives unbounded (by evil). It is such a person who experiences the result of the same small offense during this lifetime, without the least future residue.

"Now suppose one throws a lump of salt into a small cup of water. What do you think: would that small quantity of water become salty and undrinkable by that lump of salt?" — "It would, Lord." — "And why so?" — "The water in the cup is so little that a lump of salt can make it salty and undrinkable." — "But, monastics, suppose that lump of salt is thrown into the Ganges river. Would it make the Ganges salty and undrinkable?" — "Certainly not, Lord." — "And why not?" — "Lord, great is the mass of water in the Ganges. It will not become salty and undrinkable by a lump of salt."

It is an individual's accumulation of good or bad karma and also one's dominating character traits, good or bad, which affect the karmic result. They determine the greater or lesser weight of the result and may even spell the difference between it occurring at all.

III.
But even this does not exhaust the existing possibilities of modifications in the weight of karmic reaction. A glance into the life histories of people we know may well show us a person of good and blameless character, living in secure circumstances; yet a single mistake, perhaps even a minor one, suffices to ruin one's entire life — one's reputation, career, and happiness — and it may also lead to a serious deterioration of one's character. This seemingly disproportionate crisis might have been due to a chain-reaction of aggravating circumstances beyond one's control, to be ascribed to a powerful counteractive karma of one's past. But the chain of bad results may have been precipitated by the person's own action — decisively triggered by one's initial mistake and reinforced by subsequent carelessness, indecision or wrong decisions, which, of course, are unskillful karma in themselves. This is a case when even a predominantly good character cannot prevent the ripening of bad karma or soften the full force of the results. The good qualities and deeds of that person will certainly not remain ineffective; but their future outcome might well be weakened by any presently arisen negative character changes or actions, which might form a bad counteractive karma.

Consider too the converse situation: A person deserving to be called a thoroughly bad character, may, on a rare occasion, act on an impulse of generosity and kindness. This action may turn out to have unexpectedly wide and favorable repercussions on one's life. It might bring about a decisive improvement in one's external circumstances, soften one's character, and even initiate a thorough "change of heart."

.

.

How complex, indeed, are situations in human life, even when they appear deceptively simple! This is so because the situations and their outcome mirror the still greater complexity of the mind, their inexhaustible source. The Buddha himself has said: "The mind's complexity surpasses even the countless varieties of the animal kingdom." (SN 22.100) For any single individual, the mind is a stream of ever-changing mental processes driven by the currents and cross-currents of karma accumulated in countless past existences. But this complexity, already great, is increased still very much more by the fact that each individual life-stream is interwoven with many other individual life-streams through the interaction of their respective karmas. So intricate is the net of karmic conditioning that the Buddha declared karma-result to be one of the four "unthinkables" (acinteyya) and warned against creating it as a subject of speculation. But though the detailed workings of karma escape our intellection, the practically important message is clear: the fact that karmic results are modifiable frees us from the bane of determinism and its ethical corollary, fatalism, and keeps the road to liberation constantly open before us.

IV.

The potential "openness" of a given situation, however, also has a negative side, the element of risk and danger a wrong response to the situation might open a downward path. It is our own response which removes the ambiguity of the situation, for better or worse. This reveals the karma doctrine of the Buddha as a teaching of moral and spiritual responsibility for oneself and others. It is truly a "human teaching" because it corresponds to and reflects a human's wide range of choices, a range much wider than that of an animal. Any individual's moral choice may be severely limited by the varying load of greed, hatred and delusion and their results which one carries around; yet every time one stops to make a decision or a choice, one has the opportunity to rise above all the menacing complexities and pressures of one's unfathomable karmic past. Indeed, in one short moment one can transcend eons of karmic bondage. It is through right mindfulness that one can firmly grasp that fleeting moment, and it is mindfulness again that enables one to use it for making wise choices.

• BuddhaNet: The Theory of Karma

Originally published in The Vision of the Dhamma (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994).
Copyright © 1994 Nyanaponika Thera