I became a Taoist monk for a year

(George Thompson) I lived as monk for year. Here's what happened. Wuhan pandemic lockdown

• 
  Tai chi (moving meditation) and sitting meditation in Taoism, the Way [of harmony with nature], on a holy mountain in China with Master Gu, I had to do it. Then I had to go back for the yin and the yang. For an atheist, what is the Tao?

Why I'm moving to Mexico (video)

Founding Father Emiliano Zapata wants you to join the US Army and get the heck out of MX

• The Spirit Nomad, YouTube; Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Essene treasure, Jewish temple, scroll

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Genesis Apocryphon, treasures of the ancient Essenes (wiki)

The lost treasure of the Israelites: The Temple, the Essenes, and the Copper Scroll

(ESOTERICA) April 4, 2025: Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, a mysterious scroll chiseled into copper details the location of more than 60 treasures of gold, silver, ritual vessels, and more.

Discovered in 1952 and opened in 1955, the Copper Scroll has fired the imaginations of scholars and treasure-hunters alike. But the language of the text is difficult: Strange Greek letters appear, and ancient abbreviations have made the text difficult to decode.

What are the treasures of the Copper Scroll? Where do they come from, the mysterious Essenes or the Jerusalem Temple? Are the treasures still to be found in the hills and deserts around Jericho? Let's explore the 3Q15, the Copper Scroll

Consider supporting Esoterica on Patreon: esotericachannel. One-time donation support via PayPal: paypal.me/esotericachannel. Merch: @theesotericachannel.

New to studying esotericism? Check out reading guide: docs.google.com/document/d/1c... Rare occult books: esotericaoccultbooks.com. Recommended readings: The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Puech: The Copper Scroll Revisited. Lefkovits: The Copper Scroll 3QI5: A Reevaluation.

• Shauna Schwartz, Sheldon S., Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Believe it or Not: Buddhist Monk

☸ Believe it or Not: Buddhist Monk | BBC Documentary | 1985 ☸ (Buddhist Teachings) Aug. 30, 2022: This BBC documentary takes us to the UK Theravada Buddhist Monastery Chithurst in 1985, where a person ordains to become a monk. Ajahn Sumedho (formerly Mr. Robert Karr Jackman) gives his insights on the monastic life in the West.

How Pa Auk Sayadaw became enlightened

Setti Wessels; Pa-Auk Center via Tusita Int'l; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Kalyani, Wisdom Quarterly

I verified the Path in the Pali canon works.

The most significant Theravada Buddhist teacher in the world today, certainly in Burma, is the most Venerable Bhaddanta Aciṇṇa.

He is commonly referred to as “Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw” or less formally as simply “Pa-Auk Sayadaw.” He is the abbot and principal teacher at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery. Sayadaw is a Burmese title that means “respected teacher.”

In 1934, Sayadaw was born in Leigh-Chaung Village, Hinthada Township, in the delta region about 100 miles north-west of the capital of Burma, Rangoon (now Yangon, Myanmar).

In 1944, at age 10, he ordained as a novice monk (samanera) to train at his village monastery. During the next decade, he pursued the life of a typical scholar-novice, studying the texts of the Pali canon (including the Monastic Disciplinary Code, the Buddha's discourses, and the ultimate teachings or vinaya, suttas, and Abhidhamma) under various teachers. He passed the three Pali language exams while still a novice.

Sayadaw-gyi is the greatest monk of our time! (wiki)

In 1954, at age 20, Sayadaw received higher ordination as a monk (bhikkhu). He continued his study of the Pali canon under the guidance of learned elder monks.

In 1956, he passed the prestigious Dhamma-acariya exam, the equivalent of earning a B.A. in Buddhist studies, which confers the title of “Dharma Teacher.”

For the next eight years, Sayadaw continued his personal investigation and verification of the Dharma, travelling throughout Burma to learn from various well known teachers.

In 1964, during his tenth “rains retreat” (vassa) as a fully ordained Buddhist monk, he turned his attention to intensifying his meditation practice and began the practice of “forest dwelling.” He continued his study of the Pali texts but in addition sought out practical instructions from the most revered meditation masters of those times.

When one knows-and-sees dependent origination with a cleansed mind, one awakens.

Burma is the large landmass on the right, renamed Myanmar by the military dictatorship.

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High in the Himalayas on retreat with Sayadaw, India

For the next 16 years, he made forest dwelling his primary practice. He spent these years in Mon state in the southern part of Burma -- three years in Mudon Township (south of Mawlamyine) and 13 years in Ye Township (about 100 miles down the coast). During this time, he lived a very simple life, devoting his time to intensive meditation and the study of the Pali canon.

In 1981 Sayadaw received a message from the abbot of Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, Ven. Aggapañña. The abbot was dying and asked Ven. Acinna to look after the monastery. Five days later, Ven. Aggapañña passed away. As the new abbot of the monastery, Ven. Acinna became known as “Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw.”

Although he oversaw the running of the monastery, Sayadaw would spend most of his time in seclusion, meditating in a bamboo hut in the upper forested area, which covered a deserted range of hills running along the base of the Taung Nyo mountain range. This area later came to be known as the Upper Monastery.

Panoramic view of the Kullu Valley, India

Since 1983, both monastics and laypeople have been coming to study meditation with Sayadaw.

In the 1990s, foreign meditators began to arrive at the monastery. As Sayadaw’s reputation steadily grew, the Upper Monastery gradually expanded from a simple bamboo hut encampment and a handful of disciples to more than 250 meditation huts (kutis) in the thinning forest.



The area included a large two-story meditation hall for men, a library (with office, computer room, and men’s dormitory on the lower levels), a clinic, a hospital, an almsgiving hall, a two-story refectory, a reception hall, and Sayadaw's dwelling.

The Lower Monastery includes facilities of more than 180 meditator's huts, a large kitchen, a three-story meditation hall for women (with sleeping quarters on the ground floor), and a five-story dormitory.

In March of 2007, there were more than 130 foreign monks, nuns, and lay practitioners residing at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery. During the annual three-month rains retreat, the total monastic population averages between 600-700.

Together with laypeople, the monastery population sometimes tops 1,500 during festival times.

In 1997 Sayadaw published his magnum opus, an enormous five-volume tome entitled The Practice that Leads to Nibbana (Nirvana), explaining the entire course of teaching in detail and supported by copious quotations from the Pali texts. It is available only in Burmese and Sinhalese.

On January 4th, 1999, in public recognition of Sayadaw’s achievements, the government bestowed upon him the title Agga Maha Kammatthanacariya, which means “Greatly Respected Teacher of Meditation.”

Sayadaw attained in a time of great tumult.

Sayadaw now speaks fluent English and has lectured and led retreats outside of Burma since 1997. In December of 2006, he travelled to Sri Lanka to undertake a long-term personal retreat, staying in seclusion and suspending his teaching schedule throughout 2007.

His teaching schedule for 2008 included a four-month retreat in the U.S., which ran from July to October, at the Forest Refuge in Barre, Massachusetts (Insight Meditation Society).

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Sayadaw personally conducted a six-month intensive retreat at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, Burma from January to June of 2010. After the retreat, Sayadaw joined the monks from Tusita Hermitage in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, India for the Rains Retreat. At that time Sayadaw entered his own personal retreat for that three-month period. Source

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Sayadaw’s teachings have been published in English, and several are highly regarded internationally. For he is both a highly esteemed Dhammā-acariya ("Dharma Teacher") and a personally accomplished Kammaṭṭhānā-acariya ("Meditation Teacher"). He has lectured and led retreats in the USA, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Germany, and the UK.

In 2009, Sayadaw was bestowed the title of Shwekyin Nikāya Rattaññūmahānāyaka [a great elder in the second largest monastic order in Burma] at the 17th Shwekyin Nikaya Saṅgha Conferencce in Burma. Original source

• Biography year by year (paauktawyathailand.org)
  

He did. So can you. (PATM)

At that time when one arrived at the forest nunnery and monastery, the Pa Auk Tawya Meditation Center, one started down a long muddy road. It had become a town, attracting Burmese devotees, ardent spiritual seekers from the West and Far East. It was vegetarian, egalitarian, with many nuns from different countries. It was open to everyone with an open hand. The gem was the great teacher, who could instruct someone from being unable to meditate to the final attainment of nirvana, spiritual awakening, complete enlightenment. We would not believe it had we not visited and seen it with our own eyes. Not only do people attain here, it happens in the West because Sayadaw and his accomplished teachers teach retreats beyond Burma.

Ajanta Buddhist Caves of India (video)

Madras Documentary Co, 9/16; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

British architect James Fergusson 1945 drawing of one rock cut chamber in Cave 19.

Ajanta: The History and Mystery

Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra state, India - In the midst of breathtaking beauty, surrounded by the magnificence of nature, Buddhist monastics or visitors from space (akasha-loka devas) must have devoted their lives to the Shakyamuni Buddha.

Stupa, columns, high ceilings all cut out of rock

He was their fully awakened teacher, and they spent their lives in quiet meditation and systematic contemplation, making a virtue of simplicity, soon becoming an integral part of the awe-inspiring environment.

It takes but a moment to enter these caves, to close one's eyes and conjure up the aura of all that has gone on here. Listen to the chanting monastics. Watch the murals and sculptures come alive under the magical fingers of gifted artisans. Feel the touch of Nature and brush up against the past.

It took the conviction of generations and efforts of centuries to create these caves. We owe it to unknown artists to study their works with the reverence they deserve.

Who, what, where, when, why?

Theravada monks pay homage inside (wiki).

(Wiki) The Ajanta Caves are approximately 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments that are thought to date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 CE in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state of India.

The caves include exquisite paintings and rock-cut sculptures that are among the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art, particularly expressive paintings that present emotion through gesture, pose, and form.

According to UNESCO the masterpieces of this world heritage site are Buddhist religious art that influenced the Indian art that followed.

The caves were built in two phases, the first phase starting around the 2nd century BCE, second phase around 400–650 CE, according to older accounts, or in a brief period of 460–480 CE. More

Why become a Buddhist ascetic? (King Milinda)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, "The Questions of King Milinda" [Menander] (Miln), Milindapañha (as.miami.edu/phi/bio/Buddha/Milinda)

Indo-Greco art from Mes Aynak ("Copper Well"), Afghanistan (irtiqa-blog.com)

 

Lay Life vs. Monasticism

Greek King Milinda (Menander 1) coin

King Milinda (Greek, Menander) asked the Buddhist sage: "Venerable Nagasena, the Blessed One has said:
 
"‘Right spiritual progress is praiseworthy for householders and wandering ascetics alike. Both householders and wandering ascetics, when progressing rightly, can accomplish, because of their right progress, the right method, the Dharma, which is wholesome.’ 

"If, Nagasena, a householder, dressed in white, enjoying the pleasures of the senses, inhabiting a house overcrowded with spouse and family, using fragrant sandalwood of Benares, as well as garlands, perfumes, and creams, owning gold and silver, wearing a turban ornamented with gold and jewels, can, if s/he progresses rightly, accomplish the right method, the Dharma, the wholesome, and if a wandering ascetic, bald-headed, clad in saffron robe, dependent on alms offerings for a livelihood, careful to fulfil correctly the four sections of monastic virtue, submitting to the 150 path-to-liberation (pratimoksa) rules, and observing all 13 Sane Ascetic Practices (dhutanga), without omitting any, can also, if progressing rightly, accomplish the right method, the Dharma, the wholesome -- then, venerable sir, What is the difference between the householder and the wandering ascetic? 

 

"Fruitless is your austerity, useless is the homeless (wandering ascetic) life, barren is the observation of the monastic rules, in vain do you observe the sane ascetic practices! What is the use of inflicting pain upon yourself if you can gain nirvana while remaining at ease?"

UCLA: Save Buddhist-Afghan site (WQ)

Nagasena replied: "You have quoted the Blessed One's words correctly, your majesty. To make right progress is indeed the most excellent thing of all.

"And if the wandering ascetic, in the consciousness of being a wandering ascetic, should fail to progress rightly, then one would be far from the state of an ascetic, far from a supreme life. Still more so would that apply to a householder dressed in white.

"But both the householder and the wandering ascetic are alike in that, when they progress rightly, they accomplish the right method, the Dharma, the wholesome.

Wish-fulfilling gem

"Nevertheless, your majesty, it is the wandering ascetic who is the master of the pure life. To be a wandering ascetic has many and numerous, even infinite, virtues (benefits). To measure the virtues of being a wandering ascetic is not at all possible. It is like a [chintamani] jewel that fulfills all one's wishes; one cannot measure its value in terms of money and say that it is worth so much.

 

Like the waves in the great ocean, one cannot measure and say that there are so many. All that the wandering ascetic still has to do, one succeeds in doing rapidly and without taking a long time over it. And why is that? It is because the wandering ascetic, your majesty, is content with little, easily pleased, secluded from the world, not addicted to society, energetic, independent, solitary, perfect in conduct, austere in practice, skilled in all that concerns inner purification and spiritual progress.

 

Beautiful Buddhist jewelry recovered from the Mes Aynak monastic complex/town archeological site, Afghanistan, suggesting that beauty, baubles, and sensual delights were quite popular. Treasure dated from 500 AD to 700 AD (Kadir/Salam Viking).

 

Such a person is like your javelin, your majesty -- smooth, even, well polished, straight, clean, and shining. When it is well thrown, it will fly exactly as you want it to. In the same way, whatever the wandering ascetic still has to do, one succeeds in doing it all rapidly and without taking a long time over it."

 

"Well spoken, Nagasena. So it is, and so I accept it."

Nagasena continued: "In any case, your majesty, all those who as householders, living in a home and in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, realize the peace of nirvana, the highest good, they have all been trained in former lives in the 13 Sane Ascetic Practices peculiar to [Buddhist monastic] disciples, and through them they have laid the foundations for their present realization and attainment. It is because they had purified their conduct and behavior by means of them then that now even as householders, living in a home and in the enjoyment of sense pleasures, they can realize the peace of nirvana, the highest good.

Child plays with novice monk, Leh, Ladakh, Buddhist India (Vincenzo Rossi/flickr.com)

 

House or Monastery? 

Bad dog! Check your motives.

"But whoever enters the Monastic Order bad motives -- from covetousness, deceitfully, out of greed and gluttony, desirous of gain, fame, or reputation, unsuitably, unqualified, unfit, unworthy, unseemly -- that person shall incur a twofold comeuppance, which will prove ruinous to all one's good qualities.

In this very life, one shall be scorned, derided, reproached, ridiculed, and mocked. One shall be shunned, expelled, ejected, removed, and banished. 

What could account for Sam winning the "Ugliest Dog in the World" contest? (EIT)

  

Aw, poor baby! (ugliest dog in the world)

In the next life, like foam which is tossed about, up and down and across, one shall cook for many hundreds of thousands of aeons (kalpas, which also be interpreted as meaning "ordinary lifespans") in the great Waveless Deep (Avici) hell, which is a hundred leagues big, and all ablaze with hot, scorching, fierce, and fiery flames. 

"And when one has been released thence, one's entire body will become emaciated, rough, and black, one's head swollen, bloated and full of holes. 

As hungry as a ghost or preta (WP)

Hungry and thirsty, disagreeable and dreadful to look at, one's ears all torn, eyes constantly blinking, entire body one putrid mass of sores, dense with maggots, bowels afire and blazing like a mass of fire fanned by a breeze, helpless and unprotected, weeping, crying, wailing, and lamenting, consumed by unsatisfied longings -- that person who once was a religious wanderer shall then as a large hungry ghost roam about on the earth bewailing that fate.
 

"But if, on the other hand, a person enters the Monastic Order (Sangha) suitably, qualified, fit, worthy and seemly, content with little, easily pleased, secluded (withdrawing and protecting the senses) from the worldly, not addicted to society, energetic and resolute, without fraud or deceit, not gluttonous, not desirous of gain, fame, or reputation, devout and with confidence (saddha, faith), out of a desire to free oneself from old age and death and to uphold the Buddha's dispensation (sasana), then one deserves to be honored in two ways, by both devas and humans.

 

The devas find one dear (wallpaper.365greetings.com)

  

Beauty pageant

"One is dear and pleasing to them. They love and seek after one. One is to them as fine jasmine flowers are to a person bathed and anointed with oil, or good food to the hungry, or a cool, clear, and fragrant drink to the thirsty, or an effective medicine [antidote] to those who are poisoned, or a superb chariot drawn by thoroughbreds to those who want to travel quickly, or a wish-fulfilling jewel to those who want to enrich themselves, or a brilliantly white parasol, the [spaceship-like] emblem of royalty, to those who would like to be rulers, or as the supreme attainment of the fruit of enlightenment (arhatship) to those who wish for Dharma.

The 37 Requisites of Enlightenment

 "In that person

• The Four Foundations (Posts or Pillars) of Mindfulness reach their full development, as do
• The Four Right Efforts,
• The Four Roads to [Psychic] Success,
• The Five Faculties,
• The Five Powers,
• The Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and
• The Noble Eightfold Path.

"One attains to calm and insight, and one's progressive attainments continue to mature, and one becomes a repository of the Four Fruits of the Spiritual Life (Samana Phala), of the Four Analytical Knowledges, the Threefold Knowledge, and the Six Super Knowledges, in short, of the whole Dharma of the spiritual life, and one is consecrated with the brilliantly white parasol of emancipation." More

Closer to "God" high in Georgia

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Yasmine Hafiz (Huffington Post Religion, 9-19-13)

Katskhi Pillar, high in Georgia, with its one-man hermitage (Amos Chapple)

(Maboroshi Productions) Early documentary trailer about the monk who now lives atop a 140 foot rock pillar in the central Imereti region, Georgia. He is the first to try in 600 years. Research will culminate in a short documentary out soon.

One of the men helped by Qavtaradze

The Eastern Orthodox Christian monk Maxime Qavtaradze is literally close to the heavens [space, the akasha deva loka]. The 59-year-old monastic lives atop a limestone pillar in the Eastern European Republic of Georgia.

He has to scale a 131-foot ladder in order to leave or return to his lofty home, reports CNN, the CIA/MIC's trusty American "news" outlet. Photographer Amos Chapple ascended the cliff to document his life there.

 

The Katskhi Pillar (wiki) has long been venerated as a "holy" place by locals in the area, although it has been uninhabited since about the 1400s. In 1944, when climbers ascended it, after centuries, of isolation, they found the ruins of a church and the 600-year-old bones of the last "stylite" who lived there.

(Paul Brian) "This.is.Georgia!" (comedy/documentary) follows the experiences of a volunteer English teacher in a small-town in the Republic of Georgia looking at the traditions, character, and quirks of rural communities in this small and proud nation where medieval meets modern and the hilarious exists side-by-side with the humbling. Nothing ever goes the way you expect in Georgia, but there's always more adventure (and alcohol) around the corner.

Waiting for the space saviors to return

The stylite tradition is believed to have begun in 423 when St. Simeon the Elder climbed a pillar in Syria in order to avoid worldly temptations. But the practice has since fallen out of favor. Nevertheless, Qavtaradze is a modern devotee.

 

Qavtaradze on ladder to heaven

Although isolated, he is not a total solitary yogi-hermit. He comes down once or twice a week to counsel the troubled young men who come to the monastery below for his help. After all, he was once one of them. He may now live at the top of the world, but Qavtaradze found his vocation when he was the lowest he had ever been -- doing time in prison after he "drank, sold drugs, everything" as a young man. But it's okay, for as we at Wisdom Quarterly say:

 

"Every saint has a past, every sinner a future."

  

He took monastic vows in 1993 and has been working to rebuild the monastery complex, chapel, and hermitage for the last 15 years, according to the makers of "The Stylite," a documentary about Qavtaradze and his community.

Yasmine Hafiz

Yasmine Hafiz, editorial fellow for The Huffington Post's Religion desk, holds a B.A. from Yale Univ., and co-authored The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook. Hafiz is a former State Dept. intern and a founding member of the Arizona Youth Interfaith Movement. She was a 2008 Presidential Scholar and has extensive public speaking experience regarding religion in America.

• Maxime: Meet the monk who lives a life of virtual solitude 
• A pillar with a view: Monk lives above it all (Yahoo!) 
• Georgian monk to mount Katskhi Pillar as a Stylite

Sacred Robe Offering: Kathina 2012 (video)

Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., Ven. Bibekananda, Dharmachari Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha under the Bodhi tree, Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Monastery, Crenshaw Bl. (WQ)

The sacred saffron kathina robe, Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara, Los Angeles, California, 2011 (Wisdom Quarterly).

   

The offering (dana) of the sacred robe is an annual event, traditionally held in October. It marks the end of the three-month Rains Retreat or Vas. During this time Buddhist nuns and monks retire to their hermitages to engage in intensive meditation, study, teaching, and other practices for rapid spiritual advancement.

Buddhist History

One one occasion, in ancient India, monks took up residence practicing sane-austerities for the rainy season. At the end of their seclusion, they set out to visit the Buddha, who was residing in distant Savatthi.

Their travel was arduous. At times, they had to endure inclement weather. At the end of their long journey, one of the monks was soaking wet as he approached.

Seeing him, the Buddha requested monastics to accept additional robes for their hardship. One robe in particular, the special kathina robe, was to go to a monastic who had successfully completed the rigors of the Rains Retreat. (At this time those in robes are not allowed to travel or venture from the nunnery/monastery for overnight trips; instead they stay in one place and meditate in a loosely cloistered setting).

  

Thereafter Buddhist devotees have provided hermitages with a specially made robe, which is awarded to the one who has most successfully completed the Rains Retreat.

This robe is revered as the most important for a monastic to receive AND the most meritorious for a devotee to give.

Whereas the monastic who receives the robe gains five mundane benefits, the donor of the robe accrues a tremendous amount of merit (anisangsa, punya). The Pali word for the robe is kathina, Bengali kathin.
  
It means hard [to come by], firm, steadfast -- indicating the greatness of the merit, which is difficult to obtain and is a firm and reliable source of spiritual as well as material benefit unshakable in the face of minor bad karma.

Traditionally, devoted Buddhists undertake to strictly observe moral and ethical precepts during the period of the retreat culminating in the sacred ceremony. However, even the simple act of participating (attending in approval of this gift) they are able to share in the remarkable merit of this special gift-giving.

• California Bodhi Vihara will celebrate the Sacred Robe Offering Ceremony today, Nov. 3, 2012 in Long Beach. Moreover, various Theravada temples throughout Los Angeles and the country are holding this ceremony as they end their Rains Retreat observance. (Contact local temples for dates).

Why?

Buddha, Lahore Museum (tribune.com.pk)

What would make the offering of this robe so meritorious? If the monastics were to practice sincerely, practice diligently and mindfully in accordance with the Dharma, some would be sure to gain mundane and supramundane attainments, such as the Eight Meditative Absorptions (jhanas) and the Eight Path-and-Fruition consciousnesses. These latter attainments are the penetrating insights that lead to enlightenment by stages from stream-entry to full realization. Giving to someone who has attained any of these is extremely meritorious, each more rare and powerful than the previous one. There is great merit in giving to anyone who emerges from the first absorption. But the merit of giving to one who has gain full enlightenment is uncountable, off the scale, so precious as to be considered beyond reckoning.