Showing posts with label monks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monks. Show all posts

Saturday, December 7, 2024

A Gnostic Jesus for the Holidays

Ginger Jesus (TziganeArt/DeviantArt) Spaceman ET?

Gnostic story of Jesus: What we were never told
(Occulys) Dec. 3, 2024: Who really was "Jesus" (Issa, Messiah/Maitreya, Isa, Ieoeus, Y'shua Ben Yusuf, Joshua, Son of Zeus, Emmanuel)? To most, he’s the savior who died (killed by temple Jews or Roman pagans) for humanity’s sins. But to the Gnostics, an ancient group of mystical Christians, Jesus wasn’t here to atone for sin. He was here to reveal a mind-blowing truth about the world and our place in it.

⌛ CHAPTERS
  • 0:00 Introduction
  • 01:07 Who were the Gnostics?
  • 03:00 The Gnostic Jesus
  • 04:17 The teachings and miracles of Jesus
  • 05:42 Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
  • 07:21 The betrayal of Judas
  • 08:10 The Last Supper and Eucharist
  • 09:55 The Crucifixion and Resurrection
  • 12:05 Outro
This video begins to uncover the story of Jesus through the lens of Gnostic texts like The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Philip.

[See further the amazing work of Bible scholars like Dr. Elaine Pagels, Dr. Bart Ehrman, Dr. Francesca change-your-last-name-already Scrvyysthhyllk, and the possibly demonically-possessed but in any case genius classicist and Ancient Greek scholar Dr. DC Ammon Hillman because, sadly, the scholars who try to reveal the truth of biblical matters all get condemned as madmen, heretics, and Satanists for not telling mainstream Christians what they want to hear but what the textual evidence actually shows. What Christians accept on blind faith and find most comforting to their cultural way of thinking is dangerously wrong, but try to tell them that. It comforts them to rest on delusion, but who can say anything?]

From the Garden of Gethsemane to the Last Supper and the resurrection, this video explores how Gnostics saw Jesus as a cosmic teacher, a liberator of the soul, and the key to awakening the divine spark within us.

Get ready to challenge everything we thought we knew about Jesus, Christianity, and current Bible interpretations and discover a side of his story that’s purposely been hidden and kept from us for centuries.

🎓 SOURCES
🎶 Music used in the video: "Background Music - Gunpowder" by CO.AG "Background Music - Game of Thrones" by CO.AG "Wonderful Things - Cinematic Music" by CO.AG Licensed under Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Some of the images are hand colored by Adam McLean and taken from the alchemy website www.alchemywebsite.com (Copyright Adam McLean 1997-2011). Thanks to Adam McLean for beautiful work. All other images and clips are in the public domain. If I have used an image or clip that you own, please contact me at the email address below. 🤝 Contact information: occulys@gmail.com. #gnosticism #gnostic #AncientHistory #history #mythology #spirituality #mysticism #alchemy

Monday, July 1, 2024

Original Sin: Ritual Child Rape & the Church


[Dear Christian reader,] what do you want?
I want the truth.
You can't handle the truth!
Yes, I can.
Well, in service of the truth, here it is.

Original Sin: Ritual Child Rape & The Church
Author, Ancient Greek classicist, and Christian Bible scholar Dr. David C. Ammon Hillman has 4.2 out of 5 stars with 39 ratings for Original Sin.

It is an investigation of "sacred" Christian mysteries of antiquity to show the historic link between the use of drugs and ritualized sex embedded in Western religion, particularly Christianity, Judaism, and Greek and Roman mystery cults.

Original Sin is an investigation of the first acts of pedophilia within the Christian church. It is a book about the promotion and defense of child rape as a sacred Christian "mystery" (ritualized drug experience).

The West’s most venerated social, religious, and political ideals stem from a cultural war waged against the human body. Original Sin reveals the origin of this war.

Let's lighten up a North African to be more Thor.
Using the influence of the first Christian emperors, and the "moral authority” of their political organization, powerful bishops (high priests) of the early Christian church promoted the performance of sacred [homosexual] "mysteries” in which young children were starved, drugged, sodomized. and their fluids were consumed.

In ceremonies meant to test their "purity," exorcist priests victimized young children from the ranks of orphans and homeless who populated the large cities of the ancient world.

Original Sin focuses on the writings of Christian priests themselves and the pagans who condemned their immoral activities. It shows that Church actively promoted and defended the rape of children, and that such crimes were present from the very earliest days of Christianity.

Original Sin draws from ancient internal documents, written by venerated church leaders -- written in Latin [the language of imperial Rome] -- who actively promoted the rape and molestation of children.

Bishops, monks, and priests of the early Church successfully defended themselves from legal prosecution for centuries.

As the Roman public railed against priests for sexually exploiting children, the Church leadership used its growing political influence to prevent any of the child rapists within the clergy from coming to justice.

Original Sin also traces the divine feminine voice through Western history. The potent combination of natural drugs and the feminine voice is the basis for Western civilization.

Original Sin explores the foundation of Western society as the product of a peculiar interaction of chemical and biological forces.

The pagan world was aware of the sexual crimes committed against these orphans and waged a lengthy campaign against the priests who perpetrated these rapes.

Children, my Apostles, it's time for us to play!
Christian priests claimed that by sodomizing children, they were "saving them" from possession by the demons of the pagan religions.

Christian theologians justified these acts of rape by pointing to some of the earliest writings of the apostles and even the acts of Jesus Christ himself.

Exorcist priests specifically sought out young children, many of them orphans or homeless. Pagans were aware of these sex crimes committed against kids and fought rapist Christian priests.

The Christian hierarchy claimed these children were being "sexually tested” in order to prevent them from being used in pagan rituals that required the same children to remain sexually inexperienced (virgins).

Christian priests claimed that by sodomizing children, they were saving them from possession by the demons [not expressing the will of Christian demons].

In the early church, groups of Christians in Asia Minor (Turkey, Anatolia, Europe) even formed their own associations that claimed the performance of such sexual acts was a means of assuring the "salvation" of both the victims and the perpetrators.

What about Jesus on drugs performing homosexual acts
I was tripping on the Purple.
Some early Church fathers believed Jesus had several sexual relationships with young boys.

[The apostles were very young, not his peers or equals for the most part. Simon Iscariot, called "Simon Peter" to disguise the fact that he was the father of Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus' favorite children, which he drugged, according to the Bible, and inspired to turn him in.]

Prominent Church leaders argued that the Apostle Mark was aware of this when he wrote in his gospel that Jesus was arrested in the public park on the outskirts of town known as the Garden of Gethsemane in the presence of a naked teenage boy [he had or was trying to sodomize as party of a drug mystery].
  • NOTE: The material in Dr. Hillman's first book, The Chemical Muse, and here in Original Sin was biblical research as part of his doctoral dissertation. While his dissertation committee could find no flaws in his [translation] work, it was so outraged by the material that Hillman uncovered from the ancient texts -- written in Latin, which he reads fluently [and present in the Ancient Greek and Hebrew] -- that they refused to pass the dissertation or award him a doctorate unless he deleted the offensive material. He did so and published the material about the use of psilocybin mushrooms and the emergence of Western civilization.
Original Sin reveals more of the forbidden information that Dr. Hillman has uncovered and verified.

Because of this work, Dr. Hillman has been "black balled" from academic classics -- even though Chemical Muse has been widely acclaimed [as a breakthrough showing the widespread use of drugs in the ancient world].

Dr. Hillman now teaches Latin in a private girls' school to eke out a living to support his wife and children.

Reaction
[Images of Christ stem from Serapis.]
What one author said about Dr. Hillman's discoveries [drawn from reading Roman medical texts on drugs, dotes and antidotes, as a trained biologist with the language skills to do so] and his expulsion from Classics.

"The role of psychoactive drugs has been airbrushed out of the conventional picture of Western civilization. The academics who have created this drug-free Greco-Roman world have found their nemesis in Dr. Hillman’s The Chemical Muse.

"With clarity and directness the author gives us back a lost chapter of our Classical heritage and by doing so restores our understanding of this past.” - Richard Rudgley, author of Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age.

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Blowing Zen: Japanese flute for calm (audio)

Pássaro Trovão - Sons Ancestrais, Oct. 16, 2017; Tod, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Shakuhachi (the Japanese flute) - Kohachiro Miyata (full)
(Pássaro Trovão - Sons Ancestrais) What if there were a way to "blow," or pipe, Zen (suizen)? To communicate a calm experienced in meditative absorption (zen, jhana = dhyana, chan, seon) would be a marvelous thing, an induction or simulation of the deep serenity produced by these natural states of calm and tranquility (samatha bhavana or "cultivation of tranquility).

TRACKLIST:
  1. Honshirabe
  2. Sanya
  3. Tusuru No Sugomori
  4. Shika No Tone
  5. Akita Sugagaki
CREDITS: Artwork (cover art) – Watanabe Seiti. Coordinator – Teresa Sterne Design. Art Direction – Paula Bisacca. Engineer – Larry Mericka. Liner notes – David Loeb. Mastered by – Robert C. Ludwig.* Producer, engineering, photography – David Lewiston. Shakuhachi – Kōhachiro Miyata.*

The Monks of Emptiness
Zen monk beggar spy on street corner
Suizen
(吹禅) (“blowing Zen”) is a Zen practice consisting of playing the traditional Japanese shakuhachi bamboo flute as a means of attaining self-realization (1).

Suizen was traditionally practiced by the Komusō (“monks of emptiness”), the Zen Buddhist monks of the Fuke sect of Japan who flourished during the Edo period (1600-1868).

Instrumental music is rare in all Buddhist practice, where instruments usually accompany ritual chants if they are used at all.

With suizen, the playing of the shakuhachi as a spiritual exercise is at the core of the religious practice, making it unique in the world of Buddhism (2, 3). More

Dark and sweet scales: Michael Graham Allen

(Rita's Flute & Music, March 29, 2009) In this video the Coyote Oldman talks about the different moods a replica of an ancient Anasazi [Native American] flute can produce. Michael Graham Allen was one of three featured performers at the NSU Jazz Lab during the OK Flute Festival in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. To learn more about the man and the group go to: coyoteoldman.com, coyoteoldman.blogspot.com, and shopworks.com/coyote.

Friday, July 14, 2017

"Sri Lanka Day" in Pasadena, July 15

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. W. Jayasinghe, Sri Lanka Foundation (slday.com)
Sri Lanka Day is on Saturday, July 15, 2017 in the City of Pasadena (slday.com)
Sinhalese Sri Lankan women in traditional colorful dresses and saris (slday.com)
FESTIVAL SITE DETAILS (MAP), The Paseo, 280 E. Colorado Bl., Pasadena, CA 91101
.
Ancient artificial bridge to India
[Sinhalese] Sri Lankans often refer to themselves as “Lions” or “The Lion Nation.” One of the reasons they do so is due to the obvious lion symbol on the country’s flag.

[A better reason is that singha means lion, and other non-Buddhist people on the island call themselves Tamil tigers, infamous for their separatist inclinations.]
  • (FREE) Sri Lanka Day, Pasadena
  • Food and Cultural Fair
  • Saturday, 10:00 AM-11:00 PM, July 15
  • 280 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena 91101
    Thousands of years of Buddhism
    The other reason is less known but much more meaningful. The lion has frequently been linked to words such as courageous and proud. The Sri Lanka Foundation is a foundation dedicated to the preservation of Sri Lankan culture. It strives to exhibit courage and pride in their charitable work and events.
    • Sri Lanka ("Sacred Land") is famous as a citadel of early Buddhist teachings preserved in the Pali language from India and Scythia (Gandhara and northwestern hinterlands around Afghanistan where the Buddha was born and first promulgated the Dharma). Sri Lankan Buddhists, in their recorded history called the Mahavamsa or "Great Chronicles" speak of coming from that land by boat to settle Sri Lanka. They are not Dravidians from South India like the neighboring Tamils of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state in India.
    One of the foundation’s most significant events is “Sri Lanka Day.” Every year the foundation works diligently to bring the sights, tastes, colors, and the general feel of Sri Lanka to spectators who gather in one location from all over California.


    Massive Buddha in Sri Lanka
    It is an annual celebration and tribute to the culture and heritage of the Sri Lankan people. In coordinating the event the foundation seeks to inform the public about their country and its customs. The foundation also aspires to bring generations of Sri Lankans together as a community, to pass along history from one generation to another. The event will take all who attend on a short trip to Sri Lanka through traditional foods, music, dances, art, and theater.
     
    Colorful costumes of an island culture
    Attendees hear the echo of handmade drums each with its unique tone. They experience a visual feast of vibrant island costumes, colorful clothing, and ornate jewelry. Participants explore the sweets, spices, and aromas of curries and traditional foods while being captivated by dancers and performers. Children and adults alike revel in the Kandy Parade (Perahera), the famous Sri Lankan spectacle that features theater elephants the size of real elephants. And all of these experiences can be enjoyed without ever leaving California.

    In previous years “Sri Lanka Day” has attracted more than 100,000 visitors. The 2015 SL Day was special because it was the first year the event was held in the City of Pasadena. It was also the first year the foundation sponsored its own dance troupe to perform. Every year the foundation works harder to reach new heights... More + PHOTOS

    Monday, January 9, 2017

    Ancient Native American city builders (video)

    FrozenHill (youtube); Amazon.com; Xochitl, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
    USA: pre-Columbian mounds, city, flat top pyramid Cohokia metropolis, Illinois
    Giants, human-hybrids (Nephilim, Annunaki?) in the Ohio Valley among Native American tribes

    FrozenHill
    FrozenHill
    The American psychic Edgar Cayce (edgarcayce.org) mentioned ancient America in 68 trance readings. These readings covered migrations to America, the mound builders (as in Cahokia), the Norse, and other events.

    Mississippian-era Cahokia priest
    In Mound Builders: Edgar Cayce’s Forgotten History of Ancient America (2001), his 68 readings on ancient America were extensively analyzed.

    Among these readings, 30 specific statements were found that could be verified with scientific evidence. From the 30 statements by Cayce, 23 (77%) have enough support to be considered accurate. Another six (20%) are, as yet, not supportable by evidence but could be verified in the future.

    Only one statement appears to be wrong. That means of all of Cayce’s seemingly impossible statements about ancient America, only 3% are definitely thought to be wrong. Of the remainder, 77% have support from science, and the 20% that remain might be verified in the future.
     
    There are great mounds all over Midwest.
    Several teams of geneticists at prominent U.S. universities have been conducting studies on the DNA of Native Americans. Although results from earlier studies showed the anticipated Siberian-Asian ancestral link for a majority of tribes.

    But things took an unexpected turn in 1997 when it was found that a small percentage of modem Native Americans have an unusual type of DNA once believed to exist only in a few locations in Europe and the Middle East.

    Subsequent research indicated that the European DNA was not the result of genetic mixing after Columbus, as the same DNA was found in the bone at an ancient American burial site, confirming that people carrying this unique DNA had invaded America in ancient times as well.

    This unique gene was also found in a small tribe living in the northern Gobi Desert area. The DNA research initially seemed to promise solid proof of not only where some of the ancient Americans came from but also when they came.

    "Mound Builders"
    A number of academic archaeology textbooks rudely dismiss Edgar Cayce’s pronouncements about ancient history. Cayce was, to them, a “cult archaeologist” -- unworthy of further investigation.

    The authors of those books, all scholars and archaeologists, claim that they have read Cayce’s readings and found them inaccurate, plagiarized, or filled with errors and bizarre claims.

    In Mound Builders, the authors begin by carefully evaluating the archaeologists’ “scientific” and scholarly assessments of Cayce. What is revealed is every bit as astounding as the claims made by Cayce himself.

    Nearly everything about Cayce put forth by "scholars" in their books is an outright fabrication or a monumental blunder. And when confronted by their obvious mistakes, the responses of two of the archaeologists shows how deeply divided their field is.

    One fully admits there are mistakes about Cayce and vows to change his writings. Another arrogantly refuses to change anything despite writing in his book that he is dedicated to “truth.”
     
    Despite the claims of archaeologists, the history of ancient America put forth in Cayce’s readings has never been tested. Edgar Cayce, America’s famous “Sleeping Prophet,” gave 68 “psychic readings” between 1925 to 1944 that provide information on America’s Mound Builders and ancient American history.

    These readings have never been thoroughly analyzed and have been largely forgotten. For the first time, Cayce’s statements about ancient America are genuinely compared to current archaeological evidence.
     
    The authors relate that they began with a skeptical point of view, but the weight of the evidence eventually shows Cayce’s accuracy. Incredibly, nearly everything Cayce related about the Mound Builders and the patterns of migrations to ancient America is true.

    Since 1997, a series of astounding developments has shattered American archaeology’s most cherished beliefs. Excavations have uncovered solid evidence that ancient America was probably settled at least 50,000 years ago.

    Genetic evidence
    Polynesia help seed ancient America.
    Genetic evidence shows that several waves of migrations came into America from Siberia, Polynesia, China, and Japan.

    And a mysterious genetic type has been identified in ancient American skeletal remains as well as in a few modern Native Americans. This enigmatic type is also linked to Israel, parts of Spain, France, Italy, and the northern Gobi Desert.

    It may well have originated in a location between America and Europe. This genetic type entered America in about 10,000 B.C.E. and could be the result of migrations from the mythical land of Atlantis. Another genetic type could be from the mythical land of Mu (lost continent).
     
    Mound Builders also shows how evidence essentially confirms that a series of migrations to America from Semitic lands began in 3000 B.C.E. This evidence is compared to Mormon ideas.

    In addition, Mound Builders shows how several mound sites were built in accordance with Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis and how numerous mound complexes were arranged to reflect the Belt of Orion.

    Mound Builders is truly a compelling, comprehensive look at the archaeological and genetic evidence from ancient America and the first genuine analysis of Cayce’s readings on history. Contains 144 pictures/illustrations. More

    Friday, July 1, 2016

    Buddhist Summer School: Lesson 10 (audio)

    Bhikkhu Bodhi (BM/BAUS); Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

    Buddhist hall, Thrangu Monastery, Richmond, BC, Canada (nathanbauman.com)

    .
    Wisdom Quarterly's Buddhist Summer School started Monday, June 20, 2016. It is open to all and taught by our principal teacher, American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi. Place a note in the comments section.
      
    How can I learn Buddhism in one summer?
    American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi is the famous translator of many Buddhist sutra collections into English.

    He created a series of ten recordings on the fundamentals of what the Buddha taught. Those audio lessons are linked below.
      
    The series, "The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is," can also be streamed online HERE (free).
      
    TEN AUDIO LECTURES
    1. The Buddha
    2. The Four Noble Truths
    3. The True Nature of Existence
    4. Dependent Origination
    5. Rebirth and Karma
    6. Nirvana
    7. The Noble Eightfold Path
    8. Meditation
    9. Social Teachings of the Buddha
    10. The Sangha
      Lesson 10: The Sangha [Monastic Community]
      "The Buddha's Teaching As It Is" by Bhikkhu Bodhi (BodhiMonastery.org)

      Tuesday, March 15, 2016

      SE Asia: Fat monks, president, meditation clinics

      The World (pri.org/BBC); CC Liu, Andrew Win, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
      Why a US health clinic suggests Cambodian treatments for everyday maladies


      Saturday, April 26, 2014

      Do I need a penis? (Buddhist Monastic Code)

      Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Abbot Thanissaro (Metta)
      Young novices in Tergar home to 150 from Tibet, Nepal, AP and UP India (Groobo/flickr)
       
      Self-mutilation
      Buddhist Monastic Code II
      A male monastic (bhikkhu) who cuts off his own genitalia [is in violation of the Disciplinary Code and] incurs a thullaccaya ["grave offense"].

      Now at that time a certain monastic, tormented by dissatisfaction, cut off his own penis. The others reported this matter to the Blessed One (who said), “When one thing should have been cut off, that foolish man cut off something else.”

      The “thing that should have been cut off,” the Sub-commentary notes, was the obsession for [sensual] passion. The Commentary adds that cutting off any other part of one’s body -- such as an ear, nose, or finger -- out of spite [is also a violation and] entails a dukkata ["misconduct" or "wrongdoing").

      However, one is allowed to cut or cut off any part of one’s body for a medical purpose (as in an amputation); or to let blood, for example, when bitten by a snake or an insect, or to treat a disease that calls for blood-letting (see Chapter 5; Mv.VI.14.4).

      Disciplinary Code
      Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)
      Older translations exist (i.e., Rhys Davids)
      While Wisdom Quarterly is pro-sex, we are also pro-monasticism, which entails submitting oneself temporarily to celibacy of mind and body. Why would that ever be a good idea?

      One can make excellent progress on the path to enlightenment in a very short time living as the Buddha prescribed the "high life," the "holy life," the "supreme life" (brahmacharya) -- or teaching that leads to the "supreme" attainment -- IF one enters into it with the right view and motivation rather than because of delusion, guilt, debt, aversion, with an aim to win fame and gain, or to be in the constant company of men or women (if gay), and so on.

      High morals and even higher ideals have a strong tendency to lead to hypocrisy. The Buddha set out a path that works and that has worked for thousands of years. One must find it, rediscover it, and practice it to get ahead. Most Vinayas are corrupted and misinterpreted in practice, but the books remain. Enter with eyes wide open.

      Does one need a penis?
      Bush, okay, but who really needs Dick?
      That is, Does a male intending to become a Buddhist monk need a penis? Absolutely, yes. One will not be allowed in without one, which may be due to the banning of pandakas [a term we have attempted to explain in many posts], a difficult term that has long been mistranslated as "eunuch." Another explanation is that what one needs to overcome is not the physical member but the mental motivation behind it, and to do that a penis is necessary.

      Monastic Life
      The Buddhist monastic life, at least in the older and stricter Theravada school (and particularly the revivalist super strict Thai forest Thammayut sect Ven. Thanissaro is a part of), is circumscribed on all sides.

      The Buddha laid out a Disciplinary Code (Vinaya), a Path-to-Moksha or Liberation (Patimokkha), with explanations for each rule. 

      The hundreds of self-imposed guidelines for fully ordained monastics -- 227 for monks, 311 for nuns -- living supported by the generosity of donors are divided into sections based on their seriousness.
      The largest body of guidelines, which are in addition to these rules, concern etiquette and make for the relative peace of communal living in a monastic setting for monks and nuns, who dwell separately.

      In contrast the smallest, most serious, and most important group of rules are called defeat-offenses (parajikas). They are strict prohibitions on killing, stealing, sexual contact, and falsely claiming attainments (such as the stages of enlightenment or magical powers).

      Sexual indiscretion is perhaps the most common problem faced in a celibate order of ascetics trying to live as a community in a monastery, caves, or a forest hermitage (aranya). It is easy to control if one does not come into contact with temptations, but the Buddha ensured that one would constantly be in contact with the lay community, who visit to provide food and hear the Dharma.

      Why did the Buddha have to make rules?
      People often lose sight of the three reasons for a formal Disciplinary Code:
      1. to provide a speedy vehicle to enlightenment, a direct path, a prati-moksha (path-to-supreme-liberation),
      2. to encourage new meditators and comfort those who have already attained (enlightenment stages, absorptions, etc.),
      3. to preserve the Dharma as a living tradition with "saints" (arhats) for many generations.
      Wouldn't it be so much better for me, as a monastic, not to tell you what to do and not do -- and, conversely, have you not tell me what to do and not to do? No, no, no. One can live on one's own with that kind of attitude. The Buddha set up a system dependent on lay people, dependent on others, dependent on the Doctrine-and-Disciples (Dhamma-Vinaya)

      Being a recluse (bhikkhu/bhikkhuni) or wandering ascetic (samana) usually means mental rather than physical seclusion. There is plenty of good company in kalyana-mittas ("noble friends"), but one withdraws to contemplate and meditate successfully -- progressing through the stages of absorption and insight that make Buddhist monasticism a delight with many fruits. (See "The Fruits of Recluseship Discourse," Samanaphala Sutta where the Buddha outlines the advantages of monasticism over living an ordinary household life).

      Buddhist Monastic Code I
      Wisdom Quarterly is in no way fond of Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff)'s eccentric and misleading translations, interpretations, grammar, style, or general deportment as a person and monk pushed out of Thailand. But he has done a great service to the English-speaking world in at least one way: He long ago translated the Vinaya (Buddhist Monastic Code I and II), which most lay Buddhists are completely unfamiliar with, and he has freely provided his strained and oddly interpreted version of the Dhamma through many translations from Thai and Pali available through accesstoinsight.org. We speak from years of knowing him personally and his few American disciples not from merely trying to read his free works.

      Destructive behavior
      The Vibhanga to Pr 2 states that a monastic who breaks, scatters, burns, or otherwise renders unusable the property of another person incurs a dukkata. Cv.V.32.1 adds that a monastic is not allowed to burn underbrush. However, if a brush fire is burning, a counter-fire may be lit and protection (paritta) made. This last phrase apparently means reciting a protective charm [mantra-like chanting of Buddhist sutras], such as...