The Dalai Lama appears in Mundgod (photos)

DalaiLama.com; CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Psst, psst, what wise thing will His Holiness say today? - I bet it's profound. Shssh, shssh.

Meeting the Mundgod Community

I was once a young tulku.

(December 12, 2017) MUNDGOD, Karnataka State, India - An estimated 8,500 devotees -- including 5,000 Vajrayana monks, 200 nuns, 400 Tibetan schoolchildren, as well as 1,000 lay residents of Mundgod and 1,500 from other exiled Tibetan settlements -- gathered to listen to the 14th Dalai Lama this morning. More

• PHOTOS: Talk at Drepung Loseling Debate Ground

The Pope meets Trump's family

Associated Press (ap.org); Wisdom Quarterly

Kushner ready to talk to FBI: lawyer

If the FBI wants to talk to Pres. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner about his Russian contacts, they won't have to track down the president's son-in-law. Amid reports the FBI is scrutinizing Kushner's encounters, his lawyer says he stands ready to talk to federal investigators as well as Congress about his contacts and his role in Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. More

• World's shortest woman in 2 feet tall
• VIDEO: How to do push ups

Mass murder: white nurse killed babies in hospital

Genene Jones, 66, is serving concurrent 99-year and 60-year sentences at a Gatesville prison for the 1982 killing of 15-month-old Chelsea McClelland and the sickening of a 4-week-old boy who survived. The girl was given a fatal injection of a muscle relaxant and the boy received a large injection of a blood thinner. Jones was due to be freed next March under a mandatory release law that was in place when she was convicted. But on Thursday, the Bexar County district attorney's office announced that she has been charged in the 1981 death of 11-month-old Joshua Sawyer, who investigators say died of a fatal overdose of an anti-seizure drug, Dilantin.

Supernatural in Catholicism: Pope visits U.S.

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; John Thavis, Larry Mantle (SCPR); AP

Erect stamens welcome CEO of the Holy Roman Empire's Catholic missionary arm (AP).

I will now ritually kill this magic sin-cleaning chicken in the name of our one true God (aka "Love") for the glory of Israel and the destruction of our damn Palestinian neighbors! (AP)

The Dark Lord briefs politicians on plans for world domination (South Park).

(Vigilant Christian) Mark calls Pope Francis a liar and false prophet, condemning the world's largest religion (Catholicism or "Universalism") that appropriates the best ideas and traditions from other religions. Then it builds a monument using its imperial booty to build a corporate capital (capitol, the Vatican, in a minuscule country in the middle of Rome, the Holy Roman Empire's church, the Holy See) from which it extends its tentacles and rules the world hand-in-hand with military forces from the U.S., Europe, and various European colonies. Mark, why are most Republican candidates and FOX News hosts Catholic now?

 

All a distraction to select Jeb Bush for ruler.

It is funny to see Christians fighting Christians saying, "You're not Christian enough, you Catholic!" or "Your Church is the Whore of Babylon!" or "Your Pope is the Antichrist!" or "Your fundamentalist right-wing of the Republican party is destroying this country!" or hearing Bible quotes out of context to promote hate and division, rancor and self-righteousness. What would good Jesus (Issa) do?

The one true God, Odin as Zeus as YHWH...

The end of the world is coming (after all, the world is always ending, and individuals are always exiting), so why not get right with karma or Brahman or the loftiest beliefs we profess? No, as Americans we want war! It's the war against the devil. It's the war against drugs. It's the war against liberals.

Gay Christian Republican, hypocrite (AP)

It's war, war, war as we conquer the world for capitalism while claiming to be fighting for freedom (of trade) and a free market. Let's look at that troublesome "book" -- a collection of many disparate teachings fashioned together by a murderous emperor, "Saint" Constantine, to strengthen his empire and satisfy his imperial ambitions. 

Meet the man/woman God wants for you!

Good teachings held over from Sumerian times, preserved by Bedouin tribes, Hebrews, Palestinians, Jews, Philistines, Samaritans, and other war-like desert tribal peoples continue to be perverted in the service of war and militarism for the greater glory of their tribal "God," who in the Bible is actually always plural, many gods, mostly violent, angry, and jealous like visiting space alien groups claiming to be the One True Group of gods.

God: say no to feminism

Fight on, foolish Christian soldiers, fight on. Then maybe when you are "reborn" you will see that fighting was not the way. For as Rudimentary Peni says:

"When the dust has settled and you're born again, maybe as a Martian church, maybe then you'll see that your reality was squashed into banality, was squashed into banality, was squashed into banality. When you are a Martian church, aaahh, when you are a Martian church, aaahh..."

Who wrote the Bible and why?

(KPBS.org via Eleonora Mazzanti) "The Bible's Buried Secrets"

• Anti-Pope Francis exposed! (Most Holy Family)
• Pope calls for personal transformation — maybe political
• How to unboil an egg with science (Merriam-Webster)
• Mainstream Media mash: Pope visits America
• Latinos gain greater footing: U.S. inaugurates first Mexican-American U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera (like Mexican-American Poets Laureate of L.A. and S.F.)

The Supernatural in Catholicism
On eve of Pope Francis' U.S. visit, a Vatican insider examines the church’s quest to remain relevant
John Thavis, host Larry Mantle (SCPR, KPCC, Sept. 21, 2015); CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

The best pope in decades visits Cuba and is received like a rock star (AP pool).

   

But "who am I to judge?" - Pope Francis

Supernatural miracles aren't what they used to be. The modern world demands explanations, urging the Catholic Church to evolve its criteria to legitimize supernatural occurrences.

With over one billion Catholics worldwide, how does the church stay relevant when so much of its history depends on faith in inexplicable events [and a horrific trail of blood and imperial conquest]?
 
In his book, The Vatican Prophecies: Investigating Supernatural Signs, Apparitions, and Miracles in the Modern Age (Viking, 2015), John Thavis explores the church’s ongoing battle to justify its beliefs in the mystical world of Catholicism and the public’s intellectual “thirst for something more tangible.”
 

Hey, sorry about the raping and killing!

As former Rome bureau chief of the Catholic News Service, Thavis gives readers an inside look at one of the most powerful and clandestine religious institutions just in time for Pope Francis' visit to the U.S.
 
Has the church's stance on supernatural occurrences evolved? What are we to think: Belief versus intellectual spirituality? More+AUDIO

• Guest: Author John Thavis, former Rome bureau chief of the Catholic News Service, will be covering the pope’s historic visit to the United States, to Congress, and to the White House where Barrack Obama and his husband, Michael (a.k.a. "Michelle"), will host him beginning Sept. 22, 2015.
• EVENT: Common Good Books: John Thavis discusses Vatican prophecies, investigating supernatural signs and Mary apparitions the Vatican wants to hide

Let's revive the Holy Roman Empire and its Nazi-style fanfare and Roman psy-ops for some old time religion! Let's begin our re-conquest with America! (Tony Gentile/Pool/AP).

 
Pope Francis wanted to begin his current visit to America in Mexico and enter the U.S. like Jesus on a white donkey or a poor migrant, but the U.S. wouldn't let him, so he has come through Cuba because the U.S. couldn't stop him.

I'd rather follow the Goddess Mary (ZF).

[Pope] Francis said in his homily at an outdoor Mass in Holguin that the houses deserve a "special mention" for helping to maintain the faith "despite the scarcity of churches and priests."

The [imperialist Catholic] church was barred from building new houses of worship for years after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned Cuba into a communist state. Many priests were expelled from the country...

Today there are some 2,600 mission houses in Cuba... Church-State tensions have eased since the 1990s... More from mainstream AP

• Comments (KPCC)
• Was "Christianity" invented as imperial Roman psy-ops campaign? Bible scholar thinks so

Prophecy: The (next to the) Last Pope

John Hogue (HogueProphecy.com); Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

In a cool and very matter of fact manner, Pope Benedict XVI announced [on Feb. 11] that he would be stepping down as Pope of one billion Catholics because of his advanced age. The ring of St. Peter will be removed from his living hand and smashed at 8:00 pm on February 28, 2013.

 

Popes rarely retire. They are usually led out of the papal palace feet first, [lifeless] with their white slippers on [or fancy red Prada slip-ons if they prefer]. ...[T]he last pope to retire was St. Celestine V. That was 719 years ago in 1294. It is a rather sordid story: one of the worst moments in the history of the papacy....
 

Kiss my ring, court. I'm outta here.

Apostasy, Fatima-Gate and sex scandals, has ever overshadowed Benedict’s short and checkered reign. He apparently will not survive the widening sex scandal of pedophile priests that as Cardinal Joe Ratzinger -- head of the "Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith" under [the previous] Pope John Paul II’s long reign -- [he] kept under wraps, sequestering and shielding hundreds of serial sex predators from secular justice all around the world.

 

It is believed that this was all foreseen by St. Malachy (d. 1148), a medieval Irish prophet who left us a list of 111 Latin mottoes -- each signifying the life, heraldry, name or works of every Pontiff from his contemporary Celestine II (1143-1144) up to Benedict XVI.

What follows in his prophecy is a coda where he describes the “last pope,” whom he calls Petrus Romanus (Peter of Rome). Benedict was foretold to be the pope who brought about a spiritual crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, [and] Peter of Rome will administer the faithful, it is presaged, when Rome itself is destroyed... More

The Money to be Happy ($50,000)

Time Magazine "MoneyLand" (TIME.com); Wisdom Quarterly

A landmark 2010 Princeton University study showed that money really can buy happiness -- up to a very specific point. The researchers (including Nobelist [Emeritus Professor of Psychology] Daniel Kahneman) found that up to about $75,000, annual income closely correlates with emotional well-being. Beyond that threshold, however, more income doesn’t translate into more happiness. On average, an American earning $575,000 isn’t likely to be any happier than one making $75,000. Well, forget $75,000. A new poll by the Marist [not Marxist] Institute for Public Opinion suggests that as little as $50,000 brings genuine happiness. According to the survey... More

The Future to Come
Ashley Wells (COMMENTARY)
I'll be happy when the dollar folds. The Fed is sure to sink it after milking it for all it's worth. The only thing is, if it is not being replaced by the "Amero" it once planned and minted, or returning to the gold standard, or rare earth minerals, or the Krugerrand, what will be forced on Americans and the world?

And has Prof. Kahneman calculated how many real "monetary units" it takes to feel emotionally well? I live on none, I live on far more than a family of three, and either way I have been happy and miserable. The real thing that matters financially is one's standing among presumed peers.

I would HATE to have a million dollars -- I really would -- if I thought everyone around me had a hundred million. That's reality. That's social psychology. That's me in a nutshell. Maybe I should be in a nuthouse.

I would be happy if I didn't have to work. I don't have to work now. I've been out of work, and I didn't cease to exist. So I can both be and not work. What I can't stand is the comparison to others. But that's not my mom doing that to me. That's me doing it.

Fifty thousand, fifty million, dollars? We don't need no stinking dollars -- not to be happy anyway. Happiness is free. Happiness is a lot easier "poor" than "rich." Yet, we are afraid of both poles, so we have defined theoretical-happiness (functional "emotional well being") as being comfortable members of the middle class.

So everyone is in the middle class. We are afraid to death of falling into "poverty," which we never look up because we'd realize that most of us are already there. And we are constantly lusting after getting "rich," without ever bothering to define that either.

When asked, "Why do we want to be rich?" We answer, "To be happy!"

If that were true we'd start being happy now. Happiness is available NOW. We can still chase that paper. But no one should chase it thinking there is happiness on the other end, or wait to be happy only when and if we get there. Be happy along the way. Why? Because there is no way to happiness. "Happiness is the way."

• The Poverty (a call to conscience) Tour

So much to do
Renaissance Faire-Labor and Social Justice & Earth Day Fair-Coachella-Hammer Forum: Can a Third-Party President Get Elected?-L.A. Theatre Works records “Frost/Nixon”-Agriculture in the Golden State symposium-S. Brian Willson & Blase Bonpane - Dinner & Book Signing-Tadasana Festival-LA Times Festival of Books-TOPANGA EARTH DAY-One World Art and Music Festival-Third Parties Presidential Debate

The Man Who Gave Up Money

Daniel Suelo, Mark Sundeen, Madeleine Brand Show (SCPR.org, March 23, 2012)

Many of us have found out in the last few years what it's like to live with a lot less money.

But for most of us living with less is involuntary and, sometimes, painful. For Daniel Suelo, it's the only way he'd have it.

• Event: Meet the man
  

Twelve years ago, he pulled his life savings out of his pocket and left it in a phone booth. Since then, he has lived in America with no money.

He does not touch it, does not deal with it, does not accept it. Suelo's life story is the subject of a new book by Mark Sundeen called The Man Who Quit Money. Daniel Suelo lives happily and free in a cave near Moab, Utah.

• LISTEN
• REVIEW: Daniel Suelo has not earned or spent a single cent since 2000. He refuses to accept any form of government aid, lives in a cave outside, and not only survives but thrives completely without the use of money. This book begins with a lot of questions. For starters, is it even possible to live without money these days? Not everyone can live like Daniel. This is not an instruction manual for leaving behind material wealth. The moral of his story is not about emulation, but inspiration...to be happier. More

COMMENTARY
The liberation Suelo found was advocated by the Buddha. Many think it was only applicable in ancient India with its well established dana system. The Buddha benefited by the existence of wandering ascetics. It enabled him to "give it all up," to abandon his inherited riches, and to go on a quest unencumbered by worldly demands. Giving it all up is NOT being without money. If it were all our homeless would be dreadlocked saddhus, and we would be living in the spiritual paradise of India. Giving it all up, renouncing, is an internal act. It is not being unduly attached and controlled by our money. If it is ours, we are in control. If we belong to it, it is in control. Monastics exemplify what it is to live on dana. But many fall short. They have become missionaries not monastics, teachers not meditators. If they do not give up their attachment to the false sense of safety money sometimes provides, they will not be able to gain peace of mind and the fruits of recluseship. Conversely, if a layperson does, that person has access to what the Buddha taught and the benefits of meditation.

• TOMS Shoes and the bogus "Buy One, Give One" business model
• No charges, no arrest, delayed media coverage: What explains mainstream response to the shooting of Trayvon Martin?
• VIDEO: Obama addresses the case of Trayvon Martin
  
• San Onofre nuclear reactors down indefinitely, power shortages possible this summer
• Can California afford earthquake preparedness?
• Controversial "stand your ground" laws disputed after Florida shooting
• Uninsured, but still against health care law
• Video game company BioWare caves to fan pressure for new Mass Effect 3 ending
• Weekend: 24-hour donuts, Wistaria Festival, Mad Men-inspired LA

Catholic Conspiracies (What's under Malta?)

Hitler's equivalent of a Karl Rove made his assessment, and Nazi plans continue.

Unitednationsoffilm.com
(Nov. 2010) For centuries, we have been enslaved by royal bloodlines, Satanic occult structures and societies, fake religions, and a criminal financial matrix. The Vatican, the Pedo-Pope, the Queen of England, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and elite bloodlines are allowing mass genocide due to the planned BP oil catastrophe.

They own major shares in BP, the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.... The Vatican, within its own city-state, thinks it is above the law, making its own rules and earning a staggering 355 million euros per year for a population of only 829 people. No wonder it needs its own army, the Pontifical Swiss Guard Corps, to shield itself from the poverty and anger of the outside world.

The Mafia, CIA, the Vatican’s intelligence apparatus, the Knights of Malta, quite a connection. In more recent decades SMOM (Sovereign Military Order of Malta) has acted as a funding conduit, a black market gold channel, and money launderer for the CIA, among others, and is known to act as the Vatican's intelligence arm. What it did for most people is bring about the revelation of pedophilia in the Catholic Church. More>>

Malta is an island with a vast array of underground tunnels, home to ogres (yakkhas), serpentine reptilians (nagas), and chimeras that Wisdom Quarterly covered during Monster Month. Might subterranean forces be the original source of these Church plots and activities? Malta's Underground Monsters

• PHOTOS: Bush royal family with Nazi quote, Pope Benedict upon a throne from which he attempts to rule most of the world, and yes that's really the current German Pope as a young priest sieg heiling Hitler, having been a member of the Hitler Youth as a boy.

Should the Pope be Arrested?

Should the Pope Go to Jail?

Critics call for Pope to be put on trial (The Guardian)
Atheist Richard Dawkins backs campaign to arrest Pope
(BBC News) The Vatican has defended the Pope, saying the Pope is willing to meet more victims of clerical abuse, while the Church has published an internet guide as to...
Prominent British atheists endorse efforts to seek pope's arrest

MOLESTATION
Vatican goes into damage control mode over abuse
Jury orders Boy Scouts to pay man $1.4 million in sex abuse case
Catholic League president: Priests aren’t pedophiles, molesting children is "what gays do"
In another coup for the seemingly part-time political pundit Bill Donohue, CNN broadcast on Tuesday a conversation about the Catholic church's thousands of pedophilia scandals that would be awkward to even over-hear in public, let alone broadcast nation-wide. That's because Donohue, who presides over the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, decided... More>>

Ex-priest in Vatican child molestation case

Change of heart? The Vatican has a new policy: On Monday the Vatican responded to allegations it concealed clerical sex abuse by making it clear for the first time that bishops and clerics should report such crimes to police if required by law.

Book's gay claims aim to discredit church: Bishop

Pope's ivory tower past adds to his detachment

VATICAN CITY – Long before entering Vatican life, Joe Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) won renown as a theologian and a German university professor, penning more than 40 books and winning a devoted following of students who respected his prodigious memory and brilliant mind. One thing absent from his resume? Letter reignites Vatican fight - Vatican feels under attack

• War profiteers set sights on Asia

Not Attached to Anything

(Flickr/h.koppdelaney)

"Not attached to anything" -- this digitally created image is the work of a German artist. The monk in this portrait is Tibetan. The Buddha is Indonesian. The signs are Japanese. The meaning is "international." See meditation images.

• Great Golden Island Buddha (photo)
• Utah congressman GOP leader nude in hot tub with minor
• Sen. Schumer says plans China currency bill
  WASHINGTON, D.C. – [The U.S. is in debt to China to such an extent that it will never be able to pay that debt. It is therefore trying to make sure it is not forced to.] Senator Charles Schumer said on today he plans to move forward soon on legislation aimed at stopping China from "manipulating" its currency. "Now more than ever, there is a consensus to finally confront China's currency manipulation," the New York Democrat said...
• Judge rules on presidential candidate John Edwards' sex tape
• Japan arrests whaling activist for boarding ship
• Corey Haim died of prescription drug overdose

Dalai Lama calls meeting to discuss Tibet / Pope condemns money and power

The pope, cardinals, and bishops -- looking like Tibetan lamas -- attend Pope Benedict XVI's Mass celebrated at the Lourdes shrine, southwestern France, Sunday, 9/14/08. More than 100,000 pilgrims singing hymns gathered on a rain-soaked field known as the Lourdes Prairie for the mass marking the 150th anniversary of a peasant girl's religious visions (AP Photo/Francois Mori). Above, Dalai Lama with Yellow Hat lamas arriving in France for opening of Lerab Ling monastery last month.

DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters, 9/12/08) -- The Dalai Lama has called a special meeting of Tibetan exiles in November or December to discuss political unrest in Tibet this year and the future of the Tibetan movement, officials said on Friday.

Karma Chophel, speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, told Reuters that officials would meet on Monday to discuss the details of the special session ordered by their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The special meeting, the opening session of which would be addressed by the Dalai Lama, would be attended by Tibetan leaders, intellectuals and non-government organizations chosen by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile.

"We have to discuss who are the other people to be called," Chophel said. The meeting of Tibetans comes after months of anti-China protests across the world, sparked off by unrest in Tibet in March which was aggressively suppressed by China.

.

Tibetan leader waves at the end of a teaching conference in Nantes, western France, 8/16/08 (Reuters/Stephane Mahe).

Beijing says followers of the Dalai Lama fomented riots and protests across the mountainous region in a bid to derail last month's Olympics Games. The Dalai Lama has rejected the charge. Envoys of the Dalai Lama and China met in July to defuse the crisis, the latest in several rounds of talks since 2002 that many Tibetans, especially younger generations, describe as a Chinese ploy to delay progress on the question of either independence or regional autonomy for Tibet.

The next round of those talks could be held as early as October, two Chinese sources with knowledge of the slow-moving dialogue, told Reuters last week. Many exiled Tibetans would like to go further than the conciliatory "middle way" approach of the Dalai Lama, who seeks autonomy. Tibetan officials said the meeting would see wide-ranging discussions about the future of the Tibetan movement.

"He will advise and he will give guidelines...he will put before the general body his ideas," Chophel said of the Dalai Lama.

Reporting by Abhishek Madhukar; writing by Krittivas Mukherjee; editing by Paul Tait

• Meanwhile, the Christian pontiff was condemning Paganism:

Pope in Paris condemns love of money, power
Jenny Barchfield (AP, 9/12/08)

.

Pope waves from bulletproof pope-mobile, outdoor mass Paris near Eiffel Tower, 9/13/08. Tens of thousands turned out for his only public appearance before his pilgrimage to Lourdes (AP Photo/Alberto Pizzoli, pool).

PARIS -- Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled "pagan" passion for power, possessions, and money as a modern-day plague Saturday as he led more than a quarter of a million Catholics in an outdoor Mass in Paris.

Benedict was making his first visit as pontiff to the French capital, renowned for its luxury goods, fashion sense and cultural riches. "Has not our modern world created its own idols?" Benedict said in his homily, and wondered aloud whether people have "imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity?"

"This is a question that all people, if they are honest with themselves, cannot help but ask," the pontiff said. More>>

• Pope visits miraculous Lourdes

LOURDES, France -- People must cling to hope even in dire circumstances like injustice and torture, Pope Benedict XVI told the faithful at Sunday Mass in Lourdes, which has become a shrine for desperate causes and hope against all odds.