Panning for GOLD in creek bed (SUTRA)

Gold nuggets become bars, bars become coins and jewelry, which convert into cash

Metal detector signal under this boulder — we had to know what it was...praying

(How to Find Gold | Prospector Nic) May 26, 2025: Deep in a remote Aussie creek, Down Under, we locked onto a massive signal under the biggest boulder we’ve ever worked. The metal detector absolutely screamed — and we had to know what was down there. We spent four hours digging, shifting heavy rock, soaked in sweat and bush grit…and when we finally got to the target — it wasn’t what we expected. But GOLD has a funny way of testing one's patience. This hunt proves it: If you don’t quit, the gold eventually shows itself.

Tons of lost U.S. gold

How many tons of gold did Europeans extract?

SUTRA: Gold Prospectors

Translated by Dhr. Seven based on Ven. Sujata translation (AN 3.101)

“Raw [unprocessed native] gold has coarse impurities: soil, sand, gravel. A prospector or an apprentice gold panner pours it into another pan, where they wash, rinse, and clean it.

When those coarse impurities have been eliminated, there are middling impurities in the raw gold: dirt and grit.

The prospector washes it again. When those have been eliminated, there are fine impurities in the raw gold: fine black grime. The prospector washes it again. When that has been eliminated, only golden flecks remain.

A goldsmith or apprentice places the raw gold in a crucible where they heat, melt, then smelt it. Still the raw gold is not settled as the dross is not totally gone. The gold is not pliable, workable, or radiant, but rather is brittle and not yet ready to be worked.

The goldsmith keeps on heating, melting, and smelting it until the raw gold becomes pliable, workable, and radiant, no longer brittle but ready to be worked.

Then the goldsmith can successfully create any kind of ornament, bet it a bracelet, earring, necklace, or a golden garland.

(EGS PRO) This is what REAL gold rocks actually look like

In the same way, a monastic (wandering ascetic) committed to higher mind has coarse impurities (corruptions): unskillful bodily, verbal, and mental conduct. A sincere, capable monastic [in training] gives these up, gets rid of, lets go of, and eliminates them.

When they have been let go of and eliminated, there are middling impurities: thoughts of sensuality, malice, and cruelty. A sincere and capable monastic gives these up, lets go of, gets rid of, and eliminates them.

When they have been given up and eliminated, there are fine impurities: thoughts of family, country, and status. A sincere and capable monastic lets go of, gives these up, gets rid of, and eliminates them. When they have been given up and eliminated, only thoughts about the Teaching (Dharma) are left.

I'm not quite an adept yet. I still have to let go.

That absorption (immersion) is not yet peaceful or sublime, not yet tranquil or unified, but is held in place by forceful suppression [of the mental defilements].

However, there comes a time when mind is stilled internally; it settles, unifies, and becomes absorbed (immersed) in samādhi. That absorption is peaceful and sublime, tranquil and unified, not held in place by forceful suppression.

A monastic (a skillful trainee) extends the mind to realize by insight each and every thing that can be realized by insight; they are capable of realizing those things because each and every one is within range. More

How to get rich quick

With impurities eliminated, I could make $300K!

SUTRA: To the People of Venaga

(AN 3.63, Venāga Sutta) Translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, edited by Dhr. Seven

...Then the Brahmin householders of Venāgapura approached the Blessed One [the Buddha].

Some paid homage and sat down respectfully to one side; some exchanged greetings with him and, when they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, sat down to one side; some reverentially saluted him and sat down to one side; some pronounced their name and clan and sat down to one side; some kept silent and sat down to one side.

The Brahmin Vacchagotta of Venāgapura then said to the Blessed One:

“It is astounding and amazing, Master Gotama [the Buddha], how Master Gotama’s faculties are tranquil and the color of his skin is pure and bright. Just as a yellow jujube fruit in the autumn is pure and bright, so Master Gotama’s faculties are tranquil and the color of his skin is pure and bright.

“Just as a palm fruit that has just been removed from its stalk is pure and bright, so Master Gotama’s faculties are tranquil and the color of his skin is pure and bright.

What is more valuable, gold or self-mastery?

“Just as an ornament of finest gold, well prepared by a skilled goldsmith and very skillfully wrought in the furnace, placed on red brocade, shines and beams and radiates, so Master Gotama’s faculties are tranquil and the color of his skin is pure and bright.”

High and luxurious beds

What's wrong with worldly luxury bedding?

[How are his beds? They must be very nice.] “Whatever high and luxurious kinds of bedding there are — sofa, divan, long-haired coverlet, coverlet of diverse colors, white, woolen with floral designs, quilt of cotton wool, woolen coverlet ornamented with animal figures, woolen coverlet with double borders, woolen coverlet with a single border, silken sheet studded with gems, sheet made with silk threads and studded with gems, dancer’s rug, elephant rug, horse rug, chariot rug, rug of antelope hide, spread made of the hide of the kadali-deer, bed with a canopy above and red bolsters at both ends — Master Gotama surely gains them at will without trouble or difficulty.”

“Brahmin, those high and luxurious kinds of bedding are rarely obtained by those who have gone forth [into the left-home life of a wandering ascetic or shramana], and if they are obtained, they are impermissible.

“But, Brahmin, there are three kinds of high and luxurious beds that at present I gain at will, without trouble or difficulty. What are these three?

“They are the celestial high and luxurious bed, the divine high and luxurious bed, and the noble high and luxurious bed. These are the three kinds of high and luxurious beds that at present I gain at will, without trouble or difficulty.”

More: AN 3.63: Venāgapura Sutta translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi (suttacentral.net)

Gear Used: Minelab GPX 6000 + Nugget Finder 12x7" Canon R7 DJI Mini 4 Pro GoPro Hero 11 DJI Osmo Action 5. Follow Prospector Nic: Website: howtofindgold.com.au Facebook: nicolas.odgers. Instagram: prospectornic1. TikTok: prospectornic. 📌 Want more Aussie gold adventures? Make sure to subscribe, hit the bell, and drop a comment — Nic reads them all. Cheers, legends! #goldprospecting #metal detecting #australiangold #gpx6000 #bedrockgold #prospectornic #goldnuggets #outbackadventures

Nicolas Odgers, How to Find Gold | Prospector Nic, May 26, 2025; Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhikkhu Sujato (suttacentral.net); Dhr. Seven (trans), Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Orgy? Burning Man Journal (Fire Sutra)

What do "Burners" look like up close? It's just mainly West Coast doing white people stuff.

But when we got there, it was fun playing Mad Max: Thunderdome with everyone.

15 lanes? There was an 8-hour traffic jam, but we got a free car wash from all the rain (2022).

• Death of female Burner first day of Burning Man 2024 (NBC)
• Entrance gate to Burning Man closed due to rain (SF Gate)

No one is forcing you to come inside. Raincoat

From the CEO’s Desk: From the Beach to Black Rock City and the World in 1986, a small group gathered on Baker Beach for the first burn, not yet imagining what would become Black Rock City.

That initial connection sparked a global culture. Now, with Black Rock City just days away, Marian Goodell shares her thoughts. In the spirit of transparency, Burning Man is keeping it real with the Burner global community.

• 

  Please don't dial 911 [at our] screams of pleasure

  There aren't really sex ORGIES at Burning Man, are there? No, no, well, I mean, I suppose it depends on how you define "orgy." Are there tents with mattresses inside and naked people horsing around in a Bacchic manner? Well, yeah, sometimes. It depends on the attendees. Anyone can have any kind of tent. Come to our ECSTATIC MEDITATION TENT (jhanic-piti) on the Playa by the smoking dragon structure where "No sex, please; we're Ameboids and Gatchularians" is our motto if it's a non-orgy you want. But if it's an orgy of diversion and hedonistic distractions, keep going to the Orgy Dome.
• SEX ALERT: "The Orgy Dome"!? (Burning Man)
• Burning Man Schedule of Events – BRC 2024
• What to wear? Etsy.com has "Burning Man clothing"
• Come hear the Buddha's "Fire Sermon" or read it below.*

WARNING: Adults only! Orgy in progress.

In days, there will be a gathering of people in the Black Rock Desert, celebrating and putting into practice a culture of creativity, innovation, and connection.

The Burning Man Project has been supporting and encouraging this Burning Man cultural movement since 1986.

Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland

Burning Man migrated from the beach in San Francisco, to the Nevada desert and then out into the world.

In 2023, 74,000 people came together in Black Rock City and, incredibly, an additional 95,000 people participated in official Burning Man Regional Events (regionals) around the world.

I didn't mean to cling! I was just curious

Specific to Black Rock City this year, we can’t wait for the Curiouser & Curiouser convening. We expect the metropolis to bring together nearly 70,000 participants, including similar levels of first-time Burners on the Playa as in the past.

Those who are new will discover as they acculturate with the Survival Guide what community—at Burning Man events and in the world—is truly all about:

• storytelling,
• celebration, and
• laughter,
• informality and care of others,
• generosity,
• kindness, and
• collective effort.

Traffic jam rumors are exaggerated. It only took us 7 hours from Nevada to festival (2023)

This is the temporary "Black Rock City" that Burners pay to park in for a week (NY Post).

Trashy? MOOP ("matter out of place") I was just leaving… no trace (Burning Man)

.

This is better than Vegas, though more expensive

Let’s remember, we were all newbies once, and with that wide-eyed expression caught up in awe and joy we went on to do more and bigger things. From building a wilderness camping experience in Black Rock City as an experiment in civics to achieving our nonprofit goals, no one said it would be easy.

Tantric sex is better for intimacy in dating.

And the goal remains the same—to make the world better. The key to our collective success is the long-term survival of the Burning Man culture and our continued ability to inspire participation—in Northern Nevada and worldwide.

In this moment of societal division, isolation, and a decline in people connecting, the antidote is more togetherness, mental well-being, and creativity.

*The Buddha's "Fire Sermon"

Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), "Burning" (Aditta Sutra, SN 35.28) from the Connected Discourses on the Six Sense Bases; edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

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The Buddha taught: "ALL is burning"!

On one occasion the Buddha was dwelling in Gaya, at Gaya’s Head, together with 1,000 meditators. There he addressed them: “Meditators, all is burning! And what, meditators, is the 'all' that is burning?

• “The eye is burning.

“Forms [visual objects] are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, and whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition — whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant — that too is burning.

“Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with rebirth, aging, and death; with sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair, I say.

• “The ear is burning…
• “The nose is burning…
• “The tongue is burning...
• “The body is burning…
• “The mind is burning

Maitreya: What is the "all" that is burning?

and whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as condition — whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant — that, too, is burning.

“Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with rebirth, aging, and death; with sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair, I say.

“Seeing thus, meditators, the instructed noble disciple experiences dispassion [disillusionment, revulsion, letting go] towards the eye, towards forms, towards eye-consciousness, towards eye-contact, towards whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition — whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant...

Bomjon, the Nepalese boy meditator, perhaps practicing tummo, spontaneously catches on fire.

.

“One experiences revulsion towards the ear…towards the mind…towards whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as condition….

“Experiencing revulsion, one becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion one's mind is liberated.

“When it is liberated, there comes the knowledge: ‘It’s liberated.’ One understands, ‘Destroyed is rebirth, the utmost life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, and there is no more [of this to come] for this state of being.’”

This is what the Buddha said. Elated, those meditators delighted in the Blessed One’s statement. And while this discourse was being spoken, the minds of the thousand meditators were liberated from the taints by letting go (nonclinging).

• Come hear the Buddha's Fire Sermon from a fiery pulpit

[Does Burning Man matter anymore?]

This man is ready with water guns. It used to be better: shots of 2014 Burning Man (NYPost)

This giant symbolic man will burn. He'll be set on fire. Think of the symbolism! Eh, don't think.

.

DANGER: Dust storms may strike. No refunds.

Burning Man culture is more relevant than ever. This is exactly what it offers through art, music, learning, leadership, and civic engagement.

In the early years, annual ticket revenue was sufficient, but it alone does not fund Black Rock City and all the other ways the nonprofit brings Burning Man culture to the world.

Since becoming a nonprofit in 2011, philanthropic support has been increasingly vital. It is even more important today given lower ticket sales to this year’s event.

.

It is easy to hypothesize about why we’re in this moment, but let’s not forget that while the movement is vibrant, any culture is impacted by what is happening in broader society. Moods and societal values change, economic forecasts and consumer confidence fluctuates, local, state, and federal laws shift, the weather patterns become unpredictable, and costs rise,

But one thing remains: Our passion and commitment to bringing more Burning Man culture to the world is steadfast. More (COMMENTS)

Aug. 25, 2024: Rain and mud problems

(KCAL) It's last year all over again, when we were trapped in a mud flood of desert rain and slop clay

It might rain and become muddy. Pack accordingly. Bring mud tires and trip insurance.

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Y'know things are bad when ya pray for drought

The desert is an unforgiving place. It's not really that it's hot. That's not what makes it a "desert." What makes it one is temperature extremes. Sure, it's hot in the day and you'll die of dehydration. But in the night, you'll freeze to death and die of predation. Jinn, snakes, coyotes, scorpions, shapeshifters, the wilderness is not the place to be wandering. But if lost, travel by evening or night when it's cooler.

These new oversized mud tires keep me unstuck

If you happen to be driving to a new city in the desert that pops up once a year for a week, bring mud tires, a raincoat, galoshes, boots, and chains to get hauled out of mud and sand traps. Today, Sunday, Aug. 25th, is the first day of Burning Man 2024. Problem. The gates are locked to Black Rock City due to rain. Burners and Newbies must have sensed this when they were buying tickets like previous years. Form a line. Pull a tarp over your art installation. And wait for the water to soak in the ground before driving and getting stuck in the soup like last year.

• A Guide to the Linked Linked Discourses (SuttaCentral)
• Burning Man 2024 Schedule, Opening Ceremony 8/25/24
• CEO Marian Goodell, burningman.org, Aug. 18, 2024; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Solomon, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Alaska Triangle: CIA remote viewer, ET base

Ancient Aliens: CIA Analyst Pat Price discovers UFO/US military base in Alaska (S19)

(HISTORY) May 13, 2023: Was this CIA agent killed because he was not supposed to "see" (remote view) a base in and under Mt. Hayes, Alaska? See more in this scene from Season 19, Episode 8, "The Mysteries of Alaska." What did he see? Let's see:

(Quest) The CIA's early psychic spy Pat Price remote views base

#AncientAliens Watch favorite episodes of Ancient Aliens on The HISTORY Channel website at: history.com/schedule. Subscribe for more from Ancient Aliens and other great The HISTORY Channel shows: histv.co/SubscribeHistoryYT.

Find out more about the show and watch full episodes on website: histv.co/AncientAliens. Check out exclusive The HISTORY Channel content: History Newsletter (histv.co/newsletter). Website: histv.co/History. Facebook: histv.co/Facebook. Twitter: histv.co/Twitter.

ABOUT: "Ancient Aliens" explores the controversial theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for millions of years.

HISTORY® is the leading destination for award-winning original series and specials that connect viewers with history in an informative, immersive, and entertaining manner across all platforms. The network’s all-original programming slate features a roster of hit series, premium documentaries, and scripted event programming.

• Archaeologists discover 1,500-year-old palace at ancient maya city

Pat Price: The CIA’s psychic spy during the Cold War | The Alaska Triangle

(Quest TV) Nov. 22, 2022: ALASKA During the Cold War, the USA believed that the Soviets (USSR now Russia) had psychic spies who were remotely gathering intel on them, so the Americans recruited their own spies.

[They then created a viable psychic spying program called Stargate that produced a great deal of valuable knowledge. It was continued for a long time before going secret, getting expanded, and becoming a "black budget" program still in use but plausibly denied].

While one of their best psychics -- operative Patrick Price, a former Burbank police officer with great skill in this process of astral project -- was working, he was psychically attracted to a different location, a secret US military base housing humanoid space aliens underneath an Alaskan mountain in the Alaska Triangle called Mt. Hayes. From Season 1, Episode 1 🇬🇧 Catch full episodes of favorite Quest shows on discovery+: bit.ly/3AA4cP4

• The HISTORY Channel; Quest TV; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Let's END food waste: toogoodtogo.com

Too Good to Go; Gary & Shannon (KFI AM); CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

LET'S END food waste TOGETHER. Food waste is a big problem. We can be a solution. Too Good To Go is the app that lets users rescue unsold food at favorite food spots from an untimely fate. Use the app to explore stores and restaurants in local area -- and save surprise bags of surplus food (some of it vegan or specialty depending on outlet) from going to waste at a great price: Save Food - Help The Planet - Too Good To Go (www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us).

Nothing Higher to Live For: Romantic Love

Yung Gravy; Jimmy Kimmel; Leonard Price (Ven. Nyanasobhano), Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love (ATI); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

If we accept that it's a truism that "white men can't jump," what can be said of their rapping?

.

I should be dressed like a Central Asian royal.

...They have nothing but love to live for.

This is not to say that such a surrender must be bad, only that it happens out of instinct and uninformed passion.

Love is sweet, and it is our nature to give in. But why do we worship relationships so ardently, and why do we break off our search for real fulfillment here? Perhaps it's because we see no other gods.

Yet if love is the highest thing to live for then this is a hopeless universe, because we should see in a calm hour that Cupid's arrows not only thrill us but make us bleed and endanger our loves, leaving pathetic and clingy.

Can I love the Buddha, my teacher?

"Man Kills Estranged Lover Then Self," "Wife Stabs Husband in Domestic Quarrel," "Love Triangle Leads To Shooting" -- so read the headlines with depressing regularity.

The stories behind them are only the most shocking of countless tales of passion, but they forcefully suggest that romantic love is not always a blessing.

One might object that hate, not love, spawns such tragedies. But where has such hate come from if not from a prior attachment now broken?

We should know from experience how easily what we call love can turn to bitterness, jealousy, and malice. And though we protest that this is not the fault of love, we ought to notice that where one passion arises another is likely to follow.

Passions are unreliable, volatile, dangerous, and a poor foundation for our happiness.

Divorces, suicides, dissipation, violence, depravity, fanaticism, and other miseries great and small follow from passion. Yet passion is still, in the public mind, considered commendable, a mark of vigor and liveliness.

Though everyone will admit that passion gone awry is dangerous, few realize that passion is by its nature likely to go awry.

Romantic love is a chancy passion that may result in the opposite of what is desired. It may have happy consequences, too — else it would not have so many devotees — but it raises the stakes in the gamble of life and makes us more vulnerable both to our own weaknesses and to unpredictable fortune.

As most of us count the joys of successful love (however one defines it) worth the pain involved in its pursuit, we must learn to step lightly and with intelligence.

We believe, with some reason, that love can ennoble and redeem us and call forth our purest energies, but we are slower to see that when the lamp of love flickers out, as it tragically tends to do, we might lose our way in a fearful labyrinth of suffering.

Granted that few will shun the pursuit of romance out of fear of unhappy consequences, what can be done to soften those consequences?

If we really have nothing higher to live for, nothing to fall back on, the sad truth is that nothing much can be done to ameliorate them, given the volatile nature of human affections.

So it would be wise to make sure there really is no superior, sustaining ideal before committing ourselves exclusively to the chase.

Nirvana

Man in front of Maitreya in Himalayas

Buddhism, of course, teaches such an ideal, which is nothing less than freedom from all sorrow, called nirvana.

While worldly joys are mutable and fleeting, nirvana is established, sorrowless, stainless, and secure.

While worldly pains are piercing, unpredictable, and unavoidable, nirvana is altogether free from pain. It is the end of suffering, the supreme refuge, the ultimate liberation.

The Buddha himself applied many terms of praise to nirvana while recognizing the essential inadequacy of words and concepts.

Nirvana cannot be grasped by language or concept, but it can be known and realized by direct experience for one who makes the right effort. This is a critical point.

Nirvana is not something that happens to us through an external agency. Rather it is something that we ourselves may experience by our efforts in calm and insight.

The Buddha certainly never would have troubled himself to teach had he not understood that his own realization was not a chance event but rightly won and that those who followed the instructions to realize it could also experience direct realization for themselves.

Yolandi Visser and motorcyclist house guest (Die Antwoord, "Baby's on Fire")

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This understanding, passed down, has sustained the Buddhist Dharma or religion to the present day. The diligent are powerful. Suffering can be overcome.

What is the Path?

Knowing ourselves to be sunk in confusion and beset by myriad defilements, we might regard nirvana as too remote to do us much good here and now.

We persist in seeing an unbridgeable chasm between enlightened beings (saints) and ordinary people like ourselves. We think practically everybody is like us (or worse), while maybe there are one or two genuine saints in the world.

Presumably they have just been born in that awakened condition or with the exceptional good luck to get themselves elevated — who knows how?

Yet the human condition is not, according to Buddhism, a fixed sentence to this or that level of wisdom and virtue. Beings are living at all stages of attainment. They do not stay in the same place.

They rise through their own good efforts and decline through their own negligence in the endless action and reaction of intentional deeds (karma) and the results of those deeds (karma-vipaka). More

White rapper Yung Gravy goes on a date with horrendous hag Aunt Chippy

Valentine's Day on Jimmy Kimmel Live! just got depraved and deplorable because Aunt Chippy is the opposite of a sport, while Yung Gravy is just about the coolest hipster around.

Who is this guy "Yung Gravy"?

High price of our FEAR of loneliness

High price we pay for our FEAR of loneliness

(School of Life, 1/1/20) We often make some very peculiar and regrettable choices on the basis of a hidden and unmentioned fear: that of being alone.

But once we realize that there isn't, in fact, anything to fear about being on our own, we'll be liberated to make some far healthier decisions.

The price I've had to pay for being desperate

“It’s not hard to understand the fear of being alone: the empty apartment after work, the eeriness of Sunday afternoons, the sense of exclusion during the holidays… We know the agonies of being on our own very well. What is far less well understood, and less eloquently or frequently described, is the enormously high price exacted on the other side of the equation. The fear, or more often simply the phobia, of being alone is perhaps responsible for more unhappy relationships, more throttling of psychological development, more claustrophobia, and more pent-up misery than almost any other: It is – by any reckoning – one of the single greatest contributors to human misery and the driver of some of our weightiest and most unfortunate decisions. If only we were able to get the costs of what is for the most part a simple misapprehension clear in our minds, we might save ourselves a substantial portion of our lives…”

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FURTHER READING

Read more on this and other subjects at: bit.ly/2tEYiMX

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with: Natalia Ramos nataliarama.com. Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions valeproductions.co.uk.