Jade Emperor out Buddha'd the Buddha?

• The Jade Emperor seems to be the Sakka (King of the Devas, Sakra, Indra) of East Asia, made famous in the Pali canon by having a whole section of texts dedicated to him: Sakka, King of the Devas, ruler of the Celestial World of the Thirty-Three (Tavatimsa)

The (New) Lord's Prayer; Mary's Heart Sutra

Seven and Fehrensen, Wisdom Quarterly, based on Conze translation (syncretism conceiving of Mary as a representation of Kwan Yin and both as the Divine Feminine)

The Buddhist Goddess Kwan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion who hears the cries of the world, is sometimes conceived of as a female buddha, Wat Plai Laem, Koh Samui Island, southern Thailand (Joachim Leppala/Flickr.com)

Divine Source
Who art in consciousness
Hallowed be thy name-and-form
Empire come where will is One
On Earth as it is in space
Thank you for granting our daily wishes
And for overlooking our awkward trespasses
Lead us unto liberation, and point the way
To avoid all that is unskillful
Aum

The (Immaculate) Heart Sutra

Virgin Maryām [Note 1], blessed bodhisattva [lord] full of grace,
Was cultivating the perfection of wisdom
When she perceived that all Five Heaps are impersonal.
She thereby overcame all suffering [and exclaimed]:

"O, Wise One, form does not differ from the impersonal [the empty],
The impersonal does not differ from form.
Whatever is form, that is impersonal,
Whatever impersonal, that is form.
The same is true of feelings,
Perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness."

The immaculate heart of Mary (campus.udayton.edu)

"Herein, all phenomena bear the universal mark of the impersonal.
They are neither produced nor stopped,
Neither defiled nor immaculate,
Neither deficient nor complete [but are beyond all duality].

"Therefore, O Wise One, in the impersonal
There is neither form, nor feeling, nor perception,
nor formation, nor consciousness;

"No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind [sense apparatuses];
No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles,
nor objects of mind [sense impressions];
No sight-organ element [sensitive material in the eye],
and so forth, until we come to:
No mind-consciousness element [heart base];

"There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance,
and so forth, until we come to:
There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death.
There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.
There is no cognition, no attainment, and no lack of attainment.

"Therefore, O Wise One, it is because of one's non-attaining
That a bodhisattva, through having cultivated the perfection
of wisdom [prajna-paramitta],
Dwells without conceiving.
In the absence of conceiving, one is free of trembling,
Having overcome all that can upset
and in the end attains to nirvana [2].

"All who appear as fully awakened teachers
in the past, present, and future
Fully awake to the utmost, supreme and perfect illumination,
Because they have cultivated the perfection of wisdom.

"Therefore one should recognize the perfection
of wisdom as the great blessing,
The blessing of great knowledge, the utmost blessing,
the unequalled blessing,
Allayer of all suffering, in truth -- for what could go wrong?

"The perfection of wisdom has brought it about:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

(Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an illumination, amen!)

"This completes the heart [pithy essence] of perfect wisdom."

• A different take on the Heart Sutra (BuddhaNet.net)
• Great Mahayana sutras (www4.BayArea.net)
• Mariology: the study of Mary
  

1. Avalokiteshvara, "the lord who hears the cries of the world," came to be called Kwan Yin, who also takes the form of the Virg Yin, popularly known in the West and in Islam as Mother Mary. Originally an Indian male, the figure metamorphosed in the popular imagination into a Chinese female and then a goddess (devi). So it is not a stretch to reconcile them: They embody and represent the same thing in the marriage of wisdom and compassion.

2. An alternative phrasing might run: "There is no wisdom, and there is no attaining whatsoever. Because there is nothing to be attained, the bodhisattva pursuing the perfection of wisdom has no obstruction of mind. Because there is no obstruction, one has no fear, and one passes far beyond confused imagining and ultimately experiences nirvana.

The Rabbit in the Moon (video)

Lisa Asanuma (Tales from the Hollow Tree); Wisdom Quarterly

The Rabbit in the Moon is clearly visible, perhaps explaining their connection (hollowtreetales blog).

The Jade Rabbit

A Buddhist legend (Sasa-Jataka 316) tells of a monkey, otter, jackal, and rabbit. All are hoping to do a good deed on the uposatha (Buddhist "sabbath"), believing that a good deed brings great rewards.

An old man passes by begging for food. So the monkey gathers fruit from high in the tree canopy; the otter catches fish for the man; the jackal -- less honorably -- pilfers for him a lizard and milk curds.

The rabbit, however, only knows how to gather grass, which he knows will not serve the man for food. So he offers himself by throwing his body on the man’s fire. But the rabbit does not burn.

The "man" reveals that he is in fact Sakka (King of the Devas), the Jade Emperor, the ruler of nearby space worlds in Buddhist cosmology. He is so touched by the rabbit’s unselfishness, that he lifts the smoke from his fire to leave an impression on the Moon of the rabbit for generations to come.

Quetzalcoatl
Interestingly, there is a very similar legend involving Quetzalcoatl. The ancient Aztec deity was starving by the roadside and had a rabbit offer himself up to save him.

There is an opposite tale also in Mesoamerican legend of a deity [deva] named Nanahuatl who offered himself freely as sacrifice to become the Sun... More

• A version of this story can also be found in the Japanese anthology Konjaku Monogatarishū, where the rabbit's companions are a fox and a monkey.

(History Channel: "Ancient UFO sightings")

Ancient Space Aliens
Wisdom Quarterly (EXPLANATION)
How do the ancient Asians and Mesoamericans tell the same story? They met. They were intimately associated. (See How the Swans Came to the Lake by Rick Fields). Who were these mythological "gods" (devas) in legends around the world? They were extraterrestrial visitors with great knowledge, technology, and abilities. They terraformed the Earth. They helped establish human groups. They ruled like dictators ("gods") until they were usurped by another extraterrestrial group. The new group demonized the old and established itself as the only true gods worthy of allegiance. They were the "ancient aliens." And as hard as it is to believe, they are still exerting influence through subtle form, sacred texts, and by manipulating governments.

Vikings' Valhalla was Sakka's Spaceworld

Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha in space (akasha deva loka), Spaceport 33 where Sakka is an Earth-friendly ruler. This is an artist's conception of the Buddha presenting a sutra to the "shining ones" (devas) on a nearby planet or port called Tavatimsa.

It is amazing and remarkable that the world's mythology repeats and repeats. The consistency of the "mythology" is amazing. The names change:

• Vedic Brahmanism's Indra the God of Thunder
• becomes Buddhism's Sakra, King of Kings and Lords of [the 33] Lords, on Mt. Sumeru (also called Mt. Meru)
• becomes Zeus (the "God of the Sky") the "Father of [Celestials] and Humans" according to Hesiod's Theogony) on Mt. Olympus
• becomes Jupiter to the Romans
• becomes the Vikings' Odin...

the pantheons have the same arrangement with a few alterations to make them understandable to each culture that comes to know of them. Who are the celestial "gods" other than extraterrestrial aliens? They are human (sometimes demigod-hybrids).

But our entire vision of "space alien" has been so maligned by a misinformation campaign that we fail to see that these are the "angels" and "gods" and "goddesses" of the world's spiritual traditions. Soon science will speak openly of the mountains of concrete evidence for UFOs and ancient extraterrestrial civilizations here and elsewhere throughout the solar system and galaxy. (Many already only to be ridiculed by the public relations campaign hired to keep this a secret other governments and the disclosureproject.org is nevertheless divulging).

Wisdom Quarterly often explores the life of Sakra (Sakka), the war in "heaven" (Tavatimsa or "Spaceport 33" as we have dubbed it), and his great Hall of Truth in Buddhism. What did the Vikings (Norse or old German) believe?

Mt. Sumeru (axis mundi), underground bases, Eden as Æsir a paradise in our hollow Earth inhabited by flying ships and space-travelling visitors, the arctic and antarctic magnetic poles in the mythology of the cosmic "tree" Yggdrasil.

The Glorious Hall of Valhalla
Abbreviated from Linda Casselman (Mythology, suite101.com)
Why did ancient Norse warriors go so bravely into battle? Because, should they die in the heat of the fight, they had Valhalla to look forward to, Odin's great Hall of the Slain.

Valhalla is in the Grove of Glesir in Asgard, the home of the Aesir gods [extraterrestrials by definition]. Encircled by a strong outer wall, this glorious hall's inner walls were said to be built of weapons and treasures. The hall was so huge that its 500 [a "large number" of] doors allow soldiers to pour out on doomsday -- Ragnarok.

Ragnarok is the expected "last day" of the world or this cycle, when the gods do battle with evil and ultimately die, bringing about the end of the world. This is the reason for Odin's shinning Hall of Valhalla. When a warrior died valiantly in battle he is would be chosen by Odin and taken up [in a ship not necessarily into space but possibly into a paradise in the hollow Earth] to Valhalla by a Valkyrie (Apsara or Gandharvi) to join his fallen brothers.

Earth is hollow, with spacecraft and cities (2012.com.au)

[This mirrors the view in Judaism and ancient Greek "Paganism" of the world-to-come as Sheol or Hades. In modern times we view the underground in an almost entirely negative light. But it is not this way. Some levels of "hell" are beneath our feet in Christian (purgatory) and Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (naraka) cosmology. But there are other inner-Earth worlds, such as those described by the American Navy Admiral Richard Byrd, in the Vedas (Underground Realms), and in Zoroastrianism (Hamistagan) where everyone ends up for a time.]

• Of course, how would one ever get others to believe that our "solid" Earth is hollow, when the thought of alien spacecraft and advanced space beings not at war with us is impossible to imagine? Evidence counts for nothing in either above us or below us because the possibility is dismissed out of hand. It is too upsetting, overthrowing our preconceptions. It shatters our comfortable paradigm that we are at the center of our self-absorbed universe, which all groups believe of themselves. But call it "mythology" and people are at least able to contemplate it.

Getting into Valhalla, however, is not easy. [Only half get in, with the other half going to Folkvangr.] The chosen first have to pass obstacles, tests of strength, skill, and bravery before gaining entry through the sacred gate, Valgrind. Once inside, one can expect a pleasurable afterlife of miraculous healing, feasting, and fighting [yes, fighting because heaven is not "heaven," with war and conflict still prevalent in the sense realm], as well as a never-ending supply of mead [soma].

Indeed, Valhalla was a very desirable and enviable afterlife for the ancient Norse warrior, much better than the fate of the dreadful and dreary afterlife in the realm of Hel expected for those who died of natural causes. This may have encouraged the warring nature of the ancient Norsemen... eager for a Viking's Paradise!

Not the first to make the connection
Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry on "Tratyatimsa"
Wisdom Quarterly is not the first to make the connection between various culture's spiritual "histories": Tavatimsa is located on the peak of Mt. Sumeru, the axis mundi, at a height of 80,000 yojanas. The total area of the heaven is 80,000 yojanas square. This celestial world is therefore comparable to the Greek's Mt. Olympus in some respects.

According to Vasubandhu, inhabitants of "The World of the Thirty-three" (Tavatimsa) each half a krośa tall (about 1,500 feet) and live for 1,000 Tavatimsa-years. Each Tavatimsa-day is equivalent to 100 Earth-years.

Because that world is physically connected to Earth through Sumeru -- which seems to be a kind of launch site or route or spaceway more than any rock and dirt "mountain." Unlike the space worlds above it, the inhabitants there are unable to avoid becoming entangled in human affairs.

In particular, they frequently find themselves in quarrels with the Asuras, "Titans," who were long ago expelled from Tavatimsa, at the beginning of the reign of the present Śakra (which is actually a position more than a single individual, much like a human monarch or president). This angered them and led to a star war (as in Star Wars or what is commonly referred to as a "War in Heaven," heaven simply being the sky). The Titans now dwell at the foot of Mt. Sumeru, that is to say on the surface of this planet, devising plans to recover their lost home.

The Titans cannot be so different from the Devas. For there is marriage between the two, just as there is between the Æsir and the jötnar in Norse mythology.

The chief of the The World of the Thirty-three is Śakra (Sakka). Other members of the Thirty-three who are frequently mentioned are Viśvakarman (Vissakamma), the devas' crafter and builder; Mātali, who drives Śakra's vimana, spacecraft, or "chariot"; and Sujā, Śakra's Titan-wife and daughter of the Asura chief Vemacitrin (Vepacitti), a kind of Lucifer figure in Buddhism as distinct from a "Satan" or tempter figure (Mara). (Source: Tavatimsa)

• Vimanas: the "Chariots of the gods"
• The Sheaf of Barley Sutra (Yavakalapi)
  "Once, monastics, the devas and asuras were arrayed for battle. Then Vepacitti, the ruler of the asuras, addressed them: 'If, dear sirs, in the battle of the devas arrayed against the asuras, the asuras win and the devas are defeated, bind Sakka, the ruler of the devas, neck, hand, and foot and bring him before me in the city of the asuras.' [Sakka addressed the devas of the Thirty-three in the same way.] Now, in that battle the devas won. So the devas brought Vepacitti before Sakka in the assembly of the devas...

UFOs (Vimanas)

Roswell (dailymail.co.uk)

"Shining in every direction, their machine (yantra) could travel wherever the imagination dictated. From their great height they saw stimulating dances, drama plays, and pristine dance ceremonies. The machine gained renown among royal dynasties and various nations. In such a manner the High-Souled ones flew, while the lower classes walked. All those friends succeeded in their much-deserved acquisition of a yantra, by means of which human beings can fly in the air, and non-earthling, Celestial Beings, can come down to mortals in their visits to Earth" (RCL).

• Roswell officer's amazing deathbed admission raises possibility that aliens DID visit Nick Popel (updated 6/30/07)

Exactly 60 years ago, a light aircraft was flying over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, at a height of around 10,000ft. Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light illuminated the aircraft. Visibility was good and as pilot Kenneth Arnold scanned the sky to find the source of the light, he saw a group of nine shiny metallic objects flying in formation.

He estimated their speed as being around 1,600 miles per hour -- nearly three times faster than the top speed of any jet aircraft at the time. He described the craft as arrow-shaped and said they moved in a jerky motion -- "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water." A reporter seized on this phrase and in his story described the objects as "flying saucers." The age of the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) had begun. More>>

Drawing of small, delta-winged, Solar-Mercury powered "vimana" reportedly based on a medieval original.

VIMANAS IN SANKRIT TEXTS
Descriptions of Ancient Aircraft (site)

The following quotations from classical Sanskrit literature are chosen specifically to illustrate the visual appearance, nature and capabilities generally ascribed to the ancient fabulous vehicles known as vimanas (pronounced "vi-mans") in the ancient writings of India. The Sanskrit term "vimana" is usually translated "airborne chariot," "aerial car," or "celestial car" (or sometimes simply "car") by the Hindu translators.*

Having spoken thus, Maharaja Nirga made a complete circle around Lord Krishna and touched his crown to the Lord's feet. Granted permission to depart, King Nirga then boarded a wonderful celestial car as all the people looked on (Bhagavata Purana).

While Dhruva Maharaja was passing through space, he saw, in succession, all the planets of the solar system, and on the path he saw all the demigods [devas] in their vimanas showering flowers upon him like rain (Bhagavata Purana).

He traveled in that way through the various planets, as the air passes freely in every direction. Coursing through the air in that grand and splendid vimana, which could fly at will, he surpassed even the Devas (Bhagavata Purana).

Then the highly intelligent Asura Maya built the cities...There were many palaces with gems. Aerial cars shining like the sun, set with Padmaraga stones, moving in all directions and looking like moonbeams, illuminated the cities (Siva Purana).

When morning dawned, Rama, taking the Celestial Car Puspaka had sent to him by Vivpishand, stood ready to depart. Self-propelled was that car. It was large and finely painted. It had two stories and many chambers with windows, and was draped with flags and banners. It gave forth a melodious sound as it coursed along its airy way (Ramayana).

The Puspaka Car, that resembles the sun and belongs to my brother, was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car, going everywhere at will, is ready for thee. That car, resembling a bright cloud in the sky, is in the city of Lanka (Ramayana).

Beholding the car coming by force of will Rama attained to an excess of astonishment. And the king got in, and the excellent car, at the command of Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere. And in that car, coursing at will, Rama greatly delighted (Ramayana).

When the Deity as were being slaughtered they again took to their vimana and, employing the Danava science, flew up into the sky...I (Arjuna) assaulted their vimana...Wounded by the flight of deadly-accurate iron missiles, the Asura vimana fell broken to the earth...Matali swiftly descended earthward, as in a steep dive, on our divinely effulgent car (Mahabharata).

Karna took up that fierce weapon, which resembled the tongue of the Destroyer or the Sister of Death. That terrible and effulgent dart, Naikartana, was hurled at the Rakshasa. Beholding that excellent and blazing weapon...the Rakshasa began to fly away in fear...Destroying that blazing illusion of Ghatotkacha and piercing right through his breast, that resplendent dart soared aloft in the night...Ghatotkacha, then uttering diverse roars, fell, deprived of life by the dart of Sakra [Sakka, King of the Devas] (Mahabharata). More>>