New oldest tree in the world found in Chile

Why do things grow so big and healthy along the Pacific Ocean high in California?

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There's prana energy coming up from trees.

There used to be a time when Buddhism had the oldest tree in the world, the Buddha's Bodhi (Enlightenment) tree, a pipal or sacred fig (Ficus religiosa), which is still the oldest documented and attested tree in the historical record.

• It may seem a coincidence that the historical Buddha had an "enlightenment tree," but in fact all samma-sam-buddhas ("supremely awakened ones") do. The Buddha spoke of buddhas of the distant past, naming their chief disciples and other features, including the type of tree they awakened under.

• 

  Finding the Mother Tree

  This hints at just how important trees are. Save forests, save earth!

But a California bristlecone pine dubbed Methuselah took the crone for being far old, as proved by rings. Such trees do not even look alive, but are beaten down, shriveled, with gnarled bark and a few green sprouts that show they do yet live.

In a grove of ancients, the oldest among them was recognized.

This may or may not be her, Methuselah Pine.

California has it all -- the world's tallest tree (hidden in Northern California in dense underbrush, kept secret to avoid visitors who might damage it unintentionally, although the secret is out and maps to it exist). And there's the world's largest tree, the photogenic "General Sherman" in the Gove of Giants (or is that the Grove of Titans?), Sequoia National Park on the Pacific Coast near Yosemite National Park, which also has a grove of massive California redwoods.

The giant sequoia is the world's largest tree, and there are many such enormous redwoods.

Thank you, Bodhi Tree

So the oldest completed the trifecta, on the road to Sequoia Nat'l Park and Yosemite from Los Angeles, near the fork in the road -- along the California Alps (Sierra Madre range visible from the 395 Freeway) -- where one can turn right and plunge into Death Valley and Nevada beyond that.

Now the world will focus on Chile (until the next discovery in Tartary, the Tartarian Empire, or the realization that there are no trees left in the world because the ancient trees, made of silica rather than carbon, were cut down and are now mesas, flattened mountains clearly visible from helicopters).

In the distant past, "trees" were gigantic and made of silica

It's not just one giant tree. There are many massive stumps

Old California "trees" are cacti? (Joshua trees)

Of course, that's too mind blowing to even mention, so scratch that from memory, and let's go to Jeremiah Budin, who is not a Buddhist so far as we know, in the Latin South American country of Chile.

Though trees across the globe are under threat from the corporate logging and agriculture industries and the chaotic changing climate, one tree in Alerce Costero National Park in Chile (western South America, the real Down Under, the world's southernmost country) is believed to have survived for more than 5,000 years — and experts say it is the oldest living tree in the world.

The tree, known as Gran Abuelo (“Great Grandfather”), is believed to be even older than the currently recognized oldest tree in the world, California’s 4,850-year-old Methuselah Pine.

The newest oldest tree in the world

This is the Gran Abuelo ("Great Grandfather"), the oldest tree in the world known to science.

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Why did Siddhartha sit under a tree? To meditate

Scientists are in the process of measuring the tree’s age in an effort to get it officially recognized as the world’s oldest. “It’s a survivor; there are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long,” said Antonio Lara, one of the scientists working on determining the tree’s age.

Gran Abuelo, a Patagonian cypress (Fitzroya cupressoides) was discovered by a park ranger in 1972. [And luckily it had its birth certificate stapled to it in protective plastic? How did the ranger know? Was it psychic intuition? Did the tree spirits talk like in that famous Buddhist tree story?]

Buddha Boy, when out of jail, should sit here

Though its exact location was initially kept secret to protect the tree (as is still the case with the Methuselah Pine), tourists are now allowed to trek about an hour through the forest to take pictures alongside it.

Chile’s National Parks Service has increased the number of park rangers on patrol to make sure the tree is kept from harm. More: Scientists make stunning discovery in remote forest: ‘There are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long’

• BATimes.com | Latin America | World's oldest tree able to reveal planet's secrets
• Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Suzanne Simard)
• Scientists discovered two 11,500-year-old skeletons and unlocked ancient secrets about DNA
• The Cool Down (via MSN.com and BATimes.com); Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

World's oldest tree turns 4,847: top-secret site

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; New York Times; MSN.com

General Sherman Tree, Sequoia Nat'l Park: largest living organism in the world (Jim Bahn).

The world's oldest documented tree in the world grew from a cutting from the "Tree of Wisdom" Siddhartha sat under to become the Buddha, the "Awakened One."

• The Buddha's enlightenment
• Why do we love trees?

That tree, which helped him reach enlightenment (bodhi), is called the Bodhi Tree. It would be 2,600 to 3,000 years old but technically is no more. Functionally it is still there, and you too can sit under it.

Yggdrasil (like Buddhist Mt. Sumeru)

A cutting from this sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) was given as a gift by the enlightened brother and sister Buddhist-missionary team of Mahinda and Sanghamitta, the monastic-offspring of Indian Emperor Asoka.

It lives in Sri Lanka because the marauding Muslims (Islamists) destroyed the original in Bodh Gaya ("Enlightenment Grove") India on the assumption that people were "worshipping" a tree, which runs counter to Islamic teachings.

We've seen it. It's very wide and green and occasionally sprouts an all white leaf, which is taken to be a very auspicious sign. It is revered and well watered. It is so well taken care of that a sapling from it was returned to India and planted at the presumed site of the original.

Meditation under the bodhi tree, Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India 2011 (Amos Chapple/UNESCO)

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The alleged site of the great enlightenment

This means anyone can travel to Bihar, India and take a tuk-tuk into Old Bodh Gaya (Buddha Gaya) to see an amazing site -- every kind of temple from every Buddhist country around the world surrounding the Maha Bodhi Temple, the "Great Enlightenment Monument," a tower next to a tree born of the original tree. A strange site will almost certainly greet one: Tibetan Buddhists doing 100,000 prostrations in front of the tree on worn wooden slats.

Tibetan monks gather in Bodh Gaya.

One does not normally think of Himalayan Buddhists of the Vajrayana school as being so austere and devotional. But there they bend like maroon-clad oil derricks on carrom tables.

But California is, in fact, home to what are thought to be the oldest trees. The bristlecone pines growing between the Sierra Mountains and Death Valley desert are very old, so old they look dead, petrified and broken. Yet, they live and sprout green buds.

Bristlecone pine Prometheus at Great Basin Grove, Wheeler Peak in distance (wikipedia)

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Portion of oldest tree in the world (USFS)

The tallest tree is also in California, which exist in the old growth forests close to Oregon at an undisclosed location, were found by guys who had to invent equipment to climb and measure their height. From up top other tall tree can be seen penetrating the canopy.

If they revealed the location, people would visit, trouble would ensue, someone might cut it down or damage it, such as greedy loggers. To be so tall, redwoods or sequoias, they must be very old. The great sequoia groves of Yosemite and Sequoia National Park are very old as well.

But what tree is now the "world's oldest"?

World's oldest tree turns 4,847 this year and is in a top-secret location

Methuselah Grove: forest of gnarled bristlecone pine trees in sandy soil, Inyo, California.

Even if people have laid eyes on the world's oldest tree, there's a good chance they didn't realize it.

That's because the United States Forest Service keeps all information about the 4,847-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine -- including its exact location -- completely under wraps to protect it from any potential vandals, loggers, and researchers who may be interested in chopping it down [or drilling out core samples to count the rings vertically].

The tree, known as Methuselah, is rumored to be located somewhere on a mountain in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, part of Inyo National Forest in California. Even with that hint, searchers would be hard pressed to find the tree, however. The Forest Service refuses to release even as much as a picture of the tree out of fear that may happen.

An ancient, still living, bristlecone pine growing in Bryce Canyon (Maximowiczsa/wiki)

 

While it might sound zany to be so protective over a tree, the Forest Service admittedly has good reason. New York Times reports that the world's former oldest-known tree, an ancient pine in Nevada's Great the Basin National Park, got chopped down by a graduate student in 1964:

There are a few accounts of what happened: The student, Donald R. Currey, said in a PBS documentary that the normal approach to coring a tree was not working and that he wasn't experienced enough to know what to do, so he cut it down with the help of some foresters. Members of the forest service said he got his drill bit stuck in the tree, and so he and the foresters cut it down to remove his tool [New York Times].

Read more about the world's oldest tree -- and the possibility of finding an even older tree -- over at the New York Times.

"World's oldest man" marks 113th

A Montana man thought to be the world's oldest [documented] man celebrates his 113th birthday today. Walter Breuning (born on this day in 1896) will celebrate with a party today.

• World's oldest man is a 115 year old Buddhist monk
• World's oldest men (8/09)

The event is to be held at the Rainbow Retirement Community in Great Falls, and Gov. Brian Schweitzer is expected to attend. Mr. Breuning was born in Melrose, Minnesota but moved to Montana in 1918 worked for the railroad for 50 years. Source

• You're as young as your health: garynull.com
• Buddhist cause of longevity: abstaining from killing and harming in the past. Both taking life and injuring others lead one to be sickly and short lived IF and when one gets the chance to be reborn in the human world again. (These grave offenses tend to lead to inferior forms of rebirth -- in the Great Waste of unfortunate subhuman destinations).
• More cartoons

The oldest person in the world is now Kama Chinen, 114, who lives in Japan, according to Dr. L. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks claims of extreme old age. Chinen was born May 10, 1895, Coles said. The oldest person who has ever lived is Jeanne-Louise Calment, according to Coles. She was 122 when she died Aug. 4, 1997, in Arles, France.

World's Oldest Man is a Buddhist Monk

Mail Foreign Service (9/17/09)

Revered: The abbot (in orange) has many followers who believe his advanced age makes him particularly wise (dailymail.co.uk).

Is 115-year-old Buddhist monk world's oldest man?

Buddhist monk Luang Phu Supha celebrates his 115th birthday today, although his claim has not yet been verified. He was born when Queen Victoria was on the British throne. But whether Luang Phu Supha is really the world's oldest man remains open to debate. The Buddhist monk claims to be celebrating his 115th birthday today at a temple in Phuket [poo-kit], Thailand.

He is certainly likely to provide some hot competition for American Walter Bruening, 113, who has also laid claim to the coveted title. Luang Phu Supha's birth was only registered two years after he was born and the certificate reads September 17, 1896. More>>

• Longing for love, world's tallest man...tops 8ft
• Burmese monks key to democracy process

(ABC Radio Australia) Human Rights Watch says the US government is moving too slowly in announcing its new policy on Burma, with the delay giving the regime in Rangoon too much space. Presenter Sen Lam discusses the issue with speaker David Mathieson, a Human Rights Watch Burma researcher. Listen (Windows Media).

• Freedom from religion: Atheism...

The national Freedom from Religion Foundation, a "freethinking" association of atheists and agnostics, founded in 1978 in Madison, Wisconsin is mounting a campaign this month in San Francisco, posting signs on buses with pithy sayings from the likes of Mark Twain: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so!" and from a song by John Lennon: "Imagine no religion"...

• St. Therese of Lisieux: come out, atheists...
  Grand tour of saint’s relics is preposterous nonsense
  If I believed in a God, I would be thanking Him now for sending me a sign. In yesterday’s newspaper arrived a story to rekindle my atheism. Just when my disbelief was flagging — not for want of certainty but out of weariness with banging on — comes a report that energizes me with anger. The relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a 19th-century Catholic nun, have arrived in Britain for a month-long tour of England and Wales.