"Hatred does not end by hatred" (Dhammapada)

Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Tipitaka.net Dhp. V. 5, Kalayakkhini Vatthu

The record of the Buddha's sayings or aphorisms is the Dhammapada, the Path of Dharma.

.

Na hi verena verani
sammantidha kudacanam
averena ca sammanti
esa dhammo sanantano.¹

Verse 5: Indeed, hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. It is appeased only by loving-kindness. This is an eternal law.

1. esa dhammo sanantano: the same as "poranako dhammo," the Dharma (doctrine, teaching, truth not changed by time) followed by the Buddha and those following the path to enlightenment includes the exhortation not to return hatred for hatred but allay it with its antidote, loving-kindness (the absence of hatred).

Back Story of Kala-yakkhini

I'll kill you, b-tch. You won't take my husband and the baby I should be having!

.

While residing at the Jetavana Grove monastery in Savatthi, the Buddha uttered Verse 5 of this book, with reference to a certain woman who was barren and her rival.

 

I'll kill you, b-tch. You won't have a baby.

There once lived a householder, a man whose wife was barren. He later took a co-wife, which not uncommon. A feud started between them when the elder wife caused an abortion in the newer one, who eventually died in childbirth. In later lives the two were reborn as a hen and a cat, a doe and a leopardess, and finally as the daughter of a nobleman in Savatthi and an ogress named Kali.

I remember my precious infant baby.

The ogress (Kala-yakkhini) was in hot pursuit of the lady with the baby, when the latter learned that the Buddha was nearby, delivering a sutra (discourse) at Jetavana. She ran to him and placed her son at his feet for protection. The ogress was stopped at the door by the guardian spirit of the monastery and was refused entry. She was later called in, and both the lady and the ogress were reprimanded by the Buddha.

The Buddha told them about their past life feud as rival wives of a common husband, then as a cat and a hen and a doe and a leopardess. They were made to see that hatred can only cause more hatred, and it can only cease through friendship (metta means loving-kindness and friendliness), understanding, and goodwill.

The Buddha then uttered Verse 5: "Indeed, hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. It is appeased only by loving-kindness. This is an eternal law.

 

At the end of the discourse, the ogress was established in stream entry (sotapatti fruition, an attainment the tradition would normally limit to humans and Sense Sphere devas), and their long-standing feud came to an end. 

• “Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time... (fakebuddhaquotes.com) Verse 5 of the Dhammapada.

Cryptozoology: Sasquatch in Canada

Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Tim Lasiuta (innisfailprovince.ca)

Sasquatch, Native Americans and others tell us, are humans (AlbertaSasquatch.com).

Chris Munch ("Letters From the Big Man"), in search of truth, visits Ontario, Canada, to interact and confirm existence of the Sasquatch people, which comes with high strangeness.

"Snow Walker" authentic Abominable Snowman/Yeti footage as a creature is seen going over snow-covered mountains between valleys where it resides in the Himalayas.

John Green, 87, searches.

John Green is one of the pioneer Sasquatch researchers worldwide. He claims, “While I have not seen a Sasquatch myself, I have investigated hundreds of sightings. I have seen the Patterson-Gimlin film, and I believe that they are real.”

 

The Sasquatch scientific [study] community is not a large group, but two Canadian researchers stand tall in their midst.

• AlbertaSasquatch.com
• BFRO.net

Thomas Steenburg and John Green are among the elite of researchers with a large body of work, both published and Internet-based.
 

Preserved Yeti hand, Pangboche (FFAC)

“I’ve been involved in Sasquatch research since 1957,” said the retired 87-year-old Green who lives in Harrison Hot Springs, B.C. and is regarded as a cryptozoology authority.

“In fact, I started hunting Sasquatch when the village of Harrison Hot Springs decided to hunt for the Sasquatch. I did a story on it, and it started what has turned into a lifelong quest. My wife and I went down to Bluff Creek, California [a hotspot where the famous Patterson-Gimlin footage was shot] in 1958 and began making plaster casts of prints found near a logging road.”
 

Yeti scalp, Tibetan-Nepalese shrine (wiki)

He said efforts were later made to discredit the footprints claiming them to be man-made and faked, a notion that has followed nearly every footprint discovery since then.
 
“While I have not seen a Sasquatch myself, I have investigated hundreds of sightings. I have seen the Patterson-Gimlin film, and I believe that they are real,” said Green during a telephone interview. “After all, why would anyone want to fake anything like that?”

(History Channel) "Monster Quest" Jeff Meldrum and others search Central China for the "Wild Man," a hominid Yeti, bear, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, primate (Gigantopithecus), or human hybrid.
 

Mountain Man, Leshan (John Willis)

The octogenarian author noted he was in the area of California where the famed film was taken a few weeks prior, and was taken to a site where nearly 500 footprints were found by a contractor, made by possibly three individual Bigfoot walking along a road. By the time he arrived, all he could find was a handful, but he took casts of them.
 
“The issue of whether or not Sasquatch is real depends on a couple of issues, those being how did it come across to North America, and how can we link it to any physical evidence.”
 
The researcher believes the creature to be an entirely different species than humanoids, and an advanced primate, adding that DNA evidence may already be in our possession, but we don’t recognize it. There have been discoveries of a huge Asian ape made that might possibly be our Sasquatch dating back only 10,000 years ago.
 
“Scientists seem to automatically tag a bipedal discovery as ‘human,’ where they may really be part of the Sasquatch story,” said Green. “We also have to wonder why we have not found any recent skeletons, but due to the likely small number and habitats it would have to be a miracle to find one.”

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a good read if you need a better gig than store Sasquatch when last year you got to play store Santa (sys-con.com).

 
He added that it is virtually impossible for someone to fake footprints worldwide for so long without some evidence of their efforts. The work to create the mystery would not be worth the effort.
 
"In this field things are upside down and backwards," said Green. "The people who investigate are called 'believers' and the people who believe there can't be any such thing and therefore don't investigate are called 'scientists.' Researchers fall in the middle, and [they] say show me the evidence.”
 
Unexplained Mysteries is a regular feature of the Innisfail Province. Sightings can be reported directly to BFRO.net or AlbertaSasquatch.com.

• David Thompson's Story, 1811
• The Lake Minnewanka Wildman, 1895
• Bighorn Dam Incident, 1969
• The Seven Persons Sightings, 1972, 1973

What the Dead can teach us about Bigfoot

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Medium Jamie Butler, Dr. Elisa Medhus, MD (ChannelingErik.com); National Geographic (natgeo.com)

In Buddhist terms a Yeti or Bigfoot is called a Yakshi, Yakkha, Rakshasa, or ogre.

Medium and channeler Jamie Butler helps Dr. Elisa Medhus contact her deceased son.

(Nat'l Geographic/Mark Hubbard) Patterson Bigfoot film analysis by expert Bill Munns. 

Dr. Medhus

(Jemima Khan/Getty Images/Independent.co.uk)

Erik Medhus died. His mother, Dr. Elisa Medhus, MD, could not bear it. She made contact. And now she can ask her son anything and get answers from the beyond with the help of channeler Jamie Butler (withloveandlight.com).

Are mythical creatures of legend real? What about Sasquatch/Bigfoot? This post is divided into two parts because it took place on two different occasions.

 
PART ONE
Mother (Dr. Elisa Medhus, MD): Is Bigfoot real?
Jamie Butler (laughing, barely able to talk): Oh my [goodness], he says yes! Erik, explain to me please. (Pause. Speaking to Erik:) Because this is funny, cause this is a huge topic in our house. My husband loves Bigfoot.

Lloyd Pye explains who Bigfoot are.

Mother: Oh, I love Bigfoot, too! I love watching those programs about him! Of course, I’m getting a little frustrated because they never seem to find him. I don’t think they want to. It’d mean the end of the show. (Long pause.)
Erik: Just because—
Jamie (to Erik): [Goodness], Erik, you can just rant and rave! Okay, okay, I’ll say it.
Erik: Just because humans inhabit the Earth and they believe they’re the smartest animal alive -- because they can document and record things and take pictures -- doesn’t mean that they’ve covered every inch of this Earth! There is so much left unexplored. Think of the ocean alone. We think we’ve tapped everything out, but sh-t, we’re just now learning that dogs have spiritual emotions.
Mother: Yeah!
Erik: Why didn’t we know that before?
Mother: I can see it in my own puppies. So, why haven’t we found any [Sasquatch] bodies or other indisputable evidence? Tell me more. (Long pause as Jamie listens.)
Jamie: Erik! He’s saying it’s like an alien race.
Erik: They’re intelligent; they do not leave their dead behind.
Mother: Oh! What, do they eat them?
Jamie: I asked the same question!

Yeti swings in tree Bigfoot in Borneo (MN)

Erik: No, they don’t eat ‘em!
Mother: Put them in a little rocket ship? Burn them?
Jamie: He shows me rocks, water, burials, but he’s telling me something about dimensional changes with the Bigfoot.
Erik: We live in Dimensions 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and Bigfoot kind of resides in 3, 4, and 5, or 3, 4, 5, 6.
Mother: Oh!

• VIDEO: The U.S. gov't knows "Bigfoot" are real
• VIDEO: Talking to a Sasquatch/Bigfoot on tape

Sasquatch to Native Americans or Bigfoot to European newcomers (examiner.com)

 

Erik: So the visual connections that we make with them, mmm, they inhabit a body, we can touch them, we can interact with them, but they do NOT want to communicate with us. They’re intelligent, so they’re not like at the ape level. They use tools, and they live outside and have kind of an animal-like structure, but they’ve got a very high intelligence and can travel between dimensions and times.
Mother: So we can see them only when our common dimensions mesh?
Erik: Yes, and that’s why it’s been so difficult to capture one alive, but so many people have had interactions with them.
Mother: What about that famous film of Bigfoot walking? Is that a hoax or the real thing?
Erik: No, it’s the real thing:

(Tiagopsc) Famous Patterson-Gimlin footage of actual "Bigfoot"/Sasquatch, 1967

Jamie: He’s saying something about a rock thrower.
Mother: Hmm. Why don’t they want to talk to us? What are we, chopped liver or something? (Pause)...
Erik: I think they see us more like dogs or kitty cats.
Mother: Oh my [goodness]?
Erik (laughing): It is that kind of difference.
Mother: When they die, do they go to where you are, Erik?
Erik: No, because it’s like a difference race, really, like an inhabitant of a different planet or something. I’ll find out more for you later.

PART TWO
Mother: Earlier you said that Bigfoot and Yeti were inter-dimensional beings. I think you said that we were in the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th dimensions and they were on the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th dimensions, so there’s some overlap there. Could you elaborate on that a little bit? Also, are Bigfoot and Yeti one and the same?
Erik: Yeah, Bigfoot and Yeti and one and the same. They just live in different regions.
Mother: Okay.

Photo of actual Sasquatch caught by camera.

Erik: And they do have the ability to disappear or become invisible.
Mother: Do they do that by shifting to another dimension?
Erik: Yes, and they’re not harmful. They look at humans like they’re annoying little kittens.
Me: Well, tell me more about their abilities. Tell me more about them: their personalities, their lifestyles, etc.
Erik: Well, I haven’t really hung out with any— (Jamie giggles).
Mother (laughing): I hear they smell really bad!

Channeling Erik (facebook)

Erik: They probably smell like [urine and feces].
Mother: I think they do!
Erik: I think what—
Jamie: Okay, you think or you know?
Mother: It’s okay. We can deal with opinions. I don’t think anybody is going to fact check you on this one.
Erik: I know what irritates them the most is that humans are expanding more, and not only are we expanding more into land and forest that normally is uninhabited, but we’re also expanding into 4^th and 5^th dimension planes. So we’re coming across them more often. More

• Erik, what about other mythical creatures?
• VIDEO: Why does Scout Willis have to go topless?
• VIDEO: Interacting with a Sasquatch in Ontario

Monsters of various kinds are described in Buddhism. Yeti is a cannibal human-hybrid.

 

Satanic teen girl goes on killing spree (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Newsrender.com; The Associated Press; NJ.com; The Daily Item; Slayer; Dimmu Borgir

In court, the beautiful yakshini (ogress) Miranda Barbour, 19, is tired of killing (AP).

I have a swastika neck tattoo.

"KILL AGAIN" (Slayer): "Lurking in a dismal fog/ Hungry for your blood/ Seeking harmless victims/ Satisfy my need.// Schizophrenic lunatic/ Uncontrolled desire/ Rape and ravage lady fair/ Pledged to die// [CHORUS:] No apparent motive/ Kill and kill again/ Survive my brutal thrashing/ I'll hunt you till the end/ My life's a constant battle/ The rage of many men/ Homicidal maniac!// Trapped in mortal solitude/ Lift the gleaming blade/ Slice the flesh to shreds/ Watch the blood flow free// Hatred growing stronger/ None survive my wrath/ Suffer from the throbbing pain/ Yield your life to me.../ Chorus// Unrelenting need to kill/ Death upon you now/ Anxiously awaiting/ Next in line!"

 

 

Teen Killing Spree: less than 100 victims

Why? Miranda Barbour was molested since the age of 4 by her stepfather. Thanks, "dad."

 

Admittedly, maybe I got carried away.

SUNBURY - A Pennsylvania teen charged along with her newlywed husband with killing a man they met through Craigslist admitted to more slayings.

In a jailhouse interview with a newspaper, she said she has killed less than [100] other people across the country [and remembers where 22 of the bodies are buried]. Police claim they are investigating.

 

In an interview with The Daily Item in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, 19-year-old Miranda Dean now Mrs. Elytte Barbour [who says she began killing at age 13 as part of a Satanic cult] said she wants to plead guilty to killing Troy LaFerrara in November. 

Yakshi, Guimet Museum

She also said in the interview she has killed at least 22 other people from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a Satanic cult.

• Satanic murderer Miranda Barbour: "I've killed less than 100"
• Francis Scarcella (The Daily Item): "Barbour Body Count at 22?"

"I feel it is time to get all of this out. I don't care if people believe me. I just want to get it out," Barbour told the newspaper for a story published Saturday night. More

Satanic: Dimmu Borgir "Blood Hunger Doctrine" (Death Cult Armageddon)

• Not the first: Return of the Deadly Yakshi (female ogre)

A Buddhist "ogress" (yakshini)

Wisdom Quarterly (Wikipedia edit)

Hey, S happens when you work for Satan and fellow cult members who later deny you.

Yakkhas, Ventiane, Laos (Lucille Cottin/flickr)

What is a yakkha? In some lists (e.g., PvA. 45, 55) they range immediately above ghosts (petas); in fact, some of the happier ghosts are called yakkhas. Elsewhere (e.g., A.ii.38) they rank, in progressive order, between humans (manussā) and low ranking messenger-angels or fairies (gandhabbā). They are of many different kinds: spirits, ogres, dryads, ghosts, spooks. In the early records yakkha, like nāgā, as an appellative, was anything but depreciative. Thus, not only is Sakka, King of the Devas, referred to as a yakkha (M.i.252; J.iv.4; DA.i.264), but even the Buddha is spoken of as one in poetic diction (M.i.386). Many gods (devas), such as Kakudha, are so addressed (S.i.54). More

Yakshi, 3rd cent. BC, Patna Museum

Yakshinis (Sanskrit याक्षिणि, Pali yakkhini) are mythical beings in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain mythology.

 

A yakshini is the female counterpart of the male yakkha/yaksha (ogre, demon, monster). They both attend on Kubera, the Hindu god of wealth, who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom of Alaka [Buddhist Alavaka/Alavi?] They look after treasure hidden in the Earth and resemble fairies. Yakshinis are often depicted as beautiful and voluptuous, with wide hips, narrow waists, broad shoulders, and exaggerated, spherical breasts.

 

In the Uddamareshvara Tantra, 36 yakshinis are described, including their mantras and ritual prescriptions. A similar list of yakshas and yakshinis is given in the Tantraraja Tantra, where it says that these beings are givers of whatever is desired. Although they are usually benevolent, there are also yakshinis with malevolent characteristics in Indian folklore.

 

The list of 36 yakshinis given in the Uddamareshvara Tantra runs as follows:

1. Vichitra (The Strange One)
2. Vibhrama (The Amorous One)
3. Hamsi (Swan)
4. Bhishani (The Terrifying)
5. Janaranjika (The People Entertainer)
6. Vishala (The Large Eyed)
7. Madhana (Lustful)... More

• Satanists say: "Craigslist Killer" Miranda Barbour is not one of us! (Huffington Post)
• Skepticism clouds Miranda Barbour, the "Craigslist Killer," claims 
• Missing person's group "skeptical" of the "real-life Dexter" Miranda Barbour's claim that she murdered so many people she "stopped counting at 22"
• Teens carve swastika in boy's head over Facebook comment
• Seances in the White House, dog named "Satan," U.S. presidents
• VIDEO: Millennials are jerks in the workplace

(EA) Slayer, "Praise of Death," The Ritz, New York, 1986

1 in 4 Americans don't know Earth revolves around Sun

(NEWSER) To put the brightest possible spin on this story is to say that three-quarters of Americans are fully aware that the Earth revolves around the sun. The downside, of course, is that means 1 in 4 are in the dark about what Discovery calls "probably the most basic question in science." The National Science Foundation asked that question and nine others of 2,200 Americans, with the average score on the quiz coming in at 6.5, reports Phys.org. Some other results noted by NPR: 

• 39% answered correctly that "the universe began with a huge explosion."
• Fewer than half -- 48% -- agreed that "human beings...developed from earlier species of animals." More

Yeti (Asian Bigfoot) finger discovered

io9.com; BBC; DailyMail.co.uk; FactFictionandConjecture.ca; Wisdom Quarterly

The Yeti specimen was recently rediscovered in a British medical museum. In Buddhist cosmology a yakshi is a female ogre or demon.

The Curious Case of the Severed Yeti Finger

Hill, who first encountered the specimen while perusing a collection of human and primate skeletons at the College's Museum [asked himself,] "What was the story behind this finger, I wondered, and how did it end up in London? Where was the rest of the ‘Pangboche hand'? And what truth was there behind the label's claim that this finger belonged to the Yeti of ancient legend?" Hill unravelled a long and winding history with wealthy American oilmen funding Nepalese expeditions to investigate Yetis; a secluded Buddhist Monastery, hidden away in a remote Himalayan mountain range that once housed not only the Yeti finger, but an entire hand...

In 1974, Lap Kadoma -- the wife of a Nepalese Sherpa -- had a close encounter with a Yeti. The legendary cryptid, Kadoma would later recount, had managed to sneak up on her from behind before heaving her into a river. When Kadoma regained consciousness, she found the bodies of several dead yaks strewn nearby.

Kadoma's account of her encounter with a Meh-te, or "Man-bear," as Yetis are known in Nepal, may sound far fetched. But reports like hers are common in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet, where legends of the mythical creature have been passed down for generations. Far less common, by comparison, is physical evidence for the Yetis' existence.

One such specimen, known to curators at the Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum in London as the "Yeti's finger," was recently re-discovered... More

• Yeti finger to have its DNA tested
• Tracing origins of "Yeti finger" (BBC)
  
• The search for the missing Yeti hand
  
• Virtual tour of the RCS Museum
• The mystery of Inca Empire was its economy
• Modern hunt for France’s Beast of Gévaudan
• Quest for perfect smile required shocking faces

The Daily Mail backed the Yeti Everest Expedition in 1954, where a team of scientists managed to track several trails of giant footprints on their trek.

YETI SIGHTINGS (BBC)

• 1925: Photographer N.A. Tombazi, with the Royal Geographical Society, reported seeing a creature and its prints near the Zemu Glacier on Kanchenjunga (Mountain, Nepal).
  
• 1953: Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while climbing Mount Everest, Nepal.
  
• 1972: A Yeti attack on the wife of a Sherpa was reported.
• 2011: Kemerovo State University in Russia is setting up a research institute to look into the growing number of reports of Yeti sightings in Siberia, 15 in the last year.

Poor Casey Anthony! (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, TheGrio.com

Hating hateful actions (like murder) or hateful actors (like murderers) makes us guilty of hate. Hate is toxic to all who harbor it, and it is not cured by vigilantism or revenge.

There are those who give free rein to hate when it arises like stampeding horses. There are others who pull the reins and control their chariot even when the horses are bolting. The Buddha called the latter "charioteers," whereas the former are merely holding the reins.

American hatred has grown so great -- animosity at a mother or a trial gone wrong -- that citizens are ready to lynch anyone named Casey Anthony.

Searching Facebook, many have found a man by the same name and tormented him. His response to the vigilante mob? "I can't change my name, ladies and gentlemen."

"Casey Anthony" is a 43-year-old African-American male. He lives in Darby, Pennsylvania, and just happens to share the name of a 25-year-old Anglo-American female from Orlando, Florida, who is infamous for being found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

• PHOTO: The other Casey Anthony from Pennsylvania (NBC Philadelphia)
• She's to be released Sunday; some fear for her safety
• Casey Anthony gets and loses job in pornography

Mr. Casey Anthony has been bombarded on Facebook. He estimates that he has gotten at least 300 friend requests, messages, and posts, all targeting the other Casey Anthony.

"After the verdict that day, it went crazy. It was like everybody wanted to know and wanted to comment on this Casey Anthony situation," he explains.

The Antidote is the Opposite
There are Three Poisons of the heart/mind: greed, hatred (often expressed as fear), and delusion. It is wise to root them out at every opportunity. It is easier to transmute or transform them into something useful than it is to rid oneself of them.

But surely if they remain, they are serving as the basis of unprofitable karma (unskillful action of mind, speech, or body). Their "antidotes" are categories of opposite states -- nongreed, nonhatred, and nondelusion. Three immediate remedies are given as:

1. letting go
2. generating compassion
3. being mindful of the present moment.

Why would one even try to avoid or abandon hatred if it is manifesting as "righteous indignation"? Surely, that justifies it and strengthens us to act in opposition!?

No, what it does is obscure the mind, cause one to act in ways that result in remorse, that bring about suffering for us (when those actions later ripen), the bring humans down to subhuman states.

Hate helps no one. And those who say it does are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Transform it, transmute it, let it go, be freed from it, free others from it -- for it will surely drag us down, and we will only realize it too late.

• A man named Casey Anthony (thegrio.com)
• What if Casey Anthony were black?
• The notion of race and coverage disparity also applies to Casey Anthony herself. Would she have been so easily acquitted if she were a Black woman?
• Prof. Boyce Watkins: Would a black Casey Anthony been exonerated? Most blacks don't think so
  

Science looks for Yeti; Knobby Bigfoot a fake

Science May Start Tracking the Yeti

Kevin Makice (Wired.com)

(What will a yeti look like close up? Something like this Australian square poop dropping wombat). Is the yeti of mythology a surviving tribe of Neandertals?

Maybe science will tell us. As geeks, we are encouraged to suspend disbelief while simultaneously challenging everything we see and hear. We want to believe, but our geek roots [want scientific validation for everything before we allow ourselves to believe, without understanding how "science" actually works as a politically and financially tainted endeavor far from objectivity].

That tension is possibly being resolved on one front. The Russians are establishing a scientific institute on the study of yetis (Buddhist yakshis, ogres), hairy ape-like creatures rumored to inhabit the Himalayas. Yes, Abominable Snow Beings (yetis).

Officials in coal-mining region of Kemerovo Oblast announced plans today to open a Yeti Institute at the Kemerovo State University, a 38-year-old higher education entity in western Siberia. KSU boasts 31,000 students and is best known for reviving regional languages, like Shor. Yeti researcher Igor Burtsev reportedly claimed that 30 Russian scientists are currently studying yetis, and the Institute could allow them to better collaborate.

“We think that the yeti is a separate branch of human evolution. It lives in harmony with nature,” Burtsev was quoted as saying. Burtsev believes there may be a local community of these creatures that are Neandertals who survived extinction. More

Knobby Bigfoot video a fake

(Digital News Report) A [very fake looking] five second video of Bigfoot scurrying across a road in North Carolina has millions of views on YouTube. The user, Knobbylives, claims to have shot the footage on the Golden Valley Church Road, Shelby, NC on Tuesday, March 22, 2011. The creature shuffled across the road and went into the woods, according to the poster.... More

What does it mean to be "human"? - Humans evolved for endurance running - Moby Duck: 28,000 plastic ducks lost at sea

"Yakshi"? The Melissa Huckaby Case

WQ (Buddhist cosmology, Wikipedia, national headlines)

In Buddhist cosmology, a yakṣa (Sanskrit) or yakkha (Pali) or yeti (Nepali) is an "ogress." The yakṣa world is intermingled with the human and animal planes. Sunday school teacher and mother Melissa Huckaby is a possible modern case of the existence of such beings.

Sutras speak of yakṣas entering animals, typically a cow with a calf, who go on to gore and murder someone. The most famous case of this is the story of Bahiya of the Bark-cloth. Cows of course are not normally thought of as deadly. But it is not uncommon that they become overprotective of their young. A "mad cow" (as distinct from the very territorial and violent male of the species, the "bull") becomes mad, on occasion, because of the intervention of these unseen inimical beings.

While it is quite possible for human beings (Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, George Bush) to perpetrate atrocities that boggle the mind, it is generally believed or hoped that they are possessed while doing so. To think that ordinary humans in ordinary human consciousness are capable of such affronts is simply too hard to bear.

What is a Yaksha?

In Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain mythology, the yakṣa has a dual personality. On the one hand, a yakṣa may be an inoffensive nature-fairy, associated with woods and mountains. This is similar to the more exalted fairy proper, the bhummattha deva (dryad or tree sprite). But there is a much darker version of the yakṣa, which is a cannibalistic ogre, hungry ghost (preta or naraka), or demon that haunts the wilderness and waylays and devours travelers, similar to the rakṣasas.

This inimical spirit has the capacity to enter or "possess" an individual briefly or may take up a more persistent residence.

The latter seems to be the case in the modern horror story that is the unfolding case of Melissa Huckaby (also Huckabee). She is in jail on charges she kidnapped, raped, and murdered 8-year-old Sandra Cantu (pictured right), who was a fellow mobile home park resident and her daughter's best friend. Huckaby then hid the corpse in her suitcase and placed it in an irrigation pond as investigators searched for her.

When arrested, police were so hard pressed to believe that she acted alone -- a female pedophile and murderer -- that they doggedly investigated her past searching for a male accomplice. In the meantime, Huckaby attempted suicide by consuming razor blades in jail. Investigators did not find a male accomplice but did discover two previous murders she is now also charged with -- accusations she surreptitiously poisoned a child and a man. These charges have been added to the allegations she was already in jail facing.

• Melissa Huckabee's family shocked in Cantu case - 4/12/09
• Deborah King: Melissa Huckaby and the Unthinkable Sex Object
  As horrifying as the murder of an 8-year-old is, the truly unimaginable aspect of the Melissa Huckaby case, for most people, is her use of a... (huffingtonpost.com)
• Melissa Huckaby: Rape alleged in death of 8-year-old girl
• Melissa Huckabee connected in another case - San Francisco

Is an ordinary human in ordinary human consciousness capable of such grievous acts? Perhaps. One is occupying a plane of existence usually because of habitual action (karma). While on that plane, human or otherwise, one is capable of action that is unable to ripen on that plane. Consequently, one is reborn elsewhere to experience the karmic fruit-and-result (phala-and-vipaka) of those actions.

In Kālidāsa's poem Meghadūta, for instance, the yakṣa narrator is a romantic figure, pining with love for his missing beloved. By contrast, in the didactic Hindu dialogue of the Yakṣapraśnāḥ ("Questions of the Yakṣa"), a dangerous cannibalistic yakṣa, the tutelary spirit of a lake, threatens the life of the epic hero Yudhiṣṭhira. This corresponds in a number of significant details to the Buddhist story of the Yakṣa Alavaka (SN 10.12).

Yakṣas may have originally been the tutelary guardians of forests and villages that later came to be viewed as steward deities of the Earth and the wealth buried beneath it. Devas and nāgas are now often seen in that light, respectively.

• See Plane 6 (Catumaharajika):
• 31 Planes of Existence (PDF)

In Indian art, yakṣas (males) are portrayed either as fearsome warriors or as portly, stout, and dwarf-like creatures (kumbhandas in Buddhist cosmology).

On the other hand, Yakṣhis, also known as yakṣiṇīs, are portrayed as beautiful young women with happy round faces and full breasts and hips. In the southern state of Kerala, India, yakshis are depicted as vampire enchantresses.

In the Pali Canon
The Alavaka Sutta (SN 10.12) of the Pali Canon details a hair raising story during which the Buddha is harassed by a yakkha named Alavaka. The yakkha orders the Buddha to leave a certain spot and then orders him to return. This happens repeatedly. Finally, the Buddha refuses, at which time Alavaka threatens great bodily harm unless the Buddha can answer his questions.

The remainder of the sutra concerns the question and answer dialogue. In the end, the "demon" (for lack of a more fitting translation) is convinced and becomes a follower of the Buddha [Ref]. Sri Lankan (Sinhala) ancestral legends refer to yakshas as well [Ref].

Another famous sutra tells of two warring women (one a princess, the other a baby sitter) repeatedly killing one another's babies from life to life. The Buddha intervenes revealing how this animosity has been playing itself out. He saves them not only in their present life but in future lives from the same horrific fate they were setting up for themselves through incessant revenge and retribution.

• PHOTOS: Undated cellphone photo (above right) provided by the family shows Melissa Huckaby of Tracy, California. Huckaby, 28, remains in custody at the San Joaquin County Jail in California. She was being held without bail on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, and rape of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu (pictured above) in addition to multiple murder counts in unrelated cases (AP/Connie Lawless). Police arrested the Sunday school teacher on suspicion killing the 8-year-old, whose body was found stuffed into the teacher’s suitcase in an irrigation pond. Huckaby was Cantu’s neighbor, and Huckaby’s 5-year-old daughter was one of the victim’s best friends.