Machig Labdrön (Tibetan མ་གཅིག་ལབ་སྒྲོན་, sometimes referred to as ཨ་སྒྲོན་ཆོས་སྒྲོན or Ahdrön Chödron་) [1], the "Singular Mother Torch from Lab" (1055–1149) [2].
Machig Labdrön was the renowned 11th-century Tibetan tantricBuddhist master and yogini who originated several Tibetan lineages of the Vajrayana practice of Chöd (Tibetan གཅོད་).
Nyingma scholar Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche states that the Chöd tradition developed by Machig Labdrön is "a radical synthesis of the Prajnaparamita tradition and tantra guru yoga that 'cuts' through the ego" [3].
Historical texts portray Machig Labdrön as the originator of the Chöd lineage, which she developed in Tibet.
This was confirmed in her own lifetime by Indian Brahmin priests and others, and Machig Labdron's creation of the Chöd lineage is not doubted by its modern practitioners [4].
The influences of other practices on Chöd are debated. Some posit Machig Labdron may have come from a YungdrungBön [black magic shaman] family, a position that contradicts historical records [5].
Other Buddhist teachers and scholars offer differing interpretations of the origins of Chöd. Not all of them agree that Chöd has Bön shamanistic roots [6]. More
Tibetan tantric dream yoga (milam) In the yoga of dreaming (rmi lam), the yogi and yogini learn to remain aware (lucid dream) during the states of dreaming and use this skill to practice yoga in the dream... The Yoga of the Dream State is a suite of advanced tantric daily practices (sadhana) of the entwined Mantrayana (Vajrayana) lineages of Dzogchen (Nyingmapa, Ngagpa, Mahasiddha, Kagyu, and Bönpo). It consists of tantric processes and techniques in the trance bardos [liminal spaces] of dream and sleep or the Six Dharmas of Naropa, the "dream body" and the "bardo body" being identified with the "vision body" (yid lus)...
(Primeval Archives) The Buddha ("Awakened One") and the Gnostic Jesus ("Anointed One") were teaching the same escape route they somehow both knew. Who took it from whom?
Answer
*Irony* Well, clearly Buddhism, which existed five or six centuries before Jesus was born, must have stolen the idea from Christianity by somehow finding a way to time travel centuries into the future, seeing how popular Christianism would get then absconding like a time bandit with Gnostic papyri under his arm back to South and Central Asia (India and Afghanistan). Wait, is there time travel yet? When will that arrive?
So Jesus Christ must have heard the teaching, seen the Buddha's finger pointing at the path (as preserved in the Buddha-Dharma and the Sangha, the Teachings of the Buddha and the monastic institution the Buddha set up to preserve and practice those Teachings so that the world would never be bereft of path or enlightened disciples, who are the unexcelled source of merit for the world).
Primeval Archives does such a great job presenting the case then falls on his A.I. face by claiming that all the evidence that Jesus spent the missing 18 years of his life between the time he was a teen then a teacher traveling to India, Tibet, and the mystic East. All the evidence in the world wouldn't convince someone who has already made up his or her or their mind.
Is there evidence? Because if there is, then the question answers itself about who borrowed from whom. The BBC says that Jesus was a Buddhist monk during a part of those "missing years," which did not really go missing at all, but rather were buried and erased by the institution. Churches, councils, Vatican, clerical organizations, they never heard it, just as they ignore the Apocrypha, a wondrous source of Christian and pre-Christian knowledge. The lost Gnostic Gospels cannot now be ignored, nor could the parallels between what may spiritual traditions seem to be trying to say in their own way.
Nicolas Notovitch, Russian Christian, found written documentation of Jesus (St. Issa) in Tibetan monastery Hemis Gompa, Ladakh
He returned to West, was met with shock and doubt. Then someone claimed to go ask at the monastery, which denied knowing anything about a book documenting Jesus (St. Issa) training there then returning to Palestine (ancient Israel) before getting in trouble again, getting crucified, cut down and released by bribed Roman guards, and returning to India to live out his life till the age of 80 in Kashmir, where he is buried in the Jewish style
Indian Swami Abhedananda heard about this, traveled to Ladakh, was shown the book (because he was not a Westerner who would steal it like others were likely to do), corroborating all that Notovitch had claimed
Truth is truth, and no one is owner of it. What the Buddha, the Awakened One, realized he shared with the world like an openhanded teacher. Jesus may have had a much smaller circle of special disciples (Apostles), but he certainly tried to tell people of his visions, realizations, and setting forth a way of following in his footsteps. It's a terrible pity the official Church took that, stripped it of its vital call for real gnosis (direct personal experience, shamanic realization, seeing to believe) and replaced it was a pitiful shell of obedience to authority, mindless learning by rote, and blind faith.
We are responsible for our own actions, which is our karma (deeds). We reap what we sow, which is to say we harvest what we plant. As is said in Buddhism, "No one saves us but ourselves; no one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path; buddhas [awakened teachers] only point the way."
Primeval Archives (video); BBC (documentary); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY
Is vipassana really Buddhist? The truth about the world's most popular meditation
(Buddha's Wisdom) 🔍 IS VIPASSANA REALLY BUDDHIST? THE HIDDEN STORY BEHIND THE WORLD'S MOST PRACTICED KIND OF INSIGHT MEDITATION
Millions of people have practiced Buddhist vipassana meditation, but very few know what the word vipassanā originally meant, or how the modern movement transformed one of Buddhism's oldest insights into a global meditation phenomenon.
What is insight (vipassana) meditation actually for? This word doesn't mean "meditation" at all. And the practice millions know from Goenka's free 10-day silent retreats was born not in the Buddha's proto-India, but in [George Orwell's] colonial Burma, the day an empire stopped protecting the Theravada Dhamma.
This is the true story of insight meditation: what vipassanā really means, how it nearly vanished, and how a monk, a farmer, an accountant, and a businessman carried it to the modern world.
📿 DISCOVER:
The original meaning of vipassanā and why it never simply meant "meditation"
How the fall of the Burmese kingdom sparked the modern Vipassana Movement
Why meditation was rare even among Buddhist monastics for nearly 1,000 years
Why many Buddhist teachers say today's vipassana is both ancient and surprisingly modern
The unlikely relay that saved insight practice: from Buddhist monk Ledi Sayadaw to a rice farmer to S.N. Goenka's flight home in 1969
What today's vipassana retreats, the mindfulness movement, and scientific research gained... and what may have been left behind.
🙏 If this changed what viewers thought meditation was, subscribe. The next episode uncovers the other half the world forgot: the deep stillness of jhana ("meditative absorption" as samma-samadhior "right stillness," "coherent unification of mind") the Buddha paired with insight.
It's like we always say at Wisdom Quarterly, Who needs the historical Buddha's instructions when you can have magic and mystery in Tibet and lots of political mumbo jumbo from a corrupt lapsed empire and its pope-king? The Himalayas were like that until Mao's Army crashed in and crushed Lhasa, the Oracle told the leader to get out quick, and ruling elite made a deal with the devils (CIA). Tibet still wields disproportionate influence in the region, now annexed and part of the PRC. Who has time for a tradition akin to American hippies turning their backs on their parents' Christianity to become dirty hippie "Jesus Freaks"? Of course they would want to because who wouldn't want to get back-to-basics and away from corrupt institutions and an out-of-control clergy? If faced with organized religion, do what seekers like Siddhartha have always done: become a shaman (shraman) on a quest for a personally verified experience of ultimate truth. If one has to do it at all, do it right, spiritual exploration over religion rules. Who could possibly choose the holy Roman Empire's version of Catholicism ("Universalism") instead of the direct teachings of an entheogen-consuming, just-back-from-India, dirty, Jewish, Essene, vegetarian Nazarene adept who spent time in a Buddhist monastery and in ashrams and secret initiation site training and preparing for 18 years?
But many will choose the institution, as most of Tibet (a massive region a quarter to half the size of China) did in centuries past. But the real practice of Buddhism involves moving beyond comfortable institutions, rituals, and dogma and onto the mat for purification of heart/mind and view. That's when the real progress begins. Few are probably ready for that, so let's get back to Tibetan politics with the pope-king who is now just "pope" of one Tibetan school or sect, the Gelug Yellow Hats.
With a peaceful expression, the Tibetan deity is depicted seated on a moon disc lotus seat which is encircled by beautiful flowers. This thangka was exquisitely painted by Enlightenment artists utilizing genuine 24K gold and acrylic paints. More: artofit.org
The world has settled all its differences, and peace has broken out. But just when we were on the verge of celebrating a thousand years of sanity to come, Spain declares war on Argentina, threatening to rub their faces in the grass and to break Messi's body if necessary. Will Argentina, minus its Falkland Islands, put up with European imperialism, colonialism, and exploitation? It can only be decided on the field of mock battle before the audience of the world. And here we sit in the most cross-cultural city in the [Evil] Empire, Los Angeles, waiting to be amused, entertained, and delighted. RESULT: Having declared war on a European colony in the "New World," colonia powerhouse Spain beat the Latin upstart by the slightest margin possible, plunging the Americas into a funk and the EU into ecstatics. "There's always next year" won't work this time. A World Cup isn't that easy.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup final will be the last match of the 2026 World Cup, the 23rd edition of FIFA's competition for men's national soccer (association football) teams. The match is scheduled to be played at MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, near New York City, on July 19, 2026, and will see this country [England] go up against [France?]... More
While the soccer World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery (lamasery) boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is somewhat disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator being a young student, the soccer(association football) fanatic Orgyen. Prevented by various circumstances from seeing The Cup finals on television in a nearby village, Orgyen sets out to organize the rental of a TV set for the Buddhist monastery. All the quiet contemplatives become loud sports enthusiasts instead, whose behavior borders on worldly hooliganism.
The Cupstars: Orgyen Tobgyal, Neten Chokling, Jamyang Lodro. Directed by Khyentse Norbu. Executive produced by Jeremy Thomas. Twitter: @recordedpicture
Monty Python's "Philosophy Football" coming to FOX Sports?
(Study Buddhism) Why "meditation" [striving, straining, struggling to get into absorption] feels so hard (and what to do about it) | [Western scientist and Vajrayana Buddhist lama] Ven. Matthieu Ricard [known as "the happiest person in the world"*]. "There is no Samsara 2.0."
Who is he?
Sure, I'm happy, but the happiest?
Matthieu Ricard (French matjø ʁikaʁ, Nepali माथ्यु रिका, born Feb. 15, 1946) is a French Nepalese writer, photographer, translator, and Buddhist monk (lama) who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal.
Dr. Matthieu Ricard grew up among the personalities and ideas of French intellectual circles. He received a PhD degree in molecular genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1972.
He then decided to avoid a common scientific career and instead did the daring thing and took up the practice of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana Bon), living mainly in the Himalayas.
Matthieu Ricard is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East with Karuna-Shechen, the non-profit organization he co-founded in 2000 with Rabjam Rinpoche.
Since 1989, he has acted as the French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama. Since 2010, he has been traveling and giving a series of talks with and assisting in teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the incarnation of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche....
*Matthieu Ricard has been called the "happiest person in the world" [4, 5]. Why?
It is because Matthieu Ricard was a volunteer subject in a study performed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on happiness. He scored significantly above the average of hundreds of volunteers [4].
Matthieu Ricard, however, has called the label "absurd" and untrue [6, 7]. More
Buddhism is the THIRD largest religion in the world when we restored the 1 billion Buddhists in China the communist regime refuses to count since communism is officially atheist and insists party member comply.
Nearly all Chinese Buddhists follow three blended traditions (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) and now have to mix those with a communist version of capitalism). The country's regime is trying to supplant religion with this new capitalist-friendly communism and a nanny state with mass surveillance, bringing the actual total number of Buddhists to more than 1.5 billion. That makes Buddhism the third largest missionary (universalist) "world religion."
Catholicism is the biggest religion in the world. Combining its total with Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and many strange sects and post schismatic traditions, Christianity has the most nominal adherents.
Islam is said to be growing but is already the second biggest world religion, having gone from place to place by the sword, just as Christianity used to do with imperial crusades, ethnic cleansings, and forced conversions.
Buddhism is the original missionary tradition, but neither then nor now is it out to convert anybody away from their faith. Exposing them to the Teachings of the Awakened One capable of curing suffering and making people better at adhering to their beliefs and practices, it has been most welcome.
Why? Just as in the Buddha's time, the Buddha's Dharma ("Doctrine") is not actually a "religion." But the West treats all daily activities and beliefs as "religious" systems when, since the time Sumer, Greater Egypt, and the very advanced Indus Valley Civilization held sway, what we now call "religion" was just the collective daily habits and somewhat superstitious customs of whole societies that made little to no distinction between ordinary life and spirituality.
Buddhism in Celtic Britain and Ireland before Christianity?
Irish Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk Ven. Dhammaloka in 1902, age approximately 50
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The Irish Buddhist: Forgotten Monk
His name was Venerable (U) Dhammaloka (born Laurence Carroll in the 1850s) from Boostertown, Dublin County, Ireland.
He reportedly gave at least five names for himself, including Laurence O'Rourke and William Colvin [2]. On occasion he used the nom de plume "Captain Daylight."
It is accepted that he was Irish, almost certainly born in Dublin in the 1850s, and emigrated to the United States, possibly via Liverpool. More
Welcome to CelticBuddhism.org, a site of benefit and inspiration to those who enter and proceed on the path of Dharma.
The lineage of Celtic Buddhism was suggested in the 1970s during a conversation between the renowned [and abusive, scandal-ridden, Shambhala] Tibetan lama Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his student John Perks. The actual development is the result of the mixing of their minds.
What would an Irish Buddhist do?
The lineage was formally incorporated as a non-profit in 1989, when it took on official status. After meeting for years in rented rooms, Venerable Seonaidh Perks established the Anadaire Celtic Buddhist Center on 11 acres in Saxtons River, Vermont, where the sangha ("spiritual community") erected a stone circle that has aided in increasing and focusing energies for transformation.
Sangha members are encouraged to establish a daily meditation practice. Practices range from a host of traditional Tibetan [Vajrayana] Buddhist practices to the more contemporary practices of the Celtic Fire visualization and working with the mandala of the Celtic cross. We also encourage integrating everyday practices in art, music, healing through various modalities -- including animals, and in the world of business.
As a group, some members have gone on yearly retreats to Maine (USA) or to further connect with latent Celtic energies to Ireland and Scotland. One member has delved into thangka painting to explore the emerging Celtic Buddhist mandala.
In March 2010, we celebrated the ordination of Sister Griffin as abbess of Glen Ard Abbey, a newly formed Celtic Buddhist monastery. More: celticbuddhism.org
Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
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