Enlightenment and Magic (sutra)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly based on Ajahn Thanissaro, Abbot of Wat Metta, translation of the Pali Susima Sutra, "About Susima" (SN 12.70)

The future Buddha behind the Himalayas in Ladakh, Buddhist India

 

Meditating and striving in the forest

This sutra or discourse is sometimes cited as "proof" that a meditator can attain full enlightenment without having practiced the meditative absorptions (jhanas), classified as "serenity-meditation" rather than insight-meditation. But a careful reading shows that it does not support this assertion at all.
 
The new enlightened ones (arhats) mentioned here do not deny that they have attained the first four absorptions (the "form" jhanas) that make up the definition of the Noble Eightfold Path factor "right concentration."
 
Instead, they simply say that they have not acquired any psychic powers that stem from developing these meditative states to a higher degree, and they say they do not remain in physical contact with the four higher levels of concentration, the immaterial states or "formless" jhanas.

In this discourse, their definition of "release by wisdom" is no different than that given in AN 9.44. (Compare this with the definitions of "bodily witness" and "released in both ways" given in AN 9.43 and AN 9.45).

Taken in the context of the Buddha's many other teachings on "right concentration" (samma samadhi), there is in fact every reason to believe that the new arhats mentioned in this discourse had developed at least the first absorption before attaining enlightenment.

About Susima 

Siddhartha under tree, Mes Aynak (livescience.com)

 

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One [Buddha] was staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, at the Squirrels' Sanctuary. Now at that time the Blessed One was revered, honored, venerated, given homage. He was a recipient of robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicinal requisites.

The monastic community composed of both monks and nuns was also revered, honored, venerated, and given homage. They were recipients of the same four requisites. But the wanderers of other dharmas (paths) were not revered, honored, venerated, or given homage, nor were they recipients of robes, almsfood, lodgings, or medicinal requisites.

 

The Buddha was reluctant to perform marvels

Now at that time the wanderer Susima was living in Rajagaha with a large following of wanderers (wandering ascetics). Susima's following of wanderers said to him, "Come now, friend Susima. Go live the high life under Gotama the ascetic [the Buddha]. When you have completely mastered that Dharma, tell it to us. When we have completely mastered it, we will teach it to householders and then we, too, will be revered, honored, venerated, given homage, and we too will become recipients of robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicinal requisites."

 

He responded to his own following, "As you say, friends!" Then the wanderer Susima went to Ven. Ananda and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him and sat respectfully to one side. Sitting there, he said to Ven. Ananda, "Friend Ananda, I want to live the high life in this Dharma and Discipline."

 

Then Ven. Ananda took the wanderer Susima to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed, sat respectfully to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, "Venerable sir, this wanderer Susima has said, 'Friend Ananda, I want to live the high life in this Dharma and Discipline.'"

 

"Then in that case, Ananda, give him the going forth [monastic ordination]." So the wanderer Susima gained the going forth in the presence of the Blessed One and gained acceptance (into the Buddhist community of monastics).

 

Enlightened beings in ancient Thai-Laotian style (Trianons/flickr.com)

 

Now at that time a large number of monastics had declared final knowledge (enlightenment) in the presence of the Blessed One: "We know and see that 'birth is ended, the high life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world.'"

 

And Ven. Susima heard of this, so he went to those monastics and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with them and sat respectfully to one side. Sitting there, he asked: "Is it true, as they say, that you have declared final knowledge the presence of the Blessed One: 'We know and see that birth is ended, the high life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world'?" "Yes, friend," they replied.

 

"Then having known thus, having seen thus, do you wield manifold supernormal powers? 

 

"Having been one are you able to become many; having been many are you able to become one? Do you appear and vanish at will? Go unimpeded through walls, ramparts, and mountains as if going through space? Are you able to dive in and out of the earth as if it were water? Can you walk on water without sinking as if it were dry land? Sitting cross legged, are you fly through the air like a bird? With your hands are you able to touch and stroke even the sun and moon, so mighty and powerful? Do you exercise influence of your body even as far as the Brahma worlds?" More

The Heart of Happiness (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Thich Nhat Hanh Southern California Tour Planning Team, Deer Park Monastery Community

Thay is an author, poet, teacher, scholar, peace activist, and master calligrapher, distilling ancient Buddhist teachings into simple phrases that resonate with modern times, capturing and expressing a lifetime of meditative insight, peace, and compassion.

 

Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) will be coming to Southern California in October 2013.

 

He is revered as one of the greatest peacemakers of our times and author of more than 100 books. He was nominated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize and has been a Buddhist monk, peace activist, and advocate of mindfulness, love, and forgiveness since the age of 16.

All can hear this revered Buddhist monk speak at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium about "Touching the Heart of Happiness." The program will include guided meditation, monastic and audience chanting, the talk, and will also explore how mindfulness practice and meditation can bring about inner peace and affect the people around us and the world.

• Saturday, October 19th, 2013, 4:00 pm (doors 3:15 pm)
• Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 East Green Street, CA 91101
• $35 (purchase fees differ depending on the point of purchase). Tickets are nearly gone for the public talk, so get them soon to avoid disappointment. Box Office: (626) 449-7360.

For more information about Thay's North American Tour, visit tnhtour.org or follow him on NSA-friendly platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

 

If joining any part of the tour, tag posts with the hashtags #TogethernessTour or #PeaceIsEveryStep.

 

U.S. premiere of Calligraphic Meditation

NEW YORK - Calligraphic Meditation: The Mindful Art of Thich Nhat Hanh is a collection of some of Thay's most poignant recent calligraphies. On display in the United States for the first time, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to spend time in the presence of his art. It is an invitation to touch, through simple words, our own stillness, understanding, and compassionate action.

• Saturday, Sept. 7-Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2013
• FREE, open 7 days a week, during store hours
• ABC Home, Deepak HomeBase, 888 Broadway, New York, NY

There are monthly mindfulness events in October, November, and December 2013. Touch happiness in everyday life!

NSA/Cryptozoology: The Frog Mystery (audio)

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker (karlshuker.com), radio host George Knapp (coasttocoastam.com, 9-15-13); DisclosureChannelTV2

The NSA and us, crocodile and the frog, South Africa (photography.nationalgeographic.com)

Frog meditation (indervilla.com)

In another as yet unexplained miracle on the planet, there are frequent occasions when living frogs are found living completely encased in rock. How this happens, why this should happen, how they survive, or what they eat are all mysterious. Nevertheless, it happens. And now that it is "1984," we are being illegally spied on by the NSA.

NSA - rogue power in surveillance state

NSA: farming out our national "security" to private corporations like Booz-Allen

  
The National Security Agency is out of control spying on law abiding citizens, breaking encryption codes, making credit card transactions transparent to the NSA as well as thieves (who perpetrate fraud in the billions every year) while never allowing protective steps to become so good that they keep the information secret as promised and intended...

NSA headquarters - a building full of cubicles

(C2C) Charles R. Smith, author of Deception, is a specialist in cyber warfare and technology. He talked with George Knapp last night about shocking NSA revelations and their affect on American society and the tech industry worldwide.
 
"There's panic in the halls of Fort Meade at the moment," as the NSA "would prefer to operate in the darkness...away from the light of the public," Smith declared.
 
The NSA is on damage control with the corporate mainstream press, their political allies in both parties, and they are putting out disinformation about their capabilities to muddle the issue, Smith reveals. Originally established as a secret military agency by the Truman administration, the NSA was all about foreign espionage during the Cold War. Now that has been turned on civilian citizens.
 
Today the NSA is a "bureaucratic behemoth, almost like a dinosaur, or Godzilla that has no brain," he comments, "and it will just continue to lumber on." We need to pull in the reins and dispose of the entire mission of the NSA, which has taken on illegal projects. Years ago the NSA tried to get legislative approval to install a "back door [spying] chip" on all tech equipment, Smith recounts.
 
But when that failed in Congress, the NSA instead covertly managed to spread a wide variety of back doors (secret access points that bypass protective measures) in both software and hardware, including intentional flaws in encryption that can be exploited throughout the tech industry by foreign governments (like China using Windows 8 to spy as easily as if they were the NSA), according to documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. More

• NSA calls iPhone-using citizens "zombies" who pay for their own surveillance! Buy and carry your own "chip" (cell phone) today, available from The Apple Store

Toads in the Hole

Mark Pilkington (The Guardian, 1-19-05)

Toad, frog, amphibians (bookbzzz.com)

Among the wonders on display at London's 1862 Great Exhibition was a lump of coal dug from a seam 300ft below Newport, Monmouthshire. With it was a frog that miners claimed to have found alive, encased in a lump of coal presumably millions of years old.

Their claim enraged the naturalist Frank Buckland, who demanded in the Times that the frog be removed from display. As a result, Professor Richard Owen, then superintendent of the British Museum's natural history department, received so many specimens of toads and frogs found in rocks that he appointed his wife to deal with them.

Using tools, umbrella (onebigphoto.com)

Written records of animals, predominantly amphibians, found encased in solid rock date back to at least the 16th century. The usual story is that workmen digging in a quarry or mine find the creatures inhabiting a cavity roughly their own size. Whether they fell down a crack which was then sealed over, were dropped, flowed or blown there as frogspawn, as was once thought, or even placed into the cracks by humans is anyone's guess.

 

Of course, in some cases, their discoverers may have made a leap of judgment on finding the creatures hopping around as they struck a particular stone. More recent reports describe creatures living in concrete. More

• The Frog in the Stone (Skeptoid 4223)
• Animals Sealed in Stone (Paranormal)
• How can frogs or toads live in solid rock?
• Entombed Animals (The UnMuseum)

Zoology 2013 and Beyond

Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology

Zoologist, media consultant, and non-fiction science writer Dr. Karl Shuker knows the bizarre. There are anomalous creatures of every conceivable kind (and many more inconceivable ones). He explores them in his mirabilis book Mirabilis.

 

The menagerie is composed of what science calls "cryptozoological" specimens. For the time being, they are "mysteries." Until science finds them, it does not matter who else does. Many creatures are known to ethnic populations long before a Western trained, usually "white male" scientist certifies their existence to the Western world. Why believe the "barbarians"?

One such creature, which Shuker dubbed Trunko, was reportedly a huge tusked animal that had elements of both an elephant and a bear. However, its habitat was curious: It was said to battle whales off the coast of South Africa in the 1920s. Shuker later determined that Trunko was actually a misidentified "globster," when a gelatinous sack of it washed ashore -- a dead whale with connective tissue that looked like long white hair.

The mysteries and myths of the forest

Some ancient mythological creatures, such as the Kraken, are described as tentacled sea monsters, some as large as an island (in Buddhism referred to as nagas, or enormous sea serpents). These were likely based on the giant squid, which was not discovered by scientists until the 1800s. It is no surprise that science is so late to the game; it did not find the megamouth shark until the 1970s when one was unintentionally caught using an anchor as a hook.

Shuker knows of a mysterious mammal called the Sukotyro, which was described as having huge tusks emerging from near its eyes. He noted a similarity to a wild pig called the babirusas known to live on Java. For some strange as yet unexplained reason many creatures have a Sumatra/Indonesia connection, whether they be Komodo dragons, Asian bigfoot (or Wild Man of the Forest, a long sought after and often spotted bipedal primate), or something connected to the epicenter of massive quakes and tsunamis as secret-science tinkers with time travel attempts and other anomalous manipulations as were once common in Montauk, New York, until those efforts nearly killed the researchers.

In search of the lost frog of Colombia (Lucy Cooke/telegraph.co.uk)

 

Shuker also speaks of enormous turtles, frogs living encased in solid rock, gigantic spiders (the size of monkeys), as well as the North American Bigfoot, Asian Yeti (Abominable Snowman of Tibetan Buddhist lore), and Thunderbirds of the Southwest United States (which Shuker classifies into two kinds -- eagle-type birds and others said to resemble presumably extinct pterodactyls). The coelocanth, the jungle men, shapeshifters, and so on.

• The Beasts that Hide from Man
• The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals
• The Journal of Cryptozoology: Volume One
• Deception

• I-Team: The Fight to Save Natural Darkness
• Not-So-Total Recall: Selectively Erasing Unwanted Memories
• Uri Geller mystified by letterbox on Thames Sonning Bridge
• The Final Nail in the Jurassic Park Coffin?
• Extreme Life Forms: Life Found in the Sediments of an Antarctic Subglacial Lake
• Happy Anniversary Lehman Brothers, and What We Haven't Learned About Wall Street Over the Past Five Years

KOAN: Shuzan's Three Phrases

Wisdom Quarterly, Roshi Jeff Albrizze (pasadharma.org), Book of Equanimity, Case 76

PREFACE TO THE ASSEMBLY

One phrase clarifies three phrases.

Three phrases clarify one phrase.

Three and one do not interact.

Clear and obvious is the path of the utmost.

Tell me: Which phrase is first?

MAIN CASE

Attention!

Shuzan addressed the assembly: "When you are awakened by the first phrase,  

You become a teacher of buddhas and ancestors.

When you are awakened by the second phrase, you become a teacher of humans and devas [advanced beings from space].

When you are awakened by the third phrase, you can't even save yourself."

A monk asked, "Osho, by which phrase were you awakened?"

Shuzan replied, "After the Moon sets in the third watch, one penetrates through the city."     

 

APPRECIATORY VERSE

Withered skulls of buddhas and ancestors skewered on one stick.

The water clock's drop after drop moves the pointer minutely.

Essential activity of devas and humans.

Firing a thousand pounds by catapult.

Thunderheads glistening and glowing swiftly shoot down lightning.

You, over here! See the transformations. 

When meeting the humble, be noble. 

When meeting the noble, be humble.

Leaving the finding of the jewel to Mosho, the ultimate Way stretches endlessly. 

Letting the butcher's knife sort freely in the dead ox, there's implicit trust each moment.

MEANING?

A koan (Zen riddle, puzzle, aphorism -- a question or statement meant to provoke "great doubt") is a means of stopping discursive thought, not of instigating it. For when the mind stills, it may be possible to know-and-see. So long as it is moving (vibrating like Patanjali's vrittis), there are distortions. The way to know, the way to see is to sit (zazen), and to walk (kinhin), and to wash dishes and so on (zen). A koan study group and meditation is available every Thursday night, FREE, in Pasadena, California at PasaDharma.org.

The Enlightened American (Daniel Ingram)

Wisdom Quarterly (edit); Buddhist Geek Daniel Ingram (DharmaOverground.org)

Self-proclaimed arhat, author (Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha), and Site Administrator Daniel Ingram founded the Dharma Underground, which lead to the Dharma Overground, which culminated in The DhO.

 
Frustrated with the world of online Dharma blogs that are all about dogma, hierarchy, disempowering views about how it can't be done, mindless blind faith in absurd ideals, and texts that are wildly out of touch with reality, and a whole host of other absurdities, Ingram founded The DhO to form a safe haven.

It is for people who are into hardcore practice, real attainments, helping people out in the spirit of mutual noble friendship, open conversations about topics related to actual practice, and the like.
 
Ingram's website, InteractiveBuddha.com, is home to a distinct voice in the wilderness. He is boldly making the following claims to attainments:

• I am an arhat, having attained [full enlightenment] in April, 2003.
• I have mastery of the [traditional eight] samatha jhanas [meditative absorptions], including Pure Land One and Pure Land Two, The Watcher, and Nirodha Samapatti [the "extinction of feeling and perception," a meditative state said to only be possible for arhats].
• I have some experience with some other traditional attainments.
• I can access the state [The DhO] calls No Dog. 

:: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ::

The face of enlightenment (DhO)

Ingram wrote the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book, often abbreviated MCTB, which has influenced the practice of many members of The DhO.
 
He is an emergency medicine physician who practices in emergency departments in Mississippi and Northeast Alabama, where he lives with his wife, Carol, and his cats Boris, Mavis, and Elvira (Mistress of the Dark), along with a number of relatively tame raccoons, two of which his family calls Scruffy and Ramona.
 
Ingram gives a whole lot more biographical information in MCTB.
 
He states, "I have many outside interests, including green building, cooking, dancing, playing, and listening to music, the writings of Jack Vance, and a good deal more. Updates on my current practice, whatever it may be, can be found at Current Practice Blog."
 
It is his sincere hope that The DhO will serve to add to the available literature and support of hardcore, empowered practice. He further hopes that through the collective work of a group of dedicated, skilled practitioners that meditation technology and culture will be advanced, enhanced, and adapted to this post-post-modern world.

Financial Disclosure
A brief disclosure of finances: Renting the server space and bandwidth for The DhO costs me about $179/month from Omegabit. There are also other expenses in running The DhO, such as developing the PM feature (which Liferay 5.2.2 didn't have), which cost me about $1,500 out of pocket for the programming, and recent attempts to upgrade to Liferay 6.1, of which the total bill so far has been over $3,000. I also get a small royalty on my book, MCTB, which generally runs roughly $400-$800 every 6 months. Thus, after paying for The DhO server time and miscellaneous expenses, I lose money on all of this, which is just fine by me and consider it my small dana [act of generosity] to the world of meditation. I hope this community benefits every interested person in some way. 

COMMENTARY
Wisdom Quarterly (EDITORIAL)

Daddy, is this an enlightened being? (Eighteen for Life/flickr.com)

 
Do we believe Ingram's claims about attainments? Yes.
 
The problem, of course, is that traditionally the belief has been that one who attains non returner or arhat stages would immediately want to ordain and live according to monastic guidelines, which are regarded as the perfection of the "high life" or brahmacariya. To live otherwise entails blameworthy harm being done to others. This would not suitable for a person of perfected view. (Enlightenment does not perfect personality; it perfects view).
 
A person with right view does not do harm while engaging in a livelihood. Outside of the Sangha it may be that one "goes along to get along" in the world. The arhat, unwilling or unable to stray from what is right/virtuous, would fall by the wayside. There is no example that we could find of a layperson becoming an arhat at the time of the historical Buddha who did not immediately ask for admission into the Sangha. It is not generally believed that a layperson can even attain that distinction to begin with except in exceptional cases. Monks scoff at the notion since they themselves, under ideal conditions, have so much trouble remaining motivated and reaching the goal, particularly in the city.

Falsely accusing the Buddha

Traditional Theravada teachers would probably not keep advancing a stream enterer or once returner who did not intend to ordain. But the question is, Is it possible? We do not see a necessary reason why it would be impossible. Tradition says that this or that is what happens, and it may be the strong inclination of an arhat to live in peace as a harmless contemplative. But we do not see where it says that has to happen. (Of course, there is the issue of sex and sexual motivation, procreative or strictly based on lust; it would not, as we understand it, be something an arhat would be drawn to. Then again we would not have thought a stream enterer would still break precepts, but they do. How do we know? We've seen it, and the texts say so. Look at the Ratana Sutra. Apparently, what they are incapable of doing is keeping it a secret, but they can live heedlessly. This would seem to be impossible for an arhat).
 
The systematic commentarial work by Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification, may seem like a set of hard and fast rules about the Dharma, meditation, attainments, and norms (niyamas), but there are so many examples of exceptions in the texts that one would be hard pressed to defend any definitive view. Buddhaghosa was not giving his opinion, which is how we define "comment" and "commentary." Expanding on and systematizing sacred texts is a sacred Indian tradition; one may need the commentary as much as the original text to make sense of most things great sages have taught.

It is easiest to believe that Daniel Ingram is mistaken or has misestimated his attainment. But how can we say with certainty? How can anyone say? One way to say is to become an arhat and then go meet Ingram. "It takes one to know one" is literally true in this case. If it is his experience, and he is being honest in reporting his experience, who will accurately judge the accuracy of his claims? To doubt it, if it is correct, is unskillful karma. Skeptical doubt is a major hindrance, so it would be better to believe or to leave it undecided until one can check.

An awakened heart of wisdom

We would only advise any person about to make such claim of enlightenment to check with a known arhat (such as Ajahn Jumnien, Pa Auk Sayadaw, the Western monk Ven. Dhammadipa, or other masters who would know) to confirm the attainment. It is easy to be mistaken even when one is personally "sure." What would be worse than living mistakenly thinking oneself liberated -- and convincing others of that -- if, in fact, one were wrong?
 
But Ingram has a mission to bring attainments out of the shadows where teachers imply they have attained things they may have not, and they never have to directly state one way or the other, or conceal what they are thought to have attained. The "defeat" offense (parajika) for monastics everyone seeks to avoid or ever be accused of in any way is to knowingly falsely claim attainments and/or distinctions in meditation for the sake of some worldly gain; if it is merely the result of misestimation, that does not fulfill the factors of defeat. There are, indeed, laypeople who have attained the stages of enlightenment alive today in America. We have met them. Until one learns what enlightenment actually is and meets examples of it, one may never "believe." This is a path of knowing-and-seeing, not of faith, for the wise and sincere. People may not be wise, but they will go a long way so long as they are sincere.
 
Before anyone judges this potential arhat or any other, we highly recommend reading Ingram's written work FREE: Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, an Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book. Thank you for teaching, venerable sir.

How I reached Full Enlightenment

Wisdom Quarterly; Daniel M. Ingram (DhO), Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha

FOREWORD AND WARNING

When I was about 15 years old I accidentally ran into some of the classic early meditation experiences described in the ancient texts and my reluctant spiritual quest began.

I did not realize what had happened, nor did I realize that I had crossed something like a point of no return, something I would later call the Arising and Passing Away. I knew that I had had a very strange dream with bright lights, that my entire body and world had seemed to explode like fireworks, and that afterwards I somehow had to find something, but I had no idea what that was. I philosophized frantically for years until I finally began to realize that no amount of thinking was going to solve my deeper spiritual issues and complete the cycle of practice that had already started.

I had a very good friend that was in the band that employed me as a sound tech and roadie. He was in a similar place, caught like me in something we would later call the Dark Night and other names. He also realized that logic and cognitive restructuring were not going to help us in the end. We looked carefully at what other philosophers had done when they came to the same point, and noted that some of our favorites had turned to mystical practices. We reasoned that some sort of nondual wisdom that came from direct experience was the only way to go, but acquiring that sort of wisdom seemed a daunting task if not impossible. 

He was a bit farther along than I was in his spiritual crisis, and finally he had no choice but to give it a try. He quit the music business, moved back to California, and lived in a run down old mobile home, driving pizza to save money so that he could go off on a spiritual quest. He finally did some intensive meditation retreats and then eventually took off to Asia for a year of intensive practice under the guidance of meditation masters in the Burmese Theravada Buddhist tradition. When he came back, the benefits of his practice were obvious, and a few years later I began to try to follow a similar path.

 

In 1994, I began going on intensive meditation retreats and doing a lot of daily practice. I also ran into some very odd and interesting experiences and began to look around for more guidance on how to proceed and keep things in perspective. Good teachers were few and far away, their time limited and often expensive to obtain, and their answers to my questions were often guarded and cryptic. Even my old music friend was keeping most of what he knew to himself, and issues around disclosure of meditation theory and personal practice details nearly cost us our friendship. 

Frustrated, I turned to books, reading extensively, poring over texts both modern and ancient looking for conceptual frameworks that might help me navigate skillfully in territory that was completely outside my previous experience. Despite having access to an astounding number of great and detailed [D]harma books, I found that they left out lots of details that turned out to be very important. I learned the hard way that using conceptual frameworks that were too idealistic or that were not fully explained could be as bad as using none at all. Further, I found that much of the theory about progress contained ideals and myths that simply did not hold up to reality testing, as much as I wanted them to.

I also came to the profound realization that they have actually worked all of this stuff out. Those darn Buddhists have come up with very simple techniques that lead directly to remarkable results if you follow instructions and get the dose high enough. While some people don’t like this sort of cookbook approach to meditation, I am so grateful for their recipes that words fail to express my profound gratitude for the successes they have afforded me.

Their simple and ancient practices revealed more and more of what I sought. I found my experiences filling in the gaps in the texts and teachings, debunking the myths that pervade the standard Buddhist dogma and revealing the secrets meditation teachers routinely keep to themselves. Finally, I came to a place where I felt comfortable writing the book that I had been looking for, the book you now hold in your hands.

This book is for those who really want to master the core teachings of the Buddha and who are willing to put in the time and effort required. It is also for those who are tired of having to decipher the code of modern and ancient [D]harma books, as it is designed to be honest, explicit, straightforward, and rigorously technical. Like many of the commentaries on the Pali Canon, it is organized along the lines of the three basic trainings that the Buddha taught: morality, concentration, and wisdom.

Throughout this book I have tried to be as utilitarian and pragmatic as possible, and the emphasis is always on how to actually “get it” at the level that makes some difference. More

Cambodia: violent clashes injure hundreds

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Lindsay Murdoch (TheAge.com.au)

Cambodian protesters throw stones at police in Phnom Penh, Sept. 15, 2013 (AFP).

 

Discoveries in the jungle (WQ)

Police fired smoke grenades and water cannons in clashes with hundreds of demonstrators on Phnom Penh's waterfront on Sunday evening, leaving one protester dead and hundreds injured, amid heightened tensions in the Cambodian capital over the country's disputed national elections.

 

Opposition supporters are threatening to continue mass rallies ahead of the first scheduled session of parliament on September 23 which opposition leaders have declared they will boycott.

"Our vote is our life...they stole our votes; it's like stealing our lives."

Sam Rainsy, leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), told about 20,000 protestors at a Sunday rally that opposition MPs will refuse to attend parliament unless the government of strongman prime minister Hun Sen allows an independent investigation into allegations of widespread vote rigging at the July 28 poll. More   

 

 

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