Cinco de Mayo means Latin culture in USA

Pfc. Sandoval, Mexican Buddhist Irma Quintero, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

No one celebrates it in Mexico, but we sure love it in the US. What is Cinco de Mayo? The "Fifth of May" commemorates a time when Mexico rebuffed and repelled French imperial troops who were sent in to collect banking debts. They were defeated and turned away (but returned a year later and succeeded).

Brentwood, L.A. (Lalo Alacaraz/GoComics)

No one in Mexico would think to celebrate the fiasco, choosing instead to commemorate the September 16th "Mexican Independence Day" revolution that overthrew Spanish imperial rule. Long after Buddhism arrived, Spain came to Mexico and wiped out millions in waves of genocides that introduced chattel slavery, disease, mass rape, incarceration, the death penalty, corporate business, and deadly forms of Christianity -- mostly, but not exclusively, Holy Roman Imperial Catholicism.

Of course, the day is now debased in a 4th of July-style Beer and BBQ fest. Why drink Bud when you can have a Corona and enrich corporations on both sides of the border? Viva la revolución!

Satirist/Cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz is a Pacifica Radio co-host in Los Angeles (KPFK FM)

• VIDEO: I'm a Mexican Buddhist
• Native American Buddhism: How Swans Came to the Lake

Cosmic winds, light, echoes (video)

Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Nadia Drake (Phenomena, NatGeo, May 5, 2014)

Light echoes act as astronomical time machines or portals to the past.

On Earth, echoes are produced when sound waves bounce around like pinballs. In space, echoes are produced when light does the bouncing.

Just as sounds can echo -- so, too, can cosmic light. But instead of ricocheting off damp cavern walls, light traveling through the universe bounces off soft, dusty clouds.

 

Sometimes, this happens after an explosive event such a supernova. On Earth, most of the light we’d see from one of these exploding stars would have come directly here. But supernovas explode in three dimensions, sending light in all directions. Not all of that light is aimed toward Earth. If the geometry is right, some of the light... More
 

SUTRA: In the Sky

Nyanaponika Thera (trans.) Akasa Sutta (1) (SN 36.12); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

"In the sky, O meditators, various kinds of [solar, cosmic, magnetic] winds are blowing: winds from the east, west, north and south, winds carrying dust and winds without dust, winds hot and cold, gentle and fierce.

• ["Wind" or vayo (prana, chi, spiritus) is regarded as the source of movement, the invisible animating principle as it were, in the body.]

"Similarly, meditators, there arise in this body various kinds of feelings: pleasant feelings arise, painful feelings arise, and neutral feelings arise."

 

Illusion of expanding dust cloud (NASA/ESA/H.E.Bond)

Just as in the sky above winds of various kinds are blowing:

Coming from the east or west, moving from the north or south,

Some carry dust and others not, cold are some and others hot,

Some are fierce and others mild -- their varied moving style.

So also in this body here, feelings of different kind arise:

The pleasant feelings and the painful and the neutral ones.

But if a meditator is vigilant and persistent

To practice mindfulness and comprehension clear,

The nature of all feelings will one understand,

And having penetrated them, one will be taint-free in this very life.

Mature in knowledge, firm in Dharma's ways,

Then once one's lifespan ends, this body breaks,

 

And all measure and concept one has transcended.

[This last line is an allusion to nirvana.]

Drake is a science journalist. Phenomena is her space to talk about space -- from other worlds to exploding stars to the fabric of time and the universe. Her work has also appeared in Science News, Nature, New Scientist, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and WIRED. She lives in beautiful, foggy San Francisco.

• Buddhist physics: The Four Elements or Primary Qualities of Materiality
• 
  Prāna (प्राण) is the Sanskrit word for "life force." In yoga, Oriental medicine, and martial arts, the term refers to a cosmic energy believed to come from the Sun (solar cosmic rays) and connecting the elements of the universe. The universal principle of energy or force, responsible for the body's movement, heat, life, and maintenance, prāna is the sum total of all [active] energy that is manifest in the universe. This life energy has been vividly invoked and described in Vedas. In Ayurveda, tantra, and Tibetan medicine "praṇā vāyu" is the basic vāyu (wind, air) from which all the other vāyus arise. It is analogous to qi or chi. More
• Report: High costs of Climate Change
• Ancient Geoglyphs uncovered
• Can Tar Sands boycott work?
• Weird animal questions answered
• Rare Goblin Shark caught off Florida Keys

The United We Stand Festival (concert)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; UnitedWeStandFest.com; UCLA (tickets)

Awake the Nation! Free & Equal sets out to unite us as We the People, May 10 (UWSF)

Coming to a University Near You!
The United We Stand Festival will kick off at UCLA on May 10th for a University Bus Tour across America, combining music and education to awaken the nation!
 
Inspiring young and old alike to help elect principled leaders who are not swayed by special interests, we can restore a world of peace, liberty, harmony, justice, ecology, prosperity, and happiness for all.

Musical headliners at UCLA include Public Enemy, members of Wu-Tang Clan, Immortal Technique, The Siren, Cynic, Tatiana Moroz, Rooftop Revolutionaries, A-Alikes, Luminaries, Jon Goodhue, Sounds of Solidarity, and more.

Speakers include media legend Larry King, Ben & Jerry, Marianne Williamson (NY Times bestselling author and independent congressional candidate for CA-33), David Bronner (CEO of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps), and Sean Stone (son of Hollywood bigwig Oliver Stone, who created) host of Buzzsaw.


Other notable figures include Dr. Jill Stein (our 2012 Green choice for president), Gov. Gary Johnson, Amber Lyon (Emmy-winning journalist/whistleblower), Ben Swann (Emmy-winning journalist), Diane Goldstein (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), Mnar Muhawesh (Mint Press News), and many more.

TICKETS are on sale now at the revolutionary price of $17.76 (but use promo code WETHEPEOPLE for a 50% discount at checkout!) at UCLA's Central Ticket Office and online through TicketMaster.

Free & Equal Elections Foundation is an election reform organization dedicated to the idea that all enjoy an equal share of the rights and responsibilities of our nation's governance. We strive to create a system in which all citizens are equal in ability to participate.



Immortal Technique appears on Abby Martin’s "Breaking the Set" on RT discussing the United We Stand Fest
LOS ANGELES, California - Immortal Technique, the legendary independent hip-hop artist, appeared on "Breaking the Set" with Abby Martin on RT America on May 1st to discuss Free & Equal’s United We Stand...

MoreBus tour kicks off at UCLA to strengthen America’s commitment to free and equal elections
BUS TOUR KICKS OFF AT UCLA TO STRENGTHEN AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO FREE AND EQUAL ELECTIONS with a music rally at the UCLA campus in Westwood, Los Angeles, California to empower voters and inspire youth featuring Public Enemy, Immortal Technique...

Ben & Jerry’s sponsor United We Stand Festival

Hippie dairy product full of deadly sugar and good intentions? Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is now a proud sponsor of the Free & Equal Elections Foundation's United We Stand Festival at UCLA on May 10th. Ben & Jerry’s is proud to stand...

Dennis Kucinich will speak at United We Stand Fest UCLA
Former U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich -- one of the precious few honest politicians gerrymandered out of office and reduced to working for Fox News -- is a confirmed speaker at Free and Equal’s United We Stand Festival at UCLA on May 10th. During his 16 years in Congress, Kucinich...
 

The Moon over the University of Los Angeles's Westwood campus (ucla.edu)

Shamans and Afghans (video)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; AFP News Agency

No shamans are allowed in Afghanistan, once a Buddhist country now overrun my militant Islamists and pessimistic Muslims that has also displaced even a trace of its mystical, Buddhist-influenced Sufi school. The Pashtun, Tajik, Kazakh, and other ethnic or tribal minorities are not the Indian (Gandharan, Indo-Greco), Iranian (Ariyan/Persian), Central Asian people who thrived in the area before and after the time of the Buddha and the birth of Buddhism.
 

(AFP) Devastated Afghans keep searching for victims' bodies after a landslide in northern Badakhshan province above Kabul that entombed a village, killing thousands of people and leaving 700 families homeless in the mountains. See Another Tragedy in Afghanistan

(AFP, May 5, 2014) There are estimated to be thousands of shamans or "spirit healers," who are called on as medicine men and women in traditional ethnic villages in China, but mass migration to cities has meant the prospects for the profession are looking bleak. Of course, those people will be back when their health deteriorates using super toxic Western (allopathic) chemicals and medicaments. 

• Doctors are third leading cause of death in US, killing...
• DEATH BY MEDICINE (by Gary Null, Ph.D.; Dr. Carolyn Dean M.D., N.D.; Dr. Martin Feldman, M.D.; Dr. Debora Rasio, M.D.; and Dorothy Smith, Ph.D.)

Shamanism

Dancing shaman (hamidsardar.com

VIDEO: A Shaman in Atheist China

Earliest known depiction of a Siberian shaman -- by Dutch explorer Nicolaes Witsen, who authored an account of his travels among Samoyedic- and Tungusic-speaking peoples in 1692.

Russian boy dies in shaman ceremony [783,936 Americans die in a year being prescribed pharmaceuticals and taking them as directed by an M.D. and no one says anything, which is called iatrogenic death]

Traditional shaman healers, who have practiced in some areas of Siberia and the Far East for thousands of years, have experienced a revival since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union ended repression by the Communist... [Their track record for healing disease and saving lives is much better than it is for Western doctors, but don't tell anyone.]

Coldest place on Earth: shaman paradise Monday's Geo Quiz is cold, cold, cold. We're looking for the name of a cold Siberian city. It's the capital of the Russian Republic of Sakha [as in Shakya? Sakka? Buddhist Kalmykia?] It has on average the coldest winter...

Training eagle and horse (hamidsardar.com)

"Be Your Own Shaman" (April 5th Party) Our friend and energetic healer Dr. Deborah King is holding an ONLINE party to celebrate the launch of her new book, Be Your Own Shaman...

VIDEO: The Shamans of Mongolia Much of our American Xmas lore comes not from Israel and Christianity but from Scandinavian shamans, like the Swedish Sami, and European Pagans. "Santa Claus" was originally a magic mushroom harvester who...

The World's oldest form of spirituality The Buddha rejected the ultimate authority of the Vedas, ritual priestcraft, and Brahmanism. He returned to the oldest form of spirituality, shamanism (as part of India's ancient Shramana Dharma Movement). By rejecting the dominant Brahmin priest mediated...
Is Shamanism a Path to Enlightenment?

Last shaman of the Oroqen (Richard Noll)

According to Harner, "The shamanic path is not a path traditionally intended to achieve enlightenment. It has been a path... In essence, shamanism both is and isn't a path of transformation and enlightenment. Global Medicine...
Buddhism and Shamanism Today
Modern shamans, while less formal than Buddhist shramanas or Hindu sannyasins, are not a reaction to Brahmin temple priests as Buddhism was. Nevertheless, even urban shamans are trying to directly connect with the...
Beyond Coping: The Buddha on Illness
An anthropologist once questioned an Eskimo shaman about his tribe's belief system. After putting up with the anthropologist's questions for a while, the shaman finally told him: "Look. We don't believe. We fear." In a similar...

Entangled in Darkness, Seeking the Light (Dr. Deb King)

Master healer and urban shaman [and sexual abuse survivor] Deborah King (DeborahKingCenter.com), was a successful attorney in her 20s when a diagnosis of cancer sent her on a search for truth. It radically changed her...

VIDEO: World's oldest art made by women

New research suggests that many of the first artistic masters (as well as the majority of shamans, intuitives, and "medicine men") were women, not men. Woman shaman (Elende). (IFC Films) Documentary filmmaker Werner...

Slave Resistance and Revolution (video)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Margaret Prescod “Sojourner Truth” (KPFK.org)

Not interested in a rap/hip hop/rock concert at UCLA? Then come to a Teach-In at the Ebony Repertory Theatre.

It features Dr. Gerald Horne speaking for the Los Angeles launch of his new book The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America.

  

There will also be a screening of the film “Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth” (see below) followed by an update with Maurice Carney, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the Congo.

• Saturday, May 10, 2014 2:00-5:00 pm
• Ebony Repertory Theatre, Nate Holden Complex
• 4718 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Counter-Revolution: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA (Dr. Horne/KPFK.org)

  

Dr. Gerald Horne holds the Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He has published over 30 books including Black Revolutionary: William Patterson and the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle.

 

Dr. Horne’s research addresses racism in civil rights, labor, politics, war, international relations, and the film industry. He specializes in casting light on underrepresented and misrepresented struggles of humanity for social justice as we struggle against imperialism, mental colonialism, fascism, and racism. He is the former Executive Director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, who received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, his J.D. from the UC Berkeley, and his B.A. from Princeton.

 

Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth

The film locates the Congo crisis in a historical, social, and political context. It unveils analysis and prescriptions by leading experts, activists, and analysts normally unavailable to the general public. It is a call to conscience and action.  

MAURICE CARNEY is co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo. He is a human rights activist who has campaigned for the rights and sovereignty of the Congolese people for more than a decade. Carney has worked as a research analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, one of the nation’s leading Black think tanks.

"What You Give Comes Back to You" (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; Roy of Hollywood Tuckman (kpfk.org), Alan Watts, May 4, 2014

"Did you learn Zen today? - "Yes. No. I don't know. It doesn't matter."

 

Early Alan Watts on U.S. TV

Pacifica Free Speech Radio is in fund drive mode. Sunday mornings (8:00 am), along with Thursday nights (12:00 am), are "Zen Master" Alan Watts hours on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. Today Watts was interviewed "In the Spirit," and a wonderful talk on ecology was broadcast. Watts was so far ahead of his time that he was decrying plastics half a century ago. What he had to say has endured the test of time with stunning accuracy and foresight. LISTEN

"Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds" (film)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; InnerWorldsMovie; AwakenTheWorldFilm 

(ATWF) Part 1: Akasha. See all four parts at innerworldsmovie.com. Music from spiritlegend.com. Sacred geometry posters and products at: zazzle.com/awakentheworld. Donations and purchases help support the "Awaken the World Initiative" to make future films free for the benefit of humanity. (Help translate and caption the film at amara.org).

 

"Form is full of potential."

This is Part 1 of the film "Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds" (REM Publishing Ltd.).

Akasha (space, Buddhist kalapas particle-wavelets, aether, etheric field, primordial stuff, primary substance, the yin to prana's yang) is the unmanifested, the nothing ("no thing") or emptiness which fills the vacuum of space.

Vedic deities (Clio7/flickr)

As Einstein realized, empty space is not really empty. Saints, sages, and yogis who have looked within themselves have also realized that within the emptiness is unfathomable power, a web of information or energy which connects all things. 

 

This matrix or web has been called the Logos (the "Word," "I say"), the Higgs Field, the primordial OM, and has been known by a thousand other names throughout history.

• Particle physics (kalapas), Caltech
• Buddhist Physics: Why the LHC Matters

Yogi meditating on Brahma(n)

The first part of "Inner Worlds" explores the one vibratory source that extends through all things, through the science of cymatics, the concept of the Logos, and the Vedic concept of Nada Brahma (the universe as sound or vibration). 

 

Once we realize that there is one vibratory source that is the root of all scientific and spiritual investigation, how can anyone say "my religion," "my God," "my discovery," or ["my film"]?

About the makers

The Buddha, Sakka (Indra), and Brahma

Several people have already tried to re-upload the film and monetize their channel and/or make a profit from selling the film without permission or to build subscribers. It is hard to know people's true motivation, which is sometimes something even they do not know.

The Awaken The World Film channel contains closed captions in many languages so that versions of the film do not spread in the absence of professional translations.

When users subscribe to the ATWF channel they can be provided with future films as they are released. This is just the first of many films to come; the second is already in the works.

  

Brahma the "supreme," Hindu art (sagarworld)

The channel also provides links to the Website and Facebook page and the opportunity for viewers to donate to the Awaken the World initiative. Support is needed to make these films. For while they may be made available for free, donations are really appreciated. Viewers may also offer their translation skills or other support.
 

Proof of contact? Massive Vedic "crop circle" Sri Yantra covering 13 miles uniformly carved into bed of dry lake that is too hard for us to etch in Oregon, USA (Bill Witherspoon)

• Workshops, meditation retreat, and more (facebook)
• Google community page discusses awakening

7 animals that are not DINOSAURS (video)

CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; SciShow (Facebook/YT/TT, May 1, 2014)

Buddhist nagas are reptilians from the view of the terrifying Crocodile Cage (wiki)

Getting most information about ancient animals from vintage cartoons? If so then it may come as a surprise that a lot of beings we think of as "dinosaurs" actually aren't. Learn the definition of true dinosaurs and the evolutionary relationships shared by the non-dino reptiles that lived on land, in the sea, and in the air on this quick excursion into the world of Western science.

Like SciShow? Support it: get things to put on walls, attach to torsos, and hold liquids by checking out the awesome products at DFTBA Records or help support by subscribing on the Subbable page. Enough of "science"; it's time to journey into Eastern mysticism.

• VIDEO: A living dinosaur in Africa today (Monster Quest)
• VIDEO: Frankenstein labs: chimera pig-human-baboons
• VIDEO: THE NEW YORK MONSTER (History.com)
  The "Monster of Whitehall" lives in upstate New York. Sightings of this 800 lb. bipedal creature culminated in several police officers encountering it. It haunts the area to this day. However, sightings of these humanoid giants go back many hundreds of years to Native American (Algonquian and Iroquois) accounts and that of French explorers in the 1600s in a wilderness that runs all the way up to the Canadian border.

The Monster of Whitehall is not a single creature but a concentration of them in upstate NY.

 
Sutra: the Reptilian Mucalinda

John D. Ireland (trans.), Mucalinda Sutra (Udana 2.1, BPS); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.)

Theropod dino egg nest discovered (news.nationalgeographic.com/Museu da Lourinha)

 

Mucalinda the naga (khanh_huynhtuan/flickr)

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha (Bhagava, the "Blessed One") was staying at Uruvela next to the river Nerañjara at the foot of the Mucalinda Tree, having just realized full enlightenment.
 
At that time he sat cross-legged for seven days experiencing the bliss of liberation. Now it happened that there occurred a great rainstorm. For seven days there was unseasonable weather with rain clouds and cold winds.
 
Then [the magical dragon] Mucalinda the Naga-King left his dwelling and with his coils encircled the Buddha's body seven times. He stood with his great [cobra] hood spread over the Buddha's head (thinking) to protect him from cold and heat, from gadflies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, and the touch of creeping things.
 

At the end of seven days the Buddha emerged from that profound concentration (samma-samadhi). Then Mucalinda the Naga-King, seeing that the sky had cleared and the rain clouds dispersed, removed his coils from the Buddha's body. Transforming his appearance (shape-shifting) and assuming the appearance of a youth, Mucalinda the Naga-King stood in front of the Buddha with his hands placed together (añjali mudrā) venerating him.
 
Then realizing its significance, on that occasion, the Buddha uttered this inspired utterance, this verse of uplift:
 

Blissful is detachment for one who is content,

For one who has found Dharma [Truth] and who sees;

Blissful is non-affliction in the world,

Restraint towards all living creatures;
 

Blissful is passionlessness in the world,

The overcoming of sensual desires;

But the abandoning of the conceit "I am" —

That is truly the bliss supreme!
 

The seven are the five mentioned in the SciShow video (above), the "Monster of Whitehall" (an American Sasquatch), and the reptilian Muclinda. Mokele Mbembe is real and is a non-extinct dinosaur frequently seen in the Congo river in basin of Africa.

A second tragedy in Afghanistan (audio)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Bill Chappell (npr.org)

Ancient Bamiyan destroyed to turn sentiment against the "Taliban" a joint creation of the CIA and neighboring Pakistani intelligence and clandestine services (Nat Geo)

The landslide that struck Afghanistan's Abi-Barik village Saturday came in two stages. The second, larger landslide claimed the lives of the first wave of rescuers (Sayed Ibrahim/AP).

 

The CIA/Taliban's handiwork (CNN)

First we Americans invent excuses to invade an innocent but very geopolitcally strategic country, now this.

Will we use it to say, "We were going to leave, but now we simply must remain, even if it's against your will, due to humanitarian concerns"?

Afghan Landslide: Search ends; thousands feared dead

(NPR) More than 2,500 people are believed dead after a hillside collapsed on part of a remote village in Afghanistan. 

Rescue attempts have largely been abandoned. Heavy rain prompted the landslide, which enclosed hundreds of houses in more than 30 feet of mud.

 

The U.N. and relief agencies are working to help more than 4,000 displaced people in Abi-Barik, the village in northeastern Afghanistan's Badakhshan province [just above Kabul] where the landslide occurred. The event took place in two stages, the BBC reports:

"Hundreds of homes were buried on Friday when a section of a mountain collapsed following torrential rain.

"A second landslide then followed, killing the rescuers who had rushed in to help dig people out."

As the news agency says, the landslide hit Friday morning, a traditional day of rest in Afghanistan, meaning that many residents were in or around their homes.

 

The exact death toll may not be known for days. Friday afternoon, conflicting reports from Afghan officials put the number of the missing at anywhere from 400 to more than 2,100 people.

 

"That will be their cemetery," the Associated Press quotes Mohammad Karim Khalili, one of Afghanistan's two vice presidents, saying Saturday: "It is not possible to bring out any bodies." More

• VIDEO: BBC coverage of the disaster

New "cemetery" in Abi-Barik. Afghan villagers now pray at the site. Rescuers searched in vain for survivors. Thousands are feared dead (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images).