Oldest Christian temple destroyed (AP)

The Associated Press (via mail.com); Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

Destruction of the earliest Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, Afghanistan (xtimeline.com).

Soldier walks inside St. Elijah's Monastery in Mosul, Iraq. The 1,400-year-old monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the CIA's campaign to create terrorist organizations like the Taliban or ISIS (U.S. Army reserve Col. Mary Prophit via AP).

St. Elijah's Monastery on the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq, about 360 kms (225 miles) NW of Baghdad. served as a center of the regional Christian community for centuries, attracting worshippers from throughout the region (AP).

CIA never sleeps, prods Islamists to destroy Iraqi Assyrian city of Nimrod near Mosul, another "Bamiyan" to gain support for endless US war in geopolitical Middle East (AP).

Look, Jesus, mistakes were made, okay?

Look what our war has done, U.S. George W. Bush's "Crusade" in search of WMDs full spectrum dominance, CIA-plant father Bush's illegal invasion to control the oil, Dick Cheney's cousin Barry Obama (a kind of Bush III) and his wish to appease the military-industrial complex for which he serves as the mouthpiece, like a pro-war MLK, both wearing their Nobel Peace Prizes on their chest.

Tell me about it, Georgey (CS)

The CIA-inspired "Taliban" took down the greatest, oldest, largest Buddhas in the world (Bamiyan, Afghanistan), and with their ISIS/ISIL/IS they take out Islamic sites and other world treasures like Yazidi and Hazara houses of worship.

Well, not even Christian treasures are spared. Can Jewish artifacts (if they existed, and some say they do not but are instead fabricated and woven into history, controversial claims but claims nonetheless) be far behind?

US, CIA, and Ash Carter bring police state to Iraq in wake of illegal invasion (AP).

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IRBIL, Iraq - The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State group's relentless destruction of ancient cultural sites.

Let my brother continue my mission! (AP)

For 1,400 years the compound survived assaults by nature and man, standing as a place of worship recently for U.S. troops. In earlier centuries, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches and prayed in the cool chapel.

The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of Christ's name, were carved near the entrance.

The Buddha, Bamiyan (A)

Now satellite photos obtained exclusively by The Associated Press confirm the worst fears of church authorities and preservationists -- St. Elijah's Monastery of Mosul has been completely wiped out.

In his office in exile in Irbil, Iraq, the Rev. Paul Thabit Habib, 39, stared quietly at before- and after-images of the monastery that once perched on a hillside above his hometown of Mosul. Shaken, he flipped back to his own photos for comparison.

"I can't describe my sadness," he said in Arabic. "Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating, and finishing our existence in this land."

The Muslim Hazaras now live in Bamiyan, the real ancient Kapilavastu (AFP).

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Death of Hazara-Afghans in Bamiyan today.

The Islamic State group, which broke from al-Qaida and now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, has killed thousands of civilians and forced out hundreds of thousands of Christians, threatening a religion that has endured in the region for 2,000 years.

Along the way, its fighters have destroyed buildings and ruined historical and culturally significant structures they consider contrary to their interpretation of Islam.

Those who knew the monastery wondered about its fate after the extremists swept through in June 2014 and largely cut communications to the area.

Now, St. Elijah's has joined a growing list of more than 100 demolished religious and historic sites, including mosques, tombs, shrines, and churches in Syria and Iraq.

The extremists have defaced or ruined ancient monuments in Nineveh, Palmyra, and Hatra. Museums and libraries have been looted, books burned, artwork crushed -- or trafficked.

"A big part of tangible history has been destroyed," said Rev. Manuel... More

Martin Luther King, Jr. Bio, Beyond Vietnam

Wisdom Quarterly; Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence"

(Ben Dial) A 5-minute Biography of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Christian preacher, wife he cheated on.

(Servant2All) Many have heard that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made the comment that the U.S. government is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." What was the context of that statement? This speech, one of his very best, was delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly one year before his untimely execution by the U.S. government and its covert agents. Though not as well known as his other speeches, it is one that speaks deeply to us as Americans. For the full text of the speech, see 4amoreperfectunion.

(Martin Luther King, Jr.) "Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool," August 27, 1967

Powerful quotes

"Southern whites are the negroes' best friends BUT NO INTEGRATION" - Ku Klux Klan

Malcolm X, MLK both worked for equality

(KVR) "A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in [the U.S. war on] Vietnam.

"And I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube."

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." -MLK

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"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."

 

(DAMO) "Our Friend Martin" featuring Yolanda King, Samuel L. Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, John Travolta, Susan Sarandon, Angela Basset, Levar Burton, Ashley Judd, Dexter King, Ed Asner, James Earl Jones, Lucas Black, Danny Glover, Robert Ri'chard,  Jaleel White, Whoopi Goldberg.

"We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle...and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor."

Black lives matter! A racist country countering "But all lives matter" will understand.

 

"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military 'defense' than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -MLK

• Sarah Silverman attacks MLK (but she's joking)

Hermit survives decades in Siberian wilderness

TheGuardian.com; Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

I vas vonce a greaaat beauty, vut the vilderness verrs vun avay. (Russian Dating)

70-year-old hermit who has spent her entire life in the Siberian wilderness has been airlifted to hospital to treat pain in her legs.

Agafia Lykova is the last remaining member of a deeply religious family that fled civilization in 1936 and did not know about the second world war until geologists stumbled upon them in 1978.

After she contacted the “mainland” with an emergency satellite telephone to ask for medical help, the governor, Aman Tuleyev, ordered her evacuation.

"Witsen's Shaman" in shamanic Siberia (en.wikipedia.org)

 

Buddhism in Russia

[They took her] from her homestead near the Abakan river to a hospital in Tashtagol, according to the Kemerovo region website.
 

Doctors have “removed the acute pain” in her legs and plan to keep her in hospital over the next week, it said. Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported that the pain was related to cartilage deterioration.

 
Living in peace far from the maddening crowd

Buddhist place names Sakha, Magadha

A member of the Old Believer sect that split off from the Russian Orthodox church 350 years ago, Lykova’s father, Karp, took his wife and two children into the taiga after a Soviet patrol shot his brother.

[This led to them] eventually settling more than 150 miles (240 km) from the nearest village.

Siberia is beautiful now.

The family survived for decades on their remote homestead, where winter temperatures reach -40C, without guns, salt, or metal implements.
 
The youngest of four children, Agafia had not encountered any human beings outside her family, had read only the Bible and prayer books, and had never tasted bread or milk before she was 35.

Outdated words and religious terms pepper her speech. She has lived alone since her father died in 1988, although bears and foxes sometimes disturb her looking for food.

 

Last year, the British director Rebecca Marshall began work on a documentary about Lykova, called "The Forest in Me." (See VICE video here).

Siberian Buddhist temple in Buriyat, Russia

“When I finally met Agafia, what surprised me was that rather than feeling like a primitive situation, it felt like arriving in the future – to a world with no technology, the vast forest littered with discarded space junk,” Marshall told Russia Beyond the Headlines.

[He was] referring to the fact that Lykova’s home is under the flight path of rockets from the Baikonur cosmodrome in [formerly Buddhist] Kazakhstan. “It is an incredible and beautiful place.” More

Hermit's gorgeous homestead in Siberia is far from perpetually-frozen gulag we imagine.

Stalin, Siberia, and salt: Russian recluse's life story made into film

• The amazing "wilderness" at home, South Pasadena's Arroyo Seco Woodland and Wildlife Park
• Death of Russian teen who opposed war in Ukraine 
• 200 people died in Russian police custody in 2015 
• Putin hints that Russia could grant asylum to Syria's Assad 
• Buddhism in Russia (Buddhist.ru/eng) 

How to Survive the Wilderness ("The Revenant")

Wisdom Quarterly; VICE; MadeInTurkey (youtube.com); The Folklorist

 

Nun at Thich Nhat Hanh's Deer Park (WQ)

In 1936, a family of Russian Old Believers journeyed deep into Siberia's vast taiga to escape persecution and protect their way of life. The Lykovs eventually settled in the Sayan [Sakyan?] Mountains, 160 miles from any other sign of civilization. In 1944, Agafia Lykov was born into this wilderness. Today she is the last surviving Lykov, remaining steadfast in her seclusion. In this episode of "Far Out," the VICE crew travels to the hermit Agafia to learn about her taiga lifestyle and the encroaching influence of the outside world.

"The Revenant"
(The Revenant) Leonardo DiCaprio stars as the foreign invader and killer of many Native Americans in this all-American adventure of an American who shows true American grit in the American wilderness for all Americans to enjoy (except the Native Americans). Until that bear eats him. Meaningless pain porn. Winner of the Golden Globe for "Best Picture" and #OscarSoWhite the likely contender for the Academy Award in the same category. What is a "revenant," the opposite of a covenant? "To re-venir, to come back from a long absence."

• "The Revenant" is meaningless pain porn
• VIDEO: 10 Things You Didn't Know About It
• VIDEO: Check out the Best of VICE

The real story of the real "Revanant"
Audio: madeinturkey (youtube.com)

Irish-American Hugh Glass is the original source of Hollywood's "The Revenant."

Hugh Glass (c. 1780–1833) was an Irish-American fur trapper and frontiersman noted for his exploits in the American West during the first third of the 19th century.

Glass was born in Pennsylvania, to Irish parents. He was an explorer of the watershed of the Upper Missouri River in present day North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Glass was famed, most of all, as a frontier folk hero for his legendary cross-country trek after being mauled by a grizzly bear.

Glass's most famous adventure began in 1822, when he responded to an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette and Public Adviser, placed by General William Henry Ashley, which called for a corps of 100 men to "ascend the river Missouri" as part of a fur trading venture. These men would later be known as Ashley's Hundred.

(The Folklorist) The Legend of Hugh Glass who survived with help from the Sioux who killed other natives as he aided the westward imperial expansion of the U.S. stealing the land from the original inhabitants in the name of greed and Christianity.

The waters of the Arroyo Seco, Pasadena (WQ)

Besides Glass, others who joined the enterprise included notables such as James Beckwourth, Thomas Fitzpatrick, David Jackson, John Fitzgerald, William Sublette, Jim Bridger, and Jedediah Smith.

Early in the trek, Glass established himself as a hard-working fur trapper. He was apparently wounded on this trip in a battle with Arikara, and later traveled with a party of 13 men to relieve traders at Fort Henry, at the mouth of the Yellowstone River.

The expedition, led by Andrew Henry, planned to proceed from the Missouri, up the valley of the Grand River in present-day South Dakota, then across to the valley of the Yellowstone.
Bear mauling

Near the forks of the Grand River in present-day Perkins County, in August 1823, while scouting ahead of his trading partners for game for the expedition's larder, Glass surprised a grizzly bear mother with her two cubs.

Before he could fire his rifle, the bear charged, picked him up, and threw him to the ground. The bear threw his flesh to its cubs. Glass got up, grappled for his knife, and fought back, stabbing the animal repeatedly as the grizzly raked him time and again with her claws.

Glass managed to kill the bear with help from his trapping partners, Fitzgerald and Bridger, but was left badly mauled and unconscious. Henry (who was also with them) became convinced the man would not survive his injuries.

Henry asked for two volunteers to stay with Glass until he died, and then bury him. Bridger (then 19 years old) and Fitzgerald (then 23 years old) stepped forward, and as the rest of the party moved on, began digging his grave. Later claiming that they were interrupted in the task by an attack by "Arikaree" Indians, the pair grabbed Glass's rifle, knife, and other equipment, and took flight. Bridger and Fitzgerald incorrectly reported to Henry that Glass had died.

Despite his injuries, Glass regained consciousness. He did so only to find himself abandoned, without weapons or equipment, suffering from a broken leg, the cuts on his back exposing bare ribs, and all his wounds festering. Glass lay mutilated and alone, more than 200 miles (320 km) from the nearest American settlement at Fort Kiowa on the Missouri.

In one of the more remarkable treks known to history, Glass set his own leg, wrapped himself in the bear hide his companions had placed over him as a shroud, and began crawling. To prevent gangrene, Glass laid his wounded back on a rotting log and let the maggots eat the dead flesh.

How the West was Won Stolen 
(Wild West History) Old West Legend Jedediah Smith

One hundred million Native Americans slaughtered and infected to institute the British dream of a "United States," with the help of the United Kingdom's arch-rivals, the French, who took Canada. Spain kept Mexico and much of South America. And the new U.S. went on to invade and colonize the Philippines and then Hawaii and other islands. Now the USA is the greatest imperial force in the world -- and "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," according to MLK -- just like the ancient Romans who killed Jesus. But who cares about accurate history when we can tell ourselves feelgood stories about how this land was empty (just like Israel) and we are the greatest champions of good old Jesus.

Jedediah Smith

Wild West History (youtube.com)

Real "American history" (Roxy Dunbar-Ortiz)

Today few Americans have ever heard of a man called Jedediah Smith. Yet, his bold forays into the remaining Native American territories inhabited by Native American tribes and nations for 10 to 15 thousand years, which the U.S. took to calling its "Western frontier" during the early nineteenth century helped shape the course of U.S. history.

(To call it "American history" would deny the fact that most of "America" is not the USA but rather our southern and northern neighbors on the continent).

Since the early 1800s Smith's forgotten legacy has been gathering dust like so many other pioneers and explorers of his time. In this dramatic feature-length special, follow Smith as he navigates the "American West" during the exciting decade of the 1820s.

From being the first white man to recognize the significance of the South Pass in Wyoming to making the treacherous journey by land from Southern California to Oregon, Smith blazed many important trails in his time.

Featuring tales of clashing cultures and dangerous encounters bear attacks and violent battles, THE LEGEND OF JEDEDIAH SMITH brings the long-lost story of a great pioneer to life for a new generation of Americans in the United States.

Shift Your Paradigm, Be the Real You (audio)

Crystal Quintero, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Dhammapada

(Bob Proctor) Meditation exercise "Shift Your Paradigm" with Hemi-Sync "The Return."

The Buddha, Rubin Museum (Andy Romanoff)

The Buddha says an amazing thing in the Imprint or Path of the Dharma. Mind (heart) is the forerunner of all conditions. They are mind-made.

If, on the one hand, we think and act with a pure [free of greed, hatred/fear, delusion and instead motivated by the wide categories of nongreed, nonaversion, nondelusion] mind, happiness follows us like a shadow, which is easy to carry no matter how long or wide it grows.

But if, on the other hand, we think or act with an impure mind, sorrow drags behind us like a laden cart that is hard to bear and constantly growing heavier.

Most people will never know what mind is capable of. Find out (MonroeInstitute.org)

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1. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-made. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows behind like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

2. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows behind like a never-departing shadow. More

• Hemi-Sync/HoloSync sound meditations (Monroe Institute)

What is the famous "Dhammapada"?

Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Buddharakkhita; Bhikkhu Bodhi

Towering in the Himalayas, the Buddha at Thimphu, Bhutan (Srijan Roy Choudhury).

 

Thimphu, Kuenselphodrang, Bhutan (ST3)

The Dhammapada is the best known and most widely esteemed text in the Pali Tipitaka (the "Three Collections" in the exclusively-Buddhist language called Pali), the sacred scriptures of Theravada Buddhism.

The work is included in the "Minor Collection" (Khuddaka Nikaya) of the Sutra Collection, but its popularity has raised it far above the single niche it occupies in the scriptures to the ranks of a world religious classic.

Composed in the ancient Pali language, this slim anthology of verses constitutes a perfect compendium of the Buddha's teaching, containing between its covers all of the essential principles elaborated at length in the 40+ volumes of the Pali canon.

 

According to the Theravada Buddhist tradition, each verse in the Dhammapada was originally spoken by the Buddha in response to a particular episode.

The Vissudhimagga (Ven. Buddhaghosa)

Accounts of these, along with exegesis of the verses, are preserved in the classic commentary to the work, compiled by the great Indian scholar-monk Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa in the fifth century C.E. on the basis or material going back to very ancient times (much of it preserved in Sri Lanka).

• Ven. Buddhaghosa, the great commentator, also compiled The Path of Purification.

The contents of the verses, however, transcend the limited and particular circumstances of their origin, reaching out through the ages to various types of people in all the diverse situations of life. For the simple and unsophisticated the Dhammapada is a sympathetic counselor.

For the intellectually overburdened its clear and direct teachings inspire humility and reflection; for the earnest seeker it is a perennial source of inspiration and practical instruction.

Insights that flashed into the heart of the Buddha have crystallized into these luminous verses of pure wisdom. As profound expressions of practical spirituality, each verse is a guideline to right living. The Buddha unambiguously pointed out that whoever earnestly practices the teachings found in the Dhammapada will taste the bliss of liberation, freedom, emancipation (nirvana).... 

— Acharya Buddharakkhita

What is the Dhammapada?

Bhikkhu Bodhi

From ancient times to the present, the Dhammapada has been regarded as the most succinct expression of the Buddha's teaching found in the Pali canon and the chief spiritual testament of early Buddhism.

In countries following Theravada Buddhism, such as Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand, the influence of the Dhammapada is ubiquitous. It is a rich source of themes for sermons and discussions, a guidebook for resolving the countless problems of everyday life, a primer for the instruction of novices in monasteries.

Even the experienced contemplative, withdrawn to forest hermitage or mountainside cave for a life of meditation, can be expected to count a copy of this book among his or her few material possessions.

Yet, the admiration the Dhammapada has elicited has not been confined to avowed followers of Buddhism. Wherever it has become known its moral earnestness, realistic understanding of human life, aphoristic wisdom, and stirring message of a way to freedom from suffering have won for it the devotion and veneration of those responsive to the good and the true.

 

The expounder of the verses that comprise the Dhammapada is the Shakyan sage called the Buddha, an honorific title meaning "the Enlightened One" or "the Awakened One."

Gandhara texts of the Dhammapada (GD)

The story of this venerable personage has often been overlaid with literary embellishment and the admixture of legend, but the historical essentials of his life are simple and clear. He was born in the sixth century B.C., the son of a king ruling over a small state in the Himalayan foothills [in the northwest of what is now India, the land of the Sakas or Sakyas, presently Afghanistan].

His given name was Siddhattha and his family name Gotama (Siddhartha Gautama in Sanskrit). Raised in luxury, groomed by his father to be the heir to the throne, in his early manhood he went through a deeply disturbing encounter with the sufferings of life, as a result of which he lost all interest in the pleasures and privileges of rulership.

One night, in his 29th year, he abandoned the royal city and [traveling east] entered the forest to live as an ascetic, resolved to find a way to deliverance from suffering. For six years he experimented with different systems of meditation [under two yogis] and subjected himself to severe austerities, but he found that these practices did not bring him any closer to his actual goal.

Finally, in his 35th year, while sitting in deep meditation beneath a tree at Gaya, he attained Supreme Enlightenment and became, in the proper sense of the title, "the Buddha," the Enlightened One. 

 

The Buddha, Penang, Malaysia (Mark Neilson/ Hotel Lust List/flickr.com)

 

Thereafter, for 45 years, he traveled throughout northern India, proclaiming the truths he had discovered and founding an order of monks and nuns to carry on this message around the world and far into the future. At the age of 80, after a long and fruitful life, he passed into final-nirvana peacefully in the small town of Kusinara (Kushinagar, India), surrounded by a large number of disciples.

 

To his followers, the Buddha is neither a god, a divine incarnation, or a prophet bearing a message of divine revelation. He is a human being who by his own striving and intelligence has reached the highest spiritual attainment of which man is capable -- perfect wisdom, full enlightenment, complete purification of mind.

His function in relation to humanity (and the devas on earth and in space) is that of a teacher -- a world teacher who, out of compassion, points out to others the way to nirvana, final release from all suffering.

His teaching, known as the Dharma (Pali Dhamma), offers a body of instructions explaining the true nature of existence and showing the path that leads to liberation.

Free from all dogmas and inscrutable claims to authority, the Dharma is founded solidly upon the bedrock of the Buddha's own clear comprehension of reality, and it leads the one who practices it to that same understanding -- the knowledge which extricates the roots of suffering.

The title

American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi

The title "Dhammapada," which the ancient compilers of the Buddhist scriptures attached to this anthology, means portions, aspects, or sections of Dharma.

The work has been given this title because, in its 26 chapters, it spans the multiple aspects of the Buddha's teaching, offering a variety of standpoints from which to gain a glimpse into its heart. 

Whereas the longer sutras or discourses of the Buddha found in the prose sections of the Canon usually proceed methodically, unfolding according to the sequential structure of the doctrine, the Dhammapada lacks such a systematic arrangement.

The work is simply a collection of inspirational or pedagogical verses on the fundamentals of the Dharma, to be used as a basis for personal edification and instruction. More

Dhammapada: The Buddha's Path of Wisdom

Acharya Buddharakkhita (trans) with an introduction by Bhikkhu Bodhi

• Preface by Acharya Buddharakkhita
• Introduction by Bhikkhu Bodhi
• The translation:
  • I. The Pairs (vv. 1-20)
  • II. Heedfulness (21-32)
  • III. The Mind (33-43)
  • IV. Flowers (44-59)
  • V. The Fool (60-75)
  • VI. The Wise Man (76-89)
  • VII. The Arahant or Perfected One (90-99)
  • VIII. The Thousands (100-115)
  • IX. Evil (116-128)
  • X. Violence (129-145)
  • XI. Old Age (146-156)
  • XII. The Self (157-166)
  • XIII. The World (167-178)
  • XIV. The Buddha (179-196)
  • XV. Happiness (197-208)
  • XVI. Affection (209-220)
  • XVII. Anger (221-234)
  • XVIII. Impurity (235-255)
  • XIX. The Just (256-272)
  • XX. The Path (273-289)
  • XXI. Miscellaneous (290-305)
  • XXII. The State of Woe (306-319)
  • XXIII. The Elephant (320-333)
  • XXIV. Craving (334-359)
  • XXV. The Monk (360-382)
  • XXVI. The Holy Man (383-423)
• Notes

Buddhism in the ancient Grand Canyon (video)

Dhr. Seven, Xochitl, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; David H. Childress (YouTube); Jerry Wills (Xpeditions.TV) with James Swagger (Capricorn Radio); AP via mail.com

Sedona (the site of the Amitabha Buddhist stupa) extends south of the Grand Canyon.

Amazing: "Ancient Egyptians [and Buddhists] in the Grand Canyon?" David H. Childress

The Grand Canyon, the lesser of two similar canyons in Mexico (redicecreations.com)

   

David Hatcher Childress (davidhatcherchildress.com) is hailed as the real life "Indiana Jones." He is an explorer and seeker of ancient knowledge, civilizations, and structures. This interview is full of amazing and enlightening information about the astonishing 1909 Phoenix Gazette (USA) newspaper report about Egyptian, Hindu, and Buddhist chambers and artifacts in the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

The unbelievable truth about America -- buried and hidden from us (Edward P. Vining)

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Who discovered America? It certainly was not Columbus as the head of a Spanish Christian invasion or the Europeans. Even before Vikings made it over to Canadian and the shores of the Northeast, Afghan and Chinese Buddhist missionaries visited the Southwest and Mexico.

That's impossible! That's preposterous. Fortunately, American investigators reported on this or no one here now would believe it.

Many "discovered" America before Chris

Rick Fields wrote an enlightening book of the ancient history of Buddhism in the United States: How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (shambhala.com). David Hatcher Childress has uncovered written documentation. But long before either of them dared put forward the evidence, a brave man named Edward P. Vining published an unbelievable article (now available at archive.com:

An Inglorious Columbus; or, Evidence that Hwui Shan and a party of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the fifth century, A.D. (Vining, Edward Payson, 1847-1920).

The Grand Canyon is grand and so is Sedona.

Vining published in 1885 on the topic America -- its discovery and exploration by a Chinese Buddhist missionary accompanied by a group of Afghan Buddhist missionaries. Because the Buddha, the Sage of Shakya Clan of Scythia (Bactria, Sakastan, Seleucid Empire, Central Asia, the frontier northwest of India in the vicinity of Gandhara and the more ancient Indus Valley Civilization now ceded by India to create Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan). These are not the only Americans who have rediscovered this amazing history of Asian visitors to America. There is also Jerry Wills (jerrywills.com) of Xpeditions (xpeditions.tv). Here he is interviewed on Capricorn Radio with Irish host James Swagger (jamesswagger.com):

(Disclosure Nation) Jerry Wills interviewed by James Swagger (jamesswagger.com) for the Capricorn Radio archive.

 

Indigenous History of U.S.

Did Buddhists, Asians, and possibly even ancient Egyptians visit North America? Did they leave a vast treasure behind? Today's guest was featured in an episode of America Unearthed entitled "Grand Canyon Treasure" on the History Channel H2, where he tried to answer the question:

Jerry Wills is on the trail of a possible treasure brought to America by the ancient Egyptians. If the legend is true, as many as 50,000 Egyptians fled to the New World in 25 B.C., led by Alexander Helios, the son of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra.

Buddhist and Hindu [IVC Vedic] statues in Grand Canyon (lightworkers.org/D.H. Childress)

• It is no accident this information is hidden. According to Wills, it is due to religion: If it contradicts Christianity, it was shunted away. Anything that contradicted it, even if it formerly supported it like the discovery of giants (asuras). The Hopi Indians know all about it but regard it as "the City of the Dead" and do not go there. The American government, at least secret compartmentalized portions of it, knows all about it. It is now under military control.

How the Swans Came to the Lake (Rick Fields)

Not only may they have hidden a treasure in the Grand Canyon (America), allegedly discovered by explorer G.E. Kincaid in 1909 (as reported by the Phoenix Gazette and unearthed by David H. Childress), but perhaps also in an area in southern Illinois, known oddly enough as Little Egypt.

A cave allegedly discovered by Russel Burrows (Burrows Cave) was said to be loaded with some 7,000 artifacts, including a solid gold tomb for an Egyptian king. Are the legends, which many Native American tribes still remember and speak of, true? Is the U.S. government hiding its own treasure in the Grand Canyon?

At the age of 10, in about 25 B.C., Helios disappeared along with his followers and entourage. Translations of about 500 pieces which Burrows claims to have discovered bear the name of Helios and describes how Helios and 50,000 Egyptians fled the Mediterranean from persecution.

Did they wind up in North America, sailing into the Gulf of Mexico and then up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers -- just as Asians came up the Gulf of Mexico and up the Colorado river, which had a large natural dam and which brought it up to the level of the cave opening (as described by Wills, expeditions.tv)?
 

The Associated Press conducted a special investigation into the history of corruption and cover ups, particularly of a sexual nature, surrounding workers at the Grand Canyon and Colorado River. It was released Jan. 12, 2016.

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AP News Break: Report charts history of abuse at Grand Canyon

Sexual harassment, cover ups?

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona (AP) - A new report by a federal watchdog outlines a history of harassment on river trips through Grand Canyon National Park.

Male park employees allegedly propositioned female colleagues for sex, touched them inappropriately, and made lewd comments.

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The report obtained by The Associated Press comes after 13 current and former Grand Canyon employees filed a complaint in September 2014 saying women had been abused over 15 years. It was released [today] Tuesday by the Department of the Interior's Office of Inspector General.
 

The evidence is hidden at the Smithsonian.

About a dozen people have faced disciplinary action for sexual misconduct since 2003, ranging from a written reprimand to termination. But investigators say those actions are inconsistent, and many alleged incidents go unreported or aren't properly vetted by supervisors.

One longtime human resources official interviewed by investigators said a "laissez faire" attitude exists of "what happens on the river, stays on the river." Grand Canyon officials until recently allowed river rafters to bring alcohol on the trips.

Ask the Natives what lives here.

A National Parks Service spokesman said the agency has zero tolerance for the behavior cited in the report. 

"No NPS employee should ever experience the kind of behavior outlined in the report, and it is even more disappointing because previous efforts to change the culture at the River District of the grand Canyon failed to improve working conditions," NPS spokesman James Doyle said in an email. He said the agency is mulling more changes, including requiring nightly check-in calls, having a supervisor on every river trip and establishing an ombudsman.

There were "white" and Native giants

Grand Canyon National Park manages 280 miles of the Colorado River, providing emergency and medical services, as well as guiding researchers, politicians and students on a dozen river trips per year. Co-workers spend lengthy stretches together within the canyon's towering walls, camping on the river banks and cut off from the rest of the world. A satellite phone typically is available for emergencies only.

The report does not identify any of the park employees, boatmen or contract workers by name. It focuses solely on trips run by Grand Canyon National Park. Commercial and private, or self-guided, river trips are conducted through different systems.

The giants (asuras, titans) in Buddhism

Incidents of sexual harassment on the national park trips included a boatman photographing an employee under her skirt, a supervisor grabbing a contract employee's crotch and park employees twerking during a dance party as a river trip was wrapping up, according to the report.

The Park Service's Intermountain Region director Sue Masica, Grand Canyon Superintendent Dave Uberuaga and his deputy, Diane Chalfant, told investigators they were well aware of the history of alleged sexual harassment on the river and said the agency tried to change the culture. Masica said alcohol consumption [which goes against the Five Precepts] seemed to play a part. More

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Native American gold, Enki, Sumerians...

Chinese discover America? Hendon Harris believes he has located and identified pre-Columbian land art in North America that bears evidence of an ancient Chinese dynasty. If proven true it places a highly advanced civilization in North America well before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other Europeans. This newly discovered civilization may well be the earlier one that built the cities and created the mines Spanish explorers introduced to the western world as El Dorado [Spanish for "the Golden One," a mythical City of Gold]. In addition to the art, Harris thinks he has located some of the gold mines as well: The Eastern Mountains and El Dorado