LIVE: Mandy Kahn's Peace Class (9/30)

Peace isn't the opposite of war

From Mandy "No-Mind" Kahn: Friends, I hope everyone's summer was as replenishing as mine. Weekly Peace Class resumes tonight (Wednesday, Sept. 30, 6:00 pm, PT) on ZOOM. Share it with friends.

Participants may attend silently, even anonymously, because only my face is visible. Student interactions, though encouraged, are entirely optional. Anyone who is curious about class can quietly slip in to get a feel for it.

Peace Class Wednesdays, 6:00 pm (prs.org)

There are many who do not attend class, but who participate in the community via weekly emails or reading many edited Peace Class talks at Wisdom Quarterly. Everyone is invited to join that way.

Here's what to expect in class. This Wednesday evening, enlivened and renewed, let's begin this vital work together.

• Peace Pilgrim: Get free book by this female pioneer for peace, who said: "Everything I get is given to me"

Inner peace for a peaceful world

With co-host peace activist David Selsky on sound and tech support

Peace Talk: There is only one way to build a peaceful world (Mandy Kahn)

Thanks, Mandy! I tried to tell 'em

ABOUT: Presented by the Philosophical Research Society (prs.org) in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Peace Class is now entering its seventh year. Each class meeting presents participants with a short talk that elucidates one aspect of the true nature of peace.

Each hour-long class includes a collective "peace meditation," teachings about pioneer peacebuilders like Peace Pilgrim, and the opportunity for participants to share personal peace-building discoveries with the group.

The World Peace Diet (Dr. Will Tuttle, PhD)

Peace Class is FREE and is open to all with no signup required. Each session is a stand-alone lesson, and participants can feel free to drop in for single meetings or attend the full series.

Weekly peace, monthly poetry

Poet Kahn on LA billboard

Brought to you by Mandy Kahn with the help of PRS and Wisdom Quarterly. There may be a live in-person class again in the future. Until then, drop by for monthly Deep Dive Poetry in PRS's Library of World Religions in Hollywood.

• Instagram: @mandykahn
• Deep Dive Poetry | Vivid Seats
• Nature dive (LA Review of Books)
• Peace is NOT opposite of war | WQ

Monthly Deep Dive Poetry at PRS Library

Live form the PRS Library of World Religions: Deep Dive Poetry (MK on IG, 9/17/26)

• Peace Class with Mandy Kahn
• Every Wednesday at 6:00 pm (Pacific Time)
• Zoom Meeting link: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
• Meeting ID: 821 5047 2713
• Sign up for mailing list: brave-basil-514.myflodesk.com/z82hxkb6mm
• CONVERT 6:00 pm (PT) meeting time to any time zone: dateful.com/time-zone-converter
• Sign up for future classes: eventbrite.com/e/peace-class-with-mandy-kahn...
• Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com) and Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha's imprint: Dhammapada

(Einzelganger) Buddhist wisdom for inner peace

• The Dhammapada: The Path of Dhamma

The Dhammapada (Pali धम्मपद, Sanskrit धर्मपद, Romanized Dharma-pada) is a collection of the historical Buddha's sayings in verse form. It is one of the most widely read and best-known Buddhist collections [1].

The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Pali canon's Khuddaka Nikāya, a division of sacred texts in Theravada Buddhism.

The great Indian Buddhist monk Buddhaghosa

The famous Buddhist scholar-monk and commentator Buddhaghosa ("ghost or voice of the Buddha") explains that each saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha and the massive community of male and female monastics he founded.

Buddhaghosa's translation of the commentary to it, which is called the Dhammapada Aṭṭhakatha, presents the details of each of these events and is a rich source of legend for the life and times of the Buddha [2].

Levi's jeans corporation borrows a saying from the Buddha found in the Dhammapada.

.

There are many translations.

ETYMOLOGY: The title "Dhammapada" is a compound term composed of dhamma and pada, each word having a numerous denotations and connotations. Generally, dhamma refers to the Buddha's "doctrine" or "eternal truth" or "righteousness" or is a collective term for all "phenomena" [3] or "things." At its root, pada means "foot" (or "footprint"); thus, by extension, especially in this context, means either "path" or "verse" (cf. prosodic foot) or both [4].

English translations of this text's title have used various combinations of these and related words [5, 6]. More

How to meditate wrong: Zen

(ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE) The Zen teaching that tells us to stop "trying" | Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch of Zen (Chan). 

What more could there possibly be than just this?

Why doesn't Zen Buddhism teach a path to enlightenment like the historical Buddha did? They are of the opinion that we are "already enlightened," so there's no need to speed up the process of realizing or remembering that, as in Hindu teachings of lila ("divine play," awakening to itself). It seems the Buddha would have mentioned that if he agreed with the Brahmin priests and their Vedas; yet, he took an adversarial position and presented a superior vision of what "awakening" (bodhi) and "nirvana" (moksha, "liberation," vimutti, "freedom") are. Below are the remainder of the instructions for those not content to believe they are already awakened beings who sit shikantaza just to sit because that's what sitters (zazen practitioners) do.

• The Bloodstream Sermon of Patriarch Bodhidharma
• Bodhidharma's glare: meditation, tea, and a fierce gaze (ShunSpirit)

What is the way to enlightenment after effortlessly settling into the "zen" state of serenity and stillness?

• What is right "mindfulness" defined? (Ven. Analayo)
• Radical acceptance in dialectical behavior therapy
• Book review: Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Path of calm and insight

The eight spokes of the Dharma wheel

If Buddhism is the marriage of wisdom and compassion, then the historical Buddha's path-of-practice is calm and insight. To gain calm, let go (no effort required). To gain insight, practice vipassana ("clear seeing") by the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (sati), a practice called satipatthana.

Insight into what? Mind-and-body to see three personally verifiable marks of existence

The historical Buddha Gautama

In Early Buddhism, the Pali term dhamma vicaya (Sanskrit धर्मविचय-) has been variously translated as "keen investigation of things" (Wisdom Quarterly), the "analysis of [various] qualities" [1], "discrimination of dhammas [phenomena]" [2, Note 1], "discrimination of states" [3], "investigation of [the] doctrine [the Dharma]," [4, Note 2], and "searching [for] the [ultimate] Truth" [5].

• The Three Universal Marks (Characteristics) of Existence

The meaning, which may seem tricky to translate, is clear and not ambivalent in context. In the two Four Foundations of Mindfulness sutras (MN 10, DN 22). It is the systematic investigation of physical-and-mental phenomena (dhamma, "things") -- "body and mind" in terms of their ultimate constituents, which are "form particles" (rupa kalapas) and "mind moments" (cittas).

Pa Auk student, American Shaila Catherine

• It would be wonderful if scholars stop disputing and practiced instead. Why? Practitioners who read and follow the two sutras can see the meaning very easily; however, in real practice, it is far better to seek out a competent teacher who has known-and-seen these things. In that way, there is no speculation, interpretation, or arguing. The path is already known and handed down, not in books, but in meditation halls.

• 

  Meditation Master at Pa Auk

  The scholar-monk and master practitioner Pa Auk Sayadaw (Ven. Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa) is all about the practical: How will one ever be able to "see" a particle (kalapa)? By purifying (visuddhi) the heart/mind, one is suddenly able to make use of all its powers. But particles move far too fast and live far too briefly to ever be discerned or analyzed by the mind's eye because the mind/heart has a speed limit due to the number of impulsions (javanas) in a mind-moment.
• So here's the trick. Locate the "mind door," which is a green light near the physical heart. This door is a mirror of sorts reflecting everything in consciousness. It records. And the recording can be played back in slow-motion so as to see the life of the kalapa (form particle, which has three distinct phases that can be observed directly: arising, turning, passing). It does not stand even for a single moment, but rather passes through these three submoments.

• 

  Practical instructions, not theory

  How can anything composed of form (materiality, the mahabhuta or Four Great Elements, which are actually four qualities of matter, not matter itself, which come in pairs as outlined in Pa Auk Sayadaw's book Four Elements Meditation) be real if everything "form" is made up of is particulate matter, countless particles that are constantly arising, changing, and passing away -- always hurtling towards destruction? This is not a belief; for it to be effective, one must directly and literally know-and-see it happening all the time, everywhere, but particularly in this fathom-long body many call my "self." Most people can quickly comprehend that the body is, of course, not the "self." But nearly everyone gets stuck believing that the "self" must therefore be the mind (the watcher, the doer, the knower) or consciousness (awareness through the six senses, the interplay of cittas and cetasikas or mind-moments and mental concomitants, which is an impersonal process, not a thing in and of itself).
• The "Four Elements"? At a Pa Auk Meditation Center, in Burma, California, Georgia, or elsewhere, discern in this very body: 1. The "earth element" as hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, and heaviness, lightness; 2. the "water element" as flowing (saliva), cohesion (stickiness); 3. the "fire element" as heat, cold (relative temperature variations, including the burning chemical "digestive fire" of the stomach or coolness of the outbreath); 4. the "air element" as pushing, supporting (dhammawheel.com).

• 

  Pa Auk student Beth Upton as nun, Burma

  The Buddha searched for a self that was not be found and went into very great detail to catalogue that process masquerading as a "self" (soul, atman, atta, ego, personality, true self, higher self), which is recorded in the very dense collection of sacred texts, the Abhidhamma, and Buddhaghosa's meditation manual The Path of Purification. See A Guide Through the Abhidhamma for a comprehensive introduction to the details. It will be impossible to ever believe there is, ultimately speaking, no self until one does a systematic search of mind, of which consciousness is but one component.
• Wait, why would anyone in his, her, or their right mind ever want to find out that there's no self? Surely that would mean annihilation, oblivion, falling into the void, the vast emptiness, utter destruction, the loss of everything?!

• 

  Knowing and Seeing (Pa Auk)

  One would want to because that is the entrance into the stream that leads inevitably to full awakening, enlightenment, and liberation from all suffering here and now in this very life. It is on account of not seeing this, not comprehending Dependent Origination, that we have all been lost and wandering, life after life, through this interminable and miserable (unfulfilling) samsara, seeking for pleasure now here, now there, existence after existence, state after state, world after world until there's nothing new that we have not already experienced many times over only to be disappointed and misled yet again.

Samatha, Jhana, Vipassana: Practice

This, of course, will be impossible...until the meditative absorptions (jhanas) purify and intensify the heart/mind to make that investigation, discrimination, analysis.

In the meantime, the practice of Four Elements Meditation and the application of discernment (by wise reflection or yoniso manasikara, which includes seeing things as they really are, including their repulsive aspect or patikula-manasikara that we normally work so hard to ignore) to body-mind phenomena in the application of right effort, so as to gain entry into the first absorption (jhana, the first "meditation") if "mindfulness of in-and-out breathing meditation" (which is the first practice in the setting up of the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness) has failed to bring one there.

Pa Auk students on jhanas

ETYMOLOGY: According to Rupert Gethin, "Dhamma-vicaya means either the 'discrimination of dhammas' or the 'discernment of dhamma'; to discriminate dhammas is precisely to discern dhamma"[6].

But, again, this is the confusion of something very simple and straightforward. One does NOT study Dharma (capital D Dhamma) during mindfulness meditation. What one DOES do is analyze, discern, and discriminate the "things" (phenomena, dhammas) the sutra specifies:

• 2. feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, whether corporeal or spiritual);
• 3. mind states (lustful or free of lust, angry or free of aversion, deluded or free of delusion, contracted or expansive, exalted or mundane, surpassable or unsurpassable, samādhi or not-samādhi [still and coherent or not], released or bound);
• 4. mind-objects (the [presence or absence of] the Five Hindrances and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment). See Lists of the Fourfold Setting up of Mindfulness or satipatthana here.
• 1. The first foundation is the body, and the body is usually known through parts of the body or more deeply by knowing the Four Great Elements in their tangible expressions as hard, soft, wet, dry, hot, cold, smooth or rough, heavy or light, and so on. (See Four Elements Meditation for details). More: dhamma vicaya (Wikipedia)

Yeah, I thought I made that pretty clear.

Rest assured, Bodhidharma has an excellent point to make. Striving, struggling, muscling, forcing, pushing, thirstily struggling is NOT the way. Let go of all that [waste]. Just be. Just observe the becoming that is going on all by itself. There is nothing to do or change for the heart/mind to come to the first absorption. It's just that we needed to stop caging ourselves in "trying" or "needing" it to be this way or that. It is far better to practice allowing and accepting, wakefulness and dispassionate mindfulness.

• ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE (video); Dhr. Seven, Ani Kalyani, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY Wiki edit

Japan's secret to beauty, youth, longevity

Japan's One Secret to Health, Beauty, and Longevity

Will I be turning Japanese? I really think so

(Samurai Matcha) ✪ Members first on Sept. 21, 2026. I’m filming this in one of the many empty houses in my Japanese neighborhood. I’m staying here for a month just to try it. ☺️ 

For anyone interested in R's KOSO, here's the link ✌️ dpbolvw.net/click-1011103... Use code SAMURAIGUT for 15% off (works on first subscription order, too). Subscribe and become a friend today: samuraimatcha.

• (Samurai Matcha) Why Japanese meals keep eaters thin (flavor from dashi with umami savory taste...)
• How to make nukadoko? docs.google.com/document/d/1D...
• Be my friend: Instagram: samuraimatcha.journey, Facebook: mizuno.akihito

GET IN TOUCH: If you’d like to talk, feel free to email me at samuraimatcha.japan@gmail.com. I try my best to reply to things, but there sadly aren't enough hours in the day to respond to everyone all the time, so please be patient or reach out again.

The Japanese secret to vitality

Youthful, thin, pretty, long-lived? *Giggle*

What if there were ONE secret to Japanese healthy weight, youthfulness, beauty, and amazing longevity? Westerners rush to say, "It must be genetics" because in that way, they can give up. There's nothing we can do about genetics (as if the West never heard of epigenetics), so let's do nothing.

In the age-old debate between Nature (genes) and Nurture (karma, our actions now), there's much more to be said for karma. First of all, the way most people use the word "karma," they mean both the intentional actions being willed and carried out AND the results of those acts from the past (vipaka, phala). Looked at that way, karma accounts for a lot of (but not all) nurture and a lot of (but not all) nurture.

Nurture is our environment and what others choose to do. How it affects us, that is greatly due to the habits, states, and traits we have built up over many past lives and all of this one. (Karma is vast and touches just about everything).

Nature is not limited to genetics, our innate nature, but all of the biology. In this way, we can see that how we nurture determines if it works well or to our detriment.

• Clean house with castor oil like an Amish grandma: ‘Secret’ natural cleaner saved $ thousands! (xmp.x-all.com)

Hollywood secret? My grandma knew it!

The Japanese one secret, which the West used to know and respect, is called chokatsu or "gut health." The West used to know this? Before researchers, scientists, and the medical field gave us terms like probiotics and intestinal health, our grandmothers were well aware of the benefits of fermentation. It's an ancient practice of cultivating good (usually lactic-acid producing) bacteria to preserve food and up bioavailable essential minerals, the unknown key to human health.

Minerals are the essential micronutrients (criticalhealthnews.com). Dr. Joel Wallach says that, sadly, minerals are no longer in our depleted soil because we no longer regularly throw ashes into the ground from wood burning. The sea still has those 92 trace minerals, and maybe seaweeds like the thickener Irish sea moss, and vegan sushi nori leaves, salty kombu, and other sea plants can still provide them. 

• Chokatsu, Japanology Plus (S5 E98):
• VIDEO: Improving Gut Health (Japanology Plus)

Let heart settle: Zen music for stillness

Dedicated to our UCLA MARC (Mindful Awareness Research Center)-trained teacher, bonsai enthusiast, and Angeles National Forest docent Tod (rest in peace), who not only led us in meditation in the foothills of Monrovia but also gifted me an authentic handcrafted Native American shakuhachi-style flute to meditate with, which unfortunately was consumed by the Great Spirit of the mountain during the Eaton Fire. Thank you, Tod.

Let the heart (mind) settle here: Japanese Zen music for peace and stillness | shakuhachi and koto

Beauty through Buddhist serenity? (picmix.com)

(Yamato Zen Relaxing) June 24, 2026: Let the heart settle here, in this Zen garden of contoured (raked) sand. 🍁 A red maple tree stands alone in the mist, where the world grows still.

This Japanese ambient track is inspired by gassho (the Japanese act, inspired by India's añjali mudrā and namaste-greeting), which is the bringing of the palms together near the heart in reverence.

It is a calm state where any fragmented noise of the day softens into something whole. Shakuhachi (flute) and koto (harp) unfold in a still, unhurried flow, supported by a quiet and continuous atmosphere that allows thoughts to float away as the mind/heart settles and remain at ease.

Human bowls beat AI tools

(Aurabowls) Nervous system calm with raw Himalayan singing

bowls | no artificial effects, just pure resonant sounds

• 

  That black metal bowl can make all that sound?

  Namaste. This 5-hour sound bath is the raw, untouched sound of Tibetan Buddhist singing bowls, no effects or music added, just pure, natural resonance recorded as is. These deep tones carry a timeless quality that helps calm the nervous system and bring the mind to a place of rest. Listen for hours or simply set a timer for 15 to 20 minutes. Use it however it feels right. The background is peaceful, like sitting under a tree while a gentle breeze moves through the leaves. Let that image hold. Sounds rise and fade like waves, no need to catch every one of them. Just follow whatever is heard and return to it whenever the mind wanders.

Fumie Hihara playing koto in 2016 (wiki)

This track is suitable for: 🍁 deep focus and inner stillness 🧘 meditation and mindful presence 😴 quiet rest and gentle relaxation 🌿 inner balance and tranquil harmony. Use it to create a quiet space to slow the breath, soften the edges of a harried life, and rest in the stillness that already lives inside us all.

It pairs well with Zen kinhin or "walking meditation." Walk at a slow, deliberate pace, letting each step fall like a stone into still water, and feel the ground rise gently to meet the body.

Let the hands come to rest, palms together, in a moment that belongs only to the stillness.

TRACKLIST

• 00:00:00 1. Raked in Mist
• 00:02:20 2. Still Roots
• 00:04:51 3. Crimson and Fog
• 00:08:55 4. Bamboo Mist
• 00:12:01 5. Veranda's Edge
• 00:15:55 6. Red Bough
• 00:19:39 7. Quiet Bearing
• 00:23:50 8. Circled Sand
• 00:28:03 9. Veiled Canopy
• 00:30:53 10. Solitary Maple
• 00:35:24 11. Sword's Repose
• 00:39:21 12. Settled Deep
• 00:42:36 13. White Sand
• 00:46:53 14. Worn Reverence
• 00:51:27 15. Soft Enclosure
• 00:55:56 16. Fog's Return
• 00:59:29 17. Repeat

🎨 This video's visuals and audio are produced by real humans with artificial AI tools. If any of this resonates, consider subscribing for more original Japanese ambient and Zen-inspired compositions. 🙏 💿️ Zen music, relaxing music, meditation music, focus music, sleep music, background music, Japanese music, flute music, stress relief, Japanese ambient sounds, healing music, calming music

🔴 24/7 Live #1: youtube.com/live/_Dmgt8yaDs0... 🔴 24/7 Live #2: youtube.com/live/fP9R-uYsRNc... 🍎Apple Music: x.gd/7gBje 🟢 Spotify: x.gd/fuRHzb

Who will save the trees? Butterfly will

• juliabutterflyhill.com

Will anything I ever do make a difference? IDK

If only all of us had Butterfly-will like Julia Butterfly Hill who willed that Luna the Tree be saved from corporate logging.

The Buddha called "will" (cetanā, volition) "karma." (Most of the good things that happen to us in life are due to our karma, as are many but not all of the bad things).

The Legacy of Luna

But what can just one person do? One person can save the world, save a grove, a forest, nature, a species, a region. And more people coming together for a cause can do even more, taking their lead from that ONE person.

Sure, we say she's a "super heroine" now, but at the time, everyone said she was a "crazy hippie" for having uncapitalist ideals and principles. There is that scientific theory called the "butterfly effect," the idea that the smallest change can have a compounding effect, stacking, triggering a cascade much bigger than would ever seem possible by just one act, a kind of domino effect.

Julia, you did the impossible! How'd you do it?
Easy. I just did something. Nature did the rest.

What can just one pretty, little, dumb, colorful, flighty, teensy-weensy butterfly do?

• 

  No One Is Too Small...

  It isn't just the karmic (willful) action that has an immediate result. There is the inspiring of others, modeling change for them, blowing the whistle, speaking up for the unpopular but honest view of things. Greta Thunberg may not do much more than boycott school, hold a sign, garner attention, speak at rallies, or get herself in the media, and she still has done a great deal. She gets demonstrates, protests, investigates, sticks to her guns (e.g., against Israel), speaks out, gets arrested, talks to movers-and-shakers, addresses the U.N., and inspires millions to think and act. She does participate in direct actions herself, but more than that, she rallies demonstrators and attracts attention to important causes. What can I do? What can you do? What can we do?

I didn't begin with a book. I began a strike.

How, for example, could a single piece of flimsy straw (like a pretty girl in a tree) ever break a robust camel (like a greedy corporation out to hump everyone and steal water from an arid place for itself) with a strong back for carrying bales and bales of hay?

• No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
• The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
• It's so possible, even a Pakistani girl can do it. - Do what? - Do something. Just ask Malala Yousafzai (malala.org)

Teaching crusade: female education in the Muslim world around the world (malala.org)

You don't have to be white, right, Barry? - No, but it sure helps, Mal (with Malia+Michael O.)

'Super heroine'? I'm just a regular person with no ability to anything about greedy corporations

Reverend Dr. MLK Jr. was very popular until he spoke out against the U.S. War on Vietnam.

A Jew for Palestine? I thought Jews hated them? - Many good people stand for truth and justice

Devis live at the tops of trees, mostly unseen by ordinary human beings who do not meditate.