Peace Class: Self-Love is World Service

LIVE for the first time a month ago. Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com) Earth Day, April 22

 

Peace Class, Wednesdays, 6:00 pm on Zoom

Friends, Peace Class meets Wednesday nights. Join in via Zoom at 6:00 pm (Pacific). 

• Feel free to share link with friends
• ALL are welcome
• Zoom: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
• ID: 821 5047 2713

This is the text of the talk delivered at last week's class:

 

Self-love is world service

By Mandy Kahn at PRS, Earth Day 2026, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Holy Doors: Poems of Mandy Kahn

When we are kind to ourselves, when we have compassion for ourselves, when we love ourselves without reserve, we create the conditions in which to most easily evolve.

All of this evolution is towards a more peaceful and loving version of the [conventional] self.

 

Self-love creates a state in which one can hear the voice of our higher self and also feel that voice in the heart.

 

That higher voice points to the path ahead. The path ahead is always evolving [becoming] towards a more loving version of self. Self-love creates a kind of quiet in the mind/heart.

Lower mind

 

Not sex but symbolism of union

The lower mind is the place of judgment. That which is not love, that which is harsh, is loud in the lower mind. Self-love is the antidote to this loud voice. It balances and heals the harshness, restoring a kind of homeostasis, a calm, equitable ground [dzogchen]. Self-love creates neutrality in the self. It creates openness, and openness is peace. Into the true openness of peace, the presence of universal love, universal kindness, universal knowing arrives.

Tibetan Dharmacakra - Ground (Dzogchen)

All those who walk with universal love walk in service to all beings.

So self-love creates the conditions for one to more easily become peace, and into that peace of the self, the great wisdom of universal loving-kindness arrives. And the individual into which it arrives now carries it as a remarkable offering for all.

Higher mind

It is as if self-love builds the room. The empty room is peace. And universal love always arrives to fill it. Put simply:

• Unconditional self-love creates neutrality.
• And into [out of] this neutrality, peace is born.
• And this neutrality is peace.
• And into this peace, love-without-end [absorption or samādhi through metta] is born.

This peace flows from the individual consciousness into the collective consciousness, where it heals that which has not been loved which has remained there as residue.

• ["One-pointedness of mind/heart (cittass'ekaggatā), Ven. Visakha, is called concentration (samādhi, stillness, coherence)" (MN 44).]

Flower power made in the USA

When peace has flowed into the collective consciousness and has healed that which is not-love that is there, new possibilities emerge for humankind.

• Old wounds are healed.
• Old grievances are healed.
• And more people, no longer held in bondage by old grievances, are able to hear their higher selves' voice, which is a loving voice.
• And more people, hearing their highest voice, choose to act in love.
• And things begin to change.
• Old patterns suddenly end.
• There is more harmony between people.
• There is more peace.
• And that peace, felt by any one person, enters the collective consciousness and heals another layer of what is there
• calling to be loved,
• calling to be witnessed,
• calling to be healed,
• calling to be honored for all that it is, exactly as it is.
• Peace does that.
• [EDITORIAL NOTE: When Goenka talks about observing sensations (feelings) in the body, he says to observe each one “AS IT IS.” The Pali phrase he uses is “yathā-bhūta.” Buddhist Sanskrit (tathātā) akin to the Chinese term rú zhēn (如眞) “suchness.”]

It's as if our hearts were burning as one at BM.

So all is honored, all is healed, and another wave of people feel called to lean into that voice at the center of their chests, their own heart's voice, the voice of a higher self, a voice that speaks of their purpose. That voice is loving, the font of love at the center of each being, what we can call the heart's voice. So it is better perceived, easier to hear and learn from.

An act of service to the world

Earth and every living being on it is so much more beautiful and unbelievable close up.

 
Our self-love is an ACT [karma] of service (sevā) to the world. Is builds our peace first, and our peace builds all peace.

Yes, it builds our neutrality (equanimity, unbiased looking on, upekṣā), which allows us to hear our higher voice. The peace it builds in our own heart/mind travels into the collective consciousness, where it heals and creates new opportunities for future peace, our own and the peace of others.

The "peacening" process

Buddhist Goddess Prajnaparamita (personification of Perfection of Wisdom), Java

.

Goddess Sophia (Wisdom)

Our self-love powers this whole peacening [pacifying, cooling, slaking, quenching towards the highest peace of all, which is Nirvana or the "nirvanering"] process.

• Our self-love is local -- planetary service to others.
• Our self-love is holy.
• Our self-love is a holy offering that changes things.
• It changes us and everything else at once.
• It loves us and everything into wholeness.
• It loves you, it loves me, it loves everyone and everything at once (immediately, instantly, timelessly, akāliko). [The Gnostics knew it.]
• Boho chic; Girl in Yellow; text by Mandy Kahn, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, Earth Day 2026

Tibetan mantra chant: peace reset (live)

(Mantraon) This Tibetan mantra chant changes our state -- deep healing, inner peace, nervous system reset (LIVE)

Jewish blood rituals in Trump's White House?

Trump's Jewish Laura Loomer on a good day - Iran today (formerly Persian Empire)

Nailed it: "Progressive" in Israel? 🤣 - Dead Jim Carrey goes NUCLEAR on Trump

I pledge allegiance to Zionist Israel: Rand Paul

(The Jimmy Dore Show) Trump's blood on the ear in a fake assassination in tribute to "Greater Israel" settler colonial project, exterminating Gazans, Palestinians, Iranians, journalists, Middle East Christians, Mizrahi Jews (fed like fodder into the IDF War Machine while being treated like second or even third class citizens in a place that was formerly their country until they got crowded out by invading European Ashkenazi (most of them secular) Jews.

• Jeff Rense, shed some light on this false flag

Cannibal? Looksmaxxing gone wrong?

ABOVE: Laura Loomer on a good day. Yikes, this makeup is an improvement! Sadly, the son of one of the only upstanding Republican/Libertarians in the U.S. government, Ron Paul, sells out to prepare for an upcoming bid for the presidency, the end of Rand Paul.

He was on The [Jewish pandering and implicitly Zionist supporting] New Yorker Radio Hour more or less defending Trump and being careful not to step on any right wing toes, which flummoxed the nominally left Editor and Host David Remnick.

• Why Sen. Rand Paul voted to limit Trump’s war powers [but shows himself to go along to get along unlike his dad] | The New Yorker Radio Hour | WNYC Studios (April 24, 2026)

See what happens when Jeffrey Sachs speaks out

Israel pays Piers Morgan to deceive West?

(Stephen Woodford) Clip via Middle East Eye

MAGA joins in Trump's tampon blood ritual

The episode sounds as if they were friends or acquaintances and Remnick invited Paul on to present (and promote) an acceptable Republican to Democrats, Greens, progressives, and even radicals (if any of them read or listen to the mainstream New Yorker). But Paul rather than playing along decided to play to the conservatives in the audience in an attempt to position himself in the middle of the road, leaning right.

• A genocide scholar asks, “What went wrong” in Israel [and how did we lose our War on Gaza] | The New Yorker Radio Hour | WNYC Studios (Hasbara as PR controlling the narrative for Israel)

Ashkenazi Jewish white supremacy, Israel

(Vrillium) Inside Israel's racial hierarchy ("c*m squads" to preserve Ashkenazi DNA European "Jewish" bloodline)

Buddhist novices busted smuggling weed

 

Dried flower bud of "kush," potent cannabis

(DW News) Buddhist monks arrested in Sri Lanka for smuggling an s-load of cannabis weed (potent "kush") that would have likely addicted many Sri Lankan youths had they not been caught and stopped at the border, the international airport (BIA) in Colombo.

• (10 News Late) 22 Buddhist monks (novice trainee monastics who have not been fully ordained) arrested at airport in giant drug bust, returning from Bangkok, Thailand (that experimented with legalizing cannabis for recreational use but discovered it was a mistake)
• (NewsX) Buddhist monks novices shock the Theravada Buddhist nation with cannabis smuggling scandal
• (WhyItsTrendingDaily) 22 Buddhist monks trainees just got caught with 242 pounds of potent weed at the airport

First, in defense of these Buddhist monastics, it is important to note that they (most) were not "monks" (bhikkhus) but rather novices (trainees, samaneras) during a probationary period that can last years as they learn and put into practice the Buddhist Monastic Code (Vinaya and Patimokkha).

• Buddhism in Sri Lanka

Second, of all the rules to break, drug dealing cannabis -- as horrific and condemnable as it is -- is not the worst thing they could have done. The four worst things they could have done are "defeat" (parijika) offenses: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying about spiritual attainments. Or they might have committed one of the five heinous acts (anantarika-karma, deeds that bear bitter fruit in the very next life):

1. killing one's mother (matricide)
2. killing one's father (patricide)
3. killing an arhat (arahant, fully enlightened being)
4. Wounding a Tathāgata (a buddha, silent or teaching)
5. Creating a schism in the Monastic Community (Sangha).

We stayed behind in the monastery sweeping.

Third, there are no more excuses or consoling statements to be made. They each had about 5 kilograms or 11 U.S. pounds (110 kg or 242 lbs in total). This is no accident but sounds like a cynical abuse of the high esteem in which monastics are held to smuggle drugs, likely for sale and distribution rather than recreational or medicinal use. Novices (samaneras) have very strict rules to live by, beyond what is expected of all Theravada Buddhists.

Did the "businessman" sponsor put them up to it to gain financially, and will they say they knew nothing about it?

Dealer? British beauty busted in Sri Lanka with 101 lbs (46 kg) of kush in her suitcases.

• British woman accused of smuggling drugs into Buddhist Sri Lanka in suitcase
• Woman caught with cannabis in suitcase at airport (AOL)

There are Five Precepts all Theravada lay Buddhists vow to maintain:

1. abstain from killing
2. abstain from stealing
3. abstain from sexual misconduct
4. abstain from lying
5. abstain from intoxicants that occasion heedlessness.

The very minimum precepts for monks-in-training (samaneras or "baby samanas") are the Eight Precepts or Ten Precepts, abstaining from harming, taking what is not given or handling "gold and silver" (money), sex (all erotic activity), lying, intoxicants, eating before dawn or after noon, using high and luxurious seats or beds, dancing, singing, self-beautification, viewing lowbrow entertainments and shows...

If one were to follow the major rules and the minor (etiquette) rules, it would never come to this unless, as we say, they were cynically used by the businessman drug kingpin as "mules" to unknowingly transport drugs into the very uptight and traditional island Buddhist country of Sri Lanka (Ceylon, Serendib) with a sizeable Tamil Hindu population and significant number of Muslims and Christians.

• Sri Lankan monks arrested after 110kg... - Zambia Daily Mail | Facebook

We could be mystics but prefer drugs as shortcut? Micro of the macro: colliders, unity, quantum...

Sri Lanka arrests 22 Buddhist novices allegedly carrying over 110 kilos of cannabis at airport

The farce that is President DJ Trump

(Tiny Hands Productions) Rense.com: Right/Left both see it

China's Soylent Green: AJ with Joe Rogan

Alex Jones was right about some things 😭 - Genesis 1.1 creation story, the true meaning

Garden of Eden or the creation story: Jordan Maxwell with Zecharia Sitchin on the Sumerians (pre-Jewish) history, "Sumerian Abraham"

• Zecharia Sitchin
• Abraham (the source of the Abrahamic faiths like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) was a Sumerian

Equal translations: "The earth was without form and void" or "The earth was [or became] a waste and a desolation."

Trump almost shot? PsyOp (Daily Show)

(The Daily Show) Trump spins dinner shooting for his ballroom agenda and Blitzer is CNN's one-shoed hero | Jon Stewart

Trump was a gay or bi dancer in the 1980s?

• The Jimmy Dore Show (YouTube: PsyOp Dinner)

(Jimmy Kimmel Live) Melania goes after Kimmel for PR points

(The Daily Show) Trump approves of psychedelics like ibogaine

What if 'Jesus' never existed? 6 proofs

(Sacred Logic)

Proof banned by the Church

The Cult of Mithras, Caesar's Messiah, the "Messiah" as Maitreya, Christian Apostle Paul (Jewish Saul), Forged: Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, Walter Dixon), The Unknown Years of Jesus, imperial religion (method of mass control) of Rome, Constantine the Great (Roman emperor who forced Christianity on Rome, usurping the Cult of Mithras [Buddhist Maitreya] and ancient Greco-Roman paganism)...Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (John Allegro), "Jesus" was a sacred entheogenic Mushroom cult: The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross

The ladyboys of gay Buddhist Thailand

(Max Stoli) I found out WHY there are so many "ladyboys" (katois, kathoeys, kathoys) in predominantly Theravada Buddhist Thailand (and it's not what one would expect).

• Travel Guides and Travel Inspiration (Lonely Planet)
• Pattaya Beach (Thailand's Santa Monica/Venice Beach)
• Bangkok, capital of Thailand: "One Night in Bangkok"

AI Chatbots: Last Week Tonight

(LastWeekTonight) AI Chatbots: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Wild Food Foraging Ethnobotanical Walk (5/9)

FORAGING WALK — WILD FOOD OUTING

Guide to Wild Foods Useful Plants

Hosted by prolific plant author Christopher Nyerges, nature guide, and founder of School of Self-Reliance: The Wild Food and Self-Reliance Discovery Meetup Group (with 4.9 out of 5.0 stars with 143 reviews) is leading a nature walk:

• Wild Food Ethnobotanical Walk
• Saturday, May 9, 2026 10:00 am
• $65 (seniors and students $45)

To attend and for exact directions, register HERE. Join us for an outing in Los Angeles where we explore the edible, medicinal, and other useful qualities of many of the native plants found in the environment with many introduced (invasive) plants.'

Foraging California (Foraging Series)

Both natives and non-native plants will be seen. This is a leisurely walk in the woods. All will also get a chance to taste some of the plants. We will introduce a few basics of systematic plant identification and ways to start a record of various species.

We’ll bring up an important point: Many of the wild plants we see — especially the non-natives — can easily be cultivated in our own yards for ease of harvesting. There are also local native plant nurseries where we can obtain native plants — such as toyon berries, ceonothus, oak trees, mulefat (Baccharis salicifolia), elder, and so on — to grow them at home, where we can provide the ideal situation for them.

Wear comfortable footwear and bring water and a bowl for eating. This class can serve as credit towards the the School of Self-Reliance Ethnobotany Certificate. Directions sent upon registration.

• FORAGING WALK — WILD FOOD OUTING, Sat, May 9, 2026, 10:00 AM | Meetup

Who's killing all our scientists? (TJDS)

(The Jimmy Dore Show) Trump White House Spokesliar Karoline "Lips" Leavitt: See more at TJDS (jimmydore.com)

World's smartest kid (Max Loen) disappeared after

saying too much on the Mandela Effect on live TV?

When will I become enlightened? (sutra)

O, how we cling to form, finding it pretty

Thus have I heard. At one time the Blessed One (the Buddha) was dwelling in Savatthi and said: "Meditators, I declare [this Teaching/Dhamma] is for one who knows and sees that there is a way to the end of the defilements (asavas).

"For one who knows what and sees what is there an end to the defilements? [The Five Aggregates clung to as self:]

1. 'This is form, this its origination, this its passing away.
2. This is feeling...
3. This is perception...
4. These are mental formations (impulses, volitions, fabrications)...
5. This is consciousness, this its origination, this its passing away.'

"It is for one who knows and sees in this way that there is an end to the defilements.

"Even though a meditator not dwelling devoted to cultivation (bhavana, meditation, development, bringing into being) may wish, 'O, that my mind/heart might be released from the defilements through the end of clinging (craving)!' — still one's heart/mind will not be released from the defilements through not clinging. Why?

"'From lack of development,' it should be said. The lack of developing what? [The 37 Requisites of Enlightenment:]

1. the Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
2. the Four Right Efforts,
3. the Four Bases of Power,
4. the Five Faculties,
5. the Five Strengths,
6. the Seven Factors of Enlightenment,
7. the Noble Eightfold Path.

Will we just trip and fall into self-realization?

"Suppose a hen lays eight, ten, or 12 eggs. If she fails to cover them rightly, warm them rightly, or incubate them rightly, then even though she wishes, 'O, may my chicks break through the shell with beak and claw and hatch safely!' still it is impossible that her chicks will break through and hatch safely.'

"Why is that? It is because the hen has neither covered them rightly, warmed them rightly, nor incubated them rightly.

"In the same way, even though a meditator dwells not devoted to development may wish, 'O, that my mind/heart might be released from the defilements through not clinging!' still one's mind/heart remains unreleased from the defilements. Why is that? 'It is from the lack of development,' it should be said. The lack of developing what?

• The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
• the Four Right Efforts,
• the Four Bases of Power,
• the Five Faculties,
• the Five Strengths,
• the Seven Factors of Enlightenment,
• the Noble Eightfold Path.

I should've done yoga (Dave/ACZC)

"Even though a meditator who dwells without devoting oneself to development may wish, 'O, that my heart/mind might be released from the defilements through not clinging!' still one's mind/heart remains unreleased from the defilements. Why is that? 'It is from the lack of development,' it should be said. Developing what?

1. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
2. the Four Right Efforts,
3. the Four Bases of Power,
4. the Five Faculties,
5. the Five Strengths,
6. the Seven Factors of Enlightenment,
7. the Noble Eightfold Path.

"Suppose a hen lays eight, ten, or 12 eggs which she DOES cover rightly, warms rightly, and incubates rightly: Even though she may not wish, 'O, that my chicks might break through the egg shells with their beaks and claws or and hatch safely!' still it is possible that the chicks will break through their shells and hatch safely. Why is that? It is because the hen has covered them, warmed them, and incubated them rightly.

"In the same way, even though a meditator who dwells devoted to development may not wish, 'O, that my heart/mind might be released from defilements through not clinging!' still one's mind/heart is released from the defilements through not clinging. Why is that? 'It is from development,' it should be said. The development of what?

1. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
2. the Four Right Efforts,
3. the Four Bases of Power,
4. the Five Faculties,
5. the Five Strengths,
6. the Seven Factors of Enlightenment,
7. the Noble Eightfold Path.

We made a resolution to regularly sit no matter what, and hard as it was, we stuck to it.

"Just as when a carpenter or apprentice sees fingermarks on the handle of an axe but does not know, 'Today my axe handle wore down this much, or yesterday it wore down that much, or the day before yesterday it wore down that much,' still the carpenter or apprentice knows it is worn away when it is worn away.

"In the same way, when a meditator dwells devoted to development, that meditator does not know, 'Today my defilements wore down this much, or yesterday they wore down that much, or the day before yesterday they wore down that much.' Nevertheless, one knows they are worn away when they are worn away.

"When an ocean-going ship that is rigged with masts and stays, after six months on the water, is left on shore for the winter, its stays -- weathered by heat and wind, moistened by clouds of the rainy season -- easily wither and rot away.

"In the same way, when a meditator dwells devoted to development, the fetters (bonds, samyojanas) easily wither and rot away." Source

• Dhr. Seven (ed.), Nava Sutta: "The Ship Discourse" (SN 22.101 PTS: S iii 152 CDB i 959) based on translation by Ven. Thanissaro (accesstoinsight.org, 1997), Wisdom Quarterly

Japan's mummy monks and Kundalini

(dakota of earth)

Yamabushi (山伏, one who prostrates oneself on the mountain) are Japanese mountain ascetic hermits [1]. They are generally part of the syncretic Shugendō religion,* which includes Tantric [Vajrayana] Buddhism and the indigenous Shinto [2].

Their origins can be traced back to the solitary yamabito ("wild hill people") and some hijiri (聖) ("wandering Buddhist ascetics and renunciants") of the eighth and ninth centuries [3].

According to American writer Frederik L. Schodt:

• "These positively medieval-looking nature worshipers carry metal staves and conch shells and wear straw sandals and sometimes a hemp cloth over-robe with the Heart Sutra written on it. They follow a mixture of esoteric or tantric Buddhism mixed with Shinto, the native animistic religion of Japan" [4]. More

Kundalini Gone Wild

(Vismaya) Kundalini Gone Wild: the real cases

• 

  Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy

  Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man by Gopi Krishna HAS 4.7 out of 5 stars with 230 reviews: Coiled like a snake at the base of the spine, "Kundalini" is the spiritual force that lies dormant in every human being. Once awakened, often through meditation and yogic practices, it rises up the spinal column and finds expression in the form of spiritual knowledge, mystical vision, psychic powers, and ultimately, "enlightenment." [This is not real enlightenment or bodhi as defined in Buddhism, but what other traditions consider "enlightenment."]
• This book is the classic first-person account of Gopi Krishna, an ordinary Indian householder who, at the age of 34, after years of unsupervised meditation, suddenly experienced the awakening of kundalini during his morning practice.
• The story of this transformative experience, and the author's struggle to regain balance amid a variety of powerful psychic and physiological side effects, forms the core of the book.
• [This condition afflicts an estimated 100 or so Westerners a year who visit India and go "crazy" from either exposure to energies, the Himalayas, the Moon, mystics, god beings (possibly extraterrestrial or interdimensional), artifacts, or dedicated practice... It has happened to two young blond Americans we know of and one we met who, like Gopi Krishna, regained stability, earned an advanced degree, and tries to counsel victims to bring the chakras back into balance and stabilize this energetic kundalini force. One really can make it back to normal.]
• His detailed descriptions of his dramatic inner experiences and symptoms such as mood swings, eating disorders, and agonizing sensations of heat—and of how, with the help of his wife, he finally stabilized at a higher level of consciousness—make this one of the most valuable classics of spiritual awakening available. More

A new syncretic religion in Japan

What the Buddha Never Taught

*Shugen-dō (修験道, lit. "the Way [of] Trial [and] Practice," the "Way of Shugen or Gen-practice") [1] is a syncretic Esoteric Buddhist religion, a body of extreme ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan, having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines, and ritual systems drawn primarily from

• Esoteric Buddhism [Shingon Buddhism],
• local folk-religious practices,
• Shinto,
• mountain worship, and
• Taoism.

The final purpose of Shugen-dō is for practitioners to find supernatural power and save themselves and the masses by conducting religious training while treading through steep mountain ranges. Practitioners are called Shugenja (修験者) or Yamabushi (山伏, lit. '"Mountain Prostrator"') [2]. More

Gnostic: Demiurge's prison of 'reality'

(Secret Files)

• Gnosticism seems to be the Western version of the Vedic/Hindu concept of God (the One or the Supreme) at "divine play" (lila), coming under the illusion (maya) of separation. But all is one. Who is this Demiurge, this false God that created this simulation/illusory reality (duality) around us and the cycle of endless rebirth (samsara)?