Friday, May 15, 2026

No Doubt, EDC 2026, Buddhist Hill Fest (5/15)


Estimated 175,000 partygoers each night
Hedonism? There's a Buddhist story down below about an ancient party just like EDC, Coachella, Burning Man, Woodstock. It's time to blast off to Vegas for the Electric Daisy Carnival rave and music festival. Since it unceremoniously got driven out of Los Angeles, it has found a home in Lost Wages, Nevada, near the Sphere where Gwen Stefani's No Doubt reunion shows are taking place. Oh, the traffic. But never mind that. It's time to party. It's the 30th anniversary.

No Doubt at Sphere last week (full show)



From OC to Superstardom to Sphere

EDC Las Vegas 2026: official trailer
(Globia Travel) What is Las Vegas like on the Strip? Come gamble your life savings away, Lucky.

(Insomniac) #EDCLV2026. #insomniac. The official EDCLV2026 trailer has arrived! 💫 The event is May 15+16+17 as a worldwide community reunites Under the Electric Sky for the 30th anniversary of the event with three nights of celebrating life, love, art, and music.❤️🌈🎡 This is life, this is love, this is EVERYTHING!⚡️ The experience of a lifetime awaits…

Hedonism leads to happiness? A true story from ancient Buddhist texts: The Big Festival

Lives of the Disciples (H. Hecker)
1. YOUTH: Near the capital of the kingdom there were small towns. The youths were born there as privileged Brahmins. One's family claimed to be important descendants. The town was full of Brahmins and was very conservative.

One guy's father was from the most prominent family. Being high caste and from the town's most respected family, his dad acted like a petty king. So he grew up rich and honored, knowing very little about unhappiness, knowing very little about the real world.

He was educated like a [Boston] Brahmin. That education included being taught about a life beyond. There was another Brahmin family in a neighboring town. On the day he was born, in the other town, a son was born. When they grew up they became friends and were soon inseparable. Whatever they did they did together, play and study, pleasure and work. They were always together. They didn't quarrel or hold grudges against each other even though their dispositions were very different. One was a pioneer type, daring and enterprising, the other liked to cultivate what he had already gained. One was an only child, the other had three brothers and three sisters.

And the Buddha's chief female disciples?
Their friendship meant a lot and filled their daily life, and they liked the other sex, light-hearted and indulging at their youthful age. Each was the leader of a group of friends with lot of high spirited play and sports. When they went swimming, their companions rode horses and others rode around like kings, playboys, enamored by the intoxications of youth, health, riches, and a good life.

In the capital, there was a giant annual celebration full of popular entertainment and amusement, the "Big Festival" on the hill. Of course, the friends all went to enjoy it. They reserved places to watch all the entertainments. When there was something funny, they laughed, when there was something fascinating, they got excited. They enjoyed it all so much that they went back for a second day to watch more performances.

But with the heightening of their expectations, their joyous mood failed. They still went back for a third day, since they had reserved it -- a new program of entertainments. They did not sleep well that night, however, as impressions of the previous partying haunted their minds.

Role of pleasure in hedonism
While laying awake with insomnia, one thought: "What's the use of all this for us? Is there here that's really worthwhile? What's the benefit? Before long, all these glamorous people and actors will be old and decrepit. They will leave life and continue wandering on through existence (samsara), driven by sensuality and other insatiable cravings. And it's the same with us. These people can't even help themselves to solve the problems of their existence. How, then, can they help us? We're just wasting our time here instead of getting any closer to liberation!"

The other friend also had a restless night full of similar thoughts. He reflected how these dramatic performances had something to do with the reality of rebirth, but the joking and frolicking overlaying everything, pretending that there was only this life to worry about, was an artificial suppression, repressing the truth, all full of vain illusions.

On the morning of the third day, they went to their reserved spots at the festival, and one asked the other, "What's the matter with you? You're not your merry self like before. What are you depressed about?"

The other friend replied, "Tell me, what's the use of all these pleasures, all this candy for the eye and ear? It's worthless and useless! I'd rather be on a spiritual quest, searching for a way out, release, freedom, total liberation. The devastating law of impermanence, it all sucks. There has to be a way to liberation from all these fleeting illusions with their temporary allure haunting us and yet leaving us empty. That's what's been going through my head and making me think. Hey, but what you,? You look anything but cheerful!"

His friend replied, "I've been feeling the same as you. Why stay any longer for this BS vanity show? We should seek a way to something that's not BS!"


When he heard his friend had been thinking the same thing with the same wish, he happily said, "That's wild that we've been thinking the same thing! We've wasted our time and our lives long enough with all these worthless things. If one really wants a path to freedom, one has to leave home and all these possessions that possess us. We should go forth on a quest like pilgrims, free ourselves from the bondage of worldly crap and all this sensuality, rise above it like birds in the sky."

They agreed, and the two friends decided to ditch it all and become spiritual nomads, leading a life of simplicity away from it all, wanderers, on the road, surviving like ascetics.

They wandered around India searching for a guru, a spiritual teacher, or some teaching to guide them. When they had told their friends about their decision, most of those young men were so impressed that they joined them on their spiritual quest. All of them left home, took off their Brahmin threads, cut off their long hair, and put on the earth-colored garments of wanderers. Discarding the marks and signs of their privileged caste, they gave up the class system and entered among the classless ascetics. That's how the journey began.

Where are they today? Bliss of Nirvana

In their travels, they met many wandering ascetics and temple priests who had the reputation of being exceptionally wise. They talked about God and the world, heaven and hell, the meaning of life and the way to salvation. But with their keen and critical minds trained as skeptics, they soon realized how empty all of those assertions were and how learned but ignorant these philosophers were. None of them could answer their probing questions. But the two friends were able to reply when questioned. How did the meet the Buddha?

Did this really happen? It really did

Great Disciples of the Buddha: Their Lives
Now at the Royal Ringed City there was an annual event called the Hilltop Festival. Seats were arranged for young friends who sat together to witness the festivities. When there was something funny, they laughed; when the spectacle was exciting, they became excited. And they paid fees for extra shows. They enjoyed the fest for a second day, but on the third day their understanding started to awaken. They could no longer laugh or get excited, nor did they feel inclined to pay for more shows like they had on the first two days. Each had the same thought: "What is there to look at here? Within 100 years, everyone here will be dead. What we should do is become spiritual seeker looking for enlightenment." More: The Life of Sariputta by Ven. Nyanaponika Thera
WARNING to tourists in Las Vegas!

Electric Daisy Carnival

EDC is a cool temporary city in the dark.
EDC is an electronic dance music (EDM) festival organized by promoter and distributor Insomniac.

The annual flagship event, EDC Las Vegas, is held in May at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and is the largest electronic dance music festival in North America with over 500,000 visitors in 2024 [2].

The event features electronic dance producers and DJs and incorporates a variety of electronic music, including house, techno, drum 'n bass, and dubstep [3].

EDC Mainstage 2018: Electric Daisy Carnival
In addition to the music, event goers experience 3D superstructures, colorful glow-in-the-dark environments, and LED-lit flora and fauna [4]. There are also interactive art installations throughout EDC, free-roaming carnival performers, and carnival rides for the inner-kids [4]. More
✨ LISTEN IN:
Post blackout blues: I don't remember anything (because I got high)

What happened at Burning Man 2025?
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Free: Altadena Spring Fest, Muir HS (5/15)


All of Southern California is invited
FREE. Open to the public. Twice a year, Rhythms of the Village and Oh Happy Day Vegan Cafe sponsor a giant community festival of live music, healing arts, crafts, Aztec dancers, entertainers, and good old fashioned fun. Post Eaton Fire, it is now held on the much larger Muir High School campus on Lincoln Ave. It has grown exponentially. Come try vegan and other food trucks, free spiritual healing modalities, and see Baba Onochie and Ameca plus Vegan John. Keeping the community alive!


2b.alwaysloved's profile picture(2b.alwaysloved, May 5, 2026)  Indigenous, aboriginal, copper-colored people of Turtle Island who are called "American" Indians are misclassified as "African" American Blacks.

Health and wellness at Spring Fest
They are actually the original inhabitants of the Americas and the Caribbean who built civilizations here long before Eurasians, Africans, and Europeans came to Turtle Island. They had kings and queens. Native Americans of Eurasian [Siberian, etc.] descent are not indigenous to the Americas or the Caribbean but rather are descendants of slaves from China, Japan, the Philippines, India, Southwest Asia, who arrived on Spanish and Portuguese Manila Galleons. They also came from Europe, including the UK, and married the indigenous American Indians misclassified as African American Blacks, who were taught in church schools how to be Indians and signed on Indian Rolls for $5 to take over the lands and identity of the indigenous American Indians misclassified as African American Blacks.

References: 1828 Webster's dictionary and the New Oxford American English Dictionary definition of "American." The Library of Congress. The U.S. Census records (Rev 7:9,10). (Posted on Instagram, edited for clarity by Wisdom Quarterly).
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Thursday, May 14, 2026

Hybrid retreat with Bhikkhu Bodhi (9/4-7)



Four-Day Hybrid Retreat
with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (online or in-person)
Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS, Chuang Yen Monastery, Carmel, Upstate NY

PRACTICING THE DHAMMA:  From Bondage to Liberation a Four-Day Hybrid Retreat with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Beginning Sept. 4th and running through Sept. 7th a retreat will study the groups of mental factors that hold us in bondage to samsara, the cycle of repetitive birth and death, and the opposing factors that lead to liberation.

This retreat is based on the Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Chapter II, Sections 4–8, and Chapter VII, Sections 3–14 and 24–40.

The retreat includes Dhamma talks, discussion periods, and five sessions of meditation each day. It also provides the opportunity for those who haven’t yet “gone for guidance” (ti-sarana) to go for guidance to the Three Jewels, the first decisive step to formally becoming a follower of the Buddha-Dharma.

This retreat is conducted in hybrid mode, meaning it is both onsite in New York and online worldwide. Those who cannot attend in person can practice at home, participating online over Zoom or YouTube.

Those who wish to join in-person can come to BAUS/Chuang Yen Monastery and stay from Friday evening until Monday afternoon.
  • The monastery can accept only 50 onsite practitioners. If someone applies after the 50 spaces have been filled, that person will be put on a waiting list and accepted if prior applicants drop out.
Remember, anyone who can’t join in person can join from home via Zoom or YouTube.

REGISTER to participate in person only if committed to coming to Chuang Yen Monastery and staying all the way through Monday afternoon. If participating only part time, please join online.

A more detailed schedule will be posted later, but reserve these dates now. To register, go HERE.

Order a copy of the Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma (either electronic edition or hardcopy) from Pariyatti Press HERE.
BAUS: The Buddhist Association of the U.S.
美國佛教會
2020 Route 301 Carmel, NY 10512
contact@baus.org
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Osho on Jews and the Jewish problem


Send me more money and girls and Mercedeses
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ("Osho") was born Chandra Mohan Jain on Dec. 11, 1931–Jan. 19, 1990). He is was previously known as Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh [2], Acharya Rajneesh [3, 1], and is now commonly called "Osho."

He was an Indian "godman" [4], sadhu, philosopher, mystic [5], cult leader, corrupt "saint" with a messianic complex, comedian, scam capitalist, clever and funny speaker (whose talks were transcribed into books that are sometimes quite funny), and founder of the Rajneesh Movement [1].


He was a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions [6, 1, 7], insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma [8], as Patanjali did with yoga and the historical Buddha did in outlining general Eightfold Paths.


As a scandal-ridden sex guru in America, he advocated meditation but taught a unique form of his own devising, which he called "dynamic meditation."

I am God. Leave it all and get on my treadmill.
Rejecting traditional ascetic practices of all kinds, he encouraged his followers to [hedonistically] embrace life fully while remaining unattached to worldly desires.


Radicalized by Anti-Jewish Neo-Nazis?

Rajneesh claims he experienced a "spiritual awakening" in 1953 at the age of 21 [8].

Following several years in academia, in 1966 he resigned his post at the University of Jabalpur as a lecturer of philosophy and began traveling throughout India, becoming known for his criticism of the orthodoxy of mainstream religions [1, 9, 10, 11] as well as of mainstream political ideologies... More
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Israel rapes, uses protests for war pretext

(Kim Iversen) Netanyahu panics after the New York Times publishes Zionist Jewish Israel's worst nightmare, exposing its practice of homosexual rape, brutal sodomy, bestiality
(Double Down News) The video Zinist Jewish Israel doesn't want you to see | DDN

(The Young Turks) Mossad's role in Iran protests revealed: "Grassroots" protests used as a pretext and justification for carpet bombing, genocide, and regime change in Iran, all a lie, Israeli media reveals as Pentagon, CIA, and controlled U.S. propaganda channels (networks) lie and deny.


And now for something completely different
(The Young Turks) Ana Kasparian responds to disgusting attack lobbed at her by Israel-Firster and its hasbara ("biased public relations and outright propaganda")

(BS David Pakman Show) Trump assassination attempts no one believes
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Tuesday, May 12, 2026

The Buddha's father King Suddhodana


Men are dumb, Dad - I know. I❤️U.
It's easy to love mom, but what about dad? What has the Men's Movement done for males in this patriarchy? (There are feminist men?) In the U.S., whether or not to celebrate "Father's Day" nationwide is a matter of debate. In 1908, Grace Golden Clayton proposed a day to honor men who had died in a U.S. mining accident. It was rejected then.

But in 1909, Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, who along with her five brothers had been raised by a single father, attended "Mother's Day" in a church.

Men's empowerment hike on Father's Day
She then convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association to celebrate Father's Day nationwide [7]. In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on Nov. 19th in honor of men and boys [8]: Father's Day

In the Pāli canon, there are only two discourses (sutras) that explicitly reference Suddhodana, the Mahāpadāna Sutta (DN 14) and in the verse prologue of the Nālaka Sutta (Sn 3.11). In each of these discourses, Suddhodana is represented simply as the Buddha's father and as a Sakyan ruler.


Good father had a bad Buddha who abandoned his newborn son?
(Buddha's Wisdom) The Buddha's son: the forgotten story of Rahula: Why did the Buddha abandon his newborn son, leaving him on welfare in flat in the winter with no schooling or support?

Afghan chieftain Indo-Scythia, Gandhara
Who is Prince Siddhattha's father, the Gandharan (Afghan territorial chieftain?*) King Suddhodana? In Theravada Buddhism (a major branch) — Suddhodana is recorded in the ancient Pali canon.

He was a Saka, Sakka, Shakya, Scythian, Sakiyan raja ("king," "leader," "head," "royal") in Kapilavatthu, the father of Prince Siddhattha Gotama, who became the historical Buddha.

He was the son of Sihahanu and Kaccana. His brothers were Dhotodana, Sakkodana, Sukkodana, and Amitodana, and his sisters were Amita and Pamita.

Maya was his chief consort. After her death, her sister Pajapati was elevated to that position (Mhv.ii.15f.; Dpv.iii.45; J.i.15, etc.)


Asita's visit to Suddhodana
When soothsayers predicted that his son Siddhattha had two destinies awaiting him, either that of a universal monarch (cakkavatti, chakravartin) if he stayed in the world or a universal teacher (Buddhahood) if he renounced it, he exerted his utmost effort to provide the prince with all kinds of sensual luxuries and hedonistic pleasures to hold him to the household life.

It is said (e.g., J.i.54) that when Asita, who was his father's [Brahmin] chaplain and teacher, visited King Suddhodana to see the newborn prince, he paid homage to the infant by allowing his feet to rest on his head. Suddhodana was filled with wonder and also worshipped the child.


I wish for you to be a noble warrior, my son.
Seven years later, at the annual Ploughing Festival ceremony, Suddhodana saw that the shadow of the jambu tree under which the child had been placed in the shade when he spontaneously went into meditative absorption (jhana, samadhi) did not move even as the sun traveled overhead. Then the child, seated cross-legged without moving, levitated in the air. So he again worshipped him (J.i.57f).

Life in the luxurious house of Saka
Twenty-nine years later, when in spite of all his father's efforts, Prince Siddhattha renounced and left behind the household life and took to practicing austerities in the East, Suddhodana sent a messenger/private investigator to find his son and see what he was up to.

The investigator returned with news that his son had died, owing to the severity of his penances (tapas). But Suddhodana refused to believe it, saying that his son would never die without achieving his spiritual goal (J.i.67).

When this was afterwards related to the Buddha, he taught the Maha Dhammapala Jataka, showing that in the past, too, Suddhodana had refused to believe that his son could have died even when he was shown the heap of his bones.

I failed as a father. My son left.
Seven years after that, when news reached Suddhodana that his son had reached enlightenment, he sent a messenger to Veluvana in Rajagaha ("Bamboo Grove" in Rajgir, where King Bimbisara reigned) with many others to invite the Buddha to return home and visit the seasonal capital of Kapilavatthu.

But when the messenger and his companions heard the Buddha teach, they renounced worldly life, entered the Monastic Order, and forgot their mission. This happened nine more times with different messengers.

On the tenth occasion, King Suddhodana sent Kaludayi (Sanskrit Kālodāyin) who had advance permission to join the Sangha on the express condition that he give the king's invitation to the Buddha.

Kaludayi kept his promise, the Buddha consented, and seven years after having left home to embark on a massive spiritual quest, he returned home to visit Kapilavatthu, staying in Nigrodharama. There, in reference to a rain shower that fell, he taught the Vessantara Jataka.
.
The next day, when King Suddhodana remonstrated his royal (noble, warrior) son, the Buddha, because he was seen "begging" (going on almsround) on the streets of Kapilavatthu, the Buddha told him that surviving on offerings was the custom of all buddhas. Hearing this, King Suddhodana became a stream enterer (sotapanna, the first stage of enlightenment).

Son, at 16, you shall marry the beautiful Bimba.
He then offered to feed his new teacher the Buddha, inviting him to visit the palace, where he entertained him. At the end of the meal offering, the Buddha further taught the king, who became a once returner (sakadagami, J.i.90; cf. DhA.iii.164f).
  • This was when the Buddha was reunited with Princess Bimba (Yasodhara) and his 7-year-old son Rahula, both of whom were "saved" in that they were inspired to renounce their worldly lives in the palace and take up the path-of-practice the Buddha taught as wandering ascetics. In no long time, they both became enlightened. Many Saka/Shakya/Scythian relatives were inspired to follow suit, join the Sangha (spiritual community), and make an end of all suffering.
The king then became a nonreturner (anagami, the third of four stages of awakening) after hearing the Maha Dhammapala Jataka (DhA.i.99; J.iv.55).

Suddhodana was the Bodhisatta or Buddha-to-be’s father in numerous previous births, but he is mentioned as such by name in only a few birth (jātaka) tales, namely:
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