Is vipassana really Buddhist? The truth about the world's most popular meditation
(Buddha's Wisdom) š IS VIPASSANA REALLY BUDDHIST? THE HIDDEN STORY BEHIND THE WORLD'S MOST PRACTICED KIND OF INSIGHT MEDITATION
Millions of people have practiced Buddhist vipassana meditation, but very few know what the word vipassanÄ originally meant, or how the modern movement transformed one of Buddhism's oldest insights into a global meditation phenomenon.
What is insight (vipassana) meditation actually for? This word doesn't mean "meditation" at all. And the practice millions know from Goenka's free 10-day silent retreats was born not in the Buddha's proto-India, but in [George Orwell's] colonial Burma, the day an empire stopped protecting the Theravada Dhamma.
This is the true story of insight meditation: what vipassanÄ really means, how it nearly vanished, and how a monk, a farmer, an accountant, and a businessman carried it to the modern world.
šæ DISCOVER:
The original meaning of vipassanÄ and why it never simply meant "meditation"
How the fall of the Burmese kingdom sparked the modern Vipassana Movement
Why meditation was rare even among Buddhist monastics for nearly 1,000 years
Why many Buddhist teachers say today's vipassana is both ancient and surprisingly modern
The unlikely relay that saved insight practice: from Buddhist monk Ledi Sayadaw to a rice farmer to S.N. Goenka's flight home in 1969
What today's vipassana retreats, the mindfulness movement, and scientific research gained... and what may have been left behind.
š If this changed what viewers thought meditation was, subscribe. The next episode uncovers the other half the world forgot: the deep stillness of jhana ("meditative absorption" as samma-samadhior "right stillness," "coherent unification of mind") the Buddha paired with insight.
John Wayne’s 350 lb. bodyguard attacked Bruce Lee — then watched him get crushed
(AI Bruce Lee Diaries) Backstage at a Hollywood soundstage in 1972, Bruce Lee arrived for a quiet studio meeting. What he didn’t expect was a challenge from a massive former Marine — the personal bodyguard of John Wayne.
The man believed real combat training made movie martial arts useless. Fifteen minutes later, only a handful of crew members would witness what really happened.
In this true behind-the-scenes story, discover how Bruce Lee — the star audiences knew from The Green Hornet — was openly mocked and tested in front of Wayne himself.
The 350-pound bodyguard thought size, strength, and Western military experience guaranteed him victory. What Bruce did next shocked everyone in the room — including "The [Grand] Duke."
This isn’t just another Bruce Lee legend. It’s the moment when raw Western power collided with a real Eastern understanding of movement, timing, and control — and when one of Hollywood’s toughest men learned that fighting isn’t about who’s bigger, it’s about who understands more.
For decades, this quiet backstage confrontation between Bruce Lee and John Wayne’s bodyguard stayed out of the spotlight. Now, the full story of how a 350-pound former Marine was taken down — twice — can finally be told.
#johnwayne #brucelee #truestory #hollywood #martialarts #behindthescenes. How this was made: AI
sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated. Learn more
(Democracy Now!) Israeli occupiers (euphemism illegal colonial "settlers") attack convoy of journalists and father of Palestinian American killed one year ago
The Buddha's FIRE SERMON: the speech that converted 1,000 wanderers
What is the "all" that is burning?
(Buddha's Wisdom) š WE’RE BURNING RIGHT NOW — THE BUDDHA’S FIRE SERMON There’s a constant inner heat -- craving, hatred, confusion -- that drives our decisions and drains our peace.
In this guided breakdown of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (Adittapariyaya Sutta), see exactly what’s burning, why “ALL is burning” became one of Buddhism’s most powerful teachings, and a 5-step method to stop being consumed by it, today.
DISCOVER
How the Buddha converted 1,000 fire-worshippers with a single 20-minute speech
The three psychological fires burning in our chest right now (and why they always find new fuel and never stop)
The hidden follow-up teaching that challenges even clinging to the pursuit of “enlightenment”
The 5-step method that extinguished suffering for 1,000 people simultaneously
What the Buddha taught AFTER the Fire Sermon that made even enlightened beings question everything
Master Buddhist meditation and mindfulness with the Buddha's original Fire Sermon teaching
02:50 1,000 meditators, same burn — The Kassapa Setup (near Bodh Gaya)
04:11 All is burning — the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (SN 35.28)
07:27 Silence: 1,000 awaken — What liberation felt like
09:20 How to stop burning — the 5-Step Practice
11:01 Beyond the Fire
Subscribe for daily Buddhist wisdom, meditation guides, and ancient teachings for modern spiritual awakening and meditation practices. Join community: Instagram: buddhaswizdom. Facebook: buddhaswizdom. Support the channel: buymeacoffee.com/buddhaswisdom
Will the world end? How will the world end? When will the world end? Why will the world end? Questions, questions. Of course, the world will end. Not any time soon, but never mind about that. It's always ending, constantly hurtling towards destruction. "Change is the only constant," some wise person once said. That person was talking about what the Buddha called anicca. We translate this as "impermanence," but that's very limited and misleading. We prefer flux, dissolution, or radical impermanence, though "change" also works.
The idea is that, that something will change is no kind of message to the world. Of course, things are impermanent. We all know that. Only a child would think things are going to stay the same. (Guilty! And we're old enough to know better). It might be better to investigate how things are going to change because that sort of explains the why. The when is easy! Right now. Now. The eternal now. When is a mountainside not crumbling? Even as geological forces send it up, it is already disintegrating. When aren't human cells dying? They are always dispatching and falling off. That's what it means to have a body, though we don't much notice, know, or want to know.
How are things changing? Little by little until they give way to a noticeable amount. The more closely we investigate and notice, the more and more we become aware of when and how this is happening. It can become so upsetting that we stop clinging. Why, being ourselves impermanent, would we chase and cling to impermanent things?
Once upon a time, the Buddha was walking along the river and he came upon 1,000 fire worshippers with their matted locks or jatas, wandering ascetics in search of truth. They saw him and were moved by his gravitas, charisma, and appearance. He himself was a wandering ascetic but a Scythian (Shakyian) from the West, serene, and delightful to look upon. What could he possibly have to say about ultimate truth? See "The Fire Sermon."
"How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise" is a beautiful saying. A few adjustments made it poetic but ruined its original meaning. What it really means, in plain English, is: "It feels horrible to know something when the person who finds out can't do anything about it."
Pasadena is part of Los Angeles, which is part of a giant mountainous forest called the Angeles National Forest, which is probably why it is full of coyotes (and bears, deer, rams, and man-eating lions). "Them coyot's is some wily varmints," the common wisdom goes around town. They'll pick a cat right off the street or out of a yard. It's like cats-and-dogs outside because, after all, these are felines and canines, wild or feral.
Skulking loners and organized packs of canines lope around the streets, particularly in the foothills of Altadena and other communities, coming down in search of water, bowls of dogfood in yards, and anything on four legs wandering around at night. Coyotes will grab a human baby as quickly as a dingo would if no one is watching.
Bad Kitties worse than Good Boys?
(Cat Dog Diary) Imagine a freaked-out rescued kitten meets a fluffy puppy
Can you help me find my kitty?
When my beautiful neighbor asked me what I thought happened to her Fitzgerald, I diverted: "It's not important what I think. What's important is how we're going to find him before it's too late."
"So you'll help me search by walking around the block for hours, calling out, 'Here, kitty-kitty"?
"No, I won't do that. It hasn't worked for you, and Fitz loves you. I was thinking we go divine."
"Go 'divine'? Kill ourselves and look for Fitzy in heaven?"
"No, of course not! Cats don't go to heaven. Everyone knows that. That's a place for dogs."
"Where do they go then?"
"Well, that's what I intend to find out through some urban shamanic divination procedures. They'll tell us were to look or reveal the whereabouts of all that remains of frisky Fitzy the coyote's Pemican."
"Coyote chow?"
"Possibly. Do you really want to know?"
"Yes, I must have closure!"
"Well, if that's all you need, Dr. Deborah King told me we can do it ourselves. We can cut the dysfunctional energetic ties that bind and give ourselves relief."
"Just find my cat...or else."
She wasn't having it -- skeptic, doubter, distruster, faithless -- so she pushed me to do the only thing I could, which was to go behind her back to meet with a pet detective, a psychic familiar with these sorts of cases.
I only asked the psychic as a favor. She offered her services, saying she had a knack for dealing with beloved pets. I showed her some photos then we took a walk around the block to see if Fitz would run out of wherever it was hiding and come to the psychic like a magnet. That's what she claimed happened before in the rescue of both a pet cat and a tortoise.
"How does anyone lose a tortoise?"
"It was stuck under the fence, which I moved in my search, and it ran to me," she explained.
Not exactly magic, but I would gladly take it in this case.
Closure came for me quickly, and I wasn't even looking. The psychic said pictures and walking were no longer even necessary. She already had a clear story to tell. Coyotes were not to blame, except to the extent that they may have scared, startled, panicked, chased, terrified, or injured Fitz, but not killed and consumed it. This 9-year-old fur baby was driving her human caretaker to distraction, and she was near insanity. But she wouldn't listen.
It was going to be a tough case because I put limits on the remote viewing protocol and told the psychic to stuff her preconceived telepathy and start answering a series of commonsense questions.
She said, "You're being too rigid."
And I said, "Yes, I am, and I want you to narrow your impressions, visions, and telepathic communications with the cat to just answering what I ask. Force yourself to only reveal a tiny slice of all that you know, none of which is being helpful. If you can find it in yourself to answer, just find it physically without answering or saying anything. Just go straight to it or, better yet, just get the cat to run out and throw itself at you like you claim the tortoise did."
She could not, so we started with a flood of potentially useable intel, which sent us across the boulevard to a cul de sac then a yard then a yard then a shack. Wouldn't you know? We poked around...and she wasn't there. She may have been there before, hiding out under the shed, but we didn't find her or any tangible proof she had been there. Now the messages began to come in more strongly. The psychic was saying the cat was alive.
Personally, I took it for a goner, a tuft of colorful hair in a lump of coyote scat. But we found no such lump. I had already asked 80 people at a nearby church meeting; not one of them had seen the cat.
But one church woman was sure she could imitate its voice, and this allowed me to ask the cat questions about why it left. It answered, vaguely: "I was being smothered." That made sense, but was it any reason to leave? My neighbor says their love was mutual. Seems the cat didn't think so.
The owner of the shed wasn't home, so we could only look around the yard and come back to go through the shed, empty it, just as soon as we could get permission. I returned alone (because the psychic claimed not to be feeling well) at 10:00 pm. The owner still wasn't home, and his sympathetic neighbor couldn't grant permission for a search of it. I wandered up and down the alley, calling out, "Here kitty-kitty" like a darn fool, ending up doing what I told her was pointless. I tried reasoning with the cat, sending out my own intuitive feelers for the slightest hint.
Meanwhile, my nagging neighbor was on the phone, who promised a big reward she never really intended to pay out. She was doubting and demanding answers. The psychic started texting, sending new messages, saying the injured, hungry, thirst, confused cat had moved on. Work needed me to drive to the other side of the county for an important assignment. Isn't it just like the universe to all coincide and bombard us with nonsense from all directions (i.e., Everything Everywhere All at Once)?
The three were unrelenting, pulling me in all direction. All I could do was lope and skulk very suspiciously in an alley and around the property for an hour like a cat burglar casing a joint and hoping to catch video of the cat alive to at least have a reason to hope and continue the search. It would have been better to meet with the Council of Coyotes and ask it if any member had made off with a pretty angora calico Afghan tabby furball.
The Buddhist cats of ancient Japan
"How terrible is human attachment, tenacious clinginess, and our utter inability to let go. Such is the plight of humans on this vast plane of existence, the Buddha realized and proclaimed. But how can we let go?
The Buddha answered that. "Cultivate mentally-purifying calm the develop insight. When we see the true nature of things, the heart/mind, seeing the true nature of existence, automatically lets go with no effort on our part to separate. Let me repeat, we do not need to make any extra effort to relinquish. Seeing reality as it is is enough to discard and abandon everything we are consciously and unconsciously clinging to that is bringing about our suffering (dukkha).
E. Hicks
Abraham-Hicks (a council of 12 entities as channeled by Esther Hicks with the help of her very supportive husband Jerry) says that everything we want is downstream. Let go to get it. Stop fighting the way upstream. We are not salmon.
She called and texted me, demanding to know if it was the coyotes who tore and devoured her precious kitty. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the truth was worse than that.
The psychic said the scared cat had been found, wandering and drained, by someone who took it in and loved it better, kept it safer, and gave it so much love that it didn't even want to return "home" now. "Home is where the heart is," everyone knows that. She pushed and pushed me, and all I could say was, "You say you don't want it, this reality we're in [where the cat is dead], but you don't, you don't really mean it. You say you won't stand for it, this circus we're in, but you don't, don't really mean it. What if the truth is worse than that?"
"No, that's what you already think happened. You want 'closure' to accept that. What if it's worse? What if Fitz doesn't want to come back?"
"Impossible! Fitzgerald needs me, can't live without me..."
"Well, I don't know about that. Wouldn't it be worse to find out that Fitz is fine but not coming back, alive and happy but not with you?"
"What the h*ll are you talking about?! I'll break Fitz out! Who has my cat?! Who's keeping him hostage and away from me?!"
"Why are you asking me? You don't believe in cat psychics, remember? Who cares what she said? You ask me for the 'truth,' but you don't, you don't really mean it."
If the divine Master Plan is perfection [by rebirth]
Maybe next I'll give Jewish a try
Trusting my Soul to the Ice Cream Assassin
Here, here, here
[CHORUS]
How many Fates turn around in the overtime?
Ballerinas have fins that you'll never find
You thought that you were the bomb
Yes, well so did I
[CHORUS]
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of a light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my Spark is?
Here, here, here
Eds., Wisdom Quarterly, July 4, 2026 (a true story with details changed to protect the guilty and innocent, a learning experience about human nature beset by clinging and ignorance)
It is part of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin of northern Guatemala [1]. El Mirador is considered to be the most important complex of ancient cities from the Preclassic period.
Cholula Pyramid, Pueblo, Mexico, size of a mountain, topped by an imperial Catholic church
.
It features causeways and pyramids, among which the pyramid of La Danta stands out, one of the tallest and most voluminous in the world [likely the world's largest even bigger than Cholula in Mexico, Giza in Egypt, but maybe not as large as the Bosnian Pyramid or the mountain Gunung Padang in formerly Buddhist Indonesia or the world's largest excavated Buddhist temple, which is a pyramid called Borobudur].
The site is estimated to comprise some 800 cities, and the location of La Danta was the epicenter of trade, religious ceremonies, and the royal residence of rulers. Furthermore, the city was interconnected with others via 13 causeways, representing its power over the other Mayan cities in the region [2].
El Mirador has white roads measuring 40 meters wide and between 2 and 5 meters high, forming what researchers consider the world's first highway system or superhighway [3]. More
Project Esther: [let's assassinate Charlie Kirk] and other things to promote Zionism
Turning Point USA: Dead Charlie Kirk's Christian Zionist organization
Romans 11 orders me to support and send money for a political "Israeli" state, and never mind John 8 and the Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus Christ the Christian lord and savior
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
.jpg){kind=small}
