Saturday, August 29, 2026

How to win by losing? (Tao☯️Vedas🕉️)

(Taoist Diary) Why being "Nobody" is our greatest power: Taoist secret

Becoming Nobody: Ego Death by DMT?

Satyakāma Jābāla (सत्यकाम जाबाल)
The Brahmin Vacchagotta demanded the Buddha answer yes or no. The Buddha was silent.
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What does a Hindu sage see?
In the Vedas, Satyakāma Jābāli is a Vedic sage, who first appears in the fourth prapāṭhaka (chapter) of the ancient Vedic text, the Chāndogya Upanishad [1].

As a boy, in order to become brahmachārī (celibate Brahmin student), Satyakāma enquires about his father and his family from his mother Jabālā. His mother tells him that she went about many places in her youth attending to different people devoted to their service and did not know his lineage.

Therefore, she tells him that in this world, all that she has is him and vice versa, so he is called Satyakāma Jābāla.

Eager for knowledge, he goes to the sage Haridrumata Gautama, requesting the sage's permission to live in his school for to be a Brahmacharya. The teacher asks, "My dear child, what family do you come from?"

Satyakāma replies that he is of uncertain lineage because his mother does not know who his father is. He tells the sage that as to his lineage, his mother named him Satyakāma Jābāla.

Seeing his innocence and his strong wish to learn, the sage declares that the boy's honesty is the mark of a "Brahmin (brāhmaṇa), a true seeker of the knowledge of Brahman" and accepts him as a student in his school [2, 3].
Will Satyakama Jabala know how to help us?
The sage sends Satyakāma to tend to 400 sickly cows and to come back when they multiply into 1,000 [3].

The symbolic legend or allegory then presents Satyakāma's conversation with a bull, a fire, a swan (Haṃsa, हंस), and a diver bird (Madgu, मद्गु), which respectively symbolize Vāyu, Agni, Āditya, and Prāṇa [1].

Satyakāma thereby learns from these creatures that the form of Brahman is in all of the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), world-bodies (earth, atmosphere, sky, ocean), sources of light (fire, sun, moon, lightning), and in humans (breath, eye, ear, and mind) [2].

Aummmm, the cosmic sound of the universe
Satyakāma returns to his teacher with 1,000 cows and humbly learns the rest: the nature of Brahman (the ultimate, metaphysical reality behind all of the illusions of maya).

Satyakāma graduates and becomes a celebrated sage, according to the Hindu tradition.

A Vedic school is named after him, as is the influential ancient text Jābāla Upanishad – a treatise on Sannyāsa (a Hindu sannyasin or renunciate's life) [4].

Upakosala Kamalayana was a student of Satyakama Jabala, whose story is also presented in the Chhāndogya Upanishad [5]. In the end, Satyakāma Jābāla's teacher the Sage Gautama gives him the name Patan. More

Industry puppet Katy Perry: I'll be a star!


(Jay Diggs) How to be an industry  puppet: the Katy Perry (Catty Purry) strategy. "Rusty Brandy, Baby, what is a Faustian bargain?" - "I want a divorce!" - "O.K., Hubby, but what is it?"

How did she get her record contract, and how do I get the same deal?
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What is a Katy Perry?

I just wanna be Kate Hudson again
Katyy Lizzy Hud's Son (Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, born Oct. 25, 1984), known professionally as "Katy Perry," is a Hollywood product, an American singer, songwriter, and goofy TV personality.

Known for her influence on pop music and her camp style, she has been dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone.

At age 16, Perry released the unsuccessful gospel album Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records. After moving to Los Angeles, she signed to Hollywood's Capitol Records and rose to fame with the pop rock album One of the Boys (2008).

Its lesbian bisexual anthem and lead single "I Kissed a Girl" topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Perry's moist, disco-influenced pop record Teenage Dream (2010) became -- ka-ching! -- the only album by a woman to spawn five U.S. number-one singles:
  1. "California Gurls"
  2. "Teenage Dream"
  3. "Firework"
  4. "E.T."
  5. "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"
Momma, don't preach. I don't need your and Dad's stupid religious beliefs holding me back.
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It helps having really big boobs, big like these.
Its sugarcoated reissue, subtitled The Complete Confection (2012), produced the U.S. Number 1 single "Part of Me."

The dance-inspired Prism (2013) yielded two U.S. Number 1 singles, "Roar" and "Dark Horse."

Perry's subsequent albums, Witness (2017), Smile (2020), and 143 (2024), were mostly duds and met with varied critical and commercial success.

Now mostly a laughingstock, Perry is still one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 151 million records worldwide. She has seven diamond certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America.

The world's highest-paid female musician in 2015 and 2018, she was named by Billboard one of the greatest pop stars of the 21st century. As proof, her accolades include:
  • 20 Guinness World Records,
  • 5 Billboard Music Awards,
    5 American Music Awards (including the Special Achievement Award),
  • 1 Brit Award,
  • 1 Juno Award, and
  • 7 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award).
Perry was the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on YouTube.

With an estimated net worth of $360 million, she is among the world's wealthiest musicians.

I literally sold my soul to the Devil. I told you.
Outside of music, Perry released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series (2011–2013), launched her own shoe line Katy Perry Collections in 2017, and flew into space aboard Blue Origin NS-31 in 2025.

She served as a judge on American Idol from the 16th season in 2018 to the 22nd season in 2024. She is an advocate for LGBT rights and women's rights, and she was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2013.

Her philanthropy and activism focus on children's education and HIV/AIDS awareness. More
  • Jay Diggs (video); Bauhaus; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Enter the Zendo: Abbess on Vipassana


Linda Galijan is the Berkeley Zen Center’s first female abbot (Facebook)

"I never get lost because I don't know where I'm going" - Zen Master Ikkyū, 15th century.
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At the BZC altar (Nathan Dalton)
BERKELEY, California - Saturday, August 29, 2026: The Berkeley Zen Center's Abbess Linda (Shinchi Linda Galijan Rōshi) will set off for a monthlong vipassana (Buddhist four-dimensional insight as sati) retreat under her root teacher Gil Fronsdal.

Her other root teacher was BZC Founder Mel Weitsman, a direct transmitted disciple of Shunryū Suzuki, who also founded two affiliated temples, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center). For the weekly Saturday Dharma talk, Abbot Linda as she is referred to, extolled the virtues of Theravada Insight Meditation, also known as vipassana, stating that while it is different than Zen's shikantaza, it is just the same. That is to say, they coordinate and aid one another to bring about the same realization (kenshō) or “clear seeing.” Vipassana literally means “special or clear seeing.”

Is satori “insight”? Not quite but not altogether different, both being a kind of iteration of wisdom (prajñā), clearly seeing into the true nature of experience -- directly perceiving what is ever-present but usually unseen: The Three Marks of Existence.
Prof. Jason Arday (anglicanmainstream.org)
These weekly Dharma talks, and we've attended a few now, generally amount to nothing, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, but seeming very deep for their Taoist-style nothingness or pointlessness. It may just be that they land later, filled with wisdom and no rush to make any obvious point. Last Saturday (8/22/26), an elderly Zen abbess from Santa Cruz, a long-time professor at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC.edu), gave a wonderful talk about social suicide, literally. She discussed her intimate familiarity with plagiarism and academic scandals in the social sciences as brought up by the tragic case of an accused person-of-color at Cambridge University in England. Accusations by a right-wing troll led to an investigation of Black Prof. Jason Arday (RIP), who was humiliated by the accusation and chose to end his life in ignominy. This is tragic, our Zen speaker explained, because far worse is done by seasoned senior white professors who weather the storm, which usually comes to nothing, no retraction, no dismissal, no punishment. It seems to be the way of hubris and academic progress. She would know because she sat on many a committee to deal with such issues as well as being part of the peer-review process, which even when it turns up plagiarism by professors usually comes to naught.

Bodhisattva Dolly Parton passes away at 80
But this talk was different, better, more substantive, less fluffy white rice, more solid and gomashio-sprinkled tofu, as it were. Why? The jokes keep coming, little nudges about this and that, never getting too heavy to "stink of Zen," but at the end of it was a reverie about the newest, latest to be recognized bodhisattva, The Dali Parton. Everyone giggled and enthusiastically nodded along in recognition of the recently passed country music star, humanitarian, lover of humankind, and philanthropist. This is in accord with the local NPR affiliate in the Bay Area playing the first of a 9-part Radio Lab (by the great Jad Abumrad) series on DollyCreator of 'Dolly Parton's America' podcast discusses her life and legacy | KALW

What's so great about Buddhist insight?
When one knows-and-sees, the heart lets go.
Then a longtime member of the sangha asked, "What do they do in vipassana meditation?" Abbot Linda perked up and outlined the fourfold setting up of mindfulness the historical Buddha talks about in the two Satipatthana Suttas, the greater and shorter "Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourses." One make the heart/mind serene by sitting and attending to the breath until it is concentrated [and absorbed or in a zen state called jhana if possible. Then one emerges and turns attention to other aspects of the body]. One then progresses, turning attention to feelings (the three categories of sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral). Thereafter, attention is placed on mind.

No, Bart, just sit! Don't you dare have a goal!
Finally, one gives one-pointed attention to dhammas or mental phenomena usually categorized in Buddhist lists like the Five Hindrances and Four Ennobling Truths. [This is generally the way vipassana is understood, cultivating liberating insight by clearly seeing these four categories of "things." For in seeing them clearly, it is very difficult to identify and remain attached to the wrong views of self, satisfaction, and permanence. One instead sees things as they truly are -- hurtling towards destruction, unable to ever satisfy or fulfil, and utterly impersonal. In seeing this, the heart/mind lets go, stops clinging and grasping at ephemeral phenomena, and arrives at release, sometimes glimpsing the awe-inspiring freedom of nirvana. That's satori, that's kensho, that the first stage of enlightenment the Buddha called stream-entry.]

Sitting with Gil Fronsdal
How to see? Stillness and silence
This September 2026 vipassana retreat offers an experienced Zen and Insight (Vipassana) meditators a period of intensive residential practice guided by Gil Fronsdal. The teaching and practice orientation will be “Shikantaza Through the Support of Insight,” Shikantaza or “just sitting” being the core Soto Zen practice. The schedule will include mindfulness in complete noble silence with morning, afternoon, and evening formal sitting (zazen); formal ōryōki mindfulness meals (taking the least amount of food); work periods; and daily meditation instructions and nightly Dharma talks. There will also be formal and informal meetings with teachers. Participants commit to stay on for the duration (except by arrangement or emergencies). The retreat includes a 30-day sesshin (接心, lit. means “gathering heart/mind” but is usually translated as “Silent Zen Retreat Intensive”).

The Dali Parton: Dolly Parton Bodhisattva?

She was smart with many great quotes like, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap" lol
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The Backwoods Barbie Doll Dolly 
At dollypartonsamerica.com, thanks to Jad Abumrad of Radio Lab, there is a 9-part series of interviews on America's favorite bra owner, The Dali Parton, Goddess of Kindness, a kind of cultural icon and bodhisattva (a "being destined for enlightenment/awakening" by the marriage of compassion and wisdom) for the benefit of us all. Feminist, activist, Buddhist Rebecca Solnit says it quite well:
Dolly Parton, the "unicorn of unicorns"

Friday, August 28, 2026

Can we go back to original Buddhism?


Finally, "Buddhism" makes verifiable sense!
THERAVADA Buddhism: Is this what the historical Buddha (Prince Siddhattha Gotama, "the Sage of the Sakas," the Shakyas, the Indo-Scythians) really taught? The Three Baskets (Ti-pitaka) of Suttas, Vinaya, and Abhidhamma (Discourses, Discipline, and Higher Doctrine). The Buddha did not speak Sanskrit, the exclusive liturgical language of Brahmin priests, but rather Magadhi (colloquial Pali, the lingua franca) and Prakrit. He certainly knew and understood Sanskrit, having been expert in it in past lives, a knower of the Three Vedas. The Pali canon is a collection of canonical texts preserved in the ancient Pali language the Buddha likely spoke.
Why do monks and nuns chant in Pali?
The only reason Mahayana uses Sanskrit is because Brahmin (Brahminical Vedic Hindus) used it to whitewash Mahayana Buddhism into a kind of comprehensible form of Hinduism. The goal of Theravada, the "Teaching of the direct Elder enlightened disciples of the historical Buddha," is enlightenment here and now as soon as possible, whereas the goal of Mahayana is enlightenment never, only after an inexhaustible supply of living beings first attain it. When will that be? It will never be, alleviating the need for any Mahayana Buddhist to actually practice and bring what the Buddha taught about in one's own life. Imagining themselves supremely awakened buddhas of the future, there's never a need to do it now, the only time we actually ever have.

Pre-Buddhist Thai-Burmese Spirit World

(GO Asia) Thailand and Burma's secret Spirit World | culture and spirituality documentary (AMP)
Pantheon of animist "Nat" spirits on altar
A spirit house is a shrine to the protective spirit of a place that is found in the Southeast Asian Buddhist countries of Thailand (Siam), Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia (Khmer Kingdom), Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. They are normally in the form of small, roofed structure mounted on a pillar or a dais. They can range in size from small platforms to houses large enough for people to enter. Spirit houses are intended to provide a shelter for spirits that could cause problems for the people if not appeased. More
What is a nat or "spirit"?

Venerate me and I will help you from beyond.
The nats (နတ်) are spirits, deities, god-like ancestors, poltergeists, unseen (invisible) beings venerated in Burma (aka Myanmar) and neighboring Southeast Asian Buddhist countries in conjunction with Theravada Buddhism.

Nats are divided between the 37 Great Nats, who were given that status by King Anawrahta when he formalized the official list of nats. Most of the 37 Great Nats were human beings who met violent deaths [1].

There are two types of nats in Burmese belief, nat sein (နတ်စိမ်း), which are humans who were deified after their deaths, and all other nats, which are spirits of nature (like the kami of Japan, elementals, spirits of water, trees, etc.)

Much like sainthood, nats can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions in Burma. Nat worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas and is practiced among ethnic minorities of Burma as well as in mainstream Bamar society.

However, it is among the Theravada Buddhist Bamar that the most highly developed form of ceremony and ritual is seen [2]. More: Nat (deity)

The three or four kinds of Buddhism


(The East Made Simple) Every major school (sect, tradition, yana or "vehicle") of Buddhism explained: What each one actually believes, teaches, and attempts to practice. The division is usually Theravada (10%) keeping as close as possible to the teachings of the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni) versus all the others aligning with later interpretations, changes, watering down the message or changing it altogether to build a grand boat that calls itself the "Great Vehicle" or Mahayana (90%). But Vajrayana, a Himalayan (Bhutanese, Nepalese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Russian) school of Esoteric Buddhism, combining many occult Hindu practices (tantra, mantra, yoga, etc.) may also be distinguished or Japanese Zen (a combination of Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, and Buddhism, but Japan prefers faith-based universalism, Nichiren Shōshū, like most of the rest of the world to pray and receive help from another-power to do all the heavy lifting to deliverance) even though all three are considered Mahayana sects.

What happened in Nepal-Tibet? Not rain

Rocky Horror bombs, Tim Curry saves it


(Golden Legacy) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975): 20 secrets hidden for decades

Gay drag queen superhero Curry

Epstein is Israel, and Israel is Epstein


(The Young Turks) The most obvious revelation about child molestation ring was finally released incestuous pedophile Donald Trump's best friend, child sex trafficker, professional blackmailer, and super spy for Israel Jeffrey Epstein, who with his partner in crime Jewish British spy for Israel Ghislaine Maxwell, like her father before her
Corrupt PDF Trump and his Sec'y of Commerce Howie Lutnick as he signs Executive Orders

(The Financial Express) Secretary Lutnick interrogation. Epstein bombshell: "Why did you lie about your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?" | WORLD NEWS | US NEWS

Politician Howard Lutnick (born July 14, 1961) is a high-placed government official, the 41st U.S. secretary of commerce, since 2025, and a corrupt American businessman in cahoots with Epstein. More

Cover up, Trump's FBI Dir. Kash Patel?

(Mirror Now) Kash Patel LIVE: Epstein video played in Congressional hearing as FBI Director Patel explodes in defense of his convicted rapist boss and well known pedophile Trump is glad he placed him in charge of the investigating body that will cover up his crimes 

Gnostic Adam 'n Eve: Serpent Sophia?



Sophia=Wisdom=Athena
(Gnostic Talk) The Serpent in the Gnostic version of the Garden of Eden was the Aeon and Goddess of Wisdom Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom, out to make things right and help Adam and savior-helper Eve (members of the Adama), the progenitors of this iteration of humanity. What she gave us is still inside us no matter how much the evil Demiurge Yaldabaoth, Yahweh, and His Archons try to deceive us. It is far better to know and be free than to live in blissful ignorance in a Sumerian garden tended by self-arrogating and self-aggrandizing and self-proclaimed Jews as distinct from the "Goy."

I said thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or shalt surely DIE! And that that Serpent, crawling on its belly as it shall now, should say different, don't listen to that creature. Obey me! For I am thy Demiurge, I mean, thy God Almighty, builder of heaven and then earth, and maker of everything and controller of all with the help of my Archons. Behold! No, no, turn away, for you cannot bear my visage. Just obey, OBEY!
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The Gnostic Goddess Sophia sent Jesus a special: the favored Apostle Mary Magdalene
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What does the Bible actually say?

(Discernment Made Clear) Why Serpent (not "Satan" except later in New Testament commentary as an explanation) only spoke to the woman Eve in Genesis? No one told us this!