The birth of Siddhartha, the future Buddha, from Peshawar, Gandhara (now Pakistan)
Dr. Ranajit Pal speculates that the real Lumbini garden, the Buddha's birthplace, was in Sistan-Baluchistan, in modern disputed territory where Iran, Pakistan (called ancient Gandhara), and Afghanistan meet. Who were the Sakyans? Might they be the Sakas of Western and Middle Eastern history?
Kings (kshtriyas) with dragons (nagas) associated with royalty in India -- gold artifacts of the Sakas of Indo-Greek/Persian Bactria, at the site of Tillia tepe.
Indo-Scythians is a term used to refer to Sakas who migrated into Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, Gandhara, Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE.In Rajasthan they came into the Hindu warrior caste of the Kshatriyas and were assimilated and were now feared nomadic warriors and rulers, for which Rajasthan was long famous.
Under the so-called Kshatriya kings the Shaka Ujjayini ruled from parts of northwest India and presented, for example, under Rudradaman I (r. about 130-150), a competition to the Satavahana dynasty. They were initially dependent on the Kushan. The Kshatriya kingdom was apparently after 397 conquered by king Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/15).
Some South-Asian Sakas includes the Abhira, Nagbanshi, Andhra, Bala, Gurjjara.[1][2] More
When Bolkovac heard she could earn good money in a short period of time by becoming part of the U.N. International Police Force in Bosnia -- run by a private British agency called DynCorp -- she decided to sign on.
She found herself in the middle of an alarming human trafficking web. Mobsters were transporting teenage girls to bars and brothels for sex, and beyond turning a blind eye, the security firm and U.N. personnel seemed to be caught up in the trafficking themselves. She tried to sound the alarm, and she was fired.
Superstars Muse battle hometown heroes Rage Against the Machine and Lauryn Hill enchants as Buddhist freaks meet at the Coliseum while Buddhist geeks calmly discuss the Dharma at the nearby University of the West.
Everything but thinking will be going on at the continuing OC Fair in neighboring Orange County, in spite of last year's ice sculpture "The Thinker."
WASHINGTON (RNS) - More than half of U.S. voters approve of God’s job performance, according to a new poll, making God more popular than all members of Congress.
This may seem odd, but Siddhartha was fair (golden), blue eyed, tall, and came from the west to India proper, where he became the Buddha in Bihar state and began teaching near Varanasi. The oldest Buddhist monastery discovered to date is 2,600-year-old Mes Aynak, Afghanistan, where so many of his family members (the Shakyans) might have gone to practice after ordaining.
The Mujahadeen -- as well as Al Qaeda and the CIA's own Osama bin Laden -- were outsiders, criminals, released convicts (brought in from neighboring Islamic countries such as Pakistan) who were being encouraged to fight Russia in defense of Afghanistan with the secret help and military backing of the United States. See InvisibleHistory.com for the sordid details by American scholars Fitzgerald & Gould.
Jihad really means "struggle" with oneself to overcome harm. But the idea has been perverted and promoted by the CIA and a tiny extremist segment of Islam.
As more than 300 stonemasons chip away at the rock, the giant figure is gradually emerging into view. The sandstone cliff near Leshan, in the lush green hills of Western China, is redder than the more golden sandstone near Bamiyan.
Improving or ruining the Buddha with a face lift for unnatural "perfection"?
They reached the borders of the T’ang and Persian Sassanid empires in Khorasan, near Central Asia. In those days the Turks ruled Central Asia as subjects of the T’ang emperors of China. The Turks were referred to as Turanians by the ancient Persians of Zoroaster’s time. More
A Japanese punk scene across the sea later created cyberpunk masterpieces that focused on punks and freaks of all kinds (cinemastrikesback.com).
LOS ANGELES - Punk rock made me a Buddhist. A few hot spots in America (Boston, NYC, SF) gave rise to the American version of "punk," now devolved into pop-punk and bubblegum rock.
I always thought police hated punk rock. But it seems what they hate are kids, freedom, rebellion, youthful exuberance.
What's it to do with Buddhism? Like the liberating Dharma itself, punk goes against the stream. I didn't join Noah Levine in his movement. I didn't wait for Keanu Reeves to make a movie about it. And I was no Brad Warner fan, nor even a student of "Zen," except as articulated by Alan Watts on KPFK, the city's only free speech radio outlet. Their were genius front men like Jello Biafra, the person with the most integrity, to be inspired by. There were the Buddha's own words to go by, particularly the Kalama Sutra.
While Blush interviewed the music's usual suspects, including the Dead Kennedys, Misfits and Bad Brains, a substantial amount the book is not surprisingly dedicated to SoCal, from Hollywood to Orange County to the South Bay of Black Flag and SST.
Or, as Blush rightly identified, where "American hardcore was born..." (Bad Brains singer H.R.'s interview in the accompanying 2006 Sony Pictures Classics documentary took place at Griffith Park with a quinceanera in the background).
For the book's second edition, which includes more interviews, flyers, and a new chapter, Blush hosts a readings/discussion at Book Soup today, with Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks), Tony Cadena (Adolescents), Lisa Fancher (Frontier Records), and photographer Edward Colver. Before he left the frigid cold for sunshine, we caught up with the author and talked local pride:
I started in the mid-'90s when the punk revival had happened with Green Day, Offspring, and Rancid. Everybody was talking about hardcore, but it had never really been documented. There was never any written lore other than fanzines, and some great ones, like Flipside in the L.A. area and Maximumrocknroll in San Francisco, notably. More
 Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche Nalandabodhi |  Jane Mcgonigal Reality is Broken |  Shinzen Young The Five Ways |
 Diane “Musho” Hamilton Dragon Heart Sangha |  Ken McLeod Unfettered Mind |  Trudy Goodman InsightLA |
 Ethan Nichtern The ID Project |  Vincent Horn Buddhist Geeks |  Hokai Sobol Mandala Society |
 Danny Fisher University of the West |  Diana Winston UCLA |  Rohan Gunatillake 21awake.com |
 Kenneth Folk Kenneth Folk Dharma |  Afra Moenter Ordinary Awakenings |  Emily Horn Ordinary Awakenings |
 Kelly McGonigal Stanford University |  Michael Trigilio StarveLab |  Benjamin Beirs Classical Guitarist |
PHOTOS
(July 27, 2011) The larger of the two Buddha statues that towered over the Bamiyan Valley [thought by some archeologists and historians to be near the original Kapilavastu, where the buddha-to-be grew up], in central Afghanistan.
The Buddha, once the largest in the world, overlooking the Bamiyan Valley
The winning will come: success, happiness, relief... it is all assured. There may be much to overcome before then. But there is no such thing as being doomed forever in Buddhism. And so long as there is a NOW, there is an opportunity to stave off, mitigate, and oftentimes remedy whatever may be coming.