The Springs fire has scorched at least 18,000 acres [of the Santa Monica mountains next to LA County, UPDATE: 44 square miles] between Pacific
Coast Highway and the 101 Freeway, damage worsened by a harrowing
about-face shift in winds that sent the fire roaring back to the north. More
The Buddha's Fire Sermon
Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly based on Ñanamoli Thera translation (SN 35.28)
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| If only authorities could aid Buddhist protesters like Lt. John Pike (WQ) |
Thus have I heard. Once the Buddha was living at Gaya, in
Gaya Head, together with 1,000 monastics, and there he addressed them:
"Meditators, ALL is burning! What 'all'?
"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning,
eye-contact is burning, and whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or
neutral that arises with eye-contact as its
indispensable condition, that too is burning! Burning with what?
"It is burning
with the fire of lust (greed), with the fire of hate (aversion), with the fire of
delusion (wrong view). I say it is burning with birth, aging, and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair.
"The ear is burning, sounds are burning... The nose is burning, odors are burning... The tongue is burning, flavors are burning... The body is burning, tangibles are burning...
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| The historical Buddha Gautama, Shakyamuni ("Sage of the Shakya Clan"), Thailand |
"The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is
burning, mind-contact is burning, and whatever is felt as pleasant,
painful, or neutral that arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning! Burning with what?
"It is burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of
delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging, and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair.
"Meditators, when a noble hearer who has heard (the truth) knows-and-sees this,
that person finds estrangement in the eye, in forms, in eye-consciousness, in eye-contact,
and whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or neutral that arises with eye-contact as its indispensable
condition, in that too one finds estrangement. ...in the ear... in sounds... in the nose... in odors... in the tongue... in flavors... in the body... in tangibles...
"One finds estrangement in the mind, in ideas, in mind-consciousness, in
mind-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or
neutral that arises with mind-contact as its
indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.
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| Golden Buddha Shakyamuni (Laurence Hunt) |
"With estrangement, passion [greed, grasping, clinging] fades out. With the fading of
passion, one is liberated. When liberated, there arises knowledge that one is
liberated. One understands: 'Rebirth is exhausted, the supreme-life has been
lived, what was to be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'"
That is what the Blessed One said. The meditators were glad, and they cherished and approved the Enlightened One's words.
During this utterance the hearts/mind of those 1,000 meditators were liberated from the taints by letting go and clinging no more.
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