I'm a Mexican Buddhist (video)

Crystal I. Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (PART 1)

Mexican-American in L.A. Sit and sit, wait and wait, grow and grow (Yoga9v/facebook)

Nathalie Cardone sings "Hasta Siempre" (Forever, lit. Until Always) subtitled lyrics

Devotion (Guido Dingemans/flickr.com)

Can one be Latin American and Buddhist? It seems like such an American, particularly a Californian, thing to do. Then I think, California was Latin America, a part of Mexico, until it was invaded and annexed by the USA. This was during the American-Spanish War, post British colonial invasion, after Columbus and the Conquistadores buttered up the people with European diseases and sadistic Old World ways.

The amazing thing is that Mexico and Mesoamerica (the stretch of land between North America and South America), El Norte being the US, Canada, and Greenland, was Buddhist long before it was Catholic, Christian, or agnostic.

Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch, Latin-Irish revolutionary hero

(Society for Irish Latin American Studies)

Afghan Buds in America

For long ago Asian Buddhist monks from China visited and shared a wealth of advanced technological knowledge about spirituality, religion, pottery, art, food, and everything (and everyone) under the Sun.

It's how the Native Americans -- the American "Indians," the First Nations of Canada, the Indigenous Mexicans, the Inuit of Alaska and Greenland -- got such advanced spiritual knowledge while presumably living like cave dwellers in a "savage" pre-colonial environment.

Hope Sandoval, once lead singer of Mazzy Star, performing their greatest hit, "Fade Into You"

Which world-religion was first?

Wisdom Quarterly has covered much of this shocking new historical territory (with Rick Fields, Edward P. Vining, the History Channel, National Geographic, Hendon Harris, and others), so the real question is, Why would any modern person prefer to find guidance in the Enlightened One?

If the first Noble Truth is "All conditioned existence is disappointing or unsatisfactory," my own suffering, particularly in the Love Department, resonates with that. I weep, I hurt, I'm happy to roll in disappointing-sensuality, and I'm yet to be fulfilled. 

When I date, I fade into you. When I yearn for social justice, I want to be Che and always and forever fight for freedom and justice, not in name like imperial US wars but in truth. Like, maybe, the real struggle for liberation I need to wage is for personal liberation. It would help everyone around me, it would free me, and it would lead to world peace or peace in the world anyway. I am you, you are me, we're different, we're the same, we're all one, we've yet to meet... So you see, the Buddha is the best guide to find the freedom and light he found. Buena suerte (Good luck).