Thursday, November 27, 2014

A Buddhist Thanksgiving: Gratitude (video)

Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly
The vegetable world directly feeds us and keeps us healthy when we eat close to the land.


Don't pay butchers to kill me!
(JB/BC/OG) Dr. DeWitt in depth on the movie "Forks Over Knives." A plant-based diet (a "live it") is critical to a healthy life! There are natural solutions to achieve great health if we educate ourselves on alternatives to toxic medicines, the Standard American Diet (SAD), and a medical system more interested in making money than curing anything. How about a video course with 21 videos, three manuals, and an online forum to reverse arthritis?

(The Cardigans) Nina Persson performing Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" with the Filharmonikerna I Det Gröna orchestra live at DN Sommarkonsert 2011.

What is it like at the Scandinavian Larson house or the Latino Quintero home on Thanksgiving? More similar than one might think. We were both listening to "Good Food" on KCRW FM (Santa Monica) and "Pure Energy Radio" with Chef Steve Factor (Special Programming 2, 1:00 pm, KPFK FM) as we made vegetarian goodies in the kitchen -- blasphemy in both cultures. We need death on the table to make it an authentic cultural "feast."
FILM: Forks Over Knives
We should ask Laila Re what Afghan expats in Canada do for dinner on this day of gratitude. They have Thanksgiving in Canada, only it's different than the American origin story.

Instead, Marco Werman and "The World" (PRI.org/BBC) gets that answer from two ex-Afghan translators now living in Virginia. And for added spice he also talks to Ritu Chatterjee about how this HARVEST FESTIVAL, which is what "Thanksgiving" really is and/or was for the first British colonial settlers/invaders.

Why would Puritanical British Christians displace Native Americans, ethnically cleanse most of them, and then go around saying they found this land empty and without people as if this were the new "Israel" and British war planners were conspiring with Jewish Zionists to invade Palestine? Just doing the Christian God's work of capitalist expansionism?

(Virgil Films) "Forks Over Knives" What has happened to us in the USA? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure.

What about homemade soda? Try culturing.
Four hundred years ago this year, the mercenary John Smith and Pocahontas named Plymouth, Mass. (See Peter Firstbrook's A Man Most Driven). The history of the USA is very twisted and layered over with myth and propaganda. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz (An Indigenous History of America) shows us what happened over the last 200 years. But finding out about the 200 years before that will probably take a while longer.

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE (C2C, 11-27-14) Eldon Taylor (eldontaylor.com) -- bestselling author and inventor of the patented InnerTalk technology and the founder and president of Progressive Awareness Research, talks about Thanksgiving and the power of gratitude and positive thought -- explains how it’s always time to be happy and successful. Why? Being thankful is a major step toward moving forward and living a satisfying and ultimately fulfilling life.

Pocahontas collaborating with genocidal European invaders? It's more complex.
Smith, Pocahontas, and the founding of America (oneworld-publications.com)
   
A Buddhist Thanksgiving
Overeating the dead like lives don't matter?
So rather than sharing guacamole recipes and how to make potatoes delicious Scandinavian style, or music tips for great Latin Grammy winners and orchestrated classical European shopping themes, we ask the question, How can we bring gratitude back to Harvest Festival celebrations around the world?

On Gratitude (Kataññu Sutras)
Wisdom Quarterly translation based on Ven. Thanissaro (AN 2.31-32)

East meets West (soultravelers3.com)
What did the Buddha teach? "Meditators, I will teach you the distinction between the inferior and superior person. Listen, attend (give close attention), and I will explain."
 
"As you say, venerable sir," the monastics replied.
 
"Now who is the inferior person? It is a person who is without gratitude and without thankfulness. This ingratitude and lack of thankfulness is advocated by miserable people. It is inferior.

"But a superior person is grateful and thankful. This gratitude and thankfulness is advocated by uplifting people."

Mother and Father
Repaying parents (Raghogarh Shravana Kumar)
{II,iv,2} "I tell you, monastics, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Who are these two? One's own mother and father.

"Even if one were to carry one's mother on one shoulder and father on the other shoulder for 100 years, and were to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, and rubbing their limbs, and they were to defecate and urinate right there [on shoulders], still one would not in that way ever actually repay them.

"If one were to establish mother and father in absolute sovereignty over this entire planet abounding in the seven treasures, still one would not in that way ever repay one's parents. And why is that? It is because mother and father do much for their children. They care for them, nourish them, introduce them to this world. But anyone who
  • rouses one's doubt-ridden mother and father, settles and establishes them in confidence (saddha, conviction, faith in the Dharma),
  • rouses one's unvirtuous mother and father, settles and establishes them in virtue (sila),
  • rouses one's stingy mother and father, settles and establishes them in generosity (dana),
  • rouses one's foolish mother and father, settles and establishes them in wisdom (panna)
to this extent one actually repays one's mother and father." More: MN 110, SN 7.14, AN 4.73, Iti 106
Cup of Java, Aratani Theatre, Nov. 29, 2014 (festivalofsacredmusic.org via KPFK.org)

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