The Dharma, sutras, and commentarial interpretations of interest to American Buddhists of all traditions with news that not only informs but transforms. Emphasis on meditation, enlightenment, karma, social evolution, and nonharming.
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Harriet Tubman: They called her Moses (2018) | full movie | Dr. Eric Lewis Williams
(Vision Video) Discover the real Harriet Tubman (Araminta Ross, property of Anthony Thompson) in this compelling documentary narrated by Alfrelynn Roberts.
Kanye West, watch your mouth, Yeezy!
It features expert interviews with leading scholars, including Dr. Eric Lewis Williams of the Smithsonian Institute and Carl Westmoreland of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
It also features remarkable early 20th century audio recordings of African-American spirituals sung by former slaves. Harriet Tubman is a familiar and revered name in American history. But many are unfamiliar with the details of her remarkable story, the depth of her character, and the inner motivations that drove her.
Born into slavery in Maryland in the 1820s, Harriet Tubman's resolute Christian faith would compel her to extraordinary acts of courage and sacrifice.
Through her selfless efforts, hundreds of African-American slaves escaped to freedom. Tubman's tenacious trust in God and love for others earned her the title "the Moses of her people."
Discover the real Harriet Tubman in this compelling documentary directed by Robert Fernandez and.
The USA will turn 200-years-old next year. Will we still be allowed to study American history, or will Trump, MAGA, and their anti-DEI movement succeed in erasing the past in the name of "color blindness"?
What we never knew about Harriet Tubman
(Smithsonian Channel) One of our nation's greatest heroes/heroines, Harriet Tubman led slaves north to freedom via secret paths and waterways, but her skills allegedly also made her a valuable military asset to the Union Army.
Tashi delek! Tibetan Uprising Day is observed annually on March 10th. It is a day set aside to remember the Tibetan uprising against the People’s Republic of China’s invasion, destruction, occupation, and continuing presence in Tibet beginning in 1959.
It is observed primarily by pro-Tibetan organizations and people and is frequently accompanied by the Dalai Lama’s delivery of a statement calling for renewed efforts to restore Tibet’s rightful place in the world.
Tibet was once a Himalayan empire extending from Bangladesh to Mongolia, with its "Vatican" at Potala Palace in Lhasa under its Pope-King the Dalai Lama (Numbers 1-14) overseeing, according to communist China, Serfs' Emancipation Day, This is when China led "serfs" to freedom (on what is now Harriet Tubman Day in the U.S.) in Tibet in 1959 in an act of great concern to the second-class citizens. It was not done to increase China's massive territory by another 25%, extending its 5,000-year-old empire inside of a Great Wall (built by a preexisting empire thought to have been Greater Tartaria) to its present and growing borders. Taiwan is next, as is an invasion of Afghanistan after the British, Russian, and U.S. empires failed.
Tibet, as it is today, was first unified in the 7th century AD by King Songsten Gampo and his successors. However, its history began in 127 BC, with the formation of the Yarlung Dynasty.
The [communist] People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China initially entered Tibet in 1949, defeating the small Tibetan army and seizing half of the nation, marking a watershed moment in Tibet’s history [and downfall].
Repression, which included the destruction of holy Buddhist buildings and the arrest of monks (lamas) and other community leaders, rose substantially as resistance to the Chinese occupation grew, particularly in Eastern Tibet.
The communist Chinese government invaded Tibet in 1950, causing chaos and misery for Bon shaman and Vajrayana Buddhist Tibetans, finally resulting in the fall of the Tibetan government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans in 1959.
Brad Pitt's hit movie Seven Years in Tibet depicts events as a Hollywood spin on a book that is a firsthand account of what happened.
The CIA was meddling in the area, seducing the young Dalai Lama XIV to sign a "deal with the devil" to fight China and regain his spiritual-temporal throne, as arrangements were made to arm and train Tibetan Buddhists including the Dalai Lama's brother in Colorado, USA, and send them back to fight the Chinese in very un-Buddhist ways, perhaps leading to the Dalai Lama's infamous view and comment about guns. He accepted payments from the CIA, making him complicit as an "asset," not a "CIA agent" as some might think. These are documented facts (CIA gave 'aid' to Tibetan exiles in '60s, files show - Los Angeles Times) admitted to by "His Holiness" but denied by PR firm advised pro-Tibet American activists concerned with only one side of the propagandastory.
Tibetan prayer flags wave in the wind worldwide
Despite all the religious persecution by the officially atheist communists, loss of their national heritage, and frequent violations of their human rights, Tibetans continue to raise their voices in unison, asking for independence.
Tibet is still considered a sovereign state under international law. Tibet’s sovereignty has NOT been transferred to China as a result of China’s armed invasion and ongoing occupation by the People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.).
All who continue to support this cause believe that someday Tibet will achieve the independence it so dearly desires and deserves. More
The Dalai Lama worked/works for the CIA?
Tibet's pope was king, so we dealt with him.
While the Dalai Lama, a CIA asset, was hesitant to align with the anti-communist Chinese government in Taiwan, his brotherGyalo Thondup, had a lengthy history of contact with the CIA. He was involved in anti-communist governments such as the Kuomintang (KMT) and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek. Brother Thondup spent his early years in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, where he "ate his meals at the Chiang family table, from April 1947 until the summer of 1949, and tutors selected by Chiang educated the boy" [17]. These close contacts with the KMT are confirmed in a 1959 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) bulletin, which reveals that Thondup met with KMT representatives "to sign an agreement which might be the basis for eventual Nationalist recognition of Tibetan 'independence' and a free Tibet government" [18]. More
Well before American Mahayana Buddhists and New Age acolytes began flocking to the feet of Tibet's Dalai Lama, hippies and spiritual seekers were following in the footsteps of [abusive sex cult guru] Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan lama [or rinpoche] who took up residence in the U.S. during the 1970s [after escaping Tibet to study in England, where he abused drugs and a wild lifestyle, molesting marrying a 16-year-old girl, crashing a car and leaving himself partially crippled, bitter, and angry at his sycophantic students who loved his irreverence as it seemed to match their loose Sixties' lifestyle of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll"]. More
I drink, have sex. Maybe I got a little payola, too
WASHINGTON D.C. — For much of the 1960s, the Tibetan exile movement was provided CIA funding to at least the tune of $1.7 million a year for secret "operations" against China, including an annual "subsidy" of $180,000 for the Dalai Lama, according to newly released U.S. intelligence documents.
The money for the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was part of the CIA’s worldwide effort during the height of the Cold War to undermine [destroy] communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China.
In fact, the U.S. government committee that approved the Tibetan operations also authorized the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
The documents, published last month [in 1998] by the U.S. State Department, illustrate the historical background of the situation in Tibet today, in which China continues to accuse the Dalai Lama of being an agent of foreign forces seeking to separate Tibet from China.
Did I know about the deal the Dalai Lama got?
The CIA’s program encompassed support of [violent] Tibetan guerrillas [engaged in warfare] in Nepal, a covert military training site in Colorado [home of the infamous Shambhala sex cult guru Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Naropa Institute], “Tibet Houses” [like Prof. Robert Thurman's TibetHouse.us] established to promote Tibetan causes in New York and Geneva, [violent] education for Tibetan operatives at Cornell University, and supplies for reconnaissance [aka spying] teams. More: LA Times (Sept. 15, 1998)
ICE detention: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
(LastWeekTonight) March 10, 2025: John Oliver discusses ICE detention facilities, who’s in them, who runs them and – of course – why it is totally understandable if our studio audience would rather watch Drew Barrymore’s show instead.
Connect with Last Week Tonight online... Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens, on Facebook like your mom would, on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news, or visit the official website for all that other stuff at once:hbo.com/lastweektonight
How could freshwater get into the underworld? Drainage?
Alabama has a cave wonderland
Spelunking is cool, albeit dangerous, as a sport and pastime. It's incredible when archeologists and anthropologists find human ancestors took psychedelic drugs in caves in Spain, the Americas (like Mexico's cenotes and Mayan sacrifice sitesand Peru's Nazca Lines region), and Africa. Caves are perfect places for preservation of artifacts, including miniature ET bodies. What in the world would a lake be doing under a gas station, which is sure to eventually pollute its pristine waters? What else is to be found in the underworld the government keeps secret from us, with its high-speed railroad system and massive natural and bored cave systems across the country?
Go to Las Vegas and watch the daily workers going underground to do their secret science work in black budget projects, or rediscover great caverns in the Southwest like the massive cities under the Grand Canyon, which were revealed in full newspaper spreads then denied and blocked off to the public. The truth is out there, um, down there. Los Angeles has a widespread system of caves under downtown, which were also revealed by the Los Angeles Times but then denied so that now no one pays any attention. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Massive lake found 170 feet below gas station
(CaveChronicles) March 6, 2025: A gas station owner invited us out to explore a massive cave in the petroleum product dispensary's backyard. We had no idea how huge it would turn out to be -- or how potentially polluted as a garbage pit with possibly volatile compounds in the air.
Check out the channel: @ActionAdventureTwins
Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
The mysterious sounds of Lake Baikal talking - Climbing ice mountain the American way
BRUTAL COLD resistance race in Russia
(Eli from Russia)
March 8, 2025: YAROSLAVL OBLAST. "ICEMAN RUSSIA" is a cold resistance competition that includes weightlifting, running, and swimming in ice water. In Russia, a cold-resistant person is called a "walrus." These people rub snow on their bodies, dive in ice holes, swim short or long distances in icy water. This is why they’re compared to animals that are well adapted to cold weather and accustomed to swimming in freezing water. Swimming in ice water is considered the mastery of cold resistance, so I decided to try it!
📌 To support Eli from Russia on Patreon: elifromrussia
TIMECODES
00:00 Welcome to Yaroslavl region
01:06 Winter swimming competitions in Russia
03:35 Why do Russians train for cold resistance?
06:50 Iceman weightlifting contest
08:35 My turn to suffer! Iceman run and swim
11:50 Heading to Siberia for more freezing challenges
Panentheism (/pæˈnɛnθiɪzəm/, "all in God" from the Greek πᾶν, pân, "all," ἐν, en, "in," and Θεός, Theós, "God") [2] is the belief that the divine intersects every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time.
The term was coined by the German philosopher Karl Krause in 1828 (after reviewing Hindu scriptures) to distinguish the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) about the relation of God and the universe from the supposed pantheism of Baruch Spinoza [2].
Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical [3], panentheism maintains an ontological distinction between the divine and the non-divine and the significance of both.
In panentheism, the universal spirit is present everywhere, which at the same time "transcends" all things created. Whilst pantheism asserts that "all is God," panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe.
Some versions of panentheism suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifestation of God. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God [3], like in the Jewish Kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum.
Much of Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism [4, 5].
In philosophy
ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The religious beliefs of Neoplatonism can be regarded as panentheistic. Plotinus taught that there was an ineffable transcendent God ("the One," to En, τὸ Ἕν) of which subsequent realities were emanations.
From "the One" emanates the Divine Mind (Nous, Νοῦς) and the Cosmic Soul (Psyche, Ψυχή). In Neoplatonism the world itself is God (according to Plato's Timaeus 37).
This concept of divinity is associated with that of the Logos (Λόγος), which had originated centuries earlier with Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BC). The Logos pervades the cosmos, whereby all thoughts and all things originate, or as Heraclitus said:
"He who hears not me but the Logos will say: All is one."
Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus attempted to reconcile this perspective by adding another hypostasis above the original monad of force or Dynamis (Δύναμις).
This new all-pervasive monad encompassed all creation and its original uncreated emanations.
Modern philosophy
Baruch Spinoza later claimed that "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived" [6],
"Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner" [7]. Though Spinoza has been called the "prophet" [8] and "prince" [9] of pantheism, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg Spinoza states that:
"as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken" [10].
For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world.
BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
Reverend Zen Master Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist abbot to tour the United States in 1905–1906. He wrote a series of essays collected into the book Zen For Americans.
In the essay titled "The God Conception of Buddhism" he attempts to explain how a Buddhist looks at the ultimate without an anthropomorphic [androcentric] God figure while still being able to relate to the term God in a Buddhist sense:
"At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience. Again, Buddhism is not pantheistic in the sense that it identifies the universe with God. On the other hand, the [Mahayana] Buddhist God is absolute and transcendent; this world, being merely its manifestation, is necessarily fragmental and imperfect. To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence [17, 18]. The essay then goes on to explain first utilizing the term "God" for the American audience to get an initial understanding of what he means by "panentheism" and then discusses the terms that Buddhism uses in place of "God" such as Dharmakaya [the body of the Dharma], Buddha or Adi-Buddha, and Tathagata [Well Gone One, Welcome One, Suchness]. More
Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
Jesus reveals that Reality is a Simulation in 2,000-year-old gospel
(MorgueOfficial) Premiered March 1, 2025: Ever wonder if EVERYTHING we see could be an illusion (maya) -- a hologram, a simulation, a cosmic deepfake? Jesus figured it out 2,000 years ago. What’s even wilder is that modern physics is proving it now. Who's Gurdjieff?
What does science (physics) say this world is? - If we imagine "energy" as light, there's matter
The Big Bang? Why would nothing explode into all?
Where did Jesus the Nazarene (compassionate vegetarian Yeshua/Issa/Joshua, likely an Essene, who traveled to India during his missing 18 years) get these ideas? Dr. Ammon Hillman assures us it was through consumption of entheogenic mysteries (drugs, poisons, natural psychedelics likely different forms of DMT, The Spirit Molecule, and 5-MeO-DMT reptilian venom like toad Bufo.
Why would there be a connection between Christianity and Buddhism, which is five or more centuries older? Jesus spent time as a Buddhist monk, which helped him realize his divinity (deva, "light being," nature or potential), all of our divinities. To ever say one is "GOD" will get one unalived for ridiculed in society, but that is what the Christ, the Kristos, the Annointed One (smeared with entheogens, according to Dr. Hillman).
Whether Jesus said so or not, whether this Gnostic gospel is literally one historical figure's words, whether or not the figure into whose mouth these words are being put by the Gnostic Christians, Buddhism speaks this same way its "Higher Doctrine" (the Abhidhamma or the "Dharma/Doctrine in Ultimate Terms").
In conventional terms, "reality" (self/atta and the world/loka) is name-and-form (nama-rupa), body and mind, or composed of physical (corporeal) and mental (mind) components. But in ultimate terms, it is impersonal (anatta) materiality and mentality composed of kalapas (particles) and cittas/cetasikas (mind-moments and mental-concomitants).
This is all found alluded to in The Heart Sutra, the culmination of the Prajna Paramita or "Perfection of Wisdom" literature, reaching Sophia. The core of that text are explained very well in the Theravada school's "Five Aggregates clung to as self" teachings.
What are we? What is anything? The "self" or "essence" (figuratively, the "heart") of any thing is eightfold. But this eight is compacted into five. What are the Five Heaps or Groups of things?
form (this is fourfold, the Four Great Elements or maha-dhatus);
feelings
perceptions
mental formations
consciousness(es).
Why are they all plural? Isn't "consciousness" a thing? They are heaps, groups, piles, collections, aggregates. There isn't one but countless of them. Consciousness (vinnana) is not a solid "thing" but a fluid process, a stream of cittas and cetasikas, a stream of consciousness.
See the division? The first four are listed as just "form" (rupa or kaya, materiality or body). The second four are spelled out a little more. But the Buddha kept it brief because No. 4 is actually 50 different things, usually translated as "impulses" or "intentions" (cetanas), the way all the members of a village might be called by the village leader's name; that leader is not the only person in the village. Moreover, No. 5 is not one thing, cittas (mind-moments), but also includes cetasikas (mental concomitants). Feelings are not of one kind, but they are just called "feelings" (vedana). Perceptions, too, are not singular but of different kinds. All of these are explained in the texts and teaching, as these are only rough English translations of a very deep psychological terms. The purpose is not academic but extremely practical. Their purpose is liberation by wisdom. One must first purify (cleanse) the mind and intensify it so that insight meditation practices (satipatthanas) can have their intended effect: liberating insight, transcendental wisdom.
Did Jesus have any capacity to explain this? To whom could he have taught it, simple fishermen back home? Whatever he learned and realized in the Himalayas, at Hemis Gompa (a Tibetan lamasery visited by Russian Christian Nicolas Notovitch, who told the world all about the documented evidence he found there thanks to the abbot who recognized that Buddhism and Christianity at a very deep level were teaching the same thing.
We can make many distinctions, but Gnosticism accords very well, and Vedic/Brahminical Hinduism is not far off, as may also be said of Jainism. Sadly, it does not seem members of these other traditions realize the deep similarities. We might about the superficial, and we fail to grasp the deep truths. It would be possible to find correspondences between all the traditions. So many of the things that make no sense in Catholicism/Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (the Abrahamic religions) certainly do make sense in Hinduism and Buddhism and Jainism (the Dharmic religions).
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Alan Watts, Something's Happening, KPFK.org, March 9, 2025
Zen as Taoism and Mahayana-Hinduism
I'd rather talk about Taoism than Dhamma
The Tao is not Buddhism, but it has been made into Buddhism (at least the version of Buddhism called Zen) by incorporating Taoist philosophy into the Buddhism of Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam. It is far from the only form of Buddhism, in some ways straying so far from the historical Buddha's Teaching or Dharma that one could call it into question as a syncretism or apocryphal Mahayana doctrine. Who has time for the sutras the Buddha spoke when we can look at koans ("public cases") and puzzle over them to get out of our intellectual minds? They're funnier, more surprising, paradoxical riddles and entertaining stories. We might never learn what the Buddha taught, but hey, come on, life is short, and we have all the time in the world to waste. Plus, Zen looks cool, and that's half the battle right there. We might even get a cool Japanese name. Right, Doggone?
Can I get the name Kwan Chan Kane?
The Japanese term kōan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word gong'an (Chinese 公案, pinyin gōng'àn, Wade–Giles kung-an, lit. "public case"). The Zen term is a compound word, consisting of the characters 公 ("public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable") and 案 ("table; desk, altar; [law] case; record; file; plan; mandate, proposal.") More
It's funny in that, if it leads to a sudden realization (kensho, epiphany, satori), the way a joke is funny because we are led down one road in the setup and down another in the punchline, it's like someone hitting a gong, at least in the sitcom world of our imagination and American TV shows depicting Asian or "Oriental" way of speaking, full of deep wisdom and a sudden change of perspective. For example, Douglas Adams was famous for his ability to turn a phrase, one time depicting the ET character Ford Prefect (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) complaining to the human Arthur Dent:
FORD: "It feels unpleasantly like being drunk."
ARTHUR: "Well, what's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
FORD: "You ask a glass of water."
We thought "drunk" referred to being intoxicated then suddenly find out Ford meant the past tense of drink. This kind of turning led to a whole class of Orientalisms (intended in the pejorative sense of Westerners stereotyping an Asian manner of speaking), leading to a famous class of jokes like:
"Man who fart in church sit in his own pew" where pew is pronounced phew!
This is significant because the Tao is translated as "the Way," but the Buddha taught that "Way" or "Path" was magga, the Noble (Ennobling, Enlightening) Eightfold Path, not following the Tao or "path of least resistance," going with the flow, just doing whatever.
Soto Zen monk in meditation pose
Alan Watts knows that, but do his listeners realize he is most of the time talking about Taoism and Vedic Hinduism rather than what the Buddha taught, for that is what Mahayana concerns itself (the former, not so much the latter). Ask a Mahayana Buddhist what the historical Buddha taught, and they won't know much of anything beyond lists, which they imagine are very rudimentary and obvious, whereas they extol their apocryphal texts as being "the real thing" Siddhartha Gautama meant but never said. The most famous Buddhist sutras are not the Buddha's teaching but derivative works of clever invention: the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Platform Sutra, Flower Adornment Sūtra, all kinds of nice-sounding Sanskrit texts, leaving to the wayside what the Buddha taught as key to enlightenment and progress in wisdom and compassion. Alan Watts hardly ever mentions Theravada (Pali canon) or Sarvastivada Buddhism, preferring instead the Eastern philosophy of India, China, and Japan. As long as listeners know that, he is a great "philosophical entertainer." If they do not realize that, he must be very confusing.
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