Myanmar earthquake aftershocks: massive destruction in Burma, Thailand, and China, people trapped (Wild WeatherUS) March 30, 2025: A devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), killing at least 1,700 people [with many left unaccounted for], injuring thousands, collapsing buildings as far away as Bangkok, Thailand, and prompting urgent rescue efforts amid ongoing aftershocks and a deepening humanitarian crisis. #earthquake#myanmar#bangkok
Videos show water gushing from a rooftop pool and a high-rise building collapse as a massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar (Buddhist Burma) and Thailand.
Up to 100,000 are feared dead with dozens still trapped under mountains of rubble after skyscrapers, religious buildings (golden temples), and family homes crumbled to the ground. Read more: thesun.co.uk/news/3410922...
Meanwhile, Israel bombs Beirut, Lebanon
#TheSun #News #Myanmar Subscribe to The Sun: @thesun. Get The Sun's latest news, exclusives, sport, celebrities, showbiz, politics, business, and lifestyle.
Read The Sun: thesun.co.uk. Facebook: thesun. X: thesun. TikTok: thesun. Subscribe to The Sun on Snapchat: 1633225139. #TheSun #News #myanmar #thailand
Inside a Military Dictatorship (Myanmar documentary) | Real Stories
(Real Stories) Nov. 19, 2023: Burma/Myanmar’s path to democracy leads along the bumpy road of a 50-year military dictatorship. Long stretches were traversed with the incomparable endurance of the hopes of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Finally in power after more than 20 years of house arrest, the grave human rights violations by the country against the Muslim minority of the Rohingya [who long ago sided with the British and were defeated, leading to hatred by many in the country who regarded them as foreigners from neighboring Bangladesh and traitors who fought against the Burmese] nevertheless continue across the country.
[When finally in power and asked about the Rohingya, Aung San Suu Kyi spoke like a politician or a person in denial about the military's atrocities with regard to the Rohingya ethnic minority. She fell from grace in the eyes of the West and presumably the rest of the world, while still loved by the Burmese people who are barred from having her rise to lead the country because the military dictators behind the scenes and now in front again have made laws the forbid it.]
Myanmar provides the setting for a seemingly absurd political power game. Filmmaker Karen Stokkendal Poulsen pointed her camera at the former peace icon and the retired generals to provide a captivating investigative exploration of the opposing coexistence of a woman and the military.
The story of a political miracle which, unfortunately, ceased to be one.
Twitter: realstoriesdocs,
Facebook: realstorieschannel,
Instagram: @realstoriesdocs. Content licensed from [First Hand Films]. Any queries, please contact: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com
The Journal, 1/16/17; Sony Pictures; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
I'm Green Tara Kwan Yin, and he's the Irish Buddha Scythianmuni the Shakya/Scythian
Becoming a Buddhist in Ireland
(The Journal) Dharmachari ("Dharma Teacher") Vajrashura is one of four full-time teaching staff members at the Dublin Buddhist Centre (DBC), which is a registered charity.
Lawrence Carroll became Ven. Dhammaloka
Along with six other regular volunteers, they teach Buddhist meditation to approximately 600 new students a year, and Buddhism to another 100.
The DBC is the fulcrum of a wider community of 1,500 Buddhists in the Dublin area and has sister communities (or sanghas) in Killaloe, Clare and Westport, Co Mayo.
Dhr. Vajrashura grew up as Sean Boland in the west of Ireland, before coming across Buddhism in the TCD Meditation Society as a theoretical physics graduate.
Now 39, he is a full-time Buddhist teacher and lives with two friends in a small Buddhist men’s community in Dublin 7. There, they meditate at 7:00 am each morning, breakfast together, and go off to work – in his case as manager of the DBC (jrnl.ie/3130287).
ABOUT: TheJournal.ie is an Irish news website that invites its users to shape the news agenda. Read, share, and shape the day’s stories as they happen, from Ireland, the world, and the web.
Submit clips to video@thejournal.ie. Stay up to date with all of the latest videos by subscribing to channel.
Download our free iOS app (itunes.apple.com).
Download free Android app (play.google.com).
Twitter: twitter.com/thejournal_ie
Facebook: facebook.com/TheJournal.ie
Instagram: instagram.com/thejournal_ie
Snapchat: thejournal.ie.
The Miracle Club
The King of Ireland (via Imperial Rome)
It's Ireland. You can be Catholic, Roman Catholic, New Catholic or Episcopalian, possibly Protestant, and maybe if you're really lucky Buddhist on the coattails of Lawrence O'Rourke, who became the world's first Western Buddhist monk -- U Dhammaloka -- when he left for the States and onto Asia (Mandalay, Burma).
Go to Lourdes, Ladies. We approve
Will you hold me, Friend? Yes, I'll "hold you like a grudge" (FOB). Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan. Starring: Laura Linney, Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates. Set in 1967, THE MIRACLE CLUB follows the story of three generations of close friends, Lily (Maggie Smith), Eileen (Kathy Bates), and Dolly (Agnes O'Casey) of Ballygar, a hard-knocks community in Dublin, Ireland, who have one tantalizing dream: to win a pilgrimage to the sacred French Catholic town of Lourdes, a place of miracles that draws millions of visitors each year.
Who was the Irish "Dharma Bum" Lawrence Carroll or U Dhammaloka
When the chance to win presents itself, the women seize it. However, just before their trip, their old friend Chrissie (Laura Linney) arrives in Ballygar for her mother's funeral, dampening their good mood and well-laid plans. The women set out on the journey that they hope will change their lives, with Chrissie, a skeptical traveler, joining in place of her mother.
The glamour and sophistication of Chrissie, who has just returned from a nearly 40-year exile in the United States, are not her only distancing traits: Old wounds are reopened along the way, forcing the women to confront their pasts even as they travel in search of a miracle.
#TheMiracleClub #OfficialTrailer #SonyClassics
Associate Professor Laurence Cox, National University of Ireland Maynooth and Professor Emeritus Brian Bocking, University College Cork, gave a lecture on "Forgotten and Remembered: [Venerable] U Dhammaloka The Irish Buddhist Monk" on July 24, 2020 via Microsoft Teams, which is an online platform.
This is the second lecture of the Rainy Season Research Series Talks.
The Rainy Season Research Series is courtesy of Transnational Network of Theravada [Buddhist] Studies and hosted for this season by Shan State Buddhist University and King's College London.
This talk is organized and recorded by Prof. Kate Crosby (King's College London).
#SSBU Media
Bhante Subhuti, live from Pa Auk, Burma, 10/27/15; Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
The Buddha launched a forest tradition of wandering ascetics letting go and awakening.
Knowing and Seeing: Pa Auk Forest Monastery
(American Theravada Buddhist monk Ven. Subhuti) Life at Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Mawlamyine, Burma is enlightening. This film was originally made for my brother in 2005 from a silent 55-minute video shot by a group from England in 2003.
If it seems at all longwinded or for people with long attention spans, have a look at the original.
As I was recording the audio commentary, "Um, this is the clinic," a friend told me to add background sound for atmosphere. There later came a script with a "narrator's voice." I was doing the best I could do to sound professional and detached.
It is all to give a glimpse of this remarkable place, where people really come and become enlightened.
An Unholy Alliance: Monks and the Military in Myanmar
(Al Jazeera English, March 18, 2019) With almost 90 percent of Myanmar/Burma's population being devoted Theravada Buddhists, the religion [like neighboring Thailand] has been at the heart of the nation's very identity for centuries.
But while the pillars of Buddhist teachings are love (metta), compassion, and peace, there is a very different variation to the philosophy being taught at the Ma Ba Tha ("Patriotic Association of Myanmar") monastery in Yangon/Rangoon's Insein township.
The monks there are connected to one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, the systematic persecution and genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state.
Al Jazeera's unprecedented access to the Ma Ba Tha monastery and its leaders offers a glimpse into how their ultra-nationalist agenda is becoming the blueprint for the political structure of the country.
Is the joining of forces between monks and the dictatorial generals threatening Myanmar's young and fragile parliamentary democracy that incorporates Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi?
Pat Macpherson and, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly based on Burmese article by Wei Yan Aung translated by Thet Ko Ko, Irrawaddy Times (irrawaddy.com, May 25, 2020)
The sad day Burma's most esteemed foreign monk passed away
RANGOON, Burma - Today in 1966, Italian-American Buddhist monk and missionary Ven. U Lokanatha (who was born Salvatore Cioffi in 1897 and raised in Brooklyn, New York) passed away in Pyin Oo Lwin (Maymyo, Mandalay region). He dedicated his life to promoting Buddhism worldwide.
Inspired by the Dhammapada, the "Sayings of the Buddha," New York University graduate in chemistry Cioffi became interested in Buddhism and entered the monastic order in Burma in 1925 at the age of 28.
Irish Laurence Carroll was the first Western monk.
From his base in Burma, the Italian-American monk traveled to many countries including Thailand, Sri Lanka, Italy, France, and the United States, promoting Buddhism.
When World War II broke out, he was in British India and like other Europeans abroad, he was confined by British authorities in a prison camp, where he introduced some of his fellow prisoners to Buddhism. He also organized a dramatic 96-day hunger strike to demand his religious rights as a Buddhist, until he was eventually forcibly fed by the jailers.
He was later incarcerated for seven days in France for collecting alms, which many misunderstand to be begging. [It is offering others the opportunity to volunteer to support and thereby make merit by cultivating charity called dana.]
Although U Lokanatha (Cioffi) preached widely and wrote numerous books about Buddhism, the compassionate vegetarian spent much of his time meditating in caves and forests.
As such he garnered a higher esteem than his predecessor, the foreign monk and English Buddhist missionary Ananda Metteyya (Charles Henry Allan Bennett), and the British writer in Burma George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four, Burmese Days, and 1936's "Shooting an Elephant").
Allan Bennett, a colleague of the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, received the name "Ananda Metteyya" in British Ceylon (Sri Lanka) when he ordained as a Buddhist monk, studying and practicing in the East. He was the second Englishman to become a Theravada Buddhist monk (bhikkhu) and was instrumental in introducing Buddhism to England [as the PTS scholars had done since at least 1881, modeled on EETS of 1864], where he established the first Buddhist mission in the UK (WQ, Wiki, Stephen Batchelor's The Awakening of the West, p. 40).
U Lokanatha attracted many devotees as he crossed Burma and asked spiritual questions of senior monks who were widely considered to be enlightened (arhats), those awakened and thereby freed from the endless cycle of rebirth and suffering.
The Italian-American monk lived in Burma for many decades, moving from the colonial period to post-independence and military domination. He passed from cancer at the age of 68.
(Philip Deslippe) BIOGRAPHY: Salvatore Cioffi, who became Venerable Lokanatha (1897–1966), was born in Italy and raised in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
After becoming a Buddhist in his late-20s, U Lokanatha travelled to Burma, took ordination as a monk, and began a remarkable 40 year career as a writer, lecturer, organizer, and Buddhist "missionary" throughout South Asia and the world.
U Lokanatha garnered various responses. They are contextualized in the different cultural spheres in which he operated, from the anti-colonial Buddhist revival in Burma to the mocking indifference U Lokanatha found in the United States.
Scholarship on modern Buddhism, particularly recent work on the Irish monk, who first traveled to California then Asia, U Dhammaloka [Laurence Carroll], is used to situate U Lokanatha's life and its facets of conservative reformer and transnational actor.
Finally, an account of the source material used to reconstruct the life of U Lokanatha is employed.
It offers a practical methodological explanations for his absence from conventional narratives of modern Buddhism and what his inclusion along with other figures might mean in the future.More
The Satipatthana Sutra as interpreted by Ven. Vimalaramsi
The discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (MN 10) is here tackled by an unpleasant and disregarded American monk who trained in Burma for many years: Ven. Vimalaramsi recorded this on August 19, 2019.
These instructions have been the source of much consternation and debate. They are not obvious but rather the subject of considerable debate and interpretation. The Buddha sets out four pillars or foundations -- a fourfold setting up of bare awareness -- in two major discourses.
This maverick monk, who sounds full of himself, gives a different perspective on what he thinks the Buddha taught. He looks at this sutra in a way that leads to the development of what he calls his own method, "TWIM" (tranquil wisdom insight meditation) and his 6Rs.
This sutra is said to lead to the highest attainment of the spiritual life, nirvana. But the breath meditation (anapanasati) taught in this and other sutras is taught in a slightly different way than is practiced by most meditators who follow the commentaries. Adding the step of tranquilization, Ven. Vimalaramsi claims, makes all the difference in the result.
Visit him in Annapolis, Missouri to find out. Dare to question the opinions and views he clings to, and see his true colors, which appear to be very angry, annoyed, and condescending. "Enlightened master" or "egomaniac" who misses the point of Buddhist practice? (Any Buddhist practitioner might be enlightened, because enlightenment purifies view not personality; we keep our quirks and customs). We apologize for presenting him to any viewers offended by this monk's sometimes off-putting manner.
This is a very important question. There are two kinds of Buddhist meditation -- meditating to develop calm and meditating to
develop insight.
Meditating on the ten meditative devices only gives rise to calm rather than
insight. Meditating on the ten foul things (i.e., an unsightly swollen corpse), too,
only gives rise to calm, not insight.
The Ten Recollections, like remembering
the Buddha, the Dharma, and others, too, can develop calm but not insight.
Meditating on the 32 parts of the body -- like hair, nails, teeth, skin --
these too are not insight. They develop only calm concentration.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness (sati) of breathing is also concentration-developing, but one can
develop insight from it as well. The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), however, includes it in the
concentration subjects, so we will call it as such here.
Then there are the Four Divine Abidings (brahma-viharas) -- love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and
equanimity -- and the Four Formless States leading to formless meditative absorptions (jhānas).
Then, there is
the meditation on the loathsomeness of food. All of these are subjects for
concentration-meditation.
Both
Venerable Burmese scholar-monk Mahasi Sayadaw
When one meditates on the Four Elements inside the body, it is called the
"analysis of the Four Elements." Although this is a concentration-meditation, it
helps develop insight as well.
All of these 40 subjects of meditation are subjects for developing
concentration. Only mindfulness of breathing and analysis of the Four Elements have to do with
insight.
The others will not give rise to insight. If one wants insight, one will
have to work further.
To come back to the question, How do we develop insight? The answer is that we
develop insight by meditating on the Five Aggregates of Clinging.
The mental and
material ("name-and-form," nama-rupa) qualities inside beings are aggregates of clinging. They may be grasped
with delight by craving, in which case it is called "grasping of the sense
objects" -- or they may be grasped wrongly by wrong views -- in which case it is
called "clinging through wrong views."
One has to meditate on them and see them
as they truly are. If one does not, one will grasp them with craving and wrong
views.
Once we see them as they truly are, we will no longer cling to them them. In this way one
develops insight. We will discuss the Five Aggregates of Clinging in detail. More
320. As an elephant in the battlefield
withstands arrows shot from bows all around, even so shall I endure
abuse. There are many, indeed, who lack virtue.
321. A tamed elephant is led into a crowd,
and the ruler mounts a tamed elephant. Best among humans is the subdued one
who endures abuse.
322. Excellent are well-trained mules,
thoroughbred Sindhu horses, and noble tusker elephants. But better still
is the person who has subdued him or herself.
323. Not by these mounts, however, would
one go to the Untrodden Land (nirvana), as one who is self-tamed goes by
one's own tamed and well-controlled mind (heart).
The American Buddhist nun Ayya Tathaaloka giving the gift of the Dharma (bhikkhuni.net).
324. Musty during rut, the tusker-elephant named Dhanapalaka* is uncontrollable. Held in captivity, the tusker does not
touch a morsel of food, but only longingly calls to mind the elephant forest.
325. When a person is sluggish and
gluttonous, sleeping and rolling around in bed like a fat domestic pig,
that sluggard undergoes rebirth again and again.
Elephant perahera (flickr.com)
326. Formerly this mind (heart) wandered about as
it liked, where it wished and according to its pleasure, but now I shall
thoroughly master it with wisdom as a mahout controls with ankus an
elephant in rut.
327. Delight in heedfulness! Guard well
your thoughts! Draw yourself out of this bog of harm, even as an
elephant draws itself out of the mud.
328. If for company you find a wise and prudent friend who leads a good life, you should, overcoming all
impediments, keep that person's company joyfully and mindfully.
329. If for company you cannot find a wise
and prudent friend who leads a good life, then, like a king who leaves
behind a conquered kingdom, or like a lone elephant in the elephant
forest, go your way alone.
330. Better it is to live alone; there is
no keeping fellowship with a fool. Live alone and do no harm; be carefree like
an elephant in the elephant forest.
331. Good are friends when need arises;
good is contentment with just what one has; good is merit when life is
at an end; and good is the abandoning of all suffering (through enlightenment).
332. In this world, good it is to serve
one's mother, good it is to serve one's father, good it is to serve monastics, and good it is to serve the enlightened persons.
333. Good is virtue until life's end, good
is confidence that is steadfast, good is the acquisition of wisdom, and good
is the avoidance of harmful karma.
Nālāgiri was an elephant who lived in the royal stalls at Rājagaha.
Ven. Devadatta, after several vain attempts to kill
the Buddha, obtained Prince
Ajātasattu's consent to use Nālagiri as a
means of bringing about the Buddha's death.
The elephant, he said, knows nothing
of the Buddha's virtues. He will have no hesitation in destroying him. Nālagiri
was indeed a fierce animal, but in order to increase his fierceness, Devadatta
instructed his keeper (mahout) to give him twice his usual amount of alcoholic toddy.
A proclamation
was then made with the beating of drums that the streets of the city should be
cleared as Nālāgiri would be let loose upon them.
The people ran, but Ananda stepped in to save the Buddha. The Buddha saved himself and the royal elephant Nalagiri, who was soothed with waves of loving-kindness (metta).
In Parileyyaka forest
The Buddha was informed
of this and warned against going into the city for alms. He ignored the warning
and went into Rājagaha with monastics from the city's 18 monasteries.
At the sight of the tusker elephant Nālāgiri, the people fled in terror.
Ven. Ananda, on seeing the elephant advancing towards
the Buddha, went in spite of the Buddha's orders to the contrary: he stood in
front of the Buddha, who had to make use of his supernatural power to move him.
Just then a woman carrying a child saw the elephant coming
and fled. In her terror she dropped the child at the Buddha's feet. As the elephant
was about to attack the child, the Buddha spoke to him, suffusing him with loving kindness and, stretching out his right hand, he stroked the
animal's forehead.
Thrilled with joy at the touch, Nālāgiri sank on his knees
before the Buddha, and the Buddha taught him the Dharma.
It is said that had the elephant not been a wild beast, he would have become a
stream enterer. Marveling at the sight,
the assembled people threw all of their ornaments on the elephant's body
covering it. And henceforth the elephant was known as Dhanapāla
(Dhanapālaka).
It is said (Mil. 349) that 900 hundred million living beings who witnessed the
miracle realized the truth.
The Bodhisattva [the Buddha before enlightenment] in a past life was once riding an elephant when he saw a
non-teaching buddha. Intoxicated by his own glory, he made the elephant charge at him. It was as a result of this action (karma) that the Buddha, in this
rebirth, was charged by Nālāgiri (UdA.265; Ap.i.300). Compare at
Donamukha.
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
.jpg)
