This is the time of mooncakes and the traditional Sabbath Day or uposatha. That means it's the best time to observe the "fasting day," which means not eating before daylight or after noon. This is part of observing the Eight Precepts, an ancient tradition the Buddha praised as something worth continuing.
How do Buddhists observe the uposatha service?
(Buddhism Reflections) Uposatha days hold a special significance on the Buddhist calendar, particularly in the Theravada tradition. These weekly observance days are aligned with the phases of the moon, including the full moon, new moon, and two quarter moons.
During these times, both lay Buddhists and monastics engage in various practices that enhance their spiritual journeys. On the one hand, lay practitioners often take on additional precepts, dedicating themselves to deeper spiritual activities and community involvement.
Monastics, on the other hand, focus on reflection and purification, reciting the Patimokkha ("Path to Moksha"), a summary of the major rules of the Monastic Code of Discipline, which is a vital aspect of their monastic life.
The uposatha service is not just about individual practice; it also fosters a sense of community as laypeople gather at monasteries to support monks and nuns through food preparation and participation in rituals (pujas).
This day is steeped in tradition and serves as a reminder of the commitment to the Dhammaor Teachings of the historical Buddha.
The observance of uposatha varies slightly among different sects and countries, adding a unique flavor to this rich tradition.
Let's delve into the practices and significance of uposatha days in Buddhism and discover how they contribute to spiritual growth and community bonding. #BuddhaTeachings #Buddhism #Mindfulness
Fake: image presented as "photo of Saturn from Cassini" (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
(April 21, 2017) "That last kiss goodbye," as project manager Earl
Maize calls it, will push Cassini onto a path no spacecraft has gone
before - into the gap between Saturn and its rings. It's treacherous
territory. A particle from the rings - even as small as a speck of sand -
could cripple Cassini, given its velocity (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP).
.
Farewell, Cassini: Saturn spacecraft makes fiery, final dive
Fake image of Cassini taking selfie with Saturn
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -
NASA's Cassini spacecraft disintegrated in the skies above Saturn on
Friday in a final, fateful blaze of cosmic glory, following a remarkable
journey of 20 years.
Confirmation of Cassini's expected demise came
about 7:55 am EDT. That's when radio signals from the spacecraft -- its
last scientific gifts to Earth -- came to an abrupt halt. The radio
waves went flat, and the spacecraft fell silent.
Cassini actually burned up like a meteor 83 minutes
earlier as it dove through Saturn's atmosphere, becoming one with the
giant gas planet it set out in 1997 to explore. But it took that long
for the news to reach Earth a billion miles away.
Where's Gwen Stefani to talk about astrology, Saturn, and symbolism when you need her?
PHOTOS: Flight Director Julie Webster gets emotional at mission control at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after confirmation of Cassini's demise
Friday, Sept. 15, 2017, in Pasadena, California. Cassini disintegrated in the
skies above Saturn this morning.
The only spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, Cassini
showed us the planet, its rings and moons up close in all their
splendor. Perhaps most tantalizing, ocean worlds were unveiled on the
moons Enceladus and Titan, which could possibly harbor life.
Dutiful to the end, the Cassini snapped its last
photos Thursday and sampled Saturn's atmosphere Friday morning as it
made its final plunge. It was over in a minute or two. Program manager
Earl Maize made the official pronouncement:
"This
has been an incredible mission, an incredible spacecraft and you're all
an incredible team," Maize said. "I'm going to call this the end of
mission." Flight controllers wearing matching purple shirts stood and
embraced and shook hands. Project scientist Linda Spilker also had a
purple handkerchief to wipe away tears.
"It felt so much like losing a friend," she told
reporters a couple of hours later. More than 1,500 people, many of them
past and present team members, had gathered at California's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory for what was described as both a vigil and
celebration. Even more congregated at nearby California Institute of
Technology, which runs the lab for NASA. More
Ask Homer: fallout from a nuclear blast is like a nuclear plant meltdown (doseng.org).
Norio Kimura, 50, who lost his father, wife, and daughter in the 2011 tsunami, searches for his missing younger daughter Yuna near his home outside the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan, February 14, 2016 (Toru Hanai/Reuters/pri.org).
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the damage to nuclear fuel in one of its reactors may be worse than previously thought. Tokyo Electric Power Company engineers have been working to size up damage at the plant from the March 11, 2011 accident and start the process of decommission. Officials with the utility now say most of the nuclear fuel in Reactor 3 melted through the reactor core and is now resting at the bottom of the containment vessel. They had previously said some of the fuel was still inside the reactor. Their latest assessment suggests decommissioning Reactor 3 could be more challenging than previously thought. A government panel investigating the meltdown had said an improper shutdown of an emergency cooling system called "HPCI" had contributed to the accident. But the utility's latest analysis states the cooling system was already dysfunctional before workers shut it down. It says a meltdown in Reactor 3 started at 5:30 am on March 13th. That's about five hours earlier than previously estimated. It says most of the fuel melted through the reactor core and dropped into the containment vessel by the following morning.
Five years after Fukushima, the clean-up has just begun
Five years ago, a massive tsunami hit the coast of Japan, killing nearly 16,000 people and leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Tens of thousands of people are still displaced from homes near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and workers are using shovels and rakes to remove [2 inches of] radioactive topsoil from towns that may never rebound from the devastation.
DANGER: Radiation risk!
Crews at the nuclear facility are building tanks to hold the tons of water that needs to be piped into the damaged reactors every day to keep nuclear material cool.
“The most striking thing is the enormous amount of water tanks that are now on-site,” said journalist Steve Featherstone, who visited the plant last fall while reporting for Popular Science. “If we’re looking at the most immediate problem in the near-term, it’s this water, because it can’t all be captured."
In addition to the cooling water, hundreds of tons of groundwater flows underneath the Fukushima Daiichi site and gets contaminated by nuclear material. Some of it cannot be captured and flows back into the ocean, Featherstone said.More + AUDIO
But we are told it's useless, we're helpless, we need to find yet another planet/world to contaminate and start over again on, a new Eden.
Wait, we can do something: That's karma.
What do the powers that be know that we do not? What are they not telling us about contamination (toxicity) and disease (organic malfunctions in response to toxins) and ways to reverse or prevent it in the first place? When we put our trust in corporate consumer capitalism, expect more of the same rather than a sudden "change" that Obama and other mouthpieces/politicians promise every four years.
Rejuv-A-Nation Research & Development: engineer and quantum physicist Dennis S. Watts (facebook.com) is a water scientist, an eco-system consultant, and an innovator of quantum technological devices for healing and balancing. He is currently working with five governments purifying water and rejuvenating soil. Watts is currently working on solution sets for the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Here he explains (see previous post).
It's not what happens in life that matters, it's what we do in response to what happens (WQ).
You don't have to go to Japan for radiation. Find contamination in Nevada, USA.
Incest: kissing cousins...and sisters and brothers...parents (Laura Secorun Palet/oxy.com)
When Melissa, an administrative assistant in a law firm who’s in her 20s, met an older woman named Lisa a few years ago, it was love at first sight. The two have been in a relationship ever since but know that marriage is out of the picture. And it’s not because they are lesbian. It’s because they are mother and daughter.Incest is still society’s deepest-rooted sexual taboo, mainly because the word is so often associated with rape and inbreeding. Consensual incest...
Extraterrestrials are consistent with Buddhist cosmology. Moreover, other intelligent beings certainly exist.
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Not only are there unseen beings on this planet, benevolent and otherwise, there are celestial beings on various planes, in other "world systems," on other planets. Rebirth in those worlds may take place according to one's karma. It is clear that, from Buddhist accounts, this world and intelligent, bipedal life is far older than accepted archeology admits of. Finally, there are ordinary beings historically who seem to be of extraterrestrial origin (e.g., kinnaras).
- Kinnaras
In Sanskrit kinnara refers to the inhabitants of the Kinnara planet; a kind of gandharvah—inhabitants of various planets...(www.vedabase.net/k/kinnara).
In Buddhist mythology and Hindu mythology, Kinnara are paradigmatic lovers, celestial musicians, half-human and half-bird. Their character is clarified in the Adi parva of the Mahabharata, where they say: "...Never do we become mother and father. No offspring is seen in our lap. We are lover and beloved ever-embracing. In between us we do not permit any third creature demanding affection. Our life is a life of perpetual pleasure." They are also featured in a number of Buddhist texts, including the Lotus Sutra.
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In Southeast Asian mythology, Kinnaris, the female counterpart of Kinnaras, are depicted as half-bird, half-woman creatures. One of the many creatures that inhabit the mythical Himavanta, Kinnaris have the head, torso, and arms of a woman and the wings, tail, and feet of a swan. She is renowned for her dance, song, and poetry, and is a traditional symbol of feminine beauty, grace, and accomplishment. (Source: Wikipedia Kinnara entry). Similarly, there are garudas, suparnas, devas, nagas, asuras, and rudras—all of whom might be regarded as ETs in today's terminology.
All that having been said, these recent reports may be regarded as good news:
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