Avalokitesvara Enlightenment Day (8/1)

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva

This weekend (either Saturday or Sunday), Hsi Lai Temple will be conducting a noontime offering to the great Kwan Yin Pusa (Guanyin Bodhisattva), who began as the male deva Avalokita (Avalokitesvara).

It is unknown which day it will be because it is officially posted as "Sunday, 8/1, at 10:00 am, but Sunday is 8/2, Aug. 2, 2026. So maybe it starts on Saturday at 10 and culminates with noontime offerings at 12 the next day? Call the temple for proper details.

• Hsi Lai (Coming West) Temple
• 3456 Glenmark Drive (near 60 Fwy)
• Hacienda Heights, LA, CA 91745
• info@ibps.org, (626) 961-9697

It will be located in the Hsi Lai Temple main shrine at the top of the steps near the giant incense cauldron that looks like the Liberty Bell. Fortunately, for the Fo Guang Shan (lit. "Buddha's* Light Mountain") Movement Buddhists of the world and others, there will be a Livestream (live from Los Angeles):

Buddha's Light Mountain

Fo Guang Shan (FGS, Chinese 佛光山, Pinyin Fó guāng shān, lit. "Buddha's Light Mountain") is an international Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist organization and monastic order. It is based in Taiwan and practices Humanistic Buddhism, whose roots are traced to the Linji School of Chan Buddhism.

The headquarters, Fo Guang Shan Monastery, is located in Dashu District, Kaohsiung, Buddhist Taiwan, and is the largest Buddhist monastery in the island country .

[Of course, mainland China lays claim to Taiwan as an integral part of the PRC (People's Republic of China) just as it insists that Bon/Vajrayana Buddhist Tibet and similarly oppressed Muslim Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the northwest are part and parcel of the nominally communist actively capitalist post-kingdom].

• Buddhism in Taiwan
• Buddhism in China

The organization is also one of the largest charity organizations in Taiwan. Its counterpart for laypeople is known as the Buddha's Light International Association. Founded in 1967 by Hsing Yun, the order promotes Humanistic Buddhism and is known for its efforts in the modernization of Chinese Buddhism.

The modernist order is famous for its use of technology, and its temples are often furnished with the latest equipment [1, 2]. Hsing Yun's stated position for Fo Guang Shan is that it is an "amalgam of all Eight Schools of Chinese Buddhism." More

• (*Sadly, while it sounds like one big, united Buddhist family, in fact the Buddha in the title refers to the "Cosmic Buddha" Amitabha, as in Amitofu, not the historical one from Earth, who is lovingly called the Sage of Scythian Shakya/Saka Clan, Shakyamuni, Siddhartha Gautama) 
• Hsi Lai Temple, Los Angeles; CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit FGS

How China saved the world (last month)

(Max Fisher) China quietly saved the world last month

• Buddhism in China: the religion of more than a billion people, who blend it with Taoism, Confucianism (Three Teachings), and ancient shamanic Chinese folk religion

Magic 'Soul Retrieval' in Taoism/Buddhism

Native wisdom: soul retrieval (Monroe Inst.)

(Benebell Wen) Soul dualism in Eastern mysticism and Chinese Folk Medical Philosophy

• Chinese folk religion
• Shen (Chinese folk religion)
• Tao Te Ching (Book of Changes)
• Shingon (Esoteric) Buddhism
• Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism)
• Ceremonial magic
• Taoism

Taoist alchemy of breathing for life

(Benebell Wen) Taoist secret to cultivating personal power: Inner Alchemy

• Esoteric Buddhism (book)
• East Asian Buddhism
• Traditional Chinese medicine
• Eastern philosophy in clinical psychology
• Feng Guifen or Linyi

'Dharma Day' at Hsi Lai Temple, LA (1/26)

Serving laba porridge to awaken the Buddha

On Dharma Day, Mahayana Buddhism, which prefers ahistorical Cosmic Buddhas like Amitabha, commemorates the historical Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment and awakening to perfect wisdom. (Theravada Buddhism has a Dhamma Day called Asalha Puja).

• Laba Festival: Congee Porridge Day
• Buddhism in Taiwan (which is not China)

Thanks to a shepherdess (Sujatha) offering him rice porridge, the wandering ascetic Siddhartha regained enough strength to focus on his cultivation, developing the absorptions then insight, purifying calm followed by contemplation (of Dependent Origination). That is how he became the Buddha, the "Awakened One," the supremely "Enlightened One."

 

Ever since then, Buddhists have celebrated the Buddha's Enlightenment Day by offering laba porridge to all.

WHERE?

• Location: Hsi Lai Temple (MAP)
• 3456 S. Glenmark Dr. (Hacienda Blvd.)
• Hacienda Heights, LA, CA 91745

𝗗𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗟𝗲𝗳𝘁 𝗦𝗶𝗱𝗲 (𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲) Laba Porridge — dine in

• Opening hours: 9:00 am-3:00 pm

𝗗𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗦𝗶𝗱𝗲 (𝗘𝘅𝗶𝘁) laba porridge — to go

• Opening hours: 9:00 am-3:00 pm

1. Everyone is welcome to enjoy laba porridge in the Hsi Lai Dining Hall for FREE. No vegetarian buffet will be provided on this day.

2. For to go orders, cups of laba porridge will be prepared.

• INFO: Dharma Day 2026 at Hsi Lai Temple, LA

Eating, regaining his strength, he awakened.

The Dharma (the Teachings of the Buddha) are one facet of the Three Gems (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha), a core aspect of Buddhism. Through this Dharma Day event, we celebrate the Buddha’s Teachings and their impact on our lives.

This day also commemorates the awakening of an Shakyian [Scythian] prince who renounced the world and what transformed him into the Buddha, "the Awakened One" (Shakyamuni, the "Sage of the Shakyas" [or Sakas, Indo-Scythians]).

Cosmic Buddha worshiped in Mahayana

Please join Hsi Lai ("Going West"), the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere, for a celebration of Buddhist wisdom taught by Buddhism's original teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, and the other teachers who followed after being inspired by him.

Enjoy special presentations, lectures, and theatrical performances, focusing on new understandings, real-world applications, and deeper explorations of the Buddha's teachings of compassion, service to others, and spiritual practice that have blossomed in the world.

Students of Hsi Lai's Buddhism classes are encouraged to apply for time to present what they have learned and gained from following Buddhist teachings: Hsi Lai Temple

• WHAT HAPPENED AT THE RETREAT? Fifty to 60 participants gathered at 8:30 am, registered, offered dana, received instructions, and began to sit.

Hsi Lai Temple One-Day Meditation Retreat, January 24, 2026

Let us cultivate together. Open to all.

The One-day Buddhist Meditation Retreat is intended to be a retreat for those who have at least a basic experience of meditation. This retreat features a regimented schedule of sitting, standing, and walking meditation with instructions and Dharma talks.

Please note that sitting sessions are 40 minutes long. It is recommended that applicants start working on lower body flexibility, especially the hips.

Vegetarian/vegan monastic cuisine served in cafeteria (Hsi Lai Temple)

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RETREAT DETAILS: ◎ Date: Saturday, January 24, 2026. ◎ Check-in: 8:45 am-9:25 am. (Please be punctual. Orientation begins promptly at 10:00 am) ◎ Time: 9:30 am-5:30 pm PT ◎ Ages: 16 years and older. ◎ Location: Hsi Lai Temple (MAP)

COST?  ◎ OPEN DONATION: We welcome kind donations to cover meal, snacks, facility use, uniform cleaning, and general overhead. Kindly bring donation to check-in on Jan. 24, 2026. ◎ Spots are limited to 50 participants. ◎ This is an in-person retreat: hsilai.us/events/dharma-services/saturday-english-dharma-service

• Hsi Lai Temple, San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles
• Hsi Lai Temple Dharma Services

India versus China (explained)

Five good places to practice in Asia (Go)

Avalokiteshvara, Dambulla, Ceylon

We love traveling to Asia in search of enlightenment, Eastern philosophy, and peace. For centuries, even from the time of Prince Siddhartha (the future Buddha), people have traveled East to Asian locales in search of transcendent wisdom.

That wisdom still exists there but as always is hard to find. There are dangerous places along the way, like trolls under bridges to sacred places.  And there are sacred places.

Pa Auk Forest Monastery, Burma

Pa-Auk: A Meditator's Experience

The best is Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Burma (called Myanmar by the dictatorship), protected by the country's ongoing turmoil:

Myanmar Civil War (2021-present), Rohingya Muslim oppression by Burman Buddhist majority, Aung Sung Suu Kyi's house arrests, Chinese aid, Asia's Hitler Than Shwe and his horribly named SLORC ("State Law and Order Restoration Council"), the Saffron Revolution, poverty, police state corruption by generals and strongmen following Than Shwe...

There really is a place of authentic Buddhist practice with enlightened ones.

This British nun found Pa Auk Temple

the birthplace of George Orwell that inspired him to write British colonial classics like Nineteen Eighty-Four (which could have been written about the modern British settler colonial project known as the USA), Burmese Days, and short stories like Shooting an Elephant. There's no need for a Westerner to get caught up in the intrigue like beautiful actress Patricia Arquette in Beyond Rangoon...even though we want to see and help and be involved.

This Czech monk found the light in Pa Auk

Decades of trouble created a reserve for Buddhism to be practiced, as impossible as that may sound, like the great ecosystem and protected sanctuary that resulted from South and North Korea's DMZ. Internecine war in the Demilitarized Zone keeps people out and nature in, making it thrive with nature. How else could one explain a shaft of light in darkness? Danger keeps most away, but sincere seekers find paradise.

Knowing 'n Seeing (Ven. Pa Auk)

Goenka Art of Living retreat, Pan-Asia

Private practice in a cell closet cubicle

Everyone who goes to Asia for a good while ends up on a free 10-day Goenka mindfulness retreat (dhamma.org). But that can now be done here in the West. They are worldwide, and they play tape recordings of teacher S.N. Goenka giving the instructions (in a Transylvanian accent that no one but us seems to have noticed or commented on). Earplugs are good rather than being interrupted by echoes of his Burmese Buddhist teacher U Ba Khin's words for one interpretation of vipassana (Buddhist insight meditation) among many.

Shaolin Temple, China

Quiet contemplation or international showing off?

There may not be much Buddhist instruction in the sense of learning the Dharma or even Taoism at the Shaolin Temple nowadays, but there is a lot of kung fu and physical training to ready the body if one should ever take up meditation in earnest like Bodhidharma did.

Start preparing now. Here are some poses.

But why would anybody when there's training, fighting, and defending to do? And there are international competitions and traveling demonstration tours. It's a citadel of Chinese monasticism and history. So who has time for the practice everyone is ostensibly defending? The communist regime and its capitalist motives want more "martial" (war) and less meditative serenity because the only thing worse than a Mahayana monk or nun without a serious meditation practice is one who is not out there chopping wood (with the barehanded karate chops) and carrying water (in buckets on a pole over the shoulders), striving in the way of Zen's nonstriving with and koans and sesshins catnaps.

Wat Pah Nanachat, Northeast Thailand (Isan)

Roshi, Ajahn Sumedho, George Sharp, Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Khemadhammo, Hampstead Vihara, UK

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Ajahn Chah: wisdom so powerful, it's simple.

There is a famous forest temple near the Golden Triangle, where Laotians, Cambodians, and Thais meet to do business and internationally traffic drugs. It is more famous for quiet meditation and arduous mindfulness in the tradition of Ajahn Chah (and Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Brahm, and a whole line of Western teachers trained by the Theravada meditation master of the Thai Forest Tradition).

Fo Guang Shan, Taiwan (PRC)

Fo Guang Shan Monastery Worldwide Web (fgs.org.tw) might be a nice international place to visit for the practice of devotion Amitabha and Kwan Yin worship, light on Buddhist theory and heavy on ritual practices and repentance, very catholic and at the core leaning to a distinction few other than Alan Watts seems to mention: There are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on," Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin sings in "Stairway to Heaven." And in Buddhism those two paths would be called jiriki and tariki. This is at the core of practice -- what to practice? Self-powered or other-powered? Effort or devotion? Theravada (the teachings of the historical Buddha) or Mahayana (the teachings of many "Cosmic Buddhas")?

Japan in particular went heavy for the other-powered way, where a divine or higher power does the striving. But China followed suit to make worship of deities like Amitabha and Guanyin the top priorities for temples and lay devotees. Since no one can save oneself, we need to be saved. It's the Christian way, too, the point of Catholicism -- worldwide takeover of faith, devotion, intercessionary prayer, and anything to take the responsibility off of me for my own salvation (liberation, awakening, realization, enlightenment). It makes sense, but it is not what the historical Buddha taught.

We certainly need help (of a Buddha/Teacher, Dharma/Teaching, and Noble Sangha/Successfully Taught), but we must do it (practice) ourselves because we ourselves are responsible for ourselves. That's not the path of devotion.

We worship the Goddess Guanyin

What makes Hinduism, Catholicism, Christianity, Islam, and Pure Land (Mahayana) Buddhism so promising, inviting, and easy? It's DEVOTION over everything else. It's a popularity contest with whatever resonates, promising to do it for you if you'll only commit to worship. In this Dark Age (Kali Yuga), that's all we can seem to hope for from people is craving and faith, lust and praying for forgiveness, desire and guilt. So these will only grow stronger, as in the Nichiren Buddhist movement to pray one mantra over and over (like Hindu japa mantra-repetition practice) to get all your wishes, The Secret style. Here's the "secret" recitation: Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. Just don't ask what it translates as because you may be disappointed.

• Eds., Wisdom Quarterly, August 2024

China ready to invade Taiwan: satellite

(The Sun) Bombshell satellite pictures reveal China is ready to invade Taiwan, an island off its mainland coast, with a secret operation.

• The Sun (UK), Oct. 6, 2025; CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka (Fresh Air)

I have a new comedy special called "Father."

The new Margaret Cho? Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka [the u's are silent] is known for finding humor in the dysfunction of her immigrant family.

Born in Taiwan to Japanese and Taiwanese parents, she traveled from Japan to Los Angeles with her grandmother and mother when she was 8 for what she thought was a short vacation.

In fact, they were moving. It would be years before Okatsuka saw her father again. She later described being "kidnapped" by her grandmother on a 2023 episode of This American Life.

"My grandma and I hadn't really talked about it in depth until [then]," she says. "And it helped that I got to do with Ira [Glass, host of This American Life] and the thousands and thousands of thousands of listeners at the same time, then I'm really not alone." More + AUDIO

• Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka on her journey to the stage and connecting with audiences (PBS News Hour)

Can Asians even be funny?

Yumi Nagashima - Snow White was actually Japanese: New wave of stand up

The judges call Aiko Tanaka's audition 'brilliant and hilarious' | AGT 2022

Traditional Korean Woman Comedy | Jaehee Hwang | Stand up

You're never too old to rock 'n roll, Andy Huggins. -  AngelenoAtsuka O. with Seth Meyers

• Atsuko Okatsuka (atsukocomedy.com), Tanya Mosley, Fresh Air, WHYY (Comic Atsuko finds humor in immigrant experience: NPR); The Late Late Show with James Cordon; CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Asian American Pacific Islander Month

I'm Asian from Near East, now in Afghanistan

What is an Asian? Asia is a big place with at least four very different regions: South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and North Asia. These territories are so large with populations that are so massive, it is likely that most people on the planet today are Asian. Even the Native Americans, and therefore the Mexicans and Central and South Americans, might have Asian roots. This depends on whether one buys the theory that Siberians (North Asians) crossed the Bering Straits over a temporary land bridge that once existed. No doubt someone crossed over, but there's plenty of doubt if that's how all or most Indigenous people arrived that way. Much more likely are repeated waves of arrivals for millennia. People have been in the New World for more than 50,000 years according to Graham Hancock. And they were originally very dark-skinned Australian aborigines.

Of course, Pacific Islanders have been coming and going for even longer. There's an island where kava kava grows called Vanuatu. It's way out in the South Pacific. Using canoes there was a group who navigated from there to Easter Island to Guam and the 1,000 islands, islets, and atolls that comprise the massive state of Hawaii. We hear about four islands, but there are at least 996 more. Look at a detailed map. Most of them are off-limits and used for war. At least one is covered by a veil, cloaking it from the rest of the planet. A pilot who stumbled upon it and lived there during his absence after crash landing in the open ocean, wrote about it. A movie was supposed to come out about it, with its active volcano, strange, isolated culture, which aware of the outside world and wanting nothing to do with it, a princess, and a planned human sacrifice to appease the "god" of that volcano. We waited after his appearance on Coast to Coast and, thanks George, you disappointed us again. Formerly Buddhist Afghanistan, the birthplace of the Buddha (yes, not Nepal and not India, but an ancient place named Gandhara around the Indus Valley Civilization).

• Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (Wiki)
• CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Q., Wisdom Quarterly

Indonesia volcano erupts = climate change

Major volcanic eruption in Indonesia triggers tsunami warning and evacuation of thousands

Images so spectacular, it's like AI imagined them

(AFP) Indonesian rescuers raced to evacuate thousands of people today (Thursday, 4/18/24) after a volcano erupted five times, forcing authorities to close a nearby airport and issue a warning about falling debris that could cause a tsunami.

• UDPATE: A powerful volcano is erupting. Here’s what that could mean for weather and climate

Map is incomplete, not showing Japan, Taiwan

The crater of Mount Ruang flamed with lava against a backdrop of lightning bolts overnight after erupting four times on Wednesday, forcing authorities to raise its alert level to the highest of a four-tiered system.

The volcano on a remote island in Indonesia's outermost region was still billowing a column of smoke on Thursday morning, prompting authorities to shut the nearest international airport in Manado City on Sulawesi Island for 24 hours.  More

• VIDEO: Indonesia warns of tsunami after volcano erupts
• Japan hit by big earthquake following big Taiwan shaker
• VIDEO: Africa is slowly creating a new ocean (tectonic)

Earthquake hits NYC before eclipse (video)

Biblical proportions. What does it mean? Doesn't everyone have to wonder about the convergence of three odd things -- an impending locust infestation (of three species of cicadas about to emerge from the ground in a riot of insectoid sound), a rare full solar eclipse, and now the earth is moving in a part of the country California is routinely mocked for? And Taiwan was just struck by a massive quake out of nowhere, possibly hit by secret Mainland China technology loosed on the East Coast. One has to think the Sky Gods are unhappy and sending signs from above. Or is the military-industrial complex testing new secret weapons, Tesla vibrators that shake buildings, CRISPR on bug DNA, spinning the planet faster or wobbling it so no one can say it's immovable or standing on pillars?

How intense is the new normal?

(ABC News) A 4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the Northeast USA Friday morning, in what New York Governor Kathy Hochul called "one of the largest earthquakes on the East Coast in the last century."

The earthquake was centered near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, and shook buildings from New Jersey and New York City and Westchester to Philadelphia and Connecticut. It could be felt as far south as Washington, D.C., and as far north as Maine (on the border with Canada), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Several weaker aftershocks were also reported in the hours following the initial quake, including one measuring 4.0 magnitude centered near Gladstone, New Jersey, Friday evening, according to preliminary data from the USGS.

• Notable earthquakes felt in the NYC region

There were no reports of injuries or major damage following the initial quake.

"There is a low likelihood of casualties and damage," according to the USGS.

• Northeast quake rattles residents: 'A roller coaster under my house'

"I felt like there was a roller coaster under my house going 1,000 miles an hour," Carol Nicolaidis of Brooklyn, New York, told ABC News. "I first thought pipes were exploding under my house."

"I was sitting in my living room, and I saw the walls shaking; it felt like a wave," she said.

"It felt like a subway train running under the couch," said Rocco Pietropola, who was in an eighth-floor Manhattan apartment.

This was the strongest quake in the greater New York City metro area since 1884, according to the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Con Edison said there are no reports of outages, and the MTA said there was no service disruption to New York City's subway system. More + VIDEO

• ABC News, 4/5/24; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly