National Day of Giving Tuesday (12/3)

Are you ready for #Stolen Amazon Package Wednesday? How about Apple is Overrated Thursday? Today is Giving Tuesday, following Cyber Monday...

NATIONAL DAY OF GIVING

If I could teach them to let go of low to get high

The National Day of Giving encourages giving back. It takes place on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The nation has just been fleeced by Cyber Monday and Black Friday, having spent the extended weekend shopping in brick-and-mortar outlets as well as online, searching for the best (greediest) possible deals.

The Buddha on reasons to give

Mahavira agreed: It is good to give

[Why the Hades should I give? I should receive!] Reasons for Giving: "There are eight reasons for giving. What are these eight? One may give out of affection; or in an angry mood;[5] out of foolishness [6]; out of fear; or because of thinking: 'Such gifts have been given before by my relatives, and as it was done by them before, it would be unworthy of me to let lapse this family tradition'; or because of thinking: 'By giving this gift, I shall — after the body's break-up, after death — be reborn in a happy realm of existence, even in a heavenly world'; or because of thinking, 'When giving this gift, my heart will be glad, and happiness and joy will arise in me'; or one gives because it ennobles and adorns the mind (heart)." (Giving, Numerical Discourses, AN 8.33)

• Giving Tuesday is an annual event
• National Day of Giving (National Today)

Who invented this day, Hallmark?

The best giving adorns the mind/heart.

The National Day of Giving reminds us to give to those in need -- like the victims of American imperialism in Palestine, Gaza, and the West Bank. Whether we look to our favorite causes or charities, it is a great reminder to lift others up during a generous time of year.

On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, charities, families, businesses, community centers, and students around the world will come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity (Buddhist dana) and to give, help, and share. #GIVINGTUESDAY

The Buddha is famous for saying:

"If you knew what I know about (the karma of) giving (the results and fruits), you would never eat a morsel without sharing with another if there were another to share with."

Our favorite charitable organization

Sharing brings abundance and amity.

Of all the giving, the gift of the Dharma (Dhamma-dāna) is the highest. Why? It engenders all other forms of letting go, generosity, sharing, and giving. It also involves the greatest returns -- internal letting go to be free of all clinging and experience liberation from all suffering. So to support Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal and/or Dharma Buddhist Meditation (Meetup 2, Meetup 3), please contact us through the Comments Section for details. What is "giving" in Buddhism? Dāna

• What can I give to support Buddhist monks and nuns?
• Where do monks and nuns really practice like the Buddha did? Pa Auk Forest Monastery (en.dhammadana.org)

Gift ideas? Give a smile, offer a hug, say a kind thing, volunteer, give unselfish service (seva) with no expectation of it being reciprocated (because, as it is said, "No good deed goes unpunished").

BEST RECIPIENTS FOR GIVING?

• Pa-Auk Forest Monastery (to support 1,000+ Buddhist practitioners with real attainments so rare in the world, en.dhammadana.org)
• BethUpton.com (England, Spain, worldwide)
• Appamāda Viharī Meditation Center
• KPFA.org and KPFK.org (Berkeley and LA)
• Have a blessed season of giving!
• National Day Calendar, 12/324; Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Buddha Bathing Ceremony/Mother's Day (L.A.)

Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation; Ashley Wells, Crystal Q., Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Mothers at Tzu Chi relief charity

All are invited to attend the Tzu Chi Family Festival on Sunday, May 12, in Walnut, California. It is the perfect opportunity for the whole family to celebrate three wonderful occasions in one:

• Buddha Day
• Mother’s Day
• Tzu Chi Day.

Tzu Chi will host its annual "Buddha Bathing Ceremony," where it offers sincere respect to the historical Buddha [Siddhartha Gautama, who is also called Shakyamuni, the "Sage of the Shakyas/Scythians"].

Helping hands of Goddess of Compassion

Members of all faiths are welcome to attend and/or participate. There will be a vegetarian food market, which showcases the many ways in which vegetarian delights and delicacies can please all taste buds and a photo exhibit demonstrating Tzu Chi USA’s growth over the past 30 years.

It is Tzu Chi's big anniversary this year, and it is both excited and honored to share these moments of reflection and connection with everyone and their families.

It is a beautiful day to celebrate parents, the Buddha, the Earth, and the bonds we all share with each other. They hope all will join in. Kindly RSVP at tzuchi.us/events/2019-tzu-chi-family-festival-hq.

• Buddha Bathing Ceremony/Mother's Day
• FREE general admission
  (vegetarian foods available for purchase) 
• 1920 S. Brea Canyon Cutoff Road
• Walnut, California 91789 (MAP)
• Sun, May 12, 2019, 9:00 AM Add to Calendar

Buddha Bathing Ceremony and Tzu Chi Family Festival

Achieving well-being is the essence of human existence, but a variety of obstacles can hinder the goal and cause us misery. Tzu Chi is an international humanitarian organization whose mission is to relieve the suffering of those in need to create a better world for all. In Chinese, tzu means “compassion,” and chi “relief.” With open hearts and helping hands, this organization is here to welcome and help all. More

"Buddha Day" as Vesak celebration (May 12)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly, Wikipedia edit

Vesākha
Vesak Day celebrations at Borobodur in Java, Indonesia
Official name	Vesākha, Buddha Purnima, Buddha Jayanti, Vaisakha, Vesak, Vaishakhi Purnima বৈশাখী পুর্ণিমার 包囲祭 衛塞節 वेसाक វិសាខបូជា
Also called	The Buddha's Birthday or Buddha Day
Observed by	Buddhists and some Hindus in South and Southeast Asia and in East Asia (as The Buddha's Birthday)
Type	Religious
Significance	The birth, enlightenment and death of Gautama Buddha
Observances	Meditation, observing the Eight Precepts, partaking of vegetarian food, giving to charity, "bathing" the Buddha
Date	Full moon of the month of Vesākha, usually in April (first), May or June (last)
2018 date	29 April (Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Burma, and Bangladesh) 30 April (India, Nepal) 29 May (Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia)
2019 date	May 19
Frequency	annual
Related to	Buddha's Birthday Other related festivals Laba Festival (in China) Rohatsu (in Japan)

Bathing the Buddha on Vesak

Vesak (Pali Vesākha, Sanskrit Vaiśākha), also known as Buddha Jayanti, Buddha Purnima, and Buddha Day, is a holiday traditionally observed by Buddhists and some Hindus on different days in the various Buddhist countries of India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Mongolia, the Philippines, and in China (but not in formerly Buddhist countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Baluchistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgystan, Tajikastan, Gandhara (the former Scythian/Shakyian Land of the Buddha), Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam as "Buddha's Birthday" as well as in other parts of the world. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment (Buddhahood), and final nirvana (parinirvāna) of the Buddha Gautamaa in the Theravada or more orthodox tradition. More

• Tzu Chi's Buddha Day (and Mother's Day) celebration, L.A.

Happy Mother's Day (The Mother Sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Tricycle.org; TzuChi.us

The Mother Goddess appearing as Kwan Yin, Buddhist Goddess of Compassion (Avalokita)

.

The Buddha had two loving mothers, sisters.

The Buddha (Prince Siddhartha Gautama) loved his mothers, Queen Maya and her sister Queen Maha Pajapati Gautami.

It is safe to say that mothers are very important in Buddhism, arguably slightly more important than fathers. It seems like the world feels that nowadays, too. Fathers, friends, spouses may come and go, but moms are for keeps, and moms usually (not always) stick around.

The Buddha's biological mother Maya

There's the saying, "a face only a mother could love." That's the kind of face I had. Many others surely feel they were born to disadvantage, or at least not to as much as advantage as others had. Look to karma for that rather than mom or dad.

• Biographies of the Buddha all tell us that the prince’s mother’s name was Queen Maya and that she died seven days after her son was born. But we know little more. In the usual accounts Maya appears just long enough to give birth to the Buddha, unnaturally from her right side, after which she vanishes from the storyline altogether. We are not privy to the lamentation or grief we would expect at the loss of the Shakya clan’s queen, the king his wife, or the infant prince his mother.

Siddhartha, son of Queens Maya and Pajapati

So important are mother and father, that the historical Buddha -- a karmavadia or "teacher of the efficacy and crucial importance of karma" -- repeatedly pointed out that the actions we take up with regard to mother and father are of far more weight than actions towards others. How could it be?

I love my mom/baby more than life itself.

All people are not equal (karma-wise), and it is usually the case that no one has done more for us than our parents who brought us into the world, introduced us to the world, provided for us, and taught us how to survive in this world.

In the lengthy "Advice to Laypeople Discourse" (Sigalovada Sutra), the Buddha points out children's duties to parents and parents' duties to children.

Fathers support mothers' rights

It is a two-way street of mutual social obligations. But even if our parents had done nothing for us lately, they would still be massively important and incredibly significant karmically.

What we do to them or for them redounds, and it will lead to our happiness and success or misery and misfortune for a long, long time. Anybody with an idea to call a mom is onto a good start...even if mom is difficult.

Who's a "mother"?

Be like world-beloved Saint Mother Teresa.

All people were once mothers. (But I'm a boy!) Yes, all boys were mothers in the past, and most will be mothers again. Rebirth is like that. (I don't believe it!) Pubbenivāsānussati means "remembrance of former rebirths," and it is one of the "higher powers" (abhiññā) that can be developed in this life so that there is no doubt that rebirth is true. It is a component of the Threefold Knowledge (tevijja) the Buddha spoke of.

The Mother Sutra

Mata Sutta (SN 15.14-19) trans. by Ven. Thanissaro edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Death rules samsara, the Round of Rebirths.

One time [the Buddha] was staying in Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconceivable beginning comes rebirth. A beginning point is not to be found of beings -- hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving -- are born and begin wandering on.

"A being who has not already been your mother at one time or another in the past is not easy to find... A being who has not been your father... your brother... your sister... your son... your daughter at one time or another in the past is not easy to find.

 

Rebirth will not come to an end by itself.

"Now, why is that? From an inconceivable beginning comes rebirth. A beginning point is not to be found of beings -- hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving -- are born and begin wandering on.

"Long have you thus experienced disappointment, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries [with your past bodies] -- enough to become disenchanted with all conditioned (fabricated) things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be liberated."

Five Tricycle Stories to Celebrate Mother's Day

Mothers/goddesses have 1,000 helping hands

[Samsara (the continued wandering on life after life) is so incredibly long that the Buddha pointed out that it is hard to ever run into anybody with whom you have not already shared all relationships, such as that person having been your mother as well as your child. So some state this as:]

"All beings have been your mother in a former life,” says one Buddhist teaching that encourages altruism toward others. This Mother’s Day, we practice learning to see all beings as our mother -- or whoever cared for us when we were young -- in order to shift toward a kinder way of being. Here are Five Tricycle Stories to Celebrate Mother's Day." (The stone carving is a detail of the Buddha's birth). More

• Three Forgotten Stories About The Buddha’s Mother

2017 Mid-Atlantic Region Buddha Day, Mother's Day, Tzuchi Day 
TzuChi.us

You and your family are cordially invited to our annual celebration of Buddha Day, Mother's Day, and Tzu Chi Day, on Sunday, May 14, 2017. Admission opens...

• The Meaning of Honoring Buddha Day, Mother's Day, and Tzu Chi... (tw.tzuchi.org/en) In May, Tzu Chi [a worldwide Buddhist charity] volunteers in 34 countries and regions held Buddha Day ceremonies to celebrate the three occasions of Buddha Day, Mother's Day... Celebrate Buddha Day, Mother's Day, Tzu Chi Day The second Sunday of May is a very special day, as there are three meaningful occasions that fall on that day: Mother's Day, Buddha Day...
• How to Have a Peaceful Mother's Day with a Difficult... (tinybuddha.com) For some of us, Mother's Day can be a real challenge. Here's how to have a peaceful day with a mother you don't get along with.
• Mother's Day Celebration 2017 (The Buddhist Library, buddhlib.org.sg) Post Event – Mother's Day Celebration 2017. Venue: The Buddhist Library... 
• Buddha Day Ceremony Mother's Day Garden Party (BAUS.org/en) Upstate New York's Chuang Yen Monastery will be holding a Grand Garden Party to celebrate Vesak (Buddha's Day) and Mother's Day on May 14 , 2017... 
• ByChanceBuddhism: A Buddhist's thoughts on Mother's Day Many celebrate Mother's Day with cards, flowers, gifts, and taking their...also known as the "Filial Piety Sutra,"* in which the Buddha instructs...

• What to Do When You Don’t Know What’s Next
• The Mindfulness of the Buddha
• Tricycle Talks: Learning to Live Fully
• Why You’re Addicted to Your Phone
• Acknowledging the Spiritual Bypass
• Gratitude for My Torturers by Phakyab Rinpoche and Sofia Stril-Rever
• Revisiting Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Dan Zigmond

Buddhists praying for Japan quake victims

Wisdom Quarterly

Do Buddhists "pray"? Not in the sense of petitioning an all-powerful god not to drown any more people in tsunamis, or collapse any more building in quakes, or irradiate any more of the population and world at large with impossibly dangerous technology. However, merit may be shared with the dead, and devas and bodhisattvas may be called on to intervene on behalf of those who cannot ask for themselves. Prayer is a form of meditation and it sends out uplifting vibrations that are hard to understand in Newtonian terms but may be understood in terms of quantum physics and non-local effects of consciousness and attention as an observer's effect.

Taiwan groups pray for quake victims

Hermia Lin (FocusTaiwan.tw)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (CNA) - Two Buddhist charity organizations in Taiwan, Dharma Drum Mountain and [the Buddhist equivalent of a Red Cross] the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, will each hold a prayer ceremony Sunday for the people affected by the disasters in Japan, according to the organizers.

The Dharma Drum Mountain ceremony, which will be held at Linkou Stadium in Taipei Sunday afternoon, is expected to draw 20,000 Buddhist followers.

Meanwhile, Tzu Chi's Da Ai Television will broadcast a special program on Sunday night calling on Buddhists worldwide to pray for Japan.

Tzu Chi feeding Japanese quake-tsunami-radiative fallout victims (us.tzuchi.org)

"The power of prayer should not be underestimated," Kelly Chen of Tzu Chi told Central News Agency on Friday. "Dharma Master Cheng Yen has always told us to believe in prayer and benign power.”

Volunteers of the Tzu Chi charity group in Japan have temporarily suspended their distribution of hot food to disaster survivors because of radiation contamination concerns, according to Chen. The foundation has sent 50 metric tons of instant rice, 17,000 blankets and 10,000 shawls to Japan.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Tzu Chi volunteers managed to get into Ibaraki and Miyagi prefectures, two of the areas hardest hit by the devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11, she said.

The foundation manned 500 shifts to cook hot food for survivors in Oarai, Ibaraki, and delivered blankets to families affected by the quake in Sendai, Miyagi during the two days, Chen said.

The foundation would resume its relief work in Japan when the level of radiation leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant decreased, she said.

"We have to protect the health of our relief workers so that they can continue to do their jobs,” she added. Source

• Japanese mafia (Yakuza) also aiding Japanese victims
• Tainted milk more harmful than contaminated vegetables: AEC
• Free university education for 200 Japanese quake survivors
• Complaints mount over sensationalist reports on Japan disaster: NCC
• DPP raises millions for Japan disaster relief
• Magnitude 5.9 quake shakes central, south Taiwan
• Taiwan women keep advancing but rank 8th in Asia-Pacific
• Talk of the Day: The West finally attacks Libya
• Taiwan electronics firms brace for effects of Japan quake
• 3 moderate quakes shake eastern Taiwan
• Low-level radiation detected on 39 people at Taiwan airports

Haiti Before and After

Carribean nation, once a tropical port, now in ruins

Hunger and hope, thirst and frenzy grip Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Precious water, food, and early glimmers of hope began reaching parched and hungry earthquake survivors Saturday on the streets of this shattered city, where despair at times turned into a frenzy among the ruins. More>>

• Slideshow: Massive earthquake hits Haiti
• Video: Haiti quake, personal tragedy weigh on NYC pastor
• Haiti and new media charity

People gesture as a U.S. helicopter makes a water drop near a country club used as a forward operating base (AP).

• "Everything is Breaking Down" in Haiti (NPR)
  Haitians grew increasingly desperate Friday in the stricken capital of Port-au-Prince as aid supplies remained scarce and bodies... - Dangerous flight to Haiti
• "Total disaster and chaos" in Haiti
  The dead and injured lay in the streets of the Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince, as strong aftershocks rippled through the impoverished nation...
• Hillary Clinton goes to Haiti, too afraid to leave airport

Helping Haiti: Why?

"If living beings knew the fruit and final reward of generosity and the distribution of gifts, as I know them, then they would not eat their food without giving to others and sharing with others, even if it were their last morsel and mouthful. If they should meet a person who is worthy of receiving a gift, selfishness would not abide in their hearts."

-- The Buddha (Avadana Jataka)

Haiti, which is next to the richest nation in the world, is one of the poorest (arguably the poorest). Their juxtaposition and proximity is not coincidental. Haiti is kept in slave-like conditions. That's what we as a nation do around the world. The profit goes does not go only to us. A tiny fraction goes to a few well-educated and installed Haitian businessmen/politicians, a power elite. Their self-interest as they sell their people out is stoked by Americans, goaded by American firms, and enforced by the CIA and other economic gatekeepers. (That's how wealth and might are wielded by empires).

HOW TO HELP HAITI

For us to be rich, the vast majority of the world's people are kept dirt poor. Haiti is particularly bad in that it has a history of being left desolate -- from time to time, as covered by Wisdom Quarterly, subsisting by eating mud as food.

But why give? The Buddha is reputed to have said that a beggar or person need is potentially one's best friend. Why? That person provides the opportunity for the making of a great deal of merit (puñña). Merit, or profitable karma, is remarkably valuable in Samsara and exceedingly rare.

There are not many worlds given over to making merit. In some, such as Haiti and Hades, the suffering is such that people do not get the chance. In others, such as the US and Japan, the luxury is such that it does not frequently occur to beings to make merit for the future. The Buddha praised giving (dana), second only to meditation, as a wellspring of good karma.

The Motivation for Giving
The sutras record various motives for exercising generosity. The Numerical Discourses (AN.iv,236) lists the following eight motives:

1. One gives with annoyance, or as a way of offending the recipient, or with the idea of insulting the person.
2. Fear motivates a person to make an offering.
3. One gives in return for a favor done to oneself in the past.
4. One also may give with the hope of getting a similar favor for oneself in the future.
5. One gives because giving is considered good.
6. "I cook; they do not cook. It is improper for me who cooks not to give to those who do not cook." Some give urged by such altruistic motives.
7. Some give alms to gain a good reputation.
8. Still others give alms to adorn and beautify the mind.

Favoritism (chanda), ill-will (dosa), and delusion (moha) are also listed as motives for giving. Sometimes alms are given for the sake of maintaining a long-standing family tradition. Desire to be reborn in heaven after death is another strong motive. Giving pleases some, and they give with the idea of winning a happy frame of mind (A.iv, 236).

• with the expectation of getting
• to gain a good reputation
• to adorn the mind

One is inferior and will not produce excellent results. The other is middling. The third, giving with the thought of helping others (as one helps oneself) is an excellent motive! The misguided notion that only pure altruism is of value is incorrect and harmful, since it leads people not to give. Give because it feels good, and give again. Better than giving is encouraging others to give as one gives. Even with inferior motives, the result is good.

Merit grows for one who gives; no enmity builds up for one restrained; one skilled abandons unskillful deeds; with greed, anger, and delusion exhausted, one attains release, a final of suffering (Verses of Uplift, Udana 8.5).

• All About Giving (accesstoinsight.org)
• Reasons for Giving (urbandharma.org)
• The Perfection of Giving
• What is the giving of "alms"?
• Int'l Buddhist disaster relief: TzuChi.org

Worldwide Buddhist Charity

Home • About us • Services • Photo News • Activity Report • International Relief • Press Release • Publications • Contact Us • Join our Team

UN: World hunger reaches 1 billion mark

Alessandra Rizzo (AP)

"The silent hunger crisis is affecting one-sixth of all of humanity"

Indian workers silhouetted load rice sacks onto a truck at a grain market on the eve of World Food Day in Amritsar, India, 2008. The U.N. agency FAO is reporting today 6/19/08 that over 1 billion people across the world are hungry (AP/Altaf Qadri/file).

ROME – The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, U.N. food officials said today.

Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices, and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, by the United Nations' estimate. The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called a "devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable."

• Slideshow: World Hunger
• Tzu Chi: Buddhist charity fights hunger and illness
• Raw Video: Clashes in Indian Kashmir

Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the agency said.

"No part of the world is immune," FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity."

Indian vegetable vendor weighs produce at a wholesale market on the outskirts of Hyderabad in April 2009. The OECD and the UN's agriculture agency said in a report that world food prices will rise over the next 10 years but are unlikely to hit the peaks seen during the food crisis in 2007 and 2008 (AFP/file/Noah Seelam).

The crisis is a humanitarian one, but also a political issue. Officials presenting the new estimates in Rome sought to stress the link between hunger and instability, noting that soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world last year.

Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program, another U.N. food agency based in Rome, said hungry people rioted in at least 30 countries last year. Most notably, soaring food prices led to deadly riots in Haiti and the overthrow of the prime minister.

"A hungry world is a dangerous world," Sheeran said. "Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate, or they die. None of these are acceptable options."

Even though prices have retreated from their mid-2008 highs, they are still "stubbornly high" in some domestic markets, according to FAO. On average, food prices were 24 percent higher in real terms at the end of 2008 compared to 2006, it said.

"Malnutrition kills through the fact that it weakens the immune system of a child," said Andrei Engstrand-Neacsu, a Nairobi, Kenya-based spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies... More>>

• The rich got richer criminally:
• Video: Stanford charged in $7,000,000,000 ponzi fraud