Barbie goes to Hell (A7x + Pussy Riot)

Avenged Sevenfold – "We Love You" Moar (Featuring Pussy Riot)

(Avenged Sevenfold) Oct. 5, 2023: A7x had a lot of fun reimagining and rerecording “We Love You” with Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova.

Nadya of Anarcho Punk Collective Pussy Riot

"We Love You Moar" is available everywhere now: A7X.lnk.to/WeLoveYouMoar. The band collaborated with Nadya to create a custom balaclava (knitted facemask to stay warm in a Siberian gulag) with proceeds going to SOS North Caucasus. Limited to 300 with each purchase helping LGBTQ+ people facing mortal danger and persecution in the North Caucasus, Russia: 

• bit.ly/a7xprtbalaclava
• #AvengedSevenfold #Mattel #LifeIsButADream
• Pussy Riot channel: @wearepussyriot

Is TIME TRAVEL real? How? (video)

David Wilcock (divinecosmos.com); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

 

Dear WQ, I need to know: Time travel?

Dear Sirs, I would really like to know if time travel is real. Thank you.

Of course time travel is real. We're here in the present moment, the "now," and in a moment we'll be in the future. We are constantly traveling through time by some miraculous means. "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future," ask your mom; she probably knows that song.

No, I mean real "time travel," the space age sh-t, like the thing in sci fi movies, cartoons [The Jetsons], and H. G. Wells' books.

Well, for an answer to that, let's ask the reborn Edgar Cayce, David Wilcock. We've already spoken to future POTUS Project Pegasus' Andrew D. Basiago (projectpegasus.net). How much more evidence is needed?

Buddhist time travel?

What do we want? Time travel! When?

There was a demonstration out in front of the Los Angeles City Council chambers in DTLA. Activists and futurists were shouting, "What do we want?!"

"Time travel!"

"When do we want it?!"

"It's irrelevant!" For, you see, once we have it, it will be as if we have always had it. And if it ever exists in the future, it exists now because we can come back to now and have it with us. That's how it is with this thing called time travel.

Buddhist time travel? These stupa-bells (glockes) atop Borobudur have buddhas in them.

.

I didn't believe the reports then there it was.

Don't think about it too much, as you might become unhinged and dislocated from your temporal existence. There is a no-time, the shamanic Beforetime [in the time before time began] and Dreamtime, timelessness, Godtime (for devas and brahmas), the Infinite-NOW (like that of Brahman and arupa-loka or "immaterial-sphere" beings).

But we are not consciously there. We are here (in the here-and-now). And here we have time. So use it wisely.

The Buddha gave a shocking example: How about some more rebirths (of which we have all already had countless billions with many more to come)? How about yet another separate-existence?

Sure, we say, sounds good. But it is not good. It is racked with disappointment, un-fulfillment, loss, crying, misery, woe, ill, suffering. Another rebirth is like finding a little [poop] under the fingernails: It stinks the same as a large amount.

Let us, therefore, be done with it. Let's realize the complete end of suffering, the end of this pointless -- because it was misleading us like a carrot and stick -- and endless Round of Rebirths known as samsara by the realization of nirvana here and now.

Well, what's the answer?

Blue-eyed Asians, like the historical Buddha, the Liqian people of modern China

.

So is there time travel in Buddhism or not? There is not really even time, which is a dependently-originated construct (fabrication), and therefore yes, in a sense.

The Buddha was able to travel at will, physically, to brahma- and deva-worlds up in what we would call "space" or "other dimensions" and return at will.

Time is not the same everywhere. Things last much longer in those other worlds; yet, when he (and other monastics with the same ability to travel) returned to this normal timeline. Only a little time had transpired here and much there. But it should have been the other way around: One day up there lasts many years down here. (Sometimes the math is 500 earth years = 1 deva day, but "500" is an idiom that is simply a shorthand way of saying "a large number").

Is there time travel? Yes. David Wilcock (Edgar Cayce) and Andrew D. Basiago tell us so. Black Budget government program work technology to wield it, and reverse-engineered technology from spacecraft indicates other beings could manipulate time or surf it.

Remote viewers, by their viewing, seem to show that there is no "time," or at least time is not what it seems. It is not an absolute. It contracts, expands, rolls back on itself, seems to be alive and self-correcting; it's almost as if all of this is a big simulation, real in its own way and by its own dream-rules (maya) but very unreal/illusory in another sense. Play along. But play rather than work through it. It's a play (lila).

The Foolish and the Wise (sutra)

Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (Bala-Pandita, SN 12.19)

"If the traveler cannot find [greater or equal] to go with one, let one travel alone rather than with a fool for company" (H. Hopp Delaney/H-K-D/flickr.com).

I think therefore I am not...

At one time the Blessed One was residing in Savatthi where he said: "When a foolish person is obstructed (hindered) by ignorance and craving, this body is the result.

There is both this body (internal rupa, dhatu) and external name-and-form. Here within this teaching, dependent on this duality, there arises contact at the six sense bases.

Touched by one or all of these, the foolish (unthinking person) is sensitive to pleasure and pain (which one necessarily misunderstands and identifies with rather than seeing them clearly and dispassionately as ti-lakkhana, as bearing the Three Universal Marks of Existence).

"A great rock is not disturbed by the wind; the mind [heart] of a wise person is not disturbed by either honor or abuse" -- or any of the eight worldly conditions of life.

The Wise

Great minds think a d--- Michele Bachmann

"When a wise person is obstructed by ignorance and craving, this body is the result. There is both this body (internal) and external name-and-form. Here within this teaching, dependent on this duality, there is contact at the six sense bases. Touched by one or more of these, the wise person is (also) sensitive to pleasure and pain.
 
"So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the wise person and the foolish person?"
 

The fool is his own worst enemy... (H-K-D)

[The monastics replied:] "Venerable sir, for us the teachings (Dharma) have the Blessed One as their root, their guide, and their explainer. It would be good if the Blessed One himself would explain the meaning of this statement. And having heard it from the Blessed One, the monastics will remember it."
 
"In that case, meditators, listen and give close attention. I will explain."
 
"As you say, venerable sir," they responded.
 

Wise Reflection (BPS.lk)

The [Buddha] explained, "The ignorance with which the fool is obstructed, the craving with which the fool is linked, through which this body has resulted, has not been abandoned by the fool, and that craving has not been destroyed/abandoned. Now why is that? It is because the fool has not practiced the supreme life for the ending of suffering.

"Therefore, at the break up of the body, one is headed for yet another body (form). Headed for a body, one is not entirely freed from rebirth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, disappointment, or despair. I tell you, one is not entirely freed from disappointment and suffering.
 

"Gods" Sakka and Brahma go to the Buddha

"However, the ignorance with which the wise is obstructed, the craving with which one is linked, through which this body has resulted, has been abandoned by the wise, and that craving has been destroyed/abandoned. Now why is that? It is because the wise person has practiced the supreme life for the ending of all suffering.

"Therefore, at the break up of the body, one is not headed for yet another body. Not headed for a body, one is entirely freed from rebirth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, disappointment, or despair. I tell you, that person is entirely freed from disappointment and suffering."

Review: Pussy Riot in L.A. (video)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly;  Library Foundation L.A. (lfla.org)

Nadia T. (right) and fellow Pussy Riot member post-prison; Euro TV (RTE 1) last month (S).

 

What were we expecting to find at author (Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot) Masha Gessen's Pussy Riot lecture in LA? Riot Grrrl protests in a staid building in the middle of the largest library in town? There were crowds taking advantage of the extra hour afforded by daylight savings time. It was cool and breezy, yet there was not a single balaclava in the audience. DayGlo hair yes, "Free Pussy Riot" teeshirts yes, feminists yes. Activists? Not so much. No nude protesters, no riot police, no mobs of newsmen after photos of topless demonstrators.
 

Don a balaclava and you, too, are Pussy Riot

The capacity crowd was here to be intellectually stimulated by researcher Masha Gessen, who somehow managed to survive gay and out in increasingly draconian Russia. She relayed the arresting details of a sham trial that was a "trial" only in one sense: The Pussy Riot defendants got to read their own prepared statements near the end. It almost brought us to tears as Nadia (pictured above, right), who conceived of a Wee-wee (later changed in English to Pussy) Riot, a radical feminist art protest collective, read a statement that explained our whole reason for working on Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal. Nadia speaks for us by her brave court statements. She was a philosophy major, after all.

 

(HBO Special) "A Punk Prayer" the American Pussy Riot documentary

 

We got to hear first hand from Gessen how Putin is, indeed, a dictator the likes of which have not been seen since George W. Bush stole a pair of American elections. (She is also the author of Man Without a Face: Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin).

He appointed himself "president" three times then rigged elections after the fact to confirm and legitimize the appointment. He was suffering from a great deal of unpopularity, particularly at the time Pussy Riot was singing a "Punk Prayer" (see entire HBO special above) against him in the former empire's most famous Christian church.

Russian Buddhist temple (Alexey Savransky)

(The Buddhist temples, such as the famous monastery in Elista, tend to be in the east, in Europe's only indigenously Buddhist country, Kalmykia, which is part of Russia). But, Gessen pointed out, traditionally the Eastern Orthodox Church has always been the last resort of scoundrels in officially atheist Russia.
 

If Imperialist Hillary says so

Russia was never actually atheist; that was just the official party line, and most Russians were never members of the official party, which was for elites. The Church was always there to back a dictator if called upon, according to Gessen. (This was because the KGB killed or defrocked any resistors within the Church then replaced them with spies and cronies, much like our American mainstream media).

Protesting Putin, promoting Pussy Riot (FP)

Putin has only recently seen his numbers skyrocket because of his incursions into Ukraine and Crimea, moves which most Russians seem to approve. Moscovites and Kremlin insiders certainly love it, as do the very rural areas of the country. Why? As Gessen reveals, 85% of Russia is wholly dependent on state-run media [and, we would guess, the other 15% is involved in making and/or disseminating that media].

 

But now, as of the day of her lecture, it's worse. What little independent media there was has been dismantled in the past two weeks. Since Sochi things have only gotten worse. Pussy Riot activists have been attacked, as aided and abetted by the police state. But Russia has never known democracy or any real freedom in their lifetimes, yet Nadia and the others recognized the lies and faux freedoms were lies.

 

Men conquer, and I'm The Man.

For instance, how could Russians not see how Pussy Riot was trying to help and liberate them? The state-run media saw to that: A "Punk Prayer" has the lyrics "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," and due to this and some spin doctoring, most of the surprisingly pious country to this day thinks Pussy Riot members defecated inside the church. Thus their sensibilities were hurt, accused and convicted of a hate crime.

RT helped WikiLeaks

And as ludicrous as it may seem, even RT -- which has done so much to reveal what American media/propaganda tries to conceal -- has been forced to go overtly pro-Moscow in reporting new propaganda. The channel was always funded by the state but exhibited editorial freedom that made it one of our favorite outlets to turn to get a view on what our own government wouldn't tell us. An opposition party, no matter how awful, is always needed in a democracy.

• Datelines, maps - casualties of Russia’s Crimea invasion
• Yes, there are bag guys in the Ukrainian gov't [but never mind that, the U.S. loves friendly dictators]
• AUDIO: Pussy Riot: Words Will Break Cement!

Did this man levitate on TV? (video)

Pfc. Sandoval and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Pseudo sadhu (holyman) Special Head (twitter), 28, pulls a "David Blaine" on America's Got Talent. Even Stern bowed before Special Head, reversing his X-ification for the first time in history. The crowd may not have been genuinely stunned, but the producers certainly edited to seem that way.

Swami S. Head turns heads at Burning Man, 2012

6-Year Old Angel Sings Death Metal

 

Aaralyn, erstwhile asura princess, 6, blew the speaker system at America's Got Talent in June as she and her elder brother drummer, Izzy, 9, proved to be heavy metal warriors, performing her original song "Zombie Skin." What possesses an angelic pixie to put audiences in their place when all they expect are lullabies and candy and everything nice?

Devi From Heaven Uplifts Humanity

 

Precious Jackie Evancho, devi and musical prodigy, 13, wowed the jaded audience of a world caught in the Dharma-Ending Age (Vedic, Kali Yuga). Her innocence and beauty suggest an immediately preceding past life in The "Heaven" (space world) of the Thirty-Three (Trayastrimsa) delighting the beings of light there as a lowly gandharva (angelic musician).

COMMENTARY

Levitating by another means (YP)

Do we believe that Special Head -- using silent meditation to concentrate, Tibetan or Mongolian Buddhist chanting to focus, and a resonant glass gong to set the mood -- actually, literally levitate? Not for a minute. However, we do believe such an act is possible. (It is possible because the world is not what we think it is, and by jhana this "reality" can be manipulated). And what would it look like? It would seem to have to look like this. In the past we have taken a serious look at levitation. And old Indian trick among sadhus and fakirs is to use a platform erected on one pole, usually covered by long robes or masking as a cane. But here that does not seem to be the case. Admittedly, we believed that David Blaine was performing miracles on the street in his first few TV specials. But he was good enough not to claim that, and neither does Special Head. This feat is all the more impressive because in the Burning Man version, he switches hands thereby proving nothing was hiding up his sleeve. The AGT version shows him drag his cane on and off stage; it was not built into his rug concealing a flat heavy platform unless a lot of post production doctoring was done and the judges were in on it. Can Howie Mandell, Heidi Klum, and Scarcy Spice really afford to besmirch their credibility? (Howie Stern has no reputation to taint).

• 60 billion planets, there is sure to be life (Space.com)
• Bless you, Amituofo
• PHOTOS: Traveling with the Tomb Raiders to Angkor Wat
• Donate vegan breast milk with Alicia Silverstone
• VIDEO: Vaginal advice with Sarah Silverman (Conan)
• Yummy Veggie Culinary (blog)
• VIDEO: Chinese Buddhist hells and redemption (WN)
• Gisele Bündchen's surprising new Yoga buddy
• The ridiculous heat of climate chaos

Friendship: Fool vs. Foe (Jataka)

Wisdom Quarterly; E.B. Cowell (ed.), The Jataka: Stories of the Buddha's Former Births (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1895), Book 1, No. 44. "Mosquito and Carpenter" (Makassa Jataka)

Vishvakarma or "Carpenter's Cave," Ajanta/Ellora Buddhist archeological site India, has a carved cathedral-shaped ceiling giving the impression of wooden beams (nozomiiqel/CC)

  

"Senseless friends" -- A rebirth story was recounted by the Buddha while on alms round in Magadha, about certain foolish villagers in a neighboring hamlet. Tradition has it that after traveling from the prosperous city of Sāvatthi to the kingdom of Magadha [where King Bimbisara reigned], the Buddha arrived at the village with its throngs of fools. 

(science.howstuffworks.com)

These foolish villagers met together one day debating, "Friends, when we are at work in the jungle, mosquitoes devour us, which hinders our work. Arming ourselves with bows, arrows, and other weapons, let us go to war with the mosquitoes and shoot or hack them all to death." 

Off they went to the jungle shouting, "Shoot down the mosquitoes!" But they shot and struck one another until they were in a sad state and returned only to sink on the ground in or within the village or at its entrance.

  

Surrounded by the Monastic Order, the Buddha entered the village on a quest for alms. The sensible inhabitants of the village as soon as they saw the Buddha set up a pavilion at the village entrance. And after bestowing the wandering ascetics headed by the Buddha with alms, they bowed respectfully and seated themselves. 

  

Observing wounded men lying around on this side and that, the Buddha asked the monastics, "These disabled men laying about, what happened to them?" 

"Venerable sir," they explained, "they went forth bent on war with the mosquitoes, only to shoot one another and so disable themselves."
 

The Buddha then said, "This is not the first time that these foolish people have dealt out blows to themselves instead of to the mosquitoes they meant to kill. In former times, too, there were those who set out to hit a mosquito only to hit a fellow-creature instead." So saying, at the villagers' request, he told this story of the past.

(Nh53/flickr.com)

  

JATAKA 

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisat gained his livelihood as a trader.

 

In those ancient days, in a frontier village in Kasi, there lived a number of carpenters. By chance one of them, a balding gray-haired man, was whittling away at some wood. His scalp glistened like a copper bowl as a mosquito settled on it and stung him like a dart.

 

The carpenter said to his beloved son who was sitting nearby: "Be a good boy, son. There's a mosquito stinging my head. Drive it away."

 

"Hold still, father," answered the son. "One blow will settle it."

 

Now at that very moment the Bodhisat arrived at the village to trade. And he was sitting in the carpenter's shop.

 

"Rid me of it!" cried the father.

 

"All right, father," answered the son, who was standing behind the old man raising a sharp axe intent on killing just the mosquito. He swung and cleft his father's head in two. The old man fell dead on the spot.

  

The Bodhisat, an eye-witness to this tragic event, thought to himself: "Better than having such a foolish 'friend' is having an enemy with sense, for even just the fear of human vengeance will deter from killing a person." Then he recited these lines: 
 

Senseless friends are worse than sensible foes;

Witness the son who sought the gadfly to slay,

But, poor fool, instead cleft his father's skull in two.

  

So saying the Bodhisat rose up and departed, later passing away to fare according to his karmic deserts. As for the carpenter, his body was cremated by his kinsfolk.

CONCLUSION

"Therefore, lay followers," said the Buddha, "in bygone times too there were those who, seeking to hit a mosquito, struck down a fellow-creature." This lesson ended, he pointed out the connection by identifying the rebirth: "In those days I myself was the wise and good trader who departed after repeating the stanza."

Part III. Friendship

Buddha at Sukhothai (Aidan McRae Thomson/flickr)

(Wisdom Quarterly translation, "A Brief Code of Buddhist Ethics," DN 31)
FALSE FRIENDS
..."These four, young householder, should be understood as Foes in the Guise of Friends:

1. one who borrows your possessions,
2. one who renders lip-service,
3. one who flatters,
4. one who encourages ruin.

[Why?] "In four ways, young householder, should one who borrows your possessions be understood to be a foe in the guise of a friend:

One borrows with no thought of returning,
appropriating everything.
One gives little wanting much in return.
What one must do one does out of fear.
One is always looking out for selfish ends.

"In four ways, young householder, should one who renders lip-service be understood to be an adversary disguised as a friend:

1. One speaks proudly of favors attempted in the past.
2. One makes friendly vows regarding the future.
3. One tries to gain favor with empty words.
4. One pleads inability when an opportunity to be of service actually arises.

"In four ways, young householder, should one who flatters be understood to be a foe masquerading as a friend: More on friendship

Enlightenment and Invoking Spiritual Power

Ven. Acharya Buddharakkhita, India (WQ edit)

Sanskrit Chanting from Malaysia, Petaling Jaya Tibetan Han version

The Jaya Mangala Gatha ("Stanzas of Victory," "Halo'd Triumphs," or "Verses of Success") celebrates the triumph of the creative power of goodness over the destructive force of the unwholesome. Although pessimists have asserted that what is bad, being infectious, spreads easily and therefore prevails in the world, goodness is even more infectious and spreads yet more easily.

One bad overpowering another can never be considered a victory, for bad alone is perpetuated. Goodness, however, not only overpowers what is base and unskilful, but triumphs by sublimating and transmuting it. It is no mere idealistic sentiment; this grand conquest is a verifiable truth. It is the basis of social evolution, a civilizing force countering selfish brutality or what some call the "law of the jungle."

The eight episodes in the Buddha's life that are touted in the Jaya Mangala Gatha depict him drawing on subjective sources of power in order to triumph over various malevolent forces. Each verse expresses an act of will born of unshakable confidence in the efficacy of good spiritual power, which can be tapped for the welfare of oneself and others. This is the central unifying theme of these Stanzas of Victory.

In a Buddhist context, the invocation of spiritual power is more than an earnest wish for a transmission from a higher source. It means evoking, activating, and perfecting one's own higher potentials, through volition and balanced self-effort. These powers are distinct and specific. They are divided into three categories, known in Pali as paramis (Perfections), balas (Powers), and Roads to Success (iddhipadas).

MOD (Messengers of Dharma) present the Jaya Mangala Gatha in Singapore

There are ten spiritual perfections (paramis) to be consummated in order to achieve nirvana or "spiritual liberation." When fulfilled they enable one to destroy the mental fetters that create bondage to birth, aging, death, and rebirth. These perfections also ensure success in meeting external dangers and challenges:

1. Giving (dana)
2. Personal moral purification (sila)
3. Renunciation (nekkhamma)
4. Wisdom (prajna)
5. Balanced effort (viriya) [neither too strenuous nor too slack]
6. Enduring patience (khanti)
7. Truthfulness (sacca)
8. Determination (adhitthana)
9. Universal love (metta)
10. Equanimity (upekkha)

They are integral to the attainment of enlightenment ("personal-buddhahood") and are absolute necessities for the cultivation of supreme buddhahood. In accordance with one's aspiration, they are fulfilled at one of three levels of intensity:

ARHAT-"BUDDHA"

As a prerequisite to arhatship, they must all be developed. The seeker treading the Path taught by a buddha when it is available then becomes an arhat (someone who is enlightened but not necessarily able to effectively teach) and attains nirvana.

The aspirant to perfect-buddhahood (sammsambuddha), however, must stop short of nirvana in order to make manifest the resolve to become an eminently skillful teacher who re-establishes the liberating Dharma when it has been lost, obscured, or destroyed in the world.

PACCEKA BUDDHA

Fulfillment of the ten perfections twice over, through the course of many lifetimes, is necessary for the arising of an independently-enlightened buddha who is however unable to teach. This kind of buddha is known as a "non-teaching perfectly enlightened one" (pacceka-buddha). These more numerous hermit-like buddhas must rediscover nirvana for themselves. As they appear during time cycles when the Dharma is lost to the world, they are unable to impart the Teachings or to help others attain enlightenment.

SAMMASAM-BUDDHA
In order to become an extremely rare Supremely or Perfectly Enlightened One (sammasam-buddha), one must exert oneself to fulfill the ten perfections thrice over. To accomplish this will take a "buddha-to-be," or bodhisattva, incalculable aeons. The Rebirth Tales (Jataka stories) chronicle the great sacrifices made by the historical Bodhisattva (who became the Buddha) in fulfilling these perfections. A Perfectly Enlightened One not only rediscovers nirvana without the benefit of the Dharma, but also enables innumerable beings to experience enlightenment.

When the Teachings no longer exist in the world -- when they are no longer remembered, preserved in some form or other, or practiced -- the Dharma remains the same. But no one is able to access it until a buddha agains makes it known. While it still exists in the world, it is perpetuated through a buddha's disciples, the Sangha, which is the most likely place to find arhats.

There are seven powers (balas), which are also known as "spiritual faculties" or indriyas. Their cultivation is necessary for the successful development of the Ten Perfections:

1. Conviction, confidence, or faith (saddha)
2. Right effort (viriya)
3. Mindfulness (sati)
4. Meditative absorption (jhana, samadhi)
5. Wisdom (prajna)
6. Moral shame (hiri)
7. Moral dread (ottappa)

The Four Bases of Psychic Power (iddhipadas) are:

1. Concentration and effort of will (chanda-samadhi)
2. Concentration of energy (viriya-samadhi)
3. One-pointedness of mind (citta-samadhi)
4. Concentration of investigation (vimamsa-samadhi)

When fully developed through the meditative absorptions (jhanas), these give the aspirant supernatural abilities capable of subduing malevolent forces. They also enable one to provide comfort and assistance to those dependent on one for spiritual protection.

The spiritual powers remain dormant until activated and made relevant to a given situation by right effort, which recurs as a common factor in all three categories. Right effort means the persevering and balanced fourfold application of:

1. restraint
2. overcoming
3. developing
4. maintaining

One restrains unwholesome impulses that have not yet arisen from arising, overcomes any that have arisen; develops the good that has not yet arisen, and maintains any that have arisen.

The Halo'd Verses (Jayamangala Gatha) can be construed as a meeting ground of self-effort and "grace." While this inspirational paradigm for generating various spiritual powers involves personal energy and effort, it also invokes the grace of spiritual immanence, tejasa. Here, then, is an integrated approach fusing intellect, emotion, and volition.

Recited daily as a spiritual discipline, with conviction and understanding, these verses lead to the systematic unfoldment of inner faculties that draw upon the power of the Buddha. Just as a crystal absorbs and emits electromagnetic energy, one who taps this power also shares it. Thus, with boundless compassion, the Buddha made available an inexhaustible source of spirituality, which overcomes all impediments and dangers from within and without. Hence the earnest invocation of the seeker, "By this mighty triumph may joyous victory be mine!"

Bodhisattva? Mystical Powers

Whattsa Who'sa Bodhisattva? - The Virtue of Mystical Powers
Beliefnet.com (Treeleaf Zen)

We now come to the bodhisattva virtue of miraculous, mystical powers (bala). ["Mystical powers" are, in fact, called abhiñña, not bala. Bala are meditatively useful "strengths."] Mahayana sutras and lore refer to a variety of supernatural powers developed through meditation and Buddhist practice, said to be of aid to the bodhisattva -- such as the ability to:

• foretell the future
• see the past lives of beings
• read minds
• radiate light
• cause rain
• and others too

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" [Shakespeare]. Taigen Dan Leighton writes [that the] "Buddhist attitude toward such powers has often been ambivalent, particularly in the Zen tradition, which emphasizes attention to ordinary, everyday activity."

• Zen Buddhist Meditation
• Meditation Techniques
• Guided Meditation

This outlook was epitomized in the legendary utterance by the great eighth-century Chinese adept, Layman Pang, that the ultimate supernatural power was chopping wood and carrying water. The ordinary world, just as it is, can be appreciated as an amazing, wondrous event. And experiences that seem supernatural and miraculous may only appear so to the limited portions of our mental and spiritual faculties that we conventionally employ. More>>