Thoughts of sensuality (craving for pleasures of the five senses) oppress the person beset by them again and again, becoming an obsession and compulsion. What's worse, getting what one craves does NOT solve the problem: Wanting is still there or soon comes back. Getting was no solution at all. Repeatedly getting in fact leads to addiction, a worse compulsion that sees no way out of the quagmire. (Giggity).
When the goal of the mind-body is just pleasure and more of it, the trap begins to become clear. But what other goal might one set for oneself? Liberation from disappointment and all suffering (dukkha). That goal is nirvana, realized by enlightenment (bodhi). But how?
That is what a Buddha answers, having exposed the problem, he claimed there is a cause (craving accompanied by aversion, both rooted in delusion) to our disappointment/suffering. There's a final solution, too. The fourth ennobling (enlightening) truth is that there is a path, a middle way, to the solution.
That might be a better goal, something else to fixate on and strive for, relaxing into it until the illusion dissolves and ultimate-reality becomes clear. Until then, what's a person to do but take Jerri Blank's advice to herself, "Don't think about sex, don't think about sex, don't think about sex," which will be about as useful as saying, "Don't think about pink elephants."
Did you just think of pink elephants? Didn't we just say not to think of pink elephants. Why do we keep saying "pink elephants," which only makes us think of pink elephants... Don't think about sex. Oops! We just said...
(It doesn't work to try to not think about what you're thinking about; it does work to think about something else and keep thinking that other thing).
Americans exaggerate how often they actually go to church
I'm the most religious of all. - Touch it. - No.
(ReligionForBreakfast) New research using smartphone location data reveals a massive gap between how often Americans say they attend religious services and how often they actually do.
00:00 Intro
00:43 Problems with self-reported surveys
2:20 How the smartphone study worked
5:12 The results
[Cellphones are spying on me, my location, activities, and every single thing we say in private like wearing a wire for The Man even when we think the phones are off?] Are surveys wrong? Are memories fuzzy?
Here's what the data really shows about religion in America.
Why Buddhism accepts other religions (while others do not)
Discover how the historical Buddha's radical approach to religious and spiritual acceptance changed history forever and why this solution might be exactly what our divided world needs today.
This is the story of how the Buddha's Dharma or "Doctrine" built bridges while others built walls. DISCOVER:
Why the Buddha shocked religious leaders with his revolutionary approach
How ancient temples prove Buddhism's unique acceptance of other faiths
The surprising reason other religions couldn't follow the Buddha's path
How Buddhist ideas strengthened other religious traditions [particularly what came to be known as Hinduism, derived from the Vedic and Brahminical religions of proto-India]
Why modern scientists are fascinated by Buddhism's inclusive approach
Why companies the world over implement "mindfulness" (sati) training courses
🎬 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The most accepting religion?
02:05 Pattern of history
04:26 The defense of faith
06:42 Buddha's revolutionary move
08:52 Mind-blowing success
11:57 The Buddhist secret
14:47 Challenge
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Religion for Breakfast, March 27, 2025; Buddha's Wisdom, Jan. 8, 2025; Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Impatient? Rush to Minute 2:37 to hear Christian approach and the Devil's opposition to being good
What is the Zen way to liberation? Kindergarten
Imagine beginning the Rains Retreat (Buddhist Lent known as Vas) with the idea of being good. Mara will come right at you like an angel of light (Mara Devaputra, Cupid, Eros, Kamadeva) and undermine your efforts, won't he? That's his modus operandi, as Alan Watts explains. But Taoism, and therefore Zen Buddhism, has a solution: Don't let him know what you're doing. One must act without intention, without premeditation, without the goal or outcome in mind so as to not let him know what we're up to on our path to be good. Otherwise, he'll just come along and ruin our efforts like taking candy from an old person or trying to give veggies to a baby: They'll fight you.
Not 40 days, but for more than 40 years, Alan Watts has earned a reputation as one of the foremost Western interpreters of Eastern philosophy.
Beginning at age 16, when he wrote essay for the journal of the Buddhist Lodge in London, Watts developed an audience of millions who were enriched by the wisdom of the East through his books, recordings, radio shows, public television programs, and public lectures.
In all, Watts wrote more than 25 books and recorded hundreds of lectures, all building toward a personal philosophy that he shares in complete candor and joy with readers and listeners throughout the world.
Insight can do what the ego cannot do by doing. - Philosophy or sophistry? Does Watts go too far?
Sixties icon? He was at it since before the 1950s.
His overall body of work has presented a model of individuality and self-expression matched by few philosophers, modern or ancient.
KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles continues to air Watts on Sunday mornings (8:00 am) and during Something's Happening midnights on Thursdays overnight to Friday.
Writers James Lapine and William Finn; Producer Kurt Deutsch; Stephanie J. Block (genius.com)
Trina and Marvin, Beauty and the Beast or how men must sometimes seem to females -- brutal
I'd like to be a princess on a throne
To have a country I can call my own
And a king
Who's lusty and requires a fling
With a female thing
Great, men will be men
Let me turn on the gas
I caught them in the den
With Marvin grabbing Whizzer's ass
Oh sure, I'm sure, he's sure he did his best
I mean he meant to be what he was not
The things he was are things which I forgot
He's a queen
I'm a queen
Where is my crown?
I'm breaking down, I'm breaking down
My life is shitty
And my kid seems like an idiot to me
I mean that's sick
I mean he's great
It's me who is the matter
Talking madder
Than the maddest hatter
If I repeat one more word
I swear I'll lose my brain
Oh, what else should I explain?
Oh, yes it's true, I can cry on cue
But so can you
I'm breaking down, I'm breaking down
Down, down
You ask me, "Is it fun to cry over nothing?"
It is
I'm breaking down
Now let's consider what I might do next
I hate admitting I've become perplexed
I'm bereaved
I've cried, I've shook, I've yelled, I've heaved
I have been deceived
As enemies go, Whizzer is not so bad
It's just he's so damn happy
That it makes me so damn mad
I want to hate him but I really can't
It's like a nightmare how this all proceeds
I hope that Whizzer don't fulfill his needs
"Don't" is wrong
Sing along!
What was the noun?
I'm breaking down, I'm breaking down
I'll soon redecorate these stalls
I'd like some padding on the walls
And also pills
I wanna sleep
Sure, things will probably worsen
But it's not like I'm some healthy person
I've rethought my talks with Marv
And one fact does emerge
Oh, I think I like his shrink
So that is why I might turn to drink
I'm on the brink
Of breaking down
I'm breaking down
Down, down
I only want to love a man who can love me
Or like me
Or help me
Help me!
Marvin was never mine
He took his meetings in the boys' latrine
I used to cry
He'd make a scene
I'd rather die
Than dry-clean Marvin's wedding gown
I'm breaking down, I'm breaking down
It's so upsetting when you've found
That what's rectangular is round
I mean it stinks
I mean he's queer
And me I'm just a freak
Who needs it maybe every other week
I've rethought the fun we've had
And one fact does emerge
I've played the foolish clown
The almost virgin who sings this dirge
Is on the verge
Of breaking down
I'm breaking down
Down, down
The only thing that's breaking up is my family
The only thing that's breaking up is my family
But me, I'm breaking
Down!
(Joseph Frazzetta) FALSETTOS: "I'm Breaking Down" by Barbara Walsh and Joseph Frazzetta, Nov. 1, 2010: from William Finn's Falsettos.
Vicki Lewis in "Falsettos" (Vicki Lewis) July 8, 2014: Vicki sings "I'm Breaking Down" from the musical "Falsettos" at the Wilshire Theatre in Los Angeles.
Stephanie J. Block - I'm Breaking Down (live at Barnes & Noble)
(Allison K) Jan. 27, 2017: This is perhaps the most heartfelt rendition Stephanie J. Block has ever performed, singing "I'm Breaking Down" from Falsettos. It was at the cast recording CD signing, 01/27/17.
Maybe it would work with Willy Brown, but blowing this interview isn't helping the candidate at all. If only instead of hiding for the past three years doing nothing (or having nothing to show for anything she has done, just like the sum total of her time in politics and the legal system) she had practiced being human, empathic, affable like Clinton (Bill, that is). But instead she's a monster, and all of her staff knows it. We'll be the ones to find out too late.
No, she did a great job and outsmarted the Fox News interviewer
There was a time when she needed to be replaced
Exchanges so bad that an evasive attorney could not play along, be nice, and stop acting defensive? This is how impromptu, unplanned speeches will go as well as any question-and-answer periods for the remainder of her time in office? Suddenly, dumb Trump doesn't look like the worst choice but more like the devil we know rather than the one we don't. He sometimes doesn't put his foot in his mouth. Sometimes he just stands in front of helicopters for press conferences and pretends not to hear. Sometimes he doubles down on mistakes and owns them, pretending as if he meant to say things that way. He's very dumb. What Kamala's excuse? Is her idiocy and off-putting demeanor calculated? She's like an angry reptilian, as if such beings already possess her body to play the role of second in command to a mentally absentee Biden. Harris has already been president when Biden has been put under for medical procedures. We were not told that, but she should probably say so because it's not looking good. We trust the Deep State will shove her down our collective throats so that Israel can have its wars unimpeded by our slow and secret funding. But it kind of makes Trump look good in comparison, the true-liars who says the quiet parts out loud because he's so dumb and vain and senile.
Trump's “unity” speech devolves into racist, white supremacist, ignorant stump speech as Trump goes off the rails one-third in, lying, demonizing migrants, spreading self-serving falsehoods, and embracing authoritarianism
(Democracy Now!) July 19, 2024: DN! hosts a roundtable the morning after DJ Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president with VP pick JD Vance on Thursday, just five days after surviving an assassination attempt, delivering the longest acceptance speech in convention history (94 minutes).
Trump began with a somber recounting of what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a bullet grazed his right ear, and soon went off script to deliver a rambling diatribe against various political enemies and repeatedly demonized immigrants.
“The first three or four days of the convention were pitched as a display of unity,” says Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker, who says the nominee “got in the way” of the party’s plans.
“Trump was just straightforwardly weird.” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, founder of Futuro Media and NPR's long-running show on Latino issues, says the vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric from Trump and almost every other speaker throughout the week is built on lies.
“If everything that he said is true, then our American economy would be tanking, right? And, actually, there would be rampant crime across the streets. That is not the truth. And even Trump supporters…know that’s not the truth,” says Hinojosa.
DN! also speaks with former Ohio Senator Nina Turner, who says both Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance are promoting a false populism that does not actually support workers or challenge the power of big money.
“We do need a president that will put the working-class people ahead of corporations. We do need a president that will line up the supposed values of this country with policy. The problem is, President Donald J. Trump is not it, and neither is J.D. Vance,” says Turner, a senior fellow at The New School’s Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy.
ABOUT: LATEST SHOWS. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.
Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: democracynow.org/subscribe. Donate
How to do a magical mudra (physical gesture) to achieve anything we want
(Dhieyo) Sept. 21, 2021: What is a mudra? It is a hand or body gesture with intention behind it to produce a result. It can therefore be a kind of magic.
Discover the power of mudra – hand gestures in Buddhist art
(Sotheby's) The Buddha used many mudras, each with a specific and well understood meaning. They often seem to be describing what he was doing while he sat in silence. Others indicated his activities in statues, iconographic depictions of him in his life, such as teaching, dispelling fear, resting in stillness (concentration, samadhi), or offering a blessing.
COMMENTS
(@devidaughter7782) Thank you for the beautiful images and detailed descriptions! One note: it's less pejorative to say "oral tradition cultures" rather than "preliterate" as the latter term implies that all societies will develop written languages. Many rich and wonderful Indigenous cultures around the world have remained oral traditions; this does not imply that they are "less developed" or inferior in any way. In fact, their wisdom has remained relational, fluid, and alive in contrast to the limitations that have come with written texts. It is important for us to use language that reflects a respectful acknowledgement that rich wisdom traditions occur in both oral and written traditions.
How to attract anyone with Three-Eyed Mudra even the gods and goddesses!
(Devraha Gyan ENGLISH) Dec. 22, 2021: To learn more about Ashtanga Yoga, meditation, Eastern religion, and Vedic knowledge, subscribe to this channel.
Dear followers who share these videos, this is helping to promote the #GuruGyan channel and spread Vedic knowledge all over the world. Thanks to All who send these videos to friends and family. OM DEVRAHAYA DIGAMBARAYA MANSHASINAYA NAMO NAMAH Jay Sri Ram! #GuruGyan #DevdasjiMaharaji #Trinetramudra
Not everyone wants to be a writer, but every writer wants to be a better writer. How? It's good to read a lot and read widely. The examples we stumble upon do much to open the mind to the possibilities of the pen. It is sometimes even better if we can glean some advice from successful writers. They do not endure by chance but by the whim of changing tastes of the audience. What will endure 100 years from now? That's what matters to those attempting to write literature. For the rest, the producers of pulp fiction, anything will do. It's all just fodder for sales. Beware the imitators. Kerouac is more influential now because he influenced so many influential people after him. He was onto something, studying Buddhism before it was trending.
Jack Kerouac's rules for good writing
(polymathematics) Oct. 17, 2018: Jack Kerouac, the king of the Beats, has 30 rules for writing to share with aspiring writers of any generation. Rule 0, which is not stated, is "Be ruggedly handsome." Look what it did for James Dean. But great writing can overcome even that.
By Jove and Jack, I think I got it — the spirit of the Beat, like when they say, "What do kids like about the crazy music today?" It's the same reason it's always been, whether the parents understand it or not: the beat, the beat, the beat!
Going Off Road
Get out of my way.
Seven (5/19/24) I swerve on each turn, like I always do, like I've always done all my life, turning to stare at people who interest me, because the ones I prefer are the madcaps, the spirited ones overwhelmed with a sense of urgency to reach the ring, to say something worth saying, to seize liberation, with a zest for everything all at once, madcap laughers like Syd B., who never utter an obliging commonplace, but revel and burn, who plummet like a shooting star, shining bright falling far, streaking phosphenes into the eye, flares, shattered glass, a thousand multiplications of the sun, each a sparkle in the heat, a gleam of steam the fogged breath of a wolverine, and everyone pants, "F yeah!" (Inspired by JK's On the Road)
Charles: Too derivative.
Seven: Of course it's derivative. I'm a student, following his example. I'm more passionately saying what he was attempting to say but at a more pounding beat, given the fiercer music we have today — grindcore and Bambie Thug, The Agonist (Alissa White-Gluz) and Dimmu Borgir, Die Antwoord and Eternal Conspiracy. It's madness, howling, burning from the inside as Bauhaus would say. Primal scream.
Charles: In that case, try it again.
Seven: We should open it up to readers of Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal. I'm sure any writer reading has in mind the deluded thought, "I'm sure I could do it better." Write it. Send it in — to the Comments Section below. We won't print it unless it's worth printing. (Comments do not automatically post).
Charles: So it's a contest?
Sort of. Here are the parameters. Pass this and be invited to send in more writing for consideration and possible publication. Writing is better when it has more restrictions, fewer degrees of freedom. Think about it. If the prompt were merely, "Do whatever." That's too many possibilities. But if there are fewer and fewer degrees of freedom, suddenly greatness emerges. We'll only give three rules to be able to judge and to be judging the same thing (comparing oranges to oranges):
Limit of 12 words
Topic: Burning from the inside
Use the word "road"
Charles: That sounds easy enough.
Seven: Guarantee you, Chuck, most will s***w it up, which will cut down on our number of finalists.
Charles: But a dozen words?
Seven: Honest Tea, their limit was 6 words, and people sent in amazing things that were printed on the inside of the caps. "Brevity is the heart of poetry." Get to the point. Edit. Cut the fat.
Charles: That's too hard; they'll never get it.
Seven: Okay, we'll add a fourth stipulation:
Break one of the rules, if you want, but say which one you broke or be disqualified.
Charles: That's impossible.
Seven: No, we already have a submission. The contest has only been going on for 7 minutes, and we already have a submission.
Charles: What is it?
Sariputra saw it just as it is.
Seven: It comes from a Mr. Buddha from Scythia, who has chosen to break the third rule, and has nevertheless come up with something very profound:
Countless people live with shame and distress about their eating.
Dr. Judson Brewer -- scientist, professor and author of The Hunger Habit and many other groundbreaking books -- is a thought leader in the field of habit change.
He’s also a decades long practitioner of mindfulness, and a dear colleague and friend of Tara Brach.
In this conversation they explore how combining mindfulness practice with a basic understanding of habit change science can free us from unhealthy eating habits.
They also look at the larger societal forces that drive overconsumption, as well as the shame that eating behaviors can evoke.
Pick up a copy of The Hunger Habit.More
Check out Tara Brach's "8 Essential Tips to Nourish a Meditation Practice" at tarabrach.com
This self-improvement video discusses how to attract girls and how to reach goals through controlling lust. This includes quitting p, no fap, and retention.
Self-development creators such as Hamza are major proponents of this. Here's how to quit p the easy-peasy way. But how can we cure out of control lust. Newsletter: kennysfit.com.
Caught masturbating in public
(Glick) Jewish woman caught masturbating on the beach kills herself?
Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, from "The Book of the Tens," Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (Aṅguttara Nikāya, 10.13) "Fetters" (via suttacentral.net)
Craving and ignorance are the roots of suffering.
“Meditators, there are ten bonds. What are the ten? They are the five lower and the five higher bonds. Now, what are the five lower bonds?
“Self-view (the view of a separate personal existence),
doubt,
clinging to (wrong grasp of) vows and observances,
sensual craving, and
ill will.
“These are the five lower bonds.
“Now, what are the five higher bonds?
Lust for form,
lust for the formless,
conceit [the habit of self-view],
restlessness, and
ignorance.
“These are the five higher bonds. These, meditators, are the ten bonds.”
(Stokes Twins) Nov. 17, 2023: The Stokes ate 100 years of American school lunches by time traveling to every decade to see and taste what was served in school cafeterias at the time. Watch until the end to see what food was banned from all school lunches.
Subscribe to be in one of the twins' videos! Kat Hixson @kat_hixson Stalk on Instagram for more content. Alan's Instagram: alanstokes, Alex's Instagram: alexstokes
Jump ahead. Discussion of the plan to allow Pearl Harbor to be attack begins at Minute 45:25
Pearl Harbor was planned by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt | secrets revealed
(Documentary Central) History says the Pearl Harbor bombing by Japan was the ultimate "sneak attack," but that's a propagandistic lie. Historians are convinced that U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt KNEW it was coming long in advance. Did FDR sacrifice many his own troops to justify (get a pretext for) joining the larger war against Nazi Germany, who was making advances that might see Hitler rule the world? More documentaries 👉 SubToDocumentaries#Documentary #Facts #Channel
Day of Deceit: Truth About Pearl Harbor
What's the big deal? That's how we do all wars
Author Robert B. Stinnett (narrated by Rafael Ferrer) has a 4.6 out of 5 stars with 490 ratings. The great question about Pearl Harbor -- What did we know and when did we know it? -- has been argued for years.
However, no investigator has previously been able to PROVE that foreknowledge of Japan's attack existed at the highest levels. The U.S. knew it because the U.S. provoked it on purpose. Until now. After decades of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, researcher Robert B. Stinnett has gathered the long-hidden evidence that shatters every lie about Pearl Harbor.
Not only was the attack expected, it was deliberately provoked by FDR's government through an eight-step program devised by the Navy.
Previous investigators have claimed that the U.S. government did not crack Japan's military codes before Dec. 7, 1941. But Stinnett offers cable after cable of decryptions. We did crack it.
Stinnett proves that a Japanese spy on the island transmitted information -- including a map of bombing targets -- beginning on August 21, and that we knew all about it. The evidence is overwhelming.
At the highest levels -- on FDR's desk -- America had ample warning of the pending attack. The attack happened in slow motion. The U.S. moved the ships from their old home in San Diego to their new home in Hawaii -- 1,500 miles closer to Japan to tempt them. We moved the important ships, leaving just junk and young men to be bombed.
At those same levels, it was understood that the isolationist American public (not wanting to be involved in foreign war but isolating ourselves to U.S. problems) would not support or fund a declaration of war. Unless we were attacked first. (We could not wait for that, so we brought it on and cried, "What a surprise!")
The result was a plan to methodically incite Japan, to keep the loyal officers responsible for Pearl Harbor in the dark, and to drag America into the largest war of its many, many wars.
The U.S. had broken the code and knew ALL about Japan's plans to bomb Hawaii. There was no surprise and no need to retaliate by joining WWII. The U.S. wanted to join and needed a pretext. It let U.S. soldiers be killed to make sure it got its pretext.
This is U.S. propaganda at its finest, at its most usual. War is a racket, and this is business as usual. The U.S. moved its important ships out to sea for safety, leaving behind old wrecks in need of demolition. Many sailors were also left out as bait.
Every war gets a pretext now.
It took Japan weeks to arrive, and as kamikaze fighters flew, they knew it was a trap. But it was too late. They were taken in by the U.S. ruse. They bombed, they dove, they got shot down. It was all a trick, all for nothing, no surprise to U.S. forces.
Japan was doomed, and the U.S. already had a super bomb in the works that it would drop to demonstrate to the world who the new Empire was and who would be calling the shots on the planet from then on. It wasn't going to be Hitler's Germany and the Nazis.
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