Help wanted. Recently, we were asked to come speak at a Buddhist temple in North Hollywood for Vesak (Buddhist Xmas) and did so. We were not told other speakers were speaking -- monks and philosophers.
Our Dharma editor so wowed the crowd and abbot with a powerful talk on the Three (most important) Things to understand in Buddhism that we were asked to return again a week later for the Friday night meditation group.
It became clear that Wisdom Quarterly and the Dharma Buddhist Meditation needs help, a personal assistant eager to learn about Buddhism, meditation, yoga, spirituality, vegetarian/vegan health, Meetup.com, and helping organize for-profit events. We will train.
These qualifications are helpful:
knowledge of social media
proficiency in cellphone use
living in Los Angeles or Orange County
interest in meditation practice
exercise of some sort (yoga, breathwork etc.)
interest or knowledge of the various Buddhisms
love and appreciation of some kind of music
enthusiastic about beach, prom, helping with live events
Appropriate for shy introverts, situational ambiverts, and even funny extroverts
Introduce yourself and indicate your interest at Dharma Buddhist Meditation (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) by sending a Meetup message to Ananda (using the Meetup Messaging System) or privately in the Comments Section below
(ABC7) Powerball nears record with $1.3 billion jackpot for tonight's drawing. Sept.. 3, 2025: The Powerball jackpot for Wednesday night's drawing has soared to an estimated $1.3-$1.4 billion, the fifth-biggest in the lottery's history, after no one claimed the top prize earlier this week, winning a measly million (before taxes). abc7.com/post/powerball...
It looks like this will end up being the 4th biggest
(SunnyV2) Playing the lottery is already incredibly stup*d. However, of all the stup*d lottery winners, there are going to be a few who are extra d*mb, including people who won the jackpot then lost everything.
From accidentally throwing a 3-million-pound (dollar) lottery ticket in the bin (trash), to spending a $16.2 million dollar prize in under 90 days, these are the absolute dumbest and stup*dest lottery winners of all time.
(NBC Connecticut) One in 292,000,000 is the chance of winning
What's karma got to do with it?
Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly 2025
For one who knows and sees
The biggest mistake I hear when listening to people talk about karma -- other than mistaking the results (fruit) for the actions, the reaping (harvest) for the sowing -- is the implicit assumption that it's what one did in this life.
When we look at someone and judge her or him, that is a judgment. It is not a reality. The unseen reality is that that person is so much more than can be seen. People are the results of their previous actions, what they did long ago and what they are doing now at this moment, both. It may be possible to do something now and seem to get the opposite result.
However, when we examine ourselves under successful meditation (profound calm and the pursuit of insight or samatha-vipassana), we can see that most of the welcome and unwelcome results manifesting now were planted long ago.
How to win? Liquify LUCK (Dr. Gallenberger)
All we do, say, think follows us with fruit.
It is relatively rare for a recent action to bear sudden results. There is usually a period of maturation, bearing fruit, ripening. So it is wise to persist in the good (skillful, wholesome, harmless) as it will surely bear fruit at some point.
Likewise, it is foolish to persist in the bad (unskillful, unwholesome, harmful) because it does not seem to have yet borne any unwelcome results. What is "good," what is "bad"? That is very easy to answer, though it may be unbelievable, in karmic terms. The real "karma," according to the Buddha is the cetana (motivation, intention, impulse) behind an act, not the act itself. With this in mind, there are six major causes or roots of ALL actions (karma):
nondelusion (insight, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, right view).
Karma: It's everywhere you're going to be.
For any act (deed, impulsive acting out, conduct), we can reflect and seek out our own underlying motive. In this way we can know the intention (motive) behind our karma (act). It will be rooted in one of these six. The first three invariably lead to eventual harm, both immediate in terms of disturbing our mind/heart and conscience if we still have one to save us and eventual in terms of bearing fruit long after the seed was sown (planted). This is a universal law (niyama) and not the Buddha's doing. He made it known to help all living beings be happy here and now and be liberated at some time in the future.
But isn't it wrong to WANT to be a millionaire or billionaire or trillionaire? - No. Wanting is normal. Any wanting may lead to that much disappointment, and certainly if greed (tanha become lobha, thirst become avaraice) gets a hold of us, that is very likely to lead to some very unskillful karma (deeds).
Living in an Abrahamic society that calls itself Judeo-Christian, we are taught to believe that, "Money is the root of all evil." While this is not incorrect as such, it is incomplete. It's not what the Bible says. Look it up. The popular KJV says that it is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil, and that seems closer to what we find. "Desire" is not bad, as many Westerners misunderstand Buddhism to be saying. Craving is, which is to say, greed motivates many unskillful deeds, and these will have very painful results for a long time. We can see in ourselves, with no external authority telling us what's what, that the moment craving arises, unsatisfactoriness co-arises. With these springs hopes, plans, schemes, expectations...we're just setting ourselves up for a bigger and bigger fall. But say I want something -- more food, more comfort, more Avenged Sevenfold songs, more sex, more more more whatever -- and I'm willing to strive for it and worry about it and waste my time for it. Okay. So long as it's done in a lawful (codified consensus reality of the rules of our society) and harmless (ahimsa) way, that's fine. That's good. Go for it. But be aware, at least, that it will not satisfy greed. It will not (cannot) fulfill us. And in the meantime, we have not been cultivating the skillful that would lead to welcome results now and in the future. Compassion and wisdom pay great dividends, as does mindfulness.
Thanks for watching. Like and sub if enjoyed, SunnyV2 XO ❤
The idea for this video was inspired by "TheRichest," who posted a video on a similar topic in March 2015 entitled "10 Stupid Lottery Winners." Watch that version on YouTube.com.
Schultz LIVE; ABC News 7, Los Angeles, Sept. 3, 2025; SunnyV2, Nov. 17, 2022; Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
When he spoke this way, the Blessed One said to the Brahmin: "Do you know, Brahmin, who an outcast is and what the conditions are that make one an outcast?"
The Buddha was much respected.
"Actually, no, Venerable Gautama, I do not know who an outcast is nor the conditions that make one an outcast. It would be good if Venerable Gautama were to explain the Dhamma to me so that I might know who an outcast is and what the conditions are that make one an outcast."
[The abusive terms used by the Brahmin and the respectful address that follows need a word of explanation. The Brahmin had just prepared his offering to his God, Great Brahma, when his eyes fell upon the Buddha. To the Brahmin the sight of a wandering ascetic (samana), a shaven-headed recluse, is an unlucky omen. So he burst into angry words. The Buddha, however, was unruffled and spoke to him gently in words with a soft cadence. The Brahmin was apparently ashamed of his unskillful outburst and, repenting of his folly, addressed the Buddha courteously. Commentary: Note the Buddha's emphasis on anger and hatred in his very first stanza.]
"Listen then, Brahmin, and pay attention. I will explain."
"Yes, Venerable Sir," replied the Brahmin.
1. "Whoever is angry, harbors hatred, and is reluctant to speak well of others [discredits the good of others], perverse in views, deceitful — know that person as an outcast.
2. "Whoever in this world kills living beings, once born or twice born,* in whom there is no sympathy for living beings — know that person as an outcast.
[*Dvijam, birds, are "twice-born" in that they are first born as an egg and then are born again out of their shells when they hatch.]
3. "Whoever destroys and besieges villages and hamlets and becomes notorious as an oppressor — know that person as an outcast.
4. "Be it in village or forest, whoever steals what belongs to others, what is not freely given — know that person as an outcast.
5. "Whoever having actually incurred a debt runs away when pressed to pay it, saying, 'I owe no debt to you' — know that person as an outcast.
6. "Whoever, coveting anything, kills a person going along the road, and grabs whatever that person has — know that person as an outcast.
7. "One who for one's own sake or for the sake of another or for the sake of wealth, utters lies when questioned as a witness — know that person as an outcast.
8. "Whoever by force [rape] or with consent [adultery] associates with the spouses of relatives or friends — know that person as an outcast.
Good karma: Treat parents like buddhas.
9. "Whoever having wealth supports not one's own mother and father who have grown old — know that person as an outcast.
10. "Whoever strikes and annoys by [harsh] speech, mother, father, brother, sister, mother-in-law, or father-in-law — know that person as an outcast.
11. "Whoever, when questioned about what is good, says what is detrimental, and talks in an evasive manner — know that person as an outcast.
12. "Whoever, having committed an unskillful deed, wishes that it may not be discovered by others, and commits harm in secret — know that person as an outcast.
13. "Whoever, having gone to another's house and partaken of choice food, does not honor that host by offering food when receiving a visit — know that person as an outcast.
14. "Whoever deceives a Brahmin priest or wandering ascetic or any other mendicant [alms person] by uttering lies — know that person as an outcast.
15. "Whoever when a Brahmin or wandering ascetic appears during mealtime angers that person by harsh speech and does not offer that person [any alms] — know that person as an outcast.
16. "Whoever in this world, shrouded by ignorance, speaks harsh words (asatam) or falsehood [asantamtipi patho (SnA)] expecting to gain something — know that person as an outcast.
17. "Whoever, debased by pride, exalts oneself and belittles others — know that person as an outcast.
18. "Whoever is given to anger, is miserly, has base desires, and is selfish, deceitful, shameless, and fearless [in doing what is unskillful] — know that person as an outcast.
19. "Whoever reviles the Enlightened One [the Buddha], a disciple of the Buddha, a recluse, or a householder — know that person as an outcast.
20. "Whoever not being an enlightened person, a consummate one, pretends to be one, is a thief in the whole universe — the lowest of outcasts.
21. "Not by birth is one an outcast; not by birth is one a Brahmin. By deed one becomes an outcast, and by deed one becomes a Brahmin.
22. "Know by the example now cited [the fact that by birth one is not an outcast]: There was an outcast's son, Sopaka, who became known as Matanga.
23. "This Matanga attained the highest fame difficult to gain. Many were the warriors (kshatriyas) and Brahmins who went to attend on him.
24. "Mounting the celestial chariot [the Noble Eightfold Path, and driving] along the passion-free high road, [Sopaka, now a monk], reached the Brahma realm having given up sense-desires.
25. "His [lowly] birth did not prevent him from being reborn in the Brahma realm. There are Brahmins born in the family of preceptors, kinsmen of [Vedic] hymns.
26. "They are often seen committing unskillful deeds. In this life itself they are despised, in the next they are reborn in an unfortunate state of existence. High birth does not prevent them from falling into a woeful state or from censure [here and now].
27. "Not by birth is one an outcast; not by birth is one a Brahmin. By deed one becomes an outcast, and by deed one becomes an Brahmin."
Honoring the worthy ones is good karma.
When the Buddha had spoken, the Brahmin Aggika Bharadvaja said to him:
"Excellent, O Venerable Gautama, excellent! O Venerable Gautama, it is just as if a person were to set upright what had been overturned, or were to reveal what had been hidden, or were to point the way to one who had gone astray, or were to hold an oil lamp to the dark so that those with eyes might see things, even so in many ways has Venerable Gautama expounded the Dharma, the Doctrine.
"I go for guidance (sarana) to Venerable Gautama, the Dharma, and the [Arya-] Sangha [the community of those disciples along the stages of enlightenment]. May Venerable Gautama accept me as a lay follower who has gone for guidance from this day onwards so long as life lasts."
The Simpsons; Ven. Piyadassi Thera (trans.), Vasala Sutra: "The Discourse on Outcasts" (Sn 1.7, PTS Sn 116-142), 1999, edited by Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly, orig. published 6/21/20
Is an egg an egg? - Yes. Is it alive? - Yes. - How do we know? - We know because if cared for, it will grow (develop, transform, metamorphose) into a bird, often a bird (like a chicken) capable of procreating more eggs and birds.
Is killing unskillful (harmful, detrimental, resulting in suffering)? - Yes. - Is taking the life of an egg killing? - NO, that doesn't count! It's not a bird! It's a fetus, and a fetus is not a life! I'm not giving up my omelets and easy-overs! You tricked me! It's not killing. There's nothing wrong with stealing eggs, smashing them, and devouring the insides like common egg-stealing snake-animals from the warm wombs of mother-birds! I grew up on a farm, and all the hens gave us their eggs, I mean our eggs, and said, "Sure, eat 'em, I don't care! They come out of canal and mean nothing to me as long as the roosters are kept away so they can't be babies and we're forcibly confined for our safety to all lesbian prison-coops! Case closed, right-to-lifers! Keep your exalted karma philosophies out of my kitchen!"
So you admit to having mixed feelings, with so much reactivity, that slurping the wombs of big mother-birds to devour their egg in the shell is kidnapping, killing, and cannibalizing fellow living beings? Kind of, but so what? EVERYONE does it! - Well, not everyone. Those who do meet with trouble, not the least of which are salmonella infections, E. coli epidemics, bowel distress, possible death, and when they meet with the results of their karma (deeds), they will not be happy about it.
Isn't the salmonella and E. coli infection the karmic result of killing? - No. That's just a natural consequence of consuming contamination. The abducting of eggs, killing of birds, the slaughter and slurping of the dead, that's the karma. And the karmic result and fruit (vipaka and phala) of killing will not be good.
The Buddha tells a story of the past: Silanisamsa Jataka
It's not a sutra, Homer, it's a jataka. - Shut up, Flanders! *Whisper* I'll be back for those eggs.
.
This ship is going to sink, friend.
Long, long ago, at the time of [a previous buddha named] Buddha Kassapa [3], a [stream-enterer] lay disciple who had already entered the path [reached the first stage of enlightenment] booked passage on a ship with his friend, a rich barber.
The rich barber's wife asked the Buddha's disciple to look after her husband. But a week after it left port, the ship sank in the middle of the ocean.
The two friends saved themselves by holding on to a plank of wood and were eventually cast up on the shore of a deserted island rookery.
Hungry, the foolish barber raided egg nests, killed birds, slaughtered and cooked them, offering a share of his bloody meal to the Buddha's disciple.
"No thank you," the disciple answered, "I'm fine" [not wishing to encourage the foolish barber in his defilementsand unskillfulkarma]. He thought to himself, "In this desolate place, there is no help [guidance] for us except the Three Jewels [the Buddha, Dhamma, and noble Sangha]."
As he sat meditating on the Three Jewels, a naga (reptilian, dragon, CDs) king who had been reborn on that island magically transformed himself into a beautiful ship filled with the seven precious things [4]. Its three masts were made of sapphire, the planks and anchor of gold, and the ropes of silver.
The naga king transforms into a ship to save the good man
The helmsman, who was a sea spirit, stood on the deck and yelled, "Passengers for Jambudipa [earth, subcontinent, or India] now boarding for immediate passage!"
"Yes," the virtuous lay disciple called back, "that's where we're bound!"
"Then come aboard," the sea spirit invited.
The virtuous layman climbed aboard the beautiful ship and turned to call his friend the foolish barber.
(The Simpsons) Stealing to kill and devour mother and their offspring
"You may come," the sea spirit declared "but he may not."
"Why not?" the disciple asked.
"He is no follower of the pure life," answered the sea spirit. "I brought this ship for you, but not for him."
"If that's the case," the virtuous layman announced, "then all the gifts I have given, all the virtues [restraints and exertions] I have practiced, all the powers I have developed — I give the fruit of all of them to him!"
"Thank you, Master!" cried his friend the barber.
"Very well," relented the sea spirit, "now I can take both of you aboard."
The ship carried the two men across the sea and up the Ganges River that pours into it. After depositing them safely at their home in Baranasi [the holy ancient city of Varanasi/Benares], the sea spirit used his magic power to create enormous wealth for both of them. Then, poising himself mid-air, he instructed them and their friends:
"Keep company with the wise and good. If this barber had not been in the company of this virtuous layperson, he would have perished in the middle of the ocean."
Arguing more details
What about other eggs? - Avoid harming beings.
[Doesn't that depend on whether a rooster (cock, man-chicken) inseminated and fertilized it? - That's what some people say. But is cannibalizing a fellow human's womb, the afterbirth, okay after a human birth? - That's sick. - Yeah, but people do it, saying human cannibalism is nutritious and what a waste to throw all that flesh and goo away after it is expelled from the womb and vagina, mixing with bum juices and all but being washed and sauteed before being cannibalized. - Sick! - Sick, yes, but is it killing?
- No! No one died, and no one was kept from being born or developing! - Right, so if that cannibalism is all right, why not eggs that have not yet developed a blood spot, the sign of fertilization? - Ugh, it's all so gross. I don't think humans are carnivores, given that they don't have the features of carnivores but share so many similarities with herbivores. - Meat eaters call human bodies "omnivores" like dogs, capable of eating anything. - Any nutritive substance will do, no matter how contaminated or how fouled by harmful substances that intrinsically mixed in. Carnivore bodies are the way they are to deal with quickly expelling the toxins. - Anyway, don't we HAVE to eat something, so we have to kill something to do it?
- No. We can live without killing, but let's say some lower lifeform does die in the process, are we killing it or calling for it to be killed? No. Even vegetables do not have to be killed for us to eat and live well. - How? - Fruitarianism, for example, is a great way to live on food produced by plants without killing the plants -- beans, grains, vegetable parts other than roots, bioavailable minerals, chlorella, nuts, and much more like nonplants, such as mushrooms and mycelia.
There's breatharianism, subsisting on prana and amrita, but the West doesn't believe in that, so it's out of the question -- but we know it to be true, rare as it is, upending everything we think we "know" about this body and this human life. Vegetarianism is another example, which comes in different varieties. Veganism is a better example, as it steers clear of all dead animals, dead insects, dead and killed higher lifeforms, and avoids using their slaughtered bodies and byproducts. - Is there no way to eat the dead? - There are plenty of ways to eat the dead. Look around.
- No, I mean, any ethical, moral, non-karmically-harmful way? - I can think of one, but it still has the problem of the dead's bodies being rotten, filled with harmful things that the human body will suffer to have to deal with, but at least karmically might not be a problem, other than maybe ghoulish beings standing around delighting in the dead body and its devourment.
- Well, you don't make it sound appetizing, but what is it? - What if someone were to eat the already-dead, that is, that which is dead by not being killed? - What do you mean? - Roadkill, aged animals, sick animals, dead by predation, dead by accident, and so on, these bodies, while dead, might not have been killed by the consumer aiming to consume them NOR paid to be killed, nor by approving of killing as happens when one hires and pays a butcher, a delicatessen, a slaughterhouse, abattoir, a rancher or other torturer of animals who raises them for slaughter or facilitates their slaughter.
- Never mind, I'd rather go vomit and never eat another living being if you put it like that. - The Truth is that the Truth is, whatever it is, and that may be what karma knows, regardless of our rationalizations saying, "This isn't so bad" or "This is not as bad as that" as if any of that makes killing okay, or approving of killing, or rewarding someone for killing, or digesting the dead.]
Does Buddhism have a creator? Yes. What about a savior? Yes, that, too, sort of
"God" has a sense of humor (Far Side).
Recently, Ven. Subhuti, a student of the awakened scholar-monk Pa Auk Sayadaw, made a video explaining a common question he gets asked as an American Buddhist monk in the West:
“Do you believe in a creator?” It is a loaded question usually asked by devoted Christians. They are expecting him to say “No,” but he answers, “Yes.”
The real answer is that karma [kamma, deeds, intentional actions of body, speech, and mind, all that we sow and can expect to reap] is the creator [of our lives, our circumstances, our fruit, what we get].
He quotes a stock phrase from the Pali canon, Theravada Buddhism's canonical texts recorded in the lingua franca (common language) the Buddha spoke:
Kammassakomhi, kammadāyādo, kammayoni,
“It is my actions (deeds) that I own, it is my actions that I am heir to, it is my actions that I am born from,
I'll leave this one in the Garden.
kammabandhu, kammapaṭisaraṇo --
“Actions are my kinsfolk, actions are my guide --
yaṁ kammaṁ karissāmi, kalyāṇaṁ vā pāpakaṁ vā,
Whatever actions I perform, whether skillful or unskillful,
tassa dāyādo bhavissāmī ti.
“to that will I be heir.”
pabbajitena abhiṇhaṁ paccavekkhitabbaṁ.
“One who has gone forth [from home into the left-home life of a Buddhist monastic] should frequently reflect on this.”
If by karma we are "created," so it is by karma that we are "saved." Therefore, in that sense, our karma (our deeds) are our savior:
Does that mean that there is a God in Buddhism? There are many Gods (brahmas) and gods (devas) in Buddhism, none quite fitting the exaggerated description of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Judeo-Christian conception, except perhaps the Gnostic Christian view. But karma fits the omni-description.
Buddhism is nontheistic as well as polytheistic. How? Nontheism is not atheism. Theism is the certainty that there is some all-powerful God as imagined by monotheists; atheism is the certainty that there is not.
Nontheism, by distinction to both of these extremes, says that whether there is a God or whether there is not has no bearing on one's own awakening, enlightenment, and liberation (ultimate salvation). Why?
The gods and Gods themselves are not free. The Buddha excelled the Gods in that sense, and many of them (such as Maha Brahma and Baka Brahma) knew it, as hard as it was to believe. The Buddha is not worshiped, is not now sitting in his heaven welcoming and excluding souls. It's nothing like that.
But it is curious that Christians say things that are true without knowing it, such as: "God works in mysterious ways." Nothing could be more true of the working out of KARMA (actions begetting reactions, small causes and their exponential effects, deeds and their resultants).
The working out of karma is imponderable and is not mocked. "God is not mocked," it is said, but the Jewish/Christian God is mocked all the time. What is not mocked is karma, in the sense that both are given credit for producing results appropriate to actions.
Whatever is done, it is seen. It does not go unseen. And there are results, for the most part with some exceptions. (Not every action has to produce a result, e.g., if the soil upon which a seed was planet becomes barren, i.e., if a person becomes fully enlightened and therefore no longer liable any further results after this life).
God can be bargained with to avoid or modify some results. Karmic resultants are modified by other karma (actions). One easy way to understand this is given in an ancient example.
Freshwater naturally dilutes saltwater
Let's say a person were living a fairly good life but then did something very grave and wrong. That person could be compared to a cup with water in it that is now spiked with salt. How can that bitter saltiness ever be removed (the "sin forgiven")? While it can't be removed, it can be diluted.
The solution to saltiness is not removing salt but adding more fresh water. That will dilute it and make it less salty. Having done one "wrong," one might do many "rights" to compensate for it.
It'd be magic if salt disappeared
If one does many little wrongs, that also makes the cup salty and hard to swallow. Doing many little rights and some big ones, too, will be very helpful for the long future of drinking. We imagine there's only this life, but there are many more.
Karma is the creator (of our lives, our circumstances, our environment), the orchestrator, the chooser, the Generator, Operator, and Destroyer (G.O.D.)
Unlike Maha Brahma (the "Great Supremo") or the countless devas (celestial and terrestrial "shining ones"), all faring along according to their karma, it would be wise to engage in the karma that makes an end of all karma, that brings suffering to a final end, that results in knowing-and-seeing.
(Beth Upton) Feb. 24, 2025: Here British Buddhist meditation master Beth Upton, formerly the successful Burmese Theravada Buddhist nun Sayalay Anutara, gives a brief overview of what is meant by the terms "mind," "nāma," and "heart" during a meditation retreat Q&A.
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Beth Upton (bethupton.com), video shot by Alexis P.N. (alexispn777@gmail.com) and Zsolt Batar
@GuavaFunk: YouTube/laffcotchtv; edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
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