Who created God? The Buddha's answer

Western conception of Man (Adam) and God (Yahoo) by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

Who created God? (The Buddha’s answer)

Gnostics know this proud god is no God.

Ego Podcast (Buddhism) Ever wonder, "Who created God?" or "Why am I here?" This video explores the Buddha’s profound perspective on these timeless questions.

The Buddha didn’t answer such inquiries with dogmas but invited spiritual seekers to look inward, emphasizing personal experience over intellectual speculation. Knowing-and-seeing is what is important, not more words and wonderment.

Discover how the Buddha’s teachings or Dharma guide us from intellectual questioning to self-awareness and existential clarity.

Learn why the Buddha discouraged endless questioning about theoretical matters and instead encouraged the pursuit of actual self-discovery, mindfulness, and inner transformation.

Buddhism and the God-Idea

This journey is not about answers given by others but about finding the truth within ourselves.

• [Yes, all things (dhammas) being impersonal, ultimately there is no-self, but what is there? There is, conventionally speaking, a dependently originated "self," and it is a fabrication of the Five Aggregates clung to as self. So there is a self conventionally but, ultimately, what is it but five ever-changing processes and not at all what it seems. From the inside, it feels real, but looked on dispassionately. It leads to freedom. But we have to let go of our preconceptions and watch mindfully to "see clearly" (vipassana), which is the result of insight meditation by a serene mind purified by the absorptions (jhanas).



Wise brahmas are nevertheless deluded, too.

• The God (Maha Brahma) and Gods (brahmas) and gods (devas) all have origins and did not come out of nothing, nor can it rightly be said that they just always were. Karma (deeds bearing results) is the great divider and assigner; there are actions that result in rebirth as gods of all kinds, namely, samadhi ("stillness unifying the mind to superconsciousness"), which means gaining, developing, and mastering the meditative absorptions (jhanas), grounded in morality and virtue (sila) so as to bring about peace of mind free of remorse or worry. Then, when passing away, if one has mastered the absorption, one will be reborn in accordance with this very weighty skillful karma on a plane of existence corresponding to the level of that mastery. See the 31 Planes of Existence for details. Current deeds create future results. To the extent that we understand (have right view), will (intend), and accumulate actions, they will be foundations for our future experience. So in a sense everyone is creating his or her own future circumstances and fruitions.

Seeking answers to life’s deepest questions? The Buddha’s wisdom offers a path to self-discovery and liberation. Watch now, like, share, and subscribe for more profound insights. #Buddha #God #Truth #SelfAwareness #Mindfulness #Meditation #Enlightenment

• Gary Larson (The Far Side); Ego Podcast (Buddhism), Jan. 20, 2025 (video); additional text by Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Beyond Chutzpah: On misuse of antisemitism

How dare this Bible (Old Testament Torah)-reading, Mosaic law-following, Talmud-studying, intellectual, honest, Orthodox Jew defend "Palestine" over European Zionism, invasion, and genocide!

.

Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

I am the real king of the Jews. Why don't they worship me and elevate me as the new Messiah?

.

Ultimate victims: Jews are terrified of the truth

Is criticism of Israel or Zionism "anti-Semitism"? Of course not. But such criticism has been weaponized. Jewish Professor Norman G. Finkelstein, whose relatives were put through the Holocaust, wrote this book. It has an overall score of 4.7 out of 5 stars after 165 ratings. 

Meticulously researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Jewish historians for actual history

Finkelstein exposes a pro-Israeli bias in the U.S., corruption of scholarship, and the contrivance of controversy that aims to hide Jewish human rights abuses.

He interrogates the new anti-Semitism, which is mainly levied against Jews who fail to toe the Zionist party line or who otherwise dare step out of line and question Israel's imperial settler colonial project in Israel.

This edition adds a preface analyzing recent developments in Israel's conflict and a new afterword on Israel's construction of a new Berlin Wall in the West Bank.

Pro-Israel IDF means pro-Trump MAGA? No!

Richard Forer provided the inspiration for reading this and similar books to get at the terrible truth about Israel. It helps shatter the myths we were raised with, the lies we were told, the PR that indoctrinated us and makes many Jews racist.

Forer recounted one Jew's spiritual journey on KPFK's Alternative Radio with David Barsamian (5/10/24): Richard Forer in Colorado Springs "On the Psychospiritual Roots of the Israeli Palestinian Tragedy ."

(If one is an antisemite, it is not for criticizing Israel. It is for opposing and calling for the genocide of other Semites, ignoring their right to exist, defend themselves, and be safe in their own land. Semitic non-Jews in the geopolitical Middle East are Semites).

• For more info: (800) 444-1977 or alternativeradio.org

• Jewish Voice for Peace (jvp.org)
• NOT IN OUR NAME (ifnotnowmovement.org)
• شرش | Shoresh | שר”ש (@shoresh_us) • Anti-Zionist Israeli Jews
• IDF Veterans for Peace: breakingthesilence.org.il
• American Veterans for Peace
• Code Pink: Women for Peace
• Amnesty International
• Freedom From Religion Foundation (ffrf.org)

Undue, inordinate influence of Zionist Jews on American government and military plans?

• Norman Finkelstein, Alias Books, June 2, 2008; Shauna Schwartz, Seth Auberon, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

More popular, Taylor or Trump? (comedy)

Rising (The Hill); Jimmy Kimmel (ABC); Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

It's wall to wall "Tralor" (Travis+Taylor), conspiracy, Superbowl, and a big Grammy win.

Rapist ex-Pres. Trump is a loser who keeps losing. Now he's entering this popularity contest?

• Trump’s turmoil: Fearing Taylor Swift’s influence and potential Biden endorsement

Trump thinks he’s more popular than Taylor Swift, senators grill social media CEOs, Elmo goes viral

(

More popular, Nazi Barbie or Wannabe Adolf?

Jimmy Kimmel Live) Jan. 31, 2024: Cases of syphilis (the STI) in the United States skyrocketed to the highest numbers since the 1950s, in Washington DC they held the annual lambasting of the social media CEOs event, and most of the senators are too old to figure any of it out, a ruling is expected any day now on how much ex-Pres. Don John Trump will have to shell out as he loses yet again in his the multi-million dollar fraud case, Trump is reportedly telling people he’s more popular than Taylor "Nazi Barbie" Swift, we check in with Sesame Street's Elmo after he went viral for asking everyone on Twitter (X) how they were holding up, and Jimmy plays a new round of “Foreigner or Not?”

MAGA(ots) nuts melt down over TrayLor (Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce), Trump goes totally off the rails, and A.I. Joe Biden

(Jimmy Kimmel Live) Jan. 30, 2024: Guillermo celebrated his birthday in Puerto Rico over the weekend, there is a bunch of right wing crazy talk about Taylor "Nazi Barbie" Swift and Pres. Joe Biden in relation to the Super Bowl and 2024 election, Trump has gone completely off the rails, he is very proud of the fact that he is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize (which anyone can be), Biden’s Super PAC is said to be planning to spend $250 million dollars on ads in the three months leading up to the election, Jimmy Kimmel is making waves in Canada surrounding his Honorary Mayorship of Dildo, and a number of businesses are using what they call “dynamic pricing” to charge more when demand is high.

Trump’s courtroom confusion, Jimmy actually agrees with Ted Cruz, and a birthday prank on Guillermo!

(Jimmy Kimmel Live) Jan. 25, 2024: Jimmy tells a harrowing story involving his newly adopted dog Todd getting sick all over the house, Los Angeles had a 4.2 earthquake last night, Donald Trump testified in the defamation trial related to his rape of E. Jean Carroll, Eric Trump was on TV with Hannity where he set a new world record for namedropping daddy, Trump is bigly upset that Nikki Haley hasn’t dropped out of the race, he claimed that anyone that makes a contribution to her campaign will be permanently banned from MAGA Camp, Jimmy agrees with Ted Cruz for the first time ever, and he sends Guillermo on a special and memorable experience for his birthday.

Subscribe to get the latest #Kimmel: bit.ly/JKLSubscribe. Visit the Jimmy Kimmel Live website: bit.ly/JKLWebsite #Kimmel

Burning from the Inside: Bauhaus (video)

Bauhaus from Burning From the Inside; Gothy Gothison, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

LYRICS: "Kingdom's Coming"

Madness in the wind's got something to say

It ripped you apart

It will always be that way

It said, kingdom's coming, causes chaos

Will cut to pieces

The film you saw today

It's your big bad secret

Your crown of thorns

You want for nothing, nothing at all

Sky will open soon, could be today

(Can't look back, back again)

Your kingdom's coming, coming today

(You want it all, but it's on the run)

Can't take it easy, can't turn back

(The sky will open soon, could be today­)

Forget your bastard ego, get it off your back

(Your kingdom's coming, coming, coming today)

Can't just look back, back again

(Can't take it easy now, can't turn back)

You want it all, but it's on the run

(Forget your bastard ego, get it off your back)

The sky will open

"Burning from the Inside"

Running without aim

Through the razor reeds

That only reach my knees

And when I'm lying

In the grey sleep

I don't know how

To walk the boards

I open my eyes

And look at the floor

And now I don't see you

Anymore

There is no choice

We make a point

To counteract
A threatening hand

Close my hold

Let's be near

Let's be near

The atmosphere

Avenged Sevenfold: Ego death by 5-meO-DMT

M. Shadows aka "Nobody," Rock Feed, May 17 and June 2, 2023; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

M. Shadows explains Avenged Sevenfold's new album Life is But a Dream…

(Rock Feed) This is an exclusive and short preview of an upcoming career-spanning conversation with vocalist M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold (who's playing LA with Pussy Riot on June 9th) as he discusses the band's highly anticipated new album Life is But a Dream…

What'll the Future Buddha say?

[(WQ) Would the "spirit molecule" DMT (Bufo) shaman who dosed the singer or existentialist philosopher Albert Camus who inspired the band be happy to be represented this way? When he starts talking about Buddhist practices (misunderstood as nihilistic or just Eastern philosophical pop-Zen), the oppression of moralizing religions, and taking the entheogen (psychedelic hallucinogen) 5-MeO-DMT with an ayahuasca-style shaman in a real ceremony, he really gets our attention.

• What are the "Buddhist practices" M Shadows is referring to? They are the form (rupa) and formless (arupa) meditative absorptions called jhanas.

Modern Vril rocker Avril wants in on A7X fame

Finally, there's a way for people of ordinary consciousness to see the grand picture and the impersonal nature of our place in the universe/multiverse. But when people look back, reflect, and try to make sense of the vision, they necessarily misunderstand.

It's the problem of language (subject-object duality, verbs taken as nouns), Cartesian thinking, ego, Western assumptions about life, the "eternal" soul (transitioning gandhabba), the skeleton (rupa), the "self" (the Five Aggregates clung to as self), and the meaning of it all getting in the way.

Our favorite new A7X track

The best song on the album is "Mattel," Jordan agrees (H&F Show, KLOS)

The Path of Purification

But we cling -- constantly oppressed by three ancient things -- craving (lust), aversion (disliking), and ignorance (wrong view, delusion, confusion) -- to our views. Rarely or never do we see the three things that would free us and resolve all confusion:

1. letting go,
2. altruistic-love, and
3. wisdom (aka nongreed, nonhatred, nondelusion).

And what is the ultimate wisdom? Enlightenment/awakening/nirvana manifested as final liberation (moksha). There are Buddhist paths to liberation, but will rockers or their fans ever know that?]

(Rock Feed) Full conversation with Avenged Sevenfold's M. Shadows

After nearly 7 years of silence, the band gets back to rocking: "Game Over"

Avenged Sevenfold in Hollywood, June 9, 2023

Tickets to see Avenged Sevenfold 2023 summer tour: avengedsevenfold.com/tour (lineup appearances not cancelled even if someone or the band itself joked in a viral message that it was). Guitarist Brian/Synyster Gates really makes the band so Rock Feed might have talked to him instead.

Follow Rock Feed for hard rock music news, tour announcements, and new music: instagram.com/rockfeednet, facebook.com/rockfeedoffi.... Rock Feed Spotify playlist: rockfeed.net, Website: rockfeed.net

(DragonForce) Let's look at the music M Shadows is talking about w/ Herman Li

The Philosophy of BoJack Horseman (cartoon)

Wisecrack; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Written by Charlie Caplan. Narrated and directed by Jared Bauer. Edited by Ryan Hailey (ryanhaileydotcom.com). Assistant editing by Andrew Nishimura. Motion Graphics by Drew Levin. Produced by Jacob Salamon. © 2016 Wisecrack, Inc.

The Philosophy of BOJACK HORSEMAN – Wisecrack Edition

Watch Wisecrack's quick take on Bojack Horseman. Season 4: youtube.com/watch?v=T_JSk... Welcome to this special Wisecrack (subscribe at bit.ly/1y8Veir) edition on The Philosophy of BoJack Horseman, exploring the dark existential undertones of this seemingly light-hearted cartoon. Behind the colorful animations and snarky one-liners is a show that's astonishingly deep -- a series that ponders important philosophical questions about living life in a meaningless universe. From Pascal to Sartre, let's dive into the thinkers and philosophies that are foundational to the show's underlying message.

• More TV Philosophy: Philosophy of RICK AND MORTY
• Philosophy of SOUTH PARK 
• Philosophy of HOUSE OF CARDS
• SOUTH PARK on RELIGION
• facebook.com/WisecrackEDU
• Twitter @Wisecrack
• wisecrack.co/store

Human Realm: "Dance, Monkey, dance!" (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Ernest Cline; Vex Godglove and Capacitor de Fluxos (videos)

WARNING: Existential angst and mild profanities about modern life on the Human Plane!

Subtitled (legendado) en Portugues, "Dancem, Macacos, dancem!"

Rebirth: Wandering Without End

Bhikkhu Bodhi and Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The Buddha's teaching addresses something not immediately perceptible to us: our bondage to the Round of Rebirths.

From the selection of texts on similes regarding the boundless series of rebirths that has been cycling without any discernible beginning in time comes a frightening possibility.

This cycle is called samsara, a Pali/Sanskrit word that suggests the idea of directionless wandering or faring on. No matter how far back in time we may seek a beginning to the universe, there was never a moment of initial creation.

There are, however, periodic "creations" or, more correctly speaking, "impersonal formations" at the beginning of each world-system.

There was no creator; they simply follow a natural cyclical process of evolution and devolution. At times these world-systems are referred to as universes within a multiverse.

But if we reserve the term "universe" to everything in the entire cosmos inclusive of all the countless world-systems, there is no beginning to be found. World-systems last a great aeon (maha-kalpa) passing through four incalculable or uncertain phases: formation, duration, contraction, and an empty time.

This period of calm is followed by yet another formation, another revolution, which may be thought of as a Big Bang. But a Big Bang in no way explains the actual first cause or creation of the universe ("all that is") only another round of development, operation, chaotic dissolution, and quiescence.



Similarly, just as world-systems evolve and dissolve over billions of years, each different but each arising from the former, the same goes for individual rebirths. Each past and future life is a point along an ever-changing line of identity and attachment, the sense that a single entity is carrying on. Aggregates of clinging recur through countless deaths and rebirths.

As in the former case so in the latter, there is no beginning point to be found. Moreover, there would be no benefit to finding one if it became possible to find. For knowing it would not bring about the end of suffering (nirvana).

No matter how far back we may trace any given individual sequence of lives, we can never arrive at a first point.

How long will the Round of Rebirth last?
According to these texts (given in full In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon (Teachings of the Buddha), even if we were to trace the sequence of our mothers and fathers across world-systems, we would only come upon still more mothers and fathers stretching back into the far horizons.

Moreover, the frightening prospect is that the process is not only beginningless, it is also potentially endless! This may not seem frightful to anyone who does not see suffering -- or grasp the Four Noble Truths even intellectually -- and the potential for far greater suffering due to karma produced in ignorance driven by craving.

As long as ignorance and craving remain intact, the process will continue indefinitely into the future.

For the Buddha and Early Buddhism, this is above all the defining crisis at the heart of the our condition: We are bound to a chain of rebirths, and bound to it by nothing other than our own ignorance and craving.

The pointless wandering on in samsara -- suffering as we chase pleasure, enduring happiness, and security where it cannot be found -- occurs against a cosmic background of inconceivably vast dimensions.

The period of time that it takes for a world system to evolve, reach its phase of maximum expansion, then contract, and disintegrate is called a kappa (Sanskrit, kalpa) or aeon.

The texts offer vivid similes to suggest the duration of the various types of aeons; others offer vivid similes to illustrate the incalculable number of aeons through which we have already wandered interacting in all kinds of relationships with one another.

As beings fare along, wandering and roaming from life to life, shrouded in the darkness of ignorance over what is going on or what is causing the unsatifactoriness and rebirths, they fall again and again into the chasm of birth, aging, sickness, and death.

They fall again and again into the chasm of incomprehensibly woeful realms in the unfortunate destinations -- the worlds of animals, ghosts, monsters, and hellions.

Because their craving propels them forward in a relentless quest for gratification of sensual desires, ambitions, and running from pain, they seldom pause long enough to step back and carefully consider their existential plight.

As Text 1,4(5) states, they just just keep revolving around the Five Aggregates in the way a dog on a leash might run around a post or pillar. Since their ignorance prevents them from recognizing the vicious nature of their condition, they cannot discern even the tracks of a path to deliverance.

Most beings live immersed in the enjoyment of or the search for sensual pleasures. Others -- driven by the need for power, status, and esteem -- pass their lives in vain attempts to fill an unquenchable thirst.

Many, fearful of annihilation at death, construct belief systems that ascribe to their individual selves, their "souls," the prospect of eternal life. They do not perceive that this constructed "self" is perishing at every moment, changing, altering, and hurtling towards destruction.

A few yearn for a path to liberation. But they do not know where to find one. It was precisely to offer such a path that the Buddha has appeared in our midst. Buddhism originally was precisely a path-of-practice to the end of suffering.

• AUDIO: Nirvana explained (D.I.Y. Dharma)
  

"The Tree of Life" (2011 film)

Brad Pitt stars in a new film from Terrence Malick -- the acclaimed director of Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line. The Tree of Life is the impressionistic story of a Midwestern American family in the 1950's.

It follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn), through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years. He tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt).

Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world: He is seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

Through Malick's signature imagery, we see how both brute nature and spiritual grace shape not only our lives as individuals and families, but all life.

• Justin Bieber's Mexican girlfriend, Jewish tattoo
• War-weary lawmakers push Obama to end Afghan war
  
• Student finds universe's "missing mass"
• US crime is down, but media wants fear in these cities
• High school graduation rates are up in US
• Obama admin. still trying to illegally kill Gaddafi
• War Powers Act: Obama can now be Dictator
• "1984" in 2011: U.S. House votes for "Patriot Act"
  

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to extend three key provisions of the Patriot Act until June 1, 2015. The Senate voted earlier in the day to approve the extension bill. The House vote was 250 in favor, with 153 opposed. Oppositions to the bill said it was an invasion of privacy and had hoped to add language providing for further oversight and audits of the activities the law permits. The three provisions are as follows: One would enable law enforcement officials to conduct surveillance on suspects without a warrant who switch communication devices, such as using disposable cellular phones. A second would let officials conduct warrant-less surveillance on suspects not currently linked to any known terrorist organization abroad. The third would enable officials access to suspects' business transactions without a warrant. Pres. Obama signed the bill using an auto pen machine from France. Source

Nirvana: The Story of the Turtle and the Fish

How to describe nirvana when nothing compares?
Bhikkhu Bodhi As It Is (edited by Wisdom Quarterly)
The following story illustrates the error of regarding nirvana as "nothingness" when it is described by saying what it is not.

There was once a turtle who lived in a lake with a group of fish. One day the turtle went for a walk on dry land. He was away from the lake for a few weeks. When he returned he saw the fish.

They greeted him and asked: "Hello! How are you, Mr. Turtle? We haven't seen you for weeks. Where have you been?"

The turtle answered, "I was up on dry land, spending time on dry land."

The fish looked puzzled and said, "Up on dry land? What are you talking about? What is this dry land?"

The turtle paused as he tried to think of a way to explain something that had no parallels to their ordinary underwater world.

The fish tried to help by prompting the turtle, "Is it wet?"

The turtle answered, "No, it's not wet."

The fish continued, "Is it cool and refreshing?"

"No, it's not cool and refreshing."

"Does it have waves and ripples?"

"No, it doesn't have waves and ripples."

Worried, they finally asked, "Well, can you swim in it?"

"No you can't swim in it," the turtle had to admit.

Naturally, the fish reasoned: "It's not wet, not cool, not wavy, and you can’t swim in it? Well then this 'dry land' of yours must be complete nothingness, either a fairytale or annihilation."

"That may be, that may be" the turtle smiled as he left for another walk on dry land.

THE MANTRA
Wisdom Quarterly
Ineffable nirvana gets poetic treatment -- at least the attainment of it does -- in a Sanskrit mantra epitomizing the Heart Sutra: Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, swaha!

Gone, gone,

Gone beyond,

Gone altogether beyond,

O, what an awakening,

So it is!

Rooted in "Hinduism"

Buddhism and the wider spiritual/social/religious context the Buddha emerged out of -- loosely spoken of today as "Hinduism" -- are best seen together. The Buddha was the most significant catalyst in the Hindu tradition. He reignited interest, probing, and understanding into many teachings that had grown stagnant and arcane.

For example, the understanding of karma, rebirth, the nature of heavenly worlds, and the most minute aspects of cognitive experience were revealed and explained by the Buddha. These explanations went largely to brahmin scholars. Nuns and monks were taught the practice so they themselves could see the truth directly.

Debaters and philosophers, announcing their own views or claiming none, sparked many interesting discourses on questions of cosmology, theology, and existential matters. Religious discourse was vibrant. Therefore, to understand Buddhism deeply one may either practice it or study it in its original context. Buddhism, Jainism, and no longer extant Eastern philosophical traditions provide that context. To understand another's tradition is to understand one's own much more deeply.