America is one big lie and we are fools for believing in it
(Mr.President 420) This is a composite by Mr.President 420 of his favorite George Carlin standup comedy. It consists of portions of
his hero George Carlin's various specials,
assembled to help me explain the title.
This is pure truth and much like the audience,
everyone would rather acknowledge it and just laugh than to do anything to fix it.
Do yourself a favor: watch it then decide if you, too, are going
to continue to accept that this is what the world is because it's all people allow it to be.
George Carlin, Some People Are Stupid (Parental Advisory), July 17, 2013, via Mr.President 420; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Buddha Boy (BSDS); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, A. Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
"Buddha Boy" or Ram Bahadur Bomjon (Sanskrit राम बहादुर बम्जन, also spelled Bomjan, Banjan, and Bamjan) was born in 1990.
Previously known as Palden Dorje (his Vajrayana Buddhist monastic name), he is a controversial wandering ascetic (shramana) from Ratanapuri, Bara District, Nepal.
Who is that dusty, napping boy?
At 15 years of age, he gained widespread media attention and popularity because of perceived semblances to the historical Buddha Gautama, leading to claims that he had to be the reincarnation of the Buddha himself.
(This of course is nonsense, but in the popular imagination, it was the only explanation for Bomjon's miraculous power to sit months on end without eating, drinking, or moving, only meditating).
Details
How it all began, a dusty 15-y.o. meditating well
In May, 2005, the 15-year-old Bomjon left his home near the Indian border after a dream in which a deva appeared to him and told him to do so.
He found a good spot and sat in the massive roots of a pipal tree [sacred fig, Ficus religiosa, Bodhi tree, more likely a local banyan tree] to meditate [1].
Looking refreshed and showered
Eyewitness claims suggest that for 10 months he rarely spoke, drank, ate, or even moved. He simply sat under that tree, striving for some attainment or other, possibly even supreme awakening.
Thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of people made pilgrimages to visit the site in the forest (Terai jungle) to sit with or see (darshan) the miraculous boy motionless for hours, days, and months as rumored.
Tummo generates a lot of fiery heat.
Others came not so much to practice themselves (as would have been very good to do) but out of devotion (puja) and the very real possibility of an important spiritual event occurring. There might be a miracle (siddhi), a public marvel (Buddhist iddhi) like that time he spontaneously burst into flames possibly from practicing tummo meditation.
As a result of some of these widespread claims, Bomjon's followers believed he had to be an incarnation of the historical Buddha Gautama [2] (who Hinduism says was an incarnation (avatar) of the God Vishnu, which is also said of Jesus Christ, possibly for the purposes of conversion, and other peaceful spiritual figures interested in the maintaining of humanity).
Dharmasangha (aka Buddha Boy) inside fire
(Bodhi Shrawan Dharma Sangha) Nov. 24, 2009: On January 19, 2006, Mahasambodhi Dharmasangha (Ram Bahadur Bomjon or Buddha Boy) spontaneously combusted, burning off the cloth robes he had worn for nine months but leaving no burn scars on his body (bsds.org).
Bomjon is not the Buddha
Why do people keep bothering my meditation?
Bomjon has rejected any such comparisons to a buddha or to the historical Buddha, saying: "Tell the people not to call me a Buddha. I don't have the Buddha's energy currently. I am at the level of a rinpoche [a jewel or precious one]" [3].
Mahiswor Raj Bajracharya, the president of the Nepal Buddhist Council, has stated likewise: "We do not believe he is [a] Buddha. He does not have [the] Buddha's qualities" [4].
Then, on March 11, 2006, he disappeared and went missing for months [5]. On March 19, 2006, Bed Bahadur Lama of the Om Namo Buddha Tapaswi Sewa Samiti (ONBTSS) told reporters that he had been seen in Bara District and that [ONBTSS] had spoken to him for half-an-hour, during which Bomjon reportedly assured them that he would return in six years (at the age of 21) [6].
He was again seen on August 2007, preaching to crowds in Nepal’s Hallori jungle, about 100 miles south of the capital of Kathmandu [7].
Arrest
Budanilkantha looks nice from a distance.
A team of CIB (Central Investigation Bureau) police from Nepal arrested Bomjon on January 9, 2024, nabbing him at his "hideout" [ashram or house] at Budanilkantha [8].
An arrest warrant had been issued in 2020 [9]. The CIB also confiscated Nepalese rupees (NPR 33 million = US $225,000.00) and foreign currencies from over 17 different nations equivalent to about $245,000 [8].
CIB: We got him, we finally got him.
DIG Kuber Kadayat said Bomjon tried to evade arrest, making a run for it by jumping off the roof of the house he was staying in.
Issuing a press release after the day of his arrest, police stated that a key to an SUV, bluebooks of three two-wheelers, two laptops, 14 mobile phones, and multiple electronic devices were also confiscated during the search.
Controversies
Keep moving, dacoit. Your days of criminality are at an end due to the big hand of the CIB.
We want the world to see you now, Bomjon.
Eyewitnesses, Bomjon's followers, and skeptics claimed that Bomjon meditated for months without eating or sleeping [7]. (A scientific team from India tried to debunk these claims but could not, only saying that for the time they were there and watching him, he did indeed seem to be meditating nearly motionless).
In 2010, Bomjon was investigated for accusations that he attacked a group of 17 villagers. He claimed that they were intentionally disturbing his meditation.
However, the villagers said they were just foraging for vegetables [10, 11, 12, 13]. Bomjon explained that he had taken "minor action" against them with just his hands [10, 11, 12, 13] after they had "tried to manhandle" him [11, 13] and stopped as soon as they apologized.
However, the alleged victims claim that for three hours he struck them on their head and back with an axe handle [10, 13], resulting in serious injury of one of them [12, 13].
Bomjon refused to attend any potential trial, stating: "Do you think a meditating sage will go to the court to hear a case? I took action against them as per the divine law [universal justice]" [10, 13].
In 2012, Nepali police announced that they had rescued a Slovak [Central European] woman from Bomjon's followers, but other reports claim that she had been released voluntarily after media coverage of the kidnapping.
Newsweek reported she had been taken from a hotel by two of Bomjon's men on motorcycle, kept tied to a tree for three months, and accused of practicing witchcraft in order to disturb the Buddha Boy’s meditation [14].
However, another report claims she had been kidnapped from a monastery. When she was released, she had a broken arm [15, 16]. A week after her release, Bomjon's siblings accused him of holding his brothers captive overnight and beating his brothers and his sister [17].
Followers of Bomjon assaulted five journalists and destroyed their cameras after they had recorded one of Bomjon's sermons [15].
Oh my! Is it possible he would?
In September of 2018, Bomjon was accused of raping an 18-year-old nun repeatedly for nearly two years.
During a press conference organized by women's rights groups, the nun also accused his wife of trying to keep the abuse hidden so as not to "attract attacks" on their [new] religion.
Bomjon is married? He is no longer referred to as Tapaswi (austerities-practicing) Palden Dorje, so perhaps he disrobed to become a Vajrayana Buddhist lay practitioner.
Supporters of Bomjon claim that nun was in fact involved in theft and had been ejected from the monastery [18].
If I had it to do over again, it'd be different.
An investigation was opened in January of 2019 after complaints from family members that four devotees had gone missing from several of Bomjon's ashrams [19].
In the same month, police raided one of Bomjon's ashrams in Nepal, but he was not found [20].
Prison self-immolation? Not without absorption
On February 6, 2020, the Sarlahi District Court issued an arrest warrant against Bomjon. The following day, police raided another one of his ashrams in Kamalamai, Sindhuli, but Bomjon was not found there either.
However, police did arrest one of his disciples, Gyan Bahadur Bomjon [21]. More
It’s a question we should ask no matter what we’re reading. In Latin there’s a phrase, Cui bono?
It roughly translates as “Who’s benefiting?” It’s a good idea to
know who’s profiting in any situation. Why? So we can make educated
decisions.
The new owners of the L.A. Weekly don’t want us to know
who they are. They are hiding from us. They’ve got big black bags with
question marks covering their big bald heads.
These new owners
just laid off nine hardworking journalists [out of 13]. Why? For sport? To start
anew? To fulfill a blood vendetta that is centuries old?
Maybe they have a good reason. Maybe they don’t. We don’t know. You don’t know. No one knows but them. Who owns [the L.A. Weekly]? It’s a fair question. Who’s benefiting? We deserve to know. Source
Buddhist scholar, philosopher of ecology, Joanna Macy’s path wound from the CIA to
Tibetan Buddhism [not unlike the current Dalai Lama], to translating the poetry ofRainer Maria Rilke. On Being takes that exquisite poetry as a lens on Macy's wisdom on the great dramas
of our time: ecological, political, personal [even sexual]. Now in her 80s, Macy says we are at a pivotal moment in history -- with possibilities of
unraveling, or of creating, a life-sustaining human society. More + AUDIO GUEST:Joanna Macyis a scholar of Buddhism, translator of Rilke, and philosopher of ecology. Her translations include Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, A Year with Rilke, and the recently re-released In Praise of Mortality. She is the co-author of Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects.
Setting: highrise during a fat cat staff meeting, where [jerks] generally spend the day. But the problem is not limited to part-time vowels.
There is also the less explored world of the a-h*le full-time fat cats: There is the indoor cat. There is the outdoor cat. Then there is the lesser known, least liked, and most pompous of all frumpy felines, the Financial Fat Cat!
Well, one cocky dog is no longer going to stand for it:
New Pentagon chief visits airfield in AfghanistanNew U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is getting briefed on American military operations at Kandahar airfield in southern Afghanistan as part of what...
First Ukraine war prisoner exchange completedUkrainian military and separatist representatives exchanged dozens of prisoners under cover of darkness at a remote frontline location Saturday...
Hundreds mark 50 years since Malcolm X's assassination Activists, actors, and politicians gathered Saturday (Feb. 21st) in New York City to honor civil and economics rights leader Malcolm X with a ceremony at the Harlem site...
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