Ancient African manuscripts rescued from foreign [white] invaders
Black Liberation, Buddhism...
(African History Fountain) Oct. 19, 2024: In the heart of ancient Africa (Kemet), where knowledge flowed like the lifeblood of civilizations, priceless manuscripts lay hidden beneath the sands (in the first "university," Timbuktu, their secrets buried to escape the clutches of foreign invaders.
These texts, filled with centuries of wisdom, science, and spiritual insight, were not merely documents, but the guardians of a forgotten legacy.
Black lives will matter when all lives matter.
As invaders marched upon the lands, determined to erase the cultural heritage of a proud Black peoples, brave scholars risked everything to preserve these treasures.
Protected in underground vaults, smuggled away under the cover of darkness, these manuscripts survived against all odds, carrying with them the unbroken spirit of African intellect and resilience. #blackhistory#AfricanHistory#BlackHistoryMatters
Black Nazi Mark Robinson, who is supported by Trump, is trying to governor of North Carolina. He is already lieutenant governor and a MAGA, GOP, LGBTQ-condemning transexual porn-loving hypocrite and kind of preachy in that old time Baptist preacher sort of way.
Ronny on Springfield, Trump's crypto scam, the Black Nazi MAGA GOP (Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson) scandal | The Daily Show
(The Daily Show) Sept. 21, 2024: Ronny Chieng weighs in on the fallout from the cat-eating conspiracy in Springfield, Ohio, North Carolian governor candidate Mark "Black Nazi" Robinson's unhinged online comments, Trump's new crypto grift, and the second assassination attempt on the ex-president. #DailyShow #RonnyChieng #Trump
Baba Ram Dass, premiered 4/12/23; Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Ram Dass x Alan Watts: The Spiritual Pendulum
(Baba Ram Dass) The Love Serve Remember Foundation, along with friends at the Alan Watts Organization (alanwatts.org, alanwatts.com), have curated a special offering, featuring words of wisdom from Ram Dass and legendary contemporary spiritual entertainer/teacher of Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Mahayana-Hinduism Alan Watts.
(0:00) What Is Reality?
Challenging the pervasive myth that we are small separate selves individualized within our bodies, Alan Watts proposes the idea that we are far beyond the concepts we define ourselves as. Describing how we stretch all the way back to the big-bang, and far beyond our current state of being, Alan cuts through society’s hypnotizing illusion of separation, inviting us into an awareness of the eternal Universe as our true being.
(6:14) True Identity
Peering through the cracks of the conceptual models of who we think we are, Ram Dass illuminates the ever-present unity that lays behind the diversity of separation. Ram Dass lifts the veil from our identity as a separate being, showcasing instead the compassionate interdependence encased within our identification with the unity of all things.
(12:16) Do You Do It?
Harkening examples from Hinduism, Christianity, and Taoism, Alan Watts elucidates – through the lens of ‘self’ and ‘other’ – the intrinsic power encased within authentic trust and surrender. Alan plays with the idea of truly letting go of control and power; imploring that true surrender to the Universe brings about the nondual realization of Oneness.
(19:36) Truth and Trust
Outlining the process of "God, away-from-God, and coming-back-to-God," as our current predicament as incarnate beings on Earth, Ram Dass expresses how–at a certain point of realization–we can’t help but to begin to steer our lives in the direction of awakening.
(19:36) Non-Action and Wu Wei
Exploring the wisdom behind non-action, Alan Watts interprets the Taoist concept of ‘Wu Wei’ – which he defines as “the principle of not forcing in anything that you do.” Illustrating that non-action is not to be confused with passivity, he explores the subtle nuance of acting without being the actor, falling into natural flow with ‘The Way of things.’
(33:28) Embracing Our Humanity
Contemplating juicy lessons from his disembodied friend, Emmanuel, Ram Dass shares the wisdom encased in truly embracing our own humanity. Expounding the pitfalls of pushing away our incarnation’s individuality by ferociously grabbing for the spirit, he shares Emmanuel’s now-infamous antidote of, “You’re in school; why don’t you take the curriculum?”
(44:05) Meditation
Explicating the process and implications of meditation, Alan Watts highlights a methodology for becoming ‘interiorly silent and ceasing from the interminable chatter’ of the compulsively thinking mind. Describing the meditative process of moving behind thoughts and symbols to cultivate a direct relationship with reality, Alan surmises that the purpose of life is a song and dance from the heart in the ever-changing immediate present moment of existence.
(50:34) Faith
Illuminating the dichotomy between going-up and coming-down, Ram Dass digs into the swinging spiritual pendulum of finding deep peace in meditation, juxtaposed with the reality of dealing with our ‘stuff’ in the world. Honoring our incarnations yet viewing the visceral swings of life simply as kaleidoscopic patterns of energy, Ram Dass invites us to play within the binary processes of forgetting and remembering, of getting lost and awakening.
Listen to the original Be Here Now Network podcast episode with introduction from Raghu Markus, "Ram Dass – Here and Now – Ep 175 – Ram Dass x Alan Watts: From Separation to Unity, Intuition and Trust'" beherenownetwork.com/ram-dass...
or
• Ram Dass – Here a...
Discover more from The Alan Watts Foundation at alanwatts.org
When the time comes to choose, be happy, even when all the world says to "suck it."
SXSW - Lissie sings Kid Cudi cool "Pursuit of Happiness" but makes it her own, anothergreat cover.Paste Magazine's called her "Best New Solo Artist of 2010."
Let me tell you about my ***ed up life.
I've decided I just want to be happy. Whatever that means. But what I think it means is be smiling, upbeat, enthusiastic, excited, hopeful and anticipating or content. I know I'm happy when my face tells me so.
My face is usually staring not at a mirror but at a screen. And screens tell me I'm not happy.
Facebook is the worst, but there's the TV screen, phone, PC, future website (suckit.com), and all of the big screen spy-TVs I have to stare at everywhere (telescreens in Nineteen Eighty-Four). It's sad.
How to be happy if just willing it doesn't work? I can decide to be happy, I know, but I can't always make that decision. I've pinned my happiness on things, outcomes, and they don't always come out. So by agreement with myself I have to be unhappy. Dumb, I know, but the TV tells me so, like mainly that channel there used to be, MTV, now replaced by YouTube.
The way to happiness is chase after things and people and experiences in a capitalist marketplace. People sell things (and implied promises of fulfillment), and I buy it.
Gotta pay money. Gotta get money to pay first. Gotta worry about where I'm going to get all the money I'll need/want. Gotta worry about how not to lose it. Then have to find a way to spend it after I've worked so hard worrying and struggling for it. But even when I spend, even when I get, I find I'm not really happy. I'm not satisfied. I'm certainly not fulfilled or contented.
I made the wrong choice. I have to chase something else... It's a trap. I know it's a trap. But what's the alternative? Woe is me. So sad. The Buddha said... what did the Buddha say? Certainly happiness is not found by chasing sensual desires. So what about nonsensual desires like meditative-absorptions?
Kid Cudi and countless others before him try to tell us drinking, getting high, and hedonism are the way to happiness. They'd all be happy, especially the rap stars and porn stars. But they're some of the unhappiest f-ups around.
Years of physical pleasure
Harem for rich, young, handsome Prince Siddhartha (the Buddha) during 29 years of parties.
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Prince Siddhartha had a lot of money, power, palaces, beauty, health, fame, and influence -- and he realized it was no protection from dukkha (disappointment, never being able to derive lasting satisfaction from things, always being off-kilter, always being on a bumpy ride like the wheel of an ox cart with a wheel that's off-center), from "suffering" (unsatisfactoriness or dissatisfaction). And it's not just this life but through countless rebirths in countless forms (bodies).
Spiritual penance is disappointing.
"Suffering" in Buddhism doesn't mean what it means in English, some extreme form of pain. It encompasses the whole range of unpleasant feelings from slight agitation to excruciating agony. It's worse than just physical pain; it includes all the psychological things we would rather not feel, the sensations that are difficult to bear. The Buddha defined the word exactly:
THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH: "This, meditators, is the ennobling truth of disappointment [what is unpleasant]: Birth is disappointing, aging is disappointing, death is disappointing; sorrow, crying, pain, grief, and despair are disappointing; being in contact with the disliked; being separated from the liked; not getting what we want is disappointing. In brief, all of the Five Aggregates of Clinging [the core things that make up this sense of "self" -- (1) body, (2) sensations, (3) perceptions, (4) formations, and (5) consciousness] are disappointing" (SN 56.11).
(Kid Cudi) "Pursuit of Happiness" the popular, original version. WARNING: Futile hedonism.
Siddhartha the ascetic thought that the meditative-absorptions might be the path to enlightenment when he was under the bodhi tree. He realized that fearing pleasure was not the way to successful spirituality because there's a way to pleasure that does not rely on sensuality (sense desires).
But what good does absorption do? What's so great about bliss, joy, or effervescent feelings of tingly, heady rapture, zest, and sublime sukha?
Sounds good! I'll take it. How do I get it? An American monk named Geoffrey DeGraff ("Tan Geoff" in California) tried to write a book after Ledi Sayadaw's The [37] Requisites of Enlightenment based on the old Theravada Buddhist school's list of factors the Buddha mentioned on how to find peace, purification, and liberation by enlightenment and nirvana.
(Halsey) We are the "New Americana"/high on legal marijuana/raised on Biggie and Nirvana
Sign me up. The only problem is, this monk is very eccentric and writes poorly trying to be super-literal in needlessly re-translating what lots of great English translators have already translated in the past century.
For example, instead of calling them "Requisites of Enlightenment" (bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma"things related to enlightenment"), he chose "Wings to Awakening" to be contrarian or original or full of ego. That's just the first problem. Still, the message is important, maybe the most important things in life -- how to live, how to be happy, how to reach the highest good.
The WINGS to AWAKENING: An Anthology from the Pali Canon Translated and explained by Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff), 7th edition, revised 2013
So this is what you think of me: “The sympathetic Blessed One, seeking our well-being, teaches the Dharma out of sympathy.” Then you should train yourselves -- harmoniously, cordially, without dispute -- in the things (dhammas) I have pointed out, having directly known them:
the Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
the Four Right Efforts,
the Four Bases of Power,
the Five Faculties,
the Five Strengths,
the Seven Factors of Enlightenment,
the Noble Eightfold Path (MN 103).
[These add up to 37 Requisites of Enlightenment although many of them repeat, such as "mindfulness," which occurs about 14 times as we shall see when they are broken down and analyzed.] More
Bhutanese novices playing in the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom (yudruk.com)
"I often suffer with mood swings. Some days I am quite happy, but the next I feel quite irritated or depressed. How can Buddhism help me stabilize my life?"
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Lam Shenphen Zangpo answers basic questions that every Bhutanese man, woman, and child on the street wants to know:
Well, no-thing arises from no-where, and so there must be a reason for your emotional swings. Perhaps they are sparked by a colleague’s insensitive words or maybe you expect too much from life.
Whatever the trigger, the root cause is the same: relying on external references for happiness. This is an underlying reason for our vulnerability.
As we know, all form, emotions, and perceptions are composed of an infinite number of parts, and even a minor change in any of these has far reaching effects. A stock market crash in London causes bankruptcies in Taipei. A politician killed in Lahore causes heightened security in New York. Due to its intricate and dependent nature, our environment is extremely fragile and unstable.
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Therefore, it is natural to feel insecure when our mental wellbeing is contingent on external reference points. It is like leaning on a rickety desk. When it moves, we move. The trick, then, is remove ourselves from these externals and instead develop a genuine and flexible mind.
The great Indian Buddhist scholar Atisha Dipankara identified eight hopes and fears that bind us to external reference points: praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, and fame and disgrace. These are hooks and we are like fish deceived by their appearance. We believe they are a source of happiness, whereas in reality they are a short cut to suffering. More>>
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