Mel's Jesus gives man an NDE message

(The Parallax Files)

(Near-Death Experiences) I died and Jesus showed me seven cities to flee in 2026 | NDE story

The Goddess Sophia and Anointed Jesus

(Morgue Official) The Lost Gospel: Was Jesus secretly worshipping a Goddess [of Wisdom]?

Can heavy metal save Japanese town?

Heavy metal festival aims to revive Japan 'town of steel'

(NEWSNHK WORLD-JAPAN) Nov. 13, 2025: The western Japanese city of Yasugi is known as a "town of steel" for its centuries-long iron-making tradition. As it faces depopulation [and decline], one man is trying to revitalize the community by linking the "metal" of Yasugi's steel with heavy metal music.

NHK is a Japanese public broadcast service. #japan #music #heavymetal. More stories on Japan: www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ne... Subscribe: @nhkworldjapan

Was that a growl or roar?

(NBC News) Don't feed the cute, cuddly bears when visiting Japan

South Park rips Trump and celebs

At least they didn't get my buddy Mr. P Diddy.

(ManBearClips) South Park: Who got it the worst? When Matt and Trey tear him a new one, is it child molester Pres. Donald John Trump bearing the brunt...or Mel Gibson (Passion of the Christ), Kanye West, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Issac Hayes (all of whom are famous Church of Scientology members known as Scientologists), Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Cesar Milan, Cartman, Jennifer Lopez, Carlos Mencia, Tiger Woods, Lorde, transsexual Bruce Caitlyn Jenner, political correctness, Prince Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle, or Lizzo?

Review of South Park's Episode 3

(Syntell) REVIEW" South Park drags Trump, tech bros, Chat GPT on Season 27 Episode 3

(Pod Save America) South Park triggers and makes MAGA mad

• “South Park” skewers a satire-proof president | The New Yorker
• Trump gropes Satan in new 'South Park' teaser

What is the purpose of being human?

(Buddhism Podcast) What is the purpose of being human? The Buddha's answer

Aristotle’s Theory of Eudaimonia or Happiness

Eudaimonia (/u-die-moan-ee-uh/, Ancient Greek εὐδαιμονία]) is a Greek word that literally translates to the state or condition of good spirit, commonly translated as "happiness" or "welfare."  In the works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in older Greek tradition. It is the aim of practical philosophy-prudence, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider and experience what this state really is and how it can be achieved. It is therefore a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic philosophy, along with the terms aretē (most often translated as "virtue" or "excellence") and phronesis ("practical or ethical wisdom") [1]. Discussion of the links between ēthikē aretē ("virtue of character") and eudaimonia (happiness) is one of the central concerns of ancient ethics and a subject of disagreement. As a result, there are many varieties of eudaimonism. More

Clingy love is doomed to disappoint

Mystic Knights "I'm Afraid"

"Peace of mind, peace of mind, hard to keep, hard to find" sings Danny Elfman

How to gain peace of mind, Dalai Lama?

The 14th Dalai Lama explains how one might gain peace of mind

Happy Halfway Day: passion to profit

Have others ever felt a passion -- a sense of urgency -- to do what is profitable, what is wholesome and useful toward liberation? If one, there is an accompanying feeling that one is not doing nearly enough to make reasonable progress toward the goal. How much time has passed, and how much time will pass, before we get on the ball? "Long enough, wanderers," the Buddha frequently said, "has it been that we have wandered on in this round (samsara) -- long enough to have become dispassionate toward all formations."

Lord Time clips Cupid's wings

(TOI) It’s July 2nd. You’re sipping ice water, wondering where [half] the year went, maybe even scrolling photos thinking, Didn’t we just celebrate New Year’s? Suddenly, someone says, “Hey, you know today is exactly halfway through the year?”

Wait, what? Yep. July 2nd isn’t just another random summer day stuck between fireworks and a cousin’s birthday party. It’s Halfway Day — the dead-center midpoint of the year.

Half of 2025 is behind us. The other half? Still ahead, ready to be claimed [if we seize the day, or squandered if we worry about Trump and other corrupt politicians advancing Project 2025].

Whether feeling super accomplished or lowkey behind on every goal made back in January, this little calendar milestone is a gentle nudge from the universe to pause, [meditate like you thought you would], reflect, and maybe even restart. More

• Words Leading to Disenchantment and Samsara: Two Essays (Bodhi Leaves, BPS.lk)

Why would anyone meditate?

Time keeps on ticking, ticking...How can I gain energy to make effort in meditation?

Overcoming complacency in meditation

(Beth Upton) April 21, 2025: Here I discuss what we can do if we notice ourselves becoming complacent (lazy, fatigued, unenthusiastic) in our daily meditation practice.

These videos are only made possible by generous donations. Please consider supporting this work: bethupton.com/support-my-work. Patreon: bethupton Find out more about my work here: bethupton.com. Shot by Alexis P.N. and Zsolt Batar. @GuavaFunk: laffcotchtv. Contact: alexispn777@gmail.com.

• Moment of Zen videos | Watch
• Carpe diem: "Seize the Day"
• New Year's Resolution Recommitment Day: June 1, 2026 (National Today)
• Model Ekaterina Stukanova; Times of India, July 2, 2025; Beth Upton, meditation advice, 2025; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen B. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Adventures in Church: Lent Ashes

The priest recommended a sexy movie, The Substance, for its lesson on beauty, ashes, and dust.

Improving Catholic Jesus, nicer and whiter

Vibhuti is valuable. It must be. People will go to great lengths to get it, even if it's just a smudge or cross over the third eye. How does one turn common ash into a sacred object of veneration? Bless it.

It was a rainy Ash Wednesday in the City of Lost Angels. But we went on an adventure anyway. (No one walks in LA, and during the rain, no one remembers how to drive). The rain ruined it the big open house event at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center (MD, "Mother of Suffering" Catholic monastery situated next to burnt out Altadena high atop the idyllic town of Sierra Madre, Los Angeles).

The male gaze and absurd beauty standards

MD changed its whole schedule: No mass at 8:00 am or 6:00 pm as promised, and the "open house" (the first time the popular retreat center nestled in the green foothills after the Eaton Fire, which is right next door and partly burned the place, making it susceptible to mudslides and flooding. The volunteers did not have much information, even on the current condition of the pope. One would think they would be on top of it, but the pope seems not nearly as important as when the pope was John Paul.

I'm so pretty, and I'm getting ready for church.

The day was nothing, no tour, but one could walk down a hall to visit the "Stations of the Cross" by looking at very dark pictures of the great Roman Crucifixion of a troublemaker called "Christ."

He suffered for his sins against the state, but having no sins his suffering has been transferred to cover the Passionists who populate the place, Catholics in specific, and everyone in general. That means us, confirmed "sinners." And you better feel bad about it or else.

The glories of the Holy Roman Empire today

Joe Rogan and British comedian Jimmy Carr

Abstain from MEAT EATING for Lent or life or at least on Fridays, like Jesus wants (Christspiracy)

LA is a paradise from the air (Echo Park Lake)

The center has such a nice main building full of meditation rooms with their own showers. It's almost haunted in its kind of sterile monasticism with lots of Carmelite brown and old-style hotel. One is reminded of Self Realization Fellowship's Mother Center on top of Mt. Washington in neighboring Mt. Washington, overlooking the LA skyline. Now that's a place to visit, all syncretic Hindu-Christian, where Paramhansa Yogananda slept. One can visit his room with its tiny bed once a year on his birthday.

But this place, a kind multiroom mansion is dreary with devotion, austere penitence (tapas), and a priest from India who knows nothing about Jesus' time in India or all of the scholarship behind that century-old discovery.

• See Nicolas Notovitch, Holger Kersten, Swami Abedananda, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the BBC, and others: Unknown years of Jesus

There's a written record of where Jesus was?

Holy cow. It has a nice gift shop and lots of things to sell. There were ashes for the asking, but very little else. It used to be that to get a communion wafer and wine (gluten cracker and grape juice) from a communal cup with saliva wiped off by a handkerchief, one had to have gone to confession or gotten right with the Priest/Lord/Church Official, or Holy Ghosts.

But not for this token? Anyone could go up and be smudged (not in the good way using Indigenous sage or Salvia apiana, but rather here using the burnt offerings of palms that were prayed over).

Two priests, one from India the other from the Philippines, did not inspire us -- noncommittal, inoffensive, diffident, and reticent with little to no knowledge of anything about Jesus in India or anything else that is not Chruch-approved and Vatican-sanctioned. That's the way to stay out of trouble, one could suppose. But how is it that a priest of this religion, so emphasizing the Stations of the Cross, doesn't seem to know about the face of the lord (God's son or devaputra) appearing on a cloth used to wipe his bleeding facade during his ordeal or "passion"? That cloth should be at least as famous as the Shroud of Turin and Jesus' tunic. There's a whole station about it, and in the middle of this month the holy relic goes on tour through Southern California from wherever it's kept the rest of the time (under lock and key in a temperature-controlled vault somewhere in Europe.

Jesus Christ lived in India?

Who had ever heard of such a thing? Jesus' face on another cloth and no one has anything to say? If it's coming on tour in the neighboring cities, but the Indian priest didn't know? He did know of a mysterious relic in his hometown in India. There a wax figure of Jesus under glass grows a beard not made of hair but of some fibrous substance. Another miracle yet this very same priest had never heard of the Christian saint's blood in a vile that has remained liquid for centuries. It was almost a shame to tell him about it, or anything else, because he didn't believe it. Did the Church say so? seemed to be his whole position on everything. What kind of kissing up is that, following a religion and never questioning it? The smart kind, the kind that keeps one in good graces with the higher ups, the "let's not upset things and get me in any kind of trouble or scandal"? What is he up to that he would so fear any potentially unflattering attention or appearance of impropriety in believing or admitting to knowing about anything unorthodox?

Let's get out of this place, exquisite grounds without a sense of holiness

The Church knew where I had been and deleted it.

From there we left, driving in the rain to find a better mass, something of a more popular nature. Every Catholic church in the country celebrates it. They are standardized and not allowed to deviate.

We found a giant ash mass at St. Andrew's Catholic Church (Pasadena, California), the one with the clock tower visible from the 134 Freeway, where it splits from the 210. It has some of the most beautiful Roman Italian (and life-like brown skinned mural art) and alabaster white statuary with giant imported marble columns and a big picture of the "God" right up front looking down, with impossibly high ceilings, which may be 100 or more feet up.

St. Andrew's Church campanile

There was a big crowd of penitents, half of them Anglos, half of them Latinos, with a sprinkling of Asians, gathering even as it drizzled and threatened to rain. There was a Spanish service going on in the St. Andrew Catholic School hall with a purple draped cross, the cloth representing the figure usually found on it. The Spanish version seemed more spirited, as accords with Chicano gatherings, full of heart and warmth.

• The priest said an amazing thing we'd never heard before. If it were a trope, they'd all be saying it and wed've heard it a million times. The sign of the cross has two motions. The first spells "I" top to bottom, and the second, which sweeps from side to side, cancels it out. It's self-abnegation for God (a tip of the hat to Buddhism's selflessness).

Sign of the cross in six steps: I and Not I.

It was odd sitting there watching the giant church fill up. Most Catholics only go to church or "mass" three times a year -- Easter, Ash Wednesday, and Xmas. It seems like enough. The words of the priest were odd to hear: words full of guilt, sin, pleading for forgiveness, as if it were a given that everyone had and was going to sin.

Apparently, we are all sinners, and we have to sin, and there's no way not to sin, so be sure to feel guilty about it, and come to church for indulgences to stay on His good side in case you die midweek. Just keep coming, and that'll keep you in His good graces? (Who thoughtlessly accepts such empty promises, or is it that having nothing else, because they were never allowed to investigate anything, there is no choice? Just accept it all or reject it all, and since we can't reject it all, we have no choice but to accept it all?)

The Substance

You are not your body. - What?! But I...

The multilingual priest conducting the mass gave a good sermon when he deviated from the standard text and told a story about watching the Oscars and being surprised to see The Substance getting attention. To hear this Father tell it, he saw the film or at least part of it. In one scene a woman (Demi Moore), fearing she's getting to look too old and is losing the interest of her husband, goes in for a beauty treatment. It will make her look 20 years younger with porcelain skin (think filter but in real life). She does, but it has a side effect of inflammation and looking worse before it gets better. So she takes a walk and dives into a Catholic church to sit in the back and just reflect as she waits for her new face. It happens to be Ash Wednesday, and the preacher is yelling, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," not singing a song by Bowie but quoting the Bible. She's shocked to realize that after all her efforts to beautify her body, it remains ashes and dust (though better preserved looking now and less rotty).

THE SUBSTANCE | official trailer | in theaters & on MUBI now

This religion seems to have been better in the past. Or was it always like this? How is the spell not broken, the stench of hypocrisy of child molesting priests not enough to wake people up that the Vatican runs too tight a ship, here to take in taxes (rebranding them as tithes) for this arm of the Holy Roman Empire?

The rules for Lent

LENTEN REGULATIONS: The Holy Season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year it falls on March 5th. During Lent, all Catholics engage in various penitential practices. Of those, the most important and obligatory are the regulations on fasting and penitence.

Do it for me, Virgin Mary, Mother of God (Veiled)

Abstinence from meat is to be observed by all Catholics 14 years old and older on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of Lent. Abstinence means refraining from eating all meats including beef, poultry, pork, etc. [slaughtered cows, birds, pigs, and so on]. Seafood [dead fish] is permitted.

Fasting is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday by all Catholics who are 18 years of age but not yet 60. Those who are bound by this may take only one full meal. [That's quite a fast.] Two smaller meals (that do not equal one full meal) are permitted. [Will it be enough, will people starve?]

The special Paschal fast and abstinence are obligatory [mandatory] for Good Friday and encouraged for Holy Saturday. By the threefold discipline of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer the Church keeps Lent from Ash Wednesday until the evening of Holy Thursday.

All the faithful and the catechumens should undertake serious practice of these three traditions. Failure to observe any penitential days at all or a substantial number of such days must be considered serious.

Abortion? What's so special about a tiny egg?

• Taken verbatim from the St. Andrew Church Bulletin, Old Pasadena, March 2, 2025

Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center is excited to announce that it is fully reopening and invites the public to a special homecoming event on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025, from 2:00–5:00 PM. No reservations needed. Come get ashes, pray the Stations of the Cross, and take a guided tour of the grounds [cancelled due to rain but moved indoors for a self-guided review of some pictures]. Development Director Melanie Goodyear at MGoodyear@MaterDolorosa.org and (626) 355-7188 x 103.

• Team Recovering Catholics (accompanied by a real diehard old timey Catholic to ask questions), Wisdom Quarterly, March 5, 2025

Primordial love/sex drive (Helen Fisher)

There are many kinds of attachment (upadana). The pursuit and clinging to sensual pleasures is very strong (although the strongest is probably attachment to views). It can be as strong as thirst (tanha). It serves a function, not for us who suffer it so much as the species or genes that perpetuate themselves into the future. (See The Selfish Gene on the scientific view of the impersonal nature of biology).

Love (the affection for clinging) is a drive, sex (the affection for pleasure) is a drive, and they are very powerful. What hope is there to overcome or undo them should they start to spread all out of control like fire and ruin our lives, bringing waves of torment and suffering? Things are all well and good when they are working out, but when they are not?

When things sour, then what? These are not conscious processes we have very much insight on. We live on autopilot, and they "happen" to us. Maybe that's okay for most people. But for those who would be free and make an end of all suffering in this very life?

Oldest Goddess: The Origins of VENUS

Venus encourages ancient orgy (Joachim Anthonisz)

Venus a Vishnu figure, rising from the sea as Aphrodite (mythology)

Our Oldest Gods: The origins of Venus

(Crecganford) Venus (Aphrodite, Inanna, Astarte...[maybe even to Radha, Saraswati, and Vishnu) is one of the oldest and most beloved deities of all time.

Syncretism

From her earliest beginnings arising from the communities of Neolithic farmers to her evolution into the ancient Greek Goddess Aphrodite, to her eventual worship as the Roman Goddess Venus, this video goes on a journey through time and across cultures.

Podcast: ► Spotify: open.spotify.com/show... Social media: ► Twitter: crecganford ► Instagram: crecganford ► Facebook Fan Page: crecganford Patreon: ► crecganford. Contact: ► Send mail to: hello@crecganford.com ► Business enquires: biz@crecganford.com (for business inquiries ONLY).

References

Allegory: Cupid, Mars, Time, Venus (Guernica)

• Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony. 1992. Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. British Museum Press.
• Puhvel, Jaan. 1989. Comparative Mythology. John Hopkins University Press.

Explore podcast's  84 episodes: Crecganford Podcasts of all the videos

• Crecganford, Feb. 4, 2023:; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Subtle Art of Not Giving a F: 40 truths (video)

Mark Manson, March 9, 2024; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

WARNING: Use of harsh and gratuitous language in doling out harsh truths, graphic, sexual, vulgar!

40 harsh truths I know at 40 but wish I knew at 20

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

(Mark Manson) Get first 60 days FREE with Headspace. Head to headspace-web.app.link/e/MMG for help with meditation, the most valuable thing anyone can do in life even if it doesn't seem like it yet, and use code MARKMANSON.

First, who is Mark Manson? He is the author of the very popular, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

Today is my 40th birthday. Here are all the things that I know at 40 that I wish I knew at 20.

ABOUT: I am Mark Manson, three-time Number 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope. I share other types of content to make you a less awful human in these places: markmanson.net / markmanson / iammarkmanson / markmansonnet / markmanson / iammarkmanson. Thanks for watching. Now go not give a F.

For useful practical advice each week, sign up for free newsletter: bit.ly/3JRg3NX. Not already a member of premium membership? Get access to courses and exclusive writing here: bit.ly/3LwHWfi.

Is consciousness an illusion? (video)

Kmele Foster, Dispatches from The Well, Big Think, Jan. 11, 2024; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Jump real spiritual answers from Hindu monk Swami Sarvapriyananda, Vedanta Society. New York

Is consciousness an illusion? 5 experts explain

(Big Think) “If science aims to describe everything, how can it not describe the simple fact of our existence?”

On this episode of Dispatches, Kmele Foster speaks with the scientists, mathematicians, and spiritual leaders trying to do just that.

This video is an episode from @The-Well, a publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.

Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube Watch the full podcast now ► • Dispatches from The Well. In the newest episode of Dispatches from The Well, we’re diving deep into the “hard problem of consciousness.”

Here, Kmele Foster combines the perspectives of five different scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders to approach one of humanity’s most pressing questions: What is consciousness?

In the AI age, the question of consciousness is more prevalent than ever. Is every single thing in the universe self-aware? What does it actually mean to be conscious? Are our bodies really just a vessel for our thoughts?

Foster asks these and many more questions in the most thought-provoking episode yet. This is Dispatches from The Well. Featuring: Sir Roger Penrose, Christof Koch, Melanie Mitchell, Reid Hoffman, Swami Sarvapriyananda.

Read video transcript ► bigthink.com/the-well/dispatc...

ABOUT: Kmele Foster is a media entrepreneur, commentator, and regular contributor to various national publications. He is the co-founder and co-host of The Fifth Column, a popular media criticism podcast. He is the head of content at Founders Fund, a San Francisco based venture capital firm investing in companies building revolutionary technologies, and a partner at Freethink, a digital media company focused on the people and ideas changing our world. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

• Read more from The Well:
• Actually, neuroscience suggests the “self” is real ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/actuall...
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can illuminate the debate over generative AI ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/mary-sh...
• Few of us desire true equality. It’s time to own up to it ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/few-des...

About The Well Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds. Together, let's learn from them. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup

Join The Well on your favorite platforms: ► Facebook: https://bit.ly/thewellFB ► Instagram: https://bit.ly/thewellIG

LUST IS LIKE FIRE: Sutra (MN 75), Part 1

Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Magandiya Sutra: "To Magandiya" (excerpt) (MN 75 PTS: M i 501) based on Ven. Thanissaro (trans.), Wisdom Quarterly; Yeah Yeah Yeahs

You have leprosy? - I used to. I burned it off.

"Magandiya, suppose there were a leper covered with infected sores, devoured by worms, picking scabs off the openings of the wounds with his fingernails, roasting and cauterizing his body over a pit of glowing embers. 

"His friends, companions, and relatives would bring him to a doctor. The doctor would concoct medicine. Then thanks to the medicine he would be cured of leprosy: well and happy, free, a master of himself, going wherever he liked.

"Then suppose two strong men, grabbing him with their arms, were to drag him to a pit of glowing embers. What do you think? Would he squirm and struggle to get away?"

"Yes, Teacher Gotama, for fire is painful to the touch, blistering and scorching!"

"What do you think, Magandiya: Is fire painful to the touch, blistering and scorching, only now -- or was it this way before?"

This [Seven Year] Itch is unbearable! (SELF)

"Teacher Gotama, both now and before fire has been painful to the touch, blistering and scorching! It's just that when the man was a leper covered with infected sores -- devoured by worms, picking scabs off the openings of those wounds with his fingernails -- that his faculties were impaired. This is why, even though fire is actually painful to the touch, he has a distorted perception of it as 'pleasant' [as relief from the burning itch],"

"In the same way, Magandiya, in the PAST sensual pleasures were painful to the touch, blistering and scorching. Sensual pleasures in the FUTURE will be painful to the touch, blistering. ["Quenching" is a synonym for nirvana.]

"When living beings are not free from passion for sensual pleasures [but in bondage to them] — devoured by craving, burning with a fever — their faculties are impaired. This is why, even though sensual pleasures are actually painful to the touch, living beings have a distorted perception of them as 'pleasant.'

Burning, burning, burning

Itchy worms make infected wounds unbearable and maddening. Burn them off?

.

I'm a leper! Worms crawled into my openings!

"Now suppose there were a leper covered with infected sores, devoured by worms, picking scabs off the openings of those wounds with his fingernails, roasting and cauterizing his body over a pit of glowing embers.

"The more he roasted and cauterized his body over the pit of glowing embers, the more disgusting, foul-smelling, and putrid the openings of those wounds would become.

"Yet, he would feel enjoyment and satisfaction because the itchiness of those wounds would be temporarily relieved.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Burning" (from the album Cool It Down) gets it given the dramatic "West Side Story" style music video the band made to accompany it. "What are you going to do when you get to the water?" Here they are performing it on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Yummy! A piece of...

"In the same way, living beings who are not free from passion for sensual pleasures — devoured by craving, burning with fever — indulge in sensual pleasures.

"The more they indulge in sensual pleasures, the more their craving increases and the more they burn with fever.

"Yet, they feel enjoyment and temporary satisfaction by depending on the five strands of sensuality.

"What do you think, Magandiya, have you ever seen or heard of a royal or a minister — steeped in enjoyment, provided with the five strands of sensuality, without abandoning craving, without removing the fever — who has in the past dwelled or will in the future dwell or is presently dwelling free from craving, with heart/mind inwardly at peace?"

"No, Teacher Gotama."

"Good, Magandiya, neither have I. I have never seen or heard of a royal or a minister — steeped in enjoyment, provided with the five strands of sensuality, without abandoning sensual craving, without removing sensual fever — who has dwelled or will dwell or is dwelling free from craving, with mind inwardly at peace.

Ah, finally, there is relief from the agony of lust!

But Brahmins and wandering ascetics who have dwelled or will dwell or are dwelling free from craving, their minds inwardly at peace, all have done so having realized — as it actually is — the arising and disappearance, the allure, the danger, and the escape from sensual pleasures, having abandoned sensual craving and removed sensual fever."

Then at that moment the Blessed One exclaimed:

Freedom from disease is the foremost fortune.

Nirvana [non-clinging] is the foremost ease!

The ennobling eightfold path is the foremost of paths

Leading to the Deathless, secure from all suffering.

When this was said, Magandiya the wanderer said to the Blessed One: CONTINUED IN PART II