'Mass spiritual awakening' - HOW?

(Asangoham) 5 unexplained mass spiritual awakenings:Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance?

Why Zen? Alan Watts on experience

Alan Watts, Something's Happening, KPFK.org, March 9, 2025

Zen as Taoism and Mahayana-Hinduism

I'd rather talk about Taoism than Dhamma

The Tao is not Buddhism, but it has been made into Buddhism (at least the version of Buddhism called Zen) by incorporating Taoist philosophy into the Buddhism of Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam. It is far from the only form of Buddhism, in some ways straying so far from the historical Buddha's Teaching or Dharma that one could call it into question as a syncretism or apocryphal Mahayana doctrine. Who has time for the sutras the Buddha spoke when we can look at koans ("public cases") and puzzle over them to get out of our intellectual minds? They're funnier, more surprising, paradoxical riddles and entertaining stories. We might never learn what the Buddha taught, but hey, come on, life is short, and we have all the time in the world to waste. Plus, Zen looks cool, and that's half the battle right there. We might even get a cool Japanese name. Right, Doggone?

Can I get the name Kwan Chan Kane?

The Japanese term kōan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word gong'an (Chinese 公案, pinyin gōng'àn, Wade–Giles kung-an, lit. "public case"). The Zen term is a compound word, consisting of the characters 公 ("public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable") and 案 ("table; desk, altar; [law] case; record; file; plan; mandate, proposal.") More

It's funny in that, if it leads to a sudden realization (kensho, epiphany, satori), the way a joke is funny because we are led down one road in the setup and down another in the punchline, it's like someone hitting a gong, at least in the sitcom world of our imagination and American TV shows depicting Asian or "Oriental" way of speaking, full of deep wisdom and a sudden change of perspective. For example, Douglas Adams was famous for his ability to turn a phrase, one time depicting the ET character Ford Prefect (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) complaining to the human Arthur Dent:

• FORD: "It feels unpleasantly like being drunk."
• ARTHUR: "Well, what's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
• FORD: "You ask a glass of water."

We thought "drunk" referred to being intoxicated then suddenly find out Ford meant the past tense of drink. This kind of turning led to a whole class of Orientalisms (intended in the pejorative sense of Westerners stereotyping an Asian manner of speaking), leading to a famous class of jokes like:

"Man who fart in church sit in his own pew" where pew is pronounced phew!

This is significant because the Tao is translated as "the Way," but the Buddha taught that "Way" or "Path" was magga, the Noble (Ennobling, Enlightening) Eightfold Path, not following the Tao or "path of least resistance," going with the flow, just doing whatever.

Soto Zen monk in meditation pose

Alan Watts knows that, but do his listeners realize he is most of the time talking about Taoism and Vedic Hinduism rather than what the Buddha taught, for that is what Mahayana concerns itself (the former, not so much the latter). Ask a Mahayana Buddhist what the historical Buddha taught, and they won't know much of anything beyond lists, which they imagine are very rudimentary and obvious, whereas they extol their apocryphal texts as being "the real thing" Siddhartha Gautama meant but never said. The most famous Buddhist sutras are not the Buddha's teaching but derivative works of clever invention: the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Platform Sutra, Flower Adornment Sūtra, all kinds of nice-sounding Sanskrit texts, leaving to the wayside what the Buddha taught as key to enlightenment and progress in wisdom and compassion. Alan Watts hardly ever mentions Theravada (Pali canon) or Sarvastivada Buddhism, preferring instead the Eastern philosophy of India, China, and Japan. As long as listeners know that, he is a great "philosophical entertainer." If they do not realize that, he must be very confusing.

• Alan Watts - KPFK 90.7 FM
• KPFK 90.7 FM - Listen Live
• Alan Watts (alanwatts.org) via Something's Happening  with Diane Tuckman, RN (KPFK.org, March 9, 2025); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why Buddhists do not worship God

Meditation is RISKY: Willoughby Britton

Willoughby Britton, Scott Carney, 1/4/24; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What if something happens on the inside? Shouldn't we all play it safe and just stay ignorant?

Why do so many meditators want to kill this neuroscientist?

(Scott Carney) Scott Carney Investigates: When Brown University Prof. Willoughby Britton set out to study the potential negative side effects of meditation, she never expected that the [super peaceful Buddhist] community would want to hound her out of her job.

I'm an academic. Let me have some freedom.

But that's what happened after her study on the "Varieties of Contemplative Experience" came out and she documented how one out of every ten people who start meditating have a clinically significant negative side effect.

Now she has a folder with 5,000 threats from people all around the world who want to stop her from reporting the truth.

For more information or to seek treatment with Dr. Britton, PhD's team, see these resources:

• Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory (brown.edu)
• Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab sites.brown.edu/britton
• Cheetah House: cheetahhouse.org

Join this channel to get access to perks: @sgcarney. Get exclusive updates on Patreon: sgcarney. Substack sgcarney.substack.com. Scott Carney Investigates Podcast: scottcarney.com/podcast. YouTube @sgcarney. 

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Social media: Instagram: sgcarney, Facebook: scottcarneyauthor, Twitter: sgcarney.    Bluesky. #kundalini #sleep #neuroscience #meditation. ©PokeyBear LLC (2023) Explore the podcast 37 episodes Scott Carney Investigates Scott Carney

Hippies on acid: Tim Leary, Allen Ginsberg

Our History, Aug. 23, 2022; Ananda (DBM), Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Rare interview with Timothy Leary and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg about LSD

(Our History) "The World Tomorrow" was a Granada TV documentary series produced for the ITV network.

Woodstock was a wild trip, Man.

In 1967 it was broadcast in a late slot on Friday nights, but in early February a special edition was produced on the subject of the entheogen LSD ("acid") and screened in an earlier peak timeslot midweek.

The special included interviews with the American psychologist and LSD advocate Dr. Timothy Leary (Harvard) and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. This film was first broadcast: Feb. 8, 1967.

Watch more documentaries at Our Life (bit.ly/3A8xRMJ), Our History (bit.ly/3rUpdhL), Our World (bit.ly/3ftuckM), Our Stories (bit.ly/3ynfFyk), and Our Taste (bit.ly/3OZoDcV). Start a journey of discovery with Our History, as it brings eye-opening documentaries and educational programs about our world history. It guides viewers through awe-inspiring events from our past and help give a deeper understanding of current affairs and global events that have shaped the world we live in today. Content distributed by ITV Studios. Subscribe to Our History: bit.ly/3v5mKBG.

Instead of death, near-death meditation (video)

Scott M. Taylor, Ed.D. (neardeathmeditations.com); Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

The brain can be tracked.

Why Near Death Experience? Near-death experiencers, called NDErs, have provided a rich map of the nonphysical universe. The millions who have had made this journey describe it with awe and wonder.

NDErs are profoundly changed by the experience. We can be, too ― thanks to the transformative power of near-death meditations.

Join Scott Taylor on a guided tour into the sacred realms of the near-death experience ― via Near-Death Experience Meditation retreats or albums that can be used at a time and place that is most convenient.

• Register for upcoming NDE Zoom Retreat January 15-20

Scott M. Taylor, Ed.D., is America's foremost facilitator of near-death meditations and retreats, having helped thousands explore the journey of transition. More

"The NDE program brought clarity to the rules of the physical and nonphysical worlds in order to act with conscious choice! …What I discovered was all there is, is LOVE. Until I experienced it in the nonphysical, I have felt only a morsel of its grandeur. My hope is that others will have the same opportunity to experience eternity now."

— Michele Blair

The Religious Dimension (Bhikkhu Bodhi)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Bhikkhu Bodhi, "A Buddhist Response to Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence" (accesstoinsight.org)

You may fly through the heavens in ships, but do you meditate, devas? The space worlds are delightful, and the karma that bngs it about is good, but are you making more merit or living on reserves accrued long ago? Bua Kwan monastery, Thailand (WQ).

.

Miley Cyrus is the ugliest duckling (W)

As humanity moves ever closer to the 21st century, the existential rift at the heart of our inner life remains.

Its pain is made worse by our repeated failures to solve so many of the social, political, and economic problems that seem on the surface as though they should be easily manageable by our sophisticated technological capabilities.

Forget FEMEN!!!

The stubborn persistence of these problems -- and the constant emergence of new problems as soon as the old ones recede -- seems to make a mockery of all our well-intentioned attempts to establish a utopian paradise on utterly secular premises.
 

The rediscovery of the religious consciousness is in itself is certainly not a sufficient remedy for these problems, because they spring from a wide multiplicity of causes far too complex to be reduced to any simplistic explanation.

• AUDIO: What is Buddhism? Bhikkhu Bodhi explains in 10 Talks called "The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is"

I coulda been a contender, the one calling the shots, the new Adolf, the voice of the military-industrial complex instead of just playing along fronting the fake opposition.

.

Women fail to notice that Michelle is a man.

But the religious crisis of modern humanity is intimately connected to these diverse social and political tragedies at many levels. Some of these levels lie far beyond the range of rational comprehension and defy analysis in terms of linear causality. 

 

The connection of co-arisen manifestations of a corrosive sickness in the human core -- the sickness of selfishness and craving -- or as karmic backlashes of the three root defilements pinpointed by Buddhism: greed, hatred (the range of aversion which include fear), and delusion.

Me, me I'm innocent, Babs, but the rebels...

Any hopes we may cherish towards healing our community, our planet, and our world must involve us in a deep level process of healing ourselves.

And since this healing can only be successfully accomplished by reorienting our lives towards the Ultimate Reality and Supreme Good, the process of healing necessarily takes on a religious dimension. More

RAVE: An Anthem for War (video)

[Mystic Wisdom] Quarterly

(GowlerMusic) Electroacoustic piece of music set to the poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by the late British poet-soldier Wilfred Salter Owen.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
  
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
  
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Owen died on the battlefield in WW I after writing "Dulce Et Decorum Est" (ironically "It is Sweet and Fitting [to Die for Patriotism]"). He was a great loss to humanity in light of what Europe might have produced if the youth of that generation had not been sacrificed.

HardFest HARD Day Of The Dead, Nov. 3rd, 2012, LA State Historic Park. Tickets (harddayofthedead.com)

Day of the Dead

Dev and Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Candy Eye (lilminx16/deviantart.net)

While the world is at war, promoted and prosecuted by the US military-industrial complex like MLK Jr. recognized, all I can do is dance to EDM. And the Mexican "Day of the Dead" (the Latin American Halloween) is being celebrated with a rave.

  

Next to the old Occupy Wall Street encampment under the occupied Los Angeles skyline, next to China Town, we will gather as in years before. I'm still in search of a peak experience worthy of a Buddhist monastic or the Buddha himself. When the lights are going off and the DJ is dropping a big fat beat, I'm almost there. Almost.

  

Back in the day

If I leave my body, will I see the larger Spirit World, the realm of devas.? If I dance so hard I can no longer feel my feet, will I elevate into spatial dimensions beyond our limiting atmosphere? In meditation, I close my eyes and see subtle light. I feel the unseen and touch emptiness. Sometimes Buddhism is the only thing that make sense, you know?

  

The Day of the Dead, when ancestors are honored and there is time to reassess and appreciate current relations, we will be with all our brothers and sisters under the Moon. But somewhere I know war is being fought for corporations and nothing else, no national security, no higher ideals. They're monsters, my brother among them. What can I do but dance, celebrating the Five Precepts while others are negligent, holding my head under a twice-colored cloud and focusing my mind.

The Buddha said, "Not having been, they come to be; once having been, they cease." What was he talking about? Everything, all conditioned-things. There is that Farther Shore beyond the beyond. We wish the killing would stop and the loving start so we could all arrive there. "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O, what an awakening, yes!"

"Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate bodhi swaha!" is the epitome of the Heart Sutra.

• Spirituality: Compassion can't be lost in translation

Killing for Religion (video)

(Nethius) Richard Dawkins: The Root of All Evil (2006), Episode 1. The God Delusion (Parts 1-5).

Blind, unthinking "faith" leads to a great danger -- killing in the name of God within Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This is as true in the West as it is in longstanding wars waged in the Middle East. Where is reason, and what became of the Enlightenment?

"The Root of All Evil?" was later retitled "The God Delusion." It is a television documentary written and presented by Richard Dawkins in which he argues that humanity would be better off without religion or blind belief in God. The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two hour-long episodes on Channel 4 in the UK. More>>

Meditation: Images without Words

These images touch upon meditation as a numerical abstraction that comprehends the whole. The Fibonacci sequence is a ratio that reaches into every aspect of the universe. The biological aspects at the cellular level near the end of the segment are somewhat speculative, suggestive of the possibility that the sequence also appears there. The second video seeks to enter a unitive state (samadhi) via neurobiology with DMT (the spirit molecule), which allows one to suddenly, directly see energy and to sense experience without intermediary thought-formations. This, too, is speculative and may not be of any use to those already successful at bhavana (Pali, "meditation"), Zen, Ch'an, and dhyana (jhana), and the mindfulness that accompanies the practice. It is, however, a means of prompting a sudden spiritual or religious experience many otherwise doubt exists or find impossible to otherwise reach. Santo Daime: Alienação ou salvação? Plant spirit: Alienation or salvation? All is one. Successful meditation leads one to the experience of this truth rather than endless rationalization, mentation, and theory. Meditation is practice. Meditation is allowing. Meditation is to strive to sit then release the striving and simply experience with bare attention (not thought) and clear awareness. This is sati sampajana (mindfulness and clear comprehension). It is available at all times without any aid.

Atheist Converts to EVERY Religion

"Frankly, one reason I've remained a die-hard Christian is to cover my behind in the afterlife. But I recently realized I need to worship ALL gods who might possibly exist!" -- Ed Current.

"It's the Day of Judgment for a fool who says there is no God. Christians, get ready to laugh as he learns his fate!" -- Ed Current

• Rock star experiences GOD

Former KORN guitarist Brian "Head" Welch sets the record straight on the timeline of leaving the band and finding god (Artisan News).

• Satire: How to Convert an Atheist Part 1
• Finding "GOD" DMT: The Spirit Molecule Documentary

DMT: The Spirit Molecule (the movie)

Dr. Rick Strassman, M.D.(LINK: Part 1 of 5)

Dr. Strassman, M.D.'s overview from his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule

In 1990, I began the first new human research with psychedelic, or hallucinogenic, drugs in the United States in over 20 years. These studies investigated the effects of N, N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, an extremely short-acting and powerful psychedelic. During the project's five years, I administered approximately 400 doses of DMT to 60 human volunteers.

The book DMT: The Spirit Molecule (rickstrassman.com)

This research took place at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque, where I was tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry. I was drawn to DMT because of its presence in all of our bodies. Perhaps excessive DMT production, coming from the mysterious pineal gland, was involved in naturally occurring "psychedelic" states. These might include birth, death and near-death, psychosis, and mystical experiences.

Only later, while the study was well under way, did I also begin considering DMT's role in the "alien abduction" experience. The DMT project was founded on cutting edge brain science, especially the psychopharmacology of serotonin. However, my own background powerfully affected how we prepared people for, and supervised, their drug sessions. One of these was a decades-long relationship with a Zen Buddhist training monastery.

The Spirit Molecule examines what we know about psychedelic drugs in general, and DMT in particular. It then traces the DMT research project from its earliest intimations through the maze of committees and review boards to its actual performance.Our research subjects were healthy volunteers. The studies were not intended to be therapeutic, although all of us believed in the potentially beneficial properties of psychedelic drugs. The project generated a wealth of biological and psychological data, much of which I have already published in the scientific literature.

On the other hand, I have written nearly nothing about volunteers' stories. I hope these many excerpts from over 1000 pages of my bedside notes provide a sense of the remarkable emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of this chemical.

Problems inside and outside of the research environment led to the end of these studies in 1995. Despite the difficulties we encountered, I am optimistic about the possible benefits of the controlled use of these drugs. Based upon what we learned in the New Mexico research, I offer a wide-ranging vision for DMT's role in our lives, and conclude by proposing a research agenda and optimal setting for future work with DMT and related drugs.

The late Willis Harman possessed one of the most discerning minds to apply himself to the field of psychedelic research. Willis, earlier in his career, had published the first and only scientific study using psychedelics to enhance the creative process. When I met him 30 years later in 1994, he was president of Institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization founded by the sixth man to walk on the moon, Edgar Mitchell.

Mitchell's mystical experience, stimulated by viewing the Earth on his return home, inspired him to study phenomenon outside the range of traditional science, which nevertheless might yield to a broader application of the scientific method.During a long walk together along the central California coastal range one day, he said firmly, "At the very least, we must enlarge the discussion about psychedelics."

It is in response to his request that I include highly speculative ideas and my own personal motivations for performing this research. This approach will satisfy no one in every respect. There is intense friction between what we know intellectually or even intuitively, and what we experience with the aid of DMT. As one of our volunteers exclaimed after his first high dose session, "Wow! I never expected that!"

Or, as Dogen, a thirteenth century Japanese Buddhist teacher said, "We must always be disturbed by the truth." Enthusiasts of the psychedelic drug culture may dislike the conclusion that DMT has no beneficial effects in and of itself; rather, the context in which people take them is at least as important. Proponents of drug control may condemn what they read as encouragement to take psychedelic drugs and a glorification of the DMT experience.

Practitioners and spokespersons of traditional religions may reject the suggestion that spiritual states can be accessed, and mystical information gained, through drugs. Those who have undergone "alien abduction" and their advocates may interpret as a challenge to the "reality" of their experiences my suggestion that DMT is intimately involved in these events. Opponents and supporters of abortion rights may find fault with my proposal that pineal DMT release at 49 days after conception marks the entrance of the spirit into the fetus.

3: Science of Spirituality

"Are Spiritual Encounters All In Your Head?" (NPR)
Barbara Bradley Hagerty

All Things Considered, May 19, 2009 · According to polls, there's a 50-50 chance you have had at least one spiritual experience — an overpowering feeling that you've touched God, or another dimension of reality.

• PHOTO: According to Orrin Devinsky, who directs the epilepsy center at New York University, neurologists suspect some of the religious giants — like Moses — were epileptics. When Moses saw the burning bush, it could have been God — or a seizure, he says. "Whatever happened back there in Sinai, Moses' experience was mediated by his temporal lobe," Devinsky says (iStockphoto.com).

So, have you ever wondered whether those encounters actually happened — or whether they were all in your head? Scientists say the answer might be both.

If you're looking for evidence that religion is in your head, you need look no further than Jeff Schimmel. The 49-year-old Los Angeles writer was raised in a Conservative Jewish home. But he never bought into God — until after he was touched by a being outside of himself.

"Yeah," Schimmel says, "I was touched by a surgeon."

Listen Now [8 min 5 sec]

About a decade ago, Schimmel had a benign tumor removed from his left temporal lobe. The surgery was a snap. But soon after that — unknown to him — he began to suffer mini-seizures. He'd hear conversations in his head. Sometimes the people around him would look slightly unreal, as if they were animated.

Then came the visions. He remembers twice, lying in bed, he looked up at the ceiling and saw a swirl of blue and gold and green colors that gradually settled into a shape. He couldn't figure out what it was.

"And then, like a flash, it dawned on me: 'This is the Virgin Mary!' " he says. "And you know, it's funny. I laughed about it, because why would the Virgin Mary appear to me, a Jewish guy, lying in bed looking at the ceiling? She could do much better."...

GOD HELMET “For the next 30 minutes, I listen to magnetic fields shift over my skull. Occasionally, I report seeing images, or a dark forest.…At one point, Persinger predicts I am right on the verge of feeling the 'Sensed Presence.' But it never happens. There were several times when Persinger predicted I would see an image, or a face -- and I did. To Persinger, this is evidence that God and all spiritual experience are a product of your brain.”

Barbara Bradley Hagerty tried on Michael Persinger's "God helmet" at Laurentian University to see if he could manufacture a spiritual experience for her by manipulating her temporal lobes (Barbara Bradley Hagerty/NPR).

The Quest For The "Sensed Presence"
This made me wonder: If God uses the temporal lobe, can neurologists make God come and go at will? Well, they can make ecstatic seizures go away with surgery or medication. But what about summoning God? Could a scientist manufacture a spiritual experience by manipulating my temporal lobes?

That question led me to Michael Persinger's laboratory in Sudbury, Ontario. It's 6:30 on a Saturday evening, and Persinger, a neuroscientist at Laurentian University, has pasted eight electrodes on my scalp. He eases a modified motorcycle helmet with its own sensors onto my head. He calls it the "God helmet."

The helmet is supposed to stimulate my right temporal lobe with weak magnetic fields, and create the illusion of God in my head. Well, not God exactly, but a sensed presence, a feeling that another being is in the room.

When the helmet is in place, Persinger covers my eyes with goggles stuffed with napkins. I sink deeper into the threadbare, overstuffed chair, feeling like a teenager hanging out in someone's basement. He leaves me in the chamber and returns to the control room, where I've placed a recorder.

Explore research into the science of spiritual encounters with this interactive view of the brain

For the next 30 minutes, I listen to magnetic fields shift over my skull. Occasionally, I report seeing images, or a dark forest. I've place a recorder in the control room, which is picking up both his comments and mine. At some point, I say, in an almost incomprehensibly muffled words, "There's kind of a roiling darkness, like a battle of darkness; it's off to my left."

Persinger observes, excited: "You've just reported the actions on your left. And now you are beginning to experience — and my compliments to you — what is called 'The black,' or 'The dark of the dark.' "

Of course, I couldn't hear him say that. He was talking into my recorder. At one point, Persinger predicts I am right on the verge of feeling the "Sensed Presence." But it never happens. There were several times when Persinger predicted I would see an image, or a face — and I did. To Persinger, this is evidence that God and all spiritual experience are a product of your brain.

"What is the last illusion that we must overcome as a species?" he asks theatrically. "That illusion is that God is an absolute that exists independent of the human brain — that somehow we are in his or her care."

"I'm A More Decent Human Being Because Of It"
Believers are certainly going to take issue with that. And so do many scientists. I put the question to New York University's Devinsky. Does the fact that we can track spiritual feelings in our temporal lobe mean that there's nothing spiritual going on?

"No," he says simply.

Think about a man and woman who are in love, Devinsky says. They look at each other, and in all likelihood, something fires in their temporal lobes.

"However, does that negate the presence of true love between them?" he asks. "Of course not. When you get to spirituality, as a scientist I think it really becomes extremely difficult to say anything other than, 'It's possible.' "

As for Schimmel, the fellow with temporal lobe epilepsy, he finds it hard to believe that his new faith and love for his fellow man come merely from an electrical impulse that's gone awry.

"But I'll tell you what the real bottom line is for me," says Schimmel, who has taken up Buddhism to harness his spiritual life. "I don't care where it comes from. I'm just a happier person, and I'm a more decent human being because of it." More>>

The next part of this series looks at spiritual virtuosos — Buddhist monks and other long-term practitioners of meditation who are coming under the gaze of brain researchers.