Cinco de Mayo: I'm a Mexican Buddhist

If you are, I am, too!

What does it mean to be a "Mexican Buddhist"? Born and raised in Los Angeles, which is still in many ways Mexico just like it originally was, I went to visit my brother in Orange County. We had recently returned from skiing at Mammoth, where I would meditate in the snow for fun outside the sliding glass door. I didn't realize his young daughter would watch me. So as I'm talking to him in his very modern kitchen, she yells, "Tio! Tio, look!"

Alyssa's a Mexican Buddhist, too

I stick my head into the living room, where she is wearing a Peruvian cap with tassels seated in full lotus with perfect poise focused on her breath. "I've been practicing!" I didn't know what I was looking at. I thought I was the Mexican Buddhist (Chicano/a, Latin, Hispanic, whatever). Oh, to have had a phone camera in hand at that moment! In lieu of that, we've tried to reenact the moment with a mannequin.

Frida Kahlo crossed the US border from Mexico

Happy Mexican Independence Day (El Grito de Dolores, "The Cry of Dolores [Hidalgo]," whose name literally means "pains"), which is NOT today. That's on Sept. 16th every year.

It's largely celebrated only in South Mexico, mostly in the state where an important act of colonial resistance took place. Here in Middle Mexico (Los Angeles, SoCal, extending from San Diego up to about Fresno), we celebrate the 4th of July after the 5th of May (lit., Cinco de Mayo) in much the same way. But they're not the same, and no one cares.

The Avian (Eagle) Bird People?

In the ongoing fight to resist European colonial occupation and exploitation, it's important to remember a "free and sovereign state" called Puebla in the United States of Mexico (Mexico's official name, Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is celebrating today. Is it the arrival of Buddhism? No, most Mexicans have no idea that la Dharma arrived in California, the Southwest, and Mexico in ancient times long before Christianity, Catholicism, or Columbus' aftermath the Conquistadors.

• An Inglorious Columbus: or Evidence that Hwui Shen and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the 5h Century, A.D. (by Edward Payson Vining, 1885) Internet Archive
• How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (by Rick Fields)

What is "Mexico"?

Ask a Mexican! (Prof. Arellano)

"Mexico" [a, b] is officially called the United Mexican States [c] and is a country in NORTH America, not south, not even central. But to distinguish it from its two other parts (the USA and Canada), it sometimes gets referred to as Mesoamerica.

It borders the USA to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the southeast, while having maritime boundaries with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico (which would seem to be part of the Atlantic Ocean) to the east.

Racism/colorism in Mexico?

Where did Mexico's racist "caste (casta) system" come from? Spain 

What do Mexicans look like?

Mexico covers 761,610 square miles (1,972,550 km2) [12] and is now the thirteenth-largest country in the world by land area, having had a giant portion of its land occupied and stolen by the USA.

With a population exceeding 130 million, Mexico is the tenth-most populous country in the world (possibly the largest country if its annexed land and population were restored) and is home to the largest number of native Spanish speakers [1].

Mestiza/mescla (blend/mixture) Karolina Vidales Valdovinos: Miss Mexico

But Spanish was imposed on Mexicans on pain of death by Conquerors (Conquistadores), colonizers, plunderers from Spain, Southwest Europe.

Gringos welcome: Come swim in clear sinkholes, clean beaches

Mexico's original language, if it had only one, would be Nahuatl (an Uto-Aztecan language of the Mexica people, who called their country "Mexico").

An Inglorious Columbus, 1885

Its religion would likely be Buddhism (due to the influence of early Buddhist missionaries from Afghanistan and China because the West Coast from BC to Mexico is the mysterious land Chinese Buddhist explorers found, wrote about, and named fUSAng), Indigenous shamanism (animism, polytheism), or Native American spirituality were it not for colonial imposition of imperial Roman Catholicism, which rode in on the back of the Virgin Mary and her local appearance as La Virgen de Guadalupe). The Buddhism that thrives there today is a recent arrival, likely unaware of earlier missionary work.

• Buddhism in the West (east of East Asia)

AI, what is Cinco de Mayo? - Let me explain, Gringo.

The Mexica speak Nahuatl

Mexico City is the capital and largest city, which ranks among the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. (Los Angeles, a Mexican pueblo and city for most of its history, is similarly large -- a megalopolis on par with its Asian twin Bangkok in Buddhist Thailand).

Mexico is also the northwesternmost country in Latin America.

The human presence in Mexico dates back to at least 8,000 BC. Mesoamerica, a great cradle of civilization, was home to numerous advanced societies, including the:

Aztec Mexica goddess: Queen Cali

• Olmecs,
• Maya,
• Zapotecs,
• Teotihuacan civilization,
• Purépecha.

Spanish colonization overthrew and enslaved the dominant Aztec Empire (from Aztlan, possibly Atlantis or Great Tartary), establishing the Southwestern European colony of "New Spain" (full of soldiers and priests from the Iberian Peninsula) with its capital at Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).

Mexico became a major center of the transatlantic economy, fueled by the massive mining of silver that changed the world economy and the forced labor of Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans [descendants of Afro-Caribbeans, Olmec-Africans, Black skinned indigenous peoples of the Americas and/or Polynesia?]

Who's the current imperial power around here?

The 1810–1821 Mexican War of Independence ended colonial Spanish rule and led to the creation of the First Mexican Empire, which quickly collapsed into the short-lived First Mexican Republic. In 1848, the new USA (an extension of British Empire) stole nearly half the territory of Mexico during what the U.S. calls the "Mexican–American War." More

• Frida Kahlo | MoMA

Mexicans are world's most diverse (blended) people, all colors: brown, red, black, white, yellow...

• When Americans “celebrate” Cinco de Mayo #pelirroja #cincodemayo #latina #ifykyk #shorts - YouTube; Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Xochitl (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit Mexico

Mexican Buddhists: DNA results are in

Mexican movie star Salma Hayek is Latina beauty

What's a modern Latino, Chicano, Mexican American to look like? (pinterest.com) | Pin it

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Nearly all Mexicans are "blends" or Mestizas

There's a Mexican Buddhists? There are many Mexican Buddhists, not only today but in the past when there were many more.

See A Narrative History of Buddhism in America by American Rick Fields (Shambhala Publications) for a more recent history, but Edward P. Vining's An Inglorious Columbus is the classic anthropological and historical study of who arrived on the shores of Alta and Baja California in ancient times.

• American Edward P. Vining, who lived until 1920, was a writer, railroad executive [1], and author of An Inglorious Columbus (1885), in which he argued that Buddhist monk Hui Shen was originally from Afghanistan (Gandhara), traveled to China and Mexico, and created pre-Columbian Mexican culture and religion. More

Castas: Spanish racism in Americas

It was Buddhist missionaries from Afghanistan led by Chinese monk Hwui Shan. Vining published his massive text in 1895, yet Americans today are surprised to hear anything about it. Buddhists were in the Grand Canyon from ancient times, along with Hindus or Atlanteans (those from Atzlan?) or followers of a more universalist blended world religion of the past, long before Christian hegemony and the activities of the Catholic Church, its pope, and rapist-priests accompanying soldiers, killers, and slavedrivers to make sure the Vatican got its cut of the booty as it decreed a Doctrine of Discovery to cover them legally in Europe.

Jaw-dropping MEXICAN ancestry and DNA results revealed

Richest man in the world Carlos Slim's family

(Mysterious Origins) Before the arrival of the Spanish (European) invaders in Mesoamerica in 1519, Mexico and Central America [including Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, and Guatemala (allegedly named after the Buddha Gautama, meaning "Gautama's Garland," seeming to reference the Buddha's mother Queen Maya Gautama, according to Fields, 1981), perhaps related to the entire "Maya" civilization that would have been revolutionized by the influx of ancient Chinese and Afghan/Gandhari technology and art] was home to some of the most advanced civilizations in the world, including the Indigenous/Native American Maya, Aztec, Zapotec, Toltec, and Mixtec peoples.

Buddhism arrived in US, Mexico before Christianity

These civilizations built great cities and empires that amazed the Spanish, developed sophisticated writing and calendrical systems, and engaged in extensive trade networks.

However, the Spanish onslaught, led by the infamous Conquistador Hernán Cortés, resulted in a dramatic transformation and ruin of the region.

The collision of these two civilizations — indigenous Mesoamerican societies and Old World European imperialists — resulted in the creation of modern Latino identity, a blend of Indigenous and Spanish bloodlines.

Brutal colonization brought a foreign language (Spanish), an odd religion (Catholicism), and customs (mass rape, hegemony, racially based chattel slavery) and a reshaping of political and social structures, often at the expense of Indigenous autonomy.

The conquest nearly wiped out these Native groups, but indigenous cultures proved remarkably resilient, influencing everything from language and cuisine to spirituality and artistic traditions.  #mexico #panama #guatemala #centralamerica #mesoamerica

SOURCES

• sci.news/genetics/native-...
• livescience.com/archaeolo...
• fau.edu/newsdesk/articles...

AMAZING FACTS: An Inglorious Columbus: or, Evidence that Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century, A.D. (Edward P. Vining, 1847-1920)

• How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (Rick Fields)
• Mysterious Origins, Feb. 9, 2025; Crystal Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Found in our Buddhist Grand Canyon

What scientists just found in the Grand Canyon shocks everyone

(The Savior) Nov. 21, 2024: The Smithsonian's Kincaid explored and found a great deal of "forbidden archeology," as Michael Cremo refers to it, about the true history of this land, a past rooted in Egyptian, Buddhist, and Hindu arrivals and the creation of a civilization we are not allowed to know about. The Hopi and other tribes, with help from Tibetan Buddhist missionaries and historians, may be aware of it, but we are not. Steve Quayle and other explorers dare to publish but are largely ignored by the mainstream for their "fringe" views. Never mind that the whole story was documented in writing at the time but the Arizona Gazette. That physical evidence still exists, and nearly all of the Grand Canyon is forbidden and off-limits. People have found caverns and cave tunnel systems through the region, and many prominent features bear Egyptian names. They seem to be degraded pyramids and manmade structures, visible from the rim. But we are fed a false narrative of natural erosion over a billion years or so.

Christian brothers want to motivate with this video that aims to leave viewers blessed, inspired, and encouraged as well as strengthening prayer life and daily walk with or without God. As you listen to this amazing video may JC light up your life. Why is our government concealing the truth of ancient history on this land?

Dia de los Muertos, Hollywood (10/26)

Mara: It's so nice of humans to remember me and King Yama, celebrating us as saints

This year (2024) the celebration at Hollywood Forever cemetery falls on Oct. 26th.

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I'm the hottest La Catrina. Everyone knows it.

Every year on the last Saturday before November 2nd, Hollywood Forever cemetery and mausoleum welcomes the Los Angeles community onto its funereal grounds to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos – the "Day of the Dead."

Dia de Los Muertos is one of Mexico’s most colorful traditional holidays, now celebrated throughout the Americas, including L.A. (Latin America). It reunites and honors beloved ancestors who have crossed over, family, and friends.

I see dead people. And they're real pretas.

It is believed that on Dia de Los Muertos, the living commune with the dead – the mystical time when the "veil" is lifted between their two realms (human plane and ghost realm) so that they may share a day together.

At Hollywood Forever participants from the around the world, most of them in costume, to spend a unique and memorable day. The cemetery comes to life with joyful celebration, as a vibrant procession featuring hundreds of Aztec ritual dancers who weave through the cemetery.

What does Mexican Buddhism know about life/death?

• Buddhist missionaries peacefully arrived in California and Mexico before Christian Catholicism launched a European genocide. See An Inglorious Columbus by Edward P. Vining (1885) and A Narrative History of Buddhism in America by Rick Fields. There are ancient traces of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Kemetic Egyptian traditions throughout the Grand Canyon, too.

Hi! We're Three Wiseguys here to see the boy!

More than 100 altars (ofrendas or "offerings"), created by members of the community in remembrance of their ancestors and loved ones, dot the grounds.

Musical performances by Grammy Award-winning recording artists entertain from five stages.

I'd rather be depressed, cling to loss

An art exhibition in The Cathedral Mausoleum displays hundreds of original artworks.

Food vendors from around Los Angeles, arts and crafts vendors, and a children’s arts project area complete the experience.

At the end of the day, judges choose the best dressed calaca ("skeleton"), as well as the most memorable votive altars.

This is truly an unforgettable experience! Find out more about Dia de Los Muertos celebration. More

In a Nutshell

There's a bigger costume contest than this.

Celebrated primarily in Mexico, November 2nd is Dia de Los Muertos, the "Day of the Dead." It remembers the lives of the deceased with food, drink, and celebration. This annual celebration is a daylong festival, featuring gorgeous altars, Aztec dancers, five stages of music and dance, arts and crafts, a ritual procession, and much more. It attracts attendees from around the world to Hollywood Forever

Mexican meditation

• Hollywood Forever Cemetery
• 6000 Santa Monica Blvd.
• (at the intersection of Beechwood, under the Hollywood sign, next to the original LA Buddhist Vihara in the heart of Hollywood)
• Los Angeles, CA 90038
• Office (323) 990-4469
• Toll Free (866) 706-4826
• The largest Day of the Dead costume contest in California