Night in the cemetery: Day of the Dead

Día de Los Muertos Ofrenda Exhibition | Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel

What is the Day of the Dead? A night in the cemetery in Oaxaca

 

Isn't that right, Madam Presidente Sheinbaum?

(Andy Spits) The Day of the Dead in Oaxaca City, Mexico. We had the chance to spend the night in a cemetery in Oaxaca (\wah-ha-kah\) during El Dia de Los Muertos with local people. This night was magical. Why? The conception of death for Indigenous Mexican people is very different from our Eurocentric conception, and we really like this much more traditional point of view.

He lives in Orange County.

Of course, love. Of course, honor. Of course, remember. The dead are grateful. The dead may need our help (so we can transfer merit to aid them out of a bad way they may have fallen into.

After all, what is "family"? It extends seven generations out, and among all those people it is said that it is impossible that not one of them has fallen into a bad way (niraya), an unfortunate destination. (Is it a coincidence that the Indigenous people, the Native Americans, also concerns themselves with seven generations?) So what we offer, if it is not needed by that particular person for whom we make the offering or ofrenda at the altar, other extended family members in need may partake of it and be given ("transferred") good karma, which is needed everywhere at all times.

Buddhism's "Transfer of Merit"

What is the transfer of merit? (Julian Daizan Skinner). The Buddha

nails it down in Theravada texts and commentaries explained below*

Mexican Buddhists

Somos Aztecas y Maya, y si no se van las almas (los muertos) al cenote (la tierra), donde van?

Nuestra Senora Guanyin of Guadalupe

The only other people who spend a night in the cemetery for any good reason are Buddhist monastics training to contemplate and be mindful of death (maranasati).

Why would anyone contemplate it? Just as traditional filial piety says to hold on to loved ones, to cling to them, to never forget, Buddhist wisdom says to let go, detach, set them free. In this way they can come back, are not stuck, and go on living.

The ruling sky-gods are hard to please.

They did not "die" in the sense of ending, stopping, or finishing. The Wheel of Life and Death keeps turning, does not stop turning, fits the other side of the coin to the process. How can there be an inside without an outside? How can we really ever "live" if all we do is fear that it will end and all will be lost? Sure, these trivial things and possessions will be pulled from us, but not all will be lost. Our character, the habits we built up, and our store of deeds (karma) is carried from here to the beyond.

• Transfer of merits (patti-dana) and receiving merits (puredhamma.net)

*Transfer of merit

Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Doctrine, Terms edited by Wisdom Quarterly

What do hungry ghosts need and want?

Patti-dāna is literally "giving of the acquired," that is, "transferring merit." Though very seldom mentioned in the older texts (e.g., A.VII.50), it is a widespread custom in all Buddhist countries.

The merit of morality (sila), especially that which is acquired by giving alms to monastics and the needy, can be transferred to others. This is so that one's own good deeds may become to others, especially to departed relatives and friends reborn in the ghost realm, an inducement to a happy and morally wholesome state of mind. (That is the secret of how it works).

Naked hungry ghosts in rags, hounded by dogs

Transferring merit is advocated (without mentioning the term patti-dāna) in the Tirokudda Sutta (Khp. and Petavatthu) and its Commentary (Khp. Tr.).

It is one of the ten "bases of meritorious action" (puñña-kiriya-vatthu, where it is called pattānuppadāna, App.).

• For more, see The Doctrine of Reversible Merit by F. L. Woodward, Buddhist Review (London), Vol. I (1914), p. 38.

COMMENTARY

Let's party till we're dead then go to the cemetery

The Day of the Dead is said to be on Nov. 2, but it is preceded by a visit and/or an overnight stay in the cemetery on Nov. 1.

Halloween is celebrated on Oct. 31 because it is based on All Hallows' Eve (the Catholic Church version attempting to usurp the heathens), making All Hallows' Day Nov. 1, the exact date of the events of the commencing of the original Day of the Dead.

Nov. 2 is the wrapping up of the previous night's celebration. Therefore, this "day" is carried out over two days.

We're here to civilize you. - With that Book?

Sadly, now in the USA, we have gotten it further twisted: We have become The Dead. Why? We dress up, haunt others, trick or treat, and cram ourselves full of sugar-laden candy, leaving Nov. 1 and 2 to be days of sickness with stomachaches and sensitive teeth, making ourselves ripe for possession, our immunity compromised by the shock of glucose spikes, in need of purging, walking around like traumatized zombies.

It's odd how the ancients knew this was a special time for peering between realms. Irish Scottish Celtic Samhain (Sauin), European paganism, Wicca remembered that before they were all but exterminated by Judeo-Christianity's Old Testament God of Genocide.

• Andy Spits, YouTube, Jan. 29, 2020; Julian Daizan Skinner; Mexican Buddhists Crystal Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

Wandering in Samsara: Mother Sutra

Dhr. Seven (trans.), Mother Discourse, Mata Sutta (SN 15.14-19), A. Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Samsara means the "continued wandering on"

Thus have I heard. At one time the Blessed One (the Buddha) was dwelling in Savatthi. There he said:

"Inconceivable is this continued wandering through rebirths [samsaric cycling through the Wheel of Life and Death]. No beginning, no first point is evident, when beings, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, began birth and this endless repeated cycle of wandering on.

"So long has it been that it is not easy to find a being who has not already been one's mother in the past... one's father... one's brother... one's sister... one's son... one's daughter...

The pig chases the bird chases the snake.

"Why? Inconceivable is this continued wandering through rebirths. No beginning, no first point, is evident when beings, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, began birth and this [endless] cycle of wandering on.

"Long enough have we all experienced pain, experienced disappointment (dukkha, suffering), experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries, long enough to become disillusioned, long enough to become disenchanted, long enough to become dispassionate toward all things [dependently originated phenomena, formations, constituent assemblages, fabrications], long enough to finally be free."

The Buddha had three mothers in his final rebirth: Maya, Pajapati Gotami, and one more.*

• *Another mother? In a fascinating incident in the Buddha's life, one day he was touring around proto-India with monastics when an elderly couple approaches him. Her name in this episode may only be given as Mata ("Mother"). They address the Buddha as "Son" (putta, putra), which shocks the monastics who all know the Buddha's biological mother (Queen Maya) passed away a week after his birth and her sister (Pajapati Gotami), co-wife of her husband (King Suddhodana), raised the prince as her own son, passing her two children (his half-siblings brother Nanda and sister Sundari Nanda) onto nurses to raise. The Buddha does not correct the couple but instead calms the monastics by explaining that for 500 (a number that just means "many") lifetimes, for so many lifetimes that she was justified in regarding him as "son." The old was complaining that he had not visited them in such a long time then gave the karmic prescription for a couple being reborn together life after life. Such is this wandering on (samsara) that with just about everyone we meet we have already shared all relationships. While that seems impossible, it only goes to show how incredibly long this Wheel of Life and Death has been turning with no end in sight (no final end possible other than enlightenment and nirvana).

The context for this sutra is as part of a series of descriptions intended to give rise to disenchantment and dispassion toward samsara, the endless cycle of rebirth from which Indian spiritual traditions seek liberation (moksha). This is the goal, yet only the Buddha seems to have found actual safety, actual freedom, actual emancipation. He called it nirvana, but both moksha and nirvana are used by other traditions to describe inferior accomplishment that do not really amount to a final solution to the problem of endless rebirth and suffering.

• SN 15.14: Mātu Sutta—Ven. Sujato (suttacentral.net)
• Mata Sutta: "Mother Discourse" (accesstoinsight.org)

Buddhist Halloween: Japan's Bon Festival

CC Liu, Crystal Quintero, Sheldon S., Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Let's go up to that house, and if they don't give us candy, we'll throw toilet paper at it and run.

Osurasma, or praying a soul out of purgatory, by J. M. W. Silver - Bon fire (festival) (Wiki)

.

Obon (お盆) or just Bon (盆) is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's deceased ancestors.

This Buddhist–Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday, during which people return to ancestral places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves. Why? This is when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars.

• Remembering the dead, household altars? It sounds like the Mexican "Day of the Dead"!

It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon Odori.

The festival of Obon lasts for three days; however, its starting date varies within different regions of Japan.

When the superior lunar calendar was changed to the inferior Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, the localities in Japan responded differently, which resulted in three different times of Obon.

Is bonfire a Bon fire or a European "bone fire"?

Three dates for Bon

We better go Zen like Kamakura Daibutsu

Shichigatsu Bon ("Bon in July") is based on the solar calendar and is celebrated around July 15th in eastern Japan (Kantō region such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and the Tōhoku region), coinciding with Chūgen.

Hachigatsu Bon ("Bon in August"), based on the lunar calendar, is celebrated around August 15th and is the most commonly celebrated time.

Kyū Bon ("Old Bon") is celebrated on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, so it differs every year, which appears between August 8 and September 7.

Exceptions occurred in 2008 and 2019, when the solar and lunar calendar matched, so Hachigatsu Bon and Kyū Bon were celebrated on the same day.

Kyū Bon is celebrated in areas such as the northern part of the Kantō region, Chūgoku region, Shikoku, and Okinawa Prefecture.

These three festival days are not listed as public holidays, but it is customary for people to be given leave from work [1].

History of bon matsuri

Moggallana was the Buddha's Black chief disciple

The Japanese Bon Festival originated from the Ghost Festival of China, which is itself a combination of the Buddhist Yúlánpén (Chinese 盂蘭盆) Festival and the Taoist Zhongyuan (中元) Festival.

The Buddhist tradition originates from the story of Maha Maudgalyayana (Mokuren in Japanese, Maha Moggallana in Pali), a chief disciple of the Buddha declared "foremost in psychic powers" among the male monastic disciples, who used his supernatural powers to look for his deceased mother only to discover she had fallen into the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and was suffering [2].

Greatly disturbed, he went to the Buddha and asked how he could get his mother released from this painful realm.

O, Buddha, how can I free my mother?

The Buddha instructed him to make charitable offerings of support to the many Buddhist monastics who had just completed their summer retreat on the fifteenth day of the seventh month.

Mokuren did this and, thus, effected his mother's release. He also began to see the true nature of her past selflessness and the sacrifices she had made for him during her lifetime.

The chief disciple, happy because of his mother's release from suffering and grateful for her many kindnesses, danced with joy.

From this dance of joy comes the Bon Odori or "Bon Dance," a time during which ancestors and their sacrifices are remembered and appreciated. See also: Ullambana Sutra.

As Obon occurs in the heat of the summer, participants traditionally wear yukata, a light cotton kimono. Many Obon celebrations include a huge carnival with rides, games, and summer festival foods [3]. More

This fire reminds me, we should totally go to Japan. I need to pray my dad out of hell.

.

He rescued his mother from the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Mother, here you are! - Help me, son, help me!

The account of Maudgalyāyana looking for his mother after her death is widespread.

Apart from being used to illustrate the principles of karma and rebirth [69, 70], in China the story developed a new emphasis.

There Maudgalyāyana is known as "Mulian," and his story is taught in a mixture of spiritual instruction and entertainment to remind people of their duties to deceased relatives [71, 72], particularly to parents.

Its earliest version is the Sanskrit Ullambana Sutra [73]. But the story is more popular in China, Japan, and Korea through edifying folktales, such as the Chinese bianwen (e.g., "The Transformation Text on Mu-lien Saving His Mother from the Dark Regions") [74, 75]. More (Wiki)

White admits racism? (African Diaspora News)

White man breaks code with his people by telling their big secret about racism

(African Diaspora News Channel) Premiered June 30, 2023: African Diaspora News Channel Podcast Demetra Kaye reports on a white man admitting a secret white know, spilling the beans about racism. Connect with Demetra: @demetrakaye Explore the podcast. There are now 710 episodes on the "African Diaspora News" channel podcast.

710 episodes

African Diaspora News Channel Podcast

African Diaspora News Channel

CIA classified book about true Adam & Eve story

The Why Files, Jan. 12, 2023; Pfc. Sandoval, Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

CIA classified a book about pole shifts, mass extinctions, and the true Adam and Eve story

(The Why Files) In 1966 a well-known engineer released a book with information that could impact everyone on earth. But before anyone could read it, it was classified as secret by the CIA. We only learned of its existence a few years ago because of a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request. Even then the CIA only released 57 pages of the original 284-page manuscript. And those pages have been, in the CIA's own words, "sanitized" [redacted, blacked out, hidden]. Why does the CIA think this book is so dangerous that they had to hide it from the public for 60 years and still so scary that it continues to hide most of it? It's because the man who wrote it describes the end of the world.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Gino Gentile Jennifer Gentile AJ Gentile Patreon Members THANK YOU MODS: Daniel_Van_Auken jengen13 pratty505 VictoriaY Jschoop Zanythos Loolykins JohnnyBeGood

#CIA #Conspiracy #EndOfTheWorld

SOURCES AND LINKS:  The Adam and Eve Story: The History of Cataclysms Uncensored by Chan Thomas... More

How can "merit" (karma) be transferred?

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Bhante, Wisdom Quarterly

• QUESTION: How can someone transfer merit (accrued good karma) to someone else? Karma is our actions, own deeds, and we alone will bear the fruit/fruit of them.

The Grateful Dead

If only there was someway to help our relative

ANSWER: It is possible. And it can be done without contradicting what karma is, which is quite correct as you put it. The departed having "died" have left here to go elsewhere, often to a dimension of ghosts (petas), spirits (devas), humans, animals, gods, or many other kinds of living beings.

The departed are not "dead" (nonexistent) in the sense of annihilated. They have carried on in the rebirth process. When a good deed is done here and they are aware of it wherever they are, they can rejoice in the good deed done here on their behalf or shared with them for their benefit. This very gratitude (of the grateful dead) is good mental karma and benefits them there.

The "dead" are all around at the gate, at the edges. If only someone would offer merit.

.

Energy does not jump from here to there. Only information when the departed look in on us or are told what's happening in their honor. If one is raised in a culture with this practice, they will come to expect that this important ceremony is done for them.

The Buddha in explaining pointed out that not all being in all worlds are able to receive the "transfer," the caring act on their behalf, but in that case anyone of one's relatives may receive it, and it is impossible, according to the Buddha, that there not be a relative to receive it. So what counts as a "relative"? It is anyone extending back seven generations, but one might imagine relatives from past lives which may be included in this category.

In any case, whether the intended target or another relative receives it, it is good karma for the one who offers it. What one shares, particularly in the form of offering to the "great field of merit in the world," the monastic and, moreover, the noble sangha, will benefit one and not be lost. Even when it benefits the intended receiver it benefits the giver.

Obon, "Day of the Dead," memorial ritual.

Either way, the giver definitely benefits. And when the departed realize that someone thought of them or made offerings on their behalf, they are bound to be grateful, bound to become the "grateful dead." That's where the term came from, not just Jerry Garcia's band.

• [Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary... [and in] that silvery elf-voice he said to me, "Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial." According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls' Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of "Fictionary" [Note 29] In the Garcia biography, Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time [30]. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales of a variety of cultures. More

Seven Types of People in the World (sutra)

Udakupama Sutra: "The Water Simile" (AN 7.15), Ven. Thanissaro/Geoffrey DeGraff (orig. trans.); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Bhante (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Seven friends are like these seven special types (dreamstime.com)

 

The Buddha taught: "Meditators, there are seven types of individuals found existing in the world. What are these seven?

"In one case, an individual sinks down once and stays sunk. In a second case, an individual, on coming to the surface, sinks down again. In a third case, an individual, on coming to the surface, stays on the surface. In a fourth case, an individual, on coming to the surface, opens one's eyes and looks around. In a fifth case, an individual, on coming to the surface, heads across. In a sixth case, an individual, on coming to the surface, gains a foothold. In a seventh case, an individual, on coming to the surface, crosses over, reaches the further shore, stands on high ground, a Brahmin.

1. "And how does one sink down once and stay sunk? In this case an individual is endowed with exclusively dark, unskillful characteristics. That is how an individual sinks down once and stays sunk.

 

2. "And how does one, on coming to the surface, sink down again? In this case an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Confidence ["faith"] in skillful qualities is beneficial, conscientiousness is beneficial, concern is beneficial, persistence is beneficial, wisdom (insight) with regard to skillful qualities is beneficial.'

"But one's confidence neither persists nor grows; it simply wanes away. One conscientiousness, concern, persistence, wisdom neither persist nor grow; they simply wane away. That's how an individual, on coming to the surface, sinks down again.

3. "And how does one, on coming to the surface, stay there? In this case an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Confidence in skillful qualities is beneficial, conscientiousness is beneficial, concern [ottappa, concern over the results of karma/actions willed, carried out, and accrued] is beneficial, persistence is beneficial, wisdom with regard to skillful qualities is beneficial.'

"One's confidence does not wane; instead, it develops and persists. One's conscientiousness, concern, persistence, wisdom do not wane; instead, they develop and persist. That is how an individual, on coming to the surface, stays on the surface.

4. "And how does one, on coming to the surface, open one's eyes and look around? In this case an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Confidence in skillful qualities is beneficial, conscientiousness is beneficial, concern is beneficial, persistence is beneficial, wisdom with regard to skillful qualities is beneficial.'
 
"With the eradication of [the first] three fetters [in the list of ten], one becomes a stream-winner [the first stage of enlightenment], steadfast, no longer liable to being reborn in any of the [four] woeful states, now destined for enlightenment. That is how an individual, on coming to the surface, opens one's eyes and looks around.

5. "And how does one, on coming to the surface, head across? In this case an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Confidence in skillful qualities is beneficial, conscientiousness is beneficial, concern is beneficial, persistence is beneficial, wisdom with regard to skillful qualities is beneficial.'

"With the total eradication of [the first] three fetters, and with the weakening of [the first three cankers] passion, aversion, and delusion [or greed, hatred, and ignorance], one becomes a once-returner,* who -- on returning [being reborn] only once more in this world -- will make an end of all suffering [i.e., gain full enlightenment and attain nirvana]. That is how an individual, on coming to the surface, heads across.

• [*The various stages of enlightenment, listed as four distinct attainments (divided into four paths and four fruits) in most places, but actually consisting of seven stages, as explained in the Path to Freedom or Vimutti Magga, a commentarial text thought to have been written by Buddhaghosa as he composed his magnum opus the Path of Purification or Visuddhi Magga.]

6. "And how does one, on coming to the surface, gain a foothold? In this case an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Confidence in skillful qualities is beneficial, conscientiousness is beneficial, concern is beneficial, persistence is beneficial, wisdom with regard to skillful qualities is beneficial.'

"With the total eradication of the five lower fetters, one is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to experience full enlightenment and nirvana, never again to return from that world. That is how an individual, on coming to the surface, gains a foothold.

7. "And how does one, on coming to the surface, cross over, reach the further shore [nirvana], stand on high ground, a Brahmin? In this case an individual comes to the surface, [seeing,] 'Confidence in skillful qualities is beneficial, conscientiousness is beneficial, concern is beneficial, persistence is beneficial, wisdom with regard to skillful qualities is beneficial.'

"With the eradication of the mental defilements, one enters and remains in the defilement-free liberation born of wisdom, having directly known and seen them for oneself here and now. That is how an individual, on coming to the surface, crosses over, reaches the further shore, stands on high ground, a Brahmin.

"These are the seven types of individuals found existing in the world."

• More at Iti 69, Sn 5

How old is humanity? (video)

Strange Mysteries, 7/17/17; Michael Cremo; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly


How old is humanity, REALLY?

These structures are much older than pharaohs.

Working out the true age of humanity isn’t as easy as checking our birth certificate, which must be in Maha Brahma's hands, because the God is like that, always hanging on to keepsakes for its little projects down here on this bhumi. Nor can we count candles on a cake. First of all, we must define what "humanity" (this generation of humans with its princes and people, maras and brahmas, devas and wandering ascetics). Recorded (written) human history only goes back about 5,300 years, because this is when our ancestors first began to use writing systems to document what was going on. Earth’s last glacial period, also known as the Ice Age, lasted from 110,000 years ago to about 11,700 years ago. When did humans first leave Africa to explore the rest of the planet? Was it 200,000 years ago or 300,000 years ago? No. Try 2,000,000 years ago.
 
Bonus videos and "Chemicals of Reality" premium video at patreon.com/strangemysteries. Narration by Jack Daniel (jackdanielvo.com); end of video trailer Narration by Ben Patrick Johnson, acclaimed narrator, novelist, and human rights activist (@benpatrick90069). Find on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

  
Extreme Human Antiquity (Druta Karma)
Michael Cremo (full DVD) via Jedi Knight, Feb. 16, 2018

Over the past two centuries archeologists and anthropologists have ignored, forgotten, and actively suppressed vast quantities of evidence showing that human beings like ourselves have existed on this planet for tens of millions of years. Forbidden Archeology documents a systematic process of "knowledge filtration" and constitutes a serious challenge to the officially taught Darwinian theory of evolution.
 

Michael Cremo explains human origins
Michael Cremo Ancient Humans and Origins (2017), Richard Parr, April 16, 2017 

 

"Forbidden Archeologist" Michael A. Cremo discusses evidence for humans of extreme antiquity, as well as his work on ancient giants (asuras, Titans) and vimanas (ancient Vedic flying craft, spacecraft). His books include The Hidden Truth About Human Origins and History and Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race. Cremo began a series of ancient history books aimed at scholarly and popular audiences. The first to be published was Forbidden Archeology. Over the past two centuries archaeologists have found bones, footprints, and artifacts showing that "modern" humans have been on the planet in advanced civilizations for hundreds of millions of years, in line with Buddhist, Hindu (Vedic/Brahminical), and Jain cosmologies as recorded in the sacred texts of the East.