(TheUwagaPies) American Scott Mangis is a former US Marine who now lives life as a Zen Buddhist monk near Tokyo, Japan.
Let's explore Scott's daily life and the path that lead him to completely change his way of living. Video by Tofu Media Production, Krzysztof Gonciarz and Kasia Mecinski (tofu.media).
Look, I'm a Zen nun, mindful and demure!
Shot on Canon 5D Mark III (amzn.to/2rChZ2H). Lenses:
Tamron 24-70 IS 2.8 (amzn.to/2q45ADx). Zeiss 50 1.4 (amzn.to/2rCCVXh). Canon 100 IS 2.8 USM (amzn.to/2qBWOiw). Stabilizing:
DJI Ronin (amzn.to/2qF2QzB). Manfrotto monopod and tripod. Slidecamera slider. Edited in Adobe Premiere, graded in Magic Bullet Looks.
(WQ) It would be good if Ananda's student, Doggone, could learn from Ven. Scott, the former U.S. soldier who found peace through Zen, which includes a lot of Taoist philosophy and practice.
Instead of muscling through everything, efforting and straining, there's a better way that bends with the wind, goes with the flow, and follows the Way known as the Tao.
Alan Watts speaks of a great divide in outlook, self-power (jiriki) versus other power (tariki). Can we do the impossible and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or must we rely on a higher power, an outside source of energy or intelligence, to pull us out?
In practice, the latter may make more sense or be much easier. The former may work, but it will take subtlety that ego is not just leading ego around, self-willed as always, thinking it's getting anywhere. Will faith in something outside us save us, or must we take responsibility for our own behavior and own wisdom?
Two Buddhisms have developed in Japan over this vital question. Shall we follow the example of the historical Buddha or Cosmic Buddhas (gods) like Amitabha, Ksitigarbha, Guanyin (Avalokiteshvara), Budai, or whoever? It is the Kali Yuga (the "Decadent Age") after all, as the Hindu Vedas tell Mahayana Buddha.
Let's repeat this basic message in the next post with an added video of Watts making the great distinction in religious endeavor: self-power vs. other-power.
In a groundbreaking discovery, archaeologists have unearthed a pot of gold coins in the ancient seaside city of Notion in Turkey (Türkiye).
This remarkable find offers unprecedented insights into a world 2,400 years ago during a period of significant political upheaval.
While excavating a house from the third century BC, archaeologists discovered an unexpected cache of riches intriguingly buried in its courtyard, according to The New York Times.
“The coins were buried in a corner of the older building,” stated archaeologist Christopher Ratté, a professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan, curator of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, and director of the Notion Archaeological Project.
“We weren’t actually looking for a pot of gold. [It's not like we're Irish or anything.]”
Andrew Meadows, an Oxford University archaeologist, although uninvolved in the project, emphasized the significance of this find, describing it as “of the highest importance.” He said no similar hoard has ever been discovered in [Anatolia or] Asia Minor.
“The archaeological context for the hoard will help us fine-tune the chronology of Achaemenid gold coinage.”
The treasure most likely belonged to a soldier [who probably stole it as booty]
Depicting a Persian king kneeling with a bow and spear, the gold coins, known as darics, were primarily used to pay soldiers of fortune [aka mercenaries]. This has led archaeologists to believe that the cache belonged to a mercenary who had to bury his gold for safekeeping [and then died, experienced the results of his soldier karma, and never even benefitted from his wages or theft].
“According to the Greek historian Xenophon, a single daric was equivalent to a soldier’s pay for one month,” added Ratté, as reported by Live Science. More
War is ugly, but Israel doesn't mind. It's a traumatized diaspora read to traumatize others.
MAN SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE NEAR WHITE HOUSE, EXTINGUISHED, ARRESTED
Do I love Gaza or hate being a US soldier?
A man (Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty military serviceman in the US Air Force, who no longer wanted to be complicit in Israel's genocide against Palestine, particularly the US-funded ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank by government-backed illegal Jewish settlers) protested Israel's war in Washington, D.C. Bushnell set himself on fire in a park near the White House and was only saved -- for the moment, as he died later -- by cops, who quickly held him at gunpoint ready to execute him with service revolver cause if he gave them cause, surrounded and extinguished him.
Look at this other American guy set himself on fire (and not blurred out by censors) tmz.com/watch/0-6x0dv368
One of the many reasons Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc was wrong to do this (ritual suicide), even if he was doing the good of calling attention to US war crimes in Vietnam in the summer of 1963 is that he, inadvertently, inspired others to think this was a way to get attention for good causes like protesting bad wars. Is it bad karma? Can one know his thought at the moment of ignition or death? Was there not hatred (aversion, dosa) present at that moment? If he died, his mind clear, no aversion, then it would not condition his rebirth negatively. And if he was enlightened before dying, there would be no rebirth at all. The minutiae of such matters is explained in detail in the Abhidharma ("Doctrine in Ultimate Terms" literature, an explanation of Buddhist psychology).
Meital Yaniv joined hundreds of Jewish activists and their allies to shut down the California state Capitol in Sacramento.
This happened Wednesday (1/10/24) to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and condemn the roughly $600 million in California taxes that is wasted annually for U.S. military "aid" supplied to Israel.
Yaniv recalls being raised "extremely Zionistic," the experience of being in the Israeli Air Force, and the eventual turn to fight for Palestinian human rights.
Watch where you're walking, B*tch. - I didn't do anything, Ma'am. - Don't f*cking talk back!!
.
I'm also a refusenik Jew in Israel (30 days in jail)
"What Israel is doing right now has nothing to do with [reacting to] antisemitism. What Israel is doing right now is a genocide. What Israel has been doing for the past 75 years is apartheid, is [illegal Jewish military] occupation," Yaniv says.
"There is no need for any one of us to serve in the IDF. The IDF should not exist. The state of Israel should not exist" [where it currently does, illegally occupying Palestine as a proxy for the US, UK, France, and the West in general].
["Israel" could always go somewhere else, to a real "land without a people for a people without a land" while begging its BS "blood libel" lies to anyone who will listen to the ultimate victimhood narrative. Or go to Zion, the only Jewish state in the world that no one disputes: Jewish Autonomous Oblast, which Israel pretends does not exist]
ABOUT: Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour founded by liberal American Jew Amy Goodman that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8:00-9:00 am ET.
Subscribe to Daily Email Digest: democracynow.org/subscribe
Jewish girl refuses to enlist: Jewish Israeli was imprisoned for opposing Israel's illegal occupation
(Owen Jones) Nov. 6, 2023: Atalya Ben-Abba is an Israeli conscientious objector: as a teenager forced to enlist, she was sent to prison for refusing to join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) because of her opposition to Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank. Now she's calling for a ceasefire. In response to her courage, we stand by her.
(@larsvonretriever) Best cover of RAGM's "Killing in the Name" by the North Korean Army Band ;)*
SUTRA: Considering becoming a soldier? You may want to reconsider...
Do it, Yudas, join the army. It's very patriotic.
The Headman Yodhajiva went to the Buddha, bowed, and sat respectfully to one side. Sitting there he said to the Buddha:
"Venerable, I have heard that it has been passed down by the ancient teaching lineage of warriors that 'When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, if others strike one and slay one while one is striving and exerting in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in the company of those shining ones (devas) slain in battle.' What does the Buddha say about that?"
That's what warriors say. Is it right?
"Headman, enough. Set that question aside. Do not ask it."
But a second...and a third time the Headman Yodhajiva asked: "...What does the Buddha say about that?"
"Headman, apparently, I am unable to get by by simply saying, 'Headman, enough, set that question aside. Do not ask it.' So I will just say:
[Why it's bad karma]
Look, Palestine, I'm a settler colonialist
"When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, that person's mind is already seized, debased, and misdirected by such thoughts as: 'May these living beings be struck down, slaughtered, destroyed, annihilated. May they be exterminated!'
"If others strike one down and slay one while one is striving and exerting in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in a hell called the Realm of Those Slain in Battle.
"But if one holds some view such as this: 'When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, if others then strike one down and slay one while one is striving and exerting in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in the company of shining ones (devas) slain in battle,' that is one's wrong view.
"Now, I declare, there are two destinations for a person possessed of wrong view -- either hell [Note 1] or the animal realm [rebirth into the womb of an animal]."
When this was said, the Headman Yodhajiva began to sob and burst into tears.
[The Buddha consoled him saying:] "That is what I could not get through to you by simply saying, 'Headman, enough, set that question aside. Do not ask it.'"
"But, venerable, I am not crying because of what the Buddha said to me, but rather because I have been deceived, lied to, and fooled for so long by that ancient teaching lineage of warriors who said [that nonsense] (SN 42.3).
[Reaction]
I don't want to enlist like others might.
At the conclusion of sutras there is usually this text because of a person being overcome with great confidence (saddha, "faith") in the Buddha and the Dharma (the Teaching) and those successfully instructed in it. It so fills a person directly instructed by the Buddha that one usually exclaims (as in SN 42.2):
"Excellent, venerable, excellent! It is just as if one were to set upright what had been overturned, or revealed what was hidden, or shown the way to one who was lost, or carried a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see visible forms!
I shoulda listened to Dharma and not the CIA
"In the same way has the Buddha — in many ways — made the Truth (Dhamma) clear. I go for guidance to the Buddha, to the Dhamma, and to the Sangha [noble ones, the community enlightened disciples]. May the Buddha remember me as being a lay follower who has gone for guidance (sarana) from this day forward for life."
Sārājita niraya: not so much "hell" as the "downward path" of one reborn in the subhuman plane among other warriors/killers. It is a niraya ("downward path") in which those who die in battle are reborn (S.iv.311). The Commentary (SA.iii.100) states that it is not a distinctive "purgatory," but rather a part of Avīci (the lowest infernal "waveless" or uninterrupted, incessant, interminable hell though not eternal), where fighters of all sorts fight on in their imagination. Cf. Sarañjita, according to G. P. Malalasekera's Dictionary of Pali Proper Names (palikanon.com)
HAIR: The Musical in 1969 on the famous American TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show
(Intro lifted from The Cars' "Candy-O"] Killing in the name of/ Some of those that work forces/ Are the same that burn crosses/ Uh!/ Killing in the name of/ Now you do what they told ya/ And now you do what they told ya/ Well, now you do what they told ya/ Those who died are justified/ For wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites/ You justify those that died/ By wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites/ Some of those that work forces/ Are the same that burn crosses/ Killing in the name of/ Killing in the name of/ Now you do what they told ya/ (Now you're under control)/ And now you do what they told ya/ Those who died are justified/ For wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites/ You justify those that died/ By wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites/ Come on! [Guitar Solo]/ Ugh! Yeah!/ Come on! Ugh!/ F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me/ F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me/ M*therf*cker!/ Ugh!
He's one of them, he's admitting it, and they still deny IDF/Israel's crimes against humanity?
Empire Files: Israeli Army vet’s exposé - “I was the terrorist”
(TeleSUR English) In a rare, candid conversation, Abby Martin interviews a former Israeli Army combat soldier who served as an occupier in Palestine’s Hebron City.
Eran Efrati spent years as a sergeant and combat soldier in the Israeli military, but he has since become an outspoken critic of the occupation of Palestine, Israeli apartheid, and its settler colonialism.
Efrati gives explosive testimony on the reality of his service and explains how war crimes are institutionalized, as well as how systematic the oppression against Palestinians really is in a war of conquest that will no doubt be accelerated under the Trump administration [with nepotistic Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner being made "director" of the newly made-up and subsequently abolished Office of American Innovation in charge of the Israeli situation for Pres. Trump under his long-time friend, groomer, and corrupt right-wing dictator PM Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu].
TeleSUR (TV channel) is funded in whole or in part by multiple Latin American governments (Wikipedia).
When not watching a violent game of American football, with someone tearing a ligament or getting some bone to protrude from his skin, it's fun to nosh on fried acrylamides (the most toxic way of cooking potato), sipping high-estrogen (hops) and gluten (the plant lectin in the most popular grains) rotgut in nice cone-shaped, individually-wrapped guzzlers or snappy BPA-coated, aluminum-leeching cans, it's fun to fill my mind and heart with a more violent blood sport, WAR. They have the Time-Life books and videos on "great battles" with patriotic soundtracks the Nazis would have been proud to include in their propaganda reels. They have whole courses on how to conduct killing sprees and industrial-scale murder at WestPoint. There are only so many times one wants to rewatch Top Gun and those hot volleyball scenes or Apocalypse Now: Redux. That was a close one, but we got those g**ks good in the end...
SUTRA: Base entertainments lead to the unskillful karma of "Low Talk"
At one time the Buddha was staying near the City of Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, in the multi-millionaire’s monastery.
Now at that time, after the meal, returning from almsround, several wandering ascetics sat together in the assembly hall. There they engaged in all kinds of low talk, such as —
talk about rulers, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and furniture; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries; talk about women and heroes; street talk and well [office cooler] talk; talk about the departed [dead]; motley talk; tales of [the origin of] land and sea; and talk about being reborn in this or that state of existence.
Then in the late afternoon, the Buddha came out of meditative seclusion and went to the assembly hall, where he sat on a seat prepared for him. There he addressed the monastics:
“Meditators, what were you talking about seated here just now? What conversation was left unfinished?” [He is able to read their minds/hearts, so he already knows but asks to initiate a conversation and give a teaching.]
They told him.
“Meditators, it is inappropriate for you who have gone forth in confidence from the lay life to the left-home life to engage in these kinds of low talk.
“There are, meditators, these ten topics of discussion. What ten?
Talk about fewness of wishes, contentment, seclusion, aloofness, arousing energy, ethics [virtue], absorption, wisdom, freedom, and the knowledge-and-vision (knowing-and-seeing) of freedom. — These are the ten topics of discussion.
“Meditators, if you bring up these [skillful] topics of conversation again and again, your glory could surpass even that of the sun and moon, so mighty and powerful, let alone the wandering ascetics of other doctrines.” Source: AN 10.69: Paṭhamakathāvatthu Sutta—Bhikkhu Sujato (suttacentral.net)
World War I expert rates six WWI battles in movies | How real is it? | Insider
(Insider) April 4, 2023: WWI historian Alexander Watson rates six First World War battle scenes from movies and TV shows for their realism.
Ghouls (djinn): What's on TV?
He discusses the accuracy of [the killing methods like] trench warfare in All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), featuring creepy Daniel Brühl, and Wonder Woman (2017), starring sexy Gal Gadot.
Watson also comments on aerial combat [for a little "death from above" Allied style] and gas masks in The Red Baron (2008) and The Lost City of Z (2016), starring Charlie Hunnam.
Watson analyzes the [industrial killing devices] guns, artillery, tanks, grenades, and other weapons used in Sajjan Singh Rangroot (2018) and Gallipoli: End of the Road (2013).
ABOUT: Alexander Watson is an expert on World War I and a professor of history at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written three books on it: Enduring The Great War, which explores how British and German soldiers coped on the Western Front; Ring of Steel, about the war from the German and Austria-Hungarian perspective; and The Fortress, about the siege of Przemyśl on the Eastern Front. #howrealisit#WWI#Insider
ABOUT: Insider is great journalism about what passionate people actually want to know [killing, war, murder, and blood as sport, y'know, patriotic stuff]. That’s everything from news to food, celebrity to science, politics to sports, and all the rest. It’s smart. It’s fearless. It’s fun. Insider pushes the boundaries of digital storytelling. Its mission is to inform and inspire. Visit homepage for the top stories of the day: insider.com. [But sex and love, we won't touch those topics...unless there's a rape angle or something about Eva Braun.]
Let's end war. Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless Warincendiary work by Daniel A. Sjursen is a personal cry from the heart by a man who was once a model U.S. Army officer and West Point graduate. He became a military dissenter while still on active duty and even as he became a professor at West Point U.S. Military Academy.
Set against the backdrop of "wars" on terror, a technique not a target, over the last two decades, Major Sjursen (retired) asks whether there is a proper space for patriotism that renounces entitled American exceptionalism and narcissistic nationalism (jingoism).
A burgeoning neoconservative, Maj. Sjursen calls for a critical exploration of our allegiances and suggests a path to a new, better, more complex notion of patriotism. Equal parts idealistic and somber, this is a story about what it means to be an American in the midst of endless American wars and what the future of patriotism may look like.
Living in Hawaii the problem of climate change and environmental pollution is personal. Tulsi Gabbard has dedicated her life to protecting our country, including protecting our precious land, water, and air. As president, she will continue to fight for the well-being of all Americans.
Support our troops no matter who we kill no matter what we do (Hitler Youth U.S.)
Considering becoming a soldier? Reconsider
Yeah, b*tch, I will [blank] you in the [blank]!
Thus have I heard. Yodhajiva the village headman went to the Buddha, bowed, sat respectfully to one side, and said:
"Venerable sir, I have heard that it has been passed down by the ancient teaching lineage of warriors that, 'When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, if others strike that person down and slay one while striving and exerting in battle then with the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in the company of devas slain in battle.' What do you have to say about that?"
Get out of military and kill citizens.
"Enough, headman. Set aside that question rather than asking it."
But a second time and a third time Yodhajiva the headman asked.
"Headman, apparently it has not been possible to get you to set that question aside by saying, 'Enough, headman. Set aside that question rather than asking it.' So I'll answer simply. When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, the mind is already seized, debased, and misdirected by the thought, 'May these beings be struck down, slaughtered, annihilated, destroyed. May they no more exist!'
(Muiseyy, 2017) Veterans describe KILLING during wartime (in order). Original: youtube.com... This video is NOT monetized but uploaded to get these stories without the cuts.
Why question? Just kill.
"If others then strike that person down and slay one while one is striving and exerting in battle then, with the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in the hell called the realm of those slain in battle.
"But if one holds such a view as, 'When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, if others then strike that person down and slay one is striving and exerting in battle then, with the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in the company of devas slain in battle' -- that is wrong view.
I want you for imperial war, dummy!
"Now, there are two destinations for a person with wrong view, I declare, either hell or the animal world."
When this was said, Yodhajiva the headman burst into tears and sobbed. [The Buddha said:] "Headman, apparently it has not been possible to get you to set that question aside by saying, 'Enough, headman. Set aside that question rather than asking it.'"
"Venerable sir, I'm not crying because of what you said but because I have been deceived, cheated, and fooled for a long time -- fooled by the ancient teaching lineage of warriors who said that.' — SN 42.3
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