Zen and the "self" we are defending

(ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE)

Cosmic Summit 2025, North Carolina (6/20)

Is monoatomic gold "manna"? - Randall Carlson on ancient calamity

Urfa Man, oldest human statue - Praveen Mohan on the giant skeletons of the USA, 18 feet tall

Giants are real, and the Smithsonian knows it.

WHAT IS COSMIC SUMMIT?

The Cosmic Summit is a live, four-day event featuring speakers who challenge what we think we know about human history, earth history, science, and the hidden patterns shaping our world. With over 20 fascinating speakers, Cosmic Summiteers can expect to be blown away by the latest findings from scientists with decades of academic experience, ancient history podcasters, and boots-on-the-ground explorers. More: CosmicSummit2025.com

• KOURY CONVENTION CENTER
• Greensboro, NC (JUNE 20-23, 2025)
• The Monoatomic Secret of Ancient Egypt

• VIDEO: Ancient Peru: link between elongated skulls and megaliths (MSN)
• Early human ancestors used their hands to both climb trees and make tools, new study shows
• The sunken world of Lake Titicaca: myths, artifacts, and submerged structures
• Early Christian graves in Israel reveal rare African figurines made of Asian wood, hinting at cultural exchange
• Dead Sea Scrolls possibly even older than scholars thought
• Last ever Neanderthal ‘Thorin’ helps scientists crack mystery of the disappearance of our ancient [dumb white] relatives
• 14 lost cities that continue to fascinate historians
• This ancient Alabama cave contains America’s most complete record of prehistoric life
• New big-eyed creature found lurking in ancient Roman mine
• VIDEO: Exploring the Osirion, Seti 1 Temple, and more at Abydos in Egypt (Brien Foerster)
• Explorers mistook 500-year-old artifacts for ‘trash’ that was found deep inside a Mexican cave
• 300,000-year-old skull of ‘Maba’ continues to puzzle scientists because it does not match any human species
• Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ajahn Chah - Struggles - Sexual Desire

(dhammatube) Feb. 12, 2008: Battles to overcome sexual desire. All videos of this series are available at: ajahnchah.org/videos.htm

How to stop sexual thoughts in the mind | Buddhist story on how to control lust

(Words of Wisdom) April 13, 2024: Buddha Life Stories. If we keep thinking about sex all the time then we can become victims of hypersexuality. Hypersexuality can make us addicted to pornography and masturbation. But if we want to overcome excess sexual thoughts in our mind then here is advice.

This Buddhist story of a Zen master and a young boy can teach us how to overcome sexual thoughts in the mind. These wise tips of the Buddha can help us rid our minds and bodies of sexual addiction and masturbation.

#sexuality #lust #overcomeaddiction #howtocontrolmind #desire #controlemotions #buddhastory Twitter: wordsofwisdom_5 WOW Instagram: wordsofwisdom.motivation. Personal Instagram: shaill03 Facebook: words-of-wisdom-quotes-stories-11062425731... Explore the podcast 86 episodes Buddha Life Stories Words of Wisdom

Transcending "The World" (sutra)

John Ireland (trans.), Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly, §112. "The World" {Iti 4.13; Iti 121}

Thus have I heard. This was said by the Bhagava (Blessed One), said by the Arahant (the fully enlightened):

"Meditators, the world [saṃsāra] has been fully understood by the Tathagata [the Buddha referring to himself, the Wayfarer, the Well Come One/Well Gone One]; the Tathagata is released from the world.

"The origin of the world has been fully understood by the Tathagata; the origin of the world has been abandoned by the Tathagata.

"The cessation of the world has been fully understood by the Tathagata; the cessation of the world has been realized by the Tathagata.

"The way [course of conduct] leading to the cessation of the world has been fully understood by the Tathagata; the way leading to the cessation of the world has been developed by the Tathagata.

"Meditators, in the world with its angels, devils, and gods [devas, maras, and brahmas], with its wandering ascetics and temple priests (Brahmins), among [this generation of] humankind with its princes and people, whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought, and reflected upon by the mind — that is fully understood by the Tathagata: therefore, he is called 'the Tathagata.'

"Meditators, from the night when the Tathagata awakened to unsurpassed supreme enlightenment until the night when he passes into the nirvana-element without remainder [aka "the unconditioned element"] whatever he speaks, utters, and explains — all that is just so and not otherwise: therefore, he is called 'the Tathagata.'

"As the Tathagata says, so he does; as the Tathagata does, so he says: therefore [due to this integrity], he is called 'the Tathagata.'

"In the world with its angels, devils, and gods, with its wandering ascetics and temple priests, among humankind with its princes and people, the Tathagata is the conqueror, unvanquished, all-seer, wielding power: therefore, he is called 'the Tathagata'."

By knowledge of the world,

The entire world as it truly is,

He is released from all the world;

In all the world, he clings to nothing.

The all-conquering heroic sage,

Freed from every bond he is;

He has reached a perfect peace,

Nirvana, which is free from fear.

Rid of taints, he is enlightened,

Trouble-free, with doubt destroyed,

Reached the final end of karma,

Released by the destruction of clinging.

The Enlightened One, the Sage,

A lion he is, unsurpassed;

For in the world together with its devas

He set the supreme-wheel in motion.

Thus those shining ones and human beings,

Gone for guidance to the Buddha,

On meeting him pay him respect,

The Great One free from diffidence.

Tamed, among the tamed he is the best;

Calmed, among the calmed he is the seer;

Freed, among the freed he is the foremost;

Crossed, among the crossed he is the chief.

Thus do they pay him due respect,

The Great One free from diffidence:

"In the world together with its devas

There is no person to equal you."

This, too, is the meaning of what was said by the Buddha, thus I heard.

Alan Watts: Mysticism, nonduality, feelings

Alan Watts (alanwatts.org); Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit nondual

Union is, by another word, nonduality. In Advaita Vedanta (Sanskrit अद्वैत वेदान्त), a Hindu sādhanā or path of spiritual practice/discipline and experience [Note 1].

It is the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Brahminical/Hindu school Vedānta [Note 2], incorporated by Brahmins into Mahayana Buddhism. (See below).

The term Advaita (literally "non-secondness" but usually rendered as "nondualism" [4, 5] and often equated with monism [Note 3]) refers to the idea that Brahman ("GOD") alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusion, an illusory appearance (maya) of Brahman.

In this view, (jiv) Ātman, the "experiencing self," and Ātman-Brahman, the "Highest Self and Absolute Reality," is non-different [3, 6, 7, Note 4].

The jivatman or "individual self" is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies [8]. More: Advaita Vedanta

Mahayana Buddhist influences

The influence of Mahayana Buddhism on Advaita Vedānta has been significant [362,363]. Sharma points out that the early commentators on the Brahma Sutras were all realists or pantheist realists.

He states that they were influenced by Buddhism, particularly during the 5th-6th centuries CE when Buddhist thought developing in the Yogacara School [364].

Von Glasenap states that there was a mutual influence between Vedanta and Buddhism [Note 67].

Dasgupta and Mohanta suggest that Buddhism and Shankara's Advaita Vedānta represent "different phases of development of the same non-dualistic metaphysics from the Upanishadic period to the time of Sankara" [365, Note 68].

The influence of Buddhist doctrines on Gauḍapāda has been a vexed question [368, 369]. Modern scholarship generally accepts that Gauḍapāda was influenced by Buddhism, at least in terms of using Buddhist terminology to explain his ideas, but adds that Gauḍapāda was a Vedantist and not a Buddhist [368].

Adi Shankara, according to Natalia Isaeva, incorporated "into his own system a Buddhist notion of maya [illusion] which had not been minutely elaborated in the Upanishads" [360].

According to Mudgal, Shankara's Advaita and the Buddhist Madhyamaka view of ultimate reality are compatible because they are both transcendental, indescribable, non-dual, and only arrived at through a via negativa (neti neti).

Mudgal concludes therefore that "the difference between Sunya-vada ("Emptiness Teaching" or Mahayana) philosophy of Buddhism and Advaita philosophy of Hinduism may be a matter of emphasis, not of kind [370].

Similarly, there are many points of contact between Buddhism's Vijnanavada ["Consciousness Teaching" or possibly the "mind-only" school] and Shankara's Advaita [371]. According to S.N. Dasgupta:

"Adi Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists. His Brahman was very much like the sunya ["emptiness"] of Nagarjuna...

"The debts of Shankara to the self-luminosity [Note 6] of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated. There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by Vijnana Bhiksu and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself.

"I am led to think that Shankara's philosophy is largely a compound of Vijnanavada and Sunyavada Buddhism with the Upanisad notion of the permanence of self superadded [372].

Differences from Buddhism

The Advaita Vedānta tradition has historically rejected accusations of crypto-Buddhism highlighting their respective views on Atman ("Self"), Anatta ("Not-self"), and Brahman ("GOD") [373].

Yet, some Buddhist texts chronologically placed in the 1st millennium of the common era, such as the Mahayana tradition's Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras suggest self-like concepts, variously called Tathagatagarbha or "Buddha Nature" [374, 375].

In modern era studies, scholars such as Wayman and Wayman state that these "self-like" concepts are neither self nor a sentient being, nor a soul, nor a personality [376, 377].

Some scholars posit that the Tathagatagarbha Sutras were written to promote Buddhism to non-Buddhists [378, 379, 380]. More

Healing Duality: Shinzen Young (Dharma Talk)

(Deep Mindfulness) Healing Duality: American Teacher Shinzen Young on Transcending Separation as he recalls growing up Jewish in Los Angeles at a Japanese language school with full immersion into the culture. He learned advaita or non-duality and canonical Buddhist languages with his mild Asperger's, which has made him a polymath and scholar, mathematician and scientisst, a speaker and teacher of the Dharma, particularly from the Mahayana perspective with its heavy Hindu influences.

Transcendentalism on Walden POOL (video)

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly, Wiki edits

Gustav Holst (13Orcun) Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Op. 26, Two Eastern Pictures (1911)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Transcendentalism is an American movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States.

It arose as a reaction to protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality at the time.

The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was of great interest.

 

Sarah Margaret Fuller

Transcendentalism emerged from "English and German Romanticism, the biblical criticism...the skepticism of David Hume," and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism.

• Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg is regarded as a pervasive influence on transcendentalism by Miller and Versluis.
• Hindu texts on philosophy of the mind and spirituality, particularly the Upanishads, also strongly influenced it.

Author on KPFA, Berkeley

A core belief of transcendentalism is in the inherent goodness of people and nature.

Adherents believe that society and its government institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent.

 

Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective knowledge (inner knowing, direct intuition of the heart) over objective empiricism (experts dictating from their experiments and heads).

Transcendatalists agree that individuals are capable of generating completely original insights with little reliance or deference to past "masters." More

The Graduate's Ben Braddock is just drifting along on his parents' California pool all summer.

Civil Disobedience

Thoreau's writing restored Walden Pond.

Civil Disobedience is an 1849 essay by American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. It argues that individuals should resist permitting governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences.

We have a duty to resist and avoid allowing such acquiescence that enables the government to make us the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated, in part, by his disgust with American slavery and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

Who was Thoreau?

Henry David Thoreau, August 1861

Henry David Thoreau, while living in Walden Woods for two years beginning in 1845, was an American Transcendentalist contemplating Walden Pond's features.

In "The Ponds" section of Walden, published in 1854, Thoreau extols the water's physical properties.

He details its unparalleled water quality, clarity, color, temperature, unique animal life (aquatic, avian, mammalian), rock formations and bed and, especially, its mirror-like surface properties.

 

We can live in forests our own with Nature.

Thoreau contemplates the source of the pristine water body in the woods. He observes that it had no visible inlet or outlet, and considers the possibility of an unidentified spring at the bottom.

Noting the kettle landform's ramparts and resilient shore, he concludes that a unique, natural geologic event (glacial retreat) formed the site, while recognizing local myths:

Some have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so regularly paved. My townsmen have all heard the tradition -- the oldest people tell me that they heard it in their youth -- that anciently the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth, and they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is one of which the Indians were never guilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook these stones rolled down its side and became the present shore. It is very certain, at any rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there is one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think that they are hardly to be accounted for...one might suppose that it was called originally Walled-in Pond.

In "The Ponds" Thoreau describes incorporeal experiences around the water.

These experiences were relayed to him by others and his own. Thoreau -- who was a well read Transcendentalist and, therefore, presumably intimately familiar with Romanticism -- relates the stories in a way that could be argued to interpret or reveal the pond as the locale of the Grail Legend in the Americas.

An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other water-fowl, and that there were many eagles about it....

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its coves grapevines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an amphitheater for some kind of sylvan spectacle. I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive... More

The Graduate POOL was my Walden Pond

The Graduate's Ben ("Son" played by Dustin Hoffman), boyfriend of "Mrs. Robinson," on the pool in idyllic California. It's the 50 year anniversary,* and we're barely realizing the connection.

• FilmWeek screening of The Graduate, hosted by Lovery
• June 2, 2018, 7:00-10:30 pm @ The Theatre at Ace Hotel 933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015

*Mike Nichols’s romantic comedy-drama The Graduate recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is in the Top 20 of the American Film Institute’s best American movies list and has the distinction of being the last film to win an Academy Award for best director and nothing else (despite being nominated in six other categories).

Art Beyond Reason (video)

Art by Octavio Ocampo, RasMarley/Flickr.com (photographs); Wisdom Quarterly

"Buddha" by Ocatvio Ocampo

  

"Woman and Mountains Shiva"

The artist Octavio Ocampo was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico. He studied art from early childhood. In high school, Ocampo painted murals for the Preparatory School and the City Hall of Celaya. 

  

Ruth Rivera, daughter of artist and muralist Diego Rivera, and Maria Luisa Mendoza encouraged him to attend the School of Painting and Sculpture of the National Fine Art Institute. Later in art school, he constructed papier mache figures for floats, altars, and ornaments used in carnival parades and festivals.

  
Ocampo's talents are not limited to painting and sculpture; they also extend to acting and dancing. At the Art Institute of San Francisco, he studied all of these disciplines then pursued both a film and theater career. But in 1976 he began to devote himself solely to painting and sculpture. Octavio Ocampo is one of Mexico's most prolific artists.
  
He now works primarily in the metamorphic style -- using a technique of superimposing and juxtaposing realistic and figurative details within the images he creates.
 

   
Metamorphic Style
Ocampo is known for several famous works in his sometimes wryly sardonic, sometimes evocative paintings.
  
Detailed images are intricately woven together to create larger images. The optical illusions fade back and pop forward as one studies the pieces, notices the details, and finally recognizes the large scale intention. This is what he terms "metamorphic."
  
The Visions Fine Art Gallery in Sedona, Arizona, represents Octavio Ocampo in the US.
  
Several collections in Mexico contain his work, and individual works of his have been commissioned for Pres. Jimmy Carter (as a gift from Pres. José López Portillo of Mexico), Jane Fonda, Cher (for the front and back covers of her "Heart of Stone" album), and César Chávez.

New Marshmallows, Jello made of human tissue

Wisdom Quarterly

There was once a movie that said "Soilent Green" is people. In the dystopic future, people were being tricked and treated like cows being fattened through cannibalism. Now it has become a reality as Chinese scientists develop a gelatin (the stuff in marshmallows and jello, which is normally made out of boil feet of cloven hoofed animals).

A press release from the American Chemical Society for a study just off the press in which a quartet of Beijing researchers produce human-derived gelatin. Will it be put on the market secretly the way cloned meat, pesticide-laden vegetables and frankenfruit, and irradiated (enzyme destroyed foods exposed to radiation)?

Most gelatin -- hidden in many items as a stiffener or binder including cheap vitamins, cheeses, candies, soaps, desserts, cosmetics -- comes from the waste products of slaughtered animals: nails, bones, skin (collagen) broken down into protein strands that form a gel. There is, of course, a small risk of bovine encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease).

Wouldn't human cells be so much easier and cheaper, with the added benefit of, well, cannibalism?

• Stay Puft Marshmallows made of Human (Boston.com)
• New method for making human-based gelatin
• Chinese scientists "reprogram" cells to create mice (WSJ)
• British scientists admit to creating human-animal creatures
• Hybrid human-animal DNA experiments raise concerns
• Medical vivisection: torturing pigs to cure humans?
• First lady teams with grocers to provide healthy food access

The Jell-O Is Made From People! Human-Derived Gelatin Coming Soon

Ariel Schwartz (July 18, 2011)

We may not have to rely on boiled pig bones for our gelatin forever. The solution may not be any more appetizing... Gelatin is found in everything from Jell-O and marshmallows to cosmetics and candles. But the current method of taking gelatin from the skin and bones of cows and pigs has... the potential for transmitting infectious diseases like Mad Cow and the possibility of triggering immune system responses in humans.... though the newest option -- human derived gelatin -- isn't too appetizing.

What are the Jhanas?

StephNashMeditation0 — Stephanie Nash interviews Leigh Brasington, respected meditation teacher, about what the jhanas are. This is the beginning of a longer interview about the what, why, and how of jhanas as part of a meditation practice. August 2009, Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, Washington. But Americans debate what they are. Here is independent teacher and recluse Jhananda.

Scientists find "Spirituality" Center of Brain

(Flickr/illuminaut)

(LiveScience/Fox) Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality. The findings hint at the roots of spiritual and religious attitudes, the researchers say.

The study, published in the Feb. 11, 2010 issue of the journal Neuron, involves a personality trait called self-transcendence. The term is a somewhat vague measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors. Self-transcendence "reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one's self as an integral part of the universe as a whole," the researchers explain. More>>

• Earliest known galaxies spied in deep Hubble picture
• Yearlong star eclipse may help solve space mystery
• Five New Planets Found; Hotter Than Molten Lava

Help with Meditation/Concentration

(zshare.net) There's nothing like starting off the day with meditation. Whether it's five hours or simply five minutes. The important thing is to start. After 21 days it will be a habit. There are many positive benefits to amaze one. The entire day becomes different. And there are many ways to meditate. Find the way that suits you best. Working on oneself is always an "inside job." One simply needs to kick it off. If you succeed in meditating by enjoying this track, excellent. May you have peace and joy, friendship and fun: Live your truth, the truth, making it your ultimate statement.

Afternoon Concentration

Enlightenment is not an "achievement." It is a realization of what already is. Our lives are a journey from knowing, to not knowing, to knowing once again. In meditation it becomes possible to move the other way around from subconscious, to self-conscious, to superconscious. This may be called rapid evolution, self-realization through self-transcendence, going from the limited to the unbounded. It is available now. Practice peace.