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| In Buddhism, the departed are called pretas or petas, "hungry ghosts" in the Realm of Ghosts |
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| Let's celebrate and chase the ghosts away. |
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| ♫ Spooky Podcasts | iHeart |
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| The purpose of life in the USA is to get money, hoard money, live for money...then lose it. |
Senior District Judge James Stocklas, 67, discovered he and two friends had won the $291 million jackpot Friday, after he wrapped up a month-long fishing holiday with his brother and sister-in-law in the Florida Keys. |
| The cause of winning the lottery is karma, so winning late in life is a curse. Had one instead won early in a rebirth in a good destination, the same karma could have paid off over an aeon (kappa) in a better world. Better to store up much merit for later (Sayalay Susila). |
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| The Buddha was not called a "Buddhist" in ancient India; he was called a karmavadin, a "teacher of the results of action." (Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena (Artfan70/flickr.com). |
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| Various "hells" in Buddhist and Hindu cosmology |
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| Death (Yama) rules samsara: Sense Sphere |
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| Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva helping beings out of the many hells (namo-amituofuo) |
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| Ksitigarbha and the Great Vow (HL Wang) |
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| Kwan Yin, Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, 1000 limbs to do all things (tibet-phala.com) |
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| Kwan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion (wiki) |
Isidasi, Uppalavanna, Janapada Kalyani, Khema, Prajapati... beautiful Buddhist nuns seem to be the norm now as before.In the city of Pataliputta, treasured
on Earth for its glorious flowers,
there were two wandering nuns from the Buddha's own Sakya clan.
One was Isidasi Bhikkhuni, the other Bodhi Bhikkhuni,
both of them virtuous, skilled in meditation, wise,
and freed from painful vices.
They walked for alms, ate dana [charitable donations of food],
washed their earthenware bowls,
and found a place to rest and share their stories.
Bodhi the nun: "You're still beautiful, Isidasi.
Your youth has not yet faded.
What dreadful vision drove you
to renounce the world?"
In that place she told her tale to teach the truth of the Buddha's path. Isidasi the nun replied to Bodhi:
"Hear why I am a wandering nun:
In the great city of Ujjeni,
my father was a merchant of great repute.
I was his only daughter,
deeply loved and pampered.
"A wealthy merchant sent noblemen
from the city of Saketa
to arrange a marriage for his son.
And my father gave me to be that merchant son's wife.
"Day and night I humbled myself
to honor my in-laws.
My training made me bow
my head down at their feet.
When I saw my husband's
sisters and brothers,
I cringed and crept away
to free my seat for them.
I kept fresh-cooked food and drink
and spiced appetizers ready
to serve their demands.
"I woke early every morning
to scrub my hands and feet
before I crossed the threshold
to receive my husband's blessing.
Like a slave girl,
I took combs and scented oils
and my mirror to groom him.
I cooked his rice gruel,
I washed his bowl,
I waited on this husband
like a mother doting on her son.
"Though I was diligent and humble,
meticulous and virtuous
in serving him,
my husband despised me!
He begged his parents,
'Give me your leave.
I must go away. I will not stay
in this house with Isidasi!'
"'Don't speak this way, son!
Isidasi is intelligent and wise,
diligent, meticulous.
Why does she not please you, son?'
"'She does me no harm,
but I will not stay with Isidasi.
I detest her! Enough!
Give me leave, I must go away! '
"My husband's parents
heard his words and questioned me:
'How did you offend him?
Confide what really happened.'
"'I committed no offense or harm
or ever answered his cruel words.
I don't know what I did
to make my husband hate me.'
"They took me back
to my father's house.
'To keep our precious son,
we sacrifice this goddess.'
"Then my father married me
into another wealthy house. The second merchant took me
for half the dowry of the first.
I lived in that house
for barely a month,
serving him like a slave until he sent me back.
"Then my father snared a Buddhist ascetic
on his alms round in front of my father's house; he said,
'Be my daughter's husband!
Throw away your robe and bowl and cup! [You will get
a beautiful wife, riches, and this house in return.]'
"He stayed for only two weeks
before he begged my father:
'Give me my robe and bowl!
I'll wander for alms again!'
"My parents and my family
beseeched him:
'What have we neglected?
Quickly, name your every want!'
"He answered, 'I only want enough to feed myself.
I will not stay in this house
with Isidasi!'
They released, him and he left.
"I brooded in my solitude [contemplating how death
would be better than this humiliation]:
'I'll tell them I'm going to die
unless I can renounce and become a wandering nun.'
"Then the great Buddhist nun Jinadatta Bhikkhuni
came walking for alms
to my father's house. She was
disciplined, wise, and virtuous.
"I rose when I saw her
and offered her my seat.
I bowed at her feet
and offered her charity.
I served her fresh-cooked food
and drink and spicy appetizers.
"When she had eaten I said,
'Lady, I want to be a nun.'
My father argued: 'My child,
you may follow the Buddha's path
by offering food and drink to wandering ascetics and brahmins.'
"I pleaded in tears, begging his blessing:
'I must destroy
the unprofitable karma I have done [in past lives]!'"
Isidasi then reported what she had realized in her advanced meditation, which revealed a pattern extending over her eight preceding lifetimes.]
"When I was 16
the son of this merchant
noticed my maiden youth
and took me.
He had another wife,
who was virtuous and ethical,
in love with her husband.
"I sowed discord between them."
"As a result I was reborn.
The fruit of seven former lives
made three husbands scorn me,
even though I served them like a slave.
I have ended all this now. "
Ananda -- the Buddha's cousin, attendant, and chief memorizer of sutras -- was said to be a paแนแธaka in one of his many previous lives. What often goes unsaid is how many past lives we have led. The same was said of the Buddhist nun Isidฤsฤซ (from the "Pslams of the Sisters" or Therigatha, inspired verses of enlightened Buddhist nuns).For example, they may have been molested, traumatized, or otherwise abused setting them on a perilous trajectory of sexual misconduct, prostitution, disease, child molesting, bestiality, sexual addiction, treachery, drug abuse, and so on.
There was certainly a time when homosexuality was unthinkable. However, what is neglected in most discussions, is that what is "homosexual" changes. Our modern American definition does not have an equivalent. The Western world does not agree what this term means even now. This country does not agree on what it means from location to location, and our definition changes over time.
While this may be hard for many readers to fathom, because after all we are talking about modern America, others may be sympathetic to the fact that behavior in prison, jail, same sex schools, slumber parties, during prepubescent experimentation, early developmental phases, or drunken episodes follows different rules.
Most Americans probably do not think simple same sex attraction is "perverted." But that is only a recent development. Male homosexuality is often treated as worse or more offensive than equivalent female behavior. Various reasons are given for this, but all of these are social constructs not "natural" categories.
We applaud girl-on-girl kissing; does that mean it is not homosexual (lesbian) or not "perverted." It used to be.
With males, the case is more ludicrous. In prison, in various cities, and in the minds of many Americans, "homosexuality" is not as much about states (behavior) so much as traits (character). So one could engage in gay activities and not consider oneself gay.
For example, the one on top is "straight" and "masculine" and "virile," whereas the bottom (recipient) is "bent" and "effeminate" and "weak." The absurdity -- our hypocrisy -- is that attributions flip depending on the act, in this case going from intercourse to oral sex.
Pandaka is most frequently translated as "eunuch." But eunuch in India, even today, does not mean what eunuch means to European and North American ears.
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BHUTAN, Himalayas -- The Destination Truth team may have stumbled upon a very promising find. If you follow the show, then you’ll remember when the team discovered the infamous “Yeti footprint” about two years ago and made some headlines. Now on their third season, DT reveals another possible important find. Hair from an unknown primate from the Bhutan nation. This season’s finale offered the world the possibility that maybe there is more than just legend when it comes to Bigfoot, Yeti, Yowie, and the rest. Josh Gates sent the hairs to a forensics lab in Texas to be examined by Dr. Melba Ketchum. She ran a few tests and ran the findings against a database. The hairs seems to score high on the Human panels. Dr. Ketchum concluded that the hairs recovered from Bhutan were from a primate. An unknown primate. More>>
There are unfortunate destinations -- planes one may be reborn in if one's opportunistic karma comes to fruition in the next or some future life. It may surprise students of the Dharma to think of such possibilities. Unhappy abodes are cramped and crowded, whereas fortunate destinations are spacious and uncrowded. There are many worlds. And in each world, one may say there are as many experiences of it as there are individuals. The human world, for example, is not one place. It's 6.5+ billion places and constantly changing.
So, too, are planes of existence regarded as the Downfall, the Great Waste, Niraya. For once having fallen, there is often no clear cut way out. Eventually, it is one's skillful, wholesome, and profitable (kusala) karma coming to fruition that one is released. Negative influences may, however, not yet be exhausted and could continue to play themselves out. The human world is a mixed realm, where one experiences the fruit of both moderately skillful and unskillful actions willed and carried out in the past.
The Christian conception is an amalgamation and should be understood as grossly oversimplified. But it is this oversimplification of things that makes this religious tradition so compelling and popular. Few people want the details; we are satisfied with outlines writ large. Christianity (particularly as it became an offshoot of Judaism and as it morphed into an official Church in Roman Catholicism) has borrowed a great deal from Mahayana Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Egyptian tradition, and of course Paganism (pre-Christian European beliefs). "Hell" is not unique to any one of these traditions.
Buddhism describes infernal planes of existence, a Great Waste, perdition.
