Jewish Israeli spy [Ghislaine's father] Robert Maxwell -- ruthless, volatile, defiant, a man of gargantuan appetites for food, wine, women, power, money -- unabashedly bared his ambition to the world, as he strove to build a publishing empire in the UK and US.
But throughout his career he also nurtured another, more driving, and until now altogether hidden ambition, and that was to spy for Israel's CIA, the Mossad.
Gordon Thomas, an author who has long been trolling the murky waters of international intelligence, shows in this gripping narrative, the conflict between this tycoon's public interests and spy's secret pursuits led to his mystifying death, officially by drowning, in Nov. 1991, off the Canary Islands.
According to the author's well-placed sources in Israel, Washington D.C., and London, Maxwell first came into Mossad's orbit in the 1970s, when the crack Israeli spy organization stole from the United States its most sophisticated piece of intelligence-gathering software, Enhanced Promis.
Of it Mossad made an electronic Trojan horse, secretly amassing strictly classified [blackmail material] information from inside the very organizations worldwide to which they were selling it.
The Mossad's representative for these extremely sensitive transactions costing tens of millions of dollars in China, Russia, India, and 20 other countries was Robert Maxwell.
Only Maxwell was also helping himself to some of Mossad's profits -- as well as $750,000,000 from his employees' pension fund -- in desperate attempts to maintain his empire and to meet the demands of increasingly intolerant creditors.
Is transparency in U.S. gov't too much to ask?
Aboard his yacht that November night in 1991 Maxwell no doubt still clung to the hope of a bailout by Mossad. But the Mossad's spy masters could not afford to smile on blackmail.
What if I, Ven. Subhuti (americanmonk.org), were to explain the Three Jewels (Triple Gem) to Westerners who know very little about Buddhism but do it in an unconventional way?
What if I were to use an analogy to understand what the Buddha (Teacher), the Dhamma (Teaching), and the Sangha (Taught) really mean?
That might work, Bhante ("venerable sir"). Let's give it a try.
Westerners respect Real Fly Science Guy Alby Einstein and the laws of physics.
The Buddha — The Awakened One — discovered the Path to Awakening. If I were to talk about the Buddha, I would say he’s a great scientist, but not just any great scientist.
He’s the Alby Einstein of scientists.
The Buddha discovered (rediscovered because others in ancient times also awakened and taught the liberating truth) the laws of the spiritual (metaphysical) universe, the Dhamma, just as Einstein discovered (rediscovered) some laws of physics. All of these laws existed before, during, and after these discoveries. Neither the Buddha nor Einstein created them, of course. They are always there to be found.
Of course, the comparison is imperfect. Einstein is talking about the world we see and touch, whereas the Buddha goes far beyond to the unseen and hard to grasp. If one is worldly, the other seeks to go beyond. Beyond? Beyond the beyond, as the Heart Sutra claims. What is the use of worldly science to get beyond the world?
Do people understand that the Buddha’s realization was about ultimate truth? It’s not just counterintuitive, it’s timeless, beyond time, reaching universal laws of nature.
The Dhamma is the Truth, the Law, the Norm, the Regularity of thing, like E = mc² — a universal truth that does not depend on faith, belief, or even understanding. If no one understood, it would be no less true. (If no one entered nirvana, nirvana would remain just the same; like the ocean, it is neither increased nor decreased as rivers pour into it).
The Dhamma exists. It precedes things, succeeds them. It was existing before the Buddha realized it and continued just the same after him. But what truth could be true, unchanged, before and after?
For one thing, there’s the truth of suffering. Disappointment exists. It arises dependent on conditions. Three other more hopeful things are also true. Suffering has a cause. It has an end. And there is a path leading to the end of all suffering. This overview is known as the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.
These are not ideas, not mere hypotheses, but truths to be tested, each person for oneself. There is no need of acceptance or faith -- except the faith (saddha, confidence) to come and see, to investigate, to test the path for oneself.
Natural laws govern the mind, body, and life itself. When one understands these deeply, so deeply that they have been penetrated, one awakens. The Truth is that close. How to approach it for optimal results, that only a supremely awakened teacher can point out.
The Saṅgha — Those Who Understand
Who hears the Buddha? The Sangha.
How to explain the spiritual community of practitioners, the Saṅgha, whether taken as the entire community of practitioners of Buddhism, the accomplished Noble (Aryan) Community, or the elite researchers, the Monastic Community?
Anyone can study physics, but only a few reach the research level, where they truly see the laws at work. Likewise, anyone can hear the Buddha's Teaching, the Dhamma, and attempt to practice it.
However, only the Noble Community (Ariya Saṅgha) — those who have already directly realized it, penetrated it, and therefore entered the four stages of enlightenment — truly know-and-see it. Between the average practitioner and the accomplished practitioner, there are the avid practitioners, the monastics.
That’s why it is said that "going for guidance" (sarana) to the Triple Gem or Three Jewels is not just going to any community. It is approaching the Noble Saṅgha — the four pairs and eight individuals who have attained realization (bodhi) and directly glimpsed nirvana (nibbāna).
The Poster on the Wall
Oh, Alby, what is the right equation?
I once met a physicist who said he didn’t "believe" in religion.
He said that many elite physicists do not believe either. Instead, they follow another religion of faith ("Scientism" or "White Labcoatism"). They think that when we die, that’s it, we’re dead and nothing happens.
This is the materialist, annihilationist wrong view the Buddha warned about, which is as much in error as the spiritualist, eternalist wrong view. He cautioned to avoid both extremes, following the Middle Way that explains all phenomena in terms of Dependent Origination, so that what does not make sense and seems to be a binary, a dichotomy, resolves into a very rational and impersonal explanation of things in line with ultimate truth.
Orthodox Theravādins might think of the Buddha in similar terms. While an average person is subject to old age, sickness, death, and [incessant] rebirth, a fully enlightened person (arahant) and a supremely enlightened Buddha has gone beyond all suffering and is no longer subject to this painful cycle known as samsara (the Wheel of Life and Death).
When one passes away, there is no more the arising of the rebirth-linking-consciousness in the very next mind-moment as there is with everyone else.
A physicist who is an atheist might have a large poster of Einstein on the wall. When stuck on a problem, that research physicist might look at it and may at times say, “Help me, Einstein!”
One doesn’t believe Einstein is listening — yet feels inspired by approaching, bring to mind Einstein, and directing attention towards him to renew confidence and inspiration. "Einstein" lives on through the laws he discovered and made known and through those who continue to explore and realize the truth of those laws of physics.
The Buddha's life as allegory: the heroic journey
That’s exactly how the Buddha “lives” on through the Dhamma,the Teaching, the things made known through his great awakening.
The Buddha himself said,
“Whoever sees the dhamma [the truth of phenomena] sees the Buddha.”
So when someone knows and practices the Teachings, the Dhamma, that Dhamma is alive in that person, and that person knows the Buddha in that way and to that extent — not as a being abiding somewhere else but as that wisdom itself.
As long as Einstein’s physics are made known and kept alive, we may also say that Einstein also lives on.
Going Beyond Mind and Matter
In the end, all that arises — the Five Aggregates clung to as self, the mind and body — pass away.
When one truly knows Dhamma, that knowing leads beyond mind and matter. That’s nirvana: the complete cessation of ignorance and suffering with no more new arising of mind and matter.
So may this reflection help those on the path to develop right view so as to see clearly into the true nature of reality and reach the peace of nirvana safely and quickly.
Summary poem
The Buddha saw the timeless law
Pure, unwritten, free of flaw
Like Einstein beholding light of form
Knowing the effects of atom torn
The Dhamma lives when Truth is known
The Saṅgha walks a path of wisdom grown
Not in realms unseen at which angels gnaw
The Buddha lives by Dhamma's awe
Bhante, Ven. Subhuti (americanmonk.org), Oct. 8, 2025; edited by Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly
(The Earthing Movie) The Earthing Movie is a documentary that reveals the scientific phenomenon of how we can heal our bodies by doing the simplest thing that a person can do -- standing and walking (grounding electrons) barefoot on the raw earth. See earthingmovie.com.
Barefoot earthing
There are many health benefits and a few risks associated with going barefoot in modern cities. Shoes, while they offer protection, can limit the flexibility, strength, and mobility of the foot and can lead to higher incidences of flexible flat foot, bunions, hammer toe, and Morton's neuroma.
Walking and running barefoot results in a more natural gait, allowing for a more rocking motion of the foot, eliminating the hard heel strike and generating less collision force in the foot and lower leg [1][2].
There are many sports that are performed barefooted, most notably gymnastics, martial arts, and swimming, but also beach volleyball, barefoot running, barefoot hiking, and barefoot waterskiing.
Historical and religious aspects
Buddhist monks are obligated when on alms round to do at least part of it barefoot. While this is regarded as a mark of respect, it may have been implemented for its many health benefits.
WIKI VIDEO: Theravada Buddhist monks in Mahagandhayon Monastery (Amarapura, Myanmar, Burma).
Buddhist monks line up barefoot to accept their late morning meal offered by donors.
Zen Buddhist monks and practitioners engage in kinhin or "walking meditation" barefoot or in natural (cloth or straw) sandals for best results, touching the earth and grounding.
The ancient Greek Spartans required boys to go barefoot as part of their obligatory military training [3], and the athletes at the ancient Olympic Games typically participated barefoot and naked [4].
Although the ancient Greeks had a great variety of footwear, many—famously including Socrates [5]—preferred to go barefoot [3]. More
'The Life of a Showgirl' spotlights Taylor Swift as she moves away from heartache
(Fresh Air) Reviewed by Ken Tucker, Oct. 8, 2025: Swift's previous albums focused on the love she yearned for. The dozen songs on her latest release combine to form a picture of true love found, tested, and proven strong. npr.org
Ancient World Artifacts: The Mysterious and Bizarre
(YouTube Movies & TV) Free with ads TV-14. There are many mysteries in ancient India, with fascinating temples and legends. There are also 10 Lesser-Known Pyramids on Earth. Explore pyramids around the world that are even more mysterious than those in Egypt as well as bizarre "Alien" archaeological artifacts that defy comprehension. Ancient World Artifacts: The Mysterious and Bizarre
Is there a Buddhist parallel to this popular Western story of a Garden, a first human couple, a Wisdom Tree, and a tricky shapeshifting Serpent? There is. One need only look at the Agganna Sutta, "A Buddhist Genesis," a discourse given by the Buddha "On Beginnings."
But first it may be better to question the Sumerian, Jewish, Christian version -- made silly by its oversimplification over the millennia. The Christian version makes next to no sense, the Jewish interpretations a little more sense, and the much older Sumerian roots from texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh the Enūma Eliš. All of these are creation myths rooted in some kind of history.
Sadly, many readers misunderstand the Buddhist version of "Genesis." The Buddha is in no way explaining how life began. It is preexisting. He is merely explaining how it came to Earth and how karma (deeds) impacts the environment. As people become so, too, the world declines. We are not evolving so much as devolving from a Golden Age (Satya Yuga), and it is all cyclical. It happens again and again.
This is an echo of the older Vedic (Hindu) and Shramanic (Jain) versions, and that is because "Buddhism" does not begin with the historical Buddha. He is constantly referring back to previous buddhas (Great Heroes or Ford-makers as Jainism calls them, avatars and sages in the Old Vedic Religion that became Brahmanism and much later Hinduism).
At their pure inner core, all beings know that they are not separate from one another. In that state of mind, it is as if they live in a Garden of Eden, where they have no need for shame, no need to differentiate friend from foe, good from evil, and no need to imagine a creator god to oversee their behavior.
They have no expectations that their lives should be other than they are.
It's all me. I created everything. - Even us?
But something in our nature likes to delude us into forgetting this oneness [or unity] of all things and into believing that life should be fairer than it is.
We give that demon a name, Mara [Death, the Obstacle to Enlightenment], to help us identify it.
Suppose that, a very long time ago, the first two human beings evolved from earlier beings. We’ll call them Adam and Eve. Their inner core, or Buddha-nature [or natural state of only dreaming and soon to awake], was pure, and they had no fear of other beings, no sense of good and evil, no self that was separate from other beings and from whatever force brought them into being.
Adam and Eve did have a sense, though, that one of the trees in their garden bore intoxicating [entheogenic] fruit that they should stay away from.
That was the Tree of Duality. Looking for an opportunity to trick Adam and Eve into believing they were distinct separate beings, Mara [the Deceiver] took the form of a snake to talk with them.
No beings had ever lied to Adam and Eve, and they had no way of knowing that the snake was not really a being, so they listened as the demon Mara told them how much fun it would be to become intoxicated on the fruit of the Tree of Duality.
Zarathustra, Iran (Persia)
So Adam and Eve ate the fruit and became drunk with duality. They began to see the world as a conflict between good and evil [as taught in the novel Near East religion of Zarathustra called Zoroastrianism].
They decided that only a cruel god would create such an unfriendly place, so they invented the god of the Old Testament and then hid from him.
Because Mara had taken the form of a snake, they feared and despised all snakes. They made distinctions everywhere: friend and foe, human and animal, smart and dumb, handsome and ugly, strong and weak, rich and poor. They began to see old age, sickness, and death as unfair, as burdens, as suffering.
Four prophets: Mani, Zoraster, Buddha, Jesus
They thought child-bearing was punishment. So that was how Mara, for thousands of years to come, deluded human beings into forgetting that they could return to the Garden of Eden.
Every parable is supposed to have a moral. I’d say the moral is: Some believe in an original sin that requires salvation. Other believe in a delusion that requires awakening. — Mel Pine (Urgyen Jigme)
Jonathan Rinderknech arrested: ChatGPT, French rap, and Uber: Palisades Fire suspect's trail
.
Neither of these suspects is Jon Rinderknech
The Palisades Fire was one of two major infernos that hit Los Angeles on Oct. 7, 2025. The other was the Eaton Fire in the foothills of Altadena, which was caused by Edison, likely a negligent utility that left its inoperable transmission tower standing for decades and uncared for, making it a known fire hazard, according to attorney Mikal Watts (lafirejustice.com). Until now the means by which the historic winds that day managed to burn down the ritzy coastal areas of Los Angeles have been debated. The fire he set, the Lachman Fire, has been blamed on homeless individuals and fireworks. But authorities are now saying Jonathan Rinderknech, 29, a former Palisades resident now living in Florida, committed arson a week earlier and that those flames were never fully extinguished, coming to life with the strong winds.
Caltrans removes Junipero Serra statue from Interstate 280 rest stop on the Peninsula
(KPIX | CBS NEWS BAY AREA) Oct. 7, 2025: Caltrans has quietly removed a statue of [colonizer and Catholic saint] Junipero Serra from Interstate Highway 280 on the Peninsula, and the move is reigniting a debate over the 18th-century missionary's legacy. Brad Hamilton reports.
Junipero Serra statue vandalized at California mission
(KSBY News) Nov. 3, 2017: Junipero Serra statue vandalized at California mission (again). [Why would any Indigenous (American Indian) mind a legacy of rape, ethnic cleansing, erasure, and genocide? Come on! It's American history and the legacy of European invasion, colonization, and Spanish conquest. It's Manifest Destiny. It's the will of God against savages to promote and elevate the White Man who cometh onto these shores to plunder and elevate everything to his liking.]
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