Going For Refuge

The refuges and precepts

2025-11-24T11:36:00.008-05:00

refuges and precepts:

Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa

Buddham Saranam Gacchami

Dhammam Saranam Gacchami

Sangham Saranam Gacchami

Dutiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami

Dutiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami

Dutiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami

Tatiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami

Tatiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami

Tatiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami

five precepts

Panatipata Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami

Adinnadana Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami

Kamesu Micchacara Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami

Musavada Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami Surameraya

Majja Pamadatthana Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami

sadhu sadhu sadhu

I'm sunsetting this blog, going for refuge. Follow me at Friendship with Shams, my new Buddhist blog.

Stolen Artifacts graphic

2025-06-28T18:55:00.006-04:00

Returned artifacts articles:

USA to Egypt

I'm sunsetting this blog, going for refuge. Follow me at Friendship with Shams, my new Buddhist blog.

South of the Yangtze

2025-03-13T07:09:00.018-04:00

I'm reading my final Bill Porter (Red Pine) travel book: South of the Yangtze.

Bill Porter has 6 amazing travel books in China, from when he traveled there in the 1989 to 2006:

Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits 1993

Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China 2008

Yellow River Odyssey 2014

South of the Clouds: Travels in Southwest China 2015

South of the Yangtze: Travels Through the Heart of China 2016

The Silk Road 2016

There's one book called Finding Them Gone (2015), where he goes to poets gravesites, and it's so disappointing to go visit famous poet graves, and nobody knows who they were. I'm not sure if I'm going to read that one, but it's a 7th book. I realize I've miscounted. There's potentially one more to read. That happens a number of times in the 6 books I've read. He talks about going back to places he's already been before, and he's quite a traveler in China, retracing his steps at times.

I've loved his poetry translations of Stonehouse, Cold Mountain and others. Thought I would link my past blogs on Bill Porter:

Discussing Zen Baggage: That blog post had a lot of Porter links:

Red Pine travel to south China

Road To Heaven by Bill Porter

Chinese Monks

Hanshan, Fenggan and Shide

Chinese Buddhist Poetry

Shiwu

Thoughts on the inspiration of hermit monks.

Fanshan doesn't raise above society's sexism.

Did Hanshan do magic mushrooms?

Pickup

Road To Heaven quote

I loved this lady monk: Mo-shan Liao-jan, my favorite bit from Zen Baggage.

Yulin Caves and Yellow River Odyssey tidbits

Yellow River Odyssey

Silk Road

Quote about Syncretism

Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot and Langdon Warner

Albert von Le Coq

Yung-Chia's Song of Enlightenment translated by Red Pine

These might not be all the times I wrote about Red Pine or Bill Porter's books, but it's enough.

I'm sunsetting this blog, going for refuge. Follow me at Friendship with Shams, my new Buddhist blog.

On 3/20/25 my counter said I'd had 634,160 visitors to this blog.

4/8/25 the counter is up to 638,567, that's more than 4k people visit my blog, it almost makes me want to restart it, but my reasons for ending this blog are sound, follow my new one if you like.

Clicks don't mean deep engagement, it's fairly superficial. I have 2829 visits to my new blog. Am somehow excited to break a million even if it's bots.

Weird accumulation of hits on this blog since I've decided to sunset it.

3/20/25 634,160

4/8/25 638,567

4/12/25 638582

4/22/25 643178

5/6/25 654,450

8/2/25 827, 837

10/12/25 975,561

10/24/25 992,126

11/3/25 surpassed 1 million views, have 1,001,154

12/25/25 1,049,339 are those just AI?

Quote

2025-02-03T05:25:00.005-05:00

“For many decades, I’ve felt that it was my responsibility, together with my hundreds and thousands of colleagues, to address and change the trajectory of climate and biodiversity in order to bequeath a much safer planet to future generations,” she said. “When you have that self-imposed responsibility on your shoulders, it makes the work very, very hard because there are so many things we don’t control.”

From: "What Christiana Figueres thinks the climate movement can learn from Buddhism: Figueres, the architect of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has been helping people around the world understand the teachings of Buddhist monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh." at Yale Climate Connections

"Thích Nhất Hạnh often used composting as a metaphor for transformation. He summarized the idea with a pithy aphorism: “No mud, no lotus,” referring to the idea that the lotus flower only roots and blooms in the mud. He taught that people spend much of their time in the mud, wading through complex, inescapable, emotional experiences." (op cit)

I'm sunsetting this blog, going for refuge. Follow me at Friendship with Shams, my new Buddhist blog.

Wandering Mind

2025-02-01T04:43:00.004-05:00

We are the progeny of countless generations of ancestors who had to not become totally fixated on what they were doing. Those who did become fixated didn’t notice a predator, got eaten, and didn’t reproduce. What we are trying to do goes against millions of years of evolution. Having a wandering mind is just how we are constructed. So it’s no big deal when your mind wanders off; you should actually consider it a victory that you noticed it wandered, rather than a defeat that it did its natural thing of wandering. In fact it is extremely helpful if you intentionally relax when you notice you’ve become distracted, and then gently reestablish attention on your meditation object. The mind state you are aiming to create could well be called relaxed diligence.

Leigh Brasington Right Concentration (2015)

Gandhāran Buddhist texts, believed to be the oldest Buddhist Manuscripts yet discovered

Green Stupa

2025-01-28T07:14:00.002-05:00

The Chengling Stupa, also known as "Green Stupa", was built in 867 and has been rebuilt numerous times since then. the stupa is multi-eaves style brick stupa with 9 stories. It has an octahedral shaped hollow tiers and is 30.47-metre (100.0 ft) high. It is composed of a stupa base, a sumeru throne and a dense-eave body. The sumeru throne and banisters were engraved patterns of various flowers and birds.

Linji was an iconoclastic teacher who used shocking language in vernacular Chinese to disrupt the tendency of his listeners to grasp at concepts such as buddhas, patriarchs, bodhisattvas, stages of practice and levels of attainment. He famously said, "If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha."

Linji traveled to Jiangnan where he met Chán master Huángbò Xīyùn, at some point between 836 and 841. He likely stayed with Huangbo at Mount Huangbo for about three years until he had a great enlightenment. Linji questioned Huangbo three times about the central meaning of Buddhism and Huangbo struck him three times. Then Huangbo sent Linji to meet the reclusive monk Dàyú. After exchanging some words with this monk, Linji attained an awakening. He then returned to Huangbo and told him what had occurred. Huangbo slapped Linji, saying “You lunatic, coming back here and pulling the tiger’s whiskers!” Then Linji responded with a loud shout.

Nagarjana's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

2025-01-25T13:27:00.000-05:00

Slowly studying the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna. Reading very slowly. Watching a bunch of videos around him in the hopes it provides more of a bed to place my understandings.

Some scholar names: Jay L. Garfield, David Kalupahana, and Geshe Ngawang Samten, Joseph Walser, McClintock, and Dunne.

I'm listening to Dr. Jan Westerhoff on YouTube today.

Fascinating talk about rebirth. The argument for rebirth is this. When you start a fire, and then fire burns down the neighbors field, you don't say, that wasn't my fire, my fire was over here. Another example is if I say jalapeno pepper, my mouth just waters. There was no physical cause except the physical cause of thinking of jalapeno, so it's considered that rebirth is similar to that (from Richard Hayes).

The conceptual problem of not having rebirth is that then when we all die, everyone goes to nirvana.

He goes in Nelson Goodman's constructivism. I read his Ways of Worldmaking (1978). Causality is complicated.

One person writes in the comments: "The problem is these arguments for rebirth are so complicated and speculative. Why not just accept rebirth teachings as skillful means and be done with it?"

My response is, why even comment? Why not walk away with your blissfully uncomplicated life? Would you like more people like you? Would you like to be seen as witty and wise without really putting in any work, just declining to see complications?

Westerhoff has studied philosophy in general, not just Buddhist philosophy and he brings in modern developments into the understanding of karma.

Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne on YouTube. Sound quality gets bad at 21, sorry, couldn't listen any more.

Thupten Jinpa's introduction on YouTube in a short 7 minute video.

quote

2025-01-25T12:45:00.003-05:00

"You must also “guard the doors of the sense faculties” lest “evil unwholesome states assail” you. This does not mean you don’t look, you don’t hear, and so forth; it means you do not get carried away by what you see, hear, sense, and cognize. Can you walk past a bakery, with its door open (of course), smell the wonderful aroma of the goods on offer, enjoy that smell, and yet not be tempted into entering and buying something? That’s guarding the door of the nose faculty. The senses are totally necessary for navigating our environment—but they are not an amusement park, at least not if you are intent on developing the higher mind needed for liberation. It’s perfectly OK to enjoy the pleasures that come via the senses—but don’t let your enjoyment of them lead you to becoming even more entangled in the world of delusion. It’s perfectly OK to respond to unpleasant sense contacts by dealing appropriately with the situation. But in neither case should the sense contacts lead to craving and clinging; if they do, then the sense doors are unguarded, and progress on the spiritual path is hindered."

Right Concentration (2015) by Leigh Brasington

Images, memes, quotes, art, rupas, statues

2025-01-19T05:53:00.006-05:00

Statues of Mahasthamaprapta and Avalokitesvara on lotus pedestals. China, Northern Qi dynasty, 6th century AD

A source, M source

Second biggest religion in european countries

Interesting that Poland, Slovakia and Hungary has Buddhism as the second biggest religion.

I thought I knew religion, learned about Yazidism, which is the second religion in Armenia.

Links:

Reddit link to a museum in Taiwan visit.

Longmen Grottoes, Henan (Reddit)

Largest wooden statue Reddit.

Favorite books 2024

2025-01-03T11:52:00.005-05:00

Not published in 2024, because I didn't get to any of those. Closest I got was 2015, I started trying to read Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington recently. Can't say if it's good or bad yet, still grinding.

Four books were free:

Empty Cloud by Xu yun. This is an amazing biography set in China.

Mindfulness with breathing by Buddhadasa. This is a guide to anapanasati by a Theravada monk who doesn't believe in reincarnation. Had to really delve into anapanasati to appreciate this book. No two teachers teach it the same, but it's fascinating to read all the different versions.

Venerable Ācariya Mun Bhūridatta Thera: A Spiritual Biography by Ajahn Maha Bua. This is an amazing biography of a man who maybe gained enlightenment while on a train. I turn this book on when I can't fall asleep sometimes. You can listen to this one and the next one here.

Mae Chee Kaew was a Thai woman who finally was released from marriage by her husband and could go to a monastery.

I really like the travel books of Bill Porter, but I think these two stand out for people interested in Buddhism in China:

The Silk Road by Bill Porter

Zen Baggage by Bill Porter

I found his books so fun to read, and to research some of the place he went. He's got a lot of other travel books, about south China, and other places, and I'm reading his one along the Yangtze river at the moment.

Brahmavihara

2024-12-28T11:47:00.003-05:00

According to Peter Harvey, the Buddhist scriptures acknowledge that the four Brahmavihara meditation practices "did not originate within the Buddhist tradition". The Buddha never claimed that the "four immeasurables" were his unique ideas, in a manner similar to "cessation, quieting, nirvana".

-Brahma Wikipedia

Dale DeBakcsy

2024-12-22T16:37:00.004-05:00

Dale DeBakcsy has an article entitled "The dark side of Buddhism" in The New Humanist from 2013.

Karma "gets insidious is in the pall that it casts over our failures in this life. I remember one student who was having problems memorising material for tests. Distraught, she went to the monks who explained to her that she was having such trouble now because, in a past life, she was a murderous dictator who burned books, and so now, in this life, she is doomed to forever be learning challenged."

I don't disagree, that is pretty wack. Not every Buddhist believes in that kind of stuff.

Consider a false idea of karma I didn't believe destroyed. You can find all sorts of strange ideas in people. Buddhists aren't exempt.

Buddhanasati collection

2024-12-22T05:03:00.006-05:00

1. Found this talk on Dhamma Talks at Dhammagiri, and thought to create a post where I collect them.

This one is based off Mahanama Sutta SN 11.12

He refers to a previous talk about the Buddha. The name of the monk isn't given in the video text.

This is from Goenka's outfit in India.

He talks about the 6 recollections, the 3 jewels, your generosity, your virtue and the devas.

I have a progression where I do the Brahma Viharas, anapanasati for 4 days, one day of 6 element, and then I do Buddhanasati. I do just sitting for my second meditation, and sometimes I throw in a contemplation of the 10 precepts, and sometimes I throw in a contemplation of the 12 nidanas meditation. I'm looking to keep my practice as vibrant and dynamic as possible. I sort of see others priming it, but I don't really like led meditations. Listening to things and I incorporate them when I'm no my own when appropriate.

2. My standby was by Kamalashila. I've always visualized walking up to the Buddha and joining him, but K asks permission to join the path and is given it. I like that.

First ever International Meditation Day

2024-12-20T10:12:00.003-05:00

December 21, tomorrow, Saturday, is the first International Meditation Day.

Read the UN Declaration.

This generation delights in attachment

2024-12-18T15:23:00.003-05:00

“This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality and dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the pacification of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; unbinding. And if I were to teach the Dhamma and if others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me.”

SN 6:1

Justified murder?

2024-12-08T19:29:00.038-05:00

Luigi Mangione murdered a health insurance executive Brian Thompson. The bullet casings said "deny", "defend" and "depose" on them, the tactic health insurance companies use to build their profits off denying coverage to humans who use health insurance for health care, to extend their lives and the quality of their lives.

There does have to be a limit, and enforcing the financial limits is going to bring profit to insurance companies, which is separate from limits. I feel that certain kind of places shouldn't be for profit, like schools, health insurance, prisons, and other things.

Thatcher led the movement of privativing things in England, and to some extent there were things the government was doing that they don't need to do, but privatizing actually makes government money go less further with the capitalists skimming money off the top. I think it's good not to have capitalists skimming money off the top of some things like schools, health insurance and prisons.

For me what this cartoon points out that both murders are wrong. Is killing a murderer OK in Buddhism? No, but there's no metaphysical punishment, only natural consequences, and perhaps a wrecked meditation practice. I couldn't murder someone because I'd be afraid to be caught, the impact on my mental state wouldn't be worth it.

I'm embarrassed to have feelings about the comeuppance. Is this the start of change or are they just going to take the photos of insurance company executives off the website, and go into hiding? Gated communities. I can feel positive feelings about people who are negatively cast, the health care executive is more than just a leader in the harm for profit community. Playing by society's seeming rules can be confusing when something bad happens.

The incoming president isn't afraid of using violence to get what he wants, the leadership of allowing violence for his purposes is a sloppy technique, it's not just going to happen for the causes he endorses. Last time he was president the harassment of vulnerable communities went up, most people see that as an undesirable consequence, but alas America was paying too much for eggs with inflation, so the story goes.

So much of what sitting in meditation is about is feeling all the weird and awkward feelings. Integration has limits. When I cranked up my meditation practice, I began to remember all the awkward anxiety dreams I get. Actually feeling the feelings, the more awkward emotions, is integrating.

It's not clear a lack of denial isn't masochistic, but it does feel stronger to be able to tolerate the headwinds of uncomfortable feelings. and see more of reality. It's not clear to me following politics and current events makes me more connected to the world, or if it's helpful to the spiritual life.

I would rather have a more sane world, with more clear lines of kindness, but here we are.

If I really wanted to challenge myself I could get one of those Trump as Buddha statues and shudder every day, with my feelings of cringe, fear and loathing. I'm not there yet. I feel proud that I'm challenging myself to grow, and I know it's a balance between self acceptance and compassion, and challenging myself.

A smart, well educated person who seems to have everything going for him choosing to murder someone, to have followed his own reason to conclude that murdering a healthcare executive was a righteous action, must make some worry, and some people will feel positive feelings about the action. Can you murder someone who was killing people, by denying coverage for profits, with their leadership?

For me harming others is the red line. I have harmed others in my life, not murder, but with my messy romantic life. I honestly think about it every day and vow to try and avoid that going forward in the future. The level of harm is different but the idea that you can't ignore other's hurt is a slippery slope, I don't want to cross. I think you must always take others impact into account of your actions, even if you see a different line of action that will help others more by doing a little harm. It's not quite easy to avoid harm in the world, living a life.

Even a vegan kills insects by not eating animals and their products. The point in Buddhism is that you're not trying to harm anyone, you can see harms. The way our society is, insecticides and transport vehicles will kill insects with our produce. You can't get past that. You can try by being local and growing your own produce. You can accidentally squish a bug, or kill an insect inside your home. I think even if you still do kill insects, the worry about that is good spiritual progress, even if you end up concluding you can try to rid you house of pests. You can see the othering even there.

I read an intense half glee, half wise knowing that the current tide of events will also shift and not solve everything, in an article by someone about what is going on in the middle east. Perhaps I'm idealistic and not realistic enough. I'd rather err on that side, against harming others, than the other side, where you're against having empathy, you have many systems that close off empathy towards oppressed people.

Amy Coney Barrett on the supreme court doesn't want to understand the harm systems do to people of transgender experience. She said, “One question I have is, at least as far as I can think of, we don’t have a history—that I know of—we don’t have a history of de jure discrimination against transgender people,” Coney Barrett said during oral arguments on Wednesday morning. “You point out in your brief that in the last three years there might have been these laws, but before that we might have had private societal discrimination.… Is there a history that I don’t know about where we have de jure discrimination?”

Is it really impossible to understand the persecution of transgender people? Do you really not see it? I've seen it, but then again I worked with the transgender population as a social worker and had to confront the brutal history and persecution. Maybe she doesn't have that knowledge, of course it's certainly OK to be unaware of it, perhaps she was asking to be educated. I read the question as a denial of that history, though. The limits of her ignorance is stated as a fact.

There is a kind of collective momentum in health insurance in the USA, in the USA foreign policy, in my own personal justification of killing flies inside my house. Just because there is a history doesn't mean we can't move more towards reducing harm, thinking about others. Increased empathy is the human evolution I'm looking for in myself and I hope we see in larger systems.

There are people on the Buddhists subreddit who argue you don't need to form the perfect opinion right away about this situation. There's a kind of compassion fatigue expressed. We can't be aware of everything, sometimes things don't affect us, maybe our opinion isn't even useful, nobody is asking us. I think developing one's political feelings and understanding what is going on in the world is an important part of humanity. Some people are very busy with other struggles, and decline the invitation. There's enough in front of them, there's no need to develop opinions about the middle east, or transgender. There's lots of not quite the way I would do it spread out all over the world, I can barely control myself. I need to guard the gates of my sense. I understand people not wanting to clutter their minds with details that are beyond their control.

Anyway, health care is screwed up in America, and socialized medicine would really cut out waste, and save a lot of money, and would be really good for business. It's a real no brainer, but American capitalists like holding the workers feet to the fire. Revolution is coming.

Links:

The manifesto of Luigi. (Newsweek also) (Another)

Luigi's review of Industrial Society and Its Future.

UnitedHeath vows to keep itself "sustainable."

12/26/2024.

Been thinking a lot about the horrible things John Brown did, and how in a way when things get extreme there are some people who do extreme things to correct things. Luigi Mangione, whether he did it or not, seems to represent grave injustices of not having a national health insurance. Anandi pointed out yesterday that the timing is all wrong, Trump isn't going to correct the situation. I thought it was cool that wanted posters of health insurance CEO's, but the police took them down right away. Police after all protect the rich.

Religions have extreme ethics with things particular to their sect. Secular ethics doesn't have that. We live in a multicultural society so when it comes to ethics, we need to be secular. You can have whatever rules to guide yourself you want. Fish on Fridays or no pig meat, or whatever.

Utilitarianism will think about the greatest good. Killing in general is not good, but killing someone who's doing harm, and making an example of them, well, that's at least captured some outrage about our messed up system.

They say Americans would rather pay $800 a month is private insurance, than $200 a month is taxes for a nationalized health insurance, and that sort of explains it for me. We're giving middlemen lots of money to deny, defend and depose.

I don't think Brian Thompson's DWI really changes much about the center of this, or that he was married and has children. Of course you can say he's just trying to make a living in the system, but you know, we need to change the system, that's what this is all about to me. Capitalism hasn't solved this, hasn't created the most efficient system. Some sort of collectivist action needs to happen.

Muqi

2024-11-28T08:52:00.003-05:00

Muqi is a 13th century Chinese monk who was also an artist. Pronounced /moo CHI/ by Professor James Cahill. Also spelled Muxi.

I thought of 6 Persimmons, when my cousin was feeding one to his son. (Tricycle on Archive). Here's a lecture by Professor James Cahill on YouTube.

I like this one:

Piti

2024-11-12T10:57:00.006-05:00

There's a plastic tarp caught in a tree. Some painters were loading up their truck and it flew away and they were not able to retrieve it. It's kind of ugly, and I like watch what my mind does when I see it past my Manjushri statue, that is also imperfect because it was blown down and broke.

I think about impermanence in the 13th stage of anapanasati, and I saw today that the tarp broke, it's now in 3 sections, more likely to fall off the tree. The leaves have fallen off in winter time in North America. I miss the green leaves, but the colorful goodbye was spectacular. Days are shorter, it gets dark early.

I was listening for rapture, makes me slightly manic, hypomanic, and I saw the broken tarp and I laughed and cried. Things are a little intense before they consolidate into happiness, or sukha. It's that vital transition that makes up Buddhism, makes it different than a Dionysian cult. Cult can have a positive connotation where it whips up devotion and energy for the spiritual practice. The joy of a goal, my children hugging me, sex, drugs and rock and roll. The poets might see it as drunk on spiritual rapture.

Impermanence might be obvious, but I contemplate it, and I've worked on calming the selfing done in the skandhas, the 5 heaps in stage 8, and I contemplate what happiness really is in stage 10, but I look at how I'm still subtly clinging to samsara too, in stage 13. I imagine I would feel better if that tarp wasn't in the tree.

There's a guy who used to have a long grabby things in Brooklyn for taking the plastic bags that get caught in the trees, he just fixes the reality instead of coping with the mental situation, and that's a valid approach. They made bags need to be bought in grocery stores, so now there are fewer bags flying around in New York City, but I still get the bags for takeout, and use them for small garbage cans.

I've started a blog about my personal experiences in a dharma friendship, this blog was more objective experience and reports of culture. I feel like this blog may have run its course, we'll see what I do with it.

Emaciated Buddha from the National Museum of Fine Art in Hanoi, Vietnam

Bhilkkhu Bodhi In The Lion’s Roar

2024-11-09T11:32:00.004-05:00

"I here find myself compelled to dissent from a typical response I often encounter among Western Buddhists. This is the response which says that, in any conflictual situation, we must adopt a stance of detached neutrality, that we shouldn’t take sides but should try to see the good and bad hidden in both sides. That’s a style of Buddhist rhetoric I don’t want to accept. I also don’t want to accept the familiar line, “Everything is impermanent, so don’t worry.” It’s true that everything is impermanent, but by the time this regime ends, millions of lives may be lost and damaged and the entire ecosystem of the earth disrupted beyond repair."

From "It's No Time To Be Neutral" 11/8/24

Holidays

2024-11-01T09:04:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was Dia de los Muertos is a remembrance of ancestors, a holiday from our Mexican brothers and sisters.

Yesterday was Halloween is a day when you can dress up in an alternate persona, or hero, and beg for candy. I never really got into it, though of course I did it as a kid for the candy haul. I went around with my daughter who was dressed up like a bat. She says next year she wants to dress like a witch with her mother. I sometimes think about getting a Cat in the Hat hat. Lots of amazing costumes on social media, some people are the opposite of me, and make it really happen.

Someone’s haul

Today is Diwali is the triumph of light over darkness. My friend voted yesterday to get that out of the way, hopefully light triumphs over darkness politically. I've been reading about Zoroastrianism, because I'm studying Iran, and they have a specific take in the fight of light over dark. Jainism and Hinduism also celebrate Diwali. My Buddhist friend is part of a leading team for a Diwali retreat.

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. A feast and a positive attitude.

Goldstein quote

2024-10-27T06:27:00.003-04:00

In the Bhagavad-Gita the question is asked, "Of all the world's wonders, which is the most wonderful?" The answer, "That no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will die."

From The Experience of Insight p. 128

I feel like I ward off anything that is Hinduism, like some sort of weird Christian sect, vigilant about belief, but I could loosen up a little bit and be open to more influences.

Images, memes, quotes, art, photos

2024-10-21T12:38:00.020-04:00

Previous one and before that.

Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu from With Each & Every Breath (2012)

He's not a Buddhist, but I do think his encouragement to be focused on your mind is important.

From Japan

Reading about Manichaeism, and came across the Manichaeism painting of Jesus Buddha:

Baolin Temple Changzhou China

Buddhist reliefs at Borobudur, showing the famous Borobudur Ship. Indonesia, Sailendra dynasty, 8th-9th century AD

Goldstein quote

2024-10-11T15:13:00.005-04:00

The courage of a warrior is both required and developed in the practice of meditation. It takes courage to sit with pain, without avoiding or masking it; just to sit and face it totally and overcome one's fear. It takes courage to probe and by that probing discover the deepest elements of the mind and body. It can be quite unsettling at first because many of our comfortable habits get over-turned. It takes a lot of courage to let go of everything that we've been holding on to for security. To let go, to experience the flow of impermanence. It takes courage to face and confront the basic and inherent insecurity of this mind-body process. To confront the fact that in every instant what we are is continually dissolving, vanishing; that there is no place to take a stand at all. It takes courage to die. To experience the death of the concept of self; to experience that death while we're living takes the courage and fearlessness of an impeccable warrior.

P68-69 The Experience of Insight by Joseph Goldstein

Thanissaro Bhikkhu The Meditator as Warrior YouTube 12 minutes

kukkucca, uddacca

2024-10-11T08:26:00.002-04:00

“The fourth of the hindrances the Buddha mentions in the Satipatthana Sutta are the mind states of restlessness and worry. The Pali word for restlessness is uddacca, which means agitation, excitement, or distraction. It is sometimes translated as "shaking above," where the mind is not settled into the object but hovering around it. "Restlessness" —literally, without rest—expresses all these aspects. The Pali word for worry is kukkucca, which is the mind state of regret or anxiety. This refers to how we feel about not having done things that we should have done and about having done things that we shouldn't have. Although restlessness almost always accompanies worry, it is possible to have restlessness present without worry or regret.”

P153 Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein.

Meditation support

2024-10-08T09:33:00.003-04:00

I've been meditating with 3 fellows in Iran for a while now.

I want to open it up to others who want support in meditation. It's 7 AM Eastern Standard Time, it's 2:30 PM in Iran. And it's 4 AM in California. It's noon in England, 12:00 PM.

Please join us if you'd like to meditate, and we can chat after meditation if you want. The only trick is getting the link to you, the invite. So drop you email in the comments and I'll erase it once I see it, and then send you the link in the morning or even the google calendar invite.

You could probably ask me to meditate any time, and I'd do it.