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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Getting to a good rebirth by being "saved"?

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly translation, Pacchabhumaka Sutra (SN XLII.6)
Thai museum depiction of lower sensual sphere Buddhist heavens (akasha deva kama loka)
  
Buddha mosaic (Herr_S/flickr.com)
Once the Buddha was abiding near Nalanda in the Parileyyaka mango grove. Then Asibandhakaputta the village headman went to him, bowed, sat respectfully to one side, and said:

"Venerable sir, the Westlander Brahmins, who carry water pots, wear water plant garlands, cleanse themselves with purifying water, and worship fire -- can take [the spirit or animating principle of] a dead person, lift it out, instruct it, and send it on to a heavenly rebirth.
  
"But the Blessed One, worthy and perfectly enlightened, can arrange it so that all the world, at the breakup of the body, after death, reappears in a fortunate destination, on a heavenly plane!"

"Very well, headman, I will ask you about this matter; answer as you see fit. What do you think? There is a person who
  1. takes life,
  2. takes what is not given,
  3. takes sexual liberties,
  4. takes the truth in vain (by perjury, 
  5. divisive speech,
  6. harsh speech, or
  7. idle chitchat),
  8. is greedy (lustful-selfish-full of craving),
  9. bears thoughts of ill-will, and/or
  10. holds to wrong views.
"Then a great crowd of people, gathering and congregating, would honor, praise, and respectfully circumambulate with folded hands (anjali mudra), saying: 'May this person, at the breakup of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, on a heavenly plane!'
  
"What do you think? Would that person -- because of the honor, praise, and circumambulation of that great crowd -- at the breakup of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, on a heavenly plane?"
 
"No, venerable sir."

Gulf of Siam, southern Thailand (traveljunket.info)
  
Buddha at Sukhothai (Aidan McRae Thomson/flickr.com)
"Suppose a person were to throw a large boulder into a deep body of water, and a great crowd, gathering and congregating, would honor, praise, and circumambulate with folded hands, saying: 'Rise up, O boulder! Float up, O boulder! Float to the shore, O boulder!'
  
"What do you think? Would that boulder -- because of the honor, praise, and circumambulation of that great crowd -- rise up, float up, or move to the shore?"
 
"No, venerable sir."
  
"So it is with anyone who takes life, takes what is not given, takes sexual liberties, takes the truth in vain (engages in perjury, divisive speech, harsh speech, or idle chitchat), is greedy, bears thoughts of ill-will, and/or holds to wrong views.
   
"Even though a great crowd, gathering and congregating, would honor, praise, and circumambulate with folded hands, saying, 'May this person, at the breakup of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, on a heavenly plane!' -- nevertheless, at the breakup of the body, after death, that person would reappear destitute in an unfortunate destination, in subhuman worlds, even in hellish worlds."

NEVER AGAIN (until the next time)

One-year anniversary of Norway's mass murder
Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)
Norway's right wing monster defiant and on trial in Oslo (AP/Scanpix/NTB pool)

Manchurian candidate or The Joker (Seeker401)
OSLO - On Sunday Norway paused to commemorate the 77 victims of Anders Behring Breivik's bomb and gun massacre. His mass murder shocked the peaceful Scandinavian nation a year ago. 
  
But the tragedy, according to the prime minister, has brought Norwegians together in defense of democracy and tolerance.
   
It may have also inspired American would-be-doctor-turned-mass-murderer and likely unwitting victim of psychological "mind control" experimentation John Holmes, the Aurora Assassin. (He is now heavily drugged against his will with pharmaceutical grade psychotropic substances to remember nothing and say even less while on trial).
 
Breivik, 33, is a right wing fanatic motivated by misguided patriotism and Islamophobia which led him to murdering Norwegian children to cast xenophobic suspicion on non-Norwegians. He has not only admitted to the July 22, 2011 murders but bragged about it as he has attempted to inspire others to his hateful cause.
  
First Person Shooter
Was Batman-fanatic James Holmes listening, or was he simply reacting to living in a gun-happy police state that wants periodic mass murders to occur so it can crack down on civil liberties, gun laws, and personal freedoms once regarded as American as Winchesters and Indian natives.
   
Almost exactly a year later the unthinkable happened again going from peaceful Norway to violent Colorado, not far from a previous mass murder of young people by white assailants in the tragedy known simply as Columbine.
   
Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma (likely a stooge/fall guy for a certain clandestine federal agency), Jared Loughner in Tucson, that unnamed U.S. sergeant (Staff Sgt. Robert Bales) and war criminal in Afghanistan who (acting with others never to be named) killed 16 with most of them children, all the way back to Hitler's inner circle of co-conspirators and their Eichmann-style followers.
   
But race can never be mentioned as any kind of contributing factor to any type of crime in specific, not in American. The Virginia Tech shooter was not white, which "proves" race has nothing to do with any kind of particularly horrific terrorist crimes against humanity. Sure, all the people who planned, ordered, and carried out the most horrific mass murders in history (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) were white, but that doesn't count because... It just doesn't. It's racist to even talk about it.
  
Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho
White or not, it does not seem likely that all of these were actually individual acts of terrorism and "A Clockwork Orange" ultra-violence. Instead, a phenomenon known as the creation of a "Manchurian Candidate" seems far more likely, if far less plausible due to our mainstream media conditioning. 
 
In Norway, as many pledged "never again," a lone wolf or jackal having his day was blowing up eight then shooting 69 others to death to destroy the post-Viking Scandinavian ideal of being inclusive and multicultural.
  
Timothy McVeigh
On Sunday's anniversary of the massacre, tarps covered windows of bomb-damaged buildings on the plaza as cement blocks only permitted pedestrian traffic. Mounted police and bomb-sniffing dogs were on hand, but security was not overbearing. Norway will not go down the road of being controlled by reactionary responses to domestic terrorism. It remains a free and open society.

Why But Why?
Why would any agency or clandestine entity do this -- put "monsters" in our midst and nightmarish terrors in the media? The military-industrial complex with its PsyOps has a motive. And it is to create widespread panic and crippling fear/paralysis.  In the illegal invasion of Iraq it undertook -- with our tacit approval or patriotic pride and only relatively few protesters -- was openly called a campaign of "shock and awe," a needless display of overkill to terrify the world watching the televised and slickly produced cable news network version.
  
While the revolution will not be televised, the neo-conservative-corporate war certainly will. And in the meantime, we can expect more "bizarre and inexplicable lone wolf killers who are completely responsible for themselves and had no one tamper with them or put ideas in their heads" in a line up displaying the "banality of evil" the Nuremberg trials uncovered. Nothing else is going on. Believe the TV. And go back to sleep.

"Craving" the movie (Trishna)


Slumdog Millionaire's breakout starlet Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed co-star, with original songs by Amit Trivedi and an original score by Shigeru Umebayashi, in Trishna (Sanskrit tṛṣṇā, "craving," Pali tanha). Shot in India and based on the novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, TRISHNA is the story of a girl named Trishna.

She lives with her family in a village in Rajasthan, India's largest state. As the eldest daughter, she works in a nearby resort to help pay the bills. Jay (Riz Ahmed) is the wealthy son of a property developer. When he takes up managing a resort at his father's request, he meets Trishna at a dance and fate takes its course: Jay finds every opportunity to win Trishna's affection, and she accepts his advances with shy curiosity. But when the two move to Bombay (Mumbai) and become a couple, Jay's deep family bonds threaten the young lovers' bliss.
 
Produced by Melissa Parmenter and directed and shot with Michael Winterbottom's agile camera, TRISHNA is a powerful look at the tension between ancient privilege in India and modern equality, between codes of urban and rural life. Ultimately it is a hymn to both the glory and the tragedy that accompanies beauty in all forms. 
  • Twitter: updates and information @TrishnaMovie