Dalai Lama live over the holidays (webcast)

Mara Schaeffer, Wisdom Quarterly

Here's hoping everyone's holidays are fun. For me this series of talks by the Dalai Lama is the best thing going. Enjoy the winter solstice, the Mayan New Age and, of course, "The Big Day" in India, a celebration of all religions.

• Webcasts: Shantideva's "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life"

Great seasonal/perennial teachings from the Dalai Lama with two sessions over four days to live stream or download (video/audio) later, Dec. 24-27:

• 8:00-10:00 pm PST and 11:30 pm-1:30 am PST 
• (9:30-11:30 am and 1:00-3:00 pm IST)

New Delhi carolers (Julie McCarthy/NPR.org)

This is really interesting for many who enjoyed the broadcasts of Pema Chödrön discussing Shantideva's "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" and/or her book: Don't Bite the Hook: Finding Freedom from Anger, Resentment, and Other Destructive Emotions. (DalaiLama.com/webcasts)

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World's Greatest Buddhist Site (photos)

UPDATE: Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; photostream by Michal Przedlacki (dziadek/flickr.com)

Afghan archaeologist examines the remains of Buddha statues discovered inside an ancient monastic complex in MES AYNAK, Logar province, Afghanistan, on Nov. 23, 2010 (AP).

• Original story: World's Greatest Buddhist Site
• PHOTO GALLERY: Mes Aynak, Afghanistan

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Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu Teachings

Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly; Richard Hooper (The Parallel Sayings)  

What do Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and Lao Tzu have in common?

A new book by Richard Hooper points out stunning parallels in the teachings of four mystical traditions -- Buddhist, Christian, Taoist, and Hindu. Moreover, a final chapter attempts to debunk Wisdom Quarterly's pet theory that Jesus (St. Issa) was a diversely educated Buddhist as the BBC, Swami Abhedananda, Nicolas Notovitch, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and Levi H. Dowling have held for many years.

Then there are the lost sutras

Hooper contends Jesus/Issa could not have been a Tibetan lama because there were not yet any "lamas" in the lamasery now known as Hemis Gompa, and there wasn't even a Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana). Of course, he fails to consider the work of Holger Kersten and Elmar R. Gruber in establishing a Jewish settlements/trading posts as far away as Kashmir, India -- relatively close to Ladakh, India/Tibet (the site of the ancient Hemis Lamasery). Why would the Hemis abbot deny Notovitch's story? Might he want to protect the written records once stored in his temple complex from prying Christian hands? (Of course, if the eminent Orientalist Max Muller denies the existence of any such records because they are not described in the Kanjur and Tanjur, then that is solid evidence to contend with). Whatever drew Jesus/Issa there is likely what still draws Jews from all over the world, who go in search of mysticism and spiritual teachers and experience beyond book learning. Hooper dismisses it all without nuance; it is simply a preposterous "hoax" on the face of it.

  

Illustration of Jesus/Issa in Ladakh, India/Tibet (Elizabeth.C. Prophet)

Of course, what is today Tibet would have been India at that time (a Himalayan corridor still in dispute as variously independently, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, or CIA-administered territory. And although Buddhist monks in the area may not have called themselves lamas, Red Hats, Black Hats, or Rinpoches, messiahs, Maitreya, or even bodhisattvas, that does not mean they were not Buddhists practicing what would eventually come to be called "Tibetan Buddhism," an exotic branch of Mahayana, which is so strikingly similar to Christianity that it seems preposterous to think they did not influence one another in their development over the past two millenia (particularly as the corporate Catholic Church appropriated the best of what it could find in all mystical traditions in areas it followed as Christian soldiers looted riches any and everywhere it could find them). Aside from this abrupt conclusion, Hooper has created a wonder book of parallel saying from non-obvious sources. Christians may not be pleased, but every student of comparative traditions will be delighted. And it's a short read. Recommended.

  

(Mystical) Book Club Selection

Deborah Arca (Patheos.com Book Club, May 15, 2012)

Can you tell [Patheos] a little about how this book came about?

Author Richard Hooper

Between my second and third year of college I had what the psychologist Abraham Maslow would call a “peak experience.” It resulted in a decision to study for the ministry, so I changed my college major to the Philosophy of Religion because it seemed sensible that a Christian minister should know at least something about other world religions. Surprisingly, when I entered seminary two years later I discovered that I was the only person there who thought such knowledge was important.
   
In any event when I started studying the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism for the first time, I began to notice similarities between what Jesus taught and what was generally taught in Eastern philosophy. A few years later I started studying the Gnostic Gospels and was astounded by the similarities between the words of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita and the words of the risen Christ in Gnostic-Christian literature.
  

Your book compares the parallel teachings of four world religions, but why didn’t you include Judaism and Islam?

I realized from the beginning that a lot of people would ask this question, so I added a second subtitle to the cover of this book: “The common teachings of four mystical traditions.” More

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American to head Tibetan monastery

Kim Lawton, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly via Religion News Service

Nicholas Vreeland is the first Westerner to be abbot of Rato Monastery in India (RDF).

    

NEW YORK - The Dalai Lama has given [Ven.] Nicholas Vreeland [now Khen Rinpoche], director of The Tibet Center in New York, a daunting new assignment.

  

On July 6, Vreeland [was] enthroned as the new abbot of Rato Monastery in southern India, one of the most important monasteries in Tibetan [Vajrayana] Buddhism. 

   

He will be the first Westerner to hold such a position. In making the appointment, the Dalai Lama told Vreeland, "Your special duty (is) to bridge Tibetan tradition and (the) Western world."

• RatoDatsangFoundation.org

"His Holiness wishes to bring Western ideas into the Tibetan Buddhist monastic system, and that comes from his recognition that it is essential... that there be new air brought into these institutions," Vreeland told the PBS program "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly."

   

For many observers, the choice of an American for the role may be a surprising one, and perhaps even more surprising given the background of this particular American.

   

Vreeland had a privileged upbringing -- the son of a US diplomat and the grandson of Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor of Vogue magazine during the 1960s. More

• Dalai Lama wins Templeton Prize for science, religion
• Buddhist father-son struggle in “My Reincarnation”
• Buddhist news and trends (West Wight Sangha)

Huffington Post

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Tibetan Self-Immolates In China's Northwest

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The Truth About Kashmir (audio)

AR (alternativeradio.org)

The 14th Dalai Lama visits troubled Kashmir, the gateway to Buddhist India (Ladakh)

• Alternative Radio (Pacifica), Monday, July 16, 2012 8:00 am
  

PLAY NOW (download)

Kashmir: Buried Evidence

Among the many issues plaguing South Asia, none is as violent or deeply contested as Kashmir.
  
The problem mirrors China's Tibet and America's Palestine -- an intransigent land issue of genocidal proportions.

   
The major unresolved issue of the disastrous British partition of India in 1947, Kashmir has been the site of wars and the threat of wars, and probably the world's longest and most extensive military occupation....

  

Dr. A.P. Chatterji (greaterkashmir.com)

Dr. Angana P. Chatterji is an anthropologist, activist, and feminist historian from Calcutta, India. She is a co-convener of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir.

  

Dr. Chatterji's research is closely related to her activism and focuses mainly on India. An anthropologist by profession, she has studied "militarized governance, gender and identity, and self-determination" in Indian-administered Kashmir and communal violence in Orissa.
 

In the context of the United States, she has researched issues related to "hyper-nationalism, diaspora, and identity politics" in American society.

  

She was formerly (1997-2011) part of the faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), a private educational institution based in San Francisco, along with her husband, Richard Shapiro. More

• The US connection? Arm sales!
• India as arms customer: Pentagon
• India's rise, America's interest
• Child molestation in D.C. (FranklinScandal.com) 
• Where was the Buddha really born?

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