No Strangers: Ancient Wisdom, Modern World

AnnenbergFoundation.org; Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Shaolin monks training upside down in cold (© Steve McCurry/AnnenbergFoundation.org)

 

Tibet (© Hamid Sardar-Afkhami/KCRW.org)

The Annenberg Space for Photography presents No Strangers: Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World -- a group show about the wonder of culture and the plight of indigenous people throughout the world.

 

The exhibit is guest curated by esteemed anthropologist, author, and photographer Wade Davis. No Strangers explores the ways cultures express a shared humanity and navigate the circle of life. It poses a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive?
 

(Annenberg Space)
 

(© Unique/Annenberg Space for Photography)

When the people of the world answer this question, they do so in 7,000 unique voices. Tragically, half of these may be silenced within a generation or two. At risk is our human legacy, a vast archive of knowledge and expertise. More

Seated L-R: Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow, Caroline Bennett, Chris Rainier, Angela Fisher, Chris Johns (WATER), Carol Beckwith, Aaron Huey, Susan Anderson (Beauty CULTure), Gerd Ludwig (POYi), Barbara Davidson (POYi The Year), Genaro Molina, Laurence Ho (L8s Ang3les).

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Buddhism East and West (travel)

Ashley Wells, Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Golden Buddhas in Thai Grand Palace (Steveohim/flickr.com); trekking Himalayan foothills, West Bengal, Singalila Nat'l Park, Darjeeling district, near Sikkim (Biswarupsarkar72).

 
As the world was ending, most of us gathered in Los Angeles, the mecca (Bodh Gaya) of world communication right at the planet's throat chakra. But two of our editors took a trip to the far reaches of Buddhistdom, which is just outside of Christendom and the world's other Vedic/Hindu offshoots.

One went east, the other west, one to India, the other to Europe. There didn't seem much use in traveling to world-class cities to find Buddhism hiding out in the city. We can get that at home.
 
No, all spirituality resides, as it has for millennia, in and around the Himalayas. It's the rooftop of the world. The "Rebirth Stories" (Jatakas) tell of the Bodhisat resorting to quiet Himalayan caves.

"Enlightenment does not perfect personalities;

it only perfects perspective."

Saints may be jerks, but you can't let that get you down.

We need to stand right where we are and begin our climb.

  

Island peak on Indian Sea (NH53/flickr.com)

Alas, what did we find? Travel is amazing, amazing beyond imagining. Get a backpack, and get on the road! We recommend it to everyone. If only because it lifts us out of the provincial, the biases we never even think to question.
  
Buddhist Europe is more Central Asian, having traveled up from its co-origins in ancient India/modern Afghanistan. Kalmykia is a lot like being in a second or third world Asian country but with Caucasians.

Bhumi (Earth) is a great place to learn.

Better to spend time on top of the world with a guide like Bish. But what is there to find? Talk of the food, talk of the pain, talk of toilets, talk of dreams, talk of pushing limits, talk of past misgivings -- but for all that what we find is that YOU CAN STAND IN THE PLACE WHERE YOU ARE. That is, you can begin right where you are, wherever that may be.

 

Kukulcan pyramid naga temple (wiki)

We should have all gone to Mexico together and danced at the foot of Kukulcan temple pyramid in Chichen Itza and danced with the Aztecs. Right here, right now, this is where it's at. We dreamed of going there (anywhere) to begin. But we have to stake our ground and set up our mats-and-cushions (zafus and zabutons) and do our sitting (zazen) until dhyana/jhana (zen). Then on to insight (vipassana).

None of this takes a plane ride, a bus tour, a train hop, or a suicide-by-taxi bid. It can all start right NOW. Stop, drop, and roll (out a sitting mat) and see. One can start meditating right here, right now. Or, if one prefers to stand, R.E.M.'s lyrics may make a little more sense. So sit.
  

"Stand" as performed by Legos and R.E.M.

"Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. live on MTV

• Where in the world is God?
• And what about the Son-of-god?
• Buddhism's "31 Planes of Existence"

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"Buddhism for Vampires" (Halloween)

David Chapman (Buddhism-for-Vampires.com); Wisdom Quarterly HALLOWEEN SERIES
COMING SOON, BREAKING NEWS: Peaceful Buddhists go on murderous rampage.

European vampires were killed and given a special postmortem meal -- a stake. Here a female had a brick placed in her mouth to prevent her from feasting on blood (Daily Mail).

WQ has been sitting on this Bon/Black Magic exposé. For Halloween, we introduce B.F.V.

  

Cheater and Sap vamps (Life&Style)

“Buddhism for vampires? That’s silly. Buddhism and vampires don’t have anything to do with each other -- or do they?”

Surprisingly, vampires have played a significant role in Buddhism in Asia for centuries. They are not a Western invention.

Contemporary vampire fiction -- “preternatural romance” -- provides tools for presenting aspects of Buddhism that are otherwise difficult to communicate.

  

Vampires in Buddhist history

Vomiting blood (Buddhism-for-vampires.com)

There is extensive vampire lore [that preceded and was incorporated] within traditional Buddhism. This has been summarized in “The Tibetan Book of the Undead.” Apart from its intrinsic interest, this history makes it clear that one cannot dismiss “Buddhism for vampires” as bogus.

  

...No one can say this is an illegitimate topic or some kind of Western commercial distortion. One can combine Buddhism and vampires as a cheap gimmick -- but I believe it is possible to explain Buddhism accurately in the language of the undead. In fact, I believe some aspects of Buddhism are best explained that way.

Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox

Vajrayana is a mix of Bon and Buddhism

Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.” But experience is unavoidably undefinable.
  
Reality refuses to fit into categories; it is always in flux. When “this” inexplicably turns into “that,” and you love or hate the “wrong” thing: that is paradox. Rejecting ambiguity is, according to Buddhism, the primordial error, and source of all unhappiness. Paradox is resolved through non-duality: allowing the horns of a dilemma to co-exist.

   

"China accuses me of being devil" (Dalai Lama)

What has this to do with vampires? Consider the basic paradox of the undead. To paraphrase the great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna, they are not alive, nor dead, nor both, nor neither. The undead are, as contemporary Buddhist philosopher Stephen T. Asma puts it, “liminal beings.”
  

China really dislikes Dalai Lama and Buddhism

“Liminal” means “on the threshold”; a defining feature of monsters is that they are neither one thing nor another. This is just the fundamental Buddhist paradox of emptiness and form, reflected in a pool of blood. More

• Halloween STORM likely to kill everyone on East Coast
• Meet the real-life US vampires (Smithsonian)
• "Vampire" skeletons found (Discovery News) 
• National Geographic finds real vampires
• China warns: Some paths are bad and evil!
• Evils of Communist Khmer Rouge in Buddhist Cambodia
• Lama sex abuse calls Buddhist taboos into question
• Name-calling in China: Hitler, Devil, HHDL
• Tibetans self-immolate, Americans use guns
• VIDEO: CIA's CNN dismisses the Kentucky UFO
• PBS: The investigative reporting crisis in America
• PHOTOS: Monster (yakkha) temple protectors
• China on Buddhism: Brainwashed with evils
• SCARY: 14-year-old student punished by Buddhist monk for refusing to learn Buddhism

"But who's more Gothic and Vampiric than us?"

3,154

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"Yogis of Tibet" (film)

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Jeffrey Pill (video); Ayya Khema (book)

The fabled land of Tibet, with Lhasa its capital and Potala Palace its heart (nekorpa.org)

  

(IAmHanuMan)For the first time, the reclusive and secretive Tibetan Buddhist monks (yogis and lamas) agree to discuss aspects of their philosophy and allow themselves to be filmed while performing their ancient practices. They do this to preserve an extraordinary culture being eradicated. Directed by Jeffrey M. Pill.

   

Himalayan Buddhist flags (Bhakti Omwoods)

Once upon a time in Tibet, when people followed the ancient Indian ascetic practices (of the Buddha and the Brahmins) prevalent on the subcontinent below, there were real-life mystics and magicians. Magic and Mystery in Tibet was an early western title by Alexandra David-Neel, embroidered and exaggerated to boost sales. But it hinted at the perplexity of what was possible in the Himalayan wilds, in the isolated home of seers (rishis), Bon wizards, partial shamans, and Buddhist wanderers. It is famously said, "Not all who wander are lost." While the austerities and mortifications once prevalent in Tibet may have reached extremes beyond the Buddha's "sane asceticism" (dhutanga), it produced and kept alive many of the feats that set Indian spirituality apart. This eventuality of taking secrets out into the world beyond the Himalayas did not come entirely as a surprise.
  

There was a prophecy that said, "When the Iron Bird Flies," the title of Western Theravada nun and meditation master Ayya Khema's book, "the Dharma [Buddhism] would reach the West." Like many Native American prophecies, we do not realize that they have come true until we look back on them. The "iron birds" were planes in the Age of Flight a time when we also re-entered the secret Space Age. The ages are cyclical. This is not the first time earthlings have flown in metal "birds." The long-lived devas remind us, and we can develop the capacity to look back to verify it. The bigger question is, What will we do with the liberating Dharma?

• David-Neel: On Tibetan Buddhist Hermits

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