Bodhi (Enlightenment) Day 2012

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, David Nguyen, Wisdom Quarterly (Shaka Jodo-e, Dec. 8, 2012)

"The Legend of Buddha," an animated film by Pentamedia Graphics Ltd., qualified for contention at the 2005 Oscar Awards in the Best Animation Film category.

The Buddha, according to the oldest records, reached supreme enlightenment on the full moon day in May (roughly corresponding to the Indian month of Vesakha), which coincidentally was the day he was born and also the day he exited the world into final nirvana.

But these sources are not relied on by all traditions. The much larger and often more devotional Mahayana school, which encompasses Chinese Pureland, Japanese Zen, Nicheren, Tendai, and Shingon, Tibetan Vajrayana, or what used to be referred to generally as "Northern" Buddhism (as the Dharma traveled out of India into China, Japan, Korea, and parts of Vietnam).

This Buddhist school or vehicle -- as distinguished from the older Theravada (Teaching of the Elders or Theras and Theris) and the now defunct "Hinayana" (derogatory "Lesser Vehicle") schools like the Sarvastivada -- commemorates Siddhartha's knowledge-and-vision of nirvana. More than that it is the celebration that Siddhartha did not  merely become an arhat, or "fully enlightened person," but a Supremely Enlightened Teacher (samma sam buddha).

He might have remained silent (pacceka buddha) without having developed the ancillary qualities and abilities needed to effectively establish the Dharma, teaching it directly to others, and leaving a stable monastic and supportive lay-Buddhist legacy that continues long after a buddha's attainment of the goal.

Mahayana Buddhists observe the occasion not as a thrice-blessed day as it is celebrated by Vesak-observing countries (Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and elsewhere). Instead, Bodhi Day allows celebrants to focus on the essence of the Buddha's achievement -- bodhi, "enlightenment," "awakening," transcending ignorance and all of the other causes of suffering.

This is best done by meditating, studying the Teachings on the path to enlightenment, chanting and/or memorizing sutras, and other acts of merit such as countering the Three Poisons of the heart/mind with the antidotes of letting go/unselfishness, friendliness/compassion, and mindfulness/cultivating right view. 

For all that, it is still a celebration, which means special foods, offerings to monastics and intensive practitioners, and readings^.

^{How did he do it, and how might I?}

Austere days of struggle (dhammawheel.com)

What might be important is reflecting on what finally made Siddhartha's spiritual efforts fruitful. He had tried devotion to teachers, the yogis Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputra (not a Jain as Wikipedia currently states but simply a shraman of which there were at least six prominent schools).
 
With them Yogi Siddhartha gained valuable skill in samadhi (intense concentration) but not enlightenment and liberation from samsara. He had tried extreme pleasure as a prince in the palace. He now tried severe asceticism -- starvation (anorexia mirabilis), holding his breath, not lying down, rarely eating, not caring for the body, exposure to the elements, and seclusion. Both were counterproductive.

 

He discovered the Path by setting off alone, taking food and rest sufficient to support his spiritual (metaphysical) endeavors, and utilizing the purity/intensity of heart-mind brought about by samadhi to support mindful insight-practices, which includes contemplation.

Crucially, he recalled that as a child of seven, he had spontaneously entered meditative absorption (jhana, zen, dhyana, seon, ch'an) under a tree during a planting festival. He had been running from that sort of bliss or joy (piti) for six years of practice since leaving the palace. Although his two teachers had taught samadhi as the goal by way of the eight jhanas, they did not encourage or allow him to develop these absorptions deeply.

It was enough to attain each and move quickly to the next absorption until reaching what they in their respective schools or dharmas (doctrine-disciplines) were regarding as the utmost attainment, as liberation (moksha), as freedom from rebirth (samsara), as nirvikalpa samadhi as if rarefied states of consciousness were nirvana.

But Siddhartha, due to so many exertions in past lives as a yogi, a Himalaya-dwelling hermit, realized, intuited, or felt that this attainment was not the ultimate, not real liberation from samsara, not the unexcellable goal of nirvana.

Reclining Buddha entering nirvana with arhats, Nanzoin Temple (Jepster/flickr)

 
Foolishly today many of us, following in the footsteps of ancient Brahminical and "Hindu" (a recent all-encompassing tradition systematized by Adi Shankara from very ancient texts and Vedic/Brahminical traditions existing at least from the time of the Indus River Valley Civilization up to and including lip service to the Buddha and Mahavira, the founders of the two most popular shramanic traditions that rejected the Vedas, Buddhism and Jainism), mistake the goal of the shramanic Buddha and that of Vedic Brahmins.

This is significant because Mahayana Buddhism, so thoroughly influenced by Brahmanism (precursor of modern "Hinduism"), hold up what Brahmins held up as the ultimate attainment as if it were nirvana.

But the Buddha corrected the teachers of his day, rejecting what the Brahmins taught and what his two wandering yogi teachers had taught him, in favor of what he found by his own efforts as a bodhisattva striving to become a samma sam buddha, a Supremely Enlightened Teacher.

Rohatsu, Jōdō-e (Danny Fisher)

Nirvikalpa samadhi is Hinduism's Advaita, "non-duality." It's what we joke about in the punchline "Make me One with everything." That oneness or non-duality is NOT enlightenment, not nirvana, not liberation from samsara.
 
Is it any wonder, therefore, that Mahayana exalts itself successfully opposing a strawman tradition it set up as Hinayana -- teaching, like the Brahmins, that "Nirvana is Samsara" when it is almost by definition the opposite? (Almost since nirvana cannot be known or defined by concepts, but only known by experience).

And rather than focusing on the historical Buddha, the Brahmins created Mahayana Buddhism in India within 200 years of the Buddha's passing -- created a tradition wherein all the many gods of the previous pantheon became Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Then of these Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, who went on to become Kwan Yin, soon assumed the position of greatest prominence, subordinating insight-wisdom in favor of promoting emotional-compassion.
  
That may not have been what the world really needed (to gain freedom), but it is certainly what it wanted. Sexism in the Judeo-Christian world met with a similar backlash, leading to the rise of the Virgin Mary as the supreme figure of day-to-day veneration. The Buddha was not sexist, nor was Jesus, but the worlds they taught certainly were, and the temple priests (Brahmin/Hindu and Philistine/Jewish) they corrected were.
 

Bodhi is enlightenment. Nirvana is supreme and ultimate liberation from samsara and all the suffering/disappointment inherent in conditioned existence

<sup>That is the real Bodhi Day reflection so that we may all one day be free.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Sr. Kathleen Deignan, CND (MonasticDialog.com)</sup> 
I have always thought it an interesting coincidence that the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the feast of the Buddha’s enlightenment, Bodhi Day, both share this date, December 8. Koans: engaging riddles, provocative questions that if lived awaken insight and a fuller understanding of life...
Bodhi Day 2012 (David Victor Vector)
^{Happy Bodhi Day! (Danny Fisher)}

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What Controversy? Zen's Four Vows

Barbara O'Brien (Buddhism.About.com), Special Correspondence to Wisdom Quarterly

The Americans are onto something. If there are Gateless Gates, why not wordless words?

  

Controversy? I don't see a controversy, although maybe that's because I've been aware for many years that every Zen center and monastery operating with the English language is using a different translation for the Four Vows and the rest of the chanted liturgy as well.

   

I hadn't realized this was bothering anybody. A big part of the Zen tradition is the understanding that the absolute truth cannot be contained in words and concepts, and so the wording is never perfect.

   

It's actually interesting to compare various translations to see how different people have struggled to get closer to what is being expressed. No one, however, will ever get it right. I don't see that as a problem; it's just how it is. My current sangha [practice community], which is in the San Francisco Zen Center lineage, chants the Four Vows twice in Japanese and once in English.
  

The English translation we use is different from the first one I learned, which was the one being used by the Los Angeles Zen Center in the 1980s or so. FYI: The Four Vows Controversy (Zen)
   
Brian Eno, "Sky Saw," from the album Another Green World 
   

The Final Word

Well now that the grande dame of lay American Buddhism has weighed in -- and Richard, Ron, and Don have had their say on behalf of the rebellious ZCLA crowd, a position WQ can cotton to, and Mara is finished researching -- there's nothing left to say. Case closed! Chant in Japanese, and leave it at that. When the words are meaningless, leave them alone. Brian Eno, the famous glam rocker, ambient innovator, and progressive producer for acts like U2, said it best in his abstract song "Sky Saw":    
   

All the clouds turn to words
All the words float in sequence
No one knows what they mean
Everyone just ignores them

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The Four Vows Controversy (Zen)

Mara Shaeffer, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, Kast, Ron, Don, Richard, Pasadharma.org

Roshi Jeff Albrizze and his wife Amanda have a secret to reveal on or about Doomsday 2012.
   

What an amazing announcement. Highly impressed doesn't even begin to cover it. Congratulations! I am seriously considering trying to reincarnate this December just so I can have the coolest Hoodoo parents ever! But I guess I'll wait and give some other chap a chance to enter this realm. Looking forward to the baby shower! -Kast

• THE DEBATE: Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to...

The Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) has a paper on the four vows comparing different translations, including some of the original language.

   

Wikipedia also has an excellent article as well on the topic “Bodhisattva vow.”
   
My final opinion as to what should be chanted has changed every day for the last few days. So I must continue to reflect and research. But I like what I have so far. Zen Master Red Pine made some interesting comments on how he translates his material, when he recently spoke at ZCLA. Combining the meaning with the rhythm and poetry of the words is a big challenge.

• The Zennist: Red Pine's Lankavatara Sutra translation

The Controversy Continues

Bodhidharma in Zen legend

"I didn't think we had a choice. I like Jeff's ideas but I want to remain within the Yokoji Zen Mountain Center/ZCLA orthodoxy." -Ron

"For the first vow, I even like this version even more: 'Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to free them.' Free them from my judgments and self righteousness. For desires, do we really want to end our desire for happiness? Or do we want to bring happiness to others? Which desires do we want to want to end and which keep?" -Don

Sisyphus according to Greek legend

"I wasn't aware that all these different centers used different versions of the four vows. Seeing them all (Thank you, Mara!) gives me a different perspective on this issue than I would have had otherwise. At ZCSD we didn't chant any version of the four vows.

 

"I think of the ZCLA four vows, when I say them, as being sort of an articulation or embodiment of the absurd human condition, in the sense of 'the absurd' being the difference between what one intends (truly, with all one's heart) and what is actually possible. I see them as Sisyphean vows. I'm also used to saying them with the cadence, etc. that we do now and am not all that enthusiastic about having to learn a new way of saying an old, familiar chant.

"But it's fine with me if PasaDharma members who feel strongly about the four vows want to chant a different version of them.

 

"How about chanting them in Japanese? I'd be fine with that, too. There's something to be said for experiencing the act of chanting (hearing, feeling, forming/creating the sounds, etc.) without being distracted by the content of the chant." -Richard
   

The Perfect Wording?

As American Buddhists we already change the original words of the Bodhisattva vows from the Zen traditions of China, Japan, and Korea by translating them into modern English. The benefits of understanding -- Martin Luther would agree -- far outweigh what is lost in translation.
  
Perhaps we should compare translations and find the one that best preserves the meaning of the original wording. That would include their koan/ riddle quality of vowing to attain the apparently  unattainable.
  
Wikipedia has a chart of the original wording used in five languages. ZCLA has notes on the four great vows with the original words and how nine different Zen groups translate them to help us come to a satisfactory interpretation.
 

1. “Masses [of] creatures, without-bounds, [I/we] vow to save (paramita) [them all].”

None of the translations account for the “without-bounds” state referred to in the original vow which is harming the masses. The translation for “save” comes from the word paramita (a "perfection" developed for the sake of becoming a buddha), meaning “to take over to the other shore.” Using the word “serve” for “save” changes the meaning slightly. Serving people is different from saving them. One can serve people in many different ways, and that may lead to saving them from their “without-bounds” state. “Save” seems like a better pick in words for the original paramita, especially when confronting the without-bounds culture we live in today. “I vow to free them” seems almost as good. The ZCLA site suggests the word “enlighten,” which is perhaps the most specific understanding of the word paramita in the Buddhist context and the only thing that is real salvation. “Enlighten” includes the meanings of both “save” and “free” (liberate). This seems to capture that meaning best: 

• “Numberless beings are without bounds, I vow to enlighten them.”

2. “Anxiety, hate, [deluded-desires] (kleshas) inexhaustible, [I/we] vow to break (cut off) [them all].”

“Anxiety, hate, and deluded-desires]” refers to the word klesha(s), which are “mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions (karma).” The three root kleshas are “greed, hate, and delusion” (or “attachment, aversion, and ignorance”), which lead to many other destructive mental states. The words “delusions,” “desires,” “passions,” “obstacles” come close to the original meaning of the word kleshas. Choosing just one of them leaves out a lot, with the remainder being lost in translation. The Diamond Sangha’s choice of wording seems to be the most comprehensive and closest to the original meaning, without resorting to a long list of the different kleshas. The word “sever,” as in “sever ties,” means “to cut off” and fits better with the rhythm of the chant. As much as we would like to “cut off” a particularly troublesome klesha forever, the best we can often hope for is to sever ties to it. It may yet linger waiting for a chance to arise again:

• “Though greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly, I vow to sever them.” 

3. “Dharma gates beyond-measure [I/we] vow to learn [them all].”

Using the word “practice” for “learn” does not imply any sense of attempted accomplishment. “Penetration” implies a beginning level of understanding. “Understanding” indicates a higher level of development beyond just trying to actually practicing. Isn’t this what we should be aiming for? The Diamond Sangha’s translation captures the koan possibilities of the vow best, since, if the Dharma is literally fathomless, understanding is impossible.

• “Though the Dharma is vast and fathomless, I vow to understand it.”

4. “Buddha Way, nothing-higher, [I/we] vow to accomplish [it]”

“Embody” is a great translation for the word “to become, attain, turn into” (bhavana). Spirit (ephemeral intention) becomes flesh (solid materiality). The Diamond Sangha translation catches the koan-like quality best with attaining the unobtainable.” We realize that the vows are unattainable, but we vow to attain them anyway. Does their adding “fully” to the end make it more meaningful? It is hard to be sure. It throws off the rhythm of the chant a little and takes the punch out of “embody.” 

• “Though Buddha’s way is beyond attainment, I vow to embody it.”

The life of an American Buddhist practicing, or trying to practice, in the West

   

So what are we left with?

1. “Though numberless beings are without bounds, I vow to enlighten them.”
2. “Though greed, hatred, and delusion arise endlessly, I vow to sever them.”
3. “Though the Dharma is vast and fathomless, I vow to understand it.”
4. “Though the Buddha’s way is beyond attainment, I vow to embody it.”

What does everyone think? The rhythm and simplicity of the old vows may fall to the wayside, one might appreciate the depth the Diamond Sangha has added with their translations.

   

In our fundamental or Theravada Buddhist tradition, we have five essential vows in the Five Precepts:

1. I vow to abstain from killing.
2. I vow to abstain from stealing.
3. I vow to abstain from sexual irresponsibility.
4. I vow to abstain from deceiving.
5. I vow to abstain from intoxication occasioning heedlessness.

Without our vows, whatever they may be, we join the “masses of creatures without-bounds.” Of course, as with any translation, ultimately the Buddha was right in extolling the virtues of noble silence. The Sufi poet Rumi famously agreed:

   

“Silence is the language of God -- 
All else is poor translation.”

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Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to... (Zen)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Don, Ron, Richard, Pasadharma.org; Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

There are four traditional vows in Zen, a Mahayana Buddhist sect of the Ch'an school as it developed in Japan. They are customarily translated as:

1. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
2. Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
3. The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them.
4. The Buddha-Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

A practitioner at ZCLA (Zen Center of Los Angeles) recently called this translation into question hoping to change it to a new and improved four:

1. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to serve them.
2. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
3. The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to practice them.
4. The Buddha way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it.

Why would anyone tamper with tradition? While Zen Buddhism as practiced in the US is iconoclastic and tends toward rebellion, is it any reason to make this gatha less of a conundrum?

  

Some Zen Buddhists are recovering fundamentalist Christians. And whenever they hear, "Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them," they can only assume it refers to sex. Population control advocates (who seem to im0plicitly favor mass die offs helped along by government interventions) might be put off by the first vow. And similarly the remaining two vows present their own difficulties.

In thinking about these changes for a few weeks, it seems to me that there are several perspectives about this old Sanskrit hymn (gatha) to sit with.

The old version has always been a bit of a koan, an inscrutable riddle that might lead one to enlightenment when one breaks free or lets go of linear reasoning. 

   

Each vow is impossible to fulfill. Yet, many of us have chanted them daily for many years. They speak of a spiritual intention, a higher aspiration. They are a manifestation of attaining the unobtainable. In this way, "Zen" is bigger than I am, bigger than I can wrap my mind around.

  

Do we change them now to make them more accessible? Does making them more palatable by using a more devotional translation take away from the spirit intended?

Admittedly, the old translation is a bit cryptic, even clunky. There is a better flow, a clearer connection between the first state mentioned and the vow that flows from it.

What do folks think about this debate?

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What is "non-duality"? (video)

Amber Dorrian and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Non-duality (Sanskrit, advaita) is oneness, not-two-ism, and the whole is often called "God." This realization, while satisfying and fulsome, is NOT enlightenment, is not nirvana, is not the end of all suffering.

There is an object of perception. We see (or otherwise perceive) it. Therefore, we conclude, there must be a perceiver distinct from the perception.

Although it seems this way, it is an illusion. There is. That much can be said. But what is there? Perception goes on. But who is there?

The Buddha laid out a never-before-heard Middle Path that avoids two extremes in views -- one that things are eternal vs. another that asserts that things are annihilated. But how could it be that it is neither one way nor the other?

To the wise the Buddha explained what really happens, contrary to appearances. "Things" (conditional phenomena, i.e., things that depend on component parts for their existence) do not really arise. Illusion arises. Never having been they certainly cannot be annihilated.

While this may be true for "things" throughout the universe, there are five that arise much closer to home: groups known as form, feeling, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

These things are clung to as self, as the property of a self, as the manifestations of self. When the Buddha mindbogglingly proclaimed that, ultimately speaking, there is no-self (an-atta), he was not at all saying there is nothing.

Things are "empty" (shunyata), that is, devoid of self-existence, identity, continuity. They are impersonal. When we let go, we reduce suffering (the anguish associated with the conjoining of impermanence and clinging).

We (as conglomerates sustained by nourishment, composite entities with five very general components, processes), conventionally speaking, may refer to the aggregates of clinging as ourselves, knowing full well that they do not constitute any kind of self.

This is possible to achieve through deep learning, but it is only really useful when understood through insight (vipassana) on foundations of virtue and concentration (samadhi). Samadhi (the jhanas) is not enough.

What is Duality?

Perceiver vs. perceived, self vs. external phenomena -- this is the fundamental duality. In Vedic Hindu terms, it is the separation of us and the ALL (Brahman, GOD, the ultimate reality). That separation is painful, a severe form of alienation. The solution, then, is given by seers and pundits: It is a blissful reunion (yoga), binding with the supreme (Brahma). It is perceiving the inter-connectedness of ALL in Mahayana Buddhist terms.

But Mahayana was a movement much influenced by Brahmins in India. It relies on the assumptions of a self (atman, atta, soul, self, ego).

This union, this yoga or "yoking" of little-self with the Grand-Self (God or the entire cosmos as an expression of Brahman, the Godhead or ultimate reality behind Maya, the illusion). It runs contrary to the historical Buddha's teachings but is very much in line with the previous Brahminical views espoused in the Vedas and promoted by priests all the way down to Adi Shankara, who formalized "Hinduism" out of the disparate teachings of India based on the Vedas (Knowledge Books, sacred Indian texts).

Non-Duality Panel, Part 1

If one experiences our inter-connectedness, that will be wonderful and is likely to inspire compassion and a liberating feeling of unselfishness. But the way to liberation the Buddha was teaching was selflessness, the realization that nothing can be identified as a self (not even consciousness, which is an ever-changing and insubstantial process rather than any kind of substance).

The moral to the story is that not all spiritual experiences, of which there are many, are fundamental to awakening/enlightenment (bodhi), and liberation (moksha) from rebirth-and-suffering (samsara). What the Buddha designated as nirvana (the unconditioned element as distinct from all conditional phenomena) is very specific; many other traditions simply call their highest experience "nirvana" as if it were referring to the same accomplishment.

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Images of Compassion (NVC)

Wisdom Quarterly; InternationalPeaceAndConflict.org

Joint Vesak celebration 2011, Los Angeles (A. Wells/Wisdom Quarterly)

  
The "Compassion Course" is based on over 24 years of experience as a writer and trainer -- with the last 11 spent studying, living, and teaching nonviolent communication (NVC).

  

Imagine this work open and available to everyone. There are no time or money constraints.

 

This year, 2012, marks the second time the course is offered. The 2011 Compassion Course (just ended) had over 500 participants from every continent. It has been a resounding success (check out the quotes below).

  

As a global community there is a Yahoo! group that connects us daily. There are also monthly conference calls to further expand our connection and learning. Weekly emails with course concepts, stories, and practical applications of the material that empower us to be more compassionate are share. We increase our well-being, passion, and drive with lessons that teach ways of thinking, speaking, and acting (the three modes of generating karma) to allow conflict without harming others. More

• Wanderlust Fest (Suburban City Chix)

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"Killing Buddha" - the movie (video)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

(CFL) Betsy Chasse, co-writer/producer of "What the Bleep Do We Know?!," on her latest independent film, "Killing Buddha."

There is a horrific Mahayana Buddhist expression that -- going against the very heart of Theravada Buddhist sentiment -- runs: “If you see the Buddha on the road, [blank] him.”
     
There are, after all, only five heinous deeds with fixed karmic results: (1) intentionally harming a buddha, (2) matricide, (3) patricide, (4) killing an arhat, (5) or causing a schism in the Sangha.
  
The consequence is rebirth in the most dismal subhuman plane of existence (avici) in the very next rebirth. Cultivating the intention to perform one of these unimaginable acts is mental karma that goes on to become a verbal act of encouraging others. What does it mean?

It is meant to be facetious, ironic, and shocking: “Do not follow teachers; do not set up others on a pedestal; depend on yourself; be a light/island (dipa) unto yourself, taking no teacher other than the Dharma itself as an idol or savior.”
   
An American famous for creating “What the Bleep Do We Know?” is setting her sights on Buddhism. Betsy Chasse was perplexed by the message “You are the one you've been waiting for.” But it came to her through what has become a Mahayana commandment of sorts:
  

Linji the shocking iconoclast

“Embrace Nothing. If you meet the Buddha, k*ll the Buddha… only live your life as it is, not bound to anything.” This saying is attributed to iconoclastic Linji, the 9th century founder of the Linji School of Chán (Chinese jhana) Buddhism.
   

Linji's famous sayings

“Followers of the Way [of Chán], if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a [fully awakened] buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go” (Burston Watson, 1999, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi: A Translation of the Lin-chi lu, p. 52).

  

“Those who have fulfilled the 10 stages of bodhisattva-practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the 51st and 52nd stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and non-teaching buddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys” (Ibid., p. 26). 

    
The Next "What the Bleep?!"  
Chasse wants help. She is asking the public (through crowdfundinglive.com) to participate in this project at any level. Watch videos from the set, look at behind the scenes footage, chat online with the cast and the film makers, and more. She is exchanging these enticements for funding.
   

While distributing What The Bleep Do We Know?! Chasse was honored to travel the world talking about the film. The most common question people asked was, “How did a broke, out of work, spiritually unconscious, material Valley Girl who was into sex, tequila, and expensive shoes end up being a writer, director and producer of What the Bleep Do We Know!?”
   
Sometimes it takes the most unlikely of people in the most unusual of circumstances to create something that touches the world like “Bleep” did. The story Chasse told was so funny and resonated with so many people that she decided to write a film about it, a comedy called “Killing Buddha.” 
  

About-Team-Financial-Media-Updates-Funders-Comments

  

Synopsis

When life is chaotic we are forced to change. This is a lesson successful film producer Sara Wells reluctantly learns when her seemingly perfect life comes crashing down. Desperate for work, she takes on a documentary project about spirituality and the new thought movement. Will “Killing Buddha” mark her triumphant return to the riches she thinks her life once contained?
  
Or will she and her mismatched crew of seekers, believers, and cynics find that ultimately it’s not what you have and what you believe in, but who you become that counts? Think “Bridget Jones gets hired to shoot a documentary about finding the meaning of life.”
   
Funny and lighthearted, “Killing Buddha” is a mainstream comedy that is set to include interviews with some of today's greatest pop spiritual teachers -- Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, and others interacting with the actors as they shoot this “film within the film.”
   

Why make the film?

“Killing Buddha” is a reminder that everything we seek can be found within ourselves. More

• VIDEO: Betsy Chasse interview on Cutting Edge Consciousness
• The four most important civil rights hero(ine)s today 
• Dr. Coldwell's 3-day Success Bootcamp
  

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Sacred Chinese site plans $118 million IPO

CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

(Bloomberg Businessweek) The managers of Putuo Mountain, a Buddhist shrine where worshippers go to pray for healthy children, want to raise 750 million yuan ($118 million) in an initial public offering, China Daily reported today... 

  

Plans for the offering by one of China’s four main Buddhist mountains come as China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs has criticized local governments for seeking to turn a profit off religious sites. More

• Religious sites face capital temptation
• (China Daily) Plans by local authorities to list famous Buddhist mountains on the country's equity markets are triggering a backlash regarding the commercialization of holy sites.

Lowest of sacred mountains (english.cri.cn)

Putuo Shan is one of the islands of the Zhoushan Archipelago, Ningbo, eastern China, which is comprised of 1,390 islands. The total area of Putuo Mountain is 12.93 square kilometers. It is one of China’s four great Buddhist Mountains. Putuo Mountain is the first group of national key places of interest, generally called [Chinese or Pureland] Buddhist Heaven on the sea and the Holy Land on the South Sea. It is a Five-A tourist destination in China. The immortal mountains [wrapped] in clouds and [surrounded by] waters offer travelers a feeling of mystery and sanctity. Putuo Mountain is a famous Kwan-Yin ceremonial center in China...

  

Monks go on 500-mile journey on their knees to Putuo

Mahayana monks making their way to Kwan Yin

A pair of Buddhist monks are to make a 500-mile journey on their knees to the religion's holiest shrines in China. Masters Zhiyuan and Hanliang will spend two months crawling to 99 temples on their way to the Putuo Mountains in eastern China until they reach a statue of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist goddess (bodhisattva) of mercy.... "They will crawl, and then every third step they will stop and bow as a sign of respect to the goddess," explained one.

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Suicide and Self-Immolation in Tibet (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

(ITN News)  Disturbing video from the Free Tibet group allegedly shows a Tibetan Buddhist monk after he committed self-immolation in Ngaba (Aba). Report by Mark Morris.

Suicide is never advisable. Running from suffering (dukkha) by running toward more suffering is no way to end suffering.
   
Self-martyrdom is no way to garner attention of a cause. The world knows Tibet is suffering. Decades ago when the CIA entered the Himalayas to thwart China, India, and Central Asian states and assert strategic control of the Himalayan region, it brokered a deal with the Dalai Lama and Tibet's church-and-state government. 
  
The result has been part of fallout of that devil's bargain.
  

Chinese police beat burn survivors to death and courts imprison others.

    

The Dalai Lama, technically speaking, by accepting such aid and advice from US imperial forces (the West's multinational Military-Industrial Complex) became a CIA operative. When did he ever renounce his membership? What did that lesser-of-two-evils choice do for Tibet?

   

It may have kept Tibet on the map. But the US can neither control China nor defeat it. In its attempt to subvert the world's biggest country, it has made Tibet a pawn.

   

As Tibet is seen to align with Western military forces and India, who hosts its government-in-exile in Dharamsala to spite China, China applies medieval police state special weapons and tactics (SWAT) on it. Those weapons and tactics are American exports.

   

Self-immolation only causes China humiliation, and it uses the loss of face to justify becoming more and more draconian

   

What do the US, MIC, NATO, or any other Western nation do? They secretly fund and train paramilitary forces around the world on how to use these exact same tactics against civilian populations.

  

In the meantime, Buddhism is misrepresented as applauding this form of suicide and self-directed violence.

  

(SVS) Stratfor's Rodger Baker, Vice President of Strategic Intelligence, examines the tactic of self-immolation as a way to galvanize protest movements.

   

Self-immolators are exhibiting nationalist tendencies far more than exemplifying any Buddhist teaching. 

   

A selfless act in line with anatta ("not-self," the impersonal nature of ego, the physical-and-psychological phenomena we feel closest to) or shunyata (the "emptiness" of all conditioned phenomena) would exhibit qualities the Buddha was famous for: 

• equanimity (non-bias), compassion, kindness, wisdom...

In desperation, to heat up a cold war with the Chinese Empire, guerrilla tactics are no way to win. We burn ourselves, we burn the other, and we both are the worse for it.

   

Of course, as humans, as Buddhists, as Americans, we side with Tibet. Of course, we side with the 14th Dalai Lama (a benevolent king/pope, who fortunately retired from his role as head of state). But we do not side with the forces of war.

  

It is not clear that the CIA is any better than the Chinese Communist regime putting into effect its own dreams of empire. 

  

Will the CIA/MIC win and deliver semi-autonomous Tibetan, Uygur, and Taiwanese regions to freedom? Not a chance. It is only exchanging one dictator for another. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" (The Who). Look what CAI/MIC plotted using Japan to ransack China's gold during the time of the pre-Communist government.

• PHOTOS: Magic pictures of Buddha(s)

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