President Obama Visits Wat Pho Monastery in Bangkok, Thailand.

The above image is one of my favorite pictures of late. U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Clinton recently visited Wat Pho monastery and head-monk, Chaokun Suthee Thammanuwat in Thailand, Bangkok (link). The American leaders both observed the Buddhist tradition of removing shoes before ending a temple. In the blue trousers is U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The one wearing socks and dark blue slacks is President Obama. The head-monk is the one wearing orange.

I find this image so striking and full of lessons. The photo is poignant reminder that regardless of our station in life, we are all sentient beings having the same worth and importance. If I didn't mention the names, we'd never know who those feet represent. In this angle, President Obama isn't the most powerful man in the world but simply another sentient walking the path of life.

The picture evokes letting go of our egos and the self-important images we sometimes display. This photo transcends their lofty titles of president, secretary and monk to expose them as being just like the rest of us. They must walk the path of samsara like all of us. They have weaknesses, attachments and set-backs like any other human being, regardless of their importance. How wonderful a lesson it is to view life from alternative perceptions and angles. In this case, literally!!

~i bow to the buddha within all beings~

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New views from Mars (photos)

This is a full-circle scene combining 817 images taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

  

The US space agency NASA is calling it the "next best thing to being" on the Red Planet (AFP).

 

Color adjusted and distorted in the same way, this undated image provided by NASA shows Mars Rover Opportunity catching its own late-afternoon shadow in a view eastward across Endeavour Crater on Mars. 

 

The rover used a panoramic camera between about 4:30 and 5:00 pm local Mars time to record images taken through different filters and combined into this mosaic view. Most of the component images were recorded during the 2,888th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars, which corresponds to March 9, 2012 on Earth.

  

The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see [and obscure its stunning similarity to the Earth's surface], such as the dark sandy ripples and dunes on the crater's distant floor. Opportunity has been studying the western rim of Endeavour Crater since arriving there in August 2011 (AP/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State University).

• More photos

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Pussy Riot: Punks Against Putin (video)

TheWorld.org; Guardian.co.uk; Wisdom Quarterly

Russia was never actually atheist. That was just an official position. Siberia is Buddhist as was the USSR in Central Asia (including the only indigenously Buddhist part of Europe: Kalmykia. But "Russians" are Christians who conquered neighboring lands for empire. It is a country of blue-eyed blondes. It tried to do the right thing and live communally. But corruption ruined it. Punks call out its new emperor, Putin, a KGB chief and uber-hypocrite to rival US leaders.

The all-female Russian punk band Pussy Riot ran afoul of the Kremlin with protest performances [in church]. Their impromptu show in one of Moscow’s holiest sanctuaries, the [Eastern Orthodox] Cathedral of Christ the Savior, was pretty wild. They sang their tune, “Holy Mother, Throw Putin Out!” The women were arrested in February and have been in jail since [after their video of the stunt garnered too much attention and they became a scapegoat for Putin’s dilemma].
   
Last week a judge ordered them to remain in custody to await their July trial. And if they’re eventually convicted, they face up to seven years in prison. The Moscow News Deputy Editor Natalia Antonova wrote in The Guardian last week that the women are “scapegoats for Russia’s political crisis.” She tells [TheWorld.org’s] anchor Marco Werman why: More 

• Pussy Riot are scapegoats for Russia's political crisis
• The World: Russia’s Anti-Putin All-Girl Punk Band
• Swedish fans bemused by topless protest (FEMEN)
• VIDEO: "The Invisible War" - U.S. military sexism
• PHOTOS: Topless protest in Ukraine for Swedish fans

VIDEO: FEMEN activists go topless chanting "F**k Euro!"

Italian: Miss Euro 2012 supporters paint their nude bodies

PHOTOS: Topless protest at Warsaw Stadium for Euro 2012

FEMEN, like many Europeans, is against the Euro system.

• Who is FEMEN? (Bikini Drill Team @ Occupy LA)

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Thai Buddhist Monk: The Hands of Change.

Those tattooed and weathered hands and arms have seen a lot of change and yet they are still relaxed. They are a testament that the Buddha's teachings stand the test of time. The tattoos speak of the wisdom his body has absorbed from a lifetime of practicing the Dharma. If those hands could talk, I'm sure they'd have quite an inspiring story to tell!!

~I bow the Buddha within all beings~

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