The Holyman and Harlot in Heaven

Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

Prostitution in Zurich (now.msn.com)

 

Nudity in China (blog.holachina.net)

A holyman lived happily on a peaceful street. One day the empty house across from him was bought. 

 

He stared out of his window at it and before long, seeing many men coming and going, became convinced that it was being used as a brothel.

 

He soon saw a beautiful woman coming to the window staring out across the street at him. 

He became incensed, "She's mocking me! That woman of ill repute has no right to live across from the holy precincts of this temple!" 

By chance that woman died and the holyman died as well. He was eager to see heaven for the dispensing of some karmic justice; the woman was abashed. 

But he was alarmed when he found himself being pulled back to Earth to be reborn, whereas the woman was drawing up to be reborn in some minor paradise in space. 

"Something's gone wrong!" he shouted. "I'm a holyman; she's a wh*re! Why am I being cast away while she advances?!"

Buddhist heavens (Angelo G.I.O./flickr)

A gentle messenger (gandharva) explained that he had been a corrupt man in life, his heart/mind defiled, always condemning others for the faults he thought he detected. And this in spite of the fact that he lived what could have been a peaceful life of spiritual development with the blessing (benefit) of being taken care of as a holyman with time to cultivate spiritual qualities as others worked for their livelihood.

 

That woman, on the other hand, had led a life of hardship and even desperation that led her to resort to what she could do to get by, and nevertheless did not give up hope of one day gaining something better for herself.

One cutting example was shown to the holyman. The messenger recounted that she would frequently come to her window between visitors to a house she felt trapped in. There she would look out across the street in admiration of the temple and the peaceful old holyman in the window looking back at her. 

She wished more than anything that she could live as peacefully as he lived, cared for and contented, rather than being sunk in the mire of her degrading existence.

 

"What had you done?" the messenger asked. "What had you been thinking?" Abashed, the holyman fell back to Earth more humble, less judgmental, full of appreciation that he could again live on a planet only half sunk in mire. 

Instead, what might have come his way had he not lived and cultivated some beautiful karmic impulses (cittas) that enabled him to enjoy another rare opportunity to live on Earth.

"If you want to make GOD* laugh, tell [it] your plans."

*"GOD" here is not "God," the supreme god of various warring religious factions in the world but rather what they be hinting at and crediting their god with, which was understood by ancient Indian seers as that ineffable, impersonal, unimaginable godhead the Brahmin priests called Brahman, which should never be confused with Brahma. GOD in this sense is the all, the interplay of karma and results, the enduring reality behind the transient illusions in life.

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Scientists find brain's "moral compass"

DailyMail.co.uk (March 30, 2010); Wisdom Quarterly

[MIT] scientists have discovered a real-life "moral compass" in the brain that controls how we judge other people's behavior.

The region, which lies just behind the right ear, becomes more active when we think about other people's misdemeanors or good works.

Morality is a better guide than parents, gods

In an extraordinary experiment, researchers were able to use powerful magnets to disrupt this area of the brain and make people temporarily less moral.

The study highlights how our sense of right and wrong isn't just based on upbringing, religion, or philosophy -- but by the biology of our brains.

Dr. Liane Young, who led the study, said: "You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing."

Red does not indicate the compass (mit.edu)

The moral compass lies in a part of the brain called the right temporo-parietal junction. It lies near the surface of the brain, just behind the right ear.

The researchers at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used a non-invasive technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the area of the brain.

The technique generates a magnetic field on a small part of the skull which creates weak electric currents in the brain. These currents interfere with nearby brain cells and prevent them from firing normally.

In the first experiment, 12 volunteers were exposed to the magnetic field for 25 minutes before they were given a series of "moral maze" style scenarios.

Religion is a problem: Advice to Kalamas

For each of the 192 scenarios, they were asked to make a judgment about the character's actions on a scale of 1 for "absolutely forbidden" to 7 for "absolutely permissible."

In the second experiment, the magnetic field was applied to their heads at the time they were asked to weigh the behavior of the characters in the scenario.

In both experiments, the magnetic field made the volunteers less moral. More
 
How can anyone tell anyone else what's right or wrong? 
Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY) 

Has U.S. lost its moral compass?

Debating "right" and "wrong" is futile. Buddhism speaks not in this simplistic way but rather of skillful (kusala) and unskillful (akusala) behavior: what acts lead to suffering, when they come to fruition, and which do not. We do not make decisions based on rational bases, reasoning, calculating, and arriving at some objective plan. We depend on emotions and our "guts" (the sources of many neurons and most of the body's serotonin). To follow our bliss we first have to be mindful enough to notice it. It is a subtle joy one feels, not a logic one deduces. One never feels happier, more buoyant, more relieved, more effervescent than when entering the early absorptions, meditative jhanas, based on virtue, concentration as the mind/heart begins to cohere, and ease. Piti and sukkha, joy and happiness are the natural result. In daily life, little contentment, bliss, or joy occur spontaneous to flood the body; likewise little moral dread (otappa) occurs when we engage in behaviors (breaking precepts) that are sure to bring unwelcome, unwanted misery.  
 

The Buddha said "come and see" not "believe!"

Killing, stealing, sexual harm, perjury, intoxication occasioning heedlessness cannot lead to happiness but, clearly, someone who steals can enjoy ill-gotten gains. Why? The act (karma) has not matured and borne its result. When it does it will surely be experienced as misery. This is what the Buddha taught and what made him a karmavadin, a teacher of actions with moral consequences. If it were not so, we would not say so. Who wouldn't rather do whatever s/he wanted? Mystics teach what they see as seers (rishis) not what will make them popular and lauded in their day. Truth is true whether anyone sees it or not. Fortunately, all that the Buddha said is personally verifiable in this very life. The Buddha taught the path to that knowledge and vision.  
 

There is no blind faith in Buddhism to act as beacon. Ironically, as Americans, most of us prefer Zen under the mistaken assumption that it's a DIY religion of no religion, a rebel stance, an anachronistic hodgepodge of senseless koans, blunts, and aphorisms no one really understands. In fact, "zen" means jhana, which is almost synonymous with moral blamelessness. Without virtue, the heart/mind remains uneasy, full of misgivings, worried about things done (unskillful karma) and left undone (skillful karma), and unconcentrated. And it is exactly a calm, cool, collected and therefore intensely concentrated (samadhi) mind/heart that leads to zen (meditation), that is Zen, that bears the fruits of the path: virtue --> concentration --> wisdom.

By ourselves is good/evil done

Or left undone.

By ourselves are we

purified or defiled.

   

No one saves us but ourselves;

No one can and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path;

Buddhas only point the way!   

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Mermaids were real (video)

Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. (AngelTherapy.com); Ashley Wells, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

(4AngelTherapy) Virtue, guitarist for Obsidian (with Mark Watson and Tatiana), and friend Angela Hartfield go on a mermaid adventure to the Obsidian song "Find That Place." Concert footage from March 2011 Vancouver show; ocean footage in Kona, Hawaii, Fiji; video footage and editing by Jeff Leicher at Jack's Diving Locker, Kona; concert footage by Michael Allen.

 

Bhumi-devi Doreen Virtue (angeltherapy.com)

If dogs are man's best friend, dolphins are women's. And it's okay. According to geneticists and other scientists examining fossilized structures, dogs and dolphins evolved one to the other. They are both mammals breathing atmospheric air rather than strictly depending on air filtered from water through gills.

 

AQUATIC APE theorists are onto something! And everything Virtue is saying is strangely echoed in something the Buddha's chief male disciple Maha Moggallana, "foremost in psychic powers," said about mermaids in the middle of the ocean, according to Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of the Middle Length Discourses (MN 50.25) :

"In the middle of the ocean

There are mansions aeon-lasting,

Sapphire-shining, fiery-gleaming

With a clear translucent lustre,

Where iridescent sea-nymphs dance

In complex, intricate rhythms."

(MN 50.25, Ven. Nanamoli/Bhikkhu Bodhi translation)

There be dragons too (Evs in Nz)

Last night Dr. Virtue dazzled millions by talking about the reality of mermaids on Coast to Coast. They really used to exist on Earth, the surface of which was made to cover 70% of this planet.  The water was brought here. And our bodies are 70% water. Because mer-persons (mer meaning mar, maritime, marine, "ocean"), once as common as dolphins, were killed off, they came to exist only as earthbound-devas, subtle energy light beings, water-delighting fairies. Seamen have been spotting them for millenia.

The archetype is powerful in our collective consciousness. We all recognize them. Many of us are drawn to them. And Dr. Virtue makes it possible with the help of modern technology and a variety of unifin/monofin models.

From Coast to Coast

Spiritual psychologist Doreen Virtue was on Coast to Coast discussing her study of mermaids and mer-people, as well as dolphins and their possible connection to Atlantis and the star Sirius.
 
The Dogon people of Africa knew this, having been told by visitors from the Dog Star (Sirius, Canis Majoris).

  

(Canvas of Light/flickr.com)

Based on her research of both ancient texts and artifacts, as well as past life regressions she herself has conducted, Dr. Virtue concludes that mer-people absolutely existed and were separate from manatees, dolphins, and bipedal humans. "These were real beings who used the gills that humans are always born with but that cover over as the embryo grows, and were able to consume the oxygen that was in the water," she said. More

• DOLPHINS are as intelligent (or more so according to her and the HHGTTG) as humans. Civilians recently blocked a military-industrial complex (MIC) plan to sonically blast the waters in front of a nuclear plant in California, which would have harmed countless water mammals and possibly led to the kind of seismic activity it purported to be studying.
• ANGELS (devas, messengers, divas, lit. "shining ones") have something to tell us. Eat organic produce. "The reason is the angels are trying to get us off the toxic GMOs," she reveals, "so these guardians are trying to keep us safe, keep us healthy, and not be victims of the depopulation scheme." 

VIDEO: Hey, let's go kill some stupid dolphins! (ABC)
Girls "indecently" attacked by Catholic nun now on trial
Videogames go for mythology denied us by science
Canadian press exposes UFOs hovering around ISS
After "New Atheism," let's rehumanize Humanism

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Future Dangers (sutra)

Wisdom Quarterly translation (Anagata Bhayani Sutras)

Time bells and Buddhas in Borobudur, Indonesia (H. Koppdelaney/H-K-D/Flickr.com)

  
Monastics, there are five future dangers. They are enough, when considered, for one living apart -- heedful, ardent, determined -- to live well. So one will attain the unattained, reach the unreached, realize the unrealized. What are the five?

    

1. At present I am young, dark-haired, endowed with the blessings of youth, in the prime (first stage) of life. 

  

But a time will come when this body will be beset by old age. Overcome with old age and decay, it is difficult to pay attention to the Buddha's teachings. It is difficult to reside isolated, withdrawn.

   

Before this unwelcome, disagreeable, displeasing thing happens, let me make an effort for the attaining the unattained, reaching of the unreached, realizing unrealized so that -- endowed with that Dharma -- I will live in peace even when old. This is the first future danger.

  

2. One reminds oneself, At present I am free from disease and discomfort, endowed with strong digestion. But a time will come when this body will be beset with some illness. When one is overcome with illness, it is difficult to pay attention to the Buddha's teachings....
    
Before this unwelcome, disagreeable, displeasing thing happens, let me make an effort for the attaining the unattained, reaching of the unreached, realizing unrealized so that -- endowed with that Dharma -- I will live in peace even when ill. This is the second future danger.

   

Famine

Famine strikes everywhere (mtholyoke.edu)

3. One reminds oneself, At present food is plentiful and alms are easy to come by. It is easy to maintain oneself by gleanings and patronage. But a time will come when there is famine: Food is scarce, alms are hard to come by, and it is not easy to maintain oneself. When there is famine, people will congregate where food is plentiful. There they will live struggling crowded together.

   

When one is living crowded together, it is not easy to pay attention to the Buddha's teachings. It is not easy to reside isolated, withdrawn. Before this unwelcome, disagreeable, displeasing thing happens, let me first make an effort to attain, reach, and realize the unrealized so that -- endowed with that Dharma -- I will live in peace even when there is famine. This is the third future danger.

   

Savage groups invade other countries (TV.com)

4. One reminds oneself, At present people are in harmony, on friendly terms, free of quarreling, mixing like milk and water, viewing one another with affectionate eyes. But a time will come when there is an invasion by savage groups. Taking power they will surround the country. Due to this, people will congregate where it is safe. There they will live struggling crowded together.

  

When one is crowded together, it is difficult to pay attention to the Buddha's teachings. It is difficult to reside isolated, withdrawn. Before this unwelcome, disagreeable, displeasing thing happens, let me first make an effort to attain, reach, and realize the unrealized so that -- endowed with that Dharma -- I will live in peace even when there is an invasion. This is the fourth future danger.

   

5. One reminds oneself, At present the community (Sangha) lives in harmony, is on friendly terms, is free of quarreling, abiding in comfort with a single recitation (of the rules of self-discipline). But a time will come when the community splits.

  

When it is split, it is difficult to pay attention to the Buddha's teachings. It is difficult to reside isolated, withdrawn. Before this unwelcome, disagreeable, displeasing thing happens, let me first make an effort to attain, reach, and realize the unrealized so that -- endowed with that Dharma -- I will live in peace even when the community is split. This is the fifth future danger.
   

These are just enough, when considered, for one -- heedful, ardent, and determined -- to live for attaining the unattained, reaching the unreached, realizing the unrealized.

   

Five further future dangers

In search of solitude (presscluboftibet.org)

1. One reminds oneself, I am now living alone, secluded, in the wilderness where a snake may bite me, a scorpion sting me, a crawling thing pierce me. And I would die. This death would be an obstruction for me. So let me make an effort for the attainment, reaching, and realization of what is yet to be realized [for the sake of wisdom and liberation]. This is the first future danger.

  

2. One reminds oneself, I am now living alone, secluded, in the wilderness where

• I might fall,
• Improperly digested food might afflict me,
• Bile might be aggravated,
• Phlegm might be aggravated,
• Piercing bodily winds might be aggravated.

And I would die. This death would be an obstruction for me. So I should strive and put forth effort for attaining, reaching, and realizing what is yet to be realized. This is the second future danger.

  

3. One reminds oneself, I am now living alone, secluded, in the wilderness where vicious beasts might attack. And I would die. This death would be an obstruction for me. So let me make an effort for attaining, reaching, and realizing what is yet to be realized. This is the third future danger.

  

4. One reminds oneself, I am now living alone, secluded, in the wilderness where I might run into youthful thugs bent on crime. And I would die. This death would be an obstruction for me. So let me make an effort for attaining, reaching, and realizing what is yet to be realized. This is the fourth future danger.

  

5. One reminds oneself, I am now living alone, secluded, in the wilderness where there are vicious [nonhuman, spirit] beings that might attack. And I would die. This death would be an obstruction for me. So let me make an effort for attaining, reaching, and realizing what is yet to be realized. This is the fifth future danger.

    

Yet another five future dangers

Could the military-banking elite ruin the 99%?

[The Buddha taught:] Five dangers will arise in the future. Remain alert to them, and strive to get rid of them. What five? 
   
1. In the future there will be monastics who are undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind (heart), and wisdom. They will fully ordain as monastics others yet will be unable to discipline them in terms of higher virtue, higher mind, and higher wisdom. They, too, will remain undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind, and wisdom.

From corrupt Dharma comes corrupt discipline; from corrupt discipline comes corrupt Dharma. This, disciples, is the first danger that will arise in the future. Be alert to it, and work to get rid of it.
   

2. In the future there will be monastics undeveloped in skillful conduct, undeveloped in virtue, undeveloped in mind, undeveloped in wisdom. They will take on students yet will be unable to discipline them in higher virtue, mind, and wisdom.

They, too, will be undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind, and wisdom. They will take on students yet will be unable to discipline them in higher virtue, mind, and wisdom. They, too, will remain undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind, and wisdom.

   

From corrupt Dharma comes corrupt discipline, and from corrupt discipline comes corrupt Dharma. This, disciples, is the second danger that will arise in the future. Be alert to it, and work to get rid of it.

  

Next time, a bigger pretext for war?

3. In the future there will be monastics undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind, and wisdom who, when giving a talk on higher Dharma or a discourse of questions and answers, will fall into dark mental states without being aware of it. 

From corrupt Dharma comes corrupt discipline, and from corrupt discipline comes corrupt Dharma. This, disciples, is the third danger that will arise in the future. Be alert to it, and work to get rid of it.

4. In the future there will be monastics undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind, and wisdom. They will not listen when discourses (sutras) composed of the Tathagata's words -- deep, profound, transcendent, impersonal -- are being recited.

They will not lend ear, will not set their hearts on knowing, will not regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering.

   

But they will listen when literary works -- works of poets, elegant in sound and rhetoric, the work of outside teachers, words of disciples -- are recited as discourses.

   

They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping and mastering. 

   

From corrupt Dharma comes corrupt discipline, and from corrupt discipline comes corrupt Dharma. This, disciples, is the fourth danger that will arise in the future. Be alert to it, and work to get rid of it.

   

Reflecting lay life  (Woutertje010/flickr.com)

5. In the future there will be monastics undeveloped in skillful conduct, virtue, mind, and wisdom. They will become monastic elders (theras) living in luxury, lethargic, foremost in falling back, shirking the duties of solitude and (mental and physical) withdrawal.
  

They will fail to make an effort to attain the unattained, reach the unreached, realizing the unrealized. They will become an example for later generations, who will become luxurious in their living, lethargic, foremost in falling back, shirking the duties of solitude and withdrawal, who will fail to make an effort to attain the unattained, reach the unreached, realize the unrealized. 

From corrupt Dharma comes corrupt discipline, and from corrupt discipline comes corrupt Dharma. This, disciples, is the fifth danger that will arise in the future. Be alert to it, and work to get rid of it.

  

These are the five dangers that will arise in the future. Be alert to them, and work to get rid of them.

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Mind Revolution (B. Alan Wallace video)

AlanWallace.org; via Buddhist Geek VincentHorn.com

B. Alan Wallace (Roads to Bliss)

“…This is something that had been postponed for 300 years from the time of Copernicus. Can you imagine 300 years of the development of science -- of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, etc., etc., 300 years before they actually started the scientific study of the mind?

“That should throw you back for a moment if you’ve not quite thought of it in those terms. This is bizarre. The mind is that with which you’re doing all the science. It would be like somebody giving you an instrument and saying, 'Use this instrument; you will discover a lot of things' then waiting 300 years before you actually look at the instrument itself.”

This video and quote come from B. Alan Wallace’s talk “Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences.” 

  

The cool thing is that he is giving this talk to Google employees! Vince Horn met Alan in July and had a chance to listen to this talk in Boulder. It’s an excellent talk on the history of the physical and biological sciences in the West.

  

His theory on how the mind sciences are about to go through an equally profound revolution like the revolutions related to Galileo and Darwin in the physical and biological sciences respectively.

   

Meditation, of course, is first person introspection. So it -- refining the instrument -- has a lot to do with empirical Western sciences. Reading Wallace’s superb book The Attention Revolution goes a long way to examining the instrument as well.

Who in the world is?

Google TechTalks August 8, 2006 B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970. He is currently seeking ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices and Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies ( http://sbinstitute.com ). ABSTRACT Galileo took a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the physical sciences, and a key element in this revolution was the rigorous, sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences, and the missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorous, precise observations of mental phenomena. By integrating the third-person methodologies...all »B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar-practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, at one time serving as translator for the 14th Dalai Lama. He seeks ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices with Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (sbinstitute.com). 

(Think and Be Happy) How are mental wellbeing and hedonic pleasure to be

distinguished? What types of mental, verbal, physical behaviors support and/or

undermine the cultivation of mental balance?  How does it relate to wellbeing?

ABSTRACT 

Galileo and some nearby planets

Galileo played a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the hard physical sciences. A key element in this revolution was the rigorous and sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences. The missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorously precise observations of mental phenomena as established in the Buddhist Abhidharma. By integrating third-person methodologies common in the cognitive sciences with the first-person modes of examining the mind, which have been developed in Buddhism and other contemplative spiritual traditions, our present generation may bring about the first real revolution in the mind sciences

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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."

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