Real "fasting" for Ramadan

Sabadabadooo (The Brown Girl Chronicles) 

Moderate fasting help many paths to meditation

In light of Ramadan, now that Boudicaspeaks [almost as if the Bouddha, rather than Boudica, were speaking] has given you an overview of fasting beyond just no food or drink, I feel the need to discuss something that I strive to do any time of the year: 

  

Remembering GOD or zikr. However, for me the intensification of Remembering God is a different one this year. Many will say that fasting helps do this, but I have found it is all about first silencing the mind, and then intensifying that silence with the hunger. I mean, being hungry and tired surely brings about silence, but I still have yet to reach that truly meditative silence.
 

“Silence is the Language of God,

All Else is Poor Translation” 

-Rumi

   

Persian mystic poet Rumi (Hossein Behzad)

No matter what state of spirituality I am in (and I do not believe in stages, but rather highs and lows), zikr reminds me of the source of spiritual refuge in this universe, regardless of what religion people classify themselves under.

Rather than trying to push forward our own views about right and wrong and the way people ought to live, it may just help to simply be silent, both physically and even mentally (and I can relate to mentally with my constantly wandering mind). More

“Out beyond ideas of right and wrong,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.  

When the soul lies down in that grass,

The world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

Does not make any sense.”

-Rumi (A Shot of Zen)

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Buddha Boy eats, drinks, speaks (video)

Team Palden Dorje; PaldenDorje.com; Seven, Dorrian, Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

On April 11th, 2012, at 1:32 pm local time [Wisdom Quarterly's spiritual hero] Buddha Boy (aka Ram Bahadur Bomjon, now Maha Sambodhi Dharmasangha guru-jii, formerly Tapaswi Palden Dorje) took wholesome food and water offered by his assistant monk named Buddha.

   

Why do we revere a guru?

Martilmb (LandOfMedicineBuddha.org); Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Buddha Boy takes offered food (TeamPaldenDorje)

According to many Buddhists, particularly Mahayanists, the purpose of this life is to help others. This is more pronounced in a subdivision of Mahayana known as Vajrayana. Bodhisattvas and Vajrasattvas help free all sentient beings from the suffering they experience and to lead them all to peerless enlightenment, a state beyond sorrow. But in order help sentient beings, first we ourselves must reach enlightenment (becoming at least stream enterers). In order to do that, we need the twin tools of compassion and wisdom. the best teachers are those accomplished in these qualities. There is an ancient Indian devotional practice called guru puja ("worship" or devotedness) to connect with such the guru (teacher) and thank him/her for teachings given. Northern California's LOMB performs such rituals. And at the end of June 2012, the "Relics Tour" comes to LOMB.

2012 Dharma Speech

English translation edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Buddha Boy's Maitreya Puja (paldenjorje.com)

(March 21) Having followed the path of the true Dharma in search of purest path, I am giving the timeless message at the world Peace Maitri Puja (Loving-Kindness Devotional). It lovingly benefits all Dharma-loving followers striving for the liberation of all sentient beings from suffering and pain. This takes the form of the Guru-Marga (Path of following a Teacher). The Bodhi Shravan Dharma Sangha (Enlightened Wanderer Liberating-Truth Community), which was established having arrived on Earth 35,000 years ago according to the Maitri Calender. Just as a flower without obstruction freely offers its beauty and fragrance to the entire universe, so should humans eliminate from their lives attachment (clinging), anger, greediness, craving for sensual desires, pride, wrath, violence, killing (motivated by aversion or fear), and other defilements. For unless one cultivates the true Dharma's precepts, the fragrant flower cannot blossom. These things are obstructions, obstacles, hindrances.
   

Buddha Boy addresses followers June 4th, 2011

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Buddha Boy's Divine Powers (video)

UPDATED June 18, 2012 - Wisdom Quarterly (REPORTING); Etapasvi.com (video)

Buddha Eyes overlook Kathmandu Valley, Bodhnath Stupa, Nepal (Cococinema/flickr.com)

 

The following documentary was made when Buddha Boy (now Ven. Dharma Sangha) had been meditating for three years without food or water. Controversy swirled around him. And few seemed to notice the more extreme miracle: It is extremely difficult if not impossible to sit in meditation for very long. It can be done by superhuman force. But no amount of force can get a teenager to do it for hours on end, day after day, month after month. (Test yourself: Try to sit still for five whole minutes, then imagine that multiplied by 288, the number of five-minute increments in a day, then by...). How many five-minute increments had there been for Buddha Boy in the first ten months? Yet he sat motionless all day long while people stared and filmed and tried to keep up. It's impossible, a "miracle" in and of itself. It was so unbelievable that people said it had to be a mannequin they were staring at. But he moved slightly, he was sweating, he wasn't going to the restroom, which he would have to if he were secretly being fed and given water. Fasting is not the miracle. The real miracle is overcoming the mental chatter ("monkey mind") while sitting with himself and the physical discomfort of not taking breaks.

• NOTE: it is impossible and no knowledgeable person asserts that this is the historical Buddha reborn. Having attained final nirvana (parinirvana), there is no possibility of that. What the locals mean is that Buddha Boy is a bodhisattva, a buddha-to-be, reborn into this world to gain supreme enlightenment and become a teacher pointing the way to the final end of all suffering.
• Giant [final nirvana] Buddha found in Afghanistan

(Etapasvi) "Buddha Boy" is the popular misnomer of Ram Bahadur Bomjon, who was eventually ordained and became Ven. Tapaswi Palden Dorje. 

Buddha Boy, Ven. Dharma Sangha, Palden Dorje

His stated goal was to sit and realize the liberating truth. The many visitors, onlookers, and investigators were disrupting him. He soon realized that would take six years, just as it had the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni, "the Sage [muni] of the Shakya Clan"). When he left the area, he found a new banyan tree to sit under. But he also began to teach, and his message was PEACE. That seemed unlikely in the turmoil of Nepal, which has gone from a corrupt monarchy through a Maoist-revolution to some semblance of a republic. He also stood up to protest the barbaric "Old Testament" Brahmin practice of slaughtering an unbelievable number of animals to appease the Hindu gods (Nepal's Mass Animal Sacrifice) during the Gadhi Mai Fest. But the news reaching us today is that Nepal and its former-"last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom" neighbor Bhutan have become the most peaceful nations in South Asia. His immediate goal seemed to have become to bring peace to Nepal. Mission accomplished.
   

Bhutan, Nepal most peaceful in South Asia

India.NYDailyNews.com, June 14th 2012

Vajrayana Buddhist novices (samaneras) in Nepal and Bhutan (india.nydailynews com)

  

Bhutan and Nepal have been named the first and second most peaceful South Asian nations, respectively. The Asia Pacific region is the fourth most peaceful region in the world.

Bhutan and Nepal have taken the first and second spots as the most peaceful countries in South Asia, according to the latest Global Peace Index (GPI).

  

The study, conducted by the Australia and US-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), has ranked Nepal in the 80th place after Bhutan among the 158 nations it took into account.

  

While India figures much behind, in the 142nd position, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have been ranked 103rd, 91st, and 149th among the countries respectively.

  

The GPI, released late on Tuesday, shows Bhutan tops in South Asia with the 19th position, while China has slid in the peace index to 89th from the 80th position last year.

  

According to the report, deaths related to internal conflict, displaced people, weapons export, heavy weapons, armed service personnel, death from external conflict, weapon imports, and jailed population have declined in Nepal. More

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