Wisdom Quarterly

Occupy LA-Wisdom Quarterly activities

2011-11-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

Council of Elders, Occupy Los Angeles, Wisdom Quarterly, Against the Stream, LACHS

Saturday, 11-4-11: 3:30 pm meditation and Dharma teaching guided by Against the Stream, south steps. SEIU Health and Wellness Fair at OLA covering addiction, mental health, both the physical and spiritual. Clinicians, counselors, mediators, 12 steppers will be there.

Sunday: 2:00 pm, Interfaith Affinity Group meeting and to discuss plans for Nonviolence Day. Less about planning and more about sharing and being together in a spiritual setting. 3:30 is a Compassionate Communication class.

COUNCIL OF ELDERS Sunday, Nov. 20th, 3:00 pm: Noted civil rights leaders Rev. James M. Lawson, Dolores Huerta, Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd, Dr. Maher Hathout, Rabbi Leonard Beerman, and others from many of the defining American social justice movements of the 20th century. They will lead a service of solidarity and host a conversation with Occupy demonstrators and others. Similar event with other notable elders will be held in San Francisco.

Nonviolence Day is 12-3-11. Music and more. Guided meditation. Inspiring original songs incorporating devotional chanting including harmonium, bells, tambourines, guitars, drums, singing and dancing. Yoga class.

Meditation by Megan and Andrea (Against the Stream)

Monday, Nov. 21st, 11:00 am-12:15 pm

Everyone is invited to join a Sitting Meditation and Silent Peace Walk at Occupy Los Angeles. We will send positive intentions out into the world.

Let us be the change we want to see in the world -- as we generate the combined energy of mindfulness, calm reflection, loving-kindness, and insight. The 99% and the 1% are worthy of happiness and compassion. Let's sit and walk for protestors as well as police, slum lords and slum residents, householders and homeless. Poverty, unemployment, greed, and corruption are more than a domestic issue. Help create an environment for the 100% to come together in meditation and share the intention of creating peace, harmony, and freedom for ALL beings.

Simple acts contribute to a major paradigm shift. Why? Peace in ourselves creates peace in the world.

SCHEDULE
10:50 am - Gather, get settled
11:00 am - Sitting meditation
11:20 am - Peace Walk in silence
11:50 am - Sitting mediation (20 mins)

Organized by the Los Angeles Compassionate Heart Sangha, a mindfulness meditation group practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. No political affiliation.

My Path to Freedom (sutra)

2011-11-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

Michael Olds (translator) "A Little Spell of Emptiness"; edited by Wisdom Quarterly
(Don Gissel/Flickr)

I, Ananda, live
In the fullness of freedom
Free of empty habits
Not an empty Abiding

The Path to Freedom

I hear tell: Once upon a time, the Lucky Man [Tathagata, the Buddha], in Savatthi-town, East Park, in the House of Migara’s Mother came visiting.

At this time, Ananda, just emerging from his afternoon’s sit down practice, went to the Teacher, greeted him, and sat down to one side. There he said:

Sir, at one time, the Lucky Man was residing among the Sakyans [the Buddha's extended family clan] in the market town of Nagaraka. And I also was there. In that place I recall having heard, learned, studied, grasped, face-to-face with the Lucky Man, this statement made by him:

"At this time, Ananda, I reside in the fullness of emptiness." Did I hear this correctly?

Yes, Ananda, you heard, learned, studied, and grasped this correctly. Previously, as well as now, I reside in the fullness of freedom.

In the same way, Ananda, as this House of Migara’s Mother is free of the disturbances of the city: free of elephants, cows, horses, donkeys; free of dealings with gold and silver; free of groups of men and women, and there is only this that remains to disturb the peace, that is, the vibration emanating off the recluses here.

In the same way, a recluse, paying no attention to the disturbances of the city, paying no attention to human beings, pays attention only to the vibration emanating off the forest. One takes to paying attention only to perception of the forest. And one cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind.

One understands, "This way there is no disturbance emanating from perception of the city. This way there is no disturbance emanating from perception of human beings. This way there is only that disturbance which emanates off perception of the forest."

Thus, "This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of the city. This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of human beings. This way there is only this that disturbs the peace, that is, the vibration which emanates off perception of the forest."

In this way one regards that which is present as free of that which is not present. And with regard to what remains, one understands, "That being; this is."

Thus, Ananda, there is in this case a sitting-down-to-clear-out that results in surpassing purity.

And again, Ananda, deeper than that, paying no attention to human beings, paying no attention to the forest, one takes to paying attention only to perception of earth, and cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind.

In the same way as one would regard a bull’s hide, stretched out to cure, held down by a hundred pegs, its life gone, when one pays attention to Earth, one does not think about anything on Earth such as dry land or rivers or swamps or marshes with plants with branches and thorns or mountains or plains. One only pays attention to the vibration which emanates off perception of Earth.

One takes to paying attention only to perception of Earth. And one cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind....

In this way one regards that which is present as free of that which is not present. And with regard to what remains, one understands, "That being, this is."...

And again, Ananda, deeper than that, paying no attention to the forest, paying no attention to Earth, one takes to paying attention only to perception of the Sphere of Unlimited Space. And one cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind.

One understands, "This way there is no disturbance emanating from perception of the forest. This way there is no disturbance emanating from perception of Earth."

Thus, "This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of the forest. This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of Earth. This way there is only this that disturbs the peace, that is, the vibration which emanates off perception of the Sphere of Unlimited Space."

In this way one regards that which is present as free of that which is not present. And with regard to what remains, one understands, "That being, this is."

Thus, Ananda, there is in this case, a sitting-down-to-clear-out that results in surpassing purity.

And again, Ananda, deeper than that, paying no attention to Earth, paying no attention to the Sphere of Unlimited Space, takes to paying attention only to perception of the Sphere of Unlimited Consciousness. And one cleans out, tidies, up and liberates the mind.

One understands, "This way there is no disturbance emanating from perception of Earth. This way there is no disturbance emanating from perception of the Sphere of Unlimited Space."

Thus, "This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of Earth. This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of the Sphere of Unlimited Space. This way there is only this that disturbs the peace, that is, the vibration which emanates off perception of the Sphere of Unlimited Consciousness."

...[O]ne takes to paying attention only to perception of the Sphere Where No Thing is There. And one cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind....

And again, Ananda, deeper than that, paying no attention to the Sphere of Unlimited Consciousness, paying no attention to the Sphere Where No Thing is There, one takes to paying attention only to perception of the Sphere of Neither Perception Nor Non Perception. And one cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind....

And again, Ananda, deeper than that, paying no attention to the Sphere Where No Thing is There, paying no attention to the Sphere of Neither Perception Nor Non Perception, one takes to paying attention only to the mental High-Getting that is Sign-less. And one cleans out, tidies up, and liberates the mind....

This way is free of disturbance emanating from perception of the Sphere of Neither Perception Nor Non Perception. This way there is only this that disturbs the peace, that is, the six sense-realms bound to this body reacting to life."

In this way one regards that which is present as free of that which is not present. And with regard to what remains, one understands, "That being, this is."

One understands, "This Mental High-Getting that is Sign-less is something that has been constructed, thought out. Whatever has been constructed and thought out is subject to change and coming to an end."

Knowing and seeing this, one's heart is free from the grip of sense pleasures. One's heart is freed from the grip of illusory existence. One's mind is free from the grip of blindness. In Freedom comes the knowledge of Freedom, and one knows:

"Left behind is Rebirth, lived is the Best of Lives, done is Duty’s Doing, crossed over am I; there is no more of this [suffering in rebirth] for me!"

One understands, "This way there is no disturbance emanating from the grip of sense pleasures. This way there is no disturbance emanating from the grip of illusory existence. This way there is no disturbance emanating from the grip of blindness."

Thus, "This way is free of the disturbance emanating from the grip of sense pleasures. This way is free of the disturbance emanating from the grip of illusory existence. This way is free of the disturbance emanating from the grip of blindness. This way there is only this that disturbs the peace, that is, the six sense-realms bound to this body reacting to life."

In this way one regards that which is present as free of that which is not present. And with regard to what remains, one understands, "That being, this is."

Thus, Ananda, there is in this case, a sitting-down-to-clear-out that results in surpassing purity.

And, Ananda, all those shamans [shramana, Buddhist monastics, wandering ascetics] or brahmins [brahmana, temple-bound priests] of the long distant past who attained [are attained or will attain] the highest surpassing purity of freedom and made it an abode, all of them did so by attaining this same highest surpassing purity of freedom and making it an abode....

Wherefore, Ananda, train yourself this way: "I will attain the highest surpassing purity of freedom and make an abode of that."

Hope or dread in Burma? Visit from Clinton

2011-11-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton: "We came, we saw, he died, ha ha ha!" The goal is US empire. Who's next?

BALI, Indonesia (AP) - Seizing an opportunity for historic progress in repressive Burma (Myanmar), Pres. B.S. Obama is dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the long-isolated nation next month in an attempt to accelerate fledgling reforms.

The move is the most dramatic sign yet of an evolving relationship between the United States and Myanmar, also known as Burma, which has suffered under brutal military rule for decades. Obama said Friday there had been "flickers of progress" since new civilian leadership took power in March.

(AP) More

Responding to signs of reform, Myanmar's main opposition party, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, decided on Friday to register again for future elections after boycotting last year's voting.

"If Burma continues to travel down the road of democratic reform, it can forge a new relationship with the United States of America," Obama said as he announced Clinton's trip while on a diplomatic mission to southeast Asia. Clinton will be the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in more than 50 years. More

How much does Facebook know about you?

2011-11-18T07:07:00.000-08:00

WorldRadio.ch (Switzerland); Wisdom Quarterly
(Sweden The Local, Info-wars.org/Ireland)

This summer, Austrian law student Max Schrems asked Facebook to send him all the data they had on him.

What he received was a massive 1,200-page file. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. He discovered that the social networking site had kept data he had deleted from his account, like messages and photos, and for its own use, they imported contacts from his personal e-mail account, all of this without his knowledge.

LISTEN TO AUDIO

Now, Schrems has lodged 22 complaints against Facebook for data protection breaches. WRS’s Dave Goodman talks to social network specialist Olivier Glassey, a senior lecturer and sociologist at the University of Lausanne, who says that he is not at all surprised.

Friday Night - The Dharma Test Kitchen

2011-11-18T06:59:00.000-08:00

(cartoonstock.com)

Against the Stream is offering a new class -- an exploration of the practical connection of Dharma practice and our daily lives.

The focus of the class is the belief that what we do off the cushion matters more than what we do on it. Success in meditation, after all, comes from being virtuous and mindful enough to get on a cushion in the first place.

Social "engagement" is more than a buzz word. So each month ATS will explore a different fundamental aspect of basic Buddha-Dharma from a variety of participant perspectives. The class has a rotating schedule of teachers, teaching together and individually on a given monthly theme.

Start the weekend with artful practice, sangha community-building, and a connection to basic Dharma philosophy.

ATS Santa Monica
drop-in, donation-based
Fridays, 7:30 pm

OMG! A "Twilight" sequel! (cartoon)

2011-11-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

Amber Dorrian and my kid sister "Bela" not Bella (Wisdom Quarterly)

Breaking Dawn premieres. The forces of the Moon versus those badly affected by the Moon. "Twilight" is basically Dracula vs. Wolfman. Only the vampires are melodramatic and the wolves are so CGI. This series is a mess. But, melodrama can be good. Soap opera thrillers for tweens who need a romantic lead are keeping the mall theaters alive.

Giggly Bieber kids and gayish gothy teens are outnumbered by horndog moms. Fans everywhere are sure to keep this blockbuster going. And that's good. It's keeping "romance" alive. And there's nothing higher to live for. So get used to it.

The world needs more Harry Potter with heavy petting because Emma Thompson isn't doing anything to meet our need for sizzle. Taylor Lautner is pure peach fuzz for a hirsute leading man. Robert Pattinson is very, very Brit'ish. And Kristen Stewart's lesbian child molester kiss with Dakota Fanning was a real let down.

Lesson is Simple; Student is Complicated

2011-11-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly; Dan Millman (PeacefulWarrior.com); Laura Murphy
What can just one person do?

Mark Twain once said about worrying, "I've had a lot of problems in my life, most of which never happened." We get in our own way. The Path is there. The Path is clear. Wherever we step, it appears underneath our feet -- if that is the direction we have set ourselves in. The Path is not the problem. The student is.

The student is complicated. The world spins around us. Occupy this, occupy that, Occupy Samsara. We already here, being crushed by the Wheel of Death and Rebirth. We are suffering. And it need not be that way -- except for the craving, hate/fear, and delusion that overwhelms us and gets us to buy in.

"I always wanted to be someone," Lily Tomlin observed, "maybe I should have been more specific." Today Foley Square is on fire (Occupy Wall Street's massive protest). Berkeley is burning (after being doused again).

Burma, paradoxically, is cooling. And taking a stand is Los Angeles means going to UCLA, Occupy LA, or Cal State University Dominguez Hills. I want to sit down, not by going to work, to take a stand.

"It begins on the ground. Strong roots help a tree to bear fruit; the same is true of human beings. Magical thinking is popular, always has been. But reality rules. Observe and listen to nature's whispers, and all will be well."
- Dan Millman

Wisdom Quarterly invited Amma, and a dozen meditators crowded into Magdha Rod's Meditation Temple at Occupy LA to hear Amma speak and lead meditation.

What Can One Person Do?
Laura Murphy, CC Liu
The Buddhist nun Amma (Bhikkhuni Thanasanti) has been in Los Angeles.

Wisdom Quarterly along with the Occupy LA Interfaith Council and Against the Stream, she was brought down to speak at City Hall and lead a meditation.

It has been an honor to meet and share space with her and other engaged Theravada Buddhist meditators.

Her efforts and willingness to be of service have inspired. Her presence has benefited many. She moves on to Santa Barbara as the movement expands or breaks with a 1,000+ SEIU (union) members, students, and LA occupiers.

Occupy LA may expand to an additional site. Nonviolence may provoke police to behave like soldiers on foreign soil. It has elsewhere -- in a nationwide sweep of Occupy Movement encampments and preemptively violent police tactics.

Hold the ground for a more mindful, peaceful, safer movement to benefit all (even the 1% who benefit when the 99% benefits).

What can I do? Walking meditation, water-only fasting, refrain from speaking in observance of nonviolence (ahimsa), when even words may do harm.

I am inspired to investigate true freedom and how I may achieve that in my own way, in my body, using my mind, and filling my spirit with breath.

"The First Law of Planning:
Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything."
- Arthur Bloch

JoAnna Harper and Amma's meditation/dialogue at ATS, 11-16-11

What are the Buddhist precepts for?

Amma chants to close a mindful exercise of deep listening she led.

Suu Kyi to decide Burma's political future

2011-11-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

Aung San Suu Kyi's party to decide Myanmar political comeback

RANGOON (AFP) - The opposition party of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to announce its return to the official political arena on Friday after years of marginalization by ruling [totalitarian] generals.

Senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) are to gather in Rangoon to decide whether to re-register as a political party, after boycotting elections last year -- the first to be held in Burma for 20 years.

US Campaign for Burma
AUDIO: Burma to Chair ASEAN (The World.org)
Burma calls for sanctions to be lifted (WSJ), which explains why the military is making a show of treating Suu Kyi well.

Democracy in Burma? The US military would sooner force our version of democracy on Afghanistan through the barrel of a gun -- as Family Guy's Stewie and Private Brian find.

The NLD won a landslide victory in polls in 1990 but the win was never recognized by the then-ruling [military dictatorship] junta.

The party refused to take part in last November's vote mainly because of rules that would have forced it to expel imprisoned members. Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has spent most of the last two decades in detention, was released a few days after the polls and now appears to be planning an entrance to the mainstream political process.

"On the whole I think the great majority of our people will go in for re-registration," 66-year-old Suu Kyi told the BBC on Thursday. More

Kim and the Kardashians for Burma

Living for Outcomes and the "Yoga Sutras"

2011-11-17T13:35:00.000-08:00

Ami Fox (foxpoweryoga.com); Wisdom Quarterly

I spent the summer re-reading the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

These are deep concepts that go far beyond the mat -- yet very practical, commonsense, and elegant.

Now as we ease into autumn, it seems that some of these concepts resonate more deeply. I have been getting hung up on my attachment to outcomes.

Let's face it. This world is all about outcomes: goals, objectives, focus. I am sucked into these frames. For my mental well being, it seems necessary to step away from being results-oriented and ease into a space where the process itself is my motivation for action.

For instance, when I teach a yoga class, I always want the class to go smoothly, for everyone to enjoy the pace, and delight in the presentation. That is not always the outcome. So it is hard to find motivation in the process.

Take working into a posture (asana), for example. It is common for us as Americans to want to look a certain way in a pose. And if it is not achieved, we are often disappointed and feel like a "yoga failure."

"It was the greatest leap ever taken. The speed of Hanuman's jump pulled blossoms and flowers into the air...they cheered" - Ramayana, retold by William Buck (yogajournal.com).

I have worked for years to achieve full Hanumasana. Yet at the end of the year, at the end of the decade, I am still so far from the floor that it is not what my ego would say is a "good" monkey pose splits.

I joke with my classes that there is no trophy in the back with someone doing the perfect monkey pose or downward dog. But I say this to remind myself. The postures are very intelligent, supporting liver, kidney, and endocrine function, as well as increasing flexibility and strength.

It is important to stay with the process not the aesthetics (or even the asceticism) of it, but rather the health benefits.

There is more to come concerning The Yoga Sutras. A conversation is a series of contemplation and utterances. Find more on my new blog.

Occupy UCLA: Take down those tents!

2011-11-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Occupy Movement promised a Day of Action across nation
Take Back UCLA

(LA Times) Bringing the Occupy Wall Street movement and student protests to Westwood, about 25 tents were set up today on the UCLA campus. But officials said the encampment violated school rules and would not last long.

The tents were pitched on Wilson Plaza near the base of the landmark Janss Steps. And about 100 or so demonstrators were reportedly gathered in the area. Authorities were studying ways to make sure the camp did not stay up...

“The university does intend to enforce those policies,” UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said.

“At this point, the conversations taking place are about how best to do that.” UCLA wants to balance the protesters’ right to free speech with [the rights of police to beat them]... More

PHOTOS: Day of Action

UNHATE; message from the Dalai Lama

2011-11-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly, Unhate.Benetton.com
(minnesota.publicradio.org)

Unhate? A gay-kissing pope and president and other would-be New World Order dictators. Pope Benedict's passionate lip lock lips with a Muslim cleric led him to complain and have his image removed. The Vatican would not want people to get the idea that priests kiss the males they make love to. Manly Angela Merkel, the Chinese leader, and fay Netanyahu of Israel...

The new ad campaign became controversial as soon as it was launched in Paris yesterday. However, it will benefit Benetton’s UNHATE Foundation. The strong message behind the images according to Alessandro Benetton, executive deputy chairman, explains.

“The images are very strong, but we have to send a strong message.
We are not wanting to be disrespectful of leaders...
We consider them “conception figures” making a statement of brotherhood with a kiss.”

Occupy LA Calendar Actions (video)

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Occupy UCLA, Occupy Los Angeles, Wisdom Quarterly, Occupy CSUDH

Channel 5 (FOX Channel 11 local affiliate KTLA.com/local) Los Angeles news coverage

There are fresh and exciting actions afoot. There are two BeGrouped text groups -- one for the Action Committee (discussiion) and one for Action Updates (strictly updates, no chatter). There is also a Twitter feed @OccupyLAAction and spying through Facebook.com/groups/215029945237006

Wednesday:
What: Mic Check at UC Board of Trustees Meeting
Where: Long Beach
When: Bus leaving OLA (Occupy LA) 1st & Main at 8:15 am.
Why: Tuition Hikes

Protesters Arrested at Massive "Occupy L.A." Rally
LOS ANGELES (KTLA) - Union and Occupy LA demonstrators staged a massive
march and rally in downtown LA as part of Thursday's "National Day of Action"

Thursday:
What: Occupy the Bridge
Why: Corporate greed is killing good jobs. L.A.'s bridges, roads, parks, and schools are outdated and crumbling. We're losing firefighters, police, and good school jobs in our communities due to budget cuts. But Congress refuses to tax millionaires and super-wealthy corporations to pay for legislation that will create 125,400 good jobs in California. Wall Street banks were in trouble, Congress rushed to bail them out with billions in taxpayer money - but now Congress and corporations are turning their backs on our schools and communities.
When: Meet at Spring and 1st at 6:00 am for breakfast and to march over. March begins at BofA Plaza at 7:00 am!
Where: 4th & Flower St.

Local Channel 5 Los Angeles News (KTLA.com), Nov. 17, 2011

What: USWW March
When: Noon
Where: Leaving from City Hall South Side

OCCUPY UCLA @ 12:30 pm
What: One-Day Strike, all day picket line at CSU Dominguez Hills, Carson
When: 6:00 am - 7:00 pm (or whatever portion of the day you're available)
Where: Campus Main Entrance (Gate E), 1000 E. Victoria St, Carson 90747
Why: Support Quality Public Higher Education
Stop the Corporate Takeover of the CSU! Help Save Middle Class Jobs!
Faculty Want to Provide Quality Education & Support Our Families. Join us!
Facebook.com/event.php?eid=219712158099755

Saturday:
What: Health & Wellness Fair
**MORE INFO COMING ASAP**

What: Aerial Photo of Occupy Los Angeles
**MORE INFO COMING ASAP**

Occupy Wall Street New York, SEIU, and Occupy Los Angeles (KTLA.com)

What: Power of Comedy Event
When: 8:00 pm (leave from City Hall at 7:00 pm)
Where: Meet at northside OLA steps; event is at the Hollywood Palladium
Why: to encourage comedians to avoid working with stations who misrepresent the movement
**This is a ticketed event. OLA RSVP contact TBD -- stay tuned!**

Tuesday Nov. 22nd:
What: Teach-In & March to the Fed
When: Teach-In at 2:30 on northside steps, leave from Fountain Box at 4:00 pm for March
Where: Federal Reserve Bank
**Please let me know when we have a Facebook event for this, waiting on that link to print flyers**

UC Berkeley administrator misspeaks about a peaceful worldwide movement involving students that is repeatedly the victim of police and state-sanctioned violence.

Saturday Dec. 3rd:
**Still in Development**
What: Occupy Union Station -- joint action with Occupy Long Beach and Occupy Pasadena, likely other Occupy SoCal groups as well
When: 11:00 am -2:00/3ish
Where: Union Station
Why: Skits and so on to creatively reach out and gain public awareness and support
More details to come

**Still in Development**
What: Official LA Day of Non-Violence
Where: Southside steps OLA
Presentations/Speakers/music/etc. Presented by Interfaith Community, Quakers, and UCLA Center for Study of Religion.

More details to come

Tuesday Dec. 6th:
What: City Council Meeting
When: 10:00 am
Where: City Hall
Why: Resolution to end Corporate Personhood

Saturday, Dec. 10th:
What: March for International Human Rights Day
When: 10:00 am-1:00 pm
Facebook.com/event.php?eid=229528123768777

Cal State Long Beach police pepper spray abuse as tuition is hiked

Police dismantle Berkeley's Occupy Cal tents

2011-11-17T05:59:00.000-08:00

CC Liu, Pat Macpherson (Wisdom Quarterly)
Sproul Plaza, massive student gathering at UC Berkeley (CTV.ca/AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Police dismantle Occupy Cal tents, camps elsewhere remain quiet

(SJMN) While Occupy Movement camps around the San Francisco Bay Area were relatively quiet overnight, police in riot gear cleared out tents at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza, the center of the 1960's student Free Speech Movement. The same location is becoming the West Coast center of the Occupy Wall Street cum Occupy College Movement. The separate more exclusive University of California system, already facing massive hikes, has reacted by Occupying UCLA starting today. More coverage

"Occupy" Movement Spreads to Campuses
(UCLA) An article in Tuesday's LA Times about California college students supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement referenced a protest and outdoor... More
The Daily Bruin: Occupy UCLA protest starts

Meanwhile in England, "Occupy the Stock Exchange" (occupylsx.org) and Occupy London rage. Demonstrators are asking British police one question: "Who do you serve?" In the USA, Occupy Wall Street is reanimating larger than ever. Police tried to set up barricades protesters moved aside then panicked when vinegar fell on them; they demanded to be rushed to the hospital (to get hazard pay and a day off while on overtime). Police in Long Beach (Los Angeles) pepper sprayed hapless students protesting a crippling 9% tuition hike on Cal State University students.

Tantric Buddha in Eurasia (Padmasambhava)

2011-11-17T05:57:00.000-08:00

John Heathcote (Fantompowa.net); Wisdom Quarterly; Early Tibet

Eurasian Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava (Wikimedia commons)

Tradition records that a Tantric tradition "Buddha" named Padmasambhava came from a land called Ögyen [Shambala?].

This is thought to be somewhere in the wild remoteness of the Karakoram mountains, where India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, and Tibet meet.

Buddhism reached the height of its influence in the 8th and 9th centuries in Afghanistan [likely the Buddha's actual birthplace, once the northwest frontier of greater India].

Then Afghanistan fell to the Arabs [Zoroastrianism and Islam from neighboring Persia/Iran]. Most of Afghanistan's Buddhist heritage survived intact until quite recently. Although the site was destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1222, the towering statues remained as a strong indication of what had been. More

PADMASAMBHAVA (Sanskrit, Padmakara; Tibetan, པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས།, Mongoloian ловон Бадмажунай; Chinese, 蓮華生) means "The Lotus-Born." He was a sage guru from Oddiyāna, who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Himalayan Buddhist kingdoms Bhutan, Tibet, and neighboring countries in the 8th century. In those lands he is better known as Guru Rinpoche ("Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche, or simply Padum in Tibet, where followers of the Nyingma school regard him as the second buddha. He said: "My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra (Tibetan, ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ). My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri (ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་མོ). I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere of awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus-Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I consume concepts of duality as my diet. I act in the way of the buddhas of the three times [past, present, and future]."

"Buddha"?
Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

The word "buddha" is used very loosely in schools and traditions that came after the earlier Theravada school. Originally, the word ("Awakened One") referred to the historical Buddha Shakyamuni (Siddhartha Gautama) and 24 previous buddhas he named and gave the history for. This was taken and blended with Vedic Brahmanism (which later became Hinduism) to develop the Mahayana view of an infinite number of "buddhas" just as there are countless manifestations and incarnations of God (Brahman). Padmasambhava, possibly a missionary, guru, conqueror, ruler, space entity, deva, or possibly a political personage came to be called a buddha probably as a honorific title. Thereafter, a mythology sprung up around him to spread Vajrayana teachings about reality (phenomena) and spirituality (non-duality).

Padmasambhava I: the Early Sources

EarlyTibet.com

Known as Pema Jungné ("the lotus-born") or Guru Rinpoche ("the precious guru") in Tibet, Padmasambhava is seen as the true founder of Tibetan Buddhism [Vajrayana, Lamaism, Mahayana], a second buddha who established the Dharma in the land of the red-faced men. Padmasambhava is said to have been invited to Tibet to help found the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Samyé and tame the local demonic [yakkha, asura, naga, naraka] forces that were obstructing the establishment of the monastery.

Occupy Samsara: Letter from Buddhist...

2011-11-17T05:00:00.001-08:00

Occupy Samsara; Wisdom Quarterly

Samsara is the Round of Endless Death and Rebirth overcome by the Buddhist path.

An Open Letter from Buddhist and Yoga Teachers and Leaders in Support of the Occupy Movement

(November 2011) As teachers and leaders of communities that promote the development of compassion and mindfulness, we are writing to express our solidarity with the Occupy Movement now active in over 1,900 cities worldwide.

We are particularly inspired by the nonviolent tactics of this movement, its methods of self-governance, and its emergent communities founded in open communication (general assemblies, the people's mic, the inclusion of diverse voices, etc.)

These encampments are fertile ground for seeing our inherent wisdom and our capacity for awakening. We encourage all teachers, leaders, sanghas, and communities that pursue awakening to join with these inspiring activists.

If they have not already done so, [join] in working to end the extreme inequalities of wealth and power that cause so much suffering and devastation for human society and for the ecosystems of Earth. More

Obama not assassinated but man charged

2011-11-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

(cosmicgnostic.com)

A man (Oscar Ortega, 21) has been arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate Pres. [of the Corporation of the United States] B.S. Obama. He shot at the White House from a half-mile away... while the Obamas were out of the country. Nevertheless, this will serve as a sufficient pretext to bump up security, strengthen the Secret Police (service), and clamp down on already draconian DC (District of Columbia, a private imperial seat of power like the Vatican and a few blocks of London, outside of the United States proper) measures to seal off the people's capital.

Any Excuse to Step Up Security
Christian-Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)

The man accused of shooting at the White House with an assault rifle will appear Thursday afternoon in federal court in Pennsylvania for an extradition hearing, after which he is expected to be moved to Washington, D.C., to face charges of carrying a dangerous weapon.

Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez was arrested Wednesday by Pennsylvania State Police acting on a tip from the Secret Service. There are indications that Mr. Ortega-Hernandez felt he was part of a “personal mission from God,” the AP reported, quoting investigative authorities.

The AP also said there are signs the alleged shooter was obsessed with Pres. Obama. The president and Mrs. Obama were on a trip... More

Sex with animals tied to penile cancer in men

2011-11-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

Ashley Wells, Prof. White, Wisdom Quarterly (editors), KTLA.com

SHOCKING NEWS: Unconscionable, subhuman sexual misconduct exists among Americans.

Sex with animals tied to penile cancer in men

Bestiality, often thought of as a myth rather than an actual perversion leading to rebirth among animals or worse, now gets recognition by its connection to cancer.

Legend holds that Europeans -- coming with Columbus, Conquistadors, Dutch merchants, British naval fleets, French and Portuguese and Spanish expeditions -- raped animals and spread venereal diseases among themselves. On arrival they raped the indigenous population of a fully occupied "New World."

They thereby spread disease and took advantage of the lack of immunity to European plagues that were deadly to those without immunity. "Germs, Guns, and Steel" explains some of the impersonal aspects that led to the successful colonization, enslavement, and extermination of natives ("Indians") in the Americas by European imperialists, colonialists, and entrepreneurs.

Not only piracy, which became rampant throughout the Caribbean, Gulf, and Mississippi River, but state-sponsored slavery and theft led to the stealing and dividing up of indigenous nations throughout what is now called the United States (and parts of Canada and Mexico) and neighboring island nation. Bestiality and homosexual rape, as well as genocide and mass rape (as a war tactic) was known to have occurred.

This aided the biological warfare of spreading diseases for which there was neither immunity nor a cure. The natives were decimated. The European conquerors also suffered great losses before European women were brought in large numbers to civilize the men and establish functional colonies profitable to the "Old World."

This history of violence and European mayhem, which was far worse than earlier Viking raids and conquests along Nova Scotia and possible encampment along the northeastern US coast, continues. Men today are engaged in raping other men in prison, in incestuous relationships, and as acts of aggression and dominance (and possibly covert gay longings) duplicating the trauma they have suffered at the hands of their fathers and forebears.

The harm to animals does not seem to alarm anyone. But the consequences to human penises has now made the news. Cancer rates in male genitalia has been etiologically linked. A taboo topic, sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara) rarely appears this shockingly clear in the mainstream media.

And, of course, no one is allowed to link this behavior with Judeo-Christian biblical injunctions to exercise "dominion" over the animal kingdom, which many Christian men seem to take very literally. (The mistranslation of the word, which means "caretaking" or acting as regents until the king returns, again leads to abuse that followers blindly abide because "the Bible says so" when it actually does not).

Puppy killed by boyfriend when woman refuses sex with boyfriend
DA: Teacher Accused of Masturbating in Class Fantasized About Student
Prosecutors charge two men with annoying kids on OC buses
Man Arrested For Calling 911 Five Times For Help With iPhone [AUDIO]
Man Arrested After Killing, Eating A Bobcat While High On Meth

Dad Charged After Doctors Find Baby Wipe Lodged in Infant's Throat

Fifth Grader Commits Suicide, Family Blames Bullies

Woman Survives Attack by Killer Who Stored Teen's Body in Freezer

Woman Hides Stolen Fur Coat In Underwear For 3 Days

"Leela" the meditation video game

2011-11-17T03:59:00.000-08:00

(THQ) Welcome to Deepak Chopra's Leela™, a groundbreaking interactive experience that seeks to bring focus, energy, and balance to everyday life. Leela is a journey of mind and body through play -- helping us connect with the seven chakras which are energy centers within each of us. More

DeepakChopraLeela.com

It's too hard to read a book, even "1984" (video)

2011-11-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

Rosary Films; Wisdom Quarterly; Space Kimono

(Rosary Films) BBC Television's original 1954 live production of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. (Creative Commons license: Public Domain).

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic book everyone should read at some point. We are living it now. It is by British author George Orwell (who lived in Burma). Written in 1948 (which led to the title by simply reversing the last two digits) and published in 1949, it is set in an unknown year (at least a year no one can be certain of).

It focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith. He is a civil servant at the "Ministry of Truth" (a kind Times building which serves as the document of record) tasked with falsifying records and political literature.

He effectively perpetuates propaganda, knowing what is true yet making sure the records show otherwise, disappearing people, rewriting history, and so on. He grows disillusioned with his meager existence and so begins a rebellion against the system.

The novel has become famous for its portrayal of secret surveillance and society's increasing encroachment on the civil liberties and natural human rights of the individual. Since its publication the terms "Big Brother" and "Orwellian" have entered the popular language.

Orwell, who had "encapsulated the thesis at the heart of his novel" in 1944, wrote most of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the island of Jura, Scotland, during 1947-1948. He was critically ill with tuberculosis. He sent the final typed manuscript to his friends Secker and Warburg in 1948, and the book was published on June 8, 1949.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 50 languages (like his popular children's story of totalitarian tactics Animal Farm). The novel's title, its terms, its new language ("Newspeak"), and its author's surname are bywords for personal privacy lost to national state security.

The adjective "Orwellian" denotes totalitarian action or organization, as well as governmental attempts to appropriate and misuse information (disinformation) for the purposes of controlling, pacifying, and subjugating its population.

"Orwellian" can also refer to twisting language so that it says the opposite of what it really means (like Citizens United, Secure Communities, No Child Left Behind, Helping America Vote Act, Clean Water Act, Department of Defense, etc.). Specifically it is governmental propagandizing by the misnaming of things: the "Ministry of Peace" in the novel is actually the Department of War; the "Ministry of Love" actually tortures people; the "Ministry of Truth" is all about lying and fomenting propaganda.

Since the novel's publication, "Orwellian" has in fact become somewhat of a catch-all for any kind of governmental overreach and dishonesty.

The phrase "Big Brother is Watching You" refers to invasive surveillance. In the novel most information is gathered through the "telescreen," a sort of screen that spies on watchers. There are also surveillance cameras, helicopters, countless spies and informants, entrapment schemes, and microphones. (Most of this is now accomplished through iPhones, computers with cameras, CoIntelPro, and unwarranted wiretaps of all kinds).

Although the novel has been banned or challenged in some countries -- along with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Kallocain by Karin Boye, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- among the most famous literary representations of dystopia (an anti-utopia).

In 2005, Time Magazine listed it among the hundred best English-language novels published since 1923.

The book has often been misinterpreted as an attack on socialism. But Orwell himself had occasion to refute such claims, both privately and in public.

In a letter to Francis A. Henson of the United Automobile Workers (dated June 16, 1949 or seven months before he died), excerpts from which were reproduced in Life (July 25, 1949) and the New York Times Book Review (July 31, 1949), Orwell stated the following:

"My recent novel [1984] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions... which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism.... The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere."

In his 1946 essay "Why I Write," Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, one of three intercontinental totalitarian super-states (the future Euro, Amero, and Other-o Zones).

The story occurs in London, the "chief city of Airstrip One," itself a province of Oceania that "had once been called England or Britain."

Posters of the ruling Party's leader "Big Brother" (a kind of Gen. Than Shwe, Hitler, Stalin, Churchhill, Bush, Cheney), bearing the caption BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, dominate the cityscapes.

Two-way screens (the "telescreen") dominate the private and public spaces of the population.

Oceania's people are in three classes -- the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proles (or 99%). The Party government controls the people via the Ministry of Truth ("Minitrue" in Newspeak), the workplace of protagonist Winston Smith, an Outer Party member.

As in the Nazi and Stalinist regimes, propaganda is pervasive; Smith's job is rewriting historical documents to match the current party line, the orthodoxy of which changes often.

The job (like that of Douglas Dietrich at The Presidio library) includes destroying evidence, amending newspaper articles, and deleting the existence of people identified as "unpersons" (the disappeared).

The only hope is a revolutionary party led by Emmanuel Goldstein. But that is a myth or an appropriated reality used by the Inner Party to entrap rebels like Winston Smith and his love interest Julia, who only pretends to be a member of the Anti Sex League.

Here are more details on the story if reading it still seems impossible. It is also available as an audio book, Kindle, and a more modern movie was made, which is not nearly as good as the original BBC version.

Mario Savio Speech: Prof. Reich (video)

2011-11-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

(CalTVinfo)

This is the full speech given by author, former US Labor Secretary, and current UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich on the "Mario Savio Steps" of Sproul Plaza on Nov. 15, 2011. Filmed by Jeffrey New, Myles Moscato; edited by Myles Moscato. At the same rally, students used the people's mic to repeat Savio's words verbatim. It was a glorious moment.

Famous Mario Savio speech segment

Sex study: Light on the Bedroom and Beyond

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

Kathy Jones (ANI/MedIndia.net, Nov. 15, 2011)

Unhappy pair, happy pair (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and admirer ("Crazy Wisdom," movingpicturesnetwork.com)

There have been preconceived notions regarding men and women's attitude toward sex in the last few decades.

It has been taken for granted that men are more oriented towards sex while women are more commitment driven or men look for attractive mates and women go after social status.

However a new study, while defying all these notions has revealed that not all psychologists comply with these gender-essentialist statements.

Psychologist Terri Conley and colleagues of University of Michigan have asserted men think about sex every seven seconds is not true.

And while it's true that men think about sex more often than women do, they also think about other bodily needs, such as food and sleep, more than women do, Live Science reported.

For the study, psychologists asked research participants to record their thoughts throughout the day.

They found that men pondered sex 18 times a day to a woman's 10 times a day, but men also thought about food and sleep proportionately more than women. That suggests sex doesn't hold as vaunted a position for men as one might expect. More

News of the World

A Buddhist Revolution in Orwell's world (video)

2011-11-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

(Chanmyasoe) PART I. Orwell wrote 1984 about British and Burmese fascism in 1948.

"Burma VJ" (video journal) is a moving and shocking account of a recent Buddhist revolution against a totalitarian government. The popular protests that broke out across Rangoon in 2007 were brutally suppressed by police state tactics. Yet, they continue.

PART VI

This movie relies entirely on documentary footage shot by undercover reporters risking their lives to get the movement on film. It has been pieced together to form a picture of the events that took place over months.

It covers the initial protests led by Buddhist monks and nuns. Demonstrations broke out in response to a rise in fuel prices. This was a trigger on top of many government abuses and oppression. The movie also captures the brutal crack down by authorities.

Big Brother is alive and well in Naypyidaw as Ellen Page explains

A History of Revolution
Similar uprisings have taken place in other Buddhist countries: Tibet, with Chinese communist repression, Cambodia, with a violent reaction by the fascist Khmer Rogue regime, Nepal, a revolution spurred by Maoists and taken down by nervous pro-China government forces, Thailand, as Red and Yellow shirts or pro- and anti-government parties shut down the country, Laos, Vietnam, and Afghanistan (formerly Buddhist Kapilavastu), where American forces were instrumental in destroying rebellions.

The Power of an Idea whose Time has Come

2011-11-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

Occupy the MIC (military-industrial complex) wherever it hides: Wall St, City Hall, WH...

The Power of an Idea whose Time has Come
Wisdom Quarterly
Nov. 16, 2011 Occupy Wall Street's first camp is demolished and swept into the dustbin. But you can not arrest an idea, or a movement, or the truth. The worldwide movement lives on. And Wall Street is still the focus of attention. The movement was never about a single location because the camp was never allowed on Wall Street to begin with. Parks and city centers all over the US are simply manifestation of the power of an idea whose time has come. The police state, predictably, cleared corporate Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan in a predawn raid.

(RussiaToday) Zuccotti Park today, Nov. 16, 2011, post invasion

Protesters have been allowed to return but without their insufficient winter equipment, which was stolen from them. The court intervened with a restraining order on police then quickly backed down due to 1 percenter multi-millionaire Mayor Bloomberg's influence behind the scenes. Demonstrators can now bring only a small bag with them, but no tents or sleeping bags are being allowed.

Occupy Colleges: Berkeley or Penn State

2011-11-16T06:58:00.000-08:00

Occupycolleges.org, Wisdom Quarterly, Occupy Cal, Occupy Together

History in the making: Students lock arms as violent police in riot gear move in to beat them in front of Sproul Hall, UC Berkeley campus, Nov. 9 (AP/Ben Margot).

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come."
- French writer Victor Hugo

Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests

On Wednesday night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence [one by police, the other by footballers]. On the campus of Penn... More

Stand up by sitting down: A peaceful movement for peace and justice. Violence for peace and justice has never worked. Because change comes from within, we have to "be the change we want to see in the world."

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious -- makes you so sick at heart -- that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

- Sixties student leader Mario Savio

Occupy Cal (Berkeley) tents on the famous free speech zone of Sproul Plaza surrounded by supporters. Students and faculty staged a walk-out at Occupy SFSU (San Francisco State Univ.) as well protesting budget cuts and fee hikes. Students gathered at UC Davis to protest police brutality and tuition hikes (Occupy Together).

It's not true. But since the New York Times (the most visible manifestation of State propaganda) says it is, people believe it:

Occupy Wall Street protesters shifting to college campuses
Malia Wollan and Elizabeth A. Harris (Nov. 14, 2011)
BERKELEY, California - Goodbye, city park, hello, college green[?] As city officials around the country move to disband Occupy Wall Street encampments amid growing concerns over health and public safety, protesters have begun to erect more tents on college campuses [which was happening long before any camp got disbanded]. “We are trying to... More

A New Student Youth Movement?
UC Berkeley students Caroline and Aaron (Wisdom Quarterly)
Is it true? Is the police state re-turning this into a student protest movement? Look what it did the last time. No, this is not a "youth" movement. This is ALL of us now -- parents, whistleblowers, teachers, labor, monastics, the 99.9%!

What happened in the Sixties when the US war machine was attacking Vietnam (and secretly bombing Cambodia, Laos, and anyone else who stood in its way) was student bulldozing.

War is a way of life at the CIA, Pentagon, and Corporate-Military Complex. This is more true at home than on foreign soil. We are the ones being monitored, controlled, and deprived of rights.

But like fish in a bowl, we are unaware of the water most of the time. Yet it becomes clear when our MIC (military-industrial complex) is annihilating others. What it does it does in the "storm trooper" style of that famous would-be world empire: The jack boots are the same, the insignia a little different, full of badges, batons, and black outfits.

Buddhist monks vow to protest

2011-11-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

Buddhist monks rose against the totalitarian country about which Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four when it was in the British Empire (robertamsterdam.com).

Monks vow to continue Burma protest
AFP (SMH.au.com, Nov. 16, 2011)

The Saffron Revolution never really ended. Five Buddhist monks have staged a rare protest in army-dominated [totalitarian police state] Burma, at one point drawing a crowd of about 500 people with calls for peace and the immediate release of political prisoners.

After talks with senior clerics, the monks said they would continue protesting in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, for the next three days, giving a speech each day to spell out their demands.

The five in their [saffron and] maroon-clad robes kicked off their demonstration early on Tuesday [Nov. 15, 2011] by briefly locking themselves in a building in a monastic compound a day after an expected amnesty for political prisoners failed to materialize. More

Buddhist monks led a series of uprisings against an Orwellian
government called the Saffron Revolution starting in 2007.

Sexploitation of Yoga irks Hindus
Tourists will be banned from Dutch cannabis cafes
Sex study sheds light on the bedroom and beyond
Occupy London and Zurich also face eviction
VIDEO: Fans go crazy for "Twilight" stars at LA premiere
Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner walk the black carpet for "The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn - Part 1" in Los Angeles.
Christian monks open monastery doors

DAY 60: Occupy Wall Street (video)

2011-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Occupy Wall Street, RT.com, Wisdom Quarterly, Pacifica

A gauntlet of free beatings, cowboy police at the rodeo herd hapless cows as if it were a holocaust. Zurich was also raided.

Midnight Solidarity with Zuccotti Park

Tuesday, 12:20 am, Nov. 15, 2011

"You can't arrest an idea."

Google keeps police brutality videos up

WOMEN’S DAY on Pacifica Radio Archives

Occupy Wall Street destroyed by police

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

MIDNIGHT POLICE RAID

Occupy Los Angeles watched the livestream and spontaneously woke the camp and marched two miles through a deserted downtown banging drums in solidarity, causing an LAPD tactical alert until 2:00 am.

#OWS gets court staying mayor and police vandalism

(AP) Occupy Wall Street protesters have been ordered to leave [and struck with batons and pepper spray] Zuccotti Park, their longtime encampment in Lower Manhattan. But they've been told they can return once it has been cleaned [and their computers, tents, generators, equipment, food, and everything else has been destroyed, pile into bins and carted away].

LATEST UPDATES

(John Taggart/NY Daily News)

At about 1:00 am Tuesday [Nov. 15, 2011], police handed out notices from the park's "owner," Brookfield Office Properties, and the City saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous.

Protesters were told they could return -- but without sleeping bags, tarps, or tents [or any protection from the elements as winter descends].

Paul Browne, a spokesman for the NYPD, says most people began filing out of the park once they received the notices; one person was arrested for disorderly conduct. Brown says the park was not heavily populated Tuesday morning. More

Camp Bulldozed to "Clean" It
NEW YORK - Hundreds of New York police...dressed in riot gear, descended on the headquarters of "Occupy Wall Street" in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday, issuing protesters with eviction letters and warning they would be arrested if they remained. The officers arrived just after midnight...ordering them to temporarily evacuate the park. Campers were told [but not given the chance] to remove their tents and all their belongings... [That removal was done by special police cleaning/demolishing crews.] More

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the New World Order

Occupy Oakland tossed from one camp yesterday

"Police are not my friends" (video)

2011-11-14T08:45:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly interview with "Caroline" (Occupy Cal)

"Police are not my friends."

If police are not your friends, why are you their friend?

"Because I'm a Buddhist, and we don't expect to succeed acting the same way as they do. They drag people to jail by the hair like cavemen. It's sexism. There's racism. It's a police state."

Why are you participating in tomorrow's campus strike and teach out?

"We want student loan gouging to stop, bank greed, police abuse, endless war, fee increases, cut courses... There are so many issues that anyone not participating has to be questioned for apathy or ignorance."

Police drag demonstrators away by the hair
There is a lot of controversy at UC Berkeley after two videos surfaced showing law enforcement officers dragging two "Occupy Cal" demonstrators by their hair. The images triggered outrage among the faculty at Cal. Officers forcefully yanked people from their huddle, eventually forcing them to the ground. At one point in the video, an officer is shown pulling Prof. Celeste Langan by her hair and then arresting her. More

The Buddha on Friendship
Sharon Salzberg (adapted from The Force of Kindness, Sounds True, care2.com)

The Buddha often emphasized the characteristics of a good friend. He spoke about a good friend as one who gives a kind of happiness based on knowing our interconnectedness. Learning to be a good friend to ourselves and being one to others is really the same thing. Here are wise words about friendship from the Buddha as we approach Thanksgiving: He spoke about a good friend, a true friend, as being someone who is a helper, who protects us when we are unprotected, surprised by life in some way. The friend is a refuge when we are afraid. A good friend is constant in our time of happiness and... More

Interfaith Community, which has joined occupations, is being arrested.

VIDEO: Portrait of a protest

Earth beautiful in spite of police states (video)

2011-11-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

The Earth shines in time lapse footage from space (ABC News)

VIDEO: Russians successfully launch into space

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The strangeness of space from the view of Earth

Teen Sex? "Not Under My Roof" (book)

2011-11-14T08:32:00.000-08:00

Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex

For American parents, teenage sex is something to be feared and forbidden. Sex is often a source of family conflict. But in the Netherlands, where teenage pregnancies are far less frequent than in the US, parents aim above all for family cohesiveness

They often permit young couples to sleep together and provide them with contraceptives. Probing our child-rearing for what it tells us about our culture, Not Under My Roof by Amy T. Schalet offers an intimate and unprecedented account of the different ways girls and boys in both countries negotiate sex, love, and growing up.

Not Under My Roof features personal stories of teens and parents, a sociologically and historically-informed analysis, and a roadmap for guiding US social policy on adolescent sexual health.

Teenagers and sex? It's a controversial subject in America. Different attitudes Dutch parents hold towards teen sex prevent teen pregnancy (with a teenage birthrate four times lower than in the US) and disease.

Is it a conservative-liberal divide or more?

UC Berkeley plans massive rally 11-15-11

2011-11-14T08:30:00.000-08:00

OccupyBerkeley.org

Occupy Cal has not gone anywhere. Tents were destroyed and teenage students dragged away by "storm trooper" style police in jack boots. In outrage students are holding teach outs and a general student strike. People -- supporters, faculty, graduate student teachers, Occupy Oakland (who are marching to Cal in support), Occupy San Francisco, and UC students -- will not stand by for 1960s history to repeat itself as the country (empire) is again engaged in secret wars around the world and strip mining the planet from its base on Wall Street and anti-environment corporations (Monsanto, ADM, Halliburton

Occupy Yale
Student loans add to angst at Occupy Wall Street
Bank of America expects $1.8 B gain from Chinese bank
Is "Occupy Rose Parade" organizer former corporate lawyer?
(Susan Swift) We can put a face behind the Occupy movement -- and it appears to be a wanna-be one percenter. Peter Thottam is the creator of Occupy Los Angeles and also the progressive force behind Occupy the Rose Parade.

Thottam’s been planning this occupation disruption of the Rose Parade for the last six months — at least that’s how long he’s had the “Occupy the Rose Parade” Twitter feed going. Ironically, Peter Thottam is a Goldman Sachs alum, an Ivy-Leaguer, and former corporate lawyer from an international mega law firm, and recent MBA grad. Yale, Boalt Hall Berkeley Law, and UCLA MBA. Does this sound like a community organizer or a one percenter? While Peter Thottam’s CV reeks of Wall Street elitism, his bio depicts someone grabbing for the corporate brass ring. But he is strangely unwilling or unable to keep a job at such elite corporate employers as Goldman Sachs or O’Melveny and Myers.

What police are capable of (graphic video)

2011-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

WARNING: Graphic police state violence against innocent civilians

East Timor massacre: US-armed troops kill demonstrators

DemocracyNow.org
This weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor. On Nov. 12, 1991, Indonesian troops fired on a peaceful memorial procession in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, killing more than 270 East Timorese. Two decades later, Amnesty International has called for a judicial inquiry into the massacre, noting that the failure "to hold all the perpetrators to account highlights a wider problem of impunity for crimes under international law and other human rights violations committed during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste (then East Timor) between 1975 and 1999." We play an excerpt from the 1992 documentary "Massacre: The Story of East Timor" produced by journalist Allan Nairn and Amy Goodman on dictator Suharto's Bush and US-backed crimes. More

Massacre: The Story of East Timor (See PART 1)

Real Video-Real Audio-MP3 Download-More

Oakland re-attacked by Police (video)

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly, RT.com, Global Grind,

(RT) Nov. 14, 2011 - The City of Oakland paid for 1,000 paramilitary troops in this planned take down. Now police in occupied Oakland have cleared out a re-formed occupation after threatening Occupy demonstrators with more heavy handed violence.

Oakland PD and agents from other San Francisco Bay Area cities encircled the downtown encampment before dawn and moved in at about 6:00 am. They escorted handcuffed protesters away soon afterward to be imprisoned, strip searched, humiliated, and potentially violated further.

The police state action comes a day after police attacked hundreds of Occupy Wall Street-style demonstrators from encampments in Portland, Oregon arresting more than 50 people. Oakland officials insisted on an end to their city's encampment using the pretext that a man was fatally shot Thursday near the camp.

Scott Olsen regains (free) speech

War veteran/peace activist Scott Olsen releases statement

Berkeley (Occupy Cal), St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Eureka, Denver, Albany (NY), Riverside, Portland, and other camps have been attacked as part of an organized suppression campaign.

Power to the People Film Series

(Theendofpoverty.com)

Police clear Occupy Oakland tent city
(San Jose Mercury News) Police cleared Occupy Oakland early Monday in what has so far been a peaceful raid. Hundreds of protesters gathered at... More
Occupy Oakland: Pre-dawn raid on Frank Ogawa Plaza
#OWS: The Most Important Thing in the World Now
Special Report: Food for the Soul at Occupy LA
Vatican City's gay love triangle murder
How do we dismantle rape culture
Capitalism versus the climate
Racism in the Occupy Movement?
Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots have been catching flak for being so "white." Occupy Atlanta is no exception, getting off to a rough start...when a civil rights movement hero-turned-Congressman stopped by to offer his support, only to be waved off by the mostly white G.A.

Gardening: "Homegrown Revolution" (video)

2011-11-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

(UrbanHomestead)

This urbanhomestead.org film features Jules, Justin, Anais, and Jordanne Dervaes. It is a short introduction to a homegrown project called a revolution in urban sustainability.

In the midst of a dense city setting in downtown Pasadena, radical change is taking root. For over 20 years, the Dervaes family has transformed its small home into an urban homestead, a model for sustainable agriculture (permaculture) in the city exposing homesteading.

VIDEO: Living Off the Grid (documentary)

The Dervaes and screeners show that change is possible. They harvest three tons of organic food annually from their 1/10th of an acre garden -- incorporating back-to-basics practices, solar energy, and biodiesel to reduce their carbon footprint.

Homegrown Revolution was never created for the film festival circuit. It is a real homegrown story. The original version was made in three days for a lecture Jules Dervaes gave at UCLA in 2007 on Slow Food. It received a wildly enthusiastic response from students, YouTube viewers, and has won many awards. More

Creating a backyard paradise

Beating the Drum for War on IRAN (cartoon)

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly, RT.com, Jason Bermas

The abuses do not begin and end with cracking down on Occupy Movement free speech. The goal is far greater -- even more war and Perkins-style economic assassinations. Apathy means the war machine goes forward. The goal of occupiers is to call attention to the corporate greed and military madness behind our US policy of endless war as Orwell described in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

(RT ) Iran war drumbeat on CrossTalk with Mark Levine and guests

Nov. 14, 2011 - Is the latest IAEA report a case for a war with Iran? Why does the US get to read it first? Is there enough evidence to conclude that Iran's nuclear program goes far beyond peaceful purposes? And why is no-one questioning the credibility of the IAEA?

("Invisible Empire") The military-industrial complex

Protesters push back after closures (video)

2011-11-13T23:11:00.000-08:00

Jack booted thugs? Hundreds march through the streets past police after two encampments are beaten down. Demonstrators regroup to figure out next move (oregonlive.com).

Occupy Portland pushes back after closures

Los Angeles Times
PORTLAND, Oregon - Several hundred protesters, some wearing goggles and gas masks, marched past authorities downtown Sunday, hours after riot police forced Occupy Portland demonstrators out of two encampments in parks.

(RT.com courtesy of Jamie Francis and Steve Schwind) Portland police in riot gear surround hundreds of Occupy protesters to violently evict them using batons, deadly weapons, and arrests to promote economic inequality and corporate greed.

Police moved in shortly before noon and drove protesters into the street after dozens remained in the camps in defiance of city officials. Mayor Sam Adams had ordered that the camps be shut down Saturday at midnight, citing unhealthy conditions and the increasing number of drug users and thieves. More than 50 protesters were arrested.

After the police raid, the number of demonstrators swelled throughout the afternoon. By early evening, dozens of officers brandishing nightsticks stood shoulder to shoulder to hold the protesters back. Authorities retreated and protesters broke the standoff by marching through the streets.

Demonstrators regrouped several blocks away, where they broke into small groups to discuss their future. Some were advocating occupying foreclosed homes; others wanted to move onto the Portland State University campus or to the shores of the Willamette River. More

PHOTOS: Occupy London (42squeek)

Mayor Sam Adams threatens to close down the camp. Portland PD is ready to kill, injure, and arrest but having faced massive resistance, they retreat.

Does progressive meditation matter in the midst of regressive, state sanctioned violence? If peace matters and change begins within, what is a more appropriate response?

Telling APEC and Obama: "We Are the Many"
(Makana) Nov. 12, 2011 on the grounds of the Hale Koa, Honolulu

The "World Leaders Dinner" at APEC, hosted by the First Family, got an earful. The Secret Service had warned that any phone cameras would be confiscated. Grabbing video was not easy under constant surveillance but it's my art and my right.

About an hour into my set of generally ambient guitar music and Hawaiian tunes, I felt inspired to share some songs that resonated with the significance of the occasion.

I sang a few verses from "Kaulana Na Pua" (a Hawaiian protest song), then segued into Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," Sting's "Fragile," and finally my newest song "We Are the Many."

My goal was to fill their ears and the atmosphere with a message that might effectively be received subconsciously. I sweetly sang lines like,

"You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none"

Reactions were muted. I would get strange, befuddled stares from heads of state. It was a very quiet room, no waiters, only me, sound techs, and leaders of almost half the world's population.

Instead of disrupting with force, I chose to deliver an extremely potent and prolonged message in a polite manner. Dedicated to those speaking truth to power. - Makana

How money is divided between the top 400 and bottom 150,000,000

Occupy Portland in standoff with riot police

2011-11-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

Police State actions at Occupy Portland (CNN)

PORTLAND, Oregon -- For several hours Sunday afternoon, [armed and extremely dangerous] Portland police officers in riot gear were lined up along Main Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues, in front of a group of Occupy Portland protesters defying repeated orders to leave. A crowd grew for hours in the street near the park that was made up of protesters, reporters, photographers, and onlookers. Some sat down for a time; a tent was brought toward the front line for a time and later removed. KGW reported that Salem police were brought to the scene to assist Portland police, amid protest signs, the V peace symbol and some people wearing gas masks. Chants included the familiar "The whole world is watching," as well as ones like "There's no riot here -- put away your riot gear." More

Better to light even a single candle than to curse the darkness.

Protesters arrested as police clear Occupy camps (CIA/CNN)
At CIA the glass ceiling shows its cracks
Liberals lusting after Pentagon's "pot of gold"?
Police State Training: Penn State loses to Cornhuskers
Bachmann: CIA interrogation is lacking
(CNN) During Saturdayt's Republican candidates' debate on national security issues, Tea Party presidential candidate Rep. Bachmann (MN) said the US has nowhere to take terrorists for interrogation and said the CIA does not interrogate anymore. The statement: "When we interdict a terrorist on the battlefield, we have no jail for them. We have nowhere to take them. We have no CIA interrogation anymore," Bachmann said. [Let's give the CIA back its secret prisons, "enhanced" torture techniques, and as much money as it wants to spends -- she seems to be saying.
VIDEO: Destroying Occupy Movement by YouTube

No, on second thought, get the h*ll out of here! No right to
peaceably assemble and petition for a redress of grievances.

Zen and the Art of Occupying

2011-11-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

Richard Schiffman (Huff Post), Occupy Zen, Globalrevolution.TV, Wisdom Quarterly

Occupy Wall Street vs. The Media (theinquisitr.com)

Zen is all about being. Being here. Being here now. We'd rather be-here-now. Having missed the Sixties, and having longed for that time our whole livea, it is a tremendous opportunity to sit in bigger more peaceful demonstrations against war, corporate greed, and cultural hypocrisy. That's all ww need do to be true to ourselves as practitioners of Zen. Sit. Schiffman gets it:

As a card carrying member of the Woodstock generation, it was like falling into a time warp: hundreds milling around armed with home made placards, the throb of African drums, young, half naked bodies sprawled on tarps, a teach-in under a tent, strains of Woody Guthrie.

For a veteran of the 1960s, it was deja vu all over again -- with one key difference -- computer banks and hand held cameras live-streaming the event, and emails of support flashing on large screens from similar encampments as far afield as Seattle, Berlin, and Buenos Aires.

At the entrance to the square, a circle of [demonstrators] was meditating cross-legged around a makeshift altar replete with didgeridoos and crystal skulls -- not to levitate the Pentagon, but to move some equally implacable edifices, the fortress-like financial institutions which ring Zuccotti Park.

Instead of a black bearded and ascetic Allen Ginsburg, the baseball-capped Russell Simmons was exhorting demonstrators to take back their government and their own increasingly imperiled futures. More

(All tees are ironic of course)

Mayan Calendar: Shifting to the Aquarian Age

2011-11-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Nina Persson ("NSB"), The111111event.org, RT.com, Occupy Sweden

THE AQUARIAN SHIFT means... I can't get out of bed. Can't get my dreams out of my sleepy head. I open up my eyes and wonder where you are. And soon I realize that you're not real. And I am. In between a day and dream, life and death are a lazy, crazy stream. I go against the stream. But that, too, is part of the dream. Hello, goodbye, you shifting, starlit screen! I try to seal my mind and get back to where you were. You were that perfect kind. I'm floating down again. And my world is a syrup waterfall. I can't remember when. Or where. Or why. Where is my enlightenment? The world does not shift (revolve, evolve) without a revolution.

The Age of Aquarius is when peace will guide the planet and love will steer the stars.

The Revolution

(OrdinaryGomez2)

(Oct. 7, 2011) The banker backlash in the United States is spreading, with major rallies held in the capital, Los Angeles, and other cities. Thousands have joined to express their distress at economic inequalities, war spending, environmental degradation, and high unemployment.

The peace demonstrations began last month when protesters started pitching tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange under the banner "Occupy Wall Street." Heavy-handed police, given financial donations by the banks, were filmed using batons and pepper spray to violently disperse the demonstrators.

The aftermath of years of financial strife is causing people's hope and patience to run out. And they are upset at the banks (foreclosing on homeowners after cheating them with dishonest loans, a credit crisis, and constantly draining the economy with welfare bail outs) for triggering the strife in the first place. Journalists reporting on the campaign, themselves unconstitutionally subjected to arrest and harassment, say the protesters will continue demanding social and economic justice.

One More Violent Revolution?

2011-11-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly (EDITORS)

A man sitting on his sofa was badgered by his wife to get rid of the dead weight around the house. "What dead weight?"

"Like your parents, for instance," she answered.

"But they're my parents!" he protested.

"They're nothing but dead weight," she argued. Finally, she convinced him to do away with them by pushing them over a cliff and into an abyss.

So one day he tossed them into an old wheelbarrow and trudged up the mountainside.

They were happy about the adventure, the great view, and the time spent with their son, not realizing their fate. He pushed on silently resigned to what he felt he had to do.

They finally reached the top where the view was grand in the dimming light. And they realized why they had been brought here.

They looked at their son, who was silent, and asked of him one final favor.

"What is it?" he moaned.

"Son, make sure that when you throw us over, nothing happens to this old barrow," they pleaded.

"Why!?" he demanded.

"Because, my boy, one day your son is going to need it."

They turned back with tears in their eyes and together and discussed how they might grow in peace, each playing a part, each expressing gratitude, each remembering how we are all part of one another.

Because we cannot thrive apart, we have to thrive together. A violent revolution never accomplished anything but more violence.

Sitting 101: What to "do" to do Zen (jhana)

2011-11-13T05:59:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly (edit) Zendayton

1. What do I “do” to do sitting Zen meditation (zazen)? Hamilton explains:

When we sit, we follow our breath. Beginning meditators are often asked to count their breath -- on the exhale -- up to ten then back to one. Lose track? Simply go back to one.

The breath is what it is, whatever it is. It eventually becomes slow and regular, never forced or artificially controlled. It is something to dispassionately and keenly observe. Breathe naturally and count. Distractions are inevitable. The sounds are nothing compared to the multimedia show within -- thoughts, memories, emotions, lights, dreams, sexual or violent fantasies, fears, cravings...

The way to handle them is to acknowledge them without identifying with them or becoming attached or straining to reject them. Just watch. Just let them be.

Accept them and watch them dissipate. In this way one does not get involved with them. Let it be, let it go, focus again on the breath.

Later, the same bare attention (free of judgment an attachment) used for distracting sounds and thoughts will work with physical discomforts as well.

2. The second explanation is what the historical Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama, Śhākyamuni, "the Sage of the Shakya Clan") is recorded as having said in Theravada scriptures from 2,600-year-old meditation instructions (Mindfulness of Breathing Sutra).

“A practitioner, having gone into seclusion in the wilderness, under the shade of a tree or the still of an empty building, sits down folding legs crosswise, holding body erect, and setting up mindfulness in the fore. Mindful one breathes in, mindful one breathes out."

Peter Coyote reads Suzuki Roshi audio book

3. Soto Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi had this to say:

When we practice zazen, our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes to the outer world.

The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say “inner world” or “outer world,” but actually there is just one whole world.

In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, “I breathe,” the “I” is extra. There is no you to say “I.”

Buddhist monks in zazen, Elheiji Zen Monastery, Japan (Art.com/Ursula Gahwiler)

What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all.

When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no “I,” no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door. –Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

If simply sitting is too hard, play in a sandbox.

WTF? How to do Zen (smallcricket.com)
PDF: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (esotericonline.net)
VDO: Suzuki Roshi Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind interview

Rife Cancer Cure Rediscovered (audio)

2011-11-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

Afterward he was approached by his old orchestra teacher, who had something way out of the box -- a theory that he could destroy cancer cells without harming normal cells with sound waves, like an opera singer shattering glass.

Curing cancer with (banned) Rife technology

Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with science writer Paul Hoffman about a mathematician named Frank Nelson Cole, who demonstrated a groundbreaking idea at a conference in 1903. Paul explains that in addition to their celebrated breakthroughs, many of the greatest thinkers in history have entertained some very crazy ideas. Paul is the author of many books including The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, and is director of the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey.

Act One: Mr. Holland's Opus

One day a successful cancer researcher named Jonathan Brody gave a talk at his alma mater, about how people in his field need to think outside the box if they're going to find a cure. Afterward Jonathan's old music teacher Anthony Holland shared an idea that was way out of the box: Killing cancer cells with sound waves. Gabriel Rhodes tells what happened next. Gabriel is also working on a documentary film version of this story, called The Cure.

LISTEN

The Buddha in Hinduism (video)

2011-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry Gautama Buddha in Hinduism

(UFOTVstudios) "Mystical Spirit" explores and links great pantheistic spiritual traditions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto. Traveling across India, France, and Japan, viewers are taken on a mystical journey including yoga, Swami Shivananda, the Dalai Lama, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, and the secrets of Tantric Buddhism and Japanese Shinto.

The Buddha in Hinduism is viewed as an avatar of the space "god" Vishnu. In the Puranic text Bhagavata Purana, he is the 24th of 25 avatars, prefiguring a forthcoming final incarnation.^[1]

Similarly, a number of Hindu traditions portray the Buddha as the most recent (ninth) of ten principal avatars, known as the Daśāvatāra (Ten Incarnations of God).

Hinduism officially regards the Buddha (bottom center) as one of the 10 avatars of Vishnu.

The Buddhist Dasharatha Rebirth Tale (Jataka Atthakatha 461) represents Rama as a previous incarnation of the Buddha as a bodhisattva (being striving for supreme enlightenment) and supreme Dharma king of great wisdom.

The Buddha: Refiner of Hinduism

The Buddha's teachings deny the authority of India's ancient sacred scriptures, the Vedas. Consequently, Buddhism is generally viewed as a nāstika (lit., "It is not so," heterodox) school^[2] from the perspective of orthodox Hinduism.

Views of the Buddha in Hinduism

Due to the diversity of traditions within what is collectively called "Hinduism," as if it were one "religion," there is no specific viewpoint or consensus on the Buddha's exact position with regard to Vedic tradition:

In the Dasavatara stotra section of his Gita Govinda, the influential Vishnuite poet Jayadeva (13th C AD) includes the Buddha among the ten principal avatars of Vishnu and writes a prayer regarding him:

O Keshava! O Lord of the universe! O Lord Hari, who have assumed the form of Buddha! All glories to You! O Buddha of compassionate heart, you decry the slaughtering of poor animals performed according to the rules of Vedic sacrifice.^[3]

This viewpoint of the Buddha as the avatar who primarily promoted non-violence remains a popular belief among a number of modern Vishnu adoring organizations, including the Hari Krishna movement (ISKCON).^[4]

Other prominent modern proponents of Hinduism, such as Radhakrishnan and Vivekananda, consider the Buddha a teacher of the same universal truth (sanatan dharma) that underlies all religions of the world:

Vivekananda: May he who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrians, the Buddha of Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heavens of Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble ideas!^[5]

Radhakrishnan: If a Hindu chants the Vedas on the banks of the Ganges, ...if the Japanese worship the image of Buddha, if the European is convinced of Christ's mediatorship, if the Arab reads the Koran in the mosque... It is their deepest apprehension of God and God's fullest revelation to them.^[6]

Steven Collins sees such Hindu claims regarding Buddhism as part of an effort -- itself a reaction to Christian proselytizing efforts in India -- to show that "all religions are one" and that Hinduism is uniquely valuable because it alone recognizes this fact.^[7]

There is Vaishnuite sect of Maharashtra, India known as Varkari. They worship Lord Vithoba (also known as Vitthal, Panduranga). Though Vithoba is mostly considered a form of little Krishna, there is an old and deeply rooted belief that Vithoba is a form of the Buddha.

Many Maharashtra poets (Eknath, Namdev, Tukaram, etc.) have explicitly mentioned him as the Buddha, though many neo-Buddhists (Ambedkaries) and many Western scholars tend to reject this opinion.

The figure of Vithoba as an avatar of Vishnu may have been identified with the Buddha in an attempt to assimilate Buddhism into Hindu tradition. The teachings of the Buddha have also been incorporated in Varkari Vaishnavism (Vishnu worship). And they have been integrated with traditional Vedic philosophy uniquely.

Hindu reactions to the Buddha

A number of revolutionary figures in modern Hinduism, including Gandhi, have been inspired by the life and teachings of the Buddha, and many of his attempted reforms.^[8]

Buddhism finds favor in contemporary the Hindutva movement, with Tibet's 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, being honored at Hindu events, like the Vishva Hindu Parishad's second World Hindu Conference in Allahabad in 1979.^[9] More

Buddhism and Hinduism

Penn State riots; we ignore child abuse (video)

2011-11-12T06:55:00.000-08:00

Wisdom Quarterly

RussiaToday (Courtesy of Derek Himes) You will NOT fire our winning coaches even if they molest boys in the locker room. They're winning football games!

Today (Nov. 9, 2011) police in riot gear -- bored from plotting against peaceful Occupy Movement demonstrators -- confronted hundreds of Penn State jocks and football fans who took to the streets after the ouster of child-molestation-ignoring coach Joe Paterno.

Accused child rapist Coach Sundusky, founder of Second Mile

Crowds toppled a television news van. The sports lovers flooded downtown State College after Paterno and university President Graham Spanier were fired amid a growing furor linked to their handling of homosexual child molestation and rape allegations against manly former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Silent all these years
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)
Is it any wonder Catholic priests, scout leaders, and coaches regularly sodomize children, get drunk, and watch porn? It seems our entire society is swept over by child molesting.

Macho football coaches molest boys in locker room showers, tough police assault detainees, hypermasculine soldiers homosexually rape fellow soldiers, officers condone gang rape and belittling victims, brutal prison inmates regularly engage in sex with men, fathers have gay sex with children. It just seems that for such a heterosexual Christian nation, we sure are hypocritical.

There is a taboo in most societies against molesting children.
Only the taboo is not against the molestation itself.
It is against talking about it, especially by victims.
We w ill not stand for it!

We say there's nothing wrong with choosing to be gay -- while the dominant religions of our culture absolutely condemn it. Yet we secretly and shamefully exploit the vulnerable and take out homosexual impulses on them, which we must have inherited from being molested ourselves. And nearly no one stops the insidious circle of abuse.

One dare not speak its name! And when priests are caught (not rogue "soldiers for the lord" but average, commonplace clerics condoned by the Church in over 200 Christian sects and non-Christian institutions as well), we go deaf, dumb, and blind -- in effect condoning it ourselves, even when it is our kids, our fathers, our soldiers, our coaches.

Then we cry and say God will take care of it, so what is there for us to do if He's handling it? No problem here. That only happens in other countries like Afghanistan and Iran or anywhere are "enemies" are.

Those who do not work it out act it out.

NOTE: What does this issue have to do with Buddhism? Lots. First of all, there is the issue of sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara), which at its most fundamental level means having intercourse with those dependent on others for protection and support. Children, unable to consent, are in a sense being raped. We, being interdependent, are all being hurt. There is also the issue of causing harm to society beyond the victims and their loved ones. There is the issue of retaliating, which is said to be worse than attacking. Say, just for the sake of argument, that Sandusky was the victim of childhood sexual abuse and that this gave him a penchant to turn around and do the same thing. By doing, he becomes worse than his perpetrators. We all do. If we regard as wrong what was done to us, we certainly do not want to do that to someone and then bring it upon ourselves in the future again (by the strange and mind boggling operation of karma). There is the issue of hypocrisy, of sports and money being more important to a school than academics and science. This issue is a lot bigger than Penn State or football.