Giant breasts are becoming the norm in Wellington, New Zealand. The breasts in New Zealand are growing dramatically. Throughout the country the sale of size D thru J have increased 53 per cent. Also embracing the bust increase is the struggling travel industry, which is seeing equivalent lift in their business. More
Wisdom Quarterly continue to reveal the popularity of our favorite agnosticghost whisperer and yoga enthusiast., Ms. Love Hewitt. Nearly a million and a half views later, she is gaining popularity on what 2012 has in store for the planet. Jen leans toward Buddhism with selfless acts of loving-kindness. We may be under-counting, but official is official.
The problem has gotten so pointed, even new Buddha statues are affected (Woottamee)
Whether trying to meditate, do yoga, watch TV, or shop for groceries, distractions are everywhere. The Buddha once pointed out that the shape of a woman is a man's greatest obsession, and the shape of a man is a woman's. Why are we obsessed?
It seems to be a deep seated compulsion that goes beyond our cultural conditioning all the way down to the brainstem, the reptilian brain, and the limbic system.
But it is made far worse by the multibillion-dollar breast industry. That's not enhancement, bras, and bathing suits -- it's everything: music, TV shows, ads, sales persons, singers...nothing is free of it. It in no way stops there. And the obsession is not limited to leering men.
Men gawk, while women are more subtle. But it is women who disproportionately suffer from body dysmorphic disorder and an inferiority complexes trying to keep up with airbrushed images. The images are modeled on the figures of pubescent, meat-hormone fed American teens, push-up bra wearers, and post surgery party goers.
Male mammals have mammary glands, too, and they're real breasts.
Mindfulness cures obsession. Contemplation on the repulsive aspects of the body (in 32 parts), because the Buddha did not simply say that we are obsessed. He offered solutions. The body is beautiful. But in it there is a danger. Moreover, there is an escape from the danger.
We are sunk if we simply go through life dragged about by our impulses, being manipulated by the media, and being taken advantage of by those who profit from our wandering eyes and minds.
Envy or lust, what are women looking at?
All mammals, both male and female, have them by definition. Our attention is directed and manufactured by design. What is driving us? If we assume it is "nature," there's nothing to nurture and nothing we can do about it.
If we understand that there is an industry (selling sex, self-esteem, magazines, fashion, femininity, cancer, movies, unrelated product sales, etc.), we can begin to see through it and free ourselves.
The mysterious pull of beauty is revealed and undone when we see it clearly according to its true nature as composite with an illusory stability.
Sundari Nanda, Suddhodana and Maha Pajapati's daughter, the Buddha's half-sister
Soon after his birth, Prince Siddhartha's mother (Maha Maya Devi) passed away. He was adopted by her younger sister, King Suddhodana's other wife, Maha Prajapati. She was later to become history's first Buddhist nun.
When she was born, Princess Nanda was lovingly welcomed by her parents: Her father was King Suddhodana, the father of the Buddha; her mother was Mahaprajapati. Nanda's name means "joy, contentment, and pleasure." She was so named because her parents were especially joyous about the newborn's arrival.
Nanda was known in her childhood for being extremely beautiful, well-bred, and graceful. To distinguish her from other Sakyans -- the Buddha's extended family -- with the same name, like her brother, she came to be known as Rupa Nanda ("one of delightful form") and Sundari Nanda ("beautiful Nanda").
Over time, many members of her family, the Sakyans of Kapilavastu [likely located in the vicinity of Bamiyan, Afghanistan -- sakya literally meaning "grey earth" according to Wonderlane -- formerly the mountainous desert northwest of India, or less likely but as is traditionally held, southern Nepal] left the worldly life. They renounced it for the ascetic life, inspired by the enlightenment of Prince Siddhartha, who came to be called the "Sage of the Sakyas" (Shakyamuni).
Among them was her and the Buddha's brother, Nanda, and their cousins Ananda and Anurudha, who were two of the Buddha’s leading disciples. When their mother became the first nun, many other royal Shakyan ladies, including Siddhartha's former wife, Princess Yasodharā, became Buddhist monastics.
So Sundari Nanda also renounced the burdensome household life. But unlike many of the others, who sought the best guidance, she did not do it out of
confidence in the Buddha's enlightenment
confidence in the efficacy of the Dharma to bring one to enlightenment
confidence in the success of that Noble Sangha who followed the Path (the Buddha-Dharma) laid out for quickly reaching enlightenment.
She did it out of love for and attachment to her relatives and a feeling that she belonged with them.
Renunciation
It soon became obvious that Sundari Nanda was not focused on her life as an ascetic nun. Her thoughts were mainly centered on her beauty and popularity with the people, characteristics she enjoyed due to the ripening of meritorious actions performed in past lives. This welcome karmic inheritance became an impediment to Sundari Nanda. She neglected to reinforce it with new merit (profitable karma or weighty good actions).
She felt guilty that she was not living up to the lofty expectations of others. She was far from the goal so many members of the Shakyan royal family had left the home life for. And she felt certain the Buddha would censure her. So for a long time, she avoided him.
Enlightenment
One day the Buddha requested all the nuns come to him individually to hear the teaching. Sundari Nanda disregarded the request. The Buddha asked for her to be called explicitly. She presented herself but her demeanor was abashed and anxious. The Buddha wisely appealed to her positive qualities, so she became willing to listen and delighted in his words.
When the Buddha knew the conversation had raised her spirits and made her joyful and ready to accept the Dharma, he began to teach her. Since Sundari Nanda was preoccupied with her physical beauty, he used his psychic powers to produce a vision of a stunningly beautiful woman, one more gorgeous than Sundari Nanda.
The woman then began to age rapidly and forcefully right in front of her. As a result, Sundari Nanda could see in explicit detail what humans otherwise only notice after decades or an entire lifespan: Youth recedes, health and beauty fade, decay and signs aging appear -- wrinkles, hair greying and loss, decline in faculties.
The vision deeply affected Sundari Nanda; she was shaken to the core. Having seen the image, the Buddha could explain the universal mark of radical impermanence [which is not about eventual aging, but moment-to-moment rising and falling of the Five Aggregates] to her in such a manner that she penetrated the truth entirely and thereby attained the first stage of enlightenment, certainty of future liberation, stream-entry.
As a meditation subject, the Buddha advised her to contemplate the impermanent and unpleasant aspects of the body -- to see it as it truly is and thereby be liberated by that truth. This is a systematic contemplation -- the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness -- not simply an epiphany (satori) based on a vision of the future loss of beauty. Sundari Nanda persevered for extended periods of practice "diligent and courageous day and night." She described it as recorded in the "Verses of Enlightened Nuns" (Therigatha 82-86):
Ill, impure, and offensive as well, Nanda, see this jumbled mass [the body]. Toward the unlovely, develop mind Well-composed to singleness.
As is this, so was that As that, so will this likewise be. Exhaling foulness, evil odors, A thing delighted in by fools.
Diligently inspecting it, just as it is, By day and night thus seeing it, With my own wisdom having seen, I turned away, dispassionate.
With diligence, carefully I examined the body And saw this as it really is -- Both within and without.
No longer lusting but quenched Within this body then was I: By diligence from fetters freed, Peaceful was I and quite cool.
As Sundari Nanda had once been infatuated with her physical appearance, it was necessary for her to apply the meditation on bodily unattractiveness to counterbalance that powerful tendency and bias and find equanimity (impartiality).
Later the Buddha recognized his half-sister as being the foremost amongst female monastics who practiced meditative absorption (jhana) -- like the chief female disciple Uppalavanna and chief male disciple Mahamoggallana. This meant that she not only followed the analytical way of insight, but was expert in the foundational stages of serenity.
Enjoying this pure supersensual well-being, she no longer needed any sensual distractions. She enjoyed inner peace at will, in spite of having become a member of the Sangha out of attachment to her loved ones.
I admit it, I'm a doting parent. I want an enlightened child. I show this to her, but she only laughs. She's not getting any younger you know.
Jen's "Ghost Whisperer" is based on James Van Praagh's life. But mainly she gives people a serious case of Bebe Stevens Syndrome.
Giant breasts are becoming the norm in Wellington, New Zealand. The breasts in New Zealand are growing dramatically. Throughout the country the sale of size D thru J have increased 53 per cent. Also embracing the bust increase is the struggling travel industry, which is seeing equivalent lift in their business. More
The problem has gotten so pointed, even new Buddha statues are affected (Woottamee)
It seems to be a deep seated compulsion that goes beyond our cultural conditioning all the way down to the brainstem, the reptilian brain, and the limbic system.
Male mammals have mammary glands, too, and they're real breasts.
Mindfulness cures obsession. Contemplation on the repulsive aspects of the body (in 32 parts), because the Buddha did not simply say that we are obsessed. He offered solutions. The body is beautiful. But in it there is a danger. Moreover, there is an escape from the danger.
We are sunk if we simply go through life dragged about by our impulses, being manipulated by the media, and being taken advantage of by those who profit from our wandering eyes and minds.
All mammals, both male and female, have them by definition. Our attention is directed and manufactured by design. What is driving us? If we assume it is "nature," there's nothing to nurture and nothing we can do about it.
