China's "Father Nature" and California's Yeti

Shen Nung, Viharnra Sien (วิหารเซียน), Chinese-Thai community, Thailand (Clay Irving)

The sign next to the statute reads: "Shen Nung - The First Farmer and Founder of Natural Mad" (Med/Ag, medicine and agriculture?)

Shen Nung (also Shennong) is also known as the Emperor of the Five Grains and the Father of Chinese (Herbal) Medicine. He was a ruler of China and cultural hero who is reputed to have lived 5,000 years ago. He taught the ancient Chinese people the practices of agriculture. Appropriately, his name means "the Divine Farmer." The demigod (human-deva hybrid) Shen Nung taught his people how to cultivate grain as food so they could avoid killing animals and living like ogres, who lust for blood. By choosing plants -- as if to say "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole Earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it; they will be yours for food" (Gen. 1:29) -- they were able to increase their population, sophistication, and domesticated civilization. China was once one of the great realms on par with ancient Egypt, Sumer, and the Indus Valley civilizations. All of them were rooted in the teaching and help of devas according to their history and lore.

This proves there is no "Bigfoot," but it does not explain the ancient lore from India (yaksha) to China (yeren) to Indonesia (orang pendek) to Siberia (Mountain Man) to Bhutan (yeti)

Our Yosemite-Yeti Expedition
Pat Macpherson (Wisdom Quarterly)
Team WQ spent an extended Father's Day weekend on safari in the northern highlands of Yosemite National Park and the desolate desert lowlands (where they are also sometimes spotted) of Mono Lake.

They aren't far apart as the crow flies, but there is a steep altitude drop off from one to the other. The Tenaya Lake region is an alpine granite wonderland.

We were headed for Cloud's Rest. And while it seemed clear that Earthbound-devas (bhumi-devas or woodland fairies) were all about, we could locate no trace of Sasquatch, the abominable California yeti (yakshi) of indigenous Californian and Buddhist lore.

The most famous yeti or yakkha in Buddhism is Alavaka (as recorded in the "Inspired Utterances," Ud. VI, 1). His description makes it clear that while he might have been a cross bred cannibal, he was powerful, intelligent, and possessed supernormal abilities.

Our "sightings" of flora and fauna were just black bears, massive redwood trees, and a certain father's prank.

We did see how the Native Americans lived, particularly the local Paiute, who now have their own museum exhibit at Mono Lake and a strange relationship with brine-shrimp-flies.

• Bigfoot appeared after experiments to cross ape, human
• The most famous Buddhist Bigfoot: Yakkha Alavaka
• VIDEO: Police capture Bigfoot on dash cam (Discovery)
• Indonesian yeti (orang pendek) spotted in the jungle
• Bigfoot saved from drowning in icy Siberian river
• Cryptozoologists embark on hunt for Indonesian yeti
• Sasquatch Music Festival 2011
  

Father's Day Buddhist story

Wisdom Quarterly

(simpsons.wikia.com)

Once there was a young man who married a beautiful woman. He took care of his elderly father as all the other members of the family had passed away. His new bride was wonderful, but she soon tired of looking after his father.

She asked her new husband to throw the father out. The young man explained that that was impossible. He was his father after all. The wife demanded he at least relocate him to the garage-like shed in the back.

Her husband conceded. The father was so happy to see his son as the son took his father up in his arms and took him out to the shed. "Where are we going, son?"

"I'm putting you out, father. My wife thinks it would be better."

"I understand," the father lamented. "Visit me often, son."

"I will," the son said as he slouched back toward the house. But soon his wife was again upset at having to wait on the elderly man.

"Kill him," she encouraged her husband. "Put him out of his misery -- and me out of mine." The husband was shocked, but he loved his new wife. She pressured him constantly then threatened to leave him.

The husband could not reason with her. So after a time, he asked her exactly what she wanted him to do.

"Take him and roll him over the cliff," she conspired. "But he's my father; he raised me," the husband pleaded. "Then I'm leaving," she threatened.

"I'll do it this evening," the young man finally agreed. When he went out to the shed, the father was overjoyed to see him. "Son! Are we going somewhere?"

"Yes, father," the son said as he placed his father into a sturdy old wheelbarrow cart. The father was ecstatic as he was wheeled up the hillside. "Oh, son, I've missed you. Your wife can be harsh. Tell me about your day."

But the son remained silent as he pushed his father ever higher.

"Son, where are we going? To the overlook to see the sunset?"

As they approached the cliff, the father told the son he was close enough to the ledge. "No, father, we're not close enough."

The father suddenly understood. And his heart throbbed with compassion: "Why, son, is it because I'm old?"

"No, father, it's because of my wife."

"I understand," the father lamented. "Just grant one last wish." The son was surprised that his father understood and was taking it so well. With a tear in his eye, he said: "Certainly, father, what is it?"

"Son, when you throw me over, make sure you don't throw over this sturdy cart."

"Why, father?" the son asked perplexed.

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

The son stopped dead in his tracks, reconsidered committing this heinous karma*, and turned back. "Forgive me, father! I owe my life to you. Better I were to end up alone in our house than ever harm you."

The son returned together with his father and the cart and told his wife that unless she wanted to end up in the shed or on the street altogether, she would have to respect his father as she respected him.

The wife suddenly respected her husband and extended that respect to her father. The son thereby avoided the horrible fate of the Buddha's second chief male disciple, Maha Moggallana.

• Maha Moggallana: a Story of Filial Piety

MAHA MOGGALLANA lived alone in a forest hut. After his encounter with the devil Mara he knew his end was near. Having enjoyed the bliss of liberation, he now felt a burden. He had no desire to make use of his psychic powers to extend his life. When killers came to assassinate him, he disappeared to spare them of the fearsome karmic consequences of such a deed, necessarily leading to rebirth in the hells. But they returned again and again out of greed for the money they had been promised. On the seventh occasion Moggallana suddenly lost the magic control of his body because of a heinous deed he had committed in a previous life long long before (causing the death of his own parents) for which he had suffered greatly for a long long time which had nevertheless not exhausted that karma. He was brutally beaten to death. More

*Five "heinous karma with fixed results" are matricide, parricide, murdering an arhat, wounding a Buddha, or causing a schism in the Sangha

Father's Day trek: Bigfoot, Devas, Shamans

Our Father’s Day gift to our expedition leader took a decidedly cryptozoological turn, a “Hooray for Cryptozoology” tee-shirt (threadless.com) from the International Cryptozoology Museum.

Wisdom Quarterly is going to the Yosemite Highlands to commune with nature in search of bhummi-devas (nature spirits, dryads) and their elusive companions the California Yeti, our native Sasquatch.

The indigenous Indians in the area were well aware of its existence all the way down to Mono Lake. We'll be staying in a yurt to ensure we're close to the forest and able to hear it, led by our friend Melissa's father, who is part Miwok.

(cryptomundo.com)

Native rock art of shamans, who created them as power points with celestial and animal references. They are scattered all over the Great Basin including Yosemite and the Hetch Hetchy Valley, which were once Paiute Indian areas.

• The Indians of Yosemite Handbook

These beings in Buddhist cosmology hold woodland power and possibly answers. Even if the Sierra Madre mountain range reveals nothing but misty emanations of light by granite-and-gold encrusted stones, streams, and placid Lake Tenaya, it will be an adventure to rival trekking in the Himalayas.

• Making a gratitude list
• Buddhist Blog: Father's Day Story
• New York dad's and grads Dharma talk
• Camping's stroke, God's wrath?
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• See how atheists will barbecue on Earth
• Christian summer camps