Halloween, the Happiest Time of Year!

Wisdom Quarterly (Editors)

China's Gao Temple caverns were converted into a peculiar kind of Chinese hell, where devils are depicted torturing beings reborn in perdition. Do Buddhists go to heaven? (Deanspic/Flickr)

Halloween is America's greatest holiday. It is one of the few times we formally acknowledge that it is not all about us. Our ancestors are still with us in one form or another. In the Petavatthu, the Buddha explained that it was not possible for someone not to have relatives dwelling in the unfortunate abodes -- the realm of ghosts and subhuman existences collectively. This is because "relatives" is defined as going back seven generations (just as it extends for the Native Americans). What leads to rebirth on those unfortunate planes? The anti-precepts lead there: not abstaining or discouraging killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, deceiving, or drug taking. To abandon these and encourage others to abandon them is the way to the human world and higher worlds. But here now -- where we are shamed for any "deviant," "sinful," or "wrong" impulse -- Halloween is the only appropriate holiday for acting out in all the ways that are forbidden. It is no wonder Halloween has become more popular with US adults than children.

Halloween (Samhain) witch, angel, she-devil

For just one day I'll pretend I'm a s----y devil. My parents say it's crazy and they won't have it under their roof! But every other day of the year it's hypocrisy. How can pretending (and deceiving others) be preferable to play acting? Halloween is not when we are like this; Halloween is when we express how we think of being. Strangling the expression of everything unpleasant does not make it go away. It feeds it and keeps it alive with guilt, shame, and turning a blind eye. Let it see the light of day. Maybe it's not as much to be afraid of as we fear. It would be less worse to die than to live always fearing death. Whosoever would purposely turn from the truth, whatever the truth may be, is no truthseeker.

(Barbara Virgo Hobbs/Flickr.com)

Family Guy: Sugar is the cause of fast aging, rotting, and mental instability as Stewie Duck and Pink Brian find (tv.ign.com).

Foreclosure firm mocks evicted at Halloween party
Lindsay Lohan spends Halloween at county morgue
The famous [Hindu] "Trinity" concept not in Bible
Haunted Magic Castle burns on Halloween
Fire officials are trying assess the damage after a greater-alarm fire ripped through the famed Magic Castle in the Hollywood Hills on Monday. Fire crews said the blaze was contained largely to the attic and walls of the historic venue but that there might be significant water damage. There is no immediate cause for the blaze...

Perseus Cluster Screaming Skull space jack 'o lantern is actually a Chandra image of galaxies in X-rays (A. Fabian, et al./IoA Cambridge/NASA/Space.com).

Stories of the Departed (Petavatthu)

Wisdom Quarterly

Ancient round of existences (Sanskrit, samsara) we cycle through endlessly due to ignorance and craving, the Wheel of Rebirth and Death (Hanciong/Flickr).

Stories of the Departed
Spooks, creeps, haints, poltergeists, monsters, ghosts... in Buddhism? The Petavatthu is a collection of ancient Buddhist scriptures in the form of ghost stories. It is located in the Khuddaka Nikaya. Composed of 51 verse narratives, it specifically describes how the effects of unprofitable karma can, when and if they ripen, lead to rebirth in the unhappy realm of "ghosts" (petas).

This happens in accordance within the framework of intentional actions and their results. It gives prominence to the teaching that giving alms to successful Buddhist practitioners (arhats, buddhas, meditators, monastics, moral individuals) is capable of benefiting the ghosts of one's relatives.

But how could my good actions become someone else's good actions? They can not, technically speaking. But since "actions" include words and thoughts, there is a way. If one's relatives in the realm of ghosts approves, lauds, and commends the good one does either on their behalf or in general, they themselves are generating very meritorious mental-karma.

When the deed they are approving of is very excellent, such as giving to an enlightened person, it can have immediate benefits for them. That a relative does it is important, that they approve of it is crucial. The other worlds are not far.

Hungry Ghost (Sanskrit, preta) scroll, Kyoto (Wikimedia commons)

• Famines combine the Realm of Humans and Hungry Ghosts

Dung-Like Life to Live (sutra)

Wisdom Quarterly based on Maurice O'Walshe translation

"This is awesome! Should we share it?" "No, let them get their own. They haven't got the good karma to have our abundance!" (Image: laweekly.com).

The Dung Beetle (SN 17.5)

"A fatal thing, practitioners, are gains, favors, and fame -- a bitter, harsh impediment to the attainment of the unsurpassed freedom from bondage [enlightenment and nirvana].

"It is just like a beetle [or cesspool dweller], feeding on dung, full of dung, engorged with dung, standing before a great dung-heap, who might despise other beetles, saying: 'I am a dung-eater, full of dung, engorged with dung, and before me is this great dung-heap!'

"It is the same way, practitioners, if someone is overwhelmed with gains, favors, and fame. That practitioner's head is turned. So having arisen early and taken robe and bowl and gone for alms to the village or market town, one gets one's fill, gets invited again for the next day, and has a full bowl.

"Then one goes to the recluses' park and boasts in the midst of the assembled: 'I have had a good meal, and I am invited again for tomorrow. My bowl is full. I have got [the other requisites as well, namely,] a robe, alms, lodgings, and a sufficient supply of medicines. But these other recluses have little merit and little influence; they do not get [all of these] requisites.'

"Thus this practitioner -- overwhelmed with gains, favors, and fame -- whose head is turned, despises other well-behaved practitioners. But this will bring harm and sorrow to that wretched person for many a long day.

"This goes to show you, practitioners, how disastrous gains, favors, and fame are -- what a bitter, harsh impediment to the attainment of the unsurpassed freedom from bondage.

"Therefore, practitioners, should you train yourselves thus: 'Whatever gains, favors, and fame may come our way, we will reject, lest they should turn our heads.' Thus, practitioners, should you train yourselves."

Regret
Hellmuth Hecker translation (Queen Mallika (Jataka 77 & 314)

Haunting voices were heard. They belonged to four former humans who had lived in the ancient Indian city of Savatthi, who had been seducers of others' spouses.

Through the ripening of their sexual misconduct, they were reborn in a miserable realm. For 30,000 years they sank in red hot iron cauldrons, the heat of which caused a convection cycle. Coming nearer to the fire intensified their unbearable suffering. For another 30,000 years they slowly rose up in those iron cauldrons and were now coming to the rim, where they could once again at least breathe the air of the human realm.

Each one wanted the speak a verse. But because of the gravity of their deeds, they could not get past the first syllable. Not even in sighs could they give voice to their suffering, having long since lost the gift of speech.

The four verses -- which start in the exclusively Buddhist language Pali with "du," "sa," "na," "so" -- were recognized and explained by the Buddha as follows:

Du: Dung-like life we lived,
No willingness to give,
Although we could have given much,
We did not make our refuge thus.

Sa: Say, the end is near?
Already 60,000 years have gone
Without respite the torture is
In this hellish realm.

Na: Naught, no end near, Oh, would it end!
No end in sight for us.
Who once did misdeeds here
For me, for you, for both of us.

So: So, could I only leave this place
And raise myself to human realm,
I would be kind and moral too,
And do good deeds abundantly.

After the king heard these explanations, he became responsive to the request of his compassionate queen and granted freedom to the imprisoned men and animals. He ordered the [ancient Vedic] sacrificial altar to be destroyed.