"Day of the Dead" (Dia De Los Muertos)

Wisdom Quarterly, HollywoodForever.com

(Britphoto) The 11th Annual Dia De los Muertos ("Day of the Dead") festival filmed (and edited) by Karl Polverino at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Oct. 30, 2010.

Hollywood Forever is a cemetery like no other. One of the world’s most fascinating landmarks, it is the final resting place to more of Hollywood’s founders and stars than any place on Earth. Founded in 1899, this graveyard was an integral part of the growth of early Hollywood. Paramount Studios was built on the back half of the original site, where it still operates today. It is the choice resting place for most of the founders of Hollywood’s great studios, as well as its writers, directors, and performers.

The cemetery is now listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. Visitors come from all over the world to pay respects to Johnny Ramone, Cecil B. DeMille, Jayne Mansfield, Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, and hundreds of Hollywood’s greatest stars. But mostly they come to celebrate a Latin holiday quickly catching on. It is the new Cinco de Mayo ("Fifth of May") for Los Angeles's indigenous ethnicity.

After all, not long ago California belonged to Mexico. Los Angeles ("The Angels") was settled by celebrants of a culture that remembered its ancestors and set aside this special day (traditionally Nov. 1st) to care for them after their passing. Not coincidentally, almost a world away, Europe chose the same day. But it is the eve of that day that became most famous as All Hallow's Eve.

The veils separating the human, ghost (preta), animal, monster (asura, yakkha, naga, kumbandha), and hellion planes seems to thin at this time, perhaps allowing lower planes to again savor the wondrous but largely taken for granted opportunity of existence as a human, the last fortunate destination in Buddhist cosmology.

Remembering Mara (maranasati) on LA's Day of the Dead

Mindfulness of Death
Wisdom Quarterly translation Maranassati Sutra (AN 6.20)
Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was residing at Nadika, in the Brick Monastery, where he addressed the recluses, "Recluses!"

"Yes, venerable sir," they replied.

"Mindfulness of death when developed and made much of is of great fruit, of great benefit. It leads to the deathless [nirvana], has the deathless as its final end. Therefore, one should develop mindfulness of death."

When this was said a certain disciple addressed the Buddha: "I already develop mindfulness of death."

"How do you develop mindfulness of death?" the Buddha replied.

"I think, 'Oh, if I were to live for a day and night and attend to the Blessed One's instructions, I will have accomplished a great deal!' This is how I develop it."

Another disciple added, "I, too, already develop mindfulness of death."

"How do you develop mindfulness of death?"

"I think, 'Oh, if I were to live for a day and attend to the Blessed One's instructions, I will have accomplished a great deal!' This is how I develop it."

Then another added, "I, too, develop mindfulness of death... I think, 'Oh, if I were to live for the interval it takes to eat a meal and were to attend to the Blessed One's instructions, I will have accomplished a great deal.' This is how...."

Then another added, "...I think, 'Oh, if I were to live for the interval it takes to swallow four chewed up morsels of food and were to attend to the Blessed One's instructions, I will have accomplished a great deal.' This is how...."

Then another added, "...I think, 'Oh, if I were to live for the interval it takes to swallow one chewed up morsel of food..."

Then another added, "I...think, 'Oh, if I were to live for the interval it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out..."

When all this was said, the Buddha addressed them. "Whoever develops mindfulness of death thinking, 'Oh, if I were to live for a day and night... a day... the interval it takes to eat a meal... swallow four morsels of food and were to attend to the Blessed One's instructions, I will have accomplished a great deal!' -- such practitioners are said to dwell heedlessly. They develop mindfulness of death slowly for the sake of ending the defilements.

"But whoever develops mindfulness of death thinking, 'Oh, if I were to live for the interval it takes to swallow one morsel of food... for the interval it takes to breathe out after breathing in or to breathe in after breathing out and were to attend to the Blessed One's instructions, I will have accomplished a great deal!' -- such practitioners are said to dwell heeding my advice. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the defilements.

"Therefore should you train yourselves: 'We will dwell heedfully. We will develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the defilements.' That is how you should train yourselves."

That is what the Buddha said. And the recluses delighted in his words.

A Very Buddhist Summer

Ashley Wells (Wisdom Quarterly)

Hotei Bodhisattva, the Japanese Zen "Santa Claus" often mistaken for a buddha, hanging ten (Emerson Rauth/Flickr.com)

SANTA MONICA, California - While Republicans vote and gays parade on the east coast, summer is heating up on Southern California's beaches.

I used to think I understood Buddhism. Four of these, eight of those. It was easy. And good. I didn't always realize each item had an exact meaning.

It was when my religious studies professors and Buddhist friends (kalyana-mitras) started to point directly to sutras (discourses) that were used to make these handy lists that I realized there was a lot I might not know.

One day Seven, one of our editors, was vividly talking about Buddhism's "Dependent Origination." The rest of us thought that was a Buddhist explanation, or speculation, about the origin of the universe. First cause of this illusory separate-existence? Ignorance. Easy!

But that's not what the 12 links of the formula are actually about. It's not a treatise on a First Cause, prime mover, origin, prakriti, or nurturing birthing Goddess concept who gave rise to the universe.

There's actually a reason to meditate, to cultivate calm-and-insight. It's actually something personally verifiable, which in my book makes it better than physics. I don't have a Large Hadron Collider. I don't even have a small one.

I'll never know for sure if there's a "God particle," a boson, muon, gluon, or comicon, even if I had a degree from Atheist College. at NCHUM. Speaking of atheism, I always liked the Buddha for being an atheist. But he wasn't. I'm not. He was a nontheist. And that's what we've become around here. There is? There isn't? Doesn't matter to the attainment of enlightenment and liberation.

Even the "gods" and goddesses (devas and devis), Gods (brahmas), and other higher-order beings throughout space are trapped. Most do not have the Dharma, they certainly have no Sangha, or sufficient incentive to practice. They don't see disappointment (dukkha).

And without insight-wisdom to break free of the fetters and defilements that bind us all to rebirth, there is enlightenment for them. God, who is often credited with omniscience, is not enlightened. That's amazing. I would have thought that God was.

The Buddha was a "teacher of gods and men." But in the original wording, it's devas and humans. The Gods (brahmas) won't listen. They're proud, and jealous, wrathful, subject to defiled states like lower-order beings. They don't mind calling themselves the Ultimate, the beginning and end, the All. In fact, in Buddhist cosmology, which we're always talking about at Wisdom Quarterly, they're just very well placed in the grand scheme of things... for now. Nontheism freed me from worrying about it. Good for God. Good for devas. But humans might be luckiest of all.

That's the way it seems on the beach. In California. Under the Sun as summer begins and I've stopped watching MTV. I merge with the sea on a surfboard and practice the rest of the time on a skateboard. I just wish I looked better in a bathing suit after being tattooed. And meditated more regularly.

Why are we obese? It's not overeating!

Wisdom Quarterly (reconstructed and reposted after Blogspot meltdown)
"Big Fat Happy Buddha" is not a buddha at all. He is Hotei, a Japanese Zen "Santa Claus" (amuletjewel.com).

He sits at the doorway of almost every Chinese restaurant in America. Fat Buddha, Fat Happy Buddha, or Laughing Buddha is known as Hotei in Japan and Pu-Tai in China. He's good luck, representing the ideals of health, wealth, happiness, prosperity, and longevity. He demonstrates the Buddhist notions of the good life attainable in this world.

Laughing Buddha is modeled on a real historical figure: There was once an obese wandering Zen Buddhist monk. His big white belly was often uncovered as he wandered about carrying a sack of candy, which he was known to hand out to children on the street.

Some said he was an incarnation of Maitreya Buddha, which would make him a bodhisattva (a buddha-to-be) not a buddha. For centuries, Buddhist notions of happiness have been based on self-mastery, a happy demeanor, purposeful endeavor, a deep commitment to the welfare of others, and enlightened awareness.

As a result, today his durable hemp sack is interpreted as filled with gold, happiness, health, and other aspects of abundance. It almost makes obesity alluring. Of course, it's just figurative. Santa's jolly disposition is well loved but terrible for the Claus family.

The Inanity of [saying it's] Overeating
Gary Taubes' new book is called Why Do We Get Fat: What To Do About It. The book concentrates more on the why because once we understand why we get fat, the what to do about it part is pretty obvious.

The problem is that the conventional wisdom on why we get fat is almost incomprehensibly naïve and wrong-headed. It's bad science about obesity and weight regulation.

His goals in writing the book, as explained in the author’s letter, are to push the issue on the nonsensical notion that we get fat because of overeating and sedentary behavior.

He distills and extends some of the arguments from his previous book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, into a book that can easily be read on an airplane on any flight covering more than one time zone.

In his blog he asks questions and provides answers. Over the past decade, he has read more than a century’s worth of literature on obesity and nutrition and chronic disease. And it has consistently amazed him that researchers, learned commentators, un-learned commentators, physicians, and public health authorities accept some of the common but misguided ideas about important these subjects.

Many seem to give no conscious thought whatsoever or fail to ask the kinds of questions that a reasonable junior high school student might ask if given the opportunity.

So what does he mean overeating is a nonsensical explanation for why we get fat? Reading Jonah Lehrer’s latest column in the Wall Street Journal “The Real Culprit in Overeating”... More

• REVIEW: Taubes' book is an eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from an acclaimed science writer. His previous New York Times' bestseller argued that our diet’s overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates -- not fats, and not simply excess calories -- has led directly to the obesity epidemic we face today. Michael Pollan heralded it as “a vitally important book, destined to change the way we think about food.” More