Earth beautiful in spite of police states (video)

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

• VIDEO: Russians successfully launch into space

The strangeness of space from the view of Earth

Confessions, Questions, Time for Change!

Culled from the beautiful archives of ShambhalaFreeRadio.org

Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist

Dan Montgomery, Buddhadharma, Comments
Stephen Batchelor wrote a particularly interesting book called Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. In it he tells his own story of embracing, then rejecting, both Tibetan (Vajrayana) and (Zen) Buddhism.

He weaves in his interpretation of the life of the Buddha. He attempts to strip it of all the elements that Siddhartha would have received from his culture. In this way Batchelor shines a light on what may have been truly original about his realization in becoming a buddha.

I find Batchelor a bit too much of a rationalist for my taste, but his critical framework is interesting and useful as a starting point.

• Interview with Tami Simon

Batchelor examines the Pali Canon [Theravada, the oldest form of Buddhism, which survives in Southeast Asia, surrounding India] in detail to learn what we can most reliably say about the life of the Buddha, based on the earliest records that were written down.

What emerges is a very human portrait.

This Buddha rejected his own kingship. He lived in the forest. He rejected all credentials other than his own insight, and the wisdom of the Earth herself. After his enlightenment or great awakening, he dealt with the politics of the day but never assumed any kind of temporal power or wealth. The Buddha taught, gathered a community (Sangha), but purposely did not appoint a successor other than the Teaching (Dharma) itself.

When his time came to pass, his last words were very simple. There are a number of translations of the Mahaparanibbana Sutta ["Discourse on the Great Passing into Final Nirvana"] out there, but here is a well-researched favorite:

Now the Blessed One advised the monastics: Well now, practitioners, my counsel is this: Experience is disappointing, success comes through vigilance.

[Other translations usually run, "All phenomena is hurtling towards destruction; work out your liberation through diligence [constant mindfulness according to the four foundations]." Other translations place more emphasis on sosotharpa -- individual effort towards liberation -- such as translating the bit about vigilance as “work out your salvation with diligence,” emphasizing the need to, in the end, practice mindfulness and do it yourself.

Also, most other translations make the first statement more objective and philosophical, that is, “Decay is inherent in all component things.” But there’s something much more powerful in the more subjective and psychological statement…. “Experience is disappointing.”

Most of us reading this site likely feel that Buddhist view and practice has had a tremendous positive impact on our lives. At the same time, there is much concern about the relevance of some elements of the Tibetan cultural and political overlay that has developed around Buddhism over the past thousand years. Some of these elements are at best distracting, and at worst corrupting... More

Pönlop Rinpoche — Time for a Change

Commentary by Barbara Blouin (Buddhadharma, Comments)

I just read Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche’s new book, Rebel Buddha: On the Road to Freedom (Shambhala Publications). When I read this short passage from the final chapter, I thought it could prompt some interesting discussion here.

The pioneers of Western Buddhism had to overcome certain barriers in order to make sense of this “new” tradition and practice it. They were not only meeting a foreign culture, they were also meeting alien concepts like selflessness and emptiness that made little sense to the Western mind. But they said yes to meditation and working with ego.

Now, roughly fifty years later, it’s time for a change. We’re stuck at a certain level of our spiritual development. What at first woke us up now barely stirs us from our thoughts. What supported our inquiry into who we are now blocks our realization of that. Now we have to ask ourselves how to break through again. This time we’re challenged to break through our attachment to all that brought us to this point -- the spiritual cultures that we so respect and emulate that they’ve become another trap for us.

The Role of Questioning in a Spiritual Community
Anonymous (Radio Free Shambhala, edited by RFS staff)
Spiritual communities vary of course. But there is a history, with its corresponding literature, of how some of them have not only abused power but also undermined the confidence and goodness of their members.

Most of us enter a spiritual path with curiosity, openness, and a willingness and desire to be genuine. We may be searching for answers to deep, existential questions. It might be a transitional time in our lives or a time of crisis, or maybe we just want to make the world a better place.

The spiritual group may promise us hope for a happier life and answers to the world’s problems -- if we follow the program and spiritual advice of the leader and his close associates.

Our new spiritual family also provides an instant social network and feeling that we are part of something bigger, such as working towards world peace, saving the environment, or another good cause. More

Time Travelers (Chrononauts) I've Met

Dr. Bruce Goldberg (drbrucegoldberg.com)

Chrononauts travel to and from the brahma world naturally (Tiada/Flickr).

Time travel will be discovered in approximately the year 3050 by a man named Taatos. He is the Hermes of ancient Egypt and the very first "chrononaut" (time traveler). Prior to his actually traveling back in time, holographic images were sent into the past.

This is why the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and others described "visions" by their oracles, soothsayers, and psychics.

[Today we have physics as well as visitors from the future. So while 2012 will continue to be a time of upheaval, just as is being experienced right now, it will only be the end of an age, not at all the end of the world. Except, one may suppose, it will be the end of the world as we know it. But that has happened many times before in cyclical samsara characterized by restless anicca.]

We can summarize the characteristics of time travelers as follows:

• They have mastered hyperspace travel between dimension, and can move through walls and solid objects.
• By existing in the fifth dimension, they can observe us and remain invisible.
• Genetic manipulation of our chromosomes is a routine procedure for them. They have greatly sped up our rate of evolution.
• The origin of these chrononauts is Earth from 1,000 to 3,000 years in the future.
• Their main purpose is to accelerate our spiritual growth.

Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, now residing in a space world called Tusita (Tiada/Flickr).

THEY ARE US IN THE FUTURE

We do not have to be abducted to talk (telepathically) with time travelers. It is simply a matter of using the Fifth Dimensional Travel exercise that I present here.

The first time traveler I met in hyperspace (the fifth dimension) was a pure human calling himself Traksa. He lives in the 36th century on Earth when time travel is manifested by way of teleportation. [See Nature Physics article below showing how this is already taking place experimentally]. This means that Traksa can beam his physical body back to our century without requiring a spacecraft.

[This is time and again mentioned by Shakyamuni Buddha who, while not traveling through time to the best of our knowledge, traveled through hyperspace to reach the Brahma Worlds at will in the body. Arhats such as Ven. Maha Kassapa were able to do so just as easily. Since it is all in the NOW, the only time we ever have, it is not much of a stretch to imagine that time is no more real than the illusion of samsara, the wheel of rebirth. But it certainly is our reality until we break free.]

Time travelers use names that represent their current mission. One of Traksa's assignments consisted of introducing me to Art Bell [of Coast to Coast fame]. If you spell the time traveler's name backwards, it reads "ASK ART"! I have had the pleasure of being interviewed by Art nine times. Good work, Traksa.

On the left: Janine Cooper is an artist and a friend of mine. I hired her to paint portraits of the chrononauts I described in Time Travelers From Our Future. Janine got her inspiration from her own subconscious, not from photos or movies. Traksa told me that he telepathically directed her in each of the portraits, especially this one -- Traksa himself. [So Star Wars and every other sci-fi series are right: whites survive into the future. Or perhaps Traksa's characteristically Caucasian features demonstrates that space beings seeded DNA and racial features near the Caucasus Mountains in the first place by descending Mt. Sumeru in ancient Sumeria and at other times in the past.]

The actual photographs of Traksa and the three other time travelers groups presented in my book Time Travelers From Our Future.

Traksa has told me that there are many time travelers around today. They do not hold public office or place themselves in positions of attention. Their function is to be in the background, spending most of their time in the fifth dimension so we cannot see them. In order for us to be able to see a time traveler, they must slow down their frequency vibrational rate (FVR) and enter our three-dimensional world. It is only then our physical eyes will be able to see them.

Here are some of the other chrononauts I have met in the fifth dimension:

1. MUAT - Traksa's supervisor. He was active in Mu (Lemuria) and Atlantis and is from the 40th Century.
2. NIREV - 31st century - Focused on the Industrial Revolution
3. ALSINOMA - 34th century -Tutored Da Vinci (creator of the Mona Lisa)
4. CHAT NOY - 50th century -Assisted in the development of time travel. His name stands for "tachyon."

Chrononauts are spiritual people. They follow us from lifetime to lifetime, tracing our souls [continuity of process, identity, consciousness stream] back to previous lives and monitoring our spiritual unfolding. Their ultimate purpose is to facilitate the perfection of the human soul to allow for ascension and the end of the karmic cycle.

There are also future problems -- wars, pollution, infertility -- in this and parallel universes that they are trying to avert by assisting us now in our spiritual progress.

As we grow spiritually, so do they. They are us in the future.

• Fifth Dimension Travel exercise
• Contact Dr. Goldberg to share experiences meeting time travelers.

It must be 3050 (again), because it's already starting:

Experimental quantum teleportation of a two-qubit composite system

Qiang Zhang^1,2,Alexander Goebel¹,Claudia Wagenknecht¹,Yu-Ao Chen¹, Bo Zhao¹, Tao Yang², Alois Mair¹, Jörg Schmiedmayer^1,3 & Jian-Wei Pan^1,2 (Nature Physics 2, 9/17/06)
Abstract: Quantum teleportation¹, a way to transfer the state of a quantum system from one location to another, is central to quantum communication² and plays an important role in a number of quantum computation protocols^{3, 4, 5}. Previous experimental demonstrations have been implemented with single photonic^{6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11} or ionic qubits^{12, 13}. However, teleportation of single qubits is insufficient for a large-scale realization of quantum communication and computation^{2, 3, 4, 5}. Here, we present the experimental realization of quantum teleportation of a two-qubit composite system. In the experiment, we develop and exploit a six-photon interferometer to teleport an arbitrary polarization state of two photons. The observed teleportation fidelities for different initial states are all well beyond the state estimation limit of 0.40 for a two-qubit system¹⁴. Not only does our six-photon interferometer provide an important step towards teleportation of a complex system, it will also enable future experimental investigations on a number of fundamental quantum communication and computation protocols^{3, 15, 16, 17, 18}.

• Quantum physics
• IT and computation
• Optical physics
  
• Qiang Zhang
• Alexander Goebel
• Claudia Wagenknecht
• Yu-Ao Chen
• Bo Zhao
• Tao Yang
• More authors of this article
• Supplementary info

Legal slavery under Burma's dictatorship

uscampaignforburma.org

Elsewhere in Asia, policeman attempts to beat Tibetan Buddhist monk to assert Chinese rule (damncoolpictures.com). China is Burmese dictatorship's main support.

Why Being Forced into Military Labor Can Be a Death Sentence for Convicts in Burma

TIME.com

Yay Zoe was not yet midway through an 18-month sentence in Miektila prison in central Burma when he found himself among some 70 inmates assembled for transfer. He assumed he was destined for one of the government's many labor camps.

Authorities, however, felt he would be more useful to them elsewhere: he was bound and trucked to the country's eastern border, where he was forced to serve as a porter for soldiers fighting ethnic-minority forces.

A group of porters carry goods for Burmese soldiers in a village in Karen state (undated photo released by Free Burma Ranger/AP).

The backbreaking duty of carrying mortars and rice sacks all day with meager provisions of food and water was the least oppressive part of his ordeal. The 21-year-old said he was regularly beaten by soldiers and forced into veritable suicide missions.

On three occasions, he was ordered at gunpoint to spearhead patrols through a minefield by prodding the ground with a bamboo stick. "Whenever I touched a landmine, I was forced to dig it out with a knife. My hands trembled because I assumed I was about to die." More

• Thailand scrape past Burma
• Shan Women condemn Burma Army of using rape as war weapon
• ASEAN sensitive to world opinion on Myanmar
• Washington: another Burmese diplomat asks for political asylum
• 2nd Myanmar diplomat defects in Washington
• HRW: Myanmar torturing prisoners
• Burmese convicts "forced to serve on front"
• Rights group: Myanmar uses "convict slave labor"
• Lao PM Myanmar visit further enhances bilateral friendship, co-op
• Second Burmese Defector Was Summoned Home, Says Kyaw Win
• Burma accused of using prisoners to clear landmines
• Killer python trial: Couple guilty on all counts
• Burma's army uses convicts as "human mine sweepers" - HRW

How Many Past Lives Have We Had?

In the Buddha’s Words by Bhikkhu Bodhi edited by Seven for Wisdom Quarterly

Buddha, Thailand (PhotAsia/Flickr.com, Photasia.net)

Without Discoverable Beginnings

(1) Grass and Sticks

The Buddha said: “Disciples, this samsara [literally, "faring on, wandering on" through rebirths] is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not able to be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on [through the cycle of repeated births and deaths] hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

[The search for such an ultimate beginning is one of the Four Imponderables.* If pondered and pursued it would be useless and lead to derangement. Yet if such a pursuit could succeed, it would nevertheless not lead to dispassion, enlightenment, and liberation from suffering. If it did lead to the end of suffering, the Buddha would have taught it.]

“Suppose, disciples, a man would cut up whatever grass, sticks, branches, and leaves there are in this Jambudipa [the "Rose Apple Land" or Indian subcontinent] and collect them together into a single heap. Having done so, he would put them down, saying for each one: ‘This is my mother, this my mother's mother.’

“The sequence of that man's mothers and grandmothers would not come to an end, yet the grass, sticks, branches, and leaves in this Jambudipa would be used up and exhausted. For what reason? Disciples, it is because this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not able to be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

“For such a long time, disciples, you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster, and swelled up the cemeteries. It is enough to become disenchanted with all formations, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them.” (SN 15:1; II 178)

(2) Balls of Clay

Disciples, this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not able to be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving. Suppose, disciples, a man would reduce this great Earth to balls of clay the size of jujube kernels and put them down, saying [for each one]: ‘This is my father, this my father's father.’ The sequence of that man's fathers and grandfathers would not come to an end, yet this great Earth would be used up and exhausted.

For what reason? Disciples, it is because this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not able to be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

For such a long time, disciples, you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster, and swelled up the cemeteries. It is enough to become disenchanted with all formations, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them."
(SN 15:2; II 179)

(3) The Mountain

A certain monk approached the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said: "Venerable sir, how long is an aeon?"

"An aeon is long, monk. It is not easy to count it and say it is so many years, or so many hundreds of years, or so many thousands of years, or so many hundreds of thousands of years."

"Then, venerable sir, is it possible to give a simile?"

“It is possible, monk," the Buddha said. "Suppose, monk, there was a great stone mountain a yojana [seven miles] long, a yojana wide, and a yojana high, without cracks or crevices, one solid mass of rock.

At the end of every hundred years a man would stroke it once with a piece of fine silk cloth. That great stone mountain might by his effort be worn away and eliminated, yet one aeon would still not have elapsed! So long is an aeon, monk.

"And of aeons this long, we have wandered through so many aeons, so many hundreds of aeons, so many thousands of aeons, so many hundreds of thousands of aeons. For what reason? It is because, monk, this samsara is without discoverable beginning.... It is enough to be liberated from them." (SN 15:5; II 181-82)

(4) The River Ganges

At Rajagaha, in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrel's Sanctuary, a certain brahmin approached the Buddha and exchanged greetings with him. When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and asked: "Master Gotama, how many aeons have elapsed and gone by?"

Ganges at Varanasi, where Buddhism began in the Deer Park at Sarnath

"Brahmin, many aeons have elapsed and gone by. It is not easy to count them and say there are so many aeons, or so many hundreds of aeons, or so many thousands of aeons, or so many hundreds of thousands of aeons."

“But is it possible to give a simile, Master Gotama?”

“It is possible, brahmin,” the Buddha said. “Imagine, brahmin, the grains of sand between the point where the river Ganges originates and the point where it enters the great ocean: It is not easy to count these and say there are so many grains of sand, or so many hundreds of grains, or so many thousands of grains, or so many hundreds of thousands of grains.

“Brahmin, the aeons that have elapsed and gone by are even more numerous than that! It is not easy to count them and say that there are so many aeons, or so many hundreds of aeons, or so many thousands of aeons, or so many hundreds of thousands of aeons.

“For what reason? It is because, brahmin, this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not able to be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

“For such a long time, brahmin, you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster, and swelled up the cemeteries. It is enough to become disenchanted with all formations, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them.” (SN 15:8; II 183-84)

(5) Dog on a Leash

“Monks, this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not able to be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

“There comes a time, disciples, when the great ocean dries up and evaporates and no longer exists. But still, I say, there is no making an end of suffering for those beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

“There comes a time, disciples, when Mt. Sineru, the king of mountains, burns up and perishes and no longer exists. But still, I say, there is no making an end of suffering for those beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

“There comes a time, disciples, when the great Earth burns up and perishes and no longer exists. But still, I say, there is no making an end of suffering for those beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and bound by craving.

“Suppose, disciples, a dog were tied up on a leash bound to a strong post. It would just keep on running and revolving around that post. So too, the uninstructed ordinary worldling regards

1. form as self...
2. feeling as self...
3. perception as self...
4. volitional formations as self...
5. consciousness as self....

“One just keeps running and revolving around form, around feeling, around perception, around volitional formations, around consciousness [the Five Aggregates of Existence].

“As it keeps on running and revolving around them, it is not freed from form, not freed from feeling, not freed from perception, not freed from volitional formations, not freed from consciousness.

“It is not freed from birth, aging, and death; not freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair; not freed from suffering, I say.” (SN 22:99; II 149-50)

*The Four Imponderables
Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (A.IV.7)

These Four Imponderables are not to be pondered (or speculated about). Anyone who persisted in pondering them would come unhinged and experience vexation:

1. The sphere of a buddha's influence (the buddha-range of a buddha, i.e., the range of powers a buddha develops as a result of becoming a supremely enlightened teacher)...
2. The jhana-range of one absorbed in jhana (the range of powers it is possible to develop based on the eight meditative absorptions]...
3. The results (or working out) of karma...
4. The [first cause, moment, purpose, etc., of the] universe...
   

The World Will End Tomorrow!

Why failed predictions DON'T stop apocalypse forecasters
LiveScience.com (Bad Science by Benjamin Radford, Jan. 3, 2011)

If a group of fundamentalist Christians is right, you only have nine more months to live.

Harold Camping, leader of the ministry Family Radio Worldwide, has concluded after careful study of the Bible that the world will begin to end on May 21, 2011.

It will actually take several months for the process to be complete, but Camping is certain that by October it will all be over. And his group is doing their best to warn everyone.

The sect is spreading its doomsday message using billboards, travelling caravans of RVs holding volunteers who pass out relevant pamphlets, and bus-stop benches, according to the Associated Press:

"Cities from Bridgeport, Conn., to Little Rock, Ark., now have billboards with the ominous message, and mission groups are traveling through Latin America and Africa to spread the news outside the U.S," the AP reported.

Fundamentalist Christians have a long and colorful history of searching for -- and mistakenly believing they have found -- clues about when Jesus would return to Earth and bring about the final judgment.

In the early 1800s farmer William Miller concluded from a Bible study that the world would end April 23, 1843. It did not. [10 Failed Doomsday Predictions to make you feel better]

One of the great popularizers of Christian end-times is Hal Lindsey, author of the wildly popular best seller The Late Great Planet Earth (Zondervan, 1970). After his prophecies failed to materialize, he wrote a follow-up called Apocalypse Code (Western Front Ltd., 1997). More>>

Buddhist Prophecies?
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)
One thing used to puzzle social psychologists about apocalyptic cults that predict a specific date for the "end of the world." What? They do not disband the day after. They get stronger!

The prediction not coming true brings them together. Clever cult leaders can tell their followers that they averted the catastrophe. If it weren't for them, the world would surely have ended. This is a pattern as old as the Vedas.

Near Eastern pre-JudeoChristian religions were influenced by the empire to the east, which was called Bharat (India as an expansive empire). It gave rise to Buddhism, which influenced Christianity a great deal. Predictions the Buddha made were about the distant future. Often they were general, part of repeating cycles of human social decay and renewal.

The question is, What is the good of any prediction?

It seems it keeps people on the ball, on task, on top of their goals to insure that when they are reborn, and they will be, they are happy about how they lived.

Today seems to last forever, and we slack off. But tomorrow, we are overjoyed to have made merit that secured our future. The next buddha will not be coming any time soon. But the message of the historical Buddha still exists on Earth (with increasing distortions and misunderstandings).

Things will get worse. And everyone will die (except the enlightened, who do not "die"). Things will get better. And nearly everyone will be reborn right away (except the enlightened, who have overcome rebirth). Sound like a contradiction?

On the one hand, if an ordinary being passes away, then a name, personality, and opportunity ends.

But the accumulation of karma continues to bear results in a new form. It is not the same form or personality and does not go by the same name. On the other hand, if an enlightened person passes away, rebirth and suffering permanently end right there. So it cannot be called "death," which always rebirth. Overcoming samsara is final nirvana (parinirvana) -- the end of all suffering without remainder.

Given all this, it is easy to see how even ancient Westerners in Greco-Roman empires and all along the Silk Route began to reword these wisdom teachings. The "deathless" (nirvana) became "eternal life." Ultimate bliss became ordinary happiness -- that is, nirvana became nothing but a "heaven."

The end of the "world" came to mean the end of everything. In fact, all that ends in Buddhist, Christian, and Mayan prophecy is an age.

It's the end of an astronomical age. That's why people look at the stars (astronomy) and consult astrological charts, studying the meaning of celestial bodies moving -- looking for precession on small-seasonal and big-axial scales.

There's some tribulation. But there's tribulation even when it's not the end of an age. Whether the world is ending tomorrow or not, it's always good to do good and come into line with one's values.

It in an effort that these things be understood correctly that Wisdom Quarterly tackles Buddhist subjects no one else touches -- and points them out in connection to topics non-Buddhists do tackle: prophecy, karma, history, the heavens (literal worlds in space), "angelic" extraterrestrial involvement in human affairs, and more.

• End of the Earth Postponed
• Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena
• The Wildest Conspiracy Theories
• Jesus speaks to Earth directly
• NASA names yays/nays on scifi movies
• Bible possibly written centuries earlier
  Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing -- pottery shard with an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David's reign. The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Old Testament were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.) Until now, many scholars have held that parts of the Hebrew version of the Bible originated in the 6th century B.C. [at the time of the Buddha, although Dr. Ranajit Pal dates the Buddha as living centuries earlier], because Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about four centuries older, scientists announced [in January, 2010].