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

Torture Continues, US Prison Strike Resumes

Wisdom Quarterly
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

One might say "I don't care about people in jail" or argue that torturing prisoners is okay -- as long as it is hidden behind walls and bars, where convicts are stripped of human rights at the hands of barbaric paramilitary jailers.

These are not prisoner gangsters but prison guard gangsters, who soon become worse than the prisoners they torment, taking on much of the behavior they torture them over.

If they say they have to employ military tactics against civilians, they should know. Prisoners have no rights to say otherwise because the entire "justice" system undermines and brutalizes them as if torture were redeeming and the path to rehabilitation.

But the issue here is torture for being labeled ("validated") as a gang member when one is not. This is not additional punishment. It is tormenting and inflicting unimaginable suffering. Many do not survive it intact, and the guards/police who inflict it become damaged personalities.

Damaged former guards stand ready to torture non-prisoners without a second thought. (Sheriffs in California must first be jail guards where they are desensitized to torturing "criminals," indoctrinated into a racist system, and taught to lie and cover it up conspiratorially as part of a "code of silence" that shields fellow jailers and officers).

Simply being labeled a "gang member" for any reason whatsoever -- it is really at the sole discretion of guards and officials -- gets one sent without trial into isolation for years. There may, however, be an administrative hearing -- run by and for prison administrators.

An "indefinite" sentence means one is locked up 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and comes out of a miniature cell to "exercise" in a slightly larger cell. This is torture and leads to derangement.

The way out? Death by becoming an informant (prison "snitch") even when there is no information to reveal. Invent it, because that whatever names are given up in the process will lead to their torture and administrative relocation into "security" housing.

This is the treatment Bradley Manning received to break him and have him falsely accuse Julian Assange so that his testimony could be used to convict the founder of WikiLeaks. Holding someone indefinitely for the purpose of extracting information is illegal by international standards.

Prison officials get all the say, and prisoners get all the torture. Meanwhile, the American public is told:

"Oh, these prisoners are complaining because they want more dessert, but we explained to them that they would have to do their homework first. Then they spit at us so, of course, we had to cripple, maim, and in some instances kill them and make it look like suicide. O, can you leave that last part out, you know, about the maiming and killing." And mainstream media and politicians are more than happy to oblige by keeping the deceptive message on point.

Why?
Why is it being done at the cost of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars? It is being done because it is highly profitable (for guards, the guard union, corporations, and politicians who use it as a "getting tough on crime" campaign platform, the police state).

Those who profit, particularly corporate interests, have been dubbed the "prison-industrial complex." There success leads to the US having the largest (and growing) per capita imprisonment rate in the world.

Almost all of them will get out. We are not safer for them having been tortured; we are imperiled now in terms of outrageous costs (it would actually be cheaper to send each outcast prisoner to an Ivy League college) going into the pockets of corporations and politicians and later in terms of recidivism (new crimes being committed in the future).

Stop the insanity. Stop the torture. Stop the mindbogglingly unfair (motivated by base desires for aversion, revenge, and ignorance) treatment of not only human beings but American citizens. Because we allow it here with members of our community -- and due to extreme sentencing -- our own friends and neighbors, we do not seem to think much of it when our military and CIA tortures in our name around the world.

Enlightened self-interest is the way to freedom. Torturing prisoners or anyone harms all of us.

California Prisoner Hunger Strike Resumes

Sept. 26, 2011 (prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity)

Prisoners at Pelican Bay’s SHU (Security Housing Unit) and Calipatria’s ASU (Administrative Segregation Unit) resume their hunger strike.

The strike this past July exposed the conditions and practices of Pelican Bay’s SHU. Referring to the first round of the hunger strike, Mutope Duguma (aka, James Crawford), a strike representative in Pelican Bay’s SHU writes:

• “This is far from over. And once again, hopefully for the last time, we will be risking our lives via a peaceful hunger strike [beginning] on Sept. 26, 2011 to force positive changes. For 21 1/2 years we have been quietly held in Pelican Bay State Prison solitary confinement under some of the most horrible conditions known to man. So we continue to struggle to be treated like decent human beings.”

Now over 100 hunger strikers at Calipatria State Prison -- in solidarity with the hunger strikers at Pelican Bay -- are risking their lives to expose the conditions of the ASU at Calipatria.

According to Calipatria ASU prisoners, roughly 80% of the prisoners in the ASU have been given indefinite SHU terms. They are placed in this isolation unit awaiting transfer to one of California’s three other SHU’s for men, namely Pelican Bay. Most of the prisoners currently in Calipatria’s ASU have been awaiting transfer for 3-4 years.

ASU prisoners at Calipatria report that prison officials have not been implementing the changes addressed by the five core demands written by the hunger strikers at Pelican Bay even though the demands refer to all SHU-status prisoners throughout California, not just at Pelican Bay. More


Treat 'em like slaves. That'll teach 'em to disobey! Hey, lock 'em up and throw away the key. And I don't care what they done. Maybe they ain't done nothing -- we gotta keep 'em down. Mercy for prisoners? Hell, I ain't got no mercy for no one, except we got a badge.

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

Rape and the Prophetic Dream from Hell

Wisdom Quarterly based on original translation by Ven. Nyanaponika and Hellmuth Hecker in Buddhist Women at the Time of the Buddha Samsara, the "Wheel of Rebirth," in Buddhist art

Du: Dung-like life to live,
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, O, 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 restrained too,
And do good deeds in abundance.

A boiling cauldron of oil in the depths of Avici, a hellish realm in Buddhist cosmology

After Mallika gained unshakeable confidence in the Buddha, she also won her husband over to the Dharma:

One night King Pasenadi had a succession of 16 prophetic dreams. During them he heard gruesome, unfathomable noises from four voices: "Du, Sa, Na, So."

When he awoke, fear seized him. Sitting upright and trembling, he waited for sunrise.

When his brahmin priest advisors asked him whether he had slept well, he related the terror of the night. He asked them what could be done to counteract the menace. The brahmins declared that one would have to offer great blood sacrifices [of biblical proportions (Exodus 12:29)] to pacify the evil spirits.



In his fear the king agreed. The brahmins rejoiced because of the gifts they would surely reap and busily began to make preparations for the great sacrifice. They scurried about, building a sacrificial altar and tying animals to posts to be killed.

For greater efficacy, they demanded the sacrifice of four human beings, who also awaited their death tied to posts.

When Queen Mallika became aware of all this activity, she went to the king and asked him why the brahmins were so busy running around joyfully and expectantly. The king replied that she did not pay enough attention to him and did not know his sorrows: He told her of his dreams.

Mallika asked the king whether he had consulted the first and foremost "brahmin" (one ennobled by actions rather than birth) about the meaning and interpretation of his dreams.

Torture ancient Indian style, a man being boiled alive in oil under brahmin oversight

The king replied that she would first have to tell him who was "the first and foremost" among brahmins. Mallika explained that the Awakened One was foremost in this world of devas and hamans, the first of all noble individuals everywhere.

King Pasenadi decided to ask the Buddha's advice and went to Prince Jeta's Grove, to the abbey donated by the millionaire Anathapindika.

There he related to the Buddha his 16 dreams and asked what would happen to him as a result.

Life size scene depicting torment in the worst plane of existence, Avici

"Nothing," the Buddha replied and explained the meaning of each to him. The 16 dreams were prophecies, revealing that in the distant future living conditions on Earth would deteriorate due to the increasing moral laxity of rulers.

During a contemplative period, King Pasenadi had been able to see the future in a vision within his sphere of interest, as a monarch concerned with the well-being of his subjects.

The Results of Former Karma
The voices the king had heard belonged to four men who formerly lived in Savatthi and been rapists or seducers of married women in either case engaged in sexual misconduct.

As a result of that karma ripening at the time of death, it conditioned rebirth in a correspondingly hellish world. And for 30,000 years they drowned in red hot cauldrons of oil, coming nearer and nearer to the fire, which intensified their already unbearable suffering.

For another 30,000 years they slowly rose up in those iron cauldrons and had now come to the rim, where they could once again at least breathe the air of the human realm.

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

The four verses -- which start in the ancient language of the Buddha's day with "du," "sa," "na," and "so" -- were recognized by the Enlightened One as follows

A glimpse of freedom every 60,000 years for violating the Five Guiding Precepts of happiness in the human world

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

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

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

So could I only leave this place
And raise myself to human realm,
I would be kind and restrained too,
And do good deeds in abundance.

After King Pasenadi had heard the dreams explained in detail, he became responsive to the request of his compassionate queen. He granted freedom to the imprisoned men and the animals. He then ordered the sacrificial altar to be destroyed (Jataka 77 & 314).

Heavenly Rebirths are due to Absorptions

Wisdom Quarterly (AN IV, 123) Numerical Discourses, Book of the Fours

[The Buddha:] O disciples, these four kinds of persons are found existing in the world. What four?

1. Here within this teaching, disciples, some person enters and dwells in the first meditative absorption [jhana or zen, a profound purifying level of concentration], which is accompanied by initial and sustained application of mind [to a single object], experiencing rapture and happiness born of seclusion [mental and physical withdrawal].

One relishes it, longs for it, and is satisfied in it, having mastered it, resolved on it, and become able to dwell in it at will without falling away from it. On passing away [while holding this profoundly wholesome state, as a result] one is reborn in the company of devas ["shining ones"] in Maha Brahma's Retinue [with a lifespan that depends on the degree of mastery of the first absorption, either a third, a half, or a full aeon corresponding to inferior, intermediate, or superior mastery].

The lifespan of those devas is one aeon (kalpa). The ordinary [uninstructed] worldling remains there for the full lifespan [until the extremely profitable karma of this absorption that led to rebirth there is exhausted]. After completing the lifespan there, one is reborn in a hellish state, the animal realm, or the world of ghosts.

But the disciple of the Blessed One [the Buddha] remains there for the full lifespan. After completing the lifespan there [and having at some point successfully completed the requisite insight practices], one attains final nirvana. Disciples, this is the distinction, the disparity, the difference between the instructed worldling in regard to destination and rebirth.

2. Furthermore, disciples, some person within this teaching [Dharma], with the subsiding of initial and sustained application of mind, enters and dwells in the second meditative absorption. That attainment is characterized by the subsiding of discursive [distracted] thinking and a superior bliss born of concentration [samadhi, calm, collected intensification of mind], filled with rapture and joy [sukha].

One relishes it, longs for it, and is satisfied in it, having mastered it, resolved on it, and become able to dwell in it at will without falling away from it. On passing away [while holding this state], one is reborn in the company of devas of Streaming Radiance.

The lifespan of those devas is two aeons. The ordinary worldling remains there for the full lifespan. After completing the lifespan there, one is reborn in a hellish state, the animal realm, or the world of ghosts.

But the disciple of the Blessed One remains there for the full lifespan then attains final nirvana. Disciples, this is the distinction...in regard to destination and rebirth.

3. Disciples, some person within this teaching, with the fading away as well of rapture dwells equanimous [impartial, unbiased, settled, and serene]. Mindful and clearly comprehending, one experiences happiness throughout the body: One attains and dwells in the third meditative absorption of which the Noble Ones say: "Happy indeed is the person who lives mindful and equanimous!"

One relishes it, longs for it, and is satisfied in it, having mastered it, resolved on it, and become able to dwell in it at will without falling away from it. On passing away [while holding this state], one is reborn in the company of devas of Resplendent Glory (Abhassara deva).

The lifespan there is four aeons. The [ordinary, uninstructed] worldling reamins there for the full lifespan. After completing the lifespan there, one goes to a hellish state, or the animal realm, or the world of ghosts.

But the disciple of the Blessed One remains there for the full lifespan then attains final nirvana. This, disciples, is the distinction, the disparity, the difference between the instructed noble disciple and the uninstructed worldling in regard to destination and rebirth.



4. Finally, disciples some here within this teaching, with the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and the previous falling away of gladness (sukha) and sadness, enters and dwells in the fourth meditative absorption, which is neither painful nor pleasant and includes the purification of mindfulness by equanimity.

One relishes it, longs for it, and is satisfied in it, having mastered it, resolved on it, and become able to dwell in it at will without falling away from it. On passing away [while holding this state], one is reborn in the company of devas of Great Fruit.

The lifespan there is 500 aeons. The ordinary worldling remains there for the full lifespan. After that, one is reborn in a hellish state, the animal realm, or the world of ghosts.

But the disciple of the Blessed One remains there for the full lifespan then attains final nirvana. Disciples, this is the distinction, the disparity, the difference between the instructed noble disciple and the uninstructed worldling in regard to destination and rebirth.

These are the four kinds of persons found existing in the world. [Discourse AN IV, 125 follows this pattern according to the Four Divine Abidings (Brahma Viharas) with the liberation of mind/heart by loving-kindness being correlated with the first meditative absorption. AN III, 114 follows this pattern according to the first three of the four formless attainments corresponding to the eight total absorptions.]

*NOTE: Bhikkhu Bodhi explains that according to the commentary to this text, The difference between non-disciples and disciples of the Buddha born in this heavenly state is that, while the worldling might move on to an unfortunate destination, even one of the hells, the noble disciple who is a trainee does not descend lower by way of rebirth but attains final nirvana in that same form becoming (or) later in a certain brahma-world in the second or third existence, etc. The ordinary worldling might go to one of the hells after a sequence of lives, but not in the very next life. According to the Abhidharma, existence in the fine-material sphere (rupa loka) cannot be followed immediately by rebirth in the plane of misery (the four unfortunate states collectively). Therefore such a deva, on passing away from the fine-material sphere, might be reborn in the human world (the lowest of the fortunate destinations), where one might then commit unprofitable deeds that lead to rebirth in the lower (subhuman) worlds.

Sex life of the ancient Buddhist nun Isidasi

Wisdom Quarterly edit from Kevin Rielly, Readings in World Civilizations (Vol. 1, The Great Traditions, NY: St. Martins Press, 1995, p. 144-14)
Isidasi, Uppalavanna, Janapada Kalyani, Khema, Prajapati... beautiful Buddhist nuns seem to be the norm now as before.

In the city of Pataliputta, treasured
on Earth for its glorious flowers,
there were two wandering nuns from the Buddha's own Sakya clan.

One was Isidasi Bhikkhuni, the other Bodhi Bhikkhuni,
both of them virtuous, skilled in meditation, wise,
and freed from painful vices.

They walked for alms, ate dana [charitable donations of food],
washed their earthenware bowls,
and found a place to rest and share their stories.

Bodhi the nun: "You're still beautiful, Isidasi.
Your youth has not yet faded.
What dreadful vision drove you
to renounce the world?"

In that place she told her tale to teach the truth of the Buddha's path. Isidasi the nun replied to Bodhi:

"Hear why I am a wandering nun:
In the great city of Ujjeni,
my father was a merchant of great repute.
I was his only daughter,
deeply loved and pampered.

"A wealthy merchant sent noblemen
from the city of Saketa
to arrange a marriage for his son.

And my father gave me to be that merchant son's wife.

"Day and night I humbled myself
to honor my in-laws.
My training made me bow
my head down at their feet.
When I saw my husband's
sisters and brothers,
I cringed and crept away
to free my seat for them.
I kept fresh-cooked food and drink
and spiced appetizers ready
to serve their demands.

"I woke early every morning
to scrub my hands and feet
before I crossed the threshold
to receive my husband's blessing.
Like a slave girl,
I took combs and scented oils
and my mirror to groom him.
I cooked his rice gruel,
I washed his bowl,
I waited on this husband
like a mother doting on her son.

"Though I was diligent and humble,
meticulous and virtuous
in serving him,
my husband despised me!
He begged his parents,
'Give me your leave.
I must go away. I will not stay
in this house with Isidasi!'

"'Don't speak this way, son!
Isidasi is intelligent and wise,
diligent, meticulous.
Why does she not please you, son?'

"'She does me no harm,
but I will not stay with Isidasi.
I detest her! Enough!
Give me leave, I must go away! '

"My husband's parents
heard his words and questioned me:
'How did you offend him?
Confide what really happened.'

"'I committed no offense or harm
or ever answered his cruel words.
I don't know what I did
to make my husband hate me.'

"They took me back
to my father's house.
'To keep our precious son,
we sacrifice this goddess.'

"Then my father married me
into another wealthy house. The second merchant took me
for half the dowry of the first.
I lived in that house
for barely a month,
serving him like a slave until he sent me back.

"Then my father snared a Buddhist ascetic
on his alms round in front of my father's house; he said,
'Be my daughter's husband!
Throw away your robe and bowl and cup! [You will get
a beautiful wife, riches, and this house in return.]'

"He stayed for only two weeks
before he begged my father:
'Give me my robe and bowl!
I'll wander for alms again!'

"My parents and my family
beseeched him:
'What have we neglected?
Quickly, name your every want!'

"He answered, 'I only want enough to feed myself.
I will not stay in this house
with Isidasi!'
They released, him and he left.

"I brooded in my solitude [contemplating how death
would be better than this humiliation]:
'I'll tell them I'm going to die
unless I can renounce and become a wandering nun.'

"Then the great Buddhist nun Jinadatta Bhikkhuni
came walking for alms
to my father's house. She was
disciplined, wise, and virtuous.

"I rose when I saw her
and offered her my seat.
I bowed at her feet
and offered her charity.
I served her fresh-cooked food
and drink and spicy appetizers.

"When she had eaten I said,
'Lady, I want to be a nun.'
My father argued: 'My child,
you may follow the Buddha's path
by offering food and drink to wandering ascetics and brahmins.'

"I pleaded in tears, begging his blessing:
'I must destroy
the unprofitable karma I have done [in past lives]!'"

Isidasi then reported what she had realized in her advanced meditation, which revealed a pattern extending over her eight preceding lifetimes.]

"When I was 16
the son of this merchant
noticed my maiden youth
and took me.
He had another wife,
who was virtuous and ethical,
in love with her husband.

"I sowed discord between them."

[Prior to that, according to the Buddhist nun and modern Abhidharma scholar Sayalay Susila, Isidasi was reborn as a man, a charming goldsmith who seduced and took delight in seducing many men's wives. Without realizing it, he hurt husbands and broke up families. As a result, he was reborn in the niraya (hellish planes of existence where he suffered horribly in ways too terrible for most modern readers to believe). After a very long time -- suffering exponentially more than the suffering he had caused -- he was reborn in the animal realm as an infant male monkey. When brought before the alpha male, that monkey leader immediately bit off the infant's genitals as if sensing and wishing to prevent future rivalry. Thereafter, he was reborn as a hermaphrodite, then again as a female, all stemming from making a habit of sexual misconduct in that former life. The story of past lives relating to her present misery continues in a former life as a female.]

"As a result I was reborn.
The fruit of seven former lives
made three husbands scorn me,
even though I served them like a slave.
I have ended all this now. "

• Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas
• The Story of Isidasi (sulekha.com)
• PHOTOS: The Buddha's Birthday Celebrated in Nepal 2011

Pandaka: Sex Addiction and Perversion

Sexual Addiction and Perversion
Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

The Abhidharma [the "Higher Teaching," an important collection of texts in the threefold division of the Buddha's message] states that a pandaka cannot achieve enlightenment in that lifetime, but must wait for rebirth as a normal man or woman or deva. The question that often goes sufficiently explored is, What exactly is a paṇḍaka? Misunderstanding this terms leads to a great deal of grief, judgment, and confusion.

• LGBT Topics and Buddhism

Ananda -- the Buddha's cousin, attendant, and chief memorizer of sutras -- was said to be a paṇḍaka in one of his many previous lives. What often goes unsaid is how many past lives we have led. The same was said of the Buddhist nun Isidāsī (from the "Pslams of the Sisters" or Therigatha, inspired verses of enlightened Buddhist nuns).

In both cases birth as a was a result of unprofitable karma. The idea that being a pandaka stems from unskillful behavior in a previous life is common in Buddhist literature.

• Pandaka is variously and unsatisfactorily translated as eunuch, homosexual, or hermaphrodite. The best translation might be "pervert," compulsive sex maniac, transgendered compulsive permiscuous sex maniac, rake, rogue, or wanton libertine often bi or pansexual.
• How many past lives? There is no counting the number of many past lives living beings have endured in this dismal and abysmal "continued wandering on" that is samsara, the Cycle of Birth and Death. If one were to gather up all the bones from past births in physical form on Earth, the pile would be larger than the highest mountain. The amount of blood shed as beings reborn in dense form only to be beheaded as animals and criminals exceeds the amount of water in the great oceans. The Buddha gives many similes hinting at the incomprehensible number of rebirths already endured.

"Perverts" whose compulsion is to act out with many partners and/or creatures are obsessed with sexual acting out. That obsession may very well not be the result of their own deeds in that life.

For example, they may have been molested, traumatized, or otherwise abused setting them on a perilous trajectory of sexual misconduct, prostitution, disease, child molesting, bestiality, sexual addiction, treachery, drug abuse, and so on.

In ancient India, where the term pandaka originates, "pervert" has been used to refer to varying degrees of "perversion." As time changes, what is considered aberrant or non-normative changes.

There was certainly a time when homosexuality was unthinkable. However, what is neglected in most discussions, is that what is "homosexual" changes. Our modern American definition does not have an equivalent. The Western world does not agree what this term means even now. This country does not agree on what it means from location to location, and our definition changes over time.

While this may be hard for many readers to fathom, because after all we are talking about modern America, others may be sympathetic to the fact that behavior in prison, jail, same sex schools, slumber parties, during prepubescent experimentation, early developmental phases, or drunken episodes follows different rules.

Most Americans probably do not think simple same sex attraction is "perverted." But that is only a recent development. Male homosexuality is often treated as worse or more offensive than equivalent female behavior. Various reasons are given for this, but all of these are social constructs not "natural" categories.

We applaud girl-on-girl kissing; does that mean it is not homosexual (lesbian) or not "perverted." It used to be.

With males, the case is more ludicrous. In prison, in various cities, and in the minds of many Americans, "homosexuality" is not as much about states (behavior) so much as traits (character). So one could engage in gay activities and not consider oneself gay.

For example, the one on top is "straight" and "masculine" and "virile," whereas the bottom (recipient) is "bent" and "effeminate" and "weak." The absurdity -- our hypocrisy -- is that attributions flip depending on the act, in this case going from intercourse to oral sex.

Pandaka is most frequently translated as "eunuch." But eunuch in India, even today, does not mean what eunuch means to European and North American ears.

Basically, an aberrant gender-bending individual -- lesbian, bisexual, gay, or questioning -- is regarded as a "pervert" (pandaka). A pervert may be perverted, by the standards of his or her day. In ancient India and particularly in Biblical times, cross-dressing or transgender behavior was a crime punishable by death.

Transgender identification, malformed or incompletely formed genitalia, hormonal issues, fetishes, sexual addiction (rapacious appetite, masturbation, or compulsive acting out), child molestation, raping (outside of one's family, caste, or social station), or "flaming" behavior might well earn one the socially-constructed label.

The karma behind it, according to Sayalay Susila, seems to be obsessing. If a man wishes to be a female in the future and has the good karma to power that wish, he may become a female. If a man wishes to NOT become a female and he has the bad karma to power it, his very obsession may result in rebirth as a female. Mind is the forerunner. As the mind (thought, consciousness) goes, so goes intention. From intention follows "action" (mental, verbal, or physical karma). The result of karma is resultants and fruits.

Harming others, humiliating others, insulting others, molesting others, cheating, adultery, dividing others -- all of these may become sexual misconduct with tragic consequences as Isidasi found.

Misunderstanding the definition of pandaka leads to the exclusion or condemnation of gays when Buddhism does not mean a medical hermaphrodite, eunuch, or person with a gay impulse all of which stem from karma, whether developed in this life or previous ones.

Any person has the right to develop welcome and profitable karma every chance one gets, and human life is that chance. Indeed, all are welcome in Buddhism.

Pandaka Festivals are annual events in India. It is a time of debauchery, cross dressing, homosexual revelry, alcohol and drug abuse, adultery, sodomy, and all manner of societally-condemned behavior. The event is certainly not limited to the reviled modern pandaka (an widely feared amalgam of pervert, criminal, heartless male prostitute, bully, and panderer).

• One of the few books that covers this sensitive topic is Buddhism, Sexuality, & Gender edited by Ignacio Cabezon

• Homosexuality and the Original Meaning of Pandaka

Mad as L: Red light camera tickets (video)

The audio is the famous speech from the film "Network"

Smile. The telescreen is watching. Red light camera traffic tickets are a scam.

But it's not Big Brother watching. He's rented out the job to a private company. It's still spying -- family member against family member, and no one is safe (unless maybe you have government exemption plates).

The private for profit corporation that sold intersection cameras and exclusive maintenance contracts to cities across the country did so with promises of free money.

But the offense is rarely for dangerously running a red light. The money to be made is for automatically generating thousands of tickets for rolling stops at yellow lights. The "California roll" may not be safe but it is hardly something to be punished with a ticket that can run $500. And it is widely practiced.

Pitching the promise of preventing motorists from running red lights and causing intersection disasters, these private camera companies have in fact gone overboard. They send out representatives to train municipalities how to set their leased cameras to catch conscientious motorists on a technicality.



(Even if the cameras cause more accidents by people stopping short while trying to avoid getting ticketed, cities just want to see the returns they were promised that have never materialized).

The motive on both sides -- between the camera company and the cities, because the motoring public does not figure into the equation -- is easy: profits. Whose profits? Not the city's, the company's. And they have been very successful riding the backs of overtaxed drivers.

• Charlotte speed cameras could unwittingly cost city $4.6 million
  

Some drivers are as mad as niraya and are not going to take it anymore! Others don't mind being gouged as punitive fees for first time offenses skyrocket to refill municipal coffers drained by the economic downturn. At a time when everyone has less income to spare, the ticket fines are going way up. That leaves one between a rock and a hard place.


What can a person do after being ticketed by mail?