Shift Happens, so SHINE! (video)

Seven (Co-Editor, Wisdom Quarterly)
(GR8quotes/Facebook)

The Real Meaning of "Metta"

The exclusively Buddhist language Pali has a word being incorporated into English: Mettā. This term (Sanskrit, maitri) is very much like the English meta.

Although it is usually translated as (altruistic-) love, kindness, loving-kindness, or friendliness, it has more in common with meta, which means "beyond." It is an "active interest in others" that takes us beyond ourselves.

Selfishness, self-interest, and self-absorption are the problem; the sense of love that grows so powerful it becomes compassion is part of the solution along with liberating wisdom.

Metta goes beyond. It transcends. It is universal and eventually boundless. One extends it first to loved ones, respected teachers, one's own tribe or the constellation one navigates. But with the same fervor a mother shows for a beloved child, that same concern extends to everyone without exception -- even the monsters, betrayers, Hitlers, devils, or anyone considered "other."

Of course, there's ONE horrible, almost unforgivable creature who also deserves our loving-kindness. Most find this being so odious that they just cannot bear to forgive it. Compared to this one, Adolf Hitler is easy. But it is necessary to do so. It may even be necessary to forgive this one first:

You can travel the whole universe and yet never find anyone more deserving of your loving-kindness than yourself.

According to Gary Sanders: The founder of Against the Stream, (Dharma Punx author) Noah Levine had so much trouble loving Levine that he set up a picture of himself as a child on an altar. Following Jack Kornfield's advice, he developed loving-kindness towards that child for a year. When we are able to love ourselves, loving everyone else somehow becomes possible. And we can finally go beyond.

Shift happens, like an accident or job loss. But foul shytza becomes fine soil. For it is capable of fertilizing many great things. It is fundamental to our meta-morphosis into loving, empathic beings.

Meta Futures (metaphorics.co.uk)

(GR8quotes/Facebook)

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.

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.

Ignoring the UFO Disclosure Project (video)

Segment of 2010 Disclosure Project, Canadian minister at the National Press Club

Disturbing Phenomena: Ignoring the UFO Disclosure Project
xomba.com
WASHINGTON D.C. (2010) - At the National Press Club, a group of retired military personnel gave compelling testimony about their experiences dealing directly with UFOs at the bases (mostly nuclear) they worked on.

The group also talked about the subsequent burying, non-reporting, or flat-out directive to ignore any evidence regarding these encounters by their military bosses at the U.S. Navy and Air Force.

Furthermore, they all maintained that the U.S. government’s deliberate cover-up and public denial of the truth has been going on consistently for the last 40 years.

The testimony of these men was extraordinary not just because of the otherworldly content, but in light of their very obvious military credibility. Being a whistleblower isn’t easy. But even civilians know it’s considered close to treason in “military” circles.

Coming forward publicly is not only incredibly brave, it is clearly motivated by the same patriotism that had them join the military in the first place.

For these veterans and hundreds of other military members who have come forward on official record to the UFO Disclosure Project, revealing what they know is an urgent matter now, one of national security and First Amendment rights. As the years ticked by these men watched silently as the world governments -- not just America's -- continued to conceal information from the public.

There is money (trillions of dollars in military contracts), power (status quo around the globe), and control (major religious implications) at stake here.

It’s not hard at all to venture a guess as to why governments would conceal such paradigm-shifting information. It could change the course of human history. More

• Decoy, Distract, and Trash: Gov't fears disclosure of aliens and UFO data

2006 Disclosure Project, National Press Club

A large number of ex-high ranking officials including air traffic controllers, secret operations officers, commercial pilots, numerous military defense specialists with top secret clearance, people who had access to very sensitive documents, lieutenants, commanders in the US Air Force, astronauts, and so on went before the National Press Club to discuss what their experiences have been regarding UFOs. All are willing to go before Congress to testify under oath. Never before has such a group come forward. (centralelements.com, facebook.com/centralelements)

What are those massive objects now orbiting our Sun? Dr. Stephen Greer pointed them out.