From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 1 08:06:42 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 10:06:42 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness Message-ID: From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 1 08:10:11 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 10:10:11 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] Question for academic teachers of Buddhism Message-ID: In a message dated 6/27/2008 1:37:29 P.M. Central Daylight Time, jkirk at spro.net writes: >What puzzled him was th attitude of western dharma students whom he saw >as not being fully committed to one thing or the other. He thought this >attitude would inevitably result in a person succeeding neither >spiritually nor materially. I suspect this way of looking at things may be fairly ingrained in traditional Asian Buddhist cultures -.... === I don't see them in opposition. One could use his business as a Buddhist practice and progress with both. An example might be Dogen's cooking teachings which, in my opinion, could apply to both monk and laity. Jack **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007) From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 1 10:54:14 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:54:14 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1214931254.11217.12.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 10:06 -0400, Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote: > From a practice standpoint, I don't see a difference between Thera's > teaching on no-self and Mahayana's on emptiness. However, I don't know much about > Mahayana. What do you see as the difference? In Nagarjuna (and I leave it to others to decide whether he was Mahayana or not--I think not especially) "empty" means two things. Metaphysically, it means nothing more than dependent on conditions. From a linguistic point of view it means conceptualized through attachments. The insight seems to be that our ideas arise in accordance with our perceptions of our wants and needs. No desire, no ideas. (That's why Buddhist practice results in death to philosophy.) Dharmakirti (who may also have been a Mahayanin) also had a view that all speech is ultimately rooted in desires. Societies give names to things about which they have desires (and aversions, which are just desires with a negative valence) and leave other things pretty much unnamed. All of this certainly seems fully compatible with the doctrine of non-self at the doctrinal level. At the level of practice, quien sabe? What does the practice of non-self look like? What does the practice of emptiness look like? In both cases, I reckon the practice consists in abandoning attachment. From non-attachment flows the cultivation of everything skillful and the elimination of everything unskillful. Thus have I guessed. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 1 11:34:55 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 13:34:55 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness Message-ID: In a message dated 7/1/2008 11:54:59 A.M. Central Daylight Time, rhayes at unm.edu writes: > From a practice standpoint, I don't see a difference between Thera's > teaching on no-self and Mahayana's on emptiness. However, I don't know much about > Mahayana. What do you see as the difference? In Nagarjuna (and I leave it to others to decide whether he was Mahayana or not--I think not especially) "empty" means two things. Metaphysically, it means nothing more than dependent on conditions. From a linguistic point of view it means conceptualized through attachments. The insight seems to be that our ideas arise in accordance with our perceptions of our wants and needs. No desire, no ideas. (That's why Buddhist practice results in death to philosophy.) == Thanks for the reply. The above seems in accordance with the Pali Canon. As I'm getting further into the David Eckel CD series, I'm finding more and more that I am having problems with it. In his one lecture on Thera., he talks about three political figures. He waits until all the lectures on Mahayana to talk about doctrinal issues. He says in one lecture that his main interest in Buddhism has been emptiness. He says Mahayana emptiness is completely different than Thera non-self. I'm glad I have this list to check my understanding against. All of this certainly seems fully compatible with the doctrine of non-self at the doctrinal level. At the level of practice, quien sabe? What does the practice of non-self look like? What does the practice of emptiness look like? In both cases, I reckon the practice consists in abandoning attachment. From non-attachment flows the cultivation of everything skillful and the elimination of everything unskillful. Thus have I guessed. === Yeah. Just letting things go. I think of it as a stream of phenomena passing through the mind. If no attachment to this phenomena, emptiness and no self- the Zen thing about the perfect man leaving no footprints in the forest snow. Jack **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007) From jehms at xs4all.nl Tue Jul 1 13:00:57 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:00:57 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <486A7EE9.5020808@xs4all.nl> Jackhat1 at aol.com schreef: > In a message dated 7/1/2008 11:54:59 A.M. Central Daylight Time, > rhayes at unm.edu writes: > > >> From a practice standpoint, I don't see a difference between Thera's >> teaching on no-self and Mahayana's on emptiness. However, I don't know >> > much about > >> Mahayana. What do you see as the difference? >> > > In Nagarjuna (and I leave it to others to decide whether he was Mahayana > or not--I think not especially) "empty" means two things. > Metaphysically, it means nothing more than dependent on conditions. From > a linguistic point of view it means conceptualized through attachments. > The insight seems to be that our ideas arise in accordance with our > perceptions of our wants and needs. No desire, no ideas. (That's why > Buddhist practice results in death to philosophy.) > == > Thanks for the reply. The above seems in accordance with the Pali Canon. As > I'm getting further into the David Eckel CD series, I'm finding more and more > that I am having problems with it. In his one lecture on Thera., he talks > about three political figures. He waits until all the lectures on Mahayana to > talk about doctrinal issues. He says in one lecture that his main interest in > Buddhism has been emptiness. He says Mahayana emptiness is completely > different than Thera non-self. I'm glad I have this list to check my understanding > against. > > > All of this certainly seems fully compatible with the doctrine of > non-self at the doctrinal level. At the level of practice, quien sabe? > What does the practice of non-self look like? What does the practice of > emptiness look like? In both cases, I reckon the practice consists in > abandoning attachment. From non-attachment flows the cultivation of > everything skillful and the elimination of everything unskillful. Thus > have I guessed. > === > Yeah. Just letting things go. I think of it as a stream of phenomena passing > through the mind. If no attachment to this phenomena, emptiness and no self- > the Zen thing about the perfect man leaving no footprints in the forest snow. > > Jack > At the time the emptiness was considered as a new invention. My understanding of anatta in the Palicanon is that events are caused, but that there are ultimate causes, dhamma's. Shit just happens, so let it go. If you're not attached to the shit it's no big deal. The praj?aapaaramitaasuutra's are basically about the idea that there's nothing ultimate at all, so shit just seems to happen in a way, but from an other point of view nothing happens. In the field of practice the emphasis shifts from letting go of worldly events, overcoming attachment, to the experience of this emptiness of being in itself. The details I leave to the expertise of your meditationteacher. -- Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 1 14:05:31 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 16:05:31 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness Message-ID: In a message dated 7/1/2008 2:03:40 P.M. Central Daylight Time, jehms at xs4all.nl writes: At the time the emptiness was considered as a new invention. My understanding of anatta in the Palicanon is that events are caused, but that there are ultimate causes, dhamma's. Shit just happens, so let it go. If you're not attached to the shit it's no big deal. The praj?aapaaramitaasuutra's are basically about the idea that there's nothing ultimate at all, so shit just seems to happen in a way, but from an other point of view nothing happens. ==== Here is my understanding. Emptiness in the Pali Canon is emptiness of an unchanging, independent reality. Take a cart apart and you can't find anything unchanging and independent that is the essence of that cart. But, the cart is still real. That's one teaching. Another teaching is that the cart is real in a conventional sense but can be reduced to ultimate's which is the real real. Examples of ultimate's in this case could be hardness, smell, and color of the cart's wood. There are others. I guess the Mahayana view is that the cart doesn't exist. Jack **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007) From pvera at health.usf.edu Tue Jul 1 15:00:58 2008 From: pvera at health.usf.edu (Vera, Pedro L.) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 17:00:58 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness References: Message-ID: Jackhat at aol.com wrote: >Here is my understanding. Emptiness in the Pali Canon is emptiness of an >unchanging, independent reality. Take a cart apart and you can't find anything >unchanging and independent that is the essence of that cart. But, the cart is >still real. That's one teaching. Another teaching is that the cart is real in >a conventional sense but can be reduced to ultimates which is the real real. > Examples of ultimate's in this case could be hardness, smell, and color of >the cart's wood. There are others. >I guess the Mahayana view is that the cart doesn't exist. I don't think so Jack. I don't have references handy at the moment but I can dig them up later. In my understanding, the distinction is always made when talking about emptiness about being empty of inherent existence. This is much like (or essentially the same) as you describe in the first part of your paragraph above. It does not mean that the cart (or any other object, including persons) does not exist, but that what we see and call a cart is a confluence of factors that arise and will eventually cease. I don't think (but I leave it up the scholars of the list to deal with this if they want to) that there's not much "ultimate" in this scheme. So I typically don't think of reducing items of perception to ultimates that are really real. I think that hardness, smell and color of wood are still composites that will dissolve into something else eventually. I think the whole point is to reduce clinging and attachment. I hope this helps. Regards, Pedro From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 1 15:14:46 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 17:14:46 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness Message-ID: In a message dated 7/1/2008 4:03:43 P.M. Central Daylight Time, pvera at health.usf.edu writes: Jackhat at aol.com wrote: >Here is my understanding. Emptiness in the Pali Canon is emptiness of an >unchanging, independent reality. Take a cart apart and you can't find anything >unchanging and independent that is the essence of that cart. But, the cart is >still real. That's one teaching. Another teaching is that the cart is real in >a conventional sense but can be reduced to ultimates which is the real real. > Examples of ultimate's in this case could be hardness, smell, and color of >the cart's wood. There are others. >I guess the Mahayana view is that the cart doesn't exist. I don't think so Jack. I don't have references handy at the moment but I can dig them up later. In my understanding, the distinction is always made when talking about emptiness about being empty of inherent existence. This is much like (or essentially the same) as you describe in the first part of your paragraph above. It does not mean that the cart (or any other object, including persons) does not exist, but that what we see and call a cart is a confluence of factors that arise and will eventually cease. I don't think (but I leave it up the scholars of the list to deal with this if they want to) that there's not much "ultimate" in this scheme. So I typically don't think of reducing items of perception to ultimates that are really real. I think that hardness, smell and color of wood are still composites that will dissolve into something else eventually. I think the whole point is to reduce clinging and attachment. === Pedro, I will stick by my analysis for now. There are 82 ultimates according to Thera's Abhidhamma. They are: consciousness, 52 mind constituents (for example, effort), nirvana and 28 forms of matter. Hardness, smell and color of wood are forms of matter. According to the Abhidhamma, these ultimates cannot be reduced further. Ultimates do arise and pass away. Yes, the whole point is to reduce clinging. Jack **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007) From curt at cola.iges.org Tue Jul 1 15:21:37 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:21:37 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote: > I will stick by my analysis for now. There are 82 ultimates according to > Thera's Abhidhamma. They are: consciousness, 52 mind constituents (for example, > effort), nirvana and 28 forms of matter. Hardness, smell and color of wood > are forms of matter. According to the Abhidhamma, these ultimates cannot be > reduced further. Ultimates do arise and pass away. Yes, the whole point is to > reduce clinging. > > I do not think that orthodox Theravadins claim that these things are genuinely "ultimates" in the strongest sense (for a Buddhist) of being permanent, unchanging, and simple (non-composite). I think the Sarvastivadins, or some branch thereof, may have, though. Curt Steinmetz From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 1 15:27:07 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 17:27:07 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness Message-ID: In a message dated 7/1/2008 4:22:44 P.M. Central Daylight Time, curt at cola.iges.org writes: ackhat1 at aol.com wrote: > I will stick by my analysis for now. There are 82 ultimates according to > Thera's Abhidhamma. They are: consciousness, 52 mind constituents (for example, > effort), nirvana and 28 forms of matter. Hardness, smell and color of wood > are forms of matter. According to the Abhidhamma, these ultimates cannot be > reduced further. Ultimates do arise and pass away. Yes, the whole point is to > reduce clinging. > > I do not think that orthodox Theravadins claim that these things are genuinely "ultimates" in the strongest sense (for a Buddhist) of being permanent, unchanging, and simple (non-composite). I think the Sarvastivadins, or some branch thereof, may have, though. === They are defining "ultimates" in a different way than you are. As I said above, ultimates as they are using the term are not unchanging and permanent. I could provide Abhidhamma references if anyone is interested. Jack **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007) From jmp at peavler.org Tue Jul 1 16:31:08 2008 From: jmp at peavler.org (Jim Peavler) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 16:31:08 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question answered In-Reply-To: <1214783617.5640.8.camel@localhost> References: <486514D5.1010002@gmx.net> <1214775039.5628.1.camel@localhost> <1214783617.5640.8.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <4623B0ED-435B-4CF2-AE0B-F37C81F4A043@peavler.org> On Jun 29, 2008, at 5:53 PM, Richard Hayes wrote: > George Washington > was America's first female president, since fully half of his > ancestors > were women. Mitochondriacly speaking, of course. I am more of a Y guy myself. > > > -- > Richard Hayes > Department of Philosophy > University of New Mexico > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From jkirk at spro.net Tue Jul 1 17:24:18 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 17:24:18 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brain waves/thoughts Message-ID: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/science/29brain.html?fta=y Excerpts: Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday. In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill. The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys' brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one. =================== Mind boggling..............Joanna From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 1 19:41:20 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:41:20 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brain waves/thoughts In-Reply-To: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <1214962880.28327.1.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 17:24 -0600, jkirk wrote: > Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to > control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to > reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and > stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on > Wednesday. > Mind boggling..............Joanna Science is finally catching up to what Buddhism has taught for millennia about monkey mind. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From brburl at charter.net Tue Jul 1 20:37:54 2008 From: brburl at charter.net (Bruce Burrill) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:37:54 -0500 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080701213659.038f88a0@charter.net> At 03:05 PM 7/1/2008, >My >understanding of anatta in the Palicanon is that events are caused, but >that there are ultimate causes, dhamma's. That is not according to the Pali Canon (inclusive of the Abhidhamma. From sfeite at adelphia.net Wed Jul 2 07:11:01 2008 From: sfeite at adelphia.net (S.A. Feite) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 09:11:01 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brain waves/thoughts In-Reply-To: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: On Jul 1, 2008, at 7:24 PM, jkirk wrote: > The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys' > brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their > own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in > real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while > they learned to use the added one. > > =================== > > Mind boggling..............Joanna An interesting article in the Boston Globe yesterday points out that both with Mindfulness meditation and computer video games based on monkey attentional experiments they now have tools for tackling the epidemic of attention disorders like ADHD in the schools, maybe eventually in pre-schools. Ah, children with brains hardwired for Mindfulness and attentional skills, now that's a future I'd love to see. Attention class: Paying attention is a more important skill than you might think - and new evidence suggests it can be taught http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/06/29/ attention_class/?page=1 Also, for a fascinating look into Mindfulness check out the book by Dr. Daniel Siegel, MD "The Mindful Brain". Siegel is an expert in Reactive Attachment Disorder, a horrible disorder where children lose the ability to feel empathy for other human beings. Left untreated these kids have a high predisposition towards becoming sociopaths. More and more evidence is suggesting that mindfulness based approaches may help in such typically difficult or sometimes untreatable attachment disorders. -Steve From jehms at xs4all.nl Wed Jul 2 08:13:16 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:13:16 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080701213659.038f88a0@charter.net> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080701213659.038f88a0@charter.net> Message-ID: <486B8CFC.3030401@xs4all.nl> Bruce Burrill schreef: > At 03:05 PM 7/1/2008, > >> My >> understanding of anatta in the Palicanon is that events are caused, but >> that there are ultimate causes, dhamma's. >> > > > That is not according to the Pali Canon (inclusive of the Abhidhamma. > > > Enlighten me. How do you understand this? Erik From jehms at xs4all.nl Wed Jul 2 08:28:16 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:28:16 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> Curt Steinmetz schreef: > Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote: > >> I will stick by my analysis for now. There are 82 ultimates according to >> Thera's Abhidhamma. They are: consciousness, 52 mind constituents (for example, >> effort), nirvana and 28 forms of matter. Hardness, smell and color of wood >> are forms of matter. According to the Abhidhamma, these ultimates cannot be >> reduced further. Ultimates do arise and pass away. Yes, the whole point is to >> reduce clinging. >> >> >> > > I do not think that orthodox Theravadins claim that these things are > genuinely "ultimates" in the strongest sense (for a Buddhist) of being > permanent, unchanging, and simple (non-composite). I think the > Sarvastivadins, or some branch thereof, may have, though. > > Hi Curt, ultimus is the superaltive of ulter and means last, nothing beyond, so the dhamma's are ultimate in the sense that they the components of everything, but have no components themselves. They are the ulitmate components. No permanence or unchangingness is intended. I know that some dhammas are composed of the four or five elements, but I'm not sure if onecan call the elements real components, maybe one should call them qualities. If not then the elements are the true ultimate components -- Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From curt at cola.iges.org Wed Jul 2 08:47:00 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:47:00 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> Erik Hoogcarspel wrote: > > Hi Curt, > > ultimus is the superaltive of ulter and means last, nothing beyond, so > the dhamma's are ultimate in the sense that they the components of > everything, but have no components themselves. They are the ulitmate > components. No permanence or unchangingness is intended. I know that > some dhammas are composed of the four or five elements, but I'm not sure > if onecan call the elements real components, maybe one should call them > qualities. If not then the elements are the true ultimate components > > But are these "ultimates" eternal and unchanging? If not they must arise from nothing and pass away - return to nothing. This is an extraordinary claim that would require extraordinary evidence to support it. For one thing it violates the conservation laws that are fundamental to everything that we know, scientifically speaking, about the natural world. A far more reasonable view, in my opinion, would be that the ultimate stuff of the physical universe is itself uncreated (and not subject to destruction). All apparent impermanence and change is just the constant rearrangement of this stuff. This requires neither creation out of nothing nor destruction into nothing - both of which are highly questionable ideas to say the least. Reasonableness or unreasonableness are, of course, separate questions from what is generally accepted as Theravadin orthodox teaching on the matter. Do Theravadin's generally hold that (1) there are, in fact, "ultimate" "dhammas", and (2) that these arise and pass away? Curt Steinmetz From jkirk at spro.net Wed Jul 2 08:54:50 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 08:54:50 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brainwaves/thoughts In-Reply-To: References: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <007101c8dc53$9408cc60$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of S.A. Feite Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 7:11 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brainwaves/thoughts An interesting article in the Boston Globe yesterday points out that both with Mindfulness meditation and computer video games based on monkey attentional experiments they now have tools for tackling the epidemic of attention disorders like ADHD in the schools, maybe eventually in pre-schools. Ah, children with brains hardwired for Mindfulness and attentional skills, now that's a future I'd love to see. Attention class: Paying attention is a more important skill than you might think - and new evidence suggests it can be taught http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/06/29/ attention_class/?page=1 Also, for a fascinating look into Mindfulness check out the book by Dr. Daniel Siegel, MD "The Mindful Brain". Siegel is an expert in Reactive Attachment Disorder, a horrible disorder where children lose the ability to feel empathy for other human beings. Left untreated these kids have a high predisposition towards becoming sociopaths. More and more evidence is suggesting that mindfulness based approaches may help in such typically difficult or sometimes untreatable attachment disorders. -Steve _______________________________________________ I hope they find something out about ADHD quick because my grandson suffers greatly from it. If brain neuron activity can be re-trained, all to the good--(or bad, as the case may be if the Bush admin. gets extended by McCain.) Joanna From sfeite at adelphia.net Wed Jul 2 09:23:56 2008 From: sfeite at adelphia.net (S.A. Feite) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:23:56 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brainwaves/thoughts In-Reply-To: <007101c8dc53$9408cc60$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> <007101c8dc53$9408cc60$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <1B978A66-A137-4F1B-8FCA-0BE673E3C95D@adelphia.net> On Jul 2, 2008, at 10:54 AM, jkirk wrote: > I hope they find something out about ADHD quick because my > grandson suffers greatly from it. If brain neuron activity can be > re-trained, all to the good--(or bad, as the case may be if the > Bush admin. gets extended by McCain.) > Joanna They already have--and there's an increasing amount of science and new research under way on this topic. If you are interested in this topic I suggest you check out InnerKids which uses Mindfulness meditation and is taught in schools. They have an email list: http://www.innerkids.org Other avenues are: Mindfulness Integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT) http:// www.mindfulness.net.au Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Children (MBCT-C) www.mbct.co.uk www.mbct.com The Goenka folks also teach Vipassana for children: www.dhamma.org -Steve From rhayes at unm.edu Wed Jul 2 11:11:49 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard P. Hayes) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:11:49 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] scientific evidence of the power of brain waves/thoughts In-Reply-To: References: <004201c8dbd1$9620a9f0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <200807021111.50145.rhayes@unm.edu> On Wednesday 02 July 2008 07:11:01 S.A. Feite wrote: > Reactive Attachment Disorder, a horrible disorder where children lose > the ability to feel empathy for other human beings. So it has a new name now? I have to admit, "Reactive Attachment Disorder" sounds much more spiffy than the old name, "The Human Condition." -- Richard P. Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From mlatorra at nmsu.edu Wed Jul 2 14:23:25 2008 From: mlatorra at nmsu.edu (Michael LaTorra) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 14:23:25 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography Message-ID: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> Hi Buddha-lers, How is written Chinese emphasized? Larger characters? Different colors? I ask because I see in John Blofeld's "Zen Teachings of Huang Po" that the word "BEING" is in all capitals in the middle of a sentence. Thanks in advance for any answers you may provide. -- Regards, Michael LaTorra College Associate Professor Department of English New Mexico State University MSC 3E, PO Box 30001 Las Cruces, NM 88003 mlatorra at nmsu.e From vasubandhu at earthlink.net Wed Jul 2 16:00:30 2008 From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net (Dan Lusthaus) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 18:00:30 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> Message-ID: <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> > How is written Chinese emphasized? Larger characters? Different colors? > > I ask because I see in John Blofeld's "Zen Teachings of Huang Po" that the > word "BEING" is in all capitals in the middle of a sentence. You are committing the cardinal mistake when reading translations, namely assuming the original text resembles what you see in translation in anything other than the imagination of the translator. The answer to your question: Classical Chinese does NOT have any means of graphically indicating emphasis. Nor, for that matter, is there a Chinese word that means "Being" (with small or capital letters). That's Blofeld, not Chan/Zen. Chan lesson for today: The dog has no buddha-nature, and Chinese has no word for "being." Dan Lusthaus From marshallarts at bigpond.com Wed Jul 2 16:01:09 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 08:01:09 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> >...... A far more reasonable view, in my opinion, would be that the >ultimate > stuff of the physical universe is itself uncreated (and not subject to > destruction). All apparent impermanence and change is just the constant > rearrangement of this stuff. This requires neither creation out of > nothing nor destruction into nothing - both of which are highly > questionable ideas to say the least..... Isn't energy the "ultimate stuff of the physical universe" that is "not subject to destruction" or creation? Energy is empty in that it contains no "thing" (form) but at the same time it contains all forms in that it contains the potential to be any thing and is in every thing. From my understanding, energy cannot be destroyed however it does get rearranged. As far as Emptiness and Nothing are concerned, could we be simply talking about universal energy? If so, a reworking of the Heart Sutra could read: "Form is no other than Emptiness (energy). Energy only (potential) Form (not actualized form). All feeling, thought and consciousness itself are of the same essence (i.e. energy). All things are in their essence void (i.e.comprised of energy). Nothing (no thing) is truly born nor destroyed (everything is a rearrangement of energy). It (energy) is not stained nor pure, nor does it wane or wax. (Energy "is.") In this emptiness (energy) lies all Form, Feeling, Thought, choices and Consciousness. No eyes, ear, nose, tongue body or mind. No colour, sound, smell, taste, touch or what the mind seizes. No ignorance nor an end to it, no withering or death. No pain nor its causes. There is no end to it (energy) nor any path leading to such an end. Even wisdom and its attainment is empty (energy). Know Bodhisattva that you must hold to nothing (no thing) whatsoever (because eventually it will lose its form and return to energy) and dwelling within perfect wisdom free yourself from all ignorance...... etc." Regards Kate From rhayes at unm.edu Wed Jul 2 16:06:43 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:06:43 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> Message-ID: <1215036403.5685.9.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2008-07-02 at 14:23 -0600, Michael LaTorra wrote: > I ask because I see in John Blofeld's "Zen Teachings of Huang Po" that the > word "BEING" is in all capitals in the middle of a sentence. second only to text messaging and the failure to put george w bush in prison, i'd say that the invention of upper case letters was the biggest mistake in all of western civilization. real languages don't use upper case letters, because, truth be told, no one needs them. all they do is give some words a false air of importance. for example in english, the first person pronoun is written in upper case letters, as a result of which people who speak english are incurable egomaniacs. in german nouns are written in upper case letters, because germans think persons, places and things are more important than actions or qualifiers. in indic languages and in east asian languages, on the other hand, there is no distinction between letters, as a result of which "BEING" can only be regarded as a misleading translation. please throw blofeld's translation of huang po into the nearest forest fire. -- richard hayes department of philosophy university of new mexico From anemone at ghvalley.net Thu Jul 3 06:29:59 2008 From: anemone at ghvalley.net (Perennial Favorites) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 06:29:59 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> Message-ID: <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> That's Blofeld, not Chan/Zen. > > Chan lesson for today: The dog has no buddha-nature, and Chinese has no > word > for "being." > > Dan Lusthaus > Oh, okay. So avoid Blofeld. I just finished reading Chan Buddhism by Hershock and would like to find another book that is useful for learning about early Buddhist thought. I don't read Chinese or Sanskrit...any advice? And btw, "does a dog have buddha nature?" was the koan that made me want to avoid koans. Diana Capen From jehms at xs4all.nl Thu Jul 3 06:53:05 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:53:05 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <486CCBB1.8050405@xs4all.nl> Curt Steinmetz schreef: > Erik Hoogcarspel wrote: > >> Hi Curt, >> >> ultimus is the superaltive of ulter and means last, nothing beyond, so >> the dhamma's are ultimate in the sense that they the components of >> everything, but have no components themselves. They are the ulitmate >> components. No permanence or unchangingness is intended. I know that >> some dhammas are composed of the four or five elements, but I'm not sure >> if onecan call the elements real components, maybe one should call them >> qualities. If not then the elements are the true ultimate components >> >> >> > > But are these "ultimates" eternal and unchanging? If not they must arise > from nothing and pass away - return to nothing. This is an extraordinary > claim that would require extraordinary evidence to support it. For one > thing it violates the conservation laws that are fundamental to > everything that we know, scientifically speaking, about the natural world. > > A far more reasonable view, in my opinion, would be that the ultimate > stuff of the physical universe is itself uncreated (and not subject to > destruction). All apparent impermanence and change is just the constant > rearrangement of this stuff. This requires neither creation out of > nothing nor destruction into nothing - both of which are highly > questionable ideas to say the least. > > Reasonableness or unreasonableness are, of course, separate questions > from what is generally accepted as Theravadin orthodox teaching on the > matter. Do Theravadin's generally hold that (1) there are, in fact, > "ultimate" "dhammas", and (2) that these arise and pass away? > > Curt Steinmetz > > That's my understandig of it anyway. Mind you, it's not as unreasonable as it seems. From what I read from modern hyperphysics it seems to be the general idea nowadays too. Of course this is stuff for specialists, but when people talk of things like antimatter, unparticles with variable mass, mini black holes, etc., arising from nothing seems to be not very far fetched. The structure of the world is however not lost: not anything can arise at any time. The human imagination is very rich, if you want more stuff like that: try the Kaalacakratantra, that mentions even spaceparticles. -- Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From jehms at xs4all.nl Thu Jul 3 07:01:05 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:01:05 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> <003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl> Kate Marshall schreef: >> ...... A far more reasonable view, in my opinion, would be that the >> ultimate >> stuff of the physical universe is itself uncreated (and not subject to >> destruction). All apparent impermanence and change is just the constant >> rearrangement of this stuff. This requires neither creation out of >> nothing nor destruction into nothing - both of which are highly >> questionable ideas to say the least..... >> > > Isn't energy the "ultimate stuff of the physical universe" that is "not > subject to destruction" or creation? > > Energy is empty in that it contains no "thing" (form) but at the same time > it contains all forms in that it contains the potential to be any thing and > is in every thing. From my understanding, energy cannot be destroyed however > it does get rearranged. > > As far as Emptiness and Nothing are concerned, could we be simply talking > about universal energy? If so, a reworking of the Heart Sutra could read: > In that case energy would not be samsk.rta, it would not exist dependent on anything else, it would exist as a svabhaava. It would be the same as what the advaintins call 'brahman'. Some buddhist however would get very upset because they would see this as a treat to buddhist identity. Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From curt at cola.iges.org Thu Jul 3 07:32:11 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:32:11 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <486CCBB1.8050405@xs4all.nl> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> <486CCBB1.8050405@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <486CD4DB.5070806@cola.iges.org> Erik Hoogcarspel wrote >> >> > That's my understandig of it anyway. Mind you, it's not as unreasonable > as it seems. From what I read from modern hyperphysics it seems to be > the general idea nowadays too. Of course this is stuff for specialists, > but when people talk of things like antimatter, unparticles with > variable mass, mini black holes, etc., arising from nothing seems to be > not very far fetched. The structure of the world is however not lost: > not anything can arise at any time. The human imagination is very rich, > if you want more stuff like that: try the Kaalacakratantra, that > mentions even spaceparticles. > > > I don't think that there is anything in "modern hyperphysics" that violates the conservation of mass and energy. Matter and energy are interchangeable - this has been known since 1905. Matter can change into energy and vice versa - but there is nothing in physics that supports the idea that either matter or energy simply disappears or arises out of nothing. Whenever there is an apparent loss of matter it has just been converted into energy - and vice versa. The total amount of matter+energy in the universe is a constant. Therefore it is "uncreated" - eternal and unchanging. The human imagination is rich - and so is human language. It is possible to say "something is created out of nothing" - but that is not the same thing as "imagining" it in the sense of actually having an idea of how that happens. Curt Steinmetz From curt at cola.iges.org Thu Jul 3 08:24:03 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:24:03 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> Message-ID: <486CE103.30207@cola.iges.org> Michael LaTorra wrote: > Hi Buddha-lers, > How is written Chinese emphasized? Larger characters? Different colors? > > I ask because I see in John Blofeld's "Zen Teachings of Huang Po" that the > word "BEING" is in all capitals in the middle of a sentence. > > Thanks in advance for any answers you may provide. > > I know of at least one famous example of SIZE being used for emphasis in calligraphy - although it is from Japan (but still it is "chinese" calligraphy). This is the calligraphy of Hakuin who once wrote "meditation in the MIDST of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness": http://www.egreenway.com/vsjournal/images/hakuin27a.jpg (This in turn was a commentary on a line from Ta-Hui.) Curt Steinmetz From brucegseidner at mac.com Thu Jul 3 08:32:23 2008 From: brucegseidner at mac.com (Bruce G. Seidner, Ph.D.) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:32:23 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Sutra reference In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080701213659.038f88a0@charter.net> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080701213659.038f88a0@charter.net> Message-ID: <75EF8299-0AB6-4574-A132-E87644E16A1B@mac.com> I don't get out much. but an old friend was in town and I attended his talk on chapter 10, the fire and wood chapter, of Nagarjuna's MMK. This Geshe quoted a sutra I was not familiar with in response to a question about self. The sutra used 8 examples the Buddha routinely employed to analogize the ontological status of "self" as empty of inherent existence. As best I recall, a flame, a signature stamp, repeating the world "sour" to someone who has experienced the taste of sour, and that would leave 5 that my steel trap of a memory can't conjure at the moment. Was I lapsing into Talumdic reverie during the talk or would some kind and intact mind among our good denizens cite the sutra which was referenced? Thanking you in advance. Bruce Bruce G. Seidner, Ph.D. 1111 Northshore Drive Clinical & Forensic Psychology Ste S-490 Family Mediation Knoxville, TN 37919 865.584.0171 office 865.584.0174 fax brucegseidner at mac.com http://www.northshore-group.com/Bio_Seidner.html ********************************************************************** The information transmitted is intended solely for the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of or taking action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this email in error please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. ********************************************************************** On Tuesday07 1, , at 10:37 PM, Bruce Burrill wrote: > At 03:05 PM 7/1/2008, >> My >> understanding of anatta in the Palicanon is that events are >> caused, but >> that there are ultimate causes, dhamma's. > > > That is not according to the Pali Canon (inclusive of the Abhidhamma. > > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From curt at cola.iges.org Thu Jul 3 08:44:11 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:44:11 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> Message-ID: <486CE5BB.6010002@cola.iges.org> Perennial Favorites wrote: > > Oh, okay. So avoid Blofeld. I just finished reading Chan Buddhism by > Hershock and would like to find another book that is useful for learning > about early Buddhist thought. I don't read Chinese or Sanskrit...any advice? > > And btw, "does a dog have buddha nature?" was the koan that made me want to > avoid koans. > > Rupert Gethin's "The Foundation of Buddhism" is excellent. I am deeply indebted to Bodhisattva Peter Harvey for the reading list that he put together for his Buddhist MA program: http://seacoast.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0phr/budm01books.html That simple list is, in my opinion, one of the single most helpful Buddhist resources on the entire Internet. The book "Buddhist Traditions in Asia, China and Japan", btw, has a brief digression on the early Chinese Buddhist philosopher Tao-Sheng - this is an essential part of the "back story" behind the "Mu" koan. Curt Steinmetz From rhayes at unm.edu Thu Jul 3 10:28:37 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:28:37 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> Message-ID: <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 06:29 -0600, Perennial Favorites wrote: > And btw, "does a dog have buddha nature?" was the koan that made me want to > avoid koans. If you really put your mind to it, you can avoid koans for decades. I've managed to practice Buddhism for forty years (including a decade of Zen) without brushing up against a koan. The one about the dog had the same effect on me as it reportedly had on you. After all, how much sense does it make to ask a question about a dog and then get the answer "Mooo"? -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From vasubandhu at earthlink.net Thu Jul 3 10:46:29 2008 From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net (Dan Lusthaus) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 12:46:29 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu><001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan><003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <041a01c8dd2c$588463f0$a5369c04@Dan> >After all, how much sense does > it make to ask a question about a dog and then get the answer "Mooo"? That's the problem with learning Zen in its Korean or Japanese incarnations. They go "mu." In Chinese the word is pronounced "Wooooo" -- much more exhilirating. Dan From jkirk at spro.net Thu Jul 3 11:10:43 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:10:43 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu><001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan><003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <00ae01c8dd2f$ba30f070$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Perennial Favorites wrote: > And btw, "does a dog have buddha nature?" was the koan that made me > want to avoid koans. If you really put your mind to it, you can avoid koans for decades. I've managed to practice Buddhism for forty years (including a decade of Zen) without brushing up against a koan. The one about the dog had the same effect on me as it reportedly had on you. After all, how much sense does it make to ask a question about a dog and then get the answer "Mooo"? -- Richard Hayes ==================== That's why some of us retrograde Buddhists re-wrote the koan to say: Does a cow have Buddha nature? Joanna From rhayes at unm.edu Thu Jul 3 11:12:07 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:12:07 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <041a01c8dd2c$588463f0$a5369c04@Dan> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> <041a01c8dd2c$588463f0$a5369c04@Dan> Message-ID: <1215105128.5626.16.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 12:46 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote: > That's the problem with learning Zen in its Korean or Japanese incarnations. > They go "mu." In Chinese the word is pronounced "Wooooo" -- much more > exhilirating. How was "wu" pronounced in Zhaozhou's time? Woof? I like the Vietnamese pronunciation: Vu! (In French that's Vous; in English, You.) -- Richard From jmp at peavler.org Thu Jul 3 11:38:35 2008 From: jmp at peavler.org (Jim Peavler) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:38:35 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <00ae01c8dd2f$ba30f070$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu><001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan><003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> <00ae01c8dd2f$ba30f070$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <83AB676F-99F2-4574-AAE0-4E8FDE6E354C@peavler.org> On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:10 AM, jkirk wrote: > Per > That's why some of us retrograde Buddhists re-wrote the koan to > say: > > Does a cow have Buddha nature? I'm sorry, the answer to that is "neigh". Zen is NOT easy. (Notice chinese use of large letters) > > > Joanna > > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From jmp at peavler.org Thu Jul 3 11:39:19 2008 From: jmp at peavler.org (Jim Peavler) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:39:19 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <1215105128.5626.16.camel@localhost> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> <1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost> <041a01c8dd2c$588463f0$a5369c04@Dan> <1215105128.5626.16.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <683D3231-CAC4-46A9-B001-F0E15AF238EC@peavler.org> On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Richard Hayes wrote: > On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 12:46 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote: > >> That's the problem with learning Zen in its Korean or Japanese >> incarnations. >> They go "mu." In Chinese the word is pronounced "Wooooo" -- much more >> exhilirating. > > How was "wu" pronounced in Zhaozhou's time? Woof? > > I like the Vietnamese pronunciation: Vu! (In French that's Vous; in > English, You.) Where I am from it is "Who?". > > > -- > Richard > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From jkirk at spro.net Thu Jul 3 11:51:34 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:51:34 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <83AB676F-99F2-4574-AAE0-4E8FDE6E354C@peavler.org> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu><001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan><003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne><1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost><00ae01c8dd2f$ba30f070$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> <83AB676F-99F2-4574-AAE0-4E8FDE6E354C@peavler.org> Message-ID: <00c201c8dd35$6f720e10$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Ha ha~~~~~ -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Jim Peavler Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:39 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:10 AM, jkirk wrote: > Per > That's why some of us retrograde Buddhists re-wrote the koan to > say: > > Does a cow have Buddha nature? I'm sorry, the answer to that is "neigh". Zen is NOT easy. (Notice chinese use of large letters) > > > Joanna > > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From jkirk at spro.net Thu Jul 3 11:52:51 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:52:51 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <683D3231-CAC4-46A9-B001-F0E15AF238EC@peavler.org> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu><001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan><003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne><1215102518.5626.12.camel@localhost><041a01c8dd2c$588463f0$a5369c04@Dan><1215105128.5626.16.camel@localhost> <683D3231-CAC4-46A9-B001-F0E15AF238EC@peavler.org> Message-ID: <00c301c8dd35$9d206410$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Jim Peavler Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:39 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Richard Hayes wrote: > On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 12:46 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote: > >> That's the problem with learning Zen in its Korean or Japanese >> incarnations. >> They go "mu." In Chinese the word is pronounced "Wooooo" -- much more >> exhilirating. > > How was "wu" pronounced in Zhaozhou's time? Woof? > > I like the Vietnamese pronunciation: Vu! (In French that's Vous; in > English, You.) Peavler wrote: Where I am from it is "Who?". =============== Even funnier From franz at mind2mind.net Thu Jul 3 14:19:03 2008 From: franz at mind2mind.net (Franz Metcalf) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 13:19:03 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> Message-ID: <64AA5F73-3353-4770-8327-691AD25F4910@mind2mind.net> Diana et al., > Oh, okay. So avoid Blofeld. I just finished reading Chan Buddhism by > Hershock and would like to find another book that is useful for > learning > about early Buddhist thought. I don't read Chinese or Sanskrit...any > advice? I wouldn't necessarily avoid Blofeld. I deeply enjoyed and was inspired by reading him in my 20s. Just know, as you're reading him-- as you should know when reading anyone--that you're reading an interpretation of the dharma, not the DHARMA itself. (If you want to read the DHARMA in capital letters, you'll need to wait for me to finish my novel.) Harvey's list, sent by Curt, has excellent stuff on it. I wonder what Richard and others assign when they teach introduction to Buddhism courses. And, Jack, does Eckel supply a bibliography? (BTW: very nice fellow, Eckel, and very bright. He cares more about Buddhism than it seems he lets on in the course you're following.) Franz =========================================== Franz Metcalf, PhD. 323.467.3267 http://mind2mind.net Buddhist Author, Teacher, Scholar, Husband, Dad, Beginner From rhayes at unm.edu Thu Jul 3 14:49:55 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:49:55 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Question about Chinese orthography In-Reply-To: <64AA5F73-3353-4770-8327-691AD25F4910@mind2mind.net> References: <1952.128.123.137.170.1215030205.squirrel@webmail.nmsu.edu> <001101c8dc8f$0cd21df0$a5369c04@Dan> <003201c8dd08$825b5680$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> <64AA5F73-3353-4770-8327-691AD25F4910@mind2mind.net> Message-ID: <1215118195.6286.11.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 13:19 -0700, Franz Metcalf wrote: > I wonder what > Richard and others assign when they teach introduction to Buddhism > courses. I haven't taught introduction to Buddhism for years, but when I did teach it, I liked Peter Harvey's books, as did my students. If anyone is interested in seeing how I have approached various other courses in Buddhism, the course syllabi (that's pretentious academic jargon for syllabuses) of all the courses I have taught at UNM can be downloaded from http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes/teaching.html Truth to tell, I'm thinking of writing a textbook on Buddhist philosophy. A few already exist, but none has approached it in the way I would like to see it approached. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From franz at mind2mind.net Thu Jul 3 15:01:16 2008 From: franz at mind2mind.net (Franz Metcalf) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 14:01:16 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] ethnic Buddhism. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2E1CEBCE-732A-40BB-9956-ADB854BE7F60@mind2mind.net> Patricia et al., Thanks for the heads-up on the Hori article in the new book. And, in reference to the issue of naming the various (and mixed-up) sorts of Buddhism we find in the West, Hori is himself a wonderful counter- example to just about any nomenclature we might adopt. He *is* Buddhist, but what label shall we burden him with? Is he an "ethnic" Buddhist? (He is a Japanese-Canadian.) Is he an "elite" Buddhist? (He speaks English as his first language and is a professor of religion.) Does he practice "baggage" Buddhism? (His family is culturally Buddhist, despite being in Canada for generations.) Is he a "traditional" Buddhist? (He went through the whole classic Rinzai monastic training.) Or perhaps a "modern" Buddhist? (He is no longer a monk, and he has changed his views on practice in the West.) We need such distinctions to function, to divide up our fields and objects of study, but let's not divide up the good Professor Hori as well. This reminds me of the scene (chapter 17) in _The Empty Mirror_ (http://tinyurl.com/65humz ) when Jan-san is considering converting to Buddhism and asks whether Han-san, an advanced monk, is Buddhist. Han-san's response: "Is a cloud a member of the sky?" I imagine Dr. Hori appreciates his celestial freedom. Franz --------------------------- H-Buddhism (Buddhist Scholars Information Network) Web Site: Posting Guidelines: Handling Your Account: From marshallarts at bigpond.com Thu Jul 3 17:05:17 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 09:05:17 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> <486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies> > In that case energy would not be samsk.rta, it would not exist dependent > on anything else, it would exist as a svabhaava. It would be the same as > what the advaintins call 'brahman'. Some buddhist however would get very > upset because they would see this as a treat to buddhist identity. > > Erik Perhaps if it were labeled "Mahavairocana" instead of "Brahman" it would keep some Buddhists happy. From bsimon at toad.net Thu Jul 3 18:28:18 2008 From: bsimon at toad.net (Bernie Simon) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 20:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] buddha-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3499440D-4828-4946-92FB-D15AF2FEC5F1@toad.net> On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:32 AM, buddha-l-request at mailman.swcp.com wrote: > Isn't energy the "ultimate stuff of the physical universe" that is > "not > subject to destruction" or creation? Energy is not a substance. It's a property of physical systems. And energy is created and destroyed all the time, or rather, transformed. The chemical energy of wood is transformed into the light of fire, which is transformed into heat. These are qualitatively different things. The quantity of energy in a system is conserved, not energy itself. From rhayes at unm.edu Thu Jul 3 18:40:30 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:40:30 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> <003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> <486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl> <001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost> On Fri, 2008-07-04 at 09:05 +1000, Kate Marshall wrote: > Perhaps if it were labeled "Mahavairocana" instead of "Brahman" it would > keep some Buddhists happy. Not really. An indefensible idea by any other name.... -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From curt at cola.iges.org Thu Jul 3 21:29:06 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:29:06 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] buddha-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: <3499440D-4828-4946-92FB-D15AF2FEC5F1@toad.net> References: <3499440D-4828-4946-92FB-D15AF2FEC5F1@toad.net> Message-ID: <486D9902.3050405@cola.iges.org> Bernie Simon wrote: > On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:32 AM, buddha-l-request at mailman.swcp.com wrote: > > >> Isn't energy the "ultimate stuff of the physical universe" that is >> "not >> subject to destruction" or creation? >> > > Energy is not a substance. It's a property of physical systems. And > energy is created and destroyed all the time, or rather, transformed. > The chemical energy of wood is transformed into the light of fire, > which is transformed into heat. These are qualitatively different > things. The quantity of energy in a system is conserved, not energy > itself. > _______________________________________________ > Matter is obviously "a substance" - and matter and energy are interchangeable, as has been known since 1905. Therefore at the very least energy has the potential to become "a substance" (which makes it "potentially substantial") - and in fact we know that energy does do this all the time. Also the distinction between "energy itself" and the "quantity" of energy doesn't apply when we are talking about "conservation". "Conservation" refers precisely to the "quantity" of energy - that has always been the meaning of what physicists call "conservation laws". The bottom line is: mass-energy (they must be treated together) can be neither created nor destroyed. All you can do with it is rearrange it (rearrangement includes conversion from matter to energy and vice versa). All apparent change in the physical universe is just the rearranging of mass-energy - nothing ever "arises" out of nothing - nor does anything ever simply "cease" and become nothing. Therefore any posited "dhammas" that arise out of nothing and/or cease and simply disappear into nothing must either be conceptual constructs or they appear to be inconsistent with what we know about the physical world. That is unless the "dhammas" themselves are not physical (ie, are neither matter nor energy). Then the conservation laws of physics don't apply. But that implies that the physical universe is "ultimately" "made up" of non-physical stuff. Curt Steinmetz From marshallarts at bigpond.com Fri Jul 4 01:09:10 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 17:09:10 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> <486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl><001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies> <1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> >> Perhaps if it were labeled "Mahavairocana" instead of "Brahman" it would >> keep some Buddhists happy. > > Not really. An indefensible idea by any other name.... Mahavairocana is 'Great Sun' or 'Great Brilliant Shining One'. What is a sun or a 'Great Brilliant Shining One' if not energy? Brahman as cosmic consciousness is often imagined as dazzling light. Mahavairocana is the One (Buddha) from which the Many (Buddhas) emanated. Brahman is also One from which came the Many. Mahavairocana is never born, neither is Brahman. Mahavairocana occupies the central position in esoteric mandala. Brahman is equated with Shakti (cosmic energy). Shakti as the bindu occupies the central position in esoteric yantra. In essence there doesn't appear to be much diference between Mahavairocana and Brahman at this level. From bsimon at toad.net Fri Jul 4 06:32:43 2008 From: bsimon at toad.net (Bernie Simon) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 08:32:43 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Matter is obviously "a substance" - and matter and energy are > interchangeable, as has been known since 1905. Therefore at the very > least energy has the potential to become "a substance" (which makes it > "potentially substantial") - and in fact we know that energy does do > this all the time. It's mass that is convertible to energy, not matter. The concepts of mass and matter should not be conflated. After all, there are massless subatomic particles, just as there are chargeless particles. Are they not also matter? Physics rests on a base of conservation laws, but conservation of energy is no more basic than conservation of momentum. The two are equivalent, only differing in the mathematical formalism, Hamiltonian versus Lagrangian. Saying that momentum is eternal sounds silly to my ears. Why is saying energy is eternal any less silly? > Mahavairocana is 'Great Sun' or 'Great Brilliant Shining One'. What > is a sun > or a 'Great Brilliant Shining One' if not energy? The concept of energy in its modern scientific sense is unknown in Eastern philosophy. The law of conservation of energy was first developed by the Dutch surgeon Julius Robert Mayer in the Nineteenth Century. Instead of being taken seriously, he was thrown into an insane asylum. From curt at cola.iges.org Fri Jul 4 08:07:32 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:07:32 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org> Bernie Simon wrote: > Saying that momentum is eternal sounds silly to my > ears. What difference is there between saying "momentum is eternal" and "momentum is conserved"? The total amount of momentum in a closed system is conserved. "Everything", ie, the "universe" is the ultimate "closed system" - therefore the amount of momentum in the universe never changes. Ever. "Eternal" is an adjective referring to something that lasts forever. Like momentum in a closed system. Curt Steinmetz From jehms at xs4all.nl Fri Jul 4 09:38:05 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:38:05 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> Curt Steinmetz schreef: > Bernie Simon wrote: > >> Saying that momentum is eternal sounds silly to my >> ears. >> > What difference is there between saying "momentum is eternal" and > "momentum is conserved"? > > The total amount of momentum in a closed system is conserved. > "Everything", ie, the "universe" is the ultimate "closed system" - > therefore the amount of momentum in the universe never changes. Ever. > "Eternal" is an adjective referring to something that lasts forever. > Like momentum in a closed system. > > It matters for theologians. If matter is eternal, there's no Creator-God, because in that case the universe is not created. If momentum is conserved there is room for a first push, of course given by the Big Pusher. -- Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From curt at cola.iges.org Fri Jul 4 09:51:29 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:51:29 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: <486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org> <486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org> Erik Hoogcarspel wrote: >> > It matters for theologians. If matter is eternal, there's no > Creator-God, because in that case the universe is not created. If > momentum is conserved there is room for a first push, of course given by > the Big Pusher. > > I think it only matters to Christian and perhaps also Islamic theologians. I know of no other theologies that posit "creation" out of nothing. And of course there are even Christians who have wisely abandoned the idea. Physicists do not do ontology - but they do provide constraints on ontology. Anything that is posited to exist, especially if it is posited as an "ultimate", must be somehow reconcilable with what is known, scientifically speaking, about the physical world. Any genuine conservation law, in the physical sense, argues against the need for a "creator". And rather persuasively at that. Curt Steinmetz From jehms at xs4all.nl Fri Jul 4 09:52:06 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:52:06 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] buddha-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: <486D9902.3050405@cola.iges.org> References: <3499440D-4828-4946-92FB-D15AF2FEC5F1@toad.net> <486D9902.3050405@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <486E4726.5080308@xs4all.nl> Curt Steinmetz schreef: > Bernie Simon wrote: > >> On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:32 AM, buddha-l-request at mailman.swcp.com wrote: >> >> >> >>> Isn't energy the "ultimate stuff of the physical universe" that is >>> "not >>> subject to destruction" or creation? >>> >>> >> Energy is not a substance. It's a property of physical systems. And >> energy is created and destroyed all the time, or rather, transformed. >> The chemical energy of wood is transformed into the light of fire, >> which is transformed into heat. These are qualitatively different >> things. The quantity of energy in a system is conserved, not energy >> itself. >> _______________________________________________ >> >> > Matter is obviously "a substance" - and matter and energy are > interchangeable, as has been known since 1905. Therefore at the very > least energy has the potential to become "a substance" (which makes it > "potentially substantial") - and in fact we know that energy does do > this all the time. Also the distinction between "energy itself" and the > "quantity" of energy doesn't apply when we are talking about > "conservation". "Conservation" refers precisely to the "quantity" of > energy - that has always been the meaning of what physicists call > "conservation laws". > > The bottom line is: mass-energy (they must be treated together) can be > neither created nor destroyed. All you can do with it is rearrange it > (rearrangement includes conversion from matter to energy and vice > versa). All apparent change in the physical universe is just the > rearranging of mass-energy - nothing ever "arises" out of nothing - nor > does anything ever simply "cease" and become nothing. Therefore any > posited "dhammas" that arise out of nothing and/or cease and simply > disappear into nothing must either be conceptual constructs or they > appear to be inconsistent with what we know about the physical world. > > That is unless the "dhammas" themselves are not physical (ie, are > neither matter nor energy). Then the conservation laws of physics don't > apply. But that implies that the physical universe is "ultimately" "made > up" of non-physical stuff. > > > The laws of conservation of energy are not so much laws of the universe per se, but definitions that structure the way Western physics looks at the universe. All science is however underdetermined, that means that there are always alternative ways possible to look at the universe and explain events and they cannot be proven wrong. Western physics has been very succesfull of course, but that doesn't necessarily prove that it's laws are necessarily and exclusively true. Even if one takes an instrumental standard for truth there is room for alternatives. Dhammas are not elements of Western physics, so they're incommensurable and cannot expect to obey laws of Western physics more then say the elements of Empedocles. -- Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From bsimon at toad.net Fri Jul 4 12:11:53 2008 From: bsimon at toad.net (Bernie Simon) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <817BEC99-5F30-495C-9BF6-9735F0E5BCFA@toad.net> On Jul 4, 2008, at 2:00 PM, buddha-l-request at mailman.swcp.com wrote: > The total amount of momentum in a closed system is conserved. > "Everything", ie, the "universe" is the ultimate "closed system" - > therefore the amount of momentum in the universe never changes. Ever. > "Eternal" is an adjective referring to something that lasts forever. > Like momentum in a closed system. Amounts are not considered things and so cannot have properties such as eternal or temporary. > The laws of conservation of energy are not so much laws of the > universe > per se, but definitions that structure the way Western physics looks > at > the universe So physics is nothing more than a tautology? The whole of classical mechanics can be derived from the conservation laws. From marshallarts at bigpond.com Fri Jul 4 18:49:45 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:49:45 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> > I think it only matters to Christian and perhaps also Islamic > theologians. I know of no other theologies that posit "creation" out of > nothing. And of course there are even Christians who have wisely > abandoned the idea. > Physicists do not do ontology - but they do provide constraints on > ontology. Anything that is posited to exist, especially if it is posited > as an "ultimate", must be somehow reconcilable with what is known, > scientifically speaking, about the physical world. > Any genuine conservation law, in the physical sense, argues against the > need for a "creator". And rather persuasively at that. > Curt Steinmetz From curt at cola.iges.org Fri Jul 4 19:18:31 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:18:31 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: <003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org> <003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> Kate Marshall wrote: > From memory, Christianity does not posit creation out of nothing. > Christianity, along with Shaktism and others, posit that creation came from > sound (the Word). Admittedly sound is "nothing" (no thing) in that it is not > a physical thing in the normal sense. But it definitely has existence. > > Creation ex Nihilo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_nihilo This is a fundamental doctrine of the Catholic Church, the various Orthodox Churches and most Protestant sects: it was embraced by Luther and Calvin, and I think it is also accepted by the Church of England. From the early years of the Church this was considered one of the key distinctions between Christians and Pagans. But in a break with tradition, over the last two hundred years or so, people who doubted this doctrine have been allowed to live. Curt From marshallarts at bigpond.com Fri Jul 4 21:46:46 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 13:46:46 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> >> From memory, Christianity does not posit creation out of nothing. >> Christianity, along with Shaktism and others, posit that creation came >> from >> sound (the Word). Admittedly sound is "nothing" (no thing) in that it is >> not >> a physical thing in the normal sense. But it definitely has existence. >> >> > Creation ex Nihilo: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_nihilo > > This is a fundamental doctrine of the Catholic Church, the various > Orthodox Churches and most Protestant sects: it was embraced by Luther > and Calvin, and I think it is also accepted by the Church of England. > > From the early years of the Church this was considered one of the key > distinctions between Christians and Pagans. But in a break with > tradition, over the last two hundred years or so, people who doubted > this doctrine have been allowed to live. Thanks for the link, Curt. I don't know anything about Islamic views so found that part particularly interesting. As for creation ex nihilo, from the 8 biblical quotes given the following two directly support my above comments: 1. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. 2. By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Also a number of the quotes seem to use the terms Word, breath, and, spirit interchangeably, which further support the views mentioned in my previous post. I don't see anything in the quotes that contradicts my comments in any big way. The difference I do see is that the term "nothing" as used in the link could be taken to mean the absence of the tangible and the intangible. I tend to use "nothing" as no-thing, ie an absence of the tangible but a presence of the intangible. To me, sound (the Word) has presence even though it isn't tangible. I can't see how any thing said to be created from sound can be said to be created from nothing. Sound is something. I find the stance of Creation ex nihilo as presented in the link contradictory. Kate From marshallarts at bigpond.com Fri Jul 4 23:25:43 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 15:25:43 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies><486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <000401c8de5f$92229b20$0200000a@katies> .....I find the stance of Creation ex nihilo > as presented in the link contradictory. Make that "self-contradictory". From curt at cola.iges.org Sat Jul 5 06:57:42 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:57:42 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: <000401c8de5f$92229b20$0200000a@katies> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies><486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <000401c8de5f$92229b20$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <486F6FC6.7090400@cola.iges.org> Kate Marshall wrote: > .....I find the stance of Creation ex nihilo > >> as presented in the link contradictory. >> > > Make that "self-contradictory". > > You might be interested in this online article title "Is Creation Ex Nihilo A Post-Biblical Invention?": http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/article_exnihilo_copan.html It starts off with a quote from John Calvin: "Let this, then, be maintained in the first place, that the world is not eternal, but was created by God." The short answer, according to the author, is "No," as he makes clear in the concluding paragraph: "So, contrary to May and others, the doctrine of creation out of nothing was not simply created ex nihilo by post-biblical theologians of the second century to counteract gnostic ideas. We have good reason to believe that the doctrine of creation out of nothing is rooted in biblical passages indicating that God is the ontological Originator of all that exists." Curt Steinmetz From wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg Sat Jul 5 09:21:11 2008 From: wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg (Wong Weng Fai) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 23:21:11 +0800 (SGT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Dunhuang Mogao caves In-Reply-To: <001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> <486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl><001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies> <1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost> <001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: Just saw the news report... the desert is advancing at the rate of 4 meters a year on Dunhuang. Mogao caves is severely threatened and is apparently already closed to visitors. One scholar who works on the cave interviewed says it is a losing battle and the situation is very bad. Looks like we will lose this heritage site for good. Sad. W.F. Wong From jmp at peavler.org Sat Jul 5 10:05:10 2008 From: jmp at peavler.org (Jim Peavler) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:05:10 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy In-Reply-To: <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> On Jul 4, 2008, at 9:46 PM, Kate Marshall wrote: > > As for creation ex nihilo, from the 8 biblical quotes given the > following > two directly support my above comments: > > 1. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the > word of > God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do > appear. > 2. By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host > of them > by the breath of his mouth. > Also a number of the quotes seem to use the terms Word, breath, and, > spirit > interchangeably, which further support the views mentioned in my > previous > post. I think reading "word" as literal sounding out of syllables may be a little to literal an understanding of a word that is clearly a translation of an old Germanic word translated from a latin (verbum), neither of which is a particularly close translation of any of the words used in the original languages of the Hebrew or Xian Bible. The words "breath", "spirit", "thought", "mind", and so on seem to exist in free variation with "word" to mean approximately the same transcendent mysterious thing. The folks who translated the James version of the Bible chose "Word" from a rather long list of possibilities to refer to this mysterious phenomenon. John, famously, begins his gospel with; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. This is the only creation story I can recall offhand from the new testament. It tells the creation story all the way from the pre- creation to the beginning of the preaching career of John the Baptist. I have a difficult time comprehending the "Word", as used here, as literally a spoken sound. It has to be some kind of truly transcendent essence or power that comprises spirit, and mind, and existence, and a host of other things that precede all things. And it seems to comprise all things that have ever been or can ever be. Maybe it is the opposite of "emptiness". Maybe it is "fullness". It may refer to the plenum. From rbzeuschner at roadrunner.com Sat Jul 5 10:20:03 2008 From: rbzeuschner at roadrunner.com (Bob Zeuschner) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:20:03 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" In-Reply-To: <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> Message-ID: <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com> The way I learned it is that the Christian term "Word" is one English rendering of the Greek LOGOS, and this technical term is explained in great detail by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists. Augustine also has a commentary on Logos somewhere. As I recall their explanation, Logos has nothing to do with expelling air or sound waves. As I read Genesis, Elohim is "brooding over the waters" before Elohim creates the universe by SAYING (?) "Fiat Lux" (make it light). Thus stuff exists before God creates, so it is not ex nihilo. Bob Jim Peavler wrote: > > John, famously, begins his gospel with; > > In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the > Word was God. > The same was in the beginning with God. > All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made > that was made. > In him was life; and the life was the light of men. > And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it > not. > > This is the only creation story I can recall offhand from the new > testament. It tells the creation story all the way from the pre- > creation to the beginning of the preaching career of John the Baptist. > > I have a difficult time comprehending the "Word", as used here, as > literally a spoken sound. It has to be some kind of truly transcendent > essence or power that comprises spirit, and mind, and existence, and a > host of other things that precede all things. > > And it seems to comprise all things that have ever been or can ever > be. Maybe it is the opposite of "emptiness". Maybe it is "fullness". > It may refer to the plenum. > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > > From jkirk at spro.net Sat Jul 5 11:17:08 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 11:17:08 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Dunhuang Mogao caves In-Reply-To: References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl><486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies><486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl><001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies><1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost><001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <002001c8dec2$f472e010$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Please post a link for the news report! Thanks Joanna ========== Just saw the news report... the desert is advancing at the rate of 4 meters a year on Dunhuang. Mogao caves is severely threatened and is apparently already closed to visitors. One scholar who works on the cave interviewed says it is a losing battle and the situation is very bad. Looks like we will lose this heritage site for good. Sad. W.F. Wong _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From jmp at peavler.org Sat Jul 5 11:23:30 2008 From: jmp at peavler.org (Jim Peavler) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 11:23:30 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" In-Reply-To: <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: <16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> Thanks for bringing in "logos". For some reason my ol mind froze this morning without getting to it. it was the word I was searching for but could not find in my currently scrambled word-hoard. On Jul 5, 2008, at 10:20 AM, Bob Zeuschner wrote: > The way I learned it is that the Christian term "Word" is one English > rendering of the Greek LOGOS, and this technical term is explained in > great detail by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists. Augustine also has a > commentary on Logos somewhere. > As I recall their explanation, Logos has nothing to do with expelling > air or sound waves. > As I read Genesis, Elohim is "brooding over the waters" before Elohim > creates the universe by SAYING (?) "Fiat Lux" (make it light). > Thus stuff exists before God creates, so it is not ex nihilo. > Bob > > Jim Peavler wrote: >> >> John, famously, begins his gospel with; >> >> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the >> Word was God. >> The same was in the beginning with God. >> All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made >> that was made. >> In him was life; and the life was the light of men. >> And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it >> not. >> >> This is the only creation story I can recall offhand from the new >> testament. It tells the creation story all the way from the pre- >> creation to the beginning of the preaching career of John the >> Baptist. >> >> I have a difficult time comprehending the "Word", as used here, as >> literally a spoken sound. It has to be some kind of truly >> transcendent >> essence or power that comprises spirit, and mind, and existence, >> and a >> host of other things that precede all things. >> >> And it seems to comprise all things that have ever been or can ever >> be. Maybe it is the opposite of "emptiness". Maybe it is "fullness". >> It may refer to the plenum. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> buddha-l mailing list >> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com >> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l >> >> > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From jkirk at spro.net Sat Jul 5 12:13:10 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 12:13:10 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Dunhuang Mogao caves In-Reply-To: References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl><486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies><486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl><001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies><1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost><001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <001101c8deca$c8601800$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> This looks like at least one link about the desert advance http://tinyurl.com/6pxeyk Joanna -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Wong Weng Fai Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 9:21 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: [Buddha-l] Dunhuang Mogao caves Just saw the news report... the desert is advancing at the rate of 4 meters a year on Dunhuang. Mogao caves is severely threatened and is apparently already closed to visitors. One scholar who works on the cave interviewed says it is a losing battle and the situation is very bad. Looks like we will lose this heritage site for good. Sad. W.F. Wong _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From curt at cola.iges.org Sat Jul 5 13:06:03 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:06:03 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" In-Reply-To: <16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com> <16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> Message-ID: <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org> Logos is one of the most maddening Greek words in existence. One of my favorite usages is in Plato's Theaetetus where it is proposed as the defining distinction between "right opinion" and "knowledge": "knowledge" being "right opinion" *plus* an "account" of why the opinion is right. The word usually translated as "account" is actually "logos". Even though the formula "right opinion plus an account" is very appealing, Socrates (being Socrates) finds reasons to reject it. But in doing so he, helpfully for our present purpose, investigates three different meanings of the word "logos": http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/theatetu.htm#SH3d Curt Steinmetz Jim Peavler wrote: > Thanks for bringing in "logos". For some reason my ol mind froze this > morning without getting to it. it was the word I was searching for but > could not find in my currently scrambled word-hoard. > > On Jul 5, 2008, at 10:20 AM, Bob Zeuschner wrote: > > >> The way I learned it is that the Christian term "Word" is one English >> rendering of the Greek LOGOS, and this technical term is explained in >> great detail by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists. Augustine also has a >> commentary on Logos somewhere. >> As I recall their explanation, Logos has nothing to do with expelling >> air or sound waves. >> As I read Genesis, Elohim is "brooding over the waters" before Elohim >> creates the universe by SAYING (?) "Fiat Lux" (make it light). >> Thus stuff exists before God creates, so it is not ex nihilo. >> Bob >> >> Jim Peavler wrote: >> >>> John, famously, begins his gospel with; >>> >>> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the >>> Word was God. >>> The same was in the beginning with God. >>> All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made >>> that was made. >>> In him was life; and the life was the light of men. >>> And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it >>> not. >>> >>> This is the only creation story I can recall offhand from the new >>> testament. It tells the creation story all the way from the pre- >>> creation to the beginning of the preaching career of John the >>> Baptist. >>> >>> I have a difficult time comprehending the "Word", as used here, as >>> literally a spoken sound. It has to be some kind of truly >>> transcendent >>> essence or power that comprises spirit, and mind, and existence, >>> and a >>> host of other things that precede all things. >>> >>> And it seems to comprise all things that have ever been or can ever >>> be. Maybe it is the opposite of "emptiness". Maybe it is "fullness". >>> It may refer to the plenum. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> buddha-l mailing list >>> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com >>> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> buddha-l mailing list >> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com >> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From marshallarts at bigpond.com Sat Jul 5 16:53:59 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 08:53:59 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies><486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org><000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> Message-ID: <001601c8def2$030106f0$0200000a@katies> >.... I have a difficult time comprehending the "Word", as used here, as > literally a spoken sound. It has to be some kind of truly transcendent > essence or power that comprises spirit, and mind, and existence, and a > host of other things that precede all things....< Must admit, I saw "Word" as a mantra or seed syllabul, whether spoken out aloud or not. You mention "spirit, and mind, and existence." These three are associated with many Hindu gods and Buddhas/Bodhisattvas in the form of mantra (spirit/breath/vibration/sacred chant), yantra/mandala (mind), and mudra (existence - anthropomorphic images etc, which also allow for the display of mudra). So perhaps a good argument could be made for "Word" being mantra. From marshallarts at bigpond.com Sat Jul 5 17:03:13 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:03:13 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies><802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: <001f01c8def3$4daa6150$0200000a@katies> >> ...And it seems to comprise all things that have ever been or can ever >> be..... Again this brings us to energy. Energy comprises all things that have ever been or can ever be. Sound waves are carriers of energy. From jkirk at spro.net Sat Jul 5 17:32:47 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 17:32:47 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Obituary on Vietnam UBCV Supreme Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang Message-ID: <002f01c8def7$6ed9e040$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> The Supreme Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist church of Vietnam (an organisation still banned by the VN government), said inter alia: "We can see that Vietnam's economic development has brought some improvements. But at the same time, the poverty gap is rocketing. This is not just the gap between rich and poor, but the gulf between the rulers and the ruled." Doesn't this ring a bell here in the USA? Joanna ====================================== http://www.queme.net/eng/news_detail.php?numb=1040 "I have lived without a home, will die without a grave, I walk without a path and am imprisoned without a crime" (Thich Huyen Quang) Obituary on UBCV Supreme Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang 2008-07-05 The 4th Supreme Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), who passed away on 5th July at the Nguyen Thieu Monastery in Binh Dinh, was one of Vietnam's most loved and respected spiritual leaders. He was also a determined opponent of tyranny in all its forms. For his uncompromising determination to stand firm, he paid a high price, spending over half his life in prison, internal exile, or under house arrest under a succession of political regimes. Together with the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Thich Huyen Quang waged three decades of peaceful opposition to the Communist regime, becoming a symbol of the non-violent Buddhist movement for religious freedom and human rights. But he was also a great peacemaker and a man of dialogue, seeking every opportunity towards harmony and the healing of divisions in a Vietnam torn by war and conflicting ideologies. In April 2003, he was received in Hanoi by Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai to discuss the situation of Buddhism. This is the first time a political prisoner had ever been received by a top government official in Communist Vietnam. The International Buddhist Information Bureau wishes to make public some salient points of his life and work. More information and translation of his major texts will be posted on the IBIB website............ ...........In his last Message to the Buddhists community, issued on the Vesak (Buddha's Birth) in May this year, Thich Huyen Quang stressed Buddhism's firm commitment to freedom and human rights: "Buddhism does not turn its back on society. On the contrary, Buddhism boldly confronts society's challenges, restoring peace to societies where repression rules, false thinking dominates and people are driven into perpetual conflict". "We can see that Vietnam's economic development has brought some improvements. But at the same time, the poverty gap is rocketing. This is not just the gap between rich and poor, but the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. Vietnam's policies have produced a "rich country with poor people", the very contrary of the prosperity that the government's slogans claim". "In terms of human freedoms, we have nothing - all basic rights and liberties are denied. The religious communities cannot act freely, and as a result, social problems are persistent and increasing. It is impossible to bring enlightenment where poverty and lack of freedom prevail". "We have virtually lost the Spratly and Paracel islands, to the total indifference of our government. How starkly their attitude contrasts with that of the Dinh, Le, Ly and later Le, Ly and Tran dynasties, where the kings, great Zen masters, Buddhists and the entire population shared a common determination to defend and preserve the nation. Thanks to their efforts to defend our country, the Vietnamese people have a land on which to live. Thanks to their efforts to maintain our independence, the Vietnamese people have preserved their identity and developed the spiritual and cultural values that distinguish Vietnamese civilization today". By developing their spirituality and fulfilling Buddha's teachings, he wrote, Buddhists could serve their country and help to "ensure that the Vietnamese people will never again be slaves". "Buddha's teachings cannot flourish in a country reduced to slavery; human beings cannot enjoy happiness if they are poor and oppressed. The ultimate vow of all Buddhists is to emerge wherever such suffering exists, and show all beings the Path to liberation". [I'm not sure that some of the kings he cited were great Zen masters.......nevertheless... Joanna] From marshallarts at bigpond.com Sat Jul 5 17:52:28 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:52:28 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies> >>>>... In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the >>>> Word was God. >>>> The same was in the beginning with God....< According to Sacred Geometry, Logos also means ratio. The only ratio that is simultaneously one and with one is the golden section, otherwise known as phi. Phi is defined as a line segment divided into two unequal parts such that the ratio of the shorter portion to the longer portion is the same as the longer portion to the whole. Phi is seen in the proportions of butterflies and fish, water, DNA, our number of teeth, architecture, philosophy, science, mathematics, and of course sound (in the form of music). In fact phi crops up just about everywhere throughout nature. It is at the basis of the underlying patterns of wave forms mentioned in one of my earlier posts on this subject. Btw, Phi is also responsible for how we perceive the various things of creation in that the nerves of our different sense organs respond to different ranges of frequencies. Our different perceptual faculties are a result of various proportioned reductions of one vast spectrum of vibratory frequencies. These proportional relationships are seen as a sort of geometry of perception. As mentioned before, some early Hindus consider sound to be the first element of creation, played as music (governed by phi) on Shiva's double-ended drum. Kate From jehms at xs4all.nl Sun Jul 6 07:17:33 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:17:33 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" In-Reply-To: <001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org> <001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl> Kate Marshall schreef: >>>>> ... In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the >>>>> Word was God. >>>>> The same was in the beginning with God....< >>>>> > > According to Sacred Geometry, Logos also means ratio. The only ratio that is > simultaneously one and with one is the golden section, otherwise known as > phi. Phi is defined as a line segment divided into two unequal parts such > that the ratio of the shorter portion to the longer portion is the same as > the longer portion to the whole. Phi is seen in the proportions of > butterflies and fish, water, DNA, our number of teeth, architecture, > philosophy, science, mathematics, and of course sound (in the form of > music). In fact phi crops up just about everywhere throughout nature. It is > at the basis of the underlying patterns of wave forms mentioned in one of my > earlier posts on this subject. > I don't know what sacred geometry is, but I do know that quite a lot of philosophers would protest, because the Roman word 'ratio' has the connotation of commercial calculation, while 'logos' refers to meaning and principle. A logos is not just a number (about 1.62). Of course dividing a line in such a way can also be called a principle. But in that case it's just one amongst many, like the seed principles (logoi spermaticoi) of the Stoics. > Btw, Phi is also responsible for how we perceive the various things of > creation in that the nerves of our different sense organs respond to > different ranges of frequencies. Our different perceptual faculties are a > result of various proportioned reductions of one vast spectrum of vibratory > frequencies. These proportional relationships are seen as a sort of geometry > of perception. > > As mentioned before, some early Hindus consider sound to be the first > element of creation, played as music (governed by phi) on Shiva's > double-ended drum. > I wouldn't be surprised if the Indians learned about the golden ratio from the Yavana's. Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg Sun Jul 6 07:20:39 2008 From: wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg (Wong Weng Fai) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 21:20:39 +0800 (SGT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Dunhuang Mogao caves In-Reply-To: <002001c8dec2$f472e010$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl><486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies><486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl><001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies><1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost><001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> <002001c8dec2$f472e010$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Jul 2008, jkirk wrote: > Please post a link for the news report! I saw it on a TV news report. But here is a link claiming a Reuters report... http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=547817 W.F. Wong From vasubandhu at earthlink.net Sun Jul 6 10:26:22 2008 From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net (Dan Lusthaus) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 12:26:22 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Dunhuang Mogao caves References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org><486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl><486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org><003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies><486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl><001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies><1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost><001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies><002001c8dec2$f472e010$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <004401c8df85$0839cfb0$94369c04@Dan> Article in today's NY Times about Dunhuang art (not the desert creep) with nice photos: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/arts/design/06cott.htm Dan From jmp at peavler.org Sun Jul 6 10:34:50 2008 From: jmp at peavler.org (Jim Peavler) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:34:50 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" In-Reply-To: <4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org> <001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies> <4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> On Jul 6, 2008, at 7:17 AM, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote: > Kate Marshall schreef: >>>>>> According to Sacred Geometry, Logos also means ratio. The only >>>>>> ratio that is >> simultaneously one and with one is the golden section, otherwise >> known as >> phi. Phi is defined as a line segment divided into two unequal >> parts such >> that the ratio of the shorter portion to the longer portion is the >> same as >> the longer portion to the whole. Phi is seen in the proportions of >> butterflies and fish, water, DNA, our number of teeth, architecture, >> philosophy, science, mathematics, and of course sound (in the form of >> music). In fact phi crops up just about everywhere throughout >> nature. It is >> at the basis of the underlying patterns of wave forms mentioned in >> one of my >> earlier posts on this subject. I do not believe for an instant that the golden ratio shows up in all thee places. I do, however, believe that many flavors of the ancient one might have so believed. Numbers, like letter an words, were considered magical in most cultures, and, in fact, till are by a surprisingly large number of people, especially folks who insist on "literal" readings of specific texts or who cast "spells', or do "numerological" analysis of everything from the Bible to The Story of O. However, as an Illuminati, I can tell you that the "Golden Ratio" was well understood and applied by the master masons who built the great Romanic and Gothic cathedrals of Europe. Jim Peavler jmp at peavler.org From jkirk at spro.net Sun Jul 6 12:14:44 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 12:14:44 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Some history on Buddhism in Vietnam Message-ID: <003101c8df94$2ada90e0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Vietnam.htm (from Human Rights Watch website) The Unified Buddhist Church Buddhism, Vietnam's majority religion, has been closely tied to politics and national identify for centuries, but at no time more so than during the twentieth century struggle for Vietnam's independence. The Buddhist community of south and central Vietnam came to world attention in 1963, when it became the catalyst for mass demonstrations in the streets of Saigon, Hue and Da Nang that helped topple the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem. President Diem and his family had alienated the country's Buddhist majority over the previous decade by giving patronage and favors to Vietnam's Catholic minority. In 1963, when Buddhist organizations in Hue began to speak out against this favoritism, Diem responded by enforcing a ban on the display of any flags other than the national flag on the anniversary of the Buddha's birthday. On May 8, 1963, Buddhist flags were flown in Hue in defiance of the order, and government troops killed nine people when they opened fire on the celebrating crowds. Two days later, ten thousand Buddhists took to the streets. Diem's government jailed leading monks and their supporters. Further protests and arrests throughout the summer culminated in the self-immolation of the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc on a Saigon street corner. These protests, among other factors, impelled the U.S. government to withdraw its support for the Diem government. The junta headed by Duong Van Minh that overthrew Diem freed jailed Buddhist leaders and allowed a Buddhist conference that Diem had banned to be held between December 1963 and January 1994. The conference established the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (Unified Buddhist Church) at the An Quang pagoda in Saigon, with the intention of uniting the religious, cultural, and secular affairs of all Vietnamese Buddhist sects. Although a handful of more conservative and ascetic sects declined to join the group, the majority of southern and central Vietnamese Buddhists of both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions became members of the Unified Buddhist Church. Social activism was a hallmark of the Unified Buddhist Church from its inception, growing out of a reform movement earlier in the century which sought to modernize Buddhism by linking it to social development and national independence. From the Unified Buddhist Church's earliest days, however, there were divisions in the leadership over how to best to promote social change-- through demonstrations, or urban educational programs, or direct social action at the village level. Despite these disagreements, the Unified Buddhist Church established many social institutions, including the Van Hanh University in Saigon, Buddhist hospitals, orphanages, elementary and secondary schools, and the School of Youth for Social Service led by Thich Nhat Hanh. As the war progressed, the Unified Buddhist Church's continued calls for peace and its position of neutrality brought it into conflict with a succession of South Vietnamese political leaders. In 1964, Gen. Nguyen Khanh banned the use of Buddhist symbols and outlawed "actions in support of neutralism." In early 1966, Unified Buddhist Church leaders launched demonstrations denouncing government corruption, demanding the restoration of civilian rule, and calling on the U.S. government to withdraw its support for the government of Nguyen Cao Ky. Although soldiers in the vicinity of Hue and Da Nang refused orders to squelch these protests, Ky unleashed paratroopers against Buddhist demonstrators in May. In the succeeding months, Unified Buddhist Church members around the country were jailed, forced into exile, or in many cases disappeared or killed. The Unified Buddhist Church continued its peace activities through the end of the war, but in the face of continued repression and intensifying war after 1968, its personnel and resources were taken up in providing emergency aid to casualties and refugees. After 1975, the new communist government quickly took over the administration of the Unified Buddhist Church's properties and institutions, prompting protests and demonstrations by church members. In March 1977, after security personnel came to take control of the Buddhist-run Quach Tri Trang orphanage, the Unified Buddhist Church's executive council issued a public protest, and Buddhists carried out mass demonstrations through the streets of the city. The government responded to demands for greater religious freedom and the return of church property by arresting six members of the Unified Buddhist Church's Executive Council on April 7 on charges of "having distorted government policies" and "having received documents from abroad that were distributed to their followers." Two of the monks arrested were Thich Huyen Quang [who just died on July 4th] and Thich Quang Do, respectively the executive vice president and secretary general of the Unified Buddhist Church's Executive Council. Both had previously been imprisoned by the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. In response to their arrests, Thich Don Hau, who later became the supreme patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church, resigned from positions the government had given him as a member of the National Assembly and the Fatherland Front. Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do were tried and released from detention with suspended sentences in April 1978, after twenty months in detention. In 1980, the government called on Buddhist monks to initiate meetings to unify all Buddhist organizations from the north and south. Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do opposed these meetings, and were publicly denounced by Thich Minh Chau, a member of the government-appointed unification committee, for trying to "sabotage the unity effort" and "openly defy the government and the Fatherland Front." At the congress, which was eventually held in November of 1981, the Vietnam Buddhist Church was established by government-selected delegates. The Vietnam Buddhist Church's charter defined it as the sole representative of Vietnamese Buddhism in all of its relations both within and outside the country. At the time of its creation, this church was also designated as an official mass organization affiliated with the Fatherland Front. Although the state-supported church had titular authority over all Buddhists in Vietnam, many of members of the Unified Buddhist Church leadership refused to recognize its authority. In February 1982, the government sent Thich Huyen Quang, Thich Quang Do, and at least four other Buddhist leaders into internal exile for their continued protests against the establishment of the Vietnam Buddhist Church. In July of that year, security police took over and closed the An Quang Pagoda, headquarters of the Unified Buddhist Church since its founding in 1964.... [Thich Huyen Quang is now dead; Thich Quang Do is still under house arrest to this day. JK] There is more history in this article than I can excerpt here. Joanna From marshallarts at bigpond.com Sun Jul 6 22:30:45 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 14:30:45 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies> <4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <000801c8dfea$39517480$0200000a@katies> Hi Erik, > I don't know what sacred geometry is,....< Sacred geometry is a means of answering the question that has plagued philosophers down through the ages - that question being how does the One, Unity, God (whatever you want to call it) become Many. It is also used to show the macrocosm reflected in the microcosm and vice versa, and in doing so shows how the Many can have a meaningful relationship with each other and with the One. Perhaps you are most familiar with it as the geometric calculations and lines that form the shape of the mandala. I mentioned Shakti and Shiva before. Their yantra (mandala), the Sricakra is made up of a pattern of triangles that emerge from the central trikona that contains the bindu, the beginning point, the One. In counting the number of triangles of the Sricakra, the central triangle isn't counted because one, as unity, isn't considered a number in the usual sense. So in counting the triangles of the Sricakra, which to Shakti and Shiva devotees portrays life, the universe and everything, the answer is 42 (which rather tickles me). >but I do know that quite a lot of > philosophers would protest, because the Roman word 'ratio' has the > connotation of commercial calculation, while 'logos' refers to meaning > and principle. A logos is not just a number (about 1.62). Of course > dividing a line in such a way can also be called a principle. But in > that case it's just one amongst many, like the seed principles (logoi > spermaticoi) of the Stoics. Phi is a principle in that it is an underlying law or guideline for so many different arts and sciences - one that it seems even Nature employs. You are right in that the phi value is roughly 1.62 (1.6180339.....) for the whole line, assuming that the longer segment (the mean) of the divided line is 1. > I wouldn't be surprised if the Indians learned about the golden ratio from > the Yavana's. Possibly, coming from the Egyptians via the Greeks, though it isn't known for sure. Kate From marshallarts at bigpond.com Sun Jul 6 22:52:14 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 14:52:14 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl> <0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> Message-ID: <001301c8dfed$399b2050$0200000a@katies> Hi Jim, > I do not believe for an instant that the golden ratio shows up in all > thee places. Happily you do not have to take my word for it. It's easy enough to read up on if you are interested. I do, however, believe that many flavors of the ancient > one might have so believed. Numbers, like letter an words, were > considered magical in most cultures, and, in fact, till are by a > surprisingly large number of people, especially folks who insist on > "literal" readings of specific texts or who cast "spells', or do > "numerological" analysis of everything from the Bible to The Story of O. Sacred science and phi aren't about numbers but shapes and relationships. Numerology etc. doesn't come into this. > However, as an Illuminati, I can tell you that the "Golden Ratio" was > well understood and applied by the master masons who built the great > Romanic and Gothic cathedrals of Europe. The use of the Golden Ratio in such cathedrals is usually a stock example in books on sacred geometry. Actually, it was architecture that first got me interested in sacred geometry as I wanted to find out more about the floor plans of Hindu fire altars and temples, and Vastu, and why the 'square' in such plans and the stupa cube etc. were used to represent 'earth'. Perhaps it also explains why the Egyptian pyramids are square pyramids and not, say, triangular pyramids. Kate > > > Jim Peavler > jmp at peavler.org > > > > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com > Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.4.5/1536 - Release Date: 7/5/2008 > 10:15 AM > > > From marshallarts at bigpond.com Mon Jul 7 03:16:35 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 19:16:35 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl> <0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> Message-ID: <000601c8e012$278b68a0$0200000a@katies> Hi Jim, On re-reading your post, I think I might have taken your following comments the wrong way. >... I do, however, believe that many flavors of the ancient > one might have so believed. Numbers, like letter an words, were > considered magical in most cultures, and, in fact, till are by a > surprisingly large number of people, especially folks who insist on > "literal" readings of specific texts or who cast "spells', or do > "numerological" analysis of everything from the Bible to The Story of O. I'm still not sure if I have or I haven't, however, I'd like to point out that phi is demonstrable whereas the various powers and characteristics allotted to numbers are not. Kate From rhayes at unm.edu Mon Jul 7 09:23:49 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:23:49 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness In-Reply-To: <001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> References: <486A9FE1.2020603@cola.iges.org> <486B9080.3020006@xs4all.nl> <486B94E4.5080904@cola.iges.org> <003e01c8dc8f$2287ac50$0200000a@katies> <486CCD91.5000002@xs4all.nl> <001301c8dd61$426f3650$0200000a@katies> <1215132030.5620.0.camel@localhost> <001801c8dda4$db98ac10$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <1215444229.5666.2.camel@localhost> On Fri, 2008-07-04 at 17:09 +1000, Kate Marshall wrote: > In essence there doesn't appear to be much diference between Mahavairocana > and Brahman at this level. Right. Both are silly and indefensible ideas. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From rhayes at unm.edu Mon Jul 7 09:31:32 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:31:32 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Obituary on Vietnam UBCV Supreme Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang In-Reply-To: <002f01c8def7$6ed9e040$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <002f01c8def7$6ed9e040$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <1215444692.5666.5.camel@localhost> On Sat, 2008-07-05 at 17:32 -0600, jkirk wrote: > "We can see that Vietnam's economic development has brought some > improvements. But at the same time, the poverty gap is rocketing. > This is not just the gap between rich and poor, but the gulf > between the rulers and the ruled." > > Doesn't this ring a bell here in the USA? > Joanna There you go again, Joanna, saying negative things about your home and native land. Sure, poverty is increasing rapidly in the United States, but don't forget we have a humane solution to the problem of poverty in this country. We put the poor in prison. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From jkirk at spro.net Mon Jul 7 09:41:04 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 09:41:04 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Obituary on Vietnam UBCV Supreme PatriarchThich Huyen Quang In-Reply-To: <1215444692.5666.5.camel@localhost> References: <002f01c8def7$6ed9e040$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> <1215444692.5666.5.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <005e01c8e047$dd85ea60$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> There you go again, Joanna, saying negative things about your home and native land. Sure, poverty is increasing rapidly in the United States, but don't forget we have a humane solution to the problem of poverty in this country. We put the poor in prison. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico ======================= Yes we do---or throw them out on the streets. If any financial firms are going broke, however, and threatening to assume the mantle of poverty, we hasten to save them with taxpayer donations. Ain't our brand of democracy wunnerful? Joanna From hansgijsen at msn.com Fri Jul 4 02:06:22 2008 From: hansgijsen at msn.com (Hans Gijsen) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 10:06:22 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Emptiness (Curt Steinmetz) Message-ID: Curt Steinmetz wrote: >That is unless the "dhammas" themselves are not physical (ie, are >neither matter nor energy). Then the conservation laws of physics don't >apply. But that implies that the physical universe is "ultimately" "made >up" of non-physical stuff. That is exactly the direction physicists are looking for. Howard Georgi (Harvard University) has come up with the concept of "unparticle physics", particles which don't have a specific mass, but can contain any kind of mass. If so, this would have impact on the mass-energy equilibrium. http://www.physorg.com/news100753984.html http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0703260 http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2457 Hans From baopiguy at ca.rr.com Mon Jul 7 12:10:19 2008 From: baopiguy at ca.rr.com (BP) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:10:19 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] Government fears funeral of Thich Huyen Quang, Buddhist patriarch and hero of religious freedom Message-ID: <48725C0B.7020904@ca.rr.com> *07/07/2008 13:30* VIETNAM *Government fears funeral of Thich Huyen Quang, Buddhist patriarch and hero of religious freedom* by Nguyen Van Tranh He headed the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, banned by the government. He passed away at the age of 87, half of which spent in prison, internal exile or under house arrest. For him religious freedom is also the basis of economic progress. Hanoi (AsiaNews) -- The funeral of Thich Huyen Quang, Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), will take place this week. His Church is banned and government officials have accused it of planning to use the burial ceremony for political advantages Thich Huyen Quang passed away last Saturday after months of illness; he was 87-year-old, half of which he spent in prison, internal exile or under house arrest. He led the UBCV for 16 years, becoming an outspoken proponent of religious freedom and human rights in Vietnam. Born in Binh Dinh, southern Vietnam, in 1920, he became a monk at the age of 12. Quickly he got involved in the struggle against French colonial rule. During the Vietnam was he was active in the Buddhist pacifist movement, taking part in various international conferences. After Vietnam's unification Thich Huyen Quang was arrested and sentenced several times as the government tried to eliminate religion. In 1981 the authorities set up a Buddhist Church of Vietnam under the United Front in order to break UBCV resistance. Together with another hero of religious freedom, Thich Quang Do (now his successor) he was sent into internal exile and placed in isolation. Similarly, on another occasion he was also kept under house arrest at the remote Quang Phuoc Pagoda in Quang Ngai Province. He was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience in 1990, and declared a 'Victim of Arbitrary Detention' by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva. Appointed head of the UBCV in 1992 he came under attack from the government. As some secret Communist Party documents reveal, the authorities sought to stop his "evil activities and those of his accomplices," calling on police and party members "not to spare any efforts in the struggle against Huyen Quang," nor refrain from "chopping off the arms and legs of the UBCV." Monks and the faithful proved unwilling to bend to the party's will and were arrested by the hundreds. However, the UBCV, which is backed by 80 per cent of Vietnam's Buddhists, has continued to spread the patriarch's message and views thanks to its network of solidarity. It has also organised the most important demonstrations in the history of united Vietnam involving tens of thousands of people. As a result of Thich Huyen Quang's struggle for the religious freedom and UBCV autonomy, government's economic wrongdoing have been exposed for creating greater misery among the population. "Vietnam's economic development has brought some improvements, but at the same time the level of poverty has risen. Not only is there a gap between rich and poor, but also between rulers and ruled," he wrote in his message for the Buddha's birthday, back in May. "Vietnam's policies have produced a 'rich country with a poor population'; the very opposite of the prosperity the government's slogans claim. [. . .] In terms of human freedoms, we have nothing---all basic rights and liberties are denied. Religious communities cannot act freely, and as a result, social problems are persistent and increasing. It is impossible to bring enlightenment where poverty and lack of freedom prevail." From jinavamsa at yahoo.com Mon Jul 7 14:25:25 2008 From: jinavamsa at yahoo.com (Mitchell Ginsberg) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 13:25:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Some history on Buddhism in Vietnam (jkirk) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <560843.29748.qm@web62503.mail.re1.yahoo.com> hello all, In the article I notice mention of one Thich Minh Chau. Is this the same person as the author of the book The Chinese Madhyama Agama and the Pali Majjhima Nikaya? So: scholarship allows for a wide swath of political positioning!!!! The paragraph in question read: In 1980, the government called on Buddhist monks to initiate meetings to unify all Buddhist organizations from the north and south. Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do opposed these meetings, and were publicly denounced by Thich Minh Chau, a member of the government-appointed unification committee, for trying to "sabotage the unity effort" and "openly defy the government and the Fatherland Front." At the congress, which was eventually held in November of 1981, the Vietnam Buddhist Church was established by government-selected delegates. The Vietnam Buddhist Church's charter defined it as the sole representative of Vietnamese Buddhism in all of its relations both within and outside the country. I suppose no reason not to expect some Buddhists to take such powerful positions, except for the idea of proper speech and such.... Mitchell G. ========== In memoriam Robert Solomon: http://www.geocities.com/jinavamsa/books/TheInnerPalace/TIP_RCS.html For information on psychotherapy with links of interest: http://www.geocities.com/jinavamsa/mentalhealth.html Homepage (updated 7 July 08): http://www.geocities.com/jinavamsa/ From shian at kmspks.org Mon Jul 7 19:14:34 2008 From: shian at kmspks.org ([DPD Web] Shen Shi'an) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 09:14:34 +0800 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" In-Reply-To: References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl><0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> Message-ID: Hmmm... for every occurrence of the golden ratio, there are many other occurrence of other ratios. -----Original Message----- From: Kate Marshall [mailto:marshallarts at bigpond.com] Sent: Monday, 07 July, 2008 12:52 PM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" Hi Jim, > I do not believe for an instant that the golden ratio shows up in all > thee places. Happily you do not have to take my word for it. It's easy enough to read up on if you are interested. From marshallarts at bigpond.com Tue Jul 8 15:38:50 2008 From: marshallarts at bigpond.com (Kate Marshall) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 07:38:50 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Energy and "The Word" References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl><0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> Message-ID: <002101c8e143$02a0f320$0200000a@katies> > Hmmm... for every occurrence of the golden ratio, > there are many other occurrence of other ratios. The golden ratio came up because it fitted in with our discussion on the Word/Logos. Other ratios aren't relevant to that discussion so weren't mentioned. Sure, other ratios do frequently occur however that does not detract from the occurrence of the golden mean. Regards Kate From wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg Thu Jul 10 01:51:37 2008 From: wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg (Weng-Fai Wong) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:51:37 +0800 Subject: [Buddha-l] And sariras for all.... In-Reply-To: <001301c8dfed$399b2050$0200000a@katies> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl><0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> <001301c8dfed$399b2050$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/World/STIStory_256456.html Forget the years of trying to achieve spiritual attainments, just pay... W.F. Wong From jehms at xs4all.nl Mon Jul 14 02:26:34 2008 From: jehms at xs4all.nl (Erik Hoogcarspel) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:26:34 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline Message-ID: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> sad enough, but the article doesn't mention Nichiren and Jodo-movements http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/world/asia/14japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th Erik Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl From vasubandhu at earthlink.net Mon Jul 14 03:56:58 2008 From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net (Dan Lusthaus) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline References: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <000e01c8e598$0b254240$bd339c04@Dan> > sad enough, but the article doesn't mention Nichiren and Jodo-movements > > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/world/asia/14japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th Erik, Here is the Asahi Shimbun article from a month ago that spawned the NY Times piece -- and this one does mention Jodo. http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200806190046.html Dan From franz at mind2mind.net Mon Jul 14 12:06:22 2008 From: franz at mind2mind.net (Franz Metcalf) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:06:22 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline In-Reply-To: <000e01c8e598$0b254240$bd339c04@Dan> References: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> <000e01c8e598$0b254240$bd339c04@Dan> Message-ID: Gang, An article on Buddhism in contemporary Japan that fails to mention the two most popular forms of Buddhism there! Sheesh. Thanks, though, to Erik and Dan for the links. Taken together, the two articles are evocative (though they remain anecdotal). I liked the suggestion, at the end of the Asahi Shimbun article, that temples move back toward their (possibly imagined) pre-Meiji roles as community centers where life and joy were part of the mix. That's what Pure Land temples are trying to do here in the States, and that may be a model Japanese temples could emulate. But perhaps the world is moving beyond Buddhism. What good it has done in history might now be accomplished via other means. Popularizers (not mentioning any names) seem to want to reduce Buddhism to some kind of DIY psychological grab-bag, so "Buddhism" is thinning out or drying up, no matter what we think about it. Perhaps it's inevitable. This *is* mappo, after all. Franz From jhubbard at email.smith.edu Mon Jul 14 12:33:46 2008 From: jhubbard at email.smith.edu (Jamie Hubbard) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline In-Reply-To: References: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> <000e01c8e598$0b254240$bd339c04@Dan> Message-ID: <487B63CF.C6E1.00B7.0@email.smith.edu> Both of those articles were very misleading. Buddhism is thriving in Japan, though perhaps not the sort of thing that makes many of the traditional funeral Buddhist types happy--although that too is thriving, just in rather changed ways (look at some of the work by Mark Rowe of McMaster University). New Buddhist movements are extremely vigorous and growing, and the older forms of devotion are also continuing well (look at Sarah Horton's new book on "Living Buddhist Statues in Early Medieval and Modern Japan." And so too the Western "convert" sort of movements (Tibetan, Zen, insight meditation, etc.) are also finding "converts" all over Japan. The rumor of the death of Buddhism in Japan has been greatly exaggerated. >>> Franz Metcalf 7/14/2008 2:06 PM >>> Gang, An article on Buddhism in contemporary Japan that fails to mention the two most popular forms of Buddhism there! Sheesh. Thanks, though, to Erik and Dan for the links. Taken together, the two articles are evocative (though they remain anecdotal). I liked the suggestion, at the end of the Asahi Shimbun article, that temples move back toward their (possibly imagined) pre-Meiji roles as community centers where life and joy were part of the mix. That's what Pure Land temples are trying to do here in the States, and that may be a model Japanese temples could emulate. But perhaps the world is moving beyond Buddhism. What good it has done in history might now be accomplished via other means. Popularizers (not mentioning any names) seem to want to reduce Buddhism to some kind of DIY psychological grab-bag, so "Buddhism" is thinning out or drying up, no matter what we think about it. Perhaps it's inevitable. This *is* mappo, after all. Franz _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From curt at cola.iges.org Mon Jul 14 12:39:51 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:39:51 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline In-Reply-To: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> References: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <487B9D77.7030001@cola.iges.org> I think it might not be too sweeping of a generalization to say that this article amounts to (rather unsubtle) anti-Buddhist propaganda. The author is not a Buddhist and doesn't appear to know much about Buddhism (Japanese or otherwise) and paints a very negative picture of his subject - from which I would conclude that the guy doesn't much care for Buddhism and is trying to make it look bad. Briefly looking over the 200+ NYT pieces written by Norimitsu Onishi since 2004 it looks like this is the first time he has turned his attention to Buddhism (well, he did write an article about a Thai Buddhist Temple in Queens in 1996). Perhaps we should hope it will be the last time as well. Curt Steinmetz Erik Hoogcarspel wrote: > sad enough, but the article doesn't mention Nichiren and Jodo-movements > > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/world/asia/14japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th > > > Erik > > Info: www.xs4all.nl/~jehms > Weblog: http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950 > Productie: http://www.olivepress.nl > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From Jackhat1 at aol.com Mon Jul 14 12:41:47 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:41:47 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism Message-ID: I would like to find the number of Buddhists in the U.S.. Then this number broken down by percentage by ethnic type, i.e., ethnic Tibetan, ethnic Zen, etc., and western born type, i.e., western born Tibetan Buddhist, western born Zen, etc. Does this exist? I see all sorts of problems gathering this data but I'm thinking there must be some rough estimates around. Jack **************Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com! (http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112) From rhayes at unm.edu Mon Jul 14 13:46:21 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard P. Hayes) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:46:21 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline In-Reply-To: <487B9D77.7030001@cola.iges.org> References: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> <487B9D77.7030001@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <200807141346.21793.rhayes@unm.edu> On Monday 14 July 2008 12:39:51 Curt Steinmetz wrote: > from which I would conclude that the guy doesn't much care for > Buddhism and is trying to make it look bad. For crying out loud, Curt. Stop beating around the bush and just come out and say what you mean. You think I wrote the article, don't you? -- Richard P. Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From rhayes at unm.edu Mon Jul 14 13:47:33 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard P. Hayes) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:47:33 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200807141347.33120.rhayes@unm.edu> On Monday 14 July 2008 12:41:47 Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote: > I would like to find the number of Buddhists in the U.S.. Then this number > broken down by percentage by ethnic type, i.e., ethnic Tibetan, ethnic > Zen, etc., and western born type, i.e., western born Tibetan Buddhist, > western born Zen, etc. Does this exist? If it does, it shouldn't. -- Richard P. Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From curt at cola.iges.org Mon Jul 14 14:10:38 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:10:38 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Japanese Buddhism in decline In-Reply-To: <200807141346.21793.rhayes@unm.edu> References: <487B0DBA.8070006@xs4all.nl> <487B9D77.7030001@cola.iges.org> <200807141346.21793.rhayes@unm.edu> Message-ID: <487BB2BE.8000606@cola.iges.org> Richard P. Hayes wrote: > > For crying out loud, Curt. Stop beating around the bush and just come out and > say what you mean. You think I wrote the article, don't you? > > You've been leading a double life all this time as a New York Times foreign correspondent. Everything makes sense now. Curt From cfynn at gmx.net Mon Jul 14 23:16:12 2008 From: cfynn at gmx.net (Christopher Fynn) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:16:12 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO) Petition In-Reply-To: References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl><0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> <001301c8dfed$399b2050$0200000a@katies> Message-ID: <487C329C.7080905@gmx.net> Subject: FW: on-line subscription pro-IsIAO ============================================ Dear colleagues & friends, An initiative undertaken in the past few days by the Italian Government is aimed at closing down the Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO). To avoid such an eventuality, which would spell the end of an institution that is unique in Italy and which has been active at the international level in the fields of archaeology, restoration and conservation of cultural assets, scientific research and publishing for over 100 years, we are launching the on-line subscription to an open letter addressed to the President of the Republic. This letter will be available on-line by Tuesday 24 June on the web site . We hereby invite you to kindly sign (name, surname, university/institution, country) this petition and also to ask your colleagues to do likewise. ============================================= From jkirk at spro.net Tue Jul 15 09:35:23 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:35:23 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)Petition In-Reply-To: <487C329C.7080905@gmx.net> References: <486E2EA4.1010202@cola.iges.org><486E43DD.9090201@xs4all.nl> <486E4701.8040105@cola.iges.org><003101c8de39$053c01e0$0200000a@katies> <486ECBE7.3090406@cola.iges.org> <000b01c8de51$bf952900$0200000a@katies> <802352F5-8994-46CA-93A0-A2C0995CFF83@peavler.org> <486F9F33.2080604@roadrunner.com><16FC24CD-0C9D-483D-8127-AE60FE5A28CC@peavler.org> <486FC61B.7080802@cola.iges.org><001401c8defa$2ebb3470$0200000a@katies><4870C5ED.2060200@xs4all.nl><0D35818A-1601-4F7A-A393-1DA76A311D14@peavler.org> <001301c8dfed$399b2050$0200000a@katies> <487C329C.7080905@gmx.net> Message-ID: <004201c8e690$6dd89a10$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Anyone know why this institute is being closed? Joanna ========================= -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Fynn Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 11:16 PM Subject: FW: on-line subscription pro-IsIAO ============================================ Dear colleagues & friends, An initiative undertaken in the past few days by the Italian Government is aimed at closing down the Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO). To avoid such an eventuality, which would spell the end of an institution that is unique in Italy and which has been active at the international level in the fields of archaeology, restoration and conservation of cultural assets, scientific research and publishing for over 100 years, we are launching the on-line subscription to an open letter addressed to the President of the Republic. This letter will be available on-line by Tuesday 24 June on the web site . We hereby invite you to kindly sign (name, surname, university/institution, country) this petition and also to ask your colleagues to do likewise. ============================================= _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From gary.gach at gmail.com Tue Jul 15 10:02:43 2008 From: gary.gach at gmail.com (Gary Gach) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:02:43 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists ... Message-ID: <598baadd0807150902t25c215c4r3971c3199896e754@mail.gmail.com> Jack, I'm curious: what's your intention / aim in your attempt to collect this data? You'll soon hear quickly enough how many people who are "Buddhist" don't use that word (a neologism for Westerners); plus how about all the Benedictines who practice *shikantaza*, and Quakers who subscribe to notions of karma, and atheists who practice mindfulness, etc. etc. Maybe (and I hope!) a denizen of Buddha-L here will proffer the name of the university who recently conducted a survey which I find more apt in its question and thus of its result: of the thousands (or tens of thousands?) surveyed, one in eight said that they'd heard teaching of the Buddha and found them applicable in their everyday lives. palms _/|\_ joined gary gach http://www.redroom.com/author/gary-g-gach 1.415.771.77.93 may all beings be well From at8u at virginia.edu Tue Jul 15 10:16:53 2008 From: at8u at virginia.edu (Alberto Todeschini) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:16:53 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, (IsIAO)Petition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <487CCD75.70606@virginia.edu> > Anyone know why this institute is being closed? > Joanna Dear Joanna, I follow Italian affairs closely, though I've been living outside of Italy for 15 years and though Italian affairs are a perennial source of embarrassment, especially when the fake-tanned, plastic-surgery-and-hair-transplant junkie, lecherous, law-bending Berlusconi is prime minister. I don't know the exact answer to your question, but I know that the government is cutting funds to just about everything, including universities and cultural centers. These are, of course, short of money already. So in spite of an increasing need to educate Italians about African and Asian matters, the venerable IsIAO (Buddhist scholars may be more familiar with the previous IsMEO) is facing the axe. Sic transit gloria mundi, or something. Best, Alberto Todeschini From curt at cola.iges.org Tue Jul 15 10:33:15 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> From that font of all wisdom and knowledge, wikipedia: "The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report for 2004 indicates that 2% of the U.S. population is Buddhist, which would mean a total of 5,973,446 Buddhists. Other estimates, perhaps relying on a greater degree of intuition, are larger: in the 1990s, Robert A. F. Thurman stated his opinion that there were 5 to 6 million Buddhists in America, and others might speculate there are more. Whatever the total number, it appears that roughly 75 to 80 percent of Buddhists in the U.S. are of Asian descent and inherited Buddhism as a family tradition; the remaining 20 to 25 percent are non-Asians." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_United_States#Demographics_of_Buddhism_in_the_United_States The funny thing is, though, that the "Religious Freedom Reports" issued by the State Department *do not include data on the United States* - so the above claim is very dubious. Adherents.com has a little chart claiming that 0.5% of the US population is Buddhist, as of 2004: http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions A better wikipedia page (with better references) is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#Buddhism According to the above the percentage of Buddhists in the US is between 0.5% and 0.9%. Here are some other online sources that give varying estimates: "American Religious Identification Survey": http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm CIA factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#People "US religious identity is rapidly changing": http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/26/us_religious_identity_is_rapidly_changing/ "Buddhism in America": http://buddhistfaith.tripod.com/pureland_sangha/id65.html "US Religious Landscape Survey": http://religions.pewforum.org/reports Curt Steinmetz Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote: > I would like to find the number of Buddhists in the U.S.. Then this number > broken down by percentage by ethnic type, i.e., ethnic Tibetan, ethnic Zen, > etc., and western born type, i.e., western born Tibetan Buddhist, western born > Zen, etc. Does this exist? > > I see all sorts of problems gathering this data but I'm thinking there must > be some rough estimates around. > > Jack > > > > > > **************Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music > scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com! > (http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112) > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From franz at mind2mind.net Tue Jul 15 11:57:12 2008 From: franz at mind2mind.net (Franz Metcalf) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> Jack et al., Thanks, Curt, for the data and links. The number of "Buddhists" in the US (or anywhere, for that matter) is notoriously difficult to calculate, since the standard of what defines a person as a Buddhist is under debate. Thurman's 1990s estimate was almost certainly too high at the time he gave it, but might be close now. As you can see from Curt's post, others put the number at one half or even one quarter of Thurman's estimate. In my latest conversation on this with Charles Prebish--who's spent the better part of his scholarly career in the study of American Buddhism--he told me six million Buddhists was as good a guess as any. Let me add that Gary Gach raises good points, as well. There are plenty of people applying Buddhist wisdom to their lives or practicing Buddhist meditation techniques, whether they think of them that way or not. Should these people be counted? Conversely, there are plenty of people (Tom Tweed calls them "nightstand Buddhists") who do think of themselves as Buddhist but who never join a sangha or do much if any practice. Should they be counted? And, to be more strict, should anyone be counted who's not taken the refuges? And really, the only people in the original definition of the sangha were the noble ones, the arhats. Makes me wonder if there are any Buddhists left at all. Franz From jkirk at spro.net Tue Jul 15 12:06:14 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:06:14 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, (IsIAO)Petition In-Reply-To: <487CCD75.70606@virginia.edu> References: <487CCD75.70606@virginia.edu> Message-ID: <002701c8e6a5$789b5fe0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Dear Alberto, Fancy Berlusconi, with his millions--has he endowed one single cultural institution??? Italy has enough millionaires that they could easily take over and support this venerable institution, if they still had some class. (Our country is in the same boat.) As for your feelings about your country's leader, mine are the same about mine! Shame, is the word. It's an emotion that is supposed to make us go out and do better--but in the case of a country's leader, ain't much we can do.....except count on karma and anicca. Best, Joanna ======================== > Anyone know why this institute is being closed? > Joanna Dear Joanna, I follow Italian affairs closely, though I've been living outside of Italy for 15 years and though Italian affairs are a perennial source of embarrassment, especially when the fake-tanned, plastic-surgery-and-hair-transplant junkie, lecherous, law-bending Berlusconi is prime minister. I don't know the exact answer to your question, but I know that the government is cutting funds to just about everything, including universities and cultural centers. These are, of course, short of money already. So in spite of an increasing need to educate Italians about African and Asian matters, the venerable IsIAO (Buddhist scholars may be more familiar with the previous IsMEO) is facing the axe. Sic transit gloria mundi, or something. Best, Alberto Todeschini _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From Jackhat1 at aol.com Tue Jul 15 12:06:54 2008 From: Jackhat1 at aol.com (Jackhat1 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:06:54 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism Message-ID: What are your guesses about the breakdown for the different types within non-Asian Buddhists? From my limited experience, non-Asian Buddhists in the US are 10% Tibetan, 45% Mahayana and 45% Thera. That's only from my own, limited experience. Jack H In a message dated 7/15/2008 11:34:06 A.M. Central Daylight Time, curt at cola.iges.org writes: "The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report for 2004 indicates that 2% of the U.S. population is Buddhist, which would mean a total of 5,973,446 Buddhists. Other estimates, perhaps relying on a greater degree of intuition, are larger: in the 1990s, Robert A. F. Thurman stated his opinion that there were 5 to 6 million Buddhists in America, and others might speculate there are more. Whatever the total number, it appears that roughly 75 to 80 percent of Buddhists in the U.S. are of Asian descent and inherited Buddhism as a family tradition; the remaining 20 to 25 percent are non-Asians." **************Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com! (http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112) From curt at cola.iges.org Tue Jul 15 12:25:20 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> Message-ID: <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> For me the most appealing methodological approach is the "phenomenological" one - which, if I understand correctly, is to count anyone who self-identifies as a Buddhist - as a Buddhist. I think that has the advantage of being very straightforward and objective (from the standpoint of whoever is doing the counting). Obviously all survey data is based on this methodology. But it presents a very sticky problem for me personally, since my teacher insists that he is not a Buddhist! He says that only someone born and raised in a Buddhist culture should be counted as a Buddhist. Ugh. The Pew Foundation stats ("US Religious Landscape Survey") are interesting - according to them Buddhism, at 0.7%, is now the third largest religion in the US right after Christianity and Judaism. We just narrowly beat out Islam, which came in at 0.6%. Curt Franz Metcalf wrote: > Jack et al., > > Thanks, Curt, for the data and links. The number of "Buddhists" in the > US (or anywhere, for that matter) is notoriously difficult to > calculate, since the standard of what defines a person as a Buddhist > is under debate. Thurman's 1990s estimate was almost certainly too > high at the time he gave it, but might be close now. As you can see > from Curt's post, others put the number at one half or even one > quarter of Thurman's estimate. In my latest conversation on this with > Charles Prebish--who's spent the better part of his scholarly career > in the study of American Buddhism--he told me six million Buddhists > was as good a guess as any. > > Let me add that Gary Gach raises good points, as well. There are > plenty of people applying Buddhist wisdom to their lives or practicing > Buddhist meditation techniques, whether they think of them that way or > not. Should these people be counted? Conversely, there are plenty of > people (Tom Tweed calls them "nightstand Buddhists") who do think of > themselves as Buddhist but who never join a sangha or do much if any > practice. Should they be counted? And, to be more strict, should > anyone be counted who's not taken the refuges? And really, the only > people in the original definition of the sangha were the noble ones, > the arhats. Makes me wonder if there are any Buddhists left at all. > > Franz > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From jkirk at spro.net Tue Jul 15 12:36:54 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:36:54 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org><45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <003e01c8e6a9$c1896e50$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> For someone who teaches the Buddhadharma (or maybe he's not doing that but something else? --anyway if so) I wonder why he puts so much importance on a label. Joanna =================== -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Curt Steinmetz .... But it presents a very sticky problem for me personally, since my teacher insists that he is not a Buddhist! He says that only someone born and raised in a Buddhist culture should be counted as a Buddhist. Ugh. From pqcampbell at sympatico.ca Tue Jul 15 10:14:46 2008 From: pqcampbell at sympatico.ca (Patricia Q. Campbell) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:14:46 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists ... References: <598baadd0807150902t25c215c4r3971c3199896e754@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > Maybe (and I hope!) a denizen of Buddha-L here will proffer the name of > the > university who recently conducted a survey which I find more apt in its > question and thus of its result: of the thousands (or tens of thousands?) > surveyed, one in eight said that they'd heard teaching of the Buddha and > found them applicable in their everyday lives. > > Perhaps this is the article: Robert Wuthnow and Wendy Cadge. "Buddhists and Buddhism in the United States: The Scope of Influence," 363-380 in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43: 3, 2004. As noted, it is very difficult to count numbers of Buddhists, and this article doesn't try. But it does suggest that there is a wide influence of Buddhists and Buddhist teachings in the United States. Patricia. From robertertman at msn.com Tue Jul 15 13:05:03 2008 From: robertertman at msn.com (Robert Ertman) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:05:03 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Darwin and Buddhism In-Reply-To: <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: Anybody out there know anything about views of Darwin in Buddhism? (Hope you didn't open this thinking I was going to explain this to everyone.) Gassho, Bob E. From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 15 13:19:55 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:19:55 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, (IsIAO)Petition In-Reply-To: <487CCD75.70606@virginia.edu> References: <487CCD75.70606@virginia.edu> Message-ID: <1216149595.15739.1.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 12:16 -0400, Alberto Todeschini wrote: > I follow Italian affairs closely, though I've been living outside of > Italy for 15 years and though Italian affairs are a perennial source of > embarrassment, especially when the fake-tanned, > plastic-surgery-and-hair-transplant junkie, lecherous, law-bending > Berlusconi is prime minister. Sounds like a vast improvement over anything the United States has had as a president (or presidential candidate) for the past six decades. Does Berlusconi have any negative qualities we should know about? -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 15 13:54:58 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:54:58 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <1216151698.15739.32.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 14:25 -0400, Curt Steinmetz wrote: > For me the most appealing methodological approach is the > "phenomenological" one - which, if I understand correctly, is to count > anyone who self-identifies as a Buddhist - as a Buddhist. Not only is this the most appealing approach, it is really the only one that makes any sense at all. Of course, it makes the sort of thing Jack was interested in knowing almost impossible to do, because quite a few people are self-identified Buddhists without any particular affiliation and without preference for any one style of Buddhism. The "cafeteria-style" approach to religion in general that prevails in the Americas (as it has almost always prevailed in sensible parts of the world, such as Asia) also prevails within Buddhism. Few people that I know would want to consider themselves Theravada or Zen to the exclusion of other yanas or vadas or yadayadas. An alternative methodology might be to define a Buddhist as anyone born of a Jewish mother who eats brown rice and tofu and prays without rocking back and forth. > But it presents a very sticky problem for > me personally, since my teacher insists that he is not a Buddhist! He > says that only someone born and raised in a Buddhist culture should be > counted as a Buddhist. This is such a benighted and delusional notion that I strongly advise that you seek another teacher immediately. Sounds as though you have fallen into the grasp of the Antibuddha! A moment's reflection would show that if your teacher is right, then there is not now and never could be a Buddhist culture. Sariputta, Mogallana and Ananda could not possible be Buddhists by that criterion, and if none of the first generation were Buddhists, then none of their disciples could have grown up in a Buddhist culture, and so on ad infinitum. Every age would be the age of mappo. (But wait a minute. Every age IS the age of mappo, n'est-ce pas?) > The Pew Foundation stats ("US Religious Landscape Survey") are > interesting - according to them Buddhism, at 0.7%, is now the third > largest religion in the US right after Christianity and Judaism. We > just narrowly beat out Islam, which came in at 0.6%. What do you mean by "we", white man? -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From at8u at virginia.edu Tue Jul 15 15:09:39 2008 From: at8u at virginia.edu (Alberto Todeschini) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:09:39 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)Petition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <487D1213.60703@virginia.edu> Joanna wrote: > Fancy Berlusconi, with his millions--has he endowed one single > cultural institution??? ??t as far as I know. His media empire has for decades dumbed down and sexed up the unsuspecting Italian population. Off the top of my head the highest cultural achievement I associate with Berlusconi is the never-ending display of scantly-clad young women permanently seen on his televisions. Richard wrote: >> I follow Italian affairs closely, though I've been living outside of >> Italy for 15 years and though Italian affairs are a perennial source of >> embarrassment, especially when the fake-tanned, >> plastic-surgery-and-hair-transplant junkie, lecherous, law-bending >> Berlusconi is prime minister. > > Sounds like a vast improvement over anything the United States has had > as a president (or presidential candidate) for the past six decades. > Does Berlusconi have any negative qualities we should know about? Well, he's a megalomaniac, and this can be very dangerous and certainly has already led him to a number of idiotic choices. There are only two reasons why I'm not panicking yet: Italy doesn't have an army worth mentioning, and we are part of the EU, hence the government is somewhat restricted in its actions. As for the mandatory Buddhist content, it would indeed be sad if IsIAO closed down. It has strong ties to the study of Buddhism, and already now a large number of Italian scholars of Buddhism (and of just about everything else) has left the country. Best, Alberto Todeschini From pqcampbell at sympatico.ca Tue Jul 15 14:08:34 2008 From: pqcampbell at sympatico.ca (Patricia Q. Campbell) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:08:34 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org><45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: >> There are plenty of people applying Buddhist wisdom to their lives or >> practicing >> Buddhist meditation techniques, whether they think of them that way or >> not. Should these people be counted? Conversely, there are plenty of >> people (Tom Tweed calls them "nightstand Buddhists") who do think of >> themselves as Buddhist but who never join a sangha or do much if any >> practice. Should they be counted? And, to be more strict, should >> anyone be counted who's not taken the refuges? And really, the only >> people in the original definition of the sangha were the noble ones, >> the arhats. Makes me wonder if there are any Buddhists left at all. >> I find it interesting that there are many people who have taken the refuges, who live their lives according to Buddhist ethics, practices, doctrine, what have you--even people who have ordained--who do not identify themselves as Buddhists. A lot of the 'western' Buddhists (if we can call them either) that I have spoken to just "don't like labels." So, there goes the phenomenological approach, too. Check out, if you can, Angie Danyluk's article: "To Be or Not To Be: Buddhist Selves in Toronto," 127-141 in Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 4, no 2, 2003. Patricia. From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 15 20:07:03 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:07:03 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)Petition In-Reply-To: <487D1213.60703@virginia.edu> References: <487D1213.60703@virginia.edu> Message-ID: <1216174023.32312.8.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 17:09 -0400, Alberto Todeschini wrote: > As for the mandatory Buddhist content, it would indeed be sad if IsIAO > closed down. It has strong ties to the study of Buddhism, and already > now a large number of Italian scholars of Buddhism (and of just about > everything else) has left the country. It would indeed be sad if IsIAO closed down. Rest assured, I have signed the petition that is circulating. Much of my own academic career (such as it is) has been built on the foundation of pioneering work done by Tucci and Gnoli. There was a time not so long ago when I could not have believed that IsIAO would ever close, except for the end of the world (which, come to think of it, may be the reason it may close now). You'll perhaps be amused to know that years ago I had a professor who helpfully went through a typescript I had prepared and replaced every occurrence of Istituto with Instituto. Maybe Berlusconi can arrange to change the spelling of the Italian word to accommodate the international academic community. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 15 20:14:03 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:14:03 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] U.S. Buddhism In-Reply-To: References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <1216174444.32312.15.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 16:08 -0400, Patricia Q. Campbell wrote: > A lot of the 'western' Buddhists (if we can call them either) > that I have spoken to just "don't like labels." There is a label for such people: sophomores. (I should know. I'm one of them. It must be something that was in the drinking water in the 1950s that made so many people who were children then stop developing at the stage of early adolescence and to nurture a life-long allergy to being described in any way.) -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From mb.schiekel at arcor.de Wed Jul 16 00:43:53 2008 From: mb.schiekel at arcor.de (M.B. Schiekel) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:43:53 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] a question to Shobogenzo Message-ID: <487D98A9.8040307@arcor.de> Dear friends, the title of Sh?b?genz? #11 is kaiinzammai, chin. h?iy?n s?nm?i, ????, the subtitle is s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi. T. Cleary translates this as "ocean seal sam?dhi", but other people, like K. Nishiyana and especially the Huayan-interpeters translate h?iy?n s?nm?i as "Meeresspiegel sam?dhi" in German, so I guess "surface of the sea sam?dhi" or "sea mirror sam?dhi" in English. Now h?i is the 'ocean', y?n is 'seal' or 'to reflect'. And sometimes y?n is used as an abbreviation of y?nxi?ng, ?? (??), meaning mudr?. Now the questions: 1. is there any occurence of s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi in Sanskrit-sutras? If yes, what's the context and the meaning there? Or is s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi simply the D?gen back-translation of h?iy?n s?nm?i? 2. from my meditation experience I have an idea, what states of mind could be called "sea mirror sam?dhi", but I have no idea, what could be meant by "ocean seal sam?dhi" or "ocean mudr? sam?dhi". Thank you very much! in metta, bernhard -- http://www.mb-schiekel.de/ GPG-Key available: GnuPG-1.4.2 From wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg Wed Jul 16 01:37:45 2008 From: wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg (wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:37:45 +0800 (SGT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Dorje Chang Buddha III In-Reply-To: <1216174444.32312.15.camel@localhost> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> <1216174444.32312.15.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <1499.137.132.80.35.1216193865.squirrel@mysoc.nus.edu.sg> We just received a nice thick glossy color book on the above. The book comes with a letter from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee of Foreign Affairs signed by its Chairman Howard L. Berman and the Ranking Republican Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The letter says that Master Wan Yo Yee, a holy and honored master of Buddhism who is considered by many to be the true incarnation of the primodial Dorje Chang Buddha. He is married with two children. The letter ends with "we have been asked by te Association to assist in distributing copies of this reference volume to Members of Congress. We have confirmed with the House Committee on Standards that, as a reference book, we may pass this on to you. After reviewing the publication, you may wish to retain it for future use or send it to a library in your district." Is this normal protocol? The book is filled with praises and testimonies of the miraculous powers of Dorje Chang. Photos of his relics. Lots of Tibetan masters including H.H. Sakya Trizin seemingly endorsing him. And also photos of his giving enpowerments to monks kneeling in front of him. The Buddha has come... according to him and his disciples. W. F. Wong From alex at chagchen.org Wed Jul 16 03:52:51 2008 From: alex at chagchen.org (Alex Wilding) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:52:51 +1000 Subject: [Buddha-l] Dorje Chang Buddha III In-Reply-To: <1499.137.132.80.35.1216193865.squirrel@mysoc.nus.edu.sg> References: <487CD14B.60807@cola.iges.org> <45EFC304-5C9A-432E-8311-C53A4BDFEB81@mind2mind.net> <487CEB90.7090405@cola.iges.org> <1216174444.32312.15.camel@localhost> <1499.137.132.80.35.1216193865.squirrel@mysoc.nus.edu.sg> Message-ID: <000001c8e729$b70c6f60$25254e20$@org> It is ghastly. The guy is well-known in TB circles; usually his material is met by good-natured retching and amused horror. Like the terrible, horrible, puke-inducing Maitreya-of-the-pyramids, most of us however don't know how they get their publicity material together; we only know that logically the methods must be based on a mixture of two main things 1) exploitation of the gullible 2) lies and fraud. Refraining from travelling to spit on these people though is wonderful practice in patience! I bow down to them for giving me that training! All the best, and pardon my language, but vomit is the only thing these people make me think of. Alex Wilding > -----Original Message----- > From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l- > bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of wongwf at comp.nus.edu.sg > Sent: Wednesday, 16 July 2008 5:38 PM > To: Buddhist discussion forum > Subject: [Buddha-l] Dorje Chang Buddha III > From vasubandhu at earthlink.net Wed Jul 16 03:57:45 2008 From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net (Dan Lusthaus) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:57:45 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] a question to Shobogenzo References: <487D98A9.8040307@arcor.de> Message-ID: <000701c8e72a$667d9cd0$98369c04@Dan> Bernhard asks about ???? and Dogen: s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi is an attested Skt term (even appears in Monier-Williams Skt-Eng Dictionary). It's used in the Prajnaparamita Sutras and elsewhere. For Dogen's sources and his usage, see http://scbs.stanford.edu/sztp3/translations/shobogenzo/translations/kaiin_zanmai/title.html including the intro, notes and supplemental notes. Note that Kaiin zanmai is the 13th, not 11th Shobogenzo text. There are texts that discuss "ocean mirror samadhi" and texts that discuss "ocean seal samadhi," as well as ???? Baojing sanmei, "jewel mirror samadhi" -- East Asian sources sometimes conflate them. Each is interpreted in a variety of ways. For Dogen's understanding, it's best to read Dogen himself. Dan From curt at cola.iges.org Wed Jul 16 12:13:18 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:13:18 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] a question to Shobogenzo In-Reply-To: <000701c8e72a$667d9cd0$98369c04@Dan> References: <487D98A9.8040307@arcor.de> <000701c8e72a$667d9cd0$98369c04@Dan> Message-ID: <487E3A3E.7030703@cola.iges.org> This reminds me of a funny story (I think it might even be true). Zen Master Seung Sahn used to refer to koans as "mind mirrors" when talking with his English speaking students. But everyone always thought he was saying "mind meal" whenever he said "mind mirror" (because of his pronunciation). People even invented their own explanations for this very profound Zen teaching: working on a koan is like eating your thinking mind - until it is all gone. Or something like that. Seung Sahn was completely unaware of this misunderstanding until one day he saw it in print. He asked someone to explain to him what "mind meal" was supposed to mean - and the student, without thinking, just said something like "but that's what you always say: 'mind meal'." Once Seung Sahn realized the misunderstanding, he decided that he liked the phrase "mind meal" even better than "mind mirror". But "Ocean Meal Samadhi" sounds like some sort of organic breakfast cereal, if you ask me. Curt Steinmetz Dan Lusthaus wrote: > Bernhard asks about ???? and Dogen: > > s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi is an attested Skt term (even appears in > Monier-Williams Skt-Eng Dictionary). It's used in the Prajnaparamita Sutras > and elsewhere. > > For Dogen's sources and his usage, see > http://scbs.stanford.edu/sztp3/translations/shobogenzo/translations/kaiin_zanmai/title.html > > including the intro, notes and supplemental notes. > > Note that Kaiin zanmai is the 13th, not 11th Shobogenzo text. > > There are texts that discuss "ocean mirror samadhi" and texts that discuss > "ocean seal samadhi," as well as ???? Baojing sanmei, "jewel mirror > samadhi" -- East Asian sources sometimes conflate them. Each is interpreted > in a variety of ways. For Dogen's understanding, it's best to read Dogen > himself. > > Dan > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From twin_oceans at yahoo.com Wed Jul 16 20:33:16 2008 From: twin_oceans at yahoo.com (Katherine Masis) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:33:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... Message-ID: <401095.46028.qm@web54502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Jack, here's one more website to add to the mix, from Harvard University's Pluralism Project.? Note what it says at the end:? "Between one and two million Americans formally practice Buddhism". Katherine From: http://www.pluralism.org/resources/statistics/tradition.php#Buddhism "Buddhism Statistics: estimates range from 2,450,000 to 3-4 million 2-3 million - 2004 World Almanac. 2,500,000 - Encyclopedia Britannica Online estimate for 2000. Richard Seager writes in Buddhism in America that: "A few statistics on American Buddhism are available, but they vary considerably. One source put the total number of practicing Buddhists at a round one million in 1990, but another at 5 or 6 million only a few years later. A more recent estimate must be considered rough, but appears to be the best available. Martin Baumann of Germany suggested in 1997 that there were 3 or 4 million Buddhists in the United States, the most in any western country. In contrast, he estimated that there were 650,000 Buddhists in France and 180,000 Buddhists in Great Britain. His estimates also suggest that converts consistently are out numbered by immigrants. In the same year, France had roughly 150,000 converts and 500,000 immigrants, Great Britain 50,000 and 130,000 respectively. In the United States, he estimated there were 800,000 converts and between 2.2 and 3.2 million Buddhists in immigrant communities. These figures , however, need to be treated with caution. In the same year, 1997, Time magazine suggested there were 'some 100,000' American Buddhist converts. It did not even venture to estimate the number of Buddhist immigrants. As a result, we must proceed without definite information regarding the actual number of American Buddhists. Suffice it to say, there are a great many and, more important, they are engaged in practicing the dharma in a wide variety of fascinating ways." Richard Seager, Buddhism in America, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999, p.11 Martin Bauman, in The Dharma Has Come West: A Survey of Recent Studies and Sources, on line at http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/survey.html, writes that in the mid 1990's there are roughly 3-4 million Buddhists in the U.S., which includes 800,000 Euro/American Buddhists. He estimates 500-600 centers, and using a total population figure of 261 million, Buddhists represent 1.6%, which is significantly higher than any of the other countries he lists. Charles Prebish in Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) also reprints Bauman's figures. In the Pluralism Project Directory we list 2207 Buddhist Centers in the United States. Don Morreale lists over a thousand centers in the US and Canada in The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1998) 2,450,000 -- 2002 Britannica Book of the Year estimate for 2000. Between one and two million Americans formally practice Buddhism -- 2000 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches." http://www.pluralism.org/resources/statistics/tradition.php#Buddhism From curt at cola.iges.org Thu Jul 17 12:40:59 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:40:59 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" Message-ID: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> I was looking at a fascinating blog ( http://jayarava.blogspot.com/ ) maintained by one of Richard's co-religionists (in the FWBO), and I came across a reference to a book on "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A Study of the Karandavyuha Sutra" by Alexander Studholme. According to the book's blurb at amazon: "This book presents a new interpretation of the meaning of Om Manipadme Hum, and includes a detailed, annotated precis of Karandavyuha Sutra, opening up this important work to a wider audience. The earliest textual source is the Karandavyuha Sutra, which describes both the compassion of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva whole power the mantra invokes, and the mythical tale of the search and discovery of the mantra. Through a detailed analysis of this sutra, Studholme explores the historical and doctrinal forces behind the appearance of Om Manipadme Hum in India at around the middle of the first millennium c.e. He argues that the Karandavyuha Sutra has close affinities to non-Buddhist puranic literature, and that the conception of Avalokitesvara and his six-syllable mantra is influenced by the conception of the Hindu deity Siva and his five-syllable mantra Namah Sivaya. The Karandavyuha Sutra reflects historical situation in which the Buddhist monastic establishment was coming into contact with Buddhist tantric practitioners, themselves influenced by Saivite practitioners." [ http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Om-Manipadme-Hum-Karandavyuha/dp/0791453901/ref=ed_oe_p ] I am a big fan of Siva - and I am always looking for sneaky ways to co-opt Him into the Buddhist pantheon (if for no other reason than to see the looks on people's faces at the very idea of a Buddhist pantheon at all - let alone one populated with - horrors! - Hindu Deities). Is anyone out there familiar with this book by Studholme? Or am I going to have to actually get it and read it myself? Curt Steinmetz From jkirk at spro.net Thu Jul 17 17:33:11 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:33:11 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] today is Guru Purnima (well tomorrow, 18th July)--full moon of Ashadh (Jul-Aug) Message-ID: <006001c8e865$7a6bb880$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Since Curt has broached some Hindu inclinations, and this is a Hindu day-- altho in Nepal it's also a Newari Buddhist sacred day-- let us remember our gurus with gratitude for their teachings, recollecting their teachings, and thinking them over. "Significance of Guru Purnima On this day, all spiritual aspirants and devotees worship Vyasa in honor of his divine personage and all disciples perform a 'puja' of their respective spiritual preceptors or 'Gurudevs'. This day is of deep significance to the farmers, for it heralds the setting in of the much-needed rains, as the advent of cool showers usher in fresh life in the fields. It is a good time to begin your spiritual lessons. Traditionally, spiritual seekers commence to intensify their spiritual 'sadhana' from this day. The period 'Chaturmas' ("four months") begins from the 17th. In the past, wandering spiritual masters and their disciples used to settle down at a place to study and discourse on the Brahma Sutras composed by Vyasa, and engage themselves in Vedantic discussions." (from Hindu website) Buddhist "Lent" must have been based on chaturmasa. Joanna From cfynn at gmx.net Fri Jul 18 03:06:21 2008 From: cfynn at gmx.net (Christopher Fynn) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:06:21 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <48805D0D.6020300@gmx.net> I'm not familiar with the book - but the conflation of Avalokiteshvara with Siva is common. There is a beautiful white marble Lokeshvara image in a remote temple in Lahul district of Himachel Pradesh - Indian sadhus who go there call it Triloknath the Buddhsts call it Karsha Phagpa () or "Arya of Lahoul". Maybe due to condensation, tear like water droplets form in the corners of the eyes of this image so it is known to "cry". This image is clearly Buddhist - it is a four armed Avalokiteshvara with small Amitabha Buddha image in his crown. Nearby is a Hindu temple with an image of Durga which Buddhist visitors worship as Vajrayogini. The famous Kadri or Kadrinath temple in Mangalore, Karnataka also has a an Avalokiteshvara image crowned by Amitabha Buddha which is worshiped as Kadrinath or Manjunath - a form of Siva. According to one accuont this temple was established by the siddha Matsendaranath /Machindranath who fled there from Kerala with princess Mangal Devi whom he had taken as his consort. (Mangalore is supposedly named after her.) This is the same Matsendaranath who established the famous Red Machhindranath temple in Patan and the White Machhindranath temple in Kathmandu which contain images of red and white Avalokiteshvara. see: Matsendaranath is of course found in both the Buddhist "84 Mhahasiddhas" and in the lineage of the Hindu Nath sect. He was the Guru of Goraknath founder of the Nath sect. More controversially, there is an online book claiming that the famous Tirupati Temple (the richest Hindu temple in India) was once a Buddhist shrine and that the main image in the temple is in fact an image of Avalokitesvara. This book suggests that this temple is the original Potala which was supposed to be located in South India. - Chris Curt Steinmetz wrote: > I was looking at a fascinating blog ( http://jayarava.blogspot.com/ ) > maintained by one of Richard's co-religionists (in the FWBO), and I came > across a reference to a book on "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A > Study of the Karandavyuha Sutra" by Alexander Studholme. According to > the book's blurb at amazon: > > "This book presents a new interpretation of the meaning of Om Manipadme > Hum, and includes a detailed, annotated precis of Karandavyuha Sutra, > opening up this important work to a wider audience. The earliest textual > source is the Karandavyuha Sutra, which describes both the compassion of > Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva whole power the mantra invokes, and the > mythical tale of the search and discovery of the mantra. Through a > detailed analysis of this sutra, Studholme explores the historical and > doctrinal forces behind the appearance of Om Manipadme Hum in India at > around the middle of the first millennium c.e. He argues that the > Karandavyuha Sutra has close affinities to non-Buddhist puranic > literature, and that the conception of Avalokitesvara and his > six-syllable mantra is influenced by the conception of the Hindu deity > Siva and his five-syllable mantra Namah Sivaya. The Karandavyuha Sutra > reflects historical situation in which the Buddhist monastic > establishment was coming into contact with Buddhist tantric > practitioners, themselves influenced by Saivite practitioners." > [ > http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Om-Manipadme-Hum-Karandavyuha/dp/0791453901/ref=ed_oe_p > ] > > I am a big fan of Siva - and I am always looking for sneaky ways to > co-opt Him into the Buddhist pantheon (if for no other reason than to > see the looks on people's faces at the very idea of a Buddhist pantheon > at all - let alone one populated with - horrors! - Hindu Deities). > > Is anyone out there familiar with this book by Studholme? Or am I going > to have to actually get it and read it myself? > > Curt Steinmetz > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From sfeite at adelphia.net Fri Jul 18 07:12:34 2008 From: sfeite at adelphia.net (S.A. Feite) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <5F8EED81-B834-41F1-A4D9-5A7BBB38AC69@adelphia.net> Hi Curt: On Jul 17, 2008, at 2:40 PM, Curt Steinmetz wrote: > I was looking at a fascinating blog ( http://jayarava.blogspot.com/ ) > maintained by one of Richard's co-religionists (in the FWBO), and I > came > across a reference to a book on "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A > Study of the Karandavyuha Sutra" by Alexander Studholme. According to > the book's blurb at amazon: > > "This book presents a new interpretation of the meaning of Om > Manipadme > Hum, and includes a detailed, annotated precis of Karandavyuha Sutra, > opening up this important work to a wider audience. The earliest > textual > source is the Karandavyuha Sutra, which describes both the > compassion of > Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva whole power the mantra invokes, and > the > mythical tale of the search and discovery of the mantra. Through a > detailed analysis of this sutra, Studholme explores the historical and > doctrinal forces behind the appearance of Om Manipadme Hum in India at > around the middle of the first millennium c.e. He argues that the > Karandavyuha Sutra has close affinities to non-Buddhist puranic > literature, and that the conception of Avalokitesvara and his > six-syllable mantra is influenced by the conception of the Hindu deity > Siva and his five-syllable mantra Namah Sivaya. The Karandavyuha Sutra > reflects historical situation in which the Buddhist monastic > establishment was coming into contact with Buddhist tantric > practitioners, themselves influenced by Saivite practitioners." > [ > http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Om-Manipadme-Hum-Karandavyuha/dp/0791453901/ref=ed_oe_p > ] > > I am a big fan of Siva - and I am always looking for sneaky ways to > co-opt Him into the Buddhist pantheon (if for no other reason than to > see the looks on people's faces at the very idea of a Buddhist > pantheon > at all - let alone one populated with - horrors! - Hindu Deities). > > Is anyone out there familiar with this book by Studholme? Or am I > going > to have to actually get it and read it myself? The constant confusion of Vajrayana/Mahayana/Mantrayana elements with the various Shaivite schools is a common one, since at least the time of Giuseppe Tucci. More recent research on the Kingdom of Zhang Zhung and more recent publication of Bon Po tantras sheds an altogether different light on this issue. It may not be, as often supposed, that Buddhist Vajrayana "borrowed" from Shaivism, but rather the reverse, Hinduism borrowed from old elements of the country of Zhang Zhung before it's climate-based collapse c. 1000 CE. Zhang Zhung was the country which originally surrounded Mount Kailash in western Tibet, yet it was also sacred to the Shaivites as their origin and to Taoists as well. It's reasonable therefore to at least conjecture that Shaivism is a Hindu offshoot of tantric conventions in dying remnants of this kingdom. Numerous Bonpo tantras like the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud still survive and are alleged to represent oral lines extending back into the Treta yuga. Probably the leading expert on Zhang Zhung is Prof. Namkhai Norbu (emeritus) who writes of this new possibility in origins: ?...the chief sacred place of Shaivism is Mount Kailash in West Tibet, located in what at the time of the arising of B?npo Dzogchen was the Kingdom of Zhang-zhung, where the B?n tradition prevailed, and where it was conserved and transmitted until its posterior diffusion through Eastern Tibet and Bhutan. Everyone automatically assumes that the culture, religion and philosophy of India and China are very old and autochthonous. However, the very opposite occurs with the culture, religion and philosophy of Tibet: people tend to assume that they must have in their integrity come from other countries, such as India, China, or even Persia. This way of thinking is typical of those who are totally conditioned by the traditions established by pro-Indian Buddhists in Tibet. If many concepts of Dzogchen and B?n came from Shaivism, where did Shaivism come from? Since it is supposed to be of Indian origin, Shaivism could not have come from elsewhere but India, whereas B?n and Dzogchen, being Tibetan, must be something absorbed or imported from other regions and traditions. ?What a na?ve way of thinking! The Shaivas conserve the whole history of their teachings, and according to it, their doctrine originated in Mount Kailash. This is the reason why every year hundreds of Shaivas go on pilgrimage from India to Mount Kailash and circumambulate it. Now, where is Mount Kailash? In India or in Tibet? And if Kailash is in Tibet and it was there that Shaivism originated, why should it be said that B?n and Dzogchen took their concepts from India? It is logical to hypothesize that Shaivism may have had its roots in B?n, which prevailed in the region of Mount Kailash ever since T?npa Shenrab Miwoche (ston pa gshen rab mi bo che) established it there some 3.800 years ago, and which contains its own Dzogchen teachings, part of which may have leaked into Shaivism.? This also explains how various Dzogchen/Mahasandhi technical terms appear in Kashmir Shaivite texts, esp. since Kashmir was a Buddhist kingdom prior to the arising of the Trika. Regarding origins of specific mantras, rather than relying on historical gymnastics or ideas of inter-religious competition between sects, it seems more reasonable to look closely at the origin of these tantras and their mantras in the process of individual gnostic revelation and awakening rather than as manipulation in an intellectual way. Again Prof. Namkhai points out the style of their origins: "The Tantric teachings [that constitute the Path of transformation] appeared in our human dimension through the visionary experiences of realized individuals such as mahasiddhas, who had the capacity to contact other dimensions and transmit to the human realm the teachings received in those dimensions. The Tantric initiation arose because, once a mahasiddha received the transmission of a practice based on the principle of transformation, he or she used paintings or drawings showing the respective divinities and the respective mandalas, as well as oral explanations, in order to communicate it to others and enable them, through the use of imagination, to transform themselves in the prescribed way. It is said that the teachings of Tantrism have a more symbolic character than those of the Sutrayana because when the Mahasiddhas transmitted to their human disciples the methods of transformation they had received, with their respective mandalas and the figures of the corresponding divinities, these became symbols: the garland of heads of a manifestation began to signify this, its diadem of skulls began to signify that, and so on." This is more likely the origin of the many mantras of Vajrayana IMO, rather than via cultural borrowing of some sort. One also sees similar theories of mantric origins in Hindu tantric metaphysics (i.e. the four-fold division of Vac or "the Word" and the "arising of letters"). -Steve From rhayes at unm.edu Fri Jul 18 09:55:56 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:55:56 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <1216396557.11090.8.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 14:40 -0400, Curt Steinmetz wrote: > I was looking at a fascinating blog ( http://jayarava.blogspot.com/ ) > maintained by one of Richard's co-religionists (in the FWBO), and I came > across a reference to a book on "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A > Study of the Karandavyuha Sutra" You weren't satisfied with the account given by Don Lopez in Prisoners of Shangri-la? I think that's the best account I have ever seen, if only because it is so funny as it cuts through all the complete nonsense that has been generated by well-meaning but uninformed scholars of comparative religions. Jayarava's blog site is a lot of fun. He is also active on several FWBO discussion groups, where he can be counted on to ruffle the feathers of the cloyingly pious, the naive, the skeptical and the cynical alike. (All these types abound in the FWBO.) Alas, some FWBO sites are closed to the general public. You have to know the secret handshake to read some of Jayarava's raves. Maybe I should try to get him to sign on to buddha-l. He could entertain everyone by brandishing the sword of wisdom every time I became cloyingly pious, naive, skeptical and cynical (all of which modes I exhibit at least once an hour). -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From rhayes at unm.edu Fri Jul 18 10:08:06 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:08:06 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <1216397286.11090.20.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 14:40 -0400, Curt Steinmetz wrote: > I am a big fan of Siva - and I am always looking for sneaky ways to > co-opt Him into the Buddhist pantheon (if for no other reason than to > see the looks on people's faces at the very idea of a Buddhist pantheon > at all - let alone one populated with - horrors! - Hindu Deities). Cripes, there's no need to sneak anyone in. Buddhists welcome pretty much everyone into the pantheon as long as every now and then they have problems so thorny they have to ask the Buddha to solve them. Hell, even YHWH would be welcome in the Buddhist pantheon if he would just ask the Buddha from time to time how to get those headstrong disobedient Israelites under control. One way of working anyone you want into your own personal version of a pantheon is to put a picture of statue of him or her on your own personal altar at home. My wife and I maintain a pretty crowded altar with tastefully arranged Shakyamuni and Amitabha figures, a Guanyin figure, photographs of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna and George Fox, a Russian Orthodox icon of Christ, a Saint Francis figure, a Virgin of Guadalupe figure, a Nataraja figure, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and the Partridge Family in a bare tree. One of my favorite things to hum is Um, Manny paid me. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From curt at cola.iges.org Fri Jul 18 10:11:02 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:11:02 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <1216396557.11090.8.camel@localhost> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> <1216396557.11090.8.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <4880C096.40008@cola.iges.org> Richard Hayes wrote: > You weren't satisfied with the account given by Don Lopez in Prisoners > of Shangri-la? I prefer the writings of WWII fighting ace Donald Lopez Sr, over the predictable and unimaginative debunkeries of his son. Curt Steinmetz From rhayes at unm.edu Fri Jul 18 10:43:54 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:43:54 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <4880C096.40008@cola.iges.org> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> <1216396557.11090.8.camel@localhost> <4880C096.40008@cola.iges.org> Message-ID: <1216399434.12405.2.camel@localhost> On Fri, 2008-07-18 at 12:11 -0400, Curt Steinmetz wrote: > I prefer the writings of WWII fighting ace Donald Lopez Sr, over the > predictable and unimaginative debunkeries of his son. Being a pacifist, I disdain war stories (hence my distaste for the Bible), so I prefer the unpredictable and imaginative insights of Donald Lopez Jr to the memoires of his fight ass father. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From bshmr at aol.com Fri Jul 18 12:17:31 2008 From: bshmr at aol.com (bshmr) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:17:31 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" Message-ID: <1216405051.9669.8.camel@localhost> >> curt at cola.iges.org: I prefer the writings of WWII fighting ace Donald Lopez Sr, over the predictable and unimaginative debunkeries of his son. >> ?> rhayes at unm.edu: Being a pacifist, I disdain war stories (hence my distaste for the Bible), so I prefer the unpredictable and imaginative insights of Donald Lopez Jr to the memoires of his fight ass father. > Are literati aware when being comically PITA? Buddhist literati? Does anyone know? Richard Basham From rhayes at unm.edu Fri Jul 18 13:10:06 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:10:06 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote? Message-ID: <1216408206.15473.10.camel@localhost> Incurable peacenik that I am, I naturally subscribe to the Daily Peace Quote service. Every now and then the peace quote drives me crazy, especially when it does as the following does, namely, to attribute something to The Buddha without any further indication of whose imagined Buddha they are thinking of. The following quote does not sound at all like any Buddha I have ever heard of. I suspect they meant to say Buber. Actually, what I really suspect is that some bozo smoked a joint and started channeling Timothy Leary and, not having the courage to say where he really got this quote, attributed it to the Buddha. But I'm always willing to stand corrected, except of course when I'm right. -------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Daily Peace Quote Reply-To: peacequotes at livingcompassion.org To: rhayes at unm.edu Subject: PEACE Quote Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:02:02 -0400 (EDT) If you take care of each moment, you will take care of all time. - The Buddha -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From rhayes at unm.edu Fri Jul 18 13:20:59 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:20:59 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <1216405051.9669.8.camel@localhost> References: <1216405051.9669.8.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <1216408859.15473.16.camel@localhost> On Sat, 2008-07-19 at 00:17 +0600, bshmr wrote: > Are literati aware when being comically PITA? Buddhist literati? I'll bet someone has a hunch, and I'd guess a few dozen subscribers who have no clue would be willing to make up an answer on the spot. I'd love to offer some kind of reckless opinion on the matter, but I do not know for sure what a literatus is, and I have no idea at all what PITA means. (Isn't it what one puts HUMMUS on?) The other Richard From brburl at charter.net Fri Jul 18 13:24:24 2008 From: brburl at charter.net (Bruce Burrill) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:24:24 -0500 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <1216405051.9669.8.camel@localhost> References: <1216405051.9669.8.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080718142011.038fca88@charter.net> At 01:17 PM 7/18/2008, you wrote: >Are literati aware when being comically PITA? You are new here, aren't you? Richard a pain the ass? Never! Comic? He is always deadly serious. From bshmr at aol.com Fri Jul 18 14:04:06 2008 From: bshmr at aol.com (bshmr) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:04:06 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice Message-ID: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> Denizens, NTYC (Not That You Care), I am enamored with Mandrivia 2008 and surprisingly in its the Gnome flavor. It seems an excellent distibution -- I installed and played with several recently. For several years, a KDE and NovellSUSE/OpenSUSE man, though both ain't what they used to be; now, the suffering and false comfort of permanence is overwhelmed by the scrouge of anxiety and brain-bruising learning curve that can accompany impermanence. Anyway, I am moving 'stuff' to Evolution (the Gnome Email/Calendar application); so, when I forget to 'Quit' or select 'Work Offline', I can be irritated with a 'bonk' noise and 'Delivery Notice' poop-up -- part of AOL lore that I avoided until Curt and that other Richard inflicted on me today. BTW (By The Way), Firefox added logic to prevent Tabs from stomping (looping) on themselves; I was falling back 3+ to 2.0.0.15 on my MS-XP PC but this latest update looks worthwhile. ... AOL, also on the MS-XP PC, is pushing 'new and improved' that I disagree is improved so more culling there as I depend on third-party software. ... To cap everything, somebody sent a graphic soft-porn solicitation. I blame Lustuas, who would (I imagine) be retaliating for something I posted elsewhere today. Richard Basham From mgessex at yahoo.com Fri Jul 18 16:12:49 2008 From: mgessex at yahoo.com (Michael Essex) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:12:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Avalokiteshvara and Shiva, some primary references Message-ID: <128972.47687.qm@web65615.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Regarding the similarity between Avalokiteshvara and Shiva, I noticed this in _Taranatha's Life of KRSNaacaarya/KaaNha_, Translated by David Templeton, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1989 p. 33 ...it is said that because of his fear of the King's wrath, the minister Kushalanaatha erected the Avalokiteshvara so that it resembled IIshvara....Those who saw it at the time saw it as Haalahaala in the one-faced, four armed form and right from the start it appeared similar to the tranquil form of Maheshvara, and yet not deliberately made to resemble a Tirthika god. and endnote 110. (p. 124) this is a clear example of the skill in means of Avalokiteshvara who adapts to any form in order to preach. "and what is the range of the skillfulness of the Bodhisattva Mahaasattva Avalokiteshvara... to those who are to be converted by Maheshvara, he preaches assuming the shape of Maheshvara." Saddharma-PuNDarika, Trans. Kern, H. p411 Mike Essex From jkirk at spro.net Fri Jul 18 16:25:14 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:25:14 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <5F8EED81-B834-41F1-A4D9-5A7BBB38AC69@adelphia.net> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> <5F8EED81-B834-41F1-A4D9-5A7BBB38AC69@adelphia.net> Message-ID: <002401c8e925$266d2cd0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Steve wrote the following and quoted Namkhai Norbu, but offered no citation for the quotations. The revised theory offered by Norbu is intriguing--I'd like to read more about it--can Steve (or anyone else) come up with the source for these quotations? A check on amazon indicates that Norbu has published a lot of books----thus no help with this particular set of quoted material. Thanks for any help, Joanna ========================================= Probably the leading expert on Zhang Zhung is Prof. Namkhai Norbu (emeritus) who writes of this new possibility in origins: ?...the chief sacred place of Shaivism is Mount Kailash in West Tibet, located in what at the time of the arising of B?npo Dzogchen was the Kingdom of Zhang-zhung, where the B?n tradition prevailed, and where it was conserved and transmitted until its posterior diffusion through Eastern Tibet and Bhutan. Everyone automatically assumes that the culture, religion and philosophy of India and China are very old and autochthonous. However, the very opposite occurs with the culture, religion and philosophy of Tibet: people tend to assume that they must have in their integrity come from other countries, such as India, China, or even Persia. This way of thinking is typical of those who are totally conditioned by the traditions established by pro-Indian Buddhists in Tibet. If many concepts of Dzogchen and B?n came from Shaivism, where did Shaivism come from? Since it is supposed to be of Indian origin, Shaivism could not have come from elsewhere but India, whereas B?n and Dzogchen, being Tibetan, must be something absorbed or imported from other regions and traditions. ?What a na?ve way of thinking! The Shaivas conserve the whole history of their teachings, and according to it, their doctrine originated in Mount Kailash. This is the reason why every year hundreds of Shaivas go on pilgrimage from India to Mount Kailash and circumambulate it. Now, where is Mount Kailash? In India or in Tibet? And if Kailash is in Tibet and it was there that Shaivism originated, why should it be said that B?n and Dzogchen took their concepts from India? It is logical to hypothesize that Shaivism may have had its roots in B?n, which prevailed in the region of Mount Kailash ever since T?npa Shenrab Miwoche (ston pa gshen rab mi bo che) established it there some 3.800 years ago, and which contains its own Dzogchen teachings, part of which may have leaked into Shaivism.? This also explains how various Dzogchen/Mahasandhi technical terms appear in Kashmir Shaivite texts, esp. since Kashmir was a Buddhist kingdom prior to the arising of the Trika. Regarding origins of specific mantras, rather than relying on historical gymnastics or ideas of inter-religious competition between sects, it seems more reasonable to look closely at the origin of these tantras and their mantras in the process of individual gnostic revelation and awakening rather than as manipulation in an intellectual way. Again Prof. Namkhai points out the style of their origins: "The Tantric teachings [that constitute the Path of transformation] appeared in our human dimension through the visionary experiences of realized individuals such as mahasiddhas, who had the capacity to contact other dimensions and transmit to the human realm the teachings received in those dimensions. The Tantric initiation arose because, once a mahasiddha received the transmission of a practice based on the principle of transformation, he or she used paintings or drawings showing the respective divinities and the respective mandalas, as well as oral explanations, in order to communicate it to others and enable them, through the use of imagination, to transform themselves in the prescribed way. It is said that the teachings of Tantrism have a more symbolic character than those of the Sutrayana because when the Mahasiddhas transmitted to their human disciples the methods of transformation they had received, with their respective mandalas and the figures of the corresponding divinities, these became symbols: the garland of heads of a manifestation began to signify this, its diadem of skulls began to signify that, and so on." This is more likely the origin of the many mantras of Vajrayana IMO, rather than via cultural borrowing of some sort. One also sees similar theories of mantric origins in Hindu tantric metaphysics (i.e. the four-fold division of Vac or "the Word" and the "arising of letters"). -Steve _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From anemone at ghvalley.net Fri Jul 18 19:15:13 2008 From: anemone at ghvalley.net (Perennial Favorites) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:15:13 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" References: <1216405051.9669.8.camel@localhost> <1216408859.15473.16.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <002c01c8e93c$e5b345e0$0f3f7941@PerennialOne> I'd love > to offer some kind of reckless opinion on the matter, but I do not know > for sure what a literatus is, and I have no idea at all what PITA means. > (Isn't it what one puts HUMMUS on?) > > > The other Richard > > This CRACKED ME UP. Diana From bshmr at aol.com Sat Jul 19 12:50:31 2008 From: bshmr at aol.com (bshmr) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:50:31 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum Message-ID: <1216493431.13698.8.camel@localhost> From: Bruce Burrill Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" To: Buddhist discussion forum Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080718142011.038fca88 at charter.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 01:17 PM 7/18/2008, you wrote: >>bshmr at aol.com: Are literati aware when being comically PITA? ... >> >?brburl at charter.net: You are new here, aren't you? ... > No, I have been a member since the days of an Intel 486DX and Louisville (?). Thank you for noticing me though. >?brburl at charter.net: Richard a pain the ass? Never! Comic? He is always deadly serious. > Maybe you are better at not grasping or not rejecting. Richard Basham From brburl at charter.net Sat Jul 19 13:31:52 2008 From: brburl at charter.net (Bruce Burrill) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:31:52 -0500 Subject: [Buddha-l] The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum In-Reply-To: <1216493431.13698.8.camel@localhost> References: <1216493431.13698.8.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080719143110.05cbebd0@charter.net> Two things: You msgs come across very badly formatted, and your response not much better. At 01:50 PM 7/19/2008, you wrote: >From: Bruce Burrill >Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om >Manipadme Hum" To: Buddhist discussion forum > Message-ID: ><7.0.1.0.2.20080718142011.038fca88 at charter.net> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; >format=flowed At 01:17 PM 7/18/2008, you >wrote: >>bshmr at aol.com: Are literati aware when >being comically PITA? >... >> >???brburl at charter.net: You are new here, >aren't you? ... > No, I have been a member since >the days of an Intel 486DX and Louisville (?). >Thank you for noticing me >though. >???brburl at charter.net: Richard a pain >the ass? Never! Comic? He is always deadly >serious. > Maybe you are better at not grasping >or not rejecting. Richard Basham >_______________________________________________ >buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com >http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From sfeite at adelphia.net Sat Jul 19 13:52:16 2008 From: sfeite at adelphia.net (S.A. Feite) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:52:16 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <002401c8e925$266d2cd0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> <5F8EED81-B834-41F1-A4D9-5A7BBB38AC69@adelphia.net> <002401c8e925$266d2cd0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: On Jul 18, 2008, at 6:25 PM, jkirk wrote: > Steve wrote the following and quoted Namkhai Norbu, but offered > no citation for the quotations. > The revised theory offered by Norbu is intriguing--I'd like to > read more about it--can Steve (or anyone else) come up with the > source for these quotations? > A check on amazon indicates that Norbu has published a lot of > books----thus no help with this particular set of quoted > material. The quotes were from a draft of a paper by Elias Capriles of the Univ. of Venezuela. The first one is listed as from a then (several years ago) "unpublished" manuscript. IIRC that manuscript is the work which became the new revised edition of _The Necklace of Gzi_ (not the old Library of Tibetan Works and Archives of the Dalai Lama's office edition). That latter excerpt on the mandala principle and how tantras emerge not through cultural diffusion or borrowing but instead through direct experience. I'm not sure the source but it also is from Elias' paper and listed as "unpublished". That may be from the current publication _Drung, Deu and Bon_ but I'm not certain on that. He does discuss this same principle in a number of works, most prominently _Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State_ by Snow Lion (originally Arkana). Sorry for the delay, but my knee has me down for the last several days. Once I get back on my feet, I should have a more complete answer. You can find the recent version of Prof. Caprile's papers at: http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/Main/Books And the paper for the above quotes (Buddhism and Dzogchen, vol. 1): http://eliascapriles.dzogchen.ru/buddhismanddzogchen1.pdf Bon Po Lamas, in particular, are quite knowledgeable on the inter- connection between Shaivism and Buddha-dharma. A very interesting topic for discussion. -Steve From sfeite at adelphia.net Sat Jul 19 13:53:59 2008 From: sfeite at adelphia.net (S.A. Feite) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org> <5F8EED81-B834-41F1-A4D9-5A7BBB38AC69@adelphia.net> <002401c8e925$266d2cd0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <193C2B28-76E4-4C51-AC06-D59332C817AE@adelphia.net> Oops. On Jul 19, 2008, at 3:52 PM, S.A. Feite wrote: > Univ. of Venezuela University of the Andes *in* Venezuela. From jkirk at spro.net Sat Jul 19 14:30:31 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:30:31 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: <193C2B28-76E4-4C51-AC06-D59332C817AE@adelphia.net> References: <487F923B.1050701@cola.iges.org><5F8EED81-B834-41F1-A4D9-5A7BBB38AC69@adelphia.net><002401c8e925$266d2cd0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> <193C2B28-76E4-4C51-AC06-D59332C817AE@adelphia.net> Message-ID: <006401c8e9de$4a80ddb0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Thanks for both mails--yes it IS a provocative theory that maybe will produce some discussion Not being a specialist on Hinduism, still I seem to recall comments pointing out that Shiva is not in the Vedas (although he eventually got aligned with Rudra), and suggesting that he was originally a mountain ("tribal") deity. That view adds something to the Norbu approach. Joanna -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of S.A. Feite Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 1:54 PM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" Oops. On Jul 19, 2008, at 3:52 PM, S.A. Feite wrote: > Univ. of Venezuela University of the Andes *in* Venezuela. _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From dmahinda at yahoo.com Sat Jul 19 16:32:27 2008 From: dmahinda at yahoo.com (Mahinda Deegalle) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:32:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] Blog of Bath Spa Summer Programme in the Study of Buddhism in Korea Message-ID: <664737.53050.qm@web52510.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Dear All: Since 30th June, we have been in Korea participating in a Summer Programme at Dongguk University partially funded by Prime Minister's Initiative 2 administered by the British Council. This year six undergraduate students in the Study of Religions of Bath Spa University are participating in the programme. We have been visiting many temples and participating in many activities. Some details and photos of our study programme can be found in the following blog: http://bathspakoreansummer2008.blogspot.com Thanks a lot for your attention. Sincerely Mahinda Deegalle Dr. Mahinda Deegalle Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religions School of Historical and Cultural Studies Bath Spa University Newton Park Bath BA2 9BN, United Kingdom Phone: 44+(0)1225-875429(W); Fax: 44+(0)1225-875605(W) From mb.schiekel at arcor.de Sun Jul 20 01:50:50 2008 From: mb.schiekel at arcor.de (M.B. Schiekel) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:50:50 +0200 Subject: [Buddha-l] sagaramudra samadhi In-Reply-To: <000701c8e72a$667d9cd0$98369c04@Dan> References: <487D98A9.8040307@arcor.de> <000701c8e72a$667d9cd0$98369c04@Dan> Message-ID: <4882EE5A.9050107@arcor.de> Dan Lusthaus schrieb: > s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi is an attested Skt term (even appears in > Monier-Williams Skt-Eng Dictionary). It's used in the Prajnaparamita Sutras > and elsewhere. Dear Dan, thank you for your helpful answer. Now I'm looking for the origins of this s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi in Sanskrit sources. I found this sam?dhi in Monier-Williams (as you said) and in Soothill, but a scan in the Sanskritcanon of http://www.uwest.edu/sanskritcanon/ resulted in no hits. A friend of mine (Ralf Boeck) did find in the Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamitasutra: - 46. sam?dhi: sarvadharmavibhavamudrA nAma samAdhi - 47. sam?dhi: sarvadharmavibhavasamudro nAma samAdhi with "samudro = ocean", but also "samudro = sealed"! Obviously there are many occurences of h?iy?n s?nm?i, ????, in the Avatamsaka-sutra, but until now, I have no hint of this s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi in any early Sanskrit-text. Did anyone here has seen this mysterious sam?dhi anywhere :-) ? Thank you very much, in metta, bernhard -- http://www.mb-schiekel.de/ GPG-Key available: GnuPG-1.4.2 From vasubandhu at earthlink.net Sun Jul 20 05:19:02 2008 From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net (Dan Lusthaus) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] sagaramudra samadhi References: <487D98A9.8040307@arcor.de> <000701c8e72a$667d9cd0$98369c04@Dan> <4882EE5A.9050107@arcor.de> Message-ID: <012f01c8ea5a$81fda8a0$d7339c04@Dan> Bernhard, Have you looked at E. Conze's _Materials for a Dictionary of the Prajnaparamita Literature_? I don't have it on hand, but that would be promising source. cheers, Dan ----- Original Message ----- > A friend of mine (Ralf Boeck) did find in the > Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamitasutra: > - 46. sam?dhi: sarvadharmavibhavamudrA nAma samAdhi > - 47. sam?dhi: sarvadharmavibhavasamudro nAma samAdhi > with "samudro = ocean", but also "samudro = sealed"! > > Obviously there are many occurences of h?iy?n s?nm?i, ????, in the > Avatamsaka-sutra, but until now, I have no hint of this > s?gara-mudr?-sam?dhi in any early Sanskrit-text. Did anyone here has > seen this mysterious sam?dhi anywhere :-) ? > > Thank you very much, > in metta, > bernhard From Kdorje at aol.com Fri Jul 18 15:41:59 2008 From: Kdorje at aol.com (Kdorje at aol.com) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:41:59 EDT Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" Message-ID: In a message dated 7/18/2008 12:08:42 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rhayes at unm.edu writes: Hell, even YHWH would be welcome in the Buddhist pantheon if he would just ask the Buddha from time to time how to get those headstrong disobedient Israelites under control. Someone new to Buddhism once told me that he indeed already there, and is an asura, citing "The Lord thy God is a jealous God." Best wishes, Konchog Dorje **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) From robertertman at msn.com Fri Jul 18 13:55:17 2008 From: robertertman at msn.com (Robert Ertman) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:55:17 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote? In-Reply-To: <1216408206.15473.10.camel@localhost> References: <1216408206.15473.10.camel@localhost> Message-ID: If you take care of each moment, you will take care of all time.~Steve and Lizzie Murdock, http://thoughtstoponder.wordpress.com/> From: rhayes at unm.edu> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:10:06 -0600> Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote?> > Incurable peacenik that I am, I naturally subscribe to the Daily Peace> Quote service. Every now and then the peace quote drives me crazy,> especially when it does as the following does, namely, to attribute> something to The Buddha without any further indication of whose imagined> Buddha they are thinking of. The following quote does not sound at all> like any Buddha I have ever heard of. I suspect they meant to say Buber.> Actually, what I really suspect is that some bozo smoked a joint and> started channeling Timothy Leary and, not having the courage to say> where he really got this quote, attributed it to the Buddha. But I'm> always willing to stand corrected, except of course when I'm right.> > -------- Forwarded Message --------> From: Daily Peace Quote > Reply-To: peacequotes at livingcompassion.org> To: rhayes at unm.edu> Subject: PEACE Quote> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:02:02 -0400 (EDT)> > > If you take care of each moment, you will take care of all time.> - The Buddha> > > > > > -- > Richard Hayes> Department of Philosophy> University of New Mexico> > _______________________________________________> buddha-l mailing list> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From robertertman at msn.com Fri Jul 18 14:12:36 2008 From: robertertman at msn.com (Robert Ertman) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:12:36 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote? In-Reply-To: <1216408206.15473.10.camel@localhost> References: <1216408206.15473.10.camel@localhost> Message-ID: Sombody else claims that Jack Kornefield said the Buddha said it NOTE: THOSE INSTRUCTIONS ARE TAKEN FROM THE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK: "BUDDHA'S LITTLE INSTRUCTION BOOK". BY JACK KORENFIELD. YOU CAN FIND MANY MORE INSTRUCTIONS THERE. http://members.tripod.com/~hany25/instruction.html > From: rhayes at unm.edu> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:10:06 -0600> Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote?> > Incurable peacenik that I am, I naturally subscribe to the Daily Peace> Quote service. Every now and then the peace quote drives me crazy,> especially when it does as the following does, namely, to attribute> something to The Buddha without any further indication of whose imagined> Buddha they are thinking of. The following quote does not sound at all> like any Buddha I have ever heard of. I suspect they meant to say Buber.> Actually, what I really suspect is that some bozo smoked a joint and> started channeling Timothy Leary and, not having the courage to say> where he really got this quote, attributed it to the Buddha. But I'm> always willing to stand corrected, except of course when I'm right.> > -------- Forwarded Message --------> From: Daily Peace Quote > Reply-To: peacequotes at livingcompassion.org> To: rhayes at unm.edu> Subject: PEACE Quote> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:02:02 -0400 (EDT)> > > If you take care of each moment, you will take care of all time.> - The Buddha> > > > > > -- > Richard Hayes> Department of Philosophy> University of New Mexico> > _______________________________________________> buddha-l mailing list> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From shian at kmspks.org Sun Jul 20 21:09:04 2008 From: shian at kmspks.org ([DPD Web] Shen Shi'an) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:09:04 +0800 Subject: [Buddha-l] Avalokiteshvara and Shiva, some primary references In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This article might be of related interest - The Cross-Manifestations of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas & Gods? http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=8,6734,0,0,1,0 (from www.moonpointer.com actually) -----Original Message----- From: Michael Essex [mailto:mgessex at yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, 19 July, 2008 6:13 AM To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com Subject: [Buddha-l] Avalokiteshvara and Shiva, some primary references Snip and endnote 110. (p. 124) this is a clear example of the skill in means of Avalokiteshvara who adapts to any form in order to preach. "and what is the range of the skillfulness of the Bodhisattva Mahaasattva Avalokiteshvara... to those who are to be converted by Maheshvara, he preaches assuming the shape of Maheshvara." Saddharma-PuNDarika, Trans. Kern, H. p411 Mike Essex From jkirk at spro.net Mon Jul 21 11:45:10 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:45:10 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003701c8eb59$85fd5d10$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Hehe--one of the aspects of YHWH that I never could stomach. Joanna ------------ Someone new to Buddhism once told me that he indeed already there, and is an asura, citing "The Lord thy God is a jealous God." Best wishes, Konchog Dorje **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From jhubbard at email.smith.edu Mon Jul 21 12:52:11 2008 From: jhubbard at email.smith.edu (Jamie Hubbard) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:52:11 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080719143110.05cbebd0@charter.net> References: <1216493431.13698.8.camel@localhost> <7.0.1.0.2.20080719143110.05cbebd0@charter.net> Message-ID: <4884A2A3.C6E1.00B7.0@email.smith.edu> >... >> >???brburl at charter.net: You are new here, >aren't you? ... > No, I have been a member since >the days of an Intel 486DX and Louisville (?). What with the weird formatting I am not quite sure who is calling whom a newbie, but just for the historical record, let me mention that Bruce Burrill was, as far as I know, the very first sysop of a Buddhist discussion list, known as "Indra-Net" (which almost got us sued back in the day). Bruce, that would have been around the early eighties, no? One of the better forums on Indra-Net was known as the "Hahayana," which, among other things, had a section of computer generated prose from famous Buddhologists (you know, you type in two or three paragraphs of Shakespear and the computer generates a pseudo-Shakespear text for you). The trick was to guess which gobbledygook was from which scholar (Hopkins, Conze, Kiyota, and Guenther were among the more quickly recognized). Ahhh, if only we would have had some of Richard's Buddha-L postings in those days. . . In any case, Bruce hosted Indra-Net (a bulletin board, I believe it was called) on his own equipment as well as moderated the posts. I was somewhat of a shadow partner. It only lasted about two years, if memory serves me correctly. Then Bruce bought a really big Harley Davidson and well. . . that was probably more fun. His place in our history. Jamie Hubbard >Thank you for noticing me >though. >???brburl at charter.net: Richard a pain >the ass? Never! Comic? He is always deadly >serious. > Maybe you are better at not grasping >or not rejecting. Richard Basham >_______________________________________________ >buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com >http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From jayarava at yahoo.com Tue Jul 22 05:48:38 2008 From: jayarava at yahoo.com (Jayarava) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:48:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum In-Reply-To: <4884A2A3.C6E1.00B7.0@email.smith.edu> Message-ID: <184878.16448.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> I've been lurking in Buddha-L since about 1996 but under other names. Having been ordained as Dharmacari Jayarava in 2005 I now use that name in most circumstances. I find myself in the interesting position of having being praised by Richard without apparent irony which may mean that he actually likes what I write. Thanks, but for some reason I feel embarrassed. However the sword I wield (if the metaphor fits) is as likely to inflict wounds on myself as anyone else. Maybe that's not a bad thing for a Buddhist. (BTW Richard are you going to the Convention in India in 2009?) I had prepared a rant about Western preoccupations with isolating religious ideas and not taking into account the Indian approach - which seems to be very much mix and match. And then I spent the morning being annoyed at the number of people that write via my other website (visiblemantra.org) asking me to do Hindu calligraphy, or to write a Hindu mantra in Tibetan script etc. I'm a *Buddhist* calligrapher god damn it! I do *Buddhist* mantras. Oh... I see that I am a westerner too... And then I remembered how much time the Bhagavan spends lecturing the bhikkhus about not behaving like lay people, or Brahmins, or Jains, Ajivakas and other Shramanas. The poor man seems to have had a lot of trouble getting the bhikkhus to behave like Buddhists. That said in India mixing went on the whole time and still goes on, and I wonder whether we have it wrong when we refer to this as co-opting, and borrowing; or even as conflation and confusion. I think there's a subtle orientalism in this. It smacks of Christian theology, but also Classical theories of categorisation (as opposed for instance to George Lakoff's theory). It seems to be failure to step outside the preoccupations of Western culture. P?li text misgivings not withstanding it is clear that Buddhism has always been in a dialogue with other religious communities. The P?li clearly draws on, at times relies on, the early Upani?ads, and on the same pool of stories that as available to the Mah?bharata for ideas, concepts, language and images. The Mah?y?na texts draw on the Pura?as. Tantras are a synthesis of everything that happened to be around at the time of the collapse of the Gupta Empire. Mixing is really the norm in Indian rather than the exception. Not only this but it happened in China as well, and presumably in Central Asia and that feeds back to India. This bothers us sometimes - both scholars and Buddhists. But the facts are right there in our texts and icons. Where some explanation for an obviously ?aiva idea needs an explanation the Buddhist approach seems to be to portray ?iva being converted - peacefully in the Kara??avy?ha, and savagely in the Sarvatath?gata-tattvasa?graha Tantra (where he is first killed by Vajrapa?i and then reanimated). Mythically then from these points onwards ?iva is in fact a Buddhist because he goes for refuge to the Buddha. What was his is ours now! Ha! But actually these are quite rare moments of self consciousness in the texts. It seems to me that Indians had a sensitivity to living and thriving spiritual traditions and where a European Christian might want to stamp out the heresy, the Indian seems to have attempted to assimilate it. I've written a blog post about Brahminism as operating somewhat like Microsoft in business, whereas Christianity was more like AT&T Bell. The result was hegemony in both cases, but the methods were quite different. Richard rightly draws attention to Lopez's account of the Avalokite?vara mantra in "Prisoners of Sangrila", but Studholme adds quite a lot more to it in terms of context, and disagrees in some of the details for instance in deciding what kind of compound we should read ma?ipadme to be. Studholme's book is a PhD thesis - ie it is thorough to the point of being boring at times, and aimed at the specialist reader with a knowledge of Sanskrit. But I found it fascinating and it challenged some of my preconceptions. I'd like to draw attention to Sally McAra's (another Buddha-L member) recent book "Land of Beautiful Vision" which is a useful and engaging account of the kind of synergistic syncretisation happening amongst contemporary white settler descended Buddhist converts in New Zealand - we (I'm in it) incorporate elements from (eclectic FWBO) Buddhism, Maori culture, and depth psychology for instance. So the "borrowing" is still going on. Best Wishes Jayarava BTW Thanks to whoever it was who first mentioned jayarava.blogspot.com I had my highest daily readership the day after that! From rhayes at unm.edu Tue Jul 22 12:44:28 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:44:28 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum In-Reply-To: <184878.16448.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <184878.16448.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1216752269.29928.29.camel@localhost> On Tue, 2008-07-22 at 04:48 -0700, Jayarava wrote: > I find myself in the interesting position of having being praised by > Richard without apparent irony which may mean that he actually likes > what I write. Now, Jayarava, you should know by now that I don't do irony. I live in New Mexico, which still has a Stoned Age culture, which as any archaeologist can tell you precedes the Irony Age by several kiloyears. > (BTW Richard are you going to the Convention in India in 2009?) Probably not. I'm not very conventional in my approach to Buddhism. Mine is an approach that more than one well-wisher has called disOrderly. > BTW Thanks to whoever it was who first mentioned jayarava.blogspot.com > I had my highest daily readership the day after that! It was Curt who mentioned it. You might offer him a modest percentage of the enormous profits you no doubt make as a blogger. He likes to be paid in lollipops. -- Richard Hayes (know in the netherworld as Dayamati) http://dayamati.blogspot.com (shameless self-promotion saves precious lollipops) From vipassana8123 at yahoo.com Tue Jul 22 14:29:53 2008 From: vipassana8123 at yahoo.com (David S) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:29:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... Message-ID: <209303.35467.qm@web30407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> About a year or two ago, the discussion arose about the number of Buddhists in China and also to my website which has a page that lists the number of Buddhists.? It made some Buddhists quite angry and so in an effort to provide more equanimity and loving kindness, I improved that page: ? http://www.vipassanafoundation.com/Buddhists.html ? If you scroll down past the discussion about China, you will see a paragraph discussing Buddhism in the U.S.? The number of Buddhists in the U.S. has been rising, not so much due to conversion, but due to immigration from Asia.? You will find links to some of the studies already provided on this list and some others.? I have now placed links to studies to show the sources to the previous and current claims made at the site.? I have also added a page discussing the definition of a Buddhist: ? http://www.vipassanafoundation.com/definitionofabuddhist.html ? A common topic for discussion of any counting of a demographic group is to define who or what we are countng, so I have made that additional page on the definition of a Buddhist and you will note I take the inclusiveness position.? I know?some will disagree and for those that do, please let me know if you have any other references from the Suttas that can help in an accurate definition of a Buddhist. ? David N. Snyder Vipassana Foundation ? From shian at kmspks.org Tue Jul 22 19:19:27 2008 From: shian at kmspks.org ([DPD Web] Shen Shi'an) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:19:27 +0800 Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote? In-Reply-To: References: <1216408206.15473.10.camel@localhost> Message-ID: Actually, the book was loosely titled as below - though there is a bibliography of sorts at its end on the source of quotes. shi'an www.moonpointer.com -----Original Message----- From: Robert Ertman [mailto:robertertman at msn.com] Sent: Saturday, 19 July, 2008 4:13 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Source of quote? Sombody else claims that Jack Kornefield said the Buddha said it NOTE: THOSE INSTRUCTIONS ARE TAKEN FROM THE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK: "BUDDHA'S LITTLE INSTRUCTION BOOK". BY JACK KORENFIELD. YOU CAN FIND MANY MORE INSTRUCTIONS THERE. http://members.tripod.com/~hany25/instruction.html > From: rhayes at unm.edu> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:10:06 -0600> Subject: [Buddha-l] Source of quote?> > Incurable peacenik that I am, I naturally subscribe to the Daily Peace> Quote service. Every now and then the peace quote drives me crazy,> especially when it does as the following does, namely, to attribute> something to The Buddha without any further indication of whose imagined> Buddha they are thinking of. The following quote does not sound at all> like any Buddha I have ever heard of. I suspect they meant to say Buber.> Actually, what I really suspect is that some bozo smoked a joint and> started channeling Timothy Leary and, not having the courage to say> where he really got this quote, attributed it to the Buddha. But I'm> always willing to stand corrected, except of course when I'm right.> > -------- Forwarded Message --------> From: Daily Peace Quote > Reply-To: peacequotes at livingcompassion.org> To: r! hayes at unm.edu> Subject: PEACE Quote> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:02:02 -0400 (EDT)> > > If you take care of each moment, you will take care of all time.> - The Buddha> > > > > > -- > Richard Hayes> Department of Philosophy> University of New Mexico> > _______________________________________________> buddha-l mailing list> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From jayarava at yahoo.com Wed Jul 23 02:14:24 2008 From: jayarava at yahoo.com (Jayarava) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:14:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <209303.35467.qm@web30407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi David, I recall reading somewhere that in the last UK census there where 0.3% Buddhists and 0.7% Jedi in Great Britain. Any idea how many Jedi in China? Jayarava From rhayes at unm.edu Wed Jul 23 10:14:44 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:44 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 01:14 -0700, Jayarava wrote: > I recall reading somewhere that in the last UK census there where 0.3% > Buddhists and 0.7% Jedi in Great Britain. Any idea how many Jedi in > China? I guess it would be some percentage of the prison population there. This whole business of counting Buddhists stinks in my nostrils. It nearly always smacks of a kind of triumphalism. Reminds me of the days when dictators had long parades showing off all their missiles to prove how potent and important (or is that portentous and impotent) they were. (Why did I write that in the past tense? People still do that kind of thing, don't they?) Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my department is undergoing one of those periodic self-studies and peer review rituals that administrators love so much. I'm so sick of seeing charts and tables full of information on how many books, articles, book chapters, book reviews, invited lectures, conference presentations, teaching awards, thesis advisees and privileged parking spaces all our faculty have to their credit that I retch at the very idea of trying to quantify excellence. (Excellence, as I'm sure you all know, is the only product that universities sell. No department is ever merely pretty good, or good enough for a poor state like New Mexico. Everything is world class, as in Garrison Keillor's home town, where all the children are above average.) Quantification, bah! If there is only one Buddhist in the world, that's fine with me. (If I'm that one Buddhist, all the better. But I'm not.) But what do I know? Only 0.27% of the penguins in Tierra del Fuego agree with me. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From bshmr at aol.com Wed Jul 23 10:21:55 2008 From: bshmr at aol.com (bshmr) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:21:55 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] One dharma on Karma Message-ID: <1216830115.4685.115.camel@localhost> Herd of Cats, I am ambivalent about a dharma lesson in an email (appended in-line). The gist of the quoted teaching bears truth while the commentary confounds. ?For example, for me, 'reward' and 'punishment' are a-moral and a-dual (in layman's terms) so I map these to fuzzy semantic and conceptual sets (so to speak), ... . I prefer the simple tale of the old horse-trader, who can't distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' luck, but it is not a precis.? Any suggestions for 'sound bites' on this theme? Richard Basham ** In-line append follows: J?uly 23, 2008 ?Tricycle's Daily Dharma Fair and Impartial Trial in the Court of Cause and Effect The theory of karma should not be confused with so-called "moral justice" or "reward and punishment." The idea of moral justice, or reward and punishment, arises out of the conception of a supreme being, a God, who sits in judgment, who is a law-giver and who decides what is right and wrong. The term "justice" is ambiguous and dangerous, and in its name more harm than good is done to humanity. The theory of karma is the theory of cause and effect, of action and reaction; it is a natural law, which has nothing to do with the idea of justice or reward and punishment. Every volitional action produces its effects or results. If a good action produces good effects and a bad action bad effects, it is not justice, or reward, or punishment meted out by anybody or any power sitting in judgment on your action, but this is in virtue of its own nature, its own law. This is not difficult to understand. But what is difficult is that, according to the karma theory, the effects of a volitional action may continue to manifest themselves even in a life after death. --Walpola Rahula in What the Buddha Taught from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book From curt at cola.iges.org Wed Jul 23 10:36:51 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:36:51 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> References: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <48875E23.4000509@cola.iges.org> Richard Hayes wrote: > Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my department is undergoing one of > those periodic self-studies and peer review rituals that administrators > love so much. I'm so sick of seeing charts and tables full of > information on how many books, articles, book chapters, book reviews, > invited lectures, conference presentations, teaching awards, thesis > advisees and privileged parking spaces all our faculty have to their > credit that I retch at the very idea of trying to quantify excellence. > > Emperor Liang: "How much karmic merit have I earned by ordaining Buddhist monks, building monasteries, having sutras copied, and commissioning Buddha images?" Bodhidharma: "None." Or so goes the tale. But I would add that "counting Buddhists" is only a side-issue. The real game is asking the question: *who* is a Buddhist? And of course that requires some definition of what *any* religion is, and what it means to "belong to" such a thing. And those really are interesting questions if for no other reason than the fact that we constantly talk as if we knew what the answers to those questions are - without having actually looked very deeply into them. Curt Steinmetz P.S. Are they proposing to turn your department into a "Center of Excellence"? From rhayes at unm.edu Wed Jul 23 11:06:55 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:06:55 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice In-Reply-To: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> References: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> On Sat, 2008-07-19 at 02:04 +0600, Richard Basham wrote: > NTYC (Not That You Care), I am enamored with Mandrivia 2008 and > surprisingly in its the Gnome flavor. It seems an excellent distibution > -- I installed and played with several recently. NTIAOMBWDOLYU (Not That It's Any Of My Business Which Distribution of Linux You Use), but membership in the exclusive buddha-l club is limited to those who use Ubuntu Linux. KDE (or even XFCE) is strongly preferred but not strictly required. To be honest, I occasionally run Gnome myself, just for variety's sake. Ubuntu, as you know, is built on the Debian distribution. I've heard of Mandriva but don't know much about it. If it meets touch buddha-l specs, we may consider allowing Mandriva users to subscribe (but only as moderated contributers). Being a dyed-in-the-silicon self-power kind of guy, I am deeply resentful of anyone who makes anything easy for me. What first attracted me to Linux was that it was so bruisingly difficult to install correctly. I used to be able to spend entire days getting no work done at all as I fiddled with settings and recompiled kernels. But all kinds of goody two-shoe bodhisattvas started transferring their merit, and an insidious other-power culture crept into the once-pristine Linux world. Now even people with no training at all in macho Zen can use Linux with ease. I learned of the Ubuntu distribution from a teenage girl, for crying out loud. She told me, rightly it turned out, that Ubuntu is dead easy to use. I tried it out anyway. And to my everlasting shame, I actually LIKED it. (Oops, sorry about that. I forgot that words in uppercase letters are reserved for abbreviated cliches. Richard probably thought that LIKED was short for the first noble truth: Little Is Known Except Despair). Real Buddhists will want to avoid the LTS (Long Term Support) versions on Ubuntu, since they tempt one into believing in permanence. The LTS editions offer guaranteed support and updating for five years. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS offers support until April 2013, the year after Mayan prophecies predict that the world will come to an end. Impermanence purists will prefer the ordinary Ubuntu distributions that become obsolete every six months. Being an American, I'm waiting for a good UIOATIA (Use It Once And Throw It Away) distribution of Linux. This reminds me, I went into a stationary store the other day to buy a fountain pen, which is what I used to use before I bought my first computer. The salesman asked whether I wanted a refillable fountain pen or a disposable one. I guess they make fountain pens now for people who like to do their bit to help keep landfill sites overflowing. (I asked whether there is a momentary fountain pen for devout Buddhists.) Disposable fountain pens! Ye gods, this taketh impermanence too far and maketh me grumpy. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From jkirk at spro.net Wed Jul 23 11:14:40 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:14:40 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] One dharma on Karma In-Reply-To: <1216830115.4685.115.camel@localhost> References: <1216830115.4685.115.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <007501c8ece7$97dfb480$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Any suggestions for 'sound bites' on this theme? Richard Basham ** In-line append follows: Besmir wrote: J?uly 23, 2008 ?Tricycle's Daily Dharma Fair and Impartial Trial in the Court of Cause and Effect The theory of karma should not be confused with so-called "moral justice" or "reward and punishment." The idea of moral justice, or reward and punishment, arises out of the conception of a supreme being, a God, who sits in judgment, who is a law-giver and who decides what is right and wrong. The term "justice" is ambiguous and dangerous, and in its name more harm than good is done to humanity. The theory of karma is the theory of cause and effect, of action and reaction; it is a natural law, which has nothing to do with the idea of justice or reward and punishment. Every volitional action produces its effects or results. If a good action produces good effects and a bad action bad effects, it is not justice, or reward, or punishment meted out by anybody or any power sitting in judgment on your action, but this is in virtue of its own nature, its own law. This is not difficult to understand. But what is difficult is that, according to the karma theory, the effects of a volitional action may continue to manifest themselves even in a life after death. --Walpola Rahula in What the Buddha Taught from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book ================== I don't go with literal "life after death," which is of a piece with vernacular notions of karma as retribution or just desserts/rewards. The natural law of karma is about such a complex interdependency that I don't see how anyone can figure what's going on with a "good action" vis a vis karma. In Buddhism there is also sila and papa. Those are ethical concepts. They more easily relate to figuring out the probable consequences of one's personal actions and whether or not justice is involved, or even evaluating others' personal actions--like those of George W. Bush and his VP, for example. Joanna From jkirk at spro.net Wed Jul 23 11:23:19 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:23:19 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> References: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <008101c8ece8$cd4be4d0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Richard Hayes Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my department is undergoing one of those periodic self-studies and peer review rituals that administrators love so much. I'm so sick of seeing charts and tables full of information on how many books, articles, book chapters, book reviews, invited lectures, conference presentations, teaching awards, thesis advisees and privileged parking spaces all our faculty have to their credit that I retch at the very idea of trying to quantify excellence. (Excellence, as I'm sure you all know, is the only product that universities sell. No department is ever merely pretty good, or good enough for a poor state like New Mexico. Everything is world class, as in Garrison Keillor's home town, where all the children are above average.) Quantification, bah! If there is only one Buddhist in the world, that's fine with me. (If I'm that one Buddhist, all the better. But I'm not.) But what do I know? Only 0.27% of the penguins in Tierra del Fuego agree with me. ============= Universities are corporations----these mappo days the corp. part has overrun and all but eliminated the excellence in educashun part. Joanna From jkirk at spro.net Wed Jul 23 11:25:01 2008 From: jkirk at spro.net (jkirk) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:25:01 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice In-Reply-To: <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> References: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <008201c8ece9$09b3c2d0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Oh man---thanks for the laffs everybody---I'm still laffing... JK -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Richard Hayes Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 11:07 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice On Sat, 2008-07-19 at 02:04 +0600, Richard Basham wrote: > NTYC (Not That You Care), I am enamored with Mandrivia 2008 and > surprisingly in its the Gnome flavor. It seems an excellent > distibution > -- I installed and played with several recently. NTIAOMBWDOLYU (Not That It's Any Of My Business Which Distribution of Linux You Use), but membership in the exclusive buddha-l club is limited to those who use Ubuntu Linux. KDE (or even XFCE) is strongly preferred but not strictly required. To be honest, I occasionally run Gnome myself, just for variety's sake. Ubuntu, as you know, is built on the Debian distribution. I've heard of Mandriva but don't know much about it. If it meets touch buddha-l specs, we may consider allowing Mandriva users to subscribe (but only as moderated contributers). Being a dyed-in-the-silicon self-power kind of guy, I am deeply resentful of anyone who makes anything easy for me. What first attracted me to Linux was that it was so bruisingly difficult to install correctly. I used to be able to spend entire days getting no work done at all as I fiddled with settings and recompiled kernels. But all kinds of goody two-shoe bodhisattvas started transferring their merit, and an insidious other-power culture crept into the once-pristine Linux world. Now even people with no training at all in macho Zen can use Linux with ease. I learned of the Ubuntu distribution from a teenage girl, for crying out loud. She told me, rightly it turned out, that Ubuntu is dead easy to use. I tried it out anyway. And to my everlasting shame, I actually LIKED it. (Oops, sorry about that. I forgot that words in uppercase letters are reserved for abbreviated cliches. Richard probably thought that LIKED was short for the first noble truth: Little Is Known Except Despair). Real Buddhists will want to avoid the LTS (Long Term Support) versions on Ubuntu, since they tempt one into believing in permanence. The LTS editions offer guaranteed support and updating for five years. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS offers support until April 2013, the year after Mayan prophecies predict that the world will come to an end. Impermanence purists will prefer the ordinary Ubuntu distributions that become obsolete every six months. Being an American, I'm waiting for a good UIOATIA (Use It Once And Throw It Away) distribution of Linux. This reminds me, I went into a stationary store the other day to buy a fountain pen, which is what I used to use before I bought my first computer. The salesman asked whether I wanted a refillable fountain pen or a disposable one. I guess they make fountain pens now for people who like to do their bit to help keep landfill sites overflowing. (I asked whether there is a momentary fountain pen for devout Buddhists.) Disposable fountain pens! Ye gods, this taketh impermanence too far and maketh me grumpy. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From at8u at virginia.edu Wed Jul 23 12:22:32 2008 From: at8u at virginia.edu (Alberto Todeschini) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:22:32 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a Buddhist practice Message-ID: <66634efd0807231122s670df957ldecfaeb9a4277a07@mail.gmail.com> Richard Hayes wrote: > > NTIAOMBWDOLYU (Not That It's Any Of My Business Which Distribution of > Linux You Use), but membership in the exclusive buddha-l club is limited > to those who use Ubuntu Linux. KDE (or even XFCE) is strongly preferred > but not strictly required. To be honest, I occasionally run Gnome > myself, just for variety's sake. Ubuntu, as you know, is built on the > Debian distribution. I've heard of Mandriva but don't know much about > it. If it meets touch buddha-l specs, we may consider allowing Mandriva > users to subscribe (but only as moderated contributers). Since in other messages there was talk of statistics, I think we should have a poll about what OSes those elusive Buddhists use, just to add some more hard data to the situation. I imagine that among Buddhists in America and Europe the use of Macs is higher than among the average population. I have dual boot Ubuntu and Vista, though I haven't used the latter for some 8 months. Now I know that I can do absolutely everything I need (well, computer-wise) with Linux. Unless there have been drastic changes for the better in the last few months, I should think that anyone doubting the first noble truth should spend more time with Vista on a machine with 1GB of RAM. Best, Alberto Todeschini From curt at cola.iges.org Wed Jul 23 12:27:33 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:27:33 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a Buddhist practice In-Reply-To: <66634efd0807231122s670df957ldecfaeb9a4277a07@mail.gmail.com> References: <66634efd0807231122s670df957ldecfaeb9a4277a07@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <48877815.1090603@cola.iges.org> Alberto Todeschini wrote: > Unless there have been drastic changes for the better in the last few > months, I should think that anyone doubting the first noble truth should > spend more time with Vista on a machine with 1GB of RAM. > > I'm confused now. Is the cause of suffering insufficient RAM, or is it the misuse of RAM by installing Microsoft software? Curt Steinmetz From bshmr at aol.com Wed Jul 23 13:22:45 2008 From: bshmr at aol.com (bshmr) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:22:45 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice Message-ID: <1216840965.4685.201.camel@localhost> R Hayes, >Richard Hayes: ... If it meets touch buddha-l specs, we may consider allowing Mandriva users to subscribe (but only as moderated contributers). > As it should be. Certainly, I should be moderated, as left-wing and anti-authoritarian as I am. Only the foolhardy would risk some egalitarian, commie, or atheist screed smacking their site/sight. I do have, and use, the three 'ubuntu' One (8.04) series for 'rescue' & trickery, demo & convert, etc. However, I do have, and use, older versions of SUSe; so, I am un-trustworthy in addition to being foolish enough to trust Novell's stewardship of acquired projects again. NTYC: Yesterday, I began setting up a trial multi-OS boot (Mandriva, SUSe, TBA, ...) each with multi-desktop/interfaces. Burns 40-50GB per OS, sans source, with extra mount-points. NTYC (continued): KDE's newest Menu scheme cause problems because I need to see the hierarchy drilling down to the executable; there has to be a Setting somewhere to not Overwrite/Replace. >Richard Hayes: ... ?Richard probably thought that LIKED was short for the first noble truth: Little Is Known Except Despair). > 'Asides' are generally enclosed in brackets ([...]). BTW, DG! I grasp it. (-: >Richard Hayes:... ?Ubuntu 8.04 LTS offers support until April 2013, the year after Mayan prophecies predict that the world will come to an end. Impermanence purists will prefer the ordinary Ubuntu distributions that become obsolete every six months. ... > Those ancient brain surgeons, Kunstler, and now, 'et tu'? >?Richard Hayes: Disposable fountain pens! Ye gods, this taketh impermanence too far and maketh me grumpy. > I speculate that the refillable fountain pens, for under $ 100 (USD), consume disposable cartridges. OTT (Other Than That), me, too -- the grumpy dynamic, that is. Neighbors dispose of 4-5 full trash bags plus recyclables every week -- averaging over 2 full-sized trash bags person per household plus their 'bulk waste' heaps of mainly household items 2+ times per year. Whereas, I seldom have a 'bird seed bag' full plus recyclables. Richard, the Elder, Basham From cfynn at gmx.net Wed Jul 23 13:53:25 2008 From: cfynn at gmx.net (Christopher Fynn) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:53:25 +0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice In-Reply-To: <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> References: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <48878C35.10400@gmx.net> From curt at cola.iges.org Wed Jul 23 15:22:31 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:22:31 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] "The Religious Case Against Belief" Message-ID: <4887A117.4000905@cola.iges.org> Salon has an interesting interview with James Carse, author of "Finite and Infinite Games" as well as his newest book "The Religious Case Against Belief": http://www.salon.com/books/atoms_eden/2008/07/21/james_carse/ An excerpt from the book: "Galileo was dedicated to the truth however it emerged. But what we see in his life is that there is no end of truths, and not one of them is beyond challenge. There is always something new and unexpected to be learned. What drove him, in other words, was not his knowledge but his ignorance. He *knew* that he did not know. He also knew he never would know it all." Curt Steinmetz From rhayes at unm.edu Thu Jul 24 10:06:06 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:06:06 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice In-Reply-To: <48878C35.10400@gmx.net> References: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> <48878C35.10400@gmx.net> Message-ID: <1216915566.5778.8.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2008-07-24 at 01:53 +0600, Christopher Fynn wrote: > Thanks for the link. I don't know the conventions of transliterating English into Tibetan script, but I am assuming a final "s" or "z" sound is signalled by putting a "i" vowel sign above a final "s". So "Windows", I am guessing, is transliterated as WIN DROSI and "Linux" as LI NAGSI. And I gather the Tibetan for "website" is WEB SA (web earth). I like that. For some time I was involved in a Unitarian environmental group called Earthweb (SA'I WEB), but then I found an even better Quaker environmental group called the Earthquakers. Looks like I may have to add Dzong kha Linux to my collection of impermanent and ultimately unsatisfying conditioned possessions. It is obviously the OS of choice among Buddhists in the know. -- Richard From charku at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 14:03:37 2008 From: charku at gmail.com (charlie) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:03:37 -0700 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <008101c8ece8$cd4be4d0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> References: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> <008101c8ece8$cd4be4d0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <84eac1310807231303s6964b437gfc107e9d826ed9c0@mail.gmail.com> How many Buddhist does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, as there is no light and there are no buddhists. Just to "lighten" it up a bit... from your lay buddhist reader Charlie On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 10:23 AM, jkirk wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com > [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Richard > Hayes > > > Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my department is undergoing > one of those periodic self-studies and peer review rituals that > administrators love so much. I'm so sick of seeing charts and > tables full of information on how many books, articles, book > chapters, book reviews, invited lectures, conference > presentations, teaching awards, thesis advisees and privileged > parking spaces all our faculty have to their credit that I retch > at the very idea of trying to quantify excellence. > (Excellence, as I'm sure you all know, is the only product that > universities sell. No department is ever merely pretty good, or > good enough for a poor state like New Mexico. Everything is world > class, as in Garrison Keillor's home town, where all the children > are above > average.) > > Quantification, bah! If there is only one Buddhist in the world, > that's fine with me. (If I'm that one Buddhist, all the better. > But I'm not.) But what do I know? Only 0.27% of the penguins in > Tierra del Fuego agree with me. > > ============= > Universities are corporations----these mappo days the corp. part > has overrun and all but eliminated the excellence in educashun > part. > Joanna > > _______________________________________________ > buddha-l mailing list > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l > From rhayes at unm.edu Thu Jul 24 10:20:57 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:20:57 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <84eac1310807231303s6964b437gfc107e9d826ed9c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost> <008101c8ece8$cd4be4d0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> <84eac1310807231303s6964b437gfc107e9d826ed9c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1216916457.5778.13.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 13:03 -0700, charlie wrote: > How many Buddhist does it take to screw in a light bulb? > None, as there is no light and there are no buddhists. How many Buddhist monks does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. Buddhist monks don't screw. From curt at cola.iges.org Thu Jul 24 11:38:53 2008 From: curt at cola.iges.org (Curt Steinmetz) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:38:53 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a buddhist practice In-Reply-To: <1216915566.5778.8.camel@localhost> References: <1216411446.9669.79.camel@localhost> <1216832815.5708.83.camel@localhost> <48878C35.10400@gmx.net> <1216915566.5778.8.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <4888BE2D.1050703@cola.iges.org> Richard Hayes wrote: > Looks like I may have to add Dzong kha Linux to my collection of > impermanent and ultimately unsatisfying conditioned possessions. It is > obviously the OS of choice among Buddhists in the know. > > Don't fall into the trap. This is just another example of the Gelugpas once again trying to foist their watered-down gradualism on the world as if they spoke for all of Mantrayanadom. Oh - wait a minute. I'm thinking of Tsonkhapa Linux, aka "Yellow-Hat Linux", not Dzong kha Linux: http://www.linux.com/articles/28570 Never mind. Curt From shian at kmspks.org Thu Jul 24 19:18:18 2008 From: shian at kmspks.org ([DPD Web] Shen Shi'an) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:18:18 +0800 Subject: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... In-Reply-To: <61d77ecad366018d7c648626ee182f4088b27add@localhost> References: <375515.71206.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com><1216829685.5708.37.camel@localhost><008101c8ece8$cd4be4d0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX><84eac1310807231303s6964b437gfc107e9d826ed9c0@mail.gmail.com> <61d77ecad366018d7c648626ee182f4088b27add@localhost> Message-ID: Here's another take... Q: How many Buddhist monks does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None - cos the 'light' of enlightenment would be enough - if they practise well. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Hayes [mailto:rhayes at unm.edu] Sent: Friday, 25 July, 2008 12:21 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] how many buddhists... On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 13:03 -0700, charlie wrote: > How many Buddhist does it take to screw in a light bulb? > None, as there is no light and there are no buddhists. How many Buddhist monks does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. Buddhist monks don't screw. From wbelanger at gmail.com Fri Jul 25 21:16:13 2008 From: wbelanger at gmail.com (Warner Belanger) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:16:13 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a Buddhist practice Message-ID: For those of you using Linux distros, what do you use to input diacritics for Asian languages like Sanskrit? Warner From at8u at virginia.edu Sat Jul 26 12:34:14 2008 From: at8u at virginia.edu (Alberto Todeschini) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:34:14 -0400 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a Buddhist practice Message-ID: <66634efd0807261134o752db2e3vb16432f2370f72af@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Warner Belanger" > > For those of you using Linux distros, what do you use to input diacritics > for Asian languages like Sanskrit? > Warner Hi Warner, I use SCIM for Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese. As far as Sanskrit is concerned, the input method is great (technically speaking, it's the input method for Hindi, so that's what you should look for). But SCIM itself occasionally is a little buggy. For instance, if I exit it, it occasionally kills Firefox, OpenOffice and the Gnome Terminal. In my experience with KDE, it is even less reliable. But as you know the results on your hardware with your own distro and your settings may be very different from what I get. Feel free to contact me off list if you need more assistance. Best, Alberto Todeschini From rhayes at unm.edu Sat Jul 26 13:53:37 2008 From: rhayes at unm.edu (Richard Hayes) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:53:37 -0600 Subject: [Buddha-l] Linux as a Buddhist practice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200807261353.37656.rhayes@unm.edu> On Friday 25 July 2008 21:16, Warner Belanger wrote: > For those of you using Linux distros, what do you use to input diacritics > for Asian languages like Sanskrit? I do almost all my work in the emacs editor. Emacs has a set of emacs-lisp libraries called MULE (which stands for MUlti-Lingual Editing or some such thing), which provides options for inputting Sanskrit with diacritical marks in Unicode, Japanese, Big 5 Chinese, mainland Chinese, Korean and many other languages. (Anybody out there translating the Pali canon into Cherokee or Inuktitut? Emacs is the tool for you.) Emacs is an editor, not a word processor. It is most useful for editing text with markup language---such as Scribe, TeX, HTML, XML, or troff---for printing commands. -- Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico From info at sundeepbooks.com Thu Jul 31 07:47:07 2008 From: info at sundeepbooks.com (Sundeep Prakashan) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:17:07 +0530 Subject: [Buddha-l] Conference of Japanese Association of Indian and Buddhist studies References: <001901c88ea0$e9e6d5b0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> <006901c88efc$e853fbe0$0400a8c0@OPTIPLEX> Message-ID: <066d01c8f313$f3800240$0701a8c0@sundeep> Any details on the Conference of Japanese Association of Indian and Buddhist studies. When and whom to contact ? Any one has participated previously ? Thanks Sundeep Singhal From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/sports/olympics/23protest.html August 23, 2008 China Gives 6 American Protesters 10-Day Detentions By ANDREW JACOBS BEIJING - A group of six Americans who were taken into custody on Tuesday as they tried to protest China's rule in Tibet have been given 10-day detentions, the Chinese police confirmed Friday. But activists from the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet said Friday that they had no information about four other protesters who were detained early Thursday during a protest near National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest. The four are two Americans, a German and a Briton. Extrajudicial detentions, a common punishment for Chinese dissidents, are rarely handed out to foreigners, who are often deported almost immediately after being taken into custody. Members of Students for a Free Tibet have staged eight protests involving 55 people since the Olympics began on Aug. 8. Human rights advocates speculated that the government might be seeking to deter those contemplating similar activities in the Games' final days. J. Alexander Hamilton, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Beijing, said United States officials were working with Chinese authorities to gain more information about the detainees. "Our policy is to encourage the Chinese government to respect free expression and freedom of religion, which are protected by law," he said. Reached by phone, Public Security Bureau officials declined to comment but faxed a two-sentence statement explaining that the six Americans had been "apprehended for upsetting public order." The statement, which did not include the detainees' names, said the men were being held at the Dongcheng police station in Beijing. According to Students for a Free Tibet, among those in custody are Brian Conley, 28, a video blogger from Philadelphia, and James Powderly, 31, an artist from New York who had planned to project the words "Free Tibet" on a building with laser beams. The others are Jeff Goldin, 40, Michael Liss, 35, and Tom Grant, 39, all from New York; and Jeffrey Rae, 28, from Philadelphia. Five other Americans who were detained Tuesday were deported Wednesday. They had raised a banner near National Stadium with "Free Tibet" spelled out in lights in English and Chinese. The organization was founded in New York in 1994 and claims 650 chapters worldwide, at schools in more than 30 nations. Most of its demonstrations here have involved unfurling "Free Tibet" banners or displaying Tibetan flags, which are illegal in China. In the latest action, just after midnight Thursday morning, four protesters raised their fists and shouted slogans while waving a Tibetan flag near National Stadium. As with the other protests, the participants were quickly bundled away by plainclothes officers. Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, said that German and British consular officials had told the families of the German and British detainees that they, too, would probably receive 10-day sentences. Two photographers at the scene for The Associated Press were also roughed up and taken into custody, according to news agency reports and press freedom advocates. After the photographers were questioned separately for 30 to 40 minutes, the police confiscated the memory cards from their cameras. In the past month, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China has received dozens of complaints from overseas journalists who were detained, trailed or had equipment damaged by the police. "When it comes to media freedom during the Olympics, China is not even on the awards podium," said Jonathan Watts, the club's president. On Friday, Students for a Free Tibet declared that its Olympics campaign had succeeded and that it was winding down. In characteristically stealthy fashion, the announcement was made by two members who summoned reporters to a street corner with 20 minutes' notice. The members, Alice Speller and Ginger Cassady, said that even though the protests had been fleeting and witnessed by only a few Chinese, they had helped highlight the issue in the foreign media. "China is trying to show the world this face, that they are a modern, progressive country, but that really isn't the truth," said Ms. Speller, a law student from Britain. "The real face is one that denies freedom of expression, and that denies it brutally and violently when it can." Soon after the news conference began, police officers arrived and began videotaping. But with no banners or Tibetan flags on display, the officers appeared to lose interest and drove away. The women seemed both relieved and disappointed. Asked whether the group might be planning any more protests, Ms. Speller shook her head and said, "We're the last two standing," before heading down the street surrounded by a scrum of cameras. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: "Comments: If Ms Ng felt that Buddhism is fine other than the idea of making offerings for blessings being a transaction, then she had given up Buddhism for the wrong reason - because true Buddhists know that offerings are made to remind themselves of various aspects of the Buddha's teachings. Any blessings that result comes from devotion and generosity in making offerings, not out of expectations of blessings." Well, most of the world's Buddhists, and people of other religions that incorporate this model, are not "true" religionists, following your concept of "true Buddhists". Ms Ng seems to be well aware that the attitude of transactional relations between devotee and deity is indeed a prevailing notion. It's an almost universal human attitude of approach to a deity (and for most people in the world, Buddha is conceptualized as a deity, even if he isn't).The model is thus: I donate to you, I spend money on offerings to you, building temples, etc, and so you will I hope answer my requests or preserve me from enemies, sickness, etc. If the personal element of the transaction in Buddhism is absent, then expectations of earning tons of (abstract merit), compensate just as well.) In these situations (also found in any version of the Christian religion that prays to saints), the relationship between devotee and deity is one of patronage, echoing the familiar prevailing power structures within the society in question. These societal power structures are what is called patronage systems. There are patrons--rich or powerful abbots, businessmen, zamindars, police chiefs, etc-- and clients--those who need the help or support of patrons. This is the "way" of the world, if not the way of the Buddha. Best wishes, Joanna ========================================================== -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of [DPD Web] Shen Shi'an More on the recent state of Buddhism in Singapore: http://www.moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=2478 (A partial analysis of a news feature in Singapore's largest newspaper) From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: 'Mr. Norbu led a major monastery at the very young age of 27 and soon was caught up in the trauma of the Communist invasion of Tibet in 1950, an action that China contends was justified on many grounds.' The last phrase of this sentence is a gratuitous slight, IMO. Joanna ============================================== -----Original Message----- From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Dan Lusthaus Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 12:15 AM To: Buddhist discussion forum Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Dalai Lama's brother dies in US Another obit, this one from the NY Times, with photo and more detailed (and accurate) bio information. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/asia/09norbu.html Dan _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Deluxe two-disc DVD set Disc One: The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg by Jerry Aronson 84 Minute Feature Documentary plus Two Hours of Extras. Disc Two: 35 Interviews and the 1998 New York City Memorial for Allen Ginsberg. visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist and teacher. Allen Ginsberg's remarkable life challenged the very soul of America. Academy Award nominated Director Jerry Aronson spent 25 years accumulating more than 120 hours of film on Allen Ginsberg, resulting in this comprehensive portrait of one of America's greatest poets. This deluxe 2-disc DVD set contains the Director's cut of the award-winning documentary updated and re-mastered. This DVD set includes never-before seen material and historical interviews with friends, family and contemporaries and the latest generation of artists influenced by Ginsberg. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pulpit25-2008sep25,0,5235934.story Pastors plan to defy IRS ban on political speech Ministers will intentionally violate ban on campaigning by nonprofits in hopes of generating a test case. By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 25, 2008 Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups. The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations. That would allow their patron, the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, to challenge the IRS' rules, a risky strategy that one defense fund attorney acknowledges could cost the churches their tax-exempt status. Congress made it illegal in 1954 for tax-exempt groups to publicly support or oppose political candidates. "I'm going to talk about the un-biblical stands that Barack Obama takes. Nobody who follows the Bible can vote for him," said the Rev. Wiley S. Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park. "We may not be politically correct, but we are going to be biblically correct. We are going to vote for those who follow the Bible." Drake was the target of a recent IRS investigation into his endorsement last year of former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In the end, Drake was cleared. Drake and 32 other pastors who have signed on to the "pulpit initiative" have sparked loud condemnations by fellow clergy and advocates of the separation of church and state. These critics, such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argue that Sunday's sermons at churches in Oregon, Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and other states will violate federal tax law by politicizing the pulpit. That, they believe, will undercut the independence churches have long enjoyed to speak out about moral and ethical issues in American life, including women's suffrage, child labor and civil rights. "The integrity of the religious community is at stake when religion and politics become entangled," said the Rev. Eric Williams of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. Williams was recruited for the defense fund but instead joined with 54 other Christian and Jewish clergy members to file a complaint against the initiative with the IRS. The religious leaders asked the agency to stop the Arizona-based defense fund from recruiting churches and to investigate whether its efforts may jeopardize its own tax-exempt status. Representing the religious leaders are three Washington attorneys, all former IRS officials, who also filed a complaint accusing defense fund attorneys of violating IRS rules by helping the churches break federal law. Meanwhile, a separate group of 180 ministers, rabbis and imams also has sought to counter the "pulpit initiative." Members of the Interfaith Alliance -- which includes the nation's top Episcopal bishop -- have signed a pledge to refrain from electioneering in their houses of worship. "Political activity and political expressions are very important, but partisan politics are . . . . a death knell to the prophetic freedom that any religious organization must protect," said the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, who signed the pledge. All Saints survived a nearly two-year IRS investigation after former Rector George Regas spoke out against the Iraq war on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Bacon repeatedly said the church did not engage in campaigning. The IRS dropped the case last year even though agency officials indicated that they still considered the sermon to be illegal. All Saints leaders voiced frustration Wednesday at pulpit initiative backers for using the Pasadena church's fight with the IRS as fodder for their cause. "These people are wanting to promote one candidate over another and that's a huge difference," Bacon said. At the heart of the controversy is the Johnson amendment, named after former President Lyndon Johnson, a senator from Texas when it was enacted in 1954. The measure stated that nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations cannot participate in political campaigns for or against candidates for public office. Many churches have appeared to step over the line, but legal scholars could recall only one church that lost its tax-exempt status -- a congregation in New York that urged voters not to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race. The defense fund said churches targeted by the IRS would serve as clients for lawsuits against the agency in federal court. The defense fund issued seemingly contradictory statements about the initiative. On one hand, it insists pastors will not endorse candidates and will simply exercise their constitutional rights by addressing "the differing positions of the presidential candidates in light of Scripture." On the other hand, the defense fund describes its efforts as a "strategic litigation plan" that seeks to "restore the right of each pastor to speak scriptural truth from the pulpit" without losing a church's tax-exempt status. "The bottom line is that churches and pastors have a right to speak freely from the pulpit," said Dale Schowengerdt, a defense fund attorney working on the project. "They should not be intimidated into silence by unconstitutional IRS regulations or rules." Still, recognizing the confrontational nature of their strategy and wary of protests, the defense fund released the name of only one pastor ahead of Sunday -- the Rev. Gus Booth of the Warroad Community Church in rural Minnesota, who already is the subject of a complaint filed with the IRS over a May sermon in which he urged congregants to oppose Obama and Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton because of their positions on abortion. "There is nobody who will ever tell me what I can and cannot say from behind my pulpit," Booth said, "except the spirit of God or the word of God." duke.helfand at latimes.com From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pulpit25-2008sep25,0,5235 934.story Pastors plan to defy IRS ban on political speech Ministers will intentionally violate ban on campaigning by nonprofits in hopes of generating a test case. By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 25, 2008 Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups. The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations. That would allow their patron, the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, to challenge the IRS' rules, a risky strategy that one defense fund attorney acknowledges could cost the churches their tax-exempt status. Congress made it illegal in 1954 for tax-exempt groups to publicly support or oppose political candidates. "I'm going to talk about the un-biblical stands that Barack Obama takes. Nobody who follows the Bible can vote for him," said the Rev. Wiley S. Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park. "We may not be politically correct, but we are going to be biblically correct. We are going to vote for those who follow the Bible." Drake was the target of a recent IRS investigation into his endorsement last year of former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In the end, Drake was cleared. Drake and 32 other pastors who have signed on to the "pulpit initiative" have sparked loud condemnations by fellow clergy and advocates of the separation of church and state. These critics, such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argue that Sunday's sermons at churches in Oregon, Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and other states will violate federal tax law by politicizing the pulpit. That, they believe, will undercut the independence churches have long enjoyed to speak out about moral and ethical issues in American life, including women's suffrage, child labor and civil rights. "The integrity of the religious community is at stake when religion and politics become entangled," said the Rev. Eric Williams of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. Williams was recruited for the defense fund but instead joined with 54 other Christian and Jewish clergy members to file a complaint against the initiative with the IRS. The religious leaders asked the agency to stop the Arizona-based defense fund from recruiting churches and to investigate whether its efforts may jeopardize its own tax-exempt status. Representing the religious leaders are three Washington attorneys, all former IRS officials, who also filed a complaint accusing defense fund attorneys of violating IRS rules by helping the churches break federal law. Meanwhile, a separate group of 180 ministers, rabbis and imams also has sought to counter the "pulpit initiative." Members of the Interfaith Alliance -- which includes the nation's top Episcopal bishop -- have signed a pledge to refrain from electioneering in their houses of worship. "Political activity and political expressions are very important, but partisan politics are . . . . a death knell to the prophetic freedom that any religious organization must protect," said the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, who signed the pledge. All Saints survived a nearly two-year IRS investigation after former Rector George Regas spoke out against the Iraq war on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Bacon repeatedly said the church did not engage in campaigning. The IRS dropped the case last year even though agency officials indicated that they still considered the sermon to be illegal. All Saints leaders voiced frustration Wednesday at pulpit initiative backers for using the Pasadena church's fight with the IRS as fodder for their cause. "These people are wanting to promote one candidate over another and that's a huge difference," Bacon said. At the heart of the controversy is the Johnson amendment, named after former President Lyndon Johnson, a senator from Texas when it was enacted in 1954. The measure stated that nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations cannot participate in political campaigns for or against candidates for public office. Many churches have appeared to step over the line, but legal scholars could recall only one church that lost its tax-exempt status -- a congregation in New York that urged voters not to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race. The defense fund said churches targeted by the IRS would serve as clients for lawsuits against the agency in federal court. The defense fund issued seemingly contradictory statements about the initiative. On one hand, it insists pastors will not endorse candidates and will simply exercise their constitutional rights by addressing "the differing positions of the presidential candidates in light of Scripture." On the other hand, the defense fund describes its efforts as a "strategic litigation plan" that seeks to "restore the right of each pastor to speak scriptural truth from the pulpit" without losing a church's tax-exempt status. "The bottom line is that churches and pastors have a right to speak freely from the pulpit," said Dale Schowengerdt, a defense fund attorney working on the project. "They should not be intimidated into silence by unconstitutional IRS regulations or rules." Still, recognizing the confrontational nature of their strategy and wary of protests, the defense fund released the name of only one pastor ahead of Sunday -- the Rev. Gus Booth of the Warroad Community Church in rural Minnesota, who already is the subject of a complaint filed with the IRS over a May sermon in which he urged congregants to oppose Obama and Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton because of their positions on abortion. "There is nobody who will ever tell me what I can and cannot say from behind my pulpit," Booth said, "except the spirit of God or the word of God." duke.helfand at latimes.com _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Dan September 27, 2008 For a Fee, a Thai Temple Offers a Head Start on Rebirth By SETH MYDANS NAKHON NAYOK, Thailand - It is the ultimate in second chances: a Buddhist temple here offers, for a small fee, an opportunity to die, rise up again newborn and make a fresh start in life. Nine big pink coffins dominate the grand hall of the temple, and every day hundreds of people take their turns climbing in for a few moments as monks chant a dirge. Then, at a command, the visitors clamber out again cleansed - they believe - of the past. It is a renewal for our times, as recent economic hardship brings uncertainty and people try seeking a bailout on life. In growing numbers, they come here from around Thailand to join what has become an assembly line of resurrection. "When the economy is down, we latch our hopes onto some supernatural power," said Ekachai Uekrongtham, the writer-director whose movie "The Coffin" is in Thai cinemas now with a plot revolving around such funerals for the living. "When I went in I felt warm, and when I came out I felt released," said Nual Chaichamni, 52, a masseuse who visited recently and who said she liked the feeling so much that she had done it six times. "As I lay there and listened to the chanting of the monks, I felt relaxed," she said. "When I got up, I was thinking of good things, thinking of the Buddha image in the hall. I felt good." Buddhism in Thailand can take unexpected forms, embracing animist superstition, magical practices - and the entrepreneurial spirit of many senior monks. Many Thais say that the true spirit of Buddhism is being lost. Many temples have become centers of enterprise that parallel Thailand's economic growth over the past few decades, selling good-luck amulets, holding boisterous fairs and telling fortunes. This temple, Wat Prommanee, 66 miles northeast of Bangkok, has offered its unusual daily resurrection service for more than three years, and its clientele keeps growing, said an attendant, Pradap Butcharerm, 69. On weekends as many as 700 people a day pay 180 baht each, a little more than $5, for the ceremony and much more for amulets that are auctioned off by temple acolytes. "We have only 50 of these, a limited edition, the price is up to you!" they cry. "Twenty baht, 50 baht, did I hear 300 baht? Someone has run into luck." As the number of visitors has grown, their dip into the supernatural has become more perfunctory; now a monk with a bullhorn herds worshipers through the row of coffins, nine at a time. Like Charlie Chaplin on an out-of-control assembly line, they follow the monks' commands: into the coffin, down on their backs, eyes closed, shroud on, shroud off, up on their feet, quick prayer and scramble out into a new life. The whole process takes a minute and a half. The next group of nine is waiting. A cardboard sign warns visitors not to stand behind the coffins, where bad karma sucked from the "dying" devotees may still be hovering. The rebirth ceremony is unusual, but not surprising, said Suwannan Sathta-Anand, an associate professor of philosophy at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "These days, a lot of people in Thai society are creating new kinds of rituals and practices to suit whatever purposes they have," she said. With the hierarchy of organized Buddhism slow to adapt to changing times, she said, "people are looking for their own expression of Buddhism that could be relevant to their lives." Along with the religion of their past, a tide of modern capitalism has seized the imagination of Thais as their country has rapidly developed in the past three decades. Two years ago, Thailand was gripped by a frenzy for a magical amulet called Jatukam that sold in several versions with unambiguous names like "Super Rich," "Immediately Rich," "Rich Without Reason" and "Miracle Rich." The people who come to be reborn here at Wat Prommanee are seeking help for many of the ailments and aspirations of life. Jirapat Winarungruang, 37, a lawyer, came one recent day to complete a transformation that he began four years ago when he changed his name from the less auspicious Suthep Wina. His new name includes the suffix rungruang, which means prosperity. Fifty percent of a person's destiny is determined by his name, Mr. Jirapat said, and the other 50 percent by his date of birth. When he arose from the coffin, born again, he said, the last vestiges of the old Suthep Wina would be gone. Woraphot Sriboonyang, 30, an engineer, said he had come with Mr. Jirapat and four other family members to rid himself of bad karma. Within just a few weeks, he said, he had suffered a break-in and a bad car accident. He wanted his run of bad luck to stop at two. Sangkhom Thani, 37, who sells subsidized food for the government, said he hoped for luck in business and relief for his aching back and knees. "If I lie down in the coffin, it will give me a new lease on life," he said as he examined an expensive new amulet. Chalida Muansawang, 33, a hairdresser, brought her 12-year-old daughter, Saksithorn, in the hope that a few moments in a coffin would help cure her hyperactivity. "I'm excited and a little bit scared," said the girl, who proceeded bravely through the process with her mother lying next to her in an adjacent coffin. As the morning's ceremony ended, a long line had already formed for the afternoon shift. Among the newcomers was the entire 36-man Royal Thai Army soccer team, in bright red jerseys, preparing for a match the next day. "We'll lie in the coffins and then we'll go to practice," said one of the players, Nippon Khamthong, 22. Asked what he hoped his rebirth would bring him, he said, "We just want to win tomorrow." From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Dan http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-AS-Cambodia-Thailand-Border-Dispute.html Cambodian, Thai Troops Said Hurt in Border Clash By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: October 3, 2008 PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Soldiers from both Cambodia and Thailand were wounded Friday in a brief clash along their volatile border, officials from the two countries said. Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said a Cambodian soldier was slightly wounded when Thai troops fired a grenade from their territory. He said Cambodian troops returned fire, with the ''military incident'' lasting less than a minute. Thai officials initially denied knowledge of the incident, but a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman later said Cambodian troops had encroached on Thai territory and had been the first to fire, wounding two Thai troops. Late Friday, the Foreign Ministry said the situation ''has now returned to normalcy.'' Tensions along the normally peaceful border between Cambodia and Thailand flared on July 15 after UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, approved Cambodia's application to have a disputed 11th century temple named a World Heritage Site. Friday's clash took place about two miles (three kilometers) west of the temple, Preah Vihear. A spokesman for Cambodia's Cabinet, Phay Siphan, said the incident began after Cambodian troops intercepted a trespassing Thai patrol. He said the Thai troops retreated in response to a warning from the Cambodians, but then fired the grenade. Cambodian troops returned fire with AK-47 assault rifles, with the exchange of fire lasting three to five minutes, he said. Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said Friday evening that the Thai troops had been patrolling in their own territory when they encountered the Cambodian soldiers. ''The Cambodian troops shot at the Thai troops first, wounding two soldiers. One Cambodian soldier was also wounded after the Thais responded,'' he said. Lt. Gen. Wiboonsak Ngeepan, the regional army commander for northeastern Thailand, said it was unclear if the Cambodians intruded intentionally or had strayed into Thailand because ''the area is dense forest.'' The Foreign Ministry statement said the Thai military contacted their Cambodian counterparts after the incident and that the Cambodians agreed to investigate the clash. It also said that Cambodia pledged to coordinate more closely with Thailand in the future. Both countries have long claimed Preah Vihear, but the World Court awarded it to Cambodia in 1962. Sovereignty over some of the land around the temple, however, has not been clearly resolved. After UNESCO approved the temple's listing as a World Heritage Site, Thailand sent troops to occupy the nearby Keo Sikha Kiri Svara pagoda, also claimed by Cambodia. Cambodia responded with its own troop deployment. The two sides came close to a shootout on July 17 when Cambodian monks sought to celebrate Buddhist lent in the pagoda. Troops on both sides raised their weapons, but no shots were fired, and the Cambodians eventually backed down. Since then there has been a limited troop withdrawal from the area, and talks have been held several times on resolving the conflicting claims, but without much progress. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: c Temple. Dan http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-AS-Cambodia-Thailand-Bor der-Dispute.html Cambodian, Thai Troops Said Hurt in Border Clash By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: October 3, 2008 PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Soldiers from both Cambodia and Thailand were wounded Friday in a brief clash along their volatile border, officials from the two countries said. Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said a Cambodian soldier was slightly wounded when Thai troops fired a grenade from their territory. He said Cambodian troops returned fire, with the ''military incident'' lasting less than a minute. Thai officials initially denied knowledge of the incident, but a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman later said Cambodian troops had encroached on Thai territory and had been the first to fire, wounding two Thai troops. Late Friday, the Foreign Ministry said the situation ''has now returned to normalcy.'' Tensions along the normally peaceful border between Cambodia and Thailand flared on July 15 after UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, approved Cambodia's application to have a disputed 11th century temple named a World Heritage Site. Friday's clash took place about two miles (three kilometers) west of the temple, Preah Vihear. A spokesman for Cambodia's Cabinet, Phay Siphan, said the incident began after Cambodian troops intercepted a trespassing Thai patrol. He said the Thai troops retreated in response to a warning from the Cambodians, but then fired the grenade. Cambodian troops returned fire with AK-47 assault rifles, with the exchange of fire lasting three to five minutes, he said. Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said Friday evening that the Thai troops had been patrolling in their own territory when they encountered the Cambodian soldiers. ''The Cambodian troops shot at the Thai troops first, wounding two soldiers. One Cambodian soldier was also wounded after the Thais responded,'' he said. Lt. Gen. Wiboonsak Ngeepan, the regional army commander for northeastern Thailand, said it was unclear if the Cambodians intruded intentionally or had strayed into Thailand because ''the area is dense forest.'' The Foreign Ministry statement said the Thai military contacted their Cambodian counterparts after the incident and that the Cambodians agreed to investigate the clash. It also said that Cambodia pledged to coordinate more closely with Thailand in the future. Both countries have long claimed Preah Vihear, but the World Court awarded it to Cambodia in 1962. Sovereignty over some of the land around the temple, however, has not been clearly resolved. After UNESCO approved the temple's listing as a World Heritage Site, Thailand sent troops to occupy the nearby Keo Sikha Kiri Svara pagoda, also claimed by Cambodia. Cambodia responded with its own troop deployment. The two sides came close to a shootout on July 17 when Cambodian monks sought to celebrate Buddhist lent in the pagoda. Troops on both sides raised their weapons, but no shots were fired, and the Cambodians eventually backed down. Since then there has been a limited troop withdrawal from the area, and talks have been held several times on resolving the conflicting claims, but without much progress. _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: c Temple. Dan http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-AS-Cambodia-Thailand-Bor der-Dispute.html Cambodian, Thai Troops Said Hurt in Border Clash By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: October 3, 2008 PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Soldiers from both Cambodia and Thailand were wounded Friday in a brief clash along their volatile border, officials from the two countries said. Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said a Cambodian soldier was slightly wounded when Thai troops fired a grenade from their territory. He said Cambodian troops returned fire, with the ''military incident'' lasting less than a minute. Thai officials initially denied knowledge of the incident, but a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman later said Cambodian troops had encroached on Thai territory and had been the first to fire, wounding two Thai troops. Late Friday, the Foreign Ministry said the situation ''has now returned to normalcy.'' Tensions along the normally peaceful border between Cambodia and Thailand flared on July 15 after UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, approved Cambodia's application to have a disputed 11th century temple named a World Heritage Site. Friday's clash took place about two miles (three kilometers) west of the temple, Preah Vihear. A spokesman for Cambodia's Cabinet, Phay Siphan, said the incident began after Cambodian troops intercepted a trespassing Thai patrol. He said the Thai troops retreated in response to a warning from the Cambodians, but then fired the grenade. Cambodian troops returned fire with AK-47 assault rifles, with the exchange of fire lasting three to five minutes, he said. Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said Friday evening that the Thai troops had been patrolling in their own territory when they encountered the Cambodian soldiers. ''The Cambodian troops shot at the Thai troops first, wounding two soldiers. One Cambodian soldier was also wounded after the Thais responded,'' he said. Lt. Gen. Wiboonsak Ngeepan, the regional army commander for northeastern Thailand, said it was unclear if the Cambodians intruded intentionally or had strayed into Thailand because ''the area is dense forest.'' The Foreign Ministry statement said the Thai military contacted their Cambodian counterparts after the incident and that the Cambodians agreed to investigate the clash. It also said that Cambodia pledged to coordinate more closely with Thailand in the future. Both countries have long claimed Preah Vihear, but the World Court awarded it to Cambodia in 1962. Sovereignty over some of the land around the temple, however, has not been clearly resolved. After UNESCO approved the temple's listing as a World Heritage Site, Thailand sent troops to occupy the nearby Keo Sikha Kiri Svara pagoda, also claimed by Cambodia. Cambodia responded with its own troop deployment. The two sides came close to a shootout on July 17 when Cambodian monks sought to celebrate Buddhist lent in the pagoda. Troops on both sides raised their weapons, but no shots were fired, and the Cambodians eventually backed down. Since then there has been a limited troop withdrawal from the area, and talks have been held several times on resolving the conflicting claims, but without much progress. _______________________________________________ buddha-l mailing list buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: October 16, 2008 PREAH VIHEAR, CAMBODIA -- The Cambodian and Thai militaries agreed Thursday to hold joint patrols at a disputed border area where a gun battle between the two sides left two soldiers dead, a Thai army spokesman said. A Cambodian army officer confirmed the two sides agreed on measures to prevent further fighting after Wednesday's hour-long gunfight killed two Cambodians, wounded three others and wounded seven Thais. The agreement came at a meeting of senior officers held in Thailand's Sisaket province, just across the border from Cambodia. Thai army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkumnerd said the two sides agreed they would both maintain troops in the area, with "joint patrols to reduce tension and the chances of a misunderstanding which could lead to another clash." Maj. Gen. Srey Doek, a Cambodian army commander, said the sides "have agreed to prevent further armed clashes" and will continue negotiations on the demarcation issues that led to the dispute. The situation was calm but volatile, with soldiers on both sides facing off on territory near the landmark 11th-century Preah Vihear temple. "We have been ordered by our commanders to be on alert and ready to fight," said a Cambodian soldier at the temple, Capt. Theam Thuy. On the Cambodian side, Associated Press reporters saw dozens of additional Cambodian troops in armored personnel carriers on their way to the front line. After Wednesday's fighting, thousands of Cambodian villagers living near the temple fled their homes, fearing more violence. Families packed rice, clothes and chickens into cars, pickup trucks and carts pulled by motorized plowing machines, forming long convoys heading away from the border zone. The clash was the first deadly fighting since July, when the UNESCO approved Cambodia's bid to make Preah Vihear temple a U.N. World Heritage site. The decision ignited long-standing tensions between the neighbors, who both claim land around the temple, and prompted the two countries to rush troops to the border. Many Thais feared their country's claim over nearby land would be undermined, and anti-government protesters pressed the Thai government to take a harder line on the border conflict. The protesters have riled their country's politics by seeking the ouster of the ruling party, occupying the grounds of the prime minister's offices for the past two months. Thailand Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat told reporters Thursday that the dispute will be solved through negotiations. "Though there was a clash yesterday, it was not a major one," he said. Each side accused the other of firing first. Thailand's Foreign Ministry said Thai soldiers were peacefully patrolling their own territory along the border when Cambodian soldiers shot at them with rocket propelled grenades and submachine guns. Cambodia's Foreign Ministry accused Thai troops of launching "heavy armed attacks" at three different locations to push back Cambodians from positions inside Cambodian territory. --- Dan From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: "In the Lonaphala Sutta (AN 3.99) the Buddha says that the same trifling misdemeanour can send one person to hell for lifetimes, whereas another may feel only minor pain and that in the here and now. Why the difference? It is because the effect is diminished by spiritual practice. When someone practices awareness, ethics, and dwells in the immeasurable (surely a reference to the Brahmavih??ra???s although this is missed by others) then they are less bothered by the consequences of small evils... Dropped into a small cup of water a single grain of salt can render it unfit to drink; dropped into the Ganges it makes no difference. Clearly this was written a long time before the Ganges reached it???s present state of pollution, but the image is still comprehensible. " So there is a possibility of mitigating the impact of kamma-vipaka that doesn't involve capitulation to worldly concerns. I think what happens is that we become more and more able to withstand the painful vedanas that we produce - they are less able to deflect us from the visuddhimagga. But only if we are actively and effectively pursuing the visuddhimagga. AN3.85 also allows for a bhikkhu to rehabilitate himself after a minor transgression - and although the text does not say so I think it is through a *sincere* practice of confession that he does so. Of course there is no faking it as far as kamma is concerned - it will ripen no matter what powerful rationalisations are bought to bear on it. So Kalupahana has misinterpreted this text I think. It doesn't suggest to me that a great or powerful person may act badly with relative impunity. Although that said it does appear that powerful people do tend to be quite thick skinned and seem to suffer less from, say, sending young men to their deaths in a war, than the hoi polloi might. I think it goes to show that Buddhist ethics work best when applied to one's own actual actions, rather than the hypothetical actions of hypothetical others. Trying to solve generalised hypothetical moral problems almost always results in confusion and argument in my experience of teaching Buddhist ethics; whereas a discussion of things I've actually done, or am doing, generally makes things more clear. There may still be ambiguity but the options and possibilities are more meaningful. Best wishes Jayarava From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Do not believe everything on the internet. Bows, Genmyo Re: ? It almost feels rude to change the subject on the current threads so abruptly, but I just received a forwarded e-mail that I find?extremely discouraging and depressing.??The ethical implications are staggering.? As Buddhists, what can we say about genetically mass-produced animals (yes, animals) with a programmed?life span of 1 to 3 years and chemically controlled behavior?? Take a look at this grotesque link.? Isn't this, at the very least,?a violation of international law?? Was any thought given to the suffering produced in this way?? Isn't there a way to start an international boycott of this horribly grotesque practice?? Brave New World, you arrived long ago! ? http://www.genpets.com/meet.php ? Katherine From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: die, sacrifice and sorcery are making a comeback." The article links this situation with the increasing poverty vs the increasing riches of the elites in India--rich getting richer, etc. The same process has been happening here ever since Ray-gun, who worked hard to break the social contractin law, and succededin eroding most of it, finished off by GW Bush. Today I see the proliferation of vicious racist and hate sites on the web as an analogous phenomenon here (USA) to the rage for blood sacrificing to Kali in India. Joanna From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: the Other Shore between. Robert Leverant roblev at sonic.net From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: "Voegelin's first attempts to penetrate to the essence of National Socialism were two books published in 1933 analyzing race theories-Rasse und Staat and Die Rassenidee in der Geistesgeschichte. He showed that National Socialist racism denied the fundamental humanity of Jews and other races, and, based on his own studies with biology, that National Socialist race theory was not science. Voegelin labeled this abuse of science for ideological purposes rather than to understand reality as "scientism." The Nazi race idea had in fact little to do with biology and ethnography. Rather, Voegelin believed that racism was the symbolic expression of the ordering principle of German nationalism. The elaborate use of scientific language gave comfort to the ideologists that they were actually engaged in science seeking positive truth. Nonetheless, no matter how elaborate the use of language was, it still denoted little or nothing." Note the date. Maybe Jung was just reading the wrong stuff. Voegelin, by the way, was deeply interested in the question of mass enthusiasm elicited by Nazis, and totalitarian regimes in general. He continued to refine his theories over the years. A small sample (from p. 165) 'Voegelin observed that the Nazis were emotionally tribal because "[t]ribalism is the answer to immaturity because it permits man to remain immature with the sanction of his group." '"But there were consequences for immaturity: good Germans who got emotionally drunk on the harangues of the savior...and who shrank back in horror when the program ... was trans- lated into political action." Abandoning his earlier conjecture about the nature of "pre-Christian paganism," Voegelin refined his views, describing Nazi symbolism as a mix of immanent pagan tribalism within the symbols of Christianity.' Any groups we know sanctioning this? Buddhist content: The virtual absence of any serious political philosophy in Buddhism leaves it bereft of adequate analytic tools for dealing with such issues. It often had the luxury of deferring such issues to the actual powers that be, with moral chirping from the sidelines -- in Europe a role occupied by court jesters. Where Buddhists became the powers that be, the extent to which the manner of rule reflected "Buddhist" political thought is questionable. Buddhist rulers, in general, do not demonstrate a particularly sterling track record (quick, name five Buddhist rulers aside from Asoka, whom you admire -- HHDL doesn't rule anything), and when benign, usually no more impressive than benign rulers elsewhere. One doesn't have to pursue a Protestant Buddhism to believe that developing a Buddhist political philosophy might not be a bad idea in this day and age, especially if one wants to speak to world events with a Buddhist voice that has more bite than a court jester's. Dan From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: =A0 Katherine=20 =A0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung =A0 =A0 "In an interview with Carol Baumann in 1948, published in the *Bulletin of = Analytical Psychology Club of New York*, December 1949, Jung emphatically d= enies rumors regarding any sympathy for the Nazi movement, saying: 'It must be clear to anyone who has read any of my books that I have never = been a Nazi sympathizer and I never have been anti-Semitic, and no amount o= f misquotation, mistranslation, or rearrangement of what I have written can= alter the record of my true point of view. Nearly every one of these passa= ges [referring to a list of quotations cited against him] has been tampered= with, either by malice or by ignorance. Furthermore, my friendly relations= with a large group of Jewish colleagues and patients over a period of many= years in itself disproves the charge of anti-Semitism.'=20 A full response from Jung discounting the rumors can be found in C.G *Jung = Speaking, Interviews and Encounters*, Princeton University Press, 1977." =A0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung=0A=0A=0A From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: =A0 Katherine=20 =A0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung =A0 =A0 "In an interview with Carol Baumann in 1948, published in the *Bulletin of = Analytical Psychology Club of New York*, December 1949, Jung emphatically d= enies rumors regarding any sympathy for the Nazi movement, saying: 'It must be clear to anyone who has read any of my books that I have never = been a Nazi sympathizer and I never have been anti-Semitic, and no amount o= f misquotation, mistranslation, or rearrangement of what I have written can= alter the record of my true point of view. Nearly every one of these passa= ges [referring to a list of quotations cited against him] has been tampered= with, either by malice or by ignorance. Furthermore, my friendly relations= with a large group of Jewish colleagues and patients over a period of many= years in itself disproves the charge of anti-Semitism.'=20 A full response from Jung discounting the rumors can be found in C.G *Jung = Speaking, Interviews and Encounters*, Princeton University Press, 1977." =A0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung =0A=0A=0A From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: invention is not new. They look what ancient people said about these things and trying to imitate the thing to invent a new thing which really is quite old. Although it is quite normal. In example, R.Llull previously cited, he was influenced by Abulafia in introducing the circular schemas to explain the God's qualities, and in this way passing that Jewish knowledge into the Christians patrimony. Look: Abulafia: http://www.geocities.com/asociacionabulafia/img/aborhas.jpg Llull: http://arxxiduc.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/llull_2.jpg Probably that people made the same thing, and today the Enneagram is passing into psychotherapy. According Moshe Idel, in medieval times the goal for Christians in using these things was to neutralize some theological holes. So an interesting thing is knowing what holes are being neutralized in psychoterapy with the actual Enneagram. In the book "Kabbalah: New Perspectives", Moshe Idel, Suny 1988, there is chapter devoted to explore these cabalistic influences in modern times. The interest of Tibetan Lamas can be logical according their approach. Moshe Idel has another English book: "The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia", Suny Series in Judaica, 1988. Abulafia was the first one in using these schemas for personality and prophetical purposes. The interesting point is when he developed a mystic system based in "knots" inside the soul. These knots can be untangled by means Yogic practices which are surprising similar to Tantra. As Abulafia was a Jewish author from 13th century with an Islamic and Christian background, he can be very interesting for any follower of Tibetan Buddhism. best regards, From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: specially I know Jodorowsky, who is very popular in the spanish-Speaking world. He is a funny, lucid, and bon-vivant person, with an interesting autobiography half-truth and half-lie, without a definitive way to know where are the limits. He have developed another new thing, and very interesting, called "Psico-magics". Of course with the subsequent chain of books, conferences, etc... Psico-magics is real and quite effective. How it works?. In example, somebody visit to the Psicomagic because he feel anguish: a Tarotist predicted him his own death together with a big lose of money. The Psicomagic knows that acting in the rational mind will be useless, therefore he order the patient to write 6 zeros in a 20 dollars bill. Later, he order to him kill a fly, put the fly corpse inside the bill, and burry all this under ground. In this way, the prediction will be accomplished losing his power for the unconsciouss mind. It is a brilliant idea, and it works. However, it is not a new thing but a way practiced by shamans from always. Where is the business?. First, Jodorowski claims tha only himself and his son are able to get a total success. From here the logical space for the business with books and conferences. Second, the origins of the thing must be hidden until possible. I mean: he don't give too much details (or only a general mention) of his inspiration sources (despite are quite obvious). Anyway, the people able to detect the sources are a minority, while his public target is of another type. I don't have enough knowledge of the Enneagram but quickly one can check how the apparent coincidences with the kabbala tradition is not by chance. Those people where knowers of some things in that tradition. I have pointed to Abulafia among probably some others. Believing the contrary thing sounds really innocent. It doesn't mean the Enneagram is not a valid tool, and that inspiration can be better at all. As I mentioned before, this transmission of knowledge is a common thing in any time. So my comment was not a critique to invalidate the Enneagram invention despite I cannot see the benefits for the Buddhist path. It can be useful in a psychological level as many other tools. Personally, I'm not a fan of the skeptic's spectacle of our times. Here also one can find free-thinkers and also the same international networks with second goals. Sure I need more readings related with the names that you have kindly provided to understand the actual importance of Enneagram. However, what I miss in your defence or the rest of defences, are the books detailing the origin of this invention. As you are a rational person, probably you can agree it's quite strange that the origins of this important "new tool" cannot be traced with more precision. There are only mentions to some names (Ichazo, Naranjo, Oupensky, etc...) A people who claim a privileged knowledge of ancient sources (Caldeans, Kabbala, etc...). I mean: to me it's very hard to digest that today we can have more information of sources used by medieval kabbalists than of a group of guys of XX century. Also, there is a second level in that procedure which cover a less quality works. Maybe you don't know the amount of people who go to remote lands, sleeping in a 4-stars hotels and goes in touristic Jeeps to make some photos in order to create his own future character. Later, they return to home and write some books about Secret Masters, the hidden way of Shao-lin monks, the secret transmission of Egyptians, etc... From ancient times, our History is replete of these charlatans, and frequently they have appeared in the literature and comedia genre ridiculed by the classic authors. But the funny thing, is when sometimes, some of them are truly a seed of movements of enough importance. Frequently because the honest and interesting work of the people who succeeds them. Other times because that movement become a sociological, political or intelligence tool of interest. Giving names today would be an unethical thing, even illegal or dangerous in some places. best regards, From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: life and death, both can be cast away. Dan Lusthaus ----- Original Message ----- > In traditional Zen style, this is the death-bed stanza of the Venerable > Sheng Yan: > > > $BZ[;vK;CfO7(B > $B6uN$M-S->P(B > $BK\MhKWM-2f(B > $B at 8;`3'2DYF(B > > My lousy translation: > > "In a carefree (pointless?) hustle, one grows old. > In emptiness, there is tears and laughter. > As it is, there is no self. > Both life and death can be abandoned." > > W.F. Wong > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng-yen From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: He writes really well, but given the demonstrated problematics of his accounting of his story I would have a hard [time] taking whatever he says at face value. http://www.ex-cult.org/fwbo/fwbofiles.htm His opening chapters of his SURVEY are brilliant and enjoyable to read. I still occasionally refer to them. The only Buddhist whose writing is better is Conze. ------------ Joanna: I went through the entire Memoir as it is in the pdf and found nowhere that he claims he was in Nagpur during the first big conversion ceremony or at any of the mass conversion ceremonies of ex-untouchables, nor that he was an advisor to Ambedkar (as alleged in the above link under the rubric, "Dr. Ambedkar and the Untouchables") . Instead, his accounts of being in Nagpur and with respect to Ambedkar can be found as follows: His first visit to Nagpur, in 1954, is recounted in the memoir in Ch 10, "Buddhism and the Nagpur Bar" where he is befriended by Dr.Kulkarni, former lawyer and by then self-described Hindu devotee of the Buddha. Traveling back to Nagpur (while en route to Cal) just when Ambedkar died is recounted in Ch 23, DEATH OF A HERO p321ff. There's much more about his services to the Maha Bodhi journal and how a small faction tried to oust him from writing and editing it (see Ch 11), as well as S. NOT claiming he was the founder of the WBO and citing the name of the real founder. (He says nothing much about this, and nothing about what apparently much later were fights over leadership, etc.. Nothing surprising there so far as "spiritual" organizations go.) I looked through all the footnotes to the material in the article (above link) and don't find the pdf I've been reading, which was published in 1996. And the 'Arthur Rimbaud' who signed this FWBO Files article seems to be a pseudonym. Anybody know who he is? IMO more research on S. than found in the above link needs to be done in order to corroborate Sangharakshita's and/or his detractors' claims as to who did what, when. (As for the stuff about S.s sex life, I'm not interested.) From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Dan http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801967.html?hpid=topnews or http://tinyurl.com/d3em7n [excerpts -- go the url to get all the details] 15 Percent of Americans Have No Religion Fewer Call Themselves Christians; Nondenominational Identification Increases By Michelle Boorstein Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 9, 2009; Page A04 The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades, and those who do are increasingly identifying themselves without traditional denomination labels, according to a major study of U.S. religion being released today. The survey of more than 54,000 people conducted between February and November of last year showed that the percentage of Americans identifying as Christians has dropped to 76 percent of the population, down from 86 percent in 1990. [But note:] Those who do call themselves Christian are more frequently describing themselves as "nondenominational" "evangelical" or "born again," according to the American Religious Identification Survey. [skipping ahead, music to Richard's ear] The only group that grew in every U.S. state since the 2001 survey was people saying they had "no" religion; the survey says this group is now 15 percent of the population. Silk said this group is likely responsible for the shrinking percentage of Christians in the United States. Northern New England has surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country; 34 percent of Vermont residents say they have "no religion." The report said that the country has a "growing non-religious or irreligious minority." Twenty-seven percent of those interviewed said they did not expect to have a religious funeral or service when they died, and 30 percent of people who had married said their service was not religious. Those questions weren't asked in previous surveys. [and we now have a new Christian "mystery"] The survey reflects a key question that demographers, sociologists and political scientists have been asking in recent years: Who makes up this growing group of evangelicals? Forty-four percent of America's 77 million Christian adults say they are born again or evangelical. Meanwhile, 18 percent of Catholics also chose that label, as did 40 percent of mainline Christians. "If people call themselves 'evangelical,' it doesn't tell you as much as you think it tells you about what kind of church they go to," Silk said. "It deepens the conundrum about who evangelicals are." From bogus@does.not.exist.com Mon Jul 21 19:59:37 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:59:37 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: their consequences or "fruit" is termed Karma Vipaka. Regards Kate