The Yellow River Odyssey

Porter has many travel in China books, that I have greatly enjoyed, and poetry translations of Stonehouse and Cold Mountain, and translations of sutras. 

Bill Porter's The Yellow River Odyssey, about his trip in 1991, published in 2014, he visits Bodhidharma's cave. You can still go to the cave where he stared at the wall for 9 years. (You could also just meditate, all Buddhas would probably prefer you to trod the path rather than worship other people who trod the path, but faith and veneration of those who came after us is quite important, it does boost the practice to think of all the heroes of Buddhism.) Bodhidharma is credited with bringing Buddhism to China, and a founder of Chan Buddhism. 

There's a cool statue at the top of the mountain of him.

Bodhidharma lived during the 5th and 6th century. I think it's really cool you could know something about someone from that long ago. You can read some of his translated writings.

Then Porter goes to Longmen Caves (Vairocana in the center):

Links:

Been writing about the non-Buddhist culture Porter aspects of his book (One, two, three). This book has more Taoism and Confucianism than his other books, which is not uninteresting to me. I'm fascinated by the interplay between Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism in China. 

Araka was Heraclitus?!

Wrathful Green Tara

The timeline lines up, to the extent that we actually know the timelines, it's possible the Buddha was referring to Heraclitus when he discussed Araka teaching impermanence, but not no permanent soul or the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence. On page 94 of Mindfulness with breathing by Buddhadasa, he makes the assertion I'd never heard before.

What I remember of Heraclitus was that he posed a challenge, that Plato solved by creating the forms. Heraclitus said you can't step into the same river twice. It was always different. He was a kind of nominalist, there were just lots of unique things, always changing, a flux. Plato thought the world participated in forms that were permanent and unchanging. That's a bad summary, I'm sure my old professor would find problems with it, but I want to just say something and you can't always wait to be perfect, you can't study endlessly. I do remember being really taken by the presentation and thinking myself a Platonist in metaphysics in my early 20's. I'm not sure how you solve the problem today, I mostly lay aside conceptual problems these days.

Sure enough there's the sutta in AN 7.70 called Araka's Teaching:

"'Just as a dewdrop on the tip of a blade of grass quickly vanishes with the rising of the sun and does not stay long, in the same way, brahmans, the life of human beings is like a dewdrop — limited, trifling, of much stress & many despairs. One should touch this [truth] like a sage, do what is skillful, follow the holy life. For one who is born there is no freedom from death."

I've heard the dew drop life metaphor before.

The idea that the teachings from Greece could make it to India so long ago is amazing. Of course the Greek were all about rationality and thinking, and meditation would never have entered into their path of spiritual fulfilment. On the Buddhist path rationality isn't the only tool. There is meditation, fellowship, study, ethics and devotion. 

Vajrapani

He's one of the wrathful forms of Tibetan iconography, a protector of the Dharma. He can represent fierce energy. He is also called Chana Dorji and Chador.

Vajrapani has a bulging third eye in the center of his forehead. He has 5 skulls on his Bodhisattva crown. He could wield a thunderbolt.

In early Buddhist iconography he is standing next to the Buddha like a security guard, he is a protector. 

Vajrapani is part of the Akshobhya family. The five Jinas, the 5 Tathagatas organize all the deities. Akshobhya is about the wisdom on non-duality, wisdom of reflection, mirror knowledge. He is associated with the water element. He can be black or blue like water, or white, the sun glinting off water. He transmutes the energy of anger into skillful energy. 

Vajrapani "is one of the earliest-appearing bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism. He is the protector and guide of Gautama Buddha and rose to symbolize the Buddha's power."

Shakti is another word for the consort, and I can't find a name for the Vajrapani consort or Shakti. They are standing in a pratyalidha posture. He has a tiger skin loin cloth. They sometimes trample someone. It represents the primordial union of wisdom and compassion, depicted as a male deity in union with his female consort through the similar ideas of interpenetration or "coalescence". The male figure represents compassion and skillful means, while the female partner represents insight. (Wikipedia)

In Gandahar art with Vajrapani, there's a connection to Heracles (Hercules). Below is Hercules holding up the world in front of Rockefeller Center off 5th Avenue. 

He's also connected to Indra and Zeus, wielder of a thunderbolt. Lightning is often seen as a flash of insight in Buddhism. In Buddhism the Vajra is the symbol of lightning.

Vajrapani is in the Pali Canon in the Ambattha Sutta. He is also a Yaksha elsewhere.

I've had a picture of Vajrapani on my door, for when I leave my house. I have been feeling fierce the past few days, and today Vajrapani appeared to me. 

Links

Wikipedia

Wildmind

Breaking Free

Met

Himalayan Art Resources

You can buy for 20k pounds at Sotheby's from the 16th century. You can get a reproduction for $20. You can even get a t-shirt of it.

Norton Simon Museum

Himalayan Buddhist Art

Global Nepal Museum

Did I leave something out? Please comment.

Mindfulness of Dharma

“Having well relinquished and extinguished desire and dejection in relation to body, feeling tones, and mind, at that time a noble disciple dwells contemplating dharmas as dharmas with mindfulness. Having in this way dwelled contemplating dharmas as dharmas with mindfulness, a noble disciple knows to be paying attention well [in this way] within.”

(Part of SĀ 813 at T II 209a15 to 209a19, from Analayo Mindfulness of breathing.)

Ethics

So never kill, that's step one in ethics. 

I'm not aware of the Buddha saying the Buddhist ethics is only for those on the path, but I kind of feel like it is. Of course there's a parallel between the 10 precepts and ethics, but you know, the ideals of an enlightened being are going to be not always applicable to those who aren't on the path. I've never really seen a good article on Buddhist ethics. They tend to be more written about by a certain personality with religious status. 

Take for instance you country is invaded by horrible brutal people, who just want to steal your land. Now you could quote Shantideva , give them the other cheek to strike too. That wild point making doesn't really seem practical or advised for regular people. 

So my question today is, is the Dharma allowed to be elaborated for ordinary people? Can we go from the Arupaloka to the Kamaloka or the Rupaloka? (Trailokya)

I'm asking this because of this article: Buddhist Pacifists at War. 

I used to go to talks by visiting speakers in the philosophy department at the University of Wisconsin. One guy said he wouldn't get into a Star Trek transporter because it wouldn't be the same person beamed down. Another argued for the concept of a just war. The example is that fighting Hitler was a just war. I was sort of shocked that, yea, maybe there was a just war, when the other side is unjust. 

The illusion that Buddhists don't war has already been shattered with the collection of essays in Buddhist Warfare, the Wikipedia entry Buddhism and Violence and Zen at War.

Todays post was inspired by this article (Buddhist Pacifists at War in JSTOR Daily). I didn't know about Marici. That post is inspired by an article by Ian Sinclair "War Magic and Just War in Indian Tantric Buddhism" in Social Analysis. 

It's weird, a country can't really be Buddhist, it's going to have a percentage of Buddhist people in the country with varying degrees of taking refuge in the three jewels. But there's an idea that Buddhist countries would not wage war if they were truly Buddhist. That absurdity shows that a country can't be Buddhist. Maybe the highest concentration of people who claim to be Buddhist. Cambodia claims to have 98% Buddhist population. Thailand 93% and Burma 90%.

USA supposedly has 1.2%, up from the 0.7% Pew figure I thought was the number. 

Anyway, that brings me back to ethics, striving towards enlightenment, and not being enlightened and practicing Buddhism. 

I kill insects. This might be a cultural belief and not Buddhist. I just don't think I have to suffer insects inside. Perhaps I haven't transcending my cultural conditioning, perhaps my metta meditation is inadequate. I know people who question your practice if you don't do what they ethically think you should. I'm not even sure the underlying idea that you should focus on yourself and not worry about others is true. More questions than answers when I look into it.

I choose to follow the 10 precepts to the best of my ability out of selfishness. It helps me to meditate, it simplifies life. I've read it leads to the gladdening, and I like the gladdening, selfishly, but also for the benefit of others. Friendly jovial people with joie de vivre are good advertisements for Buddhism, but authenticity is important too. I can't help but think of Troy in Community yelling, "I am not a mascot." He doesn't have to be perfect to represent African Americans, he can just be himself. He was saying that to Shirley who had high religiosity. 

I have witnessed some of the greatest acts of kindness in the sangha, but it's not exclusive to the sangha. I like focusing on virtue, like I like to focus on developing my Buddha nature. 

Is there value in pursuing unrealistic ideals that humans often fall short on? I think so. It's good to aim for things, you're more likely to get somewhere by trying, even if it doesn't go exactly to plan. 

I certainly can adopt a kind of righteous moral tone in essay. I think that can be useful in the body politic. 

I will admit to committing grave ethical mistakes that we'd have to know each other better to go into. I'm often raked through the coals of my harm to others, in my memories, and I have very deep regrets. The remorse for my mistakes has made me think a lot more about ethics. 

I confess ethically to myself in a journal, in the absence of closer spiritual friends. 

Cosmic perspective

The Drama of Cosmic Enlightenment is the title of one of Sangharakshita's book titles. It's about the Lotus Sutra. 

They have books of astronomy photos at retreat centers.

Cosmic perspective is congenial to the spiritual perspective, it's enlarging to a contracted human, it helps in the human higher evolution. I'm not a scientist or a mathematician, but I appreciate the poetry.

"They produce ionizing photons that transform neutral hydrogen into ionized plasma during cosmic reionization. It highlights the importance of understanding low-mass galaxies in shaping the Universe's history." (Science Alert)

Look at a supernova (gift link to Times)

Black holes (NASA)

Amazing photos (NPR)

APOD

Amazing images

The Sun!

The beginning

A History of Uyghur Buddhism by Johan Elverskog:

Text not in a photo:

Today most Uyghurs are Muslims. Yet this was not always so. For centuries they were Buddhists. In their homeland along the Silk Road in what is now northwestern China, the Uyghurs stood at the center of Buddhist Eurasia and thus drew upon all the surrounding cultures to forge their own distinctive form of the Dharma. In doing so they used their wealth and power to produce stunning Buddhist monuments not only in their own kingdom but also across Asia, from Beijing to Baghdad. In fact, the glories of Uyghur Buddhism were so renowned in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that the Tibetans even came to postulate that their kingdom was the mythical land of Shambhala.

Rant

The feedback from one of my spiritual friends is to not pay attention to political content.

I'm just going to dump what has been bothering me. How the news media can question Biden, and not question Trump, is beyond irresponsible, and displays the oligarchy dupes leading the sheeple to subvert their own interests. Do something about it. 

I talk to people in the park. One immigrant Ukranian woman was obsessed with lazy immigrants who don't work. One woman made fun of me for voting, she said she sarcastically voted. I asked 10 people who they were going to vote for 5 ranked choice in the mayoral primaries, and one of them could name 3 candidates for mayor. Apathetic and uninterested, I think the eastern europeans, Chinese, south american, and middle eastern immigrants in my neighborhood came to America to escape political dysfunction so they could ignore it, don't really have the culture of democracy. The woman from Ivory Coast told me a story of how she lied about her eyesight to get glasses, and then the she told me Portland's protests were worse than the insurrection of January 6th. An Irish-American woman who converted to Judaism, found a guy in Idaho, and moved there where you need an adult to go to the library. The woman who didn't think vaccines work because people still get sick moved to Texas. A really friendly guy who fed the cat that was run over the other day told me the trials of Trump were political persecution, made up. I was pounced on before an AA meeting by 5 Trump lovers, and fled the meeting, infuriated because AA isn't supposed to be political, that's what it tried to change from the Oxford Group. I stopped going to that meeting after running it once a week. A neighbor said that Obama was getting rich just the way Donald Trump was. I have a friend who is also a libertarian, like the Obama's enrichment is the same as Trump's, and doesn't favor federal intervention. He was in the military and seeing the inefficiency and snafu of the military is against government. 

People imagine NYC as a den of liberalism, but not in the suburbs where I live, it's indifference and right wing Jewish people who vote against having to pay for public education and taxes because they send their children to private religious schools. There's one lady I can talk left wing politics, an Albanian woman. 

I have tried to read George Will's articulation of the conservative instinct. But I'm done trying to empathize, it's the banality of evil. You're OK with 35 children dying from gun violence, you're OK with the hundreds of thousands who died from Covid due to presidential inaction, and you're OK with the threats to health care, social security, even democracy. It's Freud's death instinct in plain daylight. It's driving me nuts.

So I have step back from cataloguing the crimes of one candidate, step back from the articulate rejoinders of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert and Bernie Sanders. The right just wants to divide us and not realize how unified we really are. America is so fragile. Libya can keep the hostages until Reagan is elected to influence the presidential election. The Axis against coming together easily disrupts us.

Let me just say, I don't want a dictatorship, I want democratic socialism. My right wing friend always accused me of wanting a dictatorship. I pointed out Spain's Franco was a right wing dictatorship, not all dictatorships are left wing. He's obsessed with communism, and yet now votes for possibly a Russian plant. His idol Ronald Reagan would be turning over in his grave. Maybe the right embraces lack of integration better, maybe it's impossible, maybe we're meant to be so greedy and grubby. My point is that I understand my political perspective colors my view, and I wish to collaborate with others, that I don't imagine my political perspective is the be all and end all. To the extent it's possible, I dialogue with the right. I don't fantasize about a left wing dictatorship, I believe in democracy. It's flawed, but it seems to be the least flawed system, and we need to democratize more. This insight lessens the fervor of my powerful trains of thought. 

To gladden the mind, to relax the emotional response, focus on my breath and insight. What are the positive things I'm doing, to unhijack my brain form this righteous narrative.

I focus on the my body, feelings, mind and the Dharma. I can control the input, control what I can control. I don't need more information to vote in the next presidential election. I don't need to stay caught up with what is going on in the world when it's too distracting.

Greed is thinking I can influence the world more even though I'm puny. It's good to be politically aware and try to share with others, but there are limits. I haven't figured out how to persuade people yet. It's good to know what is going on with the world, but if what my mind is being attracted to is unhealthy, it's my job to refocus. 

My hatred for the cheeto is really coming from self hatred at my own imperfections and misconduct. I hate my own evil. Use that to purify, or whatever, and keep it moving. There exists evil in the world, have compassion. Take care of my own mind.

The delusion of the body politic isn't my responsibility, I can do some trying to shift things, but I'm limited. I know that because we're all interconnected that I will influence the world, but you really have to have your stuff together to be a leader, so focus on getting my stuff together. My delusion are what I can work on. Keep trying to wake up. 

Take charge of what is going with me. Getting torqued up by politics isn't good for me. The hedge that it's good to connected to what is going on with the world doesn't mean that trumps my equilibrium. I'm working to increase my tolerance of apprehension of suffering. Accept my limits, accept that I am not enlightened yet, and keep positive. It's great I've delved into politics, I've learned quite a lot over the past few years. I'm an informed voted. I vote and participate. Keep up the good work. Take care of myself too, have self compassion. It's my job to find positive meaningful focuses. 

Joan Halifax: Advice from Upayans re upcoming election: Keep clearing the mind of psychosocial debris through practice, love, art, the wilds & keep aligned with the values of integrity & care, letting wisdom and courage be the guide, not the psychological manipulations of ill-meaning players.

Purity

“The quality of mind that is firm, steady, undis-tracted, and focused on a single object is called samahitatà (stability, collectedness). That mind is clear and pure, not disturbed by anything, unobscured by defilement. A mind empty of defilement is called parisuddhi (purity). Such a citta is fit and supremely prepared to perform the duties of the mind. This is called kammaniyata (activeness, readiness). It might be wise to memorize these three words: samabitatà (stability), parisuddhi (purity), and kammaniyata (active-ness). For correct concentration all three of these qualities must be present. This kind of concentration can be used not only in formal meditation practice but in any of the necessary activities of life.” p. 85 Mindfulness of Breathing Buddhadasa, 1996. 

I don’t like the idea of purity because it reminds me of Puritans and I think it’s an unrealistic standard that leads to a lot of mistakes in American history, and a lot of good horror movies. I like focus over purity

The voice: But can’t you see that the change from purity to focus causes you to leave behind the idea that you try to avoid greed, hatred, and delusion and unconsciously you can have a focusing agenda on one of those three poisons.

OK then it's focused not on greed, hatred and delusion. I've been monitoring my thoughts more around those 3 poisons, and it's not an unfamiliar scan of my thoughts for me. 

Reading about ill gotten museum items

When I learned a little bit about the artifacts taken from China in the early 1900s (one, two), I also assumed that with the human evolution, people would begin to give them back because they were stolen. One thing I've noticed about justice is that it's slow, but it is a kind of relentless force. I find it an odd thing when I postulate a genera of articles and information, that it actually exists, and I'm proud to discover it.

I've collected a short list of articles about returned artifacts:

6/21/24: A Rubens Returns to a German Castle, 80 Years After It Was Stolen (NY Times).

6/27/24: Amsterdam Museum to Return a Matisse Work Sold Under Duress in World War II (NY Times).

6/28/24: Ancient artistic loot will finally make its way back to Cambodia (Economist).

7/4/24: Cambodia welcomes the Metropolitan Museum's repatriation of statues looted over decades of turmoil (AOL).

7/4/24: Looted Artifacts Returned to Cambodian Soil (Kiripost).

10/15/24 NY Times: These Twin Marvels of Art Conservation Are Now Seen as Looted Works

11/19/24 Stolen Buddhist painting to return home from US after 35 years (Korea Times).

183

Today is the 183rd day of the year, and in Thubten Chodron's daily Awaken Every Day (2019), this is the following quote:

“One way to express compassion is to be as clear as possible in our communication. Sometimes this is difficult because we aren’t clear ourselves about what we think or want to express, even though we think we may be. Only later do we realize our own confusion.

When we aren’t clear in our own minds, it’s best to say that directly and tell the other person and let them know we need more time to clarify our ideas.

When I’m tangled up, I’ve found it helpful to stop, let go of all the thoughts and ideas, and simply ask myself, What am I trying to say? That helps me get to the heart of the matter, the one sentence that is the essence of what I want to communicate.”

People who think the USA should be a Christian nation

 

(source)

27% average, yikes, one in four. Personally I think the refugees from Europe who came here and wanted religious freedom, are like people who were bullied, and then they turn into the bully, as an evolution from overcoming being bullied, instead of reflecting and saying, "I don't want what was done to me, done to others," they think, "I'm going to just gain power and do what others did to me."

There's a block there in the bible belt, but I'm surprised NC, SC and GA don't have the dark, or Texas and OK. Places where poverty is worst are where they put up the ten commandments in school, like that's going to do something. The politicians who say, "it can't hurt," are cynical and playing to their base. It's the nonsense of American politics and the banality of evil. 

I'm proud to be from a state that is white. I see religious freedom, freedom from religion and the separation of church and state as quite important for the USA.