Paranirvana

If you want to
Know Buddha, it's pointless
To seek him in the temple;
The Buddha is simply you
Wishing to see Buddha.

The mind seeking

Buddha outside

Is the worst

Illusion of all.

Translated by Soiku Shigematsu
A Zen Harvest : Japanese Folk Zen Sayings (Haiku, Dodoitsu, and Waka)

Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana (Self-Portrait) | Santa Barbara Museum of Art 2016

Buddha's Teachings  
Lecture by Swami Sarvadevananda

Give up anger, give up pride, and free yourself from all bondage. No sorrow can be fall those who never try to possess people and things as their own. Those who hold back rising anger like a rolling chariot are real charioteers. Others merely hold the reins. Conquer anger through gentleness, unkindness through kindness, greed through generosity, and falsehood by truth. Be truthful; do not yield to anger; give freely, even if you have but little: by these three steps you will come near the gods. More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm. More than your mother, more than your father, more than all your family, a well disciplined mind does greater good. 

-Dhammapada, 221-225, 42-43

Sacred Art

This week the Gomang Monks have been visiting Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, CA. They are busy working on a world peace sand mandala which they will sweep away just hours after completion. My son and I have gone three times to watch their progress and sit with their peaceful focused energy. Not surprising front row access to this event has been easy to get as Buddhist are few and far between in this neck of the woods. To me this mandala crafting process was a reminder of life's inevitable changes and the impermanence of our daily sufferings. Even beautiful, time consuming, hard earned, endeavors pass away. Whoosh!!!... they are gone... blown away by the wind! 

The Paradox of Our Age

We have bigger houses but smaller families

More conveniences but less time

We have more degrees but less sense

More knowledge but less judgement

More experts but more problems

More medicines but less healthiness

We've been all the way to the moon and back

But have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor

We built more computers to hold more information

To produce more copies than ever, but have less communication

We have become long on quantity, but short on quality

These are times of fast foods, but slow digestion

Tall man but short character

Steep profits but shallow relationships

It's a time when there is much in the window

But nothing in the room.

-- His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama --

www.drepunggomangusa.com

www.dalailama.com

Buddha and Vedanta

All that we are is the result of what we have thought;

It is founded on our thoughts,

It is made up of our thoughts.

If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,

Happiness follows him,

Like a shadow that never leaves him.

- Buddha : The Dhammapada

The Buddha and Vedanta 

An Example of Religious Harmony

Lecture by Dr. Jeffrey Long

What the Buddha Taught
Lecture by Swami Tyagananda

The Arts of Yoga 

L.A. Review of Books by A. L. Bardach

Ramakrishna and Goddess Kali

Kali and Sri Ramakrishna in the Panchavati 
grove at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple

Why is Mother Kali so radiantly black?

Because she is so powerful,

that even mentioning her name destroys delusion.

Because she is so beautiful,

Lord Shiva, conqueror of death,

lies blissfully vanquished,

beneath the red soled feet.

There are subtle hues of blackness,

But her bright complexion

is the mystery that is utterly black,

overwhelmingly black, wonderfully black.

When she awakens in the lotus shrine

within the heart’s secret cave,

her blackness becomes the mystic illumination

that causes the twelve petal blossom there

to glow more intensely than golden embers.

Her lovely form is the incomparable

Kali black blacker than the King of Death.

Whoever gazes upon this radiant blackness falls eternally in love

and feels no attraction to any other,

discovering everywhere only her.

This poet sighs deeply,

“Where is this brilliant lady, this black light beyond luminosity?

Though I have never seen her, simply hearing her name,

the mind becomes absorbed completely in her astonishing reality."

Om Kali!  Om Kali!  Om Kali!

 - by Ramprasad Sen -

Version by: Lex Hixon From Mother of the Universe 

“Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment”

Songs of Mother lecture by Pravrajika Gitaprana

Kali Destroyer of Time by Marley KD


Yielding to the Storm of Kali by Elizabeth Usha Harding

Transit of Venus

Everyone enjoys a rare celestial show!

Hindu holy men used cardboard glasses to watch from the banks of 

the Ganges River in Varanasi, India on June, 6, 2012.

Next showing: December 2117 and 2125

Photos by: NASA/SDO & Rajesh Kumar Singh

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120611.html

"Each soul is a star, and all stars are set in that infinite azure, that eternal sky, the Lord.  There is the root, the reality, the real individuality of each and all. Religion began with the search after some of these stars that had passed beyond our horizon, and ended in finding them all in God, and ourselves in the same place."  

- Swami Vivekananda -