Recalibrate Your Reality

From Lifehacker:

We open our eyes and we think we're seeing the whole world out there. But what has become clear—and really just in the last few centuries—is that when you look at the electro-magnetic spectrum we are seeing less than 1/10 Billionth of the information that's riding on there. So we call that visible light. But everything else passing through our bodies is completely invisible to us.

Even though we accept the reality that's presented to us, we're really only seeing a little window of what's happening. There's so many examples of this, but one that's interesting to third-graders, but also neuroscience is optical illusions. [Illusions demonstrate] that these really simple things that you think are going on in front of you are not actually representing physical reality but instead your brain is constructing something....

Continue reading here. 

Animals in Buddhist Art

From Shravasti Dhammika's blog at Dhamma Musings:

Animals played a role in several events in the life of both the historical and legendry Buddha. Usually their appearance is incidental – the white elephant in Mahamaya’s dream, and the steed Khantaka carrying Prince Siddhattha away into the night, being examples of this. In a few other incidents they play a more important role – Prince Siddhattha rescuing the goose from Devadattha, the Buddha being looked after by an elephant (and a monkey according to the commentary) during his stay in the Parileyya Forest, and his calming of the infuriated elephant Nalagiri....

Click here to read the full article...

Windy Week

Abstruse Goose

Buddhist Feminism on International Women's Day

By J. Hughes at Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies

"Buddhism, as a way of living with compassion and insight, is radically liberating for women. Yet Buddhism as a historical institution reflects both 2500 years of men’s power over women, “patriarchy”, and women’s struggle for empowerment. One can find within the Buddhist tradition women who prefigure modern feminism by two and a half millennia, and yet writings which equal the worst anti-woman polemics of any religion.

The liberative project of dharma-practice, as opposed to historical Buddhist culture, is intrinsically opposed to patriarchy. Patriarchy, as the limiting of human potential, is rejected by those who cut through habitual, socialized thoughts and behaviors. Patriarchy, as the institutionalization of violence against women is rejected by those who practice peace. Patriarchy, as the proprietary relationship of the sexes in the patriarchal family, where men own women’s sexuality, their labor-power, and children, their product, is rejected by those who eschew the illusion of self in property. Throughout history spiritual radicals have been driven from everyday patriarchal society, “the householder life”, into radical sexual alternatives such as celibacy...."

Continue reading PART 1 here. 

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo: The Beauty of Educating Buddhist Nuns

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo left England for India at the age of 20 to pursue her Buddhist training and becoming one of the first westerners to be ordained a Buddhist Nun.

Tenzin Palmo was encouraged to start a nunnery for young Buddhist girls and in 2000 the construction ofDongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery began and now welcomes over seventy nuns.

In these videos Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo talks about her own path as a Buddhist nun, and the importance of offering religious training to young women.

International Women’s Day 2012: Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi on addressing the often “subordinate status of girls and women”

From Buddhadharma:

Today, Thursday, March 8, is International Women’s Day 2012. With its service projects in Cambodia and Vietnam, where the vast majority of farmers are women, Buddhist Global Relief is marking this 101st such event with a video in support of Oxfam America’s GROW campaign.


Follow link to read a interview with Bhikkhu Bodhi by Danny Fisher here. 

Dharma Talk - The Blue Devils

Talk Given By: Hae Doh Sunim
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Duration - 17:32


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Listen to other previous Dharma Talks here.

The Deception of Memory

From BigThink:

Researchers in the UK have just completed one of the largest ever studies of human memory and preliminary results indicate our recall of even basic events is quite fallible. In the study, individuals were shown pairs of words like CUPCAKE and CARDBOARD. Later, they were shown a new but similar word like CUPBOARD and a new dissimilar word like SAWDUST. About 71 percent of the time, individuals would state correctly they had not seen the third and unrelated word before. Only 53 percent of the time would they state correctly they had not seen the third and similar word. 


Read the full article and report from The Guardian

What does this have to do with Buddhism? Check out "In the Mirror of Memory"

This book studies the diverse array of species of memory in Buddhism. Contributors focus on a particular school, group of texts, terms, or practices and identify a considerable range of types of mnemonic faculties in Buddhism. Included are discussions of Buddhist teaching, meditation, visualization, prayer, commemoration of the Buddha, dhārani practice, the use of mnemonic lists to condense lengthy scriptures, and the purported recollection of infinite previous lives that immediately preceded Sakyamuni's attainment of Buddhahood. Even enlightened awareness itself is said by some Buddhist schools to consist in a “mnemic engagement” with reality as such.

The authors explore Buddhist views on mundane acts of memory such as recognizing, reminding, memorizing, and storing data as well as special types of memory that are cultivated in religious practice.One of the most striking discoveries is that perception is intimately related to certain types of memory. Several essays investigate if, and if so, how, meditative mindfulness and recollection of the past—both of which can be designated by the term smrti—are connected within the Buddhist tradition. The question of whether recollection of the past can be explained without violating the foundational Buddhist notions of radical impermanence and no-self is addressed by several of the contributing scholars.

SNL's "Rude Buddha"

This was caught by The Worst Horse earlier.

A light-hearted humorous parody or over the line offensive skit?

Korean Temple Cuisine

Korean temple cuisine is an example of Buddhist monks' simple and frugal lives. Also, it has very unique tastes of natural ingredients.