Thursday, April 9, 2026

Why did I wind up studying Tibetan Buddhism? Because it suited my mind stream

Though I am still a mystical Christian who believes in God unlike 75% of Buddhists who don't necessarily believe in God I found the Compassionate Path and the Lam Rim Path and the Vajrayana path (Lightning path) of Tibetan Buddhism much to my liking as a soul and a being.

I found after being born in the U.S. that most people were not gifted in the ways I tend to be gifted. However, let me rephrase that: "Most people gifted in the ways I have been gifted died somewhere between Zero and 30 OR they sublimated their gifts to better survive the landscape and culture of Europe and the U.S.

So, I'm one of the few that was able to move forward and actually get somewhere with my gifts. Luckily, my mother and father and one grandmother who lived with us were supportive. My Grandmother was raised in Scotland from about age 12 until she got married in her 20s so she spoke with a Scottish Brogue as she often took care of me while my parents ran a church in Los Angeles from 1954 to 1960. I was 12 in 1960.

My mother was one of the most gifted intuitives I have ever met. She didn't speak ill of people because she was always an Empath too which means she knew what they had been through and what they thought and felt and she always knew what I thought and felt too. So, she was able to guide me because in some ways my gifts are like hers and her mothers even though my father was valedictorian of his high School Class in Seattle in 1934.

So, like today my friend and I wanted to go up mt. Shasta and he said:"We could visit Ascension Rock at Red Fir Flat." I said, "I'm not sure I've ever been there before." But, I realized when we went there that my friend had taken me there sometime in the last 20 years but I don't think it was named Ascension Rock then (at least I never heard this then). But, then now my friend is a spiritual Guide for people coming to Shasta from all over the world to visit this Very Sacred Mountain.

So, what led me to study Tibetan Buddhism?

It started when my father and I read "My Life in Tibet" by J. Edwin Dingle who was a map maker all over Asia. I particularly like the passage about taking an orange seed and growing an Orange tree with oranges in in in a High Lama's hand in the book.

Though I never saw this done I saw many many amazing things that you would never believe in India and Nepal when I was there in 1985 and 1986 with my older kids and then wife then.

So, going to India and Nepal only made me a much stronger Tibetan Buddhist to the point where I could call myself a Mystical Christian Tibetan Buddhist.

Christians don't tend to see Buddhism as a religion but as a philosophy because there is no emphasis on God. Instead the emphasis is helping yourself and all others to Enlightenment and to be free of Suffering.

So, one is encouraged to become a Buddha so they can help others attain enlightenment sooner.

Buddha was a Prince of Lumbini which was on the border of India and Nepal and then he became an ascetic until he was enlightened under the Bodhi Tree and developed the Lam Rim (or the Middle path)

which reminds me of the Greeks saying"Moderation in all things".

I've always noticed when people are too extreme in any direction they tend to die or go crazy pretty soon.

So, finding that balance that keeps you away from a more fundamentalist PTSD place that soldiers often get to before they kill themselves and their families is a good goal.

So, the middle Path is important no matter your religion or philosophy so you and your children can survive this century at all.

By God's Grace

Since the links to Chapters 12 through 18 of "memories" and the Buddhist article were one after another at "The Spiritual Path":

I decided to reprint them both here in the moment.

Monday, March 11, 2019

I'm reprinting this so it's easier for you to find "Memories" Chapter 12 through 18

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Tibetan Buddhism and "compassionate right mindfulness"

I've always been an intuitive so knowing what people are feeling and thinking is something that I've had to learn to deal with since I was 2 years old and looked at people's shoes a lot because I was little then and that's what I saw the most was shoes and pantlegs. So, I heard their minds but always wondered why adults never said what they really thought about things. Then, by 15 I realized that the whole human race only exists in our cultures at all because of politeness. Otherwise, there would be no civilization and most of us would be dead. But, this came from understanding how people are from age 2 to 15. So, I have always had a lot of compassion for people and their suffering and wondered how I could help people around me without being killed, beat up or dying in the 1950s and 1960s. And back then this was no easy feat for anyone, even someone who eventually stands now at 6 foot 5 inches. I wasn't always 6 foot 5 inches. I had to grow into this very very slowly growing up and deal with all sorts of violent and sometime armed people with knives or guns on the way.

But now, I'm usually okay because I understand where to go and where not to go to keep my family safe.

But, what many people might not realize is that the Tibetans used to be some of the most violent people on earth historically. They beheaded anyone from another area (until Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet from India)

Padmasambhava - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmasambhava

Although there was a historical Padmasambhava, little is known of him apart from helping the construction of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at Samye, at the behest of Trisong Detsen, and shortly thereafter leaving Tibet due to court intrigues.

‎Yeshe Tsogyal · ‎Mandarava · ‎Rewalsar Lake · ‎Terma

I'm thinking it was between 700 and 1000 AD. IN fact I'm also thinking that Padmasambhava likely was a young Merlin too. And after Merlin took Buddhism to Tibet he went home to England and put Arthur on the Throne of England. This is what I presently think now from all the evidence I have looked through and experienced.

So, Tibetan Buddhism and their discipline of Compassion isn't just something that "fell out of the sky" but was hard won and hard fought to get to this place. And if you have ever been to the Himalayas they are the hardest place to survive above 8000 feet along with the deserts of the world for humans.

So, you have to imagine the toughest, hardiest people imaginable that often die by age 50 or so there in Tibet because life is so very hard the last 2000 years or more and also at altitude that takes a lot out of you too.

But, Right Mindful Compassion to me is the single most powerful thing we have been given from Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism and from the Dalai Lama.

Idiot Compassion is not enough because often the giver dies in the compassionate act.

NO, Right mindful compassion is actually thinking things through for the best outcome for all beings on earth. And this is exactly how the Dalai Lama thinks. It is powerful sort of like having a Buddhist Jesus here on earth with us. He is very very disciplined with all of this by the way. He says he is just a simple monk, but there is so much more to this than that. If you are in his presence it is literally like listening to a Tibetan Buddhist Jesus here on earth. And this is exactly how Tibetan Buddhists of Asia think of him.

By God's Grace.

Note; 25% of Tibetan Buddhists believe in God like I do. The same is true of All Buddhists of all the variations of Buddhism around the world.

Israel and the U.S. are losing in the new types of warfare started between Russia and Ukraine being used by Iran against everyone in the middle east

When you can build an effective autonomous GPS driven drone with a wooden propeller that can fly below the radar and hit a target 1000 miles away something like this is difficult to find or to hit (either one).

It's fairly quiet and might sound like a moped or motorcycle more than anything else because that is the size of engine usually used.

This type of weaponry that can be assembled anywhere (in a cave or auto garage or in the back of a moving van literally) is not something that can easily be found before it is launched for 1000 miles or more to hit some GPS target likely within 3 feet of where it is supposed to hit anywhere on earth.

Even Californians were warned to watch out for Shahed Drones because they could be launched from ships 1000 miles off the coast of California to take out military or oil targets in California. This is also true of any coastal city or installation that is of the U.S. worldwide that is within 1000 miles of any ocean too.

So, we really don't know where this war is going to go from here or how bad the oil problems are actually going to get. But, until Trump gets Netanyahu to stop blowing up things in Iran and Lebanon there is no way for any of this to stop.

Drones do not necessarily require large production facilities and can be launched from a truck, making them an elusive target.

In other words with just the parts for a drone it is theoretically possible to assemble a drone anywhere even in somone's garage or warehouse anywhere. As long as they had a full set of parts it could be assembled anywhere. Also, they use wooden propellers so splinters go everywhere from the propellers when they explode sort of like wooden fragmentation from some kind grenade or something.

Begin partial quote from:

Tracking Iran's military attacks on Gulf states: NBC NEWS:

Former military officers and experts say Iran’s missile program will likely be crushed if the air assault continues. But they say wiping out its drone capacity is a more difficult objective. Drones do not necessarily require large production facilities and can be launched from a truck, making them an elusive target.

“The challenge is it’s probably relatively easy to hide these things, and so finding all of them, bombing all of them, is going to be hard,” said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

“It comes down to how good is the intelligence, ours and the Israelis’, in terms of where everything is,” he said.

Iran’s ability to keep up missile and drone attacks has raised questions about the effectiveness of the U.S.-Israeli air campaign, the quality of the intelligence underpinning it and the assumptions that shaped the assault, according to former officials and analysts.

I think Trump has lost Republicans completely now

Anyone paying attention can see this. The stupidity of what he has done is beyond belief of most people on earth.

How could he and Netanyahu make a situation 100 times worse than it was before?

I think I would compare Trump to Mussolini and Netanyahu to Hitler at this point in how crazy their actions have been regarding Iran.

by killing the moderates in Iran including the Ayatollah they have no only made a Martyr of him to his people but they have also replaced the more moderate regime with something that resembles more ISIS in some ways the way they have taken over the Straight of Hormuz sort of like a Drug Cartel demanding payment for crossing a bridge somewhere or something.

So, until Netanyahu stops attacking Lebanon Iran won't stop attacking Israel or other countries as well as oil infrastructure with Missiles and drones almost every single day.

People ignorantly wonder where all the Missiles and drones are coming from?

If you do your research the missiles and drones are brought into Iran by Russia after being manufactured there.

So, this is really a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia at this point more than anything else.

The fact that Trump and his people aren't talking about this shows how ignorant Trump's following is that they don't seem to understand this at all.

I think the end result of all this will take Trump out of office soon and wipe Israel eventually from the map by Russia being involved the way in which it is.

OF course it is important to know that Putin is very anti-Semitic like many Communists of the Soviet Union always were.

So, Putin would be happy if all Israelis went extinct in Israel even if he has to give nuclear weapons to Iran to do this.

So, in the long run I think Israel has shot itself now in the foot the leg and the hand and Putin likely will shoot Israel in the heart at some point too for this reason.

strikes tracker: full article from nbc news

news Alerts

There are no new alerts at this time

Tracking Iran's military attacks on Gulf states

NBC News is counting the number of missile and drone strikes on Iran’s neighbors each day.

Listen to this article with a free account

00:0006:27

An image released by the Iranian state broadcaster Thursday shows what it says is a wave of missiles launched against Israel and U.S. bases in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. IRIB via AFP - Getty Images

Add NBC News to Google

March 27, 2026, 1:20 PM PDT / Updated April 8, 2026, 8:32 AM PDT

By Dan De Luce, Justin Goldman and Jiachuan Wu

After nearly four weeks of heavy bombardment by U.S. and Israeli forces, Iran is still able to assail its Gulf neighbors and Israel with daily missile and drone attacks.

Tehran has been striking military bases, oil and gas sites, civilian airports, hotels and ports in a retaliatory campaign that has effectively shut the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway and left the global economy reeling.

Iran continues to launch dozens of ballistic missiles and drones across the region on a daily basis, according to an NBC News tally of the Gulf states’ attack counts. Though the number of projectiles it fires has declined markedly since the first few days of the conflict, it has maintained a steady stream of attacks across a swath of regional targets.

The U.S.-Israeli air campaign has battered Tehran and cities across the country, destroying homes and killing more than 1,900 people, according to Iran’s deputy health minister.

U.S. and Israeli officials and commanders say the campaign is designed to decimate Iran’s missile and drone programs and that it will soon succeed in crippling Tehran’s ability to strike at countries in the region. The Israeli military said 70% of Iran’s missile launchers were disabled by the 16th day of the war. The Pentagon says it has degraded about 90% of Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities, though it has not provided more details.

“It comes down to how good is the intelligence, ours and the Israelis’, in terms of where everything is,” he said.

Iran may have dispersed more of its missile arsenal around the country than previously believed, used decoys and quickly excavated damaged missile bases to resume launches, Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at the Center for International Research at Sciences Po in Paris, told NBC News.

In the opening days of the war, Iran fired dozens of ballistic missiles at its neighbors. On the third day of the war, the number dropped sharply, and now Iran is typically firing fewer than 25 missiles a day at Gulf states.

As for drones, the number of attacks has also declined from the first few days of the conflict, when Tehran fired hundreds at its neighbors.

After the opening stage of the war, the number of Iranian aerial attacks has varied from day to day and country to country. The number of ballistic missiles fired daily has declined overall. Iran has kept up a steady rate of drone attacks, targeting Gulf states with an average of roughly 120 drone attacks per day since the war’s start.

According to government officials in the region, only a small number of missiles and drones evade air defense systems.

In the first 11 days of the war, the United Arab Emirates successfully intercepted 92% of ballistic missiles fired by Iran and nearly 94% of drones, according to the UAE’s defense ministry.

Kuwait’s government reported that all of the missiles fired at the country since Feb. 28 were either destroyed or fell far from any potential target.

But even with effective air defenses, Iran’s missiles and drones — and the debris from those that are intercepted — have killed and wounded civilians, inflicted significant damage on key energy facilities and jolted the global economy.

As of March 16, the Iranian attacks on Gulf states have killed at least 11 civilians and injured at least 268 others, according to a tally by Human Rights Watch based on information from Gulf states.

Smoke rises after an Iranian drone attack on a fuel depot at Kuwait International Airport on March 25, 2026. — Smoke rises after an Iranian drone attack Wednesday on a fuel depot at Kuwait International Airport.Anadolu via Getty Images

Taking aim at the region’s economic lifeline, Iran has launched dozens of drone and missile strikes on key parts of the Persian Gulf’s energy infrastructure — including oil fields, refineries, liquefied natural gas facilities and ports in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Iraq.

Earlier this month, Iran launched two missiles at the joint U.K.-U.S. Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, covering a distance of more than 2,000 miles. The launch indicated Iran’s missile arsenal was more potent than previously believed. For years, Tehran said it had chosen not to develop missiles with ranges beyond 1,250 miles.

An Iranian missile strike on Qatar’s natural gas facilities on March 18 knocked out 17% of the country’s liquefied natural gas export capacity at an estimated cost of $20 billion in lost revenue.

Iranian air attacks have targeted the Yanbu port in Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea, the Fujairah port on the eastern coast of the United Arab Emirates, the Shaybah oil field in Saudi Arabia, the Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, two refineries in Kuwait, the Lanaz refinery in northern Iraq and the Bapco Energies refinery in Bahrain.

Governments in the region say it will take years to fully repair the damage to Gulf energy sites.

Israel also has come under a barrage of retaliatory missile and drone attacks since the war began, but it has not released information on the precise number of attacks or how many Iranian projectiles have been intercepted. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, the Israel Defense Forces’ international spokesperson, last week said Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel since the start of the war. At least 18 Israeli civilians have been killed and thousands wounded, according to Israeli authorities.

Add NBC News to Google

Dan De Luce

Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Justin Goldman

NBC News Desk Assistant

Jiachuan Wu

Jiachuan Wu is a senior interactive journalist for NBC News Digital.

Will the Iran ceasefire ease U.S. gas prices? Here's what experts think.

begin quote:

Will the Iran ceasefire ease U.S. gas prices? Here's what experts think.

10H ago

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

60% of U.S. experiencing Drought conditions!

According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report released on April 2, nearly 60% of the contiguous U.S. is experiencing drought conditions, an increase of about 5% from the beginning of March. The Lower 48 now has the largest extent of drought since November 2022.

partial quote from previous article.