Footsteps of the Buddha in Google Earth

[Note: Footsteps of the Buddha now has it's own web page! This blog entry contains old information. Please check out the new web page here!]

Today is Visakha Puja (Vesak), otherwise known as Buddha Day or the day of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and passing away. Actually, the day is either today (May 19th, 2008) or tomorrow depending on who's lunar calendar reckoning you're using.

A couple of days ago I started working on a tour of the Buddha's life in Google Earth and, even though I wouldn't consider it to be 100% complete yet, I thought I'd release it today to commemorate the occasion.

So I present to you Footsteps of the Buddha for Google Earth. Google Earth is free and can be downloaded here. Please let me know if any of the locations are wrong or if there's a more correct chronological order.

[EDIT: Please visit the new web site here.]

If you stop the playback and click on the location, a description will appear which, for many places, begins with a sutta excerpt of something that the Buddha said in that location or about his life in that location. Descriptions also contain links to sources of material included in the descriptions.

Again, please let me know if you have any suggestions, places to add, or corrections of any sort. All help with this will be greatly appreciated. You can either leave comments in this post or send email to the address listed in the description in Google Earth (which is also visible in the photo above.)

Have a Happy, Compassionate, Sympathetic, and most importantly Equanimous Visakha.

The Dhamma Brothers

I learned about this documentary from this article.

I knew that Buddhist teachers had been working with inmates in the US at various times, but this is the first I've heard of a documentary on the subject.

The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of the prison inmates at Donaldson Correction Facility who enter into this arduous and intensive program. This film, with the power to dismantle stereotypes about men behind prison bars also, in the words of Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking), "gives you hope for the human race."

Sadly it is often the people who can benefit most from Buddhist teachings who don't have access to them. Realistically I don't think we can expect to see hugely amazing transformations from this (not every criminal is Angulimala) but it is good to see someone trying.

Paul Harrison Interview on "Buddhism and Politics"

From the Buddhist News Digest:

Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations recently did an interview with Professor Paul Harrison, who currently holds the George Edwin Burnell Professorship in Religious Studies at Standford University and is a faculty member of the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies. The interview is entitled "Buddhism and Politics," and deals mainly with the increasing role Buddhist monks have played in modern politics across Asia.

Link to the original post where you can listen to the interview. Dr. Harrison seems to know what he's talking about.

The Word of the Buddha or the Disputations of his Disciples?

Interesting looking paper from the president of the Pali Text Society:

Los Angeles, CA (USA) -- The Pali Nikayas contain a number of different schemes of the Buddhist path. These schemes are characteristically set out in the Nikayas by way of variations on stock formulas presented in a variety of narrative frames.

It has been argued by scholars that these different schemes represent competing voices within early Buddhist texts, and some scholars even argue that it is possible to identify the authentic voice of the Buddha among these voices.

Such an approach assumes that the Nikayas are best considered as the end result of a somewhat haphazard and unsystematic process of compilation and redaction that reveals instances of incoherence and inconsistency which can then be used as a basis for distinguishing between early and late in the different path schemes.

Rupert Gethin argues that such an approach has overlooked the extent to which the Nikayas are a systematically redacted whole: the product of a particular process of compilation and editing which the compilers and editors deliberately employed in order to present a particular vision of the Buddhist path.

Analysing the schemes and formulas both numerically and contextually, Gethin attempts to articulate what the vision was by establishing what the compilers of the Nikayas wished to highlight and emphasize in their presentation of the Buddhist path.

Rupert Gethin will be presenting this paper at the University of Bristol on Friday, March 14, 2008, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM at 243 Royce Hall.

I'm going to try to obtain his book, The Foundations of Buddhism.

Free Tickets Gone! (Dalai Lama in Ann Arbor)

Looks like the Dalai Lama is really popular in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I unfortunately don't have an University ID and a friend of mine who does, but didn't get in line a 5 AM, didn't manage to get tickets. I received the following in an email from Helaine Hunscher, Program Coordinator:

I was just informed by the Michigan Union Ticket Office that all of the free tickets to the 2 PM April 20 Sustainability Lecture by His Holiness the Dalai Lama have been given away in just three hours!

The only options to see his Wege Lecture on Sustainability are:

1) Volunteer as an usher all day Sunday (you would be required to work the Sunday morning Teaching Session hosted by Jewel Heart plus the Sunday afternoon Sustainability Lecture hosted by U-M) We will need 100 volunteers for each of the two days. Please visit: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/dlvolunteering/home

2) Watch a live web-cast of the Lecture. Instructions to join the web-cast will be posted, when arranged, at: http://css.snre.umich.edu/facts/dalailama.html

3) Because the Lecture tickets are free, there may be “no-shows” and we don’t want any empty seats at Crisler. Tickets all stated that seats would be held only until 1:45 PM, at which point, ushers will release any open seat to the general public, regardless of having a ticket or not.

There are some other non-free talks by the Dalai Lama the same day and the day before the free talk. Tickets are probably still available for those, but I'm personally going to pass.

Dalai Lama Speaking in Ann Arbor

I just thought I'd spread the word that on Sunday, April 20, 2008 - 2:00pm to 3:30pm the Dalai Lama will be speaking in Ann Arbor, MI, USA at Crisler Arena:

As part of 2008 Earth Day activities, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will deliver a special Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability at 2 PM, Sunday, April 20, 2008. This is sponsored by the University of Michigan Office of the President and by the Center for Sustainable Systems in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and Buddhist leader last visited Ann Arbor in 1994, when about 9,000 people attended a Thursday night lecture at Crisler Arena.

The Wege Lecture is free and open to the public, though tickets are required. Beginning March 4, 2008 tickets to the Wege Lecture will be available to University of Michigan students, faculty and staff who bring their UM ID to the Michigan Union Ticket Office (MUTO). The general public can obtain tickets there or by calling the 734-763-TKTS starting March 5, 2008. There is a limit of two tickets per person.

Probably not surprising since I'm a Theravada Buddhist, but the Dalai Lama isn't my spiritual idol as he is for some. In fact, I tend to think he's more of a politician than a spiritual leader.

According to the Tipitaka, monks are not really supposed to be involved in politics. The relevant sections are in DN 2:

"Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to talking about lowly topics such as these — talking about kings, robbers, ministers of state; armies, alarms, and battles; food and drink; clothing, furniture, garlands, and scents; relatives; vehicles; villages, towns, cities, the countryside; women and heroes; the gossip of the street and the well; tales of the dead; tales of diversity [philosophical discussions of the past and future], the creation of the world and of the sea, and talk of whether things exist or not — he abstains from talking about lowly topics such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue.
...
"Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to running messages and errands for people such as these — kings, ministers of state, noble warriors, priests, householders, or youths [who say], 'Go here, go there, take this there, fetch that here' — he abstains from running messages and errands for people such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue.

Also see Buddhist Monastic Code II, Chapter 10. As stated in a previous post, it also appears impossible to maintain a monk's standard of virtue as a ruler.

The Dalai Lama is probably better off, and freer to spread his message less subject to criticism as part of a government in exile rather than one that's actually running a real country. Not that I think the invasion of Tibet was necessarily a wonderful thing, but it's always good to look on the positive side.

Regardless of my disagreement with the idea of monks in politics, I think the Dalai Lama is a nice guy and generally goes a good job as the foremost advocate for Buddhism in the world. I won't pass up an opportunity to hear him speak.