One of the best known and most respected Zen masters in the world today. A poet & peace and human rights activist, Thich Nhat Hanh (called Thây by his students) has led an extraordinary life. Born in central Vietnam in 1926 he joined the monkshood at the age of sixteen. The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and remain meditating in the monasteries, or to help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastation of the war. Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, helping to found the "engaged Buddhism" movement. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.

In Saigon in the early 60s, Thich Nhat Hanh founded the School of Youth Social Service, a grass-roots relief organization that rebuilt bombed villages, set up schools and medical centers, resettled homeless families, and organized agricultural cooperatives. Rallying some 10,000 student volunteers, the SYSS based its work on the Buddhist principles of non-violence and compassionate action. Despite government denunciation of his activity, Nhat Hanh also founded a Buddhist University, a publishing house, and an influential peace activist magazine in Vietnam.


After visiting the U.S. and Europe in 1966 on a peace mission, he was banned from returning to Vietnam in 1966. On subsequent travels to the U.S., he made the case for peace to federal and Pentagon officials including Robert McNamara. He may have changed the course of U.S. history when he persuaded Martin Luther King, Jr. to oppose the Vietnam War publicly, and so helped to galvanize the peace movement. The following year, King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Subsequently, Nhat Hanh led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks.

In 1982 he founded Plum Village, a Buddhist community in exile in France, where he continues his work to alleviate suffering of refugees, boat people, political prisoners, and hungry families in Vietnam and throughout the Third World. He has also received recognition for his work with Vietnam veterans, meditation retreats, and his prolific writings on meditation, mindfulness, and peace. He has published some 85 titles of accessible poems, prose, and prayers, with more than 40 in English, including the best selling Call Me by My True Names, Peace Is Every Step, Being Peace, Touching Peace, Living Buddha Living Christ, Teachings on Love, The Path of Emancipation, and Anger. In September 2001, just a few days after the suicide terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he addressed the issues of non-violence and forgiveness in a memorable speech at Riverside Church in New York City. In September of 2003 he addressed members of the US Congress, leading them through a two-day retreat.


Thich Nhat Hanh continues to live in Plum Village in the meditation community he founded, where he teaches, writes, and gardens; and he leads retreats worldwide on "the art of mindful living."


Teachings

Thich Nhat Hanh's key teaching is that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live in the present moment instead of in the past and in the future. Dwelling in the present moment is, according to Nhat Hanh, the only way to truly develop peace, both in one's self and in the world.

Writing to Thich Nhat Hanh ...

If you'd like to write a letter to Thich Nhat Hanh, you can mail it to one of his addresses in Plum Village or send your letter to [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we will forward your letter to Thich Nhat Hanh.

How do you pronounce Thich Nhat Hanh?

The English pronunciation is: Tik · N'yat · Hawn

However since Vietnamese is a tonal language, this is only a close approximation for how one would pronounce it in Vietnamese. (His name is sometimes misspelled as Thich Nhat Hahn, Thich Nhat Han, and Thich Nat Han.)

By his students he is affectionately known as Thay (pronounced "Tay" or "Tie"), which is Vietnamese for "teacher."


An Excerpt from Mindfulness of Ourselves Mindfulness of Others by Thich Nhat Hanh ...




Anger. There's a seed of anger in every one of us. There is also a seed of fear, a seed of despair. And when the seed of anger manifests, we should know how to recognize it, how to embrace it, and how to bring [ourselves] relief. When the seed of fear manifests itself as energy in the upper level of our consciousness, we should be able to recognize it, to embrace it tenderly, and to transform it. And the agent of transformation and healing is called mindfulness.


Mindfulness is another kind of energy that is in us in the form of a seed also. If we know how to practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, then we should be able to touch the seed of mindfulness in us and transform it into a zone of energy. And with that energy of mindfulness, we can recognize our anger, our fear, our despair. We practice recognizing and embracing.

When a mother working in the kitchen hears the cries of her baby, she puts anything she is holding down and goes to the room of the baby, picks the baby up and holds the baby dearly in her arms. We do exactly the same thing when the seed of anger and fear manifest in us; our fear, our anger is our baby. Let us not try to suppress and to fight our fear and our anger. Let us recognize its presence; let us embrace it tenderly like a mother embracing her baby.

When a mother embraces her baby, the energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the baby. The mother does not know, yet, what is the cause of the suffering of the baby, but the fact that she is holding the baby tenderly can already help. The energy of tenderness and compassion in a mother begins to penetrate into the body of the baby, and the baby gets some relief right away. The baby may stop crying. And if the mother knows how to continue the practice of holding the baby mindfully, tenderly, she will be able to discover the cause of the suffering of the baby.


When the seed of anger is watered, when the seed of fear is watered, whether by yourself or by another person or by the mass media ... because the mass media in this country has watered a lot the seed of anger and fear in us ... We should know how to recognize, embrace and bring relief to our anger and our fear.

The attitude is the attitude of non-duality, non-violence. Our fear, our anger are not our enemies; they are us. We have to treat our fear, our anger in a most non-violent way, the most non-dualistic way, like we are treating our own baby. So if you are a good practitioner of meditation, you will know exactly what to do when the seed of anger is watered and begins to manifest in the upper level of your consciousness. With the practice of mindful breathing or mindful walking, you generate the energy of mindfulness, and exactly with that energy, you can recognize the energy of anger, of fear in you.

Anger is… energy number one. By practicing mindful breathing or mindful walking, we generate the energy number two: the energy of mindfulness. We call it in Buddhist terms: mindfulness of anger. Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. When you drink your water mindfully, that is called mindfulness of drinking. When you eat mindfully, that is called mindfulness of eating. When you breathe mindfully, in and out, that is called mindfulness of breathing. When you walk mindfully, it is called mindfulness of walking.

So, when you recognize your anger, embrace your anger tenderly with that energy of mindfulness, it is called mindfulness of anger, mindfulness of despair, mindfulness of fear. We should be able to learn and help the young people to learn how to do it. It's very important.

The Buddha offers us very concrete and simple exercises in order to become mindful. The first exercise on mindful breathing is: Breathing in ... I know I am breathing in. Breathing out ... I know I am breathing out. You can reduce the length of the sentence to one word. In. Out. While you are breathing in, you just recognize that this is your in breath, and you use the word, in. And you are wholly concentrated on your in breath. Nothing else.

You become your in breath. You're not thinking of anything. You're not thinking of the past, of the future, of your projects. You release everything. You just follow your in breath, and you become one with your in breath. And the energy of mindfulness is generated together with the energy of concentration.


Peace is Every Step : Meditation in Action (DVD)

Peace is Every Step : The Path Of Mindfulness (Book)


References :

• Plum Village
• Explore Faith
• Parallax Press

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Billy Meier's Contacts with the Pleiadians is one of the most notable cases of an ongoing Extraterrestrial Contact with beings from another world. While some of us continue to hold this image of Extraterrestrials as 'Aliens' would be surprised beyond belief to find out that there are thousands if not more such human civilizations out there evolving at different stages respectively.

Some of these advanced civilizations share our DNA and are believed to have played an important part in the creation of human life on planet earth ... From all the descriptions and information on the Pleiadians circulated on the Internet there is one plausible factor common to all ... they look a lot like us however are multidimensional light beings now, having gone through similar stages of evolution on their home planet Erra in the Pleiades Star System 400 light years from Earth.


The Silent Revolution Of Truth is yet another thrilling Billy Meier documentary by Michael Horn from www.TheyFly.com about the Billy Meier contacts with the Pleiadians ...


Release Notes ...


In 1958, Billy Meier predicted the Iraq Wars, AIDS, global warming and terrorism and… he’d already been to the moon.

Is it the biggest hoax… or the most important story in human history?

Now you can decide for yourself !

The long awaited, new, feature length documentary on the Billy Meier case is finally here ! Now, for the first time, you’ll see and hear Billy Meier’s life story in his own words !


You’ll see photos and films of:

• Meier handling the infamous laser pistol!
• Multiple UFOs and a UFO hovering…over Meier’s head!
• A demonstration of a recent magnetic levitation invention that proves Meier’s UFOs are the real thing!
• Scientific examination of the UFO sounds and metal samples!
• The apple grown more than 30 years ago…in a Plejaren space ship!
• The secret Nazi UFO…used with devastating results against Allied bombers in WWII!
• The MGM FX UFO model and Meier’s 60+ words per minute, one-handed typing!
• …and never before released Meier UFO photos!

You’ll learn about Billy Meier’s :

• Contacts with the Plejaren, Sfath, which began when he was…five years old!
• Conservative parish priest – and UFO contactee – Father Zimmermann, who helped him cope with his otherworldly experience!
• Early hardships, youth prison and his escape from the French Foreign Legion!
• Travels into the past and future with Asket, from the Dal universe!
• Meetings with world leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to…Saddam Hussein!
• Role as The Phantom in the Middle East, apprehending serial killers and mass murderers!
• Loss of his left arm in a brutal accident in Turkey and the life-threatening delirium that followed!
• Dream that saved him from a would be assassin!

And there’s new information about:

• The discovery of the Talmud Jmmanuel, the 2,000 year-old document, so heretical it threatens the very foundation of all the major religions!
• Who Jmmanuel really was and how the name “Jesus Christ” was later given to him…with photos of the actual tomb of the crucifixion!
• Spiritual teachings – and predictions – from the Plejaren!

You’ll also meet and hear from:

• Family members sharing what it was like growing up with a UFO contactee!
• Numerous other witnesses, including a retired UN diplomat!
• Other witnesses, some who also photographed the UFOs!

Fair and balanced! You’ll also learn about:

• What a professional therapist has to say about people who say they’ve been in contact with extraterrestrials!
• The analysis of Meier’s and the UN diplomat’s honesty by an expert consultant to the U.S. Army Special Forces – who depend on the same observational skills in life and death situations!

And there’s more in the Special Features section!

• See a professional skeptic take his best shot at Meier’s evidence…and Michael Horn’s rebuttal!
• Learn the history of the human race in the universe over millions and millions of years!
• Hear the story of how the first interstellar songwriting collaboration took place – and hear the song itself!

Feature length: 1:32 Special Features: :38 Total running time: 2:10

Once you see this new film you’ll want to have everything available on the Meier case !


Quite True ... You can find some more Billy Meier Documentaries below ...


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Randolph J Winters presents incredible information about the Billy Meier Contacts with Extraterrestrial Light Beings from the Pleiades in this fascinating documentary of what Randy calls a 'Fringe Meeting' ... ツ ... sharing notes from his book 'The Pleiadian Mission - A Time of Awareness'.

Author and Lecturer, Randolph Winters has been investigating UFO's for over 20 years. His interest began in 1979 when information surrounding a Swiss farmer named Eduard "Billy" Meier came to his attention. Randolph's interest in the Billy Meier UFO case led him to Schmidruti, Switzerland where he met Billy and spent several months with him at his home, getting well acquainted, after which Billy shared with him the information that he had received from the Pleiades.


There had been over 115 physical contacts producing 1800 pages of "Contact Notes" covering the conversations that he had with these off world visitors and another 2000 pages Billy had written on special subjects such as the Meditation, the Psyche, the Origin of Life, Science, Philosophy, and Poetry. Randolph is considered an authority on the Pleiadian case. He is the author of the book, The Pleiadian Mission, and the video, The Pleiadian Connection.

A well-known speaker, he has traveled to all parts of Earth sharing the knowledge from the Pleiades.

The Pleiadian Mission is a book about the life and experiences of Billy Meier, a Swiss farmer in Switzerland. This is a book of education and awareness. It provides the explanation and understanding of higher consciousness that will be needed by the people of earth to move into the New Age and create a future of peace.

The Pleiadian Mission is about the spiritual information given to the people of earth about our "life cycles" and our role in the Universe. Man has been searching for a reason for his existence, the meaning of his life and what lies ahead in the future. This book will explain and answer these questions based on the information from the Pleiadian teachers who visited earth.



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'Ibogaine : Rite Of Passage' is a revealing documentary produced and directed by Ben De Loenen about the most promising treatment modality for drug dependency available now, Ibogaine. It is the only substance we know, which is capable of blocking acute withdrawal in opioid addicts as well as cocaine and alcohol.

Daniel Pinchbeck refers to his evolutionary Iboga ritual experience with the Bwiti Tribe of Africa in his book '2012 The Return Of Quetzalcoatl' ...

Here is an excerpt ...

"At the beginning of the night-long ordeal, while the tribe drummed and sang around me, I saw, open-eyed, a golem-like figure made of rough tree branches sit down on a bench, cross his legs, and lean forward, observing me curiously. I was later told this was the spirit of Iboga, coming to meet me. Afterward, I watched Scrabble-like letters turn in the air to spell out a curious phrase : "Touchers Teach Too" - one of a series of hints that seemed vaguely prophetic. For much of the night I was taken on a detailed tour of my early life. Many reports of Iboga trips describe such a biographical survey, though nobody knows how a complex alkaloid molecule can unlock such deep doors in the psyche, or how neurochemical reactions can create the palpable sense I had - reported by others as well - of a presence guiding me through the process."

Although the FDA decided in 1993 that Ibogaine showed enough signs of being an effective tool in the treatment of addiction, money is the problem; this natural occurring molecule cannot be patented and is not a maintenance drug with addictive properties; reason for the pharmaceutical industry not to invest in its development... Educate yourself about this unique tool ! Our vision of saving the many lives of people with a chemical dependence is only as strong as the people who support us !


About three years ago, Ben De Loenen read an article about Ibogaine in a Dutch magazine. The cultural/spiritual background of this substance and the economical interests of the pharmaceutical companies in particular caught Ben's attention. Ben was a second year student at the Utrecht School of the Arts at that moment, and decided to dedicate his final exam project to this subject. This was the beginning of a long research period in which he managed to get the cooperation of many people in the field. In particular Howard Lotsof, who in the late sixties discovered that after ingesting Ibogaine, he could instantly stop his heroin use without having any withdrawal symptoms or craving. Next to that he had gained more insight in the cause and nature of his addiction because of the psychoactive phase he had gone through and has been very supportive in the realization of this project.

Three treatments were recorded for the film; one in Sara’s House in Breukelen (The Netherlands), one in the Iboga Therapy House in Vancouver and the third one in the Ibogaine Association in Mexico. Because of the large amount of footage shot for the film, only the last treatment was finally used in the final edit. Also a lot of interviews were conducted with ex-addicts, treatment providers, the father of an ex-addict, a psychotherapist, scientists, a Bwiti shaman and Howard Lotsof. And finally a traditional Bwiti initiation in Central West Africa was shot in June of 2004.

What’s finally used in the film brings the spectator close to the personal experience of the (ex-) addict and focuses less on the science behind Ibogaine. Next to that, the spectator becomes a witness of the spectacular traditional Bwiti-ritual, which contrasts very much to the use of Ibogaine in the Western World. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to get people of pharmaceutical companies and regular treatment centers in front of the camera, as they didn’t react on the invitation, or stated that they "had no comments." For more information on the film, go to www.ibogainefilm.com.

The ritual eating of iboga has been a psychopharmacological sacrament in the Bwiti religion for several centuries, and was likely practiced among Pygmies in much earlier times (Fernandez, 1982). In Gabon and elsewhere in West Central Africa, ibogaine is ingested in the form of scrapings of Tabernanthe iboga root bark. The ritual aim of eating iboga has been conceptualized as "binding"; the binding across time through ancestral contact, or binding participants socially on the basis of a common shared experience of a distinctive consciousness and system of belief (Fernandez, 1982; Fernandez and Fernandez, 2001).

In the colonial era Bwiti became a context of collective psychological resistance to the anomie and demoralization related to the strain on indigenous community and family institutions. Bwiti offered a dignified realm of spiritual endeavor, "the work of the ancestors" and social cohesion. Following Gabonese independence in 1960, Bwiti has remained constellated with national identity and contemporarily retains significant social and political importance (Swiderski, 1988; Samorini, 1995).

Iboga has not commonly been used to treat addiction in the traditional African Bwiti context. Iboga has been sought as a treatment for some somatic conditions, in particular for infertility (Fernandez, 1982). In the colonial era the indigenous community experienced a crisis due to a sharp decline in fertility caused by venereal disease stemming from prostitution and the separation of men from their families by the large-scale physical relocation of indigenous workers.

The possibility of an objective basis for the use of iboga in this setting is suggested by evidence associating iboga alkaloids with antimicrobial activity or effects on cell-mediated immunity. Iboga alkaloids are reportedly active against Candida albicans in the intact animal (Yordanov et al., 2005). In vitro studies indicate reversal of multidrug resistance in human cancer cells (Kam et al., 2004) and activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Rastogi et al., 1998), human immunodeficiency type 1 virus (Silva et al., 2004), and the tropical parasite Leishmania amazonensis (Delorenzi et al., 2002).

The first observation of ibogaine as treatment for substance related disorders in 1962 involved a network of lay drug experimenters who ingested a variety of hallucinogens and systematically recorded their experiences (Lotsof and Alexander, 2001). Withdrawal symptoms were unexpectedly absent in heroin-dependent individuals who had taken ibogaine. Common to various sociological definitions of the term "subculture" is a system of beliefs, norms and values apart from a superordinate culture (Clarke, 1974; Dowd and Dowd, 2003).

The ibogaine subculture has elicited wariness from the "superordinate culture" of conventional clinical medicine (Kleber, 2001), and has been invoked regarding the null hypothesis that ibogaine's reported effect in opioid withdrawal is not pharmacologically mediated, but is instead accounted for by suggestion and ritual (Sharpe and Jaffe, 1990). The ibogaine subculture is also significant as the setting of case report evidence that influenced the decision of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to pursue its ibogaine project (Alper, 2001), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a clinical trial (Mash et al., 1998).


Ibogaine is unscheduled in most of the world, with the exception of the US, Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia where it is illegal. Ibogaine has not been popular as a recreational drug regardless of its legal status (Kleber, 2001), and apparently only two arrests involving ibogaine are known to have occurred in the US (Ranzal, 1967; Lane, 2005). Iboga alkaloids reportedly are not self-administered, and do not produce withdrawal signs following chronic administration in animals (Aceto et al., 1992).

As of late 2006, ibogaine hydrochloride (HCl) was available for $400-$500USDper gram (ethnogarden.com, 2006), and the dosage typically used for opioid withdrawal is in the range of 1-2 g. Purity on the order of 97-98% has been reported on certificates of analysis for supplies of ibogaine HCl used in the subculture. Ibogaine is also available as Tabernanthe iboga extract or dried root bark.


The Iboga Experience from a Buddhist Perspective ...

First off let me start by saying that my belief system is closest to that of the Buddhist and in fact I adhere somewhat to a Tibetan Buddhist way of perceiving things. Thus my experience in the jungles is coloured by this perspective and to try and describe things without referring to Buddhist conceptual models would be tying my own hands.

Profound experiences of insight have happened to me on a couple of occasions, experiences that left me with a harmonious and centred being, and the effects stayed with me for up to a year. These experiences were understandings of the essential emptiness that is our fundamental reality, the 'skylike' nature of mind. Some came through psilocybin and others through trichocereus cactus, but all were all conducted with the aid of a loving and benevolent teacher, without whom I would never have approached these states of being.

Essentially these states allowed me to perceive that the fabric of our reality is our imagination, and thus with that understanding, anything, absolutely anything is possible in the universe (however, it is important that we realise that it is all a product of our imagination). This is the fundamental nature of exoreality - and endoreality. The intellectual, however, can never come close to the experiential as much as we try. Using words and concepts to describe the subtlety of the experience can be compared to using a ten pound hammer to forge butterfly wings - the wrong tools, clumsy and blunt.

Iboga functions in a subtly different way from these other plants. In small amounts it seems to somehow slow the metabolism down, more so the more you take. Your entire being becomes still and, through the stillness, you begin to see. You begin to be aware of what is going on around you, as your intellectual mind is stilled and the mechanisms that cloud your mind with random thought are all put on slow, or pause. Other senses start coming alive, as the five senses mix synergistically. This is the case up until you take the barely sub-lethal doses they give you in an initiation.

Then you really start to see! Somehow the iboga manages to change your vibration, slow you down to such an extent that you become super-aware on the physical plane (exoreal) of events occurring at other dimensional vibrations (endorealities). Your body cools down, you seem no longer to even breathe and it would look to an outsider as if you were comatose. In fact, although your motor coordination is not functioning properly, your consciousness is now coming into its own.

References :

• Ibogaine.org
• MAPS - Ibogaine (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies)
• A Bwiti Iboga Initiation
  

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