Lost Links: Short Version 10 May 2017

6min. 45 sec. : text and maps with video clips

 

 

Lost Links

41 minutes

This video/text is uploaded but unlisted on Youtube.

Feel free to privately share the link with people who may be interested in the topic of how the Greeks from Antiquity may have been influenced, or actually - even fully aware of the Buddha's teachings.

 

Lost Links

40 minutes: text and maps with video clips

Lost Links: Short Version 10 May 2017

6min. 45 sec. : text and maps with video clips

 

The “Lost Links” text/video/animation explains how the “Four Elements” were not an empty abstract term but a powerful concentration technique that was taught and practised widely by the Greeks from antiquity, who may have known meditation techniques as taught by the Buddha 2,500 years ago.

 

Indo-European languages, migration patterns and thousands of artefacts found all over Europe are not understood by modern scholars, there are many questions. When juxtaposed against a timeline, the possibility that Buddhism  as propagated by Ashoka and Menander reached the far corners of Europe and was more wide-spread than currently believed not only  becomes visible, but undeniable.

 

Did the Greeks from antiquity meditate…? 

If the "unwritten doctrines" of Plato (i.e. books such as “Parmenides” and “Philebus - on the Greater Good”) are investigated against the parameters of the “Four Great Elements” and other meditation techniques there is a 100% match.

Parmenides is cleverly written and describes the Four Elements Meditation in a breathtaking way. I only grasped it on the second-last page, breathtaking!  I now consider Parmenides to be on my list of five best books I ever read, if I had to make one.

After realising this link with the Four Elements I read his other books again and understood the deep link with Theravada Buddhism: the Greeks knew what the Buddha taught.

Plato’s books are explaining the deeper levels of the Buddha’s teachings - I have not come across any exception. Only in his letters (Epistles) did he specifically describe techniques, for example “White Kasina” in his explanation about the conflict with Dionysius in the Seventh Letter.

 

So many open-ended academic questions covering several disciplines are answered, that it is worth re-investigating early Persian, European and Christian history. The surprising answer may be that the “Dark Ages” were not so dark after all and that the Migration Period was a very peaceful period in European history. 

One has to sincerely reflect on how history was and still is manipulated by those who write it down. 

 

Setti Wessels, Myanmar 2017

LOST LINKS: CHAPTERS and ADDENDUM

For an easy overview: “Chapters” 1-7, not indicated as such in the video/text.

 

 

Chapter 1: Buddha’s past life stories in the west (minute 00:00 start):

 

Chapter 2: The “multi-nationals” of 500 BC meets the Buddha

(minute 01:41)

Video Overview Pa Auk Meditation Techniques (minute 4:00 > 4:53)

 

Chapter 3: About fire 

(Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Buddha) (minute 4:58)

Video 6:10 > 6:58 The Most Venerable Pa Auk Tawya Sayadaw explains "fire" and white light (Buddhist)

 

Chapter 4: Parmenides: was there a method? (minute 6:58)

Did Parmenides practise the "4 great elements meditation”: earth, water, fire, air?

Video 8:30 > 9:44 Pa Auk Sayadaw explains Four Elements Meditation: 4 elements > particles (kalāpas)

 

Chapter 5: Mind’s eye: Plato’s "Unwritten doctrines"? (minute 9:44)

Minute 11:15 Plato’s Theory of Forms explained

Min. 11:42 Plato’s Cave Simile explained

Min. 12:41 Socrates Mind’s eye: Buddhist Heart Base (“mind sense door”)?

Video Pa Auk Sayadaw explains “Mind > heart base” (minute 12:41 > 16:46)

Min 16:46 Plato’s Seventh Letter: “Secret doctrines”: link to Buddhism

Min 17: 25 : Socrates’ death > VIDEO Death moment (minute 17:44)

Video Death moment (minute 17:44 > 19:11) VIDEO MindEye2

Min. 19:57 Plato searches for a teacher / Cynics / Plato’s family are politicians

 

Chapter 6: Philosopher Kings and India

(5.1 Alexander the Great, 5.2 Ashoka, 5.3 Menander) (minute 20:28)

Min. 20:28 Plato’s Philosopher King …? (Alexander the Great, Ashoka, Menander)

Min. 21:57 Did they meet philosophers…? (Onesicritus, Megasthenes: eye-witness)

Min. 22:40 Philosopher Kings in the East? (Socrates, Plato defines Philosopher kings)

Min. 23:20 Ashoka (Buddha’s knowledge taught over the world - not written down)

Min. 23:42 “Unwritten doctrines" of the Buddha 

Video Pa Auk Sayadaw/ Monks chanting (min 23:55) & minute 24:24>24:58

Min. 25:57 Menander: Did the Greeks meditate? 

(Menander, Nagasena/Questions of Milinda, Sanchi, Nalanda University India)

 

Chapter 7: Evidence of "Lost Links”? Min27:20

7.1 Egypt: Library Alexandria/Eratosthenes (from Cyrene), Carneades (from Cyrene), Tarsus philosophers (min27.52), “Periplus” map of trade from Alexandria>India (3 ships per week), Cynics in Athens/Rome

7.2 Were the Cynics ‘Buddhist’? Min 28:41 Socrates describes the Buddha 

(Socrates: Philebus - on the Greatest Good)

VIDEO > space>kalāpas; rebirth

Min 29:52 Gandhara: Greeks make the first images of Buddha from 100 BC

min 29:59 Cicero: Cynics in Rome

7.3 Min 30:14 Son of “a god” (Julius Caesar, Augustus): Romans become Christian

Min 30:24 Son of “the God” (Jesus of Nazareth), Plotinus, Mani> Kushan Empire > St. Augustine of Hippo 

Min 31.35 Catholic Church eradicates Buddha-knowledge, 

Min 31:43 END: Techniques still exist / Mandalay Myanmar: Stone slabs describe techniques (Abhidhamma) 

 

END Lost Links

 

Addendum : truth stranger than fiction?

Did Buddhism reach Europe? Celtic artefacts unexplained

Min 32:04 Perseplis 330 BC: Alexander and the Ptolemic dynasty in Egypt

min 32:24 Celts in Egypt, Greece, Galatia

min 33:03 Thousands of amulets found in Europe: Jupiter’s Oak or Buddha’s Bodhi?

min 33:34 Hercules: Buddha's protector or pagan animist?

min 34:10 Druids: the Celtic version of Buddhist monks?

min 35:21 Indo-Greek King Menander: Gundestrup Cauldron Denmark 

(Ashoka’s “wheel of Dhamma” and “club of Heracles” artefacts found all over Europe)

min 38:28 Did Plato meditate? (Why "secret doctrines"?)

min 40:18 Why “secret doctrines”? ( “gods of destruction” versus “the greater good”)

 

 

END Addendum: truth stranger than fiction? min 41:20