What Lies In This Abandoned Mine In England Is Astonishing. Check Out These Underground Photos.

Mike Deere is an urban adventurer and photographer who decided to explore beyond the surface level – literally. In an era when everything is documented and recorded, Deere finds forgotten spaces in the British underground.

He took a trip to Box Freestone Mine located in Wiltshire, England and took some amazing shots of what’s been left. The mine was used to quarry stones all the way from the Roman era into the modern period. It was taken over by the MOD (Ministry of Defense) in the 20th century as air intake for the secret Cold War complex next door, the Burlington Bunker.

Today, the mine is an important roosting spot for bats and is categorized as a biological Site of Specific Scientific Interest.

Here are some highlights from Deere’s exploration of the mine:

A particularly cavernous area of the mine.

Anti-personal grating that has long since been breached by explorers.

A winch truck left in the tunnels.

Workers who left their bottles, work tools, boots, and other supplies in the mine when work was stopped in 1968.

In one part of the mine, there are a series of brick monuments and “robots” built by other visitors to the site.

At some points in the mine, no visible light penetrates. About 90 km of the tunnels are completely dark.

This part of the mine is called the Cathedral. It’s more like a rabbit hole!

These photos are fascinating. Who knows what’s lying directly under our feet? There’s only one way to find out as Deere proves to us.

Sources: Viral Nova, Mike Deere

New layer in human eye discovered

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown layer lurking in the human eye.

The newfound body part, dubbed Dua's layer, is a skinny but tough structure measuring just 15 microns thick, where one micron is one-millionth of a meter and more than 25,000 microns equal an inch. It sits at the back of the cornea, the sensitive, transparent tissue at the very front of the human eye that helps to focus incoming light, researchers say.

The feature is named for its discoverer, Harminder Dua, a professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Nottingham. Dua said in a statement that the finding will not only change what ophthalmologists know about human eye anatomy, but it will also make operations safer and simpler for patients with an injury in this layer.

"From a clinical perspective, there are many diseases that affect the back of the cornea, which clinicians across the world are already beginning to relate to the presence, absence or tear in this layer," Dua said in a statement.

Dua and colleagues, for example, believe that a tear in the Dua layer is what causes corneal hydrops, which occurs when water from inside the eye rushes in and leads to a fluid buildup in the cornea. This phenomenon is seen in patients with keratoconus, a degenerative eye disorder that causes the cornea to take on a cone shape.

Dua's layer adds to the five previously known layers of the cornea: the corneal epithelium at the very front, followed by Bowman's layer, the corneal stroma, Descemet's membrane and the corneal endothelium at the very back.

Dua and colleagues found the new layer between the corneal stroma and Descemet's membrane through corneal transplants and grafts on eyes donated for research. They injected tiny air bubbles to separate the different layers of the cornea and scanned each using an electron microscope.

Oldest cave art discovered in US shows prehistoric southern living

The oldest collection of prehistoric cave and rock art in the United States has been discovered in and around Tenessee. 

A large polychrome pictograph depicts humans, serpents and circles. 

The oldest and most widespread collection of prehistoric cave and rock art in the United States has been found in and around Tennessee, according to a new paper in the journal Antiquity that documents the art. It provides intriguing clues about what life was like for Native American societies more than 6,000 years ago. That is the age of the newly discovered cave art, one of which is seen here, showing what appears to be a human hunting. Other images are of a more direct spiritual/mythological nature.

Lead author Jan Simek, president emeritus and a distinguished professor of science at the University of Tennessee’s Department of Anthropology, told Discovery News, “The discoveries tell us that prehistoric peoples in the Cumberland Plateau used this rather distinctive upland environment for a variety of purposes and that religion was part of that broader sense of place.” Jan Simek, Alan Cressler, Nicholas Herrmann and Sarah Sherwood/Antiquity Publications Ltd.

A very large polychrome pictograph depicts humans, serpents and circles. The image, from the same overall site, but extending into Alabama, likely illustrated a myth spread across generations via word of mouth, with such permanent imagery further preserving its meaning, lost to history.

Simek explained, “Human images are often shown in activities suggesting heroic or ceremonial action, flying, transforming into animal shapes or reaching through the rock surface.” 

Simek said one of the images is “a black charcoal pictograph from an East Tennessee cave showing a transformational animal with the head, body, and tail of a dog or cat and the curving talons of a bird. Transformation is depicted in prehistoric art in both open-air sites and in dark zone caves in Tennessee.”

He and his colleagues suspect that the open-air rock art and the cave art were connected as part of “an organized alteration of the landscape,” with the creators of the images mapping “their conceptual universe onto the natural world in which they lived.” This happened in three dimensions, with upper (celestial in nature), middle (plants and animals) and lower (darkness, death and danger) worlds matching content with where it was placed in the region.

Simek describes another image of a bird was incised in wet mud banks deep inside Mud Glyph Cave in Tennessee. Mud, which is associated with the origin of the world by many Southeast native American peoples, was often used as a medium by prehistoric cave artists. This example is still plastic and therefore extremely fragile.”

Analysis of rock and cave art often employs non-destructive, high-tech tools, such as this high-resolution laser scanner operated by the RLS group in Chattanooga, Tenn. It precisely records the ancient art for conservation and analysis.

According to Simek, “Many of the images, like this black charcoal pictograph of a rayed circle from Dunbar Cave in Tennessee, can also be seen on portable religious objects found in temple mounds and other prehistoric religious contexts.”

Scorpions, with their painful stings, appear to have been part of the Native American vision of the “lower world.” At this extensive site, scorpion images were found in deep caves and not in the upper “celestial” area. In this case, an artist, or artists, produced the images by painting wet ashes onto the cave wall.

“These tiny turkey engravings from Tennessee were extremely difficult to photograph, since they are only a few centimeters long and composed of very shallow lines made with a fine pointed tool,” Alan Cressler, project photographer, told Discovery News.

“One of the best-known examples of Southeast cave art, these engravings of weapons and bird-human transformations form a complex composition in the dark zone of Devilstep Hollow Cave in Tennessee,” Simek said.

Co-author Sarah Sherwood of The University of the South, added, “Rock art sites are only one type of specialized activity site we see in the area; we know that people came to the Plateau to find specific foods, including animals and plants (in fact, certain native plants were domesticated in the area more than 3,000 years ago) and to obtain non-food resources; rock art was an integral part of how people conceived and used their landscapes.”

For a full list of paintings visit Discovery.com.

Photo shows 'UFO' above medieval castle

This image from the Netherlands appears to show some kind of object flying above Muiderslot Castle outside Amsterdam. (Elyktra Photoart)

What started out as a casual sightseeing trip to a historic castle in the Netherlands took a bizarre turn for one Dutch woman, who claims she may have spotted some kind of UFO.

Corrine Federer, 43, a business manager and amateur photographer, was visiting medieval Muiderslot Castle outside Amsterdam last month when she started taking pictures using her camera's high-dynamic range, or HDR, feature.

"In order to create HDR images, you take three or more exposures at the same time, because you then overlap the images and it gives you the full spectrum of light," Federer told The Huffington Post. [Top 10 Alien Encounters Debunked]

'It was completely quiet out. The more I flipped through the frames, it was kind of creepy.'

- Amateur photographer Corrine Federer

Federer took dozens of photos that day, but it wasn't until sometime later that she reviewed her HDR photos and saw a startling airborne shape in some of the images.

"It was a tubular-shaped object that had an S-shaped fin on it," Federer said. "If it had been any type of missile, it would've had multiple fins, but facing the same direction. We heard nothing. It was completely quiet out. The more I flipped through the frames, it was kind of creepy."

In HDR photography, several images are captured within a second, with each image using a different exposure level. The images are then combined to create a composite picture with a higher degree of clarity, depth and detail than would be possible with a single image.

Using photographic software, Federer was able to enhance the contrast in one of her images to reveal the object seen in the photo above.

Federer's images were analyzed by Ben Hansen, a former FBI special agent and host of the Syfy Channel's program "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files." He believes the images were not faked or manipulated.

"Having reviewed the raw files, there's no overt indication that the photos have been manipulated with post-editing software," Hansen told the Post. "The object's appearance is internally consistent with the rest of the photo."

Hansen, however, isn't convinced that the photographs show an aircraft of any kind.

"If I had to place my money on it, I would say that we're looking at insects," he said. "We typically see many wing protrusions on insect rod cases, but they do come in the single pair variety, too. It all depends on the shutter speeds and motion of the insects."

Indeed, insects are often the real culprit behind alleged UFO sightings, according to experts like Larry Engel, associate director of American University's Center for Environmental Filmmaking.

Insects are a consistent problem for filmmakers and photographers, Engel told LiveScience, "especially with wide-angle cameras or small-format cameras, as each emphasizes or records objects, including dust and bugs, close to the lens."

Other possibile explanations for the strange image captured in Federer's photographs include an airplane, a missile test or a weather balloon.

Federer, however, believes it's possible that the object she photographed could be some kind of UFO, even an extraterrestrial one. "I don't find it unreasonable to believe that there's another habitable planet somewhere that has started exploring space," Federer told the Post. "Maybe they're more advanced than we are and they've come by to see what's going on here."

Native American Lore #9: How the Great Chiefs Made the Moon and the Sun

How the Great Chiefs Made the Moon and the Sun

Hopi

Native American Lore

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Once upon a time, when our people first came up from the villages of the underworld, there was no sun. There was no moon. They saw only dreary darkness and felt the coldness. They looked hard for firewood, but in the darkness they found little.One day as they stumbled around, they saw a light in the distance. The Chief sent a messenger to see what caused the light. As the messenger approached it, he saw a small field containing corn, beans, squash, watermelons, and other foods. All around the field a great fire was burning. Nearby stood a straight, handsome man wearing around his neck a turquoise necklace of four strands. Turquoise pendants hung from his ears.
"Who are you?" the owner of the field asked the messenger.
"My people and I have come from the cave world below," the messenger replied. "And we suffer from the lack of light and the lack of food."
"My name is Skeleton," said the owner of the field. He showed the stranger the terrible mask he often wore and then gave him some food. "Now return to your people and guide them to my field."
When all the people had arrived, Skeleton began to give them food from his field. They marvelled that, although the crops seemed so small, there was enough food for everyone. He gave them ears of corn for roasting; he gave them beans, squashes, and watermelons. The people built fires for themselves and were happy.
Later, Skeleton helped them prepare fields of their own and to make fires around them. There they planted corn and soon harvested a good crop.
"Now we should move on," the people said. "We want to find the place where we will live always."
Away from the fires it was still dark. The Great Chiefs, at a council with Skeleton, decided to make a moon like the one they had enjoyed in the underworld.
They took a piece of well-prepared buffalo hide and cut from it a great circle. They stretched the circle tightly over a wooden hoop and then painted it carefully with white paint. When it was entirely dry, they mixed some black paint and painted, all around its edge, completing the picture of the moon. When all of this was done, they attached a stick to the disk and placed it on a large square of white cloth. Thus they made a symbol of the moon.
Then the Great Chiefs selected one of the young men and bade him
to stand on top of the moon symbol. They took up the cloth by its corners and began to swing it back and forth, higher and higher. As they were swinging it, they sang a magic song. Finally, with a mighty heave, they threw the moon disk upward. It continued to fly swiftly, upward and eastward.
As the people watched, they suddenly saw light in the eastern sky. The light became brighter and brighter. Surely something was burning there, they thought. Then something bright with light rose in the east. That was the moon!
Although the moon made it possible for the people to move around with less stumbling, its light was so dim that frequently the workers in the fields would cut up their food plants instead of the weeds. It was so cold that fires had to be kept burning around the fields all the time.
Again the Great Chiefs held a council with Skeleton, and again they decided that something better must be done.
This time, instead of taking a piece of buffalo hide, they took a piece of warm cloth that they themselves had woven while they were still in the underworld. They fashioned this as they had fashioned the disk of buffalo hide, except that this time they painted the face of the circle with a copper-coloured paint.
They painted eyes and a mouth on the disk and decorated the forehead with colours that the Great Chiefs decided upon according to their desires. Around the circle, they then wove a ring of corn husks, arranged in a zig zag design. Around the circle of corn husks, they threaded a string of red hair from some animal. To the back of the disk, they fastened a small ring of corn husks. Through that ring they poked a circle of eagle feathers.
To the top of each eagle feather, the old Chief tied a few little red feathers taken from the top of the head of a small bird. On the forehead of the circle, he attached an abalone shell. Then the sun disk was completed.
Again the Great Chiefs chose a young man to stand on top of the disk, which they had placed on a large sheet. As they had done with the moon disk, they raised the cloth by holding its corners. Then they swung the sun disk back and forth, back and forth, again and again. With a mighty thrust, they threw the man and the disk far into the air. It travelled fast into the eastern sky and disappeared.
All the people watched it carefully. In a short time, they saw light in the east as if a great fire were burning. Soon the new sun rose and warmed the earth with its kindly rays.
Now with the moon to light the earth at night and the sun to light and warm it by day, all the people decided to pick up their provisions and go on. As they started, the White people took a trail that led them far to the south. The Hopis took one to the north, and the Pueblos took one midway between the two. Thus they wandered on to the places where they were to live.
The Hopis wandered a long time, building houses and planting crops until they reached the mesas where they now live. The ruins of the ancient villages are scattered to the very beginnings of the great river of the canyon--the Colorado.

Native American Lore #8: Men Visit the Sky

Men Visit the Sky

Seminole

Native American Lore

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Near the beginning of time, five Seminole Indian men wanted to visit the sky to see the Great Spirit.

They travelled to the East, walking for about a month. Finally, they arrived at land's end. They tossed their baggage over the end and they, too, disappeared beyond earth's edge.

Down, down, down the Indians dropped for a while, before starting upward again toward the sky. For a long time they travelled westward. At last, they came to a lodge where lived an old, old woman.

"Tell me, for whom are you looking?" she asked feebly.

"We are on our way to see the Great Spirit Above," they replied.

"It is not possible to see him now," she said. "You must stay here for a while first."

That night the five Seminole Indian men strolled a little distance from the old woman's lodge, where they encountered a group of angels robed in white and wearing wings. They were playing a ball game the men recognized as one played by the Seminoles.

Two of the men decided they would like to remain and become angels. The other three preferred to return to earth. Then to their surprise, the Great Spirit appeared and said, "So be it!"

A large cooking pot was placed on the fire. When the water was boiling, the two Seminoles who wished to stay were cooked! When only their bones were left, the Great Spirit removed them from the pot, and put their bones back together again. He then draped them with a white cloth and touched them with his magic wand. The Great Spirit brought the two Seminole men back to life! They wore beautiful white wings and were called men-angels.

"What do you three men wish to do?" asked the Great Spirit.

"If we may, we prefer to return to our Seminole camp on earth," replied the three Seminoles.

"Gather your baggage together and go to sleep at once," directed the Great Spirit.

Later, when the three Seminole men opened their eyes, they found themselves safe at home again in their own Indian camp.

"We are happy to return and stay earthbound. We hope never to venture skyward again in search of other mysteries," they reported to the Chief of the Seminoles.

Breathtaking Aerial Landscapes of Iceland

Breathtaking Aerial Landscapes of Iceland by Sarah Martinet 

While on a recent trip to Iceland, photographer Sarah Martinet had the opportunity to shoot these amazing landscapes from a plane with open windows. You can see much more of her work (as well as more from this trip) on 500px and Facebook.

Native American Lore #7: Godasiyo the Woman Chief

Godasiyo the Woman Chief

Seneca

Native American Lore

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At the beginning of time when Trutle Island was new, a woman chief named Godasiyo ruled over an Indian village beside a large river in the East. In those days all the tribes spoke one language and lived in harmony and peace. Because Godasiyo was a wise and progressive chief, many people came from faraway places to live in her village, and they had no difficulty understanding one another.At last the village grew so large that half the people lived on the north side of the river, and half on the south side. They spent much time canoeing back and forth to visit, attend dances, and exchange gifts of venison, hides, furs, and dried fruits and berries. The tribal council house was on the south side, which made it necessary for those who lived on the north bank to make frequent canoe trips to consult with their chief. Some complained about this, and to make it easier for everybody to cross the rapid stream, Godasiyo ordered a bridge to be built of saplings and tree limbs carefully fastened together. This bridge brought the tribe close together again, and the people praised Godasiyo for her wisdom.
Not long after this, a white dog appeared in the village, and Godasiyo claimed it for her own. Everywhere the chief went the dog followed her, and the people on the north side of the river became jealous of the animal. They spread stories that the dog was possessed by an evil spirit that would bring harm to the tribe. One day a delegation from the north bank crossed the bridge to the council house and demanded that Godasiyo kill the white dog. When she refused to do so, the delegates returned to their side of the river, and that night they destroyed the bridge.
From that time the people on the north bank and those on the south bank began to distrust each other. The tribe divided into two factions, one renouncing Godasiyo as their chief, the other supporting her. Bad feelings between them grew so deep that Godasiyo foresaw that the next step would surely lead to fighting and war. Hoping to avoid bloodshed, she called all members of the tribe who supported her to a meeting in the council house.
"Our people," she said, "are divided by more than a river. No longer is there goodwill and contentment among us. Not wishing to see brother fight against brother, I propose that those who recognize me as their chief follow me westward up the great river to build a new village."
Almost everyone who attended the council meeting agreed to follow Godasiyo westward. In preparation for the migration, they built many canoes of birch bark. Two young men who had been friendly rivals in canoe races volunteered to construct a special water craft for their chief. With strong poles they fastened two large canoes together and then built a platform which extended over the canoes and the space between them. Upon this platform was a seat for Godasiyo and places to store her clothing, extra leggings, belts, robes, moccasins, mantles, caps, awls, needles and adornments.
At last everything was ready. Godasiyo took her seat on the platform with the white dog beside her, and the two young men who had built the craft began paddling the double canoes beneath. Behind them the chief's followers and defenders launched their own canoes which contained all their belongings. This flotilla of canoes covered the shining waters as far as anyone could see up and down the river.
After they had paddled a long distance, they came to a fork in the river. Godasiyo ordered the two young canoeists to stop in the middle of the river until the others caught up with them. In a few minutes the flotilla was divided, half of the canoes on her left, the others on her right.
The chief and the people on each side of her began to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the two forks in the river. Some wanted to go one way, some preferred the other way. The arguments grew heated with anger. Godasiyo said that she would take whichever fork her people chose, but they could agree on neither. Finally those on the right turned the prows of their canoes up the right channel, while those on the left began paddling up the left channel. And so the tribe began to separate.
When this movement started, the two young men paddling the two canoes carrying Godasiyo's float disagreed as to which fork they should take, and they fell into a violent quarrel. The canoeist on the right thrust his paddle into the water and started toward the right, and at the same time the one on the left swung his canoe toward the left. Suddenly Godasiyo's platform slipped off its supports and collapsed into the river, carrying her with it.
Hearing the loud splash, the people on both sides turned their canoes around and tried to rescue their beloved chief. But she and the white dog, the platform, and all her belongings had sunk to the bottom, and they could see nothing but fish swimming in the clear waters.
Dismayed by this tragic happening, the people of the two divisions began to try to talk to each other, but even though they shouted words back and forth, those on the right could not understand the people on the left, and those on the left could not understand the people on the right. When Godasiyo drowned in the great river her people's language had become changed. This was how it was that the Indians were divided into many tribes spreading across America, each of them speaking a different language.

Though the skeleton may only say...

Sant’Agostino, memorial to Cardinal Giuseppe Ranato Imperiali, by Paolo Posi (design) and Pietro Bracci (statuary), 1741 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

The dead are everywhere in the churches of Rome. Their tombs line the walls and dominate whole side chapels. Visit enough of them and you’ll come to expect the loose wiggle and hollow thunk of the marble slabs shifting beneath your feet that signal you’ve walked over a grave. If you imagine what’s just beyond every surface, the churches become mega-necropoli, Tokyos made of tombs instead of hotel rooms.

Unlike the relics of the saints, the entombed bodies of clergy and parishioners are largely hidden from the public, but the Baroque skulls and life-sized marble skeletons won’t let you forget they’re there. They speak to you. But as David Sedaris noted in When You Are Engulfed in Flames, the skeleton has a “limited vocabulary, and says only one thing: ‘You are going to die.”

Rome’s skeletons prefer to deliver the bad news in Latin, an appropriately dead language, but even so you can’t mistake the message or the fact they’re addressing you directly. An engraved skeleton on the façade of Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Mort unfurls a banner that reads, “Hodie mihi. Cras tibi.” “Today me. Tomorrow you,” it shrugs.

Though their message is grim, the skeletons are surprisingly lively. At San Francesco d’Assisi a Ripa Grande, they climb out from behind the artwork. At Gesù e Maria, one appears frozen in the middle of a solo danse macabre, flailing so wildly it seems to be coming apart. Even in the more staid examples, it isn’t unusual for the skull’s empty sockets to convey more emotion than busts of the living. It’s this kinetic quality that’s so arresting; life seems to bursts supernaturally from these dark corners devoted to death.

The juxtaposition is intentional. Bernini popularized the use of these unusually active skeletons, and in doing so masterfully expressed a tenant of his Catholic faith. The feathered wings signal these aren’t your average corpses. They’re complex allegories for the inescapable passage of time, and the belief that death and decomposition of the body are the first stages in the transition to everlasting life (or damnation, as the case may be). Though the skeleton may only say, “You are going to die," for some that implies, “You haven’t lived yet.”

Sant’Eustachio (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

San Lorenzo in Damaso, memorial to Allessandro Valtrini by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1639 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Gesù e Maria, memorial to Camillo del Corno by Domenico Guidi (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Façade of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, designed by Ferdinando Fuga, 1738 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Santa Maria del Popolo, tomb of Giovanni Battista Gisleni, made for himself prior to his death in 1672 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Santa Maria del Popolo, tomb of Princess Maria Eleonora Boncompagni Ludovisi, died 1745 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

San Pietro in Montorio: Detail of the relief carved on the tomb of Girolamo Raimondi by Niccolo Sale, chapel designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

San Pietro in Vincoli, memorial  to Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini by Carlo Bizzaccheri, died 1610 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

San Pietro in Vincoli, memorial to Cardinal Mariano Pietro Vecchiarelli, died 1639 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Sant’Onofrio, tomb of Marquis Joseph Rondinin (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Santa Maria sopra Minerva, memorial to Carlo Emanuele Vizzani, by Domenico Guidi, 1661 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

San Francesco d’Assisi a Ripa Grande, memorial to Maria Camilla and Giovanni Battista Rospigliosi, skeleton by Michele Garofolino, 1713 (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Words of Truth, A Prayer...

Words of Truth

A Prayer Composed by:
His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso The Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Honoring and Invoking the Great Compassion
of the Three Jewels; the Buddha, the Teachings,
and the Spiritual Community

O Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and disciples
of the past, present, and future:
Having remarkable qualities
Immeasurably vast as the ocean,
Who regard all helpless sentient beings
as your only child;
Please consider the truth of my anguished pleas.

Buddha's full teachings dispel the pain of worldly
existence and self-oriented peace;
May they flourish, spreading prosperity and happiness through-
out this spacious world.
O holders of the Dharma: scholars
and realized practitioners;
May your ten fold virtuous practice prevail.

Humble sentient beings, tormented
by sufferings without cease,
Completely suppressed by seemingly endless
and terribly intense, negative deeds,
May all their fears from unbearable war, famine,
and disease be pacified,
To freely breathe an ocean of happiness and well-being.
And particularly the pious people
of the Land of Snows who, through various means,
Are mercilessly destroyed by barbaric hordes
on the side of darkness,
Kindly let the power of your compassion arise,
To quickly stem the flow of blood and tears.

Those unrelentingly cruel ones, objects of compassion,
Maddened by delusion's evils,
wantonly destroy themselves and others;
May they achieve the eye of wisdom,
knowing what must be done and undone,
And abide in the glory of friendship and love.

May this heartfelt wish of total freedom for all Tibet,
Which has been awaited for a long time,
be spontaneously fulfilled;
Please grant soon the good fortune to enjoy
The happy celebration of spiritual with temporal rule.

O protector Chenrezig, compassionately care for
Those who have undergone myriad hardships,
Completely sacrificing their most cherished lives,
bodies, and wealth,
For the sake of the teachings, practitioners,
people, and nation.

Thus, the protector Chenrezig made vast prayers
Before the Buddhas and Bodhisativas
To fully embrace the Land of Snows;
May the good results of these prayers now quickly appear.
By the profound interdependence of emptiness
and relative forms,
Together with the force of great compassion
in the Three Jewels and their Words of Truth,
And through the power
of the infallible law of actions and their fruits,
May this truthful prayer be unhindered
and quickly fulfilled.

This prayer, Words of Truth, was composed by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, on 29 September 1960 at his temporary headquarters in the Swarg Ashram at Dharamsala, Kangra District, Himachal State, India. This prayer for restoring peace, the Buddhist teachings, and the culture and self-determina-tion of the Tibetan people in their homeland was written after repeated requests by Tibetan government officials along with the unanimous consensus of the monastic and lay communities.

Long-life Empowerment and a Long-life Offering to Conclude the 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment

July 14th 2014

Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India, 14 July 2014 - Last night’s full moon was still setting over the mountains around the Leh Valley this morning as tens of thousands of people converged on the Teaching Ground at Shiwatsel one last time. At about 7am His Holiness the Dalai Lama stepped out of his residence to walk to the Teaching Pavilion, stopping here and there to greet an old acquaintance or comfort an old or infirm person on the way. From the throne he announced:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama comforting elderly Tibetans as he arrives for the Long Life Empowerment & Offering Ceremony on the final day of the 33rd Kalachakra in Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India on July 13, 2014. Photo/Manuel Bauer

“I’m going to give the White Tara Long-life Empowerment. My preparations will take about fifteen minutes. During that time I’d like all of you to recite ‘Om Mani Padme Hung’. As there are about 150,000 people here, if each of you could recite 1000 Manis it will total 150 million for the benefit of all sentient beings. In the past, Tibetan masters praised the recitation of mantras because while you do that you don’t think about longevity, wealth and so forth.

“Avalokiteshvara is the deity of compassion, someone with whom Tibetans have a special connection. He’s the patron deity of Tibet. Over the last 60 years or so Tibetans in Tibet have undergone great difficulties. Despite having its own long history and cultural heritage, Tibet is at risk of becoming extinct. There is an urgent need for us to make every effort to preserve Tibetan religion and culture. Pursuing the path of non-violence, we are doing what pleases all the Buddhas, including Avalokiteshvara. Whether through the power of truth and taking refuge in the Three Jewels we achieve our goal in the short term or not, we can at least aim for it.

“It would be good if you can recite Mani mantras on the basis of understanding. Om like Hri has a threefold meaning implying body, speech and mind and even body, speech and mind have gross, subtle and subtlest aspects. As long as we are under the influence of negative emotions we are caught in the cycle of existence. And as long as we are subject to obstructions to knowledge we remain sentient beings. Once we overcome them we reach Buddhahood, at which point body, speech and mind become of one taste. Negative emotions and obstructions to knowledge are adventitious and can be eliminated.

“The word ‘Mani’ means jewel and implies something that fulfils our wishes, in this case the awakening mind of bodhichitta, the thought to help ourselves and others. ‘Padme’ means lotus and implies the wisdom understanding emptiness. ‘Hung’ means not letting these two separate; ensuring a combination of wisdom and bodhichitta.”

His Holiness gave the transmission of the mantra and suggested offering a verse of praise before beginning the recitation:

Your 1000 hands represent the 1000 universal monarchs
Your 1000 eyes represent the 1000 Buddhas of this fortunate aeon
You give teachings appropriate to the needs of beings
I pay homage to you, noble Avalokiteshvara.

May the prayers of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas be fulfilled,
May I attain the state of Avalokiteshvara,
And may all beings attain it as well.
May all beings be freed from the cycle of existence.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama conferring the Long Life Empowerment on the final day of the 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment in Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India on July 13, 2014. Photo/Manuel Bauer

His Holiness explained that he was going to give a Long-life Empowerment and that, among the many deities associated with longevity, the Tara of the Wish-fulfilling Wheel is the purified aspect of wind-energy. The movement in our minds, for example, is due to that energy. She has a special quality of helping beings by removing obstacles, such as obstacles to life.

“Let’s pray for the welfare of all those physically gathered here,” His Holiness advised, “and also for those inside Tibet, especially those who may have fallen ill for various reasons.”

He also mentioned the 4-500 million Buddhists in China, the country with the world’s largest Buddhist population, and people around the world dedicated to the welfare of others. His Holiness said he would conduct the empowerment of Tara of the Wish-fulfilling Wheel on behalf of them all. He remarked that many people in different parts of the world are facing trouble and not a few tyrants do them harm. He made the wish: “May the oppressed be relieved”. He suggested that when reciting the prayer for taking refuge in the Three Jewels, his listeners should remember that all 7 billion human beings in the world are directly or indirectly related to them. Like them, they all want happiness and not suffering.

His Holiness proceeded with the various means to offset hindrances to the empowerment. Offering the mandala and three representations of the enlightened body, speech and mind was done by Kathog Ge-tse Rinpoche, who His Holiness commended saying that his lineage has connections going back to the 7th and 8th Dalai Lamas.

With regard to the practice of tantra and the difference between Buddhist and Hindu practices, His Holiness mentioned that conversations with an accomplished Hindu yogi had revealed that the two traditions have inner heat, vase breathing, projecting the mind out of the body and working with the channels and drops in common. However, from discussions with Khunu Lama Rinpoche he concluded that the distinction between the traditions lies in Buddhist tantra’s being founded on an understanding of emptiness and the palace of the meditation deity’s representing the 37 Practices of Enlightenment. Buddhist tantra cannot be undertaken without a sense of bodhichitta and some understanding of selflessness. He then led the gathering in taking the Bodhisattva vows once more. 

With the conclusion of the Long-life Empowerment and the distribution of blessed substances among the crowd, the focus shifted to the making of a Long-life Offering to His Holiness, presided over by Ganden Tri Rinpoche, Rizong Rinpoche, and also based on a White Tara ritual. To begin with there was chanting of a lineage prayer, which included past masters of India and Tibet as well as the Fourteen Dalai Lamas.

The Oracle Tsering Che-nga during the Long Life Offering to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the final day of the 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment in Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India on July 13, 2014. Photo/Manuel Bauer

In the course of the ritual, the oracle known as Tsering Che-nga or the Five Long-life Sisters was invoked. She gathered Ganden Tri Rinpoche, Sharpa Chojey, Drikung Kyabgon, Sakya Dungsey, Samdhong Rinpoche and the Sikyong in a circle around His Holiness. The State Oracle, Nechung, was also invoked in the old Phodrang, approaching the teaching pavilion through the spell-bound crowd at a run. He came before His Holiness with a powerful and convincing display of respect. At the same time, perhaps half a dozen cases of spontaneous possession took place among members of the audience. These energetically animated individuals were assisted in coming before His Holiness, where they paid their respects, after which the possessions ceased.

Ganden Tri Rinpoche began his formal laudatory speech of request to His Holiness to live long with a verse from the 7th Dalai Lama’s praise to Avalokiteshvara:

Homage to Arya Lokeshvara

The compassion of all the conquering Buddhas of the ten directions,
Numbering as many as the atoms of the countless worlds,
As deep as an ocean and attached, completely attached, to living beings,
From which was born that perfect splendour of wonderful qualities
Renowned as Avalokiteshvara, the great guide,
The jewel mountain upon whom we should all rely.
To you I bow.

As members of the Jonangpa tradition were presenting a huge mandala offering to His Holiness and a procession of offerings was beginning, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah arrived. He greeted His Holiness with visible affection and took his seat beside the throne. Groups of Ladakhi men and women danced and sang before the pavilion as the Long-life Offering came to an end.

There followed a number of concluding speeches. Geshe Konchok Namgyal, co-Chairperson of the Kalachakra Organizing Committee (KOC) gave a tentative financial report with the assurance that a final account will be given in due course. Dr Tondup Tsewang spoke of the Committee’s great joy and celebration at the successful conclusion of the event attended by an estimated 150,000 people including: 86,000 local and Tibetan devotees, 9,000 monastics, 12,000 from the Transhimalayan Region, 6,100 foreigners from 73 countries, more than 25,000 registered children under the age of 15 and 10,000 volunteers. He remarked with satisfaction that event resources had been mobilized within Ladakh and not out-sourced.

Jammu and Kashmir Chier Minister Omar Abdullah speaking at the conclusion of the 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment in Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India on July 13, 2014. Photo/Manuel Bauer

Local MP Thupstan Chhewang, Chief Executive Councillor of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Rigzin Spalbar, and Nawang Rigzin Jora, Minister for Urban Development all spoke in glowing terms at the successful conclusion of the event, which has seen no accidents or unfortunate incidents.

Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah first acknowledged His Holiness and other dignitaries present. He spoke with eloquent sincerity of having shared the greatest disaster with local people when a cloudburst in 2010 unleashed an immensely destructive flood. Now in 2014 he was happy to share in their greatest success with the holding of the 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment in Ladakh, whose blessings he said would go a long way towards restoring peace and confidence in the population. He mentioned his own great respect and affection for His Holiness, saying that it was a matter of great personal satisfaction to him that he had met him on the occasion of the first Kalachakra in Ladakh in 1976 when his grandfather was Chief Minister, during the region’s second Kalachakra in Zanskar in 1988 when his father was CM and now on the third occasion when he was himself Chief Minister. He offered thanks to His Holiness for his presence personally and on behalf of the State of Jammu & Kashmir.

Descending from the teaching throne, His Holiness stood at the front of the platform to make his own concluding remarks.

“The Kalachakra Empowerment has gone very well, in beginning, middle and end. I thank the organizers for their good work. Today, we’ve done the White Tara Long-life Empowerment and the Long-life Offering, in connection with which Ganden Tri Rinpoche has been performing a ritual of accomplishment for the past week. I pray that I can and will live long.

‘Today, along with human beings many gods, goddesses and protectors came forth. I’d like to thank them to for showing their support and solidarity with us. According to the Buddhist description of the world, there are many different kinds of beings, some we can see and some we cannot. A friendly scholar once told me he was surprised that while I seem to have a scientific outlook, I accept the existence of many other kinds of beings. I told him that it’s not a matter of superstition, rather a simple acceptance of reality. However, just as it is not good for human beings to engage in harmful activity, I counsel these spirits and other beings not to engage in mischief.

“Today, we have the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir with us, the third generation of his family to hold the post. Sheikh Abdullah, a friend and contemporary of Pandit Nehru showed great affection for Tibet. Farooq Abdullah, his son, is a friend of mine. Omar Abdullah, the young grandson who is here with us, is also a friend of Tibetans. I’d like to thank him very much for coming here today.”

Turning to the Chief Minister, he said with a chuckle:

“ I understand that your party suffered a setback in the recent elections;  this is something that happens from time to time. When political leaders I know in different parts of the world experience electoral defeat, I often write to them to say that this is just part of democracy, which is a good thing. India is the world’s most populous democracy, a country where democracy has become deeply rooted, which is one of its greatnesses.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking to the crowd of over 150,000 people at the conclusion of the final day of the 33rd Kalachakra Empowerment in Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India on July 13, 2014. Photo/Manuel Bauer

“The other leaders who spoke just now I’ve also known for a long time. I remember Thupstan Chhewang when his hair was black and now it’s completely white. Rigzing Jora I’ve known for many years. We are not just acquaintances, we know each others’ minds; we are trusted friends.

“Finally, I want to say that I don’t take any fee by way of offerings for the teachings I give. I follow Tseley Rangdol in feeling that to do so would be like selling the Dharma. This great mandala offering you Jonangpas have presented to me, I thank you and request you to take it back to use in your monastery in Shimla.

“I have nothing else to say other than to encourage you all to turn your minds to Dharma. Thank you.”

His Holiness held brief private meetings with some of the guests while announcements were made for the public to view the sand mandala. Then, still taking time to smile and wave to well-wishers and comfort the old and infirm who awaited him, he climbed into the car that drove him back to his residence.