Have You Seen the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas in Montana?

This video has lit up our imaginations! Can you say road trip? Dateline NBC has captured the peaceful and sacred feeling of this wonderful site, called The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas. Located just north of Arlee, Montana, the multi-acre garden is nestled on a beautiful valley that is part of an Indian reservation for the Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Created through the visionary guidance of Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche, the Garden aligns positive properties of the physical world in a sacred architectural arrangement based on the eight-spoked Dharma wheel. This symbol evokes the turning or awakening of the enlightened qualities of altruism and wisdom.

 

From their website we read: The purpose of the Garden is to bring about positive transformation within those who visit, in response to the negativity that abounds in the world today. One thousand hand-cast Buddha statues are arrayed around the central figure of Yum Chenmo, or the Great Mother, the manifestation of the perfection of wisdom. One thousand stupas, representations of the enlightened mind, line the outer circle. Each enshrine an image of the female deity, Tara. Elegantly adorned with native trees and flowers, it is hoped that the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas will instill lasting impressions of peacefulness and compassion. The Garden is also a center for Tibetan Buddhist studies offering teachings, meditation classes, empowerment ceremonies and traditional gatherings.

Can’t get to Montana? Check out the Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, NY

Read our article Visiting Chuang Yen Monastery


Merlian News Podcasts Spiritual Healer, David L. Cunningham

| by Merlian News

In this interview, David talks with Merryn Jose about his extraordinary life experiences and his work as a spiritual healer. In 1990 David L. Cunningham was a captive of Saddam Hussein for 100 days during the Gulf War. He was one of many “human shields” strategically placed in prisons adjacent to the Iraqi military’s armament facilities. He made his personal peace with God and pledged to use his spiritual healing “gifts” to heal others if and when he was allowed to live and be released from captivity…

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The Apprentice Cards from Monique Fay, Photographer & Healer

Monique Fay is a pioneer and a visionary in the fields of photography and healing. Her practice, based in Santa Barbara, CA, offers a unique synthesis of skills, wisdom and experience. She is the author of The Book of Fay and has just released The Apprentice Cards, a wonderful set of healing cards geared toward inspiring insight and personal transformation. The photos are stunning, and the experience of working with them immersive and powerful.

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Animal Spirituality

| by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D.

Do animals have spiritual experiences? Yes they do! We’re not the only spiritual beings by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. in Animal EmotionsIn conjunction with Psychology Today blogger, Steven Kotler, I’ve been pondering whether nonhuman animals (“animals”) have spiritual experiences and are they religious.

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Looking at Sacred Geometry

| by Merryn Jose

I had a startling vision a couple of decades ago that led me to research Sacred Geometry. When I did, I was astonished to find that the beautiful symbols I saw in my vision have been known about and studied for thousands of years. From the Ancient Chinese geomancers to Plato, from the Egyptians and the Hindus, through to the modern work of Nassim Harimein (video), the same powerful geometric shapes recur over and over again.

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Validating Your Spiritual Experience

Many years ago I, too, had what they now call an “STE,” or Spiritual Transformative Experience. Like others, I only told my mother and a few close friends at the time. In my case, I was fortunate in that it was not preceeded by an accident or life threatening illness, instead it came seemingly out of nowhere one evening. Just like a Near Death Experience, I was enveloped in light, spoke with guides, and felt the ecstatic bliss of unconditional love.

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Q&A with Dan Millman, Author of Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit

Those who seek a greater spiritual dimension may be searching for glasses that are perched upon our head. Now, after all the experiences I describe in my new book, I see and feel spirit everywhere. We swim in spirit, we breath it, and it breathes us, interpenetrating every cell. We need only open our eyes and hearts in moments of free attention.

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Meditation, Spirituality & Brain Changes with Dr. Andrew Newberg

You’ve probably heard of Dr. Andrew Newberg’s work on meditation, even if you didn’t realize it — he’s the scientist who did the ground breaking studies of Tibetan monks meditating that showed how dramatically it changed the brain . He went on to study nuns praying and Sikhs chanting and found similar brain states as those of meditation. His ground breaking work led to the development of a new field of science called “neurotheology,” which studies the relationship between the brain and religious experience.

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Happy New Year from Merlian News!

Happy New Year to all our dear readers, writers, and staff! We hope that 2021 is a year of growth, learning, and creativity. As Neil Gaiman said, “May your year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books, and kiss someone who who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

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To a Boy Who Found Out It Wasn’t Santa Who Brought the Presents by Robert Moss

I remembered a conversation in which I suggested that the original Santa was a shaman of the Sami, a reindeer-herding people of Lapland, reputed to have the power to call up the winds and fly through the air, and that the reason his coat is red is that it was the flayed skin of a reindeer. I have seen Sami drums with images of a shaman flying through the three tiers of the shamanic cosmos on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. But while there is a rich ethnography on Sami shamanism, I could think of no source that would be suitable for a young boy. So I took on the assignment of writing my own version of the first Santa, addressed to a boy in danger of losing his belief in Christmas magic.

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