Some quick links to keep you updated — CNN: “Report: 100 dead in Tibet violence.” / “In the field: Tibet in Turmoil.” And this just in from the NYT (10:30 am): “China Gives Tibet Protesters Surrender Ultimatum.” Seems China thinks the Dalai Lama has “engineered” the protests.

…And here’s the first contribution to our own little pro-Tibet campaign, made by the mighty Nate of Precious Metal:

And here’s another little update: Richard Gere is suggesting a boycott against China.

We’ve told you about The Firstborn before. Luckily, they’ve just posted two new songs from their forthcoming album, “The Noble Search”. As they write on their MySpace page, “this album, based on the Buddhist Scriptures, represents further experiments in the direction first explored in 2005’s ‘The Unclenching of Fists’.” Awesome stuff. Hear it here!

AND: Bruno of The Firstborn was kind enough to send the lyrics. Here they are.

2 – Water Transformation

Enter the stream,

Embrace true Sight…

Within the nature of “reality”,

Towards realities within.

Hark, stream-enterer!

Destroy the seeds for future birth

In the three lower realms.

Now, your mind is made of clear light…

Towards non-return.

Transformed – through mudrä [gesture]

Transformed – through mantra [speech]

Transformed – through samadhi [concentration]

United with the dharmakaya.

Aware of body, aware of feelings…

Aware of mind, aware of dharmas…

Thus is the being purified,

Surmounting sorrow and lamentation.

Pain and grief having disappeared,

Thus is the being transformed…

Transformed – through mudrä [gesture]

Transformed – through mantra [speech]

Transformed – through samadhi [concentration]

United with the dharmakaya.

Towards non-return.

Four stages in the process of enlightenment were enumerated: first the “stream-enterer”, whose initial vision into the nature of reality destroyed all seeds for rebirth as an animal, ghost or hell-being, and who could enter nirvana in a maximum of seven lifetimes; secondly, the “once-returner”, who would be reborn once more in this world; thirdly the “never-returner”, who would never be reborn in our world but would enter nirvana after rebirth in a heaven; and finally the arhat, the “worthy one”, who destroyed all seeds for future rebirth in this life, as the Buddha had done, and entered nirvana upon death.

Tantric tradition holds that enlightenment has an intrinsic nature, residing naturally in this mind and in this body, needing only be recognized. Thus, esoteric practice is intended to unite the disciple with the dharmakaya or “dharma body”, transforming the body through gesture, the speech through the reciting of mantra and the mind through concentration.

3 – Flesh to the Crows

Contemplate the body

As a body.

Ardent, fully aware and mindful…

Having put away all grief for the world.

Aware…

Of breath, and of posture.

Aware…

Internally, externally.

Not clinging to anything in this world,

As this body too shall become… Flesh to the Crows.

Aware…

Of death and its nature.

Aware…

Internally and externally.

Contemplate the body

As a body.

Ardent, fully aware and mindful…

Having put away all grief for the world.

Aware…

Of the body’s arising factors.

Aware…

Of the body’s vanishing factors.

Aware…

Of the body’s arising and vanishing factors.

Impermanent, in sati.

Suffering, in sati.

Independent, in sati.

Not clinging to anything in this world,

As this body too shall become… Flesh to the Crows.

The ekayana magga, translated loosely as “direct path”, is a technique in which concentration and insight are developed together, based upon the Foundations of Mindfulness. The Buddha describes four objects of mindfulness: the body, feelings, the mind and the dharmas (or “mind-objects”).

The mindfulness of the body, in fact, involves fourteen exercises, culminating in what is known as “charnel field contemplations”, mindfulness of the body in nine successive stages of decomposition. The practice of the mindfulness of the body is designed to induce the understanding that the body is a collection of impure elements that arise and cease in rapid succession, utterly lacking any kind of permanent self.

This insight into the three marks of existence (impermanence, suffering and no-self) in turn leads to nirvana.

The practice of the four foundations of mindfulness can lead to nirvana very quickly, as the Buddha states at the end of the sutta: “If anyone should develop these four foundations of mindfulness in such a way for seven days, one of two fruits could be expected from him: either final knowledge here and now or, if there is a trace of clinging left, non-return.”