Buddhist builder buried alive for two hours survives by meditating

A Chinese builder buried alive for two hours used Buddhist meditation techniques to control his breathing and survive on just the air trapped in his safety helmet.

Wang Jianxin, 52, should have died within five minutes of being entombed 6ft underground as he worked in a ditch in Ningbo city, eastern China.

But by slowing his breathing he eked out an air pocket in front of his face until rescuers dug him out.

Mr Wang said: “I knew the air wouldn’t last, so I made myself relax and concentrated on my breathing by meditation.

“It was very still and quiet down there. I was surprised at how easy it was to focus my mind and achieve inner calm, even though I believed I was facing death.

“Later, it became very hot and suffocating. I thought I might not make it back to the surface. Then I heard the sounds of voices and digging, and suddenly I could see again. It was the longest two hours of my life.”

A doctor at the scene in Ningbo, eastern China, said: “It’s a miracle.”

Mr Wang was digging a 15ft ditch at a building site when a wall of earth collapsed, burying him alive.

He said: “I had my back to the wall. I didn’t know it was falling until it was on top of me.”

Workmates and 11 firefighters dug Mr Wang out.

One said: “As we went deeper, we used our hands to dig as we feared our shovels might injure him. Then we had to hold the soil back with fencing.”

It took two hours but finally they pulled out Mr Wang alive from the earth that could have been his muddy grave.

Meditation has a history dating back thousands of years in China.

However, it is a technique more usually associated with Buddhist monks and doctors of traditional Chinese medicine than construction workers. Mr Wang was one of the lucky ones on China’s building sites.

The country has a woeful record of safety in the workplace with 101,480 people killed last year in work-related or road accidents, down by about 10 per cent from 2006. – dailymail

Dissecting UN UFO rumours

For the past couple of weeks the Internet UFO community has been abuzz with rumours of a secret meeting held at the UN building in New York City in mid-February. The meeting, alleged to have been attended by representatives from most UN member nations, as well as ‘three US senators’, was called to discuss the increased rate of UFO sightings and how best to deal with their impact on the staus quo. Also at stake was how best inform the public of the ongoing presence of our ‘neighbours’, as the ‘leaked’ statement referred to non-human extraterrestrial visitors.

The story was distributed via members of the Exopolitics and Disclosure movements. Both these groups seek to force Earth governments into open admission of their alleged contacts with advanced ET civilisations, the hope being that they possess both the technology and the inclination to save humankind from inevitable and imminent environmental and geopolitical disaster.

Here’s the outline of the story so far and a somewhat confusing graphical representation of what little information is out there.

What follows is my initial take on the material, and further along, an excellent dissection from veteran UFOlogist and thinker Jacques Vallee:

Beyond the fact that the sources for this leak were flimsy at best (and quite possibly non existent), and that the story was being promoted by groups with clear spiritual/political agendas, my own suspicions were aroused by the preconditions for ‘disclosure’. Effectively these are global economic, environmental and political stability by 2009. Given the current state of world affairs (or the perpetual state of world affairs) none of these conditions are the least bit likely to be met before 2900, let alone 2009.

From the original information release:

2009 was raised as the year when an important change in official attitudes concerning the UFO phenomenon could be made…

This indicated an important policy shift were the study of UFO’s would be officially encouraged. However, certain global conditions would have to be met for the official opening. Most important appeared to be social stability in G-8 countries and the maintenance of liberal democratic systems in developing nations…

The meetings were very concerned about social upheaval from continued UFO sightings and the testimonies of individuals claiming to have first hand knowledge about UFO’s, extraterrestrial life, and future global events. It was reported that adverse public reactions to UFO sightings could have a dramatic economic impact that could lead to recessions in some countries. – strangeattractor

42 Principles of Maat 2000 years before Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, eight of them at least, were taken from the Egyptian Principles of Ma’at written at least 2000 years earlier.

Written at least 2,000 years before the Ten Commandments of Moses, the 42 Principles of Ma’at are one of Africa’s, and the world’s, oldest sources of moral and spiritual instruction. Ma’at, the Ancient Egyptian divine Principle of Truth, Justice, and Righteousness, is the foundation of natural and social order and unity. Ancient Africans developed a humane system of thought and conduct which has been recorded in volumes of African wisdom literature, such as, these declarations from the Book of Coming Forth By Day (the so-called Book of the Dead), The Teachings of Ptah-Hotep, the writings of Ani, Amenemope, Merikare, and others.

…

One aspect of ancient Egyptian funerary literature which often is mistaken for a codified ethic of Ma’at is Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, often called the 42 Declarations of Purity or the Negative Confession. These declarations varied somewhat from tomb to tomb, and so can not be considered a canonical definition of Ma’at. Rather, they appear to express each tomb owner’s individual conception of Ma’at, as well as working as a magical absolution (misdeeds or mistakes made by the tomb owner in life could be declared as not having been done, and through the power of the written word, wipe that particular misdeed from the afterlife record of the deceased).

Many of the lines are similar, however, and they can help to give the student a “flavor” for the sorts of things which Ma’at governed—essentially everything from the most formal to the most mundane aspect of life.

Many versions are given on-line, unfortunately seldom do they note the tomb from which they came or, whether they are a collection from various different tombs. – wiki

Here is one collection to give you the general idea:

I have not done iniquity.
I have not robbed with violence.
I have not stolen.
I have not made any to suffer pain.
I have not defrauded offerings.
I have done no murder nor bid anyone to slay on my behalf.
I have not trimmed the measure.
I have not spoken lies I have not robbed God.
I have not caused the shedding of tears.
I have not dealt deceitfully.
I have not acted guilefully.
I have not laid waste to the land.
I have not set my lips against anyone.
I have not been angry or wrathful without a just cause.
I have not lusted nor defiled the wife of any man.
I have not polluted myself.
I have not caused terror.
I have not done that which is abominable.
I have not multiplied words exceedingly.
I have never uttered fiery words.
I have not judged hastily.
I have not transgressed nor have I vexed or angered God.
I have not stopped my ears against the words of Right and Truth .
I have not burned with rage.
I have not worked grief.
I have not acted with insolence.
I have not avenged myself.
I have not stirred up strife.
I have not been an eavesdropper.
I have not wronged the people
I have done no harm nor have I done evil
I have not worked treason.
I have never fouled the water.
I have not spoken scornfully.
I have never cursed God.
I have not behaved with arrogance.
I have not envied or craved for that which belongs to another.
I have not filched food from the mouth of the infant.
I have done no hurt unto man, nor wrought harm unto beasts.
I have never magnified my condition beyond what was fitting.

Vatican updates thou-shalt-not list

In olden days, the deadly sins included lust, gluttony and greed. Now, the Catholic Church says pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experiments are on its updated thou-shalt-not list. Also receiving fresh attention by the Vatican was social injustice, along the lines of the age-old maxim: “The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”

n the Vatican’s latest update on how God’s law is being violated in today’s world, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, was asked by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano what, in his opinion, are the “new sins.”He cited “violations of the basic rights of human nature” through genetic manipulation, drugs that “weaken the mind and cloud intelligence,” and the imbalance between the rich and the poor.

“If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that’s especially social, rather than individual,” said Girotti, whose office deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution.

It’s not the first time that the Vatican has sought to put a modern spin on sin. Last year, the Vatican took on the problem of highway accidents, issuing a kind of “Ten Commandments” for drivers against the sins of road rage, alcohol abuse and even rudeness behind the wheel. – yahoo

California IDs First Wolverine in 80+ Years

Wolverines are big, secretive weasels with bad attitudes, but that doesn’t stop some people from getting awfully excited about them.

In California, wildlife enthusiasts are buzzing because a Oregon State University graduate student’s remote-sensing camera appears to have photographed a wolverine, making it California’s first substantiated wolverine sighting since the 1920s. Katie Moriarty was trying to get a shot of the American marten, but her research project probably is getting more attention now, thanks to the accidental grainy shot.

Here’s how the U.S. Forest Service describes the wolverine, and the photograph:

The North American wolverine is the largest member of the weasel family.* Adult males weigh 26 to 40 pounds, while females are 17 to 26 pounds. It resembles a small bear, with a bushy tail and broad head. Its diet includes carrion, small animals, birds, insects and berries.

U.S. populations are found largely in the Northern Cascades in Washington, and Northern Rockies in Montana and Idaho. The nearest known resident population is about 900 miles north of the Tahoe National Forest in Northern Washington.

Attempts have been made for decades to photograph wolverines in California, according to Bill Zielinski, a Forest Service scientist with the Pacific Southwest Research Station and an expert at detecting wolverines, marten and fisher. He said periodic sightings have occurred, but never scientifically confirmed using detection methods that produce verifiable evidence. – dailygreen