Parinirvana & John Frum

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Sorry for the week or so of not blogging, rest assured I have been celebrating in the mean time and now that I've got internet, I shall get back to daily blogging from today (and also be typing up notes from the missing days).

But for now, today.

Starting with the death of Buddha. Parinirvana is celebrated by Buddhists who remember the death of Buddha and think about their own mortality.

I attempted meditation - I am not good at it. For starters, the guided meditations I tried annoyed me almost instantly - the soft voices speaking very, very slowly. So I learnt to breathe from a Buddhist monk's youtube video (proof the internet has everything).

I read the rest of 'Introduction to Buddhism' that I began on Friday. Describing the life and death of Buddha. I feel that I don't know enough about the religion - as I find the teachings very frustrating, and feel that it might be because I don't entirely get it.

John Frum, a Ni-Vanuatu religious festival that centres on John Frum that began in the 1930s. There are several origin stories about the religion. John Frum was either an American or a a native man dressed in western-style clothing who appeared on the island and promised the native people of Tanna that their would be a new age in which all white people would leave Vanuatu (including the missionaries) and that they would receive cargo from the USA, all they had to do was reject all aspects of European society and return to their own traditions and customs.

In 1941, followers of John Frum spent all their money, left the churches, schools and plantations and moved inland to participate in feasts, dances and rituals.Despite repression by the European colonial authorities, who imprisoned and exiled leaders, 300,000 American Troops were stationed on Vanuatu and the surrounding islands of the New Hebrides during WWII, and they brought with them an enormous amount of cargo. symbolic landing strips were built by followers to encourage American airplanes to land and bring cargo, and every year on the 15th February a parade marches across the island, with the letters USA painted on their chests.

Tomorrow: Day of the Shinning Star - when I celebrate the Eternal Leader's birthday (Kim Jong-il's birthday, North Korea).

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