"Ultimate Hope of Humanity" returns to Amsterdam, NY

 Neighbors report no WPHO presence at the 

former St. Michael's Church during the winter months

The World Peace and Health Organization is returning to Amsterdam, as of this week, after some drama over the winter. In January there was another break-in, this time at 10 Leonard Street, an old warehouse purchased by the WPHO.  Although the theft only involved "an undetermined amount of wire and piping," the sect's holy master, Ziguang Shang Shi, declared: "We want to find a better place to invest." 

But Amsterdam Police Detective Owen Fuchs said that "the burglary is not consistent with a hate crime. Suspects in hate crimes typically leave behind derogatory messages or destroy other property." And the Amsterdam Fire Department  found the building unsecured on December 28, as were many other WPHO properties I saw last October.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that this was simply a garden-variety crime, due as much to WPHO careless as to anything else,  the group backed out of a deal to buy the vacant Clara S. Bacon elementary school for $460,000. On Jan 24 the group’s lawyer, Jason Brott of Johnstown, demanded a refund of the WPHO’s deposit, claiming that his clients have been “the targets of vandalism and hate crimes since their quest to invest over a billion dollars in Amsterdam began.” He also asserted that “many members of the group have recently received threatening phone calls.”  The investors who are supposedly providing the billion dollars are, according to Mr. Brott, are “concerned about their own health and safety, as well as the health and safety of the may(sic) students who are expected to reside in the 48 properties recently purchased by the group, who would be learning in the school building.”

As to the 48 empty houses and stores  purchased at auction last year,  Pete Iorizzo of the Albany Times Union said on January 22 that Ziguang ‘is threatening to sell his properties for $1 each.’

The mayor and other elected officials were certainly not happy with Ziguang’s sudden turnaround.  Mayor Ann Thane said, "They can't give the properties back. I don't know what their intention is. They called me and requested a meeting." But then they vanished, perhaps returning to Asia. Art Popp, whose property in Ephrata is near the WPHO-owned Adirondack Center Camp, told me there had been zero activity all winter, and that the entrance way had not even been plowed. Last week, the mayor’s office reported the same: no sign and no word from the WPHO people in months.

Rumored WPHO bid to buy former YWCA in Gloversville has fallen

through, according to local realtors. Current asking price $125,000.

However, the WPHO was reaching out to local media to announce their return. Jessica Maher of the Amsterdam Recorder, reported on  March 31:

… WPHO spokeswoman Jennie Wong said this week the extent of Shi's declaration and what it means for the 48 properties purchased at a citywide auction, as well as the two city churches purchased from the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, is still unclear. Members of the Chinese group have been traveling internationally in a scheduled annual hiatus from the region during the winter months, said Wong, and not all members have returned.

"I don't think we have come to a conclusion yet," Wong said of the group's future in the city. "It may not be until we are getting together that we can have some ideas, so everything is pending right now."

And then this week, the following announcement from the WPHO was forwarded to us:

Ultimate Hope of Humanity

Holy Ziguang Shang Shi reveals Maha Meditation for the first time

The Secret Dharma beyond the Three Vehicles of Buddhism

During this era of continuous natural disasters, wars and epidemics, people have experienced immeasurable suffering. Holy Ziguang Shang Shi has deeply felt the pain of the people and for their benefit will, for the first time reveal Maha Meditation, the secret dharma beyond the three vehicles of Buddhism. This is the ultimate hope for all human beings and all nations to overcome disasters and achieve peace and health.

The wish of Holy Ziguang Shang Shi is to teach all people this Dharma, kept secret for thousands of years, so that everyone can have a better chance of living and adapting to the rapidly changing world. This secret Dharma can increase the quality of human genes and eliminate most diseases; it can increase one’s ability to resist radiation and viruses. The devoted practitioners can experience advanced spiritual development, change their karma, allowing them to develop their virtues and ultimately enter the bliss of Heaven on Earth.

For all of those who want to achieve happiness and escape the suffering of disease and pain, Holy Ziguang Shang Shi has set up the "Holy Mercy Altar" as a place to give empowerment to the attendees. The first opportunity will be the Blessing Empowerment Convention held from April 16th through April 18th at the Five World Buddha Temple in Amsterdam, NY.

 Anteroom at Five Buddhas Temple where the devotees leave their shoes 

 Rather than offer my own view of  this program, here is a response to one of my earlier articles from a correspondent who uses the screen name Tjampel:

(Gautama Buddha) was part of a group of ascetics who would starve themselves, stand in the sun for hours (in India...try it sometime) and engage in other austerities in order to gain wisdom. Once he realized that he was only making himself very ill, he decided to take proper nourishment and meditate on the nature of his own mind; shortly thereafter he achieved the direct/nondual perception of reality and ultimately transformed into what we call the Buddha.

He considered "divine beings" to be suffering just like the rest of us, since they wrongly believed in their own self-existent divinity; they too would have to give it up at some point as it's impermanent---yeah, in Buddhism, at least, all gods fall down.

Additionally, Buddhism teaches us that we must "work out [our] own salvation"; it's not going to come from some dude(ette) showing miraculous powers who's going to heal us all and remove our negativity and erroneous cognition. After all, if any enlightened being dedicates her/his entire existence to helping all other sentient beings, and they can just rapture us off to some paradise, where we'll be eternally blissed-out, they would have done so already. If some Master claims he can literally change the quality of our mind through his/her efforts they're not teaching Buddhism as I know it.

This kind of focus on the perceived divine qualities of the leader and cult-like attention paid to her or him is not healthy, IMO. I remember that Chogyam Trungpa, one of the early (and most idolized) Tibetan teachers in the US once said that he'd never seen any lama flying around and that one should just work on their practice instead of thinking about miraculous powers; after all, step one is hard enough. Just being able to meditate properly is pretty miraculous, actually.

It strikes me as very curious is that, the Master for this group/cult/whatever appears to be hurt or upset that the community isn't totally embracing his and his group and may be pulling out on that basis. That strikes me as very strange from a Buddhist perspective. The Buddhist concept of love is that one gives to others to bring them true happiness, to the greatest degree possible, and this desire to give others what they need to be happy never depends on even slight gratitude or reciprocation by the other party. They can hate you and call you names and you should still want them to be achieve true (lasting) happiness.

If Jesus (or whomever) tells you to "get thee to this town and spread the love" then whatever resistance the town may offer is merely one of the challenges that you need to face on the path; not an excuse to pull out. Only if you come to a reasoned conclusion that remaining in the town is causing damage to the spiritual health of both groups would leaving make sense. It doesn't seem that this was the basis for the group's actions. They were not concerned with "hate crimes".

.... The love that a Buddhist gives is one which can genuinely help the other being---it can lead them to lasting happiness...

-Tjampel