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Directly under Io, the Supreme Being, there are three *major* Hawaiian gods among the many described in the Hawaiian system: Kane (the god of assertive power), Lono (the god of yielding power, called "the Lord of Peace," who is the harvest god of the sacred Makahiki season), and Ku (the god of aware presence -- the word "ku" means "Here!" "Present!" in common parlance). This is the Hawaiian "trinity:" Kane (which also means "male"), as "the father;" Lono, "the son" (who corresponds the most closely in temperament of any sacred Hawaiian figure with the temperament that is known about Jesus of Nazareth), and Ku, the sacred spirit of awareness. From an "esoteric" point of view, this arrangement (movement that posits stillness {yang}, stillness that posits movement {yin}, and "spirit") coincides nicely with the trinities that are found in all of the Great Religions of the world.

And this "triune godhead," under the one God, Io, the Supreme Being, is to be found, by very similar names, in the religion that was practiced in all of the ancient cultures that lived on island groups throughout the whole Polynesian Pacific Ocean. Illustrating this uniformity of Polynesian religion became Handy's specialty as a researcher. He didn't give us all the original language of it in his book, but he partly translated a chant that was recited by priests in a Tahitian temple at dawn as follows:

"Awake Ro'o (i.e. Lono, in Hawaiian)!
Tane (Kane) awake!
Remember, progeny of Tane (i.e. ...of "the Father"), awake!
Tu'u (Ku) awake! Tuaratai!"

Handy didn't translate this mysterious little phrase at the end, but I can tell you what it means in Hawaiian, where "Tuaratai" transliterates from Tahitian as "Ku ala ka i." (Tahitian t and r are k and l in Hawaiian.) "Ku" is awareness. Let me give you "ala" as it is defined in the immensely respected Hawaiian Dictionary of Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1971), where, for "ala," it gives: "1. path, road, trail. 2. to waken, stay awake; [be] awake, (ho-ala - to awaken someone; mele ho-ala - a chant intended to awaken a sleeper). 3. rise up, get up, come forward to. Finally, "ka i" is "the supreme."

So any number of meanings can derive from "Tuaratai," in the "punning" way with words that kahunas were reknowned for in Hawaiian lore, such as: "In awareness, on the path, waking up from sleep and staying awake, arises (or, is the way forward to) the supreme." Whichever of the several possible dictionary definitions of these words that you may go for here, this is *surely* a poetic metaphor that "rings bells" for modern mindfulness practitioners. (And, of course, it can also be looked at as something that "anyone" might say when they got up in the morning.) ;-)

Most historians refer to Ku as "the war god." The war god that King Kamehameha inherited from his ancestors, in the last stage of Hawaiian history that remained truly Hawaiian, was Ku-ka-ili-moku ("Ku, the island eater," this god was sometimes called--and his *handsome* and *ferocious* red-feather-covered image shows he has the sharp teeth to do it!). With Ku-kailimoku by his side, Ka-mehameha (meaning, "the sacred hush of taboo, squared") "ate up" the Hawaiian islands in his own awareness, one at a time, in his famous war campaign that finally formed a united kingdom out of the islands, after thirteen centuries. Used generally in the language, "ku" means, literally, "present!" "here!" "here now," "presence," "attention!" "upright," "upstanding," "ready!" This is the posture of an awakened Hawaiian warrior, ku.

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*Everything* that we hear about King Kamehameha points to his being the epitome of a human being who walked around "ku" like this. He was a champion in the martial art of spear-catching. Captain Cook and his crew watched him put on demonstrations, and were awe-struck. Warriors were all around him and threw their spears at him with practiced deadly aim, and he paried most, caught some, knocked aside many with the spears that he caught, and came through this intense focal point of mortal danger without any harm. (Later, Cook, who pretended to be the harvest god Lono, the Wind, whom he was originally mistaken for, wasn't ready to perform this same feat, when Kamehameha finally "tested his divinity" with a spear, and killed him in the surf off the Big Island of Hawaii.)

And Kamehameha had his gentle side, too, of course. He promulgated the famous "Law of the Splintered Paddle," which actually remains honored by the government of Hawaii to this day. It was named for an experience the old warrior had when his foot was caught in some jagged rocks while at the beach one day, naked, and a commoner who didn't recognize him attempted to take advantage of this situation by trying to hit him with a canoe paddle (which was quickly splintered--at no harm to the King, of course, nor to his foolish assailant). This law--if one has the presence of mind to invoke it--has stated ever after that nobody is supposed to bother *anybody* at the beach (or anywhere) when they are being vulnerable there. I was to call upon this law several times during my last year in Hawaii.

Today this translates into making all of Hawaii's beaches (even in front of the *grandest hotels*) available to access by all of the people in Hawaii. Hotels are not allowed to run anybody off their beach and make it exclusive. Can you imagine that! This law enabled me, long ago, to camp at Makua Beach on the western tip of Oahu, in the most sacred of valleys ("Makua" - God, benefactor, the Ancestors). I had a right to just set up a camp on this remote beach, and I lived there off the land and sea for a wonderful year--where there is no commercial development allowed to this day, whatsoever! It was a Hawaiian vacation that didn't cost me anything at all (but I have to warn that the Law of the Splintered Paddle doesn't apply to the powerful and mischievious Hawaiian spirits that are still there and may be encountered after dark).

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Handy emphasizes that Ku came into play in more peaceful areas, as well as in war. He was the god of many forms of artisanry. Canoe carvers in selecting their trees did rituals to "Ku who clothes the island in great trees for canoes." Those who trapped sacred i'i-o'o-a'a birds (the Hawaiian honey-creeper) to collect the red and yellow feathers for the feather-capes and helmets of the ali'i appealed to "Ku of the sacred bird feathers." (They didn't harm these now extinct birds. They put gum on tree branches to catch them, took only a single tiny feather at a time, and released them afterwards--in a ritual lovingly done.) Fishermen did rituals to "Ku, the red." (I don't know the significance of that one.) Each of these occupations was enhanced by the awareness of the respective experts who led them.

Hawaiian fishermen--even from the shore--could spot whole schools of fish by subtle changes in the coloration and appearance of the surface of the ocean! (I actually saw this done while I was living at Makua Beach and participated with a hundred others in the hukilau (communal fishing with a long net that swimmers carried out around a school of fish that was "spocked" from the shore in this way, as they put it. Everybody--men, women, and children--hauled in this long net onto the shore together from the ends, surrounding up to a thousand fish at a time. This led to a grand feast and party on the beach, and for them, much food to take home for awhile, as well.) It took a certain awareness to spock these schools of fish that I could never catch-on to (even when the fish were *there*), although several friends and attending kahunas attempted to show me how.

Hawaiian canoe-carvers, for instance, had to cut out an enormous tree very carefully with a sharpened stone adze to get the hull very, very thin, yet without causing *any punctures*. This too, took an almost incredible awareness. Perhaps you can visualize how difficult that would be, working from the inside of a carved-out hardwood hundred-foot-long giant koa tree log. In an old chant, the canoe-carving kahuna was described as "waking up his adze in the morning, and putting it to sleep at night."

Ku was the god of awareness," being present." This describes an experiential state that is well-known to modern practitioners of mindfulness. And the kahunas of the priestly order of Ku, called Ka-nalu ("ka" - the, "nalu" - pondering, mulling over, i.e. contemplation) were said by David Malo (a historian in missionary times who had been Kamehameha's assistant in the old warrior's later years) to "outrank" the priests of Lono and Kane. "Ka-huna" ( the priest), fundamentally, means "the hidden secret" (huna). It was the kahunas who were in full possession of the "hidden secret" of mindfulness. But anyone could learn, if they put forth the effort.

Generally, the word "kahuna" meant the same thing in Hawaiian society as the word "master" means to us today. There were kahunas who were master canoe-builders, master house-builders, master cloud-omen-readers, etc., etc. For everything that took place in Hawaiian daily life, there was a kahuna who knew the hidden secret of it--the part that only mindful awareness brings to light and into high-relief. Before each such undertaking, the kahuna would gather the others for ritual chanting. Those who were the experts among them were able to keep the aha (thread of awareness) going while working on with their endeavors during the day. They would sing out chants to the others from time to time, as reminders.

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During the year that I camped alone at Makua Beach, I built a small heiau in my camp, with large stones that I carefully collected over several months, that I brought from afar while practicing mindfulness. I followed the instructions for the details of this little temple that I found transcribed in the pages of books at the Waianae Library, several miles farther up the coast, where population began again. This effort brought the attention of a small group of Hawaiian kahunas who, unknown to me, shared the use of that isolated beach with me all along (but for whose kindness and good graces I would not have been allowed to stay, Law of the Splintered Paddle, or not--for I might have been bothering *them*.). After they introduced themselves to me, they were gracious enough to explain many things--all of which corroborate the ideas expressed here above. They were gentle and loving, and one of them, Kahu Naiwi, became one of the best friends that I've ever had to this day.

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One of Kahu's direct lineal ancestors was Malaea-na-hale-lo-ulu-na-iwi (Chief "Adam and Eve" of the House of the Sacred Lo-ulu Palm), (or, Chief Clay and Bones of the Temple of the Apocalypse . . . take your pick), an ascendant of Nana-ulu, the first Hawaiian seer (nana) to arrive in these islands--when the part about Hawaii's story began, late in the 19,000-year account of human beings, in their Creation Chants.

Malaea had sprouted at the "forefront of (lo-ulu) the Ulu Line. And she was made the last Chief of Makua Valley, having been given these sacred taboo ceremonial lands by King Lot, Kamehameha V, who ascended to the throne in 1863. Malaea became a Christian minister. Her husband, Samuel, was an American missionary, son of one of the few missionaries who had sided with the Hawaiians, the Rev. Lorin Andrews--the truly great Founder of the Lahainaluna Academy near Lahaina, Maui, the first college in the islands. Lorin also compiled the first Hawaiian-English Dictionary, and it preserved "the good stuff" ("da kine") in it, too--that is, "kahuna definitions." Malaea must have met Samuel while attending his father's school in Lahaina. I'm guessing they were among the many that were told of in songs who fell in love at Lahainaluna.

Malaea--na Hale Lo-Ulu--Naiwi was also a key participant in the Hale Naua (hale - "House of..." -- cf. naua, kaua, nauwa, kauwa, naiwi, kaiwi--all the same secret Hawaiian name). This was a last attempt by King David Kala-kaua to perpetuate the ancient kahuna ceremonialism by creating a secret "House of Traditions," around 1880, in order to fulfill his own name, "kaua." It's purpose was to restore the Hawaiian aha among the highest ranking chiefs, as a revival of the institution once called the Aha-ali'i, which had been founded by the famous Chief Haho, son of Pau-makua during the period of trans-Pacific contact among the different island groups.

Fornander called this Aha-ali'i "the congregation of the chiefs," which he likened to a "herald's college." It lasted up until the time of the Conquest by Kamehameha. (This had close parallels with the Tahitian Arioi Society, and the Hale Wananga, of the Maori.) -- "To gain admission," Fornander noted, "it was incumbent on the aspirant to its rank and privileges to announce his [or her] name, either personally or through an accompanying bard, and his or her ascent, either lineal or collateral, from some one or more of the recognized, undisputed ancestors of the Hawaiian nobility, claiming such ascent either on the Nana-ulu, or the Ulu Line"--Malaea being a direct ascendant of both. At the Hale Naua, those who entered announced their secret entitlement to be there by singing out "Naua!"

Kala-kaua, who was a direct ascendant (as Hawaiians actually looked at it--rather than "descendent"), sprouting at the front of main royal Nana-ulu and Ulu blood-lines, came to the throne in 1874 through--of all things--an election by a Legislature that had been put into place by that time, "in which the foreign-born numbered ten for every nine of the native-born." He was much loved. Although an alumnus of the missionaries' Chiefs' Childrens' School, a highly conservative educational institution by this date, he was the last Hawaiian king to become instructed by kahunas in the esoteric traditions of his people.

He was also quite fascinated by a scrolled Torah given to him by an old Rabbi that was visiting in the islands then, who became his personal instructor in this, and friend. Kalakaua declared that there was no difference between these first Books of Moses in the Old Testament and his own traditions. He died in 1891, and with him nearly all hope for return to the old ways.

King Kalakaua had visited the United States, in 1874--the first foreign king ever to set foot on these shores. In 1875, he signed a reciprocal trade treaty with the U.S. This created such a demand for labor in Hawaii --to carry out the many new enterprises that were projected, including, mainly, plantations--that, by 1878, Portuguese immigrants had to be brought in all the way from the Azores and Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. (It was these who brought along the wonderful instrument that Hawaiians adopted and called the "ukulele"--i.e. jumping flea). There are many Portuguese in the islands today. Back in 1876, Chinese immigrants had already started coming there in great numbers. By 1885, arrangements with the Japanese government brought immigrants as laborers from Japan. These last two groups--Chinese and Japanese--now make up the largest numbers of ethnic people living there today (or maybe there are more haoles (usually meaning "white folks") than one or the other of those. There are plenty of haoles.)

An excuse was found to imprison Queen Liliuokalani, who followed Kalakaua to the throne, upon his death. After an abortive attempt by a force of less than two hundred brave men to return real governing power into Hawaiian hands was put down by an army of well-armed mercenaries collected by American businessman and lawyer Sanford Dole, Lilioukalani was forced to formally renounce all her claims to the throne. (She was later exonerated, but not restored to power).

Like Kalakaua, she had been determined to see power fully regained by her people, but there just weren't resources or forces enough any more. A large group of rebel chiefs held out in the Waianae-Makua district--where Boki and Liliha lived, and Malaea and Samuel--and everybody left the people and the warriors out in those parts alone. There were a few other pockets of resistance. But it was just about the end of the line.

The Hawaiian people were hopelessly in debt to American business interests by this time. The former Queen was released after nine months, by order of U.S. President Cleveland near the end of his term. He confessed, after an on-site investigation that he ordered had been made, that her imprisonment was an injustice. But the damage had been done--the last damage to Hawaiian humanness in these islands to follow in a long, long, string of damages. And yet, their bills were still not paid.

Since Capt. Cook discovered Hawaii towards the end of the previous century (1778), the Hawaiian population had not been just decimated, it was almost "duo-decimated" within a hundred years. There were 400,000 men and women at the time that Cook arrived. Before the end of the next century there were 29,000 Hawaiians left. Their lot had become poverty, hunger, slavery, smallpox (four epidemics), syphillus, leprosy (first seen in 1853 and spread to an alarming extent by 1864), mosquitos, hitherto unknown in the islands before these haoles came, scarlet fever, Asiatic cholera in 1895 . . . The Hawaiians were totally unprepared, biologically, for these foreign diseases. For more than a millenium-and-a-half there had been no such thing as infection in their islands--wounds always healed by themselves.

And the economic repression that they suffered (and they are still, undoubtedly, the poorest, as well as the smallest population among the more than a million in Hawaii today)--the toll on them was severe. So many Hawaiians, for example, were forced into the mountains to cut sandalwood for the traders, that there was often widespread famine, caused by neglect of other agriculture. This went on frenetically for many, many years, until the fragrant sandalwoods finally became entirely *extinct*, and with them the sacred o'o-i'i-a'a birds, that ali'i chiefs *depended upon* for their power-capes and helmets. Hawaiians had to do all this in order to pay off the debts of the people of Hawaii--in large part, debts of some of the ali'i chiefs, who bought ships and schooners, and other expensive things. Many Hawaiian commoners were already so much in debt to the trade merchants that they had virtually become slaves.

[[My own researches thirty years ago attempted to prove that Malaea Naiwi of Makua Valley would have been the next queen in front of the line for the throne after Liliuokalani (by virtue of her royal ancestry through the highest-ranking Houses of Ulu and Nana-ulu chiefs and Naiwi kahuna and warrior Lines.) . . . . . I think that she--coming forth from the ranks of the southwestern rebels--would have become the next Queen, at just the point before the missionary, sugar plantation, merchant, banking, and whaling interests, as well as courts and legislature, from America, had finally superceded the old Hawaiian way of life *entirely*. The missing genealogy pages that were expurgated before publication from the research of Abraham Fornander (1812-1887) will tell the tale ("An Account of the Polynesian Race," Charles E. Tuttle Co., Rutland, Vt. and Tokyo, 1969). Fornander was appointed a Judge by King Lot, Kamehameha V, who consigned Makua Valley to Malaea. I'd sure like to hear from someone in Hawaii after all these years who could substantiate or disprove my theory!]]

After passage by Congress, a Treaty of Annexation was signed by newly-elected President McKinley on July 7, 1898. It had been "in the works" all along. The news of this was received in Honolulu on the 13th of July, the "formal transfer of sovereignty" was made, and the U.S. Flag was raised above Oahu on the 12th of August of that year. Chief Malaea had died the previous year. She didn't have to see this. The much-admired Boki sailed away and was never heard of again.

Prominent historian W. D. Alexander, in an authoritative textbook,"History of the Hawaiian People," published in 1899, "by order of the Board of Education of the Hawaiian Islands," said of Annexation: "Thus the Hawaiian Islands enter upon a new era, as an integral part of that great country to which they owe so much in all the lines of human progress. Assured of permanent peace and prosperity, the future of the 'Paradise of the Pacific' seems brighter than ever before."

In 1900, Congress established the Islands as the Territory of Hawaii, and President McKinley appointed businessman and former lawyer Sanford Dole, a missionary's son, as Governor--and then Dole became President of Hawaii, not having to stand for election. And for a long time--backed up by the "Big Five" business monopolies--he retained dictatorial powers in the Islands. This whole political "coup" was justified "all around" as the only feasible way of collecting all the debts that the Hawaiian people owed to American business interests. They did "owe so much," as Alexander put it, in behalf of the Board of Education. It was a fact.

Interestingly, the tiny Christian church that Malaea and Samuel had once preached in, back in those loving days, was reduced to rubble on December 7, 1941, *the very first target of World War II*, when suddenly-appearing Japanese pilots destroyed it to prevent phone-calling ahead as they flew eastward towards Pearl Harbor from the very western tip of Oahu. Makua Valley (back from the beach) has long been in the hands of the American military ever since. But there is nothing built in there--it is all natural wilderness "Hawaii-style!" There is much cactus in the flat plain of it there, almost desert-like, and green in the hills all around--it is remarkably reminiscent of this Sonoran Desert that I live in here today, so many years after that.

The valley was used from time to time as a practice target range with the latest helicopter and artillery weapons firing live during the time that I was camping there, setting great fires with their explosions, and raising great clouds of smoke--quite a spectacular show when this was going on! Ironic as this may seem, at least it has prevented the most sacred of Oahu's valleys from being developed with modern tourist hotels. Perhaps it is "the war god," Ku, who has brought about this unique form of pristine preservation of the sacred valley by enforcing the ancient taboo in this powerful way.

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Kahu Naiwi (which means "guardian of the bones"--the bones are the repository of personal mana) and his cohorts did their rituals to Uli, the Hawaiian arch-goddess of sorcery. They taught me several mele ho-ala (songs to awaken sleepers and keep them awake). Although this was very long ago, I sing some of these songs to this day. And I would go around and about my life at the beach, and hiking back up into the beautiful Makua Valley behind, singing songs like: "E Uli, nana pono. E Uli, nana hewa." ("*Be*, Uli, see the right way! *Be*, Uli, see the wrong way.") Mindfulness meditation practitioners will know straight away what Kahu meant when he spoke of seeing the right way and seeing the wrong way. "E Uli, i uka. E Uli, i kai." ("*Be*, Uli, around the outside! *Be*, Uli, here within!") Again, the experiential posture of awakened mindfulness is described by such lyrics to perfection. Note also that the evocative "E" puts the context of the chant in the present with a strong note of "intent." -- "Be!" -- Yes, this is the way of mindfulness practitioners . . . . . just be . . . . . and do it awarely!

These were songs to remind me of the ordinary state of my consciousness, "being asleep," and the awakened state of my consciousness, when I could remember it--or mindfulness, "being awake here within, through exercising my intent to be awake in the present moment, now."

The coastal road into Makua Beach, that becomes a rough dirt road after that, passes right on by the "guardian" of this sacred taboo area, Kane-Ana (Kane's Cave), quite tall and handsome in the rock, the spacious home of the great god Kane of the Hawaiian Trinity, the god of assertive force, which one has to pass right by in order to gain entrance to the valley beyond. For Hawaiians, this is a sobering passage. A Creation Legend tells us that Kane made the Earth (o ka Honua a Kane i hoolewa -- being the Earth that Kane set in motion). Much later in the songs, the powerful and much-feared Volcano goddess Pele, primary goddess of the hula, took up residence here with him in Kane's Cave. It was said that she traveled back and forth under the ocean during those days to the island of Kauai to the west (where Cook first landed), through one of the lava tubes, or caves that lead out from Kane's Cave.

Kahu told me that he and his friends knew kahunas who were then dead who knew the routes through some of these other tubes into the mountain within the cave there, and could go all the way through to the North Shore on the other side of the Island, some miles and miles of travel starting through the "pyramid" mountain there. I heard other stories affirming this, saying there was some kind of open-air "Shangri-la," as we haoles ("foreigners" is better said) might call it, along the way. (These tubes are all sealed up now, through severe intentional crumbling of the ceiling in the back. Be careful!)

Makua Valley is framed in a perfect semi-circle of mountain, about two miles deep, opening directly to the south with a two-mile-long stretch of beach at the hemisphere. It is like "the rest of the circle," or "globe" is completed in the green ocean out there. Land, sky, ocean--it all seems to "jump into synch together." Makua is on the southern shore of Oahu, in close proximity to the very western tip of the Island, which is a sharply sloping promontory that is pointing to the West like the great beak of a cosmic bird. Makua is like the pulled back wing.

In great symmetry around the semi-circle of mountain circumscribing the half-circle of Makua Valley, there are three pointed mountains that stand out sharply--all of these having a striking resemblance to pyramids. From the middle of the beach, one of these is nearly due east (where Kane's Cave is), the next, going to the left, right up the middle, is due north, and the third, is nearly due west. The sacred valley is like a giant "astrolabe," if that is the word for it, perfectly aligned for catching the sweeping sky in a symmetrical "basket," so to speak, as the stars go by overhead.

Far from city lights, the night skies at Makua Beach are very clear and sharp. It jumps out at you, when you are looking at the night-time sky there--it is scary. Everything looks bigger. The moon is scary. I remember how scared an old friend of mine from Honolulu became while looking at it, when he came out there to visit me and camp once overnight. My wild dogs had started barking just at the moment he recognized the constellation Canis in the sky for the first time in his life. He experienced *something*, and was jumping out of his skin. All of us that I saw out there from time to time while camping there--nearly all Hawaiians--all knew how to be scared--or else we couldn't have been there for very long.

The range that runs along the western quarter-curve of Makua Valley is Mount Ka-ala, the last great mountain at the end of the island. The term "ala" is discussed above--"the path" of waking up and keeping awake. And then, just beyond Mount Ka-ala is the final westward jutting point, Ka-ena Point (the sacred fire). [[I have long wondered if Na-hi-ena-ena ("the hissing, 'bloody' flowings of the sacred fire, squared"), the most beautiful woman in the islands, daughter of the first King Kamehameha, and paramour of her brother, Liholiho, about whom little is heard of since her youth, might possibly have been a direct linear ancestor of Malaea Naiwi.]] Ka-ena Point is the storied "jumping off place"--that place that *all Hawaiians* go forth from as they make the leap into the realm of death, the leap "back to where they came from." That place is called Ho-lani (literally: "doing heaven."). It's no wonder that they named this beautiful wing-like valley "God" (Makua). Malaea Naiwi is buried there. I long tended her grave with live flowers.

Before I had gone out there to live barefoot in cutoffs for a year, my last teacher for a year-and-a-half had been Dr. Mitsuo ("Mits") Aoki, then Dean of the College of Religion at the University of Hawaii (where at least a shirt had been required along with the cutoffs). Mits, part-Hawaiian, part-Japanese (an ordained Christian minister, a Zen Buddhist teacher, and a Gestalt therapist, whose own favorite chant was "Shalom, my friends,") is now Founder and President of the Foundation for Holistic Healing in Kaneohe, on the North Shore of Oahu. And it was Mits who had taught me how to be mindful, all these years ago.

After my last class with Mits, I went out to Makua "for a weekend" to go on practicing being awake as much as I could learn to become able to. And I wound up *staying there*. It seemed like a perfect spot for it--a whole beach, practically all to my own. Provender everywhere--strawberry guavas, mangos, bananas, giant avocados, mushrooms, wild lettuce everywhere I walked, wild raspberries . . . And when the kahunas showed up, they picked up right where Mits had left off. I remember once, someone in class had asked Mits: "How do you know if you're being awake?" -- Mits said, "When you're in awareness, you know you're awake. And when you're asleep, you don't even remember there is any such thing as awareness."

Kahu and his friends at Makua Beach, knew this lesson, too. And they gave me those mele ho-ala to practice there with, so I'd learn to become awake more and more in the world, and, "Remembah dat you also *in dere* behin' dose eyes," as they used to say to me. And so did their ancestors (makua) know this--the kahunas and ali'i of ancient Stone Age Hawaii. There can be no doubt that they practiced mindfulness, too. The Hawaiians didn't get this, of course, from the Boston missionaries who came to their islands and changed their whole society all around . . . although the religion of aloha, that they practiced through fifteen centuries, was, after all, rather the same.

-- John Bilby

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¹E. S. Craighill Handy, "Polynesian Religion," published by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii: 1927. " . . . it was believed that profane utterance of the name of 'Io-the-nameless,' by one possessed of the sacred knowledge meant death to the blasphemer."-p. 9. [Editor's note: Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, married into a prominent missionary family. She wished to preserve Hawaiian antiquities. Handy was *there* and he had access to the best sources available in Hawaii at his time. He reported what he found very objectively--neither understanding much of it, nor treating it judgmentally or patronizingly, in any way. Unknowingly, he transcribed many descriptions which he, himself acknowledged that he could not understand . . . yet these transcriptions can be understood today, as metaphors in the common parlance of people who have learned by many different approaches that are available now, what sitting meditation is, and what the advanced form of meditation known as "the awakened state," or "mindfulness," or, simply "awareness" is like, as a direct experience that any humans can learn to have if they are interested. [See Teaching Tools for Mindfulness Training on this same website.]

²Ibid, p. 6-7.

³Ibid, p. 10.

⁴Ibid, p. 26-27.

⁵Ibid, p. 33.

⁶Ibid, re Emerson (49, p. 4). p. 33.

⁷Ibid, p. 55-56.

⁸Ibid, p. 162.

⁹Ibid, pp. 165-66.

©1999 Teaching Tools For Mindfulness Training
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