Sunday, November 13, 2011

Zen and the Art of Occupying

Richard Schiffman (Huff Post), Occupy Zen, Globalrevolution.TV, Wisdom Quarterly
Occupy Wall Street vs. The Media (theinquisitr.com)

Zen is all about being. Being here. Being here now. We'd rather be-here-now. Having missed the Sixties, and having longed for that time our whole livea, it is a tremendous opportunity to sit in bigger more peaceful demonstrations against war, corporate greed, and cultural hypocrisy. That's all ww need do to be true to ourselves as practitioners of Zen. Sit. Schiffman gets it:

As a card carrying member of the Woodstock generation, it was like falling into a time warp: hundreds milling around armed with home made placards, the throb of African drums, young, half naked bodies sprawled on tarps, a teach-in under a tent, strains of Woody Guthrie.

For a veteran of the 1960s, it was deja vu all over again -- with one key difference -- computer banks and hand held cameras live-streaming the event, and emails of support flashing on large screens from similar encampments as far afield as Seattle, Berlin, and Buenos Aires.

At the entrance to the square, a circle of [demonstrators] was meditating cross-legged around a makeshift altar replete with didgeridoos and crystal skulls -- not to levitate the Pentagon, but to move some equally implacable edifices, the fortress-like financial institutions which ring Zuccotti Park.

Instead of a black bearded and ascetic Allen Ginsburg, the baseball-capped Russell Simmons was exhorting demonstrators to take back their government and their own increasingly imperiled futures. More


(All tees are ironic of course)

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