Showing posts with label oasis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oasis. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Why sellouts Metallica suck (hard)

(Guitar Meets Science) "What a load of s**t" Metallica's 1990s' pretentious Load/Reload sellout
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Saturday, September 6, 2025

Oasis plays Rose Bowl on Hell Night


What not to do on Ghost Day/Hell night

I don't believe in no ghosts!
The Hungry Ghost Festival, also known as Yulan, falls on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. In 2025 it happens on Saturday, Sept. 6th, when the "gates of hell" (peta-loka) open.*

The Hungry Ghost Festival (known as the Yulanpen Festival in Buddhism and the Zhongyuan Festival in Taoism) is a traditional observance held in East and Southeast Asian countries. According to the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in parts of Cantonese Southern China). In Chinese culture, the 15th day of the seventh month in the traditional Chinese calendar is called Ghost Day or (especially in Taiwan) Pudu (Chinese 普渡, Pinyin Pǔdù, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, Phó͘-tō͘ [3]). And the seventh month of that calendar is generally regarded as Ghost Month, when ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors, come up from lower realms (diyu, preta world). More

Hell opens tonight: Hungry Ghost Festival



Supersonic spectacle: English icons Oasis take over the Rose Bowl 
Nostalgia is back. - Why? - Spinal Tap, baby!
(Pasadena Weekly) Nostalgia is everywhere. The 90s are making a comeback. Baywatch actress Pam Anderson is on the silver screen in the Naked Gun reboot. And the wannabe-Beatles Oasis is at the Rose Bowl Saturday, Sept. 6, and Sunday, Sept. 7. They've buried the hatchet and reunited. And with apologies to Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, this spectacle featuring the Brothers Gallagher is the concert of the year. More
When was Oasis getting high?
How can one overcome one's anger? Buddhism.
.
What makes a hit a hit? - An earworm.
"Where were you while we were getting high?" asks Oasis singer Gallagher Brother 1 ("Champagne Supernova"), probably talking to Sally and referring to their meteoric rise to stardom in the UK. They were the "new Beatles" for a moment. They couldn't sustain it, and they couldn't stop their sibling rivalry. But how much $$$ for a reunion? Money talks. So welcome to Pasadena!


The Rose Bowl is sold out, and the streets are going to be jammed with traffic troubles on the worst night of the year -- Hell Night (Saturday, Sept. 6th, 2025) of the Hungry Ghost Festival. That's bad luck. But "that's just superstition," others will argue so close to JPL and Caltech.

There are lots of things not to do this whole Ghost Month, but particularly on this night. Or the hungry ghosts will be upset and may take action. And if they do because, you know, they're pretas, don't look back in anger. Just walk away quickly or run. Not being fans of Beatle-esque schlock-pop, Oasis will be echoing through the canyon and foothills in the spectacle that is any big Rose Bowl event.

But they do have one really good song sung by Brother 2, Noel Gallagher, who wrote it (so we see who has the talent in the group, which one hopes they don't start fighting about), ripping off John Lennon's "Imagine," according to Nick Beato.

"The Wretchedness of Anger" (Kodhana Sutra)
Ven. Ñanamoli Thera (trans.), Access to Insight (AN 7.60); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
Pathetic and miserable hungry ghosts (petas, pretas) scrounging for any foul form of sustenance.
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Why are you sad? - My enemy is getting ahead of me.
THE BUDDHA TAUGHT: "Meditators, seven things befall one who is angry that are gratifying and helpful to an enemy. What are these seven things?

1. "Herein, meditators, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person BE UGLY.' Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's beauty. Now when this person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, be that person ever so well bathed and well anointed, with hair well cut, clothed in white, yet that person is ugly through being prey to anger. This is the first thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is angry.

2. "Also, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person BE IN PAIN.' Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's lying in comfort. Now when this person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, for all one may lie on a couch spread with rugs, blankets, plush with covers, a canopy, and red cushions for head and feet, yet one lies only in pain through being prey to anger. This is the second thing gratifying to an enemy that befalls one who is angry.

3. "Also, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person HAVE NO PROSPERITY.' Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's prosperity. Now when this person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, one mistakes bad for good and mistakes good for bad, and each being taken wrongly in the other's sense, these things for long conduce to one's own harm and suffering, through being prey to anger. This is the third thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is angry.

4. "Also, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person NOT BE RICH.' Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's being rich. Now when a person is angry, prey to anger, should that person have riches gained by endeavor, built up by strength of arm, earned by sweat, lawful and lawfully acquired, yet the ruler's treasury gathers (in fines) through being prey to anger. This is the fourth thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is prey to anger.

Let's never fight or be angry again, Brother-jii!
5. "Also, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person NOT BE FAMOUS.' Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's having fame. Now when a person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, what fame one may have acquired by diligence one loses through being prey to anger. This is the fifth thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is prey to anger.

6. "Also, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person HAVE NO FRIENDS.' Why is that? No enemy relishes and enemy's having friends. Now when this person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, the friends one may have, one's companions, relatives, and kin will keep away from being prey to anger. This is the sixth thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is prey to anger.

7. "Also, an enemy wishes this for an enemy: 'Let that person on the dissolution of the body, after death, reappear [be reborn, rearise] in a STATE OF DEPRIVATION, in an unfortunate destination, in perdition, even in a hell.' Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's going to a fortunate destination.

"Now when this person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, one misconducts oneself in body, speech, and mind. And by this misconduct of body, speech, and mind, on the dissolution of the body, after death, the angry person reappears in a state of deprivation, in an unfortunate destination, in perdition, even in a hell, through having been prey to anger.

"This is the seventh thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is angry.... More: accesstoinsight.org
"Don't Look Back in Anger" (lyrics)
Noel, I'm angry you wrote this one. - Shut the front door, Liam! - Let's share credit for it? - No.
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Venerable sir, please! That's an obscene mudra.
Slip inside the eye of your mind/ Don't you know you might find/ A better place to play?/ You said that you'd never been/ But all the things that you've seen/ Will slowly fade away/ So I start a revolution from my bed/ 'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head/ Step outside, summertime's in bloom/ Stand up beside the fireplace/ Take that look from off your face/ You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

[CHORUS] And so, Sally can wait/ She knows it's too late as we're walkin' on by/ Her soul slides away/ "But don't look back in anger," I heard you say

Take me to the place where you go/ Where nobody knows/ If it's night or day/ Please don't put your life in the hands/ Of a rock 'n' roll band/ Who'll throw it all away/ I'm gonna start a revolution from my bed/ 'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head/ Step outside, 'cause summertime's in bloom... "But don't look back in anger/ Don't look back in anger," I heard you say/ "At least not today"

What makes this song great?

*When exactly is 'hell night' of Ghost Month?
Lunar/Lunisolar superior to Gregorian calendar
In 2025, the Hungry Ghost Festival falls on Sept. 6th. Ghost Month usually starts in late July or early August. Why? It follows the lunar calendar, which is generally about a month behind the Gregorian calendar. For example, the Lunar New Year in 2025 is on Jan. 29, so many would expect the seventh lunar month to start around late July. However, it begins on Aug. 23 this year. The main reason is due to how leap years and calendar adjustments work.


The Gregorian calendar based on the solar year adds a leap day every four years to account for the extra 0.25 days it takes Earth to orbit the sun, keeping the calendar accurate over time. While the Gregorian calendar follows the sun, the Lunar calendar tracks the moon’s cycle, with each month lasting about 29.53 days. This means a lunar year has only around 354 days, which is 11 days shorter than the solar year. If left unadjusted, over time festivals like Chinese New Year could drift into entirely different seasons. However, in reality, the “Lunar calendar” used in Chinese traditions is actually the Lunisolar Calendar. This system combines both lunar months and solar year alignment to keep important dates consistent with the seasons.
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Thursday, May 17, 2018

LA Buddhist nun: Meditation's an Oasis (video)

Sayalay Aloka Nyani (Thabarwa Nature Center), Dhr. Seven, Ananda M., Wisdom Quarterly
 
On almsround in the San Gabriel Valley
Meditation is essential for a life of "right understanding," right-view (samma-ditthi), on the Noble Eightfold Path. Knowing the truth is essential.

Who we are, what we do, or where we live is not nearly as important compared to our understanding.

So more than study, which is very beneficial, we benefit by PRACTICE of the Path for the truth.

Imagine a distant land, an OASIS in nature. It would never do to only study maps, ask others about their travels, or reason out geographical features from a high vantage point. These things, as helpful as they might be, could hardly get us there.

Sillier still is the idea that setting off in any direction -- without study or guidance from someone who knows by first hand experience -- is going to get us to the place me mean to go. We're likely to end up very lost.


Sayalay from Virginia to Burma to California
When the Buddha outlined the Path to Enlightenment into eight general factors, we can see a great logic to it.

Right-view (to understand) and right-action (to practice) lead to right-meditation (coherent states of mind and mindfulness or samadhi and sati), which perfects right-view.

Often the Path is divided in three parts:
  1. virtue (the precepts)
  2. purifying concentration (coherence)
  3. wisdom (right-view).
Can a baby know the way to enlightenment?
Our right-behavior is key, and for our action to be "right" it must be guided by correct understanding, right-view, knowledge, and wisdom.
 
A meditator needs to use mindfulness (present-time awareness free of grasping, clinging, rejecting, resenting, or misunderstanding) of experience to calmly observe.

By nonclinging (giving, letting go, detaching) to every experience of mind and body, mentality and materiality, psychology and physicality, we become free and can begin to see thing as they really are. The Buddha then explained the systematic Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness to see:
  1. body
  2. feeling
  3. mind
  4. mind-objects.
What is there to see? There are three characteristics of all things that, by seeing, frees us.

In this way we can use this life in the "right" way, in a very beneficial way, free of attachment to what is ultimately (1) impermanent (passing), (2) disappointing (woeful, unable to satisfy or fulfill), and (3) impersonal (not at all what it seems).



When we practice in the "right" way -- in accordance with right-view or right-understanding -- the heart/mind naturally knows, and sees, and enjoys experience without grasping, clinging, and attachment. We no longer get stuck.

Whether we can do or not do, we just know and experience free of the Three Poisons (the roots): attachment, aversion, delusion about experience.

"Good"?
Just keep practicing and doing good deeds continuously. What is "good"? Actions (karma) motivated by nongreed, nonhatred, nondelusion (the three good roots), things that neither harm oneself nor others, this is "good."

This is the most important thing to do in spite of The Eight Worldly Conditions:
  1. gain
  2. loss
  3. honor
  4. disgrace
  5. praise
  6. blame
  7. pleasure
  8. pain.
A better way to live
Embodying  Perfect Wisdom
All of these eight are just "created truths" (our consensual- or social-reality). We can experience created truths without attachment or aversion or confusion.

If we understand in this way, we live carefree, without worries about our lives or whatever things happen. It is very relaxing.

We need not pursue pleasures, distractions, and happinesses. We can do necessary things, like merit and meditation instead. This will solve all kinds of problems.

And even if it does not seem to, or if it appears to be too hard, we can surely practice in this way slowly for the duration of "meditation" session by session.

What if rather than chasing after "happiness," we simply abandon three expressions of karma (mental, verbal, physical) that chases, rejects, or gets confused about experience?
Dharma Meditation Initiative - Disclosure Project - UCLA MARC - Punx

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