Showing posts with label road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label road. Show all posts
Monday, November 3, 2025
Monday, June 2, 2025
Is karma real? Deeds cause results?
 |
| Karma (doing)? That's so dumb! Whatever I do, it'll never come back to me. I can get away. |
Flying squirrel karma or phala? - Animal actions?
Previous video has squirrel who flies tiny plane. Real "flying squirrel" flies when tossed, then 😲
Born of the Fruits of Deeds
 |
| Teachings of Kamma, Rebirth, Saṃsāra |
(Ud 3.1) Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove at the multimillionaire's monastery.
At that time a certain Buddhist monk was sitting close to the Buddha, legs crossed, with body straight.
As a result (vipaka) of past deeds (karma), he suffered painful, sharp, severe, and acute feelings, which he endured unbothered, mindfully with clear comprehension.
 |
| Narrating Karma and Rebirth |
The Buddha saw him meditating mindfully enduring that pain.
Then, understanding the situation, the Buddha expressed this inspired utterance:
“A monastic who has left behind all deeds (karma),
shaking off the dust of past deeds,
unselfish, unwavering, unaffected,
has no need to complain.”
- Kamma Vipākaja Sutta (Ud 3.1)—Ven. Sujato (translation)
- Amazing video shorts: How to handle the cops (graphic)
Bhikkhu Bodhi, what is "karma"?
The Four Kinds of Karma with Bhikkhu Bodhi
- dark karma with dark result
- bright karma with bright result
- dark-and-bright karma with dark-and-bright result
- karma that is neither dark nor bright with neither-dark-nor-bright result or the karma that leads to the ending of karma.
Bhikkhu Bodhi (BAUS, Carmel, New York, 6/18/22); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Burning Man: 5 things everyone gets wrong
 |
| How the Burning Man festival has influenced Silicon Valley innovations over the years |
 |
| I brought my family and gave them ACID - not LSD, just acetic acid, vinegar, for our tummies. |
 |
| I went for the first time. Here are 5 things everyone gets wrong (Anneta Konstantinides/Insider) |
Isn't Burning Man just a bunch of Mad Max cosplay wannabees in the desert? Has to be! Look at 'em
.
 |
| This is "The Man" burned to stick it to The Man |
I went to Burning Man for the first time in 2023 — and many people are wrong about the event.
They think Burning Man is a big music festival only attended by celebrities and CEOs. But the truth is Burning Man is full of regular people who work year-round to create an incredible sense of community.
 |
| What is this crowd of ordinary folk looking at? Burning Couple in the distance. Fire's cool. |
 |
| Enter if you dare: "The Orgy Dome" |
Over the last few years, Burning Man has become known as a haven for Silicon Valley tech bros and Instagram influencers, who cough up thousands of dollars to party in "Mad Max" desert cosplay.
.jpg) |
| Mad Max, the original in the Outback of Australia |
 |
| Let's go, Mark. - Where? - I'll kick your @$$! |
- Originally published by Business Insider
How this event became a city
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 INTRO
- 02:43 Evolving City
- 05:03 NEW SITE - HUALAPAI VALLEY
- 05:30 THE CIRCLE
- 08:06 Safety & Accessibility
- 08:54 AN EXAMPLE
- 12:19 Maayan Ziv
- 14:00 Participatory Design
Some of the footage comes from the videos published on the Burning Man official channel: burningman
- WoodCulture: woodculture
- Burning Man: The Build • Burning Man: The Build
- Vincent Rommelare • Waking Dreams: Burning Man 2022
- Matt Goodman • "Playa Time: Dust to Dust" - Burning...
The Mutants of Black Rock
- NASA made a world-shaking discovery: Compelling evidence of past life on Mars (msn.com)
- Anneta Konstantinides, Business Insider; Mad Max: Road Warrior; DamiLee. 10/5/22; Burning Man Project, 8/7/24; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Jack Kerouac's Rules for Writing (contest)
 |
| Why do we sit cross legged? |
Jack Kerouac's rules for good writing
By Jove and Jack, I think I got it — the spirit of the Beat, like when they say, "What do kids like about the crazy music today?" It's the same reason it's always been, whether the parents understand it or not: the beat, the beat, the beat!
Going Off Road
 |
| Get out of my way. |
Charles: Too derivative.
Seven: Of course it's derivative. I'm a student, following his example. I'm more passionately saying what he was attempting to say but at a more pounding beat, given the fiercer music we have today — grindcore and Bambie Thug, The Agonist (Alissa White-Gluz) and Dimmu Borgir, Die Antwoord and Eternal Conspiracy. It's madness, howling, burning from the inside as Bauhaus would say. Primal scream.
Charles: In that case, try it again.
Seven: We should open it up to readers of Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal. I'm sure any writer reading has in mind the deluded thought, "I'm sure I could do it better." Write it. Send it in — to the Comments Section below. We won't print it unless it's worth printing. (Comments do not automatically post).
Charles: So it's a contest?
Sort of. Here are the parameters. Pass this and be invited to send in more writing for consideration and possible publication. Writing is better when it has more restrictions, fewer degrees of freedom. Think about it. If the prompt were merely, "Do whatever." That's too many possibilities. But if there are fewer and fewer degrees of freedom, suddenly greatness emerges. We'll only give three rules to be able to judge and to be judging the same thing (comparing oranges to oranges):
- Limit of 12 words
- Topic: Burning from the inside
- Use the word "road"
Charles: That sounds easy enough.
Seven: Guarantee you, Chuck, most will s***w it up, which will cut down on our number of finalists.
Charles: But a dozen words?
Seven: Honest Tea, their limit was 6 words, and people sent in amazing things that were printed on the inside of the caps. "Brevity is the heart of poetry." Get to the point. Edit. Cut the fat.
Charles: That's too hard; they'll never get it.
Seven: Okay, we'll add a fourth stipulation:
- Break one of the rules, if you want, but say which one you broke or be disqualified.
Charles: That's impossible.
Seven: No, we already have a submission. The contest has only been going on for 7 minutes, and we already have a submission.
Charles: What is it?
 |
| Sariputra saw it just as it is. |
"Not having been, they come to be;
once having been, they cease."
Charles: What?
Seven: Clearly, he's referring to dhammas ("phenomena," all "things"). It is explained by Andrew Olendzki Outline of Abhidhamma (buddhistinquiry.org) and stated the Anupada Sutta (MN 111).
Poetry by Charles Harmon "Beat It"
 |
| When you're burning on the inside... |
Thematically, his work covers topics such as Buddhism, promiscuity, his Catholic spirituality, drugs, jazz, travel, life in NYC, and poverty.
He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beat Poets, a progenitor (precursor) of the hippie movement...
He greatly influenced many 1960s cultural icons, including the Beatles, the Doors, Bob Dylan, and the founder of the Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia. More
By Charles Harmon (edited by Seven)
 |
| Allen Ginsberg with Jack Kerouac |
Cruising Hollywood, 1959,
family wagon, parents at the
wheel, little sisters gawking at
Grauman's and the imprints of idols,
feet, hands, endearments
etched in concrete, Walk of Fame,
pointing at the stars set in the sidewalk
between tourist toes and heels
"Look, a Beatnik!" mom directs us
toward a man who sits on the curb,
his sandaled feet dangling in the gutter,
dressed in a dark turtleneck and smart
black beret, whacking a bongo,
singing, billowing smoke
as a young woman sits next to him
with an arm around his waist, cigaretting
smoldering on his lipstick stained cheek,
as tourists drop coins in a cup
"What's a Beatnik?" I ask, but a man
without options, who looks cool doing
nothing
"They like poetry," Mom explains, "and
music, don't care too much about money,
seeking enlightenment or come what may"
Wow, I think, a man after my own heart,
as I'd already memorized dozens of poems
in school and liked to sing, a choirboy
with a radio and TV, eager to learn
the way to enlightenment, something I
read in the World Book of all the Buddha
knew, understanding stated in haiku
like a novel on James Bond in the 6th
grade, when 007 visits a faraway land
to extract useful information from the
Japanese Secret Service, offering
some spy service in return, but JSS
Head Tiger Tanaka teaches 007 how
to compose haiku instead
You only live twice
once when born and once when you
finally face death
A spy evades capture, and a ten-year-old
is blown away, one avoids execution
the other asks his mom, Is Death here yet?
There is reality and there is fate
and are they not the same? Knowing
that we all know Death, who is yet to
come, I resolved to live, to do something
to make life amount to more than
not yet dying
So I did, I understood what the Buddha
must have meant, only etching out haiku
much later on a cube of rice paper, square
and the size of a cigarette with twisted ends,
discovering Kerouac Jack, who presented it
to an audience American, altering the rules,
setting it free
On the Road, The Dharma Bums, andartful lines in 5-7-5 or not
all to kindle a sense of the adventure, an
excursion with and without signs
do not enter here
do not look behind
enter over there
Did it rhyme? Did I trek with Scouts
arm myself with the Sierra Club
get away with friends until my 16th
summer on the planet, hitching my sole
and the other on a hike to NorCal to visit
Berkeley and Stanford and grandparents in the Bay,
listening to the Jefferson Airplane and Grace
steering clear of the scene psychedelic, blazing
on a natural high and the books at City Lights
and a man named Ferlinghetti
who gave me a Little Red Book by Mao
a souvenir of what might have been had I
been a Beat, had I penned as artfully as
the JuBu Ginsberg and other rows at City Lights
 |
| Rodolfo Ybarra: On the Beat Generation and Bob Kaufman |
Snyder, Everson, Rexroth, Jeffers, Welch, McCluremany of whom I met at their readings, discovering
former Zen monastic Leonard Cohen who sat atop
Mount Baldy overlooking L.A., searching for Truth
in nature, peace, love, spirituality, seeking
the mystical in the ordinary, while I climbed mountains
in the vast out of doors, seeking it in science at the UC
with Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics, exploring the
parallels of East and West on a quest for Truth
ism after ism saying the same thing: we are all
connected as we learn to see
all of it a mystical experience, haiku poetry
American Buddhist Beat Poet Jack Kerouac
 |
| Those dirty hippies on the road took over America with the movie Easy Rider (1969): |
 |
| What is he holding in his hands? Drink, smoke |
"...and I shambled after as usual as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
 |
| Sit like the Buddha sat. |
Thematically, his work covers topics such as Buddhism, promiscuity, his Catholic spirituality, drugs, jazz, travel, life in New York City, and poverty.
He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beat Poets, a progenitor (precursor) of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements [8]. He has left a lasting legacy; he greatly influenced many 1960s cultural icons, including the Beatles, the Doors, Bob Dylan, and the founder of the Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia.
At age 6, he went to Catholic Confession and was told to say a rosary as punishment, during which he heard God tell him that he had a good soul, that he would suffer in life and die in pain and horror, but that in the end he would receive salvation [22]. His dying brother had a vision of the Virgin Mary (as the nuns fawned over him, convinced that he was a saint). This, combined with a later study of Buddhism and an ongoing commitment to Christianity, solidified the worldview that informed his work [22].
In 1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible at the San Jose Library, which marked the beginning of his study of Buddhism.
Between 1955 and 1956, he lived on and off with his sister, whom he called "Nin," and her husband, Paul Blake, at their home outside of Rocky Mount, N.C. ("Testament, Va." in his works) where he meditated on Buddhism and studied it [49].
He wrote Some of the Dharma, an imaginative treatise on Buddhism, while living there [50, 51]. However, Kerouac had earlier taken an interest in Eastern thought.In 1946, he read Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization.
In 1955, Kerouac wrote a biography of Siddhartha Gautama entitled Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha, which remained unpublished during his lifetime, but eventually serialized in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 1993–95. It was published by Viking in September 2008 [52].
 |
| On the Road (50th anniversary) |
The success of his book On the Road brought Kerouac instant fame. His celebrity status brought publishers desiring unwanted manuscripts that were previously rejected before its publication [19].
After nine months, he no longer felt safe in public. He was badly beaten by three men outside the San Remo Cafe at 189 Bleecker Street in NYC one night. Neal Cassady, possibly as a result of his new notoriety as the central character of the book, was framed (set up) then arrested for selling marijuana [58, 59].
In response, Kerouac chronicled parts of his own experience with Buddhism, as well as some of his adventures with Gary Snyder and other San Francisco-area poets, in The Dharma Bums, set in California and Washington and published in 1958.
 |
| I'm like a rebel without a cause, Daddy-O. |
It was written in Orlando between Nov. 26 [60] and Dec. 7, 1957 [61]. To begin writing The Dharma Bums, Kerouac typed onto a ten-foot length of teleprinter paper, to avoid interrupting his flow for paper changes, as he had done six years previously for On the Road [60].
Kerouac was demoralized by criticism of The Dharma Bums from such respected figures in the American field of Buddhism as Zen teachers Ruth Fuller Sasaki and the great Alan Watts.
 |
| Jewish Zen monk Leonard Cohen, folk singer and seeker, with his Japanese teacher K.J. Sasaki. |
.
He wrote to Snyder, referring to a meeting with Zen teacher and Nobel Peace Prize nominee (1963) D. T. Suzuki, that "even Suzuki was looking at me through slitted eyes as though I was a monstrous imposter."He passed up the opportunity to reunite with Snyder in California and explained to Philip Whalen, "I'd be ashamed to confront you and Gary now I've become so decadent and drunk and don't give a shit. I'm not a Buddhist any more" [62].
In further reaction to their criticism, he quoted part of Abe Green's café recitation, Thrasonical Yawning in the Abattoir of the Soul: "A gaping, rabid congregation, eager to bathe, are washed over by the Font of Euphoria, and bask like protozoans in the celebrated light."
Kerouac used earnings from On the Road to purchase the first of three homes in Northport, New York — a wood-framed Victorian on Gilbert Street that he shared with his mother, Gabrielle. They moved there in March 1958 and stayed in Northport for six years, moving twice during that time.
Kerouac is generally considered to be the father of the Beat movement, although he actively disliked such labels. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of jazz, especially the Bebop genre established by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and others.
 |
| On the Road excerpt (center of Jack Kerouac Alley) |
Although Kerouac's prose was spontaneous and purportedly without edits, he primarily wrote autobiographical novels (or roman à clef) based upon actual events from his life and the people with whom he interacted.
This approach is reflected also by his plot structure: Kerouac's narratives were not heavily focused on traditional plot structures. Instead, his works often revolved around a series of episodic encounters, road trips, and personal reflections.
The emphasis was on the characters' experiences and the exploration of themes such as freedom, rebellion, and the search for meaning.
Many of his books exemplified this spontaneous approach, including On the Road, Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur, and The Subterraneans.
The central features of this writing method were the ideas of breath (borrowed from jazz and from Buddhist breathing meditation), improvising words over the inherent structures of mind and language, and limited revision.
Connected with this idea of breath was the elimination of the period (.), substituting instead a long connecting dash (—). As such, the phrases occurring between dashes might resemble improvisational jazz licks.
Kerouac's early writing, particularly his first novel, The Town and the City, was more conventional and bore a strong influence of Thomas Wolfe.
The technique Kerouac developed that later gained him notoriety was heavily influenced by jazz, especially Bebop, and later, by Buddhism, as well as the Joan Anderson letter written by Neal Cassady [91].
Mahayana Buddhist sutra
The Diamond Sutra was the most important Buddhist text for Kerouac and "probably one of the three or four most influential things he ever read" [92].
In 1955, he began an intensive study of this sutra, in a repeating weekly cycle, devoting one day to each of the six spiritual perfections (pāramitās), and the seventh to the concluding passage on meditative stillness or superconsciousness (samādhi).
This was his sole reading on Desolation Peak, and he hoped by this means to condition his mind to emptiness (aware of the universal characteristic that all things are impersonal), and possibly to have a vision [93] like an Indian seer (rishi).
 |
| Hooray for influential Irishman James Joyce! |
Regarding On the Road, he wrote in a letter to fellow Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, "I can tell you now as I look back on the flood of language. It is like Ulysses and should be treated with the same gravity" [96].
Additionally, Kerouac admired Joyce's experimental use of language, as seen in his novel Visions of Cody, which uses an unconventional narrative as well as a multiplicity of authorial voices [97]. More: Jack Kerouac
- Dhr. Seven, Charles Harmon, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit Kerouac
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
