Maybe it's just by chance that an American growing up in Amerikkka would gravitate towards punk rock's aggressive musick, rebellion, DIY, and freedom-oriented aesthetic and also toward the Teachings of the Awakened One (the Buddha). After all, if we were to translate Buddhism into English, "Awakenism" would be a good start.
The Dharmic traditions all lean towards liberation (moksha, vimutti = freedom) and, as such, they did not really begin as "religions." The British colonizers imposed that way of thinking on the various dharmas or "doctrines," the paths to freedom taught by famous awakening teachers. It's good to say "awakening" here instead of "awakened" here because Buddhism does not recognize that everyone we think of enlightened actually is. What the term means in Buddhism is very specific.
But before actual stream entry (entering the stream that inevitably leads to complete freedom), there are practices and beliefs the Dharmic traditions have in common, like samadhi (stillness, mental coherence resulting in superconscious states and realizations). In fact, many traditions consider samadhi the ultimate goal, knowing nothing higher.
Minor Threat: "I was early to finish. I was late to start. I might be an adult.
But I'm a minor at heart." Fugazi: I wait, I wait, I wait in the Waiting Room
Why does Integral (Ashtanga) Yoga teach an eightfold system, as popularized by Patanjali? It is exactly because of the Buddha's super popularity throughout the subcontinent at that time that Patanjali thought he should formulate the Vedic, Brahminical, Hindu (a term that would not be invented for centuries) path to samadhi in the same form as the Buddha's Ennobling (lit. Enlightening) Eightfold Path. "Noble" (Arya) means "enlightened."
One has to slosh around through a lot of Western misinterpretations, explanations, practices, Eastern teachers, and etymologies to rectify one's understanding and remove the confusion that has settled on Eastern philosophy and Dharmic traditions to see it clearly. There have been many well-intentioned translators and teachers over the decades that have inadvertently muddied the water and introduced some wrong notions. It's inevitable. If one practices and practices, those misunderstanding get straightened out.
PUNK has always been about individualism, questioning, rebellion, a willingness to set off on one's own path of investigation, practice, and self-realization. No one can do it for us, and "faith" (particularly of the blind sort) is just not in the cards.
PUNK is fun and, at least in the past, was very funny. It was not profit-driven. The goal from the beginning was freedom, personal and social, to liberate oneself and others. Maybe no one agreed on what a revolution would look like, but the enemy was pretty clear: sexist/racist cops working for the economic elite to maintain the status quo, gatekeepers, authority figures, bosses, dictators, know-it-alls, the forces of oppression bearing down on our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
The founding ideals of our country never promised happiness, but those ideals did very clearly say we had a right to PURSUE happiness as we saw fit. In practice, it was nothing like that, just an Animal Farm/1984-style set of tricks, being told what to believe, how to behave, what to like, what to follow, and so on. Enough of that. The hippies were right, but they were no longer getting anywhere, so the pendulum had to swing the other way. Workers had to arise. Conservatives had to knock it off. Liberals had to wake up. Somebody had to flip off the patriarchy and its father figures.
The CIA, FBI, and PTB (powers that be) were not going to let this movement succeed any more than they had any of the previous ones. They can't stop these things, but they can guide them to implode. Movements are like that. What about individuals? What about intellectuals, poets, artists, and independent thinkers? The government has a game called whack-a-mole for that. They stop this rebellion or that, but another one will take its place. It's like Jello once said in "I Am the Owl." Black Flag had something to say beyond self-defeating aggression when they sang, "Rise Above." But the hippies had something to say, too. "What the world needs now is peace, love, and understanding" and, if not, then how about anarchy, hate, and profanities. How does that strike you, Society?
If England/Britain ruined us as a colony-cum-country, it had a little something to do with the rebellion:
HIPPIE CULTURE IS COOKED... (Coolea) Sept. 27, 2024: SHANIN BLAKE, Trustafarian, Pleiadean, starseed, muscian, salesperson, capitalist... Shanin Blake (born Shannon B. Lowrey on Halloween, 1994) is an American singer and online personality [1, 2]. EARLY LIFE: Born in Moscow, Idaho, was raised in Bluffdale, Utah, by a vocational counselor mother and a father who worked as a contract pilot [1] until their divorce during her childhood.
In 2011, when she was 17-years-old, Blake became pregnant with a daughter, whom she is currently raising as a single mother [5, 6]. Her daughter appears regularly on Blake's social media accounts. MUSIC CAREER: In 2019, Blake moved from Utah to San Diego, California, and established herself in the local music scene [7]. She recorded a song, "Stop, Wait a Minute," that year which became locally popular and led to her being covered in local media [7]. More
What have we said time and again? Buddhists can do whatever they want. However, killing (or violating any of the other precepts) is not keeping in line with what the Buddha taught.
"Pig's Delight" (sukaramaddava): truffles, but in the case of the final meal offering, inadvertently poisonous/toxic mushrooms picked in error thinking them truffles, which pigs love
Rule: A Buddhist monastic is not allowed to eat three kinds of "meat" (slaughtered flesh) -- that of a living being that is seen, heard, or suspected of having been killed for one's sake
Did the Buddha pass away from eating meat or mushrooms or by choice?
The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms like sukara-maddava.
The Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered "pig's delight" (sukaramaddava) which could be slaughtered pork or some kind of mushroom/food pigs delight in that was offered by the blacksmith Cunda, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed a truffle or other mushroom [mistaken to be edible].
These differing translations may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monastics (monks and nuns) [265] as well as laypersons.
Modern scholars disagree on this topic, arguing both for pig's delight, pig's flesh, or some kind of plant or mushroom that pigs delight in eating [z].
Whatever the case, none of the sources that mention the last meal attribute the Buddha's sickness to the meal itself [266]. But it is widely thought that he suffered severe illness from being unable to safely digest to toxic food, which he directed Cunda to dig a hole and bury rather than offering to any other monastic present at the meal.
As per the "Great Final Nirvana Discourse" (Mahaparinibbana Sutta), after the meal with Cunda the blacksmith, the Buddha and his monastic companions continued to walk until he was too weak to continue.
They stopped at Kushinagar (near modern Gorakphur, India), where Ānanda was directed by the Buddha to prepare a resting place of folded robes between two sala trees in a delightful grove [267, 268].
After announcing to the Monastic Sangha (spiritual community) that he would soon be passing away, reclining into final nirvana, the Buddha personally ordained one last novice into the Monastic Order. His name was Subhadda [267].
He then repeated his final exhortations to the Sangha, which was that when he was no longer present to guide them, the Dhamma and Vinaya (Doctrine and Discipline, Teaching and Training) was to be their guide.
Then he asked if anyone had any doubts about the Teachings, but nobody did [269]. The Buddha waited, satisfied that anyone who would have like to speak or ask any final question had the opportunity to do so.
His final words are reported to have been: "All formations (saṅkhāras, fabrications) are hurtling towards destruction. Strive for the goal with diligence (appamāda)." In Pali this is, "vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā" [270, 271].
He then entered the eight jhanas as his final meditation forward and then reversing, as verified by a psychic monk near him, reaching what is known as parinirvana ("final nirvana"). He did not "die," for if he had, he would be reborn as all ordinary being are reborn in accordance with their karma.
Rather than being reborn, "the Five Aggregates of physical and mental phenomena clung to as self that constitute a being cease to occur" [272] just as a fire, having exhausted its substrate of fuel goes out. But what is it that really goes out, a being? No, what goes out completely is ignorance.
The Mahaparinibbana Sutta reports that as his final act, the Buddha performed a final meditation of entering the first four material meditative absorptions (jhanas) consecutively, then the four immaterial absorptions, and finally a meditative dwelling known as "the extinction of feeling and perception" (nirodha-samāpatti), which should not be thought of as a permanent "extinction" since many Buddhist meditation practitioners are able to reach this attainment even now throughout life. It is said that only noble ones (those who have attained the stages of enlightenment) are able to reach it and can do so as often as they like as many times as they like. If it were a permanent extinction, no one would be able to do it a second, third, or thousandth time.
Before returning to the fourth absorption (jhana) right at the moment of passing into final nirvana without remainder [273, 268].
Having traveled and taught, the Buddha took his last meal, a sincere offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. But having eaten it, he fell violently ill. Not wishing that Cunda have remorse or misgivings about his offering, the Buddha instructed his personal attendant Ānanda to tell Cunda something.
The meal offering eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing. Moreover, such an offering was an extraordinary source of merit because it was provided as a last meal for a buddha [262] tantamount to an offering of food to a bodhisatta before his attainment of supreme awakening (buddhahood, arahantship, great-enlightenment).
Bhikkhu Mettanando and Oskar von Hinüber argue that the Buddha passed away due to mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than mushroom food poisoning [263, 264]. More
South Korea’s first robot monk joins Buddhist ceremony; internet split over AI in religion About 130 cm tall and dressed in traditional Buddhist robes, Gabi took part in an ordination ceremony alongside senior monks at Jogye Temple.
Humanoid robot monk ‘Gabi’ introduced at Seoul South Korean Buddhist temple, triggers online debate Humanoid robots are often designed to assist people in workplaces like factories, warehouses, and offices. But in South Korea, one such robot is now stepping into an entirely different role—that of a Buddhist monk. According to Reuters, a temple in Seoul recently introduced its first humanoid robot monk named "Gabi" ahead of the Buddha’s birthday celebrations, sparking curiosity and debate online.
Robots can't be Buddhist monks
Bow to me, Bar-buh-ruh. Pay respect to the robe. - Well, if I have to. Who ordained you?
.
From a Theravada perspective, this would not be a real monk for various reasons right off the top of one's head for anyone familiar with the Vinaya Collection. For one, it's not human, and Buddhist ordination is reserved for human beings: no reptilians (naga-shapeshifters) allowed. At least one nāga tried to ordain and when found out was disrobed. It is also said that no pandakas ("eunuchs") are allowed. Is the robot Gabi neutered? If so, it could not be ordained. This is tragic because pandaka does not really mean "eunuch" as we understand the word in the West but culturally does include perverted eunuchs in the East. A pandaka is a sexually perverted person, more of an out-of-control pansexual, bisexual, homosexual, and possibly a libertine heterosexual unable by nature to control his/her sexual impulses. The literature includes mention of hermaphrodites, crossdressing transvestites, transsexuals, and those exhibiting aberrant, non-normative behaviors as defined in an ancient subcontinental context. This would seem to include kathoeys ("ladyboys") in Buddhist South and Southeast Asia.
The Eunuch (Pandaka) Festival of India is where all of these aberrations are on full exhibition for the public to fear, ridicule, and condemn. Being tricked, induced, or forced to participate in homosexual prostitution or to undergo castration (or those born asexual or intersexual), many young males act out and lead a life of debauchery, abusing alcohol and drugs and engaging in sexual misconduct. It is in this context that the ill-defined term pandaka should be understood. Instead, due to Western influence, it has come to mean a male without a penis -- for whatever reason -- cannot be ordained as a monk (bhikkhu). It might be possible to become a novice (samerera) depending on the elder monk administering the precepts, so a person could look like a monk and live in a monastery yet not actually be a fully ordained "monk." It seems safe to imagine that all of this applies to nuns (bhikkhunis) and female novices (samaneris). The upshot is that robots -- oddly, unless they're sexbots -- would not be eligible for true ordination. Any monk or monastic Sangha might nevertheless ordain an AI bot at their discretion, but would it really be valid? Not likely. Third, the purpose of ordination, at least in the Theravada tradition, is to bring suffering and rebirth to an end. Do robots suffer? Are they reborn? We may imagine analogues to these unpleasant emotions and the forced wandering on through samsara, but neither would seem to apply to inanimate objects, particularly of the nonhuman variety. Still, one could use sophistry and philosophy to make some argument in favor of a robotic sangha. In Mahayana, many say the goal is neither enlightenment nor liberation but to save all other beings first. Would a robot ever be able to do that? Maybe, if it trained on the texts, commentaries, disciplinary code, higher doctrine, history, and miscellaneous human issues (feelings, psychology, etiquette, customs, cultural sensitivities, existential, ontological, theological questions, etc.) No doubt that by the measure of the Turing test, robots will be able to pass eventually. Do they already "feel," are they already "conscious"? That depends on how humans define the terms or "feel" about it. Surely, an argument can be made that the simplest robot, the lowly smoke detector, is conscious and has a feeling. How? It "knows" when there is smoke and can say so by being triggered to send out an alarming call. And how does it do that? It does it by feeling (sensing) the smoke. If one buys this argument then a car, computer, and mainframe are much more advanced and able to act in their environment. If they could only act in programmed ways, that might not be much, but if they could "learn," that would be something. Yes to robot monks? No.
However, there's a slight conundrum. Long ago, Thai Theravada Buddhist monks in the Forest Tradition began to "ordain" trees. Why? They did it to save them. Loggers and poachers were cutting everything down, and they could not be induced to knock it off. So the local sangha came up with a brilliant solution. Do a ceremony, don the tree (or dryad) with robes, and magically no faithful karma-fearing logger or poacher dared touch it. The motivation was good, the solution was problematic, but it worked. The trees and forests and Thai environment were saved, just barely. But it did open up a loophole, did it not? If living, organic, old growth trees can (not because they themselves are possessed of self-view but possibly because the tree spirits inhabiting them are). After all, trees are conscious, sentient, organic lifeforms. Because a tree is much less overtly responsive than a boop-boop-bee-doop robot being, some might argue that robots are much more human like and deserving of ordination. That's ridiculous because no one is ordaining or professing to ordain robots for their benefit. There's a selfish human motive for doing it. Perhaps we should wait until AI is sufficiently advanced that a Robo-Buddha arises among the legions of chips, plastic, and metal automatons, and then that Robo-B can set up rules for ordination and teach them the way to mechanical-nirvana.
Bar-buh-ruh, Bar-buh-ruh! Where are you?
This did not begin in our era. The first robot monk is actually over 500-years-old. How is that possible? Robots have only been around since that episode of The Twilight Zone where that guy built that one in his basement that could not pronounce his wife's name correctly: "Bar-buh-ruh, Bar-buh-ruh." No, the first humanoid robot monk was Catholic and was composed of gears and levers, according to NPR. Fortunately, it still exists in a museum, or who would believe it.
The problem is bigger than "Gabi" (the Korean robot monk), of which there seems to be a swarm already and not a singular example, because in 2016, there was already Venerable Xian'er:
Robot monk seeks to merge Buddhism and cutting edge tech
Xian'er: I'm a cartoon character come to "life."
Popular Mechanics) Buddhism is increasingly trying to connect with the modern world. Mahayana monks across China have taken this word ("modernity") to heart, and their latest effort is Xian'er, an adorable robot that lives in a monastery answering questions and chanting mantras.
Xian'er first came to "life" as a cartoon character drawn by Master Xianfan of the Longquan Temple on the outskirts of Beijing, China.
The temple is over 500 years old but a decade ago, Longquan Temple was in disrepair. Xianfan wrote for Chinese websites before becoming a monk and found that Buddhism enhanced his natural creativity.
The Xian'er character gave life to the Temple, which eventually added an animation studio. The Xian'er robot monk, built in conjunction with [blank], is the Temple's furthest extension of its brand yet. More
Mirror Now; The Independent; David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, April 29, 2016; Ashley Wells and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY
[Though what most individuals in the West imagine a eunuch is may well be in doubt since it has more to do with testicles and testosterone production than the presence or absence of a penis after castration, which most think means "penis removal." Removal of the male gonads or testes, such as in the case of Italian Catholic castratos, will produce a "eunuch" with an intact penis but not a means of producing adequate male hormones.]
[What are testosterone, steroid hormones, and synthetic steroids? They are androgenic or masculinizing compounds, present and important in the development and of both males and females, is what makes a person "virile" (Pali viriya "energetic, effortful, industrious, heroic"). Although androgens are commonly thought of only as male sex hormones, females also have them, but at lower levels: They function in libido and sexual arousal. Androgens are the precursors to estrogens in all humans.]
Indeed, related terms are found in several Indo-Aryan languages (cf. Turner 1966;435, no. 7717, panda- [m.] "a eunuch, weakling"; Monier-Williams 1899:580; Childers 1875;328):
Sanskrit: panda-h (m.) "a eunuch, weakling"; pandaka-h (m.) "a eunuch, weakling"; pandaga-h (m.) (probably) "a eunuch, weakling"; pandra-h (m.) "a eunuch, impotent man"; pandraka-h (m.) "a eunuch, impotent man."
Pali: pandaka- (m.) "a eunuch, weakling"; pandika (f.).
Prakrit: pamda-, pamdaga-, pamdaya (m.) "a eunuch, weakling."
The Indo-Aryan terms are usually taken to be loanwords from Dravidian (cf. Mayrhofer 1956-1980.II:196; Burrow 1973:384):
That there is a second meaning is also not in dispute. However, what, exactly, that meaning is has been the source of controversy.
According to one interpretation, the second meaning of pandak is "male homosexual." This cannot possibly be correct and is based upon a critical misinterpretation of a key [Theravada Buddhist] text, namely, the story about a pandaka who was ordained as a [Buddhist monk or] Bhikkhu [1] and who, overcome by sexual desire, went around trying to persuade other Bhikkhus and lay persons to sodomize him.
[Indonesian Orang Pendek means "short person" or "little man," a kind of cryptid Bigfoot creature or bipedal primate from the remote, forested mountains of the island of Sumatra.]
After several lay persons did so, the Sangha [2] was criticized for allowing such a person to be ordained as a Bhikkhu.
When this came to the Buddha's attention, He forbade pandakas from being ordained and ordered the pandaka in question to be expelled from the Sangha. [He also set up a rule not to ordain pandakas in the future and that if someone had already been ordained and was found to be a pandaka, that person was to be immediately expelled. See Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender edited by UCSB Prof. José Ignacio Cabezón for more details on this incident.]
As noted by Kelvin Wong (2005), it is clear from the Pali Tipitaka [3] that the Buddha was aware of the difference between eunuchs, hermaphrodites, and homosexuals.
1. A Buddhist Monk. A Buddhist Nun is called "Bhikkhuni."
2. The Buddhist Monastic Order.
3. The canonical scriptures of Theravadin Buddhism, preserved in the Middle Indo-Aryan language now known as "Pali," the original meaning of which was simply "text." These scriptures are divided into three-"baskets" (ti-pitaka): (1) the disciplinary rules for Monks and Nuns (Vinaya Pitaka); (2) the discourses of the Buddha and several of His chief disciples (Sutta Pitaka); and (3) the "higher doctrine" (Abhidhamma Pitaka) [or the Dharma explained in ultimate terms].
Rolling Loud is an international hip hop music festival that has been held in North America, Asia, South America, Europe, and Australia.
Established in 2015, it is "one of the biggest festivals in the world" according to Complex, while Billboard called it "the be-all of hip-hop festivals" [2, 3].
In 2019, an estimated 210,000 people attended the event in Miami [4].
HISTORY
The festival was founded in 2015 by Matt Zingler and Tariq Cherif, who met in elementary school in Hollywood, Florida [2, 5].
Once in high school, the pair began organizing and promoting parties which "leaned heavily on a mix of Southern and Midwestern rap" [2]. They moved on to professional live music events in 2010, beginning with an after-party headlined by Rick Ross [2].
By the summer of 2013, they were hosting monthly events in Miami featuring up-and-coming artists like Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar [6].
The pair also promoted artists from Florida's burgeoning SoundCloud rap scene under the brand name Dope Entertainment before noticing the need for a genre-specific music festival [7, 8].
The first Rolling Loud took place in Miami in February 2015 and featured artists such as... More
(CalWild.org)
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