Monday, June 22, 2026

27 Buddhas before the historical Buddha

(Buddha's Wisdom) 27 samma-sam-buddhas before the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama

Bruce Lee's only real fight caught on film

Raw US Power vs. Asian Martial Arts Skill

Jews riot in Israel, say NO to IDF draft, jail


They're ghouls
(The Young Turks) Hezbollah kills ruthless Jewish Zionist murderer: March 8, 2026: IDF 52nd Battalion (Vampire Empire) commander Col. Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon, 32, was one of four IDF soldiers killed last night in a Hezbollah retaliation in southern Lebanon. Israel demands he be mourned!
Come, Haredi brothers, be secular sexy Ashkenazi Jews like us drape in patriotic Zionist flag!
.
Kill the Jews, all of 'em...except my Zionists!
(VERTEX) Ultra-Orthodox (HarediHasidic) rioters target and storm IDF (Israel's offensive forces based on mandatory military participation in its wars of establishment, displacement, and conquest with the help of CIA, White House, and Pentagon) military prison over arrest of accused Jewish draft dodgers.

Jewish King of UK dethroned:
Secular Kier Starmer out
after Israel makes new law forcing them to enlist in the Nakba genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass murder of "Arabs," Palestinians, Gazans, local Christians, and fellow Jews who disagree with Israel's imperialist expansionist wars on Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and...Turkey.

Trump fails to drain swamp, blames Obama

(Occupy Democrats) Qatar just humiliated Trump's entire team on the world stage

Trump's only too willing to waste millions (with $12 million in overruns so far for what he said would only cost $2 million) draining the pool, but The Swamp that is Washington, DC? No way. For that, he tries to become the biggest and most corrupt member of.



Playboy patriarch Hugh Hefner on hot seat


Hugh Hefner in 1978 with 'playmate' beauties
*Sarcasm* Who does this patriarchal, sexist, misogynist, capitalist, female-exploiting, dominating, degrading male chauvinist p*g Hefner think he is making sense and being well-spoken?

Bark like a d*g, you S.O.B! How dare come on The Dick Cavett Show prepared with that smug confidence of knowing all the right things to say and actually making a few good points when we all know what you've done! Dick, are you going to let him answer like that?!

You've set women back centuries, not to mention the poor girls and ladies of the world to everyone exposed to your smut gateway magazine that opened the floodgates to an avalanche of pornographies and filth. Filth, I say!

Wives or "playmates," Hef? - Wives. - Oh nice!
You should be, you should be...well, I don't what you should be! Who am I to should all over you? You're as much a symptom as a cause of our moral decay. Only a Republican pedophile like Mr. Trump could restore us and Make America Great Again for the first time after that Democrat pedo Mr. Biden nearly ruined this nation!

Look, Daddy, I am the Walrus. - What the H? I told you to behave when we're in public!

Sexy Buddhism's Bad Boy Sogyal Rinpoche?

I want to be just like pervert Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and get the Western chicks he got!
I deserve sexual services of devotees
Dalai Lama secretly visited his good friend Zionist Jewish spy for Israel Jeffrey Epstein in NY

Tantric sex or Tibetan sex exploitation?

I knew and helped cover it up like a Vatican Pope in Rome, but I was 'Pope' of Potala Palace
I'm giving this boy an extra juicy special "transmission." Outsiders wouldn't understand!
He has little boys suck his tongue, but that's culturally allowed or secret tantra?

Balancing effort in meditation: going for it?


Balanced effort in meditation
Beth Upton(Beth Upton) What is the importance of balancing our effort when we meditate. These videos are only made possible by generous donations (bethupton.com/support). Consider supporting this work on Patreon: bethupton. About my work: bethupton.com

Contentment and relaxing?
Upton's teacher Ven. Revata
When I sat a long retreat with Beth Upton (formerly Sayalay Anutara, a very successful student of Ven Revata, a direct disciple of Pa Auk Sayadaw, my teacher), she told me the same thing Ven. Revata told her: "I want you to practice contentment (santosha)."

"But, but," I argued, "if I were 'content,' why would I k*ck a*ss? I'm here to out-sit everyone and get still there faster."

She shook her head. She might have laughed if it weren't so pathetic and common among us Yankees. She's British, so I thought maybe she didn't understand the American will to muscle and speed through everything. Oh, she understood it and dealt with it with many students. I thought she must not believe how much I wanted to succeed. I tried telling her.

"All the more reason for you to slow down, relax, take it easy, enjoy it."

"'Enjoy' watching the breath?!"

"That's right, it should be enjoyable."

"I don't remember anyone ever saying that. I'm here to be an ascetic, to skip meals, get into hard yoga poses and hold them, to sit until my bum is numb or aching, until I can't sit anymore."

"Then take some time off."

We were talking at cross purposes, because everything I said to win her approval was causing her to look sad. "There's piti (joy, bliss, keen enthusiasm), you know?"

No, I didn't know. "Not for me there isn't. This is all about suffering and overcoming suffering."

She smiled and shook her head. She's quite intuitive but doesn't tell you that at first. "Maybe that's the problem. Take this retreat to treat yourself extra nice, remembering that your goal is CONTENTMENT. And when you're content, I think you'll see that this is much easier [effortless] than you've been making it or trying to make it."

Oh, she was so right. We Americans, we just won't listen. A lazy student should probably be told to shape up. But a rigid student, an over-eager one has to be calmed down, way down. Persistence is much, much more valuable (profitable) than valiant effort. More than 99% of people who read about how the wandering ascetic Siddhartha became the Buddha will misunderstand what he did to succeed.

Ask yourself, American. What did he do that finally did the trick? It's right in the story, the allegory of his life. Prince is born rich in a kingdom, living in three seasonal-capital palaces, shielded from all hardships by loving (doting, overly concerned and sheltering) father who wants and needs his son to grow up and take over the family business -- ruling this Kapilvastu.

The prince is raised very delicately, receiving all the pleasures one could want, sees the signs at 29, realizes there is suffering in the world (aging, sickness, death, not getting what we want when we want it, getting what we don't want, and never being able to find satisfaction or fulfillment in anything) for everyone including him. He, too, will grow old, get sick, and pass away. This so shocks him that he renounces the throne, leaves the lap of luxury just on the night of having been told the beautiful spouse he married years earlier just had their first child, whom he is sure to love and be held in bondage (rahula) by on account of his love. This whole family bonds thing is going to ruin his quest for truth, enlightenment, and liberation. He will not, as king, be able to save his people from their real problem in life -- suffering (dukkha, disappointment, ill, all that not-getting-what-we-want coupled with getting-what-we-don't want). So he takes the decision to let go and leave it all behind. He sets off for the East. (He was not in India when this happened, and no one else was either as there was no "India" yet, and he almost certainly wasn't in Nepal either, but try telling anyone that. He was in Gandhara, what today is the northwestern frontier of the future Empire of India under Ashoka). He finds a yoga teacher, trains, learns meditation as this teacher believes it to work, reaches the pinnacle, and asks, "Is that all there is?"

The teacher, so impressed with his progress, offers him co-teaching status, but Siddhartha is a seeker and not interested in that. He needs to find why we suffer, and nothing this teacher (Yogi Alara Kalama) has taught him has led him to that. So he takes off again. He meets another reputable yogi (Yogi Uddaka Ramaputta), who takes him under his wing, teaches him, and he reaches the pinnacle, and asks, "Is that all there is?" He gets the same offer, feels the same dissatisfaction, and leaves. This time he sets off on his own to practice what all great wandering ascetics have practiced: penances and austerities (tapas) to subjugate the "evil" body and liberate the "pure" mind/heart/consciousness/spirit stuck in the prison of the flesh. Five others see how hard he's been working and think to themselves, "If anyone's going to make it, it's this guy." So they follow him deep into the woods -- forest groves and lonely wildernesses to fast, meditate, and practice according to their own intuition or as they have learned to do.

The less he succeeds, the more Siddhartha doubles down. He's been fasting and that hasn't worked, so he fasts even more. He's been mortifying the body and that hasn't worked, so he punishes and mortifies it even more. The others are impressed, until he goes too far, falls on his face, exhausted, and near dies. He gathers himself, goes off alone, finds a better tree. And it is there that two women (Sujata and her servant) feed him. He takes food directly from their hands, and the other guys are disgusted and turn away. "He's given up." They restore him to health, he bathes in the river, and eventually he realizes this whole roughing it and blaming the body just isn't the way. He sets off again, finds a better tree, and starts to reflect, "If this hasn't worked, what have I been doing wrong and what would be more spiritually profitable and bring me to my goal of awakening and finding a solution to the problem of suffering?" It isn't his suffering he's worried about. He's lived so well that he hasn't experienced much suffering. It is the suffering of all his relations and subjects back in his kingdom that he's worried about, so he has to succeed.

Suddenly, he spontaneously remembers something that happened to him when he as 7-years-old. He was left in the shade of a tree during the annual Ploughing Festival as his caretakers went off to join the party. Alone for once, he sat cross legged and fell into a very profound meditative absorption (jhana). It was pleasant, absorbing, and so deep that legend has it, as he sat, a miracle occurred. Even though the sun moved through the sky as usual, the shade stayed still protecting him. He may have levitated a bit as well. (And let's say these two things didn't happen, it almost certainly felt that way, that time lost all meaning, he started in the shade and emerged still in the shade feeling that a lot of time must've elapsed, and he felt so light and elated that it was as if here were floating). So powerful was this memory, that Siddhartha wondered if this weren't the way to awakening. A strong intuitive sense came upon him that it indeed was.

And then he takes to wondering why he hasn't allowed himself this pleasant way. After all, he studied and quickly mastered these stages of absorption under his two yogi teachers (in addition to having practiced them a great deal in many past lives). He realizes that this way is full of pleasure (piti, joy), and he's been fearing pleasure. Having had so much of it in the first part of his life, he knows that didn't do him any good for realizing the ultimate truth about life, the universe, and everything. But why be afraid of supersensual pleasure, he reasons, given that it's not wrapped up in the body or tied to lust or anything to do with the world and worldliness? That's true, he realizes, and starts practicing them.

He gets up, goes to the river, places his alms bowl in the river, testing his intuitive sense that he's on the verge of success. If the bowl goes against the stream (opposite the flow of the current) that will be a sign and good omen of impending success. It goes against the stream. Buoyed by this auspicious sign, he goes and finds a better tree, takes a seat under it, and makes a strong determination that he will not get up until he succeeds in his quest even if "his blood runs dry and his body shrivels up." It is success or bust, supreme enlightenment (maha bodhi) or nothing! And with that strong determination, sure enough, he sits, lets go, goes deep, emerges purified by this profound stillness and is able to see things as they really are, taking up the successive stages of mindfulness (satipatthana), considering the question, "Why is there this present suffering?"
  • He realizes in successive stages (paticca-samuppada) that on account of this, that came to be, and on account of that, this other thing, and so on through the 12 causal links, tracing back this present suffering to past ignorance that led to karma that led to karmic results that led to so many rebirths that led to this present rebirth, being here now, suffering. And that if it weren't for that unbroken chain of causes-and-conditions this present state would not be arising. That's the answer! Take the lynchpin out of this revolving wheel that leads again and again to suffering!
There is an amazing breakthrough waiting
With this purification and realization, he gains the superknowledges and psychic powers (abhinnas and siddhis), and breaks through to understanding. He recalls his many past lives with their general outline and details, sees how karma has been shaping this all along, sees how this has been happening to all other beings who have for the most part been in the dark about it, and realizes he has answered his question. "Light arose, knowledge arose," and he comes upon the great realization that all states are conditioned and caused, and share three universal characteristics.

They are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal. And with that, through the night, he comes to the dawn, and is now the "Awakened One," the Buddha, replete in knowledge and conduct, full of insight and understanding. He remains around that tree that helped him to this realization for seven weeks, sometimes staring at it in admiration and wonders if it would make any sense to try to tell others what he has realized. He decides that it would not because this world, being so enamored of sensual pursuits, has no time for setting that hedonism aside and purifying their hearts/minds to see what Truth he saw and thereby be liberated by that direct knowing-and-seeing because, you know, the Truth sets one free.

Now, we all know that story, more or less. It's an ancient tale, the "Hero's Journey" as Joseph Campbell called it and Hermann Hesse alluded to in Siddhartha (1922). One could go into far more detail, but that's not the point. The question is, how did he do it? What is the KEY turning point in the story that led to his success, American reader?

One need not go back and look through the story. One already knows (or at least imagines that) one knows the answer. Why? It's because of the way we're wired or the way storytellers have been telling it down through the centuries that more than 99% of people will point to the magic line, "He made the strong determination that he wouldn't get up from this seat, even if his blood dried and body shriveled..." But that's completely wrong.

"Well, it can't be completely wrong," people will say, "because it's in the story." But it is completely wrong because he didn't need to say or do that. But he did need to realize and do something else that comes a little earlier in the story. What is it?

He needed to relax, be content, let go, enjoy the ride, stop over-efforting, and remember that the way was through the absorptions (jhanas, another word for which is the "meditations"). Since nearly every American will necessarily try to muscle it, the only people who make quick progress are the ones who don't, the ones who don't know enough to make the mistake of thinking that they know. They practice with beginner's mind, set no goal up for themselves to reach, and allow themselves to just sit rather than scheming and striving, struggling and suffering.

Ah, happiness leads to absorption.
They take the way of the Tao, as spoken of so much outside of Taoism in Zen. They follow the Buddha's actual advice that this is a "gradual training" that leads to the goal of enlightenment (bodhi) and liberation (nirvana). Craving and grasping at a "goal," as we do with worldly things, just doesn't work in this context. It is counter-productive.

So Upton gave me great advice in promoting contentment. I often forget that in practice as I start to tighten and strain and become exhausted by effort and despair. But there's no telling those Americans to take this up with a light touch, with a playful attitude, with confidence that the historical Buddha well understood what he was talking about and talked about it from direct experience.

We are not our thoughts: Let them pass

What if I'm missing my life purpose, failing?

(The Awakening to Reality) Edgar Cayce: What happens to souls who fail their earth mission?

Been reborn on planet Earth? Don't know if you're "failing" to fulfill the purpose you set out before coming here? Living with purpose, passion, and profits?
  • EdgarCayce.org
  • A day at A.R.E. (Cayce's Association for Research on Enlightenment) Relax, Rejuvenate, and Rediscover: Meditation, spa, cafe, yoga, bookstore, lectures, and more Day at A.R.E.
Who was this Edgar Cayce guy?

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?
Pastor preaches purpose
Pastor Rick Warren has 4.8 out of 5 stars (with 17,746 reviews) for this New York Times #1 bestselling book by that claims to help readers understand and live out the "purpose" of their life.

See, according to the pastor, before we were born, God [Karma?] already planned our life. God longs for us to discover the life he uniquely created us to live -- here on Earth and forever in the hereafter of eternity [the anionic or timeless reality behind time].

Let The Purpose Driven Life show the way. As one of the bestselling nonfiction books in history, with more than 35 million copies sold, it is far more than just a book; it's the road map for a spiritual journey, a journey that will transform life.

Designed to be read in 42 days, each chapter provides a daily meditation and practical steps to help discover and live out a unique purpose, starting with exploring three of life's most pressing questions:
  1. The Question of Existence: Why am I alive?
  2. The Question of Significance: Does my life matter?
  3. The Question of Purpose: What on earth am I here for?
The book also includes links to 3-minute video introductions and a 30- to 40-minute audio Protestant Christian Bible study message for each chapter plus questions for further study and additional resources. More

Growing up Asian, Dave Chappelle on Trump

The Big US Pig Problem (Last Week Tonight)

(LastWeekTonight) Feral Hogs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Thanks, Columbus!
Babe (American film)

Sunday, June 21, 2026

What if I HATE my Dad on Father's Day?


Singalong, Everyone! Because I'm sure I'm the only one, right?
(Trafalgar) Falsettos' "Everyone Hates His Parents" (lyric video)

My Dad's a "Mad Man" (DRI)
"My Old Man's a Fatso"

Eventually, Sid (age 29) spoke up for himself.
Prince Siddhartha Gautama (who became the Buddha at 35) had a dad, not Mr. Gautama. (Surnames came from mother Queen Maya Gautama). His father was King Suddhodana, a very proud, caring even doting father, who had to seem like a jerk to young Sid, always giving him everything he wanted but shielding him from seeing the truth about the world at every turn. His motive? Suddhodana had to keep Sid homebound so he could take over the family business when the time came. It didn't matter that that wasn't what Sid wanted: Your future has been decided for you.

Hey, Beavis, we become our Dads, huh huh huh.
In America, we hate our dads, I guess, until we become our dads. Then we hate ourselves and drink beer, wondering, "Did Dad hate himself? And did his dad hate himself? And is this trap sprung on everyone even in the 'richest country in the world'? This is as good as it gets? This is the best?!"


O, Buddha, I think Bart hates Homer. - Warn him
But what kind of karma (deed, action, conduct) is that, and what will be the result? According to the Buddha, our parents provide a massive and tremendous opportunity for merit (good karma). The only people who provide more are the noble ones (those well-behaved people along the stages of enlightenment). But our parents also have a hidden danger for us, massive and tremendous risk of bad karma for their neglect, mistreatment, abuse.

Jewish boy kills parents (Rob Reiner)
(It's strange because the same two people, if disrespected or harmed by others, wouldn't be such weighty karma as if we did it. It would still be bad, but when it's our own father or mother, or people who raised us like a mother or father, it is VERY weighty. It is so weighty that the Buddha pointed out Five Heinous Karmic Crimes, two of which are matricide and parricide).

How WE treat -- feel, think, talk, and do towards them -- matters a great deal. It matters so much that once a boy really wanted to see the Buddha in the flesh, so he traveled a long way and finally met him, and the Buddha asked him, "Why do you need to see me when you have two Buddhas at home?" (This would suggest that anything he might gain from the Buddha, say in terms of the karma of honoring him in person, he could gain from his parents).
Mom and Dad really pissed me off.
Ultimately, it becomes what WE do, not what parents do or did. There will be no excuse for our intentional actions towards them -- or anybody, but especially them. That's how special parents are.

If a snarling animal were to come at us and we killed it, that would be the terrible karma of killing. "But," we'll say, "it was going to kill us, or harm us, or it was scaring us by snarling! So that shouldn't be bad karma; I should get a freebie on that one."

Now, think about it for a moment. If even a snarling savage wild crazed rabid animal were coming at us, snarling and looking ready to bite, and we killed it THAT would be bad karma with suffering for us as the result, how much more for a father, mother, or stepparent -- who came at us providing life, food, shelter, assistance, learning, and so much more?
  • I slapped this on my Dad's car so he'd know.
    Sure, of course, we don't remember that. We weren't aware and don't now remember when we were infants puking on our dads and moms or parental figures. How we pooped, got sick, were helpless, needed things, got housed, got fed, got cared for, got loved... Sure, we'll say, "Nah, dawg, you don't know my dad [or Mom or whoever]!" And we can tell stories about how bad he was (or they were), how much he drank and yelled and restricted and punished and threatened and spanked or punched or worse. Blah, blah, blah. It's true. It's understandable.
  • But it's not going to matter. It is NOT going to make it neutral karma, and it sure isn't good karma. "But, but...but I was ill-equipped to handle it. No one taught me any other way! I blame my dad, stupid jerk, for not teaching me better! HE made me do it! I treat him like he treated me at the worst of times (because I've forgotten the best of times when he was doing so much for me that I don't count or never knew about)."
How punks D.R.I. see "Karma"
D.R.I. somehow learned about "Karma" and sang about it

LYRICS "Karma": Hey, Punk, with that bottle in your hand/ What makes you so sad? Could life really be that bad?/ Sure, you've got your reasons/ But your alibis are lies/ The story is an old one/ It's been told a million times/ You were glad to be alive/ On life's journey/ You were excited/ But you were not in a hurry/ For years, you walked up and down each road/ You had to try them all/ Looking for your place, I guess/ Where you could rest and feel at home/ Now, tired of walking/ You've started to run/ Passing everything by/ But at least you're having fun/ Good karma, bad karma/ You'll get what you deserve/ There is good and evil/ You've got a lot to learn/ There is love, there is hate/ You can't do as you please/ Wash your face, take a bath/ Your aura's still filthy/ In someone's bathroom, turning blue, puking green/ You're senile, senile at seventeen/ Scars on your brain from drinking beer and smoking weed/ Another acid tab, another shot of speed/ Good karma, bad karma/ You'll get what you deserve/ There is good and evil/ You've got a lot to learn/ There's no lie, only truth/ In reality/ You hate love, you love to hate/ Your soul is so diseased/ You are just a fish in a sea of human beings/ Lost in, caught up in, someone else's dream/ Afraid to laugh 'cause you might drown/ The true mad, sad clown sinking down/ Into the darkness where no one/ Would dare venture to save you
  • I don't deserve what happens to me!
    "Karma's a b*tch," that's the saying. What does it mean? It means karma can be. How is "karma" defined in the West? "What comes around goes around." And what does that saying mean? That means what we send upstream will be coming downstream, what we put out comes back, what we throw out there sooner or later lands on our heads. When we put out something in the wind, it will eventually be hitting us right in the face. So if we spit or pee or poop, ooh, that's going to be a "b*tch" all right. But what if we were to waft fragrant flower petals before us, or wondrous incense smoke, or the aroma of savory food? Mmm, that would be pleasing! That would be welcome hitting us in the face. So it is not that "Karma is a B" all the time, just the times when our karma (deeds) are as awful as offal (tripe, eviscerated waste, poop).
The real meaning of "6-7"
Karma: Take that, Old Man! - Hah, you Ingrate!
Karma works out its results quite impersonally. Y'know how annoying Christians say, "God is not mocked" (Galatians 6:7)? I think they're really, without realizing it, talking about Karma. We don't really get away with things only we know we did. The truth will out, maybe not in this lifetime, and maybe we'll content ourselves to say, "There can't no other lifetimes because I don't believe in that!" but it won't matter.

  • Hey, don't c u comin up with a better explanation
    Remember that slightly stoopid fad kids had going not long ago, saying "six seven" to everything for no apparent reason? (Thanks, South Park!) Wisdom Quarterly wonders if it wasn't some semi-conscious allusion to Galatians 6:7. It's not like anybody reads the Bible nowadays, and no one consciously remembers. But it gets shoved down our threats and into our heads, so who knows if it didn't sneak in so that when everyone heard "six seven," it did have this meaning: "Do not be deceived. Karma cannot be mocked. We reap (harvest) what we sow (plant)."
F Dad who never cared 'bout me
But, y'know, like, what if you do hate him? It's understandable to be very mad at an American parent, fathers and mothers -- and those super jerks the stepparents, who didn't even give birth to a kid and have to suffer the same things and worse from the troubled kids they adopt. It's not all for nothing, parents. It's no accident we adopt. It's no accident we were born into this society that taught and trained us this way, so that's not going to work as an excuse to get us off the karmic hook. Who would ask us, Yama King of the Dead? Jehovah/Yahweh/Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge? Karma does not work through "court" proceedings. It just does its thing. Without knowing it, we are carrying around the seeds of it right now so that wherever we go, there we are. And wherever we go, karma is already there. Karma is the builder, the creator, the producer of our states and traits, our vipaka and phala (karmic resultants and fruits).

The Other F Word: Punk Doc
So what's a person to do? What action (karma) would produce merit? One should ask, "Hey, if I hate my Dad and am going to get into a world of karmic consequences for ignoring or mistreating him, what should I do?" That would be a great question to ask the Buddha, the Awakened One. If one is lucky enough to seek guidance from the Buddha, the Dharma, or the [Noble = Enlightened] Sangha, that will be a very good question. And here's what they would say:

Cultivate metta. Cultivate all four of the Divine Abidings. It will be for YOUR good for a long, long time. Seeing as how we've been cultivating terrible qualities -- whether we learned them from our parents or not -- this would be a great way to go against the stream that pull us down. We could RISE ABOVE (all the BS and family problems we were born into) and go up!


There's a better way to respond to life?
The lotus bud figured this out long ago. Ever notice where the most beautiful and fragrant lotus flowers grow? That's right -- in the mud and mire, the filth and pollution. They love it, accept it, transform it into the most beautiful things. Come to think of it, all the best tasting food grows on dirt, mud, soil, and fertilizer. Fertilizer?! That's made of dung ๐Ÿ’ฉ๐Ÿฝ๐Ÿคญ, isn't it?


Who Ordered This...Dung?
So Western Theravada monk Ajahn Brahm wrote that book making this point: If a dump truck pulls up in front of your house and drops a massive load, what should you do? B*tch and complain, tell everybody how unfair it is that this happened to you, take revenge, start throwing it at everyone like a monkey in a zoo would?

Or might it be a better idea to take it around back to the garden, dig it into the ground, and get the most beautiful flowers and vegetables and fruits from its transformation? Bury it. Let it do good. You'll be thanking that dump truck driver in the end, if you follow this enlightened advice.


When I was a kid, I had a cousin of around the same age. My Dad was a drunk, his father was a religious nut. We'd come home from school and call each other. During those phone calls, I would tell him the latest insanity my dad displayed, and he would tell me what his pops (my uncle) was up to. Before long, it became a contest. "Hah, my dad's a bigger a-hole than your dad!"

Homer, your son says you're a bad father to him.
"Oh yeah, well, let me tell you what he was up to today." And we would flabbergast each other with the ghastly things those fathers of ours had done. Sometimes he won, but most of the time, no one could touch my dad for sheer awfulness, depravity, drunkenness, and vulgarity, to say nothing of the threats, punishments, and always having me be in some kind of trouble or restriction. I fought back. My cousin was smarter and kept his head down, "Yes, Dad," that way he avoided trouble. We eventually called it a draw and my belief that if only he didn't drink, my dad would be all right. His dad never drank and was this much of an a-hole? Hah! What's a growing boy to do? I did what, it seems, few other boys do.

I didn't drink, and I didn't believe in my parents' religion. No way, what hypocrisy! The whole idea of a "father" in the sky was enough for me to say, "F the Patriarchy!" Very punk rock, very crossover, very thrash, very heavy metal, very extreme and alternative. But what's a boy to do, having given up that cultural inheritance? Look for a new, a better one, something I chose rather than was born into (on account of karma).

I eventually loved my dad. I always loved him. I didn't think I didn't love him. I just hated him on top of that. So I stopped that extra layer, stopped ruminating on all the negative things he did. Why/how? I learned Buddhism and Eightfold Yoga.


Buddha Yoga (Wm. Bodri)
I rejected Western materialism and sought answers in the East, where I always suspected they were, just like so many before me, from Siddhartha to Jews of all eras like Jesus, who was more likely an Essene, Gnostic, Buddhist monk at Hemis Gompa in Ladakh, a student of Vedic Brahmanism, and not much of a "Jew," as the Ashkenazi of today would have the West believe).

There's more we can do to love our dads and moms (or at least not hate them) than the Four Divine Abidings. That's why it's invaluable (so valuable that a price cannot be put on it) to have learned and practiced "meditation." What is this English word we call "meditation"? It is cultivation (like dung in the garden or farm), self-improvement, development (bhavana), literally "bringing into being" what we want, like to not be so mad, angry, resentful, and ingrateful.

If we cultivate the opposite of these four, what would we be like? We could be sane, here and now under these circumstance; we could be more loving, joyful, and grateful -- FULL of gratitude not only for our parents, such as they were, but for all the other people who sort of "parented" us when our parents weren't always up to the task: teachers, family, friends, acquaintances, pure strangers, enemies even. There's a very beautiful saying in Hinduism that really helped me when I reflected on it to not be resentful of the harm people do us, with or without knowing how much harm they're doing:

The sandalwood tree sprinkles perfume on the axe that lays it low.

I once opened a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant. Who knows why, it's not like I ate those cookies or believed in the mass printed fortunes in them, and I found a treasure. This ancient wisdom of the East:

The wise person learns more from the fool
than the fool ever learns from the wise.
The Other F Word: punk rock doc on the payback of Fatherhood
The Other F Word: Flea and daughter Clara, deleted scene (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

CLUB LADIEZ
(CLUB LADIEZThe Other F Word is an American documentary film directed by independent filmmaker Andrea Blaugrund Nevins. It explores the world of aging punk rock musicians as they transition into being parents and try to maintain the contrast between their anti-authoritarian lifestyle/pose with the responsibilities of Fatherhood, the titular "other F word." In addition to interviewing over 20 musicians [1] from across the spectrum of the genre -- including Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, Mark Hoppus of Blink 182, and Fat Mike of NOFX -- the film also includes other emblematic figures of the punk subculture such as professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, in a chronicle of the struggles and rewards that accompany raising children. It was released in the U.S. by Oscilloscope Laboratories in 2011. More

D.R.I: Birth of the Imbeciles
  • Falsettos (Trafalgar/Lucie Svodobova); MisterQuigley; D.R.I./Dirty Rotten Imbeciles; Angry Samoans; Oscilloscope Labs The Other F Word (free on YouTube); Dhr. Seven, Sheldon S., Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly