Friday, July 15, 2011

Buddhist monk's "Hippie History" (video)

Seven Dharmachari (Wisdom Quarterly)


How does one go from college to drugs to a search for nirvana?


Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Buddhist monk Ven. Rahula, Rev. Jim* (Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd) from "Taxi" explains his roundabout path from Harvard University (with Tom Hanks), to peer-pressured premarital sex, to Woodstock, to the garage.

American (Sri Lankan Theravada) forest monk Ven. Rahula ()

The author of one of the most surprising and candid books on the "Buddhist" spiritual quest one may ever read (One Night's Shelter) is by Ven. Rahula. He is a former resident of West Virginia's Bhavana Society. He was once in line to succeed as its abbot when the noted elderly Sri Lankan scholar-practitioner Bhante G (author of Mindfulness in Plain English) stepped down. But he returned to the call of the open road after many years.


Meandering down from Afghanistan to the call of Acid (LSD) Full Moon Parties in Goa, India


Bhante Rahula recounts the "Hippie History" that led many in the West to seek a deeper spirituality through the Dharma (Pali, Dhamma) rather than the spiraling senselessness of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.
Baby boomers evolved from being fed up with endless American wars -- with Vietnam destroying the illusion that we were killing and conquering for any noble or humanitarian reason whatsoever -- via drugs towards interest in sharp mindfulness and blissful meditation.

The real renunciation of drugs is as much mental as physical


*Explaining the character of Jim on "Taxi"

Drugs Are Bad
Embodiment of the Sixties
Jim attended Woodstock ("500,000 people... Lucky for them I went, or it would have only been 499,999"). He said he kept finding God everywhere -- except "he kept ditching me." He spent a year of his life making a macrame couch. He was once traded from his commune to another commune for two goats and a Donovan record. Jim once claimed that instead of finding NIRVANA, his 1960's experiences only left him with recurring flashbacks of the original Mouseketeers appearing as visions hatching out of seedpods.

The lesson here is best summarized by South Park's Mr. Mackay: "Drugs are bad, m'kay?"


Final word: Children, drugs are bad. M'kay?

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