The Dharma, sutras, and commentarial interpretations of interest to American Buddhists of all traditions with news that not only informs but transforms. Emphasis on meditation, enlightenment, karma, social evolution, and nonharming.
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“Suppose there is someone who lives very mindfully…She comes home, goes out, stands, sits, speaks, chops vegetables, washes pots, carries out all the activities in daily life in mindfulness and concentration. In all of her actions of body, speech, and mind she shines the light of mindfulness. When others encounter her, they are able to get in touch with that mindfulness, and they are influenced by it. Touched by the light of her mindfulness, the seed of mindfulness in their own consciousness begins to sprout, and naturally they also begin to cultivate mindfulness in their activities as she does. This is a true miracle that any one of us can realize.
The light of mindfulness of those around us, a brother or sister, parent or teacher, partner, or spouse—shines out onto us, and thanks to that we also begin to cultivate mindfulness and shine it out towards others. What is a Buddha? A Buddha is nothing other than the light of mindfulness, and that light, wherever it shines, is able to show us the wonderful truth, the ultimate dimension of whatever it illuminates. Those who are touched by the light of mindfulness in turn shine the light of their mindfulness upon other people and objects…When we live mindfully we shine that light broadly all around us and help others get in touch with and shine their light of mindfulness as well.
Our one small, ordinary life does matter. Our way of being has an effect on our situation, our environment, and the lives of all those around us; we have the capacity to affect many beings and lives. When we light the lamp of mindfulness within ourselves and let it shine, everyone around us will also benefit. In community (sangha) life, if even one person has mindfulness, the light of that mindfulness benefits the entire community. One person gives rise to mindfulness, and then the light of that mindfulness touches another person, and their mindfulness illuminates another, and so on…In this way, we can create a world of light right here on Earth.”
This is from Opening the Heart of the Cosmos, by Thich Nhat Hanh
In this commercial, poser Travis tries to act cool when he isn't. Is he dating Adam Levine?
Let's go Back to the Beach!
Ska festival boasts a lineup led by Sublime with Rome, the original Fishbone, Goldfinger with Travis Barker, 311, Save Ferris, and more.
Blink-182’s drummer Travis and Goldfinger’s Feldy, in association with LA radio station KROQ, have launched a new ska- and punk-centric music fest called Back to the Beach.
The inaugural edition goes down Saturday, April 28th and Sunday, April 29th at Huntington State Beach in Huntington Beach, California.
The lineup sees John Feldmann reuniting Fishbone’s original lineup for their first performance together since 1993, and Barker will sit in with fellow punk veterans Goldfinger.
Whatcha waiting for? Get back to the beach!
Also playing are 311, Sublime with Rome, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Save Ferris, The Aquabats, Hepcat, The Interrupters, Less Than Jake, Mustard Plug, The Suicide Machines, The Aggrolites, Mad Caddies, Big D & The Kids Table, and The Untouchables, with more acts and surprises still to be announced.
Beyond the music, Back to the Beach will feature a carnival, beach games, moon bounces, vegan food, and other ska-friendly activities. Tickets are now available through the festival’s website.
Hip-hop was created by urban youth of color more than 30 years ago amid U.S. racial oppression and economic marginalization.
LAPD Chief Chucky Beck and his killa crew
It has moved beyond that specific community and been embraced by young people worldwide, elevating it to a global youth culture. The ambitious and hard-hitting documentary Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity looks at the popularity of hip-hop among America’s white youth.
It asks whether white-identification is rooted in admiration and a desire to transcend race or if it is merely a new chapter in the long continuum of stereotyping, white privilege, mimicry, and cultural appropriation?
This scourge must be stopped! Save our youth!
Does it reflect a new face of racial understanding in white America, or does it reinforce an ugly history?
The film presents a diverse group of white rap fans (often referred to by derogatory terms such as “wannabe” or “wigger”) and performers with very different ways of expressing their relationship to hip-hop music and culture.
"True Killaz": criminal LAPD cops
Against the unique backdrop of American popular music, Blacking Up explores racial identity in U.S. society:
How do white youth define and express themselves culturally?
Why would creating an alternative persona be attractive to white suburban youth?
What does “authenticity” mean in reference to hip-hop, an art form often based on “sampling” music from other performers?
How does this type of performance affect the communities being emulated?
How do white performers impact interracial dialogue and the cultural landscape?
These questions are examined in fascinating vignettes featuring:
a tense hip-hop battle between white and black students at Indiana University-Bloomington
a backlash against "wiggers" in a Midwestern white community
a revealing analysis of how rapper Vanilla Ice (Mr. Rob Van Winkle as exalted by the comic-genius band the Bloodhound Gang) was marketed to mainstream audiences
performers whose use of racially-charged symbols beg comparison to minstrelsy
a black-owned New York bus tour that specializes in bringing outsiders into the neighborhoods where hip-hop was first invented -- replete with complimentary "bling."
(Bloodhound Gang) Imagine the worst: "Nightmare at the Apollo"
I'll kill my kids if they turn into [blankers]!
The documentary places the issues of cross-cultural appropriation and desire in historical context, drawing parallels between the figure of the white hip-hop fan and previous incarnations of white identification with black culture.
Blacking Up addresses the legacy of blackface performers such as Al Jolson (introducing us to the contemporary Al Jolson Fan Club).
In addition, jazz figures like the "hipster" and rock and roll icons like Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones are considered within a broader context of white appropriation of black cultural expression. [What about Dr. Dre's Marshall Mathers?]
The film posits that identifying with black culture has offered white performers and consumers a means to lift inhibitions. And in the case of hip-hop, it has given white men license to act aggressively masculine.
I'm all masculine all the time. Respect! I got Dr. Dre to vouch for me, boy!
Dear White People, please
Throughout the documentary there is insightful commentary by African American cultural critics such as poet Amiri Baraka (who draws parallels to the Beatnik era), Nelson George, Greg Tate, comedian Paul Mooney, and hip-hop figures Chuck D, Russell Simmons, M1 of Dead Prez, and DJ Kool Herc.
Blacking Up will be a useful resource for college courses in media studies, cultural studies, sociology, African American studies, anthropology, and cross-cultural dialogue as well as for student services programs.
26th Annual KROQ Wiener Show is on May 12th at StubHub Center. Tickets on sale now!
It may not be summer, but never mind. It'll be just like summer at the 26th Annual KROQ Weenie Roast when it returns to the StubHub Center in Carson/Los Angeles on Saturday on May 12th!
This is the station's biggest show of the year, like the winter "Acoustic Xmas" concert. This year's lineup includes Blink-182, Panic! At The Disco, Rise Against, Dirty Heads, Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park), Cold War Kids, The War On Drugs, AWOLNATION, Bishop Briggs, Alice Merton, Manchester Orchestra, James Bay, Nothing But Thieves, and Mt. Joy!
TICKETS go on sale today, Friday, April 27th at 10:00 am. They are available online at AXS.com or call AXS 888-9AXS-TIX or without service fees at the StubHub Center box office (open from 10:00 am–6:00 pm on Friday, April 27). There is an 8-ticket limit for all purchases. PURCHASE TICKETS HERE (price: $39.95-$150.00 + fees). Line-up subject to change. No refunds.
Heal the Bay is an environmental nonprofit dedicated to making the coastal waters and watersheds of Greater Los Angeles safe, healthy and clean. To fulfill our mission, we use science, education, community action, and advocacy.
The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world's ocean, waves, and beaches through a powerful activist network.
BROADCAST: The 26th Annual KROQ Weenie Roast live broadcast is brought to you by Warner Bros Pictures...
We have never understood all of the rancor. So what if Rachel Dolezal (doe-lay-jhal) wants to be black? Let her identify as black. We think she already is socially black.
Does she enjoy white privilege like she used to? [Maybe, in which case she should own it and check her privilege, but she was working for the NAACP helping blacks! Her siblings are all black, as is her husband and child.]
Can some blacks "pass" and implicitly go around being "white"? Of course. It already happens. Blacks, as a group, are lower down on the socioeconomic scale and therefore on the social ranking in our racist nation. Face it.
We're not saying it should be so or that we're going to let it remain so; we're saying it already is so. And as the scholar Dr. Cornel West says, it's out there. We all know the stereotypes and the jokes. It's not secret. And tiptoeing around like no one knows is not serving anyone.
(NBC Nightly News) "Race is a fluid social construct" says Dolezal
We're black, but our cousins pass as white.
Blacks are lower on the American totem pole, but they have a few advantages. Is Dolezal a moocher, a race usurper? Is she a rap star looking for easy/unearned cred?
No, she was raised black and identifies that way. Be what you want. There's already an offense word for it (begins with a W) used about suburban kids who think they're down and legit.
If I was born, ugh, a man but want everyone to call me "Loretta," that's my right! If we are so gender-fluid as a society, why not racially?
Mexican "race"?
I'm Latina, Hispanic, Mexican
Most Mexicans (almost all of them) are Native American but neither identify that way nor get that credit. Most Mexicans are European/Spanish but whether or not they identify that way they don't get that credit. What is a "Mexican"?
It is being a BLEND of both. There are indigenous (los indigena) who look indigenous and are derisively called "Indios" because it's implicitly better to be lighter, more European, closer to your Spanish/Iberian connection, your white side of the family, the likelier source of your riches and social influence.
I'm white (German) Mexican
But there comes a time when you identify with being brown (possibly Chicano/a/x) not pale (huero). Who says "race," a social construct, is strictly biological? Is sex (gender) that way? Is any label that way? Making fun of Rachel may be fun, but cut her some slack. It seems all of this anger at her is really anger and discomfort at our F'd up race relations and the inner turmoil most of us have about it.
CONCLUSION: She's biologically white and socially black. In the US, as in Mexico which is more blatant about it, you are what you look like. Why? Because you will be treated that way sight seen. (On the phone and over the WWW, it's sight unseen based on your voice, speech, and content). You are alsowhat you act like because you will be treated that way when people interact with you. And there is a social science principle behind all of this: We are not what we think we are. We are not what others think we are. We are what we think others think we are. So she's a white black person. She has the right and privilege to identify that way. Get off her back.
(Doormat Lauer/NBC) "I identify as black." What's so hard to understand? Don't label me. Don't try to be put me in your box. Don't tell me
(LifeSpiritOfAmenkhem.com) Africa must change its name fast. Here's why. This analysis concludes that the term or name "Africa," as well as its tiny pictorial representation on maps, must be corrected.
The term is totally adulterated, besmirched, and imbued with a spirit of evil. On top of that, it is clear that this was prearranged by foreigners. Most African countries’ names and their sizes were drawn with full indifference to cultural and communal linkages on the ground.
Due to all this, Africa must change its name fast.What should it be? At the very least there is reason to start referring to it as "Afrika."
There is more. Are you an African, which is a reference to a continent not a country on it? What is the real name for Africa? Who gave it that name? Does it matter? The maps we see, do they accurately represent the size of Africa? Does it matter? Find out the shocking truth.
The one thing we have to realize is that Afruika is a word, not a name, and can be applied to wherever the Ka -- a person's spirit or being -- is born. Easily excitable but sincere Khamithi Hiburu proposes a new OLD name: Afrika.
What will it take to for Buddhist meditation (the development of calm and insight) to be possible?
FREE $100 massages? At our "Read, Practice, Hugs" session, everyone agreedlove is often the missing ingredient.
There were so many endogenous chemicals (third eye/pineal gland secretions of DMT) flowing around the room that we agreed to make a hugging option a regular feature of our sessions.
This week we'll relax with Yoga Massage for self and others, open hearts with powerful Ecstatic Breathwork and Reiki to reach profound states of serenity. Followed by mindfulness exercises and a group reading of the Heart Sutra.
What to bring: Loose comfortable top to expose back, towel, water, crystal (optional), vegan snacks and RAW juices for sharing and socializing.
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