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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World Vegetarian Day 2023: Interesting recipes to try on this occasion
Every year, on October 1st, World Vegetarian Day is celebrated, an occasion dedicated to raising awareness about the advantages of not killing animals and degrading the environment, raising our animal friends for slaughter, rape (artificial insemination), kidnapping (forced separation of young from their mothers), torture, cutting, and consumption.
Vegetarianism has a significant role in reducing our environmental impact. on land, water, and food supplies (given that it takes a mountain of plants to make mole hills of flesh).
Vegetarianism has experienced a surge in popularity in America in recent years, supported by research confirming the environmental and health benefits of plant-based diets. If one were to do just one thing to save the planet, it would be to go vegan.
It helps my yoga and meditation practice.
[(If that's too much, going vegetarian one day a week would be a very good start). It used to be that all Catholics, as many as 3 billion people in the world, were enjoined to not eat meat on Fridays...during Lent...if observing it. The religion grew by asking less and less of adherents. Now all one has to do is at least splash the forehead with holy water every Easter Sunday, and that should be enough to get into heaven. Or sin on the weekend, but for God's sakes confess before sinning again the next weekend. That's what Sundays are for.]
Tibetans in frozen altitudes of the Himalayas, thought of as obligate carnivores, go vegetarian
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At least Buddhist Lisa S. cares about animals
Numerous studies have provided evidence that adopting a vegan (no animals byproducts) or vegetarian (no flesh but dairy and other non-killed items) diet can lower the risk of heart disease and specific forms of cancer, as well as reduce the likelihood of obesity and the onset of Type 2 diabetes.
Thai vegetarians get carried away: self-mutilation
"Vegetarian Day is not just about savoring delicious leafy greens and healthy dishes; it is a global call to awareness and action.
L7: Chinese veggie symbol in Thailand Chinese
"As a chef, I celebrate the multiple benefits of being vegetarian and stand in solidarity with vegetarians worldwide. Choosing plant-based meals not only nurtures our well-being but also nurtures our planet. It is a simple yet powerful choice that reduces greenhouse gases and fosters a healthier world for generations to come." More
There's more than enough delicious nutritious food for everyone when we go vegan.
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Vegans vs. Farmers: Hardcore Heated Debate
(Hammad c) The vegans vs. farmers debate is a heated battle of ethics, environmentalism, and the health implications of raising, tormenting, butchering, and consuming animal bodies.
WARNING: Violent numbing videogaming! Killer in training reacts to vegan activist compassion.
Conscientious and compassionate vegans argue that killing animals to make them "food" is unethical and that a plant-based diet is the most sustainable and healthy lifestyle for human health.
However, conservative and compassionate farmers stand by their animal butchering practices, arguing that it's necessary to make "food" out of these living beings to make money (a livelihood).
The stakes are high, and both sides have compelling arguments. To find common ground, we need constructive dialogue and solutions that benefit everyone -- including animals, our shared environment, farmers, and these d*mn cr*zy vegans.
There are nontheist Buddhists, atheist Buddhists, JewBus, Zen freaks, Dalai Lama fans, Soka Gakkai cult chanters ("Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo"), and all kinds of Asians born into the Dharma, but what about Roman Catholics (suffocating in the patriarchy), can we be Buddhists?
Wisdom Quarterly surmises that mostAmerican Buddhists were born Catholic. (We're trying to coin the term CateBus, "Catholic emerging Buddhists," for Recovering Catholics hungry for the real thing -- direct experience of the Truth without temple priest go-betweens -- like psychonauts or shamans/samanas).
It's the world's largest religion, has issues with Protestants, and may just be the easiest Abrahamic faith to question and reject. It's preposterous. But Friar Fun is nice and restores are faith that not all Catholics are all bad. Our parents, some non-molesting priests, some non-apathetic hypocrites in the Vatican, even this pope seems pretty cool compared to the previous Nazi Pope.
Is Catholicism ("Universalism") a form of Christianity or its own religion?
Fr. Patrick did NOT like Family Guy
(Upon Friar Review with Friar Casey and Friar Patrick) Sept. 29, 2023: BREAKING IN THE HABIT:
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The History of White People in America is a presentation of Independent Lens. The series is a co-production of ROOM 608, INC. and Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
World is an American public broadcast service (Wiki). WORLD CHANNEL is a 24/7, full-service multicast channel, featuring public television’s signature nonfiction documentary, science, and news programming complemented by original content from emerging producers. Launched in Aug. 2007, WORLD is produced and distributed by WGBH/Boston, American Public Television (APT), and WNET/New York in association with Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA).
Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Wyncote Foundation.
For over 2,500 years the Buddhist tradition has created powerful tools to work with our minds. These tools are practical, direct ways to bring something different to the world, more kindness, more joy.
Each session will explore various practices including Tonglen or "sending/receiving," Maitri (Metta) or "loving-kindness," LoJong or "mind training," and other meditative practices to help cultivate sanity for ourselves and others.
The class series focuses on practical and everyday applications so they can apply directly to when we need them most.
Despite the rich heritage of philosophical and intellectual study in Buddhism, at its heart, is something very basic and direct. We will explore that.
Speaker: Carlyle Coash
BIO:
Carlyle Coash, MA, BCC has spent many years in the fields of performance, education, and spiritual counseling. His life has been a series of firsts, blazing away into the unknown so that others can walk the path a little more easily. As a spiritual counselor in hospice and palliative care, he created hundreds of rituals and life transitions, assisting others to find clarity about the most essential elements in their lives. He works with trauma, grief, and major life changes with people of many ages. He specialized in pediatric palliative care and end of life, working with dynamic teams in Colorado and California. He contributed to the creation of the book Making Healthcare Whole and has a chapter published in The Arts of Contemplative Care by Wisdom Press. He is also a founder of The Actor's Gymnasium, a Chicago-based school dedicated to the alternative theatre arts and performance. He is certified as a Mindfulness Meditation Instructor and is the first Tibetan Buddhist practitioner to be Board Certified through the Association of Professional Chaplains. He is also honored to be a part of Wisdom Spring, a nonprofit that creates water and education projects in Africa, India, and Nepal. Please email carlyle@prs.org if you have any questions or do not receive a link for the event.
Photo by: Aaron Araki. Donations help support PRS (The Philosophical Research Society) and its programs. Thanks.
What is it going to take for meditation (natural levels of absorption) to succeed?
Yes, "there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on," if Robert Plant (the lead in Led Zeppelin) is to be believed.
The stairway to heaven is twofold, calm and insight. Mindfulness (dispassionate, non-investigative, attention and radically-acceptance of the present) helps with both.
I'm ready to start. - You could've started sooner.
But it is better to begin what the Buddha called the "gradual training." That establishes samadhi or coherence (blissful all together mind), on a foundation of virtue (sila).
When these states are cultivated, they become a strong foundation for a more important practice. That is the effort toward enlightenment and liberation, bodhi and nirvana.
That gets underway -- vipassana through systematic satipatthana, i.e., insight via establishing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness). The real secret will be the practice of Dependent Origination (paticca-samupada). But all of that can wait. The mind/heart must first be prepped and purified.
It's nearly effortless now. Allow it.
Stop. Sit still. Or freeze in any of the other three postures (standing, walking, or lying down) and give attention to something that always stays in the moment, in the ever-changing present, such as the ever-present breath. Relax with each exhalation. LET GO of everything. We've been waiting to exhale. This is it.
The Buddha's admonition to give will make sense now as in giving there is a letting go, and it is that letting go, that non-clinging or internal-renunciation that makes all the difference. How could we let go of the bigger things (views, ego, pride, willfulness, opinions, etc.) if we are still clinging to the small and insignificant ones?
The mind will go into the object of attention, which may be a sign (nimitta) brought about by focusing on the breath to the exclusion of everything else.
Communicating with an enlightened (someone attained to at least the first stage of path fruition) nun, we secured these step-by-step instructions for reaching the first meditation.
We'll reserve those for Part II. This article is about the harder thing, getting started. If there's one word to associate with meditation, it's sticktoitiveness. Persistence pays off. Starting and stopping and not building up momentum is exhausting, leads to expectations, and gets going about as well as a fire from rubbing two sticks together. (Try it and vividly experience how much it's about starting and not breaking off until there's smoke and an ember to nurture, like the pleasant zest and enthusiasm one feels for the nimitta once it appears).
How does it feel? - Meditation or this silly cap?
Now let's get kooky and creative: the cap. What will put us on the path and hold us there until lift off? Lift off is deceptive because of beginner's luck or stories one inevitably hears about "naturals" effortlessly sitting, attaining, and progressing very quickly. People like that, just start. This is for people not like that.
A copper wire or band with clear quartz crystal (or amethyst, rose, etc.) will serve for a start. Arrange it over the forehead so the stone rests over the third eye (pineal gland). Then just let it be.
To fall asleep, we have to pretend to already be asleep. Therefore, it follows that to absorb, be as if already absorbed.
Does it have to be a cap, helmet, or headband? Could it be a laurel wreath, woven out of plant-helpers like the vine of the dead, an MAO inhibitor, and the bark of a tree or a mushroom cap feted by datura flower petals, stems, and a creeper?
That might work as the volatile oils, scents, and vibrations begin to do their work by proximity and sympathy. Frequency, vibration, it all seems to be about resonance.
Helmet in lead photo said to stimulate hair growth (irestorelaser.com)
Enjoy a plant day with guest leader and fiber-arts artisan Amy Stewart and Rob Remedi for another plant-dyeing and ethnobotany class, this time focusing on the plants and colors of the fall season.
The native plants featured are black walnut (brown), cactus-cochineal (pink), sagebrush (yellow), and orange (an over-dye).
Chumash Cecilia Garcia and Dr. Adams, USC
The class will also have an ethnobotany walk.
This class starts with a short easy walk identifying plants and their uses, as well as which ones yield color.
Upon return from our walk, we'll learn the plant dyeing process and how to prepare different fibers (wool, cotton, silk) for dyeing, then make the dye bath and take home a fabric of choice.
This is a fun, informative, and hands-on class, exploring nature's colorful and useful bounty.
$45.00 per person for a 100% cotton bandana and a lengthy wool yarn strand
$50.00 per person for a 100% silk scarf and a lengthy wool yarn strand
Dhammakaya Buddhist celebration of Vesak (Buddhist X-mas) in modern Vietnam
They shot back, they shot back! OMG, we're the invaders here to rape. Why are they shooting?
What was that Saigon airlift all about, same as our US Kabul airlift? Destroy a country with massive bombing, subterfuge, arming of both sides, then leave on aircraft with a brain-drain. It's all part of a well established game plan by the US Department of War.
The Autry in Griffith Park:
Special 35th Anniversary (with tickets priced as if it were 1988). Join the Autry (with consumed the Southwest Museum's extensive American-Indian collection) for a day full of fun celebrating the Autry's 35th anniversary, with family-friendly activities museum-wide.
Special 35th-anniversary ticket prices are the same as they were when the Autry first opened in 1988.
Trunk Show featuring local artist Laila Asgari
Wild Horse Singers and Dancers
Native Voices performance
Presentations from Karla Buhlman and Rob Word
Docent-led tours and trick ropers
Carnival on the Lawn with games
a Petting Zoo,
Bouncy Houses,
a mechanical bull, and
a Ferris Wheel
Market Vendors and Community Partner booths on the Lawn
Live Music,
Photo Booth,
Game lounge (corn-hole, Jenga, shuffleboard, giant Connect Fours)
PBS SoCal Daniel Tiger Meet and Greet downstairs in the garden
Family Play Space with educational activities for kids and families
Food trucks and [toxic] Fry bread…and so much more
See schedule and location of performances and activities. (Times and locations will be updated daily , so stay tuned for updates if it rains). SCHEDULE OF EVENTS... Details
HAIR became a phenomenon then a movie. It was originally a stage musical, a play. As such, it has a libretto or the stage directions, script, and lyrics. Here's a sample of a good Buddhist part of HAIR. Everyone's heard its songs, but how many of us have seen them in context? What the Altadena Music Theatre has done with the play is mind blowing. That's why we care so much. The musical is about everything we care about: spirituality, awakening, meditation, war, peace, establishment lies, entheogenic plants, nonconformity, questioning, free love, the Sixties, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll... The movie is not great, but the songs and script are golden.
(CLAUDE lands in a Vietnamese field. ORIENTAL CRICKET MUSIC: He crouches as TWO VIETNAMESE NATIVES cross, pursued by and American SOLDIER carrying an M-1 rifle. From offstage, we hear a loud voice).
WASHINGTON (BERGER): "Revolution…revolution…"
(Enter BERGER from wings, or down and aisle, on horseback, wearing a powdered wig, and tri-cornered hat askew, with very long dark-blue velvet cape trailing after HIM, held up by bloody, bandaged, RAGGLE TAGGLE TROOP of 5 or 6)
WASHINGTON (cont’d): "Hut two three four. Hut two three four. Jump to it, lads. Kill the Redcoats. Into the Delaware, men! Grab your muskets for God, for Country, for Crown, for Freedom, for Liberation, for Mother." (Music out)
MESSENGER (WOOF): (Running on, beating a drum rather badly) "General Washington, General Washington, Your Highness!"
WASHINGTON (Slaps HIS face): "Practice!"
MESSENGER: "General Washington, news from the front. The word is retreat. Threat of attack."
(WASHINGTON flees, as INDIANS in warbonnets, with bows, attack)
INDIAN ONE: "Tonto say white man die." (Shoots)
INDIAN TWO: "Sitting Bull say, white man die." (Shoots)
INDIAN THREE: "Crazy Horse say, white man die." (Shoots)
INDIAN FOUR: "Little Beaver say, white man drop dead." (Shoots—all of WASHINGTON’S MEN are now dead)
(Gong. THEY all exit. We hear loud gongs. 1,000-YEAR-OLD MONK and 3 BUDDHIST MONKS enter in long saffron robes)
1,000-YEAR-OLD MONK: "ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GIVE UP ALL DESIRES. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SAY, “OM.” STAY HOME, SAY “OM.”
3 BUDDHIST MONKS (and TRIBE): "OM..."
1,000-YEAR-OLD MONK: "Nice, nice, nice, very nice. (Sings) "OM, OM ON THE RANGE, AND EAT LOTS OF FRUIT AND BE CUTE. BE HAPPY GO LUCKY, EV’RYONE SHOULD BE BUDDHA." (Various gongs sound).
FIRST MONK (WOOF): "WE ARE ALL ONE."
THIRD MONK: "NO MORE WAR TOYS."
SECOND MONK (SHEILA): (As SHE pulls out gasoline can and starts pouring gas on the 1,000-YEAR-OLD MONK): "USE HIGH OCTANE AND FEEL THE TIGER IN YOUR TANK."
1,000-YEAR-OLD MONK: "HUSTLING IS AN HONEST PROFESSION."
(2ND MONK, SHEILA, sets OLD MONK on fire and HE, immolated in flames, runs offstage screaming. The 3 MONKS sit in meditation “Om'ing” as 3 NUNS enter).
THREE CATHOLIC NUNS: "HAIL MARY, FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE. BLESSED ART THOU AMONGST WOMEN AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF THE LOOM. HOLY MARY, MOTHER OF GOD, PRAY FOR US SINNERS, NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH."
(The lights come up on a SERGEANT, and a couple of PARENTS holding a suit on a hanger).
SERGEANT: "O’Reilly"
HUD: "Present, Sir."
MOM: "Momma loves you."
DAD: "I’ve waited a long time for this day, Son."
SERGEANT: "Palucci."
HIRAM: "Present and accounted for, Sir."
MOM: "Now write me a letter tonight."
DAD: "You don’t know how proud I am of you, Son, today."
SERGEANT: "Epstein."
PAUL: "Present, Sir."
MOM: "Give us a kiss."
DAD (Shoves a bill into pocket of suit). "Be a man."
SERGEANT: "Claude Bukowski."
CLAUDE: "Here, Sir."
TRIBE: (Singing) "RIPPED OPEN BY METAL EXPLOSION
CAUGHT IN BARBED WIRE
FIREBALL
BULLET SHOCK
BAYONET ELECTRICITY
SHRAPNELLED
THROBBING MEAT
ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING
BLACK UNIFORMS
BARE FEET
CARBINES
MAIL-ORDER RIFLES
SHOOT THE MUSCLES
256 VIETCONG CAPTURED
256 VIETCONG CAPTURED
(In a whisper)
IT’S A DIRTY LITTLE WAR
IT’S A DIRTY LITTLE WAR
THREE FIVE ZERO ZERO
TAKE WEAPONS UP AND BEGIN TO KILL
WATCH THE LONG LONG ARMIES DRIFTING HOME
(Now THEY freak out).
IT’S A DIRTY LITTLE WAR
IT’S A DIRTY LITTLE WAR
THREE FIVE ZERO ZERO
TAKE WEAPONS UP AND BEGIN TO KILL
WATCH THE LONG LONG ARMIES DRIFTING HOME
IT’S A DIRTY LITTLE WAR
IT’S A DIRTY LITTLE WAR
THREE FIVE ZERO ZERO
TAKE WEAPONS UP AND BEGIN TO KILL
WATCH THE LONG LONG ARMIES DRIFTING HOME
RIPPED OPEN BY METAL EXPLOSION
CAUGHT IN BARBED WIRE
FIREBALL
BULLET SHOCK
BAYONET ELECTRICITY
SHRAPNELLED
THROBBING MEAT
ELECTRONIC DATA..."
RONNY & WALTER: "WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAN
HOW NOBLE IN REASON
HOW INFINITE IN FACULTIES"
RONNY: "IN FORM AND MOVING HOW EXPRESS AND ADMIRABLE"
BOTH: "IN ACTION HOW LIKE AN ANGEL."
RONNY: "IN APPREHENSION HOW LIKE A GOD."
BOTH: "THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD
THE PARAGON OF ANIMALS."
RONNY: "I HAVE OF LATE
BUT WHEREFORE I KNOW NOT
LOST ALL MY MIRTH
THIS GOODLY FRAME
THE EARTH
SEEMS TO ME A STERILE PROMONTORY"
WALTER: "THIS MOST EXCELLENT CANOPY
THE AIR
LOOK YOU
THIS BRAVE O’ERHANGING FIRMAMENT."
BOTH: "THIS MAJESTICAL ROOF FRETTED WITH GOLDEN FIRE
WHY IT APPEARS NO OTHER THING TO ME
THAN A FOUL AND PESTILENT CONGREGATION OF VAPOURS
WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAN
HOW NOBLE IN REASON."
TRIBE: "HOW DARE THEY TRY TO END THIS BEAUTY
HOW DARE THEY TRY TO END THIS BEAUTY
WALKING IN SPACE
WE FIND THE PURPOSE OF PEACE
THE BEAUTY OF LIFE
YOU CAN NO LONGER HIDE
OUR EYES ARE OPEN
OUR EYES ARE OPEN
OUR EYES ARE OPEN
OUR EYES ARE OPEN
WIDE WIDE WIDE"
(The [hallucinatory] “trip” is over). (Music out).
BERGER: "Claude…"
TRIBE: "Claude...Claude...Claude..."
CLAUDE: (Sits up). "What happened?"
BERGER: "Face reality, Shakespeare."
CLAUDE: "Berger, I feel lonely. Let’s go to Mexico, George."
BERGER: "I’ll go with you."
CLAUDE: "I want to sleep in the mushrooms and eat the sun. I know where it’s at."
SHEILA: "You know where it’s at!"
CLAUDE: (To BERGER): "I know where it’s at!"
BERGER: "I know where it’s at. We all know where it’s at."
CLAUDE: "I can’t make this moment to moment living on the streets."
BERGER: "I dig it. I dig it."
CLAUDE: "I don’t. I don’t." (HE starts painting HIS chest).
BERGER: "Putting on his peace paint, he said: 'On with the groovy revolution.'"
CLAUDE: "I don’t want to be a dentist or a lawyer or a bum or an IBM machine, or a rock ‘n’ roll hero, or a movie star. I just want to have lots of money."
BERGER: "I’m gonna go to India...float around...bake bread. Brownies...I’m gonna stay high. They’ll never get me. I’m gonna stay high forever."
CLAUDE: "I know what I want to be...invisible. I don’t need drugs. An invisible man, I could float around and slip into people’s minds and know exactly what they’re doing and what they’re thinking. I could go anywhere, do anything... I could perform miracles. That’s the only thing I want to do or be on this dirt."
BERGER: "He’s the Invisible Man!"
TRIBE: "Zap!"
(THEY all touch CLAUDE. Tower Clock strikes one, at the back of orchestra. CLAUDE looks out)
CLAUDE: "Oh, my God, it’s one o’clock."
BERGER: "I hate the world, don’t you?"
CLAUDE: "I hate the world, I hate the winter, I hate these streets."
BERGER: "I wish that it would snow at least."
CLAUDE: "I wish it was the biggest snowstorm. Blizzards come down in sheets. Come on! Mountains, rivers, oceans, forests, rabbits, cover everything in beautiful white holy snow, and I could hide out a hermit and hang on a cross and eat cornflakes."
SHEILA: "Tomorrow morning, at dawn, we will take our heads down to the U.S. Army induction center for an Exorcism of the Khaki. We’re going to yip out all the bad vibrations -- yip, yip, yip, yip, -- and we’re going to yip up the sun -- yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yipeeeee! (To CLAUDE, who is now climbing the tower). "Claude, c’mon down and join the tribe."
CLAUDE: (HE comes down). "Are we all going someplace together?"
TRIBE: "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
WOOF: "I’m going home."
BERGER: "C’mon, let’s go."
CLAUDE: "Tonight is the last night of the world. We stick together." (Music starts vamp for next number).
(Claude exits during song)
TRIBE: "Look at the moon, look at the moon, look at the moon…" (Sings)
