(Genius) I'd like to be a princess on a throne/ To have a country I can call my own/ And a king who's lusty and requires a fling/ With a female thing/ Great, men will be men/ Let me turn on the gas/ I caught them in the den with Marvin grabbing Whizzer's ass/ Oh sure, I'm sure, he's sure he did his best/ I mean he meant to be what he was not/ The things he was are things which I forgot/ He's a queen I'm a queen/ Where is our crown?/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ My life is shitty/ And my kid seems like an idiot to me/ I mean that's sick/ I mean he's great/ It's me who is the matter/ Talking madder/ Than the maddest hatter
If I repeat one more word/ I swear I'll lose my brain/ Oh, what else should I explain?/ Oh, yes, it's true/ I can cry on cue/ But so can you/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ Down, down/ You ask me, "Is it fun to cry over nothing?"/ It is, I'm breaking down/ Now let's consider what I might do next/ I hate admitting I've become perplexed/ I'm bereaved/ I've cried, I've shook, I've yelled, I've heaved/ I have been deceived
As enemies go Whizzer is not so bad/ It's just he's so damn happy/ That it makes me so damn mad/ I want to hate him but I really can't/ It's like a nightmare how this all proceeds/ I hope that Whizzer don't fulfill his needs/ "Don't" is wrong/ Sing along!/ What was the noun?/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ I'll soon redecorate these stalls/ I'd like some padding on the walls/ And also pills/ I wanna sleep Sure, things'll probably worsen/ But it's not like I'm some healthy person/ I've rethought my talks with Marv/ And one fact does emerge/ Oh, I think I like his shrink/ So that is why I might turn to drink/ I'm on the brink/ Of breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ Down, down/ I only want to love a man who can love me/ Or like me/ Or help me/ Help me!
Marvin was never mine/ He took his meetings in the boys' latrine/ I used to cry/ He'd make a scene/ I'd rather die/ Than dry-clean Marvin's wedding gown/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ It's so upsetting when you've found/ That what's rectangular is round/ I mean it stinks/ I mean he's queer/ And me, I'm just a freak/ Who needs it maybe every other week/ I don’t know/ I've rethought the fun we've had/ And one fact does emerge/ I've played the foolish clown/ The almost virgin who sings this dirge/ Is on the verge/ Of breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ Down, down/ The only thing that's breaking up is my family/ The only thing that's breaking up is my family/ But me, I'm breaking Down!
There's a small Cat in a tall Hat, and that's that.
Discover Alan Watts' profound insight into the Western illusion of meaning and the freedom found in Eastern surrendering to life’s mystery. In this powerful lecture from his 1959 TV seriesEastern Wisdom and Modern Life, Watts explains why our desperate "search" for purpose can often lead us AWAY from true peace.
Embrace the present, let go of control, and understand why [the sense of] nonsense might just be the key to enlightenment.
In 1958, Watts toured parts of Europe with his father, meeting the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and the German psychotherapist Karlfried Graf Dürckheim [29]. Upon returning to California and the Bay Area in the United States, Watts recorded two seasons of a TV series (1959–1960) for KQED public television in San Francisco, Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life [30]. More
(T&H - Inspiration & Motivation) April 12, 2021: Here is an inspirational and profound speech on The Secret from the late British philosopher (and spiritual entertainer) from California Alan Watts (1915–1973), who said: "Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery — the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets — is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together."
►Follow the Alan Watts Organization: Speech courtesy of alanwatts.org. Instagram: alanwattsorg. Facebook: alanwattsauthor. YouTube: alanwattsorg. Speech licensed from mindsetdrm.com. Original audio sourced from “Alan Watts - Myth of Myself." Video produced and edited by T&H Inspiration.
Alan Watts via True Meaning, 2/18/24; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Just Let Go: Alan Watts
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck might help
(True Meaning) The Buddha saw a great source of suffering called "clinging." In ignorance, we go around in a cloud of unknowing, full of craving, chasing and grasping anything that might give us pleasure. This is no way to go about ending suffering, and it's not even a way of getting the things we desire. British/Californian philosopher Alan Watts, a Zen practitioner and former Episcopalian priest, talks about the art of letting go. A teacher of Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, Watts was a writer and speaker best known for interpreting dharma for a Western audience. He popularized Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism, particularly among hippies.
True Meaning is an official partner with The Alan Watts Electronic University and MindsetDRM.com. It owns all rights to the content used on this channel. Alan Watts Organization:
Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Jen Bradford, Wisdom Quarterly; Lana Del Rey ("Doin Time"); Leonardo DiCaprio (The Beach)
A young Leonardo DiCaprio goes to Buddhist Thailand in the movie The Beach, scenes shown to Lana Del Rey's version of Sublime's "Doin' Time"
B*tch, please! Life has NO meaning. Let's party.
It's summertime, and the livin' ain't easy. Life still has no meaning! What is my passion? How will I make profits to have enough money to think about these deep questions in Buddhist and formerly-Buddhist:
That phony Christopher Howard came up with a great title, Turning Passions into Profits, but what is my passion? This monk wrote a better title and book called What the Buddha Taught.
According to that, I could figure this all out. I could set off on the Vimutti-magga,The Path to Freedom. I could get on the Visuddhi-magga,The Path of Purification, too.
Who cares what the Buddha said? He's not the Creator
I care. Here's why. Let's say we spend our whole life searching for the "meaning" of life.
Then, say, one day far in the future, science, religion, some genius, or the whole world comes to agree that the ANSWER to "life, the universe, and everything" is 42.
So what? What did it help? We'll say, "What the heck's that supposed to mean?" Then we'll go in search of the QUESTION. After a long time, we may find it, 10,000 generations from now. It was, "How many roads must a person travel?"
So what? What did it help? Nothing! The meaning of life wasn't the thing to be pursuing. That wasn't the problem, and it wasn't going to lead to the solution. All of our popular metaphysical/philosophical questions are dumb for the same reason.
The Buddha explained this beautifully in a powerful simile: Say a person gets shot by an arrow and seeks out a doctor. The doctor, seeing the arrow, goes to pull it out. But the person, being philosophical and a questioning sort says, "Wait a minute. Before I let you take it out, you have to answer some questions first."
"Really?" the doctor asks. "What are the questions?" "Well, for one thing, who shot me? Why did he shoot me? What did he shoot me with? What poison? What is this arrow made of? Yada, yada, yada."
"Let me take it out or, better yet, let me tell you how to take it out." "Hell, no, not until I get some answers."
"Well, even if I could answer, and I probably could, you would die long before you understood any of that stuff. Let's take it out, you live, and if you want, you pursue those fruitless things that won't even matter when you're better." "Hell, no! I need answers first." "Then it was nice knowing you," the doctor should say.
The Buddha is like the doctor in this simile. He provides the answer to the real problem. But we don't want to hear it. What's the problem? Suffering! Why do we suffer? Craving rooted in ignorance of how things really are. Is there a solution? Yes. What is it? The end of suffering (nirvana). How do we arrive at that direct realization? Broadly speaking, by the Ennobling Eightfold Path. "What's that?"
Now that's a good question. That question will lead us out of suffering. Then this whole thing will be like a dream (maya, an "illusion") when we awaken (bodhi), and the result will be blissful peace (nirvana). The Truth will set us free. So let's pursue the Truth and stop wasting time with questions like:
"What's the meaning of life? How did it all begin? Where did the ocean come from? Is the universe infinite or finite? What happens when we die? Will I be reborn? What was I in the past? What will I be in the future? Blah, blah, blah."
The excellent six-part series Decadence: Meaninglessness of Modern Life examines modernity and considers the impact of our relentlessly changing world upon key values that used to make Western society something to aspire to.
Each episode is packed with pearls of wisdom and a lot of food for thought. Concepts are well presented with rational arguments and good examples -- helping to justify the often disappointing new realities it reveals.
After consideration, even if this series were only half-true, we can hardly afford inaction. Join Host Pria Viswalingam for the new documentary series as he considers whether we are now completely bogged down in a mire of meaningless self-indulgence, asking whether we really need:
iPods
plasma screen TVs
Brazilian waxes
self-navigating 4WDs to achieve "happiness."
He asks, IF family incomes are higher than ever before in the Western world -- with property values soaring -- and IF conspicuous consumption and material wealth have never been so evident, why are we so unhappy?
Theravada Buddhist monk on alms and pigeon, Bangkok (Anupong_Sonprom/flickr)
The science of happiness: The ideogram for mindfulness (nonjudging awareness) means "presence of heart [mind]."
Jon Kabat-Zinn discusses what mindfulness and meditation are really
about: presence of heart. This is part of a talk sponsored by UC
Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.
But what does "mindfulness" mean?
Clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn gives an operational definition of "mindfulness" [in Buddhist practice]. This is an
excerpt from "Becoming Conscious: The Science of Mindfulness" featuring
Steve Paulson, Richard Davidson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Amishi Jha at the New York Academy of Sciences.
Light streams in over the Buddha, Tham Khao Luang Cae temple, Thailand (Damon Billian)
Golden Buddha in a massive cavern in Thailand (Damon Billian/flickr.com)
"Life is a ride," so we write
Enlightenment in Buddhism Editors, Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit
The Buddha, newly enlightened weeks earlier, sets in motion the wheel of the Dharma by teaching the five ascetics until they gain enlightenment and become the first monastic disciples (VinayakH).
.
The English term enlightenment or awakening (bodhi) is the English translation of the term bodhi or "awakening," which has entered the Western world via the 19th century translations of German Buddhist scholar Max Müller.
It has the connotation of a sudden insight into a transcendent, liberating truth.
"Enlightenment" is also often misused to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts that denote an epiphany or some measure of wisdom (prajna), satori and kensho (sudden realization and maturing insight); knowledge (vidhya); full liberation from all suffering (nirvana) by release from all disturbing emotions and craving (clinging to the unreal) and the subsequent freedom (vimutti) that results; and the attainment of personal-buddhahood (arhatship), nonteaching-buddhahood, or teaching-buddhahood, as exemplified by the historical Buddha.
What constituted the Buddha's awakening?
It constituted the gaining of temporary purity of heart/mind through the meditative absorptions, the direct realization of Dependent Origination, and seeing the Three Characteristics of Existence, the direct vision of causes the mind/heart to let go, see things as they truly are, and glimpse nirvana.
This is the "path of purification" that leads to permanent purity or sainthood (arhatship, the ultimate stage of enlightenment).
What the renunciate Siddhartha Gautama underwent under the bodhi tree ("Tree of Wisdom" or "Enlightenment Tree") in Bodh Gaya ("Enlightenment Grove") is often described in more general terms:
Awakening in stages
What constituted Siddhartha's awakening to "full and perfect enlightenment" (not mere pacceka-buddha-hood, which is enlightenment without being able to teach, or arhatship, i.e., the enlightenment of a disciple who follows a teaching-buddha) involved Three Knowledges that culminate in direct knowledge that liberation has been attained by the combination of absorption (dhyāna) and mindfulness (satipatthana).
Concentration
Absorption stabilizes and temporarily purifies the heart/mind (making it very malleable, capable of its innately extraordinary abilities). Many traditions call this "sainthood," but they should not because one will fall back if one does not proceed to a stable state by insight (vipassana) or true knowledge, direct knowledge of the true state of existence, penetrating the Three Characteristics of Existence. What are they?
Wisdom Quarterly says, If "life is but a dream" then dream, live, but remember to wake up!
Three characteristics
They are these three: All phenomena, all states, all conditions, all "things" (Pali dhammas) are:
ultimately disappointing (eustressing, distressing, liable to suffering, unsatisfactory even as they arise, incapable of enduring satisfactoriness leaving one unfulfilled), and finally -- and this is key to every other teaching (Sanskrit, dharma) -- all things are
Based on this dispassion, the heart/mind pulls away like a feather in a flame (or like a plastic bag dropped on fire). It withdraws, remains secluded, and sees things as they really are.
This knowledge-and-vision releases the heart, frees the mind, liberates the individual from delusion. One glimpses or touches nirvana, the deathless, and enters the first stage of enlightenment.
The relation between meditative absorption (jhana, dhyana) and insight is a core problem in the study of Buddhist philosophy, and it is one of the fundamentals of Buddhist practice.
The Reciprocity Foundation was
established in 2006 to address the plight of homeless youth in New York
City.
[Two years ago] in 2012, when they found that the homeless students were arriving
hungry and unable to focus, the RF team started a vegetarian meal
program called “Starved for Meaning.”
Meals, prepared collectively and
served “family-style,” with a moment of gratitude before the meal,
fulfilled the students’ hunger for community, dialogue, and meaning.
Last year, with the help of Buddhist Global Relief funds, the number of meals doubled and
there was an increase in the number of youth coming to the center for
food.
Bombarded with propaganda from the NY Times
In a questionnaire about the program, 100 percent of the youth
said that their life improved as a result of the meals, they felt a
greater sense of belonging, and they felt more optimistic about their
life.
[This is June 2014 and] over the next year, BGR funding will help the Reciprocity
Foundation increase the capacity of the vegetarian meal program for
homeless youth in NYC and expand the food program to reach young people
living on the streets. This and the next in the Bronx are annually renewable projects:
The Urban Community Food Project (UCFP) was started in 2011 as an initiative of the Urban Rebuilding Initiative.
Its mission is to build a sustainable food system throughout New York
in order to fight poverty and resultant food insecurity.
UCFP’s farms
are located in the 16th Congressional District of the US, an
area that has the lowest median income and the highest rates of
unemployment and [police state mass] incarceration in the nation. UCFP works with at-risk
youth, young adults, and formerly incarcerated men in local
neighborhoods to convert urban spaces into food production sites. The
food grown on these sites is donated to neighborhood food pantries and
homeless shelters. The BGR grant will help UCFP fulfill its goals for
2014-15, which include:
Developing four inner-city farms that will
produce 5,000 pounds of produce for local food pantries and soup
kitchens;
introducing a new fitness program called “good food and
fitness go hand in hand”; and
offering regular workshops on
sustainability, urban farming, green technology, and civic action.
Without a Doubt – It’s Time to Get to Work on Climate Change
The American
Association for the Advancement of Science has issued a report to
dispel the fog of disinformation about the reality of climate change to impress on us the urgency of taking action. What we need to know is
what we can do about it.
One day when I was talking about the importance of taking immediate
action on climate change, a good friend of mine said, “I just wish the
scientists would get together and tell us whether they think climate
change is happening.”
Well, my friend, there is a paper I want you to
see. More
The stupas of Pagan, Burma, the ancient "City of Pagodas" (Platongkohphoto/flickr)
.
You hungry for meaning? Eat Chinese food!
However much the modern world may pride itself on its triumphs
over the foolishness of the past, the progress
we credit ourselves with has been bought at a steep price.
The price is so steep that it throws
into question the worth of our achievements. This price has been the shared conviction we've lost that our lives are endowed with any
ultimate meaning.
Even though in earlier ages humans lived in a space
populated largely by figments of the collective imagination, they could
still claim a precious asset we sorely lack: a firm belief that their everyday lives had
enduring significance stemming from a transcendent
goal.
"NYPD is a layoff away from joining us!"
Present-day attitudes -- molded by scientific reductionism
and technocratic audacity -- have combined forces to sweep away from our
minds even the faint suspicion that our lives may possess any deeper
meaning than material prosperity and techie innovations.
For many people today the consequence of this militancy is a pervasive sense of meaninglessness. Cut loose from our living spiritual traditions, we drift on a sea of
confusion where all values seem arbitrary and relative. We float
aimlessly along the waves without any supreme purpose to
serve as the polestar for our ideals or inspiration for our
thoughts and actions.
Nature does not tolerate a vacuum, and humankind
does not tolerate a loss of meaning. So to escape the
plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, we grasp after distractions.
We pursue pleasure and
power, wealth and status, surround ourselves with
contraptions, invest our hopes in emotional relationships that only
conceal our own inner poverty.
At the same time as we become absorbed in distractions to cope with our psychological void,
we stifle a deeper and more insistent need -- the
longing for a peace and freedom that does not depend on externals.
One of the great blessings of the Buddha's teaching is the remedy
it can offer for the problem of meaninglessness so widespread in human
life today.
The Dharma can serve as a source of meaning because it provides us with the two requisites of a meaningful life -- an
ultimate goal in life and a clearcut and flexible set of
instructions to advance toward that goal from wherever we are now [even if it's in Jay Z and Alicia Keys' overcrowded, concrete megalopolis of New York City].More
I always said you could make it. I know what I said, and I meant it. I always liked the way you wandered like a star. I always knew that someday you'd go far. And if you do, will anything happen?
Will it come true, will anything happen? Will light see you again? Light said it'd be through here again. Please don't forget I'm here waiting. Light always said that it would never change like the people that you've met and the places that you've been.
And if you do, will anything happen? Will it come true, will anything happen? Will light see you again? Will light see you again?
I always said you could make it. Just don't forget that I said it. 'Cause I always liked the way you wandered like a star. And I always knew that someday you'd go far. And if you do, will anything happen? Will it come true, will anything happen? Will light see you again? Will light see you again? Will light see you again? And if I do, will anything happen?
What is a nimitta? It is a learning or counterpart-sign, a light produced by the mind in meditation that becomes the object only when it becomes established at the point of concentration.
Attachment, even to the good, is something to abandon. But first make use of it. The sign is a treasure to protect, to cultivate, to bring to culmination. It is associated with bliss. Equanimity awaits.
Seven Dharmachari & Pat Macpherson (Wisdom Quarterly)
From Hard Resistance to Grateful Acceptance
Meditation (jhaneti, practicing for jhana) means settling back into an original serene, steady, and naturally blissful state of mind.
The "world" outside impinging on our senses -- that is to say, the "powers that be" -- are not interested in our advancing toward serenity. They are interested in us staying with a feeling of trapped. TV networks, news corporations, mainstream media outlets of all kinds work to make us lustful, afraid, and deluded.
They also encourage us to be ashamed about our lust, hateful towards what we fear, and proud (shameless) about our delusions. The "trap" is our conflicting emotional states: lust-shame, fear-hate, delusion-pride.
The Great Protectors
The Buddha said thatHiri (conscience) and Ottappa (abashedness) are the great protectors of the world. They restrain us for the good. But they are easily mistranslated and misunderstood to be the exact problems we wrestle with most in the West, hirias "fear" and ottappaas "shame." Fear and shame are not protecting anyone.
Hiri (apprehension that prevents unprofitable behavior) and ottappa(compunction that prevents unprofitable behavior) mean consideration for ourselves and others. They are motivated by our own future good and/or the future good of others. We care what others will think of us; we care what we will think of ourselves. This caring, or consideration, restrains us.
Of course, it does not restrain everyone -- explaining the success of eMpTV'sJersey Shore.
Just look at what American TV spoon feeds us -- another season of Snooki, the Situation, Pauley, and JWoww. The premiere of the third season was the best ever for the cable channel.
We watch, we gasp, we laugh. Then we are encouraged to feel "ashamed." If you watch, watch and enjoy it, catfights and all. Remember, judgment and disgust are purposely engendered by the program's editors as part of the ride. Conscience and "common" sense could keep us from watching. But we love spectacle. We have at least since Roman times when a massive Coliseum was built to capitalize on our impulse to seek base diversions wherever we can find them.
Eventually, there comes a time when one wants to get back to serenity-and-clarity. Meditative absorption (jhana) and insight (vipassana) provide that like nothing else can.
Resistance is the way to woe and out-of-balance striving. The etymology of dukkha ("suffering") is an off-kilter wheel making for a rough ride. Acceptance brings ease and sukha ("happiness").
The Path is not resistance. The Dharma goes "against the stream" of the world, it's true. The world is inundated, after all, by the Four Floods of greed, hatred, delusion, and fear. The current gets fierce when TV and other things pump it against the twin pillars of hiri and ottappa. Cheap thrills now and unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), too.
Zen-Rabbi St. Issa said it famously: "Resist not evil." [Elsewhere translated as "offer no resistance to the wicked" (NJB) and "resist not injury," (parallel translations at biblos.com).] That's not the way.
Imagine crossing a raging river. Trying to go straight across is foolish, full of effort, and risky, for one is likely to be swept away. But crossing at an angle, going with flow to cross over, that is the way. Sitting on one shore staring at the other, that is completely not the way. The Buddha frequently stated, "This Dharma is for crossing over."
Cross to the Further Shore at a dowstreamangle.
We can go with the flow -- which is nonresistance. We can allow. We can observe (witness without judging). We can be present with what is. What is? Now is.
We can be somewhere. Where? Here. When? Now. Hmm, "be-here-now."
So we take a relaxing seat, not so relaxing that we pass out. (Unless sleep is needed, in which case, sleep). If we need to eat, eat -- but eat something the body needs not craves. That satisfies and does not lead to obsession with eating. It's just good sense.
Well rested, well fed, sitting up, relax while maintaining attention. Apply attention to the breath, which is always happening right now.
South Park: Fearful corporate conservatives at MTV promote spectacle over substance.
But something happens. The world comes in. JUST watch. We need not get involved. We need not resist.
A cloud passes overhead. Let it pass.
A thought passes in the head. Let it pass.
Happiness starts to well up. Let it rise like a pond fed by an underground source, no inlets, no outlets, but cool, clean, and refreshing.Sink into it. But keep witnessing without judging. This is "mindfulness," simple naked awareness that we do not clothe with interpretation, imputation, or discerning. Discerning is for later.
First, we are calm, cool, and collected, gathering the mind into samadhi.
samādhi: the final limb or factor of Eightfold Yoga (Ashtanga) derived from sam (together) + ā (completely) + dhā (to hold).
So samādhi means "to hold together completely," BabaHariDass explains (Ashtanga Yoga Primer).
Yoga distinguishes dhyana (meditation) and samadhi(superconsciousness), as if samadhi were the point of the Quest, of spiritual striving. It may be the goal for yoga, Brahmanism, or Hinduism.
But the goal of Buddhism is to go beyond that to the perfection of wisdom:
Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, so it is!
Samādhi is the launchpad. Liberating-insight is the goal. The Buddha defined "right concentration" (samma-samādhi) in the Noble Eightfold Path as the first four jhanas (dhyanas or absorptions).
The way to get to the first absorption is to deeply and completely (at least temporarily) love, forgive (allow), and accept what is. What is? Whatever is.
Successful meditation results from "balanced striving" -- persistence not resistance.
When should we love, allow, and accept it? Right now, just for now, just for this moment. We probably can't change it at this moment, and we don't need to change it at this moment. So just for this moment, let's allow it. Ah. Breathe. Let go.
Even if we worry, let go. Even if we want something, let go. Even if we "should" or "must" or are about to "die," let go. Just for this moment. We can do it for this moment.
And relaxing like that, a natural thing happens. Expectations stand in the way. It's to be experienced, not to be conceptualized and judged. We're conceptualizing and judging all the time anyway. Give it a rest, and get a rest. And all the rest, just let it go.
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