Showing posts with label competition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competition. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2026

How to win by losing? (Tao☯️Vedas🕉️)

(Taoist Diary) Why being "Nobody" is our greatest power: Taoist secret

Becoming Nobody: Ego Death by DMT?

Satyakāma Jābāla (सत्यकाम जाबाल)
The Brahmin Vacchagotta demanded the Buddha answer yes or no. The Buddha was silent.
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What does a Hindu sage see?
In the Vedas, Satyakāma Jābāli is a Vedic sage, who first appears in the fourth prapāṭhaka (chapter) of the ancient Vedic text, the Chāndogya Upanishad [1].

As a boy, in order to become brahmachārī (celibate Brahmin student), Satyakāma enquires about his father and his family from his mother Jabālā. His mother tells him that she went about many places in her youth attending to different people devoted to their service and did not know his lineage.

Therefore, she tells him that in this world, all that she has is him and vice versa, so he is called Satyakāma Jābāla.

Eager for knowledge, he goes to the sage Haridrumata Gautama, requesting the sage's permission to live in his school for to be a Brahmacharya. The teacher asks, "My dear child, what family do you come from?"

Satyakāma replies that he is of uncertain lineage because his mother does not know who his father is. He tells the sage that as to his lineage, his mother named him Satyakāma Jābāla.

Seeing his innocence and his strong wish to learn, the sage declares that the boy's honesty is the mark of a "Brahmin (brāhmaṇa), a true seeker of the knowledge of Brahman" and accepts him as a student in his school [2, 3].
Will Satyakama Jabala know how to help us?
The sage sends Satyakāma to tend to 400 sickly cows and to come back when they multiply into 1,000 [3].

The symbolic legend or allegory then presents Satyakāma's conversation with a bull, a fire, a swan (Haṃsa, हंस), and a diver bird (Madgu, मद्गु), which respectively symbolize Vāyu, Agni, Āditya, and Prāṇa [1].

Satyakāma thereby learns from these creatures that the form of Brahman is in all of the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), world-bodies (earth, atmosphere, sky, ocean), sources of light (fire, sun, moon, lightning), and in humans (breath, eye, ear, and mind) [2].

Aummmm, the cosmic sound of the universe
Satyakāma returns to his teacher with 1,000 cows and humbly learns the rest: the nature of Brahman (the ultimate, metaphysical reality behind all of the illusions of maya).

Satyakāma graduates and becomes a celebrated sage, according to the Hindu tradition.

A Vedic school is named after him, as is the influential ancient text Jābāla Upanishad – a treatise on Sannyāsa (a Hindu sannyasin or renunciate's life) [4].

Upakosala Kamalayana was a student of Satyakama Jabala, whose story is also presented in the Chhāndogya Upanishad [5]. In the end, Satyakāma Jābāla's teacher the Sage Gautama gives him the name Patan. More

Friday, August 28, 2026

Pokémon convention in San Francisco



Making MONey from selling stinky POKE?
Pokémon
[b][c] is a Japanese media franchise consisting of video games, animated series and films, a trading card game, and other related media. The franchise takes place in a shared universe in which humans co-exist with the eponymous creatures, a large variety of species which have special powers.

The franchise's primary target audience was children aged 5 to 12 [4], but it is known to attract mostly geeky adults and kids of all ages [I].

Pokémon is estimated to be the world's highest-grossing media franchise, with the video games in particular being among the best-selling. The franchise originated as a pair of role-playing games developed by Game Freak, from an original concept by its founder, Satoshi Tajiri. More

Chocolate Charlie or Willy Wonka?


Charlie Bucket was the book's original star
(American Vintage Tales) Nobody realized what the "Chocolate Factory" was hiding, not even sassy, greedy, entitled Veruca Salt. It becomes clear that this whole franchise is not about the kids. Like Gilligan's Island, it's really a morality play about human archetypes and personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins under a sweet and sinister examiner. That's why it resonates so well.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

What was the hit song of the summer?


What'll be Song of Summer for 2026?

The new Ocean Way Festival of LA
Given the exigencies and erratic demands of the music industry nowadays, it is essential that one hit song be pushed to the top of the pop charts to rule each summer. A pop idol's shelf life could depend on it, or it might make an up and comer's career. This summer is tough because there's no obvious frontrunner. Taylor Swift? Yawn. Olivia Rodrigo has a new album, a new festival (Daisy Chain Fields), and everything she's done in the past has been so promising, but a runaway hit?

Who can win the music biz war battle by battle?
Not to our ears, not this time, not even "drop dead" or "the cure." Does it have to be a new song? Technically not because SAINt JHN had "Roses" due to a remix that went viral on TikTok or Instagram or my littler sister's cellphone and dance class. We used to be able to rely on Lana Del Rey to kick out the summer jams.

Editor's flashback pick: JFA "Beach Blanket Bongout"

Skate punks really know how to party on sand
LYRICS: Party on the sand/ Bring your van/ Tan girls, macho fools/ Fun!/ Punk outing, people shouting/ Lots of fun/ Drugs and sun/ Fun! [CHORUS:] Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ Beach blanket bongout (bongout, whoa-oh)/ We're having the fun, wasted in the sun/ Purple boards, short hair/ We're outnumbered and we don't care// The hippies, they hate us/ We take their chicks/ They beat us up/ They're still the dicks/ Dicks!/ Surf punks, we're not/ Skateboard, we do/ We have the fun/ We're the new crew/ Crew! [Chorus]

(Aubrey Hobert) I have a new song, guys! It's out Aug. 7, 2026!
(DECESSUS) "The Hollow Descent" live at Pulsar Awards 2026: Who is this beauty queen? Death metal singer wins beauty pageant

Is rap most popular white art form?


Pretty Reckless: "Dear God"

Monday, July 27, 2026

Surf's up! Triple threat: wavy, hot, humid


Fat Happy Zen monk Budai can surf
Why do waves go so well with Buddhism? There's something about sex, sand, and suffering -- which one meets with while reading
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the beach. But becoming a greater surfer has much more to do with wu wei (the ease of effortless flow), wushu (martial arts), and applying Taoist principles like yin and yang to Zen (jhana) Buddhist practice, which involves mindful in-the-moment awareness and radical acceptance of what is.

Southland facing a triple threat of heat, humidity, and high surf
Temperatures topping 100 inland raise fire risk
Rong-Gong Lin II (July 21, 2026, Los Angeles); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly
Super Girl Surf Fest 2026
Southern California will face a triple threat this week of dangerous heat, muggy weather and, along the coast, hazardous high waves. It may be better for surfing, but it will be risky for all beachgoers who get near the water.

"We're looking at an at least several days -- if not longer -- heat event, which can really be concerning," said meteorologist Robbie Munroe of the National Weather Service's Oxnard office. Hollywood may catch fire on the Sunset Strip from all the tourists dripping sunblock.

Prepare: World Surf League 2026
From Tuesday through next Monday, temperatures could hit 109 in Paso Robles, 108 in Lancaster, 106 in Canoga Park, 102 in Santa Clarita, 99 in Covina, 92 in DTLA, and 87 in Long Beach.

Officials warned of elevated fire danger across large swaths of SoCal starting Tuesday, with a high risk of fast-moving and "plume dominated" fires driven by heat and instability. Such blazes have large vertical growth and can spread rapidly even when not driven by the wind. More: latimes.com
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With no "self," there are only conditions.
Wisdom Quarterly's
 new book on going with the flow while out to sea among brutal sharks, cancerous sun, chapping wind, and rich territorial surf punks suffering from localism and getting into fights about it.

Why do waves go so well with Buddhist practice? There's something about "sex, sand, and suffering" -- which one meets with while reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy safely on the beach. But it has much more to do with wu wei, wushu, and applying Taoist principles to Zen practice.

Ancient surfboard from 1600s found in Hawaii
For instance, when out on a wave about to ride, instead of "doing," try "allowing." Go with the flow. Rather than interfering or trying to cut against the grain, embody radical acceptance of what is and ride it out. That's what Wisdom Quarterly's resident Meditation Teacher Seven says is a far better approach than struggling to dominate.

In surfing as in life, prepare for the gnarly.
Let the waves dominate so that the only thing to do is allow, allow, allow. Then in this allowing, suddenly it becomes effortless and intuitive, perfectly obvious and impossible to explain with words.

People do sometimes try to express it in words, but it all becomes a jumble of oohs and ahhs like surf slang or Himalayan shoestring spiritual seekers on ayahuasca down in the jungles of the Amazon with shamans Michael Harner.
  • Natives knew plant medicines
    As a graduate student in the 1950s, Michael Harner undertook field research on the culture of the Jívaro (Shuar) Natives of the Amazon in Ecuador [5] as he began to pursue a career as an ethnologist. His UC Berkeley doctoral dissertation (1963) became the basis for his book, The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls [6]. In 1960-1961 he reported that he became a participant-observer by experimenting with the powerful plant medicine ayahuasca with the Conibo of the Peruvian Amazon [5]. He wrote about in the articles "The Sound of Rushing Water" (1968)[7] and "The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft" (1973)[8]. Dr. Harner, Ph.D. returned to the Native Jívaro in 1964, 1969, and 1973, at which time he learned the use of the psychoactive entheogen maikua (Datura brugmansia, jimsonweed) [5]. More
Dr. Michael Harner: shamans know their plants
There's a similar feeling to be had by skateboarding or hang glidingBASE jumping or surviving the pit (slam dancing to a favorite song at a concert). Surfing seems very safe by comparison. It all becomes instinctive and beyond thinking. It's a good place to be just for that moment, rising above the turmoil of the mind or diving into the silence of the heart. Rumi would understand. The historical Buddha pointed out the detailed Path to it.

What is surfing?

I'dunno, Bro, looks pretty gnarly. Let's just tan.
Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual surfer (or two) uses a carefully modified wood, fiberglass, or polyurethane board to "ride" on the face, the forward section, of a swelling wave of water. This swell usually carries said surfer toward shore or to a watery death by drowning for not respecting Mother Nature enough. Waves suitable for surfing are primarily found on ocean shores. But they can also be found as standing waves in the open ocean, artificial simulators, lakes, rivers in the form of a tidal bore, or wave pools (and also in a physics experiment when a tide pool is sent back to sea). More
What's going on in the SoCal water?

Giant LA all drains into Santa Monica Bay
A few weeks ago, LA and OC beaches were being subjected to king tides, riptides, with dangerous surfing conditions for experts only. The cause this time seems to be a tropical storm elsewhere disrupting the height and frequency of waves. Surfers may love it as they avoid great white sharks, but others will find it hard to take a dip or swim. Localism is, of course, a greater danger as human sharks with a sense of entitlement circle strangers and drive them out. Expect swells, tubular conditions at The Wedge and elsewhere. Warning: Water may be a little contaminated due to crumbling infrastructure. Sharks are a tiny worry compared to the microscopic contaminants and plastic particle debris. Enjoy.

Sunday, July 19, 2026

The more beautiful game: Buddhist sports?


(FOX Sports) 2026 FIFA World Cup Final: Spain vs. Argentina
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Can legend Lionel Messi win for Argentina?
The world has settled all its differences, and peace has broken out. But just when we were on the verge of celebrating a thousand years of sanity to come, Spain declares war on Argentina, threatening to rub their faces in the grass and to break Messi's body if necessary. Will Argentina, minus its Falkland Islands, put up with European imperialism, colonialism, and exploitation? It can only be decided on the field of mock battle before the audience of the world. And here we sit in the most cross-cultural city in the [Evil] Empire, Los Angeles, waiting to be amused, entertained, and delighted. RESULT: Having declared war on a European colony in the "New World," colonia powerhouse Spain beat the Latin upstart by the slightest margin possible, plunging the Americas into a funk and the EU into ecstatics. "There's always next year" won't work this time. A World Cup isn't that easy.
(FOX Sports) Commentary and close up examination of this vital match

The JOY of victory for England!
The AGONY for Norway

'All Trump touches dies': US soccer
World Cup violence and rioting
Israel destroys Palestine (without ball)
Football is my religion: chanting


What if there were alternative UK spectacles?

The Cup (a Tibetan Buddhist film from Bhutan in Indian Himalayas)
What's maker of The Cup done lately?

Buddhist sports: The Cup

Bhutan's submission: The Cup
While the soccer World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery (lamasery) boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is somewhat disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator being a young student, the soccer (association footballfanatic Orgyen. Prevented by various circumstances from seeing The Cup finals on television in a nearby village, Orgyen sets out to organize the rental of a TV set for the Buddhist monastery. All the quiet contemplatives become loud sports enthusiasts instead, whose behavior borders on worldly hooliganism.

The Cup stars: Orgyen Tobgyal, Neten Chokling, Jamyang Lodro. Directed by Khyentse Norbu. Executive produced by Jeremy Thomas. Twitter: @recordedpicture

Monty Python's "Philosophy Football" coming to FOX Sports?