Whether we seek spiritual insight, inner peace, or simply a break from the weight of the world, this gathering offers a space to breathe, to heal, and to remember the deep freedom that is always within reach.
This remote retreat is a unique opportunity for anyone interested in bhakti (Hindu devotion) and Buddhist traditions. The confluence of these two Eastern modalities offers a practical path we can walk in order to become free in this lifetime. Hope to see you there!
Sharon Salzbergvirtually joins Krishna Das, Acharya Shunya, David Nichtern, Nina Rao, Raghu Markus, John Pattern, and friends. The event runs from 8:00 pm, Thursday, August 27, 2026, to 9:00 pm, Monday, August 31, 2026.
LYRICS, DANGEROUS GIRL: He's my drugstore cowboy/ Italian alloy, classical American/ And I'm America's sweetheart/ Chic, delicious, sweet tart/ Sipping on my Diet Coke/ Singin' in the trailer park// He like my jeans tight (Yeah)/ He likes me mean, right? (Right)/ He like my long hair, corset, heels high/ We were born to kill, stripped for success/ I'm his sweet mess/ Do you love me?/ Yes, yes/ Hell yes!// Baby, I'm a four-alarm fire/ And I'm what you desire/ Like a siren in the night (Going Nero, Nero)/ Baby, you's a man on a wire/ Risking all that you got/ For the love of your life/ (You're my hero, hero)// CHORUS: Let me be your dangerous girl (4x)// He's the get-rich-quick type/ Mafioso-hit type/ Girl, I'm gonna marry him/ I'm the bad girl next door/ Baby's always wantin' more/ Buyin' diamond jewelry/ Take me to the Jersey Shore// He like my mink white (White)/ We go out all night (Night)/ We're living off the grid/ Shinin' in the crime light/ We were born to kill, best of the best/ The new Wild West/ Honey, put on that party dress/ Hell yes!// Me and my baby plannin' world domination/ Together, takin' over our fair nation/ 'Cause we're born to kill, keepin' it fresh/ Gold chain, white mesh/ Fame is the name of the game/ Yes, yes (Yes, yes, yes, yes) (Genius Lyrics)
"Music to Watch Boys To"
Am I pretty or am I actually suffering from body dysmorphia after being fat?
LYRICS, MUSIC TO WATCH BOYS TO: CHORUS: (I like you a lot)/ Putting on my music while I'm watching the boys/ (So I do what you want)/ Singing some rhymes just to suffer the noise/ (Where ribbons are knots)/ Play 'em like guitars only one of my toys/ ('Cause I like you a lot)/ No holes barred, I was sent to destroy, yeah// Pink flamingoes always fascinated me/ I know what only the girls know/ Hoes with lies akin to me/ Ah, I see you're going/ So I play my music, watch you leave// CHORUS// Velveteen and living single it never felt that right to me/ I know what only the girls to know/ Lies can buy eternity/ I, I see you leaving/ So I push record and watch you leave// CHORUS// I live to love you/ And I love to love you/ And I live to love you, boy/ I live to love you/ And I love to love you/ And I live to love you, boy// Nothing gold can stay/ Like love or lemonade/ Or sun or summer days/ It's all a game to me anyway// CHORUS// Putting on my music while I'm watching the boys/ Putting on my music while I'm watching the boys (Genius)
So what you're saying is that you're a Dangerous Girl?
Pretty much, because I actually believe it. I believe we can find satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment in romantic love relationships. But you know what? It's never worked! Never.
So you mean the Buddha was right?
Why, what did he say?
He said that all existence bears "Three Marks" or characteristics: All things are impermanent, unsatisfactory (disappointing), and impersonal.
Well, I don't about impersonal, but disappointing for sure. I take it very personally. But come to think of it, they are all impermanent, too, like not even lasting till death do us part.
LYRICS, HIGH BY THE BEACH: High, high/ High, high// Boy, look at you lookin' at me/ I know you know how I feel/ Lovin' you is hard, bein' here's harder/ You take the wheel/ I don't wanna do this anymore/ It's so surreal/ I can't survive/ If this is all that's real// CHORUS: All I wanna do is get high by the beach/ Get high by the beach, get high/ All I wanna do is get by by the beach/ Get by, baby, baby, bye-bye/ The truth is I never bought into your BS/ When you would pay tribute to me 'cause I know that/ All I wanted to do was get high by the beach/ Get high, baby, baby, bye-bye// Boy, look at you lookin' at me/ I know you don't understand/ You could be a bad motherfather/ But that don't make you a man/ Now you're just another one of my problems/ Because you got out of hand/ We won't survive/ We're sinkin' into the sand// CHORUS// Lights, camera, acción/ I'll do it on my own/ Don't need your money, money/ To get me what I want/ Lights, camera, acción/I'll do it on my own/ Don't need your money, money/ To get me what I want// CHORUS// High/ High/ High/ High// Anyone can start again/ Not through love, but through revenge/ Through the fire, we're born again/ Peace by vengeance brings the end
She's our summertime girl!
What about Taylor Swift, Lana?
As kids my sister and I appeared in an Abercrombie & Fitch ad w/ Lindsay Lohan
(Alex Meyers) May 2026: Off Campus is my kind of trash! Yeah, Off Campus, that's right. So I made an animated commentary analysis of it. Here's a full breakdown of this Prime Video TV show, a romcom that is so basic, it's kind of not the worst thing out there.
Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love
(Leo Price) ...If life means nothing, then only pleasure is worthwhile. Or if life has meaning and we cannot get at it, then still only enjoyment matters.
This is the view of not only brutes but some sophisticated philosophers.
It slips into our unconscious by default when we hold no other. However, we are reluctant to entertain it.
Oh, Ro-Ro! - Oh, Jewels!!
We would rather, if we question ourselves about it at all, take as our "purpose" the
support of family,
search for truth or beauty,
improvement of society,
fame,
self-expression,
development of talent...
It might be fair to say that apart from these or beneath these, for many of us our fundamental purpose is the search for love, particularly romantic love.
The love of one person for another is often the floor onto which we fall after the collapse of other dreams.
It is thought of as solid when nothing else is, and although it frequently gives way and dumps us into a basement of despair, it still enjoys a reputation of dependability. No matter that such a reputation is illogical—it still flourishes and will continue to flourish regardless of what anyone says.
Love, or the MYTH of love, is the first, last, and sometimes the only refuge of uncomprehending human beings. What else makes our hearts pound? What else makes us swoon with tingly feelings? What else renders us so intensely alive, aching, pining, yearning, wishing, hoping, craving?
The SEARCH for love—the sublime, the nebulous, the all consuming—remains sacred in a world that increasingly despises the sacred.
When the heroic and transcendental are only memories, when religious institutions fill up with bureaucrats and social scientists, when nobody believes there is a sky beyond the ceiling, then there seems no other escape from the prison of self than throwing ourselves abandon into love.
With a grey age of spiritual deadness upon us, we love. We beg for love or grieve for love. We have nothing higher to live for.
Indeed, many take it on faith that romantic love is the highest thing to live for. Movies, popular literature, art, and music all relentlessly celebrate it as the one "truth" accessible to all.
This kind of love obliterates reason, as poets have long sweetly lamented, and this is part of its charm and power. Why? We want to be swept up and spirited out of our calculating selves. "Want" is the key word because in the spiritual void of modern life, the wanting of love becomes increasingly indistinguishable from love itself.
So powerful, so insistent is it that we seldom notice that the gratification it tempts us with is rare, yet the craving is relentless. Love addiction? Love is mostly in anticipation; it is an agony of anticipation; it is an ache for a completion not found in the dreary round of mundane routine. That we never seem to possess it in its imagined fullness does not deter us. It hurts so bad that it must be good. Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love
Arthur Schopenhauer (Feb. 22, 1788–Sept. 21, 1860) was a German philosopher and writer known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), which was expanded in 1844.
It characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will [11, 12, 13].
Maybe it's just by chance that an American growing up in Amerikkka would gravitate towards punk rock's aggressive musick, rebellion, DIY ethic, and freedom-oriented rock aesthetic AND also toward the Teachings of the "Awakened One" (the Buddha). After all, if we were to translate the term "Budh-ism" into English, "Awakenism" would be a great start.
The Dharmic traditions all lean towards liberation (moksha, vimutti = "freedom") and, as such, they did not really begin as "religions." They're treated as religions now, to be sure. The British colonizers imposed that way of thinking on the various dharmas or "doctrines" of India, the paths to freedom taught by famous awakening teachers. It's good to say "awakening" here instead of "awakened" because Buddhism does not recognize that everyone who is called "enlightened" actually is. What the Buddha meant by the term is very specific. In Buddhism, arahant (Sanskrit arhat) is reserved for seven kinds of livings beings (the "noble ones" or Aryans):
stream enterer (three kinds of sotapannas):
one-seeder (ekabijin)
one who will be reborn at most seven times (sattakkhattuparama)
one reborn among noble families three or four times (kolankola).
once returner (sakkadagami)
non-returner (anagami)
fully awakened (arahant). One could say there are three kinds of arhats as well since in addition to being a "fully" awakened noble disciple, one might be a "non-teaching supremely enlightened person" (pacceka-buddha) or in extraordinarily rare instances, a "supremely enlightened teacher" (samma-sam-buddha).
These descriptions are part of Early Buddhism, preserved in the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, specifically explained in The Path to Freedom (Vimutti-magga), condensed to just four kinds by lumping the three varieties of stream enterers into just one grouping in The Path of Purification (Visuddhi-magga). It seems that in these modern times, only Wisdom Quarterly cares about the distinction. Goodness knows that by borrowing from Brahmanism and Hinduism, later Mahayana movement writers have invented new categories like countless bodhisattvas, mahasattvas, and "Cosmic Buddhas" like Amitabbha, Vairocana, Ksitigarbha, and others to worship in place of taking guidance (sarana) from the historical Buddha Shakya-muni ("Sage of the Indo-Scythians/Sakas"), Siddhattha Gotama, Siddhartha Gautama.
But before actual stream entry (entering the "stream" or sota that inevitably leads to complete freedom = nirvana), there are practices and beliefs the Dharmic traditions have in common, like reaching samadhi ("stillness," "mental coherence" resulting in "superconsciousness," sublime states and transcendental realizations). In fact, many Indian traditions consider samadhi to be the ultimate goal, knowing nothing higher. The Buddha did certainly point higher, adding insight practices (vipassana) to the already known states of meditative absorptions (the dhyanas or in Pali jhanas).
Minor Threat: "I was early to finish. I was late to start. I might be an adult.
But I'm a minor at heart." Fugazi: I wait, I wait, I wait in the Waiting Room
Why does Integral (Ashtanga) Yoga teach an eightfold system, as made popular by the sage Patanjali? It is precisely because of the historical Buddha's super popularity throughout the subcontinent at that time that Patanjali thought he should formulate the Vedic, Brahminical, Hindu (a term that would not be invented for centuries) path to samadhi in the same form as the Buddha's Ennobling (lit. Enlightening) Eightfold Path. "Noble" (Arya) means "enlightened."
One has to slosh around through a lot of Western misinterpretations, explanations, practices, Eastern teachers, and etymologies to rectify one's understanding and remove the confusion that has settled on Eastern philosophy and Dharmic traditions to see it clearly. There have been many well-intentioned translators and teachers over the decades that have inadvertently muddied the water and introduced some wrong notions. It's inevitable. If one practices and practices, those misunderstanding get straightened out.
PUNK has always been about individualism, questioning, rebellion, a willingness to set off on one's own path of investigation, practice, and self-realization. No one can do it for us, and "faith" (particularly of the blind sort) is just not in the cards.
PUNK is fun and, at least in the past, was very funny. It was not profit-driven. The goal from the beginning was freedom, personal and social, to liberate oneself and others. Maybe no one agreed on what a revolution would look like, but the enemy was pretty clear: sexist/racist cops working for the economic elite to maintain the status quo, gatekeepers, authority figures, bosses, dictators, know-it-alls, the forces of oppression bearing down on our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
The founding ideals of our country never promised happiness, but those ideals did very clearly say we had a right to PURSUE happiness as we saw fit. In practice, it was nothing like that, just an Animal Farm/1984-style set of tricks, being told what to believe, how to behave, what to like, what to follow, and so on. Enough of that. The hippies were right, but they were no longer getting anywhere, so the pendulum had to swing the other way. Workers had to arise. Conservatives had to knock it off. Liberals had to wake up. Somebody had to flip off the patriarchy and its father figures.
The CIA, FBI, and PTB (powers that be) were not going to let this movement succeed any more than they had any of the previous ones. They can't stop these things, but they can guide them to implode. Movements are like that. What about individuals? What about intellectuals, poets, artists, and independent thinkers? The government has a game called whack-a-mole for that. They stop this rebellion or that, but another one will take its place. It's like Jello once said in "I Am the Owl." Black Flag had something to say beyond self-defeating aggression when they sang, "Rise Above." But the hippies had something to say, too. "What the world needs now is peace, love, and understanding" and, if not, then how about anarchy, hate, and profanities. How does that strike you, Society?
If England/Britain ruined us as a colony-cum-country, it had a little something to do with the rebellion:
Long, long ago, there was this cool Swedish band that used to do covers, as most new bands are wont to do. Like nearly everyone else, they covered Black Sabbath standards. They are so catchy, easy, and powerful, that it's a good way to get a rock 'n roll career going. But the band was The Cardigans with an ice princess for a singer, one with a saccharine voice and looks. Some member, possibly the drummer, said, "I know! Let's cover the most iconic and evil Black Sabbath song, a song so evil they named themselves after it!"
"But how can we make it MORE evil?" someone asked. "I know, someone else must've said, 'Well turn it into a love song, maybe throw in some domestic abuse.'" "Yeah!" or "Whatever," the others must've said. (What's worse, the Devil or being trapped in an abusive romantic relationship with a jerk partner?)
And so "Heartbreaker" was born. Now, no Cardigans fan knows it's "Black Sabbath," and no Sabbath fans know who the F The Cardigans are, but evil is evil, and a rock 'n roll classic is a classic for a reason (or it may have something to do with the Devil's note, the tritone).
Now, in Christianity, "Satan" is the source of all evil, all harm, all bad things. He's like the counterpart to a jerk allegedly all-powerful God who is all "good." But satan really means the "adversary," any adversary, as in divorce court.
"Heartbreaker"
LYRICS: "Heartbreaker"
Lovefool Nina Persson, The Cardigans front
[Verse 1] No, not again/ Oh, what a man/ Just who I thought that I wanted to have/ Oh, don't do that/ Don't use that bat/ That's all it takes to make me falling flat/ [Pre-Chorus 1] No, not again/ A loser I am// [CHORUS] I love you tonight/ You are my knight/ Cure and assure and make me feel alright/ Tomorrow you'll find/ I'm not around/ But don't be uptight 'cause I loved you last night// [Verse 2] Vacant and free/ Yeah, that is me/ Just tell me how and I'll please you for free/ Tell me I'm good/ I know I'm bad/ Lies make me feel fine although it is sad/ [Pre-Chorus 2] No, not again/ Not one more man// [CHORUS] I love you tonight/ You are my knight/ Cure and assure and make me feel alright/ Tomorrow you'll find/ I'm not around/ But don't be uptight 'cause I loved you last night/ Right?
LYRICS: "Black Sabbath"
Madman Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath front
[Instrumental Intro] [Verse 1] What is this that stands before me?/ Figure in black which points at me/ Turn 'round quick and start to run/ Find out I'm the chosen one/ Oh, no/ [Verse 2] Big black shape with eyes of fire/ Tellin' people their desire/ Satan's sittin' there, he's smilin'/ Watches those flames get higher and higher/ Oh, no, no, please, God, help me/ [Bridge] Is it the end, my friend?/ Satan's comin' 'round the bend/ People runnin' 'cause they're scared/ The people better go and beware/ No, no, please, no/ [Guitar Solo] [Instrumental Outro]
(The Epic History Vibe) Zarathustra's forgotten religion that secretly invented heaven, hell, and the Devil borrowed by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967–circa April 5, 1994) was an American punk, emo, alternative rock musician and a member of the infamous 27 Club. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, and a founding member of the grunge band Nirvana, a name he chose when he found out that in Buddhism the definition of nirvana is "the end of suffering." Through his angsty songwriting and anti-establishment persona, he widened the thematic conventions of mainstream rock music. He was heralded as a spokesman of Generation X and is widely recognized as one of the most influential rock musicians. More
(Asmongold TV) Kurt Cobain didn't kill himself. (They found proof). [And a hired private investigator came to the conclusion that it was his drug addict wife Courtney Love.]
Syd Barrett after acid (LSD) at age 27
The Pink Floyd Sound with Syd (on right)
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (Jan. 6, 1946–July 7, 2006) was an English singer, guitarist, and songwriter who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Until his permanent departure in 1968, he was Pink Floyd's frontman and primary songwriter, known for his whimsical style of psychedelia and stream-of-consciousness writing [1, 6]. He was already absent and undependable by 1967. As a guitarist, he was influential for his free-form playing and for employing effects such as dissonance, distortion, echo, and feedback. More: Syd Barrett
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