Last week, one
Top Ten Buddhism-tagged blogs, per Technorati * | |
| 1 | The Buddhist Blog |
| 2 | this zen life |
| 3 | Dharma Path |
| 4 | The Roost |
| 5 | My Zen Life |
| 6 | auspicious coincidence |
| 7 | Blogmandu |
| 8 | thinkBuddha.org |
| 9 | Green Clouds |
| 10 | freedomforall.net |
| * After eliminating sites with 8 or more tags when no more that 25% are, in a broad sense, Buddhism-related. | |
Nacho of WoodMoor Village Zendo, in a post titled "A Practice of Gratitude," writes about a conversation with his young son about the security and comforts their family has, especially as compared to most others in the world. But their talk quickly broadened:
We also spoke about how we can think broadly about gratitude by following a chain of links that we often forget or dismiss too easily. It makes for a great conversation with kids: [W]e are grateful to have clean water, but how do we get clean fresh water in our homes? We are happy not to live in filth and garbage, yet how does garbage collection and sewage treatment work? How is it that we can walk into grocery stores and see such abundance of items when others are dying from hunger? How [can our practice] contribute to the quality of our lives and those of others? ... It is a benefit that as we touch on those issues, we also talk about civic virtue, about the common good. A practice of gratefulness need not be, and in fact is not, separate from anything else we do.Engaged Buddhism – or at least, the issue of how mature compassion should flow into the world – is often a topic in Buddhist blogs. Tyson serves up quotes of Sogyal Rinpoche in his blog tysonwilliams.com. One long, single-sentence post this week addresses the “compassionate desire to serve all beings.”
Cliff Jones, blogmeister of This is this, is cool beyond belief, giving us his Sum of All Years autobiography all in a single post!! It is sort of a Sum of Sum of all Years, and it’s truly sumthin’! [I hope others of you will write your own sum-of-all-years autobiographies. The rule is that for each year of your life you post an entry about that year with a word count equivalent to your age at that time. Me, I’ve started mine, but I can’t complete chapter 1 until I can choose between poop and googoo.
In the two of his blogs Blogmandu follows, keyboarder James Ure gives a generous helping of holiday thanks … to his readers! In The Buddhist Blog, he writes, “[To all those who] read this blog [be aware] that I love you deeply and hope that on this day you reflect on the good things in your life.” In the lefty politics-oriented Genius of Insanity, he thanks the people in the military and their families for their sacrifices and then writes, “I am also very grateful for this blog and those of you who read my crazy ranting and raving.”
Chalip of Zen Under the Skin had a birthday this week and reflects, glowingly, on wonders in her life: “a beautiful child, good friends, my family, a great sangha, and all of the wonderful people out here in the blogosphere”
In her blog this zen life, haiku tells us about her pouty six-year-old daughter, a little diva who complains constantly. On a beautiful day, the family takes a walk through the woods, and troubles ensue, but there is no scolding in store for the unhappy girl – instead, there is a mirror to life held up to haiku's eyes.
Zen Rhetoric: Paradox and Puzzles is a “class blog” for Jiki Sen Peg Syverson’s Zen Rhetoric class at the University of Texas in Austin [Go Horns! Rah, Team!] This past week, the students have been reviewing the first 98 pages of Brad Warner’s book Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality. I know many Blogmandu readers are crackers* over this book [including chalip & Gareth & M & John Soper], so they and others of you will be interested to read the students’ reviews/analyses of what they’ve read thus far. Here are some “write bites,”** that link to the lucky thirteen reviewers’ assessments: “Anyone who has played with the Meat Puppets...doesn't have to twist my arm…to bend my ear.” “He explains things as they are…in the most efficient and comprehensible manner.” “I like Warner's honesty…but kind of hate the tone [he] uses.” “[H]is writing can be very crude and perhaps unacceptable at times.” “I was tired of being talked to like I was a completely uninformed young kid.” “I absolutely love the in-your-face, no b*llsh*t approach.” “I especially love, love, that he comes clean from the get-go that he himself has not been enlightened, and probably never will be.” “could it be said there is no wrong interpretation of zen and no interpretation is more right than another?” “I thought [the part about Utopia] must be something the enlightened tell the unenlightened to really piss them off.” “one word to describe his style of writing:…blunt.” “I…appreciate how he calls Dogen one of the coolest guys ever.” “Who wouldnt want to make crazy Godzilla movies and practice Buddhism while doing it?” “He wasn't big on any sort of flowery language; on the contrary, he used tons of slang.”
Illustrating his point with a picture of a blue bowl full of Cheerios, Will Buckingham of thinkBuddha.org doesn't believe the story making the rounds that a lad in Nepal, who, supposedly, hasn’t had a bite or a sip in six months, is a new Buddha [qv, The Buddha Channel]. Will writes, “I disbelieve the story because ... there is no evidence that a human being can go for six months without food or water. There is, however, ample evidence that human beings are credulous, greedy and prone to deception.”
Dagme, who keyboards auspicious conincidence, was about to walk away from the pricey soy eggnog in the dairycase [soycase?] at the health-food store, when the voice of Nyima – the inside the banana blogger – “talking up the wonders of eggnog” entered her noggin. Indeed, Nyima/Gabrielle posted re nog that very day: “I have to take this moment to thank the good people that came up with EGG NOG!” Synchronicity!
Clarity, a Slovenian Shambhala Buddhist, shares his “wisdom and confusion” in Clarity’s Blog. This week he had the interesting experience of having a reaction and seeing that of persons outside his sangha when a "wrathful" Buddhist teacher screamed “fuck you” in a talk.
Gareth of Green Clouds and his dharma teacher are at loggerheads over the existance of external reality. If the teacher is right -- that reality is inexistent – then the Gareth-teacher conversation didn’t take place. Gareth is holding on to an external reality that is “merely unknowable.” But by the end of the post, Gareth’s grip is slipping as a wise man, dead for many centuries, weighs in with his thoughts, backing the teacher. “You must strive to realise emptiness to attain even solitary liberation.” concludes Shantideva, wagging his finger at Gareth.
[Footnotes in a blog is oh so PoMo***&*****.]
*Wallace of the cartoon combo ‘Wallace and Gromit’ uses the term, which means intense affection, as in this sentence from their most-recent film, which has perhaps been uttered in all of their films: “I’m just crackers about cheeeese!”
**as opposed to “sound bites”
***Postmodern****
****which means 'just after modern'
*****You readers may be interested to know I was raised [post Tulsa] in Pomona******
******which means 'postmodern not applicable'
