Blogmandu

MOVING

2008-04-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

Zen Unbound AND Blogmandu are moving.

NEW ADDRESS zenunbound.blogspot.com
AND blogmandu8.blogspot.com

SEE YOU SOON.

Blogmandu will be moving ...

2008-04-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

I am terminating the zenunbound.com website to save funds and moving the hub of the "magazine", now blog, to zenunbound.blogspot.com

Please change your links to that, though Blogmandu is likely to be a blog within that blog when it re-emerges.

Thanks.

The Five Favorite Dharma Books Meme

2007-12-27T20:15:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by TMcG of TMcG to name five favorite dharma books on my reading list. The last two items top my reading list, since I haven't read them yet -- but are both in transit to me.

Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism by Chang Chung Yuan
Tao te Ching translation & commentary by Ellen M. Chen
Buddha Heart, Buddha Mind: Living the Four Noble Truths by the Dalai Lama
Against the Stream: a Buddhism manual for spiritual revolutionaries by Noah Levine
One city: a declaration of interdependence by Ethan Nichtern

I'll tag three people: Justin, Justin & Danny

I've been tagged ...

2007-12-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

... to share seven "random or weird things" about myself [by Michael, indirectly].

So, for me:

In a crowded auditorium at Ft. Mason in 1983, with a dozen competitors, a heckling MC, and local-celebrity judges, I won a stand-up comedy competition at the San Francisco county fair [due solely, I can assure you, to the fact the material I wrote was far the best, not that I was comfortable in front of people].
When I was 25 I was hospitalized for a week when at work, suddenly, I couldn’t move one side of my body. [Today, I can’t tell you which side it was.]
I am an astronaut, not a Statey -- if the same reason applies to me that Mark Wahlberg’s character said applied to Leo’s character in The Departed.
I can’t tell left from right. It is, I understand, a not uncommon but rather weird problem. It is easy to compensate for -- when I tell myself ‘snap your fingers’ my reflex is to snap the fingers on my left hand -- but it is annoying. If you ask me directions on how to get somewhere, I will tell you while snapping my fingers a bunch of times. It’s not a problem driving because I know that the driver’s side of the car should be nearer the middle of the road than the frontseat-passenger’s side.
I have all the problems of a perfectionist, but I wish I was much more perfectionistic -- since my life’s a shambles and I make a lot of mistakes -- but it is just like a perfectionist to feel this way. Indeed, I realize my perfectionism hobbles my life much more than I realize. Still, I wish I was much more of a perfectionist so that things in my life would be closer to being perfect, even as I realize and dismiss the idea that getting over my perfectionism would be what’s best for me. [Well, really, I don’t at all believe that. Indeed, I don't believe I am a perfectionist and think that I should become one -- which God knows, and wholly coincidentally, is just like something a perfectionist would think.]
I am a stigmatic: A big flat round brown mole is at the top of one of my feet. [I can't tell you which one without taking my socks off.] It looks like the head of a rusty ancient nail. There is no bleeding around it or anything.
Having been raised while my age was in single digits in Oklahoma where they talk funny, I thought for a long, long time that people were also known as “human beans.”

FlailingFruit: Falling Fruit, the new podcast website, launches into a sea of green.

2007-11-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

Two-thirds of the Buddhist Geeks have teamed with eight others to form the webspace Falling Fruit, which is the new home for the "Buddhist Geeks" podcast series and a second, new podcast show -- as they‘re calling it -- "Conscious Business."

The digs at the new space are very nice, but the rollout, otherwise, is disappointing and, even, ominous. Buddhist Geeks, as a cottage business, had promise to extend its reach as the three Geeks ripened their skills as interviewers. It’s early, yet, of course, but this new enlarged enterprise is, maybe, a sharp turn downward, with indicators it embraces gobbledygook, and has become inveigling, and consciously rigidly politically correct.

With the launch of the new webspace comes the first Conscious Business episode and a new Geeks podcast that is really an abridgement of an interview conducted earlier for The TechSattva [which is yet another pod casting series that isn’t (yet?) on the “fruit” menu].

The idea of “Conscious Business” is not new. It is another in a long series of liberal management theories that have foundered in the past, all seeming to suffer from the same flaw: they attach heavy-duty philosophical underpinnings to a business enterprise that distracts it from the effort to focus, be efficient, and provide quality, appropriate goods/services. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for truth, justice and Superman being involved in the American Way. It is just that succeeding at business is a hard slog, and the competition is tough, often run by snakes in suits. I just think it’s been proved that a department of Feel Good just doesn’t help. Employees have enough problems without a supercilious management horning in on their off-hours lives. And a new flood of meetings keeping them from being productive.

Still, the pod show Conscious Business might be good, except it all seems narrowly conceived and rigged to ballyhoo and push the hosts’ fixed conceptions and aid their careers. An objective interview show CB isn’t. Hosts Theo Horesh and Duff McDuffee are leadership and life coaches [which I think we can take to mean “consultants”] involved in liberal-sounding enterprises in the Boulder, Colorado, area. They keep the banter humming in their first podcast [Or, if not they, the audio editor], and are colorful, interesting characters, but the show has the fatiguing drone of an aggressive sales pitch.

The website [“network” in hyped conscious-speak] is a “conscious media for people who care” and the show “explore[s] how consciousness emerges out of the sea of our own enterprises.” And, somehow, passively listening to the show is “joining the dialogue” while we must “prepare to be transformed.”

The ideas and show springs from Fred Kofman’s book from a year ago, called Conscious Business. In the middle of the podcast, the hosts, and their special guest Mark Wilding, delve into the word conscious as if doing so informs them of the management model. It all makes as much sense as trying to understanding baseball’s American League by discussing the word American. Thus the podcast discussion about intense awareness is ironically unaware.

At one point, the special guest cites Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception and interprets it as “the idea of really getting clear about what I’m really seeing and recognizing that I can project on the world and I can sort of override what’s actually going on with what I want to be going on. So, to be aware of that and to be conscious of that and be careful to really try to see what’s actually going on and be clear about that.” The poor special guest had spiraled into a fit of gobbledygook, but that is perhaps appropriate, since, unmentioned is the fact that Huxley’s book is all about his clarifying and confusing 1953 trip on 4/10th of a gram of mescaline.

The show is worth a listen as a stark instance of Boomeritis Buddhism on display. It is classic green vmeme, the hosts unwilling to look beyond their own POV while demanding that others be open to, and embrace, their perspective.

Tags: Falling Fruit, Buddhist Geeks, Conscious Business

Roundup on October 17, 2007

2007-10-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Five quick items for today: Eric in Baghdad; a monk nowhere; the world all around us; Justin in conflict; and Radiohead in your DVD player.

Boys with Guns

Eric, the Zen Traveler is just finishing up his tour of duty, I guess you could call it. He’s not a soldier, but an American contract employee in Baghdad. This from his post “Speechless”:

…At the end of the Festival of Eid all of the children receive presents, much like the Christmas tradition. You'll never guess what every little boy gets. TOY GUNS!!! This is wrong on so many levels. The streets are full of little kids pointing plastic AKs at everything and everyone. When I first witnessed this I was utterly mortified. …

Homeless Monk

Yuttadhammo as pictured from a detail of the banner atop The Truth is Within.

The monk Yuttadhammo of Truth is Within [formerly called Yuttadhammo] has put up a post called “Closing Time.” He is reluctantly, suddenly leaving Wat Sanku, in Thailand, where he’s been living, undertaking forest practice, due to a longstanding disagreement with the abbot. It seems, perhaps, trivial and selfish on my part, but I hope the title of his post doesn’t mean he’s closing his blog! No, no, not now, especially. He must continue to blog! Yuttadhammo thinks he knows where he will next be going, but just in case, anyone have room for a homeless monk? [UPDATE: Yuttadhammo has added additional posts that pop up on the feed but not from the homepage at the blogsite: "A Hard-Knock Life" "Anew" and "Happy in Unhappiness." Help orphaned monk.]

A detail from the nature picture that tops Dave's post.

Appreciating the World

Environmentalist Dave Pollard is not a Buddhist, but Buddhism comes up now and again in his blog How to Save the World. Dave’s latest post is a long, beautiful essay called “What makes us care about nature?” A question he asks is whether it is necessary for us to experience important matters first hand -- do we have to be there? -- in order to understand and get involved. Perhaps Darfur, poverty, global warming and violence are too distant from us to relate “emotionally, viscerally.”

His beautiful, kind, hopeful post ends thusly:

As Daniel Quinn says … in Beyond Civilization:
People will listen when they're ready to listen and not before. Probably, once upon a time, you weren't ready to listen to an idea than now seems to you obvious, even urgent. Let people come to it in their own time.
Yet I think it is in all of us to listen, to hear the voice of all-life-on-Earth, to become a part, to reconnect, to fall under the spell of the sensuous. For twenty years I became deaf to it, it stayed inside me, waiting to re-emerge.

It is in our bones, our DNA. No experience required. We are who we are, and at heart we are all wild creatures, in love with this wild planet and every living thing within it. It is just a matter of time before each of us is ready to listen. Ready to come home.

Buddhism and War

I confess. I prompted it with an email. Justin Whitaker has posted "Buddhism and War" in his blog American Buddhist in England. In his post, the Buddhist Philosopher considers an online essay by Prof. P. D. Premasiri (University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka) that says, in the Theravada canon, there is no justification for war.

A second online essay, a response to the first, written by Justin’s advisor, Prof. Damien Keown (Goldsmith College, Univ. of London), says there is justification for use of force, even to the extent of a just war.

Justin finds no conflict between the two essays, but I think his argument tortured. Premasiri and Keown look at war from different vantages: The first, from the vantage of the individual Buddhist and his psychology or personal predicament. Keown looks at it from the vantage of society as a whole. Justin, it seems to me, is set on splitting the difference when he determines that only wholly defensive wars are justified.

I think that Buddhism and War is an important issue for us to consider with the ongoing war in Iraq, perhaps inevitably escalating into a civil war; wars and threats of wars elsewhere in the world; and the terrible and frustrating situation in Burma.

Whether we are wholly opposed to violence or support efforts in Just Wars meant to stop oppression, men and women (and children) are dying in our name, and are dying in ways and by means which we share responsibility for in this interconnected world. We have an obligation to learn what we can so that we will be informed during any effort we undertake to move the world in the direction of peace.

R A D I O H E A D

Scott Mitchell reviews Radiohead’s new album, In Rainbows, in the buddha is my dj. He writes about two tracks: “’Weird Fishes‘ has blown me away. … ‘Faust Arp’ has some beautiful combination of acoustic guitar, strings, and Thom York's ever-haunting voice that's going to deserve a second listen. Or a third.“ Of interest, if you download the album, you pay whatever you think is best.

Tags: buddhism, buddhoblogosphere, Buddhism and War, Yuttadhammo, David Pollard

Roundup for October 13, 2007

2007-10-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

A quick roundup for today, as I hope to begin, again, to get this blog doing its roundup, meta-blog thing. There is lots and lots of stuff of great interest going on in the buddhoblogosphere and in nearby islands of kindness. Here, a taste:

Buddhists in the Military Blog

Bernie Simon of The Careless Hand offers a tepid recommendation of a group blog for Buddhists in the military, called Buddhist Military Sangha: An Online Resource for Buddhists Associated with the United States Armed Forces. Bernie writes, rather pessimistically, “It's fairly new and looks promising, but new blogs have a way of falling over and dying.” I suppose that’s true and could, sadly, be said of the soldiers, themselves, too -- which is, I guess, what Bernie's alluding to. The eight-member Blogger blog has a light posting history since its start on July 26, but is very, very well written, fully capably done, with many helpful links for soldiers in its sidebar. It looks solid, like a young Marine officer, and I'd bet it'll be a stand-up blog for a good long while.

A recent post by Navy Lt. Jeanette Shin is a Dharma Talk in observance of Halloween that looks at “horror films with a Buddhist theme.”

Danny Fisher of Danny Fisher wrote about the Buddhists Military Sangha in a post in early August. In the fascinating comment thread, Ray King, a UK citizen and member of the Amida Pureland School, wrote, “I'm interested in trying to understand how a buddhist reconciles his faith with belonging to the US military.” Lt. Shin responded, “What happens if we just got rid of our military? Do you think persons everywhere will have peace and happiness? … Kind thoughts and words alone will not protect our cities and our temples (or for that matter, Hindu temples, Christian churches, AND Muslim mosques, or any other place of worship) from people who would like to see them gone. The Reason we have the freedom [to] practice Buddha-dharma is people who serve in the military.”

Danny then wrote a long, thoughtful three-topic response that an abridgment by me would not do justice. [Read it here.] His conclusion, with respect to America’s military presence in Iraq: “At some point, everyone connected to this war needs to own their accountability and respond. They have to refuse service, refuse to pay taxes, refuse to sign over funds, demonstrate, and so on. A Buddhism that would excuse us from looking at the realities and the complexities of war is unacceptable.”

For my part, I recently wrote that I wouldn't mind seeing a precise, surgical American military assault in Burma. I regret that sentiment, maybe. From passages I have visited today at Access to Insight, Buddha offers no comfort to warriors. Most germane to the matter is this from the Sumyatta sutra, ch 42.3 "To Yodhajiva (The Warrior)". Here, a bit of it, quoting Buddha:

When a warrior strives & exerts himself in battle, his mind is already seized, debased, & misdirected by the thought: 'May these beings be struck down or slaughtered or annihilated or destroyed. May they not exist.' If others then strike him down & slay him while he is thus striving & exerting himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the hell called the realm of those slain in battle. But if he holds such a view as this: 'When a warrior strives & exerts himself in battle, if others then strike him down & slay him while he is striving & exerting himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the company of devas slain in battle,' that is his wrong view. Now, there are two destinations for a person with wrong view, I tell you: either hell or the animal womb."

The Great Michael O'Keefe

Michael O’Keefe, the Oscar-nominated actor (for The Great Santini) who, among much else, did a knock-your-socks-off job with a role during the third season of The West Wing where he played a very noble reporter, plays Barry Grissom in George Clooney’s new film Michael Clayton, which is getting boffo reviews after opening yesterday. In his non-thespian meatlife, O’Keefe is a Zen Priest and member of the Zen Peacemaker Order, which can mightily show in his performances, or not, dependent on the role. Here’s the page on Michael at IMDb. Here, an article from five years ago about O’Keefe’s work teaching meditation in Northern Ireland, posted at the official Michael O'Keefe website, www.michaelokeefe.com . Get hip to Michael O’Keefe, y’all.

Sharon Salzberg pulls a Buddhist full Ginsburg

Interesting bits of news tell us that Sharon Salzberg is in upcoming podcasts from both of Buddhism Online’s quality producers of such, the IDProject and Buddhist Geeks. In baseball terms, Salzberg has converted a double play. In Sunday-morning-talkshow terminology, it’s a full Ginsburg when you get saturation coverage.

Ethan Nichtern began his The IDProject newsletter, which I received yesterday, with these words, “This past Wednesday night, our Guest Lecture Series attained new levels of awesomeness with a visit from Sharon Salzberg, one of the foremost meditation teachers in America (soon to be available on The Interdependence Project podcast).”

Vince of Buddhist Geeks put up a picture of fellow Geek Ryan Oelke in his personal blog, Numinous Nonsense, with a caption that began with this sentence: “Ryan doing the voiceover for this week’s Buddhist Geeks episode w/ Sharon Salzberg.” Vince tells us Geek Gwen Bell conducted the interview.

Could it be that Salzberg has a new book out? From a search at Amazon, I find she has a 30-page book/2 CD/contemplation cards package called Unplug coming out in five months. She might be plugging that. [The title may be a reference to The Matrix idea of joining The Real World OR may focus on the simpler idea of relieving stress OR both. “You gotta unplug, man,” said Kroy to Keanu’s coppertop Neo.] She also has a mass paperback version of her 2004 book Lovingkindness coming out next April, published by Shambhala.

Update: The podcasts have been posted. Here are links to Susan Salzberg's three-part podcast with Buddhist Geeks [#1, #2, #3] and the IDProject's 21st Century Buddhism, "GUEST LECTURE: Interdependence and Lovingkindness."

Eight

As many of us learn, tangential to our study of Ch’an (Chinese Zen), the number eight is considered lucky by those in China and by Chinese whom have emigrated worldwide. Thus it is no weird coincidence that the summer Olympics are set to begin in Beijing on August 8, 2008, at 8:08pm (or, maybe, eight seconds and eight nanoseconds thereafter).

Tags: buddhism, buddhoblogosphere, Michael O'Keefe, Sharon Salzberg

Roundup of Recent Whatnot on September 18, 2007

2007-09-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

Today, I've posted Whatnot - blogs that are new to me, developments and non-developments. Interesting stuff I'm eager for you all to know about.

“the BUDDHOBLOGOSPHERE”

Scott Mitchell’s “the Buddhoblogosphere” is still in beta mode. The august August 10 launch has us in version 0.9 [public beta]. Scott tells me v. 1.0, “the re-visioned site,” will be online sometime in the upcoming week.

An earlier post on the MetaBlog [Scott's blog about "the Buddhoblogopshere"] tells us that ideas were aswirl in Scott’s head, aided by users’ suggestions, on what the Buddhoblogosphere is to become. Will it continue as a Buddhist hub and directory as it is in version 0.9? or become “del.icio.us meets Facebook with the simplicity of Craigslist. For Buddhism.”? We’ll see. But somewhere along the line Scott will need to gather a large contingent of Buddhists to contribute to and participate in what he is building. Crowds have not participated in v. 0.9. I guess "if you build in, they will come" is only guaranteed to work in the movies.

The big ideas Scott has for his webspace may have outgrown the limitation suggested by its title. Scott’s not saying, but don’t be surprised if there is a name change in store for the Buddhoblogosphere.

UPDATE 9/18 12:15pm: Scott has delivered his re-visioned webspace. Now called DharmaRealm, and moved to dharmarealm.com, "its mission of documenting everything in the Buddhist web" has been "re-imagined as a social bookmarking site."

NEW GROUP BLOG: PROGRESSIVE BUDDHISM

Justin (aka Shonin) of Ordinary Extraordinary has started a new group blog, titled Progressive Buddhism. The blog’s goal is, as expressed at the top of its sidebar, “… looking at Buddhism in the light of modern knowledge, free from over-attachment to ancient dogmas; looking at the best ways to integrate Buddhism into Modern/Western societies; discussing and encouraging an empirical or scientific approach; seeing insight and awakening as a living tradition not just a historical one.”

Another Justin (aka, Buddhist Philosopher) who solo blogs American Buddhist Perspective; Nacho of WoodMoor Village Zendo and Shikimyo are attached to the project. In Justin/Shonin’s announcement nearly a month ago, seeking group members, he wrote that he has high hopes of adding a few prominent Buddhists to the team of bloggers at PB. Stephen Batchelor and Susan Blackmore are named.

It would be a 500-1 longshot for Justin to snag Batchelor [q.v. wiki] for the group. And Batchelor's no prize. His latest post to his blog at the Tricycle website was ten months ago. Prominent Buddhists are typically lousy bloggers, often blogging rarely when prompted to do blogging duty and usually blogging overtly self-promoting words. Batchelor is wonderful in many of his books, is a brilliant wordsmith, but doesn't get 'out of himself' enough to blog decently, IMOO [ie, in my overt opinion].

Sue Blackmore [q.v. wiki] is far the more interesting possibility for PB. She regularly blogs articles in areas of her expertise for the UK Guardian's comment is free. But it's not really blogging, and it's surely not free; it's paid-for op/article writing. It would be a coup to get Blackmore for Progressive Buddhism. Perhaps she'd do it for the opportunity to express herself in more purely Buddhist terms than she's done for the Guardian. But she likely would not be willing to give away for free what she can do for pay when writing is basically her job, what she does to put bread on the table. That is, unless Justin has an in with her.

ZEN TRAVELER

Here’s a blog that is new to me - and an excellent one it is, too: Zen Traveler. A pretty interesting and exciting life blogger Eric has with an occupation that you have to believe is an unusual one for a Buddhist. He’s a bodyguard who works in the most troubled regions of the world - and that very much includes Iraq and its capital, Baghdad. Eric puts up a short post nearly every day which usually includes one of his wonderful photographs.

The last few days, Eric has been in close proximity to the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki at The Palace. See his posts “Interview at the Palace” and “Interview at the Palace, the Aftermath.” Another recent post remarks on the resilience of Iraqi children. It includes a heart-warming picture of three smiling kids.

BTW, Eric does not work for Blackwater, which is a security provider just ousted from Iraq, according to an article on the front page of the New York Times yesterday.

LIKE A MARTINI WITHOUT THE EGG

TMcG of TMCG is delighted by the work of the trio that present the Buddhist Geeks podcasts. She links to the most-recent interview by the “superpowerful Buddhist Geeks,” and then writes, “So many great interviews being done by the Geeks these days. Great job.”

But that most-recent episode, called What did Jessica Alba Eat for Breakfast?, is a monologue for more than the first half of its 23 ½ minute running time. When Gwen Geek finally engages, things get better.

[The cutesy title of this subsection mocks Buddhist Geeks episode-title silliness. It comes from something Gomez Addams said to Morticia. In Addams Family-speak it means some essential element is missing from something that could be great. We all like an egg in our martini, right? Gomez's full quote was "Can you imagine a roast aardvark without an apple in its mouth? It's like a martini without the egg."]

SIM, RAH!

Another Buddhist blog I want to tell y’all about is Simra.net, blogged by Robert A. Sim, a high-powered scientist with a doctorate of some sort, keen on Buddhism with an occupation that has him working on cutting edge robotics. Hopefully, he'll be the first to develop a robot that can sit for hours and hours without wobbling. Sorry. I'm sure there was a joke in there, I just didn't find it.

Recent posts have been on surge-o-nomics, health/diet, science, robotics, happiness -- and in a post a month ago, Robert jumped into a discussion that began over at The Buddhist Blog on the wisdom of teaching religion to kids. James of TBB had endorsed atheist writer Richard Dawkins's view firmly against indoctrination of kids into any religious view. Wrote Robert, "My two cents on this debate are that, speaking as a parent here, you can't help but rub off some impression of your worldview on your kids. Dawkins is unrealistic to suggest that kids shouldn't be taught religion but he knows that in a hypothetical universe where that link is broken there are likely fewer suicide bombings and deaths-by-exorcism. (Fewer divorces, too, as the stats play out). I mean, what exactly does he suggest we do in order to prevent any 'worldview transference'? In any case, I'm as much against the teaching of fanaticism and intolerance to kids as Dawkins or any other reasonable person but I think the argument is lost because it is impractical."

Robert is also in the great habit of periodically posting what he is grateful for that day. Very IOC.

Climate Change: Crisis or No Crisis?

2007-07-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

Graph shows result of ten efforts to measure global temperatures of the past thousand years. Source of graphic: Global Warming Art

The huge issue of Global Warming finds opposing viewpoints within the land of Buddhoblogistan. Most recently, ~C4Chaos of the eponymous blog put up a post titled “IQ2 Debate: Global Warming is Not a Crisis.” Independently, on the same date, Ajahn Punnadhammo of Bhikkhu’s Blog posted “Facing Facts,” where he tells us “First, the [global warming] situation is beyond serious.” Strange -- isn’t it? -- that an issue that should be wholly the province of scientists to determine what’s what finds advocates on the far sides of the matter among non-expert Buddhists.

C4 presents as evidence the arguments of author Michael Crichton in a debate which he and his team "won," demonstrating that the challenges of what relatively minor climate changes might occur will be met by human technology and creativity. For his part, the bhikkhu quotes an article in New Scientist where it suggests, if nothing is done, we have a radically different planet in store for us. With his post, Ajahn Punnadhammo presents a map of Florida with a much diminished land mass.

Other buddhobloggers that I track that have posted “no crisis”-leaning posts are hokai of hokai’s blogue who posted an echo of C4’s post: Joshua Zader of Mudita Journal who posted “Putting Science before Politics” which quotes an article in the Chicago Sun-Times titled “Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny” and Matthew Dallman of The Daily Goose who quotes an article that says, “So why do the pessimists think we won’t adapt to another change in climate? Why are they hyperventilating about what is likely to be a relatively minor environmental shift?”

Meantime, those that see a real crisis ahead include, in addition to Ajahn Punnadhammo, Danny Fisher (of Danny Fisher) with, most recently, "On Buddhist Evironmental Activism," and also in “Vegetarianism, Buddhism and the Climate Crisis,” and last year's “Stop Global Warming”; and Sujatin (of lotusinthemud) with many posts on the climate crisis in recent months, including “al gore sees 'spiritual crisis' in global warming” and “world needs to axe greenhouse gases by 80pct: report.”

I haven’t tried to (and probably couldn’t) gather statistics to prove it, but my sense of it is that bloggers everywhere, including those in the greater Buddhist community, seem to see the climate-change issue through the prism of their political position. Buddhist bloggers who have a demonstrated liberal bent see a crisis acoming, while the more conservative among us are highly critical of evidence of a climate change or doubt what change in climate might come will present worrisome problems.

But why should that be!? Should not anyone’s position on whether there is or whether there ain’t a pending crisis be wholly determined on an objective basis, taken direct from the unbiased instruction of The Science Gods!? Should not the scientific consensus be the sole authority?

Perhaps rather obviously, this matter, like so many others, demonstrates that we tend to see what we are looking for. We diminish the significance of evidence we prefer not to see and place on pedestals anything that confirms our beliefs/suspicions/expectations or the beliefs of those in our political tribe. Thus, we inhibit our ability to look out on the world with objectivity, to see with clarity whatever is true.

Still, while I don't doubt all the Buddhist bloggers' global-warming posts come from compassionate hearts directing wise, truth-seeking minds, some of the posts that are being written are flat wrong and, fifty years hence, will prove to be ridiculous.

From my wet finger in the wind, I have been convinced that the bhikkhu, Danny and Sujatin are far the most correct here. A concensus has gathered. The scientific community tells us human activity is warming our planet and a crisis is nigh.

Dharma Dan to Return as a Guest at Buddhist Geeks

2007-07-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Daniel Ingram

Daniel Ingram, aka Dharma Dan, appears to be on his way back for a second go-round at Buddhist Geeks. What I learn from a blog by hokai d sobol in hokai’s blogue is that Dan and hokai will be together in a forthcoming BG pod cast series hosted by Geek Vincent Horn. In his post, hokai calls Ingram “the arahat extraordinaire,” and links to his free online 300-page book in pdf-format, “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book.”

The relatively obscure Dharma Dan has been the surprise hit, the best guest they've reeled in thus far, in the seven months that Buddhist Geeks has been casting pods. The three-episode audio posts where Vincent interviewed Ingram have gathered long comment streams with Dan answering questions and elaborating on his thoughts as BG listeners/readers express their delight or complaints with what they heard. [The second episode has an astonishing 88-item-long comment stream, at the time I write this. In that stream are many interesting and long comments by both Dan and hokai.]

Ingram is an intense, fast-talking fellow, eager to discuss issues that have been semi-hidden or taboo. Specifically, he earnestly discusses the true nature of Enlightenment, which does not make those who attain it perfect, imperturbable or sublime.

Here is a snippet from the first of three [1, 2, 3] episodes in the Ingram interview that Buddhist Geeks posted last Feb/Mar. Here, Ingram describes the onset and attainment of Enlightenment:

Essentially what happens is layer by layer of your consciousness and experience- you begin to notice that those things are not split up in the way that we thought they were. There’s not the independent, discrete, steady, continuous, controlling, observing, isolated entity in the center of it all that is either thinking or observing thoughts or doing or, you know, being done to or, you know, whatever it is. That sense of things progressively begins to be weakened until finally the last hints of that illusion just suddenly stop.
And the nod of perception that was clouding things and making us think that we were a subject or a doer or an independent entity or a continuous person is gone. That said, all the processes that were there making us think that - to use paradoxical language. All those processes of identification of thought, of emotional life, of psychology, of thinking the word I, of intention, all the sensations of the body, thoughts, and everything that went into that are still there essentially happening as they did before. So, they were causal and empty before that and they are causal and empty afterwards and suddenly that‘s just understood.
And that’s at once a good thing in that it does tend to help the system function as best it possibly can, given the limitations of the human condition. And yet it’s also, having stripped away the sort of defense mechanism of the sense of a center point, one is left intimately connected and integrated with reality in a way that you now can’t get out of. And that has a certain sometimes excruciating and embarrassing aspect to it just owing to the nature of humanity.

Terrific stuff, in my estimation. The whole 3-part pod cast is terrific.

Unhappily, as excellent as Ingram has been as an interviewee, I have been disappointed with his online book. The book seems to flow back and forth, changing from being subjective to objective, dispassionate to personal, serious to jokey, even in the midst of a sentence. Ingram also seems to be obsessed with what the reader might want or need from the book vis-à-vis what Ingram can or chooses to provide. It‘s clear to me the book needs to be more-sharply focussed. If that could happen, it should be published and I would buy a copy in a jiffy.

hokai is a long-time premier Buddhist blogger in addition to being a “practitioner of dharma, lecturer and meditation instructor; apprentice in shingon buddhism; translator and publisher.” He is founder and editor of Dharma Treasury. He lives in Croatia. I will be interested to hear hokai for the first time. His blog is written in American English - rare for a European. I will be curious to see if I can discern US pronounciations in the midst of his expected Croatian accent.

I-I's CEO Robb Smith Responds

2007-07-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

I was happy to see that Robb Smith, Integral Institute’s new CEO since ~May 1, 2007, responded, in his eponymous blog, to Blogmandu’s review of I-I’s disclosed finances, through August, 2006. He provides some additional insight that nonattentive outsiders, like me, didn't know or hadn’t understood.

First off, Smith tells us that subsequent to the fiscal year ending 8/31/06 that was reviewed, and before he came onboard as I-I CEO, Integral Institute “was incurring significant operating losses and its survival was threatened.” Smith writes that “Donor nerves account for the lower Institute donation activity at the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007, with the Q4'06 management upheaval understandably making folks nervous about the efficiency of their support.”

Smith doesn’t refer to the June, 2006, Earpy Dust-up [See last paragraph in this section of the write-up on Wilber in wikipedia for some objective info on Earpy and its aftermath.], where Ken Wilber chose to attack his critics in a blog post with subsequent claims that it was all a beautifully engineered “test.” Likely, it was all a Rorschach-like test, of sorts, meant to expose -- or, at least, embarrass -- his critics. In Wilber’s mind, and in that of his like-minded (if not sycophantic) supporters, the Earpy episode may have succeeded at some level, but my guess is that Earpy more so than anything else is the cause of the downturn in donations -- just as Earpy has been causal for a massive loss of respect for Wilber in the blogosphere and the burst of critical activity in Frank Visser‘s website, Integral World.

The end-of-06 “management upheaval” that Smith refers to is the mass firing of staff -- I-I’s first CEO, Steve Frazee, and others brought to I-I by Frazee that Wilber saw as loyal to Frazee and not to him.

Smith tells us that his new management team is “more stable” and helps I-I “by giving our very generous donors the comfort of knowing what direction we're heading” and that donations have increased, as a result. I am glad to hear this, and hope that it is true, but this claim of openness is contradicted by Smith's statement in an interview he did with Keith Bellamy of Integral Leadership Review (June 2007 issue) where he says, "Don't tell people a lot about what you're going to do, because the best outcome is that you meet their expectations, the worst is you don't." Also, management stability is very much dependent on how much the organization structure has changed such that the new team is insolated from Ken Wilber foolishness so that the organization can build on Ken Wilber genius. This insolation cannot happen if the Board of Directors isn’t Integral and courageous.

Very troubling in this respect is the sock-puppeting that new I-I Board of Directors member John Mackey was engaging in to boost his company, Whole Foods, in its effort to acquire Wild Oats. This was activity that is not only very much not Integral, it is perhaps criminal, and if it isn’t it should be criminalized. It would be a very positive sign to learn that Mackey has been removed from the Board. This should happen very soon, if it is going to happen at all.

Integral Life

In his post, Robb Smith also tells us (which was news to me) that Integral Life, Inc., is a new entity, a private corporation, that now owns the business-like revenue-creating sources [video sales, consulting and seminars] of the non-profit, Integral Institute. Integral Life will also “manage Integral Institute for a far lower overhead - and eventually pro bono.” Thus, it appears, Integral Institute becomes purely the think-tank it is sometimes described as, funded by donations.

Anonymity

In his subsequent post, Robb Smith addresses the issue of anonymity and writes, “At Integral Life we are considering the move to using real names in the community.”

This sounds good to me, mostly because the act of reporting “anonymous” and pseudonymous donors on I-I’s 990 disclosure form undermines its function and the social benefit of non-profit openness.

I would suppose if Integal Life (and Integral Institute?) does put in place a real-name rule for the hoped-for benefit of becoming more of a real community, it would promote more-Integral behavior. It would, at least, deter acts of sock-puppetry.

But would ~C4Chaos have to choose between his birth certificate name or changing his name to his nom de web which starts with a tilde? Would a judge allow it? Recently, a judge somewhere disallowed parents of a newborn to name their son 4Real, thus rending the chosen name NOT for real. Perhaps I-I could grandfather in C4’s use of his nom de web, if he were to promise not to give I-I more than $4,999 in any given year [thus keeping C4 under the donation-reporting requirement]. I would hate to find out C4’s birth name and learn it is something terrible, like Adolf Schicklegruber.

Integral Institute: A review of disclosed information

2007-07-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

This is a non-expert analysis of the latest annual Private Foundation filing (aka, Form 990‐PF) of Integral Institute Inc. Integral Institute (hereforward referred to by its popular abbreviation, I‐I) was founded by Ken Wilber as an organization to propagate his expanding vision of all things Integral.

The most recent filing is for the organization’s fiscal year ending August 31, 2006. One of the lesser functions of the 990-PF is to provide the public with information about charity-related organizations. [Its General Purpose is to “figure the tax based on investment income, and to report (to the IRS) charitable distributions and activities,” according to IRS filing instructions.] The document was probably first available to the public sometime between January 15 and the middle of April of this year. I asked I-I to provide me with a copy recently and received it quickly in a friendly, no-fee method, over the Internet. [Thanks, I-I.] It’s not fresh data nor a fountain of highly relevant facts, but it provides some insight as to where I-I has been and how careful the institute is with its funds; where it is with some promised forthcoming activities; and if it is itself Integral in meeting its responsibility to disclose to the public what it is up to.

The financial data is pretty much viewed through a glass, darkly. You can get some idea if the organization is extravagant with funds (It seems not to be.), but what you can learn solely from an examination of a 990 can only barely suggest if assets are being efficiently utilized … or not.

With it’s filing, I-I did disclose extraordinary detail regarding its assets, including a 6-page Depreciation and Amortization Report on office equipment and furnishings. Funnest factoid: An asset called “Cell phone for Ken” was nearly five years old and had a book value of five bucks. Worthwhile fact: I-I has lots of computers and equipment, with none of it seeming out of line with what an outsider would wildly suppose the organization needs. There are a couple mildly expensive computers, with many others mid-range in price. It is hard to tell for sure, but it seems that I-I takes care of it’s office equipment (or keeps it, anyway) for the duration of its depreciable life and beyond. These are rough but encouraging indicators that I-I is careful spending its money.

The most positive sign of care with funds might be that I-I paid nothing to Ken Wilber or the institute’s other officers or directors. Nor were they receiving any benefits, deferred compensation or utilizing an expense account. Too, there was no one on the payroll for the year ending 8/31/06 getting paid $50,000 or more. After at least five years, I-I still shows signs of being a dynamic start-up. There was growth at the bottom line: Net Assets increased nearly 14% to over 2/3rds of a million dollars.

There is an indicator the private foundation was in the process of a change of status, converting to a public charity. A checked box on the form tells us the foundation “is in a 60-month termination under section 507(b)(1)(B).” That section reference indicates the pending change in status. [That is, I googled it to figure out what it meant.]

Very discouraging is the observation that I-I keeps most of its assets in cash, savings or temporary investments but receives very little in interest from them. Average amounts in these categories during the year were over $400,000. From this, a simple formula on the form computes a “minimum investment return” of over $20,000, but I-I reports revenue from interest and dividends of just over $8,000. Obviously, with earned interest/dividends of less than 2%, it suggests I-I lost an opportunity to pick up an easy 12 grand.

Also disappointing is I-I’s report of contributors. I-I is required on Schedule B of the form to report persons or groups or entities that have given the organization $5,000 or more. Though the penalties for failure to disclose are extraordinarily lax -- the donor can be denied a tax deduction or I-I might be subject to a $10 fine per instance of nondisclosure -- the information can be important beyond the IRS confirming donors’ tax deductions. The information alerts future contributors of those who might be influencing the organization. This is important in the same way that politicians’ reports of contributors has a beneficial social function of revealing influencers.

I-I reported that two of its contributors, in the amounts of $5,000 and $10,000, were “anonymous.” This constitutes a failure on I-I’s part to meet substantiation requirements to keep proper records OR is an overt refusal to properly report.

Also, the name given of I-I’s largest contributor, “Al Mare Kooli,” without an address, is suspect. Though I-I’s current accounting manager identifies the name as accurate and being that of a gentleman of Estonian descent, a quick googling indicates that the full name searched as a phrase is part of the name of a school in the Estonia capital, Tallinn. Of the three words in the contributor name, the first two are Italian for “of the sea” or “by the sea,“ and the last word is Estonian for “school” or “scholastic.” Indeed, Tallinn is on the coast of the Baltic Sea and the “School on the Rocky Seashore” -- Rocca al Mare Kooli or Rocca al Mare Kool -- has a very extensive web presence.

Another google-researched interpretation of the suspect name of I-I’s biggest contributor reveals that the “last name,” Kooli, is a character who is the jester in service to Shiva, the lord of the cosmos, in Indian theatre. Thus, the name is possibly a ruse, a joke, a hoax, meaning “The Jester of the oceanic Kosmos” or that the donor is like a jester in service to Ken Wilber, the lord of the kosmos. Anyway, it seems unlikely that the full name can have really been on any person’s birth certificate.

Possibly, the faux contributor name is an anigram of the person’s real name, which could be Marie Lookal, Alma Olokier, Mara Lookile, Oriole Kamal, Omar Ali Kole or Allie Markoo. Ken Wilber has used anagrams before. We all may recall when The Ken briefly was going by the name “Wyatt Earpy,” which has letters that can be rearranged to read “A pretty way.” So, if Ken Wilber -- or Ben Wilker, if I may cleverly call him that -- thinks that using anigrams is “a pretty way” to proceed, we may expect to see him use them extensively. You crafty bastard! I’m on to you, Ben!!

If I-I acts as a participant in misreporting information on its tax documents, that is neither cool nor kooli. And it certainly ain’t Integral.

Of more meaningful interest is the whirl of activity at I-I that generated nearly $2½ million of revenue and nearly as much in expenses. From the raw figures the 990 Form gathers, there is nothing that seems outrageous. Fundraising expenses were less than 10% of contributions. That’s excellent. The rule-of-thumb is that 35% would be excessive.

Nearly 30% of I-I’s revenues come from contributions. Over 38% is Gross Profit from sale of goods. From best I can determine, these goods are primarily comprised of video sales. 32% of revenue comes from consulting and seminars. Disappointing was the disclosure that only something over $1700 came in from IU [Integral University] courses. IU, as of August, 2006, seems little more than a twinkle in Ken's eye.

While this blog post may not generate great interest, I will be eager to see I-I's next filing - and to report on it - to see how things have changed. Exciting stuff -- to me, anyway.

John Mackey: Yet another nefarious Friend Of Ken?

2007-07-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

A Blogmandu Special Report, by Tom Armstrong

This from Daniel Brook in the Huffington Post:

Jonathan Swift couldn't have thought up a better satire. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market and avowed libertarian, just got caught exploiting imperfect market information and scheming to rip off consumers by building an organic food monopoly. Libertarians claim the market should be left alone to regulate itself, while progressives have long argued that investors need accurate information from companies about their finances and consumers need competition to get the best price. Apparently John Mackey is just the kind of nefarious businessman we need government to regulate.
As today's [7/13] New York Times reports Mackey was caught posting on Yahoo Finance's bulleting board under a pseudonym pumping up Whole Foods' stock and blasting its rival Wild Oats Markets. (Not content just to trick potential investors, he even praised his own coiffure: "I like Mackey's haircut. I think he looks cute!" he wrote under the pseudonym Rahobed, a corruption of Deborah, his wife's name.) The posts were discovered during a Federal Trade Commission case stemming from Whole Foods' attempt to acquire Wild Oats.

Update, from the 7/16 NYTimes Online: "For executives like Mr. Mackey, sock-puppeting [the act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one’s self, allies or company] is probably more gratifying than effective in swaying opinion or stock prices — until they get caught. Then it is embarrassing, and for chief executives, at least, potentially illegal. Laws carefully prescribe what executives of public companies can say. The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Friday night that the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun [an informal] inquiry into whether Mr. Mackey violated security laws with the posts. ... [T]he consequences could be damaging to the company, if not to Mr. Mackey. Securities lawyers say the Federal Trade Commission might use the comments to scuttle Whole Foods’ proposed acquisition of ... Wild Oats .... Wild Oats may also use the comments as the basis of a lawsuit against Whole Foods. "

Among Ken Wilber’s 2nd-tier friends are Adi Da, Marc Gafni, Andrew Cohen and John Mackey. With friends like these, who needs Integral Psychology or Integral Economics or Integral Ethics? Speaking of Jonathan Swift, I now consider time spent studying the 2nd Tier in the works of Ken Wilber Gullible’s Travails.

Here, from Mackey’s blog at Whole Foods where he expounds on his version of Integral thought. This from Matthew’s blog at Zaadz, audio where Wilber and Mackey talk about Zaadz CEO Brian Johnson, yet another high-profile FOK. [You can read about Zaadz and Brian “13” Johnson, here.] And here, glowing praise of John Mackey in a magazine Mackey founded.

The beat goes on. Someday, we may notice a pattern forming that might tell us something ...

CORRECTION 7/20/07: An earlier version of this post quoted the NYTimes as saying the SEC inquiry was "formal." The Times' quoting of their source saying it was "formal" was correct, but the Times later added a correction addendum to their article to say that the inquiry by the SEC was informal, according to the SEC. The Times' reporting on the possible consequenses of the inquiry was not changed/corrected. ALSO, per I-I CEO Robb Smith in a comment below, John Mackey is not a member of the I-I Board of Directors. Wording in an earlier version of this post that said he was has been deleted.

Roundup on July 12, 2007

2007-07-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

In today's B'du, Live Earth slips, Ego could use a massage, Darfur needs saving, the Geeks as French Royalty, airport art, a suicide and Moore v. CNN.

Slippery Rock

Both Ajahn Punnadharmmo of Bhikkhu’s Blog and Cliff of everyday zazen point out the irony of the huge multi-venue Live Earth Concert being used to draw attention to global warming.

The modest-living Canadian bhikkhu writes

The hard fact is that if we can stop this warming at all (which is doubtful, curly light bulbs or no) it can only be done by massively scaling back our (meaning the rich countries) lifestyles. Use less power, travel less, consume less. In many cases it may not hurt to eat less. Nobody wants to face up to that yet, and probably won't until Mother Nature scales back our lifestyles for us, the hard way.

Cliff’s sentiment is similar,

… i’m not sure if such grand gestures [like the Concert] help but the intention is good. … as in all things, it comes down to individual effort. concern is not enough. it’s what i do that matters.

The Concert may or may not have helped much. News reports tell us the TV ratings for the event were terrible, but this may have been well-compensated for by a big online viewership.

Leggo my Ego

Gary Stamper takes co-credit for stirring up interest in the Seattle area over whether the feminine perspective is a bar to enlightenment [Andrew Cohen says it is in the current issue of his magazine, WIE. Stamper in Integral in Seattle and his partner, Anyaa McAndrew, in Goddess on the Loose explain why it’s not.] Now, Gary has blogged on another aspect of this, likely to stir more interest and debate: The Ego killing connection. Gary suggests that it is those with the biggest ego that advocate egocide and that in their ego-bloat want to drag off everyone else’s egos with theirs to a flaming death in Ego Hell. Contrariwise, Gary prefers a course of making friends with one’s ego and credits the Total Integration Institute when he makes this observation about the ego: “It's a valuable tool that, when befriended, allows us to be more fully integrated in our felt sense body experiences during this existence, rather than living the masculine approach of Eros without the integrated being of the feminine Agape. … Enlightenment is not masculine. Nor is it feminine. It's not emptiness. It's not fullness. It's all of the above, integrated into our human experience as fully and complete as humanly possible. It is ‘multi-dimensional whole being and Integration.’” [B’du reporter disagrees. Murder the ego monster, I say.]

The Stream

Danny Fisher of the same-name blog has submitted a vid question for the CNN/YouTube debate later this month that conjoins global-warming’s coming disasterous effects with the on-going crisis in Darfur. Danny also has posted a YouTubed ad from the Save Darfur Coalition that he hopes we all will see.

Let them pod cake. The Buddhist Geeks spend much of the time in their latest pod cast grousing over how busy, busy, busy each of them is which constraints them from bothering to respond to listener comments. This follows the prior episode where much of their time is spent marketing their T‐shirts to listeners. I guess I just don’t understand these ALL ABOUT WONDERFUL US pod casts. It’s Geek to me. What interviews have been really good have been so because of the interviewee, not because the three Geeks are impressive, polished interviewers or charismatic celebrities. Get over yourselves, Geeks!

Amadeus of Dharma Vision writes about the art to the right that appears in Portland International Airport. Many are protesting it's display there.

Bill of Integral Options Cafe writes touchingly about the loss to suicide of a friend he knew from the gym. The friend was a prominent, beloved Tucson obstetrician-gynecologist and "[b]y all accounts, ... one of the kindest and gentlest men you might ever meet."

I've been following the Moore-CNN saga because of a couple posts by Bill of the IOC. A crappy fact-skewing piece of reporting by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medical reporter, that thrashed Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, propelled Moore into a pasting of CNN's Wolf Blitzen a couple days ago. Later, Moore and Gupta faced off on CNN's Larry King Show. Follow-up reporting on Moore's blog and the Huffington Post and elsewhere show that Moore's facts are pretty solid and Gupta's journalism is corrupt and corroded.

I'm leaving out a lot, but this is all there's time for. I'm busy, busy, busy, you know. S'later.

Roundup on July 6, 2007

2007-07-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

No theme, no meme, just stream, today. Here are some quick words on some of the excellent posts just a click away, out in the Buddhoblogosphere [and maybe a little beyond, into the Integral savanna] that popped up during this young month:

Recently, kathy wilden [A Soto Zen Priest who blogs Monterey News], offered a comment to a Danny Fisher blog post re the virtues of vegetarianism in aiding our fragile planet in which she suggested that stemming population growth was the most important thing we should try to do. Independent from that, but relating to it nonetheless, a post in Matt Holbert’s integraljournal provides a synopsis of Kenneth Boulding's forthright set of three theorems, from 1971, for addressed the population problem. The theorems are “THE DISMAL THEOREM” “THE UTTERLY DISMAL THEOREM” and “THE MODERATELY CHEERFUL FORM OF THE DISMAL THEOREM.” Pretty dismal stuff. Lots of misery and starvation to be found there.

And the dismal just keeps on comin'! Michael Bauwens of P2P Foundation writes of "The Coming Dark Age." It seems it is inevitable. "But there is also good news is this scenario, ... [a Dark Age is] actually a necessary occurence for the overall growth of humankind, a kind of socially necessary collective regression, much like the same principle of regression in the service of the ego used in psycho-analysis." Right. The positive side of the Black Plague.

Bad Boy Al of In Pursuit of Mysteries offers a couple of meaty, clever rebel quotes from a pair of authors. Here's the first sentence from one: "If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts."

M. Alan Kazlev of Integral Transformation offers an update on his book-in-progress. He's retitled it "Integral Metaphysics and Transformation" and says this: "... I'm making the language a bit snappier and more provocative; the previous drafts were rather too tame. I was trying too hard to be polite, and I think a lot was lost as a result. There are times when one has to speak out strongly and boldly."

Bernie Simon who "jots and scribbles" The Careless Hand writes about the the body of a Russian lama, dead for 75 years, whose body has not decayed. Bernie tells us there are many other stories of Buddhist masters whose bodies did not decay. The masters put themselves in a state somewhat akin to samadhi. "According to Abhidharma, you cannot die or be physically harmed while in samadhi. There are stories in Tibet of yogis meditating in caves who accidentally fall into samadhi and are discovered many years later, their hair grown to their waist and fingernails grown into claws." Btw, an article, borrowed from Interfax, on the dead lama's body has been posted to The Buddhist Channel.

moe of Mystery of Existence builds a list with sublists, all about a thought. And a non-specific one, at that.

Gary Stamper of Integral in Seattle recommends Bill of Integral Option Cafe's vid on Crazy George Bush. It's a satire, based on "Gnarls Barkley's Crazy" that Bill found.

Speaking of Gary, he is outraged at the latest issue of Andrew Cohen's What is Enlightenment? magazine. He writes in Integral in Seattle, "Andrew Cohen and Ken [Wilber] talk about enlightenment for women and how [women] have to get past and give up their sexual (feminine) power in order to become enlightened. ... Andrew totally fails to [understand] that there might be different approaches to enlightenment."

Bill of Digital Dharma borrows a quote from an great old column in Zbohy about sobriety. Here, two sentences: " The person who desires change must reach his physical, spiritual, emotional and mental bottom. A good candidate for salvation is one who has no more answers and no more plans."

Mushin of Love, Truth, Beauty, Pluralistic Spirituality links to several posts that tell us the next Buddha will be a collective.

Dave of Via Negativa writes an Independence Day poem. It begins, "Independence Day:/the hunters gather/for archery practice/in the woods."

~C4Chaos of the same-name blog writes - from Ireland! - of patriotism on his first July Fourth as an American citizen. "To me, patriotism is a step towards 'selflessness.' Patriotism is stepping into a bigger ethnocentric circle, where motherland is one's nation (instead of one's tribe) and people are one's fellow citizens (instead of one's kin)."

Meantime and contrariwise, Danny of Danny Fisher quotes Howard Zinn from an article in The Progressive. "On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. ... We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation."

James Ure of The Buddhist Blog wishes us, or America, a Happy Interdependence Day. Quoting an article, "Beyond Fireworks," James writes, "... freedom is different from independence. Independence implies that we are not dependent on others -- that we are autonomous, able to act on our own. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are completely dependent on others and we can do nothing on our own."

PeterAtLarge of The Buddhist Diaries wishes everyone a Happy Fourth, but with a kicker: "...you guys might have done better to stay with us Brits--but we're working to re-colonize this place. Have you noticed how many British accents you hear these days? We're working underground to re-civilize the barbarians. Not much success so far, I have to say. Ah, well."

Paul Cox, A Blue Eyed Buddhist, writes there is "Still a horrible war going on ...". "One thing that we might tend to forget is that there’s still one hell of a tough war going on in Iraq. I still believe that the US should draw down its forces there; I think we’re probably doing more harm than good, and we don’t have much of a dog in the fight." Paul recommends that for perspective we should all read Michael Yon's "Bless The Beasts and Children, about a massacre that occurred in Iraq. The regular media doesn’t report it for any number of reasons, but they should."

This is self explanitory. Gregor of Entering the Path writes a post called "Wearing Down the Mountain." Here is its beginning lines: "My mind tends to wander quite a bit during the beginning of a Zazen session. The shear volume and randomness of the thoughts that pop up are really amazing. The mind can be a strange thing, and I’m convinced that my own is overactive to the extreme."

Meantime, Cliff of everyday zazen is wearing down his carpet. He writes, "but the carpet, like my habit, has worn down in some places only. maybe the path i walk isn't broad enough."

hokai of hokai's blogue begins a series of posts called "History and Dharma" this month. It is all dense and meaty, geeky and Integral and requires a lot of focus and attention to read if you are as stupid and ignorant of hokai's references as me. Nonetheless, I'm digging into it, and, in the beatnik sense, diggin' it and I recommend y'all click on over there and do the same. Here, a bit of a foretaste on what it is about: "What I'm interested in is how states & structures co-arise, in other words, in which ways and to what extent they affect each other? Has anything changed in that influence from premodern to modern to postmodern? Is our role in that relationship somewhat different due to the growing awareness of such distinctions?"

Tom Morgan of In the Becoming Undone is pretty excited. His first book of poetry, On Going, comes out Monday.

ebuddha of Integral Practice offers a YouTubing of Eckhart Tolle this week. It is terrific. The message is that if instead of reacting to life's content that arises in the NOW we become aware of the NOW ITSELF, the undercurrent of stillness, we may realize that we are IT. Content and "the story of 'me'" becomes no longer problematic.

Serendipitously related to the Tolle Tube, is a Johnny Newt The Invisible Cat post, some of which reads. "do not cling to your delusions of what you wish the world could be or how the world should be, lets open our eyes and see the truth around us, be it harsh or painful let your open eyes destroy the mirrors of illusion"

Ian Sinclair of Jinajik links us to "an exhibition of some of the oldest documents of Sanskritic culture."

The identical twin brothers Smith report they are working hard in central Asia. Michael of Kathmandu for You is sending manufactured goods from Kathmandu to his US home in New Orleans. He writes, "I hope to set up regular shipments of certain items to raise awareness and money for the education of monks and nuns in Nepal." Dan of Kham Abiding writes from Tibet on July 4, "Today I worked hard to get off the job as quickly as possible, like A Good American. ... A lot of the girls cried at our year-end party the other week, and I didn't see any reason to uncork a small river before their examination. I returned my key, negotiated my phone bill with the building manager, and found a car to Kangding. Besides, I've always kind of sucked at goodbyes. I get reminded of change fairly often, but have difficulty expressing the right emotion at the right time."

Heather of K'vitch loved the new movie A Mighty Heart. "Economic, well acted by everyone, gut-wrenching, inspiring, filled me with horror at the same time as it painted Pakistan as a wonderful place.

Speaking of heart, and mighty ones at that, the mighty Sujain of lotusinthemud quotes the mighty Pema: "If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient."

Jack offers a long, thoughtful post in Mind Mountain about anger, generally, and toxic emotions of his own. He begins, "I’ve never had much difficulty with an explosive temper. Rather, my form of poison is a grinding arthritic frustration with the eventual effect of judging people very harshly in my mind, though less often in word or deed."

Whoa. morganells of morganells has a long post putting Truths together. Excellent stuff. It weaves the Truths from Buddhist perspectives through to discoveries from particle physics.

Joshua of Mudita Journal was no fan of Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth before. Now, he cites an article in the Chicago Sun-Times that ticks off seven instances where there is scientific evidence to refute significant claims in the documentary.

ryan of Nine Out of Zen finds motivation to do zazen from David Chadwick via Brad Warner.

Justin of Ordinary Extraordinary writes about the nexis of Zen and Love. I don't buy the usually brilliant Justin's thinking here. I would say Zen is about moving from ordinary to extraordinary and is not so much about love. [But, of course, Zen comes in many flavors.]

In a post called "Conditioned suffering," Zenmar, The Zennist, writes, "The Buddha teaching isn’t really about impermanence and suffering. What kind of spiritual physician would the Buddha have been to tell the many, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, that life is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?' The physician Buddha only gave the diagnosis of a disease to those who thirsted for phenomena. [For those who see with the third eye and break] the spell of phenomenal embodiment, they win nirvana."

The meaning of meaning and its significance: Kalsang Dorge's post in The-universe-is-all-in-my-head is great, heady stuff I've read twice and am still trying to get my head around. Here's a snip: "...Seeing and formulating is a basic requirement in order to exist as an intelligent being. Meaning is the operating system for the accomplishing person. ... The bases of meaning being realized, allows for new modes of thought. And perhaps these methods could be called "Meaning Processors" as these produce new meanings either directly or indirectly and they undo meaning in certain cases so that meaning becomes simpler, more general and therefore much more powerful."

And Th-th-th-th-tha-th-that's all, folks. Happy seeking.

Roundup on July 1, 2007

2007-07-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

A picture by Michael, Gratitude, new blogs and the stream from recent days are on the card today of what's fresh and interesting in the buddhoblogosphere.

Picture This

	Three details from a recent photograph in One Foot in Front of the Other. Copyright 2007 Michael

Michael of One Foot in Front of the Other astounds me with his photography -- though he is no less interesting a writer of prose and poetry in his blog. At right, are three details from a recent photograph. A basketball flies into the trees, on its way toward the basket, posed perfectly to capture the name of its maker. Three players under the basket look like a grouping from The Last Supper. Two players’ shadows tell us the action that just happened. The details are scaled diferently, for display here. But you get the idea. Somehow, Michael squeezes a lot that is interesting into a single snap.

The Benefits of Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie

Beginning March 9, 2006, Bill Harryman, in his Integral Options Café blog, started a 30-day regimen of Gratitude Blogging, "an experiment [where he committed himself to posting] one thing each day for which [he was] grateful." His first statement of gratitude was simply this: "Today I am grateful for a good friend who called me to arrange a lunch date."

On his 30th day, Bill was still going strong and finding himself to be expansive. His sentiments on Apr 7 weren’t a single item, but a list: "So many things to be grateful for, so today I will choose just three: canned protein drinks (taste bad, but do their job), clients who want to change and do their part to make it happen, and Kai's comments on my efforts at haiku (very helpful)." And he finished with the trailing tagline "What are you grateful for?"

Bill’s gratitude-posting regimen lasted well past the thirty days he committed himself to, but eventually, he did stop. But he has started up again with daily gratitude postings rather recently. And he blogged some gratitude today, hooray.

A week ago, I came upon an article that cites a study on the benefits of gratitude. The 2003 study, "Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life" tells us "that a conscious focus on blessings might have emotional and interpersonal benefits."

While we all seem to think we know what gratitude is, categorizing it and understanding what raw gratitude is is open to some dispute. As you might suppose. Try categorizing your own emotional states. But, rather non-controversially, gratitude is slotted in among clusters of other emotions that are pleasant, positive and interpersonal.

But there is an element of negativity in gratitude, for some, and this can be why many people are reluctant to explore and expose what they are grateful for. Gratitude can arouse feelings of indebtedness and one's lack of value to society.

Without going into the details of the impressive-seeming study and unpacking the statistical analysis of the collected data [which is well beyond my ken these days, anyway], it is reported that "participants in the gratitude condition reported considerably more satisfaction with their lives as a whole, felt more optimism about the upcoming week and felt more connected with others than did participants in the control condition. ... Therefore, it appears that participation in the graitude condition led to substantial and consistent improvements in people's assessments of the global well-being."

Thus, Gratitute seems very Buddhist and healthful for one's spirit and the community one lives in. Blog on, Bill. We all can be grateful for your gratitude-blogging regimen as something we may, ourselves, take up. What else might we be grateful for?

Birth Day

It is a birthday. Lucid Nomad began a new blog just this weekend, titled An Open Book: Of Mindfasting & Enlightenment. Mindfasting is not a term I'm familiar with. Lucid Nomad describes it in one of four posts already up. Quoting Alan Fox of the University of Delaware, Lucid Nomad writes,

"Mindfasting ... is emptying the mind of artificial constraints to open it up and make room for the appropriate natural response to occur. It therefore involves the elimination of rigid, dogmatic, formulaic attitudes and habits, and our self-identification with them."

Another new - practically brand new - blog is The Hinterlands, written by Gregor of Entering the Path. The Hinterlands is where Gregor intends to post words and photography from his hiking adventures in the back country.

It's not a birthday for the blog Buddhism and Conflict Resolution, an Amida Trust blog. It's been around four and a half months, but is new to me. The blog describes itself thus, "We aim for this weblog to be a source of guidance and inspiration for those people following the dharma who seek to resolve confict situations. Effective resolution is characterized by finding an agreement between two opposing ideas which engenders commitment, avoids harmful emotions and actions, and safeguards principles and relationship."

Ryan Oelke has a fairly new blog, begun last March, called Ryan Oelke, to add to the four he already had going - Buddhist Geeks, of course; the long-lived all-quadrants-all-the-time Integral Awakening; the valuable group blog Anxious Living and his blog in the Zaadz community. Ryan also informs us there's yet another blog, Tumblog, out there that he hasn't yet done much with. Ryan Oelke (the person) tells us that Ryan Oelke (the blog) is to be his "central campsite on the web," to be used for "personal/business" purposes. This makes sense since the new blog is at ryanoelke.com.

The Stream

James Ure of The Buddhist Blog had a profound, touching experience helping people who were recipients of free meals at a nearby Presbyrterian Church. "As I filled each persons cup I concentrated on them as if they were the only person in the world. I saw the water I poured as precious gold. On such a hot day these folks gulped water as if it was the only thing that mattered--and in that moment it was. In that moment, offering them water was the most important thing I could do."

iPhone, uPhone, we all moan for iPhone: We find that ~C4Chaos of the same-strange-name blog is "sourgraping" for an iPhone in addition to drooling over it all, while Nagarjuna of Naked Reflections is "uncommonly excited" about them, but won't get one right away, if ever, even though he's "dazzled by its elegance and seamless multi-functionality." But in the midst of all the mad interest, Carlos Rull of carlosrull.com suggests that we "iChill" and says we should enjoy "the iFlowers and the iOcean [and] go for an iWalk."

Sean of Deep Surface recently wrote of his father's death which happened suddenly while the two of them were on vacation, walking along a beach on Waikiki in 1984. The father was just 43 years old. In a follow-up post, Sean writes, "The images of that day with my Dad are vivid, but they exist only in my mind. Even what I do remember has grown fuzzy and lost details over the years. It’s clear to me that even the most defining moments in my life are not real in this moment. All my memories can be described this way - imagined stories of the past, incomplete and inaccurate. Even so, still being able to deeply feel the emotions related to those stories feels like a gift. When I can accept my memories as illusion, with no more reality than a novel, they are easier to savor as they arise."

After rather recently wiping out his blog, MikeDoe of DoeDo is back into heavy blogging, again. A current topic is creating, wearing and modelling a line of men's skirts. It is a very surprizing topic, fully unexpected, from the manly Mr. Doe.

Roundup on June 27, 2007

2007-06-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. Here-ya-go, buddhoblog-reading world. It's not stuff I planned [per Wed's post], quite -- but its good stuff, hot to the touch, from the heart of the Buddhist blogging world.

Buddhists Travel the World

Buddhist bloggers, if not Buddhism, is on the move these days.

Will Buckingham, author of Cargo Fever and a coming novel, set in Bulgaria.

Sometime soon, Will Buckingham of the blogs thinkBuddha and willbuckingham.com will be off to Bulgaria to research his next novel. He has funding from Arts Council England, but he'll not be living in the lap of elegance at some swanky hotel, no. He'll be Couchsurfing, which means he'll be bumming nights' stays on strangers' fleabitten sofas when he's in Sofia, and out in the Bulgarian countryside. This is something he's done before -- in Indonesia, India and Pakistan. [OK. I've told a fib. Actually, Will tells us that Couchsurfing is an "extremely well run" "global network, run on the basis of generosity and hospitality" that facilitates staying in private homes and is "not much more dangerous than eating crackers."

Justin Whitaker, a vicious clay-bird killer and member of the Dalai Lama wing of the NRA. [From post "Life: Family activities"]

Justin Whitaker, aka Buddhist Philosopher, of American Buddhist Perspective [But who will soon move his blogging activities to Justin in England, or to American Buddhist in England -- not sure which.] is cloyingly, insufferably happy these days. He's been accepted by Goldsmiths College of the University of London where he will be in hot pursuit of his PhD in Buddhism [or, Philosophy specializing in Buddhism, or something]. In his effort to rub our noses in his happiness, he facilitated a reading group based on Mattieu Ricard's latest book, "Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill." In his post re the reading group, Justin links to an article that tells us Ricard is the world's happiest man [now supplanted in Guinness by Guinness-drinking Justin]. Justin is also happy because student reviews of the Buddhism classes he taught at University of Montana, Missouli, were all glowing in their love of him. Also, while in England, Justin can be with his beloved who lives just a canal swim and a long walk away in Spain. Justin has now determined that he will direct his life toward teaching Buddhism to others. But How might that work? Our religion is about suffering! Ay, Carumba!

C4 with his beloved (in a London Starbucks?)

Our man ~C4Chaos, blogger of ~C4Chaos, is currently in Jolly Old. We know this because a recent post shows his legs standing on the grave of Charles Darwin. In a prior day's post, he says, "I just love everything about the city of London – the people, the fashion, the attraction, the history, the art, the architecture, the shorter working hours and the public transportation."

Seamus "Moose" Anthony

Seamus "Moose" Anthony who blogs Seamus Anthony, which recently supplanted The Contemporary Taoist, is in Paris in the summertime, when last he blogged. We know he had a stop in Lumpy Koala, Malaysia, [Ha, ha. We think he means "Kuala Lumpur."] and will be several places in Europe, including France and Ireland. Bad news is that on the way to the airport in Melbourne, Moose was in a huge car smash-up – but that has not dampered his enthusiasm for his travels. He writes, from Paree, that he is "sipping ultra expensive coffee in cafes and feeling very chick however you spell that and generally enjoying some no brainer time."

The World-Aiding Benefits of Vegetarianism, Part II

It was just Saturday last that I mentioned that Danny Fisher, in his eponymous blog, wrote about the “world-aiding benefits of vegetarianism.” Because of intense interest in the subject [and not because of the B’du’s blurb], the post has garnered a long comments stream: 12 posts as of this moment, many of them long, all of them thoughtful.

In his post, Danny develops three important arguments:

Vegetarianism can help in dealing with water and sanitation problems in the developing world.
Humans can significantly help to deter global warming by adopting a vegetarian diet.
The first precept of Buddhism is to refrain from killing. Plus, it is not a viable excuse to say the meat you buy at a store has already been killed. In our modern age, when purchasing meat, you stimulate the chain of supply in response to your demand.

By all means, read the post – and the comment thread that touches on these areas:

Tibetans and the nature of their plateau necessitates the consumption of meat. The Tibetan diaspora should now become vegetarian.
The idea that we can encourage vegetarianism by example, since confronting carnivorous humans doesn’t work very well.
Rather than nibbling at our environmental problems, we should control human population growth.
Meat eating is healthy and natural for humans and no more ecologically harmful than a vegetarian diet.
There are humane ways to utilize animals for food.
Meat is a natural part of the human diet and is a link in the modern-age food chain. For some animals, were we not raising them for consumption, they could not thrive as species.
Meat eating violates the 1st precept.
While there is not such a thing as a harm-free diet, a diet that excludes or significantly excludes animals is definitely less of a moral nightmare.

Brad Warner, Part III

In my last roundup, I wrote that I thought the first two [#1, #2] of a planned three Brad Warner audio interview episodes at Buddhist Geeks were terrific. Well, now the final episode has been posted. Let us just say it is disappointing – sort of like The Godfather, Part III was when, long ago, it was released. What was Francis Ford Coppola [or in the BG case, Gwen Bell] thinking!?

Actually, the third pod cast isn’t uber-terribly bad, but The Brad gets off on the wrong foot with me, complaining about the hoi polloi, proving himself to be fact-challenged with respect to the history of printing and then prattles on, more than a bit, about the obvious difference between encyclopedic knowledge and wisdom. [Thus, Brad bloviates just as he accuses the hoi polloi of doing.] But when Brad and Gwen venture into some fun and giggliness discussing sex and Brad’s work and future job opportunities the depth- and interest-throttle gets nicely squeezed. Brad does have interesting things to say about the cultural differences between Japan and the US.

UPDATE: Warner posts a bit about the “third part” in his blog, Hardcore Zen. He writes, “They put up the last part of my interview on Buddhist Geeks. So go give it a listen if you're into that sort of thing. I listened and did not puke, as is my usual reaction to my own interviews.” Brad’s stomach must be getting stronger if he thinks the third part, which Buddhist Geeks titled "It's Like Phil Donahue!," is better-than-average Brad fare.

Roundup on June 23, 2007

2007-06-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

Howdy, y'all. Blogmandu has been resting, but it is back! Today, some notes on a few hot topics/ideas/things-acoming that are roiling the buddhoblogosphere, with more stuff coming shortly. My hope is to get the regimen of blogging regularly here going, again, with a plan of posts on weekends and Wednesdays -- twice a week -- that will stay abreast of all that is interesting or hot to the touch.

the Buddhoblogosphere is a new webspace, now in development.

You thought the Buddhoblogosphere was already here, didn't you? Well, at a page at buddhoblogosphere.com, we are told a website called the Buddhoblogosphere will be "a directory of Buddhist blogs, podcasts, community sites and resources from across the Internet and the world," and that it hopes to be "a comprehensive online resource of Buddhism." And it intends to "go live" in August.

The project is the brainchild of Scott A. Mitchell who blogs the buddha is my dj <q.v.> [formerly, buddhaworld] that has been around since 2003, and has a web-design business going, Buddhaworld Design, that looks pretty damn spiffy. I will be eager to see how the Buddhoblogosphere develops. It is already on the Tricycle Editors' Blog's "Who are we reading?" listing [see sidebar on this webpage], so it appears Scott has a big friend or two in the American Buddhist establishment.

7/2/07 UPDATE: Scott is now very specific. He is announcing that his website will 'go live' on August 10. And he has posted a technologically impressive slideshow to give us an idea of what the Buddhoblogosphere will be like.

Go, Danny, Go

A button that appears in Danny's vegetarianism post reads "Eat Beans, not Beings."

The great Danny Fisher of the eponymous blog fame has been in activist save-the-world mode of late, with posts on the world-aiding benefits of vegetarianism; means to help Darfur -- a fundraiser by the Save Darfur Coalition; a petition to Condoleezza; seeking senate action on a Sudan Divestment bill -- and in cheering on, and providing info re, the Washington Post's effort to further explore returning injured servicemen's experiences at Walter Reed and other VA hospitals.

We Love You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

The BG's podcasts comprise a growing album of work in my laptop audio library.

I am dazzled by the quality of the podcasts that Buddhist Geeks have been producing this year. The three-member Geek chorus of Ryan Oelke, Vincent Horn and Gwen Bell had a modestly promising beginning in their initial effort, "Meet the Geeks!" [A takeoff on the Beatles' first album title.] Their subsequent audio podcast work, interviews with prominent Buddhists, has been impressively kind-hearted and professional. Ryan's introductions and closings to each pod are NPR perfect as is the pods' score, written and performed by guest artist Rommel of C5Chaos. Literally, all the podcasts I've heard have been great. I've loved the interviews of Genpo Merzel [#1, #2, #3] [by Gwen], Phil Stanley [#1, #2, #3][by Ryan] and of Vince [#1, #2, #3][by Ryan] Recent pod posts include a terrific first two of three interviews of Brad Warner [#1, #2] by Gwen. And, I must say this: What great voices everybody seems to have. Buddhists not only think great, they sound great, too. The interviews, all, have been taut and fascinating.

Frog Blog Returns!

Same frog; different pond. Plop.

As if the blogosphere wasn't already more wonderful than we could stand, Chris Baskind has refilled the pod, engineering the return of the venerable Paper Frog at www.paperfrog.com . PF had been cited as one of the three best Buddhism blogs about four years ago in Beliefnet, and was one of the two blogs to represent Buddhism in Blog Heaven before mean old Chris pulled the plug just over a year ago. Paper Frog, mach one, also was an inaugural winner of a Blogisattva for design in 2006.

Baskind moved on to other blogging activities, after etherizing his Frog, starting with the now-sleeping Onion-like Big Red Buddha <q.v.> and the eco-advocating more minimal. more minimal morphed into the lithe Lighter Footstep <q.v.>, a very successful green emagazine.

In its new incarnation, Frog will not be about Buddhism generally, Baskind tells us, but will focus on Chris's writing projects, including topics on "content creation, community building, and the technologies which underlie online publishing." Recent articles have been about the Redditt Effect, Apple's new Tiger operating system update and Joomla -- concepts that have not come down to us from Sanskrit scrolls.

... and on Wednesday

Blogmandu hopes to feature mostly that which is new or being hotly debated, but some general topics of interest, likely to spark feature-sections this coming Wednesday, or soon thereafter, include "Buddhoblogging Women", "Why are prominent-Buddhists' blogs so wretched?"; "The Benefits of Gratitude Blogging"; "The Dalai Lama in the Buddhoblogosphere."

Imus at Midnight

2007-04-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Imus in the Morning, Imus in the Evening, Imus at Suppertime. Don Imus and his wayward way with words is one of several topics that have gotten a lot of attention recently in posts written in the buddhoblogosphere - which, like cable news shows, is on 24/7, pouring over every turn in the story as it developed. Other recent topics of high interest in the community of Buddhist &/or Integral blogger have been postmodernity and the legacy of Kurt Vonnegut - but I've no time for them tonight. Tonight, I must blog [and flog] Imus.

He’s Imus to Avoid; A complete impossibility *

By now, the road to unemployment for Imus seems to have been certain from the beginning. His words were so offensive and directed at such noble young women and spoken on national TV - no less - he was foredoomed. In this our age of YouTube, constant talking pundits on cable news and a bustling blogosphere, the hounds of war were loosed. Too, with the quick ability to dredge up his past offences and make these well known, and the certain, focused attention of those yapping ambulance-chasing pitbulls, Jackson and Sharpton, who would not let up [for reasons noble or remunerative or debatable, you make the call], there was nowhere for Imus [or CBS or MSNBC or the sponsors of Imus’s radio show] to hide.

Matthew Dallman of The Daily Goose took a liberty-for-all line on the Affair Imus. He chose to quote some National Review bullshit and then tamely wrote,

People can say whatever they want, about whomever they want. It is one of the consequences of a society that upholds the importance of the idea of liberty. Whether people should say whatever they want is a whole other question that involves the golden rule of treat others as you would have yourself treated, as well as the responsibility that ensues from one's words. …

This episode dramatizes clearly that political correctness has far from died in our America culture. This is sad, but we must keep up the fight against it.

Bill Harryman of Integral Options Café and his WH blog behind the Zaadz wall chirped in support of Dallman’s post with these words in his April 13 speedlinking roundup: “[F]or what's it worth, I think Imus is an idiot on his best days, but speech must be protected, even when it is moronic, or especially when it is moronic.”

For my part, I think Dallman’s post demonstrates ignorance. People certainly cannot say whatever they want about whomever they want. Or, I should say, not without a chance of arrest or a lawsuit for slander or liabel. Dallman should educate himself a mite about the Supreme Court. There are limits on liberty when rights associated with it bump up against others of Americans’ rights that honor truth and privacy, at-will employment and uses of public airwaves.

Also, while the ongoing Civil Rights movement is associated with some extremes of political correctness on college campuses and in society, social pressures since the mid-60s have been a substantial [and compared to what was before, spectacular] success in bringing freedoms found in the Declaration of Independence to black citizens, and in freeing white citizens from prejudice and hatefulness. There is a further distance along this road that we must trod. Societal pressures, including impositions of political correctness, have proved healthy. Forward, ho! Liberty has and will continue to thrive in the midst of all this, with libertarians like Bill Maher [and Matthew Dallman] batting back extreme instances of Orwellian PC madness.

Jay, The Zero Boss, hones in on this idea: “[C]onservative pundits who point to the use of negative language in parts of the African-American community as an excuse for Imus’ behavior are as guilty of racist stereotyping as Imus was.”

The misnamed tinythinker wrote in peaceful turmoil:

It's easy to get riled up over a single event that can be magnified into a rallying point that symbolizes a bigger issue, but it's hard to keep being interested and involved over the long haul over such isolated incidents because you can't keep running forever on outrage and indignation. It takes much effort to organize and to educate as opposed to railing and ranting. I am not suggesting that the civil rights leaders involved in this case do not do these other things, but that is the unsexy, low-ratings, and vital work of advancing equality in this country. And all of that organizing and educating is pointless if it doesn't spur people to act, not simply in major rallies, but in their everyday lives.

Sounds right. But I think my counterpoint to tinythinker, written as a comment, is correct, also:

Exposure of these problems, though, does help. The amazingly successful movements for Civil Rights and women's rights came through just this kind of exposure and pressure. It is hard slogging, and success does not appear to be acoming if we look at things over a short period of time, but in the longer view society does move forward from the dirty business we see from this Imus flap and others similar to it.
Nonetheless, I am uneasy with the idea of pillorying individuals, even those as deserving as Imus. But the public [ie, newspapers and TV pundits] pay attention to stark examples, and the slow movements of culture [the REAL success] goes unnoticed.

Both Peter of The Buddha Diaries [link] and Terrance of The Republic of T [link] took special note of an opinion piece in the New York Times by Washington Week host and News Hour interviewer Gwen Ifill. Ifill, an African-American, was verbally lashed by Imus earlier in her career when she was the Times’s White House correspondent. Imus said, “Isn’t The Times wonderful. It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

In her piece, Ifill was her usual calm, kind, thoughtful, non-egoic self, but ended things with sterner words:

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.
Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

In one of his three posts on the Imus matter, "Right Speech: The Imus Flap," Peter, in The Buddha Diaries, offered some direct connection to how Buddhist principles hook up to the issues:

There's a good reason for the Buddhist teaching on Right Speech, the third of the eight path factors in the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the end of suffering. The principle of right speech includes "Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter," so I guess that Imus's remark falls squarely into the last three categories to be avoided: it was divisive, abusive, and certainly qualifies as idle chatter. Had Imus spoken in full consciousness of what he was saying, I'm sure the words would not have left his mouth.

Like tinythinker in peaceful turmoil, Peter was not optimistic in The Buddha Diaries for follow-through and a healthier society on the heels of the nattering TV discussions and finger waggings

It seems to me that all of us, black and white, would do well to start the healing, not with denial but with truthfulness and clarity about ourselves--an admission that is sadly lacking in today's debate, but which might prove a much-needed first step toward an exchange of Right Speech with each other. I'm not optimistic, though, that Buddhist wisdom will prevail over indignation and retribution in this particular scrap, nor that those involved will be able to let go of the attachment to outcomes that might allow a peaceable resolution.

Bodhipaksa in a post called “Buddhism: Beyond Good and Evil” in Wildmind prints a recent letter written to a prison inmate that says this about Imus:

The words good and bad are inevitably misleading, because rather than simply looking at our actions and seeing whether they lead to happiness or unhappiness, we look at our actions and judge them. Then we judge ourselves as being good or bad depending on which kinds of actions we’ve performed.

I was thinking about this the other day in regard to Don Imus … He’s said that he’s a “good person” because he does good things, and in fact he does do a lot of things that benefit others. But if he’s a good person because he does good things then does that also imply that he’s a bad person if he does bad things? Is it a question of adding up the good and bad? And who decides whether being kind to one person balances out being unkind to another? The joy of one may be nothing compared to the hurt and shame of the other.

… from a Buddhist point of view it makes no sense to talk about a “person” being good or bad, or even skillful or unskillful. A person is by necessity far too complex a phenomenon to reduce to such a simple label. …

James of the venerable Genius of Insanity was unusually late to this story, posting on Hillary Clinton opportunistically using the tumult to score points for her presidential bid.

Boy she doesn't pass up an opportunity does she? Why is she going to meet with them?? What does she have to do with this whole affair? Nothing. Did she care about them before this controversy? … This move has me calling, "bullshit." She already looks conniving and meeting with these women isn't going to help that image. It's all about her and that's more than apparent. She plans everything out too much--and it shows.

That's it, a wrap, folks. A taste of how the buddhoblogosphere interpreted the Imus Flap, with a little (too much) of my butting-in commentary.

Roundup for Mar 26, 2007

2007-03-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, it’s been a while. It is about time I took this sleepy old blog out for a stroll, you think? I hope to get back into it all with a regimen of doing mini-link festivals [that is, the usual thing] every few days, off any specific schedule.

But until I can catch up to the webby world, already in progress, here goes with some good, good stuff that has been piling up in my head that is at least tangentially [and usually directly] related to the glorious buddhoblogosphere. It all simply demands to be shared!

Lighter Footstep

First off, y’all simply must check out Christopher “Kit” Baskind’s latest endeavor, Lighter Footstep [Link!], an online magazine that teaches us “actionable ways to lead a lighter lifestyle.”

Kit is best known in the buddhoblogosphere for the splash he made with the incredibly handsome and charming Paper Frog that graced the web up until about a year ago. Frog Blog was rolled up and left to hop around in a quiet pasture, but Kit re-emerged, behind the mask of Miso, with Big Red Buddha [Link], the buddhoblogosphere’s equivalent of the famed satirical The Onion. More recently, Kit started blogging the now-defunct more minimal [link to archives] the forerunner of Lighter Footstep.

LF shows us how to lead a greener, more earth-friendly life. I count 21 article blurbs on the home page [not including more delights in the sidebar] that link to full stories within the e-magazine. Here are some of the topics now being featured: Green Cities, composting, Al Gore’s congressional testimony; the first in a column dealing with trash in our cities; efficient light bulbs; green celebrities; feng shui; recipes; and terrific new enviro-technologies.

Zenmar

Many of you are likely to know Zenmar [aka, Ardent or The Zennist or Muni Butsu], the rather-mysterious and authoritative master of dark zen who made quite a splash in the halls of AOL beginning way back in the 20th Century. While Z has been blogging for a while, it has all been behind the guarded doors of AOL in The Buddhist [link]… until recently. Z has now joined the vibrant ocean of bloggers with his new typepad blog, The Zennist. His most recent post, “Zen mandala,” discusses the beauty and meaning of mandalas, both generally and from ceremonies he attended relating to Tibet Week.

morgannels in Sentient City

A Greenwich Village organization launched an online magazine, Sentient City, that includes an essay, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Dreaming),” by the buddhoblogosphere’s morgannels of the same-name blog. You can read morgannels’ morgannels post, “I’m a Author,” that links to his long, magnificent far-flung essay which relates to dreams; reality; Jung; Freud; the Blooms, Leopold and Harold; Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche; Genesis; the Big Bang; Cervantes; Milarepa; Shakespeare and Hamlet and John Lennon. Well, maybe not John Lennon, or maybe just a little tiny bit, sorta. Whispered words of wisdom, let it be.

A few quick other words ….

Will Buckingham of thinkBuddha is days away from the release of Cargo Fever, his novel. And Cliff of This Is This has a post that has been included in Shaggy Blog Stories, a collection of interesting posts that have appeared in the UK blogosphere.

2007 Blogisattva Winners Announced

2007-02-25T01:48:00.000-08:00

Bill Harryman’s Integral Options Café [link] won the top 2007 Blogisattva award and three others according to an announcement released early this morning at the Blogisattva webspace. IOC was named Blog of the Year, Svaha! and feted for Best Achievement Blogging on Integral Issues and for Best Achievement in Wide Range of Topic Interests Blogging. An ongoing series of almost-daily linkfests within the blog, called speedlinking, won the award for Best Niche activity. The Awards website called Integral Options Café “fulsome and intellectually hefty - yet fun, smooth, easy and delightful.” Harryman was praised as having “a broad and sophisticated palate of what is worthwhile and interesting” and for being “masterful” with his Integral-informed essays and multi-part articles.

Best Post of the Year was won by Cliff Jones and his blog This Is This [link] for an entry last May titled “Vesak and the Art of Changing Tyres.” The post tells of Jones’s serendipitous experience teaching a classroom of five year olds the meaning of Vesak, Buddha’s birthday, and the special effort to be especially nice on that day. The awards site called the post “A stunning achievement” told with “toothsome brio.” Jones and This Is This also won Best Achievement with Humor in a Blog Post for an entry last June called “Burrito.” Beginning by using the contents of a burrito as an example, Jones cleverly explores the meaning of “interbeing,” how everyone and everything inter-exist.

The Wordsmithing Prize for skilled writing was given to Will Buckingham who blogs both thinkBuddha.org [link] and WillBuckingham's weblog [link]. Buckingham was cited for
“his unique abilities that turn phrases into gold [and] churn lofty thoughts into buttery text.”

Michael of One foot in front of the other [link] took three awards from his four nominations, winning for Best Achievement Blogging in the First Person, for Best Achievement in Kind and Compassionate Blogging and for Best Achievement in Creation or Use of Graphics in a Blog. The Blogisattva announcement cited the blog’s entries as being “fiercely attractive and vividly human” and that whether as prose, poetry or pictures as being “works of art.” Michael’s photographs were termed “consistantly amazing” often with “wondrous, surprising details.”

George Dvorsky and his Sentient Developments [link] won two awards, for Best Achievement Blogging on Matters Philosophical or Scientific and for Best Achievement in Wonderful, Remarkable, Elegant Design. The awards announcement praised George for writing “with perfect clarity and great intelligence” and for a web design that "perfectly fits the nature of his serious science-themed blog."

Buddhist Geeks [link], a group podcasting blog, was named Best New Blog of the Year. Ryan Oelke, Gwen Bell and Vince Horn were cited as the “triumphant triumvirate” behind the cutting-edge effort who were proving that “Buddhists can be geeky. And they rock.”

Tyson Williams of tysonwilliams.com [link] was cited for consistant excellence and beautiful presentation in winning the inaugural Best Achievement Blogging on Buddhist Practice or Dharma. Quoting the awards site, "Tyson’s blog is a must stop for the dharma lover that we all are."

Bhikkhu's Blog [link] won the award for Best Achievement Blogging Opinion Pieces or about Political Issues. At the awards webspace it was written “Ajahn Punnadhammo tackles important issues and brings his incisive genius to the fore in delving deeply into the nexis of problems and conflict.”

The popular The Buddhist Blog [link] won the inaugural Best Achievement with Use of Quotations in a Blog. In the announcement post it said “James Ure presents wise words both unannotated and, at other times, adding interesting commentary from his experience.”

Paul Salamone’s “inspired touches” transforming a Blogger template, turning the ordinary into extraordinary, won him the award for Best Achievement in Clean, Straightforward, Unaffected Design for his The DENVER Anti-Apathy Cluster [link].

“Happy. Geeky. Energetic.” C4 of ~C4Chaos [link] won the Golden Pig for Blogger Best Demonstating a Multiplicity of Talents. At the awards site, it said, “He is combative, but kindly. Interested in all things, but sure of what he thinks.”

Buddhist Chaplain Danny Fisher of Danny Fisher [link] won for Best Multi-Part Blog Post for his 25-entry India series. The series took readers on a tour of India with visits to places of special interest to Buddhists and included scads of great photographs.

Soen Joon Sunim’s “a note on death,” posted in her defunct blog One robe, one bowl was named Best Achievement in a Compassionate Blog Post. Her post tells the story of living “in the presence of death, which calls into question the meaning of life.”

And, finally, Best Conversation-Sparking Blog Post (not necessarily a good thing) went to Ken Wilber’s “attack post” in kenwilber.com, “What we are, that we see.” Dozens of Integral-interested bloggers analysed this post before and after it was revealed that the post was all “a test.”

Technorati tags: Blogisattva Awards, Blogisattva, Buddhism

Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun

2007-02-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

This is doubly cool, so I have to share it. The photo at left is of the Smith Brothers, each of whom has started a blog in recent months from the roof of the world [Michael is a Fulbright scholar doing research in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. Dan is in Sichuan Province, China, working for an NGO, The Bridge Fund.]. The little coughdrops in front of the Smiths are the monks Fearless Wisdom and Fearless Compassion. [Which is which twin, I’m not absolutely sure of. But does it matter, except to the guys’ moms?]

The pic was kiped from Michael’s blog Kathmandu for You, which is doubly nominated for Blogisattva honors. Dan’s blog is Kham Abiding. [Ohhh, those Buddhists. Into suffering, no wonder there is often so much pun – ishment.]

Update: Be wary. I was attacked by spyware [HotBar 4.8.4.0] clicking into Dan's blogspace.

Blogisattva Award nominations have been announced

2007-01-31T00:07:00.000-08:00

...in a larger sense, we cannot nominate, we cannot award, we cannot hallow the buddhoblogosphere. The brave Buddhist bloggers who struggle here have consecrated the Internet far above our poor power to add or detract. -- from a Blogisattva Blogsite post

Earlier today, the Blogisattva blogsite announced the 2007 Blogisattva Award nominations honoring English-language Buddhist blogging during calendar year 2006.

Bill Harryman and his blog Integral Options Café led the way with eight nominations, including Best Blog; Best Multi-part Post, for the series “Who Owns God?”; and the Wordsmithing Prize. Bill also garnered nominations for two series within his blog, "speedlinking," a daily link carnival, and "gratitude," a daily practice Bill had going for a spell where he blogged thanks for things or people in his life he felt grateful for.

Cliff Jones’s clever humour in This is This was honored with seven noms in categories including Best Blog; the Wordsmithing Prize; and Best Blog Post for “Vesak and the Art of Changing Tyres” which was the source for an article published in Mandala magazine last year. Two others of Cliff’s entries were nommed in the Funniest Post category.

Miso’s Onion-like blog Big Red Buddha tallied the most nominations for a blog less than a year old – five noms – with scores in the categories Best New Blog and Best Niche Blog. Other nominations were for Elegant Design and a double nomination in the Funniest Post category.

Other blogs with high tallies of nominations were George Dvorsky’s Sentient Developments, Will Buckingham's thinkBuddha.org and Michael’s One foot in front of the other. Each received four nominations including Best Blog of the Year.

Other blogs up for Blog of the Year are Danny Fisher’s eponymous blog and Mystery of Existance by a mysterious blogger Blogisattva is calling DotDotDot Putali

Vince Horn did something distinctive this year, getting two nominations to go with three he received last year, where all the noms are for differently titled blogs. This year, Vince was part of the trio that has started the podcasting Buddhist Geeks, a Best New Blog nominee. His solo blog Numinious Nonsense was nominated for a post that was a Conversation Sparker. Last year, Vince had three nominations in the Best Integral Blog category for his solo blog which was then titled VincentHorn.com, and for two group blogs he was involved with, Generation Sit and Kosmic Bloggers.

You can see the nomination announcement with a complete list of Blogisattva nominees at the Blogisattva blogsite. There are 21 categories of awards with an aggregate of 115 nominations. Winners will be announced there on February 15.

Be a Slave for Ken

2007-01-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

BLOG: Integral Spirituality Typos?
from Kenwilber.com Journal by kenwilber.com@gmail.com
Hello Friends!Iand#39;m happy to announce that Shambhala will be bringing out a paperback version of Integral Spirituality this fall.andnbsp; In preparation for this launch, we need to know if there are any errors orandnbsp;typos that need to be fixed before the book goes to print--thatand#39;s where you come in.andnbsp; Ifandnbsp;you noticed anything while reading IS youand#39;d consider to be an error, please let me know at integralspiritualitytypos@gmail.com.andnbsp; Whoever submitsandnbsp;the most genuine errors will get a signed copy of Integral Spiritualityandnbsp;from Ken :-)andnbsp; Thanks everyone, Colinandnbsp;
- - - - -
The above is the RSS feed from Ken Wilber’s blog, from a post that went up yesterday written by Colin. Must be nice to be between CEOs such that you can fully disregard the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1934.

I am afraid that it is not strictly legal to put out a work notice and expect labor to be unpaid [which would be the case for most folks who search and find a few errors in Ken's book] and then send a trinket to the most successful of your slave employees.

I don't know the set up, exactly, but I would guess it goes like this: Integral Spirituality is Ken's book for which he will collect royalties on the Shambhala paperback. The plea for aid finding typos comes from Colin who works for somebody or something but I would bet the details are a bit cloudy and confused or is split somewhat arbitrarily between Ken and one of his non-profit organizations. Shambhala may or may not be responsible for copy editing the paperback edition, but it is to Ken's credit that he is interested in clearing out errors found in the hardcopy edition.

But without a thought for integrity and the keeping of one's beans properly organized and counted and the ending of slavery in 1864, somebody comes up with the bright idea LET'S HAVE THE PESKY LOVE-STARVED INTEGRAL PEONS FIND THE ERRORS. They'll do the grunge work for free! And then, with a nod to charity, it is suggested "Let's send the best slave an autograph from Moviestar Ken." And Ken begrudgingly says sure he'll do it, after all signing his nine-letter name will only take a few seconds.

Now I know I sound harsh, but Integral Headquarters in Denver has turned all wealth-seeking and money grubbing in recent years [or is it singular, year] and has been embracing more than a few personality-disordered wannabe gurus while curtly showing the back of the hand to, you know, rape victims and I-I staff members of high integrity and people who want a signed book and victims of dred Boomeritis and such.

And I know Ken is sick, and all, and word is out that we're supposed to be tippy-toeing around his hospital crank-bed, but I still find it remarkable and worth a remark when something new crops up to show how much mucky muck continues to accumulate in the Denver pigsty.

A Couple of Blog Conversations

2007-01-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

Often, blogging is a conversation that bounces from blog to blog, or develops into long comment threads. Here are a couple recent integrobuddhoblog conversations you all may relish by reading or by jumping in on by adding your comments to a post on the topic, or by posting on the matter in your own blog, if you have one. And if you don’t have a blog, start one. The easiest way to start one? Probably at Blogger.com .

Why Meditate?

Buzz started on meditation when Jeff Wilson wrote on Dec 26, in Tricycle Blog –Jeff Wilson, a tangential statement of fact in a rambling post comparing Japan and America, that “meditation is quite uncommon in Japanese Zen.”

The first comment to the post, written by Pat Montague, asked about the statement, “How does this square with the enormous emphasis placed on meditation in Shunryu Suzuki's “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”? [Suzuki, a patriarch of Zen in America, started the San Francisco Zen Center, which focused on meditation, in the early 60s and he and the center were quickly sensations during the beatnik era carrying over to the hippie era. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind was first published in 1970 – a year before Suzuki died. The book continues to be popular.]

Jeff devoted a new, long post on Dec 30 – a journal-quality article, really – to Pat’s comment, titling it “Meditation: A Rare Practice.” Jeff demonstrated the truth of his assertion that meditation is rare in Japan, and in Asia, too. He also explained why meditation became central to Western Buddhists: because it quickly became what lay Buddhists were interested in and because it was the easiest thing for English-challenged teachers to give instruction in. Jeff summed things up with these words, “Obviously, this isn't meant as an attack on meditation, which I too value. But we should be aware that meditation is not a common Buddhist practice, including within Zen. Helpful to some, valued by many, but by no means common.”

In the comment threat to “Meditation: A Rare Practice,” the discussion broadened along these lines: The great opportunity that the Internet affords and the Buddhist literature that Westerners have generally allows for a wonderful foundation to study and practice our religion and to know how Buddhism is practiced elsewhere in the world.

Jeff’s post caught the eye of CJ of CJ’s Words who wrote in a Jan 9 post, starkly titled "Real Buddhists Don't Meditate," “I was quite pleased to read [about the rarity of meditation in Jeff’s post], as [I am] a lazy meditator. It strikes me that it really is a central theme in Western Buddhism and often the aspect that one will come across first and practise before having any inkling of ethics. Why are we so into this sitting still and navel gazing practice? Does it help us feel like we're being spiritual or does the daily discipline make us feel like we're being good Buddhists?”

CJ then quoted Wade from a Jan 2 post in his The Middle Way blog: “Meditation is not just sitting down on a zafu, or chanting...the Eightfold Path... is applied in all aspects of life, from talking to others, to breathing, to understanding things correctly.”

Jeff G. in his Barefoot Path took things from there on Jan 9, citing CJ's post and then writing in support of meditation. “We are creatures of habit and normal habit energy has us jumping from distraction to distraction. By practicing meditation we set the conditions to help us change our habit energy and allow our minds a little more spaciousness before reacting to external stimuli. This translates into our lives in real and concrete ways.”

Whither now, Integral?

Hokai in hokai’s blogue wrote unctuously of a post he read, “I thought and expected better of Paul Salamone.”

Paul had written a post titled “Integral: What Now?” in Paul’s Blog in the community of zaadz. Paul mused on what was now to become of I-I, Integral Institute, now that the wind had left its sails with staff layoffs [including himself] and the longterm health problems of Ken Wilber.

Paul proposed that people “continue to cultivate the intellectual curiosity which brought us to integral in the first place”, seek “a renewed commitment to personal development and practice” and “[refocus] on artistic and media-based [expression] OF an integral vision – of a life lived with greater freedom and fullness.” He also envisions a support community outside I-I for Integral ex-pats and other outsiders [or folks appalled by the cult they believe Wilberism has become] to buttress zaadz and Integral World. [Integral World is Frank Vissar’s website, chockablock with essays that analyse Integral issues. Many if not most of the some 750 essays in IW take Ken Wilber to task for perceived errors or inconsistancies in his writings. Last June, Wilber notoriously lashed out at Integral World and his critics, telling them to ‘suck my dick’ in a blogpost that was either a rant disguised as a test or a test disguised as a rant.]

In his post, Hokai was spitting venom, sarcastically dismissing the ex-pats as lazy and unskilled and lacking the dedication to move Wilber’s vision forward. He wrote, “Ken Wilber is desperately in need of competent staff, … people who don't see themselves as the ones who will take the integral vision further before they can attain the basic discipline of a five-year old.”

In what may be closely connected to all this is a post in ebuddha’s Integral Practice that delves into the mishaps of Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber’s dialogue buddy who is now an authoritanian guru who has repeated abusive behaviour problems – including, perhaps, theft of $2 million from a troubled disciple. Even Cohen’s mother can’t stand him.

There are other personality-disordered characters associated with or at or near the top of the extended Wilber Empire exhibiting many similar authoritarian, abusive, greedy, narcissistic and needy traits. There is rot within bringing the whole world down. And what would be laughable if it weren't so depressing is that so many continue to think that Wilber and Cohen and Gafni and others are themselves at the cutting edge of enlightened human development, when obviously they can't walk the walk and we should be more earnest at questioning whether they can talk the talk.

Roundup for Jan 9, 2007

2007-01-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

A central detail from a photograph in a post titled "India Post #23" by Danny Fisher in his same-name blog.

It's a beautiful day in the buddhoblogospheric neighborhood; A beautiful day for a blog-reading neighbor; Would you be mine? ... Could you be mine?...

But it may not be a beautiful day for long. Ajahn Punnadhammo in Bhikkhu’s Blog writes about the severe threat of climate change and gives us a Buddhist approach to meet the challenges. This is a must-read post, y’all; a planet saver. Writes the bhikkhu, “… Buddhism can make a real contribution. Buddhism teaches the virtue of santutthi, contentment with little.”

In his 23rd post from India, Danny Fisher presents more wonderful photographs in his blog, Danny Fisher. Be sure to click on Danny’s 18 thumbnails to enjoy the splendor of his photographs – the colors! the wonders! – in a size such that you feel you are there, with the chaplain in India. A central detail from one of his photos is at left.

John Craig of Craig Photography takes dog Kiani, coffee, but no camera on a nature hike. With text alone in an outstanding essay, John captures the beauty of a farmer’s field and a silent wood. A snippet: “Sitting on a non-moss covered log I see the white tail of a deer, then another tail and another tail. Deer heads start popping out of the low brush; I am resting in the herd’s nest.”

James of Genius of Insanity is excited that the middleground is finding both sides in the stem cell debate. Scientific research to the rescue! The latest, if you haven’t heard, is that new work investigating amniotic cells strongly suggests that they might reap powerful, curative benefits in mankind’s future – without use of destroyed embryos.

Ryan Oelke, of Integral Awakening and one of the podcasting Buddhist Geeks [qv], is kissing up to the Zero Boss [qv], maybe, which will possibly help his chances in this month’s “Blogging for Books” contest. Ryan’s entry is “Time Yoga,” which was originally posted in IA last April.

“Tonight...I douse myself in geekery, and light the match of...um...nerdiness.” So writes Bob Goodfriend in a post about three weeks ago about computer games, but mostly about BattleLore, the “big fantasy battle game,” that he had just received. Chicago Bob was begun on Dec 4, but is only now getting blasted into the buddhoblogosphere by the jet engines of Technorati. Bob’s post yesterday revealed his resolutions for the new year, which include keeping his weight down, reading and studying Buddhism, extending his leadership skills in SGI and to fight less with his wife and when they do quarrel for it to resolve itself positively. And, to be a great daddy to his daughter, Ren, born five days ago.

digitalzen of Digital Dharma wants us to know he packed up his electrons and moved to http://digital-dharma.net/. But the old address still works, too.

Renegade Buddha of the same-name blog has made a triumphant return to bloggery with twenty posts in just the last few days, after just a few posts all of last year – and those were in March. Recent posts include lots of great vids, a post on labels and praise for a quote by tinythinker of peaceful turmoil on Buddhist stereotypes, with commentary.

All for now, everyone. But I may add more stuff t'morrow.

Roundup for Jan 7, 2007

2007-01-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

A portion of a photograph in a post titled "Impermanence" by Dharmasattva in the blog Dharmasattva's Meditations.

There is pain and there is beauty in the buddhoblogosphere. Here, some wild samples, some good ones, posted on Jan 6, plucked fresh from the Internet meadow with the dew still clinging.

Dharmasattva, of Dharmasattva's Meditations, shows us that the Grand Canyon demonstrates the Buddhist principle of impermanence. “Even the earth under our feet is dynamic and ever-changing.” [See a portion of one of Dharmasattva's photographs, at left.]

Dee, the ordinary immortal of Urban Mystic, writes to recommend a book, Life is ForEver. The book makes the case that the mind and brain are not the same. The book is important since those that believe that death brings oblivion are getting their case heard in Britain, while those that believe and have evidence for immortality are not being heard.

Joe Perez of Until has quit his job because of health issues. His situation, which he describes at some length, seems very serious. He is interested in recommendations readers of his blog might have on how to use meditation to deal with chronic pain. Blogmandu readers: Any knowledge about this, thoughts or ideas you could share with Joe?

Moose, The Contemporary Taoist, has been absent without leave from his blogging duties, with just a couple posts in the last couple months, but he is happy to report that past pieces in his column, called “The Contemporary Taoist,” in LivingNow hardcopy magazine will soon be available online. Moose should know; he’s in charge, re-vamping the magazine’s online presence.

Howdy Seven, S’long Six. Justin Whitaker welcomes in the new year in American Buddhist Perspective and then is visited by the Ghost of Blogging Past who takes him on an extended texty tap dance down the garden trail of a year gone by. One pithy bit of wisdom plucked from last June: “In life, what is needed is less map and more compass.”

C4’s fav wine merchant, Joshua Zader of Mudita Journal, is keen on an audio CD called “True Meditation” by Adyashanti. After meditating for twenty minutes following listening to the first hour of the 3 ½ hr. CD, Joshua has been in a fairly “perpetual state of witness consciousness” since.

whiskey of whiskey river posts A Triangle. It’s like a haiku that Escher might write, you think?

A Triangle of Thought

Our memories mellow time
As wine mellows memories
as time mellows the wine
- Linda Delayen

TMCG of the same-name blog was jazzed seeing a rockumentary on the Pixies called loudQUIETloud. She writes that the Pixies wrote the soundtrack of her generation such that “not a moment of the movie went by that I didn't have some memory associated with a bass line, howling vocal, swirl-grinding guitar or kick-pedal pound.”

Paul, A Blue Eyed Buddhist, writes, in a post titled “I love America,” “Is this a great country, or what?” The cause of his glee: New Muslim congressman Keith Ellison has his picture taken being sworn in by Speaker Nancy Polosi, using a two-volume Koran that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson. The scene has Paul wondering if Jefferson might have had a copy of the Lotus Sutra that might be held in the Library of Congress, somewhere.

A couple Buddhist blogs posted yesterday or today regarding a 50 min. video that is free online - A BBC/Discovery Channel co-production, The Life of the Buddha, found at Marcello’s E-Dharma blog, originally posted in November. Word is getting out. TMCG says the E-Dharma link is great. Bill of Integral Options Cafe says the film is "a good quality production, worthy of watching."

That's all for today, y'all. Happy blogging and blog reading to everyone!

Roundup for Dec 30, 2006

2006-12-30T00:21:00.001-08:00

Detail from a photograph in a post titled "in memorium" by Michael of One foot in front of the other.

Whoa! It's been a while, but allow me to begin again and get a head start on my New Year's resolution. Here, at long last love: more juicy goodness from the thriving integralbuddhoblogosphere. All of the following is just some of what was wonderful yesterday:

Wonderful writing and photographs in F & X Kwan’s foot before foot: the photoblog make a visit to the couple’s blogspace delightful, even as their lives seem always to be a hard slog. Yesterday, there was rain.

Baghdad Burning, a blog reporting events from Iraq’s capital, had been down for quite a while, but it is back. Ajahn Punnadhammo tells us of a recent post in that famous blog with an entry in his Bhikkhu’s Blog, reporting from the safe, quiet wooded compound of Arrow River Forest Hermitage, west of Thunder Bay.

Cliff Jones of This is This manages a TV network or somesuch in Britain and was under the razor of an Arab barber when a call came in from the vid guy at work regarding what to air of Saddam’s execution. Cliff relates his dicey conversation on a cellphone in the busy-barber’s chair.

Whiskey of whiskey river quotes Fyodor Doestoevsky’s The Idiot. It begins, “You smile at the absurdity of your dream and feel at the same time that the tissue of those absurdities contains some thought …”

Michael of One foot in front of the other remembers a blog friend who died in a recent automobile accident in his touching post "in memorium." His post includes a photograph the woman admired of his, showing a country road in Japan.

Steroids of chess: George P. Dvorsky of Sentient Developments considers the future of competitive chess. Hidden devises that supply computer access, stimulants, and “genetically modified competitors” all pose a challenge to fairly contested events. George concludes, “…as the human species changes so too must our competitive activities. The rules of sport, whether these sports require mental or physical skill, will have to bend in the face of the biotech wind.”

James in his The Buddhist Blog posts a quote from Stephen Batchelor that concludes with this summative sentence, “The survival of Buddhism today is dependent on its continuing ability to adapt.” James finds the teaching valuable in his own life in remembering not to be judgmental of the path other Buddhists take dealing creatively with each of their unique life’s challenges.

Writes Mike of Unknowing Mind, “The new year is fast approaching, and what better time than [this] to take stock of your life, and dedicate just 10% of it to true daily practice. Allow the other 90% to continue living exactly as you do now.”

Bill of Integral Options Café has been keeping us abreast of ‘best of” lists that have been coming out in recent weeks. Yesterday, he found three more: Cinematical’s best ten films of 06; Ten wildlife conservation success stories in 06; and the 500 greatest albums of all time, according to Rolling Stone’s 60s-and-70s prejudice editors.

And finally, speaking of “best of”s, the nominations for the 2007 Blogisattva Awards, honoring excellence in Buddhist blogging during calendar year 2006, will be announced right here, in Blogmandu, in the middle of next month. There will be 50% more categories and 50% more nominees than last year [2006 nominees; 2006 winners], reflecting the growth in quantity, variety and quality of Buddhist blogs, bloggers and their posts. Yowza! Blog on and read on, y’all.

Roundup for Oct 30, 2006

2006-10-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

Ooop. Blogmandu has been neglected! But today, alas, a new entry.

Here’s what’s new and spiffy in the integral- and buddhoblogospheres:

tinythinker in peaceful turmoil writes of some of his more serious attachments, how attachments can be intellectually described and then, very helpfully, pulls us up out of any intellectual tule fog with this visualization

Until you have started really seeing [your attachments], like strings on a puppet moving you about as conditions in your life appear to change, [intellectual depictions of what attachments are are inadequate]. And, of course, it's even harder to see that, in fact, there are no strings (yes, it is a bit reminiscent of the "no spoon" line from that Zennish motion picture). When one is/is in the realization, rather than anticipating it or acknowledging [it] after the fact, there is nothing to hinder or become hindered by.

George of Sentient Developments has been posting what he calls a “Buddha Break” every few days since the 17th, in “an effort to write more about Buddhist topics and tie it into the context of [his] blog.” In his fifth and latest “break,” George writes about a meditation class conducted by his yoga instructor that had elements that are contrary to the practice he’s accustomed to, based on the vipassana tradition. Writes George

Once the meditation started we focused on the breath – a practice that I’m very familiar with. But after a few minutes of that he had us move ‘beyond’ a focus on the breath to a focus on the pure mind. This I could not understand nor accomplish. In fact, the idea of zoning-out like this is anathema to my own notions as to why we meditate and how we work to improve the practice of mindfulness. It might be my ignorance, but it seemed “unmindful” to try to attain a state of uber-relaxed ‘pure mind.’ I don’t even know what that means.

Brad Warner's forthcoming book is up at Amazon, with a release date of Apr 28, 2007. Brad writes a bit about the release in a post titled "Where Do We Go When We Die?" in his blog Hardcore Zen.

Hill Street Blues: In “California is Pathetic, Part 2” The Brad of Hardcore Zen tells us why he is getting so few to show up for zazen in his Hill Street Center. Basically, it’s because Buddhist practice “is hard work” and “most people are … lazy and pathetic.” He tells us, though, that he is happy to get what pathetic turnout he gets rather than suffer from what he calls The ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ Effect which is when “a whole bunch of people [show up] who are just there because being there is the thing to do.” I note that Brad’s sentiments here seem to be in sharp contrast to the sentiment one gathers from the title of Brad’s forthcoming book [see graphic at right]. We may have to wait until the book is out to square this circle.

Up from the gutter and into the fast lane: Nagarjuna is in a slump; his bowling scores are way down and this after learning about some of the game's finer points. He is convinced that in order to get his game squared away he must get a boost of confidence – not only at the bowling center but in his life generally. He writes in Naked Reflections,

“[A]ct the way I wish to feel, and feel the way I wish to act.” In Star Trek, there is something called the “Rules of Acquisition” that act as the guiding principles of all self-respecting Ferengi in their daily conduct, aimed, as it is, at building wealth and power. I'm tempted to construct my own personal list of guiding rules or precepts with the maxim above at or near the top of that list.

Buddhism is very fortunate to have a stellar, hard-working guide at About.com in Anthony Flanagan. For quite some time the entries Anthony posts have been in blog format so I am happy to start appropriately recognizing his work as part of the buddhoblogosphere. Anthony’s latest post is about Rahula, the Buddha’s son. It is yet another expertly written essay of Anthony’s focusing on Buddhism basics in About Buddhism. Anthony's essays that are beyond or well beyond the basics are also expertly written. Svaha!

The latest issue of Holons [for Nov 06] – news from the Integral world [but decidedly NOT Frank Vissar’s Integral World] – includes reviews by C4 and Vincent Horn. Each mentions his work in his solo blog. C4 reviews the DVD release of the film Running Scared. C4 writes in his blog, ~C4Chaos, “Even Roger Ebert agrees with me :) So if you think you can handle it, check out the movie.” Vincent reviews Alan Wallace’s new book The Attention Revolution. Says Vince in Numinous Nonsense, delighted with the publishing credit, “Suweet. … Pretty cool because I also just recorded an interview with … Wallace for [the new group podcast blog] Buddhist Geeks.”

It takes a village: Jack [aka, Jeb] – well known to longstanding B’du readers for his defunct Wondering on the Way <q.v.> blog, which was the sterling Buddhist voice during the Katrina disaster – is building up Buddhist Village which acts as a community with an ezine at its hub. Check it out, AND latch on to the village feed.

Atheism Discussion

And finally, for today, Sean of Deep Surface and Bob of Dust are mainstays in a cross-blog discussion going on regarding atheism. In “Atheists and Development,” Sean writes that he agrees with famed atheist Sam Harris that “helping the faithful to understand reason is important for the survival of our species.” Stuart Davis in his stuartdavis blog had ripped into the idea, writing in an “Open Letter to Rational Pundits,” “We had better figure out how to see depth, experience altitudes of awareness, and embrace development, or those lower stations will render us undone.”

Dust’s Bob had a serious, mad, but funny, too, and “Cranky, mean-spirited reaction to Stuart Davis’s blog,” writing to Stu that he is “flat, flat, flat-out full of shit when you parrot Wilber’s smoke and mirrors ‘solution’ to the world’s problems.”

In a later, calmer post, Bob writes, “How did I change my mind about religious faith? Or if you prefer, How did I develop to a more inclusive worldview? The answer to both questions is the same in my case: I was exposed, over time, to series of thoughtful, rational, evidence-based perspectives that eventually made utterly transparent the silliness, ignorance, and self-limiting nature of religious dogma. And until integral or developmental theorists can demonstrate a more effective approach to this problem, or any other for that matter, I will have to go with what’s worked for me.”

C4 of the blog ~C4Chaos, in a thoughtful comment to Bob’s words suggests “gather[ing] people in different religions and faith who already are at the world-centric stage of development and do the rational dialogue with them instead of attempt[ing] to dialogue among the masses.”

Roundup for Oct 17, 2006

2006-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Here's today's roundup, y'all:

Mike of Unknowing Mind finds that when he had a “physical expression of spiritual practice” – specifically, when he was training in Aikido, a Japanese martial art -- Buddhism had a heightened effect on his life. He writes, “Aikido acts as a physical expression of the value of egolessness, compassion, and wisdom.”

As best he can, Mike Doe of Do-Doe deals with a wild mouse in his house.

George of Sentient Developments welcomes us to the Age of Weapons Containment when there are likely to be other North Koreas or groups with bio-labs to develop horribly dangerous weaponry. He writes, “Preventing the wide-spread and unchecked accessibility to apocalyptic technologies will redefine the human condition. We may have to live with a multitude of existential threats in perpetuity. This is not a good situation.” No.

C4 of ~C4Chaos will be going to the Blog Business Summit 2006 in Seattle later this month, representing both his solo-blogging self and Zaadz, the walled social blogging community and virtual-fern pick-up bar that will change the world. He asks his “dear readers” to send him questions to ask the speakers or uber-bloggers he commiserates with at the conference.

In Genius of Insanity part of an AP report is posted on the high death toll so far this month of Iraqis killed in sectarian reprisals and of US soldiers in the streets. Adds Blogger James Ure, “[I]t's time that we adults grab the wheel of this convoy on a highway to hell and change directions. We can do that by electing Democrats to the Congress this November.”

Paul, The Blue Eyed Buddhist, links to an MSNBC report, “Power crunch spotlights deregulation turmoil,” and shows us that it is yet another issue that the Republicans have bobbled. He writes, “So the next time … there’s a brown-out … thank a Republican for dorking things up.”

Nagarjuna of Thoughts Chase Thoughts takes up a conjecture by Gagdad Bob of what would happen if the states of the US were divided into separate Red and Blue Nations. Would a Blue America have ruinous taxes and an intrusive govenment? Would a Red America allow corporations to run amuck and be non-compassionate toward poor citizens? Or, are the fifty states better being all together finding a Middle Way?

Cenk Uygur blogging in the Huffington Post:

George W. Bush will live in infamy for what he has done in Iraq. 161 dead. 83 dead. 53 dead. 16 tortured. 17 decapitated. Shiite doctors dumping the bodies of Sunni patients they have murdered. Burn marks. Executions. Torture chambers. Revenge killings. Family members shot in front of their wives and children.

These are all the headlines from Iraq in just the last couple of days.

If this isn't a civil war, what in the world is? Anywhere from 50,000-650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last three and half years. Let that sink in for a second. That's a gigantic number. The human toll in Iraq has been unspeakable. And none of it had to happen. This was a war of choice. And it has been one of the worst choices ever made by a world leader.

Roundup for Oct 14, 2006

2006-10-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

Tanimbar Islands -- Drawing by Will Buckingham. Copyright, Will Buckingham, 2006. Will of thinkBuddha has launched a new blog, WillBuckingham.com, as "an outlet for more literary or straightforwardly philosophical reflections" and to cogitate on the "curious business of wrestling with words and with meanings" what with a novel he has coming out next Spring, called Cargo Fever, and one he's in the midst of writing now. Hopefully, he will also use the new blog as a place to post more of his drawings.

A quick roundup for you all.

One thing I forgot to write-up last roundup is the good, good news that chalip of Zen Under the Skin made an appearance with two posts after a blogging absence of about five weeks. In one of the posts, “Home Training,” chalip asks the question “After years of no practice or haphazard practice, how do you change? How do you develop the discipline that makes daily practice a reality?” She then addresses the questions, dealing with the circumstances in her life, doing so in a way that we may use some of her ideas for ourselves.

Natasha has put up a perfect post to introduce new readers to her blog, feminish. What I mean by that is that it is a beautiful piece of writing – with footnotes! – that explains where the feminism movement is today – its goals and obstacles – and the difficulties a woman has in being herself and dealing with the expectations of others in this our still-very-skewed and too-screwy world.

Umguy of Ideological Putty is messed up and will be in Las Vegas. If anybody wants to meet up with him there and do god-only-knows what, read his post.

It is fall in New York state. Michael of One foot in front of the other proves it with beautiful pictures taken on a clear, magical afternoon.

Bill of Integral Options Café endorses an effort by Oprah and Bono to buy Red products to help fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. My question: Why should anybody living a far less conspicuously consumptive life than Oprah take advice on what to buy from her show? Shouldn’t she be getting advice on what to buy and not to buy from us? Couldn’t Oprah just give the effort one year of her salary and leave us alone? James of Genius of Insanity makes the case for Buy Red, too, in his blog. Writes James who had lived in Ivory Coast for two years, “[The Africans] are a proud and beautiful people who need our help. I saw first hand the terrible effects of HIV/AIDS there.”

Good heavens! George of Sentient Developments is inventing words that are taking hold in English! They are in Wikipedia and gather lots of hits when entered as a Google search. At the end of his post, George has questions which begin with this one: “When does a word cease to be a neologism and become a bona fide word?”

That's a wrap. Good night and good blog reading!

Roundup for Oct 10, 2006

2006-10-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

Miso, the meistro of Big Red Buddha is interviewed in the latest addition to the Buddhist ezine the worst horse. It’s a terrific interview, titled “Buddhism gets its Onion,” that is clever and funny as hell. Plus, you find out a lot about Miso, but not more than he’ll allow. A good job of interviewing is done by the even-more-mysterious-than-Miso webmeister of the worst horse. Good stuff, y’all.

Here, a tasty tidbit from the interview, instructions from Miso on how to handle a ticked-off Buddhist: “…[I]t’s helpful to remember we Buddhists are easily distracted. I try to keep a book handy with some exotic teaching by a brand-name Buddhist personality. Just toss it in the direction of a ticked-off Buddhist, and they'll quickly become engrossed in its novelty. Shiny bits of foil may have the same effect. Once the ticked-off Buddhist's attention turns from you, back away slowly. Works like a charm.”

In his blog Naked Reflections, Nagarjuna does a great job breaking down and commenting on a brilliant Glenn Greenwald article that analyses the significance of the Foley sex scandal. The scandal and cover up is a crystallizing affair that exhibits the hypocrisies, madness and power greed of the Republicans to the public, as well as exposing the Republicans for all their duplicity and doublespeak. [Btw, congratulations are past due Nagarjuna for an earlier post of his that was excerpted by John Hughes of ipsoSacto for Blog Watch and then appeared in the Sacramento Bee Sunday Forum section on 9/24, in the weekly department "Surfing USA." The original, full post, titled “That’ll Show Them for Calling Us Violent,” appeared on Sept 18 in Naked Reflections.]

A new voice in the Buddhoblog chorus y’all need to be turned on to is natasha, a “twentysomething, british, free spirit in France” who writes feminish. Her primary interest is feminism, but she is keen on zen, meditation and British politics, too. Her link-rich post yesterday was mostly on “the veil thing,” a hot feminism topic following last month’s boob thing. I love the fresh, non-sugary positivism, while still being edgy and smart, found in natasha’s writing.

Here’s how she ends her post,

And the thing is (“what is the thing, Natasha?”), the thing is - these discussions [on veils/burqas/boobs] are better than any I’ve ever had offline. Honest. Go read.

A couple of book recommendations in the last day or two sound intriguing: Deep-thinker Bill of Integral Options Café has put The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality [amazon link] on his future-reading list. The book argues that we should be worrying about economic privilege instead of social identity in our search for civil justice. The stinking rich and their playboy and lazy girl progeny float above the hoi polloi in their castles in the air, leaving the rest of us on the ground tussling over scraps. Sounds about right.

Meantime, James of Monkey Mind alerts us to a forthcoming re-issue of a book from Susan Murphy, called Upside-Down Zen: Finding the Marvelous in the Ordinary [amazon link] after seeing an advance copy. Writes James, “Quite simply, Susan Murphy gives Zen a Western face with an Australian accent. And it’s right on! Not a false note throughout. She presents an understanding of Zen that is faithful to the tradition, but which is now deeply and truly our own. Which is, of course, exactly how Zen needs to be presented. She wiggles a finger at us, winks, and gently invites us into the ancient conspiracy.”

Honest. Go read!

Roundup for Oct 8, 2006

2006-10-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Detail from photo in Tyson of tysonwilliams.com's flickr collection of photographs taken at the Buddhist Relic Tour Exhibit.

Bill of Integral Options Café writes about the six necessary conditions that must be ripe or right for change to occur in a person’s life. Apparently, only those with means can change. Who else could afford all the therapists, teachers, leaders, study and travel that’s necessary?

Miso of Big Red Buddha writes of an Integral Buddhist named Bill “on the mend after an experiment in the horizontal integration of asymmetrical self-realization techniques goes awry.”

The Buddhist Relic Tour came to Toronto and Tyson of tysonwilliams.com snapped some cool photos and otherwise enjoyed a full day at the exhibit. Am I the only one, or are there others of you hoping that from these relics we ought to one day be able to map Buddha’s DNA? I don’t know what good or harm it might do, but I’d still like to see it done.

John, the Inveterate Bystander, warns of the real threat of another Bush war in the Middle East, launched against Syria and Iran. [Considering the US military recruitment problems and depletion of supplies and risk of further inflaming the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, I cannot see how Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld would dare act so boldly and recklessly. If one house of congress falls to the Democrats, surely that would tie the Administration’s hands.]

Seamus, The Contemporary Taoist, alters his plan such that rather than abstaining from booze and reefers, he will imbibe moderately. On his first evening under the modified plan, he seems to have exceeded his set limits by more than a little. Is Seamus wise to seek a middle way or is he a rationalizing alcoholic?

Both Joshua and beesucker wrote about the Amish tragedy yesterday. Joshua of Mudita Journal quoted and linked to Sam Browne’s conservative Rants and Raves blog that was insightful speculating on the motivations of the shooter. beesucker of Authentic Personality wrote about the concern the Amish community has for the family of the shooter. Wrote beesucker, “Very beautiful. This sincere effort to heal is inspirational.”

Cliff Conquers the World

This is so cool. Cliff’s This is This was listed #5 in MSN UK’s recent survey of the Top Thirty Must-Read Blogs. Cliff mentions the honor in a post yesterday. Here’s the online survey on MSN_UK, btw. The MSN piece says that “more than a quarter of the UK [is] now writing an online journal,” which means that out of these 25 million bloggers OUR CLIFF, BUDDHISM’S CLIFFY, made the TOP FIVE with his blog! By now, Bill Gates prob’ly has This is This on his RSS aggregator. This is soooo cool.

MSN UK’s Top Ten Must-Read Blogs are

Biffovision
Stray Dog and the Chocolate Blog
My Boyfriend is a Tw#t
Wide Awake Wesley
This is This
A Cultured Left Foot
2012 Olympics Competitor
Arseblog
New York Addick
Corridor of Uncertainty

There’s our Cliff, right in the middle of these upper tier of the upper tier. Yowza! [Hmmm. I wonder if Wide Awake Wesley might be a Buddhist.]

I also found that This is This ranks #45 on The British Bloggers Directory, which uses technorati technology, so I would guess this ranking is based on popularity measured by count of in-links or other traffic statistics. The description of This is This in the Brit Blog Directory reads thusly, "This ain't something else. Occasional daily life with outbreaks of funny and the chance of philosophy from the far east - Risk of songs."

So, This is This has it all: Critical acclaim AND popularity. If Cliff was in high school, he'd be Prom King. And to think, we're talking about a BUDDHIST blog. [But, yeah, the, a, 'humor thing' helps -- or, should I say 'humour thing' (sorry, Brits).]

Writes Cliff, modestly, "I can’t explain how much I thinks this rocks. I honestly can’t, and I’m supposed to be the guy with the good speaking, and writing them - um… with, you know, the words. Without them, I’m kind of jingling my change."

Roundup for Oct 7, 2006

2006-10-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

This time in the Roundup, Synchronicity and a bountiful harvest.

Synchronicity, Somewhat

Detail from photo in My Zen Life. One of John's less prefered places to sit.

At 7:53am Pacific Time, yesterday, whiskey of whiskey river posted a quote that begins “There was also another reason why it was now possible to paint. …” Twenty-one minutes later, John of My Zen Life posted a picture of the bathroom in the house his family had recently moved into and put up an entry titled “day-glow lime green.” He writes, “can you believe the previous owners actually did this to the downstairs bathroom??” Of course, John may not be using paint so much as a sledge hammer.

Detail from graphic in ~C4Chaos. A frame from the evolving film "I AM."

At 2:54pm Pacific Time, C4 of ~C4Chaos's post hit the electron highway regarding an online film project called “I AM.” C4 writes, “It's a free movie. What makes this film especially cool, aside from its very meaningful message, is that it's also probably ‘the first major open-source film project in history’ wherein everyone is invited to co-create the film. I'll look forward on how this film would evolve over time.” Sixteen minutes later, Mike Doe of Doe-Do put up his post “Learning to be me!!” It his wonderful long thoughtful post, Mike writes, “Over the last few months I have been working a lot on letting go of various beliefs about myself – mostly negative but also some positive. The beliefs about me are not who I am. They are constraining things that paint a false picture.”

Blog Harvest

This is a great find: Bill of the IOC recommends a Buddhist pop-culture ezine, the worst horse. I checked it out – as Bill suggests – and found it chockablock with interesting stuff. I hadn’t heard of it; apparently it’s been around since February. Though parts of it are written in diary/blog fashion there is no RSS feed, unhappily – but I will be sure to bookmark it.

First off, the site recommends several wonderful blogs very familiar to frequent B’du readers: TMcG, Big Red Buddha ["Buddhism gets its Onion”], My Zen Life, The Buddhist Blog and Tyson Williams. Others blogs mentioned that are active – that B’du will be sure to pursue as a collector of beautiful buddhoblogs -- are Moonpointer, Monkey Mind, ok smile, Ottmar Liebert, and Living Tonglin.

I am especially happy to learn from the worst horse of Monkey Mind, a new blog written by James Ishmael Ford, who recently mentioned B’du reporter and something he wrote in a sermon, "Mindful Politics," he gave in front of the First Unitarian Society in Massachusetts where he is senior minister. Btw, James mentions four blogs he expecially likes in a recent post in Monkey Mind. He doesn’t provide links, so here they are: Hardcore Zen [by Brad Warner]; Philocrites [by Chris Walton, blogging as Philocrites]; Zen Blog of the Vimala Sangha [by Lew Richmond, et al]; and The Everyday Zen Foundation Blog [by Zoketsu Norman Fischer]

Mark of Zen Filter has had a spurt of activity this new month with five recommendations thus far – including the Zen Blog of the Vimala Sangha [which has an “interesting discussion on bowing”]; a post from the blog of the Savitri Era Learning Forum [“As if meditation were a debt”]; and a link to a post about Dogen and the Game of Go in the blog Numenware.

Also, Digitalzen of Digital Dharma recommends the venerated 'toon website Dharma the Cat. And B'du recommends Tao Diary, blogged by Crash. Crash is taking his spirituality in a new direction. He writes, "I have turned to Buddhism because it has a concrete method of doing things. ... The Buddha ... operationally defined what he meant by compassion, and gave a concrete plan of how to achieve a state of loving-kindness. Not only that, but there is good evidence (which will come in later posts) that the advice the Buddhists offer squares almost perfectly with modern psychological studies."

Since it is Friday, both Will of thinkBuddha and Mike of Unknowing Mind have written bodacious Scribe Jamborees. [Both blogs are part of the elite Daily Scribe network which asks its membership to have a linkfest on Fridays.] Among the many links in each blog's jamboree post, Will honors Mike's post "encouraging us to go where there is no path," and Mike honors a post of Will's on Mindfulness and the Enigma of Life.

tinythinker of peaceful turmoil informs us that there are no longer any Buddhist blogs in Beliefnet's haven of great spiritual blogs, Blog Heaven. Paper Frog got punted at the time blogger Christopher Baskind mothballed PF for other endeavors; WoodMoor Village Zendo got dropped more recently -- though Nacho's blog continues in operation at full force. Writes tiny, "I have no idea why Woodmoor would be removed, but it and/or one or two of several other blogs (Danny Fisher, Lotus in the Mud, Green Clouds, The Buddhist Blog, etc, just to name a few) would also be right at home in the list. I guess we'll see what happens (as always)."

Roundup for Oct 2, 2006

2006-10-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

Detail from one photo in Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries' "Festival of the Trees"

Both Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries and Dave of Via Negativa worked on Lorianne’s compellation for Festival of the Trees, an arborous blog carnival. Great links, and what beautiful photographs! A tall post with grandeur and stature, like a mighty redwood! Both whiskey of whiskey river [here] and Dave of V.N. [here] quickly put up entries in their blogs to bark a revelrous herald for Lorianne’s magnificent post.

Bill of Integral Options Café tells us he was heavily into goth music and culture in his youth and retains a love and interest in much that is goth, now, as a full-fledged adult. After confessing to once having had black-purple hair, he writes, “Generally, I was fascinated with all things morbid. It seems semi-logical to me that someone who was interested in goth might eventually become a Buddhist. The goth fascination with death, decay, pain, and suffering all lends itself to the first noble truth: life is suffering.”

John, the Inveterate Bystander, asks “Where is Riverbend?” Riverbend is a young woman, in her early 20s, who started the blog Baghdad Burning in August of 2003 but hasn’t been heard from since August 5 of this year. In her post for that last day, she writes about murderous threats received by people in the city from Sadr’s followers asking them to leave, or else.

John’s inquired about what might have happened to Riverbend, but received no substantive response from worried correspondents. John ends his post with the following words and then a link to Baghdad Burning

I hope that she turns up, and if she does wonderful. I fervently hope she does. If she does not, you should know about another unwilling victim of Bush's "liberation" of Iraq.

Bill of Oaksong’s Nemeton opens the brand-new month telling us that his blogging might be light for a spell, in part because of a “Top Secret Life-Changing Decision.”

Joanna of Hummingbirds Don’t Sing is excited about Technorati, her profile there, and Mama Cass. Sadly, having just registered her blog, she has no in-links to HDS. Well, hell, this B’du post oughta fix THAT.

Roundup for Oct 1, 2006

2006-10-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

Detail from one of a Flckr collection of photographs by Al of In Pursuit of Mysteries, taken at a match between the Shevil Devils and Outlaws on Sept 30.

Both Al of In Pursuit of Mysteries and Sean of Deep Surface posted interesting pieces on roller derby. Al attended a match between the San Francisco Shevil Dead and the Oakland Outlaws and has pictures and made a YouTube vid. Sean went to a screening in Austin of the 1972 film Unholy Rollers [imdb] that was introduced by Quentin Tarantino at a theatre called the Alamo Draft House. The crowd was rambunctious as was the movie.

Al writes, “[R. and I] had a good time knee deep in cheap beer and kitsch.” Sean writes, “Unholy Rollers was an awesome spectacle. There were several sex scenes, many exposed breasts, and the protagonist went from bad to worse in an interesting way. If you can find it, rent it immediately.”

Both bloggers remarked on the revival of the ‘sport.’ Says Al, “The Bay Area is part of a revival of Roller Derby that is currently occurring. Seattle is another hotspot of activity.” Says Sean, “Apparently this niche sport has come back, at least in Texas. If the exploitation movie was accurate, the violence between skaters is mostly staged like professional wrestling. The sport appears to be a cross between wrestling and Nascar - with skates - and more fun to watch than either one.”

Do either Al or Sean delve into the close Buddhism connection to Roller Derby? Well, not so much, no. Perhaps they’ll do so in follow-up posts.

Roundup for Sept 30, 2006

2006-09-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

Detail from pic from two series of photographs Michael of one foot in front of the other posted, taken in New York during a day of drizzly weather. Michael is a master of capturing interesting details. Here, the bird's not on the statue, the statue holds the bird. In other photos, a girl at a statue's base focuses our attention in an otherwise gray photo; a dog in a sweater is standing while it's master's blouse is askew; a woman with a cane has her hand covering half her face; four people in the crowd, cover a range of expression from digging the music to, possibly, moving on with a tinge of sadness.

George of Sentient Developments tells his brilliant, single-digit-aged kids that God is on the order of make believe of “sasquatch, werewolves, ghosts, UFOs and telekinesis.” Teaching religion to children borders on abuse, says George. “Parents need to open doors rather than close them. Religions not only close the doors to our rational faculties and our experiential potentials, they often act as the deadbolt that locks the door tight forever.” I don’t think that by religion George is including all Buddhist sects.

Sea-Moose [aka, Shaw-mus], The Contemporary Taoist, intrepidly diagnoses the cause of his pain, but drops a point or two in the IQ rankings. We may need to lower his grade to C-minus-Moose.

He’s Just Had His Coffee, so Tim was able to assemble a boffo set of links today on music, groups, programming & Google management.

In his post “From birth to death it is just like this,” The Brad of Hardcore Zen fame interprets a koan for us. Excellent, insightful stuff – that clever Brad – written in colorful Bradese. It does make one wonder, however, if Brad’s cleverness and colorfulness isn’t in contradiction of the message of the koan. I think not, but maybe.

Peace, like a river, ran through the buddhoblogosphere.

Tinythinker of peaceful turmoil posted on peace. His post beginning with this interesting sentiment:

There is a general sense that among the more mystically-oriented and contemplative sacred traditions that absolute pacifism is the answer - the only answer - to violence. I don't happen to agree with this. As I've written before, when it comes to the point where we are confronted with the threat of violence, we (human society) have already failed. That is, the effect was laid with the causes we allowed to be sewn which then ripened in the condition we helped to create. It's the basis of the concept of karma.

Mike Doe of Doe-do posted “Peace” regarding an individual’s development of peacefulness. He began thinking about peace after first visiting Blogmandu. Ain’t that the way? Here’s a snippet of Doe’s non-doleful words:

When you are at peace with yourself there is no need to fight the world, there is no need to seek out and create conflict – just for the sake of conflict. A peaceful person just lives their life quietly without fuss and without drama regardless of who is watching.

And now back to the stream, already in progress...

In Cliff’s This Was This, Mr. Jones goes back in time to an ordeal that can only have happened in Canada. Following is not a snippet from his post:

I once was kidnapped and left wandering the woods for two weeks and had to survive by drinking a tea brewed using from the still-piping-hot urine of a moose I killed with my own bare hands.

Famous Bill of Integral Options Café writes about the modes and forms of change in the first of a promised two-part post. Here, a small chunk of his post:

…[One variation of VERTICAL change,] break-out, is the most relevant to dealing with personal crises. Break-out occurs when one is in the midst of change, caught between what was and what is yet to become. This period can be quite prolonged and involves a great deal of frustration and anger. Beck and Cowan say, “… Such transformational change is tumultuous; it marks life passages and ‘significant emotional events.’

Paul, A Blue-Eyed Buddhist, REJECTS BUDDHISM! Well, sort of – and in theory, only. Here’s a bit from his rant:

But you know what? I’d rather you be a happy Catholic than a miserable Buddhist. Or a happy agnostic, or a happy atheist. And while I’m frequently quite arrogant (hey, I’m an air traffic controller, I save lives and separate airplanes with the power of my mind) I would like to think that I’m not quite arrogant enough to declare that the ONLY way to becoming happy, serene and enlightened in this lifetime is through Buddhism.

Roundup for Sept 28, 2006

2006-09-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Detail from “Seated Woman.” F. Kwan of foot before foot: the photoblog posts text and pictures each morning that are sublime. F has a great talent for finding the exact fractional second in a moment.

A short roundup. I don’t think I sucked much of the juice out of the day, but here is some of what was very interesting:

UnawakenedOne of Buddha-Inside suffers from an encounter with his/her mini-me, an emotional little beast that scurries away from the NOW. “The voice was furious, certainly dissatisfied with what had happened. Following this, strong emotions arose, my body tensed up, and I felt a pain underneath the anger that's on the surface.”

Earn a paycheck choosing the color scheme for the crawlspace faux second tier. Text from blogged ad at kenwilber.com: "Effective immediately, we are looking for a freelance graphic designer/artist. This person would be working directly with Ken and Integral Institute on history-making books and projects."

Ajahn Punnadammo of Bhikkhu’s Blog contemplates the Universe in a Hologram. His link to an article by Michael Talbot tells us that objective reality may not exist. Indeed. One scientist sees evidence from an amazing discovery made in 1982 that “at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.” Indra’s Net, ho!

Here, half of a quote of William James that Nacho posted in WoodMoor Village:

The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.

Mike of Unknowing Mind reminds us “we can't wrap our intellectual brains around enlightenment— it is beyond such description.”

Somewhat similarly, Jai of Blog Blog Woof Woof tells us, “Right meditation is not escapism; it is not meant to provide hiding-places for temporary oblivion.”

Roundup for Sept 27, 2006

2006-09-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

Detail from “Twilight (Lamps).” An Xiao of That Was Zen This Is Tao shows us in a series of photographs that the sweetest moment of the day comes at twilight.

Whoa. Got behind on my regimen to blog daily. So here goes with a shortshot of what was elegant, classy and had buckets of dazzlement [or sticky sugar, in one case] in the IntegroBuddho- blogosphere on the day preceding the 27th …

Matt Kohai, The Eternal Kohai, tells us of his day. A busy one!

Al [of In Pursuit of Mysteries] and R are lookin’ for a house in the Oakland area. Found a classy victorian! She’s a beauty. So, Blogmandu readers, here’s your chance: Outbid Al and R for the pretty little house.

Craig of Craig’s Photography shows us that C [is] 4 Compassion as C4 of ~C4Chaos fame volunteered time and his photography talent educating and spreading the word about breast cancer.

Tyson of tysonwilliams.com quotes Sogyal Rinpoche who tells us why we should keep our eyes open during meditation.

John of My Zen Life offers a photograph of a new arrival, tiny little Jack, a new Buddha, born on Sep. 21. In the comments section, Ryan of Nine Out of Zen tells us his family, too, has been blessed with a recent arrival. It’s a busy stork month.

Perhaps from knowing the Buddhoblogosphere was having a photographically interesting day, whiskey of whiskey river offers a quote that begins thusly: “Sometimes one sees the world in a way one is not aware of at other times. We're never really seeing the world, we're only seeing a moment's take on the world. This is true of images. Images are a way of seeing the world which you didn't notice before, and something you cannot make by an act of will; it's something that is suddenly revealed to you. …”

A worm inches his way around Dave’s hat [Yes! There are photos!] in Via Negativa.

One of Ken Wilber’s fawning acolytes writes a message in the ‘KenWilber.com Journal’ from a guy telling us who he thinks is “by far the most important person on the planet right now.” The fawning acolyte is a teacher at I-I. The guy has starting a fan-forum about all things Wilber. The guy thinks the most important person in the world is Ken Wilber. The post is too vomit inducing for me to provide B’du readers with a link. A perfect substitute for reading the post is to eat a pound of sticky icing.

Michael of One Foot in Front of the Other goes to Grant’s tomb, tells us who’s buried there, and provides photographs. No, not of skeletons, Silly.

Zataod of Zen and the Art of Dreaming lists the false Gods. It’s an interesting li—Hey! Wait a minute!

Nagarjuna of Naked Reflections writes about false Gods, too. Gagdad Bob’s false God. Should we worship the unknown? Faith before facts? Zeus, anyone?

RandomGuru of carlosrull.com takes us to the top of Mt. Everest for a look around. Picturesque!

Roundup for Sept 26, 2006

2006-09-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Photo from Dave's Via Negativa. See his post, "One leaf," for a good understanding of what this depicts.

Yo, y’all. I’m going to try to blog daily for a while. There will be short posts, usually, that provide valuable links, but I won’t be reviewing the Buddhoblogosphere intently and thoroughly. Most of the links will be from the prior 24 hrs, but some stuff may go back a week if it has hidden juicy goodness.

Recent good, bad and ugly stuff from the Buddhoblogosphere …

The Clinton interview by Chris Wallace on Fox got loads of attention: C4 of ~C4Chaos writes, “Maybe Clinton overreacted, but I'm glad he did. Where is a charismatic Democratic candidate when you need one?”

Matthew Dallman of The Daily Goose writes, “It bears note that, between Wallace and Clinton, the only kind of mud slung was by the latter, when he oddly called Wallace's question a ‘conservative hit job’ as well as straight-up insulted him by impugning his journalistic integrity.”

James of Genius of Insanity writes from a liberal perspective, “I've watched this interview over and over via the web today and each time I watch it I get chills. I pump my fists, yell and whistle with pride in the real great communicator with each new viewing.”
*****
Meantime, Bill of Oaksong's Nemeton shows us that the Military Commissions Act that has been introduced in the Senate undermines the principle of checks and balances.

Amadeus of dharma::vision writes of the hypocracy and absurdity of Christians and Republicans sanctioning and accepting torture as an American tool in conducting war.

Buddha Pest [aka, Tim] of Observe the observer observes something illuminating. As his Buddha candle burns, “the more light the buddha gives the less of the buddha is present. … Bring more light, be more open to the way, and more and more of the self, the ego, identity seems to disappear.”

Bill of Intergral Options Café has been a juggernaut in 2006, making his the truly indispensable blog. He is going through a tough patch, currently. Many wish him and Kira the best as they move forward in their lives.

Bob of Dust deals with dumpsters, dry thunderstorms and gummybear-snatchers on the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit.

Danny Fisher of the eponymous blog writes from Asia, asking us to explore the site of Cambodia’s AIDS Project. Also, writing after a return to Bodh Gaya in India, “I wish I could communicate how good it feels to be back here again. On the one hand, I feel like a stranger in a strange land--Bodh Gaya has changed dramatically in seven years.

Linkfests:

ebuddha of Integral Practice offers a grouchy linkfest, using an insult generator he got from IOC’s Bill. Among the many insults, E calls Ryan of Integral Awakenings a “rat-faced gathering of abrupt pig droppings.” It seems to me an unkind and exaggerated depiction of Ryan’s appearance.

Tim Bomb of He’s Just Had His Coffee offered a linklist yesterday with just two items: one on Web 2.0 design, the other on the pope’s tough words.

That's all for now, folks. Good blogging and good luck.

Roundup for Sept 16, 2006

2006-09-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Just when you might have thought it couldn't get any more interesting, the bloggers of Buddhist bent make it so, sometimes with a little help from the antics of our president. In the last day or so in the Buddhist blogosphere ...

Will of thinkBuddha, after hearing a lecture by Stephen Batchelor, worries that we can be losing the shine on metaphors Buddha used to communicate ‘reaching the other shore.’

Stephen Batchelor suggested that Buddhism has nothing to do with Enlightenment. … The metaphor of enlightenment is drawn from the idea of the European enlightenment, an intellectual movement that is exemplified by the work of Hume, Kant and others. It may be that this metaphor, when applied to the Buddhist context, is misleading and is far from the obvious translation of the term bodhi… Translation is always a treacherous business, but a better choice of translation for bodhi might be “awakening”.

Amadeus of Dharma Vision offers a great overview of the intra-Republican squabble over America’s right to torture. Here, the beginning of the post: “It is kind of shocking when the President of the United States goes to Congress to lobby for torture. If you haven't heard, that is what President Bush did today. In a strange and surprising turn, yesterday Republican leaders shot down the President's attempt to expand torture and wiretapping power. Today, President Bush was livid.”

James of Genius of Insanity offers some excerpts from Bush’s Rose Garden press conference, yesterday, and recent appearance on The Today Show. Bush is passionate while not making a whit of sense; saying he is proposing that which is lawful when it clearly ain’t. Comments James, “If you crane your ear enough you can hear the Constitution being shredded.”

TMCG writes in her eponymous blog, “It's not so hard to extend ourselves to others... but ego, selfishness and fear get in the way.” TMCG has decided she needs a good Buddhist life coach to “kick her in the arse” since she’s finding it hard to get motivated.” Bill of Integral Options Café coaches people and kicks some arse, when necessary, albeit in the fitness realm, but he may not be quite the right person for TMCG: Bill is 36% slacker! Who’d’a thunk it about this blogging dynamo!?

Kalsang Dorje of The-universe-is-all-in-your-head has a tantrum wrestling with a demon of the moment. His post begins, “I'm done with the horseshit of blindness.”

I LOVE MY WIFE: Scott Wichmann's acting continues to dazzle critics and all others in the audience of plays he's in. The critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote a full-throttle rave, "Firehouse stages a must-see: In I Am My Own Wife, masterful acting meets the demands of challenging story," that Scott reposts in his blog, Scott Wichmann Online.

Seeing Red

The picture on the home page of the New York Times online today is of a red elephant. [A bit of the pic appears at right. See article.] The caption under the photo reads, “The British art provocateur-prankster Banksy had a splashy opening for ‘Barely Legal,’ his show in a Los Angeles warehouse, complete with painted elephant. But the question remains: Just who is Banksy?”

A similar mystery has come to the Buddhasphere – as our Buddhist mystery man terms the Buddhoblogosphere. The mysterious Miso, with an office and staff in San Francisco’s Financial District, has set down in our midst with a burley new blog, Big Red Buddha, that comes at us with high-tech features, and a clever square logo. Is Miso a provocateur-prankster? Just who is Miso?

Writes Miso on the blog’s About page, “I’m convinced that Big Red Buddha is destined to become one of America’s most respected sources for Buddhist news, information and commentary.”

Already, a major Buddhist blogger – whom I have agreed not to name – is coming out of retirement and is set to join the already-illustrious BRB team.

This Justin: The blogger of Ordinary Extraordinary finds Banksy to be extraordinary in a review posted today. Justin concludes, "Some of [Banksy's guerrilla art] is reminiscent of Dead Kennedys and Radiohead artwork - in style and social theme. Great!" Now, if only Justin would check out BRB.

== Oop. Pretty short post today. It's not ALL of the best, but certainly SOME of the best that was going on yesterday. Read and blog on, y'all!

Roundup for Sept 12, 2006

2006-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

As if y’all weren’t already aware that there was some five-year anniversary of something or other yesterday, here is a recap of much of what was said about it from the IntegroBuddhoblogosphere.

Bill of Integral Options Café posts a big chunk of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s impassioned speech yesterday taking Bush to task for failing to complete construction at Ground Zero in Manhattan.

Graphic in Bhikkhu's Blog.

IOC's Bill also posts a big chunk from TMC Café relating what now-famed terrorism expert Richard Clarke has to say about the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11. Clarke who worked for three Republican presidents and for Clinton says the program was a conspiracy to put forward misinformation. Now an ABC News consultant, he says that, starkly the opposite to what the movie depicts, in the Clinton White House “there was a common fixation with terrorism, al-Qaeda, and bin Laden. The President approved every counter-terrorism operation presented to him, including many that the CIA proved unable or unwilling to implement.”

Aussie law student Tuff Ghost writes about the fifth anniversary of 9/11 in Vomiting Confetti. “The mood seems somewhat muted, particularly in the Australian coverage, with the reframing of the attacks as an explicitly American tragedy. It's a far cry from the first days after the attacks, in which there was a very real sense that wasn't just a tragedy watched by the world, but it was happening to the world as well.”

Shokai of Water Dissolves Water posted a picture of the New York skyline seen behind Brooklyn Bridge, and this quote, “Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear; but around in awareness.” -James Thurber.

Ajahn Punnadhammo, Abbot of Arrow River Hermitage near Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada, writes in his Bhikkhu’s Blog, “Any sense of optimism about the world scene, and we had some of that in the 'nineties, naive perhaps but palpable, is gone. We are now in a period of dark international anarchy; war, terrorism, torture, the rise of the omnipresent security state.”

Nerdine who lives in Oslo, Norway, writes in My world at the moment what she was doing five years ago. “I was still a student at that time, and remember my mom called me and told me that a plane had hit one of the twin towers in New York. I remember I didn't really believ her, but ran home and put on the TV, and watched what seemed like a badly directed film.”

Canadan K’vitch of the eponymous blog writes where she was five years ago. “I was in bed when the first plane hit. My clock alarm, set to the local talk news station, came on and announced the first hit. I was still waking up when they announced the second plane hitting. Being half asleep, I thought, ‘Another plane hit? What a coincidence!’ Then they said something about the Pentagon being hit, or maybe the Washington Monument (it was early and reports weren't totally accurate). I decided to get up.”

Zenmar, “the zennist,” writes a provocative essay in his blog The Buddhist, titled “remembering 9/11.” He writes, “It is because of America’s historical intoxication with power and conquest that the catastrophe of 9/11 happened. The so-called terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York were completely American made.”

Matthew of freedomforall.net begins his 9/11 post …

It is the fifth anniversary of September the eleventh and everyone is making lots of noise about it. It was indeed a horrific and unwarranted act, debased and obscene in every way. I do not wish to pretend that it was not that.

However since September the eleventh, 2001, a total of approximately fifty four million, seven hundred and fifty thousand children have died needlessly in the third world because of the economics of market forces that the terrorists so hated.

George of Sentient Developments quotes an OpEd piece in the UK Guardian written by Slavoj Zizek. Here’s most of George’s chunk: “The difference of the war on terror from previous 20th-century struggles, such as the cold war, is that while the enemy was once clearly identified as the actually existing communist system, the terrorist threat is spectral. It is like the characterisation of Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction: most people have a dark side, she had nothing else. Most regimes have a dark oppressive spectral side, the terrorist threat has nothing else."

James of Genius of Insanity posts a picture of firemen raising an American flag and writes, “May they always be remembered, their families held in our arms and supported.”

ebuddha of Integral Practice writes, “Today of course, is 5 years since 9/11. I'm not sure how other people marked this occasion. I spent some time this morning in meditation and prayer, wishing, visualizing peace for all people.”

John of My Zen Life in “gifts of sitting” posted a picture of cushions.

In an entry titled “The Obligatory Post,” Bill of Oaksong Nemeton begins with these words, “It's strange, but today's date is having little emotional effect on me. Maybe I'm an unfeeling asshole, or maybe it's because the media has beat the subject to death until I'm numb. Personally, I think it's because my memories of 9/11 are part of a period in my life that I just don't associate with the life I live now. …”

Roundup for Sept 5, 2006

2006-09-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

A quick roundup of great and quite recent posts in the Buddhoblogosphere and other matters of interest.

Kalsang Dorje knows he will one day die. In a post in The-universe-is-all-in-your-head he wonders how he can make things such that his life will have had meaning. He writes, “Ultimately, what I would like my life to be is a culmination of all of the good human qualities that exist.”

TMcG of the eponymous blog is interested in death, also. She writes, “For a decent $3500, you can pick up 'The Cocoon' a soy-based resin coffin that will decompose in 10-15 years and is CO2 neutral.”

Here, a central sentence in a quote Tyson of tysonwilliams.com posted of words of Sogyal Rinpoche: “From a Buddhist point of view, doubt is a sign of a lack of complete understanding and a lack of spiritual education, but it is also seen as a catalyst in the maturing of faith.”

Cliff of This Is This almost says something dumb at an airport bar. Well, actually, he does say something dumb. But before being too hard on himself for being a tad slow, he takes solace in knowing that there is another there dumber than he is. One other. His post’s title is wonderfully clever, anyway: “Flight of the Humble Me.”

stumble bum of m o u n t a i n w o r d bopped in for a quick post. He quotes Anais Nin re how we see things.

Things are looking up for Chodpa of Luminous Emptiness. Her Labor Day post begins, “Is there anything more beautiful in this world of ours than a deep blue, almost clear sky, with traces of white puffy cloud?”

OK, what’s the deal guys? Recent posts by James of The Buddhist Blog and Sujatin of lotusinthemud are similar. Check it out: James’s 8/28 post ; and Sujatin’s 8/28 post . Again, James’s 9/2 post; and Sujatin’s 9/2 post. Then, too, there’s the mystery of Tom’s post in Thoughts Chase Thoughts [8/31]; and Bill’s of Integral Options Café [9/2]. GMTA?

Is anybody else getting sick to death of the Pass The Loot ministry of the formerly-cool Mel? Capitalism is fine; but grifting is something else, again.

Jack of Mind Mountain [formerly known as Jack's Mountain] has his meditation disturbed by a giant cockroach.

Hokai of hokai’s blogue begins a post that quotes Timothy Freke, “... Waking up is not a state of disembodied ‘enlightenment’. It is an ecstatic state of individual ‘enlivenment’!”

Cliff of everyday zazen writes, “making a fresh start is an illusion. i can turn over a new page but it already bears imprints from the previous page and the one before that. the present is the consequence of my past actions.”

Mark Walter of eternal awareness asks and answers this question: “If I have something to convey that is beyond words, how can I use words to convey it?”

Whoa! A wonderful rambling post by Mike Doe of Doe-Do begins with Battlestar Galactica, meanders through thoughts of memory loss, his sex life, books he’s reading, a chance of rain, and then it is all wrapped up in a bow of questions of identity. Who am I?

Chris of i am the cyclingplatypus is in the early days of an all-September photoblogging regimen. Here’s day four.

chalip of Zen Under the Skin cites two good blog finds, both submissions to Buddhist Blogs WebRing which she manages and both from India: Cockoo’s call and The Red Blood. Rama, the blogger of Cockoo’s call, has just concluded a long series with photos that show people who serve in his city of Calcutta. Amit kumar Singh writes passionately about the terrible problem of corruption and disparities of earnings in a post in The Red Blood titled “I wept twice amidst the cry of corruption.” In the rest of her post, chalip discusses her feelings regarding disparities based on class in Buddhist temples or practice centers in America.

Zataod of Zen and the Art of Dreaming writes about his latest nocturnal adventure, which includes this line, “What does one do with a homeless person one encounters in a dream. She is a product of my unconscious dreaming mind. Yet, I still want to ignore her and not acknowledge that she exists.”

Roundup for Sept 2, 2006

2006-09-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

Another quicky roundup of recent interesting posts and developments in the Buddhoblogosphere …

Michael of One Foot in Front of the Other wrote a great post on playing public chess in New York City. It ends with this great line – a lesson taken to heart: “I picked up some great pointers Sunday, the most important being that the beauty and intricacy of a person's mind has little or nothing to do with outward appearances.”

Go East, young man: Buddhist Chaplain Danny Fisher of the self-named blog is off on a long adventure in India. Here’s a passage from his last America-written post till 2007: “Tomorrow I am off to the village of Bodh Gaya in Bihar, India--the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. I'll be there until just after the new year, working for a Buddhist Studies program in the area.” But don’t ignore his blog for the next four months, y’all: He hopes to continue to blog when he can.

Meantime, Clarity of Clarity's blog is off to Dechen Choling – which is a Shambhala Meditation Center in France. He writes, “I'm off to Rigden Abisheka tomorrow, and I'll be gone for about 12 days. This will be the largest program ever in Dechen Choling, around 230 people. It will be given by my root guru, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. … You could say that it's the culmination of my 12 years of practice.”

Meanwhile, Justin Whitaker is expecting to be going to Hawaii for a conference in January. He went to the prior year’s conference – last January, or thereabouts – and he liked it. Justin writes in American Buddhist Perspective, “Also it will give me two more opportunities to hone my conference/presentation skills. For the (aspiring) academic, such skills are quite necessary and like Aristotle's virtues they can only be developed by habituation.” It will also give him a great opportunity to work on his surfing skills and drinking from cocoanuts skills.

Meanwhile, again. LOTS of meanwhiles. Bill of Integral Options Café is off to Nova Scotia. Kira is going, too; they are vacationing. To prevent explosions on their jet getting there, Kira won't be allowed to bring her eyedrops. Oy, vey. [I wonder if Bill will keep up his 4am Pacific Time speedlinking-post-writing regimen when he's in N.S. We'll see.]

It’s so nice to have you back where you belong: ChaserPaul of cut to the chase had DEFINITELY, ABSOLUTELY put an end to his blog, right? Well, no. In a post titled “The Third Time is Not a Charm,” he begins by writing, “This was the 3rd time I tried to quit this addiction of blogging. I am a man who can survive 3 brain & spinal surgeries, but I can’t walk away from a poopy blog? Grrr… dammit!”

Gareth of Green Clouds has been posting recently on the meaning of life and on death. In one in his series of posts he relates the Upanishad story of Nachiketa who is rejected by his father and walks off into the forest to find Yama, the Lord of Death. Yama offers Nachiketa three blessing of his choice. Read Gareth’s post to learn the blessings wise-beyond-his-years Nachiketa chooses.

Umguy of Ideological Putty is “struck by the thought that [his] mother and father are most likely both going to die without either of them having a realization of their true nature.”

ebuddha of Integral Practice thinks about his cloud of thoughts: “Thought throws up its forms - taking its cues from silent intelligence and awareness - but these forms thrown up, like waves, or chairs, bodies - are useful for living and being guided in the world. But don't identify with these thoughts, the same way you don't identify with the other forms that can be seen from the eyes. All show up, appear, and pass away.”

Nagarjuna writes in Naked Reflections about loving everyone. “When I write or talk about wanting to love everyone, I'm sure some people think I'm out of my mind. Love the guy who messes all over your blog? Love the boss who denigrates you in front of your co-workers? Love John Mark Karr? Love Osama bin Laden?”

Mumon of Notes in Samsara likes MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. “Olbermann uses one of my favorite points: these people in Washington are our employees, not our ‘leaders.’”

Scott Wichmann in "I AM MY OWN WIFE", a one-man-err-woman-err-man show

Scott Wichmann of Scott Wichmann Online is a red-hot Richmond, Va.,-based actor [and was Blogisattva Award nommed for his post last year, “Baseball and the Bardo of Becoming”]. In his next acting gig, he will be playing Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf in the Firehouse Theatre Project’s “I AM MY OWN WIFE.” This follows a run at the Boston Globe playing multiple characters in a new play, bound for New York next year, "The Secret of Madame Bonnard's Bath." [See 8/16 Boston Herald article.]

Cliff of This Is This writes a short post that lives up to it’s title. It’s free to read, so go ahead, read it: “If Money and Taste were No Option.”

Will of thinkBuddha writes a postmodern post which thinks about what he is thinking about as he writes his words. “I have been sceptical of the idea of free will for some time. A couple of years ago I became very interested in what happens when I made decisions. And again, the closer you look at this, the more puzzling it becomes.”

Tor of Tor’s Rants is registered with PayPerPost. Tor writes, “Digital photography is not just the wave of the future; frankly, it's the wave of the present. You won't make much money selling stuff on eBay without good digital photos.”

That's a wrap, readers. Write y'all, again, in a few days. Blog on!

Roundup for Aug 28, 2006

2006-08-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

A Quicky Roundup of recent interesting posts in the Buddhoblogosphere …

David Brazier [aka, Dharmavidya] writes an assessment of the situation in the Middle East in Dharmavidya Web. He sees Iraq in a civil war with unrestrainable Shia v Sunni violence in Baghdad. The war in Lebanon has weakened America’s position in the area since, in the perception of the Arab public, Israel’s failure to do well is seen as a loss by its sponsor, America. David further writes, “The consequences for the rest of the world are more difficult to predict, but there will be many. All this introduces a significant element of uncertainty into international relations as a whole for the next several years. With the US economic position also weakening relatively in comparison with Europe and Japan, international politics could now become a lot more complicated than it has been.”

Justin Whitaker of American Buddhist Perspective is back from Spain … without Ana. [Apparently he didn’t fold her into his luggage and bring her with him back to Montana.] Now, he has a burgeoning enrollment for the Introduction to Buddhism class he’ll be teaching at the University of Montana in Missoula [as I write, the class is overbooked by five students]… and other humdrum worries in his life of privilege. Ah, Justin.

Shokai of Water Dissolves Water tells us about making Atlanta a bit of a better place. Tanyard Creek is subject to flooding and when that happens trash can get left up in the branches of trees on its banks. Shokai is at the center of a developing community movement of volunteers to fix the situation.

Joshua of Mudita Journal does a roundup of movie previews he found at Apple trailers. Ones that intrigued Joshua include The Prestige with Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson; We Are Marshall, which appears to be a “sentimental and inspiring” film, starring Will Smith; and Infamous where Truman Capote is obsessed with solving a murder.

Bill of Integral Options Café tells us that Sunday was “Sacrifice Our Wants for Other’s Needs Sunday” -- a time to do something nice for some other human. A nice idea in a world where there is week after week of Glorify Thyself.

Partings and Startings and Kudos and Such

Ryan of Integral Awakening is back from a solitary five-week retreat, readying himself for school and work. He has little to say, but does link to pictures he’s taken. He advises “it's going to get real geeky this fall. REAL geeky.” [And with that last sentence fragment he links to what appears to be a quite interesting new group blogsite, Buddhist Geeks (q.v.). Hmmm.] Five weeks away, but now back in the blogosphere working doubletime, he is.

Corax’s venerated Ow, My Blog has sunk beneath waves of electrons. A future-dated post [for 9/20] appeared on my RSS aggregator, but by the time I tried to read it, alas, the whole blogsite was gone, gone, gone beyond, svaha. Corax was known for his posts in opposition to euthanasia and for the 2004 Christmastime post “The Scrooge Sutra,” which explained Dickens’s The Christmas Carol in Buddhist terms. “Scrooge” was picked up for publication in Zen Unbound and received high praise a year later from Amy Cunningham in her Beliefnet blog, Chattering Minds.

Eric’s brilliant Virtual Zen is on the ‘endangered list.’ [Only one “temporary post” since July. Home page now reads, “Site Temporarily Unavailable.”] Virtual Zen is a first-rate Personal Journal where Eric had been keeping us up-to-date on his busy life and career in Toronto.

Tyson of tysonwilliams.com has hit a milestone: 1000 posts. He tells us, “I am looking forward to another 1000 or maybe 10,000 posts in the near future! Blogging is addictive.…” Rah that, Tyson! Yowza!

Yet more tasty links ... Check out Bill Harryman's Speedlinkin' posts in Integral Options Cafe: August 27, 2006; August 28, 2006.

Roundup for Aug 24, 2006

2006-08-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

Great posts, comments threats, buzz, and crossblog discussions in the IntegroBuddhoblogosphere on August 23 [and thereabouts] …

Feminism

Matt Dallman’s The Daily Goose links us to an anti-Feminist rant his palindromic wife had in her cleverly named blog, blog. Titled “My Secret Resentment” [and not an Allenesque "Hannah Knives Her Sisters"], the post records Hannah’s resentment with being given the opportunity she is taking to abandon close care of her daughter to further her education and, thus, her career as a filmmaker.

Jay Allen Andrew, formerly of The Pagan Bodhisattva, expresses ire with a magazine and two articles it put up and then quickly pulled in his post in The Zero Boss, “Forbes Magazine Pukes Forth Misogyny, Quickly Pulls It.” Writes Jay, “… it was dumb pushing out this crotch-sniffing crapfest to begin with. But it’s infinitely more idiotic to pretend you never pushed it out at all. Whenever you sit on the blogosphere, boys, you leave an ass imprint.”

Jack Shafer wrote of the brouhaha in a Slate magazine piece, “Forbes’ Female Troubles” and can’t understand the fuss in the blogosphere. Writes Shafer, “Some of the sensational findings presented in the Forbes piece appear to be gender-neutral and hence don't bait feminists at all.” He concludes, “it becomes painfully obvious why female careerists are more likely to divorce than non-careerists: They can better afford to get out of an unhappy marriage than their sisters.”

The Stream

James of The Buddhist Blog learns from trees. “We can have faith that we too can bend but not break.”

Troy Worman of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Blogosphere regales a popular Integral & Buddhist blog: “Numinous Nonsense [qv] is Vincent Horn’s blogmandu.”

Clarity provides a definition of happiness in Clarity’s blog: “… helping other people see who they truly are. And not be afraid of themselves.”

F. Kwan writes about her dire loneliness in foot before foot: the photoblog.

On Film

Danny Fisher is soon to head off to India for the rest of the year, but not before he added to an already boffo post, “Buddhism and Film,” in his eponymous blog. Named among Danny’s favorite films are Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, Albert Brooks's Defending Your Life, and Harold Ramis's Groundhog Day. But, there are many others he cites that touch on classic Buddhist themes, intentionally or not. Danny also informs us, in the course of things, that dukkha literally means "a bad axel hole." Thus, it is something that makes life a bumpy ride. The long rich post is inspiring an interesting comment thread.

TMcG, in her eponymous blog, writes that she would like to see “Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, the Olsen Twins and all of those other horrid pop culture flakes … stuck with some snakes on a plane.”

War

With what he hopes will be his last post on the war in Lebanon, Ajahn Punnadhammo of Bhikkhu’s Blog writes “There is always a much-hyped casus belli which is nothing but a propagandistic smoke-screen” and then steers us to a heavily researched piece by Jason Godesky in The Anthropik Network, titled “Israel’s Water Wars.” Godesky skillfully shows that Israel’s chronic water-shortage problem ties in with political strategies that have led the nation into war.

Speedlinking

Don't forget to check out more bodacious finds in Bill Harryman's speedlinking posts for August 23 and August 24. And while you are in the Integral Options Cafe [qv] blogspace, enjoy all its bounty of goodness -- including posts that direct you to Bill's latest production, a picture and poetry blogzine, Elegant Thorn Review [qv].

Next Summer: A Buddhist Mega-Blockbuster Movie

2006-08-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Even though it is yet to be released, you have all probably heard by now of this summer's big, big movie: Snakes on a Plane.

And the reason we have heard of it is because the blogosphere encouraged, developed, created buzz, guaranteed that it not be watered down and saved its name when the studio wanted to change it to something boring. The name of the movie is already a part of our culture. "Snakes on a plane" means 'that's life' or c'est le vie. But, of course, we Buddhists know that "snakes on a plane" means dukkha, since the sence of suffering is readily apparent - since being on a plane filled with snakes cannot be fun.

It is time now for us bloggers to determine next year's big summer blockbuster and I think we should make it a bodhibuster.

Here are twelve candidate names for next year's mega-hit:

Monks on a Plane with Snakes or Snakes on a Plane with Monks or Snakes on a Monk with Planes
The Theravadan came from Planet Clare
Naked Came the Buddhist
Militant Buddhists on a Compassion Jihad
Indiana Bhikkhu and the Lost Sutra
Hello, Dalai: It's so nice to have you back where you belong: in Tibet!
The Noonday Sky Blackened by Buddhists Hovering in Meditation Over Cleveland
The Good Plague! The contagion that destroys people's egos and can't be stopped! Whereas the Black Plague was spread by rats, the Good Plague is spread by - shudder - Buddhists!
The Diamond Sutra is Forever
The Heart Sutra is a Lonely Hunter
One
You Have Me, Bodhi and no Soul

OK, Buddhists. We need your ideas, here! Please offer a title YOU think can excite a huge movie fanbase. THEN, all we have to do is decide on one, blog about it a lot and then blog about it a lot more and then blog about it again. Before you know it, we'll have attracted a healthy group of star actors eager to appear in the film [for scale], a studio will produce it, Martin Scorsese will agree to direct it, Phillip Glass will want to write the score [but we will rise up to prevent that!], and then the film will help to change the world!

Roundup for Aug 11, 2006

2006-08-11T22:56:00.000-07:00

Ah, rapture. The Buddhoblogosphere rolls onward.

The Stream

Vince of Numinous Nonsense is on his way to being as fit as Schwartzenegger was at his age or as Ken Wilber was at age 50. I am unclear on what Vince’s intent is here. To be a hunk? Does Emily know?

whiskey has advice for beginning mystics in whiskey river.

Bob of Dust has brain rage about brain rape. His wife may not want to hang out with him anymore. Writes Bob, “it would be nice if we all came to deeper understanding of just how we ‘came to believe’ the things we believe.”

Oslo-resident Nerdine of My world at the moment is embracing her boredom and comes up with an idea.

Tyson of tysonwilliams.com delivers the bad news that Greenland’s icecap meltdown is speeding up. If completely melted, the ocean would rise 21 feet. Yipes!

Daihoji of Zen writes about terror, terror threats and wars. His suggestion? “So here's what to do. Nothing. Doing nothing is always best.”

F. Kwan of foot before foot: the photoblog writes humorously about the UK Pakistani terrorist plot that was foiled. But then adds, “… it's finally stopped me. I understand that things are different now. I once wanted to travel more than anything on earth. Now I understand that it is most likely I never will again.”

Partings, Startings, Kudos and Such

Sorry to report that Soen Joon Sunim’s blog One Robe, One Bowl seems to have vanished abruptly. Her last post on August 2 had begun, “Nose to the grindstone: that's me these days. I'm churning through two different level Korean proficiency tests (scoring in the high 90s for level one, I'm looking for things I need to review; scoring in the low 80s on level two, I'm looking for things I need to know) and finally shoving through the back 2/3rds of my Korean textbook/workbook.”

I would suppose that the nun decided that the blog was taking up time needed for other things, or was otherwise interfering with her commitments. But, boy, the blog was outstanding. One post in April, “A note on death,” was sublime.

There is great good news, however. Kit Baskin, of PaperFrog [q.v.] fame, has returned to Buddhist blogging with more minimal. It has only just begun, but it is outstanding so far in its clean and crisp design features. This is one for the RSS aggregator, y’all. Writes Kit in his second post, “I’ll probably add some things as we go along, but the presentation is in line with my growing interest in minimalism. It’s something we could use more (or less) in our cluttered lives.”

More Tasty Blog-Link Festivals of Interest to Buddhists…

Will of thinkBuddha offers Some Interesting Reading…, today, an every-Friday linkfest relating to The Scribe, a group of shall-we-say elite religion-interested blogs. The drill, called The Scribe Jamboree, expected of good The Scribers, is to offer up five favored posts from the group each week. Among Will’s selections is one from Green Clouds and a blog Gareth of Green Clouds has turned B’du Reporter onto recently, Arbitrary Marks. Two of Will’s selections take differing sides on the ‘karma question.’ Check it out.

While B’du has been remiss in posting every day, Bill of Integral Options Café has been nobly and ably keeping up his wee-hours speedlinking regimen: Check out Speedlinking 8/8, Speedlinking 8/9, Speedlinking 8/10, Speedlinking 8/11 and Speedlinking 8/12. That Bill. He’s a locomotive. His finds are primo, y’all. If you haven’t turned on and turned in to speedlinking, you oughta.

Meantime, Ian of Jinajik has some recent finds. Check out the Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang, a book due out in October, published by Brill’s. The manuscripts are considered to have “revolutionized the study of Asian religions.” Also, two posts on Naïve Vajrayana Art (1) & (2). AND, an index of Sambhasa 25: Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism.

Mark of Zen Filter offers a newspaper article about Three Treasures Zen Community in San Diego.

And finally, Jayarava of Bricolage offers a link to a website that allows you to be an online action painter, a keyboard Pollock.

Technorati tags: Buddhism, roundup, speedlinking, The Scribe Jamboree, Zen Filter

Roundup for Aug 7, 2006

2006-08-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

Another day and yet more great posts spring from the Buddhoblogosphere. Hurray! ...

David Brazier, author of one of my very favorite zen books, Zen Therapy, is fearful re the future of the dollar. He writes in Dharmavidya Web, “For the US to get out of deficit would require unthinkable economic and political shifts here but for it not to do so is like being on a slippery slope. Sooner or later balance will be lost and all will come crashing down.”

Phra Prasong stamps out little clay Buddha images, Noah tells us and shows us in Yuttadhammo. “What a neat idea - a Buddha in your pocket. Just make sure it's a shirt pocket, not a butt pocket!”

In a long rambling post that hangs together beautifully, Paul, A Blue-Eyed Buddhist, writes about Highway 99, zips past Green Lake, and ends up thinking about nuclear weapons, and in the midst of this section, the war in Lebanon. He returns to Highway 99 at the end and it is as if his post were a round trip, an enso. Here is the last bit of it:

Is it ever justifiable to use a nuke? What if you’re not using it on a city, but on a military base? What if you give a 3 day warning ahead of time? What if the bad guys use several against you?

These are hard questions. Perhaps I’m not a good Buddhist, because the answers to some of them don’t snap immediately into my head. In fact, I wonder about them, and struggle with them.

These are things I was thinking about while driving back down highway 99 tonight.

Dave of Via Negativa writes about nukes, too. A poem about the blast over Nagasaki, “On the Birthday of Death.”

Tuesday 8/8 is primary election day in Connecticut. The last sentence in Mumon’s Notes in Samsara post relates his sentiments starkly: “I never liked Joe Lieberman.”

Will of thinkBuddha writes about the challenge of putting together ideas for his PhD thesis that meet his interests. Ethics and stories become his focus, and the merging of East and West. Here, he writes about seminal thoughts:

Through the practice of the dharma, through meditation, reflection, the reading of the Buddhist texts, my sense of life and of my own place within it shifted. The old frameworks of thought within which I was operating seemed no longer adequate. … the frameworks handed down through the traditions of Buddhism, although I was fascinated and… moved by them, seemed to be inadequate as a way of allowing me to think through the questions that were raised by practice. They were too alien, they rested upon metaphysical premises that I could not accept, they were too Buddhist.

As if in response to Will, above, Tyson of tysonwilliams.com quotes the Dalai Lama on our relationship with our practice. Here’s a snippet: “To investigate the teaching critically is fully encouraged in the same way that medical students are encouraged to apply their theories to real life and thus to witness their validity.”

Robert of Beginner’s Mind finds a really really great quote from Alan Alda, no less.

Bill LaLonde of Oaksong’s Nemeton is way too easy to please. But, wait a second. I’m pretty damn happy about his post. Hmmm.

Here’s a pop quiz you may take before reading Bill of Integral Options Café’s answers to his book meme.

What one book changed Bill’s life?

The Atman Project by Ken Wilber
The Story of O by Pauline Reage
Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens
The Puppy who wanted a Boy by Jane Thayer and Lisa McCue

What one book has Bill read more than once?

The first four books of the five-part trilogy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy by John leCarre

What one book would Bill want on a desert island?

The Perfect Storm
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Complete Works of Umberto Eco
Dune

What one book most made Bill laugh?

Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore
Picture This by Joseph Heller
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Bastard By Al Franken
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

What one book does Bill wish had never been written?

My Pet Goat
Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler
Over the River and Through the Trees by Ernest Hemingway
[Bill chooses not to name one]

What one book does Bill wish he had written?

Liberalism: The religion of the Godless by Bill Harryman
Ulysses by Bill Harryman
Mystic River by Bill Harryman
Sex, Ecology and Spirituality by Bill Harryman

More Tasty Roundup-Type Stuff

Speedlinking 8/7/06 by William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe Another bountiful linkfest, with a long paper on proportional response and the best Talking Head taking us to Jesus Camp.
Speedlinking 8/8/06 by William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe Should be up by about 5:15am PT on 8/8.
Mark of Zen Filter offers us a heapin' helpin' of Zen Cake. Delicious but weird.

Technorati tags: buddhism, roundup, speedlinking

Roundup for Aug 6, 2006

2006-08-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

A list of some interest Top Ten Buddhism-tagged blogs, per Technorati *
rank	blog name	in- links
1	WoodMoor Village	71
2t	Integral Options Café	70
2t	thinkBuddha	70
4	Tibet Will Be Free	64
5t	The Buddist Blog	62
5t	Zip Zap Zop	62
7	Metacentricities	57
8	Zencast	49
9t	lotus in the mud	48
9t	Paper Frog	48
* After eliminating sites with 8 or more tags when no more that 25% are, in a broad sense, Buddhism-related.

Good stuff, flowing like a distinct and flavorful non-alcoholic red wine, comes to us from the Buddhoblogosphere ...

Streamin’

Limit the Buddhism and make room for shrooms. Daniel of The Hyperaware Consciousness writes about the awesome effect of psilocybin as confirmed from yet another study – this time one conducted by Johns Hopkins.

Life of Brian: All right. I’m the last person on earth who would want to promote zaadz – and paid agent ~C4Chaos of the same-name blog is the first person. But Ceefour’s picture of his zaadz T-shirt is pretty cool. It looks like the Michelangelo ceiling with the Zaadz God passing on the spark of life to mankind through his Z-stroke finger. Wait a minute. Actually, it's intentionally that way and scary as hell.

George of Sentient Developments looks at a new book called The Female Brain. Here’s the opening paragraph of the flap description George provides:

Every brain begins as a female brain. It only becomes male eight weeks after conception, when excess testosterone shrinks the communications center, reduces the hearing cortex, and makes the part of the brain that processes sex twice as large.

The Thunder Bay bhikkhu is on a rampage about a piece in the New York Post that says the Israelis are “too nice to win” their war. One historical declaration the article makes is that firebombing Dresden and using atom bombs against Japan was necessary for the Allies to win WWII. Retorts Ajahn Punnadhammo in Bhikkhu’s Blog, “The war in Europe was pretty much won when Dresden was firebombed ... And as for Hiroshima, John Denson makes the case better than I can, in this excellent essay on the Hiroshima Myth.”

Xiao of That Was Zen, This Is Tao – A Haiblog is excited and elequant as hell, writing about life in New York City. Here’s a chunk from her post:

Every day is an incredible adventure. A chance encounter to meet someone new or someone from my past. Some people I will never see again. Others I will see the next day. Some plan to die in New York and others are here for a quick trip. All of these people, people, people, doing amazing things, living their lives, discovering themselves and the world each and every moment, whether they know it or not.

morgonnels in his eponymous blog tells us he’s been reading The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines. He mostly focuses on one interesting element from the book, the last item in a list of the “nine unlovely perceptions,” Great Pathetic Joy. You read that right. Not Great Sympathetic Joy, but Pathetic. morgonnels does some investigating and finds this definition: “According to Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, pathetic comes from the Greek pathetos, meaning ‘liable to suffer.’” And from there, he comes to believe he has found the meaning of this Joy, most curious.

hitchhiker72 offers a two-part account on the difficulties in pursuing an education, that puts her at the door of completing work on a Ph.D, in posts “Salute to Sisyphus, Part I” and “Salute to Sisyphus, Part II” in her blog A Question of Mindfulness. It’s a fascinating story, well delivered. What began as an academic challenge to “find herself” became a daunting hydra-headed struggle. hitchhiker72 writes, “I sometimes felt like a bag lady rummaging for scraps, I cannot really know whether the outcome would have been different or whether a more plotted route would have resulted in a difference in my thinking. That I was left to meander along on my own meant I found paths that might otherwise have remained hidden.”

More Tasty Roundup-Type Stuff

Speedlinking 8/6/06 by William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe A bountiful linkfest. If you don't eat your English walnuts, make sure your hamsters eat theirs. Oh, and stay away from Gagdad Bob. It's a tarpit, I'm telling you.
Speedlinking 8/7/06 by William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe Should be up by about 5:15am PT on 8/7.
Zen Filter and Jinajik were quiet. Zzzzzzzz.

Technorati tags: zshirt, buddhism, roundup, speedlinking

Roundup for Aug 5, 2006

2006-08-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

Good stuff, as always, is flowing through from the blogosphere ...

Streamin’

Jai of Blog Blog Woof Woof offers the thoughts of Ajahn Chah, which begin with this sentence: “The source of all good, evil, weal and harm lies with actions, speech and thoughts.”

Odd things can summon a mystic moment or even full-bore enlightenment: the sparkle of light on a pewter dish, the deep sound of a bell. Moose, The Contemporary Taoist has a mystic moment when he dumps a forkful of beans on his clothes. He writes, “Mystic Moments are hard to describe. … A ‘moment of clarity’ where the normal appears Divine; the small appears enormous; the subtle becomes obvious; the truth becomes apparent; the God in all common things becomes easy to see.”

Oliver, a martial arts expert and boxer at Oxford University in England, posted an entry “I’m afraid of Americans. I’m afraid of the World” in his recently minted blog Oxol. Here’s a spiffy snippit, that like the whole of his post, does not connect up to the title quite like you might suppose:

It struck me that the problems I’ve been having with annatta (the not-self doctrine) could be a result of a fundamental flaw in my conception of its purpose. My own conceptions of identity have revolved around the Western notion of a self, however, as the teaching of the Buddha is intended as a practical path to reaching enlightenment, that there is no self is not necessarily an ontological declaration. It’s simply not a relevant consideration, for if one was to reach enlightenment, processes of thought like whether there is a self or not would not enter into their thought because their perception of the world would be radically different.

Nagarjuna comes out against terrorism, big time, in a post in Naked Reflections titled “Thar He Blows.”

Eric of the blog Eric Grey writes about attachment. His post begins, “Today a relative of my partner was killed when the experimental home-made plane he was piloting crashed into a golf course.”

BuddhoBlogBuzz: Morgan Spurlock and 30 Days

There is definitely a Buzzz going on in my corner of the blogosphere re Morgan Spurlock – of Super Size Me fame – and his documentary TV series on the FX network, 30 Days. I write “in my corner” because most of the buzz eminates from near where I live in metropolitan Sacramento.

I wrote an essay in the group political blog Thoughts Chase Thoughts a few days ago called “Morgan Spurlock and the 2nd Tier.” My partner at TCT, Nagarjuna, followed with his very very excellent post, “Altered Realities” in his blog Naked Reflections that included comments on many of the series's episodes. Re the first episode where Spurlock and his girlfriend tried to survive on minimum wage, Nagarjuna writes, "I acquired newfound empathy for those who are caught in this kind of lifestyle of having to literally count every penny and being thrown into emotional as well as financial turmoil by the slightest unbudgeted expense"

A comment posted by John Smulo in the TCT thread led to the knowledge of two recent posts by John in his SmuloSpace blog focusing on 30 Days: 30 Days of Purpose and 30 Days Outsourced. Seems Nagarjuna was already aware of John – there being a comment written by Nagarjuna posted to the 30 Days Outsourced comment thread when I first got there.

Here’s a bit from John’s 30 Days of Purpose post that I could say is true for myself:

What inspires me most about this show is that it chronicles human beings with strong opinions and self-imposed separations living life with people coming from a contrary place.

John finds Biblical connections in what Spurlock is doing in his series, whereas Nagarjuna and I see Buddhism-related inspiration. Likely, we are all right.

Pennsylvanian Carolyn Kellogg who blogs Pinky’s Paperhaus has a recent entry about her friend, the camera guy who filmed Spurlock during his jailtime stay, which is this season of 30 Days grand finale. Interesting blog stuff! [Carolyn/Pinky, btw, has a post w/podcast from yesterday about her appearance on NPR. WTG, Pinky.]

There is also a very recent post giving us an atheist’s take on 30 Days. vjack in Atheist Revolution writes, “an atheist moving in with a family of evangelical Christians. Interesting idea, but I think they might have it backwards. … a show in which an atheist becomes more accepting of conservative Christian beliefs (my prediction) would be a big mistake. Why? Oh, just because these beliefs happen to be false.” The post generated a lot of comment, mostly in full support of vjack’s sentiments.

In a recent MySpace post, Arnold, a kendo expert in San Jose, writes, "The beauty of this show is that we get to see not a conversion, but a transformation in the thinking of the person going through the 30 days experience. Additionally, it creates a catalyst for us viewers to think about the topic as well as to contemplate and appreciate our lives."

More, More Tasty Roundup-Type Stuff

Speedlinking 8/5/06 by William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe A bodacious collection. Philosophical and Integral. Nada on politics, today.
Speedlinking 8/6/06 by William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe Should be up by about 5:15am on 8/6.
Zen Filter and Jinajik were quiet. Zzzzzzzz.

Technorati tags: morgan spurlock, 30 days, thirty days, buddhism, roundup, speedlinking

Roundup for Aug 4, 2006

2006-08-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

Many interesting posts in the ether today. Here are a handful of them...

The Stream

Shokai opens the Zen Center. Some arrive late; some arrive very late; sometimes, for a while, no one shows up at all. In his blog, Water Dissolves Water, he writes, “Human interactions are always chaotic and messy, and rarely do they conform to a schedule. We should sit and we should share the dharma with others who want it, and we shouldn't be concerned if the audience is large or small, early or late, attentive or bored, passive or aggressive.”

Hardcore Zen’s Brad Warner is putting together his documentary Cleveland's Screaming. “The process of artistic creation is a little like Zen. Or maybe a lot like it. The problems your piece has are always obvious and the solutions to them are equally so.”

Zenmar launches into a discussion of mysticism in his blog The Buddhist. “[T]here is a huge divide between those who seek ultimate reality and those who fervently believe in some kind of uber-being who, if they obey his rules, will be saved from their ignorance.

Chase of Cut to the Chase is happy about something congress did today. “The bill passed was the (revised) PETS Act. … Now if a natural disaster happens, local AND state plans have to include provisions for our furry kids.”

~C4Chaos of the eponymous blog likes the recent Nicolas Cage movie Lords of War, but it is his serendipitous find, relating to the film, a quote in Rigpa, that got my attention. Here’s the last of it:

The desperate situation of the planet is slowly waking people up to the necessity for transformation on a global scale.

Enlightenment is real, and there are enlightened masters still on the earth. When you actually meet one, you will be shaken and moved in the depths of your heart and you will realize that all the words, such as illumination and wisdom, that you thought were only ideas are in fact true.

A Limitted Discussion Starter

Nacho's first effort at putting up a featured post to stir a wealth of discussion is meeting limitted success.

While the WoodMoor Village post, about people of color, has stayed at the top of his posting flow on the main page of his busy blog, it generated only two comments in six days before Nacho churped in with a response to the responses. Two other comments followed; so now there are a total of five.

Nacho's post seems not to have been a good one to encourage discussion. It is a hard slog -- 2200 words of muddily written turgid prose. Nacho sees conspiracies, hates oppressive whites and then compains and complains. His proffered subsitute for the phrase people of color, that he finds so damnable, is one of the following phrases, to be used for persons like himself: "Third World people" or "the excluded." Nacho is a college professor in Oregon. Or, perhaps I should say, 'Third World Nacho, the excluded, suffers the deprivation of being well-paid as an incompetent college professor in Oregon.'

Here a cutting from "Buddhist people of color?"

The language of “people of color” that has been deployed in Buddhist communities (and everywhere else) in order to address issues related to discrimination, racism, and inclusivity, poorly serves us. It strikes me as odd, at best, to rely on a phrase that reaffirms and reinforces what has been dominant ideology, by putting us right smack in the traditional U.S. society color/skin dichotomy. This chromatic skin color language reduces the complexity of the issues at stake in various ways, and promotes the dissemination and retrenchment of the color dichotomy. Ultimately, the phrase "people of color" limits the myriad ways in which the oppressed can describe and imagine their oppression, by reducing discriminatory practices under the umbrella of "color." In my estimation, the language of “people of color” makes us pay too steep a price politically, strategically, and personally.

Roundup for Aug 3, 2006

2006-08-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

The first of an every-once-in-a-while daily roundup for the summer.

OK, I can’t stand it. There is too much that is winsome and juicy going on in the oceanic Buddhoblogosphere to keep my 10-gallon Roundup hat in the mudroom for the rest of the summer, so I’m pulling it down from the hook, booting up my computer, climbing on my keyboard stallion and roping some posts, again. EEEE-ha!

Now, I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope that Bill of the IOC [q.v.] and WH’s Blog [q.v.] keeps up his speedlinking regimen. AND, that tinythinker of peaceful turmoil [q.v.] and Justin of American Buddhist Perspective [q.v.] wade in with some more roundups. AND, I hear, via the IOC, that Jay Andrew Allen is speedlinkin’ at The Zero Boss[q.v.]. There’s plenty ‘o room in the pool, a course; and I am but a mere bug in the shadow of these noble, sturdy men. [What? No ladies as yet? You just know you should be speed-roundup-linkin’, too.]

AND, I must express my gratitude to Mark of Zen Filter [q.v.] and Ian of Jinajik [q.v.] for their ongoing ropings of outstanding webfinds. Here, too, are establishments that fill my plate and stein with the grub and grog of wonders and pleasures that I consume with glee and gusto!

Indeed, it is from the very deliciousness of the finds of all these Blogo-meta-buddhs that has me salivatin’ for the fresh meat* of gamey blogpost. Mmmmmm, tasty wild blogpost; there is nothin’ so fine.

So, let us release the ox and have the Blogmandu rodeo commence …

Streamin'

Noah of Yuttadhammo: Truth is Within shows us one of his samanera. "This one eats in the evening and can't sit still for more than one inbreath at a time. He's really cute, though."

Our conservative Buddhist friend, Joshua, of Mudita Journal tells us of the website Life is Zen. It's motto is “Mindful Marketing for Your Right Livelihood.” Writes Joshua, "Now how can you not like a slogan like that?"

Mathew Dallman in his The Daily Goose finds himself agreeing with George Will and tells us American liberalism is dead. "[I]ts truths have been swallowed by certain elements/circles of the American conservative movement."

tsykoduk of The Roost writes about an interesting talk on the O'Reily Factor. [Hey! Wait a minute! With the citations on the two paragraphs above this one, that's three conservative posts on three different Buddhist blogs in one day!?]

The Bhikkhu apologizes ... for blogging so much about the Lebanon war. Explains Ajahn Punnadhammo in Bhikkhu's Blog, "Our world seems to be spiralling down into a new barbarism with only the ethic of 'might makes right.'"

Bill LaLonde informs us in Oaksong's Nemeton that our brains "may be under the control of tiny critters that live in cat shit."

nagarjuna posts brilliantly on episodes of Morgan Spurlock's FX network show, 30 Days, in his blog Naked Reflections and finds himself agreeing with some other guy that "Spurlock shows Buddhistic benevolence and skillful means in using his talents to foster interpersonal and intercultural empathy." [The words quoted here are nagarjuna's. Envious other guy writes that well in his dreams.]

Tyson of tysonwilliams.com quotes Sogyal Rinpoche. Here's a taste: "the ground of the ordinary mind prevents us from breaking through to the skylike nature of our mind, even if we can still have glimpses of it." And in a second post, Tyson quotes Buddhist Channel on the topic of Buddhism after the Dalai Lama has left the world stage.

Partings and Startings and Kudos and Such

Paper Frog has now, officially, left the pond! Kit has promised he'll be back in some new forms soon, and will keep the frog alive in his pocket; for now, we must do without.

The Daily Scribe [q.v.], "an evolving compendium of quality religious writing by bloggers," has been honored with the addition of Gareth's Green Clouds [q.v.] as part of its membership. GC joins Will's thinkBuddha [q.v.] as the two representatives of Buddhism in the Scribe's registry. Says Gareth in his latest post, "it’s a collective I’m happy to be a part of." Another Scribe-honored blog, Arbitrary Marks, has a fine recent post Gareth recommends, titled "Buddhist Apples and Christian Oranges."

An outstanding new Buddhist blog of great marvels y'all should be uber alerted to is Enso It Goes [q.v.], the clever production of clever Dukkha Earl. Here's D.E.'s latest, a jiggly post. Earl's earlier pearl of a blog, Sifting Samsara, was carried off by the wind, into the setting sun, about a year ago.

*This is a vegetarian blogsite, y’all. Meat as in nutmeat and 'Meat me in St. Louie, Louie,' not animal flesh, a course.

[Note. A Daily Blogmandu Roundup is a short post of both very very fresh finds in the Buddhoblogosphere and recent (and sometimes a little less fresh) sightings of wonders relating to Buddhist and integral bloggery.]

Speedy Links and BuddhoBlogBuzz

2006-07-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

A third blog in the IntegroBuddhoblogosphere has been tredding in Blogmandu’s roundup business. Sheesh. I am coming to know how General Motors felt when suddenly competition came from Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce and Infiniti.

First there was tinythinker with terrific, full-bodied roundups in peaceful turmoil on June 15 and again on June 22.

Then came Justin with his “Blogmandu-inspired weekly Roundup” in American Buddhist Perspective on July 15.

And now there is Bill of Integral Options Café doing daily “Speedlinking” at, something like 4am since Saturday. [July 22, July 23, July 24 & July 25.] [By the way, I deeply thank Bill for his links in Speedlinking to the new group blog Nagarjuna, who solo-blogs Naked Reflections <q.v.>, and I have started, the revamped Thoughts Chase Thoughts <q.v.>.]

Tinythinker, Justin and Bill all do a terrific job and are giving me ideas about how to better do Blogmandu’s Roundups when it comes back full-tilt in September. I very much like the idea of doing shorter daily roundup, rather than the weekly ones I had been doing. There is something, still, about blogging that – rightly or wrongly – demands that the freshest stuff is what we are interested in.

“Old” posts – and by this it can mean something just three days old –- drift down the home page of a blog. The comment thread for a post, vibrant at first, quickly loses its vigor.

Nacho of WoodMoor Village has an old post [five days old!] that digs into the issue of sustaining a conversation in blogging. It seems certainly true, as Nacho notes, quoting an essay, that blogging is set up to be too much a “friend of information but the enemy of thought.” So, Nacho is using a tool that his blogging software provides to create a 'featured post' at his blogspace.

Possibly, there are other new tools and ideas coming along to sustain posts and conversations in blogging. Will of thinkBuddha, always at the forefront of Blogging technology, has coComments tied in with his blog. CoComments has features that allow a blogger to stay abreast of comment-thread conversations he is engaged in. In addition, I noticed there are other clever ideas that coComments is spearheading that have promise in ‘sustaining’ blog conversations.

Possibly, Blogmandu can help out by following along, on a daily basis, some of the conversations that have ‘buzz.’ And, perhaps, on a weekly basis, Blogmandu can announce a Topic for the Week that Nacho or Will or someone chooses that the Buddhoblogosphere can chew on in a flurry of interlaced posts.

Anyway, when the Roundups in Blogmandu come back, I am hopeful that two seeming contradictory issues are addressed to make the roundups more relevant: 1) that the material covered is fresher and 2) that B’du helps in the noble effort of sustaining the goodness of posts and comment threads that have been around a while.

I would welcome comments, y'all, about the general topic of sustainability of blog posts.

Technorati tags: speedlink, speedlinking, roundups, Buddhoblogosphere, blangha, Buddhism, Buddhism buzz, cocomments

Good news; Bad news

2006-07-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

A few items, just so people know that Blogmandu is still alive and will be back in its usual role this fall, posting weekly roundups. AND because there is some Buddhoblogospheric news.

Good News and Bad News: Our friend Cliff Jones's This is This blog post "Vesak and the Art of Changing Tyres" is indeed in Mandala magazine. Here’s proof: The magazine’s Aug/Sep Table of Contents. Get yourselves a copy of that magazine, kind readers! The bad news [and terrible it is] is that Kit is threatening to shutdown the venerable Buddhist weblog PaperFrog. Don’t do it Kit! Oh dear, it looks like Kit is moving on to other adventures, so though Kit has a history of practical jokes [e.g., here & here], the betting is that PF is really going to close. Bummer. Go to the FrogBlog NOW to say your goodbyes, and perhaps to talk Kit out of boiling the frog.

tinythinker or peaceful turmoil started it, but now Justin Whitaker is blogmandoing something in his journal that apes B’du’s role in the world. Yes, while I have been sitting back, drinking vodka martinis, Justin has posted a Roundup in American Buddhist Perspective. J’s roundup is mostly about HIM and HIS busy extroverted life of high adventures than the doings of the fitful Integro-Buddhoblogosphere, but it is certainly full of interesting stuff and tasty links. One thing of Interest: Young Justin will be teaching a class on Introductory Buddhism and one on Meditation at the University of Montana, aka the U of MTness. There are still some opennings in the Intro class, as I write. Sign up and learn something. [Buddha’s that guy who was a lot like Jesus only he didn't have Christ’s blonde hair and blue eyes, instead looking just like Keanu Reeves.]

Other bad news: Jeff’s ZenDiary seems to have sunk beneath a wave of electrons. BUT, there’s some good news: Kim’s this life has come back to life with Kim, now called Beth, up and blogging. Too, Gareth posted a long, interesting post in Green Clouds after having been away for a couple of weeks and done light blogging for the past few months. Tom says check it out.

[Correction: An earlier version of this post chided Cliff for taking down his Vesak post. Not so, it turns out. "Vesak and the Art of Changing Tyres" was never taken down. It is online for our reading pleasure. Hurrah! See comments.]

While the Cat's away, the mice will play.

2006-06-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

Buried in an earlier post, here, was the information that Blogmandu Roundups are on hiatus through the summer.

They will be back, in full force and refreshed on Saturday, Sept. 23, the first day of autumn, reporting on the Buddhoblogosphere for the week of Sep 17-23.

I am happy to find that tinythinker of peaceful turmoil is taking up the slack, at present, bringing roundups for the last two weeks.

Please check out his excellent roundups of June 15 and June 22. And while you're there, check out the other delights of peaceful turmoil and consider adding pt to your blogroll and RSS reader.

I hope tinythinker keeps up his swell roundups! I don't mind the whiff of competition; the idea is to increase the connectivity between blogs!

-- Tom

Ken Wilber ... Madness

2006-06-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

At the end of the film “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” Major Clipton surveys the dead from the battle downriver and the destruction of the bridge and train and repeats one word, slowly, “Madness! … Madness! …”

Ken Wilber puts up his follow-up to his two earlier Earp-Test posts [1] & [2] that features a kiss-ass email that he considers to be kick-butt. The mad Wilber titles this new post “The Unbearable Lightness of Wyatt Earpy.” He seems to be pursuing a movie theme.

Wilber doesn’t talk about it, but “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” is a romance, of sorts, that takes place mostly in the Czechoslovakia capital during Prague Spring, in 1968, and includes the Soviet invasion that put an end to a short bout of freedom. To my mind, the tight control that Wilber wields over Integral, the cult of personality that sweeps through his online presence, his unwillingness to engage in non-conforming dialogue at iN, and his elitism overlay that must certainly be a contortion of the true 2nd Tier, makes him an ugly taskmaster in that story of liberation. By making himself central instead of his insights; by controlling the levers and making his iterations of changes to Integral the line of acceptable dogma, he and his soldiers are a tank squadron presence in the Streets of the Spiritual. Perhaps we all should be so light in our being in the world that the tanks don't matter. But that wouldn’t excuse an effort to dampen down dissent.

In his new post, Wilber presents an email he received from Geert Drieghe that is gushing in praise of Wilber and that insult act in his first post. Here is part of that email:

I think it's a great example of a multilayered post that really addresses several meme levels at once, a feat which is not lightly done. When I read it I feel like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind where he is taken into a FBI facility to read encrypted texts and where all the relevant words show up. For somebody at green all the cuss words and the rants show up, but for somebody at turquoise the lightness shines out, different words and strings of words light up. It would be really interesting to analyze how you did that.

Here is part of Wilber’s response:

[It was] meant to convey what I believe are extremely important ideas, and thus indeed it was written with multilevel meanings, and that multilayered writing was something I worked at quite hard, especially as it went through several drafts, and thus it is what you call “a piece of art” …

“A Beautiful Mind,” the movie, was for the most part a bad adaptation of an excellent biography of the same name about mathematics genius John Nash. But the film does do a good job focusing on Nash’s descent into madness, an important theme in the book. Quickly, Nash is of no aid to the government as he begins to read false messages everywhere. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that Geert is sending Wilber a message that he should be able to find among the email's lines: “Hey, Wilber, you're losing it.”

In David Berreby’s book Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind, there’s a chapter “Them, We Burn.” It talks about how we learn the standards and rituals of our culture and how we need a network of unwritten regulations and performance cues to act in a society and to understand one another. We all have “an innate knack for learning ‘our’ [the tribe’s] rules.” These things teach us what to eat, when to eat it, when to be emotional and when to be blasé. We understand others better if they are using cues similar to our own. One reason we can enjoy a foreign country and find it particularly exotic is if the culture is undergirded by a set of cues curiously different from our own. Part of what we learn is how to react to cuss words.

I would contend that Wilber isn’t having any insight about grand spiritual advancement relating to ego loss and oceanic acceptance; he is, instead, rather pitifully, creating new societal/tribe rules – rules that are only rather arbitrary and only conveniently contrary to the great society in which he functions. By doing this, he manufactures a loyal, willing tribe of folks that are all too obsequious. They have to be obsequious because one of the rules of the crawlspace, fake 2nd Tier that he writes the rules for is that Wilber is never wrong and that questioning him or failing to praise his every burp is likely to get you remanded to the dreaded 1st Tier.

In some societies you find people who are 'set off' by disrespect or by utterances of cuss words. This is learned behavior that lingers. Certainly, degrees of tolerance which becomes acceptance which becomes radical acceptance is involved in spiritual advancement. And these more-liberal cultural cues begin to replace what might be the conservative cues of one's culture and upbringing. But these "group bonding" cues are not the story of spiritual climb. Indeed, group bonding is tribal [purple meme] and causal for friction between people. [As I wrote in an earlier post, "kind" scientists have shown that it isn't friction that causes people to form groups; it is grouping that causes friction.]

So, Wilber's hot inauthentic posts about feather ruffling are really acts of tribe creation. Wilber is creating a tribe in his own likeness. And looking at Him, we are all supposed to see the Face of God.

Madness! … Madness! …

The Rattlesnake post was NOT A TEST

2006-06-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

The following is one of the more controversial posts on this
site. Please enjoy but with a warning: without giving too much away, please be
advised that while Tom is definitely serious about the basic content and ideas,
both the tone and the language were selected for a reason, so don't get your
feathers ruffled. Read on....--The Editor

Contrary to what I said in my prior post, "Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!?" was never intended as a test and I was never in contact with Ken Wilber.

Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!? is a rambling, poorly constructed statement of what I believed at the time I wrote it and I support what it says now. It is about groups and that a scientist who studies groups tells us that the insular nature of groups creates friction rather than what we suppose -- that friction within society creates a need for insular groups. It is also about some creepy groups that remind me a little of Zaadz - which has a mission and plan that are cartoonish. I have no doubt that the way I wrote my essay, and defended it, tags me for being first tier. But my post has the virtue of being an authentic, straightforward statement of what I think on a topic and a situation which I believe is important. It is true that when I wrote my essay I also had I-I in the back of my mind.

I am somewhat sorry I wrote the post “The Rattlesnake post was A TEST.” The devil made me do it. But "Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!?" is a test - an authentic, unintended one - as much as was Wilber’s semi-fraud of a post, using bloggers as guinea pigs. The response to IZaDoR!? was as feather ruffling as Wilber’s Earp post, only instead of revealing possible deficiencies and spiritual weaknesses in integral-interested bloggers, it revealed nastiness and groupthink in the heart of Zaadz. There’s no getting away from it. The lesson – it seems to me – is that groups that endeavor to be insular create groupthink that intensifies discord. We see this in Wilber's 'Real Meaning' post, where Wilber finds, naturally, that a majority at I-I agree with any fool thing he wants to do. The integral-interested blogosphere, more laudably, is a rabble of independent thinkers, swimming in the Internet Ocean instead of some inland, walled-off social-networking zoo or Maoist temple.

To the credit of the integral-interested blogosphere, in which I include myself as a marginal member, I don’t know any one of us who have committed statutory rape, and, other than ~C4Chaos, none of are insiders to a cult of personality. Also, none of us sign our names with an unlucky number and only one of us carries an octopus on his shoulder.

I am fully aware that that last paragraph, and most or all of this post, is ordinary-minded, not Big Minded in the way it's written. But I think y'all can handle it without getting your feathers mussed.

I think it is sad, but in the end a good thing, that Wilber's Earp post is chasing Bill Lalonde, Bill Harryman and me, each in different ways, away from Wilberism. I think that the Earp post and its followup is a failure from any perspective, but it would be impossible for anybody close to Wilber to tell him this.

The Rattlesnake post was A TEST.

2006-06-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

Ken Wilber has emailed me and says that now I should let you all know.

My Rattlesnake post of a few weeks ago, Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!? was all a test to separate the first-tier from Integral second- and third-tier folks.

As many of you know by now, Wilber revealed in his blog today that his post on Jun 8, What We Are, What We See, was really all a test. [See the follow-up post What We Are, What We See, Part II.]

Ken contacted me and said that he also wanted to test and play with some other people he works we, so I worked with him to develop the Rattlesnake post. It was a great, great honor to be contacted by him for this project. I had exchanged emails with him a couple of times over the years, and I know he was aware of my blog -- but just imagine my surprize.

So. The deal with the Rattlesnake post and your reactions to it are the same as with Wilber's 'What We See, What We Are' post.

Here is how the assessment works:

This is Bill Maher on the type of awareness that pervades this country—and, of course, its blogosphere.
I wouldn’t ever say there’s censorship in this country. But there’s a lot of peer pressure. Because when anybody says anything that’s the least bit feather ruffling, everybody just goes nuts. If anybody in this country is forced to undergo a single moment of discomfort, the person who caused it just must go away.
Maher is probably right about perhaps 98% of this gosh darn country, and its blogosphere, where, if feathers are ruffled, out come rants that are depressingly predictable in structure, tone, and form. But the reason I love the blogosphere is for the 2% that are not predictable, that do not merely rant against the moment of discomfort (and its cause), but rather stand above the herd mentality and post from second tier. I’ll come back to that 2% in a moment. Because if you are in that 2%, I’d really like to speak with you.

So, if you are part of the crusty 2%, be aware that Ken will be contacting you. If not, you know where you are.

Peace and high regards,
--Tom

The Mighty Ken Blows

2006-06-09T23:33:00.000-07:00

“… every once in a while it gets so bad you just have to blow off steam, because it really hurts, ya know? And like I said, every decade or so, I blow.”
-- Ken Wilber in KenWilberBlog, ‘The Wanger’ post*, 6/8/06

A storm of commentary swirled in the Integral section of the Buddhoblogosphere after Ken Wilber posted a bitter, raunchy 5,000-word post in his blog on 6/8, intended, it seemed, to bring pain to his enemies. The essay, which B'du has dubbed 'The Wanger' post*, seems to be, in the main, a rather non-substantive denunciation of Frank Vissar’s May 2006 essay at the website Integral World, “Talking Back to Wilber,” that chides The Ken for not responding to the many critical essays that have amassed of Wilber’s theories at Integral World. Vissar concludes his essay, “I am looking forward to a future with many integral journals and conferences, where integral concepts are openly discussed – both as to their strengths but even more so as to their weaknesses, both online and in the offline world. That's the only way it can mature beyond the limitations it currently has. Without it, integral might very well end up as an ideology.”

In his blog post, Wilber identified with Wyatt Earp – because, Earp was, in Wilber’s estimation, like him in being the leading figure in his field and in having gun-slingers out there filling his ass with lead. [Actually, Earp was a courageous and sometimes ethics-challenged lawman and businessman whose ass stayed remarkably unmarred. See wikipedia listing. But, be that as it may.]

Wilber uses course language several times, at one point telling a critic, “simply suck my dick.” He also says that anyone who disagrees with his course phrase is necessarily a backward green memester. {He softens this later, writing “I’m not saying that anybody [who finds this post repulsive] is green; just that anybody who is green [will find it repulsive].}

Integral bloggers’ reactions to W’s post were mixed, with many either alienated by Wilber’s post or disappointed with it. Others, wondered if it is a test or, in B'du reporter's case, a mean-green satire of some sort. And a third segment, Wilber sycophants, delighted in its freshness, humor and joy-filled decadence. Of course, members in this third segment might be in on the hoax, if there is one. But, in any case, the bloggers’ reactions proved that Derrida lives! Deconstructing Wilber’s post somewhat became all the rage.

A question B’du reporter has: If Wilber did join the Dark Side of the Force, what would we expect to see from him in terms of a blog post? Wouldn’t we expect a first act to be an attempt to blow up Integral World with its snakepit of detractors, much as Darth Vadar blew up a world that resisted his powers? And doesn’t ‘the Wanger post’* seem to attempt to do precisely this!

But in his post “Integral Wild West,” Dashh is surely onto something, if all his references make sense. [I say this because it is hard to trust anyone when hoax possibilities are with us.] Dashh writes,

The more I think about it the more I wonder if it just another attempt at an SD [Spiral Dynamics] integral Voight-Kampff Test ala Blade Runner ala the essay written to gauge responses of David Deida's Ken Wilber is a Fraud essay years back. If you are 'blue' you reacted this way...if you are 'orange' this is the typical response...I'm sure it is only a matter of days before the posts at integral blogs and maybe even Wilber's start to analyse and frame everyone's responses in terms of SD.

Happily, B'du reporter is expecting that, in accord with Wilber 6.0, this here post will show that this reporter is in the clear meme which is third tier, rising above yellow, coral, teal, indigo and muave.

One reason to think that Wilber is pulling a hoax or spoofing something or poking his readers is that W recently posted a review of V for Vendetta, backdating it to March. It is perhaps the case that Wilber and Annie McQuade are taking the roles of V and Natalie Portman's character in a terrorist act of blowing up parliament [Integral World]. But if Wilber and McQuade are goofing on people or are testing people, it surely might say something uncomely about them and where their spiritual heads are at, under the masque.

===

* I am calling KW’s instantly famous post “The Wanger Post” since wanger means the male member, someone who jerks off and/or anger AND wanger begins with a W [for Wilber and Wyatt] and ends in a-n-g-e-r. Also, Wanger is the name of the composer of “The Ride of the Valkyries” to someone who has dyslexia. Somewhat like Wilber – to a few folk, maybe – Wagner is someone whose work you can love, but you kind of want to ignore the person behind it.

Technorati Tags: Ken Wilber, Integral Theory

This is This isn't There but Here and That is That

2006-06-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of matters, dear readers.

Cliff Jones’s wonderful blog This is This is a little lost.

Seems that Cliff packed his bag of electrons and moved his Blogger blog to a new and quite appropriate domain, all its own – thisisthis.org

But having left his old blogspot home at thisisthis.blogspot.com unclaimed, someone else – Angel Richardson, this complete stanger – moved in! So, the redirect to Cliffy’s new home was up for only a modest couple of days.

So, it may seem to many fans of Cliff Jones and This is This that his blog has jumped off a cliff – but this is not so.

So, whether you are a This is This lover, or not one but willing to become one [It is an excellent, entertaining, expertly well-written blog. Blogmandu says check it out. THIS recent post, which can also be found HERE, is one of the best blog posts I have ever read, anywhere.] Please find Mr. Jones’s blog here, at thisisthis.org. Oh, and be sure to bookmark the new location, and change your RSS for This is This to this, and update your blogroll. And so … that is that.

Second item on the agenda: Blogmandu Roundups is tired and will be taking the rest of spring and the whole of summer off from its weekly regimen of posting a roundup of wonderful Buddhism-flavored blog posts. We hope to be back in the Fall, refreshed with more of the same old, same old. Meantime, much as thisisthis.blogspot.com was taken over by a complete stranger, Blogmandu will be fully taken over by Tom Armstrong’s evil twin, the fist-waving do-gooder, posting angry fix-the-world-or-else essays for the next ten weeks. Ah, yess. MUCH better. Tom Armstrong’s evil twin is to Tom Armstrong what Buddy Love is to the nutty professor.