This Week's Spiffy Blog Posts :
Morgannels of the eponymous blog, didn’t like John Lennon’s song Imagine, but puts up a quick post on the day this week that is the 25th anniversary of Lennon’s death. Scott of Scott Wichmann Online posted a very straightforward Buddhist tribute to Lennon: A picture and lyrics to Instant Karma. "Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear. Why on Earth are you there? When you're everywhere ..."
Ruby of lotusmedia 2.0 targets Target this week, wanting a guarantee that their pharmacists "will fill all prescriptions for birth control” including emergency contraception.
William of Integral Options Café is lobbying for votes for Bono. While it’s too late to get him the Noble Peace Prize, Beliefnet’s “most inspiring person of 2005” was, as of Dec 8, still to be had from a vote of its readers. In a post two days later, William tells us that Bono lost the Beliefnet vote, but U2 won the Amnesty International's 2005 Ambassador of Conscience Award.
Beesucker of Authentic Personality lets us know of a new website, www.dalailama.com, The Official Website of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. It was launched on Dec. 10, "the 16th anniversary of the conferment of the Nobel Peace prize on the Dalai Lama." According to the story at The Buddhist Channel Beesucker links to, "The website features information on the Dalai Lama's teaching dates, speeches, meetings with dignitaries, life in exile, photo gallery, contact details and news."
Justin of American Buddhist Perspective, Morgannels of the same-name blog and Sean of Wandering the Pathless Land praise [as morgannels deems it] “a great article about Buddhism” in the latest issue of National Geographic. All three bloggers link to a multimedia show at the Nat’l Geo website. Justin writes of the web show, “[It] gives a good impression on why Buddhism is picking up here [in the West] these days, and a tiny bit of what it is that goes on in meditation.” Morgannels spots his classmates, pictured in the spread, and says, “it’s odd for me to see them dressed up.”
Sean’s post is peripherally about the magazine article; it is mostly about Rohatsu [which, he tells us, means 'December 8' in Japanese], traditionally, the anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment. The Buddhist Blog celebrates Bodhi Day or Enlightenment Day [aka Rohatsu]. Says keyboarder James, “Bodhi Day is a great opportunity for us to be a part of the holiday season.” Shokai of Water Dissolves Water put up a “Happy Bodhi Day” post, wishing well those of his Zen Center who will be sitting all night.
A short, kind “Happy Bodhi Day” post was also written by Corax of Ow, My Blog. Corax is back to blogging after an unannounced hiatus of a couple months. In another post this week, Corax reminds us of a great post in Ow from a year ago, “The Scrooge Sutra.” Amy of Beliefnet’s Chattering Mind blog caught the post and, upon reading “The Scrooge Sutra,” deemed it brilliant, lavishing praise and posting a long quote from it in her blog. [Full disclosure: Your Blogmandu reporter, loving “The Scrooge Sutra,” posted a version of it in Zen Unbound eMag a year ago.]
Dave Bonta of Via Negativa goes off into the Big Woody Woody in pursuit of peckerwoods – aka, “the Holy F***ing Shit Bird.”
James of Genius of Insanity gathers information on how unwanted the American soldiers are by the Iraqi citizenry.
Nick of The Lotus & the Magnolia has questions about Buddhist etiquette: “i certainly don't want to DIS anyone, especially the Buddha or my teacher, but if no one tells me how to behave, i won't know what's good or bad.” … “is there a buddhist Miss Manners anywhere?!?”
After beginning with the startling question “Can you prove you love your wife?” The Roost’s Greg cleves the universe into its subjective, objective and real aspects. In the comment thread to his post, Greg/tsychoduk writes, “If you allow your feelings, hope and faith to rule you, then they are in fact more real then the rest of the Universe.”
In a pretty much a day-and-a-half-in-the-life post by Brad Warner of Hardcore Zen he rehearses with two bands, gives an interview about his movie, does a book signing, writes his blog post, all the while focusing on telling us about zazen, what it’s done for him – and oh yeah – it is “Jesus God Almighty COLD in Ohio.”
In Woodmoor Village Zendo, Nacho discusses the “war on Christmas” at length, coming down hard on the Christian Right. He writes, “There is a certain chauvinism in believing that one holds special rights to the celebration of this season. This certainly applies to Christian Conservatives that see ‘their’ Christmas under attack.” Paper Frog's Kit weighs in on the topic to say that Christmas is under attack, yes, but it's from the end-of-the-year consumer frenzy. Dave of Via Negativa takes off the woolly mittens and puts on the brass knuckles in his post on the same topic, “To hell with Christmas.” Blending cutting humor with damning evidence, he writes, “Who killed Christmas? … it was you - all you so-called Christians, masters of the pious shell game…”
But WVZ’s Nacho gets his dander up and borrows Dave's brass knuckles for a second holiday-shopping post, regarding the American Family Association which, by threatening a boycott, has succeeded in getting Ford Motors to cease creating advertising directed toward gay and lesbian consumers for its domestically made products.
Kimberly [now using her ‘real’ name, having abandoned the psuedonym ‘haiku’] of this zen life writes of our consumerist culture – with special attention placed on shopping for Zen – in a post called “last night at the zendo.”
Atanu Dey is hard on organized religion this week in a post that discusses Marx and the Opium Wars. He agrees with words of Karl Marx regarding the clutch of religion on the poor: “The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.” Later, Atanu writes, “Spirituality, on the other hand, arises within people only when they are freed from a miserable existence and have the luxury to search for truth and meaning in [an] attempt to fully comprehend their own selves.”
Will of thinkBuddha.org cuts to the heart in a post called “Legitimacy” that asks “Who are the real Buddhists?” and then questions the need for the question. “If you look hard enough into the texts of most schools you can find more or less virulent and vituperative condemnations of other fellow-Buddhists who do things differently.” he writes. Later in his post, he concludes, “perhaps the best thing is to dispense with the chimerical myth of ‘real Buddhism’ altogether.”
Fudo, the ScurrilousMonk, writes a long, open, blunt letter with this central message: “what ever is in front of you is your practice”
Jeb of Wondering on the Way looks at the variety of blogs and considers something different “for expressing and discussing ideas” involving “focused topic discussions.” Thoughts on how to do this get further expression in the comments section of the post.
A post on Intelligent Design on Dec. 2 gets extended discussion with 29 comments to date in Justin’s American Buddhist Perspective. WVZ’s Nacho, yours truly and Justin look at many aspects of why ID is and is not legitimate as part of teaching evolution to children. In the process of all this, Nacho, who has posted about the topic twenty times in his blog, WoodMoor Village Zendo, cites an October post of his that has some good exchanges on the topic; Yours Truly, starts a new blog, Thoughts Chase Thoughts, that begins with an ID entry; and Justin cites a recent opinion piece in the Toronto Star by Punnashammo Bhikkhu that says for Buddhism, the ID issue is “pretty much irrelevant.”
Here’s a snatch of what Justin wrote in the long comment thread of his 12/2 post: “ID doesn't present anything like 'evidence' that would let it be 'in contrast to evolution'. That's my qualm about it: when you examine ID (as pushed by the Discovery Institute) you find empty rhetoric about complexity and statistical improbability. These issues are addressed in the teaching of evolution (as I know it) and 'alternatives' need not be introduced.”
Greg of The Roost also posts on ID, taking interest in ID's proponents who think "in all the billions of earth-like planets out there - and possibly billions of universes" we are somehow special. Writes Greg, "To claim humanity's specialness because the universe is so suited for us is to have it backwards. We are suited for the universe."
After five weeks of no posts, the Blog Heaven-honored Paper Frog came back big, with three posts in one day, including these two, about Access to Insight’s 2006 Uposatha Calendar and news about a book, Hungry Planet, which looks at what earthlings eat. Says a review of the book that blogger Kit cites: “…we are rushing headlong toward an economy … in which we identify a piece of food by its logo rather than by its biology.”
Mumon in Notes in Samsara writes about the Catholic League taking offense from this week’s episode of “South Park.” In the episode, a Virgin Mary statue is spraying blood. “The program in question actually was more a righteous bashing of the ‘powerlessness’ philosophy of those in AA and the denial of the necessity of ‘discipline.’” writes Mumon. “That message outweighs any faux outrage coming from bleeding statues and locker-room humor. Yes, bash Buddhism [too] if you want; ... Cultivation of discipline, and being skillful is more important than sacred cows - or statues.”
Nirodha of Steps along the path posts a statement that links to his revision of the Ahara Sutta [Food for the Factors of Awakening]. This very readable and flowing revision uses Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s original translation and Jhanananda’s revision as bases. Writes Nirodha, “The text basically … deals with the fourth frame of mindfulness (Sati), mental states/phenomena, as listed in the Magga-vibhanga Sutta (Analysis of the Path).”
The great, sexy & cute Chalip of Zen Under the Skin put up two posts on Whining this week. Don't be repulsed by the subject matter, Chalip makes some good points about this shameless practice and doesn’t whine … much. In “Stop Whining,” she writes, “It’s not sexy. It’s not even cute. I’m getting to the point where I can see my whining mind and just notice it… being present to the fact that I am having an internal tantrum.” In her second post, “It Could be Worse,” she uses a technique that may be controversial: taking things that bug you, and then thinking about how what's merely awful could be worse.
