Convention Center overwhelmed by Girltopia (Wisdom Quarterly/Amber Dorrian).
LOS ANGELES, California - The Convention Center was overwhelmed by Girl Scouts, Brownies, Webelos, feminists, and moms, moms, moms as a fierce snowstorm -- brought on very early as a result of global climate chaos -- ruins Halloween weekend trick or treating for the Northeast United States. The storm has knocked out power to 2.7 million, snarled air and highway travel, and dumped more than 2 feet of snow in a some spots as it slowly moves north. The solar-powered Convention Center hums along as officials warned it could be days before many on the East Coast see electricity restored. And under those warm florescent lights, GIRLTOPIA is flourishing in sunny SoCal, not far from the central Occupy protest, next door to The Green Fest. It was sold out. Buy tickets early for next time.
The Green Fest comes to Los Angeles this weekend. The NYC Green Festival will now be held on Earth Day weekend, April 21-22, 2012. Saving the world means going green. Gaia, Mother Nature, our planet Earth is green. Corporations are green with envy and do not mind going green when it produces that other form of green (greenbacks).
What the world needs now is sustainability, citizen gardening, permaculture farming, natural ingredients over chemicals and Monsanto monstrosities. But how? This festival is all about how. The traditions and technologies already exist, already work, already have companies behind them waiting for implementation, already sit under a booth tent waiting to be seen. Come see.
Wisdom Quarterly visited the San Francisco version and wondered why the world was still waiting. This location is within walking distance of the Occupy Los Angeles site. The fest features Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!), Medea Benjamin (Code Pink), The [formerly evil, military-industrial complex supporting] Economic Hitman, Yoga Zone, health news, and more...
I'm quite busy as school starts again. My personal experience with insight-meditation scholar-practitioner Sayalay Susila is brief but has really impacted me. I met her a month before the vipassana retreat she conducted at The Bhavana Society, West Virginia. I was at her public talks around Washington, DC. Somehow I ended up being the youngest person in attendance.
Later, when I was asking Sister Susila a question, she instead asked me my age. She told me it was inspiring to her to see someone so young practicing and wanting to learn about the Dharma.
us.wkup.org (indiegogo.com)
Honestly, I have no groundbreaking insights, no inspiring anecdotes, no moving stories of dazzling lights in absorption. I'm just eager to learn, and I was in the right place at the right time to meet a Buddhist nun who knows so much.
It was beneficial for me to attend Buddhist talks in public libraries staring at Mark Twain and a raft of magazines about dieting and cooking, dating and being happy, economic news and war. It was beneficial because she spoke about things never heard before -- the "Exposition of the Elements" (Dhātuvibhanga Sutta) and the Five Aggregates in her talks.
These two topics formed the basis of the insight-meditation (vipassana) instructions she gave us during the retreat, so I was glad I had been familiarized with them beforehand. If I could encourage others to hear such thing, what a change it might make in the country. But I'm only in college; what can I do? Something To Do: Waking Up What should we do when we feel overwhelmed by despair, despair coming from inside of us and despair about the world's situation? How can we find the energy, the strength to do something about it?
Speaking at Plum Village in 2011, Thay uses the Buddha's own life to encourage us. Youth, let's nourish ourselves with the joyful energy of sisterhood/brotherhood and the strength of a clear aspiration to do something helpful.
Insight meditation master Pa Auk Sayadaw's chief female disciple, Sayalay Susila, gave a week long end-of-summer insight (vipassana) meditation retreat. This is Part 1 describing its benefits and the experience of various attendees.
BHAVANA SOCIETY, West Virginia - Many people desire to meditate but do not know where to start. Maybe they have already started and they do not know how to make progress. Perhaps they feel lost, unguided, and are beginning to to think, “I can’t do this by myself; I’m in over my head.”
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once said, “In the beginning, deciding to try the practice of meditation is just leaping to some conclusion about what to do. In doing the practice at the beginning, rather than really meditating, you just imagine that you are meditating. So to begin with, the whole practice is based on confusion.”
I felt that confusion for many months. My progress was slow, cluttered, and unclear. Then suddenly the opportunity to attend a retreat presented itself. I followed my intuition, desiring to deepen and strengthen my practice. I found myself on a five-day retreat in the mountains of West Virginia.
What is a retreat? Why would anyone want to attend one?
When one really yearns to know the way something happens or functions, what do they do? In sports, we use a slow-motion camera to break down and dissect the process, say, the batter’s swing.
Just so on retreat. The mind is allowed to slow down, to become clear and simple so we can see its many aspects. We do not need to worry about anything. We let go, leave our daily concerns behind. And like muddy water, the mind settles down. It becomes clearer and sharper as the clutter settles out.
Another wonderful benefit to going on retreat is constant access to a teacher. Someone is there to guide, to direct the practice in a very beneficial way. The confusion of not knowing what to do or how to do it is replaced by confidence in a tangible meditation practice.
Sayalay's PowerPoint presentation on Abhidharma
During a retreat, one is surrounded by like-minded people, walking the same path, providing one another inspiration and energy.
What is it not? A retreat is not some strange regimented religious "boot camp" forcing recruits to follow a set of austere rules.
A retreat is an incredibly caring, open, and friendly environment where retreatants' needs are met by people who genuinely care about the progress and well-being of participants. It is a place where one can make real progress watching the mind open up like an intricate bud unfolding in the nurturing sunlight.
(Living Green Channel) For big business, going "green" has become the trendy and profitable thing to do: On the shelves of any store we can find products that boast "green" claims -- eco-friendly, energy-efficient, organic, partially recycled.
But how many of these claims do you think are either partly untrue or completely false? If you guessed that 99.9% are false, you are correct! It's called whitewashing, only it's green. But the only green thing about them is the money to be made as corporations go green with envy for natural product companies' gains in market share.
According to a study from Terrachoice Environmental Marketing, out of 1,018 common consumer products reviewed, only one product did not commit one of the "Six Sins of Greenwashing."
When looking for an eco-friendly product that actually backs up its claims by being good for the planet, where can we turn?
Unfortunately this study shows that these products do not exist. Here's why: According to Terrachoice's research, over 50% of products tested with "eco-friendly" labels fail to mention the enormous environmental drawbacks such as containing hazardous waste and travel costs.
These need to be factored in when considering to buy and eco-friendly product. For example, even eco-popular CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) contain mercury. This means they cannot be thrown away in the trash. (They are hazardous waste that need to be disposed of properly or they will pollute the environment). Moreover, 90% of them have been manufactured and shipped from China! This is called the "sin of hidden trade-off" by Terrachoice.
Think of it this way. No matter which way you slice it, a can of soda will never be good for our health or the health of the environment. Diet soda has replaced the [14 teaspoons per can of] corn and cane sugar with an artificial sweetener that has proven to be an excito-toxin and a known carcinogen. In many cases the diet sodas still contain excessive amounts of caffeine, artificial chemicals: colorings, flavors, phthalates (from the plastic lining inside the aluminum can). Forget the nonexistent nutritional value of carbonated and sweetened chemicals harmful to our health.
When we factor in a manufactured can that needs to be recycled and the travel costs, what is the impact on our health and the environment?
But by calling their products "green," companies are making a mint. Let's take a stand against greenwashing.
Convention Center overwhelmed by Girltopia (Wisdom Quarterly/Amber Dorrian).
