Let's our country back from bankers and police state officials by occupying it from coast to coast, from Wall Street and downtown Los Angeles. We are the 99% being destroyed by 1%.
[Kloncke] began gathering some friends into a group we call Bay Area Radical Sangha (BARS). BARS is a space for meditators with "radical" politics. How is that defined? Structural critiques of our racist, hetero-patriarchal, war-reliant, capitalist system.
Instead, we support one another in contemplative practice and development. Having met and talked with many of you, I know for a fact that everyone has something wonderful to contribute.
If you are established in some sort of contemplative practice (it does not have to be Buddhist, although this is the foundation of the group) and would like to join in building a committed, holistic center of radical struggle, you are warmly welcomed and appreciated. The first BARS meets in the San Francisco Bay Area. New groups are forming in New York at Occupy Wall Street and Los Angeles at this weekend's launch.
All are welcome to stand up in a peaceful demonstration (occupyla.org)
(TheOther99Percent) Consider donating $9.17 to a Media Fund to continue reports from the front line. OccupyWallStreet.org Police State Brutality on Wall Street (USLAWdotcom) This is a slow motion video analysis of the NYPD's mace/pepper spray deployment near Wall Street on Sept. 24, 2011. Alternate angle analyses indicate that this crime was retaliation for an immediately preceding interaction between an officer and some individuals on the sidewalk. More information and updates.
Shaolin Warrior Monk Operates from an L.A. Storefront Master Shi Yan Fan, Shaolin warrior monk (Simone Paz/Laweekly.com)
The Shaolin temple in China is 1,500 years old and one of the nation's most ancient sacred treasures, the source of all martial arts. The Shaolin temple in Los Angeles is 3 years old and is located in a Sherman Oaks storefront next to a pet store.
It is, however, no less sacred to those who seek refuge here from the modern world. Here, the warrior monk known as master Shi Yan Fan, or "Powerful Sky," teaches Zen Buddhism and Shaolin kung fu. "Shaolin means young forest. Shaofor young. Lin for trees. It means you can live forever," he'll say to those who wander in.
(Hellfil2e) The official ordination of the first Western Caucasian disciple to receive JieBa at Shaolin Temple in Henan, China, in centuries
The temple wasn't always there, at least not in the physical sense. When the master first came to Los Angeles from China, he would train students in community centers, gyms, parks, and forests. Eventually, the students got tired of carrying their weapons everywhere. They opened the temple, donating its rent, furnishings and upkeep.
Master Shi Yan Fan wasn't always a kung fu master. Actually, he wasn't always Shi Yan Fan. For all of his youth he was Italian-born Franco Testini. Though he has trained his entire life, only recently did he become an official Shaolin warrior monk, the first to do so in 300 years. He was branded on the head with nine incense sticks for five minutes. The last two minutes, when the incense burns through your skin, he says, "are very painful."
The ceremony was performed in 2007 at the Shaolin Temple in China when the Chinese government lifted its centuries-old ban on the practice. There was much fanfare. Preparations lasted a month. There were arduous training sessions and equally arduous lectures. Knees and foreheads became bruised from bowing for five hours a day. Some monks fainted from exhaustion. In the end, 100 monks were scheduled to receive the burn marks, but only 43 went through with it. "They got scared," Testini shrugs.
Testini has given his life to Shaolin. His mission is to share it with as many people as he can, and by share he means teach them compassion (a noble endeavor), to exercise every day (preaching to the choir) and to be happy without material possessions (good luck with that).
Training American disciples in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles
Testini speaks quickly and with a thick Italian accent. His assistant, Cindy, occasionally serves as unofficial interpreter. She also has given her life to Shaolin and, by extension, to her master, or as she calls him in Chinese, shifu. Training in Shaolin, the master taught her, isn't about tournaments and color belt systems and trophies. It's about learning to be Zen. More
[Kloncke] began gathering some friends into a group we call Bay Area Radical Sangha (BARS). BARS is a space for meditators with "radical" politics. How is that defined? Structural critiques of our racist, hetero-patriarchal, war-reliant, capitalist system.
Meditation Flash Mob: Noon, Saturday, October 8, 2011 at Pershing Square, downtown Los Angeles
All are welcome to stand up in a peaceful demonstration (occupyla.org)
Roger Leir
