Showing posts with label Youth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Youth. Show all posts

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Zen and the Art of Occupying

Richard Schiffman (Huff Post), Occupy Zen, Globalrevolution.TV, Wisdom Quarterly
Occupy Wall Street vs. The Media (theinquisitr.com)

Zen is all about being. Being here. Being here now. We'd rather be-here-now. Having missed the Sixties, and having longed for that time our whole livea, it is a tremendous opportunity to sit in bigger more peaceful demonstrations against war, corporate greed, and cultural hypocrisy. That's all ww need do to be true to ourselves as practitioners of Zen. Sit. Schiffman gets it:

As a card carrying member of the Woodstock generation, it was like falling into a time warp: hundreds milling around armed with home made placards, the throb of African drums, young, half naked bodies sprawled on tarps, a teach-in under a tent, strains of Woody Guthrie.

For a veteran of the 1960s, it was deja vu all over again -- with one key difference -- computer banks and hand held cameras live-streaming the event, and emails of support flashing on large screens from similar encampments as far afield as Seattle, Berlin, and Buenos Aires.

At the entrance to the square, a circle of [demonstrators] was meditating cross-legged around a makeshift altar replete with didgeridoos and crystal skulls -- not to levitate the Pentagon, but to move some equally implacable edifices, the fortress-like financial institutions which ring Zuccotti Park.

Instead of a black bearded and ascetic Allen Ginsburg, the baseball-capped Russell Simmons was exhorting demonstrators to take back their government and their own increasingly imperiled futures. More


(All tees are ironic of course)

Monday, October 3, 2011

Karma Police: Protesting in 1984 vs. 2011 (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

(Against Apathy Blog, video by Earley15, "Karma Police" by Radiohead) Occupy SF
History is very educational. If we learn from it, there is no need to repeat it. Some gods say there is nothing new under the Sun. And back in 1984, the hardest workers among the other 99 percent of the British population went on strike. How most people viewed the action depended on how the mainstream media portrayed it.

Those who saw it from the side of police and bankers (funding the police and politicians) sympathized with the right. But when images started to emerge from the side of the demonstrators, suddenly people could sympathize with striking coal miners. At least the miners had a job.
US citizens, dissidents, students, and rabble-rousers who are occupying Wall Street are usually sinking into debt with or without a job. When they protest, to begin with people blame them. But as time goes on, it becomes clear that society (the banking-credit-debt system) will be upheld by paramilitary forces (peace officers) brutalizing anyone standing up for civil rights, economic fairness, constitutional rights, equality, or even basic human rights.

() How does Wall Street feel about protests? Unidentified occupants watching from on high in balconies along Wall Street sip champagne and watch the show (Source).

What are the bankers up to as poorly paid blue collar police do the dirty work of holding white collar crime in place?

Monday, September 5, 2011

Buddhism on Campus "Wakes Up"

Carlin Green, Wisdom Quarterly, US.wkup.org, Plumvillage.org, UK.wkup.org


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.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Ethan Nichtern comes to Los Angeles (video)



(Mark Molaro) Inspiring interview with Ethan Nichtern, founder and director of the Interdependence Project (The ID Project) in New York City and author of the new book One City: A Declaration of Interdependence. This is a fascinating and personal discussion of Nichtern's idea of interdependence, as well as an enlightening conversation about Eastern philosophies in general, such as Buddhism and meditation. Nichtern talks about a strong worldwide desire for a new social consciousness that properly balances inner peace with informed civic and social engagement and responsibility.

Rave "Riot" close up (video)



HOLLYWOOD (, July 27, 2011) At about 7:00 pm a crowd gathered on Hollywood Blvd. in front of the Jimmy Kimmel theater. The mob became angry when "Kaskade" left early. Tear gas was fired. The "riot" started after a movie premiere of the Electric Daisy Concert Experience -- a concert film featuring David Guetta, Deadmaus5, and Moby by director Kevin Kerslake -- was revealed to be a private affair, not open to the public and not followed by a free block party as promised. Kaskade, a popular techno DJ, tweeted a come one, come all party post that brought out young ravers excited about a party.