Halloween, the Happiest Time of Year!

Wisdom Quarterly (Editors)

China's Gao Temple caverns were converted into a peculiar kind of Chinese hell, where devils are depicted torturing beings reborn in perdition. Do Buddhists go to heaven? (Deanspic/Flickr)

Halloween is America's greatest holiday. It is one of the few times we formally acknowledge that it is not all about us. Our ancestors are still with us in one form or another. In the Petavatthu, the Buddha explained that it was not possible for someone not to have relatives dwelling in the unfortunate abodes -- the realm of ghosts and subhuman existences collectively. This is because "relatives" is defined as going back seven generations (just as it extends for the Native Americans). What leads to rebirth on those unfortunate planes? The anti-precepts lead there: not abstaining or discouraging killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, deceiving, or drug taking. To abandon these and encourage others to abandon them is the way to the human world and higher worlds. But here now -- where we are shamed for any "deviant," "sinful," or "wrong" impulse -- Halloween is the only appropriate holiday for acting out in all the ways that are forbidden. It is no wonder Halloween has become more popular with US adults than children.

Halloween (Samhain) witch, angel, she-devil

For just one day I'll pretend I'm a s----y devil. My parents say it's crazy and they won't have it under their roof! But every other day of the year it's hypocrisy. How can pretending (and deceiving others) be preferable to play acting? Halloween is not when we are like this; Halloween is when we express how we think of being. Strangling the expression of everything unpleasant does not make it go away. It feeds it and keeps it alive with guilt, shame, and turning a blind eye. Let it see the light of day. Maybe it's not as much to be afraid of as we fear. It would be less worse to die than to live always fearing death. Whosoever would purposely turn from the truth, whatever the truth may be, is no truthseeker.

(Barbara Virgo Hobbs/Flickr.com)

Family Guy: Sugar is the cause of fast aging, rotting, and mental instability as Stewie Duck and Pink Brian find (tv.ign.com).

Foreclosure firm mocks evicted at Halloween party
Lindsay Lohan spends Halloween at county morgue
The famous [Hindu] "Trinity" concept not in Bible
Haunted Magic Castle burns on Halloween
Fire officials are trying assess the damage after a greater-alarm fire ripped through the famed Magic Castle in the Hollywood Hills on Monday. Fire crews said the blaze was contained largely to the attic and walls of the historic venue but that there might be significant water damage. There is no immediate cause for the blaze...

Perseus Cluster Screaming Skull space jack 'o lantern is actually a Chandra image of galaxies in X-rays (A. Fabian, et al./IoA Cambridge/NASA/Space.com).

Relationship Dharma

Relationships are great. They give our lives meaning. And there is probably nothing that leads more people to spirituality in general and Buddhism in specific than the suffering that comes from them. We do not have to wait to the break up to sometimes feel empty, jilted, cheated on, or dissatisfied. All we have in life are relationships -- most of them not romantic. So why is the romance so tough? Maybe it's the roles we play. Kloncke has a great take on it.

A couple who meditates in bed together... usually ends up doing something else. Sit in the living room.

Relationship Dhamma
Katie (Kloncke.com), tweaked with love by Wisdom Quarterly
Concluding this spontaneous miniseries on companionship (spontaneous yes, but maybe not concluding), we arrive at Ryan. Who? You know, my partner, the guy from Kale vs. Flowers and Bad Good Romance.

The other day, I read a passage from James Agee’s Southern novel A Death in the Family that reminded me of our household dynamic. Specifically, it reminded me of the ways we negotiate gendered roles, try to both anticipate and discuss each others’ needs, and occasionally discover “dhamma,” or insights about the nature of things, right in the (dis)comfort of our own home.

In this scene from the book, Jay is jolted awake in the dead of night thanks to a call... Jay has decided to take the train up to his parents’ town, and he and his wife Mary, also awakened by the phone call, are getting him ready to leave.

Ryan tells this funny joke sometimes about one method -- half-conscious at best -- by which person X tries to evade domestic work and pile it on a partner:

• “But you’re so good at [cooking, doing laundry, calming a fretful child]. If I do it, I’ll just [bleep] it up.”
  

This is a passive-aggressive compliment-trap, which leaves the other person feeling obligated to do the thing s/he is so much better at doing.

Obviously, this is one of the big problems with the naturalization of gender roles in hetero-normative family systems. Men are raised to believe that they don’t have to learn how to cook/clean/mend/mind children because women are so naturally good at it. More

Feedback

• This s*cks, what about the sex? Dharma-sharma, Zen pita sandwich. If we encouraged gutsier behavior from American Buddhist guys, or tamped down women telling people to have boundaries all over the place, I for one would be a happier camper. Let free love be free. Chemistry first, then worry about the details? - Lovedoll
  
• Oh, Katie. My heart feels good reading this, I’ve been thinking about things like this, and I love when I get to hear where you’re thinking and the spaces you make for it. A blessing! - Leorasf
  
• I've been practicing and studying the Buddha Way since 1993 and exploring the question "What is engaged Buddhism?" since the late 90s. As former executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and editor of its journal, Turning Wheel, I was privileged to meet many practitioners of engaged Dharma including Robert Aitken Roshi, who told me that THERE IS NO BUDDHISM THAT IS NOT ENGAGED. Now I direct the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Program along with Roshi Joan Halifax, where we forge new pathways of everyday engagement and servant leadership. - Maia Duerr

Mrs. and Mr. Goenka practice the Art of Living as married householders (dhamma.org)

I'll kick your @$$... once I finish this video game

V. Tran, Seven Dharmachari, Pat Macpherson (Wisdom Quarterly)

5:30 reveals why* we have difficulty mastering either martial arts or meditation (Tstyle9).

This short documentary explores the myth and reality of the "One Inch Punch," featuring interviews with Eastern master Dr. Ze Lo (instructor Jeet Kune Do) and Western Wing Chun master Will Y.

It highlights the acting of Buddhist actress Uma Thurman (pictured left), daughter of former Tibetan Buddhist monk Prof. Robert Thurman), in "Kill Bill." It deals with what Bruce Lee demonstrated years ago as filmed and edited by Victor Tran.

The core message is simple: It is not the physical aspects of the exercise but the mental (concentration, absorption, jhana, or zen) and "spiritual" (breath, chi, qi, prana, spiritus) aspects that actually matter.

Chi is what gives the punch its power. Internal chi is far more important than external fighting because, as karma teaches, misdirected chi always turns against the practitioner. Chi can be used in meditation to great benefit. Its use in jhana leads to a meditative counterpart sign (nimitta). This establishes one and makes fruitful mindfulness/insight (vipassana) practice possible.

Who is Robert A. F. Thurman? He is referred to by the New York Times magazine as "The Dalai Lama's man in America." Scholar, author, former Tibetan Buddhist monk, co-founder with Richard Gere of Tibet House in New York City, a close personal friend of the 14th Dalai Lama, and father of five children including the actress, Uma Thurman, he is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. TIME magazine named him one of the "25 Most Influential Americans." He has lectured all over the world as his charisma and enthusiasm draw packed audiences.

Quentin Tarantino exploits Uma, Asian culture, martial arts, Lucy Liu, and even the original Mr. Kung Fu (Kwai Chang Caine) actor David Carradine all in one gory action thriller.

*Video Games are Ruining Us

WARNING: This funny "Mad TV" clip alludes to a cruel prank on boys and girls.

Marijuana: Medicine or Poison?

Wisdom Quarterly

Celebrated in the media, frowned on by cops (on duty), abused by the public, bemoaned by collaterally damaged victims of others' abuse... pot is funny; that doesn't make it healthy. How to quit pot addiction

The Buddha did NOT smoke marijuana, survive on hemp seeds, or advocate the consumption of any intoxicant, no matter what Cypress Hill or hempsters suggest. (Hemp good, drug harmful).

On the contrary, the fifth precept runs: "I undertake to abstain from consuming intoxicants that occasion heedlessness." Laying around sinking like a stone instead of advancing is spoken of as a terrible thing in the Advice to Householders.

In fact, he warned that "There are, young householder, six miserable consequences to indulging in intoxicants that occasion heedlessness: loss of wealth, increase in quarrels, susceptibility to disease, loss of reputation, indecent exposure, and weakened intellect" (Sigalovada Sutra).

If people get stoned, that's on them. The crime is thinking, saying, or acting as if the Buddha is applauding or winking.

• Wisdom Quarterly's BOTTOM LINE: We don't care if you smoke it, but don't allow yourself to be deluded into thinking it's a "Buddhist" thing to do. (If you "have" to have it, note what the HHC says is good about it*).

Marijuana is UNSAFE

Sam de Brito (smh.com.au)

Before we answer this, let me say I've smoked more dope than 95 per cent of readers, guaranteed. For close to 20 years I inhaled leaf, tip, buds, bush heads, hydro, chocolate "Buddha," sinsemilla [seedless], Mexican dirt weed, power skunk, Maui wowie, black hash, brown hash, green hash, hash oil, the putty out of downpipes... even ground up seeds and stems.

I've cooked with pot, eaten it [along with countless munchies] in cakes, brownies, banana bread, and straight off the plant. I've drunk it in thick shakes and smoothies, teas, bong water and, once, smeared resin on my eyeballs because someone told me it would get me stoned. (It didn't work).

I've grown it, stolen in, given it away, traded it for a wetsuit, even pretended it was parsley and kangaroo scat when selling it. So please don't tell me I'm anti-dope.

I just reckon it's time that people, in an attempt to sound enlightened, stop telling the world that "marijuana is harmless [or marijuana is healthy]." Anyone who's been around it for long enough knows that's not true.

I do not know whether others have ever heard voices after taking drugs. But I have, several times, and it used to be what I paid good money for. The problem was, as my drug career deepened and lengthened, those pesky head noises would appear after just one cone of hydro (hydroponically-grown). And there's the rub.

Hydro-marijuana is everywhere nowadays. It's the dope of choice for younger smokers, because nothing else delivers the punch and the value for money like a knuckle of super-sticky buds out of some biker's basement grow-room.

If one examines a hydro set-up, it is obvious they get hot and humid. Thus they are a magnet for every type of bug and insect within a mile. This is why a lot of growers hit their plants with a cocktail of pesticides and fungicides that make Agent Orange look like asthma medicine.

This means the plants, and the buds kids smoke, are also chock full of those pesticides. This is in addition to chemical fertilizers chosen by growers whose knowledge of chemicals and their effect on the human brain is limited to nonexistent. More

• First language spoken on Earth: Sanskrit, Egyptian, Hebrew, Ugga-Ugga?
• Why did the Three Wise Men [Magi, Buddhist monks from India according to the BBC] consider Frankincense and Myrrh good gifts for child lama/infant tulku/baby Jesus?
• Ludwig van Beethoven was black (half Moor, half European)
• UFO witness Jeff Conaway died of drug addiction, pneumonia

Treatment

The negative effects of marijuana addiction will impact an individual physically, emotionally, psychologically, and socially, causing the person's life to be unproductive and even disconcerting. Fortunately, addiction treatment can help establish energy and progress to individuals robbed of life by marijuana addiction. There is a reason why the individual smokes. And all of those reasons rolled up into one do change the fact that they experience harm as a result. It is not enough to switch addictions. More

• *Why is weed good? The problem with even organic (pesticide-free) cannabis is that the government and private growers have bred plants to drastically increase THC levels. In the process, they lowered levels of potentially beneficial (entheogenic?) components called cannabinoids like CDB, CBN, and THCV, according to Stephen DeAngelo (Harborside Health Center) in a mind blowing, pro-pot interview with Caroline Casey.
• AUDIO: Cannabis Club HHC, Medical Dispensaries

Weiner admits lying: "Weinergate" (video)

Some people say "sexual misconduct" is harmless or a relatively small thing these days. But the fact is it is just as devastating to family, society, and the individual. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in good company.

NEW YORK – A tearful Representative [and likely sex addict, narcissist, sociopath, adulterer, liar, possible Internet pornographer, Twitter abuser, childhood bullying victim, and megalomaniac] politician Weiner today admitted sending a lewd photo of his underwear-clad crotch to a young woman over Twitter and then lying repeatedly to protect himself.

In a flash of defiance, Weiner refused to resign even as Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for a House ethics investigation into whether he broke the rules. The extraordinary confession at a packed Manhattan news conference was a remarkable turn of events for the brash Weiner, who conceded to a "hugely regrettable" lapse in judgment. More

• VIDEO analysis: Daily Conversation
• Man outs girlfriend's abortion on billboard after being jilted