by
Ethan Nichtern
(for more information on the Interdependence Project, visit http://theidproject.org)I'll admit it, I've been listening to
Lady Gaga this last week. Her new album
The Fame Monster is out today. Call it a Bad Romance, and call me a dharma
Paparazzi. And, forever interested in culture, I've been talking to people about her. We need to talk about her, don't we? She might be the next
Madonna, who has been one of the biggest zeitgeist influences of the past generation. Even
Madonna is talking about Lady Gaga. That means you've arrived on the scene and probably aren't leaving.
It's pretty interesting what thoughtful people think of this 23 year-old phenom. My fashion friends think she's a genuine heroine of couture, artistically gifted with the IT factor. My
Buddhist friends interested in deconstructed identity love her ironic dance with celebrity. My serious yogi/meditator friends interested in navel-gazing are pretty much the only ones who say "Lady who? Why you talking like a baby?"
by Davee Evans
When I saw this clock created by artist Bertrand Planes, I thought every Buddhist household needs one. I'd put mine right by the door, so I couldn't miss it as I left for work each morning. It's so easy to forget that our time is limited. Each day blends into the next, and in spite of milestones passing I for one live a life where it feels like this will go on forever. And yet my clock would already be disturbingly near the 6 o'clock position.
Mssr. Planes took a regular clock and changed the gearing to slow it down 61,320 fold – so one full rotation of the clock would approximate our expected lifespan, and he then changed the numbers on the clock to be years. I'd like to mass produce these. Too much of a downer to sell? Perhaps they would need to be DIY, because your livelihood really would impact how many years to put on the clock. Do you have risky hobbies? If you're one of the many people today trying to quit smoking, as part of the Great American Smokeout, you could highlight the final years gained from quitting.
Cudos for any clever way to remember that time is short. Do you have any things around the house that remind you of this painful reality?
by Jerry Kolber,
www.ThreeDollarDinner.com.
For more about the IDP check out
The Interdependence Project.
Sarah Palin's book
Going Rogue has just come out and she's using the release as another opportunity to prove why she is just anther in a long line of folks who have squandered the power of having national attention. Rather than looking deep into the unifying ideas of her own Christian tradition, and transforming her own fear, selfishness, and separateness into a positive force in national politics, she continues to peddle and parade and commodify her insecurities in the guise of false morality, all while watching over her shoulder for the scantily clad shadow figure of baby daddy
Levi Johnston. This is a great thing for Buddhists.
Volunteer (and One City blogger) Paul Griffin with the streets to himself at dawn
By Stillman Brown
For 24 hours last Friday and Saturday volunteers from the ID Project sat in the large display windows at ABC Carpet & Home at the corner of Broadway and 19th Street in New York and meditated. I knew this event was something different - a bit radical, perhaps a bit of a stunt - but I had no idea it would generate the energy and emotion it did from the sitters and people on the street.
by
Ellen ScordatoSO much to say about the
Interdependence Project 24-hour
meditation marathon in the windows of
ABC Carpet & Home, a high-end home furnishings store in Manhattan, this weekend.
My angle here: Was this anything more than a stunt, from a practice point of view? Here are my impressions -- and my photo, below - from the inside looking out.
I sat for 2 shifts, totalling 8 hours, from 7am to 3pm on Saturday. First off, I am not an early morning person on weekends.
Robert Chender has been a practitioner and teacher in the Shambhala tradition for many years, and is also a student and practitioner of certain shamanic traditions, including the Munay-ki initiations of the Inca shamanic tradition. In this talk he explores...
Meditating Businessman...
by Ethan NichternFrom the "Never-Thought-I'd-See-The-Day" Department, Hip Hop Legend and Wu Tang Clan charter member, The RZA, was interviewed about Buddhism, Right Speech and the Heart Sutra for the Shambhala Sun blog by my good friend Rod Meade Sperry. Check...
"Wakefulness is our natural state: enlightened, complete, perfect in wisdom and compassion. It's not something outside ourselves that we need to attain or become. But it's also true that some effort is required to get in touch with it--and that...
Michelle Provenzano is a New York-based artist and I.D. Project regular who is often inspired to create drawings as part of her engagement with the Heartcore Dharma series. Here is a drawing inspired by Monday's discussion on The Three Disciplines. ...
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 by Jerry Kolber. Jerry is a media obsessed Buddhist televison producer in New York City. follow him at twitter.com/JerryKolber - or on Twitteleh. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";...
"It is useless to try to willfully change ourselves. We are much too entrenched in our own habitual patterns and in maintaining physical and psychological survival. In fact, sometimes the more we focus on trying to change ourselves, the more...
The Balloon Boy story - a Colorado family released a UFO-like weather balloon and pretended their son was aboard to garner media attention - has gotten weirder and weirder since it's inception as a relatively mundane Child In Crisis news...
"Wakefulness is our natural state: enlightened, complete, perfect in wisdom and compassion. It's not something outside ourselves that we need to attain or become. But it's also true that some effort is required to get in touch with it--and...
by Jon RubinsteinI'm a talent and literary manager. Recently, a problem was brought to my attention regarding an upcoming release. So we all got on the phone--movie studio executives, publicists, agents, and myself--to discuss the situation and see if we...
by Patrick GronemanSee it's all about the cheddar, nobody do it better. "Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news" - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche...
by Ellen ScordatoPop culture thermometer: Cold. Deathly cold. Cold and dead is hot. Zombieland was the top-grossing movie this past weekend. . Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was one of the near-moribund book publishing industry's few runaway success stories last year....
by Ethan NichternOn November 6 & 7, the Buddhist-inspired Interdependence Project (which creates this blog for your education and/or amusement) will be hosting our largest fundraiser and event to date in the form of a 24- hour Meditation Marathon...
by Ethan NichternAccording to the Associated Press, the interim Mayor of Memphis, Myron Lowery concocted a new way to greet His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Fist Bump! Yes, that's right. He also said "Hello, Dalai." Apparently his Holiness was a...
Jay-Z 's got '99 problems' but a stanky yoga mat ain't one. Jay's been opening for the UK based band Coldplay the past month and has noticed the flexible on stage presence of Lead Singer Chris Martin:'Chris hasn't tried to...
Today is The International Day of Peace! The Karmapa recently shared one of his methods for avoiding aggression ... by playing video games!"All of us have emotions, happy emotions, sad emotions, displeased emotions and we need to figure out...
B-B-B-Buddha of the week!A lovely wheatpaste piece up onBogart Street, inBushwick, part ofBrooklyn, it'sBuddha! Thanks to IDP member Patrick Groneman for this photo.Would be great if the wheatpaste artist came forth too -- spread it around!...
Music has a lot of power. It can make you laugh, it can make you cry, it can bring back memories long forgotten and it can help you create new ones. I love music and my tastes are about as...
Buddha of the week, courtesy of Dharma Dave S, Maloneki, and boingboing.netPears grown in the shape of a buddha. Whoa!...
A few months ago Triumurti community founder Purna Steinitz delivered a rare public talk at the IDP on the topic of practice in relationships. Since then "Crushed by Love" has been one of the most downloaded episodes of the IDP...
A recent Boston Globe article points to a trend of young adults turning to Meditation as a means of dealing with the speed up of life that comes from becoming an adult in the age of the internet:"At a time...
I just opened my Facebook page today and got bombarded with friend after friend who had posted the following to their facebook status: "Ethan Nichtern believes that no one should die because they cannot afford health care, and nobody should...
Silvery wading pools! Dance! People in the trees! . Queens, New York: center for dharma artsBuddhism and the arts: From Zen calligraphy to the compositions of John Cage and Meredith Monk, to the Beasties and Lou Reed, dharma and arts...
In honor of the passage of Vermont's same-sex marriage law, Ben & Jerry's has announced that for 30 days (only in Vermont), "Chubby Hubby" ice cream will be sold as "Hubby Hubby." Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream could not be reached...
Well, of course that's sort of a silly thing to say. That's like saying Buddhism is the World's Best Religion. Who would ever make such a claim? But the new Interdependence Project website is pretty great. Lots to check out...
Glamour magazine showed a plus-size model with a belly! Stop the presses! Photo!(Click on the link to see it, because Glamour owns the photo.)This seems like an incredibly lightweight (ahem) topic for a Buddhist blog post, but returning from almost...
This week I had the opportunity to read and see two radically different narratives about the traumas of immigration, and I thought I'd offer each a short review: the movie was District 9 by South African Neil Blomkamp and the...
An interesting piece by Robert Wright about his first experience with a Vipassana retreat, and his anticipation of the second one he will shortly undertake.. . . I attended my first and only silent meditation retreat. It was just about...
"Let the greatness infuse every detail" - Michael CarrollThis week on the ID Project Podcast we have Part 2 of a very lively Guest Lecture by Michael Carroll. Michael is author of Awake at Work and The Mindful Leader and...
This month there's two BoMs!Two friends of mine, who don't know each other, just ran into one another in Bangkok on their peripatetic ways. This walking buddha is posted in their honor.Fotograf / Photographer: Heinrich Damm I just returned from...
"Confidence and vulnerability are the exact same thing" - Michael CarrollThis week on the ID Project Podcast we have Part 1 of a very lively Guest Lecture by Michael Carroll. Michael is author of Awake at Work and The Mindful...
So Arj Barker of the great HBO show Flight of the Conchords (well, Season one was great at least) made this send-up of meditation students and people who practice yoga for all the wrong reasons. (UPDATE: The Video is now...
It was a quiet Sunday morning, just before a thunderstorm was to break out over New York City. The sky was bright and gray at the same time, with clouds closing in over 27th Street like a camera shutter. Little...
It was a quiet Sunday morning, just before a thunderstorm was to break out over New York City. The sky was bright and gray at the same time, with clouds closing in over 27th Street like a camera shutter. Little...
Merce Cunningham died last night. He was 90 years old. Groundbreaking dance and performance visionary of the 20th and 21st century, exceptional performer and theorist, Merce created art until the end, choreographing a piece this winter at Brooklyn Academy of Music...
Today's New York Times Magazine ran a story, Love in 2-D, by Lisa Katayama about Japanese men (though women do it too) who engage in relationships with imaginary characters. She writes, "These 2-D lovers, as they are called, are a...
In this week's podcast Ethan Nicthern takes us through the many obstacles to developing a regular meditation practice, how to overcome them and what the benefits are to doing so. What are the things we tell ourselves to avoid...
Jon Stewart gave it to the Birthers' Movement last night. Can we focus on something more important? And I'm not talking about today's focus on President Obama's Gates commentary last night. The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p...
My post Freedom From Religion: Buddhism Wins Best Religion in the World Award last week set off quite a stir around these here 'nets. Over at Paramita they offer to send an 11 month old girl to pick up the...
I ran into this courtesy of the unconsumption blog. It is a video called La Victoire sur les Sachets, or victory on the plastics bags. It is a short film of an African community where plastic bags are transformed from...
I love Adam Yauch! But the winds of impermanence blow cold this July day.Adam "MCA" Yauch, leader of the Beastie Boys and practicing Tibetan buddhist, has cancer -- a salivary gland tumor, apparently not life-threatening -- and the Beasties are...
This week on the ID Project Podcast, Juan Carlos-Castro takes us through the 12 Nidanas, a structure in Buddhist Philosophy that helps us to understand the "links in the chain of conditioned co-production", or put another way, the structure of...
Hey Baseball Fans: Some people are saying President Obama throws like a girl after his all-star game pitch last night. I couldn't tell; the camera work was horrible. Was Obama booed? Everything I saw reported thunderous applause. And btw, when...
This is a guest post by Sharon Salzberg for the One City Blog. Sharon is one of three Buddhist lineage mentors for the Interdependence Project. She is also one of the foremost (and most awesome) Buddhist meditation teachers in...
Money Magazine just revealed Money Magazine: Best Places to Live. It's a strange list for 2009. Tops is...drumroll...Louisville, CO. Um...ok. Warren, NJ is #6! Great! Whatever you say. I thought #1 was Brooklyn. What is the point of these top...
This week on the ID Project Podcast Crystal Gandrud takes us past many of the common misconceptions surrounding the Buddhist Definition of Karma to a deeper understanding that reveals important connections between the concepts of interdependence, non-self and Karma.You can...
From more than 700 images of buddha contributed to the Lens Culture site, this is labeledEllen's Buddha © Seth Laderman 2007I've never met or heard of Seth, but I clicked on the image because it looked like it had a...
Inspired by reading the life story of Yogi Ransuratkumar and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's "Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior", Jessica Rasp takes us on a journey into an insight from a recent solitary retreat, encapsulated in the phrase "Space is...
Rumors of Rick Astley's Death are false, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, supposedly today has seen massive internet rumors of the deaths of George Clooney, Britney Spears, and others. Apparently Britney Spear's fake death was due to a hacked twitter...
Pina Bausch died Tuesday, five short days following her cancer diagnosis. German choreographer bad-ass, founder of the groundbreaking company Tanztheater, and one the most beloved dance innovators of my generation, Pina Bausch's death is a shock. ...
The King of Pop, Michael Jackson is Dead, after going into cardiac arrest. Michael Jackson, like him or hate him, might be the biggest icon of Generation X. Ever. Everybody dies, even Michael Jackson dies. Death is real, it comes...
This year at the Burning Man Project, a 20 foot bunny is going to seek enlightenment. How do I know this? Well, last year I contributed a leaf to a New York based multi-media art project I thought was cool...
I recently rented "Adi Shankaracharya," the first and only movie made entirely in Sanskrit. It's a biopic of Shankara, an 8th century Hindu saint who was perhaps the most important exponent of Advaita Vedanta (a Hindu tradition). I can't say...
This week on the ID Project podcast is Part 2 Father Thomas Ryan's Guest Lecture at the ID Project. Part 1 contrained an outline and history of a form of Christian Contemplative Meditation known as Lectio Divina ("Active Listening"). ...
Zoketsu Norman Fischer, a senior dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center, has an interesting article in the latest issue of Buddhadharma magazine (a portion of which is available online). In the article he states that as a teacher, he has...
So the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor are set for July 13. Let the projections begin!There are lots of projections out there, but the most mystifying yet illuminating may well be this one, sent to me for this week's Buddha...
Inspired by our Hardcore Dharma discussion from week 10 on the 3 Marks of Existence, Michelle Provenzano, a New York-based artist and meditator, created this drawing called "Brain Friend."....
This week on the ID Project podcast is Part 1 of an inspiring Guest Lecture by Father Thomas Ryan. In it, he leads our community through a form of Christian Contemplative Meditation known as Lectio Divina ("Active Listening"). He...
According to an article yesterday in USA Today, meditation, "once thought of as an esoteric, mystical pursuit . . . is going mainstream." One might argue that if it's in USA Today, it already is mainstream, but in any case. ....
For many theatre devotees, this past Sunday was the dramatic equivalent of the Superbowl - the Tony Awards. When I was younger I got so excited for the evening and watched it on TV with my family, but in past...
As has been noted, actor David Carradine died recently, in Thailand, under circumstances suggesting an autoerotic asphyxiation accident. There. That's about it. (photo by Jano Rohleder)Lead singer of INXS, Michael Hutchence, died similarly 12 years ago, in Sydney, Australia. Yet...
The world continues to mourn one of the pseudo-masters of eastern spirituality, David Carradine, in our culture's peculiar way: we are dying to see the Carradine hanging photo. Thai Rath, a local paper, has supposedly published a Carradine death photo,...
JD Salinger is suing pseudonymous John David California for penning an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye. The 90-year-old reclusive author, currently living in New Hampshire, objects to California's projection in which Holden Caulfield, at 76 years...
co-written by Nuala Clarke and Patrick Groneman (aka namenorg)Nuala: I was walking down the Bowery and a friend told me that the next show at The New Museum was called Younger than Jesus. Got it...younger than Jesus when he died...
Susan Boyle's 2nd Performance on Britain's Got Talent was another hit. Check out the youtube clip of her Semifinal song at the 2009 competition:...
submitted by Roger Padmakara Bygott, a One City reader from the UK:A Buddha Rupa in the Manchester Buddhist Centre. The rupa was sculpted by British Buddhist artist Chintamani, a member of the Western Buddhist Order.Roger is an amateur photographer who...
John Markoff's article in The New York Times today, The Coming Superbrain, looks at the potentialities and risks of developing "self-aware and superhuman" machines. What ensues is the usual debate between those who believe that this type of artificial intelligence (A.I.) is the...
Wow! And you can buy it on a t-shirt too! Thnx Jen...
Each week, New York-based artist Michelle Provenzano creates a drawing based on our weekly discussion at Hardcore Dharma. Here is her work inspired by the teaching on the 3 Yanas. ...
John Cage, Zen student of D.T. Suzuki, wrote the following piece.Brilliant display of orchestral meditation, or too gimmicky and easy to achieve?...
In this week's podcast Ethan leads a discussion on how the Buddha's teachings of the 8 Traps of Hope and Fear (Tradionally called The 8 Wordly Concerns) relate to our daily battles with success and failure. How do we try...
I found this series of videos on Heart Transplant recipients who retained memories from the late anonymous donors whose heart they carry. The series starts with more emotional "homecoming" type stories but soon moves into some hard science that points...
What a joy to spend time with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's poetry! A student of mine canceled this afternoon, so I had the good fortune of having a few free hours to sit on my balcony--which, incidentally, my girlfriend has recently...
Jealousy strikes us all in different ways. Sympathetic joy, (mudita for those of you pali/sanskrit geeks) refers to a a series of guided meditations offered by the Buddhist tradition to overcome the insidious human poison of envy. I have found...
A hilarious send-up of attention deficit society brought to you by Slate and "Flutter" I really like the phrase "Attention Deficit Society." ...
So apparently, after 12 fantastic years, I am no longer #1. "Emily" has lost its spot as the most popular name for girls. Now it's Emma. Whatever....
Welcome to Buddha of the Month, a (roughly) monthly post that features images of the Buddha in contemporary art, popular culture, fine art - or wherever the tathagata catches our fancy. This one's by seminal video artist Nam June Paik:...
The topic for our open Monday discussions this month all center around Pema Chodron's book Comfortable with Uncertainty. Jessica Rasp recently led a class on "The Wisdom of No Exit" and kicked things off with an except from a great...
So there's a growing trend comparing Barack Obama to Spock....
Co-Written by Nuala Clarke and Patrick Groneman"Painting is a medium in which the mind can actualize itself; it is a medium of thought...Painting is...the mind realizing itself in color and space." - Robert Motherwell On Friday May 1st, the...
I was on the train, reading poetry, when I stumbled upon a delightful Philip Appleman poem that I thought simply must be included in the dharma poetry series. Yes, indeed! The poem begins as follows:O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,gimmie...
Yup Yup. James T. Kirk and Spock have found the fountain of youth. 11th time's the charm....
That Hope and Fear image that Ethan included in his last post was designed by IDP Teacher Juan-Carlos Castro to accompany his talk called "No Fear of Fear", which addresses the fear of space and tactics of avoiding space. Lucky...
This Here and There Map is a really interesting integration of intuitive and analytical map experience. You can easily locate yourself within your immediate surroundings as well as look off to the horizon and see your potential destinations...so cool. ...
Allen Ginsberg is arguably the most well-known Buddhist poet. Famously, he met Chogyam Trungpa on the streets of New York--as they were vying for the same cab. They shared the cab and discovered during the trip that they were both...
Check out our very own Jerry Kolber, Buddhist filmmaker extraordinaire, interviewed on Cnn.com today. Embedded video from CNN Video...
What dynamic exists between our logical mind and our intuitive mind? What practices can we develop to more mindfully navigate our concepts and experience?In this week's Podcast "Logic vs. Feeling", Ethan leads a discussion to explore some of these...
by Ethan Nichtern
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