Category: The Dharma

• Top 40 over 40.18: Peter Hughes and Dipa Ma

  I was once listening to an episode of Car Talk on NPR and heard a woman call in to Click and Clack with the following dilemma:  she had a Honda that was running perfectly, and that had proven to be very reliable over the years. Nevertheless, she found the car boring.  She found herself eyeing…

  jhd123

  December 14, 2014

  Buddhism, Disability, History, Mental Health, Music, Politics, The Dharma, Top 40 Over 40, Wisecracks

  american empire, Awakening Truth, Chile, Dipa Ma, Fangio, Feminism, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Juan Manuel Fangio, Music, Peter Hughes, Pinochet, Salvador Allende, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, The Dharma, Top 40 Over 40, Vipassana, Vipassana Hawaii

• Studio Samsara

  I found this on Francis Prève‘s Facebook page.  To this I would add step 7, “I am awesome,” and then step 8, “Go back to step 1.”  Then it would be an even better representation of what I like to call “Studio samsara.” The Buddha used the term samsara to refer to the endless cycle…

  jhd123

  July 17, 2014

  Buddhism, Mental Health, Music, The Dharma

  Ajahn chah, Ardent Studios, Big Star, Buddhism, Chris Bell, Folk Implosion, Little League, Might Mighty Bosstones, Music, Nothing Can Hurt Me, Thanissara, The Dharma

• Sunday Paper with the BPF: Ahhh, Mindfulness

  Well, I don’t really read a Sunday newspaper anymore.  Either they’ve been driven out of business by the internet or intellectually eviscerated by corporate centralized ownership.  But I’ve been kicking back and checking out some posts on the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) website after renewing my membership today.  Among them was a piece with a…

  jhd123

  June 29, 2014

  Anti-Neoliberalism, Book excerpts, Buddhism, Economics, History, Politics, The Dharma

  Afghanistan, Alfred McCoy, american empire, Buddhism, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Burma, Capitalism, chalmers johnson, Devo, Doug Henwood, Drug Policy, Economics, Eric Schmidt, Feminism, Google, IMF, Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Karl Marx, KRS-One, Laos, Neoliberalism, NPR, Peter Dale Scott, Professor Elizabeth Stanley, Race, Ronald Purser, Silicon Valley, Thailand, The Dharma, The Stone House, Time magazine, Vipassana Hawaii, Washington Consensus, Whip It, Wired magazine

• Impersonal Problems.1: Thanissara

  We’re used to thinking of problems as a word that goes hand in hand with “personal.”  Of course, there are problems in our professional lives.  But when we struggle with things that happen or come from outside of that realm, we tend to look at them as personal.  I’ve been interested in several articles I…

  jhd123

  February 22, 2014

  Buddhism, Impersonal Problems, Mental Health, Music, Record Reviews, Series of posts, The Dharma, Uncategorized

  Andrew Cyrille, Buddhism, Colonialism, Dharmagiri, Empire, History, Music, New York Dolls, South Africa, Thanissara, The Dharma, The Necks

• The Core is Getting Soft.9: Ring my Bell

  For many years now, I have been using software in my meditation practice.  In Buddhist meditation, we traditionally open and close each sitting by ringing a bell three times.  One is instructed to follow the sound waves until they subside, providing a gradual transition in and out of the silent state of awareness.  In today’s…

  jhd123

  January 20, 2014

  Buddhism, The Core is Getting Soft, The Dharma, Wisecracks

  Buddhism, Digital vs. Analog, Plug Ins, software reviews, The Core is Getting Soft, The Dharma, Wisecracks

• R.I.P., M.C.A.2: More Than a Feeling

  I wrote a post on Adam Yauch’s passing in August of 2012 that I thought at the time would be the first in a series on posts on the ironies and interests of the intersection of rock and hip hop with the dharma, but never got around to continuing with it. I pick up the…

  jhd123

  January 5, 2014

  Buddhism, RIP MCA, Series of posts, The Dharma

  Ajahn Sumedho, Beastie Boys, Buddhism, Dalai Lama, Daniel Johnston, MCA, Music, The Dharma, Tricylce Magazine, Vipassana, Wole Soyinka, Yo La Tengo

• Prarie Wind P.S.

  As an addendum to my post of April 8th on Neil Young’s album Prarie Wind in general, and song “It’s A Dream” in particular, I’m posting this video clip of the late Thai monk Achaan Chah, in whose lineage many of the Western Insight Meditation teachers I have studied with over the years trained..   “(One…

  jhd123

  April 14, 2012

  Buddhism, Music, Series of posts, The Dharma, Top 40 Over 40

• Jumping to Conclusions

  I’ve been listening to some records by Kurt Vile this week.  (Smoke Ring For My Halo, Childish Prodigy, Constant Hitmaker, God Is Saying This to You…)  I first heard his name from an ad on NPR music.  I assumed at the time that it was a play on words referring to the composer Kurt Weil. …

  jhd123

  February 18, 2012

  Buddhism, Music, Record Reviews, The Dharma