Japanese Fart Scrolls

Check out this site, if you dare!

...something a bit…unusual. It was an old Japanese scroll about farting. The whole scroll, which is called He-Gassen (“The Fart Battle”) is just about people farting. Farting at other people, farting at cats, farting off of horses, farting into bags; just farting everywhere.

I love Japanese culture!

Words to Live By

Never allow anyone to be your priority while you remain their option.

Lent

Though not Christian, I find the rhythms and structure of the liturgical Christian churches interesting and instructive. This is the season of Lent, which is a period paralleling that of Jesus' time in the desert and is a preparation of inner reflection and outer good works leading to the definitive event of Easter. Even an outsider can always benefit from such practices. Andrew Sullivan, Roman Catholic, put up an interesting post today discussing blogging Lent. He took the opportunity to explore the true nature of his religion and its place in the public square, contrasting it with the politicized christianism which is so powerful now:

I believe this is the way religion should be in public life. Instead of using political power to direct the lives of others through law, Christians should embrace true secularism as a neutral stage on which to explore and explain and witness to their actual faith...
 This is my objection to Christianism, as it is to Islamism. Because it obscures the true message: Jesus led by example and non-violence, not by the coercive power of the state. And the message of the Gospels and of the lives of the saints is exactly this: witness, don't control. Let go of such an impulse. Live the truths, and you will find people coming to you. And if the truths are lies, only freedom will allow you to see past them to deeper truths.
 How many false attachments are we addicted to - celebrity, money, possessions, news, the web. How much greed we see and how much anger we feel. Jesus liberates us from these things that cloud our culture and soil our souls. 

Not surprisingly, this is the message of the Buddha as well. Perhaps it is a good time to reflect on the deep similarities all spiritual traditions have: beyond the organizations and dogmas lies something True if we can only unearth it.
 

Zen and the Art of Landscape

Ego and the Third Noble Truth

Over at Huffpost (a fertile ground for interesting writing on Buddhism), there's an essay by Lewis Richmond about the Third Noble Truth and its relation to ego. He clarified the notion of "getting rid of ego" for me by pointing out that "ego" is a poor translation of what the Buddha was discussing as the root of our problems. Rather, "ego-istic" or "self-ish" appears to be better, in that we all have an ego or self, but that we misuse it by treating it as an unchanging, objective entity that resists change and inevitable loss, ignoring reality and thus creating suffering. We all have an "identity" - and it changes over time and place. Mr. Richmond's words:

There is no need to "get rid of the ego." The ego, the self, the ever-changing landscape of identity -- none of those are the actual problem. The actual problem is that when loss comes we clutch, we tend to respond fearfully and selfishly, with clinging and resistance; we become ego-istic. Paying attention to all of that, examining it closely over and over with the practices of precepts, mindfulness, and meditation, is the nub of Buddhist practice. It is the work of a lifetime. Loss is not all there is. The fundamental spiritual message of Buddhism is upbeat, not downbeat. Joy in the midst of suffering and loss is not only possible, but attainable. That is Buddha's third noble truth: in the midst of suffering, there is release from suffering.

I have often come across the idea of the "authentic self," and I often speak of this. Mr. Richmond clarifies this for me as not some essence which is permanent and separate from life, but as my deepest identity which springs from the deepest notions of Buddhism - that there is something beyond my small self, like unto the relation between the dancer and the dance. Where does one end and the other begin? And where does the dance go when it ends? -


I actually don't know what it means to "get rid of the ego." But I have had cherished good teachers and wise spiritual friends who have transformed ego and identity into a vessel of awakening and compassion, and who dedicate themselves to continuing their spiritual efforts and working for the relief of suffering wherever they can.That is a good identity to have. It's called "Buddha," which means "awake." Buddha is our deepest identity; it is always with us.

Faith, It's Loss, and the Reason Why

Tim Prowse, and United Methodist Church pastor for 20 years, lost his faith and left the ministry. He discusses the process which led him to this decision in an interview with Sam Harris here. An excerpt:

Ironically, it was seminary that inaugurated my leap of unfaith.  It was so much easier to believe when living in an uncritical, unquestioning, naïve state.  Seminary training with its demands for rigorous and intentional study and reflection coupled with its values of reason and critical inquiry began to undermine my naïveté.  I discovered theologians, philosophers and authors I never knew existed.  I found their questions stimulating but their answers often unsatisfying. For example, the Bible is rife with vileness evidenced by stories of sexual exploitation, mass murder and arbitrary mayhem.  How do we harmonize this fact with the conception of an all-loving, all-knowing God? While many have undertaken to answer this question even in erudite fashion, I found their answers lacking. Once I concluded that the Bible was a thoroughly human product and the God it purports does not exist, other church teachings, such as communion and baptism, unraveled rather quickly.  To quote Nietzsche, I was seeing through a different “perspective” – a perspective based on critical thinking, reason and deduction.  By honing these skills over time, reason and critical thinking became my primary tools and faith quickly diminished. Ultimately, these tools led to the undoing of my faith rather than the strengthening of it.

Reason and critical thinking are excellent tools in ferreting out the false and in seeking the Truth. Mr. Prowse discovered that just accepting dogma and the stories in the Bible weren't enough to live an awakened and authentic life. As the Buddha put it,

Do not believe anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe anything simply because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe traditions because they have been handed down for generations. But after observation and analysis, when you have found that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

 

Religion and the Human Race

Libyan deputy envoy Ibrahim Dabbashi has told the UN's Human Rights Council that gays threaten humanity, UN Watch reports:

Protesting the council’s first panel discussion on discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation, scheduled for March 7th, Libya’s representative told the gathering of ambassadors today that LGBT topics “affect religion and the continuation and reproduction of the human race.” He added that, were it not for their suspension, Libya would have opposed the council’s June 2011 resolution on the topic.
In response, council president Laura Dupuy Lasserre said that “the Human Rights Council is here to defend human rights and prevent discrimination.”

Actually, any rational person (I know, a stretch where religion is involved) would realize that it is heterosexuals that are endangering the human race. Why? Because of their unfettered and selfish creation of more and more human beings which burden an already overpopulated world and super-stressed ecology. What we need is more gays to save the human race from itself.

Hitch on the Catholic Church

While listening to two of my friends speak of the indoctrination they were subjected to as children by the Roman Catholic Church - the terrible and graphic fears of hell, as well as their self-hatred as gay people - I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by hatred for that evil institution. Yes,  I shouldn't give in to such feeling, but I don't think it's unreasonable given the huge load of suffering caused by them. And here is Christopher Hitchens to explain further:

Hitch, you are missed...

Alan Watts discusses Nothing

I enjoy listening to Alan Watts (as well as reading him) because he has a natural and relaxed way of relating difficult ideas. Here, he discusses "nothingness" (or, perhaps, no-thing-ness) as the ultimate basic reality of which we are a part. Of course, as with all things Zen, it has a different and surprising meaning to those of us used to western modes of thought. Listen...

Zen and the Art of Landscape

I find this picture to be particularly beautiful and restful. It was done by Herb Arnold for the Zen Center of San Francisco. Enjoy!