2010 April « Rev. Danny Fisher

April 21, 2010

Join Beastie Boy and Tibet Activist Adam Yauch in Meditations to “Smash Cancer”

Beastie Boy and Tibet activist Adam Yauch, who is “faring well” after surgery and treatment for cancer, is asking people to join him (in spirit) at scheduled times for sitting meditations to “smash cancer.” He writes to those on the Beastie Boys’ mailing list:

wanted to send this out to you guys in case you were into it, or wanted to give it to anyone who you think might be.

a few friends and i are meditating at the same time twice a day. 9:30am and 6:30pm eastern standard time, for about an hour and half.

we are picturing smashing apart all of the cancer cells in the world.

we are visualizing taking the energy away from the cancer, and then sending it back at the cancer as lightening bolts that will break apart the DNA and RNA of the cells. if you have the time, please join us in whipping up this lightening storm. mind over matter……

[...]

if you prefer to sit then sit, but if you are not used to meditating, or sitting quietly doesn’t sound like fun, put on some music and dance while you do the visualization, and if you want to do it at some other time, or picture curing some other illness that’s fine too. [Yoko Ono] will be joining the meditation by visualizing all of us dancing with joy to celebrate the world without cancer. all variations are welcome. this is really just being done with a wish for all beings to be cured of all illnesses and to find true lasting happiness.

i’ll also be saying prayers for the earthquake victims in tibet, so join in on that if you can too.

please feel free to pass this onto anyone who you think may find it interesting.

with all my love,

adam yauch

You can find out more at The Onion A.V. Club.

The proposal came following yesterday’s news of the death of Gang Starr member Guru from cancer.

The Beastie Boys were the organizers of the immensely popular and influential Tibetan Freedom Concerts, and some of their Buddhist-inspired songs appear in Gary Gach’s absolutely wonderful anthology What Book?!: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop. Yauch, who identifies as a Buddhist, is married to Dechen Wangdu, who was active in Students for a Free Tibet. His Buddhist faith has been the subject of substantial articles in both Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and Interview. He also heads up the film distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories, which last year put out the Buddhist-relevant films Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country and Unmistaken Child. Though active mostly in film distribution, Yauch directs as well: he helmed the experimental Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! (2006) under the pseudonym Nathaniel Hörnblowér. You can find out more about him here.

April 20, 2010

A Gift of Dharma for 4.20.10

Today’s quote is from Dainin Katagiri Roshi (1928-1990), who was a Soto Zen priest and founder of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, where he served as abbot from 1972 until his death in 1990. This is it:

When you really want to know who you are or what the real significance of human life, human suffering is, very naturally you come back to silence, even though you don’t want to, you return to an area of no-sound. It cannot be explained, but in this silence you can realize, even if only dimly, what the real point is that you want to know. Whatever kind of question you ask or whatever you think, finally you have to return to silence. This silence is vast; you don’t know what it is.

April 20, 2010

“Zooming in on the Saffron Revolution” – This Week’s Post is Up at Shambhala Sun Space!

April 20, 2010

The Jiegu (Yushu) Earthquake Relief Fund

"Buddhist sculptures at a destroyed monastery are cleaned in earthquake-hit Yushu county, Qinghai province, on Monday." (Reuters)

Jasmine Duckworth, an acquaintance of mine who was born in Yushu, has founded a group to help with earthquake relief efforts there: Jiegu (Yushu) Earthquake Relief Fund. Please help by making a secure donation here.

April 19, 2010

A Gift of Dharma for 4.19.10

Today’s quote is from Claude AnShin Thomas, an ordained Zen Buddhist monk; author of At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace; and founder of the Zaltho Foundation, a non-profit “whose purpose is to promote peace and nonviolence in and among individuals, families, societies, and countries supporting all efforts to attain this goal through whatever peaceful and nonviolent means available.” This is it:

The moment I see someone or something as separate from myself, this is war. These are the seeds and the roots of war. The moment I see myself as separate from the universe, this is war. There rests our suffering. It is impossible to commit acts of aggression unless I see myself as separate. I am conditioned to see the other as separate. These are the seeds of suffering. When they are dropping bombs I can understand. And it makes me commit myself even more strongly to this practice to wake up. But I ask you to do me a favor: if you wake up before me, please help me on my way.

Robes don’t make a monk. They don’t make me different. They just symbolize my commitment. They help me to remember: What is my purpose here ?

In the official years of the Vietnam War 58,000 American soldiers died in combat, several 100,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in combat. They say, maybe a million North Vietnamese soldiers and North and South Vietnamese civilians died in combat. War does not begin with a declaration and ends with an armistice. War never ends until we get it here (points to his chest ). The non-soldier is more responsible for the war than the soldier. And that is not to say that I am not responsible. How many people died in Russia during the rule of Stalin? How many people died in Cambodia under the rule of Pol Pot ? How many people died in the fighting of the former Yugoslavia ? How many people died in Northern Ireland ? I am responsible to not let their lives be wasted. They died to let us know that this is not the way. Violence is not a solution.

Where is the war in you ? That’s what we use this practice for: to help us to wake up. To understand that we are not separate. When we look at people: Can we find the place where we touch ?

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Month: April, 2010