Rod Meade Sperry is the Shambhala Sun’s editor of web publications, and the brain behind TheWorstHorse.com, a site that has lovingly (and somewhat irreverently) documented the intersection of Buddhism, pop-culture, and subculture since 2005.
A new piece from the editor of the Sweden-based Asian Tribune (published by the World Institute for Asian Studies) makes no bones about the Tribune’s feelings about Dharma-Burgers, or examples of Buddhist ideas or images being used in marketing and/or advertising. (I can only imagine how they might react to that term in and of itself.)
After the jump: a couple of excerpts — and questions. Continued
I’ve seen a lot of references to meditation and/or Buddhism in advertising over my past few years of tracking them. Some, arguably, have been inspired. Some have been funny. Some have been perhaps unfortunate, or even inappropriate.
As for what word might best describe this new commercial… all I’ve got, at first blush, is “weird.” Click through to watch. Continued
Just the beginning?
On my Buddhism-and-pop-culture website, The Worst Horse, I’ve done a lot of writing about what we (the site’s readers and I) call “Dharma-Burgers.” You can click here for the description via Urban Dictionary but, simply put, a Dharma-Burger is an example — dubious or not — of Buddhist imagery or ideas that is being put to use in any sort of marketing, advertising, or sales arena. Again, a Dharma-Burger isn’t necessarily a bad thing — for every really cheezy, quick-buck shlock-item that might qualify, there’s always some surprisingly smart and/or inventive tie-in that seems at least somehow in line with Buddhist principles.
For a while now I’ve almost lamented that I haven’t really been covering “Yoga-Burgers“, as there seems to be no end to the way that yoga, like Buddhism, is being co-opted into mass culture. But it looks like I can get in on the ground-floor with a new kind of ‘Burger.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you what may be the first legitimate “Mindfulness Burger.” (Okay, it’ll need a better name that that, but you get the drift.) Continued
Standup comic Mike DeStefano, and friend
We discussed him here on Shambhala SunSpace the other day; now the comedian, a hit on NBC TV’s Last Comic Standing, talks to the Shambhala Sun about comedy and Buddhism — and the unique way he brings them together — in an interview recorded just before the Last Comic Standing finals.
If you’ve only seen standup comic Mike DeStefano on this season of Last Comic Standing, here’s an advisory: the non-TV version of DeStefano — as found on his live album, OK Karma — might surprise you a bit. Every word you probably wouldn’t utter, in public at least, is there. (One exception: the N-word, which DeStefano believes could never be funny and non-hurting — or even acceptable — coming from his lips.)
Now, on LCS, he comes across as gruff and tough… but pretty likeable. (Otherwise, how would he have made it to the show’s finals, which will air on August 2?) On OK Karma, he’s all those things but… let’s just say: this is very adult material.
And there’s something else surprising about Mike DeStefano: He’s a Buddhist. [Click through to read more and to listen to the Shambhala Sun's interview with DeStefano. ] Continued
On NBC’s Last Comic Standing — a reality TV show where comedians compete to be, well, the last comic standing — the gruff Mike DeStefano, a seasoned comic, has become an audience favorite. And actually, it’s clear that the comedian’s persona is just that — a persona; at heart he’s a big softy and a family kind of guy. He’s also a former addict celebrating more than a dozen years in recovery.
Buddhism, clearly, plays a part in all this (though DeStefano identifies himself primarily as a practitioner of “recovery comedy”). Last night on the show viewers saw Mike’s monster Buddha tattoo (shown here) and also heard a joke that I imagine we’ll be hearing people repeat for a while:
“I went to a Chinese restaurant… They had a suggestion box, so I wrote ‘Free Tibet’.”
(It’s not “What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?*” but, hey, not bad, Mike.)
Other evidence of Mike’s interest in Buddhism? His new comedy album is called OK Karma. And here’s the cover (left).
He’s also written a book entitled Bada Bing Bada Budda.
Check out Mike online, here. And if you have a favorite Buddhist joke, share it here!
Update: click here to check out DeStefano’s contribution to the (true!) storytelling podcast, the program, titled “The Junkie and the Monk.” It’ll give you a taste of Mike’s personality and background and — while it’s seriously rough stuff at times — it’ll make you laugh. You’re gonna like this guy.
By the way: Mike talks about the practice of tonglen in the podcast. The wonderful Pema Chodron has provided instructions for doing tonglen in our new How to Meditate issue; click here to read Pema’s tonglen instructions now.
(* “Make me one with everything.”)
(AP)
Is “comedian’s comedian” Garry Shandling a Buddhist? Well, as Amy Wallace writes in her new profile of the comedian for GQ magazine, he “stops short” of labeling himself that way, but is “a serious student of dharma.” Whether you’re a serious student of dharma or just of comedy, you won’t want to miss the profile, found in the August 2010 GQ.
Shandling’s connection to dharma and mindfulness practice has been discussed before, but mostly in subtle terms — and with Shandling at the controls. The special features for a DVD set of the best from his hilarious HBO program The Larry Sanders Show — all of whose episodes will see a full release this September – do help to bring the connection to light, via tender and funny cameos from (for example) Sharon Stone, Tom Petty, and monk Hann Nguyen.
For better or worse, many of us have got our favorite dharma books and trinkets. Well, I count the four-disc Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show DVD-set as one of them. Why? Continued
It’s in Japanese. I don’t speak Japanese. But my awesomeness detector is going off nonetheless.
Click the image shown here or this link. And tell us: what do you think? Does this look good to you? And did you read the multivolume series from which the film is derived?
We here at the Shambhala Sun are big fans of the “Buddho-blogosphere” – that is, we love to see the diversity and dialogue that’s manifesting among the online sangha of Buddhist bloggers. And quite a sangha it is: there are monks and nuns and teachers and students and dabblers, all interacting and making their voices heard. As I’ve contended before, the web can be considered a gift of skillful means, in that it’s a place wherein we can each contribute to dharma discussion, in whatever way best suits how we communicate.
Of course, we try to bring you some of the best Buddhist bloggers right here on SunSpace. (Karen Maezen Miller, Danny Fisher, and I, for example, have been dedicatedly blogging about Buddhism for, pretty much, as long as blogging about Buddhism has been happening in some sort of regular fashion.) But the web, like the dharma itself, is truly vast. How does one find the always-fresh and vital voices that are joining the fray?
That’s where the “Blogisattva Awards” come in. I spoke to Kyle Lovett, the blogger behind the admittedly “adult” blog The Reformed Buddhist, who, along with Precious Metal blogger Nate DeMontigny, has been instrumental in bringing back the Awards, which were first launched a couple years back by Buddha-blogger Tom Armstrong. NOTE: All links in this post (and there are many!) open in new windows.
How is it that you came to resurrect the Blogisattva Awards?
My friend Nate DeMontigny from the Precious Metal blog was mentioning something on a forum about how cool it would be to resurrect these awards, since they had always been fun and exciting for the Buddhist blogging community in the past. I responded with “that would be great idea”; one thing led to another, and with the encouragement and blessing of the Awards’ founder, Tom Armstrong, it kind of took on a life of its own. And boy has it ever! Continued
That’s right, and congratulations should go not only to him but to the United States for honoring such a talent, and yes, a dharmic force. For those of you who didn’t know about Merwin’s connection to Buddhism, quoth The Poetry Foundation:
“Merwin moved to Hawaii to study Zen Buddhism in 1976. He eventually settled in Maui and began to restore the forest surrounding his former plantation. Both the rigor of practicing Buddhism and the tropical landscape have greatly influenced Merwin’s later style.”
Read about his appointment to US Poet Laureate at the Library of Congress website, here.
Recently on our Facebook page we pointed you to a CNN Belief blog post called “The Dalai Lama is Wrong.” Written by BU religion scholar Stephen Prothero and seemingly tied to his new book, God Is Not One, the post left many of our commenting readers wondering if it’s not the Dalai Lama who is “wrong” here, but Prothero himself.
After an appearance last night on The Colbert Report (video inside), more are likely to question the author’s line of reasoning. Is his approach to Buddhism — and all the world’s major religions, which he characterizes as “rival” to each other — helpful, or not? Continued
If you’ve been following her occasional postings here, you know that our friend Heidiminx is the very model of the punk-rock dharma activist. She also has, um, a few tattoos. Some ink, of course, is more meaningful than others — as this new video by Heidiminx makes abundantly clear. In it, she interviews a member of the Tibetan ex-political prisoners association, GuChuSum.
As Heidiminx writes, “While there are numerous sites and TV shows dedicated to the meanings of tattoos, the tattoos of Tibet’s ex-political prisoners have not been well documented. Their experiences are crucial to understand the human rights violations China commits on a daily basis.”
Support and follow Heidiminx’s work here. And visit GuChuSum here.
For more from Heidiminx on SunSpace, click here.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama did the Today show, “his first live morning show interview ever.” Video follows, and here’s a report from Today themselves.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
So: what do you think? When you see a media moment like this, how does it make you feel? Hopeful? Tired of the mass-media? Proud of the mass-media? Something else entirely?
Leave a comment after the jump, where you’ll also find more video from the Today appearance, including the “chat about happiness” mentioned in the first clip. Continued
We recently shared with you three tracks from the new CD Dhamma Gita, as a way of answering the question, “What is the sound of the next generation of Buddhist music?” While those three songs (you can hear them here) were all different from each other, it’s safe to say that, likewise, what you’re about to hear is quite unlike them — or, really, just about any other Buddhism-inspired music you’ve heard.
Seattle-based Deadly Light is Max Neal (guitar, backing vocals), Don Baumer (drums, backing vocals), and Dave Vitello (vocals, electronics). The music on their new CD Six Walls is, as Don says, “fairly heavy rock/metal, with a bit of an ambient/tribal feel as well.” (Fairly heavy might be a bit of an understatement, Don.)
And there’s a Buddhist connection. More on that, and a track you can listen to (and read along with) right now, after the jump. Continued
In case you missed it, ABC TV’s FlashForward replicated a moment that’s happened many a time in real life: one person who’s gone through a hard time recommends Pema Chodron’s classic book The Places That Scare You to another person who’s going through a hard time.
If you have access to Hulu (some don’t!) you can watch the episode here. You’ll see the book make its appearance just after the 10:40 mark or so. And even if you don’t have Hulu, you do have access to the Shambhala Sun online, so don’t miss our special page of teachings by Pema Chodron.
Thanks to my friend Sam DeWitt, who sent news of this video clip with the message “Here is Josh Korda (our teacher at NYC Dharma Punx) interviewed on CBS Doc Dot Com. America will never be the same!”
CBS’s own caption for the clip: “Dharma Punx in New York City mixes the tradition of Buddhism with the ideology of punk rock. Dr. Jon LaPook talks with teacher Josh Korda about how the seemingly different connect with the help of meditation.” Check out the video: Continued