Really? Really, says this SFGate article. Sure, I can see why some would be dubious, but it seems Miley really may have “found” meditation. One thing’s for sure: it’s refreshing for a young female star to say the things she’s saying to her fans, so hey.

And did you know Miley also has an online meditation game? More on that in my newest post at Shambhala SunSpace.

PS: You may also be surprised to know that this is not Cyrus’s first time on the Horse. (Here‘s that.)

Look, it’s Eddie Murphy, meditating, in his new film, A Thousand Words. The premise sounds okay, but then again, I said that about Mike Myers’ The Love Guru when it was announced, and let’s just say things didn’t turn out that way.

Learn more about both via this Metro story about comedy and spirituality and when they do and don’t mix so well.

PS: It at least has to be better than “Rude Buddha.”

So now Andrew Sullivan, who has touched on meditation in his videoblog before, is now going on at some length about Buddhism in a new installment.

The person who made me aware of the video’s existence criticizes Sullivan’s take as “shallow.” He goes on: “Again with the ‘extinguishing of the individual,’ the nihilist error. The point being, of course, that *no* independent self can be identified or proven as having *ever* existed as an entity beyond false concepts imputed on the dependently arisen, temporarily-hung-together, psychophysical array – i.e., there’s nothing to extinguish except erroneous ideas that keep us in cycles of dissatisfaction. Who wouldn’t want to extinguish those? All Buddhism asks is that we give up false ideas. But don’t expect a political commentator to embrace that any time soon. [...] I do agree with him that Merton’s cool, though.”

What do you think?

UPDATE: The same person who commented above now writes with this update:

“A reader has followed up with Andrew, quite intelligently and gently. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Maybe my perception of his attitude set me off. Also I said ‘nihilist’ when I should have said ‘eternalist.’ Now who’s the dope?” Click here to read the followup post.

I often think about the luck I’ve had in getting to speak to the comedian, Mike DeStefano. Mike had been around a long time, then went on NBC’s Last Comic Standing — and almost won.

I got to speak to him a couple of times, one of which was for an audio interview for Shambhala SunSpace. It’s good stuff and I do recommend you checking it out. But if you really want a concise taste of who Mike was, check out this new piece, “Uneasy Rider,” culled from the WTF Podcast for “These American Lives,” a NYT piece curated by Ira Glass about people who died in 2011.

Mike was hilarious, and a beautiful, fearless guy.

(Thanks to the great Sam DeWitt for the heads-up on this one.)

Photp by Kristin Dos Santos (w/permission)

Thanks to friend Konchog Norbu for the heads-up on this one — it’s hardly news, but it’s kinda cool when celebs go public with their interest in dharma. Seems David Duchovny (of Californication, X-Files, and Larry Sanders-crush fame) just did a retreat at what sounds to be Zen Mountain Monastery, and he’s told Perez Hilton’s pet-gossip site (yes, you read that right) TeddyHilton.com about the experience.

Again, not news, but at least Duchovny’s not looking for star treatment. “I’m a beginner,” he says, “I’ve only been meditating for a little while. You pay a fee to go for this weekend and what I didn’t know is that even though you pay a fee they put you to work immediately. You go there and first you bus some tables after you eat and they had me working in the garden everyday for an hour-and-a-half. It was fun, I was shoveling horse shit out there. You pay money and then you shovel horse shit!”

Zen, life…. Sounds like Duchovny is getting the basic gist of it.

More here.

I just learned that that’s how comedian Eddie Pepitone identifies and markets himself. (A documentary by the same name is also forthcoming.)

So is he Buddhist? I can’t really tell. His new album is called “A Great Stillness.” That seems like something, no? A Google search turns up a reference or two or three to Pepitone from Zen teacher Brad Warner — who counts the comic among his favorites — and some gags from the Pepitone’s Twitter feed:

• “Watching Saturday Night Live is like watching a Buddhist monk light himself on fire except for no reason.”
• “As a buddhist child I got teased a lot for renouncing all thought.”
• “I studied zen Buddhism with Maharishi Gus Lobotomovich and he always said “shit, did you hear that?”

And here’s a quote from a new AV Club interview with Pepitone: “You wanna give life meaning against all of this pain and anguish. You’re trying to give it meaning and you’re trying to be happy, but you have all this stuff that is in the way. And that’s the stuff I talk about.”

Know anything about the Bitter Buddha? Let us know.

Nice find via Brad Warner’s Facebook page: James Coburn tries to teach Animal to meditate. Or at least to relax, relax, relax.

Interesting that on his most recent episode of Real Time Bill Maher would close the show with a closing piece that takes a “I’ll have what he’s having” attitude when it comes to Steve Jobs and his mind-expanding use of psychedelics.

Sure, they caused Jobs to “think different.” But so did Zen Buddhism. But you don’t hear Maher, who made Religiulous, saying anything about that. And, I’ll wager, won’t. …Anyway, watch below.

In this video, Harry Belafonte singlehandedly invents “the meditation defense” — without so much as speaking a word:

Ah yes, the “meditation defense.” I see it catching fire by way of bored students and employees everywhere.

(And, really, it’s not just what the anchor says here. Belafonte’s handlers have now publicly stated that he was really was meditating, and not sleeping.)

I’ve got to hand it to Lady Gaga. Not only is she, when it comes to fashion, rather like the Honey Badger — but she really goes out there to find and create harmony for those among us who feel a bit more “on our own” than others. Her song, “Born This Way,” is all about accepting people despite, and because of, their differences, and now she’s guest-edited the ubiquitous free newspaper, The Metro, with an eye towards acting “as a nurturing and compassionate force to those in need.”

As a Buddhist, it’s really refreshing to see a pop-star so outwardly embodying these values. But I also have to say that — again, just as a Buddhist — it’s also disconcerting to see her quote on the of cover her Metro issue: “Let identity be your religion.” I understand that Gaga’s not a Buddhist, and we’re all of course allowed to have different views, but I thought it was worth exploring some of what the Buddha had to say about identity.

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