There’s no shortage of ads and merchandise that play off the (unfortunate?*) use of the word “Buddha” as slang for weed.  Hence this one, above, sent by Alex of Dharma Bums, who writes:

Saw this ad in the back of Citybeat Magazine here in San Diego. They have a ton of ads for Medical Marijuana dispensaries and this was one of them. As usual, the Buddha is tokin’.

Thanks for sending it on, Alex.

* Whether or not the slang term is unfortunate, actually depicting the Buddha smoking has got to be. At the very least, it sure is hacky. Plus, it’s not even a Buddha, but a Buddha statue. Duh.

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 the phenomenon of the Dharma-Burger. (I can only imagine how they might react to that term in and of itself.)

A couple of excerpts:

Internet companies, institutes for massage, restaurants, resellers of furnishing, and breeders of exotic cats all adopt Buddha in their uninhibited capitalist interests. As well as leaching the symbolic meaning which adherents of Buddhism ascribe to the Enlightened One. Some resellers of these, as they are marketed, oriental objects, also advertise that their Buddha statues are traded fairly or subscribe to the criteria for fair production.

And:

The commercialization of Buddha is an insult to all adherents of the Buddhist tradition. And can be seen as an expression of the prevailing relation between the so called Third world and the postcolonial powers.

Some would say that this is just plain true.

Some would say you have to look at such things in a matter of context.

There’s certainly an argument that different views might largely be the result of fundamental cultural differences. But then it can be fairly said that certain aspects of certain of cultures have to be more conducive to practicing what the Buddha taught than others. After all, wasn’t the Buddha ultimately offering a path to a different kind of culture, one fueled not by outward, material pursuits but by the best of what resides inside us all?

Or is a “Buddha for Sale” maybe not so bad, because we need reminders everywhere we go, not least of all the marketplace?

And hey, each Buddha for Sale is one less Snuggie or Big Mouth Billy Bass or whatever.

Maybe, though, it’s becoming more like one more Big Mouth Billy Bass. (Or whatever.)

(Yikes!)

Anyway, what do you say? Check it out.

Comments welcome.

Just the beginning?

Here on the Horse, we talk a lot about “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.)

As the press release I saw today states:

“With all of us busier than ever, it is important to find easy ways to eat nutritious foods that provide lasting energy. With this in mind, the National Peanut Board (NPB) has launched the Peanuts: Energy for the Good Life® iPhone® app. The free app offers recipes, snack suggestions and a five-minute mindfulness meditation exercise with Stephan Bodian, author of Meditation for Dummies® — tools to help people care for their bodies and minds throughout every part of every day.”

I must admit: I was at first pretty cynical about this. The mindfulness/peanuts connection just seemed like too much of a stretch. That peanuts — whose healthfulness is sometimes in question, especially when they’re not of the organic variety — should be an early beneficiary of a sort of “Mindfulness Bump” seems, well, odd. And this does appear to be just a straight-up marketing move.

But I’ve started to wonder if it doesn’t, even accidentally, represent something more: this app could be seen as a great (if very minor) thing because, hey — whether it’s there to shill peanuts or not, it’s also teaching people about mindfulness. And: peanuts? How mainstream can you get? Might as well be apple pie.

One thing’s for sure: this won’t be the last of this kind of thing. We’ll be seeing mindfulness everywhere soon — for better, or for worse. But I’m starting to think it’s almost always going to be for the better. Mindfulness, after all, goes with just about everything. I just happen to prefer almonds.

The real question is: What do you think?

No, of course not –the guru, per se, doesn’t exist in Zen. Zen has teachers of course, but the distinction is an important one, especially in Tibetan Buddhist tantra, where “one’s teacher is seen as inseparable from the meditational deity and the Three Jewels of Refuge.” (That definition comes from the glossary in Introduction to Tantra, by Lama Yeshe.) Now, being that Chopra is spiritually concerned in a sometimes specific, sometimes dharmic way (and has written about the Buddha in long-prose and comic forms), it’s not surprising that some might get confused. But Tina Brown’s Daily Beast has in fact called him a “Zen guru,” in this report:

[UPDATE: I've just put together a new interview with DeStefano, for Shambhala SunSpace. I hope you'll check it out.]

On NBC’s 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.

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.

(* “Make me one with everything.”)

Check it. This is the Buddha. Well, sort of…:

Actually, it’s “The Buddha Before he Got Enlightened.” Or so says Jon Haward, the creator of the comic Wasted and his “Tales of the Buddha Before He Got Enlightened.” Of course, Haward didn’t “create” the Buddha, and indeed, this “fat Buddha” is not really based on the historical Buddha but on the Buddhist figure Hotei. (A very common mistake, as longtime readers of the Horse have seen.)

The above comic cover was drawn by Simon Bisley, longtime collaborator of Glenn Danzig. So it turns out there’s just one degree of separation between Danzig and Buddha. (That is, one degree other than me.) …Who knew?

I haven’t seen this comic at my fantastic local comix shop. (All hail HUB Comics!) But I’ll see if I can grab one and check it out. In the meantime, you can preview this clearly irreverent new comic here.

It would seem that way. Few had high hopes for this new M. Night Shyamalan movie — least of all Arun from Angry Asian Buddhist — and it seems that said few will in fact never be considered gifted prognosticators. Via Defamer:

“The Last Airbender is the tale of, oh, who the hell knows. It is basically Star Wars with a Buddhist ‘theme,’ and it stars Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show. You may remember when this movie was being made there was a fair amount of controversy about the cast being largely white, when the characters in the source material were Asian. Attention, Asian community: You seem to have dodged a bullet.”

Yikes.

And: Defamer reports that TLA has a 4% rating on RottenTomatoes.com. That’s out of 100 percent. (Meaning: very, very bad.) Defamer has also collected some of the stunning words of hate, which have to be seen to be believed, already racked up by the film. Update: the Rotten Tomatoes rating is now up to a staggering 6%! But then again, as punk godfathers the Minutemen once posited, “The roar of the masses could be farts.”

(Sorry. But Right Speech, it seems, is not a factor when people discuss this movie.)

But don’t get too discouraged, Mr. Mandvi — you’ll still have a career. Being in intentionally laughable projects suits you better anyway.

If you’ve seen the film yourself, leave a review. And do try to be nice.

Via Phayul.com:

Recently Keds — a unit of Kansas-based Collective Brands, Inc. and a mass-marketer of canvas-top — sneakers came out with a new line of sneakers called ‘Tibetan Buddhist Shoes’. These bear images of the Dalai Lama, the Buddha, holy mantras and other sacred images that Buddhist all over the world revere. Buddhists generally keep these images and scripts in temples, monasteries and on altars in their homes.

Keds’ commercial trumpets:
“Gorgeous shoes! They’re Keds, so they’re sturdy and comfy, yet they’re beautiful because of the images on them. How unique is this! A Tibetan Buddhist image in brilliant pinks, yellows, oranges and blues. Colorful and Beautiful!”

The last three words should read — Shameful and Disrespectful!

What do you think? More here.

Update: There’s a possibility these are an urban myth of sorts. If you have a pair — of these shoes, I mean! — send a photo so we know they’re real. They currently don’t seem to be on the Keds site and one diligent dharma-friend is looking into it for us all….

TLC is launching a new show called Food Buddha.

Here’s the host’s site — though it says he’s NOT a Buddhist, he’s said to have a “Zen-like quality” and you click on something that says “Begin Enlightenment” on the launch page to enter.

Zzzzzzz.

Okay, so Lost’s “dharma” sort of petered out. Good thing there’s ABC-TV’s “10 Things I Hate About You” to reign in the slack. (Except, the show’s now over.)

About the show’s finale, via Entertainment Weekly:

10 Things I Hate About You wrapped up its under-appreciated one-season run on ABC Family last night, and, quite frankly, I don’t know what went wrong here. The dialogue snapped, the plotlines crackled, and the characters popped — not easy to do in the tired high-school genre.  [...] The two-part, hour-long series finale — which was clearly not intended as its swan song, since it ended on a cliffhanger — brought us all of the things we fans have grown to love about this show. Kat, characteristically, took up Buddhism, bringing on a hilarious (but still respectful) send-up of the school “meditation collective.”

I had no idea. (Being childless, it has never occurred to me for a second to watch any ABC Family programming.) Want to check it out? You can watch it here. It’ll cost you 99 cents, until Friday the 28th, after which it’s free.