And for more Separated at Re-birth from The Worst Horse archives, click here, here, and here. (Links will open in new windows.)

And click here for more about the Marchesa Casati, and here for more about Avalokitesvara.

Have a good, safe Halloween, folks.

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.

The Buddha in fact identified the idea of identity as a cause of our suffering. As the teacher Thanissaro Bhikkhu writes in his essay, “Ignorance”:

The four truths are (1) stress — which covers everything from the slightest tension to out-and-out agony; (2) the cause of stress; (3) the cessation of stress; and (4) the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress. [...] Stress he identified with examples — such things as birth, aging, illness, and death; sorrow, distress, and despair. [...]. The cause of stress he identified as three kinds of craving: craving for sensuality, craving to take on an identity in a world of experience, and craving for one’s identity and world of experience to be destroyed.

So you see, the idea of “identity” comes into play in two of the three causes of stress, which here you may read as “suffering.”

Lady Gaga wants us all to be proud and brave about who we are, and that’s only a good thing. But the key word there, from a Buddhist point of view, is are; to “lock onto” some idea of ourselves or others and how things are, thereby transmuting this all too easily into an idea of how things should be, can be a cause of our suffering. Because those things, like all things, will change.

Which is to say, you may have been “Born This Way,” and that truly is a beautiful thing. But that doesn’t mean that you’ll die the same way. We never know who we’ll become, because becoming is something that’s always happening. That’s why the Buddha stresses that being attached to outcomes doesn’t make us happier.

All that being said, it remains obvious that, like the Buddha, Gaga wants us all to be happier. Whatever its faults, her issue of the Metro ultimately makes that clearer. If you get a chance to look at it, do leave a comment and let us all know what you think.

What’s the story here? Well, as the IDP site says, “Wearing this tee is a reminder to stay in touch with the reality of impermanence as well as a way to support the efforts of the Interdependence Project.” To do so, click here.

If the IDP ever makes one with the same slogan in small reverse type, a la Memento, I’m all over it.

Update: after expressing some of my developing reservations about the shirt to the IDP’s Ethan Nichtern, I was invited to share said comments on the IDP blog. See this post: Sure, “This Body Will Be a Corpse”… but should I wear a shirt that says so?

And now, there’s “SkinBag” — the product (as found on the Vice website), which seems timely given Lady Gaga’s already infamous “meat dress“:

From the SkinBag website:

SkinBag is a material created by Olivier Goulet, a french transmedia artist whose vision is in the crossroads of activism and human design.

The SkinBag family is made up of synthetic skin, bags, accessories and overgarments with distinctive folded texture, flexible material, and seamless organic appearance. You can view the SkinBags as bodily extensions; external organs which serve as holdalls for items we have around us.

A carrier of mutation, SkinBag symbolizes the ambivalence between the natural and the artificial, the instinctive and the optimized, and foresee the fusion between the digital and the organic.

and, from elsewhere on the site…

The SkinBag material distinguishes itself by its pleated aspects, its wrinkles, pimples, and its ocacasionel [sic] spots. Its texture provokes attraction and turmoil, it prompts one to touch and caress.

Whether or not SkinBag is informed by Daido’s usage is unclear, but in ways — “You can view the SkinBags as bodily extensions; external organs which serve as holdalls for items we have around us” — there’s some conceptual resonance here, not just with Daido’s usage of the word, but also, for example, the Theravadin Buddhist practice of working with awareness of the body in all its beautiful, mysterious, and putrid manifestations.

For more about SkinBag, see their website. I think it’s safe to say you’ll be surprised by the breadth of their offerings.

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….

But now they have Dharma-clothing.

What’s so “dharma” about it? Well, nothing. Just the name.

But doesn’t that name just speak to you?

“It’s Buddhist, it’s for protection and strength and I certainly need that,” he said, adding that he began wearing the bracelet before he went into rehabilitation and that he intends to wear it forever.

Steve Madden, a leading designer and marketer of fashion footwear and accessories for women, men and children, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of privately held Big Buddha, Inc., a designer and marketer of fashion-forward handbags. Founded by Jeremy Bassan in 2003, Big Buddha sells its trend-right handbags to specialty retailers, better department stores and online retailers. Big Buddha had net sales in 2009 of approximately $13 million (unaudited).

That’s one expensive Dharma-Burger.

Lots more to come – thanks to the many of you who’ve emailed and commented lately. You’ll be seeing your contributions here soon, once I dig out from the current workload.

Sight-seeing in Switzerland does not leave a vacationer horrified, but Prabhat Choudhary, his wife and daughter were shocked to see a Lord Buddha statue garlanded with a pair of shoes at a footwear shop in Geneva.

“We were strolling on shopping street when my 15-year-old daughter insisted that we got into ‘Anne Fontaine’, a designer footwear shop. There in the shop, we saw a 4-ft statue of Lord Buddha on the shelf displaying shoes and slippers, garlanded with a pair of shoes,” Prabhat, a realtor, recalled.

The family was shocked. Prabhat’s daughter, was furious. Though her parents were a bit frightened, she persuaded them to let her shoot the sight with her videocam. The girl, a student of Patna’s prestigious Notre Dame Academy, accomplished her mission without anyone – the shop staff or the crowd of customers – knowing about it.

Back home, Prabhat has sent a letter to the ministry of external affairs, requesting it to take up the matter with Swiss authorities.