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.

Thanks, yet again, to Konchog Norbu for the heads-up.

Slight Heavy Metal Update: After posting this, another TM advocate of note came to light: songwriter Mike Hill, whose band Tombs released its album Path of Totality this year. That album is, hands-down, one of the best of 2011 (well, sez me) and like Yob’s Atma LP (also released this year, and perhaps THE best release of the year), is informed by meditation. In this case, the meditation is TM, inspired, as Decibel magazine writes, “by David Lynch’s book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity.” Though it should be said that Hill tells Decibel that his “personal regimen includes not only meditation, but yoga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and the ingestion of natural psychedelics.”

See also the Horse’s piece about Yob’s Atma: “Metal for Buddhists? Buddhism for metalheads? Who cares? It rocks.”

Kinda an extra-mishmashy set of ideas, but hey.

Small mouths, bloated bellies, thin necks. No, this is not a description of our high school prom dates but of the fabled hungry ghost, a supernatural being often filled with more desire than one could possibly consume. Completely driven by unfulfilled cravings, they want nothing more than satisfaction that’s never quite enough. Sound familiar? Pittsburgh-based White Wives dive head first into this age-old yet always relevant theme in their video for “Hungry Ghost”, a garage-punk/alt-rock anthem that serves as the third track off their debut LP, Happeners.

Here’s the video — and head over to CoS for more info and White Wives tour dates.

White Wives – Hungry Ghost from Cluster 1 on Vimeo.

There’s not anything so new, in and of itself, about there being a meditation app. So why might Buddhify be notable?

I mean, I already use a couple of meditation apps, which serve as the timekeepers for the meditation groups I sit with. (For absolute simplicity I particularly like the free meditation app from InsightLA; you can find it via search in the App Store.) And maybe you use such an app, too.

But Buddhify’s emphasis on teaching you the practice is especially nice. And that name, Buddhify. While it might (unfortunately) evoke the antidepressantpsychotic medication, Abilify, it also echoes killer app Spotify in a clever, can’t-believe-it-hasn’t-been-done kind of way.

“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” this promotional video asks. Well, yes, actually, it does!

And Buddhify is the work of a team of people spearheaded by Rohan Gunatillake of Buddhist Geeks. So that points to the needed balance of tech and meditation acumen.

Wanna give it a try? To do so and/or learn more, visit your app store or click here. And be sure to share your reactions, or other app recommendations here, will you?

Barn Owl from auraloptic on Vimeo.

Another act that played SFZC was Date Palms. Click here for that.

Last night, Chef Jose Andres joined Coco to talk rum and other concoctions. While we’re told by the Conan’s Facebook page that “Buddha” appears in the segment, that’s not quite right. It’d be more accurate to say that it’s Hotei, aka, the “fat Buddha,” or the “happy Buddha” who makes the cameo here, at around the 5:20 mark. Also appearing are lots of disembodied replicas of his body parts — all made of Jell-O.

This is not the first time Hotei and rum have made a pop-culture appearance together; see the entry for Pyrat rum on this page of the Dharma-Burger archives. But it’s almost certainly the oddest.