From a new Huff Post interview with Mickey Hart (a “rhythm master” if ever there was one):

Mickey, what is an issue that’s bugging you?

Well, it’s about the rhythm of things. If you look around at the Gulf, North Korea, or Iran, it’s a rhythmic thing I see. We’re out of rhythm with the world. It’s a rhythmic universe, and nature is very efficient and likes to be in rhythm because it’s most efficient. When you break that rhythm and come between it, you have arrhythmic events and it will destroy, it will not build. It will decompose as opposed to compose. Saying the world has gone mad is not a proper way of saying it, but I look at it as the world has gone out of rhythm. If you look at it in rhythmic terms, it’s much more explainable. It’s gone out of rhythm, and we’re not in rhythm with it, and that’s the problem we have in all of these hot spots and these scary places with the Islamic militant views and the extremist religious views. All you have to do is tune into the Dalai Lama, who is about the opposite of that. Now, that’s a rhythm master. That guy is really in tune with things. So, we need to be listening to more of that, and we need to be thinking of things in terms of getting along in rhythm, and being efficient and flowing, and being more aware of our surroundings. When I look at the news, in total, that’s what I think of.

Read the rest of it here.

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.

Who wins?

See the whole comic strip here, via Ty Templeton, whose blog is a must if you like comics. (The recurring “Moments of Zen” — not about dharma; rather, they’re like the “Moments of Zen” from The Daily Show, but about comics — are a riot.)

If you dig this blog, I think you’ll be interested to see my newest post for Shambhala SunSpace,  Stephen Prothero and the Dalai Lama: Just who’s “wrong” here?

Of course, I may very well be wrong about that.

From a new article, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Buddha.” Here’s the link.

Such a shame;  I liked the countercultural aspect. Guess I need to join a kibbutz or a coven now.

And hey, Slate: very kind to include a link here to the Horse in the article.

Strange. Just the other day, they did this, and now they’ve done this (left).

In a nutshell, the Bing homepage of April 3 included this photo and links to info about the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan.

For more on the country, I highly recommend Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon, available from my alma mater, Wisdom Publications. It’s an oversize book of text and truly gorgeous photos — the next best thing to being there, for reals.

You can order it directly from Wisdom, here.

I rarely look at Bing; for better or for worse I’m generally a Google guy. But today, the Bing homepage’s cover star again hails from the Buddhist world.

It’s the stunning Thousand Temples of Bagan in Burma. You may have seen them in filmmaker John Bush’s also-stunning film, Journey into Buddhism: Dharma River, part of his three-part trilogy of films that reveals ancient Buddhist lands.

The Thousand Temples are really worth knowing about. Thankfully, Bing links to a short video, which you can see here. (But also, don’t miss the Bush films!)

This was posted here a couple of weeks ago:

Well, Lost, my favorite current TV show just got, um, favoriter.

Don’t know how I missed this initially, but one of the newly-returned show’s newest characters, a Japanese guy who is “Master” of the mysterious, rebirth-granting temple recently found by the Losties, is named Dogen. As in “Eihei Dogen,” founder of the Japanese Soto school of Zen Buddhism.

This is probably not insignificant, not on a show whose characters are named things like “John Locke,” “C.S. Lewis,” and “Daniel Faraday.” Also, of course, the whole thing centers around an enigmatic organization called “The Dharma Initiative.”

My eyes will be on the show and on Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays Dogen, for more. The second episode of the season is on tonight. Get caught up with last week’s premiere here.

But now, in a new interview with the New Yorker’s Vulture blog, Sanada denies a Buddhist connection:

Dogen translates roughly to “the temple of eternal peace.” Also, Dogen was a thirteenth-century Buddhist teacher. Any significance to your character?

Yeah, he’s not a Buddhist. Dogen’s name is inspired by a famous Buddhist in Japan a long time ago. He’s not a Buddhist, per se; it’s just a name. And also he has another real name from growing up in Japan.

Maybe not as much as some would think. This graphic, showing different US religions’ members incomes, has some surprises in it.

Via the great GOOD magazine, in collabro with Column Five.

…searches for “buddhist” were among the top 10 on Google Trends yesterday, The Globe and Mail reports.