From another account: “The victims said, Bamjan, with the help of a local, brought them to a local’s house and thrashed them saying they were trying to scuttle his meditation.”

Hm. Well, that’s disappointing. But I can’t say I don’t understand it!

* Update: turns out he can’t say it ain’t so….

The Ottawa Citizen has the story from which this great sentence comes. Go, Blackout!

Well, don’t expect to hear that distinct brand of greatness again. Courtney Love has told the Dallas Observer that:

“Eric Erlandson and myself shall not play guitar together again,”citing that it is for “religious purposes” having to do with them being of different Buddhist sects that are not allowed to be in the same room as one another.

Um, what?

Well, Love is an SGI (Sokka Gakkai International) Buddhist. Erlandson is a practitioner of Nichiren Shoshu, and yes, it seems that never again shall the twain meet. Quoth Wikipedia (because I’m feeling lazy today):

In 1991, Nichiren Shoshu officially excommunicated the leaders of its then-largest lay organization, Sōka Gakkai, for their doctrinal deviations and disputes with the priesthood. In 1997, those non-leaders who chose to remain as members of the Soka Gakkai, instead of becoming members of Nichiren Shoshu, also lost their status as “believers.” The Soka Gakkai now operates as a doctrinally and organizationally distinct group.

Huh.

Vince guy spent four years wallowing in equations and graph paper building a totalitarian Sim City hellscape called Magnasanti, racking up a population of six million and claiming to beat an otherwise unbeatable game. Watch this and get scared:

Even if it weren’t somewhat sinisterly inspired by the Buddhist Wheel of Life, this is still something to see.

Read the rest over at Viceland.

Seriously, he wrote that. See it here. He had to be kidding, not knowing it was going to be as bad as it was, but still — kinda unfortunate.

Read “It’s Wrong to Cheapen Great Eastern Religions” here. And if you got here by reading the WFP, welcome.

Update: The formidable Scott A. Mitchell has a reasonable beef with the WFP post. Don’t miss his piece, “Misquoted,” here.

Buddhists protesting by throwing stones? Ridiculous.

Isn’t it?

Update: the Sri Lankan government has denied Akon a visa.

March 24 update: Akon has postponed his Sri Lanka tour.

March 27 update, via tamilweek.com: “Akon visa denial has wider impact on Sri Lanka and Buddhism”

The tattoo in question, via farm4.static.flickr.com

Sports site TSN reports that:

“English welterweight Dan (The Outlaw) Hardy’s stomach tattoo was airbrushed out of the UFC 111 fight poster because it is ‘anti-Chinese government stuff,’ according to UFC president Dana White.

‘”I’m trying to get into China,” he told fans at a question-and-answer session Tuesday. ‘I don’t need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters.’

“Hardy, however, says the tattoo — the fighter’s favourite — is a Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit.

‘”It’s basically just like a prayer for focus,’ Hardy said. ‘It keeps me walking the path that I should be walking without veering off and distracting myself.’

“Apprised of that explanation, White said: ‘That’s not what I heard.’

[...] “‘I heard that it was anti-Chinese government, so I ripped that thing off it. I’m not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we’re trying to get into China. . . . I don’t know what this stuff means, so I’ve got to be safe.’

But, as the MMA site Bloody Elbow (nice name, that) points out:

“The tattoo is the well known Buddhist mantra “Om mani padme hum” which has no political significance in relation to China.”

Well, not quite no political significance.  While the tattoo isn’t an overt anti-China statement, China sure is sensitive to hearing about Tibetan Buddhism. Some, like Robert Thurman, would even go so far as to say that the Chinese government is trying ‘re trying to, um, airbrush it away.

So, Nation, what was it that Colbert was talking about? A run-down and video follow.Well, one of the most recent recipients of the “Colbert Bump” was author and food-and-democracy activist Raj Patel, who, it seems, fits the profile for Maitreya, the second coming of Buddha — at least as prophesied by Benjamin Creme of SHARE International. (You can easily Google Creme and his organization for more info, but you might think it telling, for example, that he strongly contended that crop circles — long known now to be hoaxes — are irrefutable evidence of UFOs.)

Creme had said in the past that his Maitreya — actually more a one-size-fits-all religious leader, rather than the specific future Buddha that is spoken of in some Buddhist legend and doctrine — would fit several criteria: he would be dark-skinned, born in 1972, would have traveled to London in 1977, and would sometimes speak with a stutter. All of this can, if fact, be said about Patel. That is, if you are willing to consider that Patel “tripped over a few words” on his recent Colbert Report appearance (as reported by the New York Times, and championed by Creme’s followers) amounts to him actually having a stutter.

Colbert, of course, delighted in uncovering the Prophesied One: “I’m not just a king-maker, I’m a god-maker!” And, of course, he had Patel on the show tonight. Patel denied that he is Maitreya. Conveniently, this was another of Creme’s criteria.

Though enjoying himself, Patel smartly said that what our religious energy would be best put to use by not following leaders. “We should think for ourselves… asking, Why is there poverty? Why is there hunger?”

He may not be the future Buddha, but hey, at least Patel understands what really matters.

Here’s the video: