Wow! I thought that guy couldnt get any more fucking idiotic than the last song of his you posted. Well, at least he exceeded my expectations.
Jsnsays
What do you bet that he’s got a CIA/HomeSecurity dossier and his phones are tapped? Goddamned Hippy Dissident!!! (heh heh)
Jsnsays
Donalbain,
Didn’t Macbeth murder you? Evidently you can’t even BUY a sense of humor.
Schmeersays
Donalbain:
I missed the part that apparently offended you so much. The song seemed pretty harmless and silly to me.
brightmoonsays
patridiotic…im stealing that
Donalbainsays
1) The song isnt funny
2) It rests for its humour on false premises
3) Given events in Burma, I find the murder of buddhists monks to be a decidedly UNfunny concept.
Martinsays
Luckily that wasn’t done in the UK… Under our new “inspiring to religious hatred” the government could make a good case for having him sent off the jail.
Of course.. if he’d sung about going after muslims… they’d have been right on him.
Not that I’m bitter at all about my government turning my country into a police state and then covering for the terrorist indoctrination centres and teachers. And why not cover for them; more terrorists = more fear = more government power = less freedoms.
Good song though.
zer0says
Satire is hard to understand. If you can’t realize that this is a form of over the top satire poking fun at how out of control things are these days… you fail at life.
Xanthir, FCDsays
1) The song isnt funny
2) It rests for its humour on false premises
3) Given events in Burma, I find the murder of buddhists monks to be a decidedly UNfunny concept.
1) That’s fine. You’re more than entitled to your opinion. I thought the song was slightly amusing, but not really funny, per se.
2) “False premises”? Please elaborate. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
3) By this criteria, *any* joke about killing someone else is unfunny. If this is your opinion, then I’m with Jsn. Get a sense of humor, dude. It was a joke. And not one of those “Haw haw, it’s a joke now that you’re offended” things. It was meant as a funny thing.
Bethsays
“The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists.”
~God (via The Onion)
Donalbainsays
There is such a thing as appropriate timing in humour. And a couple of days after a massacre isnt appropriate timing in my mind.
And as for the false premise, the premise that US government is a genocidal monster is simply too far from reality to be funny.
Seansays
I didn’t catch any implication that the US Government is genocidal. A clear implication that the current atmosphere of xenophobia among Americans might have a lot to do with our foreign and domestic policy, sure, but shrill hostility isn’t the same thing as ethnic cleansing.
Sandersays
This song from way before the events in Burma.
Sandersays
posts[14].sub!(‘This song from’,’This song is from’)
Zarquonsays
And I thought it was going to be this tune by Shriekback.
pkspsays
I am Buddhist. Buddhism is not the sole province of the orient or Burma, for that matter. Siddartha Gautama (Buddha) was a Hindu prince from India. The religion started there and spread East, and then West. I see no offense in this guy making fun of Buddhists. I actually think he is applauding them for not being like us in the United States, hence we have to “go after them” because of their differences to Our Way of Life(TM).
Jimrsays
Ditto above. I self-identify as a Buddhist and found his song mildly amusing,if a bit too Tom Leher-ish. His timing is just unfortunate.
He refers to Buddha “a god who doesn’t have a beard,” but Buddha’s not a God. Some schools of Buddhism treat him as one but few Westerners follow that view. Interestingly, this “Make offerings and prostrate to the statue” school of Buddhism is the one the Burmese government (and some of its sockpuppets in ochre robes) actively promotes. The protesting monks represent a less idolatrous form of the Dharma.
Seansays
What the hey, might as well out myself as a buddhist for the sake of the hat trick.
As far as Buddha not having a beard, what about this guy?
Rjayesays
Wowzers, how many of us who comment on this site are Buddhist?
As a person who recently had a run in with a very young Christian evangelical who freaked out that I was Buddhist and completely unconcerned, and who decided to “save” me, I thought the song was “mildly” amusing. He’s not after Buddhists. He’s out to twit the xenophobic, isolationists who can’t pull their collective heads out of their asses to see there are other people with different views, and who view the most physically non-threatening people as a threat. Is it obvious I’m still a little steamed some little twerp thought she had the right to try and “straighten” out a nearly fifty year old adult?
And as I said, it was only “mildly” amusing.
Patri-idiotic…that was the best part of the song. : >
Moopheussays
“Wowzers, how many of us who comment on this site are Buddhist?”
At least one more.
I found the song only slightly amusing, though not in any way offensive–it was clearly not the _Buddhists_ he was making fun of.
Of course, the only reason more Christians aren’t threatened by Buddhists is that they’re still a very tiny minority in this country. Of course, the idea that Christians would be threatened by folks who are influenced by a pacifist spiritual leader who turned away from seeking material wealth and power is only slightly ironic.
Charlie (Colorado)says
Holy smokes, we should just ask who comments here who isn’t Buddhist! I live in Boulder and the proportion of buddhists surprises me.
I will point out, though, that until and unless the Buddhists start blowing up IEDs under Americans, the comparison between them and Iran is perhaps less apt than it seems on first blush.
MJ Memphissays
Lots of Buddhists lurking about here tonight! I also vote against the song being offensive. Maybe not my cup of tea, but that’s no crime.
As a Theravadin, I will confess to being a little conflicted with the Burmese protests. While I am all in favor of oppressed people moving to democracy, I am not comfortable with the sangha getting actively involved in politics. Lending support to the people, certainly; actively marching in the streets and leading protests… not so much.
Jimrsays
“I live in Boulder and the proportion of buddhists surprises me.”
It shouldn’t. Boulder’s to American Buddhism what Salt Lake City is to Mormonism. That’s courtesy of Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan exile lama, polymath, drunk, womanizer and stunningly brilliant teacher who used it as the staging ground for spreading a modified form of Tibetan Buddhism throughout America and Europe.
Jamiesays
HEY!
I’m with those freaks in Boulder – but living here in providence…
I grinned…. guess I’m going to hell – again – see you there
what was that teaching about not taking oneself too seriously? NBD?
or how about the one about the Pope and the Rabbi?
peace – Jamie
may all beings have happiness, and the causes of happiness. May they be free from suffering, and the causes of suffering. May they never be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May they live in equanimity, free from passion, aggression, and aversion….
It’s pretty interesting how many commenters identify as Buddhist. I still face a quandary whether to identify as a Buddhist or an atheist. While they’re not necessarily incompatible (being non-deist and all), there’s a lot I either don’t know or don’t practice in Buddhism and there’s still an uncomfortable amount of woo.
That said, the small amount of Buddhism I do know has helped me far, far more than any of the nutty desert sky-god theology ever did.
Identifying as Buddhist is probably safest socially since everyone recognizes it as believing in or practicing something, even if they don’t know precisely what that something is. The Lubavitchers will still treat you as subhuman and the evangelicals will still try to save you, but I expect you’ll take less crap overall in the US.
Mmm … barbeque!
Samsays
I’m with Harris on the Buddhist issue. Meditation can lead to reproducible and measurable changes in cerebral activity (it’s kind of hard to deny the evidence). But there’s a lot of attached woo to Buddhism that’s just the same old bollocks accreted over the centuries from the social environments in which it was born and raised. The term ‘scientific buddhism’ has been coined and is usually held in distain by long-winded Buddhist commentators, which seems a pretty good reason to like it.
“attached woo”
I like that. You know what the Buddhists say about attachment…
Still, one man’s woo can be another man’s poetry.
I’d rather sit in a meditation hall with red and gold banners and occult-looking shrine than in an EEG lab, though I suppose either would work.
I may not believe a guy with “Rinpoche” at the end of his name is a reincarnation of somebody else with “Rinpoche” at the end of his name, but with few exceptions (paging Stephen Segal…) these “tulkus” (reincarnate lamas) are pretty inspiring individuals, so I’m grateful to have them around however they got here.
Basically however, I think we agree: if you take what the Buddha (is reported to have) said, strip away the tedious mnemonic repetitions added by centuries of oral tradition, and hold pending further evidence things like multiple lifetimes, what you’re left with is not woo, but an unsurpassed woo solvent.
The narrator of the song thinks that Buddha is a god. Naturally. The lyrics are supposed to be the fevered ranting of a wingnut. Remember, these are the same people who think that atheists hate God and worship Satan.
Adding that line to the song contributes to its verisimilitude.
seansays
I still face a quandary whether to identify as a Buddhist or an atheist. While they’re not necessarily incompatible (being non-deist and all), there’s a lot I either don’t know or don’t practice in Buddhism and there’s still an uncomfortable amount of woo.
Anecdote: My teacher’s teacher, Sogen Rotaishi, was a somewhat noteworthy Zen abbot. I have a book by him in which he calls God a “childish superstition” in the second paragraph of the introduction.
Sadly, much of the rest of the book is full of talk about kiai and whatnot. On the upside I’m pretty sure ‘kiai’ is just used as an aesthetic term by the roshis at my temple, (I’m pretty sure Sogen meant it in the “invisible life force” sense.) So maybe that’s a sign that naturalism is starting to get more traction in at least one Buddhist lineage.
J Greensays
Donalbain, maybe the cap fit too well? Some comedy has the purpose of making explicit what is on people’s minds.
Jon Hsays
“As far as Buddha not having a beard, what about this guy?”
That was from when he was following Hindu ultra-ascetic practices, before he discovered the middle path, was enlightened, and became the Buddha. As the story goes.
Jon Hsays
” But there’s a lot of attached woo to Buddhism that’s just the same old bollocks accreted over the centuries from the social environments in which it was born and raised. ”
The woo is very dependent on the variety of Buddhism. Tibetan has a lot. Theravadan, not so much. ‘Insight meditation’ or ‘vipassana’ have relatively little, though the main teaching figures in American Buddhism tend to be aging hippies, so no matter what some degree of woo or woo-like imagery is likely to seep in.
I find it unfortunate that the TM loons sucked up so much of the mindshare for so long, so that many people think of that when they hear ‘meditation’. The basic meditative instruction from the Buddhist canon is merely to pay attention to your breath as it flows in and out. No exotic or woo-y explanation behind it, merely utilitarian: The breath is always available, it’s automatic so no extra effort is expended to maintain it, and it’s surprisingly effective (and difficult- you really learn how much your mind jumps around).
A book I found very interesting and useful was “Zen and the Brain” by Dr. James Austin (MIT Press). Austin is a 70-something emeritus professor of neurology who has been practicing Zen since a late-60s stint working in a lab in Japan.
Austin lays out a number of known phenomena with known or hypothesized causes, which are similar to phenomena experienced in deep meditative states. From there he works toward presenting testable hypotheses (noted in the forematter/TOC) about what is going on in the brain during deep meditation and how meditation seems to cause lasting changes.
Ian Gouldsays
If oen were minded to do so, you could point to the role of Sri Lankan Buddhist monks in the civil war there; the role of the Thai King (a significant Buddhist religious figure)and the Thai Sangha in the recent military coup there; the ongoing links between the Burmese sangha and the junta there in the years before the recent protests and the lack of democracy in virtually the entire Buddhist world; and concoct a conspiracy theory about the worldwide threat from the Buddhist savages.
Strangely, many of the people who would decry this conspiracy theory as the blatant nonsense it is, have no trouble accepting similar theories about Islam.
Somehow I missed “Larry Craig is Completely Heterosexual” — it even came out on my birthday!
Wow! I thought that guy couldnt get any more fucking idiotic than the last song of his you posted. Well, at least he exceeded my expectations.
What do you bet that he’s got a CIA/HomeSecurity dossier and his phones are tapped? Goddamned Hippy Dissident!!! (heh heh)
Donalbain,
Didn’t Macbeth murder you? Evidently you can’t even BUY a sense of humor.
Donalbain:
I missed the part that apparently offended you so much. The song seemed pretty harmless and silly to me.
patridiotic…im stealing that
1) The song isnt funny
2) It rests for its humour on false premises
3) Given events in Burma, I find the murder of buddhists monks to be a decidedly UNfunny concept.
Luckily that wasn’t done in the UK… Under our new “inspiring to religious hatred” the government could make a good case for having him sent off the jail.
Of course.. if he’d sung about going after muslims… they’d have been right on him.
Not that I’m bitter at all about my government turning my country into a police state and then covering for the terrorist indoctrination centres and teachers. And why not cover for them; more terrorists = more fear = more government power = less freedoms.
Good song though.
Satire is hard to understand. If you can’t realize that this is a form of over the top satire poking fun at how out of control things are these days… you fail at life.
1) That’s fine. You’re more than entitled to your opinion. I thought the song was slightly amusing, but not really funny, per se.
2) “False premises”? Please elaborate. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
3) By this criteria, *any* joke about killing someone else is unfunny. If this is your opinion, then I’m with Jsn. Get a sense of humor, dude. It was a joke. And not one of those “Haw haw, it’s a joke now that you’re offended” things. It was meant as a funny thing.
“The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists.”
~God (via The Onion)
There is such a thing as appropriate timing in humour. And a couple of days after a massacre isnt appropriate timing in my mind.
And as for the false premise, the premise that US government is a genocidal monster is simply too far from reality to be funny.
I didn’t catch any implication that the US Government is genocidal. A clear implication that the current atmosphere of xenophobia among Americans might have a lot to do with our foreign and domestic policy, sure, but shrill hostility isn’t the same thing as ethnic cleansing.
This song from way before the events in Burma.
posts[14].sub!(‘This song from’,’This song is from’)
And I thought it was going to be this tune by Shriekback.
I am Buddhist. Buddhism is not the sole province of the orient or Burma, for that matter. Siddartha Gautama (Buddha) was a Hindu prince from India. The religion started there and spread East, and then West. I see no offense in this guy making fun of Buddhists. I actually think he is applauding them for not being like us in the United States, hence we have to “go after them” because of their differences to Our Way of Life(TM).
Ditto above. I self-identify as a Buddhist and found his song mildly amusing,if a bit too Tom Leher-ish. His timing is just unfortunate.
What the hey, might as well out myself as a buddhist for the sake of the hat trick.
As far as Buddha not having a beard, what about this guy?
Wowzers, how many of us who comment on this site are Buddhist?
As a person who recently had a run in with a very young Christian evangelical who freaked out that I was Buddhist and completely unconcerned, and who decided to “save” me, I thought the song was “mildly” amusing. He’s not after Buddhists. He’s out to twit the xenophobic, isolationists who can’t pull their collective heads out of their asses to see there are other people with different views, and who view the most physically non-threatening people as a threat. Is it obvious I’m still a little steamed some little twerp thought she had the right to try and “straighten” out a nearly fifty year old adult?
And as I said, it was only “mildly” amusing.
Patri-idiotic…that was the best part of the song. : >
“Wowzers, how many of us who comment on this site are Buddhist?”
At least one more.
I found the song only slightly amusing, though not in any way offensive–it was clearly not the _Buddhists_ he was making fun of.
Of course, the only reason more Christians aren’t threatened by Buddhists is that they’re still a very tiny minority in this country. Of course, the idea that Christians would be threatened by folks who are influenced by a pacifist spiritual leader who turned away from seeking material wealth and power is only slightly ironic.
Holy smokes, we should just ask who comments here who isn’t Buddhist! I live in Boulder and the proportion of buddhists surprises me.
I will point out, though, that until and unless the Buddhists start blowing up IEDs under Americans, the comparison between them and Iran is perhaps less apt than it seems on first blush.
Lots of Buddhists lurking about here tonight! I also vote against the song being offensive. Maybe not my cup of tea, but that’s no crime.
As a Theravadin, I will confess to being a little conflicted with the Burmese protests. While I am all in favor of oppressed people moving to democracy, I am not comfortable with the sangha getting actively involved in politics. Lending support to the people, certainly; actively marching in the streets and leading protests… not so much.
“I live in Boulder and the proportion of buddhists surprises me.”
It shouldn’t. Boulder’s to American Buddhism what Salt Lake City is to Mormonism. That’s courtesy of Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan exile lama, polymath, drunk, womanizer and stunningly brilliant teacher who used it as the staging ground for spreading a modified form of Tibetan Buddhism throughout America and Europe.
HEY!
I’m with those freaks in Boulder – but living here in providence…
I grinned…. guess I’m going to hell – again – see you there
what was that teaching about not taking oneself too seriously? NBD?
or how about the one about the Pope and the Rabbi?
peace – Jamie
may all beings have happiness, and the causes of happiness. May they be free from suffering, and the causes of suffering. May they never be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May they live in equanimity, free from passion, aggression, and aversion….
It’s pretty interesting how many commenters identify as Buddhist. I still face a quandary whether to identify as a Buddhist or an atheist. While they’re not necessarily incompatible (being non-deist and all), there’s a lot I either don’t know or don’t practice in Buddhism and there’s still an uncomfortable amount of woo.
That said, the small amount of Buddhism I do know has helped me far, far more than any of the nutty desert sky-god theology ever did.
Identifying as Buddhist is probably safest socially since everyone recognizes it as believing in or practicing something, even if they don’t know precisely what that something is. The Lubavitchers will still treat you as subhuman and the evangelicals will still try to save you, but I expect you’ll take less crap overall in the US.
Mmm … barbeque!
I’m with Harris on the Buddhist issue. Meditation can lead to reproducible and measurable changes in cerebral activity (it’s kind of hard to deny the evidence). But there’s a lot of attached woo to Buddhism that’s just the same old bollocks accreted over the centuries from the social environments in which it was born and raised. The term ‘scientific buddhism’ has been coined and is usually held in distain by long-winded Buddhist commentators, which seems a pretty good reason to like it.
Careful now. The fundamentalist Buddhists are coming to get us:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2183080,00.html
“attached woo”
I like that. You know what the Buddhists say about attachment…
Still, one man’s woo can be another man’s poetry.
I’d rather sit in a meditation hall with red and gold banners and occult-looking shrine than in an EEG lab, though I suppose either would work.
I may not believe a guy with “Rinpoche” at the end of his name is a reincarnation of somebody else with “Rinpoche” at the end of his name, but with few exceptions (paging Stephen Segal…) these “tulkus” (reincarnate lamas) are pretty inspiring individuals, so I’m grateful to have them around however they got here.
Basically however, I think we agree: if you take what the Buddha (is reported to have) said, strip away the tedious mnemonic repetitions added by centuries of oral tradition, and hold pending further evidence things like multiple lifetimes, what you’re left with is not woo, but an unsurpassed woo solvent.
The narrator of the song thinks that Buddha is a god. Naturally. The lyrics are supposed to be the fevered ranting of a wingnut. Remember, these are the same people who think that atheists hate God and worship Satan.
Adding that line to the song contributes to its verisimilitude.
I still face a quandary whether to identify as a Buddhist or an atheist. While they’re not necessarily incompatible (being non-deist and all), there’s a lot I either don’t know or don’t practice in Buddhism and there’s still an uncomfortable amount of woo.
Anecdote: My teacher’s teacher, Sogen Rotaishi, was a somewhat noteworthy Zen abbot. I have a book by him in which he calls God a “childish superstition” in the second paragraph of the introduction.
Sadly, much of the rest of the book is full of talk about kiai and whatnot. On the upside I’m pretty sure ‘kiai’ is just used as an aesthetic term by the roshis at my temple, (I’m pretty sure Sogen meant it in the “invisible life force” sense.) So maybe that’s a sign that naturalism is starting to get more traction in at least one Buddhist lineage.
Donalbain, maybe the cap fit too well? Some comedy has the purpose of making explicit what is on people’s minds.
“As far as Buddha not having a beard, what about this guy?”
That was from when he was following Hindu ultra-ascetic practices, before he discovered the middle path, was enlightened, and became the Buddha. As the story goes.
” But there’s a lot of attached woo to Buddhism that’s just the same old bollocks accreted over the centuries from the social environments in which it was born and raised. ”
The woo is very dependent on the variety of Buddhism. Tibetan has a lot. Theravadan, not so much. ‘Insight meditation’ or ‘vipassana’ have relatively little, though the main teaching figures in American Buddhism tend to be aging hippies, so no matter what some degree of woo or woo-like imagery is likely to seep in.
I find it unfortunate that the TM loons sucked up so much of the mindshare for so long, so that many people think of that when they hear ‘meditation’. The basic meditative instruction from the Buddhist canon is merely to pay attention to your breath as it flows in and out. No exotic or woo-y explanation behind it, merely utilitarian: The breath is always available, it’s automatic so no extra effort is expended to maintain it, and it’s surprisingly effective (and difficult- you really learn how much your mind jumps around).
A book I found very interesting and useful was “Zen and the Brain” by Dr. James Austin (MIT Press). Austin is a 70-something emeritus professor of neurology who has been practicing Zen since a late-60s stint working in a lab in Japan.
Austin lays out a number of known phenomena with known or hypothesized causes, which are similar to phenomena experienced in deep meditative states. From there he works toward presenting testable hypotheses (noted in the forematter/TOC) about what is going on in the brain during deep meditation and how meditation seems to cause lasting changes.
If oen were minded to do so, you could point to the role of Sri Lankan Buddhist monks in the civil war there; the role of the Thai King (a significant Buddhist religious figure)and the Thai Sangha in the recent military coup there; the ongoing links between the Burmese sangha and the junta there in the years before the recent protests and the lack of democracy in virtually the entire Buddhist world; and concoct a conspiracy theory about the worldwide threat from the Buddhist savages.
Strangely, many of the people who would decry this conspiracy theory as the blatant nonsense it is, have no trouble accepting similar theories about Islam.