First, the Suicide Girls Radio interview I did is online now. Listen to it by going to:http://blip.tv/file/4402557
I feel like it gets better as it goes along, so feel free to skip ahead.
Next, my good friend Marrrrrkus in Finland (home of delicious pippari) told me about a couple articles on li'l ol' me that I had not seen before:
The Brad Warner Paradox
Brad Warner Vs. the Dalai Lama
I don't even know what "Brad Warner Vs. the Dalai Lama" really even has to do with me other than the opening quote. It's mostly a discussion about God.
Then there's Elephant Journal's nice review of my new book. The new book in question is, of course, Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between. It's selling like hot cakes here in New York City. I wish it was selling like books, though...
So tomorrow is Thanksgiving and my sister is on her way to NYC so we can go watch the Macy's parade. Yoiks! This is my second Thanksgiving this year, since I was up in Canadia last month when they had theirs. I think they add a "u" to the word "Thanksgiving" up there, but I'm not sure.
A guy asked me recently about what he called the "Microsoft-ization of Zen." I'm not exactly sure why he used this term. He meant the way there are lots of people out there hawking products that are essentially Zen, but without actually calling it "Zen." They carefully avoid using words like "Buddhism" or "dharma," even though most of their schtick comes straight out of Zen books. Sometimes straight out of my Zen books!
I've noticed this too and it bugs me. I'm well aware that using words like "Zen" or "Buddhism" or "dharma" will essentially cut your potential audience by at least half. Hell, when I make even the smallest mention of Dogen in these pages I get half a dozen comments about how I'm just promoting the "cult of Dogen" rather than "actual Buddhism." I'm gonna try to address that topic another time, though.
But all these dudes out there hawking Zen but not calling it Zen, why would that bug me? It bugs me because they seem to want to imply that you can just decide to be more "in the moment" and it'll happen. Or they offer some new miracle method to get you there "quickly, easily and effectively" (the verbatim claim of one such method I just came across). Those methods don't work, of course. Though they might provide some kind of short term thrills.
It's like if you woke up one morning and realized you were fat. Not only you. You realized your whole society was made up almost exlusively of people who were at least 200 pounds overweight and that every service, entertainment, occupation, etc. in the entire society was geared toward making already fat people more fat. You couldn't just decide not to be fat in such a society. You'd need to spend a lot of time, effort and energy just figuring out how one could lose weight. Your senses might be so dulled by the environment that you wouldn't even be able to recognize someone of healthy weight. Your friends would all describe such a person as dangerously ill.
Methods like Big Mind® and their ilk strike me as the all-cupcake-diets of this imaginary landscape. Some blubbery guy tells you that the best way to get to a healthy weight is to eat as many cupcakes as possible because what you really want is not to be 200 pounds overweight but three or four-hundred pounds heavier than you are now.
Anyway, yeah, the whole idea of cribbing from Zen without really understanding what it is and hiding the source of your inspiration lest it scare away paying customers irks me. And I'll admit it, one of the reasons it bugs me is because I can't do it myself and therefore I make way less money than the people who do. It would feel far too dishonest. Whatever minor insights I have come through Zen Buddhist practice. If I were to deny that I'd be cheating.
Anyway, plenty of people don't think I have any insights at all. I got an email the other day that said "You are an egoist and have no wisdom to offer!" Gee, thanks. That's sweet.
OK. So whatever.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving, America! See you down at the parade!
