Arts and Media

Mark Sanford, who on Tuesday was elected to Congress by South Carolina voters, reveals he turned to meditation after the spectacular implosion of his political career as governor of that state after the revelation of his trip to Argentina in pursuit of a woman while he told his wife and staff that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

A Poem:

I am brave, I am brave
I am willing to be brave
I am sorry, I am sorry
I am willing to be sorry

I am willing to look
underneath and in between
the covers and the kitchen cupboard
know what I mean?

I love myself with whimsy and I
love you just the same
I ask to see the mystery
But things just stay the same always change

My non-practicing Jewish grandparents used to come to synagogue on Friday nights just to hear me sing in the youth choir. “You were the littlest one up there, but you had the biggest voice,” my grandma tells me. That might be true, or it might be something grandmas say, but I remember feeling confident and having FUN singing, unconcerned with whether I was talented.

Good morning or afternoon or evening, Contemplation Station travelers. We took advantage of current research into warp drive technology and got the train ready for space travel. Now, as you can see, we are orbiting Tau Ceti — we are like another planet traveling around that star.

People consider conscious rap now, in hip-hop circles, to feel condescending or feel like not a part of the mainstream. So the challenge for me is, "How do I be as good or better than these rappers out here?" and "How do I stay relevant with my music still being considered conscious?"
-- Talib Kweli

Please come out and support this wonderful and thought provoking film. It will only be screening through this coming Thursday [My 9th] at Cinema Village on 12th Street.

At the end of a long spring day, Ananda and the Blessed One took a walk out to the wall at 187th Street in Washi

Yesterday, a friend sent me this beautiful poem by Thich Nhat Hanh.  You can read the moving intro here, where Thay, as he is affectionately known, writes about a young girl and a pirate, and how there is more to the story than the victim/perpetrator dynamic we tend to see at first look.  It is hard for me to find kindness for the pirate who raped the young girl.  Even with this poem, Thich Nhat Hanh is not condoning violence or harm, and actively works towards social justice and peace.  It seems like an extremely advanced Bodhisattva mindset to hold both of these perspectives at once -- that violence is never condoned, yet we try to hold all beings in our hearts, even those who commit terrible violence.