Meditation for January 21st, 2016
Emptiness
A lot of people search for peace and tranquility by learning to empty the mind in meditations. Sometimes it is sitting in silence for hours, fasting, practicing yoga, listening to one’s own breath and many other varieties of ways one can get rid of the clutter that muddies up our minds. People pay to learn these ways and go to retreats, take classes, buy books and hire gurus.
This means only one thing, spirituality is only for the financially well off. Who can really spend time going to a spa in Sonora, Mexico on a working person’s wage? Even the Buddha is rich and just has time to sit under a tree when he achieves nirvana, he didn’t have to go to work, and then he becomes the first trust fund kid by going around begging for food instead of working for it. It took the Beatles fame and fortune to get over to India and get conned by some guru.
Using Eastern spiritual practices is a billion dollar industry and permeates not just crystal-decorated bookstores and yoga shalas, but even big business is using it to enlighten their officers and help them perform and sell better. It is a fine line between a self-help spiritual book and a self-help-how-to-close-sales book. People who can afford time and the hefty price tags can go frolicking in Tahiti learning yoga or some Buddhist spiritual retreat in the deserts of the Southwest.
Wanna skip the thousand-dollar weekend to learn how to empty the mind? Watch all 13 seasons of NCIS. If you don’t have time for that because you have a job and other responsibilities, then let the rich have fun pretending to be monks in the Redwoods and we’ll just do real life.
Prayer
Many-Armed Blue Lady,
hear my prayer for enlightenment.
I need it in only five minutes,
I need it between my responsibilities.
I need it for cheap.
I need it to be okay with one scented candle from Albertson’s,
and the pork ramen I bought for 24 cents,
because rent, power, phone, school and medical loans were due in the same week,
and my work has cut my hours.
Elephant Head God With Many Swords and Stuff,
hear my plea,
for nirvana,
instead of dealing with real life,
and listening to the neighbors hit each other,
and gun shots somewhere in the distance,
and my girlfriend is grumpy,
and the ramen didn’t quite fill me up and I can hear my stomach gurgling,
and my body hurts all over from working hard,
and standing up on a crowded bus banging against the bars,
as it hits a bunch of potholes,
and from sleeping on a shitty mattress,
cold,
but please let me learn intuitively how to do a sun salutation,
so I can feel pleased with my self.
Amen.
Craft
Potato Stamps!
What you’ll need:
Potato – preferably a russet
Carving knife – careful!
Paint – find as many colors as you can!
Paper – or anything that can be stamped.
What to do:
Take a knife and cut your potato in half.
Carve a shape into the flat side of the half potato.
Paint the raised part of the design you carved.
Get stamping and have lots of fun.
You can use these stamps to make wrapping paper, wallpaper or stamping hands at your local punk rock club.
Goal
Don’t worry about learning to empty your head. It isn’t possible without the use of drugs. If you really want to become one with the universe, it requires to find a cocktail of drugs that will bring you to the brink of death and let you stay right there in a coma. You’ll be physically on life support and your family and friends will cry as they stare at your lifeless vegetable of a body, but you’ll be nothing, and one with the Buddhas.