Whitetrash Shaolin

where am i?

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:17:04 GMT

sorry...i haven't visited this part of the virtual universe in quite a while...spending more of my time at myspace...which seems alot easier for me to navigate...feel free to drop in and say hi to me there: www.myspace.com/whitetrash_shaolin - seek sage counseling of the sensei

and

www.myspace.com/whitetrashshaolin - you can hear our latest songs...esoteric hip hop

integral creatives

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:51:01 GMT

check out these images of the live body painting/collage that we did at this past weekends create:fixate in los angeles...it was an amazing experience to work with three other artists as we transformed our beautiful model into a living, breathing, walking, talking art form...enjoy these create:fixate photos

enlightentainment.com - home of the whitetrash dalai lama

create:fixate los angeles

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:45:39 GMT

this is an art show i'll be participatig in this weekend...check it out...say hello...

Create:Fixate's All-Photography Show

when:	Sat 7.16 (7pm-2am)
where:	Spring Arts Tower (453 S Spring St, 323.466.5141) map
price:	$10 / $7 before 9pm / Free from 4-7pm
links:	Event Info \| Create:Fixate

For its second annual all-photography show, the innovative art exhibit and party known as Create:Fixate digs into the medium's vast versatility. With work ranging from the haunting nighttime landscapes of Craig Havens to the playful documentary images of Jamie Trueblood (who shot stills for Lords of Dogtown), the 28 photographers in the show reveal and reflect, startle and repulse — sometimes all with the same image. Alongside DJ'd beats and bleeps, tonight's musical lineup features wiry post-punk group the Transmissions, a promising Los Angeles trio that's been busy gathering critical comparisons to Modest Mouse and Blonde Redhead. (PJ)

sufi poets, whitetrash senseis, and suburban cult leaders

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 03:52:50 GMT

"Pre-emptive Strike"

Imagine a thousand squadron of Iranian
Air Force jets flying low over New York,
Atlanta, and Cedar Rapids.
Over the Napa Valley and Crawford, Texas.
Persian Stealth bombers flying low
under the radar, dropping a million
copies of Hafiz, on America, simply for love.
- Joe Zarantonello

joe zarantonello or mr. z as i grew up knowing him has been an important teacher on my spiritual path...he currently runs a spiritual retreat in the woods of kentucky...learn more about him here: www.looseleafhollow.com ...and buy a copy of his poetry book...only a few pages in and i had tears in my eyes...green bamboo is the title...the product of thirty years of meditation

spirituality of kung fu

attempting to teach martial arts is beginning to reveal its power in revealing the shadow of the ego as well as the necessity to dissolve the ego in order to better teach the student...
the desire to have only this dualistic perspective of win or lose in a battle sets up an endless drama of pain rather than growth...
but an approach of playfulness allows enough comfort to slip into the struggle and out of the attachment to it...to take winning and losing as the same...to became a master of the present moment...at play and at one...

love is a symbiote...(aka symbiont)

"Language Is A Reality Virus." -W. S. Burroughs
agent 139 is attempting to reach you...
www.joinmycult.org - "seriously, it'll fuck your shit up forever!"

inner guru...outer space

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 22:02:10 GMT

"We are not exactly what we think we are, which, I think, is where it starts to get interesting. Then, what are we? Who are we? We might turn the searchlight inward and start to find out a little bit, come home, and make ourselves at home, here in this universe, instead of acting like disenfranchised aliens, strangers in a strange land." - lama surya das (a.k.a. LSD)

What can we gain by sailing to the moon, if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous. --THOMAS MERTON

www.enlightentainment.com - visine for your third eye

urban fight training...integral martial arts

i'm thinking about teaching martial arts as a walking class...as we walk around the city...through various obstacles like ledges on fountains and sculptural landscaping found in corporate plazas and city hall courtyards...we practice balance and agility and sparring...and along the way...when we come across abit of open space...we practice forms and exercises...

i think the funnest part would be playing follow-the-leader...with the twisted edge being the leader can turn and spar with the person behind him...whoever is knocked off the curb or ledge must go to the end of the line...

invisible college

Sat, 18 Jun 2005 02:35:24 GMT

what i'd like to do is set up a fund for artists who contribute to enlightentainment in some way...provide the space and tools...even the living quarters on the art colony grounds...artists could apply for a space or sponsorship of their project...and in return would contribute artwork to enlightentainment...which would promote the artist as well...

integral art is collaborative by nature...as it recognizes in each of our individual art projects the contributions of so many artists around us...

martial arts is the most integral of arts...and as a physical practice way more challenging than that wimpy weightlifting crap...

Fri, 10 Jun 2005 05:58:02 GMT

When we practice, initially, as a basis we control ourselves, stopping the bad actions which hurt others as much as we can. This is defensive. After that, when we develop certain qualifications, then as an active goal we should help others. In the first stage, sometimes we need isolation while pursuing our own inner development; however, after you have some confidence, some strength, you must remain with, contact, and serve society in any field -- health, education, politics, or whatever.

There are people who call themselves religious-minded, trying to show this by dressing in a peculiar manner, maintaining a peculiar way of life, and isolating themselves from the rest of society. That is wrong. A scripture of mind-purification (mind-training) says, "Transform your inner viewpoint, but leave your external appearance as it is." This is important. Because the very purpose of practicing the Great Vehicle is service for others, you should not isolate yourselves from society. In order to serve, in order to help, you must remain in society.

-- by His Holiness the Dalai Lama from The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness, published by Snow Lion Publications

INSIGHT IS THE ENVIRONMENT AROUND THE BREATH

Tue, 17 May 2005 18:18:59 GMT

chogyam trungpa:

As far as Buddha was concerned, at that point [of his enlightenment] it was
not the message but the implications that were more important. And as
followers of Buddha, we have this approach, which is the idea of
vipashyana, literally meaning "insight." Insight is relating not only with
what you see but also with the implications of it, the totality of the
space and objects around it. Breath is the object of meditation, but the
environment around the breath is also part of the meditative situation.

From "The Way of the Buddha" in THE MYTH OF FREEDOM.

Sun, 08 May 2005 00:42:13 GMT

Wed, 04 May 2005 18:18:18 GMT

JUNE 18 SANTA MONICA, California
>> Big Mind Workshop, led by Genpo Roshi

compassion ain't no easy task...

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 21:40:48 GMT

"the best response to negative emotion is to allow it to self-liberate by remaining in non-dual awareness, free of grasping and aversion. if we can do this, the emotion passes through us like a bird flying through space; no trace of its passage remains. the emotion arises and then spontaneously dissolves into emptiness."

"you may ask why it is better to liberate emotion rather than to generate positive karma. the answer is that all karmic traces act to constrain us, to restrict us to particular identities. the goal of the path is complete liberation from all conditioning. this does not mean that, once one is liberated, positive traits such as compassion are not present. they are. but when we are no longer driven by karmic tendencies we can see our situation clearly and respond spontaneously and appropriately, rather than being pushed in one direction...or pulled in another...the relative compassion that arises from positive karmic tendencies is very good...but better is the absolute compassion that arises effortlessly and perfectly in the individual liberated from karmic conditioning...it is more spacious and inclusive...more effective...and free of the delusions of dualism." -tenzin wangyal rinpoche

www.enlightentainment.com - visine for your 3rd eye

dzogchen - the self perfected state

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 03:50:29 GMT

"everyone usually has their own way of thinking and their own convictions about life, even if they can't always define them philosophically. all the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings. in the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. no one can guarantee a philosophy's validity. because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. the fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.
dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. all our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. when we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political, or social conviction may condition us. we have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment,' 'the nature of the mind,' and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence." -chogyal namkhai norbu

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 02:59:23 GMT

from http://www.iranian.ws/

Iran, which long castigated Washington as the "Great Satan", is to promote its tourist potential on America's CNN television station and Britain's BBC, the country's vice-president for tourism Hossein Marashi has revealed to AFP.

Tense relations between Tehran and Washington will not stop Iran from exploiting its attractions on the US cable network, said Marachi, who insists US sanctions preventing American companies from trading with Iran "will not apply in this instance".

Both BBC and CNN campaigns should start within two months under a one-year contract, the value of which Marachi did not disclose.

Kevin Young, acting head of public relations for BBC World, said: "There have been long discussions about this and we're optimistic the campaign will be launched but it's not been finalised yet."

He added that no actual starting date had been decided and the ads would only be shown on the state-funded broadcaster's semi-commercial BBC World.

"We would be looking at what we call a spot campaign, which is a straightforward commercial campaign for 30- or 60-second adverts that would appear for a period of six months."

Spokesman Nigel Pritchard for CNN international in Atlanta said only: "We can't comment on commercial deals unless they are in place. There is no deal in place."

Marachi said Iran would provide footage for the slots. "They will show Iranian tourist sites.

"You'll not see Friday prayers," he added with a smile.

Tehran's aim is not to persuade Americans to visit the country, but to have an impact on the two networks' worldwide audiences so Iran can develop an industry, largely neglected given its potential.

Global network campaigns will be followed by ads on local channels in 20 countries in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians living in the United States "will also be targeted and we will try to reach them via Iranian satellite channels" although American audiences are not currently a priority.

"The United States will be targeted later," he said.

However, said Marachi, "counter revolutionary" channels controlled by Iranian exiles, mostly broadcast from Los Angeles, will not be asked to show the ads.

According to Marachi, fewer than 500 Americans visit Iran every year.

"We don't have a policy aimed at drawing American tourists, we don't give them visas easily," he said.

Americans entering Iran are fingerprinted, following Washington's decision to do the same with Iranian citizens entering the US.

The Iranian visa application process is also complex and drawn out, as it is for Iranians wanting to visit the United States.

Iran, which has an impressive but under-exploited array of cultural sites, wants to raise its current one million foreign visitors annually to 20 mln in 20 years' time, said Marachi.

At three times the size of France, Iran is home to such exceptional sites as the ancient capital of Persepolis, the Islamic architectural showcase of Isfahan and the desert city of Yazd.

The Islamic republic also offers a range of landscapes, from the forests of the Caspian Sea to the shores of the Gulf, passing by the central deserts and the Alborz mountain range, popular with Iranian and foreign skiers alike.

But the country suffers more from a lack of hotels and shortcomings in its transport system than from years of isolation since the 1979 Islamic Revolution or from its image abroad as defying the international community over its nuclear programme and making foreign women wear headscarves, said Marachi.

"We will invest 30 billion dollars over the next five years" to eliminate the deficiencies, he said.

Marachi nevertheless acknowledges that tourists will have to comply with local customs and visiting foreign women should keep their hair covered in public.

"Tourism in Iran currently brings in $500 mln a year and the aim is to reach 25 bln in 20 years' time," he said.

"From now on, foreign tourists can get a one-week visa on arrival at Tehran airport and this visa can be renewed once. In a month's time, you will be able to get a tourist visa over the Internet," said Marachi.

Withdraw U.S. Troops from Iran

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 02:52:52 GMT

Even as matters go from bad to worse in Iraq, there is increasing evidence that the Bush administration has already begun military incursions into an additional ten countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Most prominent among these countries is Iran, where the stated goal appears to be identifying targets related to Iran's nuclear program that could be subject to a preemptive attack.

According to an explosive article by renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, President Bush has signed a series of executive orders and Presidential findings authorizing the Pentagon to send in reconnaissance teams into a number of countries to prepare for military action. Underlying the mission in Iran appears to be the prediction that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would lead to regime change, throwing out the fundamentalist mullahs who largely control the country. The only analysts who share this view also predicted that our troops occupying Iraq would be greeted with flowers.

The human, financial and moral costs of attempting regime change in Iran through a preemptive military strike are likely to dwarf those we are already suffering from Iraq.

Arming Iran

Zack Sweeten - The Battalion

Iran is quietly building up a stockpile of high-tech conventional weapons, according to the Associated Press. The country is buying everything it can get its hands on, including satellite tracking equipment, tanks and cruise missiles. It is obtaining many of these weapons through a United Nations program to help underdeveloped nations fight drug trafficking within their borders. Some weapons are obtained legally through legitimate nation-to-nation arms deals, while others are under the table.

This should no doubt be cause for alarm for Americans who have family members serving in Iraq. After all, at the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency, there were several reports of hundreds of Iranians streaming across the border with military equipment into southern Iraq. It is in the Iranians' best interest to keep Iraq as unstable as possible. It's been known for some time that a large percentage of the insurgents in Iraq were foreigners. Iran could very easily "allow" these weapons to fall into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, further destabilizing the Iraq situation. If the prospect that nations were continuing to arm a known state-sponsor of terrorist groups wasn't bad enough, the arms are being sold to the Iranians by our European allies. Iran stood against the Iraqi elections; it has supplied some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world, and now is being armed by the United Nations and America's European allies.

The Iranian government claim to have a legitimate need for the weaponry. Iran is insisting it needs these high-tech weapons to combat Afghani drug-smugglers who use Iran as a highway to Europe. According to Fox News, although the bulk of American narcotics come from Columbia, European drug dealers get their supplies from Afghanistan. Iran expects the West to believe that with this new weaponry, which includes sniper rifles, artillery pieces and anti-ship missiles, will be used for drug enforcement. Sounds like overkill doesn't it? When was the last time you heard of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency taking out drug smugglers with a 105mm howitzer, or the Coast Guard taking out smugglers' speedboats with an anti-ship missile?

Iran has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted. Its government has been illegally acquiring weapons for some time. In 2001, the Ukrainian arms dealers sold Iran as many as 12 nuclear-capable cruise missiles. Unfortunately, the United States has only recently learned of such deals, as the Ukrainian opposition movement has released several intelligence reports previously unavailable. Continued...

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 06:30:32 GMT

i protect that which matters most...

aliens are us

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 03:15:43 GMT

"all human activities, if carried by human affection, become constructive." - h.h. dalai lama

transcending tribal consciousness

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:41:43 GMT

watching best of dave chappelle...as he moves beyond taking ownership of a designation used to oppress...making it a proud self expression... and pointing it outwards to all around...feel the oppression and the empowerment as you wish...thus whitetrash shaolin...moving even further on down the line...as we embrace our own background and reach out to the most alien opposite culture...and in exploring both ends of the spectrum finding a coincidence of opposites on many levels...
from tribal consciousness to global consciousness to universal consciousness...

www.enlightentainment.com - visine for your 3rd eye...

i know i know...she's so hot!

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:39:01 GMT

my known knowns keep me safe---even if this safety is matrix and not reality

my unknown knowns irritate the fuck out of me---i blow it when i don't know it

my known unknowns take up more space in my head than those known knowns---but not the space of nothingness strangely enough

my unknown unknowns perpetuate my life as i don't know it but flow with it. cause it is either go or stub your toe

- puredox

prince paul and dan the automator

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:36:33 GMT

MUSIC: Comic Hip-Hop

Handsome Boy Modeling School

when:	Mon 3.28 (9pm)
where:	House of Blues Sunset Strip (8430 Sunset Blvd, W Hollywood, 323.848.5100) map
price:	$20
links:	Event Info

Not to be confused with one of LA's seminars for striving B-listers, Handsome Boy Modeling School is actually the perennial prankster duo of super-producers Prince Paul and Dan the Automator. On their latest album, White People, these funky and fashionable freaks deliver yet another sucker punch of tongue-in-cheek hip-hop contagion, sporting cameos from folks as diverse as Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand fame, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, the Mars Volta, Jack Johnson, and Cat Power. Yep, everybody wants a piece. Don't be the last to enroll in the program. (KH)

mystical quotations of donald rumsfeld...

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 04:19:49 GMT

conspiracy/prophecy

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 06:33:27 GMT

the madhman says:
yo yo
sensei says:
spoke with jana...she's down
sensei says:
with the archives
the madhman says:
cool did you see the stuff on the live journal?
sensei says:
not yet...i'll check...i'm gonna put together an email for her ...outlining the task...so give me some input
the madhman says:
there's also 4 songs on the myspace page
sensei says:
cool
sensei says:
so...
the madhman says:
i used a new program to encode the mp3's so im listening to them right now i think they came out a lot louder
sensei says:
ah
the madhman says:
ok one sec
the madhman says:
ok so as im thinking about it there's atleast several sources that we can draw from. You should give her the login and password to enlightentainment so that ian and phil can put the files up there and she can also have access to the image library
sensei says:
give ian and phil the password?
the madhman says:
no give jana the password, they have it for the FTP so i can send big stuff
sensei says:
password to enlightentainment website?
the madhman says:
now that anthony is gonna be gone someone over there needs to be able to get in there
sensei says:
ah...
the madhman says:
lol that's a good skill for you all to have
the madhman says:
that way she can get files right from her home comp
sensei says:
i'm not sure what her skill leve is with website stuff...
sensei says:
right
the madhman says:
k, well the only thing i can think of also is to get the artwork that ian's drawn, and that shouldn't be that hard
the madhman says:
he has to scan it tho im sure, i can get phil's script on saturday i will email that to you
sensei says:
ok
the madhman says:
i can also send you some whitetrash tao
sensei says:
yeah
the madhman says:
i really dont have any visual stuff other than pictures of me lol
sensei says:
important stuff
the madhman says:
its an endlessly explorable topic
the madhman says:
so i reallu like the idea of having it be made up of a mix of different things, im just thinking like 30 pages, with 2-3 comic/dialouge, 2-3 more abstract visuals and quotes, some collage, maybe even a photo or two, some excerpts of the master thesis maybe, or some essays, maybe even one or two short entire essays, one or two advertisements for the webpage, maybe some other artists work, im real f
the madhman says:
flexable
sensei says:
flex-able
the madhman says:
yes, no holds barred
sensei says:
good good
the madhman says:
did she have any specific questions? we could be talking about this live right now if you all were on the team speak
the madhman says:
so much faster than typing, my mouth way quick than my hands
sensei says:
of course we could...we'll try to evolve to that level
the madhman says:
slight-of-mouth
the madhman says:
yes this is good
the madhman says:
2 dollar microphones you can even work as we chat rather than type
the madhman says:
im a bad typist by nature as well
the madhman says:
cant check spelling with audio
sensei says:
we got some work done today...
the madhman says:
cool
the madhman says:
does she not have any artwork on the web?
the madhman says:
or myspace or anything like that?
sensei says:
i don't think so
sensei says:
i gotta work on that with her...
sensei says:
teach the art of promotion
sensei says:
we're thinking of putting together a site with jenevonne
sensei says:
to document our little art group in los angeles
the madhman says:
and just the possibility of the computer and the interaction with the net and the fact that we can work on projects over a vast amount of space
the madhman says:
yeah thats a good idea
the madhman says:
you should learn with them
sensei says:
right
the madhman says:
keep it simple, by the way shahram made a flash video for wisdom whisky and dharma
the madhman says:
its too funny
sensei says:
wow!
the madhman says:
he's almost done i want him to send it to you
sensei says:
i gottta see that
the madhman says:
its hardcore gamer i gotta get him to send it to you now hold on
sensei says:
should i give jana your number?
the madhman says:
sure im not trying to keep it secret lol
the madhman says:
batman is in the phone book under whitetrash
the madhman says:
ok shahram is gonna send it im pressuring him
sensei says:
cool
the madhman says:
he has to do it now or he never will
sensei says:
right...i wanna record this message that shahram left on my cellphone
the madhman says:
lol do it was he hammered?
sensei says:
i dunno...it's more of his hermit style explained on the phone...his many layers of reasoning why he may have missed my phonecall...
the madhman says:
you might have some trouble playing it
the madhman says:
lol that's the best im heard that speech
the madhman says:
he's easir to find in the virtual world
sensei says:
awesome work by shahram
the madhman says:
yeah its great he did that in like a day
sensei says:
did you put the new songs up on myspace?
the madhman says:
yeah four songs, three new and a slow folk version of happy days
sensei says:
i'm not sure if they're up yet
the madhman says:
i can hear them but they might not be live yet
sensei says:
which songs
sensei says:
you switch them to downloadable?
sensei says:
are these on whitetrash shaolin or revtet?
the madhman says:
one is "ninjas vs. pirates," "Last Time I Checked," and "God's Mighty Hammer." the on the revtet page
the madhman says:
there all with guitar although "last time i checked" is rapping
sensei says:
ah
sensei says:
what's the url for that?
the madhman says:
if you can access the web then i can zip up all the mp3's i have and you can switch out ones for the whitetrsh page
the madhman says:
www.myspace.com/revtetrahedron
sensei says:
i'm listening to the new songs
sensei says:
jana wants lyrics
the madhman says:
that gonna take some time to type out
sensei says:
part of me likes the mystery...and the many interpretations
the madhman says:
i will put the lyrics on there this week - you can click a tab under the song and it brings them up
the madhman says:
they are written on a whitecastle napkin
the madhman says:
that's why its good to have an archivist
sensei says:
ah...it'd be awesome if you just scanned the napkin
the madhman says:
lol i could do that it would be sweet
the madhman says:
i got to find it its somewhere in the pile of lyrics on phonebills and pizza adds, anywhere there is whitespace there are lyrics
the madhman says:
dude im gonna have ot sleep soon is there anything that you can think of file wise i can send you now while im here?
sensei says:
not at the moment...i think we are good for now
the madhman says:
ok, ill talk to you soon ill hopefully have a bunch of stuff after saturday night
sensei says:
cool...peace
the madhman says:
later

Sun, 27 Feb 2005 01:40:40 GMT

considering costumes for burning man...based on a monk motif...experiencing past and future lives...

is there a war on poetic terrorism?

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 22:45:09 GMT

The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism
By Hakim Bey

Poetic Terrorism
WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of existence.
Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.

Go naked for a sign.

Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty.

Grafitti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public momuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement...

The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails.

PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now.

An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE.

Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you.

Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.

essay by ken wilber

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 05:02:01 GMT

THE COMMON HEART

An Experience of Inter-Religious Dialogue

Edited by Netanel Miles-Yepez

Foreword by Ken Wilber

In 1984, Father Thomas Keating invited a broad range of spiritual
teachers from virtually all of the world’s great wisdom
traditions -- Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Indigenous, Islamic -- to gather
together at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. They kept
no records, published no reports, filmed none of the proceedings. In
fact, the results of that extraordinary gathering have been largely
secret, until now.

The Common Heart is the first report of that meeting and several
subsequent ones with the same group. It is in almost every respect a
rather amazing document. First, and especially, in that it could and
did happen; second, and as much, in the results, both startling and
reassuring simultaneously.

A student once asked me, "Why study the tangled web of the world’s
traditional religions?" The implication was that the lot of them were
old, outdated, and more or less worthless; and further, they all
disagreed with each other anyway, so why bother?

I replied that yes, they were "old," and yes, they mostly disagreed
with each other. "But every now and then, you find profound points of
agreement between all of them. And any time you find something that
all of the world’s religions agree on, you might want to pay very,
very close attention, yes?"

This document is an example of some of those agreements and
therefore, I believe, something we might want to pay very, very close
attention to.

I realize that academic attempts to show certain common threads to
the world’s great religions -- from Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
to Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth -- have all been attacked by
postmodernists as being essentially meaningless, because even though
writers such as Huxley and Smith purported to show cross-religion
similarities, those similarities aren't real because cultural
relativism asserts they cannot be real. Actual cultures and
traditions, the charge goes, are all islands unto themselves, with
massive incommensurability blocking passage or even communication
between them. There can be no universal spirit because nothing
universal can be known, or, therefore, said to exist in any
meaningful sense. So there can be no agreement between, say, Taoist
texts and Christian texts about ultimate reality.

But Father Thomas did not assemble texts in a room, he assembled
humans in a room, who, quite apart from any help from the postmodern
poststructuralists, were able to decide whether their respective
spiritual traditions agreed on certain points. And, in fact, these
human beings from very different backgrounds and traditions -- cultural,
linguistic, social, individual -- did arrive at several profound points
of agreement about what, by any other name, is Ultimate Reality. The
wonderful, intense, difficult, playful, and respectful inter-
religious dialogues that arrived at these conclusions -- of both
important similarities and wonderful differences -- are the core of this
extraordinary book.

And so it turns out that, even across different cultures and
religions, meaningful human communication and agreement can and does
occur, especially when the heart is silent and listens with respect.
(And I have noticed, anyway, that postmodernists from different
cultures seem to understand each other just fine, a bit of an
embarrassment for the whole theory, what?)

As for these points of agreement, what are we to make of them? The
first one is: "The world's religions bear witness to the experience
of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names." I ask because
in today's world, there looms a very difficult issue that simply must
be addressed: why is it that, at first glance, the world's
religions -- or the ones the public hears about on the news -- seem to be
the major source of human conflict, when, on the other hand,
dialogues like these show that spirituality could be the primary
source of peace among humankind? The disparity between the former and
the latter is so large, so jarring, so hard to reconcile, and is made
all the worse when beheadings in the name of God occur weekly,
bombings in the name of God occur daily, and no world religion has a
history totally free of such. I believe that unless we can find a way
to understand and differentiate those two extremes of religion, both
will be deeply suspect in today’s world.

Let me suggest one way to think about this, and let me give a
frightfully abbreviated version (please see The Eye of Spirit for a
more detailed look). Studies in developmental psychology over the
last few decades show that individuals tend to undergo an
unmistakable trajectory of human growth and development, from pre-
conventional stages to conventional stages to post-conventional, or
from pre-rational to rational to trans-rational, or from egocentric
to ethnocentric to worldcentric. Without pigeonholing anybody or any
tradition -- because people and traditions can span the entire
spectrum -- there is a world of difference between those who are acting
in egocentric, preconventional, and pre-rational ways, and those
acting in postconventional, worldcentric, and trans-rational ways.
The latter, having developed and befriended rationality, now
transcend and include it; whereas the former are not acting beyond
reason, but beneath it.

It is the bane of contemplative dialogues such as these that in the
common mind, preconventional and postconventional are lumped
together, and pre-rational and trans-rational are unceremoniously
equated, when they are quite literally poles apart. But for today's
conventional, rationally-minded individual, the world's great
contemplative and trans-rational mystics and realizers are
indistinguishable from irrational fanatics or those seized with
infantile oceanic fantasies.

This is not only sad, it is a cultural catastrophe of the first
magnitude. And yet, until religion itself learns convincingly how to
convey these differences and increasingly focus on the best in its
postconventional, transpersonal, and contemplative dimensions,
religion for the world at large will likely remain either the
province of prerational fanatics or rational cynics. Transrational
dialogues such as these -- which embrace rationality fully and then go
beyond it into the mystery of the divine and the obviousness of the
ultimate -- will never gain the deep appreciation and even reverence
they deserve.

The points of agreement in the following dialogues do indeed spring
from that deep space of trans-rational openness and contemplative
transparency, where the human heart stands naked to the divine,
discovering at the end of that journey into the present a dividing
line between them almost impossible to find, a gateless gate to that
I AMness that only alone is.

And what are the rest of these extraordinary points of agreement?
These things about which the world’s religions can concur? Please
start reading and sharing in these dialogues from the Unborn and
Undying, and know that you are indeed on a journey into your very own
heart, a common ground that is timeless and therefore eternally
present, spaceless and therefore infinitely open, an Ultimate Reality
that is reading this page, holding this book in its hands, and
looking out through your very own eyes in this very present moment,
for where else possibly could the journey begin and end?

Ken Wilber
Denver, Colorado
Winter 2005

jesus sports statues

Tue, 15 Feb 2005 23:38:58 GMT

found at www.catholicshopper.com