: Food, Sex, Love, Art, Music & Enlightenment
Benkapa
Hello global human family. My name is Benjamin Worden, but most of my friends call me Benkapa. The secret and lesser known aspects of food, sex, love, art, music, and enlightenment are just a few of the many interesting and intriguing topics we’ll be revealing together. If you have any suggestions for subjects to cover, feel free to email me at benkapa@gmail.com.
Homepage: http://www.benkapa.com
Posts by Benkapa
Rachel Maddow vs. Bill O’Reilly – Which Journalist is More Worthy of Your Time?
Feb 10th
Bill O’Reilly says his show tackles tough issues, but I think he may be keeping people ignorant instead.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Bill O’Reilly Proves God’s Existence – Neil deGrasse Tyson | ||||
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Whereas, Rachel Maddow seems to be the one tackling difficult issues by investigating the ulterior motives behind the actions.
Enlightenment Music: SomaFM Groove Salad + Alan Watts YouTube Playlist
Jan 23rd
(⇧ adjust volume of mix)
In Buddhism, the teachings of the Buddha are supposed to adapt to the culture and not the other way around. Therefore, I’m constantly thinking about how the dharma teachings of great teachers can permeate our society and culture. So, for my culture, I love SomaFM’s Groove Salad and Alan Watts YouTube Playlists so I decided to combine them into one page of streaming dharma mixed with really great and relaxing lounge music from the amazing bay area radio station SomaFm. So I hope you enjoy the blend of wisdom teachings that somehow mixes really well with this music and you can quickly get enlightened along the way.
You can mix the volume of the shoutcast radio to match the volume of the videos. Sorry, I couldn’t find a way to preset the volume to autoplay at a preset level. But, with all our modern technology we can combine many different ideas into new mashable dharma music mixes to make our evolution as creative as we can imagine.
Please feel free to share this with your friends with the links below. You can also pop your tab into a new window to leave it running in the background while you’re enjoying life to it’s fullest!! Enjoy!!
Special thanks to Alan Watts, Groove Salad SomaFM, embedr, Shoutcast, ReligionIsACrutch, youtube.com, South Park, voidmatters and you.
All of Life Becomes an Educational Situation
Jan 17th
difficulty
The very definition of an enlightened being is one who wants everyone equally to become enlightened as quickly as possible.
Therefore, do you think an enlightened being would only inspire us in peaceful ways or do you think that they might also challenge us with difficult situations in order to evolve and grow?
What are the implications for all those difficult people and situations in our lives?
Have we learned more from the most difficult situations or from the most easy situations?
How do you think this view could radically change the way we think about encountering difficult situations in our life?
Do you think we could develop a passion for learning how to welcome difficult situations rather than trying to avoid them at all costs?
And would all those things that we used to call difficult situations, no longer be considered difficult situations at all anymore, and instead, wouldn’t they always become educational situations? Wouldn’t all of life become an educational situation?
Our World Can Appear Like a Mirror or Like a Wall
Oct 11th
Sitting in my room, I was marveling at the way mirrors add a perception of depth and distance where previously there was a wall.
In that same way, when we interact with others, do we entrap ourselves within the wall-like surface level of things?
Or, do we look beyond the surface level of appearances and see into the depths of how these scenarios came to be?
It is quite liberating to see through the deceptive appearances of people and things and to investigate how the specific decisions we made led up to this point in time and shaped the ideas about who we are, where we are, and what is possible in the future.
Passion for Music and a Meaningful Life
Sep 12th
Benjamin Zander musically starts us out by showing us, like Nelson Mandela, how to see past all our little fences as a bird flying over them with a larger perspective. He enlarges our view to be able to see the greater overreaching relationships occurring in our lives and in music. He finally shows us how to think not in terms of wealth, or fame or power as a sign of success, but in terms of how many people around us we’ve empowered to shine with a passionate zeal for life. His question for us is, ‘Who am I being that my player’s eyes are not shining?’. As a wonderful practice for our lives, we are encouraged to follow the Auschwitz survivor who said, “I will never say anything, that couldn’t stand as the last thing I ever say.”
Even if it’s not the way I want it to be…
Sep 11th
Even if the bed’s not made, it’s still perfect.
Even if they’re doing things I don’t like, it’s still perfect.
Even if there’s an oil spill, it’s still perfect.
Photo By: Hyeonbyeong Chae
Even if it’s not the way I want it to be, it’s still perfect.
It’s perfect because there’s always a potential for it to cause perfection.
Resting in that potential is perfection.
Just rest in that.
Live Webcast: The Heart Sutra and 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva
Sep 6th
These are some of the most beautiful, powerful and essential teachings of Buddhism.
from:
His Holiness the Dalai Lama will give three-day teachings on The Heart Sutra (sherab nyingpo) & Gyalsey Thokme Sangpo’s 37 Practices of A Bodhisattva (gyalsey laklen sodunma) at the request of a group from Southeast Asia. The teachings will be from the Main Tibetan Temple in Dharamsala, on September 8-10, 2010. There will be two sessions each day from approximately 9:30am-11:30am and 1:00pm-3:00pm Indian Standard Time (GMT+5.30). For timings in your region 9:30am Indian Standard time on September 8th is the same as 9:00pm September 7th Pacific Daylight Time in Los Angeles, USA.
Live Webcast: English Language view here.
Live Webcast: Tibetan Language view here.
Live Webcast: Chinese Language view here.
Sutra on the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom
The Exalted One,
the Lady of Conquest,
the Sutra on the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Tibetan translator’s note:
The name of the sutra in Sanskrit is Arya Bhagavati Prajnya Paramita Hirdaya.
In Tibetan this is Pakpa Chomden Dema Sherabkyi Parultu Chinpay Nyingpo.
(In English this is The Lady of Conquest, the Exalted Sutra on the Heart of the Perfection ofWisdom.)
This work is completed in a single sheaf.
I bow first to all the enlightened beings, and to every warrior saint.)
Once I heard this teaching.
The Conqueror was staying on Vulture’s Peak, in the Keep of the King. With him was a great gathering of
monks, and a great gathering of warrior saints.
At a certain moment the Conqueror went into deep meditation on the part of the teaching known as the
“awareness of the profound.” At that moment too did the realized being, the great warrior, the lord of power,
Loving Eyes, see into this one deep practice, the practice of the perfection of wisdom. And he saw perfectly
that the five heaps-the five parts of a person-were empty of any nature of their own.
1
And then, by the power of the Enlightened One, the junior monk named Shari Putra turned and asked this
question of the great warrior, Loving Eyes, the realised one, the lord of power:
“If any son or daughter of noble family hoped to follow the deep practice of the perfection of wisdom, what
would they have to do?”
This then is the answer that the lord of power, the realized one, the great warrior Loving Eyes gave to the
junior monk named Shari Putra:
“Here, Shari Putra, is what any son or daughter of noble family should see who hopes to follow the deep
practice of the perfection of wisdom.
“See first all five heaps-all five parts to a person-as being empty of any essence of their own. Your body is empty;
emptiness is your body. Emptiness is nothing but your body, and your body is nothing but emptiness.”
2
“The same is true of your feelings, and your ability to discriminate between things, and the other factors that
make you up, and all the different kinds of awareness that you possess: all of them are empty”.
“And thus we can say, Shari Putra, that every existing thing is emptiness. Nothing ever begins.
Nothing ever ends. Nothing is ever impure. Nothing ever becomes pure. Nothing ever gets less,
and nothing ever becomes more.”
“And thus can we say, Shari Putra, that with emptiness there is no body. There are no feelings. There is no
ability to discriminate. There are none of the other factors that make you up, and there is no awareness.”
“There are no eyes; no ears: no nose: no tongue: no body; no mind; nothing to see; nothing to hear;
nothing to smell; nothing to taste; nothing to touch; and nothing to think of.”
3
“There is no part of you that see. There is no part of you that is aware of what you see; and this is true all the
way up to the part of you that thinks, and the part of you that is aware that you are thinking.”
“There is no misunderstanding your world. There is no stopping this misunderstanding, and the same is true
all the way up to your old age and your death, and to stopping your old age and your death.”
“There is no suffering. There is no source of this suffering. There is no stopping this suffering. There is no
path to stop this suffering.”
4
“There is no knowledge. There is nothing to reach. And there is nothing not to reach.”
“Thus it is, Shari Putra, that warrior saints have nothing to reach; and because of this, they are able to
practice the perfection of wisdom, and stay in this perfection of wisdom. This frees them of every obstacle
in their minds, and this frees them from all fear. They go beyond all wrong ways of thinking, and reach
to the ultimate end of nirvana.”
“All the Enlightened Beings of the past, and present, and the future too follow this same perfection of wisdom,
and thus bring themselves to perfect enlightenment; to the matchless state of a totally enlightened Buddha.”
5
“Thus are they the sacred words of the perfection of wisdom, the sacred words of great knowledge; sacred words
of the unsurpassable; sacred words that are equal to the One beyond all equal; sacred words that you put a
final end to every form of pain; sacred words you should know are true, for false they cannot be; sacred words
of the perfection of wisdom, which here I speak for you:
Tadya ta, ga-te ga-te, para ga-te,
para sang ga-te, bodhi so ha.
“And thus it is, Shari Putra, that great warrior saints must train themselves in the profound perfection of wisdom.”
6
With this, the Conqueror stirred himself from his deep state of meditation. He turned to the great warrior, to
the realized one, Loving Eyes, the lord of power, and blessed his words, saying, “True.” “True,” he said, and
“True” again.
“Thus it is, o son of noble family; and thus is it. One should follow the profound perfection of wisdom just as
you have taught it. Every one of Those Gone Thus rejoice in your words as I do.”
And when the Conqueror had spoken thus , the junior monk Shari Putra took joy; and the warrior, the realised
one, Loving Eyes, the lord of power, took joy as well.
And all the assembled disciples took joy, and so did the entire world-with its gods, and its men, and near-gods
and spirits too-take joy. All sang their praises of what the Conqueror had spoken.
7
(This ends the sutra of the greater way known as
The Lady of Conquest, the Heart of the Perfection ofWisdom.
It was first translated from Sanskirt by the Indian abbot Vimala Mitra together with a master Tibetan translator,
the venerable Rinchen De. It was later checked and standardised by the master translators and editors
Gelo and Namka, among others.
The translation into English was completed by the American geshe Gelong Lobsang Chunzin, Michael Roach,
with the assistance of the American woman with lifetime vows, Christie McNally.)
Handy dandy chart to remember the “37 Practices of a Bodhisattva”
(from http://dhechen.com/pub/spiritual/37prac.htm):
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The Flow of the World
Sep 2nd
Our karma (every thought and ethical motivation) floods out of us every instant and tells us every quality we see in everything and everyone in our world. ∴ If we know this, we are empowered to reverse engineer every part of ourselves/world through analyzing the foundations and mechanics of our thoughts and ethical motivations.
