Dashboard Buddha: Doctor Who Edition

"Mankind doesn't need warfare and bloodshed to prove itself. Everyday life can provide honour and valour. Let's hope that from now on this country can find its heroes in smaller places. In the most ordinary of deeds."
--The Doctor

Fig. 1 The Doctor is most definitely IN

In the series three finale of the new Doctor Who, the “Master”—a powerful Time Lord gone completely mad—seizes control of the planet Earth and rules with no mercy for an entire year. During that time, the Doctor is imprisoned, but he tells his trustworthy companion, Martha, to roam the world in order to develop a weapon against the Master: a special injection gun that will kill him instantly. The Master finds her and destroys the gun, but Martha is amused that the Master would think the gun was their entire plan.

“As if I would ask her to kill?” the Doctor says from his cage, displaying his usual reluctance to take life, even in such an extreme situation. Killing was the Master’s way of doing things, but that’s not the Doctor’s style.

Turns out the real plan was to the spread the word of the Doctor’s powers in order to get everyone on Earth to call out his name at a certain moment—a prayer of hope, if you will—which magically breaks the Doctor’s bonds and renders the Master powerless. Up until that moment, for the entire year, the Doctor had said time and time again that he had one thing to say to the Master. The Master knows what it is, and he takes it as a threat.

“I forgive you,” the Doctor says, embracing the fearful Master as a friend.

Despite all the Master had done to hurt and kill humans, the Doctor had no intention of harming him. The Master, after all, was the only other Time Lord in the entire universe, and the lonely Doctor didn’t wish to lower himself to a level of hatred and malice that would cut his population in half.

After the Doctor reverses time and the world goes back to what it was before the year of tyranny, Martha, upon looking out at all the people in London, says, “A time was, every single one of these people knew your name, now they’ve all forgotten you.”

“Good,” the Doctor says without hesitation, as he is happy to be perpetually uncredited for his part in saving lives.

Fig. 2 Make nice with your enemies

That Doctor Who episode reminded me of the tale of Ungali Maal and the Buddha. Ungali Maal was a fearsome man who wanted to sacrifice a thousand people to a goddess. He got his name, which in Sanskrit means “finger necklace” because he would take his victims’ fingers and string them together and wear them around his neck. After killing hundreds of people, Ungali Maal encountered the Buddha in a jungle and wanted to kill him as well.

The Buddha was fearless and said, “Take a leaf from that tree there, buddy.” Ungali Maal humored him and plucked a leaf from the tree. The Buddha then said, “Now put it back on the tree.”

Ungali Maal said, “Pfft, that’s impossible. You can’t put a leaf back once you’ve taken it.”

The Buddha said, “Then if you can’t put it back on, you shouldn’t pluck it off in the first place, my friend.”

Ungali Maal realized the real meaning of the Buddha’s lesson and immediately bowed down to him, the Buddha forgave him, and Ungali Maal the murderer went on to become a saint, one of the Buddha’s most devoted followers. The Buddha would never take credit for Ungali Maal’s transformation because he didn’t force him to be good, Ungali Maal himself made the decision to be good.


Practicing forgiveness and modesty is a very Buddha thing to do. It’s a very Muhammad thing to do. It’s a very Jesus thing to do. What if we treated all people like they’re the last of our kind?

Fig. 3 A little sonic screwdriver for the soul

Orthodox Jew Reggae stars and Islamic Rap artists and everything in between

"My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary."
--Martin Luther

Fig. 1 I Always thought clothes were overkill

I loved Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven from my first viewing at the theatre, and it wasn’t because Orlando Bloom gets shirtless in it (that’s just one reason). With institutions like Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons involved, as well as an uncredited Edward Norton performance and Ridley’s signature mise-en-scene, it’s a masterfully illustrated story about the folly of pride and the human necessity to embrace all nations as one human family.

Perfectly underpinning this multicultural theme is Harry Gregson-Williams’ rich tapestry of a musical score. It seamlessly weaves Celtic, Mediterranean, and Persian influences into a set piece that is earthly for its mix of instruments, yet otherworldly because it makes the many cultures responsible for the different styles feel as if they were never separated by land or sea. A favorite thread in this score is the angelic echoing vocals of ancient choral hymns. I noticed the simplicity set me at ease whenever I was studying or reading, and I wanted more.

A search for Gregorian chants on iTunes yielded my now favorite group Sequentia, an ensemble dedicated to resurrecting the canticles of medieval Europe. Both male and female voices in predominantly acapella performances transport me to a musical plateau of serenity. Whenever I listen, I can practically smell the incense and feel the warmth of the sun filtering through the stained glass in colored shafts of light. As a bonus treat, Sequentia likes to toss in a few instrumental pieces that showcase the sounds of traditional strings and woodwinds.

There’s something universal and profound surrounding them. Perhaps it’s the sheer grace of God, or just the incomprehensible Latin, but I prefer to think it’s the purity of devotion that imbues them with comprehensive appeal. They were performed to praise a higher existence, not to deride or condemn, but inform listeners of the deeds and love of God.

In Mary Doria Russell’s exquisite novel The Sparrow, a young man working in Arecibo for the SETI program discovers a signal sent through space and time from a star system a few short light years away. He realizes that it’s a song, which indicates intelligent life. Scientists, humanists, and a Jesuit priest are all brought together by that ethereal music, and all of them travel to this new world on the Jesuit organization’s dime. For the Jesuits, as an influential and financially capable organization in the story, the mission is about finding rare resources that can be brought back to fund their missions on earth. For each of the characters, the journey becomes a spiritual test as they attempt to discover the source of the songs on a strange new planet.

Reading the book, I was surprised how moved I was by the description of the SETI discovery and it had me thinking for days about how I’d react to such a significant event. Hearing a song from an alien world filtering down through the stars and vast chasm of space would be a singular spiritual moment for all humankind.

Earth itself has a diversity of music that might overwhelm an off-worlder first hearing it. Even if they only listened to the religious tracks, they’d be surprised at the variety. I certainly was.

Podcasts, movies and documentaries may not be alien sources, but they provided plenty of absorbing listening from perspectives I never knew existed. Here’s a spiritual playlist of some of my favorites:



“There Is A Tree” by Carrie Newcomer
I heard an interview with this Quaker folk singer/songwriter on Interfaith Voices a while back, and was particularly impressed by the mystic quality of this song and her rich, earthy voice. It invokes a sense of the profound in everyday life, as does Carrie’s entire album “Geography of Light.” My other favorite song of hers, “Where You Been,” makes direct reference to many faiths, revealing the universality and playfulness of spirit.


“O Quam Mirabilis Est (Antiphona)” by Sequentia
The simplest, most angelic of Sequentia’s tracks. I have no clue what she’s saying, but it doesn’t beg translation. I feel the love, the dedication, the devotion, the joy. It’s beautiful in its musicality, heartbreaking in its purity.


“Hannukah on Hannukah” by Erran Baron Cohen
I read an article on Tabletmag.org (formerly Nextbook.org) on a newly released album in December 2008 that was created to “change Hanukkah’s reputation.” It’s called “Songs in the Key of Hannukah” and upon hearing it once through, I decided I could listen to it all year long. It’s composed by internationally acclaimed DJ Erran Baron Cohen, who cranks up the irony of his brother’s anti-Semitic characters by injecting a proud and somewhat fundamentalist Jewish flavor to this holiday album. Lighting the shamash and eating sufganiyot has never been so hip.


“Mul Mantra” by Snatam Kaur
Whenever I hear this song, I’m reminded of the long trip between New Orleans and Killeen, Texas with my sister and her husband. I stared out at the endless Texan grazing land and listened to the Sikhwithin podcast, where I first heard Snatam Kaur’s soothing voice. Turns out she’s something of a rockstar in Sikh circles, a California-born woman who performs kirtan devotional music on peace-promoting world tours. The Mul Mantra is the essence of the Guru Granth Sahib, the official Sikh text, and within its few words, contains dense layers of spiritual concepts. Snatam is such a gifted singer that simply hearing her version of the chant without any previous knowledge of Sikh theology, one can sense the depth and emotion and history suffusing it.


“Welcome Home” by Hamza Peréz
Featured in the excellent PBS POV documentary New Muslim Cool, this inspirational rap serves as a primer for leading a righteous life after leaving jail. Informed by Hamza’s own story as a Puerto Rican ex-drug-dealer in the streets of Pittsburg who converted to Islam, this song cuts through to the core of spiritual conversion: to change your life for the better, forever. The film demonstrates the injustices visited upon Hamza’s mosque community as well as the strength of brotherhood and sisterhood they have to endure life’s hardships, and how Islam always guides them toward kindness and standing up for themselves.


“I Will Be Light” by Matisyahu
Matthew Paul Miller, known by his Hebrew name Matisyahu, was influenced through a youth equally defined by Bob Marley and yeshiva, and his music seamlessly sews together reggae-flavored instrumentals and vocals with Hasidic Jewish theological themes. Another Interfaith Voices discovery, this song, with its “dreadlocks to sidelocks” backstory, struck me as a powerful testament to the dynamism of religion and how beautifully it can evolve and inspire each new generation.


“Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” by The Doobie Brothers
I just really love this song. It’s very catchy. Its spiritual message doesn’t detract from its pop cred at all. Anyone can listen to it, whether you’re Christian or not, because it’s stripped of dogma. It’s a simple story of finding Jesus as a friend, and no matter that I’m a Buddhist, I can still agree that Jesus is just alright.


“Pal Pal Hai Bhaarii” by A.R. Rahman
This one is on the soundtack of the excellent hindi film Swades, and it’s from the scene featuring the Ramlila, the traditional play about Lord Ram’s life and adventures. The lyrics are based on the classical storytelling style and as usual, A.R. Rahman’s underlying score defines itself as anything but simple accompaniment. Find the translation of the story on Bollywhat.com and you’ll enjoy the full impact of the lyrics, both dramatic and mystical.


“Sacred Stones” by Sheila Chandra
Oddly enough, I first heard this song on an episode of Queer As Folk, and it was played during a slow-motion sequence meant to give some pause to the usual fast-paced beats that pump through the heart of Babylon, the characters’ nightclub of choice. I noted its singularity among other songs featured in the show and discovered the meditative quality it had. It’s just the kind of song you’d hear playing in the background at a yoga class, but it constitutes more than your standard ambient vaguely South Asian-flavoured white noise. It combines a handful of religious chants in one song to exemplify the tonal, and, incidentally, the spiritual similarities among them. Listen closely.


“Muestro Senyor Elohenu” by Yasmin Levy
Listening to Vox Tablet one day at work, I heard the story of a woman whose father painstakingly preserved thousands of traditional Sephardic songs sung in Ladino—a Hebrew-Spanish language, an Iberian version of Yiddish. Having a Puerto Rican background myself, and a pretty sharp ear for music, I was struck by the instant visceral reaction I had to her voice. In her interview, she described how her feet stood in three worlds—Israel, Arabia, & Spain—and her multicultural influence was so evident in her songs, the unification of which brought me to tears. It still does, every time. Her music, especially this song, is a manifesto for the brotherhood of human life.


“Twilight and Shadow” by Howard Shore
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is no doubt three of the most spiritual and soul-searching films of any generation, and the music reflects themes as diverse as the races of Middle Earth. I find this track one of the most essential because it distills the complex bittersweet tone of the entire story into a sad but hopeful hymn that you could drop into a list of songs by Sequentia and not know the difference.

The Hanukkah bush is still burning

“Does Hanukkah commemorate events profound and holy?
A king who came to save the world?”

“No. Oil that burned quite slowly.”

--Stephen Colbert & Jon Stewart singing “Can I interest you in Hanukkah?”


Fig. 1 My sister, hungry for Hanukkah

You gotta hand it to Christians. They really have a lot of pizazz in their holiday celebrations. Whatever it means to you, you can’t deny the jocularity of the Christmas season. Pageantry, singing, sparkling lights, tinsel, brightly colored presents and party costumes and dresses--it’s no wonder the English language has developed the expression “Gay as Christmas.”

The Jews, on the other hand, are comparatively “meh” about the old “sensible alternative to Christmas,” Hanukkah. That’s not to say they haven’t tried. I mean, eight days of presents certainly trumps one day, but it’s often described as an exercise in delayed satisfaction instead of a week of gift-giving bonanzas. The food is great, though! What’s more deliciously American than oil-soaked potatoes and jelly donuts? I’m surprised they don’t use that in their marketing campaign more often.

Fig. 2 Jon tries to convince Stephen that Hanukkah is cool

For me, celebrating Hanukkah has meant profoundly understanding every nuance in a finely-crafted jokes Jewish comedians make about it. The subtle but illustrative dropping of Yiddish terminology and references to the Maccabean battles of old have proven extremely hilarious in the right context. And I get stares from people who are obviously not Jewish “it-getters.”

Two years ago, I went menorah shopping in preparation of my upcoming Hanukkah festivities. Did you know that you could spend as much on a menorah as you do on a Christmas tree? They last longer though, and many become heirlooms, which certainly sticks with the Hanukkah theme of conservation. Can you imagine having the same artificial Christmas tree in your family for generations? Didn’t think so.

Menorahs are nowhere near as messy, though instead of kvetching about pine needles and preventing the dog from drinking the tree water, I had a festive time scraping melted candle wax off my mantel. A handy tip: to get the wax off the menorah itself, put it in the freezer for an hour, then chip off the frozen wax. Much easier on the lower back than hauling the tree into the attic.

Fig. 3 The Jewish equivalent of an artificial Christmas tree

The first time I insisted on giving Hanukkah a try, my family already had years of trained experience making latkes. My mom, the multi-talented cook who always loves trying new recipes from all walks of life, taught us the joys of shredding potatoes and squeezing out their copious amounts of water to make the pancakes stay in one piece in the pan. They are, by far, one of the greatest contributions to culinary art ever. Smothered with sour cream and chives (or applesauce, if you’re traditionally-minded) with a side of Hebrew Nationals and some carrot coins… oh baby. It gives you the energy for days worth of dreidel spinning.

We also challenged ourselves to giving eight gifts to each other every evening after lighting the candles. We were already bogged down with buying Christmas gifts, so they usually amounted to very small tokens involving inside jokes and edible treats. My dad, the creative one, came up with an unexpectedly complex plot to crush us with his gift-giving and storytelling prowess. At the time, I’m not sure he fully appreciated what he had gotten himself into, but I’m glad he did it.

Each night, sitting on the sofa in the living room, he revealed a small chapter of a Hanukkah story he had conjured, and each night he gave us something related to the story, much like how Kindergarten teachers use props to read children’s books to their students. It was a story about a young man with a magical “Gelt Horse” and a magical basket that filled up with coins every night so he could save enough money to marry a young lady. Dad gave us each a small plastic toy pony with a Star of David Sharpied onto its rump, then a small basket, then an increasing amount of golden Sacagawea dollars appeared in the baskets. They doubled every night. You can imagine that we ended up with a handsome sum when we ran out of candles.

Fig. 4 The purebred Gelt Horse

Best lesson in saving money EVER.

Thank you, Dad, for making your little girl’s first Hanukkah a memorable one.

As for the real reason people celebrate Hanukkah, its details are thought provoking in their outward mediocrity. Judah Maccabee led the Jewish revolt against the tyrannical Antiochus in Judea around 164 BCE. When the Maccabees took back control of the temple, they found only one day’s worth of the consecrated oil needed for daily ceremonies, but during the eight days it took to make more oil, the oil they had never burned out. The story was considered too recent and inconsequential at the time of compiling the Jewish testament, so it didn’t make the final edit. Hanukkah as a commemoration ranks as a minor holiday compared to Pesach (Passover) or Yom Kippur.

So why has it risen to the rank of the most popularly known of Jewish holidays (in America, at least)? The tradition of gift-giving and the focus on childhood activities may have been installed to give the holiday more chutzpah and a means of Jewish immigrants to assimilate into American culture during the country’s nation-building era. But as Jon Stewart tends to say regarding his own interfaith family’s holiday observations, “Christmas blows the doors off of Hanukkah.”

Fig. 5 Even our dog Harmon got into the spirit

Most fascinating to me, though, is how each traditional image we associate with Hanukkah still steadfastly embodies reference to the Maccabbean story. The dreidel, something so innocuous and seemingly random, has the Hebrew letters Nun, Hay, Gimel, Shin, which stands for the Hebrew phrase: “Nes Gadol Haya Sham” (A Great Miracle Happened There”), referring to the miracle of the eight-day oil. The nine-armed menorah (as opposed to the ancient traditional seven-armed menorah) is actually called a Hanukkiah (related to the Hebrew word for “to dedicate”), denoting its use as a lamp for “dedicating” the new temple that Judah had captured from Antiochus.

Hanukkah, as a minor holiday, is simply not built to be the kind of all-encompassing epic celebration of anything as world changing as a messiah coming to Earth, which is part of the reason why it’s got flyweight muscle in the pop culture match between it and that heavyweight champion, Christmas. Hanukkah basically had the unfortunate luck of occurring adjacent to Christmastime and is compared to Jesus’ birthday by virtue of proximity, which is totally fakakta.

Fig. 6 If Martha Stewart were Jewish...

Hanukkah was designed for something else entirely. It’s a small holiday that has, in the grand history of things, made the others still possible. Hanukkah commemorates the little miracles that make all the difference. Little miracles like oil-fried latkes with sour cream. Mmmm.

Sunrise, Sunset

“I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.”
--Elie Wiesel


Fig. 1 My Nature Coast sunset

On Wednesday, 12 September 2007, I went to the beach with my sister. It was a typical sun-kissed September day, and some fluffy clouds rolled in the late afternoon, just in time for a photoshoot during the “Magic Hour.” Before hopping into the car, my sister grabbed her camera, and I grabbed handfuls of sand from my Zen garden and I put some in my pockets.

We drove out to Pine Island, which is just about the smallest beach in existence. It’s a spit of land on the margin of a saltwater marsh connected to Nature Coast scrub prairie by a long but modest two-lane limestone dirt causeway. The road winds out to where a handful of stilt houses have taken up residence, along with a small park skirted by white quarried sand trucked out there for the enjoyment of sunbathers and castle builders.

Pine Island is almost never what you’d normally define as “populated.” By Santa Monica standards, PI is as deserted as a beach on Pluto, hosting more seagulls and almond-sized crabs than humans. It’s one of the Gulf Coast’s many little secrets that require no more than direct knowledge and $2 for parking (and even that is waived after a certain hour). When the neon-cheddar-orange disc of the sun dipped into the Gulf of Mexico, we emptied our pockets into the water, symbolically casting off our sins and problems from the past year and letting the tiny waves carry them away.


Fig 2. Suck it, sin!

My sister, the natural photographer, got some great shots of this event. A Pine Island sunset is remarkable enough without ushering in a religious holiday, but hey, the more spiritual significance, the merrier. Ushering out the old year with water, sand and warm autumnal sunsets appeals more than a cold January garish ball drop several latitudes away.

That was our first Rosh Hashanah.

When I first decided to study everything, I began with investigating holidays. Everyone loves an excuse for getting out of work and spending a day full of music, food, and fireworks with the occasional James Bond movie marathon.

Fig. 3 Daniel Craig: Good for the Jews
(see Munich & Defiance... seriously, go see them)

Jews have accumulated an impressive number of holidays not because it’s so ancient (Hinduism beats it by a thousand years or so) or because they’re particularly self-congratulatory (all the Woody Allen self-deprecation says otherwise), but because the Torah focuses so much on remembrance and preserving memory of the Tribe’s incredible history. For eighteen minutes of that incredible history, try downloading The Tribe short film from iTunes. Best two sheckels ever spent. See also: West Bank Story. I think it won "Best Use of Hummus in a Short Subject Film" at the Oscars.

There are a lot of fasts and feasts throughout the year, but there are fourteen that will show up in the most religiously aware of wall calendars, and they’re all fun to pronounce: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Chanukah, Tu B’shvat, Purim, Pesach, Yom HaSho’ah, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Lag B’Omer, Shavuot, and Tisha B’av. They last from one to ten days (depending on who you ask), and they’re brimming with all the mentally enticing symbols and customs my culturally titillated heart adores.

For me, 5768 (according to the Hebrew calendar) was a do-it-yourself year of becoming less of a blatant shiksa, and I still enjoy my new traditions of celebrating the big ones in my own freestyle way.

Fig. 4 Not kosher

Next weekend, I’ll post my reflections on Chanukah (Hanukkah, whatever, as long as it has 8 letters, it's spelled right), which begins this year at sunset on December 11. It’s one of the few Jewish holidays that manifest with a small, dedicated section of the seasonal greeting cards aisle in Target, along with an endcap shelf containing menorahs, candles, and decorative gel window clings. So break out your dreidels and latke recipes and your Yiddish dictionary and join me for some oil-soaked fun!

Head to the ground

"The earth has been made for me [and for my Ummah] as a masjid [place for worship] and a pureness ; therefore, anyone of my Ummah can pray whenever the time of Prayer is due."
--Prophet Muhammad

Fig. 1 A two-year-old can understand this. Someone fetch me a two-year-old!

Listening to a Speaking of Faith podcast from a few years ago, I was struck today by Ingrid Mattson’s description of her first prostration experience. This particular episode is an interview with Ingrid regarding her conversion to Islam and subsequent appointment as the first woman president of ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America.

Ingrid tells the story of being in France during her first exposure to Senegalese Muslim devotees who became her friends. One day, they invited her to pray with them and she said she didn’t know how. They said that she could just follow along with what they were doing, so she obliged. Islamic prayer, the du'a, involves many steps, including several body positions and prescribed chants and Ingrid felt extremely awkward trying to keep up.

Fig. 2 I'm pretty sure it's not quite this complicated

But once she had her forehead to the ground, taking pause in that position, she felt closer to the earth, closer to God, and in the intimacy of the moment in which she could not be distracted simply because her eyes are staring at the floor, she felt prayer as a full body experience for the first time. When I heard her say that, I remembered that I had the exact same feelings doing my first Buddhist prostration.

I don’t know about y’all, but the last time I had my forehead to the ground was last night, after dinner. My pre-yoga ritual consists of what may be called a standard Buddhist chant:

I take refuge in the Buddha.

I take refuge in the Dharma.

I take refuge in the Sangha.

I follow this up with candle-lighting and some prostrations of my own, borrowed from the Tibetans. I hold my palms together in a specific mudra (hand formation) and touch the top of my head, my forehead, my heart, and then bend down for a full-body prostration on the ground, touching my forehead to the carpet. I do this three times, each time reciting the above mantra.

Fig. 3 Olympic Cross-country prostration

When I did this for the first time, I was in the privacy of my bedroom, with nothing to distract me and no one to see me make this new step toward adopting a cultural tchotchke my new faith. It felt incredibly strange and awkward. As a not-so-churchy person to start with, when I saw movies and documentaries showing Buddhists doing this pretty obvious, involved, anti-subtle prayer ritual, I was confused. I had to keep in mind that it was a Tibetan-style prostration, one full of meaning and metaphor and even superstitious history, but it was beautiful and I wanted in.

I wanted to “create sacred space” and learn to respect it by bookending my meditations and yoga practices with a small ritual.

But the prostrations were awkward for more than one reason, i.e. I had no clue what I was doing because I had never done them before. It was strange because bowing and touching the floor, in Western society, is associated with subservience and is way too self-deprecating an act for a middle-class protestant nation that worked very hard to escape class-obsessed systems and aristocratic societal structure.

For Eastern societies, these acts are a sign of profound respect toward someone or something and in no way demeans the person doing them. It is humbling, but it’s a willful humility I adopt whenever expressing my respect for my teacher, The Buddha. I bow to him, not as a worshipper, but as a student, and in the process, I also bow to nature and the Universe, connecting myself to a stable ground beneath me through a gentle touch that always touches me back.

I definitely fulfill my quota of hours with my head in the clouds (and especially in outer space due to my love of astronomy), so it's common sense to balance it out by literally touching it down to the ground everyday.

How to win the cosmic war on Christmas

"... the only way to win a cosmic war is to refuse to fight in one."
--Reza Aslan


Fig. 1 Season's Greetings, Earthlings

At Thanksgiving dinner this year, my uncle made a curious observation about my aunt's shopping behavior. She, my little cousin and my grandma have made it a tradition to wake up at 3 am every Black Friday and rush off to a major mall to take advantage of the bajillions of holiday doorbuster deals that surface every year right after Thanksgiving. I thought it was a harmless tradition, giving those three some time together doing what a large percentage of folks do this time of year. Nothing special. But my uncle mentioned that my aunt would buy one or two of that year's "hot" and "hard-to-find" item for the sole purpose of bragging rights, then return it a few days later. She did it to prove that she had the shopping skillz to grab a certain DVD or toy before anyone else, then get a refund after the stampede of shoppers was over.

I said to my aunt, "You know there are desperate people who would probably commit a hate crime against you for doing that."

She said, "I know!" and laughed.

Fig. 2 The Cathedral of Shopping: The Mall of America

Earlier, while waiting for the turkey to be sliced, I was in my cousin's room, assisting her with decorating some black t-shirts with fabric paint and glitter. She had three of them, each with their names on the back and "Black Friday 09" plastered across the front. They claimed that they all wore the same thing so it was easier for them to find each other if they got lost in the "running of the crazed consumers." I thought it was fairly practical at the time, but in light of my uncle's comments, I saw this Black Friday activity for what it truly was: a sport. They had uniforms and a healthy sense of competition. Well, maybe not so healthy. Shopping for Christmas has become a full-contact sport requiring a certain level of cynicism and defiance with a full-throttle ego boost that accompanies success.

I love my aunt, cousins and grandma dearly, and I'm certainly not judging them for commiting a mild offense against other early bird wacko types who place way too much value on obtaining half a dozen Zhu Zhu robotic hamsters, but seriously... is this the real problem with Christmas?

Fig. 3 Worship the almighty Flying Christmas Presents

The mainstream media outlets (and Stephen Colbert) have been reporting on the so-called "War on Christmas" for years. They focus mainly on Wal-Mart greeters' usage of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas" and overly PC people shoe-horning in holiday wishes that include Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Eid, Festivus, etc. into their holiday office parties and gift-giving activites. Because God forbid we respect all the less-than-overcommercialized sacred festivals of other religious traditions celebrated by citizens of this country. This hyped-up paranoia about Christmas supposedly getting usurped by other holidays is patently absurd, of course, since the real threat to Christmas is the deep-seated materialism that surrounds it. The true meaning of Christmas, in my opinion, is not at war with outside aggresors, but from within.

Yes, this argument has been raised as well, and by the very same people who bring up the anti-PC argument. I only invoke the argument because as a Buddhist convert, I've had to recently reinterpret my reasons for my continued observance of many holidays, as well as summon a mission statement regarding my observance of Hanukkah, Diwali, Passover, Samhain, Holi, Yom Kippur, etc. in an effort to further my multipraying quest.

Fig. 4 Jon can't believe dreidels can't compete with Santa Claus

I could have woken up one day and played the "I'm not Christian" card and declared that I didn't have to participate in anything that wasn't related to my new spiritual path. Hey, it would save me a shitload of cash and headaches every year, wouldn't it? I could have sat back and amused myself by anthropoligically analyzing all the fun out of these gauntlets people perrenially embark upon in order to please their money gods. It would have been too easy to just excise myself from the holiday fray and meditate on the futility of materialism.

The year I converted myself, that first year I had to experience Christmas without the churchgoing obligations or the latent guilt of not really believing the nativity story and how to reconcile that with the obsession over Santa Claus and elves and fruitcake and inflatable lawn decorations and credit card debt, I was free. I was free to understand.

I understood for the first time how other religions effected Christmas. And despite what I've heard from a particular cynic who shall remain anonymous, it's not a bad thing that Christianity has been touched by religions that came before it. Jesus wasn't born in December, but more likely around the time Jews celebrate Sukkot in the fall. Or perhaps in the spring. Christians today celebrate in winter because that's when pagans celebrate Yule and Saturnalia and other winter festivals, and Emperor Constantine cleverly moved the date to make it easier for pagan converts such as himself. Santa Claus is derived from the Turkish Saint Nicholas and the popular back story of his life is drawn from Germanic folk traditions. Dragging an evergreen tree into your house and lighting it up to remind you that life persists through the bitter winter? How totally pagan of you!


Fig. 5 Jesus wishes he were born on Christmas

Christmas is not "diluted" by these non-Christian influences, but enhanced. It has been enriched by the numerous converts through its history, converts who brought their own flavors to the big melting pot of Christmas. Gift-giving, baking, decorating, visiting with family, and parties have basically become secular activities in December, and this captures the distinctly American influence on Christmas: sharing it with everyone, no matter the race or creed. With this in mind, it's difficult to put stock in the paranoia, the superficial culture war borne out of fear and ethnocentricism. The problem the warriors for Christmas have is with themselves, and unable to appreciate or recognize the beauty of the Christmas collage, they lapse into self-loathing without even knowing it.

Fig. 6 Who's to say the Festivus Pole doesn't enhance Christmas?

I now fully understand what Christmastime means to me: family gatherings, seeing far-flung friends, creating homemade gifts, lighting my menorah, baking Martha Stewart cookies with my sister, watching holiday classics like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Zhivago, playing A Colbert Christmas music on an endless loop, enjoying the laughably mild winters of Florida, but still freezing my ass off to see the Geminid meteor shower on a clear cold night.

If Christmas to you means a false sense of "purity" over a rich medley, or if it means casting aside all other holidays in an effort to "preserve" a homogeneous past that never existed, then you're participating in a cosmic war that cannot be won by anyone involved.

I choose not to participate in the cosmic war. I choose to participate in Christmas. It's the more Buddhist thing to do. It's the more American thing to do. It's the human thing to do.

Fig. 7 Totally Kosher.

Dashboard Buddha: Dune Edition

The universality factor is not one limited to Buddhism. Followers of every religion see aspects or images of their faith in everyday situations, culture, literature, and sometimes even tortillas and cinnamon buns. These “sightings” often end up telling us more about ourselves than about the religion, i.e. seeing the beauty of a blooming flower as evidence of a supreme being’s love of beauty or that we truly bask in the wonder that God would take time out of his busy daily schedule to manipulate the heating elements in toasters to create vaguely Jesus-shaped burn marks on bread.

But what is most telling about such visions is that we want to believe. We want to believe that the words of our gospels, hymns, pujas, mantras, and prayers apply to our lives in a fundamental and thinly veiled manner. This is natural and to be expected if we are ever going to push ourselves through toward heaven or enlightenment. Unfortunately, this expectation has to potential to limit our spiritual vision. If we only look for what is obvious as a sign that we are on the right track, we miss out on the infinite subtleties of the Universe. An outsider may not understand the spiritual significance of a Native American peyote ritual or a sweat house, simply because Jesus didn’t talk about it. Or someone may not understand the simple antiquated existence of Mennonites because they live in a metropolis and can’t imagine not having a Facebook account.

In my Dashboard Buddha entries, I will chronicle my attempts to lay the template of my beliefs over commonplace things. It could be any number of sci-fi fandoms, a weekend activity, a movie, a book, a TV show, or a single act of a person that struck me as an enlightened thing to do. I’ll make a concerted effort to turn my spiritual gaze toward the ubiquitous and the unintentionally profound. As George Clooney once said in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, I will “see the lilies of the goddamned field.”

I christen this column with a piece about that most famously misunderstood and deeply geeky of sci-fi adventures: Dune.

I must not fear.


Fear is the mind-killer.


Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.


I will face my fear.


I will permit it to pass over me and through me.


And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.


Only I will remain.

--Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, "Dune," Frank Herbert

Fig. 1 You know you've made it when you're immortalized in Lego

I’m probably one of the few people who saw the original 1984 David Lynch film version of Dune and was positively mesmerized instead of utterly dismayed. I only saw it because I had been watching Twin Peaks re-runs and had a crush on Kyle MacLachlan and I did what any self-respecting teenage girl does when she has an actor infatuation: I watched everything I could find no matter the known quality or lack thereof. What resulted was affection more powerful than that between a girl and her Hollywood boyfriend. The world of Dune had been unleashed upon my impressionable, youthful sci-fi nerd brain and I was dutifully impressed.

When my dad told me I should read the book I was wholly gobsmacked. “There’s a book?! I must read this book!”

Soon after I started reading Dune, I had the privilege to be retroactively disappointed in David Lynch’s movie. This is the complete opposite experience for most people who love Dune. I believe my example proves more the undeniable genius of Frank Herbert than any backwardness on my part.

Dune, which is richly saturated in all manner of religious allusions, has become an exceptionally abundant goldmine for me. The flakes of Buddhism are shiny and plain to see.

At the beginning of the novel, Paul Atreides, the son of the Duke of Caladan, must undergo a special test. It’s a test that will help determine if he is the Kwisatz Haderach—a prophesied messiah in the “Duniverse” who is said to have the power to bridge time and space and inherit the memories of all his ancestors. The test, which involves placing your hand into a black box and feeling it burn with incredible unbearable pain, is designed to test one’s ability to see through fear, and therefore determine your human-ness (as opposed to “a machine created in the likeness of the human mind”—the ultimate sin). The box itself is nothing more than a box, but through “nerve induction,” you are made to believe that your hand is burning up inside.

Fig. 2 Walk without rhythm, you won't attract the Worm

During the test, Paul repeats the Litany Against Fear over and over in his mind and passes the test, never jerking his hand out of the box because he realizes that his fear is unfounded. He is the first male in history to pass this test, which makes the Bene Gesserit suspect that he is the Kwisatz Haderach.

The fear Paul experiences is just an altered perception of reality. Buddhism suggests that all of reality is perception. The key concept of the Diamond Sutra—so-called because it cuts through illusion as sharply as a diamond—is that nothing is what it seems.

Fig. 3 The Diamond Sutra is the Buddha's best friend

The Diamond Sutra invokes the example of a rose. What is a “rose?” It’s made up of thorns, petals, a stem, water, chlorophyll, some perfume. But each of these things alone is not a “rose.” That object we call “rose” is actually an amalgam of parts that constitute a “rose.” Just as we are not fully ourselves without our body parts and a soul or an ego and the people who surround us and call us by our name, a “person” is a combination of things. Nothing, except perhaps subatomic particles—and we can’t even be sure of that—is independent of other things.

We meditate upon this and discover a simple, yet weighty philosophical equation: a “rose” is a “rose” because it is not a “rose.” That’s Buddhist math for you.


Fig. 4 Kyle MacLachlan IS the Messiah because he is NOT the messiah... especially if he can't beat up Sting

A through-line theme of Dune is that the mahdi “Messiah” or “God-Emperor” involved is not simply a messiah or a god-emperor. Frank Herbert writes of “a world being the sum of many things.” The prescience and “other memory” of all the messiah’s past ancestors makes the messiah everything and everyone, dependent on everything and everyone. Muad’dib is Muad’dib because he is not Muad’Dib.

Muad’Dib, being the wise and prophetic man he is, would have agreed with Buddha implicitly: “There exists no separation between gods and men, one blends softly casual into the other.”

The preceding essay is in no way exhaustive of Dune’s spiritual ore. I promise it will surface again and again in the future, like a tea leaf stirring around and around, up and down in a hot teapot. Mmm spice tea...

Fig. 4 Dune in-joke du jour

Jesus Is Just Alright With Me

“And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.” 
--Stephen Colbert

Fig. 1 Jesus: the best first round draft pick for running back

Somehow, in one of my random best-friends-only college era gatherings, someone came up with the placeholder moniker “Jebus Crisp” for use as a mild curse, and it stuck pretty permanently in my mind (this is me not taking the Lord’s name in vain). Oddly enough, several years after that memorable occasion, Homer Simpson yelled “I can’t be a missionary! I don’t believe in Jebus!” Proof positive of that collective human mind field Deepak Chopra’s so hot about.

Sometime after my Buddhist revelation, someone once asked me what I think about Jesus.

"Jesus is cool," I thought. "He's wise and good and genuine. I have no beef with Jesus."

I also know I prefer Willem Dafoe Jesus over James Caviezel Jesus. Or "Imma only make a cameo in Ben Hur" Jesus. That's just lazy.

Fig. 2 The Last Temptation of Scorsese

I love Jesus more now than I ever did as a Christian. Maybe that’s my fault, since I know plenty of people can love Jesus and be Christians at the same time. It’s probably meant to be that way, actually. Some people’s boats float better in different liquids.

Still, I’m all for listening to hippie types. He told off the authorities and chilled out with prostitutes and gave outdoor “God is love” sit-ins on grassy hills. Jesus had the long hair, threadbare clothes, was always wearing Birkenstocks and bumming food off of people while fighting with his father. “Dad, I’m gonna die for these people whether you like it or not!” I believe is what he said while he was dragging the cross through those thirteen stations.

Jesus is the ultimate treehugger. Don’t tell Greenpeace about that one time he cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit and it shriveled into a barren twig.

“I curse you for not bearing me any fruit!” *poof*

His apostles all trade looks, then one asks, “Dude, what did you do that for?”

*cough* “Well, umm… Anything is possible when you believe in God!”

Fig. 3 Jesus caused the first Fig Newton shortage in history

Even Buddhists squash ants in forgetful moments, so no one is about to fault the Savior of a third of this planet’s population for having a black thumb. The rest of his hand could heal water of its non-wineness, which, understandably got him invited to a lot of parties.

Fast forward a couple thousand years and he’s still on the top of the A-list, but he’s one of those people who has so many friends from so many walks of life that some of them can’t be in the same denomination together.

This makes for sometimes awkward housewarming shindigs. The Baptists roll their eyes at the Catholics for paying too much attention to the Virgin Mary. Fundamentalists sneer at the Episcopalians for bringing that gay guy into the clergy. Methodists stare at the token Jehovah’s Witness who stands in a corner and tells himself that everyone else is just jealous because he doesn’t have to go into debt every December buying Christmas presents. But even the Witness is surprised when a Mormon shows up and most everybody is pretty sure no one sent him an invite.

No matter what the party, some people tend to forget that Jesus sends everyone an invite.

Fig. 4 Jesus loves viniculture

In Acts 10:34-35, Peter says “I see very clearly that the Jews are not God’s only favorites! In every nation he has those who worship him and do good deeds and are acceptable to him.” I also recall some stuff about Jesus having sheep that are not of his fold, and that they will hear his voice (John 10:14-16.) Jesus knew God spoke to people outside the Euphrates River Valley. It wouldn’t make sense not to somehow clue in the rest of your creation, after all. Talk about lazy.

This is the Jesus I love. The Jesus who informs a Christianity of the red letters, not the accusatory finger. The Jesus of the healing hand, not the fist and the sword. Buddy Jesus from Kevin Smith’s Dogma. The smiling, thumbs-up Jesus who walks and talks with you.

Fig. 5 Jesus loves you, man!

Jesus, like all spiritual figures, is a Rorschach test. In my eyes, the inkblot represents a man of revolutionary compassion who reaches out to the impoverished, condemned and criminalized people of the world, then lifts them up with all the strength they already possessed within themselves. The strength of God. The strength of the Universe. The strength of human kind.

Hollywood goes back to Arabia?

"The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped."
--Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawrence in "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962)


Fig. 1 Peter O'Toole & Omar Sharif... be still my throbbing heart!

Just a few weeks ago, while seriously enjoying some frozen custard at Rita’s with my parents, we were discussing our favorite epic movies and biopics. We raved about how much we loved Kingdom of Heaven (the Director’s Cut, of course) and my all-time personal favorite, Lawrence of Arabia. We somehow landed on the absurd controversy of the Darwin biopic, Creation, which is currently having difficulty finding a distributor in the U.S., to the chagrin of intelligent Americans everywhere. Perhaps some people prefer the adventures of Alfred Wallace in Indonesia over Charles’ pedestrian Galapagos research? Perhaps I give some people too much credit.

 
Fig. 2 & 3 What do Americans have against Paul Bettany's career? Come on.

Intellectual embarrassment aside, immediately upon hitting this subject, I thought of other historical figures I’d love to see portrayed on the silver screen: Irving Thalberg, Einstein, Buster Keaton, Queen Hatshepsut, etc. But the first thing that came out of my mouth was: “Too bad we can’t portray the Prophet Muhammad because he had an absolutely riveting life story.”

My parents, being curious individuals, asked that I give them a summary. I tried my best to wrap it up in the fifteen minutes it took to drive home from the ice cream shop. I’ve read a dozen books on Islam and Middle East politics in the last three years, so fifteen minutes was easy to fill, but it did the subject little justice. It is a story better suited for books and, ideally, some cinema-oriented treatment.

This week, several of my usual Twitter news feeds lit up with commentary on the news that not one but two bona fide Hollywood biopics of the Prophet Muhammad are in the works. One is supposed to be a remake of The Message(1976), and the other will be backed by epic producer extraordinaire Barrie Osborne of Lord of the Rings/The Matrix fame. As a student of all religions, I am excited to hear such a development. As a student of Islam, I am cautiously optimistic.

Fig. 4 I can't wait to see who Andy Serkis will play. A CG camel, perhaps?

The restriction in Islamic culture of not portraying the Prophet is understandable, given the ancient Arab tendency to revere physical idols and imagery. This was the environment the Prophet was born into, and he had to find many ways to distinguish his revealed religion from the others surrounding him in Mecca at the time. He never claimed divinity, only prophecy, and didn’t want to be treated like a god. As a result, traditional Islamic art and architecture has favored expressing the beauty of God through intricate geometric designs and exquisite calligraphy often seen in mosques and textiles. The focus is on the written script of the Qur’an—the words of the Prophet—and grand physical expressions of the glory of God.

 
Fig. 6 Inside the Sheikh Lotf Allah mosque in Isfahan, Iran.


Fig. 7 Artisans decorating the kiswah covering for the holy Kaaba in Mecca

The filmmakers promise not to show the Prophet onscreen or even use his voice as a measure of respect toward the Islamic boundaries. I know from hours of Lord of the Rings Special Edition DVD extras that Barrie Osborne is a visionary guy, and a producer who respects the original material he uses to tell a story, so I’m inclined to trust his involvement in his biopic project. I’m also anticipating the novel tactics and plot devices they will have to conjure up in order to tackle this influential man’s story without ever actually affording themselves a single cameo appearance. Here’s hoping that a lot of research and respect goes into these film projects, and that the limitations provide the same creative inspiration to them as it has for Muslim artists throughout history.