I love this framing of Zen as a crucial and transformative tool in the fight against injustice. I've seen slightly too many think pieces lately agitating for an "anti-woke" Zen which I find baffling. This is a very refreshing rebuttal. (I'm sure the mix is great too, will give it a listen ASAP!).
I'm glad that came through! It's important to me to at least offer that perspective as a counterpoint to things like Amazon's attempts to corrupt mindfulness practices into abusive productivity hacks with AmaZen, or an alternative to the way that, in the words of the Conspirituality podcast, "a big chunk of American Buddhism lines up perfectly with [ė|ºñ] M*sk's reactionary centrism, performative transcendence, bog-standard conspiracism, and culture war shitposting."
Oh thank you for this, I’ll give it a listen. I read the paper that the two guests wrote last year (just after making the deflating discovery that the author of some Zen books I’d really enjoyed was a right-wing shitposter who seemed to sit on Twitter taking pot shots at Fauci and BLM all day.)
My jaw dropped when they got to that guy, as I too have enjoyed some of his books and have recommended them to friends. Such a bummer. Reading their paper tonight.
Thanks for the podcast recommendation - listened this morning and I thought it was terrific.
It's SUCH a bummer - those books are good, a clear-eyed unpacking of how Zen can work in the real world (rather than some of the slightly airless monastic reads that are hard to apply day-to-day). Buy hey-ho.
I love this framing of Zen as a crucial and transformative tool in the fight against injustice. I've seen slightly too many think pieces lately agitating for an "anti-woke" Zen which I find baffling. This is a very refreshing rebuttal. (I'm sure the mix is great too, will give it a listen ASAP!).
I'm glad that came through! It's important to me to at least offer that perspective as a counterpoint to things like Amazon's attempts to corrupt mindfulness practices into abusive productivity hacks with AmaZen, or an alternative to the way that, in the words of the Conspirituality podcast, "a big chunk of American Buddhism lines up perfectly with [ė|ºñ] M*sk's reactionary centrism, performative transcendence, bog-standard conspiracism, and culture war shitposting."
About to listen to this over lunch:
https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/134-elon-musk-buddhabro-ann-gleig-brenna-artinger
Oh thank you for this, I’ll give it a listen. I read the paper that the two guests wrote last year (just after making the deflating discovery that the author of some Zen books I’d really enjoyed was a right-wing shitposter who seemed to sit on Twitter taking pot shots at Fauci and BLM all day.)
My jaw dropped when they got to that guy, as I too have enjoyed some of his books and have recommended them to friends. Such a bummer. Reading their paper tonight.
Thanks for the podcast recommendation - listened this morning and I thought it was terrific.
It's SUCH a bummer - those books are good, a clear-eyed unpacking of how Zen can work in the real world (rather than some of the slightly airless monastic reads that are hard to apply day-to-day). Buy hey-ho.
Great mix too. Really need to pick up that Kali Malone record.