Teeth by SappyMooseTree.com

My husband has been nagging me about getting my regular dental checkup. The dental receptionist remarked to him that I’ve been sending them tons of referrals but they haven’t seen me in well over a year. When my husband asked why I haven’t been in to have my teeth checked, I told him that I find the dentist really hard on me and much more judgmental than my previous one.

It hit me today that sometimes we need this kind of direct and tough interaction in our life in order to cause change and steer us away from harm. I find it so difficult to stick to the positive dental hygiene program of sticking small brushes into my gum pouches and flossing the heck out of my flip-top-head. At the end of it all, I’m sure that taking the time to do these small actions will save a whole world of pain in the future.

Same is true with meditation and practice. The difficulty with sticking with sitting on the cushion, working with my mind, studying and practicing the dharma can feel like it’s overwhelming at times but I’m fueled by the faith that the path I’m following is helping to prevent premature “truth loss” and maintaining good “mental hygiene”.

EWP has premiered over 100 plays and musicals about the Asian Pacific American experience and has held over 1,000 readings and workshops. Our emphasis is on building bridges between East and West, and one measure of our success is an audience of 56% Asians and a remarkable 44% non-Asian attendance.

The theme behind EWP’s production of “Cave Quest” will certainly resonate with many Buddhists who are noticing the increased trend towards ‘get enlightenment quick/make me rich’ gurus hoping to package up enlightenment in a easy to purchase format.

The play is described on the EWP’s website as follows:

The search for inner peace is often a life long journey. However, Justin Yi plans to condense that journey into minutes by packaging it into a $49.95 video game. In order to create the game, he tracks down Padma, a legendary American Buddhist nun in a Tibetan cave high in the Himalayas. Padma hasn’t spoken in five years, but that’s okay, he’s only looking for the bullet points of enlightenment. When Justin’s charm and fervor falls short, he embraces darker tactics and the cave becomes an arena for a conflict of wills and surprising revelations that changes the course of their lives.

If anyone does check out the play, I’d love to read a review. It’s running until March 14th so get there quick!

Last night, I finished watching – “How to deal with Bad Friends and Make Good ones” and wanted to share it with you. Simple and practical advice that we all need to be reminded of time and again.

I’m in a small home study class on the Mahayana path and sometimes feel uncomfortable. No, it’s not caused by being overwhelmed at the density of the material (although that does have a tendency to happen). It’s caused by feeling like a keener.

I’ve always been a nerd in school. I love note taking, reading, studying, researching. LOVE IT. I had a mini-breakdown in elementary school when I failed my first subject (math is evil). This love for study has forever embedded itself into my being and comes out in the study class. I take notes, I listen. I prepare the answers required for discussion.

Then when it comes time for discussion, I bite my tongue to allow others the chance to read through the texts and give their perspectives on the study materials. It’s always a cautious balance I have with not wanting to be the annoying kid in class who keeps raising their hands going “Pick Me! Pick Me!”

It’s really not that I have the answers. Far from it. It’s just this Western heritage I’ve come from where you have your homework ready for teacher.

All of these feelings that I have are just projections that might not even reflect how I’m viewed amongst my sangha. They’re mine to work through. Maybe I need to experiment with a week of not doing my homewor and sit with the discomfort of not being prepared. (insert nervous Lisa Simpson laugh here)

Here’s a description of the blog. I really love the concept of a quasi-daily sketch a day.

“Doestoevski said that man is never, and can never, be satisfied with his situation, no matter how comfortable it may seem. He said that man would intuitively seek to create chaos in his life so that it would not become dull.

For this reason he dubbed man the “ungrateful biped”.

Contained within this archive are 241 individual comic strips that represent the vast majority of a year of my life, as well as more than 700 hours of drawing, inking, scanning and coloring.”

This video features Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, who opened Dongyu Gatsal Ling a nunnery for refugee Tibetan Women. Her story became a best selling book by Vicki Mackenzie, titled “Cave in the Snow” which chronicles her 12 year Himalayan mountain cave retreata.

Kotaku, the top video game news site has reported that Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind World of Warcraft have in ONE MONTH raised $1.1 million for the Make A Wish Foundation all through the sale of two rather cute online critters.

“Lil’ K.T. is a chibi version of everyone’s favorite undead agent of the Lich King, Kel’Thuzad, while the Pandaren Monk is a…Pandaren Monk.

These two little pixel pets show an interesting way to raise money within virtual environments. I would have loved to have seen funds generated by Naughty Dog for the Tibetan cause as their amazing game Uncharted 2 which has the quest to find the Cintamani Stone from Shambhala.

I can’t knock Naughty Dog as they are doing great charity work as today they were mentioned in Kotaku for having sponsored a animal shelter in Long Beach, California. What is very impresive as noted in the article, is that they did this without any media fanfare or attention seeking.

I love seeing this kind of good emerge out of the gaming industry. Nice work.

Local promoters Extensive Enterprise and L’écurie brought together a great bunch of performers in the folk-punk line of tunage and I can’t thank them enough for putting on this show.

The evening opened with the frontman from  The Loved Ones – Dave Hause who delivered- even if the crowd was really lukewarm. I adored his set and was so stoked when he rocked out on an acoustic Tegan and Sara song.

You owe it to yourself to check out both his bands as well as his solo material. His voice is distinct and carried throughout the walls of the narrow bar. Amazing.

Cavaliers were up next and admittedly were a bit too radio-friendly for my taste. They did have a few songs that caught my attention but sadly, after a little too long of a guitar solo in the first song they opened with, I was already a bit biased and anxious for the more of the solo (and acoustic) acts to continue performing.

Tim Barry, the frontman from Avail was up next and he made me cry. Oh man. I cried. Talk about honest and earnest stage performance. His no-bullshit approach to living, his stories about the suffering he’s seen all added up to pluck every single last one of my heart strings. I bit my lower lip throughout his set for fear of bawling my head off. Best listen to his new album in private. It’s a beauty.

The crowd went wild when Chuck Ragan, from the glorious Hot Water Music performed a duet with Tim and then launched into some of his own solo material. As gravely-voiced as ever (or maybe even more than ever), Chuck brought it.

I have to thank the so very wonderful Eli Bissonette from Dare to Care records for hooking me up with tickets to this sold out show after hearing my pleas on Facebook. Do visit the Dare to Care website and support this great label with a great ethic as witnessed from this quote from their site:

“We try to keep a friendly and laid-back approach while working to expand our company, and this challenge influences our decisions,” explains Eli. “We could choose to release certain albums with the goal of making a lot of money; however, we are not prepared to put out music that doesn’t reflect who we are. To us, the important thing is not to sell a lot of records, but to release truly authentic music. Given the current state of Quebec’s music industry, this authenticity may not allow us to become rich, but it can be profitable. It’s all about finding the right bands.”

Rounding out this longwinded post, if you’re in Montreal make sure to check out Leatherface and Yesterday’s Ring on February 28th. I cant’ wait.

Sheesh!

- I’m captivated by a selection of amazing photos of a visit to Tibet on the Dhamma Musings blog.

- I caught an amazing show last night that I’m going to blog a bit more about later, but just have to share this video with you. When Tim Barry sang this song last night, I cried. I sat in a crowded bar full of hipster kids more interested in their cellphones than the performances and whoo hoo… it had been a while since a performer has truly gotten under my skin and tugged on my heartstrings as much as Tim Barry did last night.

If you’d like to hear more of Tim, here’s some additional songs for you to check out. Be sure to support him on his tour or his lovely record label, Suburban Home Records.

Suffering…

- A blog I’m currently digging is Nothing to Attain. So happy to have found you Jomon.

- ‘You’re Okay. Hang in there” – “My Dinner with Andre”