Meditation for January 21st
Emptiness
Many people seek peace and tranquility by learning to empty their minds through meditation. Sometimes it is sitting in silence for hours, fasting, practicing yoga, listening to one’s own breath, and a wide variety of other ways to clear the clutter that muddies our minds. People pay to learn these ways, go to retreats, take classes, buy books, and hire gurus.
The world is even more distracting than it was when ancient gurus were developing the art of meditation. In fact, they had a lot more downtime than the average American. Their needs were met, so they tried to commune with nature and the spirit world by emptying their minds of the worry of their own mortality.
This means only one thing: spirituality is for the financially well-off. Who can really spend time going to a spa in Sonora, Mexico, on a working person’s wage? Even though the Buddha is rich and has time to sit under a tree when he achieves nirvana, he didn’t have to go to work, and then he became the first trust fund kid by going around begging for food instead of working for it. Suddenly, the Western world is begging for that Eastern empty spirituality. It took the Beatles’ fame and fortune to get to India and get conned by some guru into spreading the idea that empty, mindful practices are cool.
Eastern spiritual practices are a billion-dollar industry that permeates not just crystal-decorated bookstores and yoga shalas, but also big business, which uses them to enlighten its officers and help them perform and sell more. It is a fine line between a self-help spiritual book and a self-help how-to-close-sales book. People who can afford time and the hefty price tags can go frolicking in Tahiti, learning yoga, or some Buddhist spiritual retreat in the deserts of the Southwest.
Wanna skip the thousand-dollar weekend to learn how to empty the mind? Watch all the seasons of NCIS. If you don’t have time for that because you have a job and other responsibilities, then let the rich have fun pretending to be monks in the Redwoods, and we’ll do real life, why they destroy our lives, but think they are spiritual doing it.
Prayer
Many-Armed Blue Lady,
hear my prayer for enlightenment.
I need it in only five minutes,
I need it between my responsibilities.
I need it for cheap.
I need it to be okay with one scented candle from Albertson’s,
and the pork ramen I bought for 24 cents,
because rent, power, phone, school, and medical loans were due in the same week,
And my work has cut my hours.
Elephant Head God With Many Swords and Stuff,
hear my plea,
for nirvana,
instead of dealing with real life,
and listening to the neighbors hit each other,
and gunshots somewhere in the distance,
and my girlfriend is grumpy,
and the ramen didn’t quite fill me up, and I can hear my stomach gurgling,
and my body hurts all over from working hard,
and standing up on a crowded bus, banging against the bars,
as it hits a bunch of potholes,
and from sleeping on a shitty mattress,
cold,
But please let me learn intuitively how to do a sun salutation,
So I can feel pleased with myself.
Amen.
Craft
Potato Stamps!
What you’ll need:
Potato – preferably a russet
Carving knife – careful!
Paint – find as many colors as you can!
Paper – or anything that can be stamped.
What to do:
Take a knife and cut your potato in half.
Carve a shape into the flat side of the half potato.
Paint the raised part of the design you carved.
Get stamping and have lots of fun.
You can use these stamps to make wrapping paper, wallpaper, or stamping hands at your local punk rock club.
Goal
Don’t worry about learning to empty your head. It isn’t possible without the use of drugs. If you really want to become one with the universe, you need to find a cocktail of drugs that will bring you to the brink of death and let you stay right there in a coma. You’ll be physically on life support, and your family and friends will cry as they stare at your lifeless, vegetable-like body, but you’ll be nothing, and one with the Buddhas.