Comics make everything better (cartoon)

Cartoonist David Horsey (latimes.com) and others; P.B. Law (buddhisthumor.org)

(Thetandd.com) With the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, inside a packed movie theater showing “The Dark Knight Rises,” questions are being raised as to whether there is any connection between the killings and the movie’s plot and the character of Batman -- in which a masked villain leads a murderous crew into a packed football stadium and wages an attack involving guns and explosives. More
   

Animation: Buddhist/Christian conversation

There are many types of Buddhists and there are many types of Christians. This is only a conversation between two individuals. (It's comedic).

  

What Makes You Not a Buddhist?

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

"Some people think that stringent rules and virtuous deeds are the essence of Buddhism, but these are only a small component of Buddha's skillful and abundant methods. He knew that not everyone is able to understand ultimate truths right from the start. It is difficult for many of us to process concepts such as 'hell is merely the perception of your own aggression,' let alone the concept of emptiness. Buddha doesn't want Jack to be caught in a personal 'hell,' but he can't tell Jack to work with his perceptions and aggression either because Jack is an idiot. So for Jack's sake, Buddha teaches that there is an external hell and that in order to avoid going there and being boiled in molten iron, Jack must stop entertaining his non-virtuous, negative actions and emotions. Such teachings pervade the Buddhist milieu; very often we see hell realms painted on the walls of Buddhist temples, complete with burning bodies and terrifying gorges of frigid water. These images can be taken literally or figuratively, depending on the capacity of the student. Those with superior faculties know that the source of everyday hell, our suffering, stems from our own perceptions. They know that there is no judgment day and there is no judge. Buddha's final aim is to make Jack understand, like these superior students, that there is no hell realm apart from his own aggression and ignorance. By temporarily minimizing his negative actions, Jack is diverted from becoming more entangled with his perceptions, misgivings, and paranoia." More

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"Killing Buddha" - the movie (video)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

(CFL) Betsy Chasse, co-writer/producer of "What the Bleep Do We Know?!," on her latest independent film, "Killing Buddha."

There is a horrific Mahayana Buddhist expression that -- going against the very heart of Theravada Buddhist sentiment -- runs: “If you see the Buddha on the road, [blank] him.”
     
There are, after all, only five heinous deeds with fixed karmic results: (1) intentionally harming a buddha, (2) matricide, (3) patricide, (4) killing an arhat, (5) or causing a schism in the Sangha.
  
The consequence is rebirth in the most dismal subhuman plane of existence (avici) in the very next rebirth. Cultivating the intention to perform one of these unimaginable acts is mental karma that goes on to become a verbal act of encouraging others. What does it mean?

It is meant to be facetious, ironic, and shocking: “Do not follow teachers; do not set up others on a pedestal; depend on yourself; be a light/island (dipa) unto yourself, taking no teacher other than the Dharma itself as an idol or savior.”
   
An American famous for creating “What the Bleep Do We Know?” is setting her sights on Buddhism. Betsy Chasse was perplexed by the message “You are the one you've been waiting for.” But it came to her through what has become a Mahayana commandment of sorts:
  

Linji the shocking iconoclast

“Embrace Nothing. If you meet the Buddha, k*ll the Buddha… only live your life as it is, not bound to anything.” This saying is attributed to iconoclastic Linji, the 9th century founder of the Linji School of Chán (Chinese jhana) Buddhism.
   

Linji's famous sayings

“Followers of the Way [of Chán], if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a [fully awakened] buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go” (Burston Watson, 1999, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi: A Translation of the Lin-chi lu, p. 52).

  

“Those who have fulfilled the 10 stages of bodhisattva-practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the 51st and 52nd stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and non-teaching buddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys” (Ibid., p. 26). 

    
The Next "What the Bleep?!"  
Chasse wants help. She is asking the public (through crowdfundinglive.com) to participate in this project at any level. Watch videos from the set, look at behind the scenes footage, chat online with the cast and the film makers, and more. She is exchanging these enticements for funding.
   

While distributing What The Bleep Do We Know?! Chasse was honored to travel the world talking about the film. The most common question people asked was, “How did a broke, out of work, spiritually unconscious, material Valley Girl who was into sex, tequila, and expensive shoes end up being a writer, director and producer of What the Bleep Do We Know!?”
   
Sometimes it takes the most unlikely of people in the most unusual of circumstances to create something that touches the world like “Bleep” did. The story Chasse told was so funny and resonated with so many people that she decided to write a film about it, a comedy called “Killing Buddha.” 
  

About-Team-Financial-Media-Updates-Funders-Comments

  

Synopsis

When life is chaotic we are forced to change. This is a lesson successful film producer Sara Wells reluctantly learns when her seemingly perfect life comes crashing down. Desperate for work, she takes on a documentary project about spirituality and the new thought movement. Will “Killing Buddha” mark her triumphant return to the riches she thinks her life once contained?
  
Or will she and her mismatched crew of seekers, believers, and cynics find that ultimately it’s not what you have and what you believe in, but who you become that counts? Think “Bridget Jones gets hired to shoot a documentary about finding the meaning of life.”
   
Funny and lighthearted, “Killing Buddha” is a mainstream comedy that is set to include interviews with some of today's greatest pop spiritual teachers -- Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, and others interacting with the actors as they shoot this “film within the film.”
   

Why make the film?

“Killing Buddha” is a reminder that everything we seek can be found within ourselves. More

• VIDEO: Betsy Chasse interview on Cutting Edge Consciousness
• The four most important civil rights hero(ine)s today 
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Asian-Americans and Religion (Pew Forum)

Leslie Berestein Rojas (MultiAmerican.SCPR.org); Pew Forum

One-in-seven Americans are now Buddhists. Most in the US are fluid and searching.

  

A month after a Pew Research Center report on Asians becoming the nation’s fastest-growing immigrant group faced criticism for downplaying Asian Americans’ diversity, Pew has come back with a new report that focuses on the diversity of their religious beliefs.

   

While it does not address the socioeconomic and educational diversity and disparities that critics pointed out in the last month, the report from the Pew Forum on Religious & Public Life does adjust some misperceptions, while revealing several facts that are not particularly well known beyond Asian American diasporas. Here’s [some]: 

• Asian Americans are neither predominantly Buddhist nor Hindu.
• In the United States, there are more Asian Americans who are Christian (42 percent) than any other religion.
• Many of these Christians are Filipinos, who are traditionally Catholic, and Koreans, many of whom are Protestant.
• The percentage of Buddhists (14 percent), Hindus (10 percent), and Muslims (4 percent) is small by comparison. 

Labels do not really tell us what people believe.

Still, as migration from Asia has increased, so has the the nation’s share of Buddhists and Hindus. 

   

Buddhists now account for one in seven Americans, according to the report, and counted together, the share of Americans who practice Buddhism and Hinduism is about the same as that of those practicing Judaism (about 2 percent).

  

At the same time, in contrast, a large share (26 percent) of Asian Americans consider themselves “unaffiliated,” that is, not practicing any particular religion. More

   

We have a choice, even if our choice is "none."

  

Asian Americans: A Mosaic of Faiths 

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (pewforum.org)

When it comes to religion, the Asian-American community is a study in contrasts, encompassing groups that run the gamut from highly religious to highly secular. A new survey report examines the Asian-American population from the angle of religious affiliation, highlighting the beliefs, practices and views of diverse faith groups. More

• The Dalai Lama's generosity in San Diego 
• Pew study says politics now divides Americans more than race
• Pew Poll: Trust In Government Hits Near-Historic Low
  New Pew report says one in five adults doesn't use the Internet

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