I just finished listening to a fabulous radio talk online called East Meets West: Dharma Days and Dharma Nights about America’s interest with Eastern spirituality: how dharma retreats and yoga vacations are becoming a part of the Western lifestyle, and Buddhist teachers explain what Buddhism has to offer a consumer culture.

I really enjoyed the firsthand accounts of Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat, Pray, Love.”  Most of us can identify with the difficulties she had in meditation, and how hard it is to discover that most of us can’t even sit with ourselves for more than a few minutes without a lot of practice. She also explains a few of her breakthrough moments in retreat.

A famous punk rocker (who I can’t recall the name of) talks about how real the Buddha was about the difficulties of life, and that those who turn to punk do so because they are experiencing such intense suffering.   Teachers Jon Kabat-Zinn and Sharon Salzberg add what brought them to Buddhism, as does poet Robert Bly. Additionally, the biographer Bob Spitz talks about the Beatles time in an Indian ashram, the burst of creativity they experienced, and that they wrote the entire White Album in Indian during their retreat. Interspersed throughout, Lama Suryas Das adds his take as a Western lama, who thoroughly understands both east and west.

I loved the Buddhist jokes, like “Why don’t Buddhist vacuum the corners of a room? Because they don’t have attachments.”

The talk is about an hour long, divided into segments, and well worth the hour listen.

Check out the site for more information.

Tags: ashrams, Beatles, celebrity Buddhists, gurus, punk rock

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 5:47 am and is filed under Buddhism, meditation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.