Saturday, February 27, 2021

Flash the piker and other pop culture notes



Flash Gordon does things fast. So he could sit down and meditate for 5 minutes, and it would be like he meditated for 5 hours. Five hours a day and you'd be enlightened in a year. That he isn't enlightened means he's a piker. I'm going to write a story about the enlightenment of Flash Gordon, the first superhero Buddha.


Forever Peace

One of my favorite sci-fi novels is Forever Peace. The sequel to Forever War. Spoilers: People connect their minds together in a military squadron, but they can't connect together long because if they do, they end up getting enlightened because they share deeper and deeper insights until everyone is enlightened. In fact the first group to test the technology are enlightened and have to be sequesters off. 


But Little Dust

Jay Z is a feminist "Ladies is pimps too." He says he's adult he doesn't have chrome on his wheels. But what like is "dust off your shoulder" which is a Buddhist idea. The Buddha attained enlightenment after a 6 year struggle, after leaving his family and devoting his time to the project exclusively. When he became enlightened he despaired that he could teach this to anyone else. But he was urged by the local gods to teach others who had "but little dust". I read a memoir of someone who was in India on a kind of missionary work for the Buddha in the dalit community. It was called But Little Dust. While Jay-Z's "Dust off your shoulder" portrays the hip hop bravado, and is advocating just not getting upset so easily, I like to bring in anything that is Dharma adjacent. He's preaching equanimity. 

No comments: