Tagzen buddhism

Technoccult Interview: Open Source Buddhism with Al Jigong Billings

Al Billings

Many Technoccult readers have probably seen Hermetic.com. Maybe you even got your first taste of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare or Hakim Bey there. What you might not know is that the site’s founder, Al Jigong Billings has given up the site to focus on what he calls “Open Source Buddhism.” I recently talked with Al about what Open Source Buddhism is, how it differs from other contemporary the Pragmatic Dharma movement and the secular mindfulness movement, and how he gravitated from Neopaganism to Buddhism.

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Grant Morrison Documentary Out Now – Plus, New Wired Interview

Talking with Gods

Talking with Gods, the Grant Morrison documentary, is now available on DVD or for download from the Halo Eight Online Store or DVD from Amazon.com.

Update: There’s also a new expanded two disc version. If you already bought the original, you can also buy disk two separately, both on DVD or as a digital download.

Also, Wired has an interview with Morrison on his new Batman, Inc. series which sounds pretty interesting (perhaps he’ll get to incorporate his ideas from his aborted Wildcats series):

Superheroes have always been about becoming whatever we’ve needed them to be at any given time. Lately, we’ve made them like Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s The Ultimates, weaponized supersoldiers working for the military-industrial complex, which then grew into Iron Man, who is a superhero celebrity, an everyone-is-a-star kind of thing. But give it another five years and it could be cosmic seekers again, because of the new drugs coming onto the market. Or it could be something else entirely. They’ll take the form of whatever our dreams or ideals happen to be. […]

Most corporations seem pretty demonic. Corporations as entities are strange things. Because no one person is really in charge, we’ve conjured some predatory, ravenous entities. But Batman, Inc. is an attempt to reimagine what a good corporation can be. It’s not the first time this has happened in comics: Joe Casey tried to imagine the same thing with Wildcats. But this will be Bruce Wayne’s attempt, and I think it’s going to be quite progressive.

Wired: Grant Morrison’s Batman, Inc. Births Comics’ First Zen Billionaire

I think a case could be made that Adrian Veidt (himself based on Tibetan Buddhist Peter Cannon) as the first comics’ first “zen” (used loosely) billionaire.

Zen Meditation: Thicker Brains Fend Off Pain

zen meditation

I think they probably mean zazen (or am I nitpicking here?)

People can reduce their sensitivity to pain by thickening their brain, according to a new study published in a special issue of the American Psychological Association journal, Emotion. Researchers from the Université de Montréal made their discovery by comparing the grey matter thickness of Zen meditators and non-meditators. They found evidence that practicing the centuries-old discipline of Zen can reinforce a central brain region (anterior cingulate) that regulates pain.

Science Daily: Zen Meditation: Thicker Brains Fend Off Pain

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