AUDIOBOOK
A Sense of Something Greater: Zen and the Search for Balance in Silicon Valley, by Les Kaye and Teresa Bouza, $4.99 (Amazon)
This is an abridged version of the 2018 book of the same name by Kaye, a Zen abbot and tech world expat, and Bouza, a journalist. Each chapter has a different narrator, and the voices are those of volunteers from Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View, California. Tech is present but toned down in this collection of teachings that focus on the importance of living in both the spiritual and householder realms.
kannondo.org
DHARMA TALK & GUIDED MEDITATION
Joshua Bee Alafia, “Hi Haters, I Still Love You”
Haters gonna hate, but that doesn’t mean you have to, too. In this short dharma talk, Insight Meditation teacher Joshua Bee Alafia discusses how it is our own misery that causes us to put others down. In an accompanying guided meditation (trimmed to 5, 10, or 20 minutes to fit your time constraints), Alafia leads you in a practice of mudita, or sympathetic joy, to help you celebrate the triumphs of others (because meeting hate with hate doesn’t do the universe much good).
liberatemeditation.com
ALBUM
Let Love, Common, free streaming, $9.49 download (Google Play), $9.99 download (iTunes)
Buddhist practice teaches us that love is multifaceted and boundless. The 12th studio album from the rapper, activist, and actor Common is a 45-minute meditation on the love we can have for the many people in our lives and community. Common is a mindfulness practitioner, and concepts like impermanence, interconnectivity, and radiance are present in his lyrics, set to smooth jazz beats. What results is a raw and honest exploration of his own pain, struggles, shortcomings, and hope for the future.
found.ee/Common_LetLove
PODCAST
Nice Try! Produced by Curbed and Vox Media Podcast Network
Utopias, by definition, don’t exist. But that doesn’t keep us from trying to create them. This engaging podcast has episodes on the postcolonial Indian city of Chandigarh, designed by modernist architect Le Corbusier, and Oneida, the free-loving Christian community that inadvertently launched a flatware empire. While there aren’t any explicitly Buddhist episodes, this podcast is utterly bingeable and buzzy, and we can’t help but think of a few spiritual communities from our own tradition that would fit right in.
curbed.com/nice-try
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