Today Buddhist teacher Lama Rod Owens announced to his Facebook followers that he would serve as the officiant at the funeral of rapper XXXTentacion (born Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy), who was killed in a suspected robbery ten days ago in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. XXXTentacion's work and life remain controversial. As Chris Richards wrote in The Washington Post, the rapper [...]
About Rod Meade Sperry
Even the Colonel Is Meditating
Meditation is getting mainstream enough to attract the attention of big league advertisers. Good news or the beginning of the end? Rod Meade Sperry analyzes the latest videos from KFC. Meditation, you’ve come a long way, baby. I don’t mean just to be glib when I invoke the famous Virginia Slims cigarettes tagline, which debuted in 1968 to take advantage of the surging [...]
Against the Stream to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct by Noah Levine; results expected within a month
In the latest allegation of sexual misconduct against a prominent Buddhist teacher, the Los Angeles-based Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society (ATS) on March 29 released a statement addressing allegations of sexual misconduct by its founding teacher Noah Levine; Levine addressed the matter via an email message the next morning. Update, April 20, 2018: Against the [...]
Buddhists supporting March for Our Lives share their photos and messages
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the March for Our Lives in Washington, a student-led rally calling for tighter gun control laws in the US following a massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead last month. Demonstrations were held in more than 800 cities in the United States, Canada, and around the world. Many Buddhist [...]
When the late Stephen Hawking warned that one of Buddhism’s “Three Poisons” threatened us all
The brilliant physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, inspiration and author of so many works — most famously, perhaps, A Brief History of Time — died today at 76. Now, Hawking wasn't a Buddhist—he was, in fact, an atheist. (Though there are, of course, many Buddhists who would describe themselves that way.) But back in February 2015, he sounded a worldwide alarm about [...]
Watch the trailer for a new documentary on the late comedian and Buddhist Mike DeStefano
The late Mike DeStefano -- a.k.a "Mike D." or "Mikey D." -- was many things: foul-mouthed, sweet, a recovering addict, living with profound loss, a Buddhist with a serious tonglen practice, and darkly, savagely funny. Now, DeStefano's memory is to get a much-deserved bump, thanks to the pending release of a documentary about him called Drugs, Disease, Death: A [...]
How to Get Lost — and Found — in Music
Music connects us to the present moment like nothing else, says Teenage Bottlerocket bassist Miguel Chen. In this excerpt from his new book, I Wanna Be Well: How a Punk Found Peace and You Can Too, coauthored with LionsRoar.com editorial director Rod Meade Sperry, Chen explains how to really listen to music. Playing shows, writing songs, recording albums, and most of all, [...]
Fire erupts at Lhasa, Tibet’s famed Jokhang Temple complex
On February 17, reports coming out of Lhasa, Tibet indicated that a fire had broken out at the famed Jokhang Temple, just as tourists were to begin arriving for the Losar, or Tibetan Buddhist New Year, celebrations there. The Central Tibet Agency, however, has since reported that the fire was not at Jokhang Temple proper -- as has been widely reported and believed — "but [...]
How Buddhist Recovery Offers an Alternative to Taking Refuge in Addiction
Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason–John, president of the Buddhist Recovery Network, promotes recovery alternatives grounded in dharma and diversity. Rod Meade Sperry: You are the president of the Buddhist Recovery Network. What is the BRN's role? Valerie Mason-John: The BRN was started so people involved in different Buddhist-inspired recovery programs could pool ideas and [...]
KFC launches bizarro meditation-themed video series
The videos play on common spiritual tropes, and — Rod Meade Sperry reports — are just about as weird as mass-marketing gets. And now — as they say — for something completely different. Fast-food behemoth KFC has launched a series of six long videos that play upon meditation and Eastern-religion tropes, as well as visuals and ideas that come from counter-culture and the [...]
