Curiousity Bath #2: The Original Cosmic Energy Source, Mndsgn's "very deep soul" & more
Welcome back to another curiousity bath! Appreciate the feedback & conversations the last one generated. Let's jump in...
MUSIC:Snaxxx by Mndsgn
The third installment in the Snaxseries just dropped. 2019’s Snaxx (each subsequent volume adds an “x”) was a collection of lessons in hip hop feng shui. Released on Stones Throw Records, whose latest releases by artists like Mndsgn, Kiefer and Knxwledge carry the lineage built by Dilla, Madlib and MF Doom with honor. In this wonderful interview 7 years ago, Mndsgn described his music as “deep… very deep soul.” That deep cut r&b you’re lucky to find in the 7” bin quality swims in a well-balanced stream of hip hop ear candy on Snaxxx.
BOOK: The Abortionby Richard Brautigan
"Poetry is telegrams of the human soul,” Brautigan once said, “to illuminate, to make us more compassionate, to understand more of our condition.” Most of you probably don't know that over a decade ago, I was writing novels - one of those was called The Deadheart Shelters and owes a great debt to Brautigan'sIn Watermelon Sugar. His poetic, dislocated way of describing the world is addictive. A plot summary of The Abortion won’t do; instead, here’s a quote from the book’s first chapter:
"I know it’s going to rain.
Clouds have been playing with the blue style of the sky all day long, moving their heavy black wardrobes in, but so far nothing rain has happened."
IDEA: At the sound of the bell, go to the meditation hall, with no hesitation.
The Bodhisattva precepts are as good a guideline for living as I know. As Reb Anderson says in Being Upright, they are not meant to be constraints, but built-in alarms to realign you with your spiritual path. “Each way of distraction from buddha’s mind is also a way of reunion with buddha’s mind. The precepts show how we lean away from our buddha nature, and they are the road back.” A student of Shunryu Suzuki, Reb wrote a story about his teacher waking up at 3:30 a.m. when the monk in charge of the bell accidentally hit it an hour early. He was the only one in the meditation hall for that first hour, and reprimanded his students for going back to sleep when they realized the error.
"Embrace and sustain all forms and ceremonies" is the name of this precept. It means that keeping promises to yourself, abandoning the inner dialogue of negotiation, the push-pull of self-reasoning to escape from duty, is the first gate to honesty and dependability towards the outer world. "Once you realize that you want to follow such a regimen of practice and commit to doing so no matter what," hewrites,"you will not fail to learn something about yourself."
QUOTE: “Light is the original cosmic energy source. All life… is formed and sustained by light. Even the thought process of the human brain is fed by this energy source. Therefore the human mind, our consciousness, represents the highest, most sublime energetic transformation of light. We are light beings; that is not only a mystical experience but scientific knowledge as well.”
- Albert Hofmann, "Natural Science and the Mystical World View" (appears in Entheogens and the Future of Religion)
UPDATE FROM THE TEMPLE: First time we’re announcing this: Burn Herm has teamed up with Griselda producer Denny LaFlare for a three song EP. Most of the work is done, and we’re sneaking this one out before Hermit & the Monk drops next year. As a longtime Griselda fan and ambitious preserver of the dusty East Coast aesthetic, this project is a dream come true.