I do not think any of your rantings warrant a response. For some one who has been banned from this site, you seem to come back for more trolling. Hopefully the SM intern will ban you again. But then again they probably doesn't have the time and energy to keep track of your screen names and various ip addresses you use. I am writing this comment so that others who might be taken in by your new avatar may save themselves from spending their time responding to you. That is it folks, I am done feeding the troll.

The Buddhists I know are quite serious in their efforts to practice (e.g. 2x/day meditation) + they’re often laughing and laugh easily:)

This guy reminds me of so many things around me: the folks at ISKCON and a Whole Foods shopping spree.

We have an ISKCON church that’s very inconspicuously located in the heart of Boston on Commonwealth Avenue over here. The folks there – both Indian and non-Indian – are losers! One Indian guy clarified to myself and my white-American friends that ISKCON is NOT Hinduism quite emphatically. One white Brahmin priest there was a former military man, and although he seemed nice, recited too many Sanskrit platitudes that meant nothing to me – in Sanskrit AND in English. But their fennel tea was nice…

Now, in Boston, we have a Little China, and we have a Little Lhasa called Whole Foods. There, they have successfully monetized the dharmic faiths by selling Karma-this, Buddha-finger lemons, Yogi Tea (created by a New Age Sardar), Odwalla, Moksha-that, Nirvana-flavor-this, and Zen-flavored-that. Folks, all this goodwill to Dharmic religions won’t last my friends. The next “Great Spiritual Thing” will be something like Baha’i or Zoroastrianism. So, soon, they’ll be selling Ahura Mazda goat cheese and Avestan kababs, and our Moksha Milk Chocolate will be so…’90s. And the best picture of the year will be some mediocre Azeri film.

Finally, I went to one of these cultural fairs that are quite frequent in the Greater Boston area, and I was surprised at how some vendors were selling some products/services from a very disjointed array of indigenous backgrounds. For example, one guy was selling stuff that was inspired by Native Americans, Far East China, Japan, India, and even Africa. It was weird, man. This is probably a reaction/expression against Whitey.

We’re in Honolulu, so our group is a mix of haoles (whites) and local Asian-Americans. One desi member, who’s an off-and-on participant. I sit next to him at potlucks and we talk about Indian politics and Carnatic music, about which he knows a LOT more than I do.

ISKCON induced ideas? Gag.

I disapprove of them as much as anything else.

ISKCON is obsessively and aggressively anti new-age.

Or are you so Desi that you paint all videsis as the “same”? New-age/old-age, ISKCON/PISSCON ???

We are all the same to you or what, yaar?

Touche!

And LOL to the folks here who berate me for daring to question the great Dalai Lama. Ooooooh.

Yoga props are nothing more than tools to make your stretches deeper. They can be bought second hand on E-bay for dirt cheap (or just use stuff from home or the garbage in place of the actual props). There is a way to live in this land on a very low budget and people like me (non-Desi, non-yuppie, non-wealthy) do it everyday. We certainly DO NOT NEED rich Desi yuppies telling us that we are corny consumerists just because we use might use props in a yoga-asana routine.

Desi, please.

Now go twitter about this or something.

That apart, this song really opened my eyes about pop-Buddhism. Thank goodness I am doing something more meaningful with my life, like joining the “Free Tibet” group on Facebook. YEAH!

Well that’s where American culture is all about buying the proper accoutrement to maintain the appropriate lifestyle… seeking meaning through accoutrements… ends in a bunch of unhappy people with houses full of junk.