In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi.

For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once.

Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest.

One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand.

“This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him.

“Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.”

At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us.

This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline.

Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion.

Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance.

Written by Corey deVos

A Heart Blown Open: A Look at the Life and Practice of Jun Po Kelly Roshi

A Heart Blown Open — Part 1: Childhood's End

Night sessions in the SAE Institute in Berlin, June 2014

This is a remake of a song of the catalan band 'Manel' of us, people who miss the sound of the mediterranean sea.

Al Mar (Habla de mí en presente Remake)

A Boy

Listen and Buy Guy Buttery's music available on CD, LP and digital download here - http://guybuttery.bandcamp.com/

- Guy Buttery - sitar 

http://guybuttery.bandcamp.com/

Guy Buttery - Nectarinia Amethystina (sitar improvisation)

Everyone  has a unique presence, 
we are not just shadows and shapes.
Identifie the depht of your soul ..through this rituel .dance and show who you TRULY are.


SHOW ME YOU
 SHOW me who you-ouh (who you are) SHOW me you...
(2x)
Show me who you are
There is something in your presence No matter where you are from Where you go
Where you are
Just show me, show me who you are
Now just feel the voices sounds
Now try to hum and feel the ground Let the sound... resound...profond...
SHOW me who you-ouh (who you are) SHOW me you...
(2x)
Show me who you are
There is beauty in your presence
Straight from my heart
Echoes of our emotions
Everyone has a voice, a sound to be heard...
Now just feel the voices sounds Now try to hum and feel the ground Let the sound... resound...profond
SHOW me who you-ouh (who you are) SHOW me you...
(2x)
Come, come on... Come, come on... ad lib

SHOW ME YOU REMIX 2019

"Listen Without Distraction" from 'Songs of the Bardo' by Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith, out 9/27/2019 on CD, LP, Digital, and Streaming on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings: https://orcd.co/songsfromthebardo

'Songs from the Bardo' begins with a bell ringing out once, twice, three times, as a ritualistic chant emerges from the dense silence. The collaborative composition by avant-garde icon Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith is a guided journey through the visionary text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unfolding in an 80-minute ebb and flow of sound and words. 'Songs from the Bardo' is a transporting experience, meant to draw the listener into the present moment and provide a framework for inner exploration. Anderson, Choegyal, and Smith fuse modern compositional techniques with the mystique of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to make these visionary traditions more accessible to a new generation of listeners and to reveal the ancient wisdoms contained within.

Songs from the Bardo

Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith - Listen Without Distraction

Buy / Stream: http://hyperurl.co/FilhoDoMar

Wonderwheel is proud to present a brand new project called Afrosideral from Cuban producer, vocalist and multi instrumentalist Kumar Sublevao-Beat. The result of what he's called the Afrocuban Electronic Ensemble - Afrosideral mixes modern electronic production with dub sensibilities with rhythms and melodies inspired and in tribute to the legacy of the Yoruban people. Using capoeira elements and Afro-Brazilian instruments mixed with Afro-Cuban chants, "Filho do Mar" connects to a Caribbean musical essence. Percussion and a chugging guitar line combine with sax over a danceable groove for a futurist take on an ancestral sound.

Filho do Mar (SINGLE)

Afrosideral - Filho do Mar

http://www.flau.jp/releases/31.html


"Stories" is the first vibraphone solo album by Berlin-based Japanese artist Masayoshi Fujita, who also known as El Fog and a collaboration project with Jan Jelinek. This quietly exquisite album by Fujita, is like a book of illustration, painting 8 delicate pictures of small stories about the nature we are embracing….cloud, forest, river, swan and morning dews….things that we all are so familiar with, but yet so quaint.

Masayoshi Fujita’s style of solo vibraphone is uniquely inspired by classic and jazz music. In this beautiful album, in additional to some gorgeous strings and bowings, he also introduced some ingenious ideas in making unique sounds, like the usage of bead and aluminum foil on his vibraphone, like a prepared instrument. As such, “Stories” is a wonderful result of the beautiful vibration (of which the name Vibraphone came from) of all the delicate sounds produced in this album. They are poetic, they are melancholic, and they are lushly emotional.

Let the dimmed light continues on, and let Fujita tell you these wonderful stories.

Masayoshi Fujita - Deers

MILK. #5
PARIS // 02 JUNE 2018
LE POP UP DU LABEL

PERFORMERS:
YANNIS PHILIPPAKIS - GUITAR & VOX
JIMMY SMITH - GUITAR
VINCENT TAURELLE - SYNTHS
VINCENT TAEGER - DRUMS & PERCUSSION
ALEXANDER ANGELOV - BASS

RECORDED BY BRETT SHAW & ROB WILKS
MIXED BY BRETT SHAW
FILMED BY KIT MONTEITH

MILK. #5: PARIS [Part I]

Available to buy tinyurl.com/acousticbeats

The Just Music Café double album “Acoustic & Beats 01” extends over two separate CD albums the musical boundaries of acoustic guitar into symphonic composition, modern jazz, classically inspired mood music, folksy whimsy, textural ambience and muscular electronica. Both the Acoustic CD1 and the Beats CD2 are lovingly sequenced and mixed by DJ Ben Mynott to create an exquisite and total Just Music listening experience.

"The mix is further evidence that right now, this label is probably the most on the ball – not just musically but emotionally – on the entire planet"
Pete Lawrence (The Big Chill’s founder)

Just Music artists all have exceptional artistic and musical ability. From the ambient mastery of Jon Hopkins (“musical genius” IDJ) through the chilled beats of Honeyroot, (“one of the best albums of the year.” Future Music), the composition of Future Loop Foundation ( “epic downbeat”” DJ Magazine)to the acoustic beauty of Dan Arborise , (“beguiling acoustic guitar” UNCUT) all of Just Music’s artist roster share a depth to their music - whether they draw on their background in classical or electronica or from their all encompassing roots level musical lifestyle.

This compilation succinctly expresses what Just Music stands for as a label, and how the artists form the label as a whole – the understated irony of the label’s name is the essence of its appeal…at the end of the day, it may just be music, but in this case with a rare power to quietly shake the soul.


Save Your Light For Darker Days

Gone

Digitonal - Gone

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. We are part of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located in Washington, D.C. 

We are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound. We believe that musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and quality of life throughout the world. Through the dissemination of audio recordings and educational materials we seek to strengthen people's engagement with their own cultural heritage and to enhance their awareness and appreciation of the cultural heritage of others.

The Smithsonian may archive materials posted on this website pursuant to its document retention policies. By posting content, you are giving the Smithsonian and those authorized by the Smithsonian permission to use or modify it for any educational, promotional, or other standard museum purpose, in media of all kinds whether now known or later developed. For more on the Smithsonian's terms of use and privacy policies visit: http://www.si.edu/termsofuse 

Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith - Listen Without Distraction

Smithsonian Folkways

Recent comments

user950154967

Related tracks