You've probably heard about the book and DVD The Secret. They're like the biggest thing going right now. Haven't read it (and probably won't) but it seems to be some Normal Vincent Peale action but on a new-agey tip.

One of the main Secret guys was just on Larry King Live and said there would be a sequel about a "new" secret. (He was smug: "Of course there's a sequel! There are many secrets.") Then he said that one of them would be about "The Law of Right Action."

But Buddhists know: Right Action is no secret.

Isn't it nice to know that you don't have to pluck down NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE dollars for your "secrets"? Maybe you pay sixteen bucks for a good Dharma book, or throw some money in the kitty at your meditation center. But even that, you don't HAVE to do to get some Dharma. Buddhists usually like to come as close to giving it away as they can. That's cool.

(Speaking of all this, did you see Brad Warner's new column taking shots at another Zen teacher's "enlightenment seminars"? Pretty heavy. You'll find that link in our current Links of the Moment.)

Reader Robert sent this one in. He writes:

PRIOR to my becoming the product manager of the company where I work we actually sold these clocks. This is the last one. It now graces the floor manager station with its burgery charm.

"Burgery charm."

Thanks, Robert.

This shot of Samsara perfume came in from Horse reader Sultan, who writes:

Not sure if y'all caught this one. Apparently a perfume one can become endlessly attached to, I suppose. 

Couldn't have said it better ourselves.

This print-ad for Wasa brand light rye "crispbread" (aka "crackers"), like Sony's Michelle Wie ad (below), evokes a Buddhist scroll painting. Here, though, it's the consumer, rather than the high-paid product endorser, who appears in the central / "deity" role.

One one level, that's not a bad twist. But, on a more immediate level: isn't this just silly, and unintentionally so? Are these crackers are so good, we'll transcend duality?

Okay. They are good crackers. As crackers go. But come on.

Maybe Wasa should consider courting the Jewish market with full-page ads in Tikkun as well. How about a photocollage depicting Jerusalem's faithful praying at a Wailing Wall made entirely of light rye "crispbread"?

This Burger-sighting just in from Horse reader Lyndse:

Thanks much for sending it, Lyndse.

Reader Chris has this to say in response to our Target Dharma-Burgers:

So reads the tagline for this new protein-bar named "Karma Bar."

Every now and then, a Dharma-Burger comes along that is so mindnumbingly stoopid that the Horse is at a loss for words.

Next!

After seeing the ads for this movie, it seemed it had to be commented on, what with all the big lavish Buddhas that kept showing up. Luckily, Horse reader Tim actually went willingly and seems surprised to have liked it. His report:

I just saw this movie called "Music and Lyrics." There is a character, a ditzy celebrity, who grossly misuses religious symbolism and terms.

It's actually pretty good, and I usually hate both Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. There are several Buddha statues that are all incredibly beautiful, but often used inappropriately. The "Buddhist" character, Cora, is often seen making music videos by writhing seductively in a thong, surrounded by hunky monks with "shiny" orange robes. You will probably like parts of the movie, just brace yourself for any scene with Cora in it.

Thanks, Tim!

Rage Against the Machine, self-titled, 1992.

1. Outside of Howard Beale from the classic film Network, nothing in the popular culture's consciousness conveys "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" like this (in)famous picture. It shows Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc setting himself on fire to protest his government's oppression of his religion.

So it's fitting that Rage Against the Machine, a band whose music embodied large-scale protest -- on the corporation's dime, much like Howard Beale! -- would employ the image for its eponymous debut.

Rage weren't Buddhists, but they knew that this photograph might make their already-long band name worth at least a thousand words.

Cat Stevens: Catch Bull at Four,  1972.

2. If you know his music (even that which he's recorded since converting to Islam and changing his name to Yusuf Islam), then you know that Cat Stevens's songs were intimate and personal, and allowed his fans to track his spiritual ups and downs.

Catch Bull at Four (left), came out two years before Buddha and the Chocolate Box (below), but seems to indicate, like the later album, that old Cat considered himself to be somewhere in the middlin', spiritually. The album's title makes reference to the Fourth of Zen's Ten Oxherding Pictures, in which an ox (the titular "bull") symbolizes the mind of a meditator seeking enlightenment. In stage four, the ox/mind has been "caught" but is hardly under its owner's control.

While some may feel that Catch Bull and Buddha were Cat's last truly great albums, there can be little doubt that his progress as a human being -- he would eventually leave an opulent lifestyle behind for a more contemplative life -- was only getting underway.

Cat Stevens: Buddha and the Chocolate Box,  1974.

3. We've mentioned this album before.

"Back in the early 70's, the Muslim-artist-formerly-known-as Cat Stevens found himself on a plane with a Buddha in one hand, and a box of chocolates in the other. He was so vexed by the seeming duality of his desires that he named an album for the incident: Buddha and the Chocolate Box."

Here we see that album's front cover (inset) and an interior image.

The concept seems to anticipate the eventual creation of the Chocolate Meditating Buddha.

DJ Logic: Zen of Logic.

4. Well, the overall design is nice enough, but a quick look tells you in an instant that there's nothing particularly "Zen" about DJ Logic.

First of all, his wardrobe seems more inspired by a bottle of Frangelico than by the garments of any Zen monk.

And that meditation posture, with the arms and knees up? Clearly he hasn't tried this before. Looks like he's going to fall right over. But then, if you've ever been on a Zen retreat, you know that meditators seem to fall over all the time, usually from falling asleep on the cushion.

Let's hope that Logic's beats don't cause listeners to conk right out in a similar way. If you've heard them, let us know.

Jah Wobble, Mu, 2005.

5. Jah Wobble made the cover-art for his 2005 album, Mu, himself.

Unfortunately, it pretty much looks it.

The graphic amounts to a sort of a working-man's Wheel of Life: images -- of nature, of high-rises, of Buddhas, of cheeseburgers and beer -- all revolve and interplay together around the symbol for Mu (familiar to Zen practitioners as the Zen Master Joshu's response to the famous question, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?").

Thankfully, the music on the record is much, much better than the cover would suggest.

See our article about it, here.

Earth: Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars (cd).

6. Earth are known among intellectual metalheads for their brand of unfathomably slow, dirgey, droney, heavy noise. If you like that kind of thing, then you'll love Earth.

But why did they pick this image for the cd and back cover of their live album Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars?

Honestly? We have absolutely no idea.

Do you?

Target t-shirt, February 2007.

A couple updates back, we told you that Target is currently selling "tee-shirts with Kamakura Buddha-like images on them," and that we'd show you one "once we smuggle a camera into one of the stores. ('Cause we're sure not buying one.)"

So here it is. Granted, not a high-quality image -- it was shot with a camera-phone. But you get the idea.

The funny thing is, if you see it in person, it's actually quite attractive; whoever designed it did a nice job.

Touche, Tar-jay.

Target "housewares," February 2007.

Being that we had the camera-phone, we couldn't not shoot these three Buddha statues found on the Target shelves. (Again, sorry for the cruddy photo.)

It's funny -- on some level, we almost "want" to be offended by their presence in the store, and the same goes for the Buddha tee-shirt pictured above.

But (taking the politics out of it, because these things are almost surely made by workers in, let's say, "less than ideral conditions):

Is it possible that it's maybe cool that just about anyone, 

anywhere, in the States can walk into a "big box" store, be inspired by the image of the Buddha, and take it home and install it on their first altar?

We. Don't. Know.

But we're leaning towards Yes.

A while back, we told you about these new credit cards. This just in from a Horse reader (who wishes to remain anonymous):

i want to share some info with you. first of all, when i saw that ad i almost barfed. it was such a crock! i was at the Green Festival in San Francisco. then i ended up meeting the guy who created it. here's the story: he runs Conscious Englightenment LLC, which produces Common Ground magazine, Whole Life Times, and runs many other socially conscious ventures. He said he started the card b-cuz he is a filmmaker (don't remember his film's name- sorry) and he went into a ton of debt. to which i replied, "yeah, i am familiar with debt, buddy. i am a filmmaker too." then i asked him why make a credit card with those images and call it "enlightenment" when debt is such a huge problem in this country (and certainly for indie filmmakers). he was like, "have you tried getting around without a credit card?" i said that yes, i have stopped using every single one of my cards because they are maxed out - and there's an underlying issue: that is, that Buddhists (and all people on the path to enlightenment) need to deal with money issues directly and not feel through advertisting like they should be spending or creating more debt to "get enlightened." I told him to check out the film "In Debt We Trust" because it gets to the heart of this issue. The film doesn't take a spiritual approach, but i felt more enlightened after watching it. talks about how we are living in a state of economic apartheid.

that's my report. check out the websites and decide what's true.

Thanks to Bodhicitta for the tip.

If you listen to enough rap, or, smoke weed, then you probably know that "Buddha" is slang for the latter.

Here the "fat Buddha" -- he really gets around, doesn't he? -- makes an obligatory appearance on a bong water-pipe. It's surely not the first and just as surely won't be the last.

 But where to get all the other paraphenalia?

That's easy. Here.