The video is a clip of a show called Eco Trip.  The series is available on NETFLIX streaming.  The host takes simple everyday items like a piece of chocolate, a cotton t shirt or a lightbulb and follows its “life” from the resource level.  Often the videos explore sustainable or controversial ways of growing, producing and manufacturing the item.  Each eco trip is about 25 mins.

"It's great when people ask me: does that really exist? I want to create a context where a lot of questions are asked."

"I'm sick of being earnest. I've got to put more of my personality and sense of fun in the work before I end up so crotchety, old and sober. I want to embrace ambivalance, confusion, sadism, and humor."

"No, squirrels don't fuck rats, frogs don't have rodent tails, there is no such thing as a flower with a penis and monsters don't live under golf courses. I don't know what it means. I don't think there is a truth."

Where I found the quotes plus an Alexis Rockman interview and other info:

http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w02/gc_w02_rockman.htm

He has a TON more interesting, pleasing, and thought provoking art. Google images for Alexis Rockman:

http://www.google.com/images?q=alexis+rockman&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=-WLpTPjGEIXEsAOGkdGEDA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQsAQwAA&biw=1024&bih=576

First, I want to throw out the idea to start sabotaging bull shit billboards and other ads around the metro area.  More importantly (perhaps), the above link is for a news video from Democracy Now! I think it is best summarized by the following excerpts:

“China has accused the US of uncontrolled money printing. By devaluing the dollar, the Fed is cheapening the price of US exports and making foreign imports more expensive. In addition, the low interest rates are encouraging US corporations to make massive investments overseas, cheaply buying up foreign real estate, natural resources and stock.”

“China has gone to Turkey, Malaysia, Thailand, and said, “We want to avoid using the dollar altogether.” They’re treating it like a pariah currency. They’re saying, “Well, let’s make a currency swap. We’ll give you our Chinese RMB, you give us your currency, the baht, and we’ll do our trade in our own currency. We are isolating the dollar, so that people are not going to use the dollar anymore.” That’s why the dollar is plunging on world foreign exchange markets. The whole world that America created after World War II of open markets is now closing off. And it’s closing off, really, because the United States is trying to rescue the real estate market from all the junk mortgages, all the crooked loans, all of the financial fraud, instead of just letting the fraud go and throwing the guys in jail like other economists have suggested.”

There are some amazing other videos online.  I was reading part of the Ajahn Chah book you mentioned and he was talking about  receiving and he mentioned different cultures when working as a group almost took on this form of behavior.

Breathe in peacefully/calm mind and breathe out with a smile.

Be present, quickly move on from annoying events and thoughts and focus on new moment with beauty and abyss staring.

Don’t seek approval, Don’t try and control and Don’t judge others.

Trance-ology is a whole different interesting topic.  I haven’t checked  many sources on this but it is still cool to think about.

We all like order and control.  Having a religion to follow gives our mind control because there is a book with stories and we can train our mind to follow it at all costs and then there is control.  If we keep allowing other thoughts into our mind that fall outside of the religion then we don’t have control anymore.  So we strengthen our beliefs adamantly about our controlled religion to stay in a trance and maintain that control.  Start using faith as an all encompassing belief to deny other thoughts as possibilities and this leads to a life long committment to narrow mindedness.  We probably inherited these beliefs from our parents and never had any opportunity to learn otherwise unless there was an influential person or event in our life that took us out of that pathology.  These were thoughts I had after reading the following article on trances.

http://hypnogenesis.com/drwier1.htm

But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful — really peaceful! Just like a leaf which remains still so long as the wind doesn’t blow. If a wind comes up, the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind — the fluttering of the mind is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn’t follow them, it doesnt flutter. If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions, we will be unmoved.

Our practive is simply to see the “Original Mind.” We must train the mind to know those sense impressions and not get lost in them, to make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through.

I found this book “Food for the Heart” by Ajahn Chah off the Zen Moments website and decided to start reading it. I read this small amount this morning after reading your post. Although it may be nothing new to you, I wanted to share. Also,  a random thought popped into my head to go hiking soon and find a good spot along the way to meditate. Let me know if you want to join…if the weather is nice on Sunday I’ll be going.

All the best

Such meditation will readily show the role of brain-mind doshas as to how we deal with mental stress, and how our habits of mentalization of emotions and suppression or expression of emotions as the case may be, contribute to the disease. One of the root causes of mental stress accumulation will also become clear: mental speed–hurrying and rushing–augmenting the pursuit of desires with accomplishments, anxieties and day dreaming. So the purpose of the preparation stage is to slow down the mind, and to create an open, receptive mind that is an essential first step toward any creativity.

Don’t judge others beliefs or actions or self.

Let go of need for approval.

Let go of control.

If you stare into the abyss long enough, it will stare back.