This is a bit off the beaten path for the usual kind of post here. But this is a music video much in spirit of meditation practice, in which we seek to awaken to all the light that’s already there in us, hidden by our cloudy minds. The song is by The IONS, a music-theater troupe of mine that’s the house band of the Web Theater of WestVirginiaVille.com. There are images of the Bhavana Society Buddhist monastery in the hills of Hampshire County and shots of Bhavana abbot Bhante Gunaratana and bhantes Rahula and Piyadhammo, on White Cliff on Great North Mountain in the Allegheny highlands. (That last sentence is the first time I had to confront the conundrum: What is the plural of ‘bhante,’ a word akin to ‘reverend’?) Except for the opening images by jumpy ‘bike-cam’ (actually, me holding my iPhone, camera forward) from the Washington Mall in DC, all the other ones are from the hills, streets, parties, interstates and backroads of West Virginia.
— by douglas imbrogno