Waking up to paradox

On 09 March 09 I wrote in a post called Fukuoka ghost:

It feels strange to be back here in Fukuoka. It's like visiting my old self, the self that used to have a life here but which seems to have vanished somewhere along the way in Nepal and India. I don't want to find that person. I'm happy to let him go.

A couple of readers picked up on this and asked to know more. I was curious myself. Over a couple of weeks I produced notes to fill up five pages of A4 paper in single-spaced, 12 point text, about 2500 words, perhaps 2000 more than anyone would ever want to read.

So I set myself the task of boiling it down, finding some way to describe the fundamental difference out of which all the other changes emanate. And I think I found it.

Here it is. Let me know if you need more. I have a lot left over. ;-)

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When you sit quietly and watch, something paradoxical results. The world begins expanding, while at the same time contracting.

Right in your own body you observe the changes happening at the physical level, as itching comes and goes, pain comes and goes, numbness comes and goes, tingling comes and goes. You observe changes at the mental level, as emotions rise and fade, as ideas emerge and subside. You begin to see that not only is the physical world out there always in motion, always changing. It's not just the movement of cars and planes and buses and cars. It's not just that an old building was torn down and a new one put in its place. Its not just that yesterday's clothes are now out of fashion, or that certain foods are now in style, or a sports team is now on top while another is down. You are changing, too. Never the same from moment to moment, nothing but a stream of processes - of sensations, emotions, and thoughts - each leading to the next, a stream in which today, tomorrow, and yesterday, a stream in which inside and outside, you and me, physical and mental are arbitrary demarcations, where everything runs together as part of the process of life, the infinite expanse of being. Within the context of this infinitude our lives are exceedingly brief, even briefer than we might imagine since most of us go about our day without ever stopping to consider that today may be it. If you knew there were no more tomorrows, no more next weeks, no more next months, its unlikely you would get up in the morning and shuffle off to work as you normally would. You'd be raving mad to fill yourself up with the universe.

That's me now. The old interests and engagements seem like things intended for nothing but filling up time, occupying the mind and keeping it from the terror of standing on the edge of being, where today, now, this moment, is all that is.

It's not about having a new lifestyle. It's about having life.

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Good morning

Coffee grounds in the tea,
knife cut on my thumb,
melon on the floor.
Even after she said “no, thank you,”
granola in her bowl.
Practicing mindfulness in the kitchen.

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Echoes of Kuwait

Since returning to Fukuoka I've been cleaning house, going through 12 years worth of accumulated stuff and finding that we should have gotten rid of most of it as soon as we had finished with it, or had declined it when offered.

I suppose Mutsumi and I are not the only ones to do this, to hold on to things thinking that perhaps we will again someday have a need for them. My experience is that most of the time, this isn't the case. I've opened box after box of books, music, photos, letters, student papers, teaching materials, clothing, bags – none of it touched since the day it was consigned to cardboard and a spot in the closet. And still, some of it is hard to part with, even though I know it is going to go back in the box, never to be seen again until I start one of these cleaning exercises again in 2015 or 2020, should I live so long.

I suppose I'm fortunate to be doing this now instead of during a one-week vacation from work when there's not so much time to stop and read an old letter, or glance through a pile of old photos. Otherwise, I might just be chucking stuff into the trash heap just to be done with the project.

(Click photo for larger view)

Among the boxes was one carried over from Kuwait, where we lived from 1995-96. Therein was a notebook of clippings from the Arab Times, our daily source of news and entertainment at a time when the internet was still not widely available and many of us still read newspapers.

The cartoon and above a retraction printed next day

Amidst other amazing stories was the tempest stirred up by religious fundamentalists over a Hagar cartoon published 25 March 1996 in which the barbarian complains to God, "I pray and pray, but you never answer me", to which God replies, "Sorry if you don't get through right away. Keep trying. These days everyone wants to talk to me."




For mocking God, a group of six men visited the newspaper, one pulled a gun and fired at the editor. The gun jammed and all fled. Other brouhahas erupted over attempts to segregate education, women's suffrage, and fashion shows.




Among the more amusing stories are those with a morally indigent tone relating the rising tide of eve teasing, in which young men try to give young ladies pieces of paper on which they have written their names and telephone numbers. But perhaps the strangest story was the one about the Indian fellow arrested for dressing like a woman so that he could sit next to his girlfriend and her mother in the movie theater (which in Kuwait and other Gulf countries have segregated seating).







There was also a ticket from a World Wrestling Federation tournament, described in our clipping collection as the Middle East's first. About all I remember is that I attended the event with Kevin Carroll, a colleague from Kuwait University whom we haven't heard from in a very long time. (If you find this, Kevin, please send us an email.)





There was also the Kuwait University Handbook from 1995-96, in which I found staring back at me a face that is at once familiar, but then again not. Flipping through I saw Rawabi, one of my students who gave me a gift that sits now on our bookshelf and which I see at least a few times every month, a placard on which she inscribed: Thanks for the wonderful things you taught us, wishing to you a happy life in Japan. It's been 15 years since I've seen her and I suppose she now has a family and is practicing medicine somewhere in the Gulf. It would be nice meet her again.







We traveled to Egypt during this time and along the way Mutsumi was practicing her new hobby of painting, the choice of which I suppose was influenced by our upstairs neighbor, an American woman by the name of Norma who had painted all kinds of stuff all over her apartment walls. When I finished my thangka last month Mutusmi said she could never have imaged I had such ability. But looking at her painting here, I think she's shown a little talent of her own, don't you?

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Of surveys and prophets

It's been a quiet first week back in Fukuoka. Except for a trip to the supermarket and an equally short job interview conducted in the neighborhood McDonald's, I've spent my time at home. I haven't had a need or an urge to go into the city and I've had plenty on my computer to keep me busy, including editing two papers and setting up a couple of new websites (about which I can tell you more later).

Early in the week while scanning the headlines I ran across news of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey showing an increase of 7% (since the last survey in 1990) in the number of Americans identifying themselves as having no religion. Additional data from the survey suggests this generation of non-believers will have no religious traditions to pass on to the next generation, which should lead to further increases in this segment of the population:

• 40% say they had no childhood religious initiation ceremony such as a baptism, christening, circumcision, bar mitzvah or naming ceremony.
• 55% of those who are married had no religious ceremony.
• 66% say they do not expect to have a religious funeral.

While browsing related articles on the Survey, I bumped into a headline on The coming evangelical collapse. I wouldn't normally have taken much note of this, the number of breathless, sensational essays on the internet being outdone only by the number of nude pictures and porno movies, but as it was published in the Christian Science Monitor I had a peek. I found something unexpected, a calm voice of reason and compassion from within a group that is most often represented by shrillness, fear, condemnation and intolerance. The Internet Monk is himself a Christian and has an even more interesting and thoughtful essay on his blog on why evangelicals rank so highly in surveys of most disliked groups in America, a take on the post-9/11 Why They Hate Us diagnoses.

The Internet Monk in turn led me to a childhood icon, David Wilkerson. If you grew up in the 60's in America and went to church, you may have once run across his book, Cross and the Switchblade, Wilkerson's experience with New York youth gangs. I don't now recall who introduced me to this book, but I do remember reading it. I also remember seeing the movie at a church screening. I don't remember much about either and would have never thought of them if someone at The Internet Monk hadn't published a link to author David Wilkerson's website, where the old man is now ending his days warning Christians to stock up on canned goods for the coming apocalypse.

Indian guru Sai Baba doesn't seem to have made any such predictions lately, though he has made some outlandish ones in the past. You can find Baba's face all over Nepal and India, in posters, paintings, pendants, amulets, any kind of trinket you can market you can probably find a Baba version. I didn't know much about him and having little faith in gurus had no desire to waste my time learning until I found a recent BBC documentary claiming to expose some very un-godlike behavior. Not un-gurulike, because we all know that those who are idolized and given authority most always abuse it. Baba is no different and may be even worse for having so many worshipers. The BBC film claims are based largely on those from American devotees who in their private interviews with the guru found much to their chagrin that Baba likes oiling up young white boys. He also enjoys, it seems, regular treatments of fellatio. The reporter puts Baba's claims that the oil treatments are part of a religious tradition worshiping the lingam to Indian social commentator Khushwant Singh, who replies: “There’s no Indian tradition to support the fact that, you know, worship of the Lingam includes also doing the blow job, if that is what you are referring to.” If you want to see some more slight of hand, check out this video of Baba manifesting a necklace.

It must be terribly embarrassing for modern, educated Indians to have guys like Baba represent their culture to the world. It is at least for the Science and Rationalists' Association, who have for many years traveled across India debunking fakirs, swamis, and gurus. Given the size and conditions in India, it seems it may be many years before their work will be anywhere near done, before they can look on an Indian Religious Identification Survey showing growing numbers of Indians indifferent to religion.

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Fukuoka ghost

Returning to Japan wasn't the experience I expected. China Airlines pulled a stunt I last saw at the Indian border. At that time two young guys tried to strong-arm the foreigners into paying additional baggage fees. This time it was a cute young lady at the check-in counter trying the same thing with a smile instead of muscle. That encounter fairly ruined my morning; for my anger I have no one to blame but myself.

I had mostly cooled off by the time I got to Taipei, where I spent a couple of hours diddling around the new terminal of the capital city's airport, about as interesting as the old one, only cleaner. But while waiting at the gate for my Fukuoka flight I had an enlivening encounter with a couple of dozen high school girls returning to Kumamoto from their school trip to Taipei. When they saw me sitting byn the window they came to talk and find out who I was. I showed them pictures from Nepal, they showed me pictures from Taiwan. Their interest, enthusiasm, and smiles were a cool breeze that blew out the last embers of my anger. They called out to say goodbye when we boarded; they came to see what I was doing while we were waiting for our bags to be unloaded; they called out farewells as I left the luggage carousel.

I thought then that my meeting them, and our immediate rapport, might be a sign, a sign that perhaps I should be back in the classroom with kids like them.

It feels strange to be back here in Fukuoka. It's like visiting my old self, the self that used to have a life here but which seems to have vanished somewhere along the way in Nepal and India. I don't want to find that person. I'm happy to let him go. The disconcerting part is the memories that pop-up, memories associated with Fukuoka, with my neighborhood, with my apartment, with a smell, a sound, a taste. They remind me of what was. They invite me back into that world. And I don't want to go, don't really want to have anything to do with that person or that life. I'd be happy to leave them for good. But that is not to be. At least not yet. There's a bit of work to do yet to clean up some of the bits that have been left lingering, including an apartment full of 10 years of junk.

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Appreciating what you don't have

On the way from a lecture about meditation, on the way to a yoga class, we passed through Central Department store. On this Sunday afternoon the displays of clothing, cosmetics and designer food were teeming with chattering people searching, inspecting, weighing, evaluating, hungry to fulfill cravings for beautiful things, to hold, to own, to possess, to smell, to taste, to be attractive, satisfied, satiated, that for a moment fear of impermanence, of decay and death, may be put aside.

Nepalis are only human and would not behave any differently if raised under the same conditions and given the same opportunities. Circumstances, though, have presented them with a different reality and at that moment I missed their simple ways, their ability to live free of modern marketing, the tyranny of over-abundance and the need to choose.

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Adjust again after initial failure

I have forgotten how the world works. The rest of the world outside Nepal and India.

For some reason when I checked in at the Kathmandu airport the Biman agent gave me a boarding pass for only the Kathmandu-Dhaka flight. By the time I realized I didn't have a pass for the Dhaka-Bangkok flight I was already through immigration, so I let the issue go until I arrived in Bangladesh. The layover there left me plenty of time.

When I stepped up to the transit desk in Dhaka and explained my problem, the agent asked for me by name. My boarding pass was ready and had been waiting for me. I was left momentarily speechless, but when my faculties returned I expressed as sincerely as I could my thanks for the attentive service I have received both times I have flown Biman.




In Nepal or India I suppose I might have had to spend a good part of my layover sorting out this kind of problem, but now here I found myself with two hours until my boarding call. I sauntered through the Dhaka airport, which both times I have visited has seemed exceptionally quiet and uninhabited. There was one customer in the restaurant, a few watching television, and no one in the shops. The local telecom agent has provided computer stands and free internet access, but no one was using them. Except me, of course. I had thought of doing the same in the Kathmandu airport, but didn't feel like paying the $2.00 fee just to write a couple of emails.




To Biman's credit, both flights departed and arrived on schedule. The only cock-up was in not having enough vegetarian meals on the Dhaka-Bangkok leg. There was the most minimal of queuing at the Bangkok immigration counter, the bags arrived within 10 minutes of getting through immigration, and as always customs in Bangkok was a breeze – no forms to fill out, no interviews, no spot checks. Just pick up your bags and go.




As I was walking through the airport to my hotel pick-up spot, I noticed a counter selling mobile phone SIMs and stopped to inquire. Only 199bht, about US$5.00, for a SIM and 100 minutes of local calls. I took out my phone and asked the girl at the counter if the SIM would work in my phone. By the time she answered “yes” she already had the SIM card in and activated. I was again left dumbfounded. I told her that in India it had taken me half a day to do what she just did in a less than a minute. She looked like she thought I might be pulling her leg.




The guy driving the hotel shuttle van was probably not in a hurry to do anything. He just liked to drive fast and the open roads at midnight gave him the opportunity, the fastest I have traveled over land in the last six months. It is simply impossible to move at such speeds over the potted streets and dirt roads of Nepal and India.




When I got to my room, I didn't have to ask if hot water was available. I didn't have to ask for a candle or inquire about when the electricity might go out. But when I finally got down to breakfast I did have to ask someone to help me sort out my mobile phone, which was not allowing me to make any calls, even to the provider's call center. I discovered in the booklet that came with my SIM that the provider did not include a contact number that can be reached from outside its network. My most immediate need, though, wasn't the SIM itself as it was contacting my friend Krit, who was going to come by and pick me up on the way to the airport to pick up Mutsumi as she arrives from Japan. The hotel had a land line for incoming calls, but not outgoing. So to call Krit to let him know I arrived safely and was waiting for his pick-up, I had to buy a phone card for one of the public phones installed in the lobby. Except that the hotel had sold out of domestic phone cards.

Now that's more like it, I thought. This is the kind of craziness I've gotten used to. Fortunately the girl at the front desk was kind enough to let me use her mobile to call Krit and I sorted out the problem with the SIM when we went back to the airport to pick-up Mutsumi.

The blog post comes from a dictionary entry, the photos from Wat Lat Krabang, located just across the canal from the hotel where I spent my first night outside Nepal/India.

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Farewell to old friends . . .

. . . and old shoes. The guy downtown on Sunday insisted he could fix these for me. I know better than to argue with the touts but I was perhaps in a good mood. “I don't need them fixed because day after tomorrow I'm going to throw them away.” But I can fix them for you. “No you can't. Besides a torn heel there are wholes in the sole” I can fix that.

I realized then he wasn't interested in conversation.

So, here they are today, my last look after 11 years of service. I bought them when I first came to Nepal in 1998. They walked thousands of kilometers across this country and several others. Their last great journey was my walk around Shikoku last summer. Since then they've just been hanging on.



Back in December when the Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at George Bush, I thought about sending one each to George and Dick to congratulate them on their retirement, but that gesture has in only a few months become passe.

I feel like I should offer them to a ceremonial fire, but I suppose instead I'll just drop them in a garbage bag.

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Pop

Further to this week's episode involving the fly and the hair, this morning while meditating I heard a faint pop. Every 15 to 20 seconds – pop – the sound of a water bubble. On the nightstand next to the bed is a thermos, an old fashioned thermos with a cork stopper. I used a bit of the water shortly after waking and now the trapped air was leaking out. Pop – pop – pop. A tiny sound, but magnified by the early silence at 05:30. My initial reaction was one of irritation; get up and fix this. But I waited. It was a small thing over which to move. Learn to sit with it. What if, I thought, this pop were the sound of a rain drop outside my window? Pop – pop – pop. Ah, that feels better. Same sound, different conception, different reaction. And as I sat further, my mind becoming more concentrated and no longer preoccupied with the pop, I began to feel the sound of the escaping air, tiny ripples of sound waves moving across the body.

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So easy to fool

Each day after class all the students gather for prayers. Sometimes I chant along, but this morning I chose to sit with my eyes closed, listen to the voices around me, and focus on my breath.

There was a tickle on one of the fingers of my right hand. A fly. I wiggled my finger and it flew away. A minute later it was back. Wiggled again. Flew away. The third time I was irritated, opened my eyes, and found it wasn't a fly after all. The young girl sitting in front of me was rocking back and just a strand or two of her long hair was touching my finger. I closed my eyes. Her hair touched my finger and my initial reaction was - ahh, that's nice.

How foolish the mind. The feeling was irritating when I thought it was a fly, pleasant when connected with a pretty girl.

So easy to fool.

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"For greed all nature is too little."

Three violent deaths in two stores marks the opening of the American Christmas shopping season. Read the details here.

So much death this week related to the divine.

The title quote is from Seneca.

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Electoral dysfunction 3

One night this week it came to me that what I had been experiencing was a sense of loneliness, isolation, alienation from my society. I say “my” because that is where my cultural roots lie, ones that I could never entirely uproot even though I no longer think of myself as American. The feelings are much the same I experienced after the plane attacks on the New York Twin Towers. At that time many of the Americans I knew behaved stunned or shocked, like extra-terrestrial life had arrived on earth with intentions of restructuring human society. Some were even unable to go to work the next day. For myself I felt sorry that so many people died, but the fact that America's political enemies struck back at American targets was not so terribly surprising nor upsetting. What goes around, comes around.

Seven years ago I couldn't work myself up into a state of panic and grief and I began to feel irritated, even angry that people were allowing themselves to get so worked up. By watching the same scenes of death and destruction again and again, by talking about it day and night, they allowed themselves to be consumed with fear, despair, and hatred, all of which eventually fed into support, explicit and tacit, for the tragedy of the Iraq invasion. This time I can't get myself worked up to celebrate Obama's victory. The emotional states being fed and nurtured will perhaps lead to better outcomes, to opening instead of closing, to compassion rather than hate. But there is sure to be disappointment. And that's because the change is superficial.

I've lived through 8 years of Reagan, 12 of Bushes, and 8 of Clinton. 12 of those years I lived in the US, 16 outside. And except for a rebate check now and then, I can't say that my life has been affected by the change in presidents or parties. My life has been no better or worse under Clinton than Reagan or the Bushes. None made me richer, nor wiser, nor happier. They may on occasion have caused some distress, but that I see as my own fault, the fault of having expectations.

Of course like many Americans I have felt embarrassed by the know-nothing Reagan and Bush regimes, but I learned to put away the idea that the president represents me any more than other cultural artifact such Kleenex, Hershey's chocolate, Corn Flakes, or Tom Cruise. I didn't vote for Tom Cruise anymore than I voted for Bush (or any other Republican or Democrat). He is what he is and has nothing to do with me. Sometimes, though, because I might be feeling insecure and want other people to feel good about me, I have to assure them that I don't think Bush is a swell guy doing his best to preserve moral order in the world.

In this sense, the sense of wanting to make favorable impressions, I understand why many feel so strongly about Obama. He's a guy they can feel good about, a guy who seems more like them. A guy like me, in fact - urban, educated, from a mixed family, lived overseas, rides a bicycle to work. But that's just cosmetic. It's an image people can feel good about. Like owning an iPod or a Louis Vuitton handbag. I would guess most voters don't know what Obama's policy positions are. In fact the voters that made the difference, the swing voters, were I suspect those exasperated by the last eight years (or four years) of mismanagement and bad news and willing to vote for anything or anyone not connected with the current administration or political party.*

So, yeah, he's different. He is a Democrat instead of Republican. Of mixed race, rather than white. Young, not old. Intelligent and erudite. And so now for those for whom it matters they can feel good about being American again. They can say, yeah, that's my president.

4 years from now - 8 years from now - will you be a better person? A happier person? Will Barack Obama have had any impact on your personal well being?

All things are possible. But if history is any guide, your life will be better (or worse) because of you, not the president of the US. (Unless, of course, you happen to live near areas targeted by the US military.)

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*Three-quarters of those polled said the country was on the wrong track, more than 9 in 10 rated the economy in bad shape and 7 in 10 disapproved of the job Mr. Bush is doing; those voters overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama.

Nearly half of all voters said they expected Mr. McCain to continue the Bush policies, and 9 in 10 of them voted for Mr. Obama. Similarly, the big share of voters who disapprove of Mr. Bush went overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama.

Voter Polls Find Obama Built a Broad Coalition
NYTimes
04 Nov 08

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Electoral dysfunction 2

Even Americans who consider themselves progressive are terribly conservative.

McCain and Palin played up American exceptionalism, but their electoral counterparts - and their supporters - seem every bit as fond of the idea. One told me this past week, with great sincerely, that in America people at least have the right to vote, as if having the right to choose between Pepsi and Coke is choice enough, or as if the rest of humanity were living in autocracies. I heard more than once on television from “celebrities” such as Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey (and alluded to by Obama himself) that only in America can a member of a formerly oppressed or disenfranchised class rise to the country's highest political office. Tell it to the South Africans, who elected a former political prisoner as president. Tell that to the Indians, whose constitution was written by an untouchable and who elected an untouchable to the presidency. In fact the Indians have also had a female prime minster, as have the Israelis, the Germans, the English, the Indonesians, the Filipinos, the Pakistanis, and the Bangladeshis. But not yet the Americans.

In America you still have to maintain the pretense of being a church-going Christian, to supporting the military, to pretending that America is somehow special among nations, to super-patriotism. To openly waver on any makes one immediately unelectable.

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Electoral dysfunction

Wednesday was a bad day.

After lunch I stopped by the Flavor's Cafe, Boudha's hangout for the students in Kathmandu University's Buddhist Studies program. Most are white, middle-class Europeans and North Americans, young men and women in their 20's and 30's who image themselves, I imagine, as somewhat more progressive, open and tolerant than average, the kind of people who express their individuality through consumerism, the kind of people who make statements with goatees, malas, and Macintosh computers and iPods.

I'm sure most of them are quite nice on a one-to-one basis and over a coffee or beer we could find more than a few common interests and opinions. But Wednesday they were a herd, an obnoxiously loud gaggle barking and baying about the election results, making lunch miserable for any other customer not a part of their circle. For people who study Buddhism, they displayed a disappointing lack of concern for others or any sign of personal restraint. It seemed to me, too, that in their enthusiasm for Mr Obama they missed one of the important lessons of their faith, detachment from views or outcomes.

I was at the cafe for the internet service. For those with laptops it offers an office away from home, a comfortable place to spend a couple of hours doing computer work. But as yesterday was anything but comfortable, I packed up and headed over to the competition, Little Britain. The American owner of the shop had set up a TV and was broadcasting live news feeds for his customers. When I arrived the television was off and he asked if I was there to view the election returns. I said, no, just to use the internet. But shortly afterwards others arrived and the television was turned on and I was then subjected to the inanities of the talking heads on American news programs, as well as clips of Obama and McCain's speeches.

I fled to the patio to escape the noise and some of the ridiculous statements being made by “celebrities” and even by Obama himself. A European woman in her 60's came out to the patio and asked me if that - pointing to the crowd in front of the television - is exciting. Apparently to some it is, I said.

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Preserving the Truth

Attentive readers will recall that I am presently working my through the Majjhima Nikaya. Yesterday I came across a discourse that seems like it might have been written only recently and that resonates quite clearly in a world surfeit with ideologues and demagogues.

In the sutta, a wise young man of 16 asks of the Buddha, “How does one preserve truth?”

The Buddha replies:

If a person has faith, Bharadvaja, he preserves the truth when he says: 'My faith is thus'; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: 'Only this is true, anything else is wrong.”

If a person receives an oral tradition, he preserves the truth when he says: 'My oral tradition is thus'; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: 'Only this is true, anything else is wrong.'

If a person reaches a conclusion based on reasoned cogitation, he preserves the truth when he says: 'My reasoned cogitation of a view is thus'; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: 'Only this is true, anything else is wrong.”

If a person gains a reflective acceptance of a view, he preserves the truth when he says: 'My reflective acceptance of a view is thus'; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: 'Only this is true, anything else is wrong.”

In this way, Bharadvaja, there is preservation of the truth; in this way he preserves truth; in this way we describe the preservation of truth. But as yet there is no discovery of truth.

Majjhima Nikaya
Sutta 95, Canki Sutta

A thirst that cannot be quenched by answers

The most touching and meaningful selection from One came for me in the most unexpected text, a selection from a longer work on modern education. While the apparent focus is on children, author Steven Harrison is clearly addressing the adults, all adults, those with or without children. He begins with observations about the behavior of three-year olds, who seem to never tire of asking “why?”

We often mistake this behavior of the three-year-old for that of someone looking for answers. We have usually forgotten what this state of profound curiosity is really about. As adults, we inhabit a concrete world of relative certainty, and we assume that this is what the child is looking for.

This is why you shouldn't trust anyone over three.

Young children are simply curious. Learning something doesn't fulfill their interest. This thirst cannot be quenched by answers. They want to know more, regardless of what they have found out so far. Their question in life is their life.

We can't answer their question.

We can, however, join them in their question. That would require us to abandon all our answers. We might lose track of time. We might not get anything done today. There may be no point to the question at all. The whole thing may be totally pointless, like a game without a score, without a conclusion, without a . . . winner.

Maybe it's time to get some structured play going, with rules and some competition; after all, that is what these kids are going to face in life. Why do they want to spend so much time just playing?

Or, we could teach them that there is an answer to most questions and when there is no answer, then it is time to do something else besides ask these incessant questions. Over time, we can teach them to wonder less, to give up their questioning more easily, and to accept answers as conclusions, and then they will be well prepared to go to school. After school, they can live a productive life. And we can get back to what we were doing, which is no doubt pretty important.

And what if this questioning was cultivated, not quenched? What is the potential of a child whose curiosity knows no bounds? What would become of us as parents? What would become of our answers? What would become of the world?

We seem apprehensive of our children and their relentless drive to discover, their unfettered energy and clear eyes. Have we lost this quality so completely in our lives that we have forgotten its value? Will the world we have constructed withstand their gaze?

If we do not give our lives over to this drive for discovery in our children and in ourselves, if we restrict our children to the answers we have already formulated, it leaves us with one simple question.

Why?

The Happy Heart: Changing the Heart of Education
Steven Harrison 2002

The season of fear

As an American overseas, I am often asked by the non-Americans around me at this time every four years to explain the US electoral system. That's not as easy as it sounds, as most any American who has tried can tell you.

I am also asked to offer my opinions on the candidates or the issues. This used to be easier to do, but as I get older (and perhaps a little wiser) I notice that even things we regard as everyday facts are not always so easily or clearly understood. That is, they are not as factual as they appear at first glance. How much more so opinions based on those facts?

I usually try to beg off whenever I'm asked. Ironically, this piece appeared in this morning's newspaper and I found myself nodding in agreement (though would offer that there is plenty of ignorance to share among us all).

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Found

You may recall a recent post about a series of dreams in which I'm off searching for something I can never find. I've had dreams since then, but the most I can remember are disjointed fragments. Last night, though, I had a dream in which I went off on a search – and found what I was looking for.

I was somewhere in Japan trying to go home. I remember being with mom and dad and Mutsumi at a bar. The owner was showing us his karaoke menu and presented us with a copy of a bill from a previous visit. The rest of this sequence seems lost and I next found myself on the road with two backpacks, one large, one small, at the bus stop in front of a family restaurant.

Mmmmm . . . frozen cow flesh prepared and served by freeters.

Checking the schedule, I found I had time for something to eat and so left my bags at the bus stop and went inside. The place was mostly empty. I sat in a corner and placed an order. I asked what time it was and found that I had missed my bus. I was upset. I wanted to get home, change out of my clothes and relax. I sat down again to wait for the next bus and was reading a newspaper when a group came in. The restaurant was empty but they sat down next to me. In fact, one woman sat so that her leg was touching mine. I became upset and asked why in this large, empty place she had to sit on me. The group moved off and one of the waitresses engaged me in a conversation about coffee. Didn't I have some? What did I think? Yes, they made some of the best coffee in the business. I checked the time and saw that the next bus would be arriving soon. I paid my bill and went out to the bus stop and found my bags missing, leading to a frantic search over several blocks. I returned depressed, unable to find them, only to discover that my bags had been moved into the restaurant by one of the employees. They had been there all along. If I had only thought to ask.

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Mad about MD

I've been obsessed over the last month with Minidisc. Admittedly, it's a strange obsession, especially as I've been a Minidisc user for more than a decade and never had this kind of preoccupation with technology since I was first introduced to Macintosh back in 1985. I find myself these days hanging out at the Minidisc forums, reading posts about the quirks of SonicStage (software that allows the Minidsic to interface with the computer), ogling photos of Minidisc units like teenage boys do pictures of Jessica Alba, looking at online shopping venues for bargains on old Minidisc player/recorders, and making Minidisc compilations.

I thought I'd forever given up on Minidisc in favor of flashdrive music/media players. The latter seemed more convenient, allowing drag-and-drop copying from the computer without the need for the Minidisc's proprietary software, as well as much greater storage capacity than Minidisc's maximum 1GB. I bought one such player before going on my Shikoku pilgrimage but found it was not as convenient – nor did it provide as good sound quality – as Minidisc. I put that down to the manufacturer and model of my player, though, and not the entire format, and was before leaving for Nepal browsing Fukuoka retailers for a better flashdrive player. I found what I thought I wanted but then began the process of reconsideration before spending the equivalent of a few hundred dollars – do I really need this? ¥30,000 for a new player, versus ¥1500 for 3GB of rerecordable blank Minidiscs (in addition to the 3GB I already owned, plus all the files I'd be carrying on my laptop). I took the practical option, put away my desire for a new toy, and dusted off the one I had.

I'm not sure what led me to The Minidsic Forums. I'd been there the year previously to ask a question about a software problem, but this time around I think it was probably just an idle day at the computer. Maybe I was cleaning up old bookmarks in my browser. For whatever reason I stopped by and began perusing the topics and found myself drawn to the news items, which are in short supply these days as Sony is the sole remaining manufacturer of a product that has very narrow appeal, mostly for those needing a high-quality portable recorder, and to a number of what you might think of as Minidisc dead-enders, guys (mostly guys) who post to the MD forum with statements like:

• Anyone who thinks MD is "useless" doesn't understand how to use MD.
• MD will still be in use long long after your virgin career is forgotten.
• Long Live Minidisc!
• ATRAC or Death!

I found much to like in their passion for this mostly forgotten technology. In their confident embrace of the proven and their stubborn unwillingness to buy into their latest trends, this unlikely clan of audio geeks now find themselves using a product which has a bit of retro-chic. Check the auctions at Ebay or Yahoo Japan and you'll see that many of the older player/recorders chalk up quite a few bids.

As I got caught up in their defiance of the iPod and their proud declamations of loyalty, I found myself reliving memories of my Minidisc glory days. My first machine was a bookshelf component system, the Aiwa XR-H3MD, followed shortly thereafter by Sony MZ-R50 Walkman, both purchased soon after moving to Fukuoka in 1997, back when a connection to the internet was through a dial-up modem and downloading one mp3 might take a whole day. While the technology wasn't yet available for instant delivery of music, email allowed music fans and Minidisc owners to exchange lists of CDs and arrange MD trades delivered through the post office. Little communities of MD traders existed within genre specific web forums, like the seven of us at the Contemporary Jazz Forum, one each from Australia, Japan, Germany, Croatia, Venezuela, and two in the US. For a couple of years I sent out packages to at least one of these guys weekly, and got as many in return. There was also a Yahoo Groups list of MD Traders, a website called the MD Traders Post, and bootleg trading newsgroups, all of which served as conduits for making contact with fans of every variety of musical genre and interest. A fellow in New York used to send me compilations of Arab, African and Indian music; a friend from the UK sent BBC radio documentaries; I traded concert recordings of Springsteen, U2, Prince, Oasis, The Verve and Kula Shaker with collectors from all over Europe, North America, and Asia. Besides enriching the post office and building a library of what I guess is about 500 MDs (at least 75% from trades), I also had a chance to visit with several of my fellow traders, including Larry in the US and Rainer in Germany, and one - Luis from Venezuela – had a chance to pay a visit to Japan.

By the early 00's CDR had become more widespread and a large number of new traders quickly arrived in the trading venues. At about the same time the internet started picking up speed and it became possible to share files through Napster and its offspring. The camaraderie of the MD community began fading away and Minidisc began to look more and more like a soon-to-be extinct and orphaned technology. At the same time I was beginning to get so much promotional material through my radio job that I didn't have much need to continue trading and so my recording was reduced to making MDs for my Walkman, which went with me nearly everywhere, everyday.


In fact my one constant travel companion, with me even when Mutsumi couldn't be, has been my Sony MD Walkman and a box of discs. The MZ-R50 went twice to Europe, on my first visit to Nepal, and on several journeys to Thailand and the United States. This unit was later replaced by the MZ-R909, which you might remember was lost last year in a funeral procession in Kathmandu, where I made an immediate replacement purchase, the MZ-NH600D. Many travel memories are closely associated with music played through my MD Walkman, including the Brand New Heavies on the bus ride from Kathmandu to my job posting in Baglung, walking the streets of Madrid with Los Amigos Invisibles, Keiko Matsui, Rick Braun and Dave Koz on the train across Germany to the Czech Republic, bouncing through Seoul Airport to Oasis, dancing to Prince on the Dragon Guest House roof, and most recently enjoying a glass of wine with White Snake in Bangkok Airport.

I suppose many people have similar stories to tell about their Minidsics or their iPods or whatever bit of technology they use to carry their music. But what to make of this recent fetishistic behavior? Why am I all of a sudden, more than a decade later, suddenly interested in different makes and models of MD players? Why the sudden interest in owning more than what I can reasonably use on any given day?

It must, I've concluded, be part of the process of adjusting to living in Nepal again, the process of learning to live with less, the process of again turning the attention away from consuming. In reaction, the mind is flailing about looking for an object on which to fixate, some “thing” on which to direct its acquisitiveness. It was recently abetted by my move to a room with 24-hour internet access, giving me the ability to visit MD related websites morning, noon, and night. Just yesterday, though, I moved back to my old home at the Dragon and was able to have a refreshingly uninterrupted night's sleep. From here I have no connection to the internet and so when my mind might otherwise pull me toward the MD forums or perusing MD auctions, I have no way to satisfy that particular urge and redirect my energies elsewhere.

And that is a welcome relief. Not only because I realize this attraction is a waste of energy, but also because I can now direct the mind to something more interesting and more fruitful, like tackling the 1000+ pages of the Majjhima Nikaya, which I 'd like to finish before leaving for India in mid-December.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to send me their forgotten and no longer used portable MD player/recorder, I would be very happy to relieve you of your junk. I'll even pay postage. Send me an email (at fukuokajeff_at_gmail) and I'll reply with my address.

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Still searching . . .

The last couple of weeks I haven't had any memorable dreams, perhaps because I've been living in unfamiliar places, first the yoga center and then the room at Flavor's. I've now been back the Dragon for two nights and have only fragmented memories of dreams.

But when I first got here, I had a series of dreams that were amazingly consistent in imagery and theme - searching for something in a marketplace, being separated from Mutsumi, having to go to a higher place, cultural disorientation, and frustration with an unfulfilled quest.

The first such dream was in Thanguan, sleeping next to the temple in a room made of stone held together with clay mortar and roofed with beams of raw logs covered in thatch. My feet hung over the wooden frame bed made for the short statured Nepalis. In my dream I found myself far away in North Carolina, a state I have visited on a couple occasions, but not one I know a lot about, nor have any great aspiration to visit again. But there I was in North Carolina in a large shopping mall. I was alone and I was looking for something that had been left in a coin locker. I don't know what was in the locker, nor why I needed to find it, but I went round and round the mall looking high and low. I never found anything and woke up feeling exhausted and frustrated.

A mall I once visited in Charlotte, North Carolina

The next night I was back in Boudanath, in my room at the Dragon Guest House, the same one I occupied last year, the one that now seems like “my” room in Kathmandu. And in my dream I again found myself in a shopping mall, this time in Japan, in what I believe was Canal City, an American-designed mall in Fukuoka city. I was with Mutsumi to see a movie. The theatre was on one of the upper levels and so we began searching for an elevator, a task that proved exceedingly difficult. We found one, but it didn't work. So we kept searching. Somewhere along the way I was separated from Mutsumi and alone I found at last an elevator that worked and that could take me to the appropriate floor. But when I got there I couldn't find the theatre. I asked someone in a uniform, a black man whom I took for one of the custodial staff (the scenery seems to have shifted to an American mall), but he didn't know where I could find it. In fact, he said the theatre had closed and moved to a new location. And that's the last I remember about that dream, except for the lingering sense of frustration at not being able to get to where I wanted to go.

Canal City, Fukuoka

Two nights later I was again in Japan. Mutsumi and Treya (a new friend from this summer) and I were searching for a wedding gift for Narumi (who was married a couple of years ago). We looked in shopping arcades, a large discount warehouse and a department store. We were on a deadline and had to be at the wedding within an hour. I was becoming anxious and panicky. At this point I asked a clerk where I could find designer or personalized kitchen ware. I was looking for unusual hashi. He took me (Mutsumi and Treya were off somewhere else) to an escalator, after which I had to ride a monorail-like convenience on which I met a 30-something Japanese man who spoke to me in rapid Japanese. When he saw I couldn't catch what he was saying, he switched to a lightly accented English and asked how I got into radio. At this point it was just the two of us but afterwards we found ourselves in a car (still traveling on the train) with 8 or 10 young Japanese men. One of them asked if the fellow I was talking to was the DJ Jeff from the FM station something-or-other and when he replied in the affirmative there were handshakes and high-fives all around for this Japanese Jeff. We arrived at our destination and all these people disappeared as I went in search of hashi. I was in a residential area that had developed a small retail quarter specializing in handmade products. I remember searching through the shops, and then waking up, again tired and frustrated.

Since then I can remember only fragments of dreams that play out the major theme of being frustrated in trying to carry out a task. I feel fortunate to remember these three so clearly, nice snapshots sent up from the unconscious. Now if I could only get a grip on what it is that I am looking for.

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