Friday a student came up to me after class, a kid I've never spoken to personally.
"Sensei," he said in a slightly hesitant manner, "do you know Woodstock?"
"Of course."
"Were you there?"
It took a couple of moments to recover.
"I was only 8 years old then."
"Oh," he said and smiled, "Sorry." I smiled, too.
He didn't say anything more before leaving the room.
More evidence that, at least in the eyes of students, I'm an old fart.
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Saturday, June 2, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Return to art school
I have been reminded this past week that not everyone knows that I’m planning to return to Nepal to continue my art studies. I’ve been letting friends and acquaintances know as I meet or write to them, but I’m now starting to lose track of whom I've informed.
I’ve let all my universities know that I’ll be away for the fall semester, and the radio station is now looking for a replacement. I’ll finish up this semester at the end of July, after which Mutsumi, her family, and I will be traveling to the US to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We have rented a house on the beach at Hilton Head and will be spending a week there largely laying about and eating. We’ll then spend another week in Atlanta before returning to Fukuoka, after which I’ll be boarding a plane for Kathmandu, probably in early September.
The plan is to stay through March of 2008 to finish the first year (of six) of the art program. During that time, Mutsumi is planning to visit. If anyone would like to join her, perhaps you can negotiate a group discount on tickets and hotels. Just let us know when you’d like to go. Any and all visitors are most welcome.
As usual, we’ll keep you updated through this blog on how this plan develops.
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Friends
Three weeks ago I got an email from Rui with the very happy news that she had accepted a job as a writer from the Asahi newspaper group. Here she is practicing her interviewing skills.
Rui is a former student. She studied in the UK and while there did a small internship with BBC radio. Two weeks ago we went out to dinner to celebrate her new job, which will take her in the fall to Tokyo for training. Here we are after a filling meal at Higuchi, one of the city's better French restaurants.
While searching for a journalism job, Rui has been supporting herself working for Softbank, one of Japan's largest telecommunication providers and the owner of Fukuoka's professional baseball team. Through her job Rui came into a few choice tickets to a game that she couldn't attend, so she passed them on to us, and yesterday we had a relaxing afternoon at the Dome in our box seats.
Joining us were Greg Bevan, a fellow teacher at a couple of the universities where I teach, and his finance, Hiromi, a registered nurse and in her free time a dancer of salsa (though not yet, as I understand, with Greg). The happy couple is getting married this summer.
One of the unique traditions of Japanese baseball is the 7th inning balloon release. Mutsumi remarks on the size of Greg's inflation.
Everyone readies ...
... and releases.
The Fukuoka Hawks lost the game (to the Hiroshima Carp), but sill, we had a great time. As you can see in these pictures.
Thank you for a great day, Rui, Greg, Hiromi, and Mutsumi.
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Rui is a former student. She studied in the UK and while there did a small internship with BBC radio. Two weeks ago we went out to dinner to celebrate her new job, which will take her in the fall to Tokyo for training. Here we are after a filling meal at Higuchi, one of the city's better French restaurants.
While searching for a journalism job, Rui has been supporting herself working for Softbank, one of Japan's largest telecommunication providers and the owner of Fukuoka's professional baseball team. Through her job Rui came into a few choice tickets to a game that she couldn't attend, so she passed them on to us, and yesterday we had a relaxing afternoon at the Dome in our box seats.
Joining us were Greg Bevan, a fellow teacher at a couple of the universities where I teach, and his finance, Hiromi, a registered nurse and in her free time a dancer of salsa (though not yet, as I understand, with Greg). The happy couple is getting married this summer.
One of the unique traditions of Japanese baseball is the 7th inning balloon release. Mutsumi remarks on the size of Greg's inflation.
Everyone readies ...
... and releases.
The Fukuoka Hawks lost the game (to the Hiroshima Carp), but sill, we had a great time. As you can see in these pictures.
Thank you for a great day, Rui, Greg, Hiromi, and Mutsumi.
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Sunday, May 6, 2007
Book Review: Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away: Teachings on Impermanence and the End of Suffering; Ajahn Chah, 2005
Ajahn Chah was not a writer. He was born in a fishing village in northeast Thailand in 1918 and spent many years there speaking to farmers and fishermen. Many of these talks were recorded, transcribed and later translated and compiled by one of his western students, Paul Breiter.
Ajahn Chah spoke simply for a simple audience. To illustrate his points, he spoke of fields, ponds, rivers, fish, frogs, dogs, plowing, planting, and harvesting. He used folk tales and parables. Here he speaks of how we are responsible for our own suffering:
"Really, someone who suffers when living alone is foolish. Someone who suffers when living with others is foolish. It's like chicken turds: if you carry them around by yourself, they stink. If you keep them when you're among others, they stink. You carry the rotten things with you."
On the futility of becoming overly preoccupied in affairs of the world, he reminds his audience of the beetle, scratching in the earth:
"It can scratch up a pile that's a lot bigger than itself, but it's still only a pile of dirt. If it works hard, it makes a deep hole in the ground, but it's only a hole in dirt. If a buffalo drops a load of dung there, it will be bigger than the beetle's pile of earth, but it still isn't anything that reaches to the sky. It's all dirt. Worldly accomplishments are like this. No matter how hard the beetles work, they're just involved in dirt, making holes and piles"
Translating the colloquialisms must have been challenging, but, as you can see from the above, Paul Breiter has done a magnificent job capturing Ajahn Chah's voice, making "Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away" a wonderful volume for even those who may have been practicing the dharma for many years.
For those new to Buddhism, this would be an amusing and enlightening introduction, not only because of the colorful language but also for the way in which Ajahn Chah reduces the message of Buddhism to a few easy-to-grasp concepts. He seemed to like reminding his audience that Buddhism was not all that difficult to understand, and he did this through the message of impermanence. As he remarks in a teaching on meditation:
"The way I practice medication is not very complicated - just this. This is what it all comes down to: `It's uncertain'. Everything meets at this point."
Ajahn Chah spoke simply for a simple audience. To illustrate his points, he spoke of fields, ponds, rivers, fish, frogs, dogs, plowing, planting, and harvesting. He used folk tales and parables. Here he speaks of how we are responsible for our own suffering:"Really, someone who suffers when living alone is foolish. Someone who suffers when living with others is foolish. It's like chicken turds: if you carry them around by yourself, they stink. If you keep them when you're among others, they stink. You carry the rotten things with you."
On the futility of becoming overly preoccupied in affairs of the world, he reminds his audience of the beetle, scratching in the earth:
"It can scratch up a pile that's a lot bigger than itself, but it's still only a pile of dirt. If it works hard, it makes a deep hole in the ground, but it's only a hole in dirt. If a buffalo drops a load of dung there, it will be bigger than the beetle's pile of earth, but it still isn't anything that reaches to the sky. It's all dirt. Worldly accomplishments are like this. No matter how hard the beetles work, they're just involved in dirt, making holes and piles"
Translating the colloquialisms must have been challenging, but, as you can see from the above, Paul Breiter has done a magnificent job capturing Ajahn Chah's voice, making "Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away" a wonderful volume for even those who may have been practicing the dharma for many years.
For those new to Buddhism, this would be an amusing and enlightening introduction, not only because of the colorful language but also for the way in which Ajahn Chah reduces the message of Buddhism to a few easy-to-grasp concepts. He seemed to like reminding his audience that Buddhism was not all that difficult to understand, and he did this through the message of impermanence. As he remarks in a teaching on meditation:
"The way I practice medication is not very complicated - just this. This is what it all comes down to: `It's uncertain'. Everything meets at this point."
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Friday, May 4, 2007
Golden Week 2007
This past week was Golden Week here in Japan, so called because of a string of national holidays, including Showa Day, Constitution Day, and Children’s Day. As we usually do at this time of year, we visited with Mutusmi’s family in Kobe, though this year seemed a bit more hectic, if only because Mutsumi’s sister Narumi is now married and living on her own, which adds an extra day to our round of visits.
We had been planning to visit Koya-san, a mountain retreat founded in the 9th century by Kobo Daishi in the forests of Wakayama, but we spent an unscheduled afternoon at Suma Temple, located not far from Mutusmi’s parents’ home, which turned out to also be a Shingon Temple.
Suma Temple
The next morning we were up before 6:00am to take bus to Kobe, then a train to Osaka, a subway to another railway line, a train to the foot of Koya-san, a cable car up the mountain, and finally a bus to the town of Koya, a three-hour journey to one of Japan’s most beautiful towns.
There are no hotels in Koya (nor any super markets, neon lights, or other signs of modern commercial convenience). Accomodation is provided by temples, and we stayed at Shojoshin-in, a place I had noticed on a previous visit to Koya. The temples also provide board, tasty traditional Buddhist vegetarian meals.
Breakfast at Shojoshin-in
And what account of travels in Japan would be complete without a picture of funny English, this one above the hotel sink .
The problem here is Japanese has separate words for cold and hot water. What the temple wants to inform its guests is that there is no hot water available at this sink.
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Jeff, Mutusmi, Narumi, Mitsuhiro
The week turned out – partly by design, partly by accident - to be associated with Shingon, one of Japan’s schools of esoteric Buddhism, founded by one of the country’s most famous monks, a fellow born as Kukai and who later went by the name Kobo Daishi.
Kukai, aka Kobo Daishi
We had been planning to visit Koya-san, a mountain retreat founded in the 9th century by Kobo Daishi in the forests of Wakayama, but we spent an unscheduled afternoon at Suma Temple, located not far from Mutusmi’s parents’ home, which turned out to also be a Shingon Temple.
Suma Temple
The next morning we were up before 6:00am to take bus to Kobe, then a train to Osaka, a subway to another railway line, a train to the foot of Koya-san, a cable car up the mountain, and finally a bus to the town of Koya, a three-hour journey to one of Japan’s most beautiful towns.
There are no hotels in Koya (nor any super markets, neon lights, or other signs of modern commercial convenience). Accomodation is provided by temples, and we stayed at Shojoshin-in, a place I had noticed on a previous visit to Koya. The temples also provide board, tasty traditional Buddhist vegetarian meals.
Breakfast at Shojoshin-inAnd what account of travels in Japan would be complete without a picture of funny English, this one above the hotel sink .
The problem here is Japanese has separate words for cold and hot water. What the temple wants to inform its guests is that there is no hot water available at this sink.
#
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Book review: The Best Buddhist Writing 2006 ; Melvin Mcloud, ed
This third volume in The Best Buddhist Writing series is a wonderful book for dipping into and out of, perfect for carrying on your travels and when finished for passing on to the curious of mind.
While this collection of 33 articles from the publishers at Shambhala features writing by some big names in Buddhism - the Dalai Lama, Pema Chodron, the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Jon Kabat-Zinn - it's the pieces from the lesser knowns that seem most touching and insightful.
George Crane relates the story of Ani Jinpa, a Western Buddhist nun taking care of street children in Mongolia, a pitifully thankless job miraculously infused with warmth and compassion. Psychologist John Welwood reminds us that in the search for perfect love, we begin and end with ourselves: "Bringing absolute love into human form involves learning to hold the impossibility of ourselves and others in the way the sky holds clouds - with gentle spaciousness and equanimity."
In a beautiful remembrance of her mother's painful process of dying, Mariana Caplan relates how both she and her mother learned to let go. In much the same way, Judith Toy finds the courage to live through her pain and to forgive the man who murdered her sister-in-law and two nephews.
Closer to the hearth, Nancy Hathaway describes the Four Noble Truths of Parenthood, while Norma Fisher shows how the practical, such as cutting vegetables and washing dishes, embodies the spiritual.
Order one of these for yourself, and order another for a friend who's interested in Buddhism.
While this collection of 33 articles from the publishers at Shambhala features writing by some big names in Buddhism - the Dalai Lama, Pema Chodron, the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Jon Kabat-Zinn - it's the pieces from the lesser knowns that seem most touching and insightful.George Crane relates the story of Ani Jinpa, a Western Buddhist nun taking care of street children in Mongolia, a pitifully thankless job miraculously infused with warmth and compassion. Psychologist John Welwood reminds us that in the search for perfect love, we begin and end with ourselves: "Bringing absolute love into human form involves learning to hold the impossibility of ourselves and others in the way the sky holds clouds - with gentle spaciousness and equanimity."
In a beautiful remembrance of her mother's painful process of dying, Mariana Caplan relates how both she and her mother learned to let go. In much the same way, Judith Toy finds the courage to live through her pain and to forgive the man who murdered her sister-in-law and two nephews.
Closer to the hearth, Nancy Hathaway describes the Four Noble Truths of Parenthood, while Norma Fisher shows how the practical, such as cutting vegetables and washing dishes, embodies the spiritual.
Order one of these for yourself, and order another for a friend who's interested in Buddhism.
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Sunday, April 8, 2007
Book Review: Indestructible Truth, Secrets of the Vajra World; Reginald A Ray, 2002
This two-volume introduction to Tibetan Buddhism was written primarily for the author's students at the University of Colorado and at Naropa University (North America's only accredited Buddhist university). Across both books professor Reginald A Ray provides a thorough modern grounding in the history, philosophy and practice of Tibetan Buddhism.
The first volume, Indestructible Truth, begins with a rather dry recitation of the principle names, dates, and trends in the history of Buddhism as it came from India to Tibet and as it developed in the latter over the past two millennia. A more lively middle section covers assumptions common to all schools of Buddhism, warmly and wittily illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of Buddhist saints as well as the author's personal and professional life. The book closes with a rushed overview of Buddhist philosophy that is often more confusing than enlightening. This is partly made up for in the second volume with more detailed explanations and examples.
Secrets of the Vajra World is much heavier reading than the first, if only because Ray has a wider canvas, including the minutiae of Mahamudra and Dzokchen, the two primary schools of Tibetan meditation. The volume concludes with chapters on the lives of tulkus, the reincarnated Buddhist masters, and a riveting recounting of the miraculous passing of one such master (the 16th Karmapa) in an American hospital.
Despite the title of the second volume, very few "secrets" are revealed. Besides being a well-read scholar, Ray is also a committed Buddhist and meditation instructor unwilling to disclose tantric methods. Unfortunately, he also seems unwilling to challenge assumptions. To his credit, Ray acknowledges the difficulties western practitioners and students have with ideas such as reincarnation, the worship of deities, the guru-student relationship, karma and free will. He often provides alternate conceptualizations, such as the Six Realms of Existence (in the Wheel of Life) as psychological states, but never once makes clear that he accepts anything bu the orthodox teaching.
Read these books to know what has come before. To see where Buddhism is headed, including Tibetan Buddhism in North America, you might like to sample the three volumes of Shambala Sun's series, Best Buddhist Writing, or have a look at Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs.
The first volume, Indestructible Truth, begins with a rather dry recitation of the principle names, dates, and trends in the history of Buddhism as it came from India to Tibet and as it developed in the latter over the past two millennia. A more lively middle section covers assumptions common to all schools of Buddhism, warmly and wittily illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of Buddhist saints as well as the author's personal and professional life. The book closes with a rushed overview of Buddhist philosophy that is often more confusing than enlightening. This is partly made up for in the second volume with more detailed explanations and examples.
Secrets of the Vajra World is much heavier reading than the first, if only because Ray has a wider canvas, including the minutiae of Mahamudra and Dzokchen, the two primary schools of Tibetan meditation. The volume concludes with chapters on the lives of tulkus, the reincarnated Buddhist masters, and a riveting recounting of the miraculous passing of one such master (the 16th Karmapa) in an American hospital.Despite the title of the second volume, very few "secrets" are revealed. Besides being a well-read scholar, Ray is also a committed Buddhist and meditation instructor unwilling to disclose tantric methods. Unfortunately, he also seems unwilling to challenge assumptions. To his credit, Ray acknowledges the difficulties western practitioners and students have with ideas such as reincarnation, the worship of deities, the guru-student relationship, karma and free will. He often provides alternate conceptualizations, such as the Six Realms of Existence (in the Wheel of Life) as psychological states, but never once makes clear that he accepts anything bu the orthodox teaching.
Read these books to know what has come before. To see where Buddhism is headed, including Tibetan Buddhism in North America, you might like to sample the three volumes of Shambala Sun's series, Best Buddhist Writing, or have a look at Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs.
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Thursday, April 5, 2007
Movie Review: Samsara; Nalin Pan, dir; 2001
The debut feature from Indian director Pan Nalin, Samsara is a lovely, understated meditation on desire as seen through the life of Tashi, a Buddhist monk who leaves his order to explore the world outside the monastery.
The story opens with a dirt-smeared, matted-haired monk being carried out of a cave at the end of a three-year mediation retreat and afterwards being rewarded the rank of kenpo. Despite his elevation of the rank of teacher, Tashi remains afflicted by dreams of the erotic, dreams that cause him to question his vows, vows that he has kept since entering the monastery as a child of five. He wonders how the rest of the world lives, how the Buddha himself once lived before giving up his princely life to search for enlightenment. Sometimes, Tashi reasons, we must own something in order to renounce it.
Driven by an encounter with a beautiful village girl, he leaves the monastery to find her, figuratively and literally crossing a river, leaving his monk's robes on the bank and entering completely and wholly the world of samsara, our ordinary, work-a-day world known to the Buddhists as the realm of illusion, desire, hatred, and suffering.
There Tashi finds Pema, the village girl of his dreams, and a life of happiness and fulfillment as a husband, father, and farmer. In this life he encounters also much suffering in jealousy, deceit, anger, rage, physical violence, and most deeply in his own sexual desire, which leads to betrayal, infidelity and loss of self-esteem.
Unlike in many films in which these subjects would be weighted down with cloying dialog, director Nalin Pan cuts talk to a minimum, communicating with the viewer through the actors' expressions, the movement of camera, and through Cyril Mornin's music (as performed by Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra). With a handsome cast and the stunning vistas of the Himalayan foothills of Ladakh, India to fill out the camera, Samsara is a beautiful film for the eye and ear.
It also offers something for the mind, including an ambiguous ending that will leave you wondering which road Tashi chooses. Just as he is to head over the bridge leading to his monastery, where he has decided to return after his infidelity, he comes across his wife Pema, who ends the film with a series of penetrating questions on the relationship between the sexes and the role of women in Buddhism.
The question of Tashi's final direction is in the end put to the viewer - what are your desires? Where do they lead you? How can you make a meaningful life?
The story opens with a dirt-smeared, matted-haired monk being carried out of a cave at the end of a three-year mediation retreat and afterwards being rewarded the rank of kenpo. Despite his elevation of the rank of teacher, Tashi remains afflicted by dreams of the erotic, dreams that cause him to question his vows, vows that he has kept since entering the monastery as a child of five. He wonders how the rest of the world lives, how the Buddha himself once lived before giving up his princely life to search for enlightenment. Sometimes, Tashi reasons, we must own something in order to renounce it.Driven by an encounter with a beautiful village girl, he leaves the monastery to find her, figuratively and literally crossing a river, leaving his monk's robes on the bank and entering completely and wholly the world of samsara, our ordinary, work-a-day world known to the Buddhists as the realm of illusion, desire, hatred, and suffering.
There Tashi finds Pema, the village girl of his dreams, and a life of happiness and fulfillment as a husband, father, and farmer. In this life he encounters also much suffering in jealousy, deceit, anger, rage, physical violence, and most deeply in his own sexual desire, which leads to betrayal, infidelity and loss of self-esteem.
Unlike in many films in which these subjects would be weighted down with cloying dialog, director Nalin Pan cuts talk to a minimum, communicating with the viewer through the actors' expressions, the movement of camera, and through Cyril Mornin's music (as performed by Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra). With a handsome cast and the stunning vistas of the Himalayan foothills of Ladakh, India to fill out the camera, Samsara is a beautiful film for the eye and ear.
It also offers something for the mind, including an ambiguous ending that will leave you wondering which road Tashi chooses. Just as he is to head over the bridge leading to his monastery, where he has decided to return after his infidelity, he comes across his wife Pema, who ends the film with a series of penetrating questions on the relationship between the sexes and the role of women in Buddhism.
The question of Tashi's final direction is in the end put to the viewer - what are your desires? Where do they lead you? How can you make a meaningful life?
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Sunday, April 1, 2007
Perhaps my best side
Some of you may remember my post and pictures about a funeral procession while I was in Kathmandu. I've just found a video of that event at YouTube and if you look closely - and quickly! - you can see me to the right of the truck carrying the body at the 1:47-1:50 mark. I'm wearing blue jeans, a grey jacket with a green backpack, and a tan hat.
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Japan again
While I was still in Kathmandu both sets of parents were urging me to see the doctor just as soon as I got home to check for unwanted visitors from Nepal, parasitic stowaways hitching a ride to Japan. I’m happy to report that after leaving stool and blood samples with my doctor that I have been certified parasite free.
But I’m not, unfortunately, entirely well. The day before I left Nepal I picked up a small head cold, the last bit of which I’ve been honking into a box of tissues. What’s worse, though, is that my stomach seems to have become accustomed to Nepali food. I’ve not been able to properly digest much of what I’ve eaten since I returned.
Not all the news has been bad. Instead of losing 3 kilos, as I reported previously, the doctor reported that I have in fact lost 5 kilos. I seem to have lost something else, as well, something that seems a bit more difficult to define or to replace.
Being back with Mutsumi is wonderful. And living in a place where I don’t always have to worry about the water and the food, where power is always is available, where the streets are properly paved and where the drivers stay in designated lanes and use their horns only in emergencies is of course something a relief. But Japan lacks the vibrancy of Boudha, the monks in red robes, the sound of chanting, the blowing of horns and ringing of gongs, the Buddhist paintings and imagery, the vibrant temples on every corner, the people carrying prayer beads and prayer wheels, the prayer flags fluttering overhead.
I miss these things. I also miss the sense of – for lack of a better word – the spiritual. Buddhists don’t subscribe to the concept of a spirit, and properly speaking Buddhism is not a religion. But I don’t know what else to call this inquiry into mind, this search for meaning beyond the five senses, this respect for the potential that a different reality is within ourselves - if only we look for it, and the reverence for those who have and stand by to point the way.
Here it just seems to be business as usual, nine-to-five, thanks for the paycheck, let’s go shopping and spend our time in pleasant diversion.
Something is missing. And it’s not my 5 kilos of body fat.
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