PSYCHE of Kisa Gotami

—– ( Before, it may better read the previous post [ Word — or  Run ] first, for continuity sake ) —–

A Buddhist who is practicing many years, asked me about a direct transmission to Kisa Gotami.

Wasn’t that, a kind of spiritual revelation, inspiration did hit her ?

He is always inclines to a spiritual mysticism as he came to the Buddhism from New Age fascination.

Though,  I don’t take a stance in Mystical Spiritualism. It got to be clearly logical and scientific,

save the last remaining unknowable in the extreme front.  ( And unexplainable 8150 story  🙂  )

” I think, it was rather common psychological process. Her grief got worn-out, while finding out

the facts that everybody is having the bereavement of loved one,  yet this is what the life is ”

” If you see hundreds of facts which telling you only one truth, on the end you got to accept it as the truth.

And  if you try to know with your effort again and again, your body and your subconscious learns

that It is the inescapable Truth. Once you came to this state, the fresh grief and its feelings gone.

A fresh emotion never stays fresh for ever.  As its says, the time is the best consolation.

In the case of Kisa Gotami, this process of time had accelerated into one day.

Since running around whole village all day, she must be physically exhausted, and when she came back

and sat down before Buddha, she must felt real brake and a rest.  Child had gone but a grief too.

Buddha didn’t do any magic.  It was a very effective spot on advice and the Practical Solution.

—–

Later she became a bhikkuni ( nun ) and joined the followers of Buddha —– its mean, her husband lost

not only a child but a wife as well.  Poor man.

I’m sympathetic to her husband as well” 😀

___/\___

—

Word – Word – Word or RUN

In my daily life, my radio is always on.

On the beginning of my English life, it was  BBC Radio-3  with its classic music. 

But past 10 years, it is almost always Asian Radio, hence the languages are Hindi, Urdu,

Tamil etc, and musics are Bollywood, Bangla, Punjabi etc (they rarely play classic Indian music).

It seems, it is an annoyance to a visitor, hence all of them volume down the radio.

(What so ever, it is noisy)  In fact I’m not necessary listening it. Any how I can’t understand the languages

and I don’t care the music    Still, something there would cheer up the atmosphere. 

Best of all, it will prevent the unknown unwelcome visitor to knock the door.

(I’m open minded, but not necessary having open door policy  😀 )

[]

Even though not listening, still I remember lots of  Asian popular music and picked up quite

a few of words.  So, time to time I asked my Asian friend about the word, what is the meaning

—– then I realized, the meaning of the word is so widely varied in each context and

among the people (even among the same Hindi etc).

Like the words  Kia-bate.  On the face its mean “What’s going on ?” can be an accusation but also

a praise with unexpected surprise. 

[]

So that the words in the Hart Mantra, ” Gate gate ( Bodhi-suwaka)” can be

” So, it went on as Bodhi-suwaka” or “Hurrah , go-on, go-on, Bodhi-suwaka”. (I don’t care though)

—— So, it must be a lots of headache for the academic, authority to translate an

ancient Mantra, —– as we can conveniently see the situation in the Wikipedia, and

compare the difference in the interpretation of such as the  Eight fold Pathway ( Just find

which word is correct to describe the Pathway ?  —– how time consuming ! )

[]

In the Buddhism story, the story of Kisa Gotami who lost her child, is the

most well-known one.

I knew this story since I was in my 20th though, why I didn’t talk about here before is, the

seeds what Lord Buddha asked Kisa Gotami to find was,  in Japan (hence in China as well) it

was written as Poppy Seeds, not the Mustard Seeds as known in the West. 

I thought, I should find which one, before I write.

[]

Lord Buddha asked Kisa Gotami to find the Seeds (which one ever) from the

house where no bereavement ever taken place, to revive her dead child.

She went around asking all the houses in the village, but everybody told her

“Oh no, we lost one (or many)” —– on the end, she contemplated that it was an

inevitable and common occurrence and came back to

Lord Buddha with calmly settled, relieved heart.

[]

Lord Buddha knew, she is so desperate ( = Mind was stuck, attached to her child)

= she will seek the seeds in just for its purpose ( Mindfulness), and walk and walk

asking door to door (Repeated Practice) —— soon she become to do it with almost

automatic manner next by next hence get the state of the mind of No-mind,Mushin.  

And with Mushin she could see the situation and the fate, with clear eyes and

the mind. —-Hence achieve the Contemplation.

This is a Direct Transmission.

[]

How many hours has she walked ? =It all happened in one day.

With Lord Buddha’s spot on advice, a desperate woman achieved contemplation

and get peace of mind.

Lord Buddha knew, an explanation in the words wouldn’t work.  

But the practice (walking, asking around) does. = This is the typical teaching

of Lord Buddha which showing its crucial core of the Buddhism.

In comparison, the people who try to read the words still arguing —– 2500 years ?

[]

So,  through your book away, switch off your computer, and go out.

As Lord Buddha said,  ” Don’t believe (cling on) the words you were told.  Think yourself “.

Have a nice walk.  You can see something afresh.

Yes, it is your first step to learn what the real Zen and the peace of mind is.

___/\___

[]

–

PAIN ? — How about SMELL ?

When I wrote about the PAIN, many of you might thought, it’s gone too far and hard to believe.

Yet, as a matter of fact, you are experiencing same kind of phenomena in your life everyday.

For instance, the smell.  Your bad (or no) smell of your mouth or body odor. —— It might be almost non

or awful, though  you don’t know or you can’t tell.

If the stimuli of smell is not there we can’t feel the smell, of cause.  But if it is persistently there, the threshold

of the sense become high, and we become desensitized to its smell.  This is the reason why you can’t

judge your own smell.  (Bad breathed person still able to smell other’s bad breath —– it’s not own smell  😀 )

But there is a completely opposite situation.  Once you become conscious about your own smell,

regardless it’s there or not, you become paranoid and become obsessed to use body splay etc etc.

The manufacturer of deodorant or such kind, try to make you think, you are a smelly person — and once you

were trapped, there is no escape. You start to think, others are pretending not feel the smell, in order not

to offend you.  You are completely possessed by the delusion. And  becoming  to over sensitive to any

minute smell.   (Though, there are many really smelly person who doesn’t care at all also exists  😀 )

A similar situation is in the noise.  Someone is almost immune to the high level of noise but others are often

too sensitive —– couldn’t sleep because of the noise of ” Electronic Watch ” ( How can you hear ? )

Fishmongers never complained, fish smell fishy or car manufacturer never complained it is noisy, because

they got used of it (desensitized ), or contemplated and accepted,  as it is a part of their own life.

If there is a possibility of compensation,  to become conscious and too sensitive then become sleepless

and fallen ill, could be a choice. (People live by the sea never complained  its endless wave noise, because

there is no point and no gain to do so ).  Or other choice is completely ignore and just get used it, and

carry on the life —– is depend on the mind-set.

So, one’s Ego, Greed, Obsession or Paranoid —– or in opposite, Contemplation, could make completely

different perception, hence, even a different view toward the life.

This is the reason why the Buddhism is here. ( for you to get correct mind-set )

___/\___

—

PAIN CLINIQUE

HEALTH  WARNING : In this post, some description may give you a distress.

———————————-Anybody squeamish, may better avoid reading this.

With a release of a film depicting a man cut off his own arm to survive, when he was trapped under fallen rock

—– many more stories of the people who did the same has been appearing in the media.

To face such dreadful incredible situation, how human psyche works, became a topics of the neuroscientists

and the pain researchers.

And the scientists discovered an interesting phenomenon that the mind-set can control the pain.

—-

The man actually cut off his arm and  freed himself described the moment  ” There was amazingly not

much feeling or pain, hence able to sever the fresh and the bone with cool conscious,  as if it was just a

preparation of meat for a BBQ ”

A pain research lab did an experiment and found how human brain process the pain signals with heavy

involvement of the emotion, and found the emotional preconception influence the intensity of the pain.

If the emotion was cut off, in another word, dispassionate, even a pain signal doesn’t reach to the Brain.

( As a matter of fact, I did this to deal with my toothache.  Since I don’t take any medication, neither Dentist’s.

I just accepted the pain as if I were born with it.  So, there wasn’t a pain.

But able to do this resulted, no teeth left. —– sound awful isn’t it   You may say, it’s not Middle Way though,

it was not any extreme.  Simply there wasn’t a pain to endure.  It was just another day. 😀  )

But with exaggerated emotion and the fear, even the same stimuli can give far more pain.

———- These facts signify and prove the Phenomenon in the Zen Buddhism.

Preconception adjust the body’s physiology, such as rising Adrenalin level, hence heart rate etc, ready to

encounter the critical situation, but so often the case, it over shoots, setting the tension too high and making

a feeling and sensitivity to the pain even higher, then even creating an exaggerated image to be a miserable

victim etc, and making the life even more dreadful.

In the opposite case, if a man contemplated the situation and totally accept it and able to see that

” There is no way left and it is no use to complain or fight against it “ —– This absolute mind-set

(in Buddhist term, Mindfulness ) and absolute dispassion ( Mushin ), would even block the pain, and makes

the man to see the situation in cool head.    ( Because no emotion clouding the eyes )

—

This mind-set is —– as it involves the control of the emotion, it situated in the Old-Cortex deep in the brain,

right next to the Hippocampus, Limbic System, with its close proximity, it affects the physiology too.

The mind makes you to get ill, but in the other hand, it can alleviate your pain and misery as well.

—– Repeated Buddhism practice will make you to get lid of useless thoughts, and

the state of the no mind = Mushin  makes you to do the job dispassionately and efficiently.

—– Once you master this, you can free your mind in any situation.  You are no longer a prisoner of  Emotion.

You don’t need to learn this when you are facing life or death situation. —– So, buy Buddhism now, while

you can, while you are in Peace. —– It never cost you  for your arms and legs  😀

___/\___

PS:  No,no. The photo above is nothing to do with the story.  The beautifully tattooed DNA pattern is

—-–my  friend  Michael’s very active healthy arm.  Photo was just happened to be in my album and

—-–going to be published in a book, collection of the Scientific Tattoo.

—-–I haven’t asked him how much pain he had to endure though, I think it wasn’t much anyway  😀

—- ( It only scratched the skin, —–  never went to the bone ! )

—

My HEALTHY LIFE

Ha ha ha ,  I know it is utterly misleading. 00 Because I don’t have a notion of Healthy Life.

I am just living as I am. —– and just happen to be healthy   ( apparently  🙂  )

If I have to analyze any peculiar practice  which might be related to my health is ——

I’m keeping my hands, nose and throat as clean as possible —– or just wash them very often.

To keep the hands clean was especially essential to handle photographic films.

But to keep the nose clean was taught by a teacher in my junior school.  Which was to take water in

the hands and suck it in the nose, then blow it out three times ! —– All the pupils in the class were

horrified, saying it’s too dirty though I convinced at once —– it’s a good idea and very rational, why not. 🙂

So that, when ever I came back to my place, like take off shoes, to wash hand, nose and gurgle are

the automatic routine.  Though, it might be related to a sublimated Japanese Shinto Custom — keep clean.

And there is no such thinking which relate this practice to health matter exists.— Just doing it.

It is not possible to have objective comparative test of  IF-NOT.    We got only one life and I couldn’t

replicate my same life, but only having NOT washed hands, and see what would  happen.

Simple fact is I rarely get ill, nor catching Cold, Flu.  Still, I don’t know whether washing hands are anything

to do with my health.  —– very funny you may think though, I rarely use soap ! —– same as, I don’t

use washing-up liquid.   I have one in the bath-room and another in the kitchen though they last—-may be

six months or more ?   My view of the soap is —– mankind is using soap not more than one or two hundred

years.  Removing our own natural oil, then applying pig-oil with artificial fragrance, is not a good

idea and the waste of the money. —– If I were ever smelly soapless person, still  it’s not a problem at all,

since I wouldn’t come closer to others less than an arm’s length  😀

So is a shampoo, I just shower the hair removing a salt in the sweat and use a shampoo less than once in

a month.  The shampoo is notoriously bad to the head,  the reason why I still have full head of hair, in more

than three feet long  pony-tale might be because of  not using shampoo. (So, one bottle of it last years  😀  )

—-

I eat anything though, the amount has been reduced in comparison to when I was young.

( I still have the same body weight 60 Kg / 9.5 stone,since when I was 15 years old ! —– When I was

physically very active, such as climbing the mountain , eat twice amount was no wonder though, sitting on

front of key-board  blogging or making electronic circuit needs to eat less —– and I never eat chips)

For my cooking, generally I use one carrot, one onion, a grab of green or green pepper etc and 150g~ 200g

of protein, meat, chicken, fish or egg etc everything from fresh ingredients, except  fish-tin (tinned fish has

no artificial preservatives) and smoked fish or bacon (to make bacon soup ) tofu or fried tofu are the rare

processed food.  And cooking them in many different way (by the way, I don’t buy cooking oil —– oil comes

from ingredients such as chicken naturally) and eat them with rice, pasta, noodle  etc.

So, I’m eating more or less the same food every day with my own cooking —– in past 25 years ?

Buying fresh ingredients is the cheapest, but I buy a lots of not cheap fruits as well.

And cooking from the fresh ingredient may take a bit longer cooking time still, my electricity bill

for a quarter is only £40~£50  (I don’t have gas —- I knew it become expensive ) 1/3 of other people.

——

This is literally, humble life —– or some said almost a life in poverty  😀

And I don’t take any drag, never do gamble, stopped to drink alcohol , never eat junk-food nor buy

fizzy drink but drink 1.5 ~ 2 litter of the tea —– hence there may not be any cause to get ill.

( Arh, no chocolate !  😀  )

In addition,  I gave-up woman 25 years ago.  So, no psychological up and down. —– Peace ! ! !

On top of this life style,  I used to have very vigorous exercise  (which looks like dancing  😀  )

once in every week, and these days I’m still doing it, may be once twice a month.

—-

It is hard to define a reason  why  I live  without getting ill — was it thanks to my  food life, exercise regime?

But, one thing I can definitely sure is, not to ever think or worrying about it.

If there is no crime, there is no criminal law or such concept at all.  Once if somebody start to think about it

then the notion of such activity teaches the possibility or another menu to the mind.  Shall I try ?

In a same way, a notion of illness trigger the imaginal symptoms and it become noticeable.

(Noticing ? Feeling ? —– isn’t it just in the Mind ? )

Even an intellectual medical information, once it caught your attention, it remains in your mind.  And as

often you think it,  it become your long-term memory and the memory / mind deepen and goes into your

subconscious —– as subconscious is in the old cortex in the brain, with its close proximity, it start to give

an influence to hippocampus / limbic system of the brain,  where the physiological control of the body

is taking place —–> hence stress and imbalance of the hormones —–> real illness !

Mind makes people becoming ill. —– It is a vicious circle and the domino-effects.

Here the Paradox of the Buddhism again, as long as the one is bothering with the notion of Health

or Illness, no healthy life ever come.  Here require the teaching of Mishin again.

So, better start Healthy Life when you are healthy and having full of vigor, and make it routine.

To keep the same healthy routine is far easier than to change a bad habit or regime.

___/\___

—

Virtue of DHARMA — What ?

Deep in the bottom of Dharma, there is the Physics.  And the basis of Physics, there are Atoms

which behaves or having its tendency according to their structure such as the number of

Electrons they got.  And the Atoms are made by the Nuclear particles, which were made by

the Sub-particles —– and those Sub-particles seemed consist even smaller Sub-particles —– and so on.

( According to the theories. —– Yet, nobody knows the truth, or it seems to be the unknowable.   🙂  )

I don’t think I need to listing-up the names of those and pretend to know anything about it.

Just leave the matter to the Nuclear Physicists —– as I’m not.  I’m only an outsider and merely qualified

to ask a question to the superficial phenomena.

Yet this question must be the ghastly fundamental serious one.

” Is DHARMA virtuous ? ”

M m m ———— So far what I found, the answer is Yes.

But if we take a  Humanitarian stance,  it is not necessary benign.

This was the reason why Buddha bluntly defined it in his Four Noble Truth, The life is suffering,

getting ill and get old and die, even though we are covered under the Dharma.

——

Long since a question of where the notion of Virtue in the Buddhism come from, was a conundrum to me.

The general morality is a necessity to keep the society’s unity and the peace, in other words it is the

obvious commonsense though, when it comes to a critical tricky situation, such as who should survive

when they faced to a crisis, blink of mass extinction, demise of the tribe such as a famine etc,

the compassion to others etc —– where those human virtue came from ?

To make it as a human duty to be compassionate, which appeared in the Buddha’s teachings from  its

earliest period, together with Four Noble Truth —– Its suggest, Buddha was fully aware that Dharma

is not necessarily kind to the man, hence need to take our own measure of helping each other.

Otherwise, Buddha would have said  “Ask your God to help you”  like all other religion.

But Buddha did know, No such convenient things in this world.  Buddha’s eyes were seeing

much larger picture ( Not having the man in the center, but the Harmony of the Universe in total)

—–

To see the nature and its evolutionary history, I can see the Dharma’s incredible kindness towards

the extremely rare existence —– the LIFE.

What sort of coincidence combined the some Atoms and created basic structural element like

amino-acid, and then simple virus / bacteria kind of Life form.

Far beyond the mathematical probability, while against the Principle of Entropy, yet congregated selected

Atoms and Molecules and to create Life, could not occurred in accident. ( —– If it was an easy occurrence

in chemistry, with today’s technology, artificial Lives could have been created already. )

Any moment in the history, in any global event, this process could have been halted and the Life could be

extinct long ago. —– But amazingly this history on the Earth continued till now —- billion of years,

as if there was a will to make it continue.

—

To make it continue, it is necessary the system of the existences has to be balanced,

ie; sustainable in today’s buzz word —– in other words intricate equilibrium has to be met.

This is What Dharma mean, and Buddha meant —– as only a part of the Dharma, man’s life

couldn’t be alone and trouble–free —– In fact, the man’s greed and the arrogance to expect and

imagine  ” It should be trouble–free”  is the cause of trouble in its own.

The balance is for the total system, not for the man’s convenience, since human is only a minute part of it.

Among the all the existences ( Dharma ), only but  the human, is having their own mind and the mean

to go against the Dharma’s Rule.

And this arrogant mind, greed is expecting more than the fair share of  which  Dharma allocated to man.

That is why the Buddha’s teachings says, to be humble and abandon the Ego / Self, in order to

achieve manifestation of the Dharma within —– Abandon the Self = Mushin ( Mind of No-Mind )

which mean let the Subconscious ( the reflection of the Dharma —> Please Refer to previous post )

to rule your life.

Like a compassion is in one’s Emotion / Subconscious (reflection of the Dharma ) inherently Virtuous. So, the

Virtue in the Buddhism teachings is not from the God or convention of the society,  but it is the Dharma itself. 

Hence, the teachings of Buddha is ” Not against, or struggle with Dharma, but live with it,

live in accordance to the Dharma.  It’s mean, observe it by yourself, and aware and listen the

Dharma deep inside of you.   And to live with the Dharma in Mushin, prevails the Virtue in you.

This is the Enlightenment, which lead you to the Nirvana”

—

When man-kind violated the Rules and destroy the balance of the Earth’s Climate Equilibrium,

the sea stream changed its course, and caused the heavy rain here and there.

Simply, the Dharma is adjusting new Equilibrium —– and, it happened to be in the Australia or Brazil.

It looks as if the Earth is intentionally giving a revenge. —– No it is not, it just happen to be there, where

no human used to live —– human is the one invaded the land.

Don’t exercise your Ego and Greed, and impose your own Idea. 

Virtue is not in one’s mind, but in the DHARMA.

Here a Paradox again, you can’t deliberately exercise Virtue, it’s appears in your Mushin.

___/\___

—

Proto-IMAGE

Most of the optical vision in human eyes had been well researched

and we believe ” Seeing is believing”

despite of nobody knows what the others are actually seeing it,  in absolute term.

( You may already know or you can find hundreds of false-vision, illusion trick samples in the Net.

What we believe, we are seeing is the mare reconstructed image in the brain, which may be a false. )

—

I used to have a friend who was a color-blind.  When he told me at an art class, while painting a land-scape,

he is painting a tree as green by the color name written on the paint tube.

He couldn’t see green or red,  neither he can describe whether those green and red looks like gray or

another color what so ever.  Since nobody taught him what it is, so, he couldn’t have a word to describe it.

—– and we, lucky to have Pan-chromatic vision couldn’t guess or imagine how the world looks to him.

Our eyes itself are rather simple optical device, there is no color filter hence the image projected to the

retina is in full color though, the sensors, nerves and the visual cortex in the brain are too complexed,

far beyond the today’s science and the technology.  So that we can’t tap-into the brain and extract

an image what color blind is actually seeing the world.

With the same reason, a topics what I’m going to write here may not able to give an objective proof

or to give a demonstration to others though, if anybody else can find the same phenomenon,  soon

or later it would be recognized as a common phenomenon.

—–

Once before, when I went back Japan, I found the mountains of duster-cloth (which we call  Zoukin)

piled up in my family house.  Each of them, the old cloth has been cut to the size and hand stitched.

They were made by my mother.  When she faced the condition of her hand became stiff and feel a pain

with her age,  she decided to fight back.  Instead to have a medication or pain-killer kind, she started to

make Zoukin by hand stitching them, using old cloths she had been accumulated over the years.

—– Among such Zoukin, I found the one I know very well.  I knew it, but not in my ordinary memory.

—– Time to time, I give a massage to my eyes,  by lightly pressing the eye-balls with my finger.

(While eyes closed, of cause  😀  )

Under light pressure, in the dark field of my vision, the same image of distinct pattern always appears.

The pattern is like a line print of four petals flower.  It appear only first moment, a second or two and

dissolved into the dark.

Astonished to see the very pattern on the cloth,  I asked my mother, what was it ?

She told me, that cloth was a Yukata ( thin, light Kimono) she used to wear when I was a new-born baby.

The pattern appearing in my eyes was the printed pattern on the Yukata which I saw when I was a baby.

The first image I saw, has been burnt into my eyes.

This is the Proto-Image of my life.

—

For a new-born baby animal,  to recognize and register  who is the mother, into their brain

is the most crucial matter in their survival. (If it was the case of Zebra / the black stripe pattern,

and the Penguin / the voice, and so on)

Likewise,  we human has the same instinct —– we capture the image of the first sight, assuming

the person whom the baby saw, is the mother, and the key image was literally burnt into the vision.

—–

As I wrote in an early post [ Subconscious Data Bank ], we are accumulating a loads of information

without even aware of it.  And the Data Bank in our Subconscious may contain even the Genetically

implanted information. ( Experiment of the psychologist found that even the few months old baby showed

the reaction of alert when he (she) saw the image of tiger (not a toy but real one)—–only the explanation

is, it must be a genetically implanted memory )

—— and those information is affecting our way of thinking, decision-making or preference etc.

But, how about this Proto-Image ?   Would this one image, direct the one’s life ?

May be the image of four petals flower made me to pay more attention to the flower —— yet it need to

have more research.  And the Internet must be a good forum to exchange the information.

—– So, if you were intrigued, just try to see whether you have the same kind of burnt into image

in the bottom of your eyes. ( It takes only few second to test.  🙂  )

And if you found one, please post a comment here.

—

Make Rice-Cake in 15 Min’

O-Mochi, Japanese Rice-Cake is an essential ingredient in the Japanese New Year.

Without eating it cooked in O-Zouni, we don’t feel New Year has arrived.

As it is deeply imprinted to us with the strongest memory, the taste, it makes a part of the

fundamental Ethos to be a Japanese.  It is in deed, a part of the Collective Subconsciousness.

Imprinted into the subconsciousness almost a hard-wired program, it is the imperative.

( So, the Buddhism is relying on this mechanism of the human psyche )

A matter of fact, Rice-Cake is common in throughout southeast Asia.  Essentially it is a pounded

glutinous rice, hence it is a very very sticky soft cake and some time it was made sweet.

( By the way, when the cell of starch was pounded and broken, the gluten will be released and the long

chain of protein entangled and it become sticky, so that if you pound even baked potato, it

will become very sticky. —- try this in your home  🙂  )

When this rice-cake was dried and baked with soy-source flavor, it become rice-cracker, O-Senbei.

—–

Since I arrived to this country,  I tried to make rice-cake myself. —— I’ve steamed glutinous rice,

or boiled it and try to pound etc etc without success.

Every year when the season came,  I tried different way and on the end,   with a feeling of defeat and

resignation,  I did the most inconceivable cheat (to the Japanese psyche) —– use a glutinous rice powder

just mixed with water and heated in a microwave cooker. —- m m m, wao !  ( not Jaw-Dropping  😀  )

I found supplely sexy white body laying in a rice bowl and she was so soft and sticky  😀 —

She was a perfect Mochi  😀 ( In reality, I’ve experimented the amount of water and the setting of the

cooker from the Mochi to completely dried up and burned into the rice bowl to a soggy gluey staff)

Since I found this technique,  I accustomed to make the Mochi in a square plastic food container, or make

a mix in a bowl then cover it with prepared Red-bean sweet paste and heat it —- to make an  An-Mochi  🙂

Traditionalist would say, it is a dreadful cheat though —- so far non of the Japanese ever noticed

difference and didn’t aware it until I told them.  ( Anyhow it is the genuine glutinous rice  😀  )

So,  If anybody want to try,  here is the suggestion. You need to get Glutinous Rice Powder from Chinese shop.  One pound bag ( would be about £1 ) may

make more than two-pound ( 1 Kg ) of  Rice-cake.  The size of a cake in the top photo is 2″x1.5″x 0.5″ —–

half of a bag may make 9 of such cakes ( Using 4.5″x 6.5″ food container ) and it would be a good

amount for 3 to 4 people’s meal.  ( One such cake is equivalent to one bowl of a boiled rice ).

To start, mix the powder with small amount of water, then gradually adding the water to make proper mix.

It should be more soggy than a bread making dough.  Still, the mix shouldn’t run down even if the

container was hold 45 degree but it allow the air bubble to come up slowly when you hit the bottom.

( You need to hit many times, and pierce the bubbles —— or it will blow-up when heated  🙂  )

The mix should be less than 1/2″ deep in a container.  Never attempt to make thick big one  😀

( Instead,  you can stuck together many pieces of cooked  Mochi to make it big —->Kagami-Mochi )

When the mix is ready, put a cover and put into Microwave cooker,  Med’ High —– 5 minutes.

( You may better watching inside of cooker —– if the rid of container

was blow up, Switch off. )

When it was cooked, then have a good use of your brain to take the

cake out of container.  Use of potato starch would save the stickiness.

Cut the cake in your taste.  And it is good to eat straight. —— wrap up

with Sea-Weed (Nori ) with a cake a bit wet with Soy-source.

Or put into a  Soy-source based soup ( with chicken what so ever)

like dumpling.  It called O-Zouni.

Which ever the cooking,  it’s better to give a bit of baked skin which

would enhance crispy flavor.  Japanese use charcoal fire to bake them,

though,  I found a use of gas-torch is pretty handy and effective too.  Ha ha ha  😀

( The truth is, my electric grill has been used for storage of food staff, and full-up —– sorry )

To make O-Mochi from the Glutinous rice powder is, not only it is much cheaper but unlike

plastic wrapped Japanese Kiri-Mochi, it is free from any artificial additives and white breach

——- since, dry powder needs no preservatives.

Once you found your formula,  mixing and cooking wouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.

So, try O-Zouni.  And have a flavor and taste of Japanese New Year.

___/\___

—-

Life in GREEN

I’m a Green mountain person rather than Blue mariner.

So that, ever I know great deep Blue sea looks awesome and beautiful to see, though —— imagine,

if I were left in the middle of infinite sea, —– m m m, — may be I can’t survive.  It’s awful isn’t it  😀

But if it was in the mountain or even in the great expanse of field, I may able to survive with some bush crafts.

—–

Any how, its nice to be in the Green, and this is almost genetically programmed basic emotion / instinct.

( This is why, we feel and praised the courage of the great navigator set sailed to the unknown horizon ).

So, we have an  idiosyncratic idea, the Green is the symbol of the life, therefore we feel

the most comfort and peace.

So that, it is strange to know, this color Green, the color of the trees and grasses is the most useless

element to the plant life. —– They themselves don’t appreciate Green light at all.

Their most fundamental  life activity / Photosynthesis  is in fact relying on other than this, very Green.

As the Photosynthesis is only using Violet to Blue light (and Red ) the Green light was thrown out or

reflected away —– hence we are seeing its reflected colored light, which  made us to believe, grass is green.

Literally superficially, as we are seeing the plant looks green,  we were planted the idea,  Life = Green

—– even though, we are seeing their rejected waste / no use to their life.

It’s very very funny in deed.

I don’t think Buddha ever thought of this —— because its wouldn’t make

any difference to our life at all (other than the biologist who is studying this biochemistry).

This is definitely the Truth and a part of the Dharma, though we are living on the false impression.

Whether the stars are the holes on the ceiling above the earth or the another sun in a universe

far away in the space, it wouldn’t change our dairy life at all.  (Astrologer may say otherwise.  🙂  )

We may never know all the Truth.  But this is what we are.  The matter is not what we know,

but the awareness, what we don’t know.  Leave the space to hear, see the otherwise.  Open mind.

–So, on the end, —

—— One of my friend made a lamp to illuminate his room plant with 50 Green LEDs —– its made

the plant leaves shining green and looks vibrant —— though, I advised him to change them with

40 Blue and 10 Red LEDs —— the result ?   You may guessed it, it looks very harsh and dreadful  😀

So, on the end, living on the false comfort such as, so-called ” Healing —, Soothing comfort —, sweet words,

enlightenment, — be green ,  etc etc ”   may not necessary be a bad thing.

After all, important thing in life is Be happy. ( and Be pragmatic, in other word Be flexible. 😀  )

___/\___

—

Fantasy WORLD

In my life, I was asked to give the technical advice or help to build a Perpetual Motion Mechanism or

the device to create an energy out of nothing ( or that kind  😀  ) three times.

The person who asked me were not an idiot or uneducated at all,  they are well aware of

the Fundamental Principle of Preservation of Energy —— yet still, strangely they  were convinced,

their invention can defy the popular belief and able to create or achieve ultra efficiency hence

able to harvests far grater energy which would benefits the human being.( is what they said, not me  😀  )

The first one which I encountered 30 years or so ago, was a design of Ultra Efficient Bicycle Mechanism

which can produce more power than a rider’s muscle-power, utilizing the earth’s gravity,  by

” Cleverly positioned the center of gravity of the rider and synchronizing its movement to an oval-shaped

pedal gear etc brah, brah ——- “.

Second invention was (yet another) ,Anti-Gravity Device of which the person got the idea from Internet.

A man himself was a qualified architect and got enough knowledge of the engineering, and many

knowledgable friends and having a taste of posh life —— .

I guess, it is a (Masonic) belief of some architects,  which is a certain kind of mythical numerology such as,

what mathematical proportion was used for the Old Temple’s design etc, which connect to the cosmic power.

It was not my business to argue with his belief,  I was asked to deal with electronic control of the motor etc.

The third invention was an idea to extract 3.5 times more power from a battery using fancy transformer.

I explained many fundamental rules and physical, electrical limitations, not only the Principle of Energy

Preservation but the limitation of efficiency in an electro-magnetic device etc. ( Even with best designed

electric generator, the efficiency to convert force to electric energy is less than 30 % )

A guy’s explanation was, “Because of those FREE ENERGY idea is a threat to this Oil based

Socio-Economical System of the establishment, the development has been hindered and kept the people

ignorant” —— m m m ?—- Kind of tongue, sound familiar. I’ve heard many times !

A guy who was expecting to become millionaire with his invention, was very secretive on the beginning

though, in order to argue with my explanation  “This is based on the respectable scientific research,

published in the Internet” and revealed the Net-site ——- It was an Anarchist’s propaganda site.

( So, the site was successfully brain washed a man to become anti-establishment  😀  )

Idea itself was based on 10 years old experiment and done by not a scientist ( I’m even dubious whether

an inventor used decent electronic measuring instrument) and I could not believe any of its data. Bollocks.

Just take a common sense, —— in past 10 years, thousand of the people may have seen the article and

some of them must have built the device and tested —— If the claim has any shred of truth, why it didn’t

make a news, or fancy Chinese device didn’t appear on the market — or iPod with 1/3 battery size.? ? ?

To make and sell highly crowded competitive market, such as ATX computer power supply, many

manufacturers spending so much money and effort to develop more efficient design or higher power

from the same size of foot-print,  therefore if any good idea is there, they are the first people to test

the theory, as they got all the necessary materials and the expertise, not an amateur on the street.

——

Yet still, even in Japan,  there said to be about 1,000 new Patent application of Perpetual Movement in year.

It may be an exercise of creativity and to make (at least on the paper) beautiful drawing and description,

it needs a dedication and mindful attention —— though, what went wrong ? ? ?

Not all the applicant were blinded by their greed, some enthusiasts are having fun with their joke.

One of the very famous comedian  Kingorou Yanagiya  had 3,000 patents granted, and one of the best idea

was actually made to a commercial product called  Laughing Head-band  which has tail-dropped eyebrows

printed on it, and make the people to laugh, while singing comic song  for Karaoke  😀

—— Instead of clinging own obsession and blaming the company, other people who didn’t believe and

take their idea, look into a mirror, pull the eyes-tail drop, make a smile —– and make a joke, may make

one’s life much easier and happier.  😀

___/\___

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