Mistake in Philosophy

The most fundamental and fatal mistake of the western Philosophy lies in their basis of Dualism,

and seemingly it is originated from their notion of the God.

Against this notion, the SELF = ME became its counter notion as rigid as the God.

As the concept of Self is there, the Self is the one who see the subject ( of cause, you may say, who else

saw and talked about the subject in his book, in his philosophy.  And say, Is this a Zen Mondo ?  🙂 )

( Shut up  🙂 )  As long as the subject is somebody else, there is no problem, hence scientific, objective

rationality works well and yelled this impressive western technological civilization.

Because of the objectivity is Selfless in its definition. Anyhow, the nature and its phenomena,

physics are there before human existence. We are just the observer regardless whoever the Self.

—

But when the Self try to see the Self ( or True Self what so ever the context ) and the phenomena around it.

The perpetual question of  Who is the Self came into the play. Therefore, the matter related to

themselves, psychology, human science, social phenomena, etc, it always plagued by its view-point = Self.

In fact, from ancient Plato to modern Phenomenology etc, they misbelieved that they can objectively see

the human affair and able to construct the philosophy as well.  And they stuck in the cul-de-sac.

Because even an  Atheist, started exactly the same stance, The Dualism. —– God and Me / Me and

the Subject / Observer and be Observed,  the uncertainty of the Self is still persistent,

hence its stance of view point,  reliability itself is in doubt.

The fundamental trouble of this stance is, we can’t objectively observe the Self or the phenomena

attributed by ourself. —–  we always end-up in unseeable and unknowable.

On the end everybody just resigned to say  ” Don’t bother, there are thousands of truth ”   🙂

So that, some Philosopher try to grasp this unknowable with the notion of  Transcendental though, made

further  mistake try to convert it to explanatory words by thinking. ( You may say, What else ?  😀  )

This was the very situation, which Buddha encountered soon after he got his enlightenment,

Should I teach this to others or not.  Can this be transmittable by the words ?

( This is why, the Buddha’s teaching has been conveyed by the practice and metaphor )

—

While we are thinking, most of its process ( some says 90% of it ) are taking place in our

subconsciousness. —– And so-called Self is a mere temporally mock-up model by guess-work, since it

never stays the same, moment to moment and never rationally configurable like our thinking process.

Hence True Self which reside in our subconscious is ever invisible and remained undefinable.

This was the reason why Buddha said  ” Don’t bother there is no such thing like Self exists”  :-D.

The situation was made even harder, as the basis of our thinking are also contained in the immense

amount of the Data or information which we accumulated without aware of its existence.

—– so, am I talking hopeless ?  Am I giving cold water to the Philosopher’s pleasure to express themselves ?

The answer is again in the Buddha’s words ” Don’t take a word, think yourself “

And to against the fundamental flaw of Dualism, the Zen giving the answer ” Ichijo ”  Oneness.

In Ichijo we can overcome the alienation of the subject, alienation of the Self.

The barrier between observer and be observed disappear.

( Which I’m going to talk further in the next post )

___/\___

—

CLEANING

Currently in Japanese Twit-Sphere, a heated debate for the Cleaning their class-room is going on.

It started by a secondary school boy who is saying ” Its no use to clean the class-room by themselves.

It is not efficient enough.   Why not use the professional cleaning company ? ”

Against this, many people are saying  ” Its only a cheeky excuse, he just want to have a lazy life ” etc.

And others are saying, school is not just for studying knowledges but also for leaning the attitude for

the life, morality.   Some are saying even in religious context.

It is the same tendency, even in the western society, once it was spoken  in a religious context, the others

reacts at once,  in almost in allergic vigor —— saying feel uneasy, or even dubious.

—— It was in an unfortunate history, when a religion was spread, they always take over the morality

and the wisdom as a part of their own teachings, such as ” Thou shalt not kill, is their God’s commandment ”

—– But long before religion was invented, it was an established commonsense in the human society.

And, when a religion became out of fashion, because of even a fundamental  morality was mistaken

as a part of such religion, it became a target of rebellion.

—-

As a matter of fact, the tradition of cleaning their school room was originated from the Buddhist’s temple.

Since the school has started as the monks teaching the reading, writing to the local kids, the tradition

( in fact, it was a part of Buddhism practice ) to clean the room by the kids is an inseparable part of

the school’s teaching.  And by doing so, the kids learn and grown into a person of their own life.

Life is a violent imposition of the tasks to all the living things.

Nobody ever asked and born as it is.  Everybody came to this world,  without any expectation or

preparation at all.——- Somebody may born into a harsh desert country as an ugly boy or a pretty girl

in wealthy western society etc, as in a variation of fifteen billion. ——- Without question, without

complaint, the one has to live or start to live their own life.—– It is the harshest imposition.

So, the kids learn this reality, starting with cleaning the room, without question as everybody is equal.

( To ask somebody else to clean the toilet, always create the seed of discrimination in any society )

By doing so, the kids learn to be humble and to be selfless, and learn to act in equality.

In the same time, to find the best way to clean and master the skill —– it’s a training of the

trouble shooting, practice creativity.  On the end, even a kids can achieve to do the work in

Mushin (Mind of No-mind )

To have a clean class room for comfortable study environment —— is only one of the by-product.

——- Though, this kind of opinion seems not welcomed in today’s Japan —— to have a lecture from

somebody else is an invasion and interference to the individual’s human right. ! ! !

( in the point of political correctness )  Beautiful.   Ha ha ha 😀

—-

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.

___/\___

—-

Calligraphy — Cacography

A friend, who studied Japanese but struggling to write in Japanese asked me about the sample

New Year’s card design I’ve posted here few days ago —– ” Writing  of those card looks terrible.

Is Japanese these days couldn’t write properly because they no longer hand-write but use key-board ?”

” I don’t think so.  Some of them sending me beautifully hand-written letters.  And the writing on the sample

cards may be done by a good professional calligrapher” —— ” What, are they done by professional ?”

” Yes, I’m sure this person can write in  pretty square formal style as well though, —— think,

receiving  New Year’s Greeting from close friends, do they  want to see a card looks like a formal notice

from officials ? —– How relaxed or polite and formal, the commonsense is the same to western culture.

The choice of a birthday card to your friend or to company boss would be different here isn’t it ? ”

———- Give a close look to the sample cards, top one and the bottom card,  you  may realized that

the first three lines on top card and the four lines on the bottom card, the writing is identical.

( By the way, the writing starts from the right to left.  Hence I meant, three vertical lines on the right )

Its indicates, the graphic designer used the same resource of the writing and composed those two

cards —— its mean,  it was not his own casual writing, but it was there as the special resources.

And the calligrapher who did the assignment treated this as an art, hence he did rather funny writing.

It’s not for a solemn occasion but joyful one.  It’s a Happy New Year.  😀

—

Doing artistic calligraphy is a very special skill of the art.  While writing the same letter, the movement

of the blush and the force to push on the paper makes different boldness, etc etc,  million of resulting

differences on the line, hence the written letter gives different impression, on top of the letter’s own

meaning.  When the impression enhancing the meaning of the letter itself,  it makes the art.

A letter of the Grace written in smooth flowing line, or the Power written with bold, and blunt movement

of the blush, will give distinctive impression and it would strike the viewer’s subconsciousness.

———- Around my life, strangely there were many calligrapher. (Though, I was called Kana-kugi  😀  )

My grand father was a calligrapher and having its line of blood, my father and sister had pretty good

hand.  And an  AD / POP planing company where I worked for short time had started by the group of the

calligrapher as a lettering, font design studio , hence I had plenty opportunities to see them at work.

” The requirement of the assignment, the concept in mind, then just face a blank sheet of paper and put

blush on it.  The blush start to run as if he got his own mind.  My hand is just giving a support for his

movement.  And the letter prevailed as if it was there before hand ” —— m m m ?  What an explanation.

I was young (!) and hate irrational magic or mambo-jumbo like my father’s Buddhism then.  It was out of

my comprehension, though after learned what is the structure of the mind and the Zen —— now I know.

The meaning of the letter will be read by the brain, but the style of writing can hit the guts straight.

———- If you have seen a Chinese film ” Hero” you might remember, a master calligrapher wrote

one huge red-letter SWORD which was then hanged behind of the king (who became the Emperor)

the letter  was in the ancient form,  so that the Chinese calligrapher has even more choice to express

the meaning.  It was a very impressive powerful calligraphy. (—- I want to have a poster.   🙂 )

—-

You may feel strange though,  I found the psyche or deep psychology in the Calligraphy and the

Haiku, even the Art of Pablo Picasso are all having the common factor —– Zen.

—– Once Picasso said, art is easy but to stay in the mind of child is not easy.

An episode of Picasso —– One day he asked a carpenter to make a small structure and he drawn a

sketch with each dimensions on it.  When the carpenter measured the sketch, he found the drawing has

the exact dimension down to the mm accuracy.  —— and the Picasso’s blue period paintings are

well-known with its accurate realism.

How the same painter, who got such exact eyes and the skill, could produce notoriously deformed

paintings and especially such as like his last series Las Meninous —– almost like a child’s doodling.

—– Haiku master Basho taught the way to create Haiku, is to capture ” Wabi and Sabi” though,

in his later life, he reached and created the Haiku in ” Karomi ” ( light-heartedness ).

It is exactly the same in calligraphy.  All down to the same matter, liberation of the mind —- freedom

without the impediment of the thinking, mind = Mushin ( mind of no-mind ) in  Zen term.

( In Zen, this freedom of creation was called in the state of Jizai )

Of cause, not all of them even know the Zen, and the creativity is not the monopoly of the Zen.

Zen is only using  the inherent state of the mind or subconscious, common to all the human being.

( Zen is the one who elucidated and established the methodology.  Like a phenomenon of fire —– the

science elucidated the oxidizing mechanism, hence we are able to know how to use and control it now)

—-

Starting with exacting discipline, then free the mind and free the hand to write the letters inspired

by the occasion or the meaning of the letter —– freedom like a child’s imagination.  So, it looks almost

like a scribble of a child —— on the thin line between Calligraphy and the Cacography. 😀

This is the Art.

( Yet, distinguish them, you may need to have seen million letters of good and bad one beforehand )

___/\___

—

Healing POWER

There is a widely believed healing effect to stay in the nature, especially wooded forest.

And, I just picked up interesting news about another way to get Healing —– 🙂

An American Holly Wood actress, Helena Bonham Carter said that she found, to cleaning her kitchen

having good healing power, hence she stopped to go healing session as cleaning has even better effect.

On this news program, two psychologists gave their responses.

One was very negative, saying don’t believe, cleaning the kitchen is nothing but a chore.

And the other was much more positive and said, to have nice clean kitchen is a pleasure and it can be a

good exercise too.

—–

Very interesting, —– because, provably the purpose of this blog is all condensed in here.

In the Buddhism, related story is in Churi Pantac ( in Japanese Shuri Bantok ) the one who was

directed by Buddha to sweep the ground of Deer Park, and his Enlightenment 10 years later.

On the beginning, he might not like to sweep the garden while other disciples are in the session to

listen the Buddha’s teachings. ( He had learning difficulty )

So, he might have started his work as a hated chore with frustration and a resentment though.

Five years later, he might be even tired to think about his complaint and became humble.

Nine years later, he might have become expert to sweep the garden and even able to do all the

task while eyes closed, as all the works became almost automatic.

Then, ten years later, he became aware, he is the man to make the garden spotlessly clean,

where the greatest Teacher, Buddha to walk.

What is the honor and the pleasure !

With this deep satisfaction and the dedication to the Buddha, what else of the

Nirvana will be awarded to him ?   And Buddha knew him reached the enlightenment.

—–

A question to you.  Why you are here in this world, and happen reading this ?

Did you expect to find smart short-cut to get enlightenment here ?

Do you think you can live while picking a cherry avoiding anything else ?

Still, you must know there are lots of burdens in the life, troubles, pains—– and is this

the reason why you want to pick a cherry as much as possible for your pleasure ?

—— Does it mean, you are having two lives, one is in pain and the other with pleasure ?

And is this alienation, double faced life is the reality of the life, you think ?

You are totally wrong.  Where is your true self and the totality ?

For some, cooking is a pleasure and for most of them eating is pleasure, but never the cleaning.

Though, other than few millionaire, doing shopping, cooking, eating, then cleaning is the part of the life.

As long as the one is thinking to pick a cherry, the one can not get the totality / wholeness of the life,

not mention piece or happiness.  In fact such life is one part entangled  by the vicious Karma and

other part is drowned in the hunger of the desire to have pleasure.

This is why the woman (in this case, its happen to be an actress Helen ) found to regain the totality of

the life —— makes her feel healing.

It is the same kitchen, the same cups, same dishes, same washing basin —— do the same every time

every day is exactly the practice of the Buddhism.  Soon, the one can learn the way to be in Mushin,

and the kitchen get clean, ready for next comfortable cooking. —— what anyone want more pleasure.

Who can  expect a peace-full happy life living in a dirty chaos, let alone to reach enlightenment.

Because of the deep psychological / spiritual meaning behind, the superficial description “cleaning”

may give wrong impression, the core matter is all those processes in the mind or in the brain.

To start with cleaning, she gain the state of the mind, Mushin, and gain the understanding of

the totality of her life and her state of existence —– she is fulfilling the given roll to be Helen,

and becoming a part of the Dharma.

To be in this pathway, hence she can feel be in the right way, What more of healing the one needs.

And to follow Buddha’s pathway what more confidence and the pleasure there.

I guess, this actress may have some Buddhist’s guidance in her previous healing session, hence

it was not difficult for her to find the way —– Which, I may say ” Cleaning Zen ”  🙂

—– So, you may see, to have clean kitchen, a pleasure to have clean life and the comfortable cooking

is not just a chore,—— far from it, it can be a good pathway to the enlightenment. This is true.

You can start the same in New Year. ( Begin with clean-up New Year’s eve party’s mess  😀  )

___/\___

—

Wao ! — Jaw Dropping ?

When we encounter something  utterly new or strange, there are two distinctive reaction.

Wao, and  Jaw Dropping.—- You may think they are the same.  No they are not.

Wao is a part of the thinking process,  intellectual activity.  When it was somewhat new but still within

the anticipation,  such as a technological advancement,  we express Wao ! with some admiration.

In contrast,  when we encounter utterly unexpected and beyond the comprehension —– since, we

can’t find any related notion or idea,  we lose a word.

So,  only a reaction was to drop the jaw. —– ! ? ? ? —– as the jaw dropped, only a sound

came out of the mouth is, — Haaaaa.  🙂

This is the moment our mind / thinking  become completely blanc.

—-

Why I started to talk about this is, I met a person stubbornly

refuse to accept the mental state of Mushin ever existed.

His stance was,  as we have a self-conscious and the awareness of our state, which is independent

to our thinking therefore it is persistently there,  so that it exists even a moment when the one is

in the mental state of so-called Mushin.

So,  I asked him,  when he was damn struck,  completely taken aback in a Jaw dropping situation,  how long

it took him to came back his own sense ?  And at the very moment he was Dropping the Jaw, had he got

awareness  ” I’m dropping my jaw ” ?  —– m m m —– —– after long silence,  he seemed to have

convinced that  ” the complete blanc moment of self-conscious is exists “.—- You see ?  The Mushin is

not a fancy invention of the Zen Buddhists,  it is the one of a definite state of the human mind.

And it is inherently exists in the mind or brain function.  As the higher brain function is a later addition

in the evolution process,  there is a state without self-conscious —– it is the default state of the mind.

Most important key is even one’s MIND is in its blank state, all the physiological body function,

and the activities which is under the control of subconscious are fully functioning ——– in

other words, anything sublimated into the subconsciousness can act in its maximum potential

since it having no interference of the thoughts / hindrance. ——- This is the ZEN.

—-

Buddhism is a teaching which utilizing this state of the mind,  and the practice to gain the

control of the mind to get this mental state by will.

( Without waiting a Jaw Dropping moment to come  🙂  )

—-

Walking ZEN

Under financial strain and adding to it, the heavy freezing weather —— it could be the shortage, price up

—– so, I found some items in the shop are already sold out —– etc.  And only few days left to the Xmas,

the mind of the people walking on the street are a bit tense. —– isn’t this a symptom in your mind too ?

Are you bumping to others or nearly so while walking on the busy street ?

Then think and reflect a bit —– ? ? ?

I know, you have or feel some pressure in your mind or in your subconsciousness, —– a tension

of ” Have to do, and I’m in hurry ” list of tasks to your job or to your family, kids etc.

Though, when you have a task in your hand, but for walking, do you think, to have such tension,

would it help you to walk any quicker ? —— I don’t think so.

Far from it, as your mind is stack and lost the flow, flow of mind, flow of smooth movement, you tend

to bump or come too close to other people,  while feeling “Who the devil,can’t you see the others”.

———- The remedies is in your mind.

Just rise your eyes and see  5m away. —–See all the people walking toward you just as

the moving objects, not take notice of each individual.

In this view,  you can see the direction where moving objects flow,  which one is coming

toward you and which one is swaying ——- then you can see where the gap would be.

So, you can freely sway and able to navigate and able to walk much quicker.

( Though, if you are believing, it is the other’s fault not to open the way for you —–>  forget this blog

and buy  Body-armour  😉  )

——

Our  Peripheral Vision can sense the object’s movement very well.  And when one’s vision was spread

wide,  having no center weighted attention,  it can see the flow of movement all over the visual field.

This diffused vision without having any concentrated mind / attention is nothing but the

Eyes of Mushin / Mind of No-Mind  in the Zen Buddhism.

Without any projected attention / absolute passiveness / open-minded,  we can see which person is

going to right or left, hence we can see where the gap of flow would be, and the best direction to walk,

ahead of moment = able to fore-see = predict what would be, so that we can minimise the trouble and

maximise the smoothness and the speed of walking.

———- I know, most of you know this already.  Yet still in a daily life we are entwined with silly mind

and eyes would be caught by big boobs etc, and too many congested thoughts obstructing and blinding

our eyes or making us short-eye-sighted —— then bump to others.

That’s why, ” Get rid of the thoughts and open your eyes wide ” —–

You see, this is the Zen teachings and it is just there on the street.  Zen is, in fact easy and simple practice.

The matter is only you, just open your eyes.

—– So,  I hope you able to walk smooth and able to do all the shopping quick in optimum efficiency

for the coming festive season. 🙂  ( Though, I’m already a bit tired for too many parties —– parties for

a person who doesn’t drink is not very much a fun, unless the music is German-Base or Jungle   😀 )

___/\___

—–

A Dirt for Health ? ? ?

A woman who is an ex-direct action activist and having quite open-minded thinking said to me,

” A scientist said, the reason why the kids these days are so allergic to everything,  is because the sterile

city environment,  and on top of it,  the attitude of the mothers became dirt-phobia,  hence the kids life

became hygienically too clean and depriving the opportunity of them to build up the resistance and

immunity against the germs and toxic substances.”  ” So that our family is drinking a tea with a pinch

of dirt in the pot” —— m m m.

” I think, in certain extent, it is true, but I don’t think you are right ”  ” Along side, did you teach them

to wash their hand and washing them in the bath ? “

” Yes of cause ”

” The teaching and the message of washing the hand having two meanings, one is in hygienic implication

and the other is the spiritual teaching to observe the one’s cleanness in the life.  If the kids sees you to put

dirt in the drink,  the consistency of the message is completely break down. For a teaching become

sublimated and became a part of one’s spirituality,  its need to have absolute consistency. ——do you

know, a dog-poo on the street, where does it goes and disappearing ?

It dried up and ground by the shoes, blown away by the wind.  So, the air we are breeding  having the

powdered dust of the dog-poo as well.  Without noticing, we are taking enough dirt into the body.

So that, there is no point intentionally put a dirt into a tea,  it wouldn’t do any good but spiritually it is

the dreadful act.  In worst case, your kids may get wrong message and think ” I am safe to do dirty act,

as I got immunity or strong enough to defy even STD ” —– It’s an awful situation ”

” Oh, you are very opinionated person ”

” Bloody hell, it is not an opinion.  This is the common sense ”

——- oh, dear  🙂

—–

Sound of BACH

One of the reader left a comment, ” the post should have more media ” —– Yes, I’m well aware of it.

And the post shouldn’t be longer than 140 words otherwise no one would read  😀

In fact I got many plan to put a photo or video image into the post, such as ” I should put my Ancient Yoga

dancing video image into  Most Bizarre Story in Zen :-D”  or a photo of frosted leaves

into  Cold Blow — ( I’ve seen the frost in the night ) but  when I went to the same place next day,

frost wasn’t there. 😀 — It’s a bad tendency of ex-photographer, don’t want to settle with casual photo or

somebody else’s photo found in the Net.  😉

Anyhow,  while searching a music sample to talk about with my friend,  I stumbled a Youtube

image which I should have put into my BACH post —— ;

This is a part of J.S.Bach’s  Art of Fugue which I’ve talked about, but not from the beginning yet still

it may give some idea.  This musician / programmer, SMALIN having 200 or more music videos there.

And I found his graphical representation of the music is very effective as we can see the structure

of it in one glance.  Especially, the graphical patterns are much easier to distinguish than hear in sound.

To make the image,  may be the Midi cord is directly triggering the position and the length of each note,

therefore it is rather simple but very clear.  Same tonal information is in the music score, graphically

though, I found this is the simplest and more effective demonstration.

t—–

Then what I found the next to above clip was —— jaw dropping funny music video.

As a matter of fact this (yet another ) Japanese phenomena [ Miku Hatsune ] was totally new to me

until only few weeks ago.  This music animation program was created by YAMAHA as an open-source.

Anybody input the phonetic note, it will be played in synthesized voice, and the character Miku Hatsune

will sing as the user programmed, so that, anybody can produce a music anime of female singer, free.

There said to be half million Miku Hatsune video clip in the Net. ( search them, if you are interested in )

——- In 60~70th, there were two memorable musicians played BACH in new sounds.

One was the Swingle Singers. They played Bach’s polyphonic music purely by a jazz scat like voices.

And another was a French pianist Jacque Lucie and he played or improvised  Bach in Jazz.

Both sound are still in the bottom of my music memories, alongside the more traditional classic musician,

Jazz musician and they formed the music culture of my life.

Between Jazz and Baroque music, there is a common character of the improvisation —– spontaneous

on the spot creation.

Very interesting fact is, when musician is improvising the phrase, frontal lobe of the brain

became inactive. Frontal robe is the place, where rational thinking or process of causation is taking place.

This is the exact parallel to the Buddhism teaching  Mushin.— To be creative, don’t think.

Open mind mean, don’t impose a preconceived idea or judgement —– or Thinking.

You may wonder, ” Without knowing the passage, how musician can improvise ?  With the intelligence

shut down, how musician can control music making ?” —— may be you are not a musician.  That’s why

you ask this question.  If you still need to think about This Music, you can not improvise it on the spot.

When you became This Music or This Music became You, and you can play it without reading score,

without thinking —– then you can improvise it in total freedom.  Zen Buddhism call it Ichijo / Oneness.

So, with open mind, see and listen this  BACH sang by  Miku Hatsune —– It’s not too bad 😀  Ha ha ha.

Did you enjoyed ?  Or is it gone too far you think ?

Some irritating noise and instability of the sound there, still, considering it was created by an ordinary

person, using freely available open source, —— it is pretty impressive.  I like it. Thanks to the creator.

___/\___

—-