LISTEN, LISTEN

I saw somebody shouting in his blog  ” Listen ” ” Listen”.

Yah,  I can see what he meant.   But,  Hang on Mate,  we had in deed listened.

We born as a virtually blank sheet of paper.   And while growing up, we have listened and listened,

and learned and seen , learned, listened ——– then here I am.

Listened the same thing again and again,  it became ” A Type”——- and imprinted as the commonsense.

Once the one acquired  A Type, he start to pick up only the information fit to A Type, because any

other Type hadn’t heard often before ——- such rare exception is irrelevant to the life.

The people shouting a minority opinion still want  “Them” to listen, but ” Them” belong to the  majority.

Majority share their commonsense. And it is imprinted in Subconsciousness.

———- though, it is not necessary the truth.

To see the truth, the one has to get rid of the filter of  A Type, and open the mind.

Right Hand ZEN

Because of  I can detach my Mind  from anything instantly, and as it is my daily norm,  I’ve been using the  word

Detachment too often and too casually.   ( In my extreme sample,  I managed to detach even from toothache,

so, in consequence I lost almost all of my teeth,  since  I don’t take any artificial treatment or medication

( no pain killer ) ——– though,  it was a part of my experiment to see the Life / how it was originally designed,

such as how the built-in internal clock is working.

—– I  wouldn’t recommend  this to anybody. ——(  its painful you know  😀  )

——————–

So,  anyone to start the DIY  Zen,  I recommend an easy trial of practice  to learn the  Detachment.

*** For a man,  when you walk on the street,  put your eyes to only the right hand of the coming woman,

never look on her chest.

*** For a woman,  put your eyes only on the right hand of the man,  never look on his body part between

the legs.     Keep the same rule,  when you sit in the train or where ever you are.

*** When you broke this rule, shake your head and think  ” What a lewd person I am “.

Do this until this practice became your custom.  Your determination / take this as the imperative is clucial.

( But,  DO NOT mistake this,  you don’t need to give up your sexual life,  this practice is about your

eye movement,  when you are out. ———–Please refer to  * Funny Story (1) )

After this, you may amazed yourself,  even a supposed to be uncontrollable sexual interest can be tamed.

Once you are convinced,  you can make another rule and  Do It,  such as a thing which may upset you,

don’t look or take notice.  Even if it came into your eyes,  shake head and think  ” I didn’t see ” and never

let  its image or memory remain in your head.    (so, you can keep yourself peaceful )

——-  When you master this,  you may understand why in Buddhism an expression  such as ” Exist as

it is not exist ”  was used. —— You know it is exist there (definitely ) but it is no longer exist as before and

no longer bother you.

——- Its mean you have crossed the river and once you reached there,  even huge  F size wouldn’t

excite you any longer ( it became mare one of  land scape ) hence it is harmless,  you may watch 1000 of them

without having any trouble.    This is the State of  JIZAI.

But,  you can’t jump to JIZAI.  You have to start from scratch.  ——- Walk your eyes down.

Foot Note for LIFE’s DOMAIN

In the script of LIFE’s DOMAIN, the  words of the Monk  who gave me a small cloth was not clear.

Translation I’ve put there was not exact.      The actual words  “Isshyo ga, koko ni aru no wo O-wasure naku ”

Koko = Here  may even mean  Here = Eihei-Ji Temple, not on the cloth.

I’ve translated  Isshyo = whole-life  to ” the time span to remember this ” by its  implication.

” Remember, whole life is here ”  or  ” Remember, the life is in here, for whole of your life” ——- ?

What ever the truth, it was the typical sample of  ” Think it by Yourself “

——————-

To take the significance of such somewhat patronizing words,  which might have told just for a formality,

is the matter to be a Buddhist.       Anyone can just sway and ignore such words.

But some others may takes its full blunt of weight  whole-heartedly, and think about its deep meanings.

———- See the hidden meaning of the phenomenon or the words,  and take it beyond  its

superficial meanings, or take its implication to own existence or humankind in general, is the matter of

the person’s  Spirituality.    ( or being nuts or paranoia   🙂 )

Spirituality is not a pretense and hung a Crystal on the neck,   but able to see the significance and  its

deep meaning behind  whole-heartedly.

——— Of cause,  there can not be any practical implication of the life on the foot square space,  but

Spiritualy it carries heavy meanings, which remind us to aware who we are, and who we

should be. —– It is the matter to know how we are humble and small ——– in reality.

——————–

To be a  Buddhist is not a matter to chant few words for a day,  but the attitude and the mind-set to see

the life ( and its details ) in full intensity,  whole-heartedly.

On the beginning, at least, it is not peaceful easy life at all.  ( If you tried  Skate Board,  how long you had

miserable bruising days before you can leisurely cruise it in peace )—— Buddhism is no different from it.

This is how the study of Buddhism progress,  in step by step process.—— With intense approach,

once YOU found your answer and when it sunk deep into your Subconsciousness,  you can do it,

feel it automatic, even  without noticing it ( it called MUSHIN ),  as it became your nature.

Then you can enjoy your peaceful life.  (In fact, it’s a pretty advanced stage to be a Buddhist )

And you may find yourself  contented and peaceful  on the foot square space.  (Strange isn’t it 😀 )

Even more strange is,  you can enjoy more freedom in its foot square space

as you feel the JIZAI ( being full  in your nature ).

In the foot square space,  still able to spread your wing 1000 km wide.

To be in the MUSHIN, its needs to be completely detached from Ego and any intentional Idea,

even from the Notion of very Subject.  ( So that the Subject was seen as just one of ordinary

objects).   Since the Subject was seen as emotionally detached Object, with objective /

value-free / bird’s eyes view,  it is possible to have much clear view and really free response

——– This is the JIZAI.

___/\___

—

BRAIN WAVE

Some days ago,  I saw a bizarre demonstration which purported to be an electronic display of the

Buddhist Meditation,  consisting a video image said to be controlled by the Brain Wave.

Loads of scientific buzz words such as Quantum Mechanics, Sinusoidal Alpha Wave etc etc were spoken.

———- Yet strangely, a demonstrator  who got a shaven head said ” I’m not an electronics expert,

so,  I don’t know the details of the technology here “—— Oh, I’m, sure Brain Wave is not Sinusoidal at all.

——————–

How bizarre this one was —– to begin with,  Alpha Brain Wave is nothing to do with the Meditation.

EEG  Brain Wave was picked up on the surface of the head and showing the summed up electric signal

of the inside Cerebrum Cortex’s activity.   Therefore,  the Brain Wave is the reflection of the vigorous

activity of the brain —— sound opposite of the calm Meditation.   (Of cause, even under the deepest

meditative state, certain physiological function is fully active, hence creating so-called  Artefact ( back

ground noise ) is always there.

Any how, the activity of inner part of the brain such as Limbic System is not possible to observe by the EEG,

unless a hole was cut to the skull and put through a probe deep inside.  ( Very risky operation )

——————–

More than 40 years ago, when a meditating monk was wired up and the EEG / Brain Wave was recorded

first time, the relation between Alpha Wave and the Meditation was discovered.  So, a  Myth  was created.

Though, ironically, some years later, the true nature of the Alpha Wave became clear —— it was the

indication of the ” Eyes are Closed ” —— its mean, the visual cortex in the back of the head is in idle state.

Nothing to do with meditation.    (Well, see nothing was indicated.  At least   😀  )

(  In the Zen, Eyes wide open and seeing, but take NO NOTICE is the key technique —– Thus able to

either Detach or Concentrate to any subject,  any time,  by will )

Yet still, the Myth or idiosyncratic misunderstanding was kept and worshiped by the people who doesn’t

know the Buddhism neither Medical science or Electronics.

And this kind of bizarre gimmick industry is flourishing.

How amazing  !!!

When Mankind didn’t have the knowledge of electric activity,  lightning was believed

to be an act of angry God.

The Brain still remaining in the mystery is,  nothing to do with  the mystery of the Buddhism.

Mind is not just a matter of  Brain cell and  Electric pulse.

—

PS: Half year later, I bumped a man who demonstrated aforesaid  Electronical Meditation, at an art

gallery and found that the man is (despite his shaven head  🙂 ) just a novel art performer, not a monk

or to do anything with Buddhist’s meditation.  So, he must had a lots of fun for doing it. 😀

DELUSION — is it a Face ?

This is a funny photo.  It supposed to have a face there.

Can you see it ? —–( it is the pattern on the cushion )

It was one of the ” face” picked up by the Google Picasa,

Face Recognition Program.

——————–

As I’ve collected 20,000 photo of faces ( well, lots of them came

together with legs, boobs etc) and I’m sorting them by the

type of face and eyes, ears etc.

( Incidentally, to see the person changing  the face, body shape,

in spate of  4~5 (?) years,  giving me a chilling feeling of harsh reality,

Nothing stays the Same—— and think, what will they do next, after 5 years time  ? ? ? )

To have the Face Recognition Program was not my choice.  It came automatic as an up-date. Though, it is

using my CPU without my permission.  I’ve tried to remove it though, it is a part of Picasa 3 (and old version

had gone ) and I couldn’t pinpoint which part of program file is doing this.—– ( Google may planning to create

another  Social  Net-working  System to compete  with  Facebook  ( which I hate most )  in the near future ).

Anyhow,  as they cropped  faces and asking me to name the person,  I clicked (may be ) 30,000 times

” Ignore ” and deleted all of them except about 30 ” faces ” which is a sheer mistake such as the one here.

In certain extent, this program was well designed as it made only  0.1% mistakes.—– Beyond here, its

needs to have a human brain ——- though, wait a moment, our brain makes as much as mistakes.

——- When I was small, I was disturbed by a pattern of knot on a wooden panel of the ceiling, as it looks

a man’s fearsome face.    Once an image was registered in the brain as a face, it always looks as a face.

———- It is interesting to see, even an artificial digital image processing makes same kind of mistakes.

In Buddhist term, this is the Delusion and a cause of paranoia though, as it was a very useful brain function

of data integration / filling the gap of information by fuzzy logic —— not exact but somewhat likely

judgement —– this kind of mistakes are inevitable.

Most of the case, it is just ” Ha, Ha, Funny ” but time to time, it might led to a serious consequence.

Stay cool, stay objective is the secret to stay in Peace.

As the mater of fact, more than half of the personal trouble was caused by oneself and one’s mind.

WHAT is the BUDDHISM

Buddha didn’t find anything new. Didn’t show or prophesied anything fancy.

So that,  he was called as Buddha ( Enlightened  Man ) not a Devine figure or Shaman.

But he was the only person ever pointed out the mechanism and its Rules of the Karma and  Dharma.

Therefore,  only after him,  mankind got the knowledges to deal with this Karma.

Since almost all about the Buddhism is, about this Karma, even the most

fundamental  Noble Principals are still,  four different aspects of the Karma.

——————–

Since Karma operates in its own cause, not for the convenience of the person, it is often creates unexpected

havoc to the person, hence the life looks in trouble.

Also,  Karma works in relation to millions of factors, it keeps changing,  hence nothing stays the same

therefore even the person’s Self couldn’t be defined as a solid entity.

So that, to live the life in such condition,  the one shouldn’t expect too much,  better live in modesty.

(still, it’s open for us to try  to push it to the limit—-even if the one loose, still it is the Providence of the Dharma)

And when the one become able to see the Dharma, it is the Enlightenment which lead to the Nirvana

( I may not have the test report in time—- so, this is my guess.  But historically it was widely believed right. 🙂)

So,  this is the Wisdom to face the Truth of the Life where even the death was integrated into the

one’s Path Way.   It is not an abstract idea or fancy promise but the Actual Way to live along side

the Karma,  not fight against it.       Since the One was created by the Dharma on purpose, live

the life accordingly to its purpose,  is the Way to achieve the best Harmony with Dharma.

Since,  Karma is not necessary a restriction, but it can be the direction pointing the opportunity.

After all,  You to fulfill its purpose is what the Dharma intended and expected to see.

———- only a difficulty  is,  as the biggest cause in one’s Karma is the very person,  so that the person has

to deal with it in person, while observing the Real  Self  /  Who He (She) is, which only the person can find out.

So that,  we have to live with this Karma, by carefully observing it by our sensitive subconscious,

while avoiding the interference from the useless thought, which we can learn from

the Practice as the way of  MUSHIN.   And in the state of MUSHIN, one can see the Dharma.

This is what the Buddhism is.  (  According to Yoshizen ‘s  experience  )

Which Practice ?

As you may noticed,  my approach to the Buddhism is by means of Doing.

And my Doing is not a fixed practice.

It can be even cutting lemons or twisting a wire to make figures or make small electronic circuit etc ——.

In fact it can be any activity in the daily life,  like somebody’s daily job.

———- The reason is obvious,  (1)  It is not an activity intentionally designed on purpose.  As it is a part of

daily life and carries no special meaning or pretence, such as  ” This is the Special noble practice for the

Higher Spiritual Achievement”, it is natural.   This is the Jinen.

(2)  Basically I’m a humble mean person.  I can’t afford to spend a  time for such a special exotic activity.

If ordinary activity can serve the same purpose,  why not do them.  It would save the time and energy.

Most important point is, the Buddhism is a way of the life.  It wouldn’t work like to buy a piece of Indulgence

and sit as a formality.  Buddhism  needs to go down all the corner of one’s life.  This is the Ichijo in total.

The matter is to live the life in  Mushin.

———- So, as one of the by-product,  I got nicely twisted wire as well ——- How nice  Ha Ha Ha   😀

( I don’t think so many people in the world, found an interest of twisting the wire.   Its mean, this is a very

peculiar activity specifically occurred only on my Karma,  therefore this is a part of  Yoshizen.  Ha Ha Ha  😀  )

Since,  it was the task, I only had to do  (on that moment), I only doing it,  nothing else, therefore I didn’t need

to specially concentrate for  “Mind-fulness”  kind, as there was nothing else to think about anyway.

——————–

Almost synonym of the (misconceived) Buddhism, “Meditation”, “Mind-fullness”, “Selfless” are all too

prominent though, they are bore out of the unnatural pretenceful activity.

Because of it is a peculiar exotic practice, the person has to fight to concentrate to get mind-fullness and

while (utterly contradictively) hustle to get selflessness.  (If a man has to wear Mini-Skirt he can’t be calm.  🙂 )

——————-

But if you do the activity which you can abandon yourself,  you automatically start to do fully minded

without any conscious of self.  In this way, anybody, in any activity, they can reach to the Mushin.

This is the Mahayana Buddhism.

Door is open to anybody,  not only to the professional monk whose task (and the mean of earning money)

is to Perform and Demonstrate “Buddhism”—— in other words, other than a monk, most of the people

don’t need to demonstrate and perform it.

——————- Though,  to do the things which is not your choice,  even a kind of task you hate,

and still able to do it in  Mushin,  needs to have special training to disconnect your  Thinking and  Emotion,

which I have explained before,  ” Starting with absolute obedience and repeat the practice until it

reaches to the state of  Mental Fatigue—–”

———- And almost legendary  ” Hyper state of the Brain ”  could be achieved only through very dangerous

practice and the Visualization.   ( Some Martial Artist can do this.   And the people competing with their

memory power, while memorizing hundreds of cards in order, using this Visualizing skill under

the hyper state of the Brain ——- but don’t ask me about it)

Though,  in my view from my experiences,  I’m not necessary agree with those special  Mind Engineering is

in the scope of the Buddhism.   Those highly specialized  Mind Engineering  was a discovery of the

professional monk though it is necessary to born with particular genetic condition.

NUDE 4×4+1

As a mean of communication, the Art has very peculiar property.       Since when I was doing photography, this

peculiarity is one of my conundrum. Some photos are the Art, but most of them are just a flat copy of the object.

But, strangely, anybody can distinguish a good photo in

one glance.      And anybody can also distinguish good art

as The Art at one glance.——– (so, conceptual art is not art,

but it is only an intellectual concept, as the name indicates)

With my artist friends, photographer friends discussed together

in many occasions, still we never found a good explanation

in the words,  why and how do we know, is it the Art or not.

Because ART is a communication between  Subconscious

to Subconscious / one’s inspiration to the other’s feeling

without involving the conversion to the linguistic Notion.

(Its mean, the ART strikes the EMOTION straight, not the intelligence)

So that even if we found the typical sample, it is impossible to

describe it in the words, instead, just point the very sample and say  ” You see this is it “.

——————–

Something similar phenomenon is in the artistic expression such as in the abstract figure.

This is the matter of cognitive ability. —— How simple and even simpler, we still able to recognize as it is.

———- The photo above is, some said,  the most simplest and cheapest nude sculpture in the history.

It is just a twisted wire though, even 5 years old kids instantly recognized it ” Ah, it’s a  woman “.

This Wire Nude was made by just twisting a wire 4 times clockwise for right-hand side, and 4 times

anti-clockwise for left-hand side, plus one for the head.  ( Hence the title 4×4+1 )

I experimented many design and simplified further and further.  This seems the minimalist’s limit.

(Sitting woman putting both hands to her head—— in case, if you couldn’t make sense from flat photo)

It is impossible to describe exact shape in the words,  still it convey the message, ” This is the Woman”

and people can see and feel straight, this is the woman. ——— and makes them smile  🙂

——————–

Our brain, Deep Layer / Subconscious System has remarkable ability to capture the meaning beyond

the ordinary intellectual logics. ———-( I’m still puzzling, is it Pattern Recognition or something else ? )

And this is the way, how direct transmission of  Zen  works.  ” You see, this is it”

Freedom — Restriction ?

Freedom under the strict restriction —– people may feel it is the contradiction.

Because they are thinking it in the word / notion but didn’t observe the reality.   In reality, there is

no such freedom ever exist like we conceived in the notion.   Even the most powerful rich person still has

to live in the oxygen rich air and soon or later has to die.   Restriction is the basis of our existence.

Ideally imagined condition,  or a story from another world may tell otherwise,  still a person was

bound to live within his or her restrictive  Karma.   But it doesn’t mean there is no freedom to the person.

——————–

If you think about music,  in the traditional folk music,  even  popular Blues,  they  were composed in the

Pentatonic which is the Natural Tonal System.   But its got only five notes ( well, octave higher etc, a bit

more ) ——- from those meager five +  notes,  how many tunes  we human being created in the history ?

Have you ever heard the same tune or melody  from different source ?     No such thing ever happened in

the isolated situation (culture)—–other than a copy.

Any new tune can be created  even from very restricted five notes —- isn’t this  Freedom ?   Need  more ?

Full use of the tonal scale, 12 tone system, or even continuous frequency change of the electronic  music

the possibility and the freedom  to create new music should be much higher ——— though in  the result,

do you remember any of such contemporary music ? ——– It is the evidence of what the unrestricted

freedom had achieved.    Theoretically it might be new,  but in reality its a trash,  nobody give a sit kind.

In political correctness,  its free to express any new idea, it must be one’s freedom.  But in the same time

others got exactly same right of freedom not to give a damn to such idea.  It is the waste of the life.

——————–

There was a funny quote ( sorry I forgot who said this though) ” If the God wished the man to play Foot Ball

he wouldn’t have given the hands to us”  😀

If there was no hand from the beginning,  there is no notion of the hand or possibility to image them—-so,

there wouldn’t be any complaint of the restriction not having the hands.  Just ply Foot Ball. (no punch up :-))

The notion of the restriction is only a thought of excuse by a person who haven’t actually tried it.

When anybody try long enough,  and to know deep enough,  there is unlimited possibility and the freedom.

To contemplate ” Who you are”  and to build your life  in its maximum possibility, is the Zen.

And the Zen Master called this  Jizai. ——- Being as Itself.

( Sadly,  I noticed so many people stranded on front of the door, puzzling ” Who you are”—-misguided

by the wrong but looks elaborated  words, words, words. Look at the mirror, its you. Who  else )

———-In the history, J.S. Bach’s music is the best sample of the achievement of such  freedom.

You should try  listen his  ” Art of Fugue”,  which was composed from the four notes  B, A, C, H.

Its followed strict rule of the ” Counter Point”  in the Fugue, to make the variation of those four

note in different order and permutation.—— And created such a universe of mesmerizing

musical time and the space.

His achievement is one of the epoch in the human history.

J. S. Bach — Helmut Walcha

One morning,  when I was drifting, I heard a pipe organ music of  J.S. Bach, in the back of a TV drama.

Then,  I decided to go west to listen the sound of original instrument in the original acoustic environment.

Before, I was an enthusiast of  Baroque music, especially Bach’s organ Music.  So, I made a long list of the church and the name of the town where the recording was made for the German Gramophone Archive Record.

Then I took a ship to Siberia, Russia.  When the ship left Yokohama Port, I saw off  Japan  with my eyes getting fuzzier as it may be the last time to see her ever again.

——————–

After long journey through frozen land scape of Russia, I reached to  Helsinki, Finland.  The Helsinki Cathedral was my starting point of 100 of the church organ pilgrimage, covering many famous Alp Schnitger, Silbermann organs etc.    (The beauty of this plan was, if we go to the Church on  Sunday, there is the organ music played on, could be 300 years old original instrument, in the unique acoustic of the church. Free of charge.—- On top of this, many organ concerts, festivals held there)

——————–

Then I came across a charity concert of  Bach’s organ music to help restoration of old organ in Frankfurt.  The Organist was the most famous organist Prof; Helmut Walcha,  whose recording captured me into Bach’s organ music. (Prof; Walcha is a blind man, thus he played hundreds of organ music just from his memory)

Before concert start I was talking with a man sat next of me, about the different sound of each organ all over the Europe, since it was nearly the end of my journey,  I had covered most of the famous organs already.

The man was rather surprised of my journey, and he took me up  to organ booth and introduced me to the organist, Prof; Walcha  himself. ——- the man was the Manager of  Prof; Walcha.  ( Can you believe such a lucky coincidence.  ! )

Prof; Walcha talked about a tour of Japan and his friend, Musicologist Keisei Sakka.   And I had happened to attend a special  lecture by Prof; Sakka about the evolution of  Music Tonal System as a part of my Sociological study.  ( Tonal System evolved under the Christian monastic life and their Protestant Ethos of the devotion of the own life to perfect it — unlike a superficial glorification in the Catholic church, where how much gold was used to decorate the organ was the matter, but in the Protestant church, how three sounds of Trinity harmonize perfect was the matter. ) —– (I wrote about how Natural Tonal System was created.)

———-It was the incredibly lucky coincidence to fulfill my pilgrimage.

And it made one of the best moment of my whole life. What I could ask more.

——————–

Some ignorant criticize Bach’s music, saying that they are too abstract, even mechanical.   In fact it was the self confession of how he is ignorant and having no ear to appreciate the music.  Under the most strict rules of such as the Fugue, still able to create such soul-shaking striking music is the work of nothing but the genius. ——– Achieve  total freedom under the strict rules, is the Zen.

Unlike Romantic School’s sticky emotional melody,  Polyphonic Baroque Music, especially Bach’s music can eliminate the thought.  (Rather constant rhythm / no syncopation, and three-part polyphonic keeps waving complex tonal pictures,  which  refuses our own imagination —– makes us just listen the sound, not a story or any notion—– yet it gave us very comfortable relaxed feeling)

It’s suite to the Zenist.

.