Ushnishasitatapattra

In 1992 the Royal Academy of Arts held an exhibition of the Sacred Art of Tibet simply called "Wisdom and Compassion". This striking image is from the free guide, and for many years followed me around from desk to desk. I thought it worth sharing, it is truly beautiful. The exhibition catalogue describes her as follows:

Thousand-armed Ushnishasitatapattra is a special form of the goddess Tara, a female counterpart of the thousand-armed form of Avalokiteshvara. Her iconography is probably one of the most complex in the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon. The goddess has as many heads and legs as she has arms. She tramples on human beings, birds and animals. Pressed under her feet into two cubes in this sculpture, they symbolise egocentric existence.

(The statue stands 102 cm, and is from the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Description is by G. Leonov).

At the same exhibition Tibetan monks constructed an elaborate sand mandala over several days. I remember in particular a small child invited to share the task, rasping the funnels to trickle out the coloured sand. What fun! Then, when complete, the mandala was scooped up, and thrown in the Thames, for the merit of all Beings.

Impact factor

Perhaps some compassion is due Professor Hwang Woo-suk, the South Korean stem-cell researcher. The press is as quick to damn as it was to laud him, and then moves on. We might remind ourselves that the two papers in question in one of the world's leading scientific journals, had multiple authors (25 in one case, 15 in the other), and were peer-reviewed. Science is always self-correcting, not always so rapidly and destructively, and a more sober analysis will emerge: hopefully something will be salvaged, not least for the people involved. High-profile science, where publication priority and "impact factor" translate directly to funding, is fiercely competitive. Nobody, least of all politicians, wants to hear about the luck and hard-work that is research. Science doesn't win votes. This is the world we have made.

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

Ecclesiastes 9:11

Taking the step

I have a decision to make. Like most decisions of any import, it ultimately does not lend itself to analysis, so I have to simply let go and take the step.

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might: for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."
Ecclesiastes 9:10

I prefer the King James to Nike's "Just do it".

(At the entrance to Hônen-in, Kyoto)

Shadows of our Former Selves

On the Tyne Bridge, looking towards the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. There is a webcam looking at much the same view. The webcam images are said to show "the Date and Time in Newcastle and Gateshead". I know they guard their independence, but I'm glad to see they agree on something. Long may they prosper - fine cities.

Right Livelihood

A week ago, a typing error at Mizuho Securities cost the bank a fortune, as a trader sold 610,000 shares in J-Com at ¥1, instead of 1 share for ¥610,000. As anyone who has paid on-line will know, there is always the doubt and double-checking before you hit "submit". In an ideal world, the trade would have been automatically blocked by the system, but it is not that which bothers me. Other traders watching their screens noticed this very unusual trade, and acted instinctively, buying J-Com shares at a discounted price as fast as they could. That is their training. It could have been over within minutes. Then of course Mizuho has to buy back the shares to honour the trade. It is said to have cost the bank over $300 million. That would go a long way in Kashmir.
Could a trader act otherwise (and keep his job)? They are trained to spot and use opportunities, and computers are programmed to do much the same, and may well have beaten them to it. But after the flurry of dealing, it must have been apparent to all that a mistake had been made. If you took advantage of an individual in this way, you would be reviled, yet to do the same of a corporation seems inevitable and acceptable.
Lehman Brothers may yet decide to return the profit it made, and other Japanese banks will be under moral pressure to do the same, but at the moment it still looks like a very expensive mistake for Mizuho. We should spare a thought for the trader!

Reading Japanese?

No, I don't read Japanese, nor speak it - but I dabble. An excellent Firefox plugin for when I must make the effort, is RikaiXUL, from Todd Rudick. Moving the mouse over a Kanji does an instantaneous dictionary lookup and displays the matches. Its smart feature is the ability to intelligently use adjacent Kanji or Kana. Very clever. As it is released under GPL, Jon Zarate was able to enhance the code and create rickaichan. I have RikaiXUL installed under Firefox 1.0.7 on an elderly IBM Thinkpad, and it works well. Rickaichan I have installed on an old HP box under the new Firefox 1.5. It's faster, and displays more information, not all of which you may need (stroke count etc.). But, both are fine products, and very usable. Both can be easily disabled when not required. (I imagine the underlying dictionary is Jim Breen's KanjiDic).

Hall of Roaring Waves

The middle floor of Kinkaku-ji (1st floor to the British, 2nd floor to everyone else), is the Cho-on-do, The Hall of Roaring Waves, constructed in the bukezukuri-style of samurai dwellings. It houses the Kannon Bodhisattva and four attendant Shitenno Guardians of the Four Directions. Two are seen here. The floor is lacquered to a mirror finish, and the Hall also houses paintings by Kano Masanobu (1434-1530). As access is not possible, I relied on the guide book, from which this (part) image comes. Imagine it at night, faint light from a full moon filtering in and the golden warriors faintly reflected in the perfectly black floor.

Too little, too late?

Analysis of ice-cores drilled from the Vostock station in the Antarctic now extend measurement of atmospheric composition from 390,000 to 650,000 years before present (Science 2005, 310, 1313). The concentration of CO₂, at 380 ppm, is now 27% higher than the pre-industrial level. Methane is also at the highest level for 650,000 years.

New analysis indicates that the Gulf Stream that keeps us relatively warm in Northern Europe has slowed 30% since 1957 (Nature 2005, 438, 655). Melting Greenland ice could be disrupting the return deep water flow to the south Atlantic. Of course, none of this can be proven, so we can carry on as before, can't we?

A roadside sign protesting the expansion of Stansted airport, encapsulates it: "Cheap flights cost the Earth".

Takigi-Noh

I have been to one indoor Noh performance in Kyoto, but have so far been unable to make a trip coincide with an outdoor performance (Takigi-Noh). At the millenium New Year festivity in Kyoto, there was a Noh performance on Karasuma-dori, but I was on my way to the temple complexes in Higashi-yama to ring in the New Year. Noh is quite extraordinary and absorbing, even to this gaijin, and I must try again in 2006.
There is actually a Noh theatre in London at the Royal Hollaway College (The Handa Noh Studio). I hope it is still funded!
I have tried to find Noh on DVD while in Japan, but without success. Maybe I need the equivalent of BBC recordings?

(The image is a postcard from Kinkaku-ji)