Infantile adults

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is a man of straight words. While thinking about childhood wonderment, I had at the back of my mind, something he said last year. More surprisingly, I found it! Speaking at a conference in East London he said, "Childhood is most positively valued and fostered when we resist infantilism. When adults stop being infants, children can be children." Further, "If we go on producing grown up infants we can hardly wonder why different sorts of violence and dysfunction exist in our society."

In a society that devotes newspaper comment to "Big Brother" (not George Orwell's), he has a point.

Reported in the Guardian on-line, April 11th 2005.

A Gift

MovingMountain describes a child's simple wonderment. We should cherish it in the child and nurture it in the adult. It is a divine gift. Fortunately, there are still those moments, even for me! I need to remind myself that the inner path is not all furrowed brow and striving, but more about recovering what was there all the time. Quite simple. Laughter is a clue.

"When I asked him for the real meaning of Buddhism, he immediately struck me. Three times I put this question to him, and three times I received blows. I don't know where I was at fault."
Thereupon Master Ta-yū exclaimed, "Your master treated you entirely with motherly kindness, and yet you say you do not know your fault."
Hearing this, Lin-chi was suddenly awakened and said, "After all, there isn't much in Huang-po's Buddhism!"

(Picture from a 1997 calendar I found while clearing papers: published by Pomegranate, photograph by Brian Harris. Text from "Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, selected from The Transmission of the Lamp", trans. Chang Chung-Yuan, Pantheon Books, 1969).

The Han's version of Time

I'm reading The Labyrinth of Time by Michael Lockwood. Like his earlier book Mind, Brain & the Quantum I'm finding it tough going. Lockwood, an Oxford philosopher, publishes sparingly – always a good sign – so I'll make the effort.
As I age, time passes more quickly for me: I'm not sure why, but it's real. Inevitably we view time through the short span of human life (perhaps one reason why we have such difficulty with global warming). I can feel two generations either side of my own, grandparents to grandchildren, but outside that it dims rapidly. With my head, I know about Planck time, the smallest interval of time, 10^-43 sec, and about the age of the Universe, 12 billion years, say 10¹⁷ secs, but I cannot comprehend this vast 10⁶⁰ interval other than by manipulating symbols: I can't feel it, or act on it.
To say with Dogen-zenji that our bodies are as transient as dew on the grass is, on this scale, being very generous. In time they are nothing.
This much-used han speaks of a slow time: if you have spent time in a monastery you will know the measured "tok, tok, tok", scaled to the affairs of man. Today the monk is as likely as not to have a crystal oscillator in her watch, ticking to a different beat, the MHz of the computer world. Each in its place, provided they stay there. Somewhere I read, "if it can be measured it isn't worth doing". Like most aphorisms, a kernel of truth, for our frenetic world.

Beowulf's funeral

I am fortunate in my friends: they read me too well. Thank you.

If you need a reason to doubt that the future is digital, handle this slim volume and admire the publisher's art. Like Heaney's translation of Sophocles' The Burial at Thebes, this is a wonderful translation beautifully produced. It will survive when my CDs are dust. The introduction is a deeply felt essay: Heaney speaks of his task as "scriptorium-slow", yet the resulting translation is a work as relevant today as it was at the close of the first millenium. The agony of the woman's loss is ever present, Iraq, Darfur, Gaza, an anonymous missile, a timeless grief.

Composed in Anglo-Saxon between the 7th and 10th Century.

"The Geat people built a pyre for Beowulf,
stacked and decked it until it stood foursquare,
hung with helmets, heavy war-shields
and shining armour, just as he had ordered.
Then his warriors laid him in the middle of it,
mourning a lord far-famed and beloved.
On a height they kindled the hugest of all
funeral fires; fumes of woodsmoke
billowed darkly up, the blaze roared
and drowned out their weeping, wind died down
and flames wrought havoc in the hot bone-house,
burning it to the core. They were disconsolate
and wailed aloud for their lord's decease.
A Geat woman too sang out in grief;
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
of her worst fears, a wild litany
of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,
slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke."

Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, Faber & Faber, 2000, p98

Not the click of Enlightenment!

The Sony Picturebook emitted a sharp click, and stopped: instant blackness. No life, dead. An old friend, second-hand and slow maybe, but small and light, ideal for travel. One of those moments where non-attachment tests you. Repair was out of the question – it is long obsolete. I have learnt that the best thing is to make a coffee, build up gumption, and then think about what might be wrong. Precipitate action usually makes things worse.
I had been running from the battery, and most likely it had shorted internally and blown a fuse or similar internal protection. The laptop seemed unharmed. A new battery was ordered from the internet, delivered overnight, and it is working again.
Ubuntu Linux came up without a hiccup, not even a file check (I forced one anyway, to be sure). Even better, the new battery fully charged now lasts two hours or one railway journey! I will treat it with respect and cycle it a few times.

ASLSP - "As slow as possible"

I usually wince when I read about "personal productivity". It seems the antithesis of what life is for. So, it is a joy to read about the performance of John Cage's work Organ 2/ASLSP, now being played in the minimally restored ruins of the church of St Burchardi in Halberstadt. His instructions were that it was to be played "as slow as possible". But how slow is that? In Halberstadt, the performance will last 639 years until 2640, with an interval in 2319. One week ago, on 5th January, another chord was begun. The organ is being built as the performance unfolds. I missed the performance on January 5th, but another opportunity will occur on 5th May 2006, when the chord will end. Then you must wait until 2008. Perfect.
The website design is very fine and particularly apt for the project. The gallery offers a moving-camera view of the minimally reconstructed church.

A mad world.

Some years ago, a wise CEO for whom I worked, was looking over an applicant's curriculum vitae. We needed an affordable lawyer, if that is not a contradiction. After a few moments, and with increasing exasperation that it had reached him, he threw it aside saying it is impossible to have this experience at so young an age. I thought about this while reading about the Deutsche Bank trader, censured for over-stating his position by $30M. As the Financial Times put it "The world of synthetic collateralised debt obligations and of so-called correlation trading is incredibly complex and fast-moving. New products, some of them very illiquid and difficult to trade are created all the time .... But it often leaves senior managers and executives casting around for advice from independent experts about the actions of their subordinates". I think we are confusing jargon with complexity, but what struck me more was that the trader in question is 26. I started thinking about right-livelihood, the fifth path on the noble eightfold way.

Later I read about Macquarie Bank's hostile bid for the London Stock Exchange, "The bank's bid document revealed the offer to be one of Europe's most highly leveraged ever. The £1.5bn deal is being financed with £1.28bn of debt". Leveraged indeed! So why Macquarie? If we must sell the family silver, why not a UK "vehicle".

A mad world. I must stop reading the FT.

GNER

GNER has increased my train fare by 22% since December 2005 and 39% since January 2005. No explanation. Do I stop eating?

The Maitreya Buddha

So much comes to mind with this expressive image of the Miroku Bosatsu (弥勒菩薩) in Kōryū-ji (広隆寺) Kyoto. On the practical level, the realisation I can no longer pay my ¥500 and see it as before, cataracts have intruded – one fixed, one to go. The pictures therefore are all the more valuable to me. A professional photographer has access, lighting (and skill of course), that is not given to tourists – indeed photography in Kōryū-ji is not allowed. I have seen the Miroku Bosatsu image high-up on a neon-lit advertising site in the Ginza, (selling what I know not). It is said that in 1960, the little finger was snapped off the statue by an enraptured student who hugged it. I can understand that.

The statue is most likely from Korea, or carved in Japan by a Korean craftsman, during the 7th Century. The wood is not native to Japan, and a strikingly similar statue is in the National Museum in Seoul. Indeed, there are several variants from around this time, and it seems to represent an artistic development as Buddhism entered Japan via the Korean peninsula. Scholars admire the draped folds, the delicacy of the features, the verticality of the slender figure. It is without equal, timeless, yet in time, representing as it does the Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha yet to come.

Sometimes I feel I need to close a post with the sound of a bell. There is nothing useful to say. This is such a time.

Another trip round the Sun

You will not read this having no need of computers. Women give life, men work hard at destroying it, or so it seems. It was not easy, as I now know. But, you are strong, and I hope I inherited a little of that.

From the Asakusa Kannon-do Temple in Tokyo: as with the the smoke from the huge incense cauldron (occasionally on fire), rubbing this statue appropriately provides relief for aches and pains. So, I gave a rub for your arthritis! Happy birthday mother.

A New Year Greeting: Babar's Dream

Time to be affirmative.

"In an archetypal battle between good and evil, the graceful winged elephants—the angels of kindness, intelligence, courage, patience, perseverance, knowledge, work, hope, love, health, joy and happiness—drive out the demons of misfortune, anger, stupidity, discouragement, sickness, spinelessness, despair, fear, ignorance, cowardice, laziness. The qualities championed here are personal virtues, involving the life of the mind and the life of the individual. Although the orderly angel–elephants resemble an army, with little differentiation among them compared to the dramatically articulated figures of evil, the angels do not proclaim a nationalistic, corporate or moralistic cause but instead affirm a gracious and serene intelligence. Several of the flying elephants carry symbols characteristic of the virues; the flowers of hope, the candle of knowledge, the saw of perseverance, the hammer of work, the shield and sword of courage, the clock of patience. And so angelic harmonies banish discordant evils from Celestville, the home of Babar and Celeste."

From Edward R Tufte, Visual Explanations, (Graphics Press, 1997), pp 127-129 describes Babar's Dream, first published in Jean de Brunhoff, Le Roi Babar (Paris, 1933).


The text reads:
...de gracieux éléphants ailés qui chassent le Malheur loin de Célestville, et ramènent avec eux le Bonheur.-
A ce moment, il se réveille, et se sent mieux.

Peur, Désespoir, Mollesse, Ignorance, Malheur, Maladie, Lâcheté, Paresse, Colère, Bêtise, Découragement.
Courage, Intelligence, Bonte, Persévérance, Patience, Travail, Espoir, Savoir, Joie, Santé, Amour, Bonheur

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)