Old Friends

Some books become old friends: two are here. The first friend is Alan Watts classic "The Way of Zen". I have had this book 40 years, as the pre-decimal price in the top right corner will attest! A good introduction to Buddhism, not just Zen. Audio versions of some of his talks are available.

Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was the subject of a recent post by MovingMountain. Despite the title, the book is not explicitly about Zen. I have read the book several times over the years, each time taking something different from it. It is not an easy book, and indeed there is even a book about the book, co-authored by a Jesuit priest no less! But as soon as I read about the shim made from the alloy beer can I knew we were speaking the same language. To this day, I pause when something goes wrong and build up some "gumption" before proceeding. We all know rounded nuts or stripped threads, but there have been several occasions where a pause and a brew has averted disaster. Of course, Phaedrus has more important things to say, not least about Quality.
I have also Pirsig's "Lila, an Inquiry into Morals". That may be his entire output, before he went to Sweden and sailed his boat. A wise man.

I can't imagine anything on my computer being around in 40 years!

The Quiet Art

David Weatherall's book, 'Science and the Quiet Art', is subtitled 'Medical Research & Patient Care'. The cover of the book is of 'The Doctor' by Sir Luke Fildes. Fildes was born in 1843 in Liverpool, and was brought up by his grandmother Mary Fildes, a political activist. He trained at the Warrington School of Art, going on to become the most successful and well-paid portait painter of his day. 'The Doctor' was a £3000 commission from Henry Tate which, although he grumbled about the fee, prompted Fildes to paint more on social matters. The painting is in Tate Britain.

I've been thinking about the 'Quiet Art' as I prepare a talk. I am loosely involved in what has become known as 'molecular medicine'. There is strength to this reductionist approach, indeed most drug discovery proceeds in this way, but there is a risk of hubris: the notion that disease is an undesirable state and the state should be 'fixed' seems too simple, and 'Western' if I may put it that way. You see it in corporate advertising ('Disease has no greater enemy'), and in the press ('fighting disease'). Yet we spend little on palliative care, and in today's FT I read that the UK has over 100 unfilled vacancies for palliative care consultants. Perhaps the work is unattractive, but the end of life is surely as important as the beginning.

There is only so much you can see in a scanned image, so last week I went to the Tate to see it. I had not noticed the child's parents in the pale dawn light from the window, the man with his hand on his the shoulder of his exhausted wife. The first Noble Truth.

It is said that doctors like this picture, and I can why. The seated doctor lit by the shaded lamp could probably do little but give witness to the pain and suffering and see the night through with them. The pale dawn suggests that the child might have made it through the worst.

So, I work on the talk, trying to suggest the 'Quiet Art' is more than molecular medicine. We are more than cellular machines to be "fixed" when broken.

Today was my 59th birthday and so I am perhaps mindful of these things.

To be resumed

More drafts than posts at the moment.
Listening to Bach, Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo, Gidon Kremer, ECM New Series, found yesterday in Heffers, Cambridge. Ah, serendipity!

An English Obsession

Nowhere else have I encountered the English obsession with house prices, fanned by a barely numerate press. The 'average' price of a home in the UK is now £200,000, which begs the question how teachers, nurses and other essential and poorly paid workers live, especially in the capital. What prompts this on-going irritation is comment in today's Guardian that Bank of England interest rates remain unchanged at 4.5% for the seventh month running. Fine, but then the gloss:
"The service sector expanded at its strongest pace in nearly two years in February, a recent survey showed, while the Halifax house price index jumped 1.4% last month, pointing to a revival in prices."
Leaving aside how you can have a "revival in prices", the change of 1.4% is based on "soft" criteria, and certainly has substantial error margins: it is not a precise measurement. It could be 0% it could be 2%: the permitted range will be known. To thus say the index "jumped" is, to be polite, imaginative and manipulative. I doubt the journalist would see a salary change of 1.4% as a "jump".
We get the same nonsense in reporting government targets, be it for schools, hospitals, reportable crime — the same belief that the numbers are precise. A change of 0.4% in examination pass-rates becomes an inprovement, a change of -0.4% failure.
Time to grow up.

Gambling with the Planet

Today's image from Mars (where two robot vehicles, designed for a mission of 90 days, have been exploring the surface for the past two years). You can see the tracks as one of the robots, Spirit, goes uphill again. The pictures are returned via one of two satellites orbiting Mars. I am always amazed that these raw data are available for anyone who cares to look. Not all agencies are so far-sighted! Clever stuff, and a glowing testimony to a team that manages this project far from the public eye.

But, this is not my purpose. Today I chanced on an article on climate change that stuck in my mind. Perhaps we are dealing with a "switch" not a "dial". We act as if our impact on the planet is a "dial" we can turn back, if not today, then tomorrow, or when "big oil" allows us. But maybe the switch has been thrown, and we are headed for conditions you see here.

A 60th anniversary

Sixty years ago my parents were married: this is the only picture I have seen that records the day. My mother is Flemish, from the villages around Ieper, unmemorable but for the carnage of the first world war. My father met her at the end of another war, not uncommon for the time, I imagine. Less common perhaps, they were married in Belgium, having but few words to share, and not, I suspect, having the full blessing of her family. Then my father returned home to England and my mother followed later. Both no doubt had expectations that came crashing up against rationing and reality. Those early years were hard for both: for my mother loneliness, a new country, a language to learn, a new child (me), and money tight, and for my dad, sudden unwelcome responsibility for a young man, robbed of his youth by a war. But "human resilience" kicks in, neighbours were good in practical ways, and 60 years on, the evidence is there for me to see. Your Flemish may be limited, your French and German gone, but you beat my dad at scrabble most nights, so I guess you learnt enough English!
Enjoy your day in peace.

"Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young."

Shakespeare, Sonnet 19, closing lines

Mikaeri Amida (見返り阿弥陀)

Mikaeri Amida (見返り阿弥陀) is one of the treasures of Eikandō (永観堂) or Zenrinji (禅林寺) in Kyoto. Why the head was positioned in this way derives either from the imaginative story about the Buddhist monk Eikan, or as practical solution to a problem in casting bronze. The story goes that Eikan (永観) was reciting the nembutsu (念仏), moving around on a freezing winter morning, when the statue stepped down, and led the way. Astonished, Eikan stopped, only to be chided by the Mikaeri Amida. Other variants echo this theme - "hey, why have you stopped, Eikan?". The mudras are not clear from this image, the remaining gilding suggesting both hands raised. In fact the right hand is raised in the Abhaya-mudra; "do not fear", and the left hand in the descending Varada-mudra; "bestowal".

The temple dates back to the 9th Century, the current abbot, Ogiso Zenryu, being the 89th in succession. It is the head temple of Jodo-shu Seizan Zenrin-ji sect. The grounds are particularly beautiful in spring and autumn, with cherry and maple respectively. See for example, an autumn "light-up" of the maples, and a "four seasons" view.

I can't make up my mind about the statue, it doesn't quite work for me as art, which, I confess, is how I see much Buddhist iconography. That may not exclude the numinous, but sometimes does. Another koan for me. Likewise the blue carpet.

Sign of Age.

You know you are getting old when you are irritated by letters from "Nick" at the bank. In Germany, you would scrupulously observe the "du" and "Sie" forms of "you". Never, I was taught, move from "Sie" to "du" without explicit permission — it could take many years, and might never happen. I still sign "yours faithfully".

So, while being the grumpy old man, I would add:

• Chewing gum. (A research topic: plot the abundance with distance from an exit of Oxford Road tube station - not exponential, but a power law I suspect). The plaza of the British Library resists heroically!
  
• Feet on seats. Default behaviour if you are under 30. Place the sole on the edge to effect maximum transfer of dirt.
  
• Street sweeping behemoths, shimmering with exhaust heat, usually on crowded pavements. Totally disproportionate solution to a problem.
• Gas heating outdoors on pavement cafés and in pub gardens. Literally burning money, even if you don't believe in global warming.

It arises, I let it go — most some times!

Fuji-san

Mount Fuji from the Tokaido shinkansen in late December 2002. December is a good time to be in Japan (at least on Honshu), the days are clear and the weather still pleasant. Sometimes the clouds hide Fuji-san, so on a good day it's always a pleasure to see it come into view. A thin plume of snow can be seen blowing from the edge of the summit at 3776 m. I'm told that you can drive much of the way up (to 2000 m), and the subsequent trail is well marked. Night climbs are popular, though my Japanese friends say, climb it once if you must, but never again. It last erupted in 1708.

A Luddite writes

Deep down I can't help feeling that computers should be used only for calculating, scientific number crunching if you will. One example might be the calculation of the latest Mersenne prime (2^30,402,457-1 ), another would be the application of Newtonian mechanics to put the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn after a 7 year voyage, and perform the intricate dance currently underway amongst the 34 moons. Of course, this Luddite view is not really tenable, but deep down I'm convinced that all other uses limit us as much as they empower us.

I am reminded of the "Electric Monk" in Douglas Adams' book "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" (Pan Macmillan, 1988):

"High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse. From under its rough woven cowl the Monk gazed unblinkingly down into another valley, with which it was having a problem. The day was hot, the sun stood in an empty hazy sky and beat down upon the gray rocks and the scrubby, parched grass. Nothing moved, not even the Monk. The horse's tail moved a little, swishing slightly to try and move a little air, but that was all. Otherwise, nothing moved. The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe."

In the very old days we occasionally read scientific papers carefully, it took a day or so, and notes were made to suit your style. Maybe a postcard to the author asking for a reprint, and usually we would receive it, often with some exotic stamps. Then we became busier, and so photocopied papers to pretend to read them later. Now we just download a pdf (a copy in effect), with some instantly forgetable file name, and scatter them over our laptops. If you are diligent, you place them in one folder, but read them? No time, too busy keeping up-to-date!

Now with wireless internet you can do this all the time, anywhere!

The Electric Monk is alive and well!

The turning of the wheel

Four years ago I visited a temple complex near the science city of Daedeok, Daejeon, South Korea. With that unnerving SE-Asian focus, there are said to be 18,000 researchers in the city, of whom 5,000 have doctorates. It was March, and the magnolias in the temple grounds were in full flower. Here, near London, they flower a few weeks earlier, and together with the plum blossom (ume) 李花 [りか], there are some fine old examples nearby. The days are lengthening, and while still cold, you know that you can make it to the spring. How more they must have welcomed those signs in earlier times.
I was reminded of this last week while visiting the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) at Hinxton. Set in beautiful parkland, though the day was grey and snowdrops were carelessly everywhere, the crows were busy about noisy crow business in the tops of their trees. It was good to just be, everything was sufficient.
A gift accepted with bows.

Kūya Shōnin 空也上人

I had an earlier post on the 10th Century priest, Kūya, but this is a better image for detail. The full picture puts him in context as an itinerant monk. I recall that the small statue, at Rokuharamitsu-ji (六波羅蜜寺) in Kyoto, could not be easily photographed in this detail, so this is likely a professional photograph. He is chanting the nembutsu, the six small figures representing na mu a mi da butsu (南無阿弥陀仏). Perhaps the "Jesus prayer", "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me", often associated with the Orthodox faith, is a Western analogue. "For some there comes a time when the 'Jesus prayer' enters into the heart, so that it is no longer recited by a deliberate effort, but recites itself spontaneously, continuing even when a person talks or writes, present in his dreams, waking him up in the morning". (The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware, Penguin books, 1963). He goes on, "Orthodox spiritual writers insist that those who use the Jesus prayer systematically, should, if possible, place themselves under the guidance of an experienced director, and do nothing on their own initiative".

I feel much the same about Ch'an or Zen: it is a hazardous path, once on it, you can't go back. We rely so much on those who have gone before.

(The image is from yowaiobake (in Japanese). The route there was via a blog search on Kyoto).

"Humanity to Others"

I'm prompted to mention Ubuntu which I use instead of Microsoft Windows, on both my laptop and desktop computer. It's not that I am messianic about Open Source over proprietary software, you can make your own decisions about that: it's more the underlying spirit (love) that underpins Ubuntu, and the sheer quality of the product. Being free, and well-supported by a very generous community, I wonder whether it might find wider use, in for example, monastic and similar communities. It works well on older computers. I run it on a second-hand IBM T22 Thinkpad.

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

Why mention this at all? In the strange way that events unfold I was looking for something on the Ubuntu site, noticed and smiled at the "fridge". I noticed that they talk a lot about love, not a word you see often in the business world. Then I read a Moving Mountains post, and thought "this is all pointing the same way", something outside ourselves. To analyse more would be to lose it, but now it's as real as the keyboard before me.

Nine bows to you all for your wisdom!

Serendipity

For many years I had this picture in a clip-frame on my desk, culled I think from the Economist, but I cannot be sure of that. On one of my many moves it disappeared into a folder, but stayed somewhere in my head. I had no idea of its author.
Then by chance on Antipixel | Blog I found some beautiful pictures of recent snow around Marunouchi, Tokyo, an area I know, but have never seen in snow. They are really worth a look. One of the comments compared them to a famous picture by the Swiss photographer Werner Bischof. My unknown cutting is the famous "Shinto priests in the court of the Meiji temple, Tokyo 1951". I confess that I had never heard of him, but at the same time am pleased there is still so much to learn and enjoy - even at my age!
The cutting is just part of the original picture - but what a picture. I'm inspired to get a better camera. If I could acquire one tenth the skill of these people, I would be content.

(Postscript: Antipixel has also posted the Tokyo snow scenes to Flickr)

"Profit in the billions"

"Profits in the billions underline the vital role of banking in the economy". It should not surprise that this is a headline from today's Financial Times. It continues "This year the UK banking industry is set to break records again with profit of about £34bn – or more than the gross domestic product of Croatia. Next week, Barclays is expected to report pre-tax profit of £5.2bn and Lloyds TSB £3.35bn".

Gone are the days when a bank existed for its customers. Perhaps those days never existed. My parents, now in their 80's cannot deal with the terminals in their local branch, and while I can cope with that, other "progressive" features trouble me.

In January UK banks reduced interest rates to savers, driven not by a change in the base rate, but seemingly for no other reason than it was the begining of the year and, acting in concert, they could get away with it. To compound the insult, my bank wrote to me weeks later with a gloss that I am fortunate to have so many choices. Well, a choice is to change accounts, but to accomplish it is another matter!

On my secondary account I am locked out because I have not used it for some time, and despite a visit to a local branch with passport, statements, I remain locked out. Calling the help-line, I point out I have verified in person who I am and have the appropriate numbers, and politely observe that it is my money in the account. To no avail: a flag is set, and access cannot be granted.

While I can live with this delay, it brings home that banks can shut you out from your own money, and that our implicit trust in banks may be misplaced. The onus is on you to regain access. They are a business to make profit for their shareholders – that they have "high-street" customers is an anachronism they might like to be rid of. Perhaps our grandparents kept cash under the bed for good reason!

So, what do banks do with that hard-earned profit?

Hubris

On the train I listened to the valedictory address of Sir Robert May, the retiring President of The Royal Society (iPods have their uses). You have to remember that the Royal Society is an august body, not given to hyperbole, and that Sir Robert May served as the government chief scientist, and understands the political reality. So, his matter-of-fact presentation on global warming should alarm everyone. He uses the facts in an unusual and effective way, to spell out the damage done, and the risks we will pass to our children and grandchildren. They will surely curse our cupidity. The United States collected much opprobrium for refusing to sign the minimal Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to their 1990 level by 2012, and for intransigence in Montreal last year. If we cannot reach such minimal targets what hope have we?

Each time I look at the images from the Mars Rovers Opportunity and Spirit (still going strong after two years), I think we are headed that way. A thin wind blowing dust around, no water, no life. Species become extinct, H. sapiens too.

The image is of a sunset on Mars from the Spirit Rover. I find it humbling, a sunset that no-one sees, save the cold CCD of a remote machine. Our strength and our weakness.

Hanko

Just for the record,

【烏】 [からす] (n) crow/raven/(P)
【旅烏】 [たびがらす] (n) wanderer/stranger

Hanko

As a parting gift I was given a "hanko" (判子), or more accurately (?) "inkan" (印鑑), the traditional seal that is still used, so I am told, for official papers. I know the company for which I worked, though a large multi-national, had a corporate seal in the safe in Tokyo. Mine lacks that gravitas. I can't read it, nor can many of my Japanese friends. Age is no help! It plays on my name, and my itinerant lifestyle.

Why am I waiting?

A new month, and a new resolve. Too long hanging around outside the gate — no amount of theorising will tell me what's on the other side. So, step forward.
While travelling this week, I took with me by chance, "Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind", the journal and letters of Maura 'Soshin' O'Halloran, who trained in her twenties at Toshoji in Tokyo and Kannonji in Iwate Prefecture. She died in a road accident in Thailand, returning to Ireland just a few months after her transmission. "She left this life immediately to start the salvation of the masses in the next life", Ban Tetsugyu. Without exploring why, I was brought up short by this re-reading. The journal and letters were obviously not written for publication and are the more powerful for that. They sit with the canon of the few other female Zen Priests who trained in Japan. More importantly, it shook me awake, the combination of the Chinese New Year, a move to Singapore, and the sudden realisation that my training hardly deserved the name, all coming together and ringing alarm bells. I take heed of Moving Mountain, acknowledge the fact and hit the "learn" button.

Through the gate!

I respectfully offer the merit of this post to Soshin O'Halloran.
Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind, Maura 'Soshin' O'Halloran, Thorsons, London 1995.

"As she was before she was"

"Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake on the first of June, 1310, at the Place de la Grève in Paris. Porete, from Hainaut in northern France, belonged to that class of woman known as beguines, whose status was midway between the laity and clergy. The beguines modelled their rule in part on the rules of the recognized monastic orders, but they were free to leave the cloister and marry. Porete followed in the distinguished line of beguine mystical writers that included Mechthild of Magdeburg (d. ca. 1294) and Hadewijch of Antwerp (fl. 1240)."

"The annihilation of the soul (with its reason, will, and works) entails a reversion to that precreative state of being, to what the soul was 'when she was not.'"

From "Mystical Languages of Unsaying" Michael A Sells, University of Chicago Press, 1994