last of the summer holidays

Just working my way through the last of the summer holidays. School will start again next week. I'm looking forward to teaching the japanese kids and seeing the elementary school teachers again. The weathers been hot, consistently 30 degrees plus and humid (yay for air-con). I'm also looking forward to the advent of autumn which should occur sometime soon. The autumn leaves are amazing with japanese maples dotted throughout the mountain sides. Kyoto temples are especially beautiful in autumn. However the autumn will be followed by the chilly winter I remember from last year (bring out the kerosene heaters!) hopefully I'll still be able to get to school on my scooter and the roads are not too snowy. Mind you, the cycle will complete itself with the coming of spring and the cherry blossoms.

I sometimes think about why the seasons are different in NZ and Japan. I think it's because the Earth is on a slight tilt on the axis so one hemisphere is a little closer to the sun (correct?) as the earth spins and rotates about the sun, once every year, we get the four seasons emerging at different points on the ellipse - something like that, I think

I've been swimming in the rivers here when it gets to hot. The countryside rivers are so fresh and clear. I bought a mask and snorkel and I'm amazed by the variety and number of fish swimming in the rivers. It's a great way to cool off after a sticky-hot day - jump in the local river and rinse that sweat away in the cool clean water.

I met an old fisherman who gave me the go ahead to swim anywhere. I asked him 'sumimasen ga, kono kawa no naka ni, oyoide mo ii desu ka?' may I swim in this river?' and he replied 'oyoide doozo - doko demo ii, kirei da ne' basically ' go ahead and swim, anywhere is fine, beautiful river isn't it?' so it's all good.

Lots of love to the NZ peoples and to everyone in the world, though we struggle with day to day activites, in actuality, we are eternally blissful entities. Peace.

Meeting the new JETs

Hi, I spent a weekend of meeting the new wave of teachers to come to Japan. It's hard to believe a year has passed already and now I am a 'second year JET' while the newbies are arriving. It's good to meet the new people, some interesting new faces and personalities from all over the world. Japan is a great place to meet international people. I really get the common humanity feeling going on. Even though we come from different countries and backgrounds, we share a common situation and are friends. We went to a nice Indian restaurant which is quite a treat in Japan and finished off with ice-cream and karaoke. All in all an enjoyable weekend. When I come home, my hamster looks so happy to see me, he climbs the side of his cage and wiggles his nose in glee. I give him sunflower seeds.

 

I sometimes wonder about the feeling of love that exists between a person in knowledge and a  person in ignorance or suffering. The kind of compassion that causes some one to feel tenderly for a child or a person in need. There is that love all around us, in a sense we are all ignorant and suffering. we don't even know how many hairs are on our head, let along what the next day will bring. I prefer to think of it as innocence, there is really a fine line between ignorance and innocence. I suppose, a supreme omniscient being must look at us with love, in a similar way to a parent watching a young child. The child is innocent and the parent is compassionate. in the same way, I think, we as humans are innocent and God is compassionate, fulfilling our desires with love and compassion.

Hiroshima Peace Cranes 

Strange Feelings

I've been getting this strange feeling recently, like time has stopped and everything is floating in this etheric 'limbo' it's hard to explain, but it feels quite peaceful and relaxing. Kind of like the planets, floating in space, orbiting the sun in their slow yet steady course. I see people moving but they are not moving.  Though they create eddies in the fabric of space and time, reflected in their minds - the river remains the same. The trees are growing slowly and the universe is emanating energy. When I look away from the sense-fascination world and see the stillness of time, there is no movement but eternity and all the activities I see are but eddies and swirls on a vast ocean.

 

There is something about the perfect simplicity of existence that transcends conception. Our mere being-ness is magic. Like an infinite number of rabbits pulled, simultaneously, from an infinite number of magical hats - the world appears to the senses. Magically transformed from Nothingness into Being. and who knows the source of the magical rabbits? even a blade of grass...

Hiroshima Visit

I went to Hiroshima over the weekend. It was an interesting experience. The city itself is quite beautiful and modern though there are lots of reminders to the atomic bombing in its past. Here and there you see a sign 'this tree survived the atomic bombing' or 'this building was destroyed by the atomic bomb'

I visited Hiroshima with Chika. We went to Shukkeien garden which was a really beautiful example of the Japanese garden style, a nice central lake, little bridges here and there and immaculately pruned and groomed trees complete with little japanese gazebos. I particularly liked the turtles in the lake to whom I fed potato chips which they enjoyed. I even got the turtles to climb out of the water and eat from my hand! that was cool.

We visited Hiroshima castle which resembles Himeji castle. The entire building was destroyed and reconstucted after the atomic bombing in 1945. There were interesting artifacts including ancient samurai swords and the view from the top floor over the city was worth the climb.

The visit to 'heiwa-koen' or Peace Park was really the highlight. It was certainly a sobering experience. Standing in front of the 'atomic bomb dome' - that partially destroyed building which still stands as a monument to that horrific day in history - was quite eerie really. It was inspiring to see the thousands of colourful paper cranes made by children that festooned the various monuments in the park. The cranes are a symbol of peace and have their roots in a sad story about a little girl, a victim of the atomic bomb, who made paper cranes in hospital in the vain hope that to make one thousand would cure her - but she died. Today children continue her tradition in the hope for peace.

The musuem was quite moving really. I didn't realise the real extent of the damage in Hiroshima. The bomb exploded in the morning on August 5th 1945 and absolutely crushed the once thriving little artisan town. The energy released by the explosion melted the concrete and flattened all the buildings. Many people died instantly, those who didn't suffered horrific burns, many struggling to the town river to seek water, only to join the many corpses floating there. The accounts of the bombing are simply horrific. It was sobering to see the drawings made by survivors of their experiences among the dead and dying victims. The radiation after the bomb continued to inflict cruel suffering on the survivors in the form of cancers and various illnesses. The city was absolutely destroyed. It was a really terrible thing.

Today, Hiroshima is a truly peace-loving city with many signs of the desire for peace about the town.  Although the memory of the atomic-bombing is still relatively fresh in the cities memory, it is incredible and inspiring to see how much they have grown through such a difficult time. Today Hiroshima is thriving and properous and famous for 'Okonomiyaki' a special type of Japanese omelet.

My conclusion was really that the atomic bomb should never be used as a weapon. It is a disgusting violation of human rights and the laws of nature. to be used against innocent civilians is simply criminal. The destruction and suffering caused by the A-bomb in hiroshima is evidence enough that such an event should never occur again. One simply has to visit the city, the museum, the peace park etc... to become aware of this. I pray for peace.

Corresponding with Will 2

And here's the next installment - corresponding with Will 2 :-)

 

Dear Will,

Thank-you for your interesting reply.

I like your point about the "heat death of the universe" As things decay into energy, I suppose it ends up as heat and eventually the heat cools down to a stop. It reminds me of that research Stephen Hawkings did to
demonstrate that black holes have a temperature. Apparently, on the event
horizon in a black hole when the light is trapped by gravity, some
mysterious particles jump back and forth across the boundary giving some
kind of heat radiance or something, quite curious really.

In the Vedic literature, the universe is sometimes described as the breath of a transcendental entity who is emanating entire multiple universes, into time and space, from the pores in its transcendental skin. Amazing huh? Apparently, the universes expand outward with the outward breath and collapses inward with the inward breath. At the end of each breathing cycle, the entire universe is reabsorbed into the transcendental entity. Kind of fits with the Big Bang theory too when the singularity explodes, its like the initial breath of Maha-Visnu entering into the world of space and time.

I like your point about the "do" and the "michi" very nice. That is indeed an important point. It's such a wonderful thing. It's like Jesus said "Salvation lies within" The fact is basically, people want to be happy and experience pleasure. However, the problem is where to find that pleasure and happiness. I feel if one looks for pleasure only in the relationship between the senses and the sense objects, then pleasure will always be transient. If however, one looks for pleasure within oneself and ones relationship to the eternal and infinite universe then one is undoubtably on the right path to happiness.

This is not to say temporary pleasure has no value. I believe it does have a value. Temporary pleasure is still pleasure, it's just temporary, that's all.

That question about the absolute nature of relative subjective experience is fascinating. I guess the problem is determining what the self actually is. This was partly my mission in studying psychology at Uni. Unfortunately psychologists have a hopelessly inadequate conception of consciousness, constrained largely but an imperfect materialistic methodology. We can't observe the consciousness via the senses.

I now believe there is certainly much more to the self than meets the minds-eye. My general conception is of an entity distinct from the body. It is intrinsically connected to the infinite and eternal universe. To illustrate the nature of eternity, consider the abitrary nature of one second - a man made invention. As the clock ticks by, the seconds pass. Yet how many moments are there in that second? and indeed, how many moments are there in a day? To me it's more like there is just one single, eternal Now moment.

With so many people simultaneously experiencing life, each with their own subjective world-view, it is inconceivable to determine how many moments of experience there are in a single day. So many relative subjective worlds.Indeed for a single individual, as consciousness flows from one moment to the next, it is interesting the ponder what is the relationship between that consciousness and the universe? Most of the time, the consiousness is engaged in sense activity and relating to the external material world. The senses, I believe, constrain what is in fact infinite information, into discrete manageable chunks. And the senses are fascinating, they provide an ever-changing tapestry of stimulation. If however, the self focusses it's energy within then it becomes apparent that there is a perfect connectedness between every moment and eternity and the changing world of the senses is in fact illusion - real, but temporary. In this state, it can be seen that the temporary things have no real existence - It becomes apparent there is no difference between anything and that we simply are.

Well that's one conclusion anyway :-)

I guess at that point we have to have love for God.

I knew you were a thinker! so nice to have met you and practicing yoga too!
that's just great. inspiring really. Yoga is such a good way to get the body in shape, balancing all the muscle groups and allowing the chi/prana to flow evenly. nice stuff.

hey, I'll go now, but cheers for the interesting thoughts,

kind regards,

David.

P.S Disclaimer : the opinions expressed herein are entirely subjective and the author makes no claim to there absolute applicablity. The author acknowledges the intrinsic value of individual subjective world-views and is maintaining a completely open mind.






----- Original Message -----
From: "William Yong" <will_yong@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "David Thomas" <davidwhthomas2008@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: in reply...


Hello again David,
 You've obviously taken this one deeper than I've ever
 gone but I think I get what you're saying. It reminds
 me of those two tremendously evocative symbols - the
 yin yang and the manji (swastika). The opposition of
 the arms / black and white is the impetus for the
 motion of life or perhaps the very nature of life
 itself.
     I can't help but relate this to Big Bang theory
 and the Laws of thermodynamics in my hopelessly
 underinformed way... A bursting out of the opposites,
 the dualities, the arms of the manji, the yin and the
 yang, this is the energy that sends out existence from
 the centre, the  source. All things will eventually
 return to the one,  the "mu" state, the non-state, the
 heat death of the universe(?).

 You know, when I meet new people, what I want to find
 out first of all is whether or not they are on the
 path. In Japanese it would be "michi" or "do" - the
 "do" of "sado", "aikido" etc. I don't necessarily mean
 whether or not they are followign some kind of
 esoteric teaching but whether or not they are
 fundamentally aware that the purpose of life is not
 trudging through the swamp of multifaceted sense
 experience and worldly aims but turning to face the
 self. Anyway... the more I turn my attention inwards
 in this way the more it seems that every experience,
 every realisation is an answer to the same question -
 what tends towards the centre and what throws us
 centrifugally out from it. It's wonderfully
 simplifying when you can conceive of life in this way
 don't you think?

 As far as the absolute relativity of subjective
 experience goes... hmmm. Tibetan Buddhists would say
 that the lines that we draw between consciousnesses
 are arbitrary. The ability to appear in the dreams of
 other would be a case in point. Sometimes I find
 myself erring towards idealism when I think about
 this. The self somehow gets in the way doesnt it? The
 ego asserts that it is "I" who is experiencing and
 therefore we require the concept of relativity to

 square everyone's separate assertion of this. I am
 nowhere near sorting my thoughts out on that one. But
 I'm willing to give it a go! Your help would be
 appreciated... I like the way this dialogue is going!

 catch you again soon.

 W i l l

Corresponding with Will 1

Hey folks, I thought I'd post some nice correspondence I've had recently with my friend Will. Enjoy!

 

Hi Will,

a nice reply!

There is a verse in the Bhagavad-Gita where it is said "Those who are on this path (of bhakti-yoga / love of God) are resolute and their aim is one, yet the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many branched"

I think you are absolutely correct. It's impossible to analyse all the relationships between things. In doing so, one simply becomes bewildered by duality and many-branches of intelligence. It is better to investigate the unchanging aspects of our lives - to discriminate between the eternal and the temporary.

There is indeed a centre and source of all this duality - the original source of all existences. However, in investigating the absolute, I believe the duality itself has qualities of the absolute, relative ones perspective. seeing it is the key to peace of mind and balance within the dynamic equilbrium.

I often think of a person walking along a beach and seeing the sunlight glitter on the water. As they walk, the glittering light follows them. Yet there is another person, walking behind who is also seeing the glittering light, and they are thinking "this light is following me". How can the light be simultaneously following two people at once? it is, I believe, the paradoxical mystery of the absolute nature of relative subjective experience. The light is indeed simultaneouly appearing to both people at once.

We are each, at every moment, attuned perfectly to the source of all life. It is whether we are conscious of that relationship or not, that is the question. I used to train rats in a maze for a psychology experiment. The rats were only interested in chocolate chips. They weren't interested in the big picture. I would watch them and wonder who was watching me - thinking about the big picture.

Another example, imagine a group of people looking at a photograph of a Saint looking into the camera. Each person is thinking "ah, the Saint is looking at me" but how can this be? how can the saint be simultaneously looking at everyone at once?.  Each person is seeing their absolutely relative moment of time.

Because the absolute truth transcends time and space, it is beyond the bounds of our relative conception.

There is a saying in sanskrit Vedanta philosophy "acintya bhedaabheda
tattva" which translates to "The truth is inconceivably one and different"

subarashii desu ne.

"Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself"

David.


----- Original Message -----
From: "William Yong" <will_yong@yahoo.co.uk>

Hey David,
Sorry I wasnt so responsive yesterday - I was half way through writing this when you signed off.

 ....I guess though that when we get caught up in
 analysing the relations that bring things into being
 we find that there are an infinite number and thus no
 fact can ever be pinned down. dualities are only the
 beginning of the spinning out from the centre, the
 oneness that lies at the source of things - IS the
 source of things. If we get too caught up in what is
 and what is not I think we must lose a sense of simply
 being. I guess this is one motivation behind
 asceticism.
    So you have a sitar - does this mean that you've
 been to India by any chance? I'm very interested in
 visiting an Ashram that my friend knows this winter
 and love to talk India with you...
    My summer plans are being thrown into confusion by
 my half brother's wedding in Iran in August which my
 other brothers may also be going to. though it would
 be nice for my mum to have all four of us together in
 the motherland I really want to go to this temple too.
 Decisions decisions...

 ok. catch you online another time.

 peace be with you my brother,

 W i l l

The return of the blogger

Hello All, after much delay, I have decided to keep up the postings at this location. Nearly 8 months have past since my previous post and I have seen the winter come and go, the snow melt, the cherry blossoms bloom and fall and the hot summer come again. Today is hot and humid, the rice paddies are lush, green and fragrant. The smell of fresh rice growing, the sweet, musky fragrance, is something uniquely japanese I think. I'm on summer vacation at present though I attend school everyday. The staffroom is air-conditioned and I have my laptop to keep me occupied. Later this week I will visit Hiroshima and see the Atomic Bomb Peace Park - should be interesting.
Happy to report my sitar arrived recently, safe and sound from NZ. The kind people at the Space Station took care of all the ship and transport requirements and got it over to me here. I've recently purchased two new study books to assist in my sitar practice and am enjoying playing it everyday.
It's hard to believe a year has past since my first coming to Japan. Time certainly flies. The older one gets, the shorter the years become. But I am happy. I have another year lined up on JET though I'm looking forward to returning home to NZ next year in August. A number of my friends here in Japan have recently returned to their home countries as their yearly contracts expire. A little sad but there's a new wave of peoples to see and meet too so that keeps it interesting. It's a great place to meet people from all around the world and I have been diligently keeping a contact book of all my new friends who gather in Japan from various countries. Perhaps one day, I'll visit and look them up.
They say the second year is most interesting. This may be true. I have had a year to grow accustomed to the bizarre ways and workings of life here in Japan and now I don't really batt an eyelid and things that suprised me when I arrived. It's basic psychology, they call it 'habituation' - a decreased reaction is response to a repeated stimulus. To an extent, it's learning too, as I have experienced new information, my knowledge has grown through experience and I have accumulated a number of valuable little moments which I can ponder.
Also my knowledge of Japanese has increased significantly to the extent that I can make reasonable conversation and understand what's going on.
I find myself in a general philosophical state of mind (what's new!) over here. I contemplate the pursuit of happiness by the various peoples and the relativity of the here and now. There is so much going on, it's beautiful and mysterious. I like to respect each individuals way of being - to develop a relationship of love and non-judgement. There is a balance to be found in the here and now, poised between the continuity of infinite space and eternal time, a balance where the mind is a dynamic equilibrium in a perfect relationship with the supreme living being that is God of Mother Nature or whatever you like to call it - the Universe. And in that relationship exists the infinite joy of existence, devoid of attachment and longing, the perfect experience of paradoxical simplicity - it's good to be human.