tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59382058402674259322024-03-17T02:28:55.552+08:00The Bright SideJennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.comBlogger850125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-10297329619646784682022-01-21T16:21:00.007+08:002022-01-21T16:21:00.178+08:00How Women Lead<p><i>More results of email archaeology...</i></p><p>How Women Lead by Sharon Hadary and Laura
Henderson should be required reading for all female managers, although the name
is rather misleading. This book is not so much about how women lead (although
the first chapter does pay tribute to their strengths as managers), but about
how they should lead. It is chockfull of practical advice about things that
male managers seem to know instinctively, but most female managers either don’t
know, or are too diffident to put into practice, for fear of seeming too
forward.</p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It’s time to throw off the shackles, the
authors, say. Learn to promote and position yourself. Always be aware of your
worth to the company (in fact, calculate it, and if you don’t know how,
learn!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep a stock of all your
contributions, put a dollar value on it and during your annual review, have it
at hand when you’re discussing your progress and promotion and exactly what
kind of raise you are looking for.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Even if you’re very good at doing the
technical stuff, upskill to learning how to handle other people doing the
technical stuff. And above all, don’t micro-manage. …and …point out that for
most female managers, micro managing ends up being the killer:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">One of women’s strengths is their
commitment to providing quality products and services. Conversely, one of the
things that can hold them back is believing that the best way to ensure this
level of quality is to stay personally involved in every aspect of the
day-to-day operations, they point out. Resist the temptation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“When you stay involved at that level, you
end up doing so many things that you are not doing any of them well and no one
is leading the integration of all parts. The result is that you become the
greatest barrier to the growth and success of your project or function,” they
say.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">And while literature may be rife with the
“fickleness” of women, according to this book, one of their main drawbacks in
career advancement, is being too loyal to a company, because it’s been good to
them. They stay even when there’s nothing more to be learned or nowhere to grow
into. Know when to leave, is a crucial piece of advice. But, when leaving, you
should not just be looking at your new renumeration package. You should
investigate the new company’s culture to see if it’s a fit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">And as for remuneration, here’ the two
authors say a little bit of outside help never hurt. If you don’t know what the
industry average is for your new position, or what kind of value you will be
bringing into the new company, get the help of an expert to calculate it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Another thing is personal branding. Many
women toss off emails lightly without bothering to check or edit, not realizing
that a little mistake goes a long way towards branding them. Or their phone
manner. Did you know that your physical appearance and voice account for 93% of
that first impression, and that first impressions stick? Which means your
content is only worth 7% of what people think of you. Sad, but true.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The authors recommend that you spend as
much as you can possibly afford on quality clothes. Men understand this and
dress for the part. It’s a lot harder for women, as there are too many choices
available. Go for a balance between sexy and dowdy, if you expect to be taken
seriously. Too sexy, they will be looking at you but not listening, and too
dowdy, well, they will neither look nor listen. And invest in the services of a
really good hairdresser.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Basically the book is divided into eight chapters, each with a
crucial pointer for women in their journey as managers. At first you will be
tempted to think that it is just another wishy-washy tome, advocating woo woo strengths
like “intuition” and bringing “motherhood” to bear on the job.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span>But it doesn’t. The advice comes straight from the gut from women who
have made it to the top and it’s very practical. For instance in the chapter on
self promotion, it tells women to push themselves forward for awards (feminine
modesty be damned), put themselves out there to make speeches (even detailing
the four core speeches that can be prepared and adapted to the four main
audiences they will be called to give speeches to), get a sponsor within the
company (who knows your strengths and will bear you in mind the next time there
is an opening higher up), several mentors…the list goes on.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span>It points out that doing the best work that you can, and expecting
to get recognized based on merit, is old hat and frankly, it doesn’t work.
You’ve got to put yourself forward. Men, by some strange instinct, or maybe old
boy’s club mentoring, seem to understand that. Women don’t. It’s time they did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Many of the suggestions will feel uncomfortable, but the more
uncomfortable, apparently, the better. One of the main suggestions in the book
is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This is not a book for the
fainthearted. If you’re contented with being where you are and moving up the
corporate ladder, slowly if at all, don’t bother with it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span>But if you’re determined to make it up there, this book will help
you. Note that it does not advocate sleeping your way to the top (advice on
inter-office affairs? Don't!), backstabbing or office politics. Every
suggestion will require a great deal of homework, and work. But if you’re tired
of being overlooked,), watching your male colleagues trip up that ladder gaily,
while you stay behind and make their coffee, this is the book for you.</p><br /><p></p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-76042078266750844862022-01-20T16:01:00.001+08:002022-01-20T16:01:19.010+08:00How to sell financial services to women<p> I have left my old job. And as I am clearing out the trash (actually and metaphorically and doing some email archaeology) I came across old articles which I would like to put some place because I thought them interesting. And useful.</p><p>So here:</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">If you read “How to give financial advice
to women” by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury you will be left with the irrepressible notion
that women have finally arrived. For such a book to be written, delving deeply
into the psychology of women and how they communicate and how they prefer to be
served and sold to, one can only assume that it must finally be worth the
trouble.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It is. Kingsbury prefaces the book by making
the business case. She is not going to tell male (or female) financial
advisors, that they’d better bone up on “attentive listening”, an art in
itself, if she doesn’t have the numbers to justify the effort.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Over the next 40 years in the US, she says
women are due to inherit 70% of the US$41 trillion in intergenerational wealth
transfers, or approximately US$28.7 trillion in assets. And the first thing
they will do when they have inherited this wealth, is fire their present
advisor. Why? Because most advisors have neither taken the time to know them or
to study how best to reach out/relate to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Men, she says, are competitive by nature.
Show them a bunch of charts to prove how your investment outperforms the index
and they’re happy. Whip out the same bunch of charts with a woman at the start,
and you may lose her as a client.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Her definition of success is not about
winning and losing against the market, but on how well her portfolio performed
in conjunction with her long-term life goals and objectives. He wants to win.
She wants to survive and thrive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Recently the Boston Consulting Group
surveyed 12,000 women from 21 countries for its Global Inquiry into Women and
Consumerism study and discovered women are most dissatisfied with the financial
services industry, of all industries, on both a service and product level. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The financial services industry, Kingsbury
points out, was created by men to serve the male wealth creator; therefore it
is no wonder that women feel left out. They were and still are.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Approximately 80% of financial advisors,
90% of brokers and 84% of financial corporate officers are men. The industry’s
best practices, marketing strategies, selling tactics, and investing protocols
were and still are developed primarily using a male’s brain which thinks, acts
and behaves differently than the female’s brain. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This misconception leads advisors to miss
the boat when prospecting and advising women. The traditional transaction
business model commonly used in financial services does not meet a woman’s
social or neurological need for connection. Instead, a woman wants an ongoing
coaching relationship with her financial advisor. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“She wants a professional who understands
her first and sells to her second,” Kingsbury emphasizes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Women are looking for female-friendly
advisors to help them receive, build and pass on wealth. These advisors need to
be knowledgeable, credentialed and competent. They must possess communication
and relationship-building skills specifically designed for working with female
clients. In addition, they must understand a woman’s need to build trust
slowly, to be emotionally validated by her advisor and to be able to share her
story as part of the financial planning process.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Sound like a tall order? Not if you think
about what you, as a financial advisor, stand to gain. Or lose. Some fun facts:
Women control the majority of personal wealth in the US. They make
approximately 80% of family household buying decisions, including those related
to banking and financial services. Of affluent women, 88% are moderately or
highly involved in the oversight and management of their assets, one in five
firms with revenue of US$1 million or more is woman-owned, the economic impact
from women-owned businesses is US$2.8 trillion annually.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Kingsbury goes to lengths to spell out the
psychology of women, how they think, feel and operate. She even maps out the
differences in how the male and female brains work. If you think about it, the discovery
of the differences is pretty recent, as late as the 1980s. Before that, male
and female brains were thought to operate in the same way. Just like
pre-Rousseau, children were considered miniature adults and childhood was not
recognised as a separate state.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">At the end of each chapter, she provides,
little exercises for you to assess how female-friendly your practice is, how
you define wealth, how you can use/adapt your present strengths for this
market.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">She even provides dialogues, a kind of what
to do, and what not to do. Some of the conversations may appear tedious, and
overly careful and I can imagine men rolling their eyes – no, you don’t whip
out a solution when she presents a problem; first you listen, then you affirm
her feelings without belittling her or her concerns, and then you both put your
heads together and try to figure out a solution. It takes about five times
longer than dealing with a man. And she is very detail-oriented. A desk without
photographs, for instance, may raise eyebrows because it stays something about
you.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">When I shared ideas from this book with my
colleagues, most of them said women here (in Malaysia) want to be treated the
same as men. They want the charts, the “let’s not waste time making small talk
but get on with it” attitude, but I wondered, for how much longer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">If men and women relate differently
naturally and as women become more economically empowered, they will start
asking for services that are skewed towards their natural predilections. And as
Kingsbury says, don’t make the mistake of thinking that packaging will do the
trick. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">What are the rules for navigating the
female world? They are many and complicated. But Kingsbury gives you six.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Firstly, women need to tell their story. If
you want her as a client, you are going to have to learn to listen, ask
curious, open-ended questions. Second, women tend to get personal quickly.
Three, women communicate using feeling words. (“She will do most of the talking
and emoting; you just need to listen, validate her feelings and show empathy.”)
Women define success as being “indispensable”. They love to help and be seen as
the go-to person for assistance. Men typically prefer to be independent and
define success in terms of doing it alone.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The fifth rule is that women tend to
remember details and read body language. Making eye contact, communicating
interest through nonverbal communication and paying attention to details are
very important in the female culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And finally, the last rule is that women are loyal. If you have secured
her as a client, she is likely to not only stay with you, but refer you to more
friends, family members and colleagues than your male clients. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The second half of the book takes you
through actual conversations and exercises. If you don’t think the female
market is worth your while, here’s where you would stop reading. But if you are
looking to capture this not-so-niche market, you would probably do well to
study this book carefully, read it several times, take notes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Oh yes, and for crying out loud, put some
photographs on your desk.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-30611652406130083782021-10-10T17:25:00.002+08:002022-10-22T12:58:05.512+08:00Philosophy as a Way of Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIVFW_gq1SAfzGQUvXcML6p3W-d03giexbzpsHIu_PfgR5N83_dL3R5fcgdvMiijVJE2PjWr5cRBNmMSlisgujs9NjCSMc7fXzHfWW4LvMQfMnU2KE49l_-r4W4TuKa5LhuUS3rKBkJpQJ/s1600/Philo-Judaeus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1306" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIVFW_gq1SAfzGQUvXcML6p3W-d03giexbzpsHIu_PfgR5N83_dL3R5fcgdvMiijVJE2PjWr5cRBNmMSlisgujs9NjCSMc7fXzHfWW4LvMQfMnU2KE49l_-r4W4TuKa5LhuUS3rKBkJpQJ/s320/Philo-Judaeus.jpg" width="261"></a></div><br><p>Every person -- whether Greek or Barbariian -- who <i>is in training for wisdom</i>, leading a blameless, irreproachable life, chooses neither to commit injustice nor return ihbhbt unto others, but to avoid the company of busybodies, and hold in contempt the places where they spend their time -- courts, councils, marketplaces, assemblies -- in short, every kind of meeting or reunion of thoughtless people. As their goal is a life of peace and serenity, they contemplate nature and everything found within her: they attentively explore the earth, the sea, the air, the sky, and every nature found therein. In thought, they accompany the moon, the sun, and the rotations of the other stars, whether fixed or wandering. Their bodies remain on earth, but they give wings to their souls, so that, rising into the ether, they may observe the powers which dwell there, as is fitting for those who have truly become citizens of the world. Such people consider the whole world as their city, and its citizens are the companions of wisdom; they have received their civic rights from virtue, which has been entrusted with presiding over the universal commonwealth. Thus, filled with every excellence, they are accustomed no longer to take account of physical discomforts or exterior evils, and they train themselves to be indifferent to indifferent things; they are armed against both pleasures and desires, and, in short, they always strive to keep themselves above passions...they do not give in under the blows of fate, because they have calculated its attacks in advance (for foresight makes easier to bear even the most difficult of the things that happen to be strange and novel, but its perception of them is dulled, as if it had to do with old and worn-out things). It is obvious that people such as these, those who find their joy in virtue, celebrate a festival their whole life long. To be sure, there is only a small number of such people; they are like embers of wisdom kept smouldering in our cities, so that virtue may not be altogether snuffed out and disappear from our race. But if only people everywhere felt the same way as this small number, and became as nature meant for them to be: blameless, irreproachable, and <i>lovers of wisdom</i>, rejoicing in the beautiful just because it <i>is</i> beautiful, and considering that there is no other good besides it...then our cities would be brimful of happiness. They would know nothing of the things that cause grief and fear, but would be so filled with the causes of joy and well-being that there would be no single moment in which they would not lead a life full of joyful laughter; indeed, the whole cycle of the year would be a festival for them.</p><p>Philo of Alexandria (Jewish philosopher)</p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-51148709381025618442021-01-17T03:35:00.003+08:002021-01-17T03:35:58.043+08:00Life is messy<p> Oh my, its Jan 17 and I have not updated this for three whole days. That's more than just a slip tween cup and lip.</p><p>I could argue that I have been busy with work, but really, it's because my sleeping patterns have all gone awry.</p><p>But yesterday was a very productive day. I met Sue-Ann for a shop (she advised me on shopping healthy and what to look for), I took Jinny for her second booster shot (three shots and she has been properly vaccinated for the year after which I have to schedule her spaying). And while I was at the vet, I managed to get my car battery changed and my air con fluid topped up. </p><p>I came back to make myself a super healthy lunch (who would have thought that my problem with food was that I was actually starving myself with food that was high in sugar, low in any sort of nutrients?) Listening to a podcast on Happiness And How To Get It I realised that I have to add a lot more to my food rather than subtract. If I have low leptin levels its because my body is starving. If I want to become healthier, it has to be a lifestyle change rather than a quick fix. Well, I'm trying to keep up the walking (yeah, I do slip here as well) and the meditating (slip even more here), but life's a mess, I'm a mess and I get by the best I can.</p><p>When I watch these Korean shows, I marvel and how they never have a hair out of place. Everything is always just so.</p><p>As far as I can remember, I've never been neat and well turned out and just so.</p><p>Maybe that should be my task for the year.</p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-30248423642963652021-01-13T19:26:00.005+08:002021-01-13T20:10:31.015+08:00Musings despite closing late which does not accord with my sense of what is fit and just in the world<p>It is 19.13 in the evening of a Wednesday, our first day of lockdown. I haven't gone anywhere and I woke up rather late (relatively) because I went to bed at about 3am this morning. Maybe 4. I was struggling through my cover story (but thank God, I had someone on the other end of the line helping me, working out the knotty problems with the tech bits etc).</p><p>Waking up, I moved around in a fog, aware that I had to feed the cats (Sheba had already thrown up magnificently in the study room, a sign that her breakfast was late), clean up the puke, have my breakfast, clean up the kitty litter...before I could really start my day.</p><p>I'm reading Yiyun Li's memoir right now: "Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life", which is apparently a quote from Katherine Mansfield's diaries. She has a thing for diaries. I love the book. It is her only memoir, written to try and understand her own depression, and I wonder how she feels revisiting this memoir, in the light of her 16-year-old son killing himself. <br /></p><p>But the book is very compelling. I came across Li through a New Yorker article she wrote where she said if she stopped smiling, she would have to weep. And the tears would never end. How does it feel when you put away those feelings, knowing they are there, waiting to leap out at you, when you least expect it?</p><p>My pullout is not closed -- mainly because of me and the cover I took so long to write, the one where I struggled through every word. And at the last minute, I have had to put something in, which means the closing has been delayed even further. Oh well.</p><p>What I can say is, I have been listening to various free podcasts on Audible (Mel Robbins' <i>Start Here</i> and Mary-Ann Ochota and Charlie George's <i>Happiness and How to Get it </i>and yesterday I listened to the last podcast of the series on brain food and realised that my dietary habits are terrible. I decided to mix it up today and have nutritionally rich food, so I got take-out from Salad Atelier - with runny eggs and wasabi honey and brown rice and salmon and a whole host of vegetables - and it tasted so good - and after the meal I didn't feel bloated or awful. I'm still quietly full now - think I'll just have a cup of tea before bed -- also since I can't order any food now as Grab Food closes at 7 with the lockdown rules).</p><p>I will take more advantage of this lockdown than I did of the last one. I shall plan a menu and order some really healthy food for me to put together. I shall read more books. I shall do my daily complement of steps.</p><p>(It's 19.24 right now and I've done 7,516 for the day, which is not too bad - three quarters of the day is gone after all, and I've done three quarters of the steps - just one more walk up and down the apartment and I'll be done).</p><p>Life is really what you bring to it, isn't it?</p><p>Later that day: Almost closed. Kenneth messed with my quote. But have asked for it to be corrected.</p><p>Still later: Still not closed yet. (It's 19.51 now)</p><p>It's 20.08 and I have discovered that I cannot order groceries online because there are no more spots available. Also, Pathma says her aunt picked up Covid from shopping at Giant and she asked us to be careful when going to the supermarkets. </p><p>Sigh.</p><p>Well, OK then.</p><p>Still not closed. But nearly. Have looked at all the stories.</p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-58968439572540157972021-01-12T20:03:00.001+08:002021-01-12T20:03:03.135+08:00Benevolent Magic and Living Prayer for Covid-19 specifically<p>From Robert Shapiro's blog, Benevolent Magic: </p><p>https://benevolentmagic.blogspot.com/2020/06/covid-19-and-magics.html</p><p>With regards to Covid-19 specifically:</p><p><b><u>Benevolent Magic (say out loud)</u></b></p><p>I request that my immune system be strengthened n a daily basis until I am able to function in my world in a more benevolent way for me now -- resulting in the most benevolent outcome.</p><p><b><u>Living Prayer (say out loud)</u></b></p><p>I am asking that all peoples on this planet experience a surge in the effectiveness of their immune systems and that this results in the most benevolent outcome for them all.</p><p><br /></p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-714375778715197142021-01-11T00:00:00.010+08:002021-01-11T00:00:04.741+08:00Using living prayer to help with the pandemic<p>I am asking that all those beings in the countries affected by the pandemic who are experiencing the effects of Covid-19 receive all the help they need right now from all those beings who can help them.</p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-28940664969915119412021-01-10T00:30:00.198+08:002021-10-08T21:02:30.623+08:00Victory Lap<p> I love Anne Lamott, How can anyone have read <i>Bird by Bird</i> and not?</p><p>So this year, as I picked up one of her books which had been on my shelves for about a year and started reading, I thought, hey why don't I share it here with you? This excerpt is the prelude to her book, <i>Small Victories</i>:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZcWxQwkc6F8txIVQ682H4UkHhoSyzOFtEwSXiJ7JcEryN_2fk6VIF7msGs7mTbvJOmChkEkKA16FP3GcCp-Jik6iKRAXxi_89As3lNSGUGwyz4djdsT2DIg5T3pKo2nNUzpPSgVhHjf4y/s2048/Muir+Woods.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1714" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZcWxQwkc6F8txIVQ682H4UkHhoSyzOFtEwSXiJ7JcEryN_2fk6VIF7msGs7mTbvJOmChkEkKA16FP3GcCp-Jik6iKRAXxi_89As3lNSGUGwyz4djdsT2DIg5T3pKo2nNUzpPSgVhHjf4y/s320/Muir+Woods.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>The worst possible thing you can do when you're down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you.</p><p>First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors' reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living and doing as much as they can, as well as they can, for as long as they can.</p><p>They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgement you wallow in, without the decency to come out and just say anything. They bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom.</p><p>My friend Barbara had already been living with Lou Gehrig's disease for two years on the spring morning of our Muir Woods hike. She had done and tried everything to stem the tide of deterioration, and you would think, upon seeing her with a fancy four-wheeled walker, needing an iPad-based computer voice named Kate to speak for her, that the disease was having its way. And this would be true, except that besides having ALS, Barbara had her breathtaking mind, a joyously bottomless thirst for nature, and Susie.</p><p>Susie, her girlfriend of thirty years, gave her an unfair advantage over the rest of us. We could all be great, if we had Susie. We could be heroes.</p><p>Barbara was the executive director of Breast Cancer Action, the bad girls of breast cancer, a grassroots advocacy group with a distinctly bad attitude toward the pink-ribbon approach. Susie was her ballast, and I had spoken to her of their galas and fund-raisers over the years. Barbara and Susie were about the same height, with very short dark hair. They looked like your smartest cousins, with the beauty of friendly, intelligent engagement and good nature.</p><p>Barbara's face was set now, almost as a mask, like something the wind is blowing hard against, and she'd lost a lot of weight, so you could see the shape of her animal, and bones and branches and humanity. Yet she still had a smile that got you every time, not a flash of high wattage white teeth, but the beauty of low-watt, the light that comes in through the bottom branches; sweet, peaceful, wry.</p><p>We set off. She was our lead duck, our cycling leader -- the only person on wheels sussing up what lay before us at the trailhead, watching the path carefully because her life depended on it. Susie walked ever so slightly behind. I walked behind, in the slipstream.</p><p>Even on the path that leads through these woods, you feel the wildness. The trees are so huge that they shut you up. They are like mythical horse flanks and elephant skins -- exuding such life and energy that their stillness makes you suspect they're playing Red Light, Green Light.</p><p>The three of us had lunch in town two months earlier, before the feeding tube, before Kate. Barbara used the walker, which looked like a tall, compact shopping cart, but moved at a normal pace. She still ate with a fork, not a feeding tube, and spoke, although so softly that sometimes I had to turn to Susie for translation. Barbara talked about her wellness blog, her need for supplemental nutrition. Breath, nutrition, voice; breath, nutrition, voice. (She posted a list on her blog from time to time, of all the things she could still do, most recently "enjoy the hummingbirds; sleep with my sweetie. Speak out for people with breast cancer.")</p><p>Now she is silent. When she wants to talk, she can type words on her iPad that Kate will then speak with efficient warmth. Or she can rest in silence. She knows that even this diminished function and doability will be taken one day at a time. When you are on the knife's edge -- when nobody knows exactly what is going to happen next, only that it will be worse -- you take in today. So here we were, at the trailhead, for a cold day's walk.</p><p>I'm a fast walker; because my dad has long legs and I learned to keep up, but today a walk with Barbara was like Mother May I? May I take a thousand baby steps? Barbara seemed by her look of concentration to align herself with all the particles here in the looming woods, so she could be as present and equal as possible. She couldn't bother with saying anything unimportant, because she had to type it first. This relieved all of us from making crazy chatter.</p><p>This is a musical grove. The redwoods are like organ pipes, playing silent chords. Susie pointed out birds she knew and moved a few obstacles on our route, as Barbara rolled on, Susie is the ultimate support, a weight-bearing wall. She's not "I am doing wondrous things," but simply helping both herself and Barbara be comfortable in the duo of them. She has lots of sly humour, but no gossipy edge, except in a pinch.</p><p>I have been to Muir Woods hundreds of times in my life, from my earliest days. This was where my family brought visitors. I got lost there at four, amid the crowds, but it was different fifty years ago. For the parents, a missing child was scary, yet you did not assume the child was dead. I was always afraid, lost or not. I got lost so often -- once for more than half an hour among sixteen thousand people at the Grand National Rodeo -- that until I was seven, I had notes pinned to my coats, little cards of introduction, with my name and phone numbers: If found, please return, as if I were a briefcase. I have gotten lost all of my life, maybe more than most, and been found every time. Even though I believe that the soul is immortal and grace bats last, I'm afraid because Barbara is going to die, and Susie will be all alone. </p><p>I love Wendell Berry's lines that "it may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."</p><p>The day was so cold that for once Muir Woods did not smell of much; heat brings out stronger smells, but today was crisply delicious. We walked along the path like kids moving as slowly as one humanly can.</p><p>We rounded the first curve, <i>vrrroom</i>. Susie and I spoke of nothing in particular. Barbara pointed to her ear, and we stopped to listen. to the tinkle of the creek, and all the voices of the water. There was the interplay of birdsong and people song and the creek's conversation, as if it had a tongue, saying. "Keep going, we'll all just keep on going. You can't stop me or anything else, anyway." Every sound is by definition a stop, which is how we can hear it.</p><p>We were walking in the step with Barbara, as she held on to her conveyance, and I felt myself tae on all the qualities that Barbara brought to the day, a fraught joy and awareness. There was a frozen music in the giant redwoods, like a didgeridoo. The trees looked like they were wearing skirts of burl and new growth. I asked Barbara and Susie, "When you flip the skirts up, what do you get?" Barbara pointed to the answer: a tree that had toppled over -- roots covered with moss and what looked like mossy corral., very octopus-like. Some tree trunks had roots wrapped up and around them, muscular in their skirts, with many knees, and some burl seats for anyone who needed to sit.</p><p>The trees looked congregational. As we walked beneath the looming green world, pushing out its burls and sprouts, I felt a moment's panic at the thought of Barbara's impending death, and maybe also my own. We are all going to die! That's just so awful. I didn't agree to this. How do we live in the face of this? Left foot, right foot, push the walker forward.</p><p>When my son was six or seven, and realised that he and I were not going to die at the exact same moment, he cried for a little while, and then said that if he'd known this, he wouldn't have agreed to be born.</p><p>Barbara looked at me gently. We studied each other like trees. Her smile was never used to ingratiate herself. This is so rare.</p><p>The ferns looked almost as if they had sprung from an umbrella shaft -- you could click it an cock it, and the spokes would burst forth or could be put away.</p><p>We picked up speed and barrelled around the next corner, going one mile an hour; Susie mentioned that they had to get back to San Francisco for a meeting. The city seemed far away, on another planet, but not as far away as a meeting. We passed a great show of burl in a thick lumpy flow; as if it had been arrested in downward movement, like mud or lava. One burl looked exactly like a bear cub. Ferns and sometimes while redwoods spring from burl. The ferns remind you of pre-history. Dinosaurs hide behind them. They are elegant, tough, and exuberant, like feathers in a woman's hat.</p><p>I asked Barbara, "Are you afraid very often?"</p><p>She shrugged, smiled, stopped to type on her laptop, and hit Send. Kate spoke: "Not today."</p><p>The glossy bay trees are so flexible, unlike some people I could mention (i.e., me) with long horizontal ballet arms. They are light and sun seekers, and when you are in the forest of crazy giants, you might have to do some sudden wild-ass moves, darting through a small slant of space among the giants -- "Oh, wham--sorry--coming through--sorry. Sorry."</p><p>We were nearly to the end of the trail. I've always loved to see the foreigners here in their high heels, speaking Russian, Italian, happy as birds. Maybe they have Saint Petersburg and the Sistine Chapel back home, but we have this cathedral. Who knows what tragedies these happy tourists left behind at home? Into every life crap will fall. Most of us do as well as possible, and some of it works okay, and we try to release that which doesn't and which is never going to. On the list of things she could still do, Barbara included: "Clip my nails with a very large nail clipper, hear songs in my head, enjoy a baseball game, if the Giants or Orioles are winning." Making so much of it work is the grace of it: and not being able to make it work is double grace. Grace squared. Their somehow grounded buoyancy is infectious, so much better than detached martyrdom, which is disgusting.</p><p>This is not what Barbara and Susie signed up for, not at all. Mistakes were made: Their plan was to spend as much time as they could at Yosemite, the theatre, Mendocino, and helping people with breast cancer. But they are willing to redefine themselves, and life and okayness. Redefinition is a nightmare--we think we've arrived, in our nice Pottery Barn boxes, and that this or that is true. Then something happens that totally sucks, and we are in a new box, and it is like changing into clothes that don't fit, that we hate. Yet the essence remains. Essence is malleable, fluid. Everything we lose is Buddhist truth-- one more thing that you don't have to grab with your death grip, and protect from theft or decay. It's gone. We can mourn it, but we don't have to get down in the grave with it.</p><p>Barbara pointed out a bird so tiny that Susie and I didn't see it at first in the fallen branches and duff of the forest floor. It was the only thing moving besides us humans. All of a sudden we saw a tiny jumpy camouflaged creature, heard the teeny tinkly peep. We performed the obeisance of delight. It is so quiet here, as though the trees are sucking up so much sound that anything that can get through them has a crystalline quality.</p><p>A great bay arch across the dirt was our last stop on the way. It was in full curvy stretch, arched all the way over our path, reaching for sun and touching the ground on the other side. I wondered if it would snake along on top of the duff, always following the light. It is nobody's fool. Lithe and sinewy, the branch looked Asian: I guess we're all Pacific Rim on this bus. All of its leaves were gone, as if it had spent its time and life force in the arching. Barbara trundled along up to it, smiled, and made the exact arch with her hand--like, Here's the arch and I'm saluting it, standing beneath i, and now walking through.</p><p><br /></p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-69082631527141992752021-01-09T16:21:00.001+08:002021-01-09T16:21:59.330+08:00Basic humanity and decency lost as hate rules Hong Kong's protest crisis<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/OdLQEjrW7Ts" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-7366548380121424302021-01-08T18:31:00.001+08:002021-01-08T18:31:03.665+08:00Books I read in 2020I missed out a day yesterday. I spent the morning at the hospital trying to get my father's prescription renewed and then collecting his medicine and then registering to have said meds delivered in the future. I spent a lot of time standing around waiting and trying to find the different places I was supposed to go.<div><br></div><div>Long and short, I was too tired to care about much after. Came home to take a shower and then sleep. </div><div><br></div><div>But every time I fall, I pick myself up and go gamely on. At least I hope I do. </div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, today I thought I would share the list of books I read last year. Why? I dunno. Thought it would be interesting. And I'd like to have a record somewhere.</div><div><br></div><div>1. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)</div><div><br></div><div>2. Gingerbread (Helen Oyeyemi)</div><div><br></div><div>3. Miss Buncle's Book (D. E. Stevenson)</div><div><br></div><div>4. On Writers and Writing (Margaret Atwood)</div><div><br></div><div>5. Ten Minutes, 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Elif Shafak)</div><div><br></div><div>6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Alan Bradley)</div><div><br></div><div>7. Hanging Man (Barnaby Martin)</div><div><br></div><div>8. The Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (Jackie Copleton)</div><div><br></div><div>9. Icefields (Thomas Wharton)</div><div><br></div><div>10. The Bookshop of the Brokenhearted (Robert Hillman)</div><div><br></div><div>11. The Awakening of Miss Prim (Natalie Sanmartin Fenollera)</div><div><br></div><div>12. A Very Special Year (Thomas Montasser)</div><div><br></div><div>13. Seven Letters from Paris (Samantha Verant)</div><div><br></div><div>14. Sing, Unburied, Sing (Jesmyn Ward)</div><div><br></div><div>15. The Professor (Charlotte Bronte)</div><div><br></div><div>16. The Humane Economy (Wayne Pacelle)</div><div><br></div><div>17. Many Lives, Many Masters (Brian Weiss)</div><div><br></div><div>18. A Tea Reader: Living life one cup at a time (compiled and edited by Katrina Avila Munichiello) </div><div><br></div><div>19. The Trumpet-Major (Thomas Hardy) </div><div><br></div><div>20. Flow (Mihaly Cziksenmihalyi)</div><div><br></div><div>21.. The Post Office Girl (Stefan Zweig)</div><div><br></div><div>22. Shine (Andy Copes and Gavin Oattes)</div><div><br></div><div>23. What Are You Afraid Of? (Dr David Jeremiah)</div><div><br></div><div>24. On Writing Well (William Zinsser)</div><div><br></div><div>25. Under The Greenwood Tree (Thomas Hardy)</div><div><br></div><div>26. Blowing Zen (Ray Brooks)</div><div><br></div><div>27. Reading Like A Writer (Francine Prose)</div><div><br></div><div>28. The Corpse Walker (Liao Yiwu)</div><div><br></div><div>29. The Lotus and the Robot (Arthur Koestler)</div><div><br></div><div>30. Flaneuse (Lauren Elkin)</div><div><br></div><div>31. Talk like TED (Carmine Gallo)</div><div><br></div><div>32. God is Red (Liao Yiwu)</div><div><br></div><div>33. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (Donald Robertson)</div><div><br></div><div>34. Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)</div><div><br></div><div>35. Confessions of a Bookseller (Shaun Bythell)</div><div><br></div><div>36. Sun-Catcher (Romesh Gunasekara)</div><div><br></div><div>37. Miracle at Higher Grounds Cafe (Max Lucado)</div><div><br></div><div>38. Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (Jules Evans)</div><div><br></div><div>39. Henri Cartier Bresson -- A Biography (Pierre Assouline)</div><div><br></div><div>40. A River Sutra (Gita Mehta)</div><div><br></div><div>41. The Morning They Came For Us (Janine di Giovanni)</div><div><br></div><div>42. With the End in Mind (Kathryn Mannix)</div><div><br></div><div>43. A Sentimental Education (Gustave Flaubert)</div><div><br></div><div>44. The Idiot (Elif Batuman)</div><div><br></div><div>45. Honour (Elif Shafak)</div><div><br></div><div>46. Must I Go? (Yiyun Li)</div><div><br></div><div>47. A Life Discarded (Alexander Masters)</div><div><br></div><div>48. Before The Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi)</div><div><br></div><div>49. Dr Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)</div><div><br></div><div>50. Once Upon A River (Diane Setterfield) </div>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-20256440901060076522021-01-06T19:04:00.001+08:002021-01-06T19:04:12.661+08:00UpdateI know it's not quite a week, but it's been a good week so far. I sleep when I need to, eat when I'm hungry and have managed to walk 10,000 steps every day this year so far. <div><br></div><div>While I walk, I listen to Mel Robbins' Start Here, 20 talks to improve your life. If you've got a monthly subscription at Audible, you can download this for free, and believe me, it is worth downloading.</div><div>I'm now listening to it for the second time around.</div><div><br></div><div>I realise that the thing that steals most of my time and turns me into a slug is binging on Netflix. Those Korean dramedies which are super addictive and more than an hour an episode. So I need to come up with a way to manage that. </div><div><br></div><div>Most importantly, I need to find a way to motivate myself and keep keeping on, even when I see no progress. </div><div><br></div><div>Wish me luck! </div>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-24963154671819517522021-01-05T00:30:00.327+08:002021-01-05T18:26:37.998+08:00The River Sutra<p> I first read this book in the 1990s and stupidly I lent out my only copy (I don't even remember to whom) and never got it back. After that it seemed to go out of print and I couldn't find it. Last year, I stumbled upon it at BookXcess and I bought a couple of copies and stupidly, gave both out as presents, confident that I could find another copy as this bookshop seemed to have numerous. When I returned, scarcely a month later, I couldn't find any. It had run out. Of course it had. This was such a good book. I ordered a copy at full price on Book Depository only to find the last copy there on my next visit. I bought that too and have it stored away to give as a present, but only to someone who will appreciate it. </p><p>Here, I share my favourite chapter from the book. </p><p>-----------</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraNrWD-X9iMNx3EpC_eHgTsD5PoXt0Tl1I5h4d8BBWeHItJYyAhbwNeTQ-dMfPwQGhyZURcbCXDSXjumUXfih0QcAuNfmruGyOHnFWCfZX_qw6gj2Fixd4XKs_ZmTKHjLvknRY3GMEwMk/s320/Music.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraNrWD-X9iMNx3EpC_eHgTsD5PoXt0Tl1I5h4d8BBWeHItJYyAhbwNeTQ-dMfPwQGhyZURcbCXDSXjumUXfih0QcAuNfmruGyOHnFWCfZX_qw6gj2Fixd4XKs_ZmTKHjLvknRY3GMEwMk/s0/Music.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><b><u>The Musician's Story</u></b></p><p>It is hard to be the child of genius.</p><p>Even when I was very small, not yet three years old, I was aware that my father dwelt in some other sphere as if he had struck a bargain with God that took him outside human boundaries.</p><p>No one stopped me when I lay on the floor outside his music room because I never made a sound as his fingers moved across the frets of his veena forming shapes in the air, a whole architecture of sound that I could walk through and around, so substantial when I listened that I believed it would last for a thousand years.</p><p>I always wondered as a child, where did such beauty go? Which audience of spirits sat waiting for the sounds to rearrange themselves into arches, vaults, balconies, spires, domes that they could inhabit? But I could not ask my father. He was surrounded by musicians, their silent applause flowing around him as impassable as deep water as they listened to his genius taking him toward some unknown dimension on the ladder of music that he was constructing so painstakingly with his veena.</p><p>Whenever I tried to approach my father, that sea of adulation closed like water over my head before I was able to reach the smiling figure glancing at me with indifferent interest as if I were a pi-dog puppy who had wandered into his music room. I don't think it could be said of my father that he was sensitive to the presence of other human beings unless they intruded on his music, so he never noticed me. But he noticed my despair.</p><p>You see, despair is an emotion, and the emotions were like shoals of brilliant fish swimming through his melodies. Or coloured gases floating through the ether in which his music dwelt.</p><p>To the entire household's astonishment, when I was six years old my father, who had never accepted a student from all the great musicians who had begged to sit at his feet, stretched out his hand, making a bridge for me to cross the gulf of praise that separated us, and offered to teach me music.</p><p>My first music lesson extended for several months. In all that time I was not permitted to touch an instrument. I was not even permitted to sing the seven notes of the scale: the <i>sa</i>, <i>re</i>, <i>ga</i>, <i>ma</i>, <i>pa</i>, <i>dha</i>, <i>ni </i>that are the <i>do</i>, <i>re</i>, <i>mi</i>, <i>fa</i>, <i>so</i>, <i>la</i>, <i>ti</i> of western music.</p><p>Instead my father made me sit next to him in the evenings as the birds were alighting on the trees.</p><p>"Listen," he said in a voice so hushed it was as if he was praying. "Listen to the birds singing. Do you hear the half notes and microtones pouring from their throats? If I practiced for ten lifetimes I could not reproduce that careless waterfall of sound and sshh...listen closely."</p><p>I tried to imitate him, bending forward in my chair. "Hear? How that song ended on a single note when the bird settled into the tree? The greatest ragas must end like that, leaving just one note's vibration on the air."</p><p>I nodded in enthusiasm, hoping to please him, but he did not see me. "Do you know why birds sing at dawn and at sunset? Because of the changing light. Their songs are a spontaneous response to the beauty of the world. That is truly music."</p><p>Then he told me that he would die happy if he were able to create such music five or ten times in a whole lifetime.</p><p>"Men are fools," my father said as we walked in the jungles behind our house. "They think only humans respond to beauty. But a feeding deer will drop its food to listen to music, and a king cobra sway its hood in pleasure. Listen. Do you hear that peacock's cry? It is the first note of the scale. <i>Sa</i>."</p><p>Standing under the trees we waited to hear the peacocks cry again, and when they did my father's voice echoed them and the peacocks fell silent, listening.</p><p>It seemed to me that we were wandering only for pleasure in the fields around our house or in the jungles. I did not realise my father was teaching me the seven notes of the scale as described in the classic texts.</p><p>But at sunset we waited until the cowherds were driving their cattle back to their villages and my father said, "Can you hear that calf calling its mother? It is the note -- <i>re</i>."</p><p>We watched my mother throwing vegetable peelings to the goats in our back field. "Hear the goats? If you sing <i>ga</i> three times, very quickly, it is the bleating of a goat."</p><p>We waded into the paddy fields behind the herons. "<i>Ma</i>, the cry of the heron."</p><p>At night, "<i>Pa</i>, the song of the nightingale."</p><p>In the bazaar streets as we followed the horse carriages, "<i>Dha</i> -- the neighing of a horse."</p><p>And when the circus came to town, my father was excited at the opportunity of teaching me the last note of the scale. "Can you hear the <i>ni</i> -- when the elephant trumpets?"</p><p>Then my father sang the notes of the scale so I could hear him imitating the animals we had seen -- the strutting of the peacock, the panic of a lost calf, the destructive antics of a goat, the sweeping flight of the heron, the nightingale nesting in a tree, the rearing of a horse, the power of an angry elephant -- until the nature of the notes became second nature to me. He also sang the ragas in which each note predominated so that my uneducated ear became familiar with all the major ragas before I ever held an instrument in my hands.</p><p>"There was no art until Shiva danced the Creation," he said, explaining how melody was born. "Music lay asleep inside a motionless rhythm -- deep as water, black as darkness, weightless as air. Then Shiva shook his drum. Everything started to tremble with the longing to exist. The universe erupted into being as Shiva danced. The six mighty ragas, the pillars of all music, were born from the expressions on Shiva's face, and through their vibrations the universe was brought into existence.</p><p>"The melodies of these six ragas sustain the harmonies of living things. When they fuse together they become the beat of Shiva's drum that brings the universe to destruction. But they are all male. And music can never be still, it can never be without desire. Life must create more life or become death. So each of the six ragas were given six wives, six raginis to teach them love. Their children are the putras, and in this way music lives and multiplies.</p><p>Then my father said I must see the emotions through which ragas and raginis communicated with each other. "Each raga is related to a particular season, a time of day, an emotion. But emotion is the key that unlocks a raga's soul."</p><p>So, every day for a month, we went together to the dance academy to study Shiva's dance of Creation. I watched girls my age struggle to convey emotions that they had never known but that were the basic moods of dance: Laughter, Wonder, Heroism, Anger, Grief, Pity, Love, Fear, Tranquility.</p><p>Sometimes I laughed at their inability to put sufficient gravity into their moods, and my father was displeased.</p><p>"Don't treat the arts so lightly. They are Shiva's gifts to mankind. If you choose to be a musician, you enter into a pact with Shiva himself. Remember, every note you play sends new music into the universe. You can never reclaim it."</p><p>I thought my father was speaking to himself because I did not understand his meaning. But at last I was able to ask the questions that had always been in my mind. "And where does all that music go?"</p><p>"It returns to the sound that is all so all-encompassing it is silent, the sound we call the secret of the Gandharva Veda."</p><p>"Have you ever heard it?"</p><p>"No, but every day I listen for it when I play. You must listen for it too. The Vedas say that by playing the veena with the correct rhythm, keeping its notes and its character intact, a man can hear that sound and attain salvation."</p><p>Then my father took me to the small street of painters that stretched at one side of the town temple to watch the artists grinding their colours with stones. He was always searching for ways to make me understand the link between my music and the world, and while I peered over the artists' shoulders, he taught me which ragas they would be painting from the small pots of colours they were placing before their paper -- <i>sa</i> was black, <i>re</i> was tawny, <i>ga</i> was gold, <i>ma</i> white, <i>pa</i> yellow, <i>dha</i> indigo, <i>ni</i> green.</p><p>That portrait of a man with black skin carrying in his hand a sharp-edged sword to slash through the clouds like lightning was Megh, the raga of rain. That man with flames around his head, riding a savage elephant to show fire's power, was Deepak, the raga of heat. That girl fanning herself with a peacock's feather as she drank from a goblet was Vaulika; that maiden lying in front of a hut on the grass with a garland in her hands was Desi; that girl talking to her deer as she took them home at evening was Todi.</p><p>By the time six months were over I could recite the moods that each raga created and its seasons, and identify them in the pictures I saw being painted in the street. </p><p>Still, an entire year passed before my father finally allowed me to take the veena across my knees.</p><p>I was so small the instrument stretched beyond both sides of my body and my crossed legs didn't even touch the arm. My father instructed me to place both hands on the strings without making a sound.</p><p>"Always treat your instrument with humility. After all, what is a raga? Five notes, seven. If you add some halftones, maybe twelve. It is only a skeleton of melody. And the veena is only two gourds attached by a piece of wood and a handful of wires. But when they are united, and you create a composition from their union, it must speak the language of the soul. You see, a raga has its own soul. Without its soul, its rasa, a raga is only a dead thing."</p><p>He warned me I must respect each note of music so that I could give it life. "Once there was a great musician who boasted all the time that he could play better than anyone else. One day the notes of the scale turned into seven nymphs and walked past as he was playing. Suddenly one nymph fell to the ground dead. The musician was playing his instrument so violently that he strangled the note in his strings. He murdered the nymph with his pride."</p><p>I started crying, fearing my father would somehow blame me for the nymph's death. He only smiled at my distress and continued his story. "As the musician was staring in horror at the dead woman in front of him, a holy man passed by and asked if he could borrow the instrument. He played on it so sweetly he brought the note nymph back to life. That is how you must try to play."</p><p>And then at last my father allowed me to pluck the primary scale from the strings of my veena. For half an hour he listened to me play as closely as if he were listening to a great musician before stopping me. "The first sound of creation was Om. Each vibration of Om created new sounds that led to the primary scale. Think of these seven notes as the Om of music. If you cannot lay them correctly you will never be able to master a raga."</p><p>I was only a child but my father wanted me to understand that music was the mathematics by which the universe could be comprehended. Morning after morning, month after month, he made me play the <i>sa,</i> <i>re</i>, <i>ga</i>, <i>ma</i>, <i>pa</i>, <i>dha</i>, <i>ni</i> over and over again, one hand moving up and down the frets, the other plucking at the veena's strings, until my fingers bled. He ignored my tears and forced me to continue practicing until the cushions of my fingertips developed calluses. But still he was not satisfied with the clarity of my notes.</p><p>If my mother had been more sympathetic I would have asked her then to end my music lessons. Unfortunately, my mother seldom spoke to me. My ugliness upset her. When other children stared at me, sniggering at my ugliness, my mother's eyes filled with tears but she never comforted me or told me they were wrong.</p><p>Shamed by my mother's tears, I hid in the bathroom, examining myself in the mirror to see if my face was losing any of its coarseness. Each time I looked I saw only two features in the mushy flesh, this nose growing bigger as if trying to join this chin that drives forward like a fighter's, tempting an opponent's attack.</p><p>My father was oblivious to my ugliness. After listening to me practice on my veena he would play himself, making me learn the scales that formed the ragas. For two years these skeletons of melody were all I learned. My father would play some notes and ask me what he was playing. When I identified the raga he would recite a sacred saying peculiar to it.</p><p>"A goddess presides over each of the ragas. If you truly meditate on the raga's sacred teaching, its goddess will give you mastery over its melodies."</p><p>I stared at him resentfully as he spoke, hating his nose and chin because they were exaggerated so cruelly on my own face. He was not a handsome man, but at least his features were in proportion to his face, and his naturally austere expression lent them distinction. I wanted him to give me a sacred saying, a goddess who would grant me beauty.</p><p>Perhaps I did my father an injustice. Through music he tried to free me of my own image so I could love beauty wherever it was to be found, even if it was mot present in my mirror.</p><p>Then one day when I was eleven years old, my father gave me a picture of a man with matted hair and snakes clasping his forehead above his three eyes.</p><p>"This is the raga you will learn. The Bhairav. Bhairav is another name for Shiva, meaning the Fire of Time."</p><p>My hands trembled as I held the picture of the god, his body smeared with ashes, a drum and a trident in his hands. I had been under my father's instruction for five years by now. At last my father felt I was capable of commencing the performance of a raga.</p><p>At that very moment my mother began to sit outside the music room as a jailer waits for a prisoner. I was not gifted enough for my mother to feel secure about my future. She had lived so long with genius that she could recognise it like a bazaar fruit seller recognises a fine mango from a merely good one even though he has not grown it, and she believed that a woman without genius could be protected only by a husband in a harsh world designed for men.</p><p>When I finished my music lesson, she forced me to endure teas with her friends and their sons. I could see the boys recoiling from my ugliness but my mother's resolve to see me safely married only hardened as, week after week, the teas progressed and no offers were made for my hand.</p><p>How can I describe my anguish in the years that followed, as I struggled to please my father inside the music room, and then outside the music room consoled my mother for my ugliness?</p><p>One one side was my father's invitation to wander freely in the fields of music, where even a child like myself could fall on cushions of melody, run across bridges of notes, swing on the stretch of the veena's strings, make garlands of different-coloured notes to place before the goddesses of the ragas. But outside the room I saw my mother's face creased with worry, my ugliness reflected in her eyes.</p><p>By now my body was beginning to show its maturity, changes that I could not overlook if only because the weight of the veena was too much against my budding breasts. With these changes in my physique had come a change in my emotional state. My senses felt everything too strongly. I no longer swam with the freedom of a dolphin through the caverns of my father's music. I was too preoccupied with my own ugliness and my mother's despair, my uncertain future looming before me as mysterious as the changes of my body.</p><p>Suddenly my father decided he no longer wanted to teach me. "You make too much music. A raga is not composed of notes. It is composed of the silence between the notes."</p><p>Once I would have wept openly at my father's words. Now I lowered my eyes that he would not see my great shame. My pain attracted my father's attention. Or perhaps it was my silence that made him relent.</p><p>"I will continue to teach you. But on one condition. They say the greatest gift a man can give is the gift of a daughter in marriage. If you insist on studying under me, you must be prepared to be a bride."</p><p>It seemed to me that I could not escape the spectre of marriage. Knowing no man would me as a wife, I begged him to continue my musical education.</p><p>"Think carefully before you say yes," my father warned. "Remember, if I teach you the raginis I will be giving you as a wife to my gods of music. Such a contract cannot be broken. It will be a marriage sealed by Shiva himself."</p><p>I humbly assured him I understood, and my father continued my education.</p><p>Now my father's lessons lifted me into another universe.</p><p>He changed my instrument from the veena to the more pliant sitar, hearing in that softer instrument my yearning for beauty as he taught me the grace notes that distinguish the great musician from a student.</p><p>"Imagine a raga as a riverbed. The grace notes are the water of the river. It is written in the <i>Ragavivodha </i>that a raga without grace notes is like a night without moonlight, a river without water, a creeper without flowers, a woman without a garment."</p><p>He taught me the subtleties of tenderness, how to be supple before gravity, how to gentle anger, how to seduce and sigh and caress through my music.</p><p>"You must think of yourself as water washing over stone, shaping it with the relentless touch of your love. Think of yourself as silk that disguises its strength in softness. The force of your desire, the heat of your longing must melt the rigidity of the raga."</p><p>My sensibilities became so refined under my father's tutelage that when he recited to me the contemplations of differeing raginis, I could immediately visualise them.</p><p>"Here is the contemplation for Lilvati. She is of sixteen summers, she wears ropes of pearls, she carries a lotus, and she speaks of love to her confidantes while she waits for her beloved.</p><p>"The lilting Madhu-madhavi has a golden complexion and is of incomparable beauty. She is seated laughing with her lover on a swing at springtime.</p><p>"The yearning Shyam-Gujari stands in a moonlit garden telling a peacock of her longing for her lover.</p><p>"Here is the contemplation of Bhairavi. The appointed hour of her tryst has passed and her lover has not appeared. She tears off her jewels and the flowers in her hair. She smears her body with ashes, grieving for the loss of her beloved."</p><p>Just think what my study did to me, an adolescent girl who knew the stain of her ugliness would prevent any man from desiring her, and yet learning only how to express longing.</p><p>But I cannot say that mine was an unhappy life. I had already experienced one miracle when my father undertook my musical education. Now the second miracle happened.</p><p>It was evening, the time when my father played to the gods. None of us could disturb him but sometimes I passed near the room to listen.</p><p>This evening I stopped to look through the doorway of his music room, never having heard my father play this way before. To my surprise I saw a young man sitting below my father's platform playing the veena. He was dressed as a supplicant, bare-footed, his torso naked except for the instrument resting against his bare shoulder. I stared in wonder at his slanting eyes, at his black hair falling softly to the strong line of his neck, at the muscled arm as his fingers moved across the frets of his instrument. He was so beautiful I shut my eyes against his power, thinking I had imagined him in my long training in desire. When I opened my eyes I still saw him, and it was as if ten thousand honeybees had stung my heart at once. </p><p>I don't know how long I stood there, but finally the young man laid his instrument at my father's feet.</p><p>"Will you accept me as your student?" he asked humbly.</p><p>My father did not bother to disguise his impatience. "Everyone knows I have never taken a pupil, except for my daughter."</p><p>"Then let me live here, so I can listen to you play. I will serve your food or heat the water for your bath. I will perform the most menial tasks if only you permit me to be near you."</p><p>"Are you so willing to do anything to be taught by me?"</p><p>"The more rigorous your terms, the happier I will be to accept them."<br /></p><p>"Music is not allied to pain. You will not be a better musician if you suffer more than other men."</p><p>"Just tell me what you require of me and I will do it."</p><p>"If I teach you, will you take my daughter as your wife?"</p><p>"Is that all? Willingly."</p><p>My father lifted his hand to beckon me into the room, and the stranger turned. I saw the shock on the stranger's face, as if he could not believe my father could sire such ugliness.</p><p>At that moment I wished my father dead. He did not see the stranger's disbelief, and if he had my father would not have cared. Genius stands at a strange angle to the world of humans, careless of its own cruelty.</p><p>And what refinement of cruelty it was. Day after day my ugliness faced the stranger's beauty as my father taught us.</p><p>Locked in my hatred of my father, I could not bring to my instrument that longing which I had perfected when there was no one there.</p><p>My awkward playing made the stranger's music more unforgiving, so that the notes of his raga had an iron hardness that forbid approach.</p><p>My father was enraged at his insensitivity. "The ragas are the architecture of emotion. Have you never known weakness or fear? Are you so stupid?"</p><p>I wept within myself for the stranger's pain at my father's harsh criticisms. But my father was relentless. "Any pedant can learn a raga's melody. It is only a matter of practice. Music goes beyond technique. The Boddhisatva broke every string of the veena, one by one, and still the raga continued, vibrating in the waters of human emotion."</p><p>The stranger did not yet know his own genius, only his talent and his ambition, and my father eroded that ambition with ruthless skill.</p><p>"Your tastes are too cheap to play the great ragas. You are content to create mere pleasure. Didn't your last teacher teach you the Upanishads:</p><p><i>"The better is one thing, the pleasant another,</i></p><p><i> Both aims may bind a man,</i></p><p><i> But the wise man chooses the better over the pleasant?"</i></p><p>Then my father turned to me, his fury at my incompetence as great as his anger at the stranger's lack of imagination.</p><p>"What are the two emotions that govern the two sexes in all music?"</p><p>"The heroic for the man. The erotic for the woman," I whispered, fearful of drawing the stranger's eyes to my face.</p><p>My father raised his hands in the air in front of him as if beseeching the gods. "What am I to do with these lumps of clay? From the outside they look like a man and a woman. Why are they not alive?"</p><p>We were betrothed, my father's two students. And yet we never spoke to each other except in stilted greetings and farewells.</p><p>My father spoke for both of us, haranguing us to become more than we were, not allowing us to hide our shame from him and from each other.</p><p>Once he took the veena from the stranger's shoulder when he was again displeased by the boy's playing. "Do you know what this instrument is? Look at the curve of its neck. Its breasts, its slender arm. This is the expression of Shiva's love. Can't you imagine a woman? Or love?"</p><p>Day after day, lesson after lesson, he shamed us, forcing us to understand the meaning of being a man and a woman.</p><p>But what we learned most from him in those years was the blessedness of silence, when we were neither struggling to please him with our instruments nor listening to his voice harshly reminding us of our errors.</p><p>Over the months my father's fury made us conspirators. Fearing his anger at one student would be deflected on the other, we began helping each other, trying to read the other's mistake before it was made, increasingly conscious of each other's moods.</p><p>Now I remembered my father's teachings as I tried to be the water to the river of the stranger's raga, the moonlight to his night. And when I thought how my father had said that a raga without the waterfall of grace notes was like a woman without a garment, I tried to teach the stranger what a woman felt, pleading for his attention by extending the notes pulled from the strings of my sitar so he could hear the ache in me.</p><p>Suddenly it was as if I had gained a voice to tell the stranger of my pain at my own ugliness, of my remorse that he should have been locked into this unjust bargain of marriage by my father.</p><p>I do not know where I learned such duplicity or if I always harboured it in my soul, but I began seducing the stranger with my weakness and he grew heroic in his music to defend me from my father's contempt.</p><p>As silk disguises its strength in softness, as water erodes the unforgiving nature of stone, as flesh embraces steel, I embraced the music of the stranger's veena and through the strings of my sitar, I told him that I dared to love his beauty. Slowly, oh how slowly, the stranger's music began responding to the request in mine until we were no longer conscious of my father's presence in the room, only hearing the pleading of my ragini to be the wife of his lordly raga, the silences in between our notes growing electric with desire.</p><p>Sometimes I saw the stranger's eyes linger on some part of my body left exposed by my garment and I did not hasten to cover myself, pretending I had not noticed his attention wandering from my music. I even began to hope I was not as offensive as I had always believed myself to be. We were young, you see, we were a man and a woman, and we could not pass our days in the constant dialogue of desire without being overwhelmed by it.</p><p>But my mother was growing impatient for our marriage to be performed. The stranger was by now twenty-one years old, I was eighteen. Every day she demanded that my father set a date for the wedding, yet my father hesitated. I had never seem him indecisive in his life. I could not understand why he bargained each day with my mother to delay the marriage he had himself demanded from his student.</p><p>Finally he told my mother, "Let them play together on the night of Shiva. Then we will choose a date."</p><p>That year, as always happened on the night of Shiva, our house was filled with musicians. All night, the musicians played, one after another or sometimes together, waiting for the moment when my father would lift his veena and praise his gods with his genius.</p><p>But this year my father told the assembled musicians that tonight his students would play for them. Then he invited us to join him on the platform.</p><p>It was the hour to play the Bhairav, the raga of Shiva, when darkness turns into dawn. The stranger played the opening movement of the raga. My father nodded in approval listening to the stranger slowly unfold the raga's divinity, carving a great stone temple of music in the air. I understood that my father's harangues against what is only pleasant in music as the magnificence of the raga was displayed to us, becoming ever more grave, more monumental, more relentless, as if embodying its name, the Fire of Time.</p><p>And now I disturbed its mighty solitude with the sacrifice of Parvati wooing Shiva from his asceticism, pleading that he love her. And so we played together, as the darkness turned into filigreed shadow, and still we played until there was light in the room, and still we played as the sun showed its power, until exhausted by the consummation of our music we ended together on a single note, as if consigning our music to the silence that followed it.</p><p>When even my father could no longer hear that last note vibrating in the air, he rose to his feet. "Tonight I gave my daughter in marriage to music. I have fulfilled my duties as a father. Now I free this young man from our bargain. But if he still wishes to marry my child, the wedding can take place whenever my wife wishes."</p><p>The stranger smiled at me as my mother placed a garland of flowers around his neck. I dared not look at him in case my joy overflowed, flooding my eyes.</p><p>And so the stranger left our house to return to his family while my mother made preparations for our marriage.</p><p>For the first time I preferred my mother's company to my father's. We collected my trousseau and decorated the rooms in which my bridegroom and I would live as man and wife. </p><p>The priest was organised, an auspicious night was chosen for our nuptials. We sent shawls and saris for my bridegroom's parents.</p><p>Every day my mother speculated on the progress of events. The bridegroom's family should be arriving soon, the red invitations with the gold lettering must have reached their destinations.</p><p>Then at last a messenger arrived from my bridegroom's family. </p><p>My mother and myself hid outside my father's music room, whispering excitedly to each other as the messenger unwrapped gifts below my father's platform.</p><p>I looked at the shawls piling up at my father's feet and recognised them as the gifts we had sent to my bridegroom's family, but I still did not understand what was happening until I heard the messenger say, "Your student thanks you for granting his freedom. He is betrothed in marriage to my daughter."</p><p>From that moment I have not touched my instrument nor entered my father's music room. The very sound of music is hateful to my ears.</p><p>So my father has brought me here.</p><p>He says that I must meditate on the waters of the Narmada, the symbol of Shiva's penance, until I have cured myself of my attachment to what has passed and can become again the ragini to every raga.</p><p>He says I must understand that I am the bride of music and not of a musician. But it is an impossible penance that he demands of me, to express desire in my music when I am dead inside.</p><p>Do you think it can be done?</p><p>Do you think this river has such power?</p><p><br /></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><br /></p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-65981464844175565512021-01-04T00:30:00.001+08:002021-01-04T00:30:03.207+08:00Materialising tendencies<p> I ended last year and started this one, reading <i>The Selected Letters of Henry James</i>, edited by Leon Edel.</p><p>I decided to share one of his letters here. Initially I thought I would share another one, but then, I stumbled (well came across it in its place in the chronology of letters) on this one and thought it would be better. I will write my impressions of the book, the letters and Henry James elsewhere (Jennifer, Reading). Here, I just want to share his letter, which was to the Deerfield Summer School. </p><p>Some background: During the summer of 1889, James was invited to attend the Summer School at Deerfield, Massachusetts for a discussion of the art of the novel. He sent, instead, the following letter, which was read during the proceedings and later published in the New York Tribune (4 August 1889)</p><p>*******</p><p>To THE DEERFIELD SUMMER SCHOOL </p><p> [Summer 1889]</p><p>I am afraid I can do little more than thank you for your courteous invitation to be present at the sittings of your delightfully sounding school of romance, which ought to inherit happiness and honour from such a name. I am so very far away from you that I am afraid I can't participate very intelligently in your discussions, but I can only give them the furtherance of a dimly discriminating sympathy. I am not sure that I apprehend very well your apparent premise, 'the materialism of our present tendencies,' and I suspect that this would require some clearing up before I should be able (if even then) to contribute any suggestive or helpful word. To tell the truth, I can't help thinking that we already talk too much about the novel, about and around it, in proportion to the quantity of it having any importance that we produce. What I should say to the nymphs and swains who propose to converse about it under the great trees at Deerfield is: "Oh, do something from your point of view; an ounce of example is worth a ton of form; do something with life. Any point of view is interesting that is a direct impression of life. You each have an impression coloured by your individual conditions; make that into a picture, a picture framed by your own personal wisdom, your glimpse of the American world. The field is vast, for study, for observation, for satire, for truth." I don't think I really do know what you mean by 'materializing tendencies' any more than I should do by 'spiritualizing' or 'etherealizing' or the imaginative, which is just as visible, and to paint it. I have only two little words for the matter remotely approaching to rule or doctrine; one is life and the other freedom. Tell the ladies and gentlemen, the ingenious inquirers, to consider life directly and closely, and not be put off with mean and puerile falsities, and be conscientious about it. It is infinitely large, various and comprehensive. Every sort of mind will find what it looks for in it, whereby the novel becomes truly multifarious and illustrative. That is what I mean by liberty; give it its head and let it range. If it is in a bad way, and the English novel is, I think, nothing but absolute freedom can refresh it and restore its self-respect. Excuse these raw brevities and please convey to your companions, my dear sir, the cordial good wishes of yours and theirs,</p><p> Henry James</p><p><br /></p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-81904728207796115882021-01-03T00:30:00.001+08:002021-01-03T00:30:03.339+08:00Other people<p><i>Day 3 of the Dan Joseph newsletter. Does it seem like I'm cheating, breaking up one newsletter into three? But there were three questions. And three answers. And I believe that each of them should be taken and considered separately. </i></p><p><i>Don't skim. Absorb.</i></p>Q. Everyone talks about how meditation and "finding your light" practices are so helpful. But I don't find that they help me much at all. I try these practices, and can't get out of my head. I don't get a sense of peace or anything. Is there something extra I can try?<br /><br />A: To begin, I want to acknowledge that meditation-style practices are challenging and often require a great deal of persistence. At the outset, the mind is much like an excited puppy bouncing off everything in sight. It can take many repeated practices before the puppy begins to calm down.<br /><br />Along those lines, there are two main "skills" involved in the practices I describe:<br /><br />1. The ability to focus the mind<br />2. The willingness to open to a new experience<br /><br />If one of these practices seems more challenging, you may want to spend some time developing your comfort with it.<br /><br />Virtually every meditation-style practice involves focusing the mind. Without the capacity to hold focus, you will likely find your awareness of peace coming and going, rising and falling, shifting in and out of awareness.<br /><br />I find that almost any type of focusing practice can help with this dynamic. Some people focus on their breaths in meditation, pulling their attention back to the breath whenever it wanders. Other people gaze at a candle or other stimulus, bringing the mind back to the object whenever extraneous thoughts or feelings pull you away.<br /><br />A word or phrase can also be used as a focal point. The workbook of A Course in Miracles offers a short spiritual statement each day to focus on. Books of "affirmations" also contain these statements. You are free to come up with your own word or phrase as well. The word, phrase, or statement becomes the focal point: you repeat it calmly and slowly, over and over, pulling your attention to it and away from other distractions.<br /><br />Speaking personally, it took me a great number of practice sessions before I felt my mind becoming comfortable with focus in meditation. And of course, I still encounter a good deal of distraction and resistance at times! Each step along the way is helpful. With practice, the mind becomes more able to hold focus.<br /><br />In addition to focus, almost all of the practices I describe also involve opening to a new experience – the experience of inner peace, or the wise mind, or our inner light.<br /><br />The key in this skill is willingness. We develop, through practice, a willingness to release our current swirl of thoughts and feelings, and open our hearts and minds to a new experience.<br /><br />Imagery can be helpful with this phase. You may want to imagine your thoughts like leaves floating by on a stream, or clouds floating by in the sky. You note each one, and express your willingness to let it pass by. Then you express your willingness to open – even for just a moment – to a deeper sense of peace.<br /><br />Developing this willingness comes easier with practice. It is not an ability that some people just "have" and others "don't have." It is a skill that the mind will become more comfortable with through practice.<br /><br />If you find it helpful, you may want to stop periodically through the day – perhaps every hour, on the hour – to practice these skills. Even a minute, or less, can be helpful. As my friends can attest, I spent years setting an hourly chime on my phone in order to remind me to stop and practice.<br /><br />2021 can be a year devoted to steps toward the experience of peace. Even if you encounter resistance along the way, each bit of practice will help.<br /><br />As the year turns, you are in the company of millions of others around the world who practice with you. We walk together toward the light, and I am deeply grateful for all of our efforts.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-75059675204450730062021-01-02T00:30:00.001+08:002021-01-02T00:30:02.392+08:00Getting into meditation<i>Day 2 of the Q&A from Dan Joseph's newsletter, a great way to start the year!</i><br /><br />Q. Everyone talks about how meditation and "finding your light" practices are so helpful. But I don't find that they help me much at all. I try these practices, and can't get out of my head. I don't get a sense of peace or anything. Is there something extra I can try?<br /><br />A: To begin, I want to acknowledge that meditation-style practices are challenging and often require a great deal of persistence. At the outset, the mind is much like an excited puppy bouncing off everything in sight. It can take many repeated practices before the puppy begins to calm down.<br /><br />Along those lines, there are two main "skills" involved in the practices I describe:<br /><br />1. The ability to focus the mind<br />2. The willingness to open to a new experience<br /><br />If one of these practices seems more challenging, you may want to spend some time developing your comfort with it.<br /><br />Virtually every meditation-style practice involves focusing the mind. Without the capacity to hold focus, you will likely find your awareness of peace coming and going, rising and falling, shifting in and out of awareness.<br /><br />I find that almost any type of focusing practice can help with this dynamic. Some people focus on their breaths in meditation, pulling their attention back to the breath whenever it wanders. Other people gaze at a candle or other stimulus, bringing the mind back to the object whenever extraneous thoughts or feelings pull you away.<br /><br />A word or phrase can also be used as a focal point. The workbook of A Course in Miracles offers a short spiritual statement each day to focus on. Books of "affirmations" also contain these statements. You are free to come up with your own word or phrase as well. The word, phrase, or statement becomes the focal point: you repeat it calmly and slowly, over and over, pulling your attention to it and away from other distractions.<br /><br />Speaking personally, it took me a great number of practice sessions before I felt my mind becoming comfortable with focus in meditation. And of course, I still encounter a good deal of distraction and resistance at times! Each step along the way is helpful. With practice, the mind becomes more able to hold focus.<br /><br />In addition to focus, almost all of the practices I describe also involve opening to a new experience – the experience of inner peace, or the wise mind, or our inner light.<br /><br />The key in this skill is willingness. We develop, through practice, a willingness to release our current swirl of thoughts and feelings, and open our hearts and minds to a new experience.<br /><br />Imagery can be helpful with this phase. You may want to imagine your thoughts like leaves floating by on a stream, or clouds floating by in the sky. You note each one, and express your willingness to let it pass by. Then you express your willingness to open – even for just a moment – to a deeper sense of peace.<br /><br />Developing this willingness comes easier with practice. It is not an ability that some people just "have" and others "don't have." It is a skill that the mind will become more comfortable with through practice.<br /><br />If you find it helpful, you may want to stop periodically through the day – perhaps every hour, on the hour – to practice these skills. Even a minute, or less, can be helpful. As my friends can attest, I spent years setting an hourly chime on my phone in order to remind me to stop and practice.<br /><br />2021 can be a year devoted to steps toward the experience of peace. Even if you encounter resistance along the way, each bit of practice will help.<br /><br />As the year turns, you are in the company of millions of others around the world who practice with you. We walk together toward the light, and I am deeply grateful for all of our efforts.Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-25906791066466743312021-01-01T00:30:00.003+08:002021-01-01T00:30:03.317+08:00Happy New Year<p> <i>I had intended to restart this blog and post every day last year...haha, didn't do too good a job of that.</i></p><p><i>But I found something I would like to share with you to kick off your year. It's from my favourite newsletter, Quiet Mind, by Dan Joseph. I've read his newsletter for so many years, from 2005, I think. And in none, not one, has there ever been a false note. True wisdom is rare. Which is why I will share something from his latest newsletter over the next three days.</i></p><p><i>If you found your way to my blog unexpectedly, enjoy. Then go check out his site: </i>www.SpiritSite.com</p>Q: You write about accessing the "spiritual self." However, my "worldly self" seems to matter a great deal when it comes to practical things like getting a job, finding someone to date, and so forth. How do you reconcile these?<br /><br />A: Imagine a temple made entirely of stained glass windows. Within the center of this temple is a light that illuminates the glass. When the light is dim, the glass is rather colorless. But as the light increases in strength, the colors of the windows come alive.<br /><br />In much the same way, our spiritual light illuminates the actions we take in the world. You might say that the activities of our "worldly selves" simply reflect our inner light as we allow them to.<br /><br />As we create room for our inner light to expand, the stained glass begins to glow with great clarity and beauty. The glass isn't the important thing; the light that illuminates the glass is what's important. In fact, the light can become so beautifully luminous at times that the glass becomes nearly transparent.<br /><br />Even in the most practical forms, we can allow our spiritual light to guide our steps. If you are seeking employment, your light can give you wisdom and clarity about what actions to take. It can inspire a sense of enthusiasm to help whatever organization, customer, or client you are interacting with. It can bring harmony to your interactions with your coworkers. It can fill you with creative solutions to problems.<br /><br />If you are seeking positive relationships, the light can shine forth as appreciation toward those around you. It can highlight their beauty and gifts – as well as your own. It can ease a sense of vulnerability. It can highlight paths out of conflict. It can reveal the spiritual connections that are already present between you and other people, even those who seem to be "strangers."<br /><br />Our selves in the world are simply a framework through which the light of the spirit is expressed. People may think that they are interested in the intricacies of the stained glass, but in truth they are inspired by the light that illuminates it.<br /><br />There is no conflict between our worldly lives and the spiritual self; one is the glass, and the other is the light that brightens the glass as it shines through.<div><br /></div>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-19935913680359895032020-11-13T02:28:00.002+08:002020-11-13T02:28:28.868+08:00An interview with Jim Daly<p><i>In the year 2000, I suddenly had to fill a page every day on the new economy in my local newspaper. I didn't know anything about them, so I talked to people, read books and magazines. During this time, someone gave me a list of magazines to read, including Business 2.0 which very quickly became my favourite because of the quirky editor, Jim Daly. Then just as I got to know and love the magazine, Business 2.0 changed hands and lost its magic.</i></p><p><i>I was googling Jim Daly and came across this interview in 2001, which I thought I'd put here, my happy blog, because that's what it's for.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1WGlZ1s-Pqt3nbUx17Cf3efKljXHfSKBaQXu_RrmubvKGRWU5N02lJ-d1XAHr57JmbacxiFPlRCfFZW_3T3DT8WRgvay7PM-DCaJLLoOQcDva_NTuGWV9_xgBIzSNk8mO3XcMK47rVz7h/s225/James+daly.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1WGlZ1s-Pqt3nbUx17Cf3efKljXHfSKBaQXu_RrmubvKGRWU5N02lJ-d1XAHr57JmbacxiFPlRCfFZW_3T3DT8WRgvay7PM-DCaJLLoOQcDva_NTuGWV9_xgBIzSNk8mO3XcMK47rVz7h/w400-h400/James+daly.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i><p></p><p>Exclusive Interview with Jim Daly, founding editor of Business 2.0 (From BizReport.com)</p><p>Many of us rode the wave of Internet mania up -- and then right back down. But few have occupied the enviable catbird seat of Jim Daly, the founding editor of Business 2.0, which is credited with fundamentally changing the way the media covers businesses as they were thrust (some unwillingly) into the uncertain abyss of cyberspace. Earlier this year, mass media goliath AOL Time Warner purchased Business 2.0 and kept only three Business 2.0 staffers, choosing instead to fold the staff into its eCompany Now magazine to the new Business 2.0.</p><p>by <span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">Michael Grebb</span>, Special Correspondent</p><p>Daly spent his newfound free time with his family on an extended vacation in the Wyoming wilderness. He's back now -- re-energised and actively weighing options that include book offers and overtures from new "startups". Daly took a few minutes out of his admittedly less hectic schedule to give BizReport his take on the magazine business, the Internet economy, and why the Internet still changes everything.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>MG</b>:</span> You've just gotten back from your first real vacation in a while. How did it feel?</p><p><b>JD</b>: It was a little strange, actually. After the sale went down, I had a lot of extra energy built up inside me.</p><p><b>MG</b>: I imagine you haven't taken any time off since becoming founding editor of Business 2.0.</p><p><b>JD</b>: A few days here and there, but when you have a startup, it's kind of like a restaurant in a way. You have to be there to check on the service, the sauce, everything...You have to be there to make sure that all the parts of the magazine are working, especially with one that was growing as fast as we were.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Did the stunning growth of the magazine -- especially around late 1998 and into 1999 -- surprise you at all? The issues were starting to look like Sears catalogues for a while. </p><p><b>JD</b>: Well, it did surprise us. But we knew the story was a good story, and we knew the magazine was good. I don't think we expected the growth to be as rapid as that. It's a bit unusual for any magazine to grow that quickly -- to go from a startup to a magazine with the eighth highest revenue of any magazine in the United States within two years. That was certainly surprising, but we caught the story just as it was starting to develop and people were starting to get excited about it. The one thing that really worked for us was that the story really generated both a lot of excitement and a lot of confusion. When you have a lot of excitement and a lot of confusion, people look for information. That put Business 2.0 right at that nexus. We knew we didn't have all the answers, but we wanted to ask all of the questions and get down to the business models -- the ones that were working and the ones that weren't working. I think we did a really good job doing that. I think a lot of people realised it. Certainly, AOL Time Warner did. You have the largest magazine publisher in the world buying a magazine that hadn't hit its third birthday. So that was pretty flattering. </p><p><b>MG</b>: During the boom of the late nineties, how challenging was it to just keep up with so much growth so fast, considering it was probably the toughest labour market in decades?</p><p><b>JD</b>: It was very difficult. You have to remember that when we started out -- the first two years or so -- we only had about a dozen people in editorial, and that included the art staff and the production staff. And that is not a lot of people. It's an adequate number of people to put out a 112- or 128-page issue, but when the issues start to get up to 300 and in our most extreme cases 480 pages...</p><p><b>MG</b>: Well, you used a lot of freelancers.</p><p><b>JD</b>: But you know, everyone was growing, and it was difficult to get good freelancers. In many ways, you had what I call a "citizen army" developing. Everyone who could write and knew a little bit about business began to write for all these different publications. It was just difficult to get good people. It was even more difficult to get excellent people. You needed to hire 30 people right away, but you couldn't do that because maybe there weren't 30 great people out there that you wanted to contribute to the magazine.</p><p><b>MG</b>: But then everything changed. In the Spring of 2000, the bottom started to drop out for technology business magazines across the board. Considering that you had beefed up the staff in 1999, how did you deal with the new reality?</p><p><b>JD</b>: Well, we had beefed up the staff, but we never beefed it up as much as other people had. Even at the highest level, we only had about 45 people in editorial. Some of those magazines had over 100 or 200 people.</p><p><b>MG</b>: That sounds like The Industry Standard, which just went out of business. As the former editor of a rival publication, what do you think happened there? Did they just get ahead of themselves?</p><p><b>JD</b>: That was one reason. I mean, they had a tremendous burn rate. They were going through a lot of money very, very quickly. They were very ambitious, and you can't fault people for being ambitious. But when the softening began in the spring of last year and the whole market fell off a cliff in November, I don't think anyone expected it to crater as quickly or dramatically as that. Suddenly, if you're bringing in one third of the income that you used to but are spending the same amount you used to, you have some serious challenges.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Someone from outside the publishing world might wonder why a magazine that had such a lucrative two or three years didn't have a stockpile of saved cash to weather an eventual downturn.</p><p><b>JD</b>: It doesn't really work that way. Most magazines aren't even profitable until year five because you have to spend a lot in marketing, a lot in branding, a lot in getting your name out there. So a lot of that money you're bringing in is just going right back into the magazine. We were unusual in that way. We were profitable by the end of our first year because we had such a small outlay. We had a lot fewer people on the staff; we didn't spend as much on marketing; etc.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Obviously, AOL Time Warner noticed that. What's the history of that acquisition? As I understand it, Time Warner was interested in Business 2.0 almost from its inception and before Time Warner merged with AOL.</p><p><b>JD</b>: They had approached us after issue three in early 1998. That didn't happen. They wanted to get into this space, and they did eventually. So they launched their own publication, which was eCompany Now. It didn't do all that well. It was losing a lot of money. But what happened with Business 2.0 is that our parent company got into a serious hole. They had launched a lot of publications and they were getting pretty badly hit. They needed money and the crown jewel of the organisation was Business 2.0. So late last year, the idea was brought up to sell Business 2.0, and AOL Time Warner was still interested.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Considering that AOL Time Warner didn't keep most of the Business 2.0 staff, is Business 2.0 still the same magazine?</p><p><b>JD</b>: No, it's not. It's a relaunch of eCompany Now. You can take the name, sure -- but it's the people that make up the DNA of a magazine. You can put Business 2.0 on Popular Science, and it doesn't make it Business 2.0. The fact is that we had believed and hoped that there was going to be a more equitable split of people -- that it would be 50-50, the best of both teams. But it wasn't. They decided they didn't want to do that.</p><p><b>MG</b>: So now that you're free and clear for the first time in four years, what are your career plans going forward?</p><p><b>JD</b>: I just got back from this trip, which was a great way to refresh my batteries. I've been talking to a lot of people lately about all kinds of things -- working on some new startups or working on some books...</p><p><b>MG</b>: Are there any startups left out there?</p><p><b>JD</b>: (Laughs) Yeah, there still are. What I like the most about Business 2.0 was actually starting it. When you have a small team, it's much easier to get a sense of the unity and mission -- and the zealotry in a way. We were all zealots and put a lot of energy and time and devotion and creativity into the magazine, which you can certainly do with a bigger magazine as well. But when you have a smaller organisation, it's a lot easier to all read from the same sheet of music. I really love that energy. Just as there were three years ago, there's a lot of good ideas and a lot of kooky ideas. I don't want to get involved in any kooky ideas, but there are certainly opportunities for new companies.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Would you stick with magazines or some kind of content business?</p><p><b>JD</b>: I think so. I've been in journalism for 20 years. I love the magazine tradition. I love the art of the magazine craft. It's the most fun for me. It's the most energising area of journalism. I'd like to stick with that because I still get a huge charge out of it, even two decades later.</p><p><b>MG</b>:<b> </b>Of course, it seems to be a thinning field these days. What's your prognosis for the future of technology business magazines?</p><p><b>JD</b>: You really have a different ballgame going on right now. In the past, you've seen a lot of independent publications in this space bought up by the major media houses. You saw Wired bought by Conde Nast. You saw Fast Company bought by Gruner & Jahr. You saw Business 2.0 bought by AOL Time Warner. So it's a different battle. It's more the war of the titans. Who can spend more on marketing? Who can really wrap their ad packages in with five other magazines? This is the evolution of successful companies. We were able to sell Business 2.0 because we were an attractive, successful property. Successful properties evolve and mutate and change. I still think the story that Business 2.0 is built on has a lot of legs. AOL Time Warner just spent $60 million on it. They're going to put a lot of inertia into it, and from a marketing standpoint it seems like part of AOL already.</p><p><b>MG</b>: With all of these magazines now in the hands of media giants, isn't it somewhat unrealistic for an independent startup to compete in that space?</p><p><b>JD</b>: I think it would be tough. Someone just asked me the other day, "If you launched Business 2.0 today would it be successful?" And I said,"It would not. It would not be successful if it was launched in the same form." One of the first things we did in our very first issue was look at the 10 driving principles of the new economy. We went to a lot of people and asked what is different about the way business is being done right now in terms of how you market to customers, retain customers, etc. We distilled that down until we figured out our constitution -- our marching orders for the magazine. In the beginning, we had an ad campaign: "Do you get it?" Because some people did and some people didn't. But now I think everyone gets it, and if you went in and launched a magazine that said, "Hey, here's a story you may not have heard of, and it's going to change business in a fundamental way," you'd be laughed out of the room. Also, the economy is in a dumper right now. Ads were down this year in magazines, but I think pretty much everyone is in a lockdown right now at least until the end of year, especially with what happened on September 11 putting a cloud over things. Where is consumer confidence going? Where is spending going? I think everyone is in a bit of a wait-and-see mode. So to generate advertising for a broad-based consumer magazine would be very difficult right now.</p><p><b>MG</b>: It seems like everybody got a little ahead of themselves in the late nineties, but now it seems like the retraction is just as exaggerated. Do you still believe the Internet will change everything?</p><p><b>JD</b>: Yeah. It already has. Do you think companies are going to go back to the way they were acquiring customers, retaining customers, and marketing to customers? Do you think they are going to go back to the way they were doing that four or five years ago? Do you think the growth of the Internet will slow? Do you think the speed of getting online and moving around is going to go backwards? It's not. It's going to go forward. What we've seen is a slowdown or a falter-step here, but the story really does remain very strong. It's kind of like the growth of the PC industry in the eighties: They had a couple of up years, a couple of down years, but the growth still remained strong. Another thing is that you almost have to take out the growth figures form last year because 1999 was such an aberration. Everything had to come down from that. But if you look at the growth rates from 1998 to 2001, you still see it going on an up curve. We had one of the most incredible years of our lives, and then we had one of the worst years of our lives back to back. Hopefully, there will be a leavening of that. People tend to react in extreme ways.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Funny that few seemed to publicly predict this huge crash in 1999.</p><p><b>JD</b>: Well, it couldn't last, but you have to make hay when the sun is shining. That's what we did. We worked ourselves to death because it was an exciting time. In some ways, I miss those days because everything was about possibilities and being able to achieve and reach for the stars. Now, everything is about retrenchment and caution and, "Do we really want to do this?" The energy is really not there.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Back then, it seemed like everyone wanted to be an entrepreneur.</p><p><b><u>J</u>D</b>: Yeah, and a lot of those guys are back to doing what they used to be doing. There were a lot of cockamamie ideas but people still said, we could do this if we try. I miss that kind of enthusiasm.</p><p><b>MG</b>: Of course, there were a lot of Gordon Geckos out there too.</p><p><b>JD</b>: That's true. A lot of people wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. A lot of companies that were being launched were just stock market plays. I was approached by people who would say, "Yeah, we're going to start this company, it's going to be worth a billion and a half in 18 months." But there are also companies like Amazon and Yahoo! and eBay. You're also seeing the evolution and the creation of companies that are the CBSs and General Electrics of our day -- big companies that are going to be around for a long time. It's a lot of fun to watch that as a journalist.</p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-55195161238794355292020-09-29T16:06:00.003+08:002020-11-12T21:52:22.844+08:00The Way of Integrity<p style="text-align: left;">My favourite author, Martha Beck, has come out with her new book, <i>The Way of Integrity</i>. Actually, it will be coming out on April 13 next year.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Here's what it says in the teaser email:</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">Exciting news hot off the presses, possums!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>You've heard me talking about my new book for years...well, on April 13, it will finally land on a shelf near you! </b>Publishing is a slow business, but I'm thrilled to have this book's arrival on the horizon at last.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>This book,</b> <i><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Way of Integrity</span>,</b></i> <b>is so close to my heart. </b>It represents the culmination of all that I've written and taught and everything that feels truest to me at this moment in my life. It's my first self-help book in eight years, and I had SUCH a blast writing it!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If you've ever taken a dip into one of my online or DIY "integrity cleanses," you already have some idea what this book is about. It's not a judgemental, Sunday School version of integrity. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">Ew, not at all!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No, it's the idea that we can put our lives into integrity the way an airplane can be put into structural integrity. If all the millions of pieces are functioning together, the plane will fly. If the parts are out of kilter, the plane will crash.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our lives work the same way. When we're able to stay in integrity (the word simply means "whole" or "intact"), everything in our lives works better. We can do remarkable things, like a massive metal machine that can fly. But when we depart from our true nature, whatever that may be, we get internally divided. The result is immediate suffering, maybe just a little, maybe a lot. If we don't find the problem and bring ourselves back into wholeness, we may nosedive into catastrophe.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You were born in full integrity -- it's your nature. But for humans, nature quickly runs into culture. From babyhood, you were socialised to suppress aspects of your nature to serve social systems. When you forced yourself to do things that weren't true to your instincts (kissing weird Aunt Eugenia, smiling sweetly when you were miserable, and so on), you split away from your real self. You went from being in integrity (one thing) to being in duplicity (two things). If you ever tried to please many people, all with slightly different preferences, you were in "multiplicity" (many things).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">Fellow people pleasers, we know how that feels, right?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Total loss of self, constant confusion, self-loathing, anxiety -- oh, it's just a TON of fun.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There's a kaboodle of social science research that shows how going along with culture against our true nature makes us miserable. But all of us live in connection with others, and that means we're subjected to cultural pressures. Cultures are created among every couple, every family, religion, ethnicity, class, nationality, etc., etc.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So how, amid all this cultural pressure, do we find and live in pure integrity?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">Funny you should ask, because I just wrote a book about it! </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This book will give you all the instructions for realising where you've split from your true nature and bringing yourself back to wholeness. Seriously, I'm not just being coy. This issue is tricky enough that it took me many years and a couple of hundred pages to spell it out.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Here's a little preview, though -- an experiment you can try right away.</b> One study found that when people told just three fewer "white lies" a week, they reduced negative emotions like sadness or anxiety and had significantly fewer health problems.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Try it: </b>When you'd ordinarily tell a white lie, divert attention or simply stay silent. Watch yourself begin to feel better. It's like magic!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, never betraying your true nature involves much more than just eliminating a few fibs. It can lead you into a completely different life, one where your mind, body, and relationships get dramatically better. So much better it will look like magic.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There's that word again: "magic." The word that sneaks into every one of my books even when I fight it. This book was meant to be -- and is -- completely practical. But it turns out that when we bring our lives into full integrity, magic (or at least phenomena science doesn't yet explain) starts popping up everywhere. What I thought would be the least "magical" book I'd ever written turned out to yield more magic than anything I've published before.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd be thrilled if you bought and read <i>The Way of Integrity</i> this April.<b> But until then, experiment.</b> Don't just tell fewer white lies. Try saying "No" to one hated obligation a week. Spend ten minutes a day doing something you love even though you think it's a silly waste of time. Give away objects you've kept only out of obligation. Eat what you really love, and savour the hell out of it.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>In short, do something to please your true nature every day.</b> Maybe every day until April 13th.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;">XO</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Caveat; font-size: large;">Martha</span></p><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; max-width: 600px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 0px; text-align: center; width: 600px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; vertical-align: top; word-break: normal;"><div class="yiv6743931248bard-column yiv6743931248bard-column-100" style="display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 600px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td class="yiv6743931248alignmentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; word-break: normal;"><div style="padding-top: 10px;"></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; max-width: 600px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 0px; text-align: center; width: 600px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; vertical-align: top; word-break: normal;"><div class="yiv6743931248bard-column yiv6743931248bard-column-100" style="display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 600px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td class="yiv6743931248alignmentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; padding: 0px; text-indent: -9999px; word-break: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 20px;">–</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-84332359143740766742020-09-28T15:43:00.004+08:002020-09-28T15:43:56.151+08:00Finding the Light<p><i>I received this in an email from Dan Joseph, a student of A Course in Miracles and writer of the Quiet Mind, the only newsletter I receive which I make a point of reading carefully because there is ALWAYS good value in it. I have decided that from now on, I am going to share his stuff on this blog.</i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">This month marks thirty years since I began studying spiritual teachings. In September 1990, I was back in college after completing a corporate internship in New York.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">I had spent the previous summer sitting by myself in a back office, uncomfortable in my suit and tie, researching ways to sell laundry detergent. The whole thing had felt utterly meaningless.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">So here I was, back in college, searching for a new path in life. I began reading the western philosophers, then selections from the world's religions and mystics. Soon thereafter I bought a copy of <em>A Course in Miracles</em>, and started a more formal spiritual practice.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">As I turned to those spiritual teachings, I envisioned myself setting out on a journey – a climb up the mountain to enlightenment. In contrast to my business work, this felt profoundly meaningful. Exciting, even. I plunged into the spiritual journey with intensity.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">However, there was a basic lesson that I didn't understand then. In fact, I didn't grasp it for a very long time. It is this:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">The spiritual experience – the experience of our inner light – is not something that we journey toward. It is something that we simply open to.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">The light is with us at every moment, clear and bright in the present moment. There is no spiritual distance to travel; no spiritual mountain to climb. The light is here, always, and we can never truly separate ourselves from it.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">We can obscure our spiritual light from our <em>awareness</em>, of course. This is the basic situation of the world. But our awareness can shift at any moment back to the light.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">This one lesson could have saved me a great deal of time. However, I was so caught up in striving and achieving that my mind misperceived the situation. Enlightenment seemed like something that was earned at the end of a long battle or struggle. But that is not how things work.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Everything beautiful is with us at this moment, shining as a reflection of the light. The experience of safety, connection, innocence, peace – these, and more, arise in our awareness as we open to them. These experiences are with us in this present moment, simply awaiting our acceptance. There is no journey to the spiritual light; there is only acceptance of what is already there.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Now, I often share these thoughts with people and they say, "Dan, I have no idea what you're talking about! My present moment is nothing like that. My present moment is filled with a bunch of stress and agitation – not peace and light!"</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">They are right, of course, that their <em>awareness</em> is currently filled with those things. But in my work as counselor, I've seen over and over how dramatically and quickly awareness can shift.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">In this newsletter article, I'd like to share a variety of "distractions" that keep our awareness focused away from the light. As we identify these distractions, we can express our willingness to let them go. This creates room for the light to emerge – not in some distant future, but now.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #000088; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;">The Four Points</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">To begin, let me cover four of the most common distractions. I call these the compass points.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Imagine looking north, south, east, and west within your awareness. In these four directions lie some common distractions.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">To the <em>north</em> we have any critical or otherwise unloving thoughts about the people in your life. Thoughts like:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> "My boss doesn't respect me! She is so full of herself!"<br /> "My partner really isn't being fair to me. He needs to change."<br /> "That politician is the bane of my existence!"</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">And so on. Any of these thoughts will inhibit your awareness of the inner light, and all its rewards – a sense of joy, security, peace, and so forth.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">As you notice these types of thoughts, you can simply express your willingness to let them go. You can say:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> "I have no interest in this thought.<br /> It's interfering with my awareness of my inner light,<br /> and I am willing to let it go."</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">That's it! If the distracting thoughts persist, simply rest in your willingness to let them go. Your willingness can always outlast the thoughts.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">To the <em>south</em> we have a parallel group of distractions: any self-critical or unloving thoughts toward yourself.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">People who are more prone to anger may find the northern thoughts easier to find; folks who are more attuned to shame or guilt will probably find these southern thoughts more accessible. In truth, they're the same.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">These southern thoughts might be clearly self-attacking, or they might be much more subtle. For example, you might find self-pressuring thought-sequences like:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> "I don't think I did a great job on that project."<br /> "I really need to do a better job next time."<br /> "People are counting on me; I can't mess up again."</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Many people consider this type of thinking to be harmless – even helpful in a self-motivating way. However, any therapist will tell you that self-critical, self-pressuring thinking is at the root of many of their clients' misery. Taken to extremes, this type of thinking can lead to self-destructive tendencies.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">For our purposes, we simply treat these southern thoughts as distractions. They are unloving, and therefore they will inhibit our awareness of the light. As with the northern thoughts, we express our willingness to let these thoughts go.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">To the <em>west</em> are unpeaceful thoughts about the past. Although these may take the form of statements like the above, it's far more likely that they will simply arise as memories.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">For example:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> You may recall something unkind you did to someone last year.<br /> You may remember a statement someone made to you that felt disrespectful.<br /> Or you may have fairly basic memories of work or personal activities.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Because our goal is to experience the fullness of the spiritual light, these memory-recalls can distract the mind. As with any other interfering thoughts, we simply express our willingness to let them go. You might want to envision them as clouds or leaves floating by – thought-forms that are not worth your engagement.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">To the <em>east</em> are distracting thoughts about the future. For example:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> Worries about a situation that is going to take place next week.<br /> Concerns about your retirement strategies.<br /> Or even plans about what to eat for dinner.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">There's nothing wrong or bad about any of these types of thoughts. However, they can obscure our awareness of the light – and during this practice, it is the light we seek. As with the others, we simply express our willingness to let each one of these go as they rise in our awareness.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Note that the thoughts can be mid-way between the compass points: A self-critical, guilt-filled memory contains both the western and southern directions. An angry expectation about what someone in your life might do is mid-way between the eastern and northern points.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">There is no need to categorize these, of course – and you can choose different "directions" as you wish. But the goal is to notice the interfering thoughts in whatever form they appear, and hold a willingness to let them go.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #000088; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;">Two Subtle Ones</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Those four points (and the ranges between them) cover a lot of ground. By identifying those type of thoughts, you'll likely be able to clear away quite a bit of interference to the light.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">However, there are more subtle forms of distraction as well. Let me briefly share two of these that I referenced in my previous story.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>1. The thought that the light needs to be "earned."</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">As I mentioned, when I began my spiritual studies, I figured that I had to work my way toward enlightenment – by acting nobly, or understanding metaphysical ideas, or perhaps something else. I wasn't sure. But the experience of the light seemed like a reward to be won.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">What I didn't realize is that <em>this was just another distracting thought</em>. It took the form of a background "belief," so it was less obvious than things like worries and resentments. But it effectively obscured the light for a while.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">If you find that you have this thought in some form, you can treat it like the others. Simply note it, express your willingness to let it go, and invite your inner light to arise in your awareness.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">As an aid, you may also want to introduce a new set of beliefs designed to replace the old. You can say:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> "The spiritual light is given to everyone, including me."<br /> "There is nothing that I need do to earn it."<br /> "It is given freely, and simply awaits my acceptance."</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Or you can choose others. Once those new thoughts have replaced the old, you can express your willingness to move into the experience of the light itself.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">The second of the subtle distractions is a parallel to the first.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>2. The thought that the light is in the future.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">This, again, is just a distracting thought, or belief. As before, you may want to correct it by saying:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"> "The spiritual light is with me at every moment."<br /> "There is never a moment that I am without it."<br /> "I may not always be aware of it, but the light is here, right now, for the accepting."</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">In both of these situations, we're correcting the mind's belief that there is distance between us and what we seek. We are acknowledging that our awareness might be obscured, but this does not mean that the light is actually gone.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">You deserve to experience all the facets of your inner light – a feeling of being loved, cared-for, safe, and at peace; a sense of your worth, innocence, and beauty; an experience of connection, joy, abundance, and boundless giving. You deserve all these, and more. Not in the distant future, and not after you've accomplished anything – but right now, in this present moment.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">By identifying any distracting cloud-thoughts, and allowing them to pass by, we make room for these experiences to arise in our awareness.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">The world needs miracle workers – channels for the light. All that is needed is for us to open our awareness to it. As we do that, one moment at a time, the light pours forth on its own.</p>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-69128552077438514942020-07-04T13:18:00.001+08:002020-07-04T13:18:01.341+08:00Nostalgia <i>This is from Shaun Bythell's book </i>Confessions of a Bookseller. <i>I've been bad about updating this blog, but thought I should forgive myself and get back on that wagon.</i><div><i><br></i></div><div>I say that these old fellows are the very backbone of the book trade. As they drop off one by one, like leaves from a tree, there is a gap which no modern pushful young salesman can fill, and they leave a memory that is a good deal more fragrant than the smelly hair-oil of those Smart Alecs who come asking me for a job in the confident tone of one who is quite prepared to teach me my own business. I salute old McKerrow and his colleagues as they pass from our midst.</div><div>(Augustus Muir, The Intimate Thoughts of John Baxter, Bookseller)</div><div><br></div><div>Old McKerrow and his colleagues have largely passed from our midst, but a few of them remain. What they've been replaced by, though, is not Smart Alecs, slick with smelly hair oil, but a faceless behemoth that has sucked the humanity out of second-hand (and new) bookselling. The backbone of the book trade of which Muir speaks is all but gone, and the business is in danger of becoming an inveterbrate. I write this just a few hours after an old friend from Edinburgh dropped in to say hello with her elderly father. He wandered through the shop with a look of nostalgia, occasionally touching a book, and looking wistfully around with the amazement of a child who has entered a sweetshop for the first time. As they were leaving to go for lunch with some mutual friends, he came to the counter and said: "You know, Edinburgh used to be filled with places like this. I spent my life wandering about them and building up my library. I bought a sixteenth-century copy of Holinshed's <i>Chronicle -- </i>you have a later edition, I see -- in a bookshop in Leith in the 1940s. I remember it clearly. They're all gone now, all but a small handful.</div><div><br></div><div>Collecting books was clearly an important part of his life, and without bookshops there is little joy to be found in this pursuit. The serendipity of finding something you didn't know even existed, or asking a bookseller what they could recommend on a particular subject, isn't really possible online yet, although I expect it will come. A couple of years ago I approached Napier University with an idea for that very thing: a 3D model of the shop through which avatars could wander, controlled by online customers, and look at the actual stock on the shelves and even interact with one another. They told me that it would require technology that has yet to be developed. In a way I'm glad it isn't there yet, but I doubt if it will be long before it is. Still, the smell, the atmosphere and the human interaction will remain the exclusive preserve of bricks-and-mortar bookshops. Perhaps, like vinyl and 35mm film, there might be a small revival, enough to keep a few of us afloat for a bit longer. </div>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-31714241811757578192020-02-27T18:27:00.001+08:002020-02-27T18:27:49.898+08:00How Wolves Change Rivers<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysa5OBhXz-Q" width="480"></iframe>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-29292396783510460732020-01-30T12:55:00.001+08:002020-01-30T12:55:16.976+08:00Indian MP Mahua Moitra 7 sign of rising fascism speech wins plaudits<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9pl5gS6JiWg" width="480"></iframe>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-44797056494162809142020-01-29T11:59:00.002+08:002020-01-29T12:02:15.307+08:00This and that<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cmXiJQ81zM7M0bgu7X4lDrTLEZQG7PNQGLqBve9lQagUgaH5qEkZDM7Pl6HFGSHX4L8WPXQCpcceoUQZ8k7mGMPFi6zDQfJSCNZuwHgbsyS8Qjjg6FiYsJ52zAVXyKs4_49ZW3NdnR3W/s1600/miscellany1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="450" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cmXiJQ81zM7M0bgu7X4lDrTLEZQG7PNQGLqBve9lQagUgaH5qEkZDM7Pl6HFGSHX4L8WPXQCpcceoUQZ8k7mGMPFi6zDQfJSCNZuwHgbsyS8Qjjg6FiYsJ52zAVXyKs4_49ZW3NdnR3W/s320/miscellany1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
It's almost the end of January. We start the year with such hopes and lose steam somewhere in the middle of the first month. I realise that if I don't bother about results, if I just track my habits and see the ticks where ticks are supposed to be, I am more likely to climb back up on that bandwagon.<br />
<br />
Today, I started out going to the gym and sweating profusely. Which made me feel saintly and flushed with ...I don't know, endorphins?<br />
<br />
Anyway, I am listening to <i>The Waves</i> by Virginia Woolf on Audible:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I bind my hair with a white ribbon, so that when I leap across the court the ribbon will stream out in a flash, yet curl around my neck, perfectly in its place. Not a hair shall be out of place.</blockquote>
I listened to <i>Wind in the Willows</i> twice. Now I realise I luxuriate in the beauty of the descriptions, the whimsical flights of fancy, as well as the description of all that good food. It's what I listen for in The Christmas Carol as well. My favourite description there has to do with fat onions that resemble Spanish friars.<br />
<br />
I think I may listen to <i>The Secret Garden</i> next. But I have yet to find a recording that I like.<br />
<br />
This is my message from The Universe today.<br />
<br />
<i>Do you know what I'd really, really like, Jennifer?</i><br />
<div>
<i>For you to know that I think about you every moment of every day. </i></div>
<div>
<i>K?</i><br />
<div>
<i> The Universe</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<i>And that your happiness is the point of this all, Jennifer. And that chocolate was not an accidental discovery.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
I'm back at work after a lovely four-day holiday. During that time, I went to Backyard to see in Mark's birthday with him and give him his presents, decided to make achari chicken tart (still haven't assembled all the ingredients - what on earth are nigella seeds?), visited my father twice, got back on the treadmill and exercise bike and made the 10,000 steps every day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Read a book or two.</div>
<div>
<br />
Went to Bookexcess to get a heap of presents (and wrapping paper).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Met Anita for tea to give her (finally) her Christmas present.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I've been a busy bee. And I thought I just spent my holiday sleeping.<br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
</div>
Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-19894543966465696492020-01-28T02:31:00.000+08:002020-01-28T02:31:34.775+08:00Cha-no-yu<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid6D3Nsew45Gs4c76grlZlqMRS7dT1QSfEJrZdzzUD_kTLJ6funuA7AAalK1FO91euifQ1y9FfhdTozhBcl75BM_BiPM8PltoZlYZScHG9nDjKi9pf5f_urxMFHXIYl57fqrDjlw1ARnzV/s1600/1580101069390226-0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid6D3Nsew45Gs4c76grlZlqMRS7dT1QSfEJrZdzzUD_kTLJ6funuA7AAalK1FO91euifQ1y9FfhdTozhBcl75BM_BiPM8PltoZlYZScHG9nDjKi9pf5f_urxMFHXIYl57fqrDjlw1ARnzV/s1600/1580101069390226-0.png" width="400">
</a>
</div><div>The four great qualities which the <i>Seikasha -- </i>the Tea Drinker -- was to celebrate and cultivate over the sacred cup were hospitality, courtesy, purity, and tranquility. The apartment must be plain, but elegant, with spotless mats and simple joinery; the utensils must be uncostly, but exquisite in shape and fitness. Temperance must be absolute; if food and wine mingled with the little feast nobody must exceed one bowl of rice and three saucers of sake. Nor was it solely for love of grace and the four chief virtues of the tearoom, <i>Ka-kei-sei-jaku, </i>that the famous tycoon inaugurated the cult of the tea leaf. His great mind saw that if he could give Japan a national and tranquil habit, easy of practice for the poor and attractive to the rich, he would do as much to sheathe the sword and humanise his people, and so it has turned out. Never, in truth, had a statesman's subtle device such grand success. The teacup, as I have said, is today the central fact of this fair and gentle land. It decides the architecture, binds together the societies, refreshes the fatigue, and rewards the day's work of high and low in Japan. The perspiring <i>jinriksha </i>man is satisfied with the warm infusion; the Minister and the Mikado himself are only happy when the "honourable tea" exhales its delicate fragrance from the hands of the kneeling <i>musume. </i>And there are little gracious ceremonies even about the most ordinary tea drinking in humblest houses, which everywhere elevate it above a mere beverage. Good manners in Japan prescribe a soft sort of solemnity whenever the little cup is being filled, and no hut is so lowly but it's kettle, it's teapot, and its tea equipage display something about them of distinction, taste, and the love of a chaste and perfect art.</div><div><br></div><div>But the <i>Cha-no-yu, </i>as Hideyoshi and Sen-no-rikiu settled it forever, carries these ceremonials to a grave perfection. To be quite orthodox the tearoom must be very small, one of but four and a half mats, roofed, if possible, with a single finely grained plank, or else thatched with bamboo grass. The few honoured guests should be called to the pavilion by wooden clappers, washing their hands first in pure water. No discontented person must be present, nor any scandal, or unkind words be heard. The host himself should mend the fire, light the incense, brush the mats, fill the white-pine ewer, and lay the ladle of red-pine; as well as see that the single picture is hung and the single flower-pot fairly set in its place. The tea should be of the finest green powder, from a beautiful but common little jar; placed in a cup of ancient design holding, perhaps, half a pint. The 'honourable' hot water is poured upon it, and then stirred in with a small bamboo whisk, which article itself, like the tiny spoon of the same material used for taking out the tea powder, must be of a certain form, and if possible, ancient, and famous for its artistic origin.</div><div><br></div><div>Even about the boiling of the water there is orthodox tradition, there is solemnity, I had almost said there is religion. The <i>sumi </i>in the brazier must be piled up in the outline of a glowing Fuji-san. The kettle of beaten iron must have no touch of modern vulgarity in its shape, the water must be drawn from the purest source, and -- at the moment of use -- in the third state of boiling. The first state is known by its low murmuring, and the appearance on the surface of the large slow bubbles distinguished as "fish eyes", <i>gyo-moku; </i>the second is when steam comes with quickly rising foam; the third is when the steam disappears in a tranquil, steady simmer, and the fluid is now "honourable old hot water." This is the propitious moment for the admixture, which being compounded appears in the guise of a light-green frothy compound, delicately fragrant and invigoratingly hot, contained in the antique cup, which, neatly folded in a fair cloth, should be handed now to the principal guest. Drinking reverently from it, he should tenderly wipe the rim at the spot where he has quaffed, but the next guest must drink at the very same place, for such is the "Kiss of brotherhood", in harmony with the friendly inspirations of this ceremony. The last guest must be heedful to drain the bowl to its dregs; then he passes it round to be examined, criticised, and made the subject of pleasant talk about the old days, the cannons of true art in pottery, or any other topic lightly arising from the graceful moment, as the tender fragrance of the tea leaf wafts itself about the air of the little spotless chamber and among the kneeling, happy, tranquil companions of the occasion.</div><div><br></div><div>At a glance, it will be seen how imperiously these elegant ceremonies, once established and received, have dictated to Japan the pure simplicity of her ceramic and metal work, and how they have passed down into all ranks of the people, constituting a standard of sweet and simple manners and of high-bred tastes which they were quicker to accept than any other nation. Perhaps nowhere except in Japan would it have been possible even for the great Hideyoshi and the astute Sen-no-rikiu to have indoctrinated a whole people with so pure and refined a passion. But the commonest Japanese have this charming tendency to a delicate sobriety of appetite and taste; they love the touch of art which elevates, the glimpse of grace, which dignifies. They have the nature rather of birds and butterflies than of ordinary human beings, and when you send out to your Kurumaya a cup of tea and a saucer of boiled rice, and hear afterwards his grateful words, you wonder whether he is of the same race as that which you left quaffing half-and-half and eating rump-steaks on the banks of the Thames. Of course the austere etiquette of the <i>Cha-no-yu </i>is special; but its spirit, as the central ceremony of tea drinking, has palpably passed through all Japan, where everything begins and ends with the <i>tetsubin </i>and the teacup. Nor is it too much to declare that to Buddhism, which brought in her religious ideas and the tea leaf, and to Hideyoshi, who taught her how to honour, enjoy, and infuse it, is due much, if not most, of the existing aspect of social and civic Japan.</div><div><br></div><div>(From <i>Sake and Tea </i>by Sir Edwin Arnold, Tokyo, Japan, Dec 19,1889)</div>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5938205840267425932.post-48797872931577712362020-01-27T00:00:00.002+08:002020-08-09T15:40:27.390+08:00The humanity of captors and torturers<i>China's most famous artist, Ai Weiwei, was arrested and detained for 81 days. When he was released from jail, he refused to talk to journalists. In fact, he refused all interviews about his experience inside, until he was approached by Barnaby Martin, who wrote, not an article, but a book, Hanging Man, named for one of Weiwei's most famous pieces of art.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Here, at the end of the book, he talks about the humanity of his jailers and how they were victims themselves, trapped in a system they no longer believed in. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>It was a chastening realisation.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>And so, the book ends on a note of hope.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
"By the way," I say, "last night in the youth hostel, I went through all we said yesterday and I kept thinking that it would make a great play one day."<br />
<br />
"Yes," says Weiwei. "When I was in there, I sometimes thought that too. The whole situation was so dramatic, it was so full of paradoxes. I was a prisoner of course but so were the guards who had to stand by me day and night, and so were the people watching me from outside, trying to figure out what to do with me. Everyone was stuck. It was a very dramatic situation. And we talked so much about the meaning of art, about politics, about freedom and all the time I tried to answer their questions but at the same time I had to be on my guard because you always have to be very cautious and very careful because you don't know what's really going on. You only know that you are in absolute danger but at the same time you are desperate to limit the danger and even though you are in absolute danger and cut off from reality, you must still make sure that you don't hurt somebody on the outside or make the problem even bigger by saying the wrong thing. And there was so much confrontation, so much hostility, and the interrogators were not allowed to get to know me or even to say anything that would make me a person. I was just a number. Number 1135. That's my room number. But even this becomes completely dramatic and surreal because the soldiers who are guarding me are young and they have their own past, their own lives, and nobody cares about them at all. They are just soldier A or B or C or D. So confusing. The situation really examines the very essential questions, the very philosophical questions. How this esoteric society maintains itself and how it will now work and what happens to human nature in those circumstances. It's significant that sooner or later all the soldiers, except one -- their leader didn't talk to me -- but all of the others all secretly talk to me. But though they all secretly talked to me none of them know that the other ones were also secretly talking to me because of course it's not allowed. They were so bored, wanting to pass the time somehow. They said, "Weiwei, can you tell us a joke?? This was such a crazy situation. How can I tell them a joke? I am in jail; I have no idea what is about to happen to me -- I might end up in jail for twenty years. I said, "I'm very sorry. If I had known that I was going to be arrested I would have memorised two hundred jokes!"<br />
<br />
"Time passes so slowly, for you and for them, and you try to memorise everything that happened in your life but after twenty days you have nothing left, it's completely empty! You have remembered every detail, no one has more than that. I remembered every person, every occasion, every meeting, every conversation, from when you are very young right up to that day and then suddenly you are completely empty. It's crazy. Then I try to hold on to something, to think about my son, my wife, my mum. Just to hold on. But then that becomes so painful to think about because they are just as completely innocent as you are and it is unbearable and the outside world also seems like a jail because you can never really communicate to them. So then every time I think of them there were tears pouring down my face and the soldiers say, "Are you thinking about your wife, your son again? Don't do that. You have to forget about this. You have to forget it all." So I think I really do have to forget about this otherwise I cannot go on. It's so painful, thinking ten years in jail...You know, it's just like that...So many conflicts about reality, imagination, crime. The whole thing is a paradox. And it continues, even when you leave. It has infected your outside reality. So two of the soldiers were meant to go home by this 25 December. I gave them my number. They already called me.<br />
<br />
"No. Really?"<br />
<br />
"Yes. They said, "Are you out?" Because they don't know -- they don't have any news in the army. One day they are moved to guard another room and they would never know then what happened in this room. They said, 'We were so worried about you, we kept thinking about you, we are so happy you are out...' It was so shocking. And after my release, the interrogator sometimes comes to see me. It's very strange. I said to him, 'Why do you do this, you shouldn't monitor me now.'"<br />
<br />
"But he is coming to check up on you?"<br />
<br />
"Yes. And he says, 'Weiwei, just let this one year pass. Come on! You will not die if you don't say a word for one year. Let it pass, then everything will be fine.' And I wonder if that's how this nation will change because now there are a lot of individuals who have their own sensibilities and they have their own judgement. Even after all the kingdoms and dynasties of China, this has never happened before. But now people are beginning to have their own judgement, their own opinion."<br />
<br />
"So this is partly to do with the passage of time. Twenty years ago the individual in those roles would still have had a belief in the ideology. Why is it that nowadays these relatively senior people, even if they are not actually in a revolution, they personally, don't want to tarnish their integrity? What is it that's changed?"<br />
<br />
"I think that the only reason for the change is because there is so much more information. So much information happens every day and even with such censorship people can still receive a lot of news from the world. Basically I believe a person is a container of all this information, knowledge, judgements. The state of course is still so strong but the Party cannot limit the information any more. There are too many ways round. And with this information people start to form their own view of the world."....<br />
<br />
"But you know, from the very first second I realise even here there is humanity. Even when they put the black hood on me, when the two soldiers were holding me, one soldier grabbed me very tight but the other just pretended to grab me but in fact he held me very loose. So even sitting there, they try to give me more space, not to really hurt me..."<br />
<br />
"Really?"<br />
<br />
"Yes! So then you realise that there are two people sitting here, two other human beings. One obeys the command, the other just tries to use his own judgement and thinks, 'I don't see why we have to do this.' And that small thing, that tiny sense of humanity, certainly made me much more comfortable in this one-hour road to that secret place. And every time, when they put a handcuff on me, some of them just did it so carefully, first one tooth, then two teeth, so it's very loose, still comfortable. So loose in fact that you even can take your hand out. And somebody would even very carefully put my shirtsleeve under the handcuff so that the metal would not directly touch my skin. They didn't have to do all those things. It's just a job, why should they care? I didn't even care. But they carefully did that. It shows a lot of humanity, it shows they're different. It shows they think and they decide that they don't believe in this. And some police would always say,"Do you want tea?" They would keep asking. I don't want tea at the start but they keep pouring tea, trying to make me feel good. There was a lot of nice or warm situations there. A lot of humanity."<br />
<i><br /></i>Jennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14359604151544863025noreply@blogger.com0