.
The Funeral
The funeral was fine, and in fact really well done. I left the building feeling positive, and uplifted. There was no mention of God, Jesus, or heaven. There were no holy songs. There was no religion whatsoever. In fact the piece of music that played us out was John Lennon's best known song - “Imagine there's no heaven . . . and no religion too . . .”
The focus of the gathering was entirely on dear B, and the good life she'd lived. Which is as it should be. Amongst other things she was a loving mother, a gifted teacher, an inspirational headteacher, a long-serving trustee of a children's charity, and a good musician. There were two points during the proceedings at which music was played, and allowed time for us to sit in silent meditation. It was during those moments that the Christian cross at the head of the room caught my attention.
Was it fixed in place? And if so, why? And if not, then why hadn't it been removed prior to this gathering that was obviously intended to be secular? Is it ignorance, or arrogance, or sheer determination on someone's part that causes this to happen? On the other hand, maybe the family had been told they could have the cross removed, if they desired, but had said it wasn't necessary. No need to make a big deal of it. Maybe.
On returning to the car I pressed the play button on the stereo, and the very next song that came up was this wonderful Tracey Chapman number:
Heaven's Here on Earth
You can look to the stars in search of the answers
Look for God and life on distant planets
Have your faith in the ever after
While each of us holds inside the map to the labyrinth
And heaven's here on earth
We are the spirit, the collective conscience
We create the pain and the suffering and the beauty in this world
Heaven's here on earth
In our faith in humankind
In our respect for what is earthly
In our unfaltering belief in peace and love and understanding
I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise
Of ordinary people leading ordinary lives
Filled with love, compassion, forgiveness and sacrifice:
Heaven's in our hearts
In our faith in humankind
In our respect for what is earthly
In our unfaltering belief in peace and love and understanding
Look around
Believe in what you see
The kingdom is at hand
The promised land is at your feet
We can and will become what we aspire to be
If Heaven's here on earth
If we have faith in humankind
And respect for what is earthly
And an unfaltering belief that truth is divinity
And heaven's here on earth
I've seen spirits
I've met angels
Touched creations beautiful and wondrous
I've been places where I question all I think I know
But I believe, I believe, I believe this could be heaven
We are born inside the gates with the power to create life
And to take it away
The world is our temple
The world is our church
Heaven's here on earth
If we have faith in human kind
And respect for what is earthly
And an unfaltering belief
In peace and love and understanding
This could be heaven here on earth.
-----------------------------------
Now that's what I call spiritual intelligence.
------------------------------------
Whilst I was in Spain I had an interesting conversation with my friend T, who has many images and figures of the Buddha in and around his house. He's spent a lot of time working and traveling in Buddhist countries. We spoke about the benefits of meditation, and he revealed to me that he thinks it's impossible for him to really meditate because he has an over-active mind that simply won't switch off, so as to allow itself to become still, calm, and contemplative. I guess lots of people feel this way.
---------------------------------------
Bushido
Whilst in Spain I finished reading "Bushido - The Soul of Japan", by Inazo Nitobe.
William Elliot Griffis says this in his Introduction:
"This little book on Bushido is more than a weighty message to the Anglo-Saxon nations. It is a notable contribution to the solution to this century's grandest problem - the reconciliation and unity of the East and the West."
This was published in 1905, and of course things didn't quite go that way. If only such reconciliation had been the major problem facing the planet in the 20th Century.
As things turned out, quite a lot of stuff got in the way of such leisurely and worthwhile pursuits. Things like the wars against fascism and nationalism, the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam, America's espousal of the Shock Doctrine and its attempt to impose its will on the rest of the planet, globalisation, anti-liberalism, neo-conservatism, etc, etc. Not to mention little things messing up the beginning of the 21st Century such as Bush2, the Twin Towers, Afghanistan, Iraq2, global warming, the collapse of the world's financial system, etc.
In the meantime, any attempt to understand the philosophy of Bushido might indeed help the West to gain a better perspective on its own problems. Griffis was right to say that Japan and China needed to get wise to the materialistic, scientific and capitalistic ways of the West, and they've done that to a remarkable degree. The West, however, for the most part arrogantly assumes it has nothing to learn from the ancient wisdom, ideas and philosophies of the East.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushid%C5%8D
-------------------------------------------------
Walking Meditation
Whilst in Spain I spent some time taking photos and shooting video of the sun rising above the hills to the east of T's place, enjoying, as ever, the quality of the light, the peace and the stillness of the dawn.
There was time to take walks up and around the mountain on the little roads that wind their way up into the campo. “Walking meditation” is brilliant for re-acquainting yourself with your body and its state of fitness, or unfitness. Also for focusing on your breathing. These are essential components of the process of meditation, which seems to me to be the process of gaining self-knowledge and self-understanding.
For instance, how can I claim to be enlightened, or even part-enlightened, if I don't even know the degree to which I'm fit or unfit, whether my body's strong or weak, and to what extent I can walk and climb easily?
Hill walking and climbing can therefore be a continuous reminder of the need to take care of our bodies and address our levels of health and fitness.
And then there's our emotional and spiritual health to deal with, assess, and take care of. What do we teach our children about these things? Very little, on the whole.
We need to learn self-assessment techniques and dedicate time to using them regularly. How well do we know ourselves and our inner workings in reality? In most cases, not well at all. Our culture and our education don't encourage these things.
How and when do we assess the quality of our relationships, and our love of life itself? People may love life and want to hold on to it, whilst hating their own lives and the way they live.
How often and when do we set aside time to experience awe and wonder?
-------------------------------------------------------
The sun rising each day
With impossible brilliance
Clouds changing
From grey to red and orange
To yellow and purest white.
The sky and sea emerging
From black to grey
To brilliant blue.
A billion trees and flowers
Beginnings from small seeds
Growing from darkness and no colour
To every possible shade of brilliance.
The cycle of nature
And cycles within cycles:
Colours and forms appearing
And disappearing
Unbidden, never ending.
---------------------------------------------------------
Gaining perspective and insight into ourselves, into others, and into the entire universe around us, is surely worthwhile, and necessary if we're to experience life to the full and become the best we can be. Where's the positives in ignorance and failure to perceive the essential reality of ourselves, our relationships, and the universe we inhabit?
-----------------------------------------------------------
And yet . . . too often, it seems, knowledge is forsaken and ignorance seems like bliss. The dark side of our own reality seems like something to be hidden from ourselves, as well as others . . .
Instead of grappling with our own weaknesses and failures we'd rather stay unaware of them, ignore them and dismiss them. Our poor egos can't cope with too much threat to our self-esteem, since they tend to be fragile at the best of times.
---------------------------------------------------
Enlightenment
And yet . . . I have friends who have chosen The Way of meditation and self-discovery, and find that the pathway to self-knowledge and self-development is challenging – yes – but also exciting, necessary and very worthwhile.
I have other friends who say they cannot meditate – that their minds are too active with never-ending thoughts that refuse to cease. The mistake here is to assume that meditation is solely about calming and emptying the mind. Of course, in the long run, we want to achieve “peace of mind” and “relaxation”.
Surely, however, if we live our lives to the full, as creative and loving beings, adding value to our lives and the lives of others, we of necessity generate hundreds, possibly thousands, of thoughts, ideas, feelings and imaginings each and every day, each of which is worth taking note of, exploring, examining, etc. Who was it said the unexamined life is not worth living?
I need to say this to my friends who say they can't meditate - to be aware of and reflect on our unceasing and sometimes troublesome thoughts and feelings is in some sense to tame them, bring them to order, and perhaps neutralise and banish them. It's all positive. Knowing what we know, what we feel, and what we imagine, is surely worth knowing.
In time our processes of meditation – our mind, soul and spirit cleansing – can lead us to a realm where we can see and feel ourselves to be part of the universal flux, however strong or weak a force within it we may be, and at that point be filled with a state of contentment, peace, joyfulness and satori. Call it grace.
The gift of life is priceless. This morning I overheard my local shopkeeper telling his friend that money is no use to you when you're dead. We should be mindful of life – value it, treasure it, appreciate it, use it well, and enjoy it to the full.
We learn from our mistakes, to be sure, but we also learn from life itself, no matter how simple and uneventful it may be, and we may surely come to value simplicity and freedom from complexity.
What more do we need besides a place to live, food and drink, good friends, an appreciation of nature, and of life itself?
I need to return to the thoughts of the stoics and the epicureans, who also recognised the value of good food and wine, good conversation, laughter and music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
-----------------------------------------------------------
Piano Blues
You've got to hand it to Clint Eastwood. The man knows his blues. All this week, at 23.15, Sky Arts has been showing the series of full-length feature films originally shown on BBC4 on The Blues: Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues. Earlier in the week the films directed by Mike Figgis and Wim Wenders were shown. Last night it was Clint's turn.
Clint sat at a piano with Ray Charles, encouraging him to talk about how he'd got started playing the blues piano. Ray rapped at length about Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Mead Lux Lewis, Nat King Cole, Joe Turner, Oscar Peterson, and Art Tatum, whom Ray clearly regards as a genius. And Ray should know.
“My God, man, when you just sit back and listen to Art, you, you, you just don't believe what you're hearing. His left hand was just a symphony on its own. And the closest to him I ever heard was Oscar Peterson.”
“Oscar can play, man. (whispering to Clint) Motherfucker can play his ass off.”
Clint, laughing, to camera, “Can we use motherfucker in this?”
Amazon are selling the Box Set for £33. Also the book, the CD and the DVD for £63.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Martin-Scorsese-Presents-Various-Artists/dp/B0000C6JTT
http://www.pbs.org/theblues/
Clint moved on to interviews with Dr John, Professor Longhair, and many others.
“Urban blues came together in Chicago in the 1950s, which is where the Delta blues were electrified,” said Clint. Shit – 1950. Not so long ago.
-------------------------------------------
Earlier in the evening a documentary on Mick Fleetwood had featured clips of BB King and John Lee Hooker – the absolute masters – who clearly rated Mick as high as it's possible to go as a master of the drum kit - as a keeper of time, as Len would say.
BB was also featured earlier in the week in the Scorsese series, and said this about the British guys who had embraced the blues in the early Sixties:
“They did more than anyone to popularise this 'Race Music' in the country of its origin.”
In that particular programme, directed by Mike Figgis, there were many excellent clips of interviews with the likes of Clapton, Eric Burdon, John Mayall, Van Morrison, Lulu, Tom Jones, Steve Winwood, Chris Farlowe (whom Otis Redding invited to sing with him on Ready Steady Go), Lonnie Donegan, Peter Green and Humphrey Littleton. These were the days of all-nighters at the 100 Club, The Flamingo and The Marquee.
BB also said, “These British guys (including the Beatles and the Stones) opened doors that I don't think would have been opened in my lifetime.”
.
Showing posts with label Bushido. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bushido. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Layer 148 The Phoenix Hall, Tokyo, Spiritual Intelligence, Mountains, Warrior Monks, Zen and Bushido.
.
The Phoenix Hall of the Byodo-in Temple in Uji City, which we visited on Monday, is phenomenal. It’s a magnificent wooden pavilion, built in 1053, with a highly elaborate roof, on top of which are perched two silver phoenix birds. It stands in its own small park, facing a lake that’s surrounded by cherry trees, maples and azelias. To enter the hall you cross an orange-painted bridge and then approach it shoeless through a covered colonnaded walkway, on polished boards.
The hall’s only purpose is to house a very large and beautifully carved figure of a seated Buddha. With the doors open, the statue is visible from across the small lake. When it was still covered in its original gold leaf it must have looked stunning. To stand close to it within the confines of the hall is amazing.
On the inner walls of the pavilion are painted what are now faded murals. There are also fifty or so carved figures mounted high around the inner walls. These beautiful figures are airborne on small clouds, most of them playing musical instruments - stringed, wind and percussion.
The figures seem like some kind of reminder of the importance of music and its connection with the spiritual and the enlightened. With exquisite sound and melody, and with graceful rhythm and a steady pulse, we give musical expression to intense feelings of joy and spiritual bliss. Our master musicians do this on behalf of the rest of us, who can only listen, and enjoy.
In such a place it’s easy to imagine the morning and evening meditations of the monks and their novices, as they sit facing the beauty of the lake and the garden, with the magnificence of the Buddha immediately behind them.
--------------------------------------------------
In our frantic world, how often do we have time for morning meditation? Or even find time to listen to music properly - to really listen to it and to lose ourselves in beautiful uplifting sound? How often do we experience awe and wonder?
To lose one’s ‘self’ in meditation is clearly essential to living well, but our lives are for the most part lived in such a way that we fail to connect with our essence, except on very rare occasions.
To gather our thoughts, to recollect, to re-live, to reflect - these things seem so easy to do, and yet so hard to achieve. And we rarely take time to give silent thanks for the beauty and love we experience in our lives. We take so much for granted, and then feel resentful when life is less than perfect.
How many wonderful experiences do we forget because we can’t afford the time to consolidate our memories? And to what degree do the riches of our best moments then disappear by the wayside - lost in the recesses of memory, and never to be recalled?
To allow stillness and silence to enter our souls, to let troubling thoughts and preoccupations fade and disappear. To listen to our inner voices and to allow their intuitions to speak, if only we have ears to listen.
To sit in silent places of great natural beauty is so beneficial to our souls. To consider beautiful trees and shrubs, to contemplate flowers and blossoms, and to listen to the songs of birds and the sound of the wind in the leaves. How fortunate we are if we can create or discover, and enjoy, such places.
------------------------------------------------------
On a hillside just above the Phoenix Hall, amongst pine trees and maples, stands a small, unobtrusive, minimalist masterpiece of architecture - a modern museum. Within it are more of the flying figures that have been taken from the Buddha hall, and reproductions of the murals within the Buddha hall. The mural reproductions show how beautiful they looked originally before the passing centuries caused them to fade.
The interior spaces of the museum are wonderful - some of them dimly lit, some containing glass display cases. There’s a replica of the massive prayer bell that hangs in an orange framework outside. There are beautiful calligraphic manuscripts and carvings. The museum shop has lots of tasteful gifts and memorabilia, including superb books of photographs. There’s an all-glass wall with an exit to a stone, gravel and moss garden with benches and meditation platforms, where people sit and rest before moving back into the outside world..
--------------------------------------------
It’s now three weeks and I’ve still not seen a single police car driving hell for leather with sirens blaring and lights flashing to some incident or robbery. And that’s in spite of having spent a fair amount of time in the main cities - Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. In fact I’ve only seen three police cars on the motorways and the city streets.
-----------------------------------------------
I’ve reached the conclusion that in true Zen style it might be easier to describe what spiritual intelligence and enlightenment are NOT, rather than describe what they ARE.
They’re the absence of malice, spite, viciousness, violence, anger and hatred. The absence of racism, sexism, snobbery, elitism and other forms of prejudice and self-aggrandisement.
It’s the absence of greed, envy, jealousy, pettiness and unpleasantness. It’s the absence of exploitation, abuse and other forms of immoral behaviour.
Some of these things can be attributed to a lack of social and emotional intelligences, but through the grace of spiritual intelligence we see the need to work on our current levels of these other intelligences in order to raise them higher.
Through spiritual intelligence we aspire to make ourselves and our world a better place. We aspire to raise levels of wellbeing and enlightenment in ourselves, and crucially to assist in raising them for others, since in order to live well ourselves we need others to also live well.
As the story says, it was impossible for Siddartha to find contentment and happiness when he was aware of the sufferings of others. Through doing what we can to assist others to overcome ignorance, want and suffering we enjoy happiness and wellbeing ourselves as a kind of by-product.
-------------------------------------------------------
In the afternoon yesterday we drove up to Enryaku-ji Temple - high on Mount Hiei, looking down on Kyoto on one side of the mountain and the enormous Lake Biwa on the other.
DK’s Eyewitness guide says this about it:
“A once mighty monastery fortress with 3,000 sub-temples and thousands of sohei, or warrior monks . . . the solemnity of the isolated mountain-top setting and the grandeur of its remaining buildings make the trek up the mountain worthwhile.
Founded by the monk Saicho in 792 it became the main temple of the Tendai sect. Although initially entrusted to protect the city from evil forces, the temple itself became the bane of the then capital, Kyoto. Emporer Go-Shirakawa (1127-92) once lamented that there were only three things beyond his control: the flooding of the Kamo River, the roll of the dice, and the warrior monks of Enryaku-ji.”
I like the idea of warrior monks who are prepared to do their own thing, live in their own way, and not take any crap from puffed-up so-called emperors and rulers.
The main building is massive, and the nearest thing to some sort of ‘gothic’ temple I’ve yet seen - a very dark interior with huge black columns holding up the high roof. Candles and ancient oil lamps provide a little light, and seated figures of Buddha are dimly seen in the recesses where visitors are not allowed to enter.
There was a very hospitable senior monk who explained to us some of the temple’s history, and spoke about the functions of the various parts of the building.
The courtyard had in it two ancient cherry trees that were still in full blossom, despite the cherry blossoms having faded long ago down in the warm valleys and the coastal strip. It seems the cold up in these mountains can be intense in the winter, and the snow very deep. There was a plaque outside commemorating the gathering of world religious leaders that took place at the temple some ten years ago. I’d love to know what those of other faiths made of it all.
----------------------------------------------------------------
In Tokyo Professor M gave me two books - a classic text by D.T. Suzuki - ‘Manual of Zen Buddhism’ - and another well-known book called ‘Bushido - The Soul of Japan’ by Inazo Nitobe.
Prof M told me that Suzuki was educated at the famous Zen monastery at Kamakura, which is on the coast in the little-visited northern region of Honshu, Japan’s main island. He reckons that on my next trip to Japan I should make a point of visiting it, and also the island of Sado, also in the northern region, which is where the Kodo drummers are based.
I’ve seen the Kodo drummers a couple of times in London, and used to have a CD of their drumming and playing, till someone ‘borrowed’ it and didn’t give it back.
Many years ago I bought and read a Japanese classic by Basho, ‘The Road to the North’, which way back then instilled in me an ambition to retrace his walk in the remote parts of the northern district.
And then there’s the large island of Hokkaido, the island of ‘fire and ice’ - the most northerly, and the coldest and the most volcanic part of Japan. That’s definitely one for a summer visit.
---------------------------------------------------
Tokyo was very enjoyable. The organised tour took me and Rio, Prof M’s doctoral student who was invited to be my guide for the day, to the Tokyo Tower, the gardens of the Imperial Palace, and the Asakusa Temple.
I’d been to Asakusa in 2001, but you can’t have too much of a good thing. The Tokyo Tower is built in the style of the Eiffel Tower, which it prides itself on being higher than, by about 20 feet. The palace gardens are an enormous area right in the centre of the city, but somehow just a great big open space, mainly grass and small pine trees. It’s not really possible to see the palace, which is open to the public just twice a year. Apparently the Emperor and his wife come out on to a balcony and wave to the crowds at regular intervals on visiting days. It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it.
The view of the city from the tower is - well, panoramic. But not too exciting. Lots of modern architecture, but none of it particularly stunning. Thanks to the day being a bit hazy, and to the bullet trains both to Tokyo and back to Osaka running in the dark, I’ve STILL not seen Mount Fuji. But sooner or later I will spend time around Fuji, and I’m determined to climb it. Kilimanjaro’s the other mountain I still want to walk up.
Come to think of it, the last substantial mountain I walked up was Mont Doree in the Massif Central - the highest mountain in France, aside from the Alps and the Pyrenees. That’s definitely one to do as well.
---------------------------------------------------
I’m still having problems getting my head around the idea that in Japan it’s impossible to include Zen, Bushido, Buddhism, or learning about any religion in the curriculum. These key philosophies have been crucial to the formulation of the spiritual intelligence of Japan, and yet there’s no real sense of pride in or ownership of any of them, nor even any awareness.
Liberal Japanese people just shrug their shoulders, and tell me that the conservative government won’t allow such knowledge of their cultural heritage to be examined in schools. Japan has been governed by conservative governments since the War, and it looks likely to remain that way.
---------------------------------------------
The sub-title of the Bushido book is ‘An Exposition of Japanese Thought’, and it’s dedicated to Tokitoshi Ota, “Who taught me to revere the past and to admire the deeds of the Samurai”.
The introduction says, “He who would understand twentieth-century Japan must know something of its roots in the soil of the past. Even if now as invisible to the present generation in Japan as to the alien; the philosophic student reads the results of today in the stored energies of ages gone.
All the spiritual senses are keen in those nursed by Bushido.
This little book on Bushido is more than a weighty message to the Anglo-Saxon nations. It is a notable contribution to the solution to this century’s grandest problem - the reconciliation and unity of the East and the West. There were of old many civilisations: in the better world coming there will be one.
As the efficient middle term between the wisdom and communism of Asia and the energy and individualism of Europe and America, Japan is working with restless power.”
That was written by one William Elliot Griffis in 1905.
.
The Phoenix Hall of the Byodo-in Temple in Uji City, which we visited on Monday, is phenomenal. It’s a magnificent wooden pavilion, built in 1053, with a highly elaborate roof, on top of which are perched two silver phoenix birds. It stands in its own small park, facing a lake that’s surrounded by cherry trees, maples and azelias. To enter the hall you cross an orange-painted bridge and then approach it shoeless through a covered colonnaded walkway, on polished boards.
The hall’s only purpose is to house a very large and beautifully carved figure of a seated Buddha. With the doors open, the statue is visible from across the small lake. When it was still covered in its original gold leaf it must have looked stunning. To stand close to it within the confines of the hall is amazing.
On the inner walls of the pavilion are painted what are now faded murals. There are also fifty or so carved figures mounted high around the inner walls. These beautiful figures are airborne on small clouds, most of them playing musical instruments - stringed, wind and percussion.
The figures seem like some kind of reminder of the importance of music and its connection with the spiritual and the enlightened. With exquisite sound and melody, and with graceful rhythm and a steady pulse, we give musical expression to intense feelings of joy and spiritual bliss. Our master musicians do this on behalf of the rest of us, who can only listen, and enjoy.
In such a place it’s easy to imagine the morning and evening meditations of the monks and their novices, as they sit facing the beauty of the lake and the garden, with the magnificence of the Buddha immediately behind them.
--------------------------------------------------
In our frantic world, how often do we have time for morning meditation? Or even find time to listen to music properly - to really listen to it and to lose ourselves in beautiful uplifting sound? How often do we experience awe and wonder?
To lose one’s ‘self’ in meditation is clearly essential to living well, but our lives are for the most part lived in such a way that we fail to connect with our essence, except on very rare occasions.
To gather our thoughts, to recollect, to re-live, to reflect - these things seem so easy to do, and yet so hard to achieve. And we rarely take time to give silent thanks for the beauty and love we experience in our lives. We take so much for granted, and then feel resentful when life is less than perfect.
How many wonderful experiences do we forget because we can’t afford the time to consolidate our memories? And to what degree do the riches of our best moments then disappear by the wayside - lost in the recesses of memory, and never to be recalled?
To allow stillness and silence to enter our souls, to let troubling thoughts and preoccupations fade and disappear. To listen to our inner voices and to allow their intuitions to speak, if only we have ears to listen.
To sit in silent places of great natural beauty is so beneficial to our souls. To consider beautiful trees and shrubs, to contemplate flowers and blossoms, and to listen to the songs of birds and the sound of the wind in the leaves. How fortunate we are if we can create or discover, and enjoy, such places.
------------------------------------------------------
On a hillside just above the Phoenix Hall, amongst pine trees and maples, stands a small, unobtrusive, minimalist masterpiece of architecture - a modern museum. Within it are more of the flying figures that have been taken from the Buddha hall, and reproductions of the murals within the Buddha hall. The mural reproductions show how beautiful they looked originally before the passing centuries caused them to fade.
The interior spaces of the museum are wonderful - some of them dimly lit, some containing glass display cases. There’s a replica of the massive prayer bell that hangs in an orange framework outside. There are beautiful calligraphic manuscripts and carvings. The museum shop has lots of tasteful gifts and memorabilia, including superb books of photographs. There’s an all-glass wall with an exit to a stone, gravel and moss garden with benches and meditation platforms, where people sit and rest before moving back into the outside world..
--------------------------------------------
It’s now three weeks and I’ve still not seen a single police car driving hell for leather with sirens blaring and lights flashing to some incident or robbery. And that’s in spite of having spent a fair amount of time in the main cities - Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. In fact I’ve only seen three police cars on the motorways and the city streets.
-----------------------------------------------
I’ve reached the conclusion that in true Zen style it might be easier to describe what spiritual intelligence and enlightenment are NOT, rather than describe what they ARE.
They’re the absence of malice, spite, viciousness, violence, anger and hatred. The absence of racism, sexism, snobbery, elitism and other forms of prejudice and self-aggrandisement.
It’s the absence of greed, envy, jealousy, pettiness and unpleasantness. It’s the absence of exploitation, abuse and other forms of immoral behaviour.
Some of these things can be attributed to a lack of social and emotional intelligences, but through the grace of spiritual intelligence we see the need to work on our current levels of these other intelligences in order to raise them higher.
Through spiritual intelligence we aspire to make ourselves and our world a better place. We aspire to raise levels of wellbeing and enlightenment in ourselves, and crucially to assist in raising them for others, since in order to live well ourselves we need others to also live well.
As the story says, it was impossible for Siddartha to find contentment and happiness when he was aware of the sufferings of others. Through doing what we can to assist others to overcome ignorance, want and suffering we enjoy happiness and wellbeing ourselves as a kind of by-product.
-------------------------------------------------------
In the afternoon yesterday we drove up to Enryaku-ji Temple - high on Mount Hiei, looking down on Kyoto on one side of the mountain and the enormous Lake Biwa on the other.
DK’s Eyewitness guide says this about it:
“A once mighty monastery fortress with 3,000 sub-temples and thousands of sohei, or warrior monks . . . the solemnity of the isolated mountain-top setting and the grandeur of its remaining buildings make the trek up the mountain worthwhile.
Founded by the monk Saicho in 792 it became the main temple of the Tendai sect. Although initially entrusted to protect the city from evil forces, the temple itself became the bane of the then capital, Kyoto. Emporer Go-Shirakawa (1127-92) once lamented that there were only three things beyond his control: the flooding of the Kamo River, the roll of the dice, and the warrior monks of Enryaku-ji.”
I like the idea of warrior monks who are prepared to do their own thing, live in their own way, and not take any crap from puffed-up so-called emperors and rulers.
The main building is massive, and the nearest thing to some sort of ‘gothic’ temple I’ve yet seen - a very dark interior with huge black columns holding up the high roof. Candles and ancient oil lamps provide a little light, and seated figures of Buddha are dimly seen in the recesses where visitors are not allowed to enter.
There was a very hospitable senior monk who explained to us some of the temple’s history, and spoke about the functions of the various parts of the building.
The courtyard had in it two ancient cherry trees that were still in full blossom, despite the cherry blossoms having faded long ago down in the warm valleys and the coastal strip. It seems the cold up in these mountains can be intense in the winter, and the snow very deep. There was a plaque outside commemorating the gathering of world religious leaders that took place at the temple some ten years ago. I’d love to know what those of other faiths made of it all.
----------------------------------------------------------------
In Tokyo Professor M gave me two books - a classic text by D.T. Suzuki - ‘Manual of Zen Buddhism’ - and another well-known book called ‘Bushido - The Soul of Japan’ by Inazo Nitobe.
Prof M told me that Suzuki was educated at the famous Zen monastery at Kamakura, which is on the coast in the little-visited northern region of Honshu, Japan’s main island. He reckons that on my next trip to Japan I should make a point of visiting it, and also the island of Sado, also in the northern region, which is where the Kodo drummers are based.
I’ve seen the Kodo drummers a couple of times in London, and used to have a CD of their drumming and playing, till someone ‘borrowed’ it and didn’t give it back.
Many years ago I bought and read a Japanese classic by Basho, ‘The Road to the North’, which way back then instilled in me an ambition to retrace his walk in the remote parts of the northern district.
And then there’s the large island of Hokkaido, the island of ‘fire and ice’ - the most northerly, and the coldest and the most volcanic part of Japan. That’s definitely one for a summer visit.
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Tokyo was very enjoyable. The organised tour took me and Rio, Prof M’s doctoral student who was invited to be my guide for the day, to the Tokyo Tower, the gardens of the Imperial Palace, and the Asakusa Temple.
I’d been to Asakusa in 2001, but you can’t have too much of a good thing. The Tokyo Tower is built in the style of the Eiffel Tower, which it prides itself on being higher than, by about 20 feet. The palace gardens are an enormous area right in the centre of the city, but somehow just a great big open space, mainly grass and small pine trees. It’s not really possible to see the palace, which is open to the public just twice a year. Apparently the Emperor and his wife come out on to a balcony and wave to the crowds at regular intervals on visiting days. It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it.
The view of the city from the tower is - well, panoramic. But not too exciting. Lots of modern architecture, but none of it particularly stunning. Thanks to the day being a bit hazy, and to the bullet trains both to Tokyo and back to Osaka running in the dark, I’ve STILL not seen Mount Fuji. But sooner or later I will spend time around Fuji, and I’m determined to climb it. Kilimanjaro’s the other mountain I still want to walk up.
Come to think of it, the last substantial mountain I walked up was Mont Doree in the Massif Central - the highest mountain in France, aside from the Alps and the Pyrenees. That’s definitely one to do as well.
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I’m still having problems getting my head around the idea that in Japan it’s impossible to include Zen, Bushido, Buddhism, or learning about any religion in the curriculum. These key philosophies have been crucial to the formulation of the spiritual intelligence of Japan, and yet there’s no real sense of pride in or ownership of any of them, nor even any awareness.
Liberal Japanese people just shrug their shoulders, and tell me that the conservative government won’t allow such knowledge of their cultural heritage to be examined in schools. Japan has been governed by conservative governments since the War, and it looks likely to remain that way.
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The sub-title of the Bushido book is ‘An Exposition of Japanese Thought’, and it’s dedicated to Tokitoshi Ota, “Who taught me to revere the past and to admire the deeds of the Samurai”.
The introduction says, “He who would understand twentieth-century Japan must know something of its roots in the soil of the past. Even if now as invisible to the present generation in Japan as to the alien; the philosophic student reads the results of today in the stored energies of ages gone.
All the spiritual senses are keen in those nursed by Bushido.
This little book on Bushido is more than a weighty message to the Anglo-Saxon nations. It is a notable contribution to the solution to this century’s grandest problem - the reconciliation and unity of the East and the West. There were of old many civilisations: in the better world coming there will be one.
As the efficient middle term between the wisdom and communism of Asia and the energy and individualism of Europe and America, Japan is working with restless power.”
That was written by one William Elliot Griffis in 1905.
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