Layer 421 . . . People Power, By-Election, Miliband, Obama, America, Wikipedia and Intelligence

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Tunisia

"A lesson in people power - from the Arab world!" said the Channel 4 correspondent. Non-violent demonstrations "led by the secular middle class" have deposed the President, who has now left the country.
The protests were over unemployment, rising prices, lack of proper democracy, and State repression.

Interesting lesson . . .

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By-Election Non Shock
So the Oldham and Saddleworth result turned out pretty much as expected. So what?

I watched the studio discussion after the results came in. The Tory talking head was decent, but witless, and said nothing of interest or impact. The Labour guy was also uninspiring. This was worrying - the fact that Ed Miliband thinks so highly of Sadiq Khan and yet he seems callow, unprepossessing and lacking in style as well as substance. Of course Ed thinks that Khan, being of minority ethnic origins, is a good choice to speak after an election in an area such as O & S. He's not. He's another young politico burning with ambition and guile, and not much else. At least that's what comes across from the TV. Not an attractive personality. Not a good speaker. Not convincing.

The LibDem guy was the most interesting in that he simply twaddled on about the LibDem vote holding up - which was clearly not the case. Why let him get away with it? It's perfectly obvious that it was tactical Tory voting that kept the LibDem vote somewhat respectable. Why bullshit about this? Why not just admit that  thousands of Labour voters who either abstained or voted LibDem in order to get rid of Brown and New Labour are now back in the fold? Why not admit that thousands of people, including lots of first-time voters, who voted LibDem in order to break the Lab-Con monopoly are appalled at what the LibDems have done within the coalition, and will never vote for them again?

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And then there was Ed Miliband giving a few comments this morning. Not good, Ed! Talking about voters being against the coalition on account of the VAT increases and tuition fees. For fuck's sake - these are the minor issues! He should be hammering the coalition at every opportunity about the vicious budget cuts, and their determination to shrink State spending at a moment when it's vital it should be broadly maintained (apart from legitimate cutting of waste and crap projects). He should be hammering them about their failure to do something about the bankers and their bonuses. He should be hitting them hard about their deliberate use of unemployment as a cost-cutting measure, and about the illegitimacy of this - especially as unemployment reduces the national income tax take, and requires more state spending on individual and family support. He ought to be beating on the Tories for their illigitimate radical changes to the NHS and the education systems - their Shock Doctrine do-it-all-in-the-first-six-months-without-any-consultation neo-conservative slash and burn tactics.

Wake up, Ed! You were right to stand for the leadership in order to draw a line under New Labour, and you're a bright and decent guy - but you really have to be better prepared for interviews and say the things that are really important, the things that are most likely to make an impact. Compared with highlighting the really big issues this emphasis on the VAT increase and on the decision to ensure students pay higher fees are just pinpricks in the coalition's thick skin.

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Simon Jenkins on Obama and America

The USA, as we know, is a monster. Who'd be the President of such a huge, violent, unmanageable country? What kind of people even want to be Senators and Congressmen?

Free speech can't exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order

If America is to speak in a way that heals, as Obama wishes, it needs the curbs and regulations that make freedom of expression real

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/13/free-speech-us-politics-obama

The ugly American is back. Can the handsome one do anything about it? When Barack Obama addressed a shocked nation in Tuscon, Arizona, yesterday, he deployed the only weapon left to a crippled presidency: the power of rhetorical cliche. He deployed it brilliantly.

The vitriol and inaccuracy of the campaign against Obama's public health reforms last year were like those against abortion and homosexuality. To many Europeans, the echo across the Atlantic came from a people isolated from the outside world and unable to handle today's social and scientific progress. The debate was infused with nastiness and xenophobia, as if the US was a land composed of tribes bred only to hate the outside world, and often themselves.

I was asked some time ago by a university-educated Texan, in the nicest possible way, what it was like to live in a country of "baby-killers" about to be "overrun by Muslim bad guys". I inquired where he had gained this bizarre impression of Europe, which he had never visited. It turned out his sole information about the world beyond America's shore came from Fox News. He was not stupid. But he and millions of people like him considered this source of news a sufficient window on the world. He genuinely thought American troops would soon have to save Europe from "the Arabs".

Fine. But how different is this from all those in Britain who  get their news exclusively or mainly from the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Express, etc? There are lots of people here who apparently believe that BBC news and current affairs are hopelessly biased towards the left wing. And who tells them this? Those newspapers, of course. Turn on any phone-in radio programme and just listen to these morons.

When the art historian and TV presenter Sir Kenneth Clark was asked what quality best defined civilisation, he did not answer with liberty or wealth or equality. He answered with courtesy, the framework of rules governing people's tolerance of each other, so their discourse might be creative. Most of the time, it is best for that courtesy to be informal. The best rebuttal of the politics of hate is a torrent of love – or, if not love, at least of facts.

But sometimes, as Obama said, there is a yearning "to try to impose some order on the chaos". If American politics is now going the way of wounding, not healing, it needs the tonic of order. It is the great paradox of democracy. Free speech cannot exist without chains.

Obama's full speech available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztbJmXQDIGA

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Intelligence

I've finally got round to watching the recent BBC4 Horizon programme about 'intelligence'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00x7cb3/What_Makes_Us_Clever_A_Horizon_Guide_to_Intelligence/

On the website the "key talent" for this programme is listed as the presenter, Dallas Campbell. Dear oh dear.

Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how our understanding of intelligence has transformed over the last century. From early caveman thinkers to computers doing the thinking for us, he discovers the best ways of testing how clever we are - and enhancing it.

How "clever", eh?

No. Throughout this programme there's absolutely no attempt to differentiate 'intellect' from 'intelligence'. The script is so stupid it continuously uses the word intelligence when it actually means intellect.

IQ is of course the starting point - "the benchmark".

IQ testing brands us with "a single mark".
IQ testing was introduced in 1912. Almost a century ago, and we're still doing it.
How has our understanding of intelligence changed?
Sternberg was introduced and talked about "the testing 'industry'". Well we know all about that!
Someone called Gould talked about animal and insect 'instinctual' intelligence as being "automatic responses to cues"
Is this intelligence?
The presenter clearly thought not. He's obviously not even considered instinct as a true intelligence.
He was only interested in 'ability to solve complex problems'.
Chimps and bees were described as 'Intelligent enough to cooperate' - so there's some sort of inkling there about social intelligence, but it was quickly glossed over.
'When did we learn to think?'
"Humans alone plan ahead, dream and think. Other animals live from day to day."
How do we find evidence of the first recorded expressions of intelligence?
'Only humans create and can make sense of art.'
"Paintings and abstract art are expressions of thought."
The ability to store something outside the human brain.
Galton was convinced that intelligence is inherited.
He was a hero for Cyril Burt. Ah, yes. Dear Cyril. The Bogus Man.
He believed in Eugenics and 'good birth'.
Believed the poor should be prevented from having children. Hitler agreed.
Burt was responsible for the development of IQ tests and the introduction of the 11+.
He claimed to have tested separated twins - and claimed that genetics is responsible for 80% of IQ.
Only after his death were his results properly scrutinised.
'Clearly something was drastically wrong.'
Probably he never saw a single separated twin.
Robert Graham believed the gene pool was deteriorating. He hoped to use the 'sperm of clever men' to breed 'intelligent kids' with 'outstanding genes'.
His sperm bank was operational for nearly 20 years.
Three Nobel scientists were persuaded to donate sperm.
So are there inherited components of intelligence? No specific genes have ever been identified.
But a large part of intelligence IS inherited, according to recent research with twins. According to this programme.
Should we be engaging the minds of children in "something useful" ALL of the time?
Can other behaviours predict academic success?
Kids who defer gratification apparently do better at school.
Other variables? Parents? Upbringing? Wider environment?
"IQ tests seem to show we have an all-purpose thinking skill that can be measured."
Memory/intellect seems to be an all-round ability. (?)
What about a broader spectrum of skills, abilties and aptitudes?
Howard Gardner and his Multiple Intelligence Theory were eventually mentioned.
Gardner says we have at least 8 separate intelligences.
But there's NO agreed system for measuring them.
Writer and dramatist Bonnie Greer scored highest of a bright bunch of people when 'a wider range of skills' was considered. Joint top with a quantum physicist. But we never got to find out which skills she did well on.
Is a high IQ a predictor of longevity?
Can we use microwaves to alter the structure of the brain?
Could this be the dawn of a brave new world?


Lawks. Most unenlightening. Such a waste of a programme.

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Wikipedia

We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility

For all its shortcomings Wikipedia, now aged 10, is the internet's biggest and best example of not-for-profit idealism

by Timothy Garton-Ash

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/12/wikipedia-us-pioneer-global-idealism

If Wikipedia's principal architect, Jimmy Wales, had chosen to commercialise the enterprise, he could now be worth billions – like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Putting it all under the not-for-profit umbrella was, Wales quipped to me, at once the stupidest and the cleverest thing he ever did. More than any other major global site, Wikipedia still breathes the utopian idealism of the internet's heroic early days. Wikipedians, as they style themselves, are men and women with a mission. That mission, upon which they boldly go, is summed up in this almost Lennonist (that's John, not Vladimir) sentence from the man they all refer to as Jimmy: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

To suggest that this utopian goal could be achieved by a world wide web of volunteers – working for nothing, editing anything and everything, with the words they type immediately visible for the whole world to see – was of course a totally barmy idea. Yet this barmy army has come a remarkably long way in just 10 years.

We do not yet know if the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, was a direct product of the vitriolic incivility of American political discourse, as heard on talk radio and cable channels such as Fox News. A crazy man may just be crazy. But America's daily political vitriol is an undeniable fact. Against that depressing background, it is good to be able to celebrate an American invention which, for all its faults, tries to spread around the world a combination of unpaid idealism, knowledge and stubborn civility.

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I was intending to finish this blog with a piece on another TV programme about children under pressure, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow. Y'all come back now.

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Layer 220 . . . Intelligence, Intellect, Instinct, Inspiration, Perception, Art and Dylan.

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Intelligence

Item on the news – horses are intelligent. Fact.
Ah, says the presenter, but are they able to work things out for themselves?

No, says the expert, but they're very quick to learn.

Confused? Not really. Horses are not so good when it comes to intellectual challenges. They're rubbish at doing simultaneous equations. They're hopeless at chemistry. But intellect isn't the be-all and end-all when it comes to intelligence. Intellect is but one component of a rounded three-dimensional intelligence.

Horses have well tuned instincts, unlike a lot of humans, and they're quick on the uptake. They're easy to train. They can learn to do all sorts of horsey things. Like dressage,  jumping and racing one another. Show them how to do something a few times, and they'll do that thing instinctively, effortlessly, without thinking, without hesitating or deviating, for ever more. This is what  we should call instinctual intelligence, and horses have loads of it.

This isn't the whole story, however. Check out Alpha Horse - http://www.alphahorse.com/horse-intelligence.html

In all my years of working with horses I have been constantly impressed with their overall ability to adapt to human environments and work out solutions to problems or challenges presented to them. Sure, sometimes you'll find a horse that comes up short in the intelligence department, but for the most part horses reflect the same qualities that we as humans do: intelligence, adaptability, mischief, playfulness, loyalty, jealousy, stress and many others.

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On the other hand, so-called intellectuals can be unbelievably dim and dull. On Desert Island Discs this week (repeated today) they had a certain lawyer-superstar, Anthony Julius, who, like a lot of people with Ist class degrees from Oxbridge, knows Jack Shit about music.

As soon as you heard him speak you just knew that he'd trot out a miserable and sentimentalist load of Classical bollocks – presumably stuff he'd soaked up by osmosis when his parents played it, and which now represents in his memory and his imagination his wonderful family home where mummy cooked such delicious meals.

Steven Fry has described him as “the cleverest person I've ever met”. Oh yeah – clever.

He's obviously extremely civilised, and very likely a delightful and erudite companion. Princess Di apparently thought the world of him.

He chose a piano sonata to begin with, which he said he used to listen to 30 or 40 times a day on his 'old fashioned record player'. Oh dear.

Second up was a piece of Vaughan Williams. His “first love”. He used to listen to Vaughan from about the age of 13 with his very best friend Jeffrey. Or was it 17? It seems they both sat in Jeffrey's room listening to this stuff, smoking pipes – of tobacco, of course.

Third choice was something completely different! Julius is 'thrilled and excited' by the clunky opening of “25 or 6 to 4” - which is by Chicago, and is probably as bad as rock music ever got back in the '70's – the graveyard of rock.

Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Flashing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes
Sitting cross-legged on the floor
25 or 6 to 4

Barf. He'd take this crap to a desert island!

Julius called this stuff “jazz-rock”, which it isn't. Having a horn section does not make you a  “jazz-rock” band. He may be confused and ignorant, but of course Julius has to call it JAZZ rock because jazz is somewhat respectable in intellectual circles, whereas rock on its own isn't.

Politically Julius seems to be motivated by his membership of the Establishment, and his fear of whatever might seem to be a threat to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/23/russia-alqaida-putin-bin-laden

Unfortunately Kirsty didn't get into the political areas with him, which was a pity, since he's involved with the “Euston Manifesto” crew, who seem to think they're progressives and egalitarians.

http://eustonmanifesto.org/the-euston-manifesto/

His book on art - http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2002/oct/06/art

I liked what he said about his children, though – just wanting them to be the best kind of person they can be. Wanting them to be happy and fulfilled.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrrhr

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Dylan

Brother N turned up yesterday, and brought with him a couple of Dylan CDs - Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol 8 Rare & Unreleased 1989 – 2006.  This is wonderful stuff – His Bobness at his absolute best – the master songwriter, also in great voice. Different tempos, different arrangements, and a very different feel to some beautiful songs like Mississippi, Most of the Time, Dignity, Everything Is Broken, Born In Time, Ain't Talkin' and Ring Them Bells. Also some tracks I've never heard – Red River Shore, Tell Ol' Bill, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/14/bobdylan.popandrock

Dylan's art is kept constantly in flux, the illumination of which is the greatest virtue of the Bootleg Series. The alterations of lyrics, tempi, arrangements and delivery re-cast these songs as refracting prisms, whose meaning changes according to where the light hits. Take the simple, more urgent solo version of "Most of the Time", which could be from Another Side Of were it not for Dylan's deeper vocal intonation. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/bob-dylan-tell-tale-signs-columbia-949495.html

Another great Bootleg virtue is its unearthing of classic songs quixotically left off albums or shunted on to soundtracks. They include "Cross the Green Mountain", a Civil War epic of bitter resignation whose melody recalls "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" but whose fiddle arrangement recalls the Rolling Thunder years, and a couple of outtakes from Time Out of Mind, the love ballad "Red River Shore", and most intriguing, "Dreamin' Of You", where ghostly guitar and organ ride a spry New Orleans drum lick as Dylan offers sardonic commentary on his life: "For years, they had me locked in a cage, then they threw me on to the stage. Some things just last longer than you thought they would."

They sure do.

From Rolling Stone, a review by Mikal Gilmour:

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/23226242/review/23306214/telltalesignsthebootlegseriesvol8

Tell Tale Signs is less an anthology than an album in its own right. It seems designed to tell a story that sharpens and expands the vista of mortal and cultural disintegration that has been the chief theme of Dylan's 1997's Time Out of Mind, 2001's Love and Theft and 2006's Modern Times — perhaps the most daring music he's ever made. Tell Tale Signs makes plain that Dylan knows the caprices of the world he lives in, now more than ever.

Just as important, this collection bears witness to Dylan's reclamation of voice and perspective. He had been a singular visionary who upended rock & roll by recasting it as a force that could question society's values and politics, but he relinquished that calling as the society grew more dangerous. By the end of the Eighties, he had undergone so many transformations, made so many half-here and half-there albums, that he seemed to be casting about for a purpose. What did he want to say about the times around him? Did he have a vision anymore or just a career? The singer drew a new bead on these concerns with 1989's Oh Mercy, produced by Daniel Lanois. Dylan has said he was never fully satisfied with the album, but given that Tell Tale Signs features 10 tracks from Oh Mercy's sessions, it's clear its tunes mattered to him.

It's also clear that Dylan sometimes had better production instincts than Lanois. The latter's interpretation of "Most of the Time" — the broken meditation of a lovesick man — played like immaculate architecture; everything about it, including vocals and emotions, was put in a measured place, meant to sustain atmosphere more than expression. By contrast, Dylan's acoustic-guitar and harmonica rendering of the song has the drive and dynamics of the heart; it's a living soliloquy that cuts to the quick. Similarly, his reading of "Ring Them Bells" features just his voice and piano, and its longing is palpable. On Oh Mercy, the song felt like a blessing, full of compassion and beauty; here, it works as a tortured prayer, already turning from hope, and it makes one wonder why Dylan ever allowed Lanois' mannered ambience to subsume the song. Yet as promising as Oh Mercy's songs seemed at the time, they were also still trying to reason with the world, to offer the possibility of deliverance. They couldn't begin to hint at the gravity of what was to come.

The real find, though, is "Mississippi," a song so central to Dylan's later work that three takes of it exist here. Though the song would later figure on Love and Theft, Lanois told Dylan that he thought it was too "pedestrian" for Time Out of Mind. It's probably just as well: "Mississippi" is too remarkable for any artful treatment. What seeps through its bones is foreclosed history, both American and personal: "Every step of the way, we walk the line/Your days are numbered, so are mine/Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape/We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape." Moreover, all three takes serve as examples of the matchless singer Dylan remains, using inflection and phrasing to reveal different possibilities each time. He intones one version of "Mississippi" here as a remorseful lament, so soft-spoken that he's leaning into your ear; the second as a late-night conspiracy, bone-tired and raspy; the third as the brave and heart-worn last stand, a witness to the costs and advantages of experience — all three of them encompass American loss.
But then, nearly all of Tell Tale Signs points to that state, and to something darker, deeper and irrefutable: There is no center that can hold in our time anymore, there is no certain shelter from the coming storms.
Love and truth, even vengeance, aren't necessarily salvation — they're simply, as Dylan says in "Huck's Tune," weapons "in this version of death called life."

If Dylan's songs were once protests looking for rectification — if his language was once phantasmagoric and tricky to decipher — well, that was wonderful, but things have changed. Tell Tale Signs sets a new milestone for this American artist. Dylan has always written about morally centerless times, but this collection comes from a different perspective — not something born of the existential moment but of the existential long view and the courage of dread. Jack Fate, Dylan's character in Masked and Anonymous, intones what might work as the précis for this album: "Seen from a fair garden, everything looks cheerful. Climb to a higher plateau, and you'll see plunder and murder. Truth and beauty are in the eye of the beholder. I tried to stop figuring everything out a long time ago." For a long time, we've asked Dylan to deliver us truths. Now that he has, we need to ask ourselves if we can live with them.

So that's my Christmas shopping sorted. And I might just send a copy to Anthony. He can put it in his pipe and smoke it, preferably with his mates.

PS From the Rolling Stone version of CiF:

“Bob Dylan is truly one of the very greatest artists of all time, whether we're comparing him to the likes of Elvis and the Beatles, or Mozart and Beethoven.”

“Dylan is a master. Mr. Gilmore's review is a wonder to read. He is matched only by Greil Marcus in the beauty of his language and his ability to articulate that which is difficult to define.”

“This is a phenomenal record. I bought the 2 disc set earlier this year and at least once a week I play the whole thing. I got into Dylan late, but really dig his 1990's stuff onwards and this, with alternate versions and whatnot, I've been digging more and more. Brilliant stuff.”

“Yes- it's true- as the journalist Al Aronowitz once said, Dylan is the Heavyweight Champion of the World.”

Bob's currently on tour in the States. Recent set lists:

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-14-wang-theatre
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-13-wang-theatre
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-11-gmu-patriot-center
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-09-temple-university-liacouras-center
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour
http://www.bobdylan.com/#

kate farrell's 365 reasons for loving Bob Dylan:

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/users/kate-farrell/blog/365-reasons-why-i-love-him
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Layer 43 Having A Laugh

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One of the benefits of retirement from headship is the intellectual stimulation that’s suddenly available, and accessible, and very, very enjoyable. I love my days being filled with conversation, books, newspapers, music, the Internet and Radio 4.

Ever since head teachers were bludgeoned into the role of bureaucratic functionaries who just do as they’re told - who just exist to ‘drive up standards’ - they were no longer required to think about the needs of children and teachers, and they were no longer allowed to be alternative centres of thinking about pedagogy, teaching and learning. Their independent action research into how to improve attitudes to learning, to reading, to mathematics and science, etc, was no longer welcome, and in many cases no longer tolerated. Talk about ‘Leaders of Learning’!

Teams of ‘experts’ had devised the National Literacy Strategy, for example, and the role of the head was to ensure the strategy was implemented in their schools. So no more nonsense about holistic learning, reading and writing across the curriculum, the integral role of speaking and listening, genuine purposes for writing and research, a sense of audience for creative writing, and so on. No more rubbish about children enjoying school, or developing a love of learning.

Al of those strands of thinking now had to be abandoned, and the teachers were to be directed to do whole-class teaching and decontextualised and meaningless exercises to practice ‘grammar for writing’, ‘connectives‘, adjectival phrases, and “wow words”! Not just a return to ‘basics’, but a kind of turbo-Victorian approach to children learning by rote to operate within the dominant culture.

These are the intellectual depths to which teaching was supposed to descend - the idea that good writing consists of long sentences full of ‘connectives’, multi-syllable words (whether or not the children fully appreciate their meaning), fancy descriptions, and the kind of vocabulary that may be quite common in some middle class homes but certainly isn’t in the majority of working class homes, where, incidentally, the language is nevertheless, more often than not (because not all of the working classes are thick and ignorant, you see) vivid, lively, colorful and witty. It also tends to be concise, direct and appropriate.

I used to despair of teachers who started out in their careers, and often went through their entire careers, thinking that working class language and expression was inferior and unfit for purpose. I well remember a snooty teacher that I had for ‘A’ Level French who hated the Midlands accent that was prevalent in my school and scolded us for our ‘lazy’ and ‘slovenly’ pronunciation, and for our ways of speaking. I remember asking myself why I should have any respect for this self-made toff (RIP Mr Hottot) who clearly had no respect for (or understanding of ) me and my vast extended family, my friends and my neighbours. I felt a very real need to give him at least a sharp verbal slap, but of course I also wanted to get through my French exam.

The only thing I remember learning from this guy was the word ‘palimpsest’ (See Layer 1). He obviously loved the word, and thought it made him sound educated and terribly bright when he used it. The second time he tried to teach it to us he started off by asking our small group of ‘A’ Level hopefuls (only half of whom passed the exam) if we knew what it meant. When I told him the meaning he asked me how I knew it (!), and was somewhat taken aback when I explained that he’d already introduced us to the word - the previous year. It’s still not exactly a word that’s always on the tip of my tongue. I reckon I could get through life without it.

I’ve known plenty of teachers (and head teachers) down the years who had a built-in conviction that non-standard English needed to be driven out of the classroom and replaced with ‘correct’ English. They found it very hard to come to terms with the idea that if the community they work in has its own modes of speech, its own local grammar and syntax, and its own vocabulary and pronunciation, then it was perfectly entitled to have those things, and entitled to resent any teacher whose attitude was elitist, snobbish and discriminatory.

It seems incredible to me that as part of their basic training young teachers aren’t made aware that their job is to validate and show respect for children’s current usage of language, and to work towards children becoming aware of ‘Standard English’ and ‘Received Pronunciation’, and to be able to use them appropriately when any situation requires it, such as in tests. (Though one might argue that examiners have no right to penalise any child who chooses to write in the vernacular in a test.)

Teachers who see themselves as missionaries, or elocutionists, who descend on working class communities with no respect for the local culture and a determination to impose their fundamentalist beliefs about speaking and writing on the children they work with, and attempt to make the children feel ashamed of their community languages, accents and dialects, should be sent packing. To the contrary, the system goes on encouraging them in their self-appointed role.

However, I digress. All I’m really saying is that the life of head teachers in the current climate is intellectually stultifying, and the biggest challenge on offer is to learn how to work the system and survive in their job, whilst dealing with a daily diet of problem-solving, administration and supervision that is hardly very intellectually stimulating the first time around, let alone the 10th or 20th.

Not that most heads are looking for intellectual stimulation, of course, but wouldn’t it be NICE if the education system offered them some possibilities and encouragement to think at a high level about what they’re actually doing to and for children. Like, for instance, providing for all the developmental needs of children and enabling them to grow their emotional, social, physical, instinctual and spiritual intelligences, as well as their intellects. The system still doesn’t promote intellectual development and critical thinking, of course - just memorisation, fact acquisition, and test-passing ability.

And as for developing curiosity, creativity, imagination and a love of learning for its own sake - you’re ‘avin a laugh!

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Football - the great working class pastime cum plaything and business opportunity for oligarchs, tycoons and rich scumbags from around the world - available free on ITV last night (if you don't count the cost of the brainache adverts): the Champions League Cup Final, live from Moscow. Manchester United v Chelsea.

Football’s become a bit like language really - once the humble property of ordinary people, but lately colonised and now ‘owned’ by those who like to consider themselves the elite, the good and the great, who consider they have the right to make the rules and to impose the terms on which it’s practiced and enjoyed.

At least this is the case in funky old Britannia, where no-one has any qualms any more about selling their souls and their assholes to the devil, or the Murdoch corporations, or Sky TV, or whatever. Mass culture in Britain is increasingly the BBC v The Rest. The People’s Media v Commercial Interests.

Which is why just a few hundred thousand ‘subscribers’ can now watch Test cricket live, or most football matches live, instead of the millions of people (children included, since they also have ‘rights’) who would like to, and indeed feel they ought to be able to.

Though there are increasingly few members of the populace who were brought up on the notion that everybody - regardless of class or financial means - has the right to share in the riches of our national cultural life: even humble street sweepers, shelf stackers, labourers, child minders and others on minimum wages and part-time hours, who may not have two pennies to rub together when all their bills and taxes have been paid.

(They don’t pay Income Tax? Well they DO pay near enough 20% VAT every time they buy a bog roll or a pair of shoes or a pen or pencil. Which means they pay proportionately more in tax than middle class folks, who in any case are able to afford accountants who show them how to avoid paying tax. So stick that in your anti-egalitarian pipe and smoke it.)

Interestingly the football clubs of Spain and Germany are still at least 51% owned by the fans themselves, joined together in ‘sporting associations’. (Was this the origin of our ‘Association Football’? I’ve never really thought about it.)

In those countries they have maintained a member-owned tradition and a commitment to allow young people to experience being football fans in some of the finest stadiums in Europe. They still have ‘affordable’ prices for entry - 100 Euros can still buy you a ticket for the entire season at Barcelona’s Camp Nou.

Well that’s where a political tradition of anarcho-syndicalism gets you, Mr Scudamore, Mr Abramovich. But you’re not really interested in that, are you? It’s just noses to the trough, as far as you’re concerned. And those that can’t get near to the trough can just fuck off as far as you’re concerned.

I just wish Bill Hicks, who was satirizing the shit out of commercialism and its domination of cultural life, 20 years and more ago, was still around with his courage and his explosive wit and his insightful wisdom. I miss him badly. He was a good man. He made me laugh - like no-one else ever did, or probably ever will again.

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You can read David Conn’s excellent column on the state of football, its finances, and the impact of the ’free market’ on the national team, in yesterday’s Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/may/21/premierleague.championsleague

As for the match last night - it was brilliant. As it would have been had the players been ‘earning’ less than half of what they currently gorge themselves on. As it would have been had Barcelona and Bayern Munich been able to afford those particular players, and been in the final instead of Glazer’s United v Abramovich FC.

Well done the Uefa president, Michel (Liberty, Fraternity, Equality) Platini, for continuing to draw our attention to the fact that the success of the top English clubs has been “built on an unsustainable level of debt which, in all fairness, is distorting the level playing field in Europe”. In all fairness, I reckon they should just kick us out of Uefa.

So don’t laugh about the German teams not doing well in the Champions League any more. At least Germany insists on keeping football as the people’s game, and keeping live football affordable. It’s not the decent and egalitarian social-democratic Germans who are the nationalist neo-fascists these days - it’s us.

We‘re the ones who consider ourselves entitled to all the power, the prestige and the glory, at any cost. To ourselves, (our own people, our own game, our own national team,) or others. (Yes folks, I can bring politics into anything, even Uefa and the Bundesliga!)

Though by all means have a damn good laugh that there aren’t any decent German footballers any more. Over the years I think they’ve had more than their fair share of luck and good fortune. The wheel of fortune has certainly turned, in more ways than one. So sorry Herr Ballack - you were the only German in the Final, and you were crap. Your glory-seeking off-target shooting from free kicks and from miles out of range was rubbish. You were having a laugh.

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PS John Terry is a wuss. Fucking hell, man. You just missed a penalty, that’s all. I can’t feel sorry for you. Think of all the money you’re earning. Fuck the glory. Fuck your ego. I’ll save my pity for the poor fuckers who can’t afford to get into Stamford Bridge, and will never be able to afford to watch you and your vastly over-paid pals kicking a football, except on a screen, of course. Down the pub, maybe. The few that still remain in working class Britain, that is, and can afford a pub license for Sky.
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Layer 24 Chopping Wood, Carrying Water, and the Ox-Herding Pictures

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Here are more quotations from Zohar and Marshall’s ‘Spiritual Intelligence’.

"The mystics of every great tradition have spoken of something within the self. It is the pure light that shines or burns within us. Spoken of in such terms, the centre sounds awe-inspiring, attractive and holy - but perhaps too abstract for many of us to grasp. Yet each of us lives it and experiences it when we live our daily lives in a spiritually intelligent way.

It is the feeling of holiness in everyday objects and events, the sense of the sacred in an act of loving, the almost unbearable ecstasy we feel when understanding something deeply for the first time, the sense of elation when we bring something new into the world, the sense of deep satisfaction when we see justice done, the deep sense of peace when we know that that which we serve also serves ‘God’.

All six of the spiritual paths lead to the centre, to an experience that could be called ‘enlightenment’. But when lived in the most spiritually intelligent way possible all paths also lead from the centre, back to the world. The Buddha returned to the world so that all might become enlightened.

An ordinary person high in SQ does not just seek the bliss of knowing the centre, but responds to it spontaneously and then takes responsibility for bringing back to share with the world the light he has seen, the energy he has gained, the integrity he has experienced. He becomes an enlightened parent, an enlightened teacher, an enlightened cook, an enlightened lover, and so on.

None of us is really complete, really whole, really enlightened, until we have found a creative way to live, to love deeply and without selfishness, to serve our fellows, to be ‘servant leaders’.

The high SQ or enlightenment that we achieve has about it the incredible grace of the everyday. In Zen Buddhism there is a saying, ‘Before I was enlightened, I hewed wood and drew water. After enlightenment, I hewed wood and drew water.’ This is not saying that enlightenment does not bring progress and transformation, but rather that real transformation is to bring us back to the place from which we started, only now to live it fully alive and aware.

In A Manual of Zen Buddhism, D.T. Suzuki reproduces some fifteenth-century versions of ten original twelfth-century Chinese drawings, with accompanying texts, that illustrate the Zen understanding of enlightenment. They use the allegory of a man herding an ox.

All paths lead to and from the centre. Following them is a quest, but at a certain point realising them is an act of surrender. Even the craving to become enlightened eventually disappears."

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I strongly recommend reading Zohar and Marshall’s book.

It’s interesting that they include in it the entire sequence of the Ox-Herding pictures.

The Ox-Herding pictures are brilliant. To me they represent the process of discovering a thing called Zen, wanting to seek its goal of enlightenment, and after much study and practice starting to understand the central idea of Zen, and how to live a Zen life, which is indeed possible for anyone who is prepared to spend some time studying and reflecting on Zen thought. I first came across the pictures several years ago, and  appreciated what a superb metaphor they are. My understanding of the story is as follows.

* A young man decides to seek enlightenment, or his true self, as represented by the Ox.
* At first he sees only the footprints of the ox, or impressions and signs of what the ox (Zen enlightenment, his authentic self) might be like and where it may be found.
* Finally he sees the ox itself, and has a clear sight of the form of the body, the way it moves, etc. But it is still away in the distance.
* After some time he manages to approach the ox, and tries to hold on to it and tame it, to make it his own. However he realises that the ox is too powerful, and will only go with him if it chooses to.
* After training himself, and becoming familiar with the ways of the ox, he is ready to approach it in the right spirit of gentleness, friendship and respect.
* The ox allows him to ride on his back, and takes him back to his village.
* The ox then disappears, and the young man wonders whether the ox is after all an illusion. His life, and the whole of life, suddenly seems empty.
* He then realises that the whole of existence is an illusion, and that it is pointless to want to ‘possess’ the ox, or even stay with it, to be obsessive and possessive of the ox.
* He now sees himself as the fool on the hill, as someone who has foolishly considered that one may possess wisdom, or wealth, or power, or enlightenment. Everything depends on living each day as well as possible, and recognising the joy and bliss of everyday reality. He understands that real enlightenment consists of living life humbly, simply, unconcerned with possessions, status, salvation, etc.
* He now comes down from his hill, goes back into society, and lives amongst the people, trusting that his behaviour and attitude will bring support, encouragement and inspiration to those he meets, happy to serve others and happy to live an ordinary life, fully aware of how precious it is. To be back where he started, but now living life fully alive and aware.

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This is what D.T. Suzuki says in a book called Living By Zen, in a chapter called Approaches To Satori:

“The study of Zen requires great intellectual integrity and strength of character. The persistent pursuit of one task is no easy business, especially when this involves the disregarding of worldly affairs. But unless it is sustained by great spiritual aspirations, the study of Zen will be impossible.

“The separation of ourselves from the all-embracing, all submerging “ocean” [of life] is the function of the intelligence, for it is because of this that we crave for the water of life. Here lies the great spiritual tragedy of man; the water of life is desired, and this water surrounds him, soaks him, enters into every fibre and every cell of his tissues, is indeed himself, and yet he does not realise it and seeks it outside of himself, even beyond the “great ocean”. [The quest for heaven and an ‘afterlife’.]

“The intelligence is a great mischief-worker, and yet without it we shall never be able to wake up the greater one. It separates us from the ocean in which we live; if not for this separation we should be found forever slumbering under the waves, unseeing and ignorant. The only trouble is, as Gensha says, that we look for “the great ocean” in words, concepts, and their various combinations, and the result is that we know nothing and understand nothing.”

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All of this argues for the need to use to use all of our intelligences in combination, and only by doing so can we find Zen and live a life of enlightenment. Only by using all of our senses, plus our powers of intuition and empathy, plus our instincts and our passion, as well as our intellects, can we become fully ourselves, become self-actualised, become at one with ourselves and others, and with the cosmos.

Learning to do this is the challenge facing each and every one of us, and facing our society. So far, very few of us seem to understand this. Why indeed should we - when our schools, our media, and our so-called leaders are themselves generally ignorant of these truths? Or if they do recognise these truths then they pay them very little attention, preferring instead to attend to mainly material goals and the things that seem to be important in achieving those material goals.

It’s as though the human race has never moved on from scrabbling for survival, spending every day seeking food and shelter, concerned only with material security and well-being. And yet even so-called primitive humans, through their immediate connection with nature and its majesty, and having time to appreciate it in all its awe and wonder, probably possessed higher degrees of spiritual intelligence and enlightenment and happiness than we do.

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Interestingly, Suzuki uses the word “actualisation” in Living By Zen. Given that he wrote it back in the nineteen forties, I wonder whether Maslow acquired the word and the concept from Suzuki and Zen?

This is what Suzuki wrote in the chapter on satori, on pages 54 and 55:

“Zen is not interested so much in conceptualisation as in “existential thinking”, so-called. Satori is said to take place when consciousness realises a state of “one thought”, which is ichinen in Japanese, and is the shortest possible unit of time.

“When time is reduced to a point with no durability, it is ‘absolute present’ or ‘eternal now’. From the point of view of existential thinking, this ‘absolute present’ is no abstraction; it is, on the contrary, alive with creative vitality. Satori is the experience of this fact

“The ‘eternal now’ is the absolute point of time where there is no past left behind, no future waiting ahead. Satori stands at this point, where potentialities are about to actualise themselves. Satori does not come out of death [i.e. it's not in ‘heaven’]; it is at the very moment of actualisation. It is in fact the moment itself, which means that it is life as it lives itself. "

Layer 23 Zen and the Art of Everything

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The thing I’m most preoccupied with is explaining Zen to myself - with making it clear and intelligible - and being able to pass on that understanding to others. I want my own children to understand it, and therefore I’d like everyone to benefit from that understanding. I think I’ve had some intuitive awareness of Zen for some time, and have benefitted from that awareness, but I want to be able to describe it within a clear and logical framework of understanding.

I believe that Zen is the ultimate expression of enlightenment, and that enlightenment is desirable and necessary for everyone individually and for all of us collectively.

Zen is being able to live life spontaneously and creatively and passionately, with freedom from doubt, and freedom from anxiety about the future. This can happen when we are on track towards greater awareness and greater enlightenment. We put ourselves on that track when we are habitually using and developing all of our intelligences and living fully in three dimensions.

We live in three dimensions when we’re not flattened or constrained by life and living on a single plane of existence. When only two out of the three intelligences (IQ, EQ, SQ) are properly developed and functioning then we will have access to only one of the three Planes of Being, as I’m proposing we call them - the Plane of Knowing, the Plane of Feeling, and the Plane of Imagination.

Mathematically this is interesting - when one axis is missing then only one plane of functioning is accessible. But when there are three axes then this immediately opens up the accessibility of two more planes. In other words, there are dire consequences in not offering our children the possibility of growth in three dimensions.

Zen is a daily diet of something for the head, something for the heart, and something for the hands, for the entire body. Intellect, emotions and spirit. Zen is about balance. Zen is making time in every day - for thinking, for meditating, for reading and studying, for communicating, for laughing, for loving, for sleeping and dreaming, for imagining, for being creative, for socialising, for using our bodies and being active, for using our senses, for experiencing joie de vivre - sheer joy in living.

Zen is about seeing this life as being a cup or a glass that is at least half full, and not focusing on the half empty and giving it too much attention. If we have all of the above elements, or even some of them, in our daily lives, then we must surely have the feeling of life as being at least half full. And we should be giving thanks for that. Zen is about joyful living, and not taking life for granted.

Joie de vivre is about enthusiasm and passion for living, and it’s also about being still and experiencing satori, which is a state of deep relaxation, joyfulness, contentment and bliss. Life is always perfect in the sense that when all of our basic needs have been met then we approach the state of self-actualisation, and we accept that life’s challenges are to be welcomed. They are merely challenges and not threats. So why worry?

Of course we must deal with things that actually threaten us, but if we have a high degree of security and comfort then other sorts of challenge are opportunities to develop our IQ, EQ and SQ, and must be seen as positives rather than negatives. We don’t grow intellectually, emotionally, inter-personally, intra-personally, spiritually, physically, creatively and psychologically unless we engage with challenges, and also challenge ourselves. So why complain about life being full of challenges? Do we not welcome growth?

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I’ve been re-reading some of Zohar & Marshall’s book “Spiritual Intelligence - The Ultimate Intelligence” with a bit of a critical eye. It now seems to me that they don’t have what I feel inclined to call a Zen sensibility, and have more of a mystical and perhaps a Hindu type of perspective. Buddhism grew out of Hinduism. Zen grew out of Buddhism.

I see Zen as being logical and clearly explicable in terms of how our minds, bodies and spirits demonstrably operate, and not at all mystical, and nothing to do with gods or a God, though life may ultimately be a mystery.

Danah Zohar & Ian Marshall, whom I admire enormously for their work on spiritual intelligence, seem to see spiritual intelligence as some sort of deep inner heart of a flower which you find when all of its sepals and petals have been peeled away. Whereas I see it as one of three equally important intelligences that are essential to proper human functioning, and not at the top of a hierarchy or at the centre or the very heart of something. To me, IQ, EQ and SQ are simply three axes, all interlocking and all at right-angles, as it were, to one another.

I see Zen, not spiritual intelligence, as a word and a concept that’s capable of being described as the ultimate intelligence, in that I see it as a circle, or a halo, or a sphere of energy surrounding the sphere of the other 3 intelligences. The degree of Zen we possess and the size of its circle or halo, or whatever, depends on the length and strength of our three axes of intelligence - the extent to which we have developed them, engaged with them and habitually used them as we live and learn. Zen is only a perfect circle or sphere if we possess, develop, enlarge and use all of our intelligences, all three axes.

Zen is above all about just Being. Not being anything special, or different, or wonderful. Just being all that we potentially can be and ought to be. Just being what nature intended, and living life in harmony with our own natures and nature all around us. Surely just Being is a big enough challenge? To be enlightened is to become our true natural selves. And that’s not easy.

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An interesting and perplexing aspect of their work in “Spiritual Intelligence” is Zohar & Marshall’s highlighting of the importance of the imagination, and then failing to really follow through on why and how it’s important. I really wanted to hear something about the practicalities of developing and using imagination to enable us to function better, both individually and collectively.

For instance, they say, on page 154, “In modern psychological terms we might best associate the centre of the self with the source of human imagination, with that deep place within the self from which we dream, or conceive the impossible or the not-yet-existent. In Zen Buddhism the centre is deeper still, a place beyond all imagining . . .

“The centre is a source within ourselves that is replete and inexhaustible and is itself the heart of some wider, perhaps sacred or divine reality. It is at once that which nourishes us and that through which we nourish our own creativity.”

To me, the centre of the self is simply the place where IQ, EQ and SQ intersect at right angles. All three intelligences are potentially engaged in any act of creativity. I don’t see this as being deep or mystical. It’s just logical and sensible, if you accept that there indeed are these three linked and intersecting continuums of intelligence, that is.

Creativity normally requires thought, intuition, passion, instinct, the use of the senses, and empathy. It also derives from Knowing, Feeling and Imagination.

The Plane of Imagination, as I see it, is very distinct from the Planes of Knowing and Feeling, which are to do with WHAT IS, rather than WHAT MIGHT BE. Imagination primarily concerns a combination of our intuition, our senses, our passion, and our empathy with others, and with our surroundings.

Zohar & Marshall quote from John Guarre’s Six Degrees of Separation:

“One of the great tragedies of our time is the death of the imagination. Because what else is paralysis?
I believe that the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world. [It] . . . is what is most uniquely us.
To face ourselves. That’s the hard thing. The imagination [is] God’s gift to make the act of self-examination bearable. [It] teaches us our limits and how to grow beyond our limits . . . the imagination is the place we are all trying to get to . . .”

Now to me this is pretty much gobbledegook. I can see that paralysis might be the product of a failure to look beyond what already exists and see what might be in the future. It’s pretty hopeless feeling and knowing that there’s a lot wrong with oneself and with the world if you can’t even begin to imagine something better. Even when people explain it to you.

But imagination is not so much a place we’re trying to reach as an aspect of our intelligences that needs to be strong and active alongside our ability to know and our ability to feel. It’s also a vital component of creativity.

Zohar & Marshall go on to conclude, “Our deepest salvation may lie in serving our own deep imagination”.

But what does this mean? Yes - imagination is an absolutely key aspect of human development and human intelligence. But the word ‘salvation’ is in itself highly problematic as far as I’m concerned, and is the product of the type of religious sensibility that lives in fear of hellfire and damnation, or fear of condemnation to the wheel or cycle of whatever.

Why not just say, as a humanist would - not working from a deficit model - that imagination (alongside of, and working with, knowing and feeling) is one of the three keys to self-actualisation, to becoming the very best we can become?

As an educationalist first and foremost I would then have to say, what the hell are we doing in our schools when we pay little or no attention to nurturing and developing children’s imagination, when we fill up all available time with Facts and with Knowing, and when we do everything that’s guaranteed to strangle, stifle and suppress Imagination?

Layer 15 Enlightenment

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What is the goal of Zen? The answer is Satori, the Zen term for Enlightenment. Satori IS Zen.

Christmas Humphries says, “Since Satori lies beyond the intellect, which alone can define and describe, one cannot define Satori”. Think of awe and wonder - how do you describe such ‘feelings’? Awesome? Wonderful? Not quite adequate, is it?

Humphries goes on to say, “Silence alone can describe it, the silence of the mystic, of the saint, of the artist in the presence of great beauty; of the lover and the poet when the fetters of time and space have for a moment fallen away”.

However, whilst I’d agree with Humphries that words are inadequate to describe satori, I would argue that there’s a crucial problem of language, which affects understanding, in saying that Satori lies beyond the intellect.

I think it’s important to describe the experience of satori as being on a different plane or continuum of intelligence - call it SQ or spiritual intelligence - which might be seen as being at right-angles to, or complementary to, the intellectual plane, or IQ.

This metaphysical (or spiritual) awareness, which I think it’s important to see as a separate kind of intelligence, connects directly to the transcendental and the divine, to a kind of collective super-consciousness, through the faculty of intuition, which needs no words or concepts in order to perceive truth and reality.

Intuition, which has characteristically been neglected in ‘western’ ‘intellectual’ discourse, or seen as somehow ‘female’ and therefore inferior to intellect, is the key mode of operation for metaphysical or spiritual intelligence. It’s what we rather clumsily tend to characterise as a “sixth sense”, though it’s not a sense, and it’s not an instinct either. It’s definitely not a product of the intellect. And it has nothing to do with tests, exams and academia.

It’s not an emotion, and it’s nothing to do with empathy, which are both types intelligence on the third plane of understanding or awareness, sometimes referred to as emotional/social intelligence, or EQ.

Humphries goes on to say that satori “is not out of the body or out of the world; on the contrary, the world and all in it is seen and enjoyed more fully than before. At first it is reached in flashes which come and go. Later it comes in profound meditation, or when the mind, by this device or that, is raised to its highest plane.”

Again, I think there’s an important language issue here, which is more than just semantics, and which tends to hinder a clear understanding of satori and spiritual intelligence. I would argue that it’s not the mind that’s being raised to a higher plane - it’s the whole of our consciousness, or our awareness. And it’s our spiritual intelligence, which is informed by intuition, that’s the motive force which raises our consciousness through the experience of satori.

We talk about ‘flashes of intuition’, and these tend to enter the mind when it is still, when conscious thought is switched off - sometimes though meditation, sometimes through exhaustion, sometimes through just being in a place of great beauty, sometimes in the presence of great art or great music. Intuition, in its very nature, is very difficult to think about, difficult to describe or apprehend.

It just somehow happens when it happens - or, in modern society, it happens much too infrequently. Intuition occurs whenever it’s necessary and appropriate, providing it has an opportunity to break through into our conscious awareness.

What Humphries doesn’t mention is that satori can sometimes occur through the use of certain drugs - so-called mind-expanding drugs such as cannabis, LSD, ecstasy and ‘magic mushrooms’ - at least in the initial stages of their use. Unfortunately such drugs also tend to impair our functioning in various ways, and I believe it’s true to say that the only ‘high’ worth having, at least in the long term, is a natural high.

Which brings me to my next point, which is that Humphries only alludes to the fact that the tantric path, through sex and orgasm, can also enable us to experience a ‘high’ - the satori of “the lover and the poet when the fetters of time and space have for a moment fallen away . . .”

The tantric path can often take us to a peak of satori - can instantly transport us to the mountain top where suddenly we have a view and a perspective of life and the meaning of life that was previously beyond our vision. It’s surely beyond dispute that our bodies of themselves can give us (through sheer physical bliss and release) an instant experience of metaphysical bliss, or satori. To lie in the arms of a lover and experience a sense of blissful togetherness after making love is satori indeed.

It’s also important to understand that through the tantric route it’s not just sensual pleasure, as great as that may be, which transports us so readily to those higher levels of consciousness or awareness. It’s the feeling of wholeness and completeness that sometimes comes after making love, after orgasm.

It’s release, it’s fulfilment, it’s having arrived at a place that perhaps we didn’t even know existed - a place beyond worldly cares, beyond desire, beyond need, beyond anything other than just BEING. Such a wordless state of satori is in my view even greater and more blissful than KNOWING. This is the true essence of Zen, and of satori, and enlightenment, which are one and the same.

I’m putting great emphasis on the tantric route here because it’s something that many of us may be familiar with, even if we’ve never had any other blissful satori experiences in other ways - through meditation, contemplation of nature, etc.

However, it’s important to say that sex and sexual pleasure is by no means guaranteed to take us to satori - even sex with someone we love - and certainly not orgasm through masturbation, even though that provides pleasure and a certain amount of release from physical and emotional frustration.

Satori is about far more than pleasure. It’s THE peak experience. It’s the ultimate feeling that’s beyond sensual, intellectual, and emotional pleasures, though it can be approached through any of those routes - through the pleasures of the mind, the senses, the emotions.

It is simply sheer spiritual bliss, which has nothing to do with god or divinity, other than the pure divine spirit that lies within us all. It’s the recognition of and experience of that spirit. The development of (and continuous connection with) that spirit, and the spirit of the universe, is what I understand by spiritual intelligence, by enlightenment, and by Zen.

* . . . . . * . . . . . * . . . . . * . . . . . * . . . . . *

The consequences of the growth of spiritual development in individuals and in society as a whole (though some say we’re now going backwards in our increasingly materialistic world) is a very big subject, to be explored in future chapters of this blog.

The big issue of how we might achieve higher levels of satori, Zen, or spiritual intelligence through attempts to consciously provide for it and develop it in young and old alike, must also be taken on in other chapters.

The important thing to recognise is that our ‘western’ societies and religions hardly even register this as a concern or an issue, and certainly don’t, on the whole, address themselves to raising awareness of it, let alone pursue the urgent need to raise levels of spiritual intelligence in order to deal with the urgent problems of our materialistic and increasingly violent societies, with their ever-increasing levels of mental, emotional and spiritual sickness. What we see instead are politicians and pundits pontificating on how to deal with the effects of such sickness, rather than how to deal with the root causes.

Perhaps the times are beginning to change. Perhaps books like Richard Layard’s Happiness and Sue Palmer’s Toxic Childhood are making us more aware of the need to change the ways in which we live in the modern world.

Perhaps the Dalai Lama’s call for a spiritual revolution, which he makes in his book Ancient Wisdom, Modern World, will sooner or later strike a chord that will resonate throughout the world. Some would say perhaps pigs may fly.

In the meantime those of us who see the need and see the glass as half full must join together and keep on working for this change, this revolution, which tried to get off the ground in various places throughout the western world back in the Sixties, but didn’t have a powerful enough engine.

Perhaps the credit crunch and the partial collapse of the banking system and indeed the shaking foundations of capitalism will be responsible for a sudden shift in consciousness, a sudden demand for change, a sudden urge to unite and fight for a more enlightened world.

Then again, not. Perhaps we must just continue to go forward slowly, individually and collectively - with linked arms, comrades and colleagues determined to do the work on ourselves which we first and foremost need to do, assisting others along the way as best we can.
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Layer 14 Zen Buddhism - Breaking The Chain

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More quotations from Christmas Humphries.

Zen is the apotheosis of Buddhism. This direct assault upon the citadel of Truth, without reliance upon concepts (of God or soul or salvation), or the use of scripture, ritual or vow, is unique.

So fierce, indeed, is the Zen technique, and so scornful of the usual apparatus of religion, that it has been doubted whether Zen is a Buddhist School at all. The task in hand is the breaking down of the bars of the intellect that the mind may be freed for the light of Enlightenment.

In Zen the familiar props of religion are cast away. The purpose of Zen is to pass beyond the intellect. The intellect has its uses and it is an essential faculty of the human mind. But just as the emotions have their use and abuse, their range of usefulness and a limit to that range, so the intellect, by which men reach to the stars in science and philosophy, must pause and fail at the gates of spiritual knowledge. For the intellect can learn about it but can never, as the finest intellects discover, KNOW.

What KNOWS? The answer is Buddhi, the faculty of direct awareness [intuition, metaphysical or spiritual intelligence]. The intellect is itself a device or means, and Zen is the way of direct enlightenment. All must be freely abandoned before the seeker finds. Even the fact of seeking, and the will to find.

Bodhidharma, known as Daruma in Japan, expressed his teaching in four lines of verse:

A special transmission outside the Scriptures;
No dependence on words and letters;
Direct pointing to the soul of man;
Seeing into one’s own nature.

First the intellect must be transcended - for it is where the intellect pauses, baffled and at bay, that Zen begins. The intellect is a developed instrument for the use of knowledge, but only the senses and the intuition acquire knowledge at first hand. The thought-machine, therefore, too easily becomes a cage, a workshop for the handling of second-hand material.

Just as the senses acquire direct experience by touch and taste and the like [what I would call feelings], so Buddhi, intuition, acquires direct experience [often through those ‘feelings’ - often through feeling awe and wonder in response to sensory stimulus] and KNOWS.

In the ideal process of development, this higher faculty [Buddhi] increasingly illumines the thinking mind; in usual practice the intellect claims a final validity and closes its doors to direct experience. Hence Zen is largely a breaking into the closed doors of the human mind to let the light without flood in, and any and every process that will shock the mind into such an opening is useful and may be used.

Zen has produced its own techniques for the sudden path to Satori, the Zen name for Enlightenment. The two most famous devices of Rinzai Zen (less used in the Soto branch) are the MONDO, a form of rapid question and answer between Master and pupil, and the KOAN, a compressed form of mondo - a question, word or phrase that is insoluble by or unintelligible to the intellect. [e.g. What’s the sound of one hand clapping? Most of the questions we ask ourselves are pretty stupid. ‘Why am I here?’ Duh! ‘What is God?’]

‘How shall I escape from the wheel of birth and death?’ asked a pupil? The Master asked in reply, ‘Who puts you under restraint?’ A laugh, an oath, a shout, a shaking, even a blow may do what years of ‘meditation’ have failed to achieve.

Asked why he meditated all day long, a pupil replied that he desired to become a Buddha. The Master picked up a brick and began to rub it. Asked what he was doing he explained that he wished to make a mirror. ‘But no amount of polishing will make a mirror!’ ‘If so, no amount of sitting cross-legged will make thee a Buddha’, was the deep reply.

[Mondos and Koans tend to produce dialogue or interactions that appear to be basically nonsense - that is non-sense - which is the essence of Zen. Intuition and direct experience - metaphysical intelligence - are ways of directly KNOWING that don’t require mediation by ‘sense’ - meaning intellectual or verbal or conceptual or analytical means.]

Sense is the product of reasoning and logic, of the laws of thought; Zen roars with laughter at all of them. Zen is the joke in a joke, and cannot, like a joke, be ‘explained’. It is the life within the form; it is that which reasoning tries to enshrine and frequently strangles. It is the river of life that cares not for the palaces of thought, the dictionaries and definitions, the understanding or the decisions of those upon its banks.

Zen technique, therefore, is like an explosive, designed to break the log-jam in the river, to let the waters flow freely, and all who flow with them ride free.

Theravada Buddhist philosophy is all arranged in three of this and four of that with a twelve-fold Chain of Causation. Very neat, says the Zen practitioner, but as Dr Suzuki says, ‘The Buddha was not the mere discoverer of the Twelvefold Chain of Causation: he took the chain in his hands and broke it into pieces, so that it would never again bind him to slavery’. In Zen the emphasis is on the breaking and not on the chain.

All objects, of thought or emotion, whether things we touch or the things that stand in our mental way, must sooner or later be smashed and removed. As the Master Rinzai himself proclaimed, ‘Do not get yourself entangled with any object, but stand above, pass on, and be free’. All phrases, dogmas, formulas; all schools and codes; all systems of thought and philosophy, all ‘isms’ including Buddhism, all these are means to the end of KNOWING, and easily become [though are not easily perceived as] obstacles in the way.

Zen technique is designed to develop the mind to the limits of thought and then to drive it to the verge of the precipice, where thought can go no further. Why not go over? For only then can WE go on, and progress is a walking on and on to the Goal.

It is true that at a later stage one learns that there is no walking and no Goal, but that is Zen . . . . Meanwhile, until we achieve the goal of purposelessness, let us have this purpose: Said the Master Ummon to his monks, ‘If you walk, just walk; if you sit, just sit. But don’t wobble!’

[The Zen attitude is that we need to focus in the Now, and give our full attention to whatever we are doing, so as to do it, whatever it is, properly. The assumption is that we only choose to do the things in life that are important and necessary to us at a given time, and we should cease to endlessly worry about things we’ve done in the past, or may do in the future. ‘By our actions you shall know us’, and we should ensure that our actions are proper and good, even if they are only walking or sitting. We can’t change the past, we can’t control the future, but we can be mindful of ourselves from moment to moment, and ensure that our lives are well lived in the present.]