.
Thanks to feedback from readers, who have let me know that certain pages of Oxzen's blog act as useful reminders of what spiritual intelligence consists of, I'm reminded of the value of posting the thoughts of the great spiritual masters from time to time. Whilst there's also value in considering negatives – such as examples of what spiritual intelligence is NOT – it seems obvious that the greatest good is in constant reminders of How to Practice.
This is the title of a book I came across last year, written by the Dalai Lama, which has the sub-title, The Way to a Meaningful Life.
In the foreword, written by its translator and editor, Jeffrey Hopkins, we read about how the Dalai Lama lectures on the stages of the path to enlightenment.
“He speaks with great speed and clarity . . . presenting the full range of practices leading to enlightenment, often juxtaposing topics that others leave in isolation – all this with the depth of a philosopher. The same dual voice of poet and philosopher is present here in this book . . .”
“He offers suggestions on how to practice a spiritual path that will lead to mental clarity and emotional transformation. In this way, he shows how life can be made meaningful.”
“The embodiment of these practices [is] the very core of his being. It is important for us to recognise that this insightful, compassionate, humourous, and often marvellous person rose from Tibetan culture. We need to value that culture as one of the world's great wonders.”
----------------------------------------------
Introduction – by the Dalai Lama.
The Need for Peace and Kindness
"Human beings share the same basic goals: we all seek happiness and do not want suffering.
There are two ways to create happiness. The first is external. By obtaining better shelter, better clothes, and better friends, we can find a certain measure of happiness and satisfaction. The second is through mental development, which yields inner happiness.
However, these two approaches are not equally viable. External happiness cannot last long without its counterpart. If something is lacking in your perspective – if something is missing in your heart – then despite the most luxurious surroundings, you cannot be happy.
However, if you have peace of mind, you can find happiness even under the most difficult circumstances. Certain people may have acquired wealth, a good education, and high social standing, yet happiness eludes them.
On the other hand, some people who have less money to worry about enjoy more peace. They sleep well at night. Despite being poor in a material sense, they are content and happy. This shows the impact of a good mental attitude. Material development alone will not fully resolve the problem of humanity's suffering.
In this book I offer you, the reader, valuable techniques from Tibetan [Buddhist] traditions which, if implemented in daily practice, lead to mental peace. As you calm your mind and your heart, your agitation and worry will naturally subside, and you will enjoy more happiness. Your relationships with others will reflect these changes. And as better human being, you will be a better citizen of your country, and ultimately a better citizen of the world.
Human Potential
Animals and insects also want happiness and do not want suffering, but they have no special ability to consider how to achieve deeper happiness or overcome suffering. As human beings, endowed with this power of thought, we have this potential, and we must use it.
On every level – as individuals, and as members of a family, a community, a nation, and a planet – the most mischievous troublemakers we face are anger and egoism [exaggerated self-centredness]. No one claims to feel happy while being angry. As long as anger dominates our disposition, there is no possibility of lasting happiness. In order to achieve peace, tranquility, and real friendship, we must minimise anger and cultivate kindness and a warm heart ['loving-kindness'] This can be achieved through the practices I will describe in this book.
Developing a warm heart ourselves can also transform others, [who also] experience less anger. They will become more warm-hearted, compassionate, and harmonious. The very atmosphere becomes happier, which promotes good health, perhaps even a longer life.
You may be rich, powerful and well-educated, but without these healthy feelings of kindness and compassion there will be no peace within yourself, no peace within your family – even your children suffer. Kindness is essential to mental peace. As you will see in the pages ahead, the central method for achieving a happier life is to train your mind in a daily practice that weakens negative attitudes and strengthens positive ones.
The big question is whether or not we can practice kindness and peace. Many of our problems stem from putting ourself first at all costs.
To train the mind, you must exercise the patience and determination it takes to shape it. With patience, and practice, and time, change will come.
Interdependence
Today it is impossible to remain isolated, so if nations do not have mutual respect, problems are bound to arise. Economic rifts can be healed by a stronger sense of global interdependence and responsibility. The people of one nation must consider the people of other nations to be like brothers and sisters who deserve progress for their homelands.
The sale of weapons . . . by manufacturers in big countries fuels violence, but more dangerous than guns or bombs are hatred, lack of compassion, and lack of respect for the rights of others. As long as hatred dwells in the human mind, real peace is impossible.
We must do everything we can to stop war, and to rid the world of nuclear weapons. When I visited Hiroshima . . . my heart was deeply moved. How much pain and desolation nuclear war creates! Yet look at how much money is spent on weapons of mass destruction. It is shocking, an immeasurable disgrace.
The only way to achieve lasting peace is through mutual trust, respect, love and kindness. The only way.
External peace is impossible without inner peace. It is noble to work at external solutions, but they cannot be successfully implemented so long as people have hatred and anger in their minds. This is where profound change has to begin. Individually we have to work to change the basic perspectives on which our feelings depend. We can only do so through training, by engaging in practice with the aim of gradually reorienting the way we perceive ourselves and others.
The desperate state of our world calls us to action.”
-------------------------------------------
Action Man – Spiritual Intelligence -NOT!
One man who's definitely called to action in world affairs is our very own Minister for Defence, the Right Honourable Bob Ainsworth, MP.
The war in Afghanistan is "winnable", the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, insisted today, as new figures showed that more British soldiers have been injured in the country this year than in the whole of 2008.
"The troops know that we've made progress in the last few months, and I still firmly believe that Afghanistan is winnable," Ainsworth told the BBC during a round of interviews this morning to argue the case for the campaign, amid an apparent growing mood of public scepticism in Britain as the death toll among British troops reached 204.
Ministry of Defence statistics showed that 94 soldiers were injured in action in Afghanistan during July, more than double the number in June. Twenty-two soldiers were killed in July, compared with four in June.
So far this year, 236 troops have been hurt in the fighting, compare with 235 during all of last year.
With a poll showing yesterday that two-thirds of British people believed UK forces should leave the country, the government faces pressure to explain why the sacrifice is necessary. The task has been made all the more difficult by an outcry over a new Afghan law allowing some men the right to deny their wives food if sexual demands are unfulfilled, among other restrictions on women's rights.
There would almost certainly be more British deaths, Ainsworth warned this morning.
"When we are suffering the kind of losses that we are we cannot afford to be complacent," Ainsworth told GMTV. "I will do everything I can to support our troops with the best kit but what I can't do is promise to make the operation in Afghanistan safe. This kind of operation is intrinsically dangerous, the enemy is smart and they are studying our methods."
“Winnable”, eh Bob? Clearly this man is refusing to learn any lessons from history. From what happened in Vietnam, for instance – another fine example of politicians of a particular ideological bent feeling certain that they could defeat the so-called primitive enemy who were fighting for their country's right to self-determination and independence.
He might even consider the history of Afghanistan itself, and what happened to the Russian army and airforce when they attempted to combat the Afghans who resented Russian interference in their internal politics. And how clever were the Americans then to give sophisticated armaments and training to the very people who would later turn against worldwide American imperialism? The guys the Americans, and we British, are now trying to root out of Afghanistan!
Our Minister of Defence may be some kind of amiable old boy who's just trying to make the best of a fucked-up situation that his job requires him to tackle, but he's also reactionary to the core and an unquestioning supporter of the kind of stupid politics that can only harm the world and make it a more dangerous place, not safer.
Sadly he's a bit of an egocentric idiot. Power seems to have gone to his head, and it's now impossible for any alternative thinking to penetrate his thick skull. He's New Labour personified. Not that the New Conservatives will be any better. We're doomed!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/afghanistan-defence-secretary-military-deaths?CMP=AFCYAH
“General Sir Richard Dannatt, the outgoing head of the army . . . speaking at the official opening of an army recovery centre in Scotland, added: "It's a war about the people in Afghanistan. In particular we need to persuade the people in Afghanistan to support their government."
So here we have it – the people of Afghanistan don't support their 'government', and they need OUR persuasion that they should do so! Or maybe our bribes. And our propaganda. And our bombs. Just like the Vietnamese needed such 'help'.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband was on Radio 4 this morning still banging on about “the badlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan” and the need to combat terrorism. Militarily, of course.
------------------------------------------
To end on a positive note, with some positive thoughts, have a look at this website -
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/
About Buddhism
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the world's ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
Atisha (11th century Tibetan Buddhist master)
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Showing posts with label non-attachment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-attachment. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Layer 138 The Class, Unhealthy Preoccupations, Outbreaks of Common Sense, and Wabi Sabi.
.
Entre Les Murs
The Class (Between The Walls) takes place within the claustrophobic confines of a Parisian multi-cultural secondary school. It examines the dynamics within a very mixed ability class of 14 - 15 year olds, and their French language teacher, Francois, played by the author of the piece, based on his own experiences as a teacher. It also shows the dynamics within the staff of the school, including the school’s director.
It’s incredibly well written, acted, directed and edited, and won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Apparently the actors are all real teachers and pupils, not actors and drama students.
It’s a compelling account of what it’s really like to work with such adolescents, with their attitudes, issues and challenges. It’s a pretty overwhelming task - one that most of us are ill-equipped to take on.
The kids, for example, can’t see the point of being forced to learn the refined and grammatically correct versions, the ‘standard’ forms, of the French language, since they themselves don’t need them, use them, or even aspire to using them.
The kids and their families have backgrounds that include Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Ivory Coast, the Caribbean, China, Vietnam, and so on. The tensions between the groups are brought out through their support for the football teams of their ‘home’ countries, and indeed France.
Questions of identity, loyalty, self-image, culture clash and conflict are seriously explored.
The film raises serious questions about the purposes and methods of education. They’re essentially decent kids, but tough, hard-bitten and streetwise, and they resent a world that pays scant respect to them, or to their culture and community.
The teachers are portrayed as decent and sometimes heroic figures, though also with their limits - their weaknesses and biases.
There are also interesting explorations of the sanctions available to schools and teachers, and how they are applied. The sense of hopelessness and helplessness of some of the kids, and their parents, is palpable.
You can get a taster of the film through the trailers on the film’s website:
http://www.theclassmovie.co.uk/
-----------------------------------
A Buddhist Thought for Today - on Radio 4 today.
This is maybe worth repeating - from my recollection and my notes, with apologies to the Buddhist gentleman who offered this thought - for forgetting his name:
Mr Brown now says the era of laissez-faire capitalism is at an end. Inequality has now been shown to be a major factor in human happiness and the breakdown of social cohesion.
Social policy is very important for wellbeing, and social policies that reduce equality between individuals have been shown to be necessary and important for everyone’s wellbeing - not just the less well-off.
Gaining self worth from comparisons with others seems to be endemic in humans.
It’s hard to be immune from such things. Human competitiveness and drive for ‘status’, wanting to keep up with the successes of others, seems to be pervasive.
But is this in any case a sound basis for our sense of self worth? We should consciously avoid comparing ourselves with others.
We need to focus on our inner dimension of heart & mind - not look externally for feelings of self-worth.
We need to discover our inner dimensions of honest communication, love of nature, love of music, and so on. This is where real happiness and self-worth are to be found.
Through a process of calm reflection and meditation we can cultivate patience, generosity and compassion.
We need to learn to love ourselves first. If we find ourselves unlovely, then we should reflect on how we can change in order to be more pleasing to ourselves.
We also need to respond to ourselves with greater kindness. We must cultivate an inner abundance that others can share.
-----------------------------------
An Unhealthy Preoccupation?
This week there was a Scots woman on Radio 4’s Today going on about what she sees as an unhealthy preoccupation in our schools with children’s ‘feelings’. She’s against using the ‘SEAL’ programme’s materials, (social & emotional aspects of learning), some of which try to cultivate ‘emotional literacy’ and the ability to identify ‘feeling states’. She thinks children whose feelings are ‘hurt’ should be told to pull themselves together and ‘just get on with it’. Very Scots. Very Presbyterian.
The woman’s a complete idiot, of course. The SEAL materials can be very badly used, and used in ways that simply create boredom and frustration because they’re dealt with in an almost academic way.
But it’s absolutely crucial that teachers, teaching assistants, heads of year, pupil mentors and headteachers use every opportunity that presents itself to help children develop a better understanding of human conflict, its causes and effects, and remedies. For heaven’s sake - the negative things that take place in schools are learning experiences, if they’re properly handled.
There’s no better time to learn individually about feelings and about real social and emotional intelligence than when someone’s personally or tangentially involved in some sort of crisis or conflict. Of course we must also ensure that children consider as whole classes, in the context of a planned curriculum, things like human values, anger management, loving kindness and non violence. But we must also use real-life situations to the full in order to help children learn better, more deeply and more quickly.
Giving angry, sad, aggressive, vengeful, frightened and tearful children opportunities to calm down and calmly reflect on whatever’s happened, and a chance to think about what went wrong, and what should happen next, are vital if children are to develop high levels of social, emotional and spiritual intelligence, which should be a priority in all our schools. This should be so bleeding obvious it’s unbelievable that anyone should need to say these things.
The lady in question is unhappy that schools take on this work, which she sees as an attempt to “supplant the family”. What an idiot. How can she not see that it’s vital that schools supplement the learning that goes on in families, not supplant it? How can she not see that precious little of such learning takes place within many families, even the materially well-off ones, and that the learning must therefore take place in schools, from Nursery onward, or else it won’t take place at all?
If skilled Nursery and Early Years practitioners fail to involve themselves is such learning then many children wouldn’t even be able to access the rest of the curriculum - the academic and intellectual core. Classrooms would be simply chaotic and totally unruly, unless she’s just proposing to expel children who don’t immediately conform to expectations, and to use that draconian form of punishment to frighten the rest into ‘good behaviour’. In which case you have a system of externally imposed classroom discipline which breaks down elsewhere, on the streets and in real life, because no-one has learnt the need for, and the skills of, self-discipline.
It’s also a simple fact that many families teach their children to be aggressive, to be selfish and to be bullies in order to get what they want in life. In which case schools do indeed need to supplant the learning that happens in those families. And in those cases it’s not helpful for the long run to simply suppress bullying and aggression. Children do indeed need to learn why these things damage themselves as well as others, and to change what’s in their hearts, their souls and their minds.
Learning to be patient, generous and compassionate, learning to cultivate an abundance that can be shared with others, is a long, long journey, especially for those who are already spiritually lame, crippled and blinded. As the Buddhist teacher would no doubt agree.
------------------------------------
Wabi Sabi
As I was saying the other day, there was an interesting documentary on BBC4 about the elusive concept of wabi sabi. The presenter, a certain faux naïf called Theroux (Louis’s Brother?) was pretty irritating - but no matter. Better to consider wabi sabi in this imperfect way than not at all. After all, according to him, wabi sabi is the beauty of imperfect things.
As far as I can see, wabi sabi is an attitude or state of mind that’s engendered by an awareness of the impermanence of things, not their ‘imperfection’. From this comes an attitude, a Zen attitude, which can be characterised as ‘non-attachment’. Through living with this attitude we can more readily accept that everything is impermanent, and everything changes. Impermanence is neither good nor bad. It just IS.
My feeling is that the origins of this philosophy can be traced back to Taoism and the ancient Taoist book, the I Ching - the Book of Changes. The way of the Tao is described in the other classic text - the Tao Te Ching. Zen grew from Buddhism, which was assimilated into Taoist China from its origins in India. Discovery of The Way and one’s individual Tao, and following one’s proper course through life is essential to becoming the best we can be.
Attention to nature, and to the cultivation of gardens, shows us that everything has its season. A time to live and a time to die. A time to blossom and a time to bear fruit. A time for germination and a time to wither and disappear. Everything happens in cycles.
A life based on Zen and wabi sabi seeks simplicity and authenticity. Manifestations of this ideal can be found in pottery, music and gardens. The best examples of such art can arouse in us feelings of serene melancholy and spiritual fulfilment, or satori.
Having just listened to an hour and a half of David Gilmour and Rick Wright and co on Sky Arts 1, Remember That Night, performing Pink Floyd classics such as High Hopes and Comfortably Numb, cranked up loud through the hi fi, I’m Zenned and blissed out, and I’m off to bed. It’s been an incredibly beautiful Spring day, sunny and warm from start to end, with blossom and daffodils everywhere. Life doesn’t get any better than this. Remember That Day.
http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi_sabi
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WabiSabi
You can watch the BBC programme on iPlayer at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j8bkc/In_Search_of_Wabi_Sabi_with_Marcel_Theroux/
------------------------------------
An Outbreak of Common Sense
Robert Peston reports that the Financial Services Authority is now proposing we abandon the prevailing dogma that the market always knows best and that the market should be left to regulate itself. The FSA now wants bank lending to be limited to avoid taking on too much risk, and wants banks to hold more liquidity in case money markets shrink or dry up.
The words stable, bolted, door, closing, after and horse come to mind.
Also stating, obvious, the and bleeding.
.
Entre Les Murs
The Class (Between The Walls) takes place within the claustrophobic confines of a Parisian multi-cultural secondary school. It examines the dynamics within a very mixed ability class of 14 - 15 year olds, and their French language teacher, Francois, played by the author of the piece, based on his own experiences as a teacher. It also shows the dynamics within the staff of the school, including the school’s director.
It’s incredibly well written, acted, directed and edited, and won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Apparently the actors are all real teachers and pupils, not actors and drama students.
It’s a compelling account of what it’s really like to work with such adolescents, with their attitudes, issues and challenges. It’s a pretty overwhelming task - one that most of us are ill-equipped to take on.
The kids, for example, can’t see the point of being forced to learn the refined and grammatically correct versions, the ‘standard’ forms, of the French language, since they themselves don’t need them, use them, or even aspire to using them.
The kids and their families have backgrounds that include Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Ivory Coast, the Caribbean, China, Vietnam, and so on. The tensions between the groups are brought out through their support for the football teams of their ‘home’ countries, and indeed France.
Questions of identity, loyalty, self-image, culture clash and conflict are seriously explored.
The film raises serious questions about the purposes and methods of education. They’re essentially decent kids, but tough, hard-bitten and streetwise, and they resent a world that pays scant respect to them, or to their culture and community.
The teachers are portrayed as decent and sometimes heroic figures, though also with their limits - their weaknesses and biases.
There are also interesting explorations of the sanctions available to schools and teachers, and how they are applied. The sense of hopelessness and helplessness of some of the kids, and their parents, is palpable.
You can get a taster of the film through the trailers on the film’s website:
http://www.theclassmovie.co.uk/
-----------------------------------
A Buddhist Thought for Today - on Radio 4 today.
This is maybe worth repeating - from my recollection and my notes, with apologies to the Buddhist gentleman who offered this thought - for forgetting his name:
Mr Brown now says the era of laissez-faire capitalism is at an end. Inequality has now been shown to be a major factor in human happiness and the breakdown of social cohesion.
Social policy is very important for wellbeing, and social policies that reduce equality between individuals have been shown to be necessary and important for everyone’s wellbeing - not just the less well-off.
Gaining self worth from comparisons with others seems to be endemic in humans.
It’s hard to be immune from such things. Human competitiveness and drive for ‘status’, wanting to keep up with the successes of others, seems to be pervasive.
But is this in any case a sound basis for our sense of self worth? We should consciously avoid comparing ourselves with others.
We need to focus on our inner dimension of heart & mind - not look externally for feelings of self-worth.
We need to discover our inner dimensions of honest communication, love of nature, love of music, and so on. This is where real happiness and self-worth are to be found.
Through a process of calm reflection and meditation we can cultivate patience, generosity and compassion.
We need to learn to love ourselves first. If we find ourselves unlovely, then we should reflect on how we can change in order to be more pleasing to ourselves.
We also need to respond to ourselves with greater kindness. We must cultivate an inner abundance that others can share.
-----------------------------------
An Unhealthy Preoccupation?
This week there was a Scots woman on Radio 4’s Today going on about what she sees as an unhealthy preoccupation in our schools with children’s ‘feelings’. She’s against using the ‘SEAL’ programme’s materials, (social & emotional aspects of learning), some of which try to cultivate ‘emotional literacy’ and the ability to identify ‘feeling states’. She thinks children whose feelings are ‘hurt’ should be told to pull themselves together and ‘just get on with it’. Very Scots. Very Presbyterian.
The woman’s a complete idiot, of course. The SEAL materials can be very badly used, and used in ways that simply create boredom and frustration because they’re dealt with in an almost academic way.
But it’s absolutely crucial that teachers, teaching assistants, heads of year, pupil mentors and headteachers use every opportunity that presents itself to help children develop a better understanding of human conflict, its causes and effects, and remedies. For heaven’s sake - the negative things that take place in schools are learning experiences, if they’re properly handled.
There’s no better time to learn individually about feelings and about real social and emotional intelligence than when someone’s personally or tangentially involved in some sort of crisis or conflict. Of course we must also ensure that children consider as whole classes, in the context of a planned curriculum, things like human values, anger management, loving kindness and non violence. But we must also use real-life situations to the full in order to help children learn better, more deeply and more quickly.
Giving angry, sad, aggressive, vengeful, frightened and tearful children opportunities to calm down and calmly reflect on whatever’s happened, and a chance to think about what went wrong, and what should happen next, are vital if children are to develop high levels of social, emotional and spiritual intelligence, which should be a priority in all our schools. This should be so bleeding obvious it’s unbelievable that anyone should need to say these things.
The lady in question is unhappy that schools take on this work, which she sees as an attempt to “supplant the family”. What an idiot. How can she not see that it’s vital that schools supplement the learning that goes on in families, not supplant it? How can she not see that precious little of such learning takes place within many families, even the materially well-off ones, and that the learning must therefore take place in schools, from Nursery onward, or else it won’t take place at all?
If skilled Nursery and Early Years practitioners fail to involve themselves is such learning then many children wouldn’t even be able to access the rest of the curriculum - the academic and intellectual core. Classrooms would be simply chaotic and totally unruly, unless she’s just proposing to expel children who don’t immediately conform to expectations, and to use that draconian form of punishment to frighten the rest into ‘good behaviour’. In which case you have a system of externally imposed classroom discipline which breaks down elsewhere, on the streets and in real life, because no-one has learnt the need for, and the skills of, self-discipline.
It’s also a simple fact that many families teach their children to be aggressive, to be selfish and to be bullies in order to get what they want in life. In which case schools do indeed need to supplant the learning that happens in those families. And in those cases it’s not helpful for the long run to simply suppress bullying and aggression. Children do indeed need to learn why these things damage themselves as well as others, and to change what’s in their hearts, their souls and their minds.
Learning to be patient, generous and compassionate, learning to cultivate an abundance that can be shared with others, is a long, long journey, especially for those who are already spiritually lame, crippled and blinded. As the Buddhist teacher would no doubt agree.
------------------------------------
Wabi Sabi
As I was saying the other day, there was an interesting documentary on BBC4 about the elusive concept of wabi sabi. The presenter, a certain faux naïf called Theroux (Louis’s Brother?) was pretty irritating - but no matter. Better to consider wabi sabi in this imperfect way than not at all. After all, according to him, wabi sabi is the beauty of imperfect things.
As far as I can see, wabi sabi is an attitude or state of mind that’s engendered by an awareness of the impermanence of things, not their ‘imperfection’. From this comes an attitude, a Zen attitude, which can be characterised as ‘non-attachment’. Through living with this attitude we can more readily accept that everything is impermanent, and everything changes. Impermanence is neither good nor bad. It just IS.
My feeling is that the origins of this philosophy can be traced back to Taoism and the ancient Taoist book, the I Ching - the Book of Changes. The way of the Tao is described in the other classic text - the Tao Te Ching. Zen grew from Buddhism, which was assimilated into Taoist China from its origins in India. Discovery of The Way and one’s individual Tao, and following one’s proper course through life is essential to becoming the best we can be.
Attention to nature, and to the cultivation of gardens, shows us that everything has its season. A time to live and a time to die. A time to blossom and a time to bear fruit. A time for germination and a time to wither and disappear. Everything happens in cycles.
A life based on Zen and wabi sabi seeks simplicity and authenticity. Manifestations of this ideal can be found in pottery, music and gardens. The best examples of such art can arouse in us feelings of serene melancholy and spiritual fulfilment, or satori.
Having just listened to an hour and a half of David Gilmour and Rick Wright and co on Sky Arts 1, Remember That Night, performing Pink Floyd classics such as High Hopes and Comfortably Numb, cranked up loud through the hi fi, I’m Zenned and blissed out, and I’m off to bed. It’s been an incredibly beautiful Spring day, sunny and warm from start to end, with blossom and daffodils everywhere. Life doesn’t get any better than this. Remember That Day.
http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi_sabi
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WabiSabi
You can watch the BBC programme on iPlayer at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j8bkc/In_Search_of_Wabi_Sabi_with_Marcel_Theroux/
------------------------------------
An Outbreak of Common Sense
Robert Peston reports that the Financial Services Authority is now proposing we abandon the prevailing dogma that the market always knows best and that the market should be left to regulate itself. The FSA now wants bank lending to be limited to avoid taking on too much risk, and wants banks to hold more liquidity in case money markets shrink or dry up.
The words stable, bolted, door, closing, after and horse come to mind.
Also stating, obvious, the and bleeding.
.
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