.
I’ve been trying to think of some practical examples of Zen’s wabi sabi philosophy, which I now think might also be compared to Taoist yin yang philosophy.
The fundamental idea in all Buddhist and Taoist thinking is that life is impermanent and imperfect, insofar as it doesn’t accord with human absolutist ideas of perfection, whereby there are rigid ideas about how things ought to be.
We might think that things should remain the same, if we like the way they are - but that’s not going to happen. We might think that things ought to change in accordance with our wishes, if we don’t like the way they are, but that may not happen either.
According to Zen, however, every day is indeed perfect, since it’s life’s frustrations and sadnesses which challenge us and force us to do work on our spirit and our soul (the yin/yang of our psyche?) in order to develop less egotism and more of an attitude of non-attachment, which in turn reduces our angst and suffering.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work hard to make the world a better place for ourselves and others - it’s not about resignation and defeatism. It merely says that we should do the work cheerfully and in the knowledge that our efforts may not be properly or fully rewarded in the way that we’d like.
Shit happens. But good things happen too, often without effort or struggle. We can only play our part, and the most important thing we can do is to work on ourselves so that we seek enlightenment, try to make ourselves the best we can be, and help others.
Going back to practical wabi sabi, I think of homes where everything is ‘perfect’: every room looks like the prevailing culture says it should look; everything is beautiful, tidy, uncluttered and clean. Many Japanese homes, for example, are stunningly minimalist and lovely. What could be wrong with that?
From an aesthetic point of view, maybe nothing. But maybe the price of that sort of perfection is that there are no books or magazines or newspapers to hand that catch one’s attention, that perhaps stimulate and inspire new thoughts. Maybe there are no notebooks or sketchpads at hand to capture fleeting ideas and creative thoughts. Maybe there are no musical instruments or art materials casually to hand to encourage creative self-expression.
Yin yang, and maybe wabi sabi, is also about balance, and about the opposing forces of order and creative disorder, light and dark, coexisting peacefully and productively. It’s the odd ‘blue’ note cropping up in an otherwise perfect pentatonic scale that adds contrast and colour to the music which gives jazz and the blues their unique pleasures and satisfactions.
---------------------------------------------------------
Referring back to my thoughts on The Class - the film’s website carries this sentence: “The greatest lessons are learned when life enters the classroom.”
One might also say the same for letting real life enter academia’s ivory towers, for letting life enter the fortresses we call our homes, etc.
How many of us are happy to let life enter our lives, instead of trying hard always to keep the real world and its unruly forces at bay?
------------------------------------------
In Our Time - The Boxer Uprising.
And talking of unruly forces, Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time programme on Radio 4 today focused on the ‘Boxer’ rebellion in late 19th Century China.
Spiritual values underpin Japanese and Chinese culture, and indeed all cultures that are influenced by Buddhist philosophy. In China the prevailing culture and spiritual ethos was, and arguably still is, a mixture of of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, each of which reinforces the other, and produces a whole which is greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Tolerance, patience, kindness, generosity and compassion were shown to the outside forces, the foreign ideas and indeed the strange religions that entered China in the 19th Century. But when those forces of imperialist expansion and exploitation, aided and abetted by missionary, evangelic Christianity, pushed their luck too far, then in order to preserve their own spiritual values, relationships and customs the ‘common’ people of China rose up in rebellion against them.
The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, a resistance movement prepared to use Buddhist martial arts in what they saw as the self-defense of the people and the culture of China, appeared out of nowhere in Shandong province.
There were no specific political leaders. But everyone understood and believed in their cause. Imperialist forces and values were stopped in their tracks, and China remained, and remains, uncolonised.
----------------------------------------------------
In our time the forces of unfettered capitalist and imperialist greed, aided and abetted by right-wing fundamentalist Christianity in the USA, have pushed their luck too far.
The people are angry and there’s a whiff of rebellion in the air. There are no obvious leaders for such a rebellion, and no-one really wants to acknowledge the current sense of foreboding and disquiet too much, for fear of being accused of being a rabble-rouser. No matter. Things are as they are. Even the likes of Max Hastings, who is a decent man it seems, recognizes that people have a right to their anger, and that socialists (having been ridiculed as losers and dinosaurs for so long) have been shown to be right in their predictions of planetary destruction and economic meltdown if capitalist excess was allowed to continue. Well it did, and we are where we are.
As Max says, we’re into a period of phony war, when battle lines have been declared, sides taken, and nothing much else seems to be happening. But everybody’s waiting with some anxiety to see what happens in what may prove to be a long, hot summer.
--------------------------------------------------
Whatever happens, it ought to be non-violent. There is absolutely no mileage for anyone in violence. We should take our cue from the Buddhist monks of Burma and Tibet, from the example of their spiritual and political protests last year, and be prepared to dress distinctively (as the ‘Boxer’ rebels did too) out on the streets, in demonstrations of our numerical strength, as we make our demands heard.
We demand a return to the ideals of government for the people, by the people. The specifics of our demands still need to be thrashed out in proper democratic debate, and that doesn’t mean in Parliament, either.
-------------------------------------------------
Working For The Man
Chris Mullins MP’s recent diaries of his time as a junior minister in the Blair government are being serialized in Radio 4’s Book of the Week this week.
Today’s extracts were fairly hard-hitting, especially the references to Blair and to his immediate boss, Jack Straw.
Blair, “The Man”, is exposed for his inability and his unwillingness to listen to what others have to say to him. Mullins remarks that this is what happens to people who have been in power for some time. However, I’d argue that this is part and parcel of being a power-crazed egomaniac manipulative psychopath politician all your life.
According to Henry Maudsley, psychopaths are moral imbeciles. Check.
Cleckley pointed out that psychopaths can maintain a mask of normality. Check.
Kernberg said that the pathological narcissism of psychopaths prevents them from learning from past mistakes, and helps create individuals who are completely devoid of conscience. Check.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
Dr Robert Hare’s checklist for pathological aggressive narcissism consists of 8 factors:
1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning/manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Shallow
7. Callous/lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Check.
“I did what I thought was right,” said Mr Tony. Lest we forget. I I I I I I I I I I
Maybe we should run this diagnosis on the rest of our elected representatives. Urgently.
Mullins also highlights Blair’s inability to concentrate and to focus on important issues, especially those which don’t really interest him, like Africa. He clearly didn’t read the briefs that were sent to him, and was given to saying to colleagues like Mullins on the day of meetings and conferences, “Tell me what to say - in a word!”
When Blair met with the Dalai Lama in his capacity as a Buddhist leader he didn’t even have enough respect for his visitor to prepare properly for the meeting so that a productive dialogue could take place, and confined himself, therefore, to anodyne chat and questions. When the issue of the right-wing BJP came up - the so-called ‘Indian People’s Party’ - Blair apparently said he thought their political ideology was similar to New Labour. Check.
Mullins concluded that “we are turning a blind eye to some very bad things”, and “it’s impossible to get the paperwork under control” in spite of working all the available hours. This is indeed Britain under New Labour. And will no doubt continue to be if we end up living under a New Tory government.
---------------------------------------------
The estimable Jon Cruddas MP had a good column in the Guardian yesterday.
Labour has misunderstood Britain. Time to start afresh.
We need to rebuild a community-focused party, embrace electoral reform and pursue - dare I say - a New Socialism.
On top of the recession, 2009's big story looks like being a crisis of political representation.
And palpable fear about what lies ahead.
New Labour has had increasingly little to say about [people’s] struggles. Indeed, by 2001 its policies were based essentially on a mythical middle England, drawn up by pollsters and located somewhere in the south-east, with affluence taken for granted. In this model, politics always had to be individualised. A leading cabinet member claimed that Labour's essential message was to help voters "earn and own". People were seen as being fixated only on themselves, with no wish to think in terms of collective experience. Aspiration was about buying more things rather than wanting to build the "good society".
Julian Baggini, in his book A Journey into the English Mind, identified a postcode in Rotherham as the typical centre of the country in terms of how we live and think. His exploration of the philosophy of England beautifully defines the conservative, community-orientated outlook of the mainstream, Protestant centre of the country with its rich sense of tolerance and fairness.
Labour misread this communitarian disposition - grounded in a deep and still dominant working-class culture - for a shrill politics of individual consumerism. We assumed people would only respond to a sour, illiberal politics about consuming more, rather than a deeper ethic of fraternity and what we aspire to be as a nation.
Labour lost the language of generosity, kindness and community as it lost the tempo of the country. England's abiding culture was never socialist, but as we misunderstood its essential ethic of solidarity we lost our ability to build a politics beyond the market - to mould a radical hope for the country.
Working-class culture tolerated Labour as long as it promised economic uplift. Sixty quarters of growth helped disguise our cultural distance from the country. The material class politics that we never confronted - around housing, employment insecurity and pensions - was submerged by the housing bubble.
The Labour party is therefore at a critical moment. Already in government hardline market fundamentalists are regrouping, arguing for further dismantling of the state, more privatisation and suspending any equality agenda to placate business. On the left, a movement to leave Labour and form a new workers' party is stirring. What both sides share is a desire to polarise debate.
But now is the time to build a different Labour party, to develop a new kind of economy and determine the just distribution of power and resources, in which government and the people work together toward a vision of the Good Society.
A grown-up Labour party needs to embrace proportional representation - not as a preserve of the liberal metropolitan intelligentsia, but as a core mechanism with which to combat a sense of working-class alienation.
Now, before it's too late, we need to rediscover [traditional] Labour politics. And, not that I want to scare the horses, we might even call it a New Socialism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/18/labour-jon-cruddas
--------------------------------------------
Well, Jon, you can call it what you like, but what you’re really talking about is embracing spiritually intelligent values. And none of the political parties has any monopoly on them. They’re all free to embrace them. The original Labour party grew out of them. Jesus Christ, the Buddha and Mohammed certainly advocated them.
Reading Cruddas’ article, you surely have to see parallels with the Boxer rebellion. The majority of the people, who live decent lives and abide by spiritually intelligent values have become disgusted with the values inflicted on this society by the advocates of greed and the American Dream - selfishness, individual enrichment at the expense of the communal good, and so forth. They’ve had enough and they’re not going to take any more.
These people have no particular political programme, belong to no political party or faction, have no particular leaders, and they wish only to see our national affairs return to a greater state of enlightenment - to see social justice, the eradication of violence, exploitation and poverty - and they desire much greater equality and a better life for all, not just the few.
Unless the current political parties start to show some concern with their desires and interests then they won’t vote for any of them. Maybe a new party will form to represent them, but in the meantime the masses will just have to stage demonstrations and protests, to show their anger in their willingness to stand up on their feet and get out in peaceful gatherings on the streets.
I suggest they wear the same colours as the monks of Burma and Tibet, if only to show solidarity and a belief in non-violence.
---------------------------------------------------
Simon Jenkins wrote his usual excellent column yesterday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/18/post-office-bank
Some excellent postings after the article too, such as the one by Trevisco:
THIS IS OUR FUCKING MONEY. WE DESERVE A FULL EXPLANATION AND ACCOUNTING. NOW. Frankly, it makes me feel like paying those bankers a visit in the dead of night with a baseball bat and persuading them to come clean about that £100 billion.
Jonathan Freedland said some perceptive things in his column about Noam Chomsky’s observation that the USA has not so much supported Israel as supported the right wing in Israel and in fact supported each and every right wing party and right wing government everywhere on the planet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/18/jonathan-freedland-israel-lobby
.
Showing posts with label wabi sabi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wabi sabi. Show all posts
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/
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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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