Middle season 3 - 2024

 

In Praise of Kevin Kelly

 

recent Tweet by Kevin Kelly: 

Welcome to my MiniMuseum! I just made an addition to my studio using 2-oz jars to display my little natural and manufactured specimens. Hands on; please touch.

He continues to post to his blog often.... seemingly every day.   Here's a piece on:

A "trust flip" happened. Our default response to a photograph was to believe it as real, unless proven a fake. Now our default response to an image is to disbelieve as a fake, unless proven to be real.

50 ideas to help you move forward

 

I really love this NPR Lifekit website.  The site begins with this: 

Ready, set, go! This is the year to take your goals off hold. Scroll through Life Kit’s expert guides to find ways to make bold moves in 2024.  

This year I want to ...

Then, below are 50 small hand-drawn graphics (crayon drawings?), like a tree, a plate with utensils, ovaries.   Superimposed are phrases like "live to 100," or "make a budget," or "have more fun."  

I like the website becuase it's simple, clever, lo-fi, DIY-looking, and filled with practical advice.  The "advice" comes in the form of articles that Like Kit has published through the year. 

The power to participate, to invent, to encourage, to connect

Library of Congress: Federal Theater Project 1934-1943 (search LOC: power)

 Two recent posts by Seth Godin that reflect on power from below and above.  How it's easy to pretend we don't have power (and what that power might come disguised as  (things that are less flowery, less headliney) and how real power is different than coercion.   I like how he refers to power as "trust and the benefit of the doubt"

Unaware

If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it.

The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organize, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’.

It’s tempting to imagine we have less power than we do. It lets us off the hook. For now.

Book Notes: Reinventing Bach by Paul Elie

 

6  "the notion of music as invention applies to Bach's vast body of music: as one of those scholar-performers, Laurence Dreyfus, argued in a book a few years ago, invention is the essential pattern of Bach's creative life. For Bach an invention was an idea -- a melody, a pattern, a contrapuntal motif -- worth developing.  Invention was also a term for the act of discovery, and for the mechanism - the application of rules, the habits of art -- that made discovery come about.  An invention was "a strong foretaste of composition<" a "workable idea" developed just to the point where it could be most fruitful and suggestive and delightful to others.  

Elie uses this metaphor throughout the book... " it allows us to see Bach not only as a technological adept but as an inventor in his own right, a Leonardo of sound." 

7 This book, then, is a story of invention -- a series of variations about inventions in different media, if you like.  Teh musicians who figure into the story, all of them steeped in the music of Bach, deliberately or intuitively worked out patterns of invention through their encounter with the music of Bach by way of new technology.

74. Like L'estro armonico, with its hints of passion and ardor, inventio was a term that served Bach as a figure for the creative process. The scholar and gambist Laurence Dreyfus sees the invention as the secret of Bach's music. The invention is "the essential thematic idea underlying a composition." It is not complete in itself: it is "the idea behind a piece, a musical subject whose discovery precedes full-scale composition." And it is the discipline that gives rise to the idea. It is not static but dynamic, not an object but "a mechanism that triggers further elaborative thought from which a whole piece of music is shaped."

Bach himself referred to the invention primarily as a teaching tool. By 1712 his two eldest children, ages three and five, were ready to learn to play music. He would teach them himself, using music he had written for the purpose, such as the book of keyboard exercises, assembled later, that included a set of inventions— pieces meant to give the student "a strong foretaste of composition.*

Invention would come to characterize his music, both as a habit of art and as a pattern of the art itself. His music develops ideas in ways that dramatize the act of invention. His use of "structured repetition" highlights the process.

And while scholars stress his thoroughness in working out his ideas, his music doesn't sound exhaustive; it sounds inventive-it doesn't finish the musical thought so much as keep it aloft.

Bach was a "discoverer and tinkerer standing behind his inventions," Dreyfus writes. That is appealing but understates the point. Bach was more than a tinkerer, improving other people's creations. He was not quite a discoverer in the usual sense, a figure venturing into terra incognita. He was an in-ventor, making new things, at once ingenious and practical, which could be put to use by everybody.

216.  A major theme of the book is "invention," as in the modes of invention in rhetoric.  On this page, "the 'structured repetition' of its development -- as the 'mechanism that triggers further elaborative thought from which a whole piece of music is shaped.'" (this is a quotation by Glen Gould, I think.  ) Music reference to 8th 3-part invention

217. the previous section was about Gould's first recordings (of the Three-Part Inventions, rather than the expected Goldberg Variations).  Elie does this fabulous prose bit, to contextualize the historical importance of the recording.  

That was Wednesday, June 8, 1955. The night before, Dwight Eisenhower had appeared on color TV (the first U.S. president to do so) to explain the Supreme Court's recent ruling that the nation's public schools had to desegregate

"with all deliberate speed." The Seven Year Itch, with Marilyn Monroe, was in wide release. In a laboratory in Philadelphia, Dr. Thomas Stolz Harvey was sectioning the brain of Albert Einstein, which he had removed while performing an autopsy on the scientist after his death in Princeton in April. Saul Bel-low, on Riverside Drive in New York, was mourning his father: "Not that I was ever prompt at anything," he told Leslie Fiedler, "but life is particularly difficult in all departments just now." Flannery O'Connor had just returned to Georgia from New York, where she had seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway and appeared on television to watch a playhouse acting-out of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." Dorothy Day and several dozen Catholic Workers and other peace activists were preparing to demonstrate at City Hall during a civil-defense drill— to voice their opposition to war, physical and psy-chological, and "as an act of public penance for having been the first people in the world to drop the atomic bomb, to make the hydrogen bomb." After years of struggle, Alberto Giacometti saw his work presented in three retrospectives at once: in West Germany, in London, and at the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue. An editor at the Viking Press was considering a novel by Jack Kerouac: "So here are these characters-in search of their identity-and the way they must do it—is by driving all over the U.S.—and the way they are really doing it is by 'feeling' life down to its very roots." On Montgomery Street in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg was writing a long poem in a room kitted out with a Cézanne print, a woven basket, "Bollingen series books shelved, letters and essays Ezra Pound under bed-table clock, black-painted bureau with victrola-case & Bach on top" -—a three-LP mono set of the Mass in B Minor recorded by Hermann Scherchen and the Vienna Philharmonic.

There Ginsberg wrote of "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heav-cly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" — "who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music / who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts..."

218 Gould on Bach... "virtually every major musician was determined to follow his example, to work as it was deemed he had worked -- as an artisan, a sober, conscientious craftsman in whom diligence and inspiration were inextricably intertwined." This was Gould's ideal.

219 By recording the variations one at a time, in multiple takes, as he had at the cottage, he set them apart from one another, exaggerating their individuality. The aria is played swiftly in a kind of triple time, so that it is over before it is through. The seventh variation is a country dance, with Gould's hands hee-hawing over the keys. The ninth, full of overtones, is akin to a minimalist anthem.  The twelfth is a holler: it sounds a little like a crazy person with his mouth up to your ear, giving you a piece of his mind. The thirteenth is a limpid modern chamber work, such as one of Milton Babbitt's graduate students might have played.

234 Rosalyn Tureck on Gould "He took a very great deal from me" in recording the Goldberg Variations.  Like his, her Goldbergs is gleaming, angular, architectural; but her is tidily proportioned where his is jagged, exaggerated.

249 Elie talks about the change from mono to stereo -- a gain in technical power (richness), and loss of emotion; higher and lower in mono, richer, smoother, more articulate, more various in stereo.  example of Stokowski's two recordings of "Komm, susser Tod"

269 Gould - "All aart is really variation upon some other art"... Gould reflecting on Strauss and Schoenberg -- too many new ideas, too few. Bach is the exception.

271 reference to Two and Three Part Inventions by Gould (not sure what the note is for)

279 (reference to Frank Kermode - A Sense of an Ending) and maybe Gould's description of some music performance as "an extraordianrily moving experience, but I am not sure that is appropriate to describe it as, in the ordinary sense, a musical experience." It was a mental exercise, a "proof invention, not of greatness."

304 Gould's favorite composer - Orlando Gibbons - Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard is one piece.

308 - Stokowski - "For him, as for Casals, the music of Bach was a life force. The approach Casals took, abashedly and in private with the cello suites -- to play them, to plumb them, over and over again -- S took from the get-go and in public.  He wold play the music endlessly. Bach's music was an aural space where, moment to moment, he could create anew.

331 - on Jeremy Rifkin and Mass in B minor -- done with a singer in each role, rather than several (because the thinking is that Bach meant "this or that" singer when he listed several parts, with the assumption that he would never have a full batch).  

335/6 - Richard Taruskin, professor of music, "The pastness of the persent and the presence of the past"  talking about the "authentic performance" movement.  He examines 7 different recordings of the fifth Brandenburg.  He settles on Gustav Leonhardt's version from 1976.  Elie writes lovingly about it.

361 - Masaaki Suzuki records all of Bach's cantata's - how his Christianity brings him closer to Bach than his Japanese heritage brings him away

362 - Reference to WKCR-FM Bachfest at Christmastime. Christmas Eve morning to NY Day. ref to Keith Jarrett (Oct 10 is Thelonius Monk bday celebration on same station)

365 - TS Eliot says hearing Tristan und Isolde being one of the great experiences of his life; here Elie recounts the same while taking a train ride and listening to CD on discman and listening to St Matthew's Passion.  "I was overwhelmed by Bach on that train ride like Jonah being swallowed by the whale..."He feels that the Christian teleology pulls the music forward "that the Christian drive toward ultimate purpose gave Bach's music its astonishing drive, grasped in faith and patterned into art."

(viaticum 367) noun1.the Eucharist as given to a person near or in danger of death.2.ARCHAIC a supply of provisions or an official allowance of money for a journey.

402 Stephen Malinowski - animation - visualization (also works with Bjork on Biophilia ) (prelude from third partita; Lara St. John). Also Alexander Chen, Bach's first cello suite visualization.

403. CK Williams' poem "Time: 1976" (it reference Music offering)

406. Robin Holloway - Gilded Goldbergs - two pianos, reconfigurations of Goldberg

407. Bach manuscript. The clavier-buchlein vor Wilhelm Fredemann Bach - Yale - find the image of this

411. Keith Jarrett - Well-Tempered Clavier.  "I made a resolution: Come the new year, I would go throuhg a prelude each morning, Pablo Casals-style, letting Bach and the iPhone loop me over the Manhattan Bridge and into the workday."

412. poet Lawrence Joseph. "now evening comes fast from the sea"

413+ Bach Cantata Pilgrimage

Philip Larkin - poem - "Water"

Be bad at something new

 From Action for Happiness:

Be brave enough to be bad at something new. Keep trying and keep learning

January and February Scrapbook 2024

 

1. MrBoddington Note Cards - link
2. Library of Congress Image Search - link
3. King Arthur Chicago style deep dish pizza - link
4. The 10 Beat Mozart Recordings - link 
5. Classical composer birthday list - link
6. There have been many many attempts to visualize music over the centuries, but the animations of music done by Stephen Malinowski are the ones that sing to me. Despite the name of Music Animation Machine, this is not AI. This is obsessive craftsmanship of the highest order. As a sample start with this piece of music, the original 1924 recording of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. 
7. Ice Age Trail -  https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/parks/iceagetrail. travel wisconsin ice age trail - https://www.travelwisconsin.com/search/index#q=ice%20age%20trail

Some Winter Haiku

 

Hasui Kawase

"life in this world 

 just like a temporary shelter 

 from a winter shower"             

     ― Sogi  (tr. Makoto Ueda) 

   "The snow, 

 As I watch, 

 Keeps falling and falling."   Santoka  

"softly gently -- 

 cold weather creeps 

 into Kyoto"     Issa Kobayashi 

being alive 

in the shadow 

of cherry blossoms  

Issa

without looking back leaving one home for the next

Basho

Middle season 2 - 2024

 

What if teaching made you more energetic by the end of the day?

 

Tiger Lilies and Butterfly, by Ohara Koson, 1932

Inspired by the futurist question - imagine that the thing has already happened (carbon neutrality, a mass migration from the coasts) - then think about "how did we get there? - 

and inspired by the Tim Ferriss question - what if it were easy? (what would it look like if it were easy?) -

and inspired by the culture of complaint of co-workers at school -

and inspired by my own sense of end of day weariness, the sense that I need to recuperate the minute I get back from work -

 I had this thought:

What if teaching made you more energetic by the end of the day?  First, it would be helpful to imagine an energy gauge (maybe an app on your phone? maybe an analog gauge (like an air pressure gauge?) implanted in your body?  Throughout the day, you'd be measuring the current state.  You'd notice that through the day it's not a steady drop (or preciptious drop).  You'd not be "in the red" after lunch.  The needle wouldn't be pegged at the bottom at end of day.  Instead, specific activities throughout the day (and not just jolts of caffeine) would buoy the needle up.  Imagine that it's already like that.  

Now, peak into your own classroom.  What would class time look like?  What would it sound like?  What activities would I be planning that would make the class time filled with learning AND positive feelings?

What would "grading" look like?  What would the hours of class planning look like?  (partly this would be a matter of "being kind to your future self"

What would the endless cycle of meetings and phone calls and emails look like?

Primordial Abundance

Architect Susan Susanka, of The Not So Big House fame, wrote a book filled with Buddhist/mindfulness ideas called "The Not So Big Life."  One practice I picked up from her involved stopping throughout the day to "notice and name" what was going on at that very moment.  

I adapted this in several ways, most recently as "notice 10 things."  At the beginning it was trying to find 10 absurd or beautiful things.  At other times, it was notice 14 things because, I think, I wanted to notice 1000 things through the 365 year. Later, it became just factual and object noticings.... what was going on in the actual world around me, rather than what was going on in my head as I raced from project to project.

One of the benefits of doing this is that it "slows the day down" in the sense that it helps me recall ANY details of the day whatsoever.  Otherwise, I struggle remembering any details (like during my next-morning reflection) because my brain is planning, expecting, not aware.  

Related to this...I've recently learned about Tonglen practice which is ultimately about giving and receiving.  Ultimately it teaches us that generosity is nourishing, puts us in touch with primordial abundance.  

In the "normal" state of existence, the days rush by, slip by.  

Recently, I've listened to a few Art of Manliness podcasts involving Gregg Krech and his Naikan practice.  This, too is about factually noting how we are supported by other people, things, energies.  It corrects our idea of radical independence.  

On Music Reviews

 Learned about from newsletter Biblioracle, John Warner:

Robert Christgau was music critic at The Village Voice from 1969 to 2006, and the (above) edition of the book we owned compiled his “Consumer Guide” capsule reviews from the paper - short, funny, penetrating, sometimes caustic, always opinionated takes on the records of the day.

Each album got a letter grade, and Christgau’s description of what each grade means gives great insight into the approach and attitudes he brings to his work:

An A+ record is an organically conceived masterpiece that repays prolonged listening with new excitement and insight. It is unlikely to be marred by more than one merely ordinary cut.

An A is a great record both of whose sides offer enduring pleasure and surprise. You should own it.

An A- is a very good record. If one of its sides doesn't provide intense and consistent satisfaction, then both include several cuts that do.

A B+ is a good record, at least one of whose sides can be played with lasting interest and the other of which includes at least one enjoyable cut.

A B is an admirable effort that aficionados of the style or artist will probably find quite listenable.

A B- is a competent or mildly interesting record that will usually feature at least three worthwhile cuts.

A C+ is a not disreputable performance, most likely a failed experiment or a pleasant piece of hackwork.

A C is a record of clear professionalism or barely discernible inspiration, but not both.

A C- is a regrettably successful exploitation or a basically honest but quite incompetent stab at something more.

A D+ is an appalling piece of pimpwork or a thoroughly botched token of sincerity.

It is impossible to understand why anyone would buy a D record.

It is impossible to understand why anyone would release a D- record.

It is impossible to understand why anyone would cut an E+ record.

E records are frequently cited as proof that there is no God.

An E- record is an organically conceived masterpiece that repays repeated listening with a sense of horror in the face of the void. It is unlikely to be marred by one listenable cut

Don't change your thinking, change your seeing - Naikan

Yuhan Ito

Art of Manliness: #671 Better Questions for Self Reflections - Gregg Krech interviewed 

Naikan is a method of self-reflection that was developed in Japan. It was developed by a man by the name of Yoshimoto Ishin back in the… Oh, 1930s, 1940s was really kind of time when it first started to arise. But it was preceded by a kind of ancient tradition of self-reflection called mishirabe, which went back hundreds of years prior to that. And was affiliated originally with a form of Buddhism called Shin Buddhism, which is actually the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan today.

It’s an interesting form of Buddhism. Not a lot of Americans know about it, but it’s based or grounded in a concept called tariki. And tariki means something like “other power”. So we can look at, for instance, in the personal development arena, you hear a lot of things that are based on jiriki which means “self-power” as opposed to tariki which means “other power”.

And self-power is kind of the message that we give to people, “Look, if you wanna change your life, you gotta do it yourself, nobody’s gonna do it for you.” And it’s a healthy message in a lot of situations. Tariki is the message that you can’t do anything by yourself. You cannot do anything by yourself because anything that you try to do requires the support of other people, other objects, forms of energy, money, and so you’re really dependent on other things in the world for being able to just live, for example, or make any changes in your life.

So it’s a very different kind of conceptual foundation that you find in Naikan than the other form of Japanese therapy that we talked about last time, which is Morita therapy

On Naikan

I think one of the things that we miss is often how much other people are doing for us, because we’re often not paying very much attention to that. ... When we talk a little bit about the reflective questions, we can discuss that further. But one of the things we miss is really the level of support and care people are providing for us.

But another thing that we miss, and it’s really very hard to get in touch with, is how what we’re doing is causing trouble and difficulty to others. How we’re inconveniencing others. How we’re causing problems for others. That’s often something that we overlook. We focus a lot on how other people cause us problems.

...One of the foundation or main goals of this process of self-reflection is really to shift from a complaint-based life to a life of genuine appreciation. So a complaint-based life is something that many of us are familiar with probably because we’ve seen other live that kind of way, and we know what’s it’s like to be around somebody who’s constantly complaining.

But of course there are times when we’re that person and we’re constantly complaining. And even when we don’t complain out loud we may be just going through a litany of complaints about, “What a terrible day this was. I’m so glad this day is over.” Or in this case, “What a terrible year this was. I can’t wait to have this year and get on to the next year.|

I think as we reflect on our life and the world around us and the people around us, and we get a clearer sense of what’s really going on that we’re able to see, we’re much more likely to develop a really genuine or authentic sense of appreciation for our life.

...We’re not actually trying in Naikan to change our thinking, we’re actually trying to change our seeing. More specifically trying to change where we’re putting our attention. And there’s a maxim that we’ve developed that says, “Your experience of life is not based on your life, it’s based on what you pay attention to.”

Brett McKay: When you do a Naikan self-reflection, you ask, “What have I received from blank?” So why begin with this question?

Gregg Krech: Well, I think the question of looking at what you’ve received… And there’s a movement in positive psychology towards looking at how to develop more gratitude. And so you’ll see this whole idea for instance, of gratitude journaling. Putting down the things that you feel grateful for. This question is very carefully worded because it’s not asking you what you feel grateful for, it’s asking you to identify in a more factual way, “What have you received?”

So if I just use that question right now. I’m receiving the use of this microphone that I’m speaking into. The use of the technology that you’re using on your show to record our conversation. I’m receiving your attention and your invitation for me to be your guest on the show today.

I’m also receiving electricity and WiFi, a nice quiet room to basically sit and talk to you in. I’ve got a window in the room, so there’s some sunlight coming in. My eyesight is working pretty well. And I can go on and on with a list of what I’m receiving just right at this very moment. And the reality is that most of the time, for instance, as I go through the day, I’m not aware of most of those things.

I’m not aware that for instance, I’m receiving fresh air and oxygen that’s infusing my lungs and allowing me to breathe properly. And so, when we pause and we do this kind of reflection, we essentially expand our awareness of how the world is supporting us and caring for us.

There’s a neuroscientist by the name of Rick Hanson. And he developed, I think, a great metaphor for why this question’s important because he talks about our natural tendency… In fact, he attributes it to the way our brain is actually wired together from a neuro-scientific standpoint. He talks about the natural tendency we have to really notice the problems, challenges, threats, difficulties in our life.

That those things tend to stick with us in a way that he connects with the image of velcro, the way a piece of velcro sticks to the other side of itself. But when things are going on, like we have fresh air to breathe, or we have a cup of coffee to drink, or we have hot water in the shower, or our car starts in the morning, we tend not to notice those things.

And so that’s more like Teflon. So we can think of this tendency that we have, which goes really into the way our brains are wired, as the difference between velcro, of noticing troubles and problems in our life, and Teflon, which is the way that the things that are actually supporting and caring for us tend to just kind of get noticed incidentally and then kind of slide right back off to become invisible.

Brett McKay: Sorry, I wanna reiterate you’re not… This isn’t based on feelings. This is kind of like Morita therapy. With Morita, you’re not really focused on your feelings, you’re focused on action you can take. The same with Naikan. You’re not thinking about what you feel grateful for, you’re just thinking about factually, what are the things that I receive from different people or organizations, or even just the Earth itself, the universe itself on a daily basis.

Gregg Krech: Yes, it’s actually very objective. And it’s one of the things that I think is a common denominator in Morita and Naikan, is their both what I would call reality based therapies. In both cases, you’re trying to see reality clearly. 

Gregg Krech: Yeah, which is actually a great thing to do every once in a while, particularly if you’re feeling a lot of self-pity or depression, is to really spend a couple of hours and see how long of a list you can make. But there are different ways to use this question, and you can direct the question towards the world as a whole, which is to some extent what I’ve been doing in the examples I’m giving. Or you can direct it towards a specific person.

And my wife, Linda and I, who’ve been working together for 25 years or more have… We use this as part of our morning routine. And we… The whole thing, this part of it takes probably about five or six minutes. And what we do is we sit down and we say, “Let’s just reflect on each other for the previous day.”

So we have probably three minutes of silence. And I’m thinking of, in part, the first question, “What did I receive from Linda yesterday?” And I’m thinking, “Well, she got me a hot cup of coffee, and she made a really nice healthy salad for dinner. She kept me company on a walk that we took at lunch time so I can get some exercise. And she picked up the mail from the post-office. And she listened to some music that I was trying to compose and gave me some feedback.”

So I’m just coming up with a very practical list of what I received from her the day before. And she’s doing the same thing in her three minutes, and we’re using these other questions as well. And then we actually just share that with each other for a couple of minutes. We find that it’s a really great way to start the day, that we look back at the previous 24 hours.

And most importantly, we found that using this process keeps us connected to what the other person in the marriage is actually giving to us. I would say without exaggerating that if it wasn’t for this process over the past 25 years, I’m not sure we would still be married.

This really has kept us from falling into the trap that I think is very easy in a relationship or a marriage, where you start getting focused on what the other person isn’t doing, that you really want them to do. Or what they are doing that really aggravates you. And that’s where your attention goes, and that’s what your experience of the marriage starts to become.

So this is kind of an antidote to that. And even by just taking a few minutes in the morning, we’re able to kind of rekindle a sense of appreciation for one another.

BM: talks about DoorDash meal and all the steps/people involved in the actual arrival of the food.

 GK: I think what you just shared with us in terms of starting that list is just an example of taking a particular incident or event, just receiving food being delivered from a restaurant, and you begin to see the endless roots of what it took for you to get that meal. If we don’t do that, then we can get pulled in the direction of the only thing that we notice is that the food isn’t as hot as we wanted it.

And that becomes our experience. It’s like, “What’s wrong with these DoorDash people? It took him so long to get here and now, the food’s cold and now, I have to heat it up.” And so again, you look at this idea of how you make that shift from a complaint-based life to a life of genuine sense of appreciation. I think reflection and attention are the two basic ingredients in that recipe.

Brett McKay: Alright, so the second question is, “What have I given to?” fill in the blank. So what’s the purpose of this question? What are we trying to do?

Gregg Krech: So this is just the reverse, we’re just looking at the… We’re just changing the direction. If we use your example of DoorDash, we’re thinking, “Well, what did I give? So I paid for the meal that was given to me. There was a fee added. I gave a tip to the driver,” maybe. So we’re looking at what you gave in the situation.

And so, when we look at these two questions side by side, we now see the give and take of our lives, either during this period of time or in relation to this particular relationship. So if I was to do this somewhat thoroughly, if I could, in relation to my wife for a 24-hour period for yesterday, and she was to do the same thing, I would basically see all the things I received from her and I would identify what I had given to her.

And that is a wonderful reconciliation to look at because you see the debits and credits. And the man who developed Naikan, Yoshimoto Ishin, he was a very devout religious person, but he was also a very successful business person. And he wrote that he developed these first two questions, kind of working from a accounting or business framework.

Because his company, which made artificial leather for Japanese cars back in the ’60s and ’70s, that his company would send out a statement to their clients saying, “Here’s how much product we shipped to, and here’s how much money you basically paid. And either you have a credit or you owe us some money.”

He saw this as kind of more of a spiritual reconciliation based on our life. “So I went through the day yesterday, this is what I received from the world: Food from the refrigerator, air to breathe, my car worked, my wife made a nice salad, this whole list of things, a hot shower. And here’s what I gave: I walked the dog, I fed the dog. I helped my daughter with a particular question she had about the computer. And now, I look at these things side by side.”

And for me, personally, and I always encourage people to deal with this freshly, but for me, personally, almost all the time, what I find, no matter what I’m looking at, is that I’ve received more than I gave.

And that astounded me and it made me, on the one hand, feel guilty that I wasn’t giving more or doing more, but on the other hand, it made me feel more cared for and supported than I had ever felt in my entire life. This is when I was back in my early 30s, it’s over 30 years ago now.

I think when we look at these two questions side by side, we begin to get a sense of the balance or imbalance in our receiving and giving. And in situations where we’re receiving more, again, there’s often this natural sense that, “I wanna do something more for my wife, I wanna do something more for the community, I wanna do something more for the planet,” whatever it is that we’re looking at.

BM: Let’s talk about this third question, which is, “What troubles and difficulties did I cause, blank?” So what are we doing with this question?

GK: It could just simply be, “I left my dirty dishes in the sink, and my wife ended up washing them,” or, “I left my socks on the floor in the bedroom,” or, “I was half an hour late for a lunch appointment and the person had to wait for me.” But when we see those things, we begin to put ourselves in another person’s shoes. What is it like for someone to be my colleague and have to work with me? What is it like for my wife to actually have to deal with me as her husband? Or for my daughter to have to deal with me as her father?

And some of the most, I would say, profound and emotional reflections I’ve had have really been doing this third question, and looking at people I was very close to, my family and close friends for years, and seeing, essentially, some of the really selfish things that I had done to cause trouble and difficulty to those people.

But I would argue that that’s incredibly important, because whether you see it or not, it’s part of a page of the book of your life that’s already been written. So your choice is really, do you want to be conscious about how you’ve lived your life? Or do you want to essentially be blind to these elements of how you lived your life?

And I think we should, in the interest of living a good life, and in the interest of our own spiritual aspirations, we should try to be more conscious of basically how we’re living.

Brett McKay: Right. These questions helps you be less of a complainer. You even recommend that people spend about 60% of their reflection when they’re doing Naikan on this question.

Gregg Krech: Yeah, and that’s really what was, I think recommended to me in my own training in Japan, is that this is really of the three questions, this is really an important question because it allows us to see ourselves, again this idea of using a mirror, in a way that we wouldn’t otherwise see. And when I talk about the idea of putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes, this question, “What is it like for Linda to be married to me?”

That that process of doing that psychologically is really the foundation of empathy, it’s the foundation of compassion, it’s the foundation of understanding. So our ability to see things from the other person’s perspective, including ourselves, is really one of the essential elements, I think of a healthy relationship with anybody, someone we’re working with, or members of our family.

So if we can do that, we really increase the chances that we can basically have healthy relationships in our life, as opposed to conflict and resentment towards others.

(when to do it?)

 I mentioned just taking, again six or seven minutes with my wife Linda in the morning where we do this as just part of our morning routine. I think you can dedicate blocks of time to this, in the same way that you dedicate time to getting physical exercise by going running or going to the gym or working out in some way. I think we have to dedicate time to self-reflection. If we don’t do that, it’s very hard to have, I think any balance in our life.

Most people are very active, and we’re busy people. Most of us are busy. You ask people, “How are you?” And they say, “Oh, I’m so busy.” And we go from one thing to another, and we get to a point in our day where we say, “Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” and then we shift from action to some kind of passivity, which could be looking at Facebook, watching a movie, watching a sitcom, surfing the internet, passive activities.

So we have action and we have passiveness, or passivity, but what’s often missing from our life is reflectivity, which is what we’re really discussing today, and actually building time into your day, even if it’s just for a few minutes before bed, first thing in the morning, to just be reflecting on your life. Using this kind of method or even other methods that may lead you to the same type of contemplative approach to your life.

Purpose Centered Approach

Wild Thistle and Gray Wagtail, by Imao Keinen, 1891

AoM #425- Action Over Feeling.  and Grech 

Morita Therapy is Different than Western Psychology

I think that one of the things that characterizes a lot of Western therapy, and there’s so many different models, but is a focus, primarily, on feelings. So, I think the outcome that a lot of therapy is looking at is the idea of making people feel better, or feel more comfortable, or somehow be cured by getting rid of unpleasant feelings, like depression and anxiety. And the way I’m describing it, it actually sounds very attractive, except that I would argue that it’s not an effective, and even meaningful, outcome.

And so, what Morita therapy really does is, it looks at the outcome as to really help us live our lives well, not by changing our feeling states, but by learning to coexist with those feeling states while we do the things that are really important for us to do in our lives. And so, instead of trying to kind of fix our internal world, whether that’s through talk therapy, or dream analysis, or getting into our unconscious minds, it’s really a very practical approach. And we think of the East as being mystical, but it’s really a very practical approach of learning to cope with the ups and downs of our feeling states, and the craziness of our thoughts, the chaos in our mind, and still be able to not just live functional lives, but actually do the things that are really important for us to do in our lives

I think with depression, as with, I think, a lot of unpleasant feeling states, there’s a general sense that there’s a sequence to kind of curing ourselves. And the sequence is, first, to move from having an unpleasant feeling state to a pleasant feeling state, to essentially get rid of those feelings. And then, we can actually live our lives well. And what you see in Morita therapy is the idea that we can actually coexist with those unpleasant feeling states, even depression, while we do things that are important for us to do in our lives. And a nice benefit to that is that often, by making that shift to actually taking action and beginning to do those things, that’s part of our cure; that the movement from being inactive and non-purposeful, to actually doing things that are very purposeful and important to us, actually is part of what makes it possible for us to learn to cope with those difficult and challenging internal states.

[What is 'action'?] I think from a practical standpoint, I just like to use a very functional or operational definition, which is, action is what can be captured on a video camera. So you know, if you’re turning the pages of a book, if you’re playing the piano, if you’re taking a walk, that’s action, because you would be able to capture that. If you’re sitting there, kind of contemplating your goals for the year, or contemplating suicide, those thoughts are really not action; they’re thoughts.

part of what happens is that over time, if you’re practicing working with this material, even when you sink into a period of depression, you’re also aware of the fact that this is a transient experience; in other words, it will pass. It doesn’t make you feel good, but you’re aware that this is just part of the rollercoaster that goes on in terms of the internal world of our lives. And you’re also aware that even though you don’t feel like doing something, that the best thing you can do as an antidote to your painful feeling state is to get out there and be active. 

One of the things that really struck me about the practical value of this material, you know, was the idea that there is no permanent cure for anxiety, for depression, for shyness, for loneliness; that these are part of our human existence. And so, what we need to be able to do to live a good life is to actually learn to coexist with that experience, rather than the idea that somehow, we can find a cure, so that we’ll no longer experience depression, or we’ll no longer experience anxiety. And in that sense, I’ve found that this is a very practical way of going about living a good life, which is not trying to get rid of this in some permanent way, but essentially learning to cope with it when we find ourselves in these states of mind.

most of us live in a world in which our feelings are the primary determinant of our behavior. And so when we’re faced with a task, we either have a positive feeling about doing it; so let’s say, for instance, if you play tennis, or golf, or basketball, and you enjoy that, or piano, then you may have a positive feeling towards doing that. So, you have an attraction towards that task; or you may have an aversion towards it, like having a difficult conversation with your boss, or with your partner, or doing your income tax, for example. You may have a feeling of aversion towards that, or you may have a neutral feeling towards the task. But in many cases, when we have an aversion, a negative feeling towards doing something, we allow that feeling to determine whether or not we take action. So, it’s very much like opening the refrigerator door and saying, “What do I feel like eating today,” right? And that question itself is essentially a question in which we’re looking to our feelings to decide what kind of action we’re going to take, what kind of food we’re going to eat. You can open the refrigerator door, and you can ask the question out loud or in your mind, “What needs to be eaten?” And that’s a very different question, right? Maybe it’s things that are almost going to spoil, and you should eat them so you don’t have to waste them. Maybe it has to do with your diet or what’s healthy. So, you’ll get a different answer to that kind of question.

And I think one of the things Morita therapy does is to help shift people from what we call a feeling-centered approach to life, to a purpose-centered approach to life; which means that we still have feelings, it’s just that we’re not putting them in charge. So, I like the metaphor of a play within a theatrical setting; and that for a lot of people, their feelings are the director of that play. And what we’re trying to do is essentially, not kick the feelings out of the play, but just making them one actor or actress within the play. And then, your purpose or your purposes become the director of that play. What is it that you want to do with your life? What’s really important to do between now and the end of the year?

And so, your purpose essentially becomes in charge of the play, and your feelings still play a role, but they’re not running the show...  we’ve moved the focus of decision making from how we’re feeling, to what’s being presented to us in the world. And that’s a huge shift in terms of the choices that we make in our life.

you didn’t have to listen to your thoughts, and that in fact, when you became familiar with your thoughts, you realized that the vast majority of thoughts that you have are really pretty crazy thoughts. They’re chaotic, crazy thoughts that really aren’t often providing you with very good advice about how to live. And when you realize that, you stop taking your thoughts so seriously. And that’s part of, I think, what you learn in meditation. And it’s part of what I think we want to teach people psychologically, is that, you know, you can be married, and one minute you’re having thoughts like, “I am so lucky to be married to this woman. She’s just an angel. She’s just the biggest blessing in my life.” And 15 minutes later, you’re having thoughts like, “She is just such a selfish person. She doesn’t pay attention to me. What a stupid thing it was for me to still be in this marriage.” And this is 15 minutes later.

And if you had a roommate who was speaking to you the way your thoughts speak to you, you would think that, “My roommate’s really crazy.” So, I think part of what we learn is that we can notice our thoughts, but we don’t have to listen to our thoughts. And we can notice our feeling states, but we don’t have to act on those feeling states. And so again, this is something that we develop through practice as a skill. And once we do that, we have a certain amount of freedom, because we don’t feel like we’re a slave to what our thoughts are saying, or a slave to whatever feeling state we’re in at the time.

Concept of Kaizen

Right. And I think that what happens is that, by taking these very small steps, in some cases, like you’re saying, the smallest step possible, you’re able to celebrate that small victory instead of saying, “Okay, I’m going to use this weekend, and I’m going to write 100 pages in my novel.” And then of course you don’t, because things come up, and you’re tired, and you oversleep, and you get phone calls, and somebody comes over. And you end up hardly writing at all. And then you feel like a failure, right? And it’s very demoralizing.

And what Kaizen offers through these small steps is this idea of momentum. We can look at the law of physics, you know, one of the laws of physics from Newton, which says that an object that’s moving remains … An object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. So once we start getting that momentum, we write one paragraph a day for our novel, or one sentence a day for our novel, but we do it every day. We wash one dish, right? We take five minutes and commit to cleaning the bathroom. We meditate for one minute a day on our cushion. And doing that basically develops a really healthy habit in many cases. It allows us to make a little bit of progress, but it allows us to get this momentum, and to see ourselves as capable of doing that without the psychological threat that comes with, you know, “I’m going to lose 20 pounds this month,” kind of thing. So, I’m a big fan of Kaizen. And I think it fits very well with Morita therapy as an approach to making change

Purpose Centered Approach

Once the Newness Wears Off

I think my problem, historically, was much less around starting something than it was continuing to work on it once the newness of it wore off. And I think that’s what we see in people who have that kind of style and often leave this kind of karmic record of started, but unfinished, projects behind them; is that we’re being driven by the feeling state of excitement over something new. This, by the way, is very true about relationships as well. You know, you meet somebody. You just have this romantic period, where you’re just madly in love. You can’t bear to be away from them, you know, for more than a few hours. And of course, that doesn’t last. You know, that feeling state wears off.

And I always feel like when that feeling state wears off, that’s when you really can see what it means to actually love someone or be loved by someone. In that initial period, it’s just a wonderful, romantic period to go through; but in my opinion, it really has very little to do with love. You know, love is what is going on 10 or 20 years later, when that feeling state is not the predominant state. You can still have moments of feeling very romantic and excited by your partner. But we see this in relationships, where you know, someone goes from one relationship to another, because what they’re really working from is the excitement of the newness of something.

And again, it’s the same principle, which is making that shift from a feeling-centered approach to life, to a purpose-centered approach to life, so that you can still feel very excited about starting a project. It could be a novel. It could be renovating the basement in your house, or something like that, or learning a foreign language, or learning a musical instrument. But also, when that feeling state wears off, and you hit that wall, you’re then basically drawing your energy from purpose. You recognize that even though I don’t have that same level of excitement, I might even have a level of frustration at this point because I’ve run into this roadblock, but my purpose is to move forward on this and finish it.

And so that same issue, I think, is really in play when we see people who, once that newness wears off, kind of abandon that project; and that is that person learning to make that shift from that feeling-centered approach to what they’re going to do and not do, to a purpose-centered approach.

So you know, what we see is that from the point of actually getting started on some type of important project in your life, or some kind of change that you want to make, we’re up against roadblocks like every step of the way. And for me, I think the most effective way to work with those roadblocks has been to kind of develop some skill in being able to cope with the ups and downs of my feeling state, the craziness and chaos of my thoughts, but continue to keep my focus, my sights, set on what is it that’s really important for me to do here.

Brett McKay: I’m curious, you know, I can see action is a virtue, but is there such a thing as too much action? Like at a certain point, is it like, well, that’s actually, you’re going to burn yourself out if you’re constantly doing stuff?

Gregg Krech: Yes, I actually think there is. And I think that there’s actually a couple of issues. And one is that you’re doing a lot of stuff, but it’s the wrong stuff. And I think that that’s really a critical issue, particularly in our society, that we confuse busyness with productivity. And so, the real question isn’t are you busy, are you doing a lot of stuff, but are you doing the things that are really important for you to do in your life?

But even there, I think it’s important to have this complimentary, contemplative time in our lives. And the other approach that we teach is something called Naikan, which is pronounced like we pronounce the camera, Nikon, but spelled differently. And that’s a contemplative approach. It’s an approach to self-reflection. And so, having that to create some balance in our life between action and reflection, to me, is really a healthy way to see our lives. I just did a presentation last night about kind of regrouping for the second half of the year. And the first thing we do when we go into a process of regrouping is, we step back from our lives, and we reflect on the first part of the year, on the last six months, you know, with questions like, “What have the highlights of this period been? What are some of the things I did in this past six months that were really meaningful and fulfilling to me in my life? What contributions did I make to the rest of the world, people even outside my immediate family, during this time?”

Naikan practice: the ways in which the world is supporting us or caring for us

 

Morning Glory, by Okumura Togyu, 1935

Art of Manliness - #945 - Greg Krech - "The Japanese Practice That" 

Naikan provides a nice structure that basically shows us how we might do that. And that structure consists of essentially three questions, all of which are very simple, simple enough for children. The first question is, what have I received from others or from a particular person? The second question is, what have I given? So it’s kind of turning that question around. And the third question was, what troubles and difficulties have I caused to others? 

that there’s three shifts that I think it encourages people to make. And one of those shifts is a shift from what I call a complaint-based life to a life of genuine appreciation and gratitude. And so that Naikan self-reflection is basically a tool for helping us to make that shift.  I think one of the things that has developed in our society over a long period of time is that I think to a great extent, we have become a culture of complaint to the point where complaining is actually the norm. So a person comes home from work and their partner’s there and they walk in the door and the partner says, “oh, honey, how was your day?” And the person now says, “oh, let me tell you about my day.” And they go through a litany of problems that the copier broke and they were late for the meeting and there was construction on the way to work and they got all these emails that they couldn’t catch up with and on and on and on.  

[instead, imagine if it were different:]. And your response was, “well, let me tell you about my day, this morning I got in the car and I turned the key and the car just started on the first crank, just no problems whatsoever. And I was driving to work and I got behind this truck that was painting those lines in the road. And I realized how great it is that we’ve got those lines that distinguish between lanes so that we basically can stay in our own lane. We don’t constantly crash into other people. And then I got to work and I got a parking place. The coffee was nice and hot and all ready for me. I had a comfortable chair to sit in.” And after a while people are saying, okay, okay, okay. There’s no drama to that. I think we kind of like drama and complaining somehow seems to be associated with drama. So if somebody actually was to give you a list of all the things that worked well for them or that supported them that day, most of us would either find that boring and or think that person was kind of weird.

We’ll go into the bathroom or to the kitchen and we’ll flip on the light switch and that light switch will go on two or three or 400 times in a row with no problem. But one of those times that light’s not gonna go on because maybe the bulb is burned out and then we notice it. So those 400 times when the light just went on, we don’t really pay much attention to it, but as soon as it doesn’t work, we notice it. And I think we do the same kind of thing with people, with our partners, with our children, with our colleagues and friends. We tend to get focused on when something happens that doesn’t work or that doesn’t meet our expectations or approval. And so this kind of self-reflection, when you ask what the purpose is, part of it is to just give us some time to really reflect on our lives and our conduct, how we’re living our life. Which most of us don’t do because we’re so busy. And by the time we’re finished with our busyness, we’re tired and we’re exhausted and we kind of zone out in front of the internet or a movie. But the other thing that this does is in addition to the self-reflection we’re doing, it begins to affect the way that we see the world when we’re not reflecting on our life.

So we get up the next day and we start noticing things that we hadn’t noticed or thought about before, particularly things the ways in which the world is supporting us or caring for us. So it begins to not just give us a different way of looking at reality when we’re doing that reflection, it actually gives us another way of looking at reality as we start to go through our day.

...

We’re not trying to find things that we’re grateful for. We’re just simply noticing that as a result of the microphone that I’m using or the Wi-Fi in my house or some satellite someplace, that you and I can actually have this conversation.

...

[This is different than a 'gratefulness practice']... Because what am I grateful for will vary depending on my mood at any given moment, right.  If I’ve just had a big argument with my wife or with a colleague, there may be lots of things going on that are supporting me, but I’m not going to feel grateful for those because I’m just in a crappy mood. But if I just simply list the fact that I’ve got electricity that’s supporting me and I’ve got, it’s cold outside today, it’s below freezing and we’ve got heat in the house. If I start listing those things as just ways that I’m being supported by reality, it becomes actually much more of a research project, and as you were saying, much more objective, and I think therefore meaningful.

...

if we start seeing that we have a long list of ways that life and the world around us and the people and the objects and the forms of energy are supporting us, then I think it is a natural response in those cases most often that we do respond internally with a sense of appreciation or a feeling of gratitude. And it’s a very natural response. And I think when we do some of the gratitude practices, as you were saying, it’s almost like there’s a moral imperative for you to feel grateful for something. And when I work with people doing Naikan reflection, if they read off a list of 20 things and they’ll say you know what? To be honest, I don’t actually feel grateful for any of those things. I’ll just say, that’s okay. That’s fine. It’s not based on an outcome that we’re trying to get in which we feel grateful. So when that does happen, it’s really just a natural response that we have.

---

[origins of the Thanksgiving Practice]

And so we raised two young girls, and I think probably they were about a year and a half apart. And probably when my oldest was about five years old, maybe six, I just developed a one-page sheet. They didn’t know how to write or read yet, but they could understand the question of what is it in life that you’re thankful for? Or what is it in life that’s making you happy or providing care for you? And so we just asked them to draw pictures in boxes. We would say, here’s some boxes for people. So for instance, grandma, and here’s some boxes for animals, maybe our dog, Barley. And they would have questions here and there. But the amazing thing was, I would give them this piece of paper, and even at that age, we would take about 45 minutes. Everybody went to a separate room or corner of the house. And the idea was to be quiet for 45 minutes and just work with your sheet of paper. And they were actually incredibly focused on this when we did it.

And then the wonderful thing was really getting back together after that 45 minute period with some tea or coffee or juice for the kids and going through and this started out just as one page, but going through that and having everybody share here’s some of the people that are really have played an important role in terms of supporting me or contributing to my life during this past year and. And the girls would do that. And they were very capable of doing that at least as well as the adults were. 

...

And then this wonderful experience of just sitting around and just sharing the ways in which life is supporting us from these various different perspectives. And that’s how we started our day. And I think it just created a completely different atmosphere in the home to start the day that way as we moved forward then into cooking and eating. And a lot of times when people would join us for the first time, they had never done this before. And it was just great to kind of involve them in the process. So that over years, that’s grown to this little booklet that you mentioned. And so now there’s these different categories. One category is who are people in the present of my life in this past year or so that have been supportive to me. And how have they been supportive? One of the most important things that people do if they try this process is to be specific. Because if you were to ask me well, who’s been supportive of you in the past couple of weeks? And I could say to you, “oh, my wife, Linda, she’s been very supportive.” And I can say that without even thinking about what she did. But if you followed up and said, “oh, that’s great that she’s been supportive. What did she actually do to be supportive?” Well, now I have to sit back and think, well, what did she actually do? Well, she brought me home a nice little chocolate tart when she went shopping yesterday, which was really great to have for dessert. And she gave me a foot massage the other day. And she made a really nice pasta dinner a couple of nights ago. But to do that, it takes some mental energy for me to remember back to do those things. But if I say as a concept, “oh, Linda is so supportive or she’s so helpful, where she’s such a loving wife.” I can say that as a phrase without it having any kind of content to it, right. And it doesn’t take any mental energy. So when we go through this process, we don’t want to just think of like, oh, this friend of mine has been really supportive. We want to actually make a note, how have they been supportive? Well, this couple lent us a walker for my wife’s surgery last year or something like that. And that’s a very specific thing. And to do that, it actually takes some quiet and it takes some time and it takes some mental energy, but it’s those details that really make this self-reflection a powerful process.

I always encourage people when they’re doing it like this on a holiday or if they’re just doing it as even a daily practice to actually write. If you’re using the Thanksgiving approach, then you just basically, in our booklet, you already have these boxes laid out. There’s a box for nature. Here’s a box for forms of energy. Here’s a box for people. Here’s a box for people who taught you things that you know how to do. So the structure is already kind of laid out for you, but you can just take a piece of paper, copy paper. But writing, I think, is a good way to stay focused.

--

Well, it’s a Japanese phrase, Okagesama, and, and the foundation of that phrase, Okage actually translates into something like shadow. But the phrase is actually used in Japanese to just say thanks to you. If somebody said, I’m a musician and I play in a, a band. And if at the end of the concert, you know, if one of my band members comes up and says, you know, you did a great job on the lead on that song, or You did a great job playing keyboards today. And if in Japan I might say Okagesama, which means thanks to you, it means I’m recognizing that you contributed to the opportunity that I had, you know, to, in this case, play music in that band. And so the term shadow means that we’re trying to shed a light on things in our life, which normally are in the shadows and in the shadows in the sense that we just don’t notice them, or we take them for granted, or we don’t really appreciate them. And so this idea of Okagesamade really means that we’re stepping back to try to shine a light on these things in our life that have gone unnoticed and unappreciated.

---

[You can be grateful in a way that highlights your own hard work... but another way that's more about grace, focusing on the sense of a blessing.] gratitude is just a natural response that gets stimulated. But we can be grateful for something and at the same time have a sense that we earned it or that we deserve it, right? So I can, you know, look around, the house where I’m at, and I can see all these nice little furniture and books and calligraphy on the walls and photos and decorations. And I can think, you know, I’m really grateful to be able to have lived here all these years, but I can also be thinking, but you know, I worked really hard for this and, I put in a lot of time and energy in kind of developing this work.And so, so I think I earned this, right?  And I’m not saying that you didn’t, I think everybody has to look at that themselves, but so we can be grateful, but we could also have this kind of ego sense of I really did earn this, or I deserve it. But with grace, grace has a different kind of implication. I think grace is really something that we’re given or something that happens to us that we very clearly didn’t earn and don’t deserve. And that’s what I see as the difference between gratitude and grace [considers this associated with 'blessing'].  

when I look at how much I’ve received and then I look at these other two questions, what I’ve given in return and the troubles I’ve caused, it humbles me. And in that humility, I’m much more likely to see the things that I’m receiving as blessings than the things that I earned or deserve.

---

[A non-western idea of healing.]. I think that the western approach to that tends to be to see things as tumors. If we have something in our past in which we suffered a lot, that we somehow have to go through a process of surgically removing that from our consciousness or our psyche or our memory so that we can then be at peace and be content and, and essentially be healed. But here’s a very different kind of approach to healing, which says that one of the ways that we heal from being hurt is to basically realize how much care and love and support we have received in the larger context. Not from a particular person, but from everybody and everything in the world. And that healing isn’t about getting rid of something that if it’s in our past, we really can’t get rid of it. It’s, it’s part of our karmic history, so to speak. But it’s basically seeing it in this larger context of a world which has, you know, brought us lots of, of support and lots of joy and cared for us to get us to this point in our life. And yes, there was this incident and there was this incident and there was a whole string of these incidents, but we see them in a much larger context of being loved and cared for. And I would say that that’s actually a wonderful way to think about healing

 [talks about also taking note of other two types of things that have supported us this year: THINGS and ENERGY - electricity, sun, food energy]

And I think that the other thing that you can do once you start creating that list is then take each of those items and actually think about, can you think of someone or how it was that you learned that? So I had a, a piano teacher, you know, for six years that taught me how to in introduced me to playing piano. And, and it’s one of the reasons that I can actually play professionally now. But my mother was a singer and she also provided tremendous inspiration and encouragement for me to practice. And, and, and basically there was always music going out in our house. So when I, you know, look at whatever musical skill I have right now, I can actually start identifying specific people or things, you know, that basically inspired me. And sometimes it’s a YouTube video where they did a lesson in, you know, how to solo in the blues or something like that.

Last questions (which can be heavy... talks about being called to help his father in Chicago and bc of that responsibility, being able to spend the last 10 days of life together).  List difficulties and disappointments that have turned out to be blessings in your life. 

Book Notes - A Tale for the Time Being

 

Review: Ruth, a novelist living with her husband on a remote island on the Candian Pacific coast, finds a strange and mysterious treasure washed up on the beach: a Hello Kitty lunchbox filled with a secret diary of a teenaged girl living in Japan and letters written by the girl's uncle who was a sky soldier, or kamakazi pilot, in World War II.  The narrative is split between the contents of the the secret diary (the teenager is named Nao) and Ruth's efforts to learn what she can about Nao whose diary records her a harrowing life at school and at home.  Nao and her 104-year old grandmother who is a Buddhist nun, are charming.  The story is compelling and fascinating.  The reader, along with Ruth, learns about modern Japanese culture, Buddhist writers, World War II, feminist activists in Japan, Silicon Valley life.  The novel, which is filled with gritty, real-life details, becomes increasingly infused with magic and, believe it or not, theoretical physics.  I loved it.

Notes

Nao think that Jiko, the Buddhist nun, is 104.] We don't really know for sure how old she is, and she claims she doesn't remember, either. When you ask her, she says, "Zuibun nagaku ikasarete itadaite orimasu ne."  In a footnote, this is translated as: "I have been alive for a very long time, haven't I?"  Totally impossible to translate, but the nuance is something like: "I have been caused to live by the deep conditions of the universe to which I am humbly and deeply grateful.  P. Arai calls this the "gratitude tense," and says the beautify of this grammatical construction is that "there is no finger pointing to a source." She also says, "It is impossible to feel angry when using this tense." (17)

One of her vows was to save all beings, which basically means that she agreed not to become enlightened until all the other beings in this world get enlightened first.  It's kind of like letting everybody into the elevator ahead of you.  When you calculate all the beings on this earth at any time, and then add in the ones that are getting born every second and the ones that have already died -- and not just human beings, either, but all the animals and other life-forms like amoebas and viruses and maybe even plants, that have ever lived or ever will live, as well as all the extirnct specieis -- well, you can see that enlightenment will take a very long time.  And what if the elewvator gets full and the doors slam shut and you're still standing outside?  When I asked Granny about this, she rubbed her shiny bald head and said, "Soo desu ne.  It is a very big elevator..." (18)

The great matter of life and death is the real subject of "The Merits of Home-Leaving,"  When Dogen exhorts his young forest monks to continue, moment by moment, to summon their resolve and stay true to their commitment to enlightement, what he means is simply this:  Life is fleeting! Don't waste a single moment of your precious life!  Wake up now!  And now! And now!  (63)

He was alasy coming home with brand-new high-end appliances, like Weber grillsa nd composting bins, that my mom didn't know how to use, but it was cool.   We had a lifestyle. Here we were barely maanging a life. (136)

And talking about rules, the two of them had all these crazy routines they did for every different kind of thing you can imagine, ike washing their faces or brushing their teeth, or spitting out their toothpaste, or even going for a crap. I'm not kidding. They bowed and thankde the toilet and offered a prayer to save all beings.  That one is kind of hilarious and goes like this:

As I go for a dump,

I pray with all beings

that we can removed all filth and destroy

the poisons of greed, anger, and foolishness.

In a lettter from Haruki #1 to his mother:  I find myself drawn to literature more now than in the past; not the individual works as much as the idea of literature -- the heroic effort and nobility of our human desire to make beauty of our minds -- which moves me to tears, and I have to brush them away. (257)

What can I do that would make this year more interesting or different form previous years?

 From Semi-Rad - My Year of Living Vertically

New year’s resolutions work for some people, but I have never had much success with them. Usually I think more along the lines of “what can I do that would make this year interesting/different from previous years?” Which I think is a good place to start, as opposed to “What’s wrong with me that I can attempt to fix or improve this year?” 

A few years back, a friend of mine mentioned he was going to try to log half a million vertical feet biking and hiking, and I don’t remember if he ended up getting it done, but I think he was probably inspired by a guy named Greg Hill who climbed and skied two million vertical feet in a year in 2010, and Greg Hill was probably inspired by himself, Greg Hill, skiing one million vertical feet in a year in 2005. I’m no Greg Hill. But what about 200,000 feet of ascent in a year? Certainly more doable by a middle-aged dad with a day job? That’s a little under 4,000 feet per week.

Middle Season 1 - 2024

 

Do Hard Things

From Sahil Bloom on Twitter. (Here's another one on The Most Powerful Paradoxes in Life)

 Do hard things.

Life is hard—and when we embrace voluntary struggle, we’re better equipped for the involuntary struggle that inevitably comes.

- Wake up early

- Get cold

- Move fast

- Lift heavy

- Focus

- Be present

- Have difficult conversations

Simple playbook to live well.