The Incredibles

As they [the terrorists] topple the flaunting American flag, the President in
Superman II (played by EG Marshall) moans 'I'm afraid there's nothing anybody can do. These people have such powers, nothing can stop them.'

An aide whimpers: 'Where's Superman?'

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THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General...

Kurt Vonnegut (1961), Harrison Bergeron

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I saw the Pixar film The Incredibles while in Bangkok, a little respite from hanging out with the Jesus crowd--you know-- prostitutes and fishermen (if they're good enough for the Son of Man, they're good enough for me).

By now you've may have seen it or heard about the film. It's well worth a look for the animation. Brilliant. A real roller-coaster.

Now here's the Gaga spin: there is something repugnant about the message, which seems to be buying into the moral centrality of the family and its subsequent bubble-like bathos.

In brief, the film starts as the culture of litigation renders our superhero Mr. Incredible a public nuisance. He saves a jumping man from suicide and stops a catastrophic public transit accident, only to be sued by those he saved, and the resultant court order bans him from his altruistic saviour habit. So, in lieu he gets married, raises a family in suburbia, takes a desk job in an insurance company which he loathes, and is badgered by his boss to ensure the stockholders interests are looked after rather than the interests of his claimants. Over time he gets fat. He shuffles through the role of being a married man and raising a family, not paying too much attention to the day to day affairs. He longs for the glory days of being a superhero. His only release comes on "bowling" night, where he and another defrocked superhero (Frozone) leave their homes and sit in their car listening to the police radio to help find and solve crimes on the sly. Then one day Mr. Incredible goes a little too far on a crime fight and his secret identity becomes known to a colleague who has her own secret identity--she is a secretary/accomplice to an evil genius that Mr. Incredible rebuked while the genius was a youth. On a mission to a James Bond-like island lair, Mr. Incredible is captured and held by the evil genius, who is disposing of all former superheroes so only he (and his hubris) will reign as the only superhero alive.

Mrs. Incredible is a superhero in her own right as Elastic lady, and the kids have superpowers too: the shy, taciturn daughter Violet has the ability to disappear and create an impregnable force field of protection, while the little boy is gifted with incredible speed. So the stage is set to watch the family rescue dad and restore their family unit as superheroes (not some watered down, mediocre, banal suburban family).

Peter Conrad's review in The Guardian looks at the tradition of the Superman through it's roots in Nietzsche's Ubermensch of the 1880s. Superman was a notion to inspire the mortal race out of its banality and effeteness to reach higher levels of consciousness. The premise of the Incredibles is the reverse: that small-minded, selfish mediocrity has prevailed. Superman has been forced to renounce his power and live a life measured out by coffee spoons. Conrad suggests that the desire for a superman is as real now as ever... only we've ended up with a very poor imposter: George W. Bush. Recall how he changed from the mild-mannered, business-suited president to the fighter pilot and flew victoriously onto an aircraft carrier to announce the end of the Iraq war. "Mission Accomplished" were the words on the banner unfurled on his truimphant landing. Almost two years later, no one can say that is true.

Where, then, is the real Superman? The world, particularly the American public, yearn for him. In lieu, the morally misguided American Christian right and their alliance with neo-cons will take what's offered: the mediocre imposter.

But I have a different spin on this film.

The Incredibles are a family. As such, the family emerges as the hero. In these times of confused values, the family is held up as being the most privileged unit (why else would gays want to marry other than to enter the acceptable and economically privileged union of family, which is as far away from the gay politic as one could imagine). There are scenes in the film where Violet's protective bubble literally envelopes the family and keeps danger at bay, while all others outside this cocoon are ravaged. We can take this metaphorically as well.

At the end of the film, the Incredibles accept their specialness just as a new threat emerges from the earth. The film ends abruptly as the family look at each other knowingly...

This glorification of the family value is unsavory for the same reason Confucianism is: it promotes nepotism, and with nepotism, a crushing social system. You don't have to look too far into the past to see the results of such a system. In fact, a quick glance at Asia and you know what the problems Confucianism has unleashed on the human spirit.

The Incredibles gives us a confusing message: the daily grind of family life makes living mediocre, yet the family unit is truly super.

Huh?

Black Dog (BKK 25)

(Originally written Wednesday January 26, 2000)

It's been a long time since I have written my rants to you. It's not that I have abandoned my writing. It's just that, like you, suddenly I find myself busy in my job at the university, and it has me tied up so I haven't had the time, or gumption, or both, to write (gumption--what a word, huh?).

Anyway, I think I left off after New Year's wishing everyone the best and all that, with a nice piece by the Dalai Lama. Since then it's been slow going because of the financial wreckage over the holidays--and that is on top of all the extremely generous and kind friends I have that really kept me afloat over the holidays! My heartiest thank you to you once again, and you know who you are ;-)

I think this one will end up being one of those Henry Miller-style things, wherein the "whole man is exposed for what he is". Let's go!

Funny, I started this off with "it's been a long time since..." and besides being a pattern practice thing you'd find in a grammar book to teach the present perfect, it's the first phrase of the Led Zep classic "Rock 'n' roll" (all you English teachers out there take a note: "Use Led Zep song to teach present perfect").

Actually, I want to segue into the Zep classic Black Dog and the night I spent with Scotsman Bob in the five star hotel in Khon Kaen where the recent Thai TESOL conference was held. By five star I mean 5 star. (Of course I didn't stay there, I stayed on another block in a 150 Baht a night flophouse). I'll address the conference after I talk about this undress one night.

So, after a hard day of being a conventioneer--Bob even wore a blue blazer finished with anodized, faux brass buttons embossed with naval anchor emblems, an off-white, almost beige poly/cotton fitted shirt (made by Mr. Bobby ar Raja's on Sukhumvit), a Scottish clan tartan tie, beige perma-creased poly/something slacks, and the forgot-to-take-off name card, we headed into the bowels of the hotel and discovered what is ubiquitously prevalent in Thailand-- a Karaoke box with gussied-up, svelte Issan demi-moiselles available-- at a price. So Bob was feeling generous as his good self usually is (I don't know where a 52-year-old retired endocrinologist gets his poo-bah, but he has it) and we go into the place. It's called Cleo's Palace, and as you guessed it-- it's done up in the ancient Egyptian motif-- pyramidal architectural wonder of the world style, that ersatz-ancient crumbling masonry, the hieroglyphic eyes, owls, scepters, Isises, what have you, adorning the walls, fake lapis lazuli and gold ornamental fixtures, the moody, cavern-like inside Tut's burial chamber lighting effect--you get the drift.

So, we sit down in the karaoke box and await our hostesses. I hope you all are familiar with this routine? The karaoke thing is a recent Japanese national treasure and export. Time was it was a social thing where a room full of strangers got up on stage, one at a time, and crooned away to their choice of a pop tune, something like a "hit" by Frank Sinatra, The Carpenters, Seiko Matsuda, or the equally ubiquitous pop group-- Sweden's pride and joy-- Abba. It got pretty sophisticated after a while, and pretty soon instead of performing to a mass of complete strangers, you could rent out a "box" in which you and a handful of your pals and gals could privately rip apart a more diverse range of pop songs (here's a parallel thought- mass transit versus you own automobile-- which do you prefer?). The karaoke box also is a very private place, if you know what I'm getting at. But hey, I'm probably speaking to experts.

Since it's Bob's tab, I really have no rights. You see, this is what they mean by "money is power"! I could be the sexiest man alive, but in Thailand, as elsewhere, the same rules apply: "No money, no honey". The two girls arrive and Bob has first dibs and chooses the more bubbly one, and I get the bitch. The bitch is from Bangkok for God's sake. What the hell is she doing here, in the poorest province of Thailand, hawking herself? Then she lays on me the usual hard luck story that usually the girls from Issan in Bangkok lay on you. A different place, a different background, but "the song remains the same" (to keep with the Zep theme so far). It gets pretty boring and dreary listening to these stories after a while. I mean a conventioneer, by definition, is a sexually hepped up party animal. And I'm going on a reliable resource here: Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Plus I am sure all my male cohorts out there who have been to a convention have had at least an inkling of the possibility the cutey waitress with the anodized gold nameplate which reads Judi would be a nice quickie. Sure guys, try to tell me it ain't so.

Well, Bob is definitely in the mood, and he's got the cash. So, I am designated the crooner in the karaoke box. I take my job with little relish, turn on the faux-Sennheiser 245-D directional microphone realizing I'm in for an evening of watching Bob tickle and tuttle and fondle and grope Miss Noi, the good one, the bubbly one, the one who is half-Japanese, half-Thai, until he works himself into a sweaty tizzy and then takes her up to his room to finish off.

The first song comes on, and I can barely talk let along sing, that's how good I am feeling about the scenario. You might remember the rather taciturn, lousy comic Jackie Vernon--he was a regular on the Ed Sullivan Show. I felt like his comedy routine--deadpan, flat, bad timing, and, and... corny.

Meanwhile Bob is tickling and groping and giggling with Miss Noi. Now recall this: Bob is a retired lecturer from the University of Glasgow, his specialty being bio-chemistry (you know those blood tests you go for and then you get back all those numbers?--that's Bob's job--giving back the numbers). I find it difficult to imagine him being in front of a roomful of 600 undergrads teaching them the finer points of doing a test for triglycerides in blood serum -- but that's what he did for 35 years of his life--and only to end up panting and snorting and groveling around the midriff of this slightly overweight, 27 year old half-Japanese, half-Thai professional slut. Well, I bet you all kind of fancy yourself in his position. I kind of did, because she was darn sexy to boot. Bob had to go take a leak, and I had the opportunity to fill in while he was gone. I spoke to Ms. Noi in my lousy Japanese but she wasn't much better, and so we were playing on equal ground. We got along quite well I must say. So, I got my gropes in and went down to her nether regions and got a nice whiff of the ocean from whence we all came. That briney, heady aroma that only woman possess and what drives us crazy. Hoo boy!

Bob came back in and we assumed our positions. That is one thing for sure when it comes to these things... we all assume a position and once we stake the claim for a slut it no longer is about honor of anything like that on who gets the girl. We all know that every dog has his day, and knowing full well tomorrow night or the day after she can be yours reminds us there is no rush to grab a gal on a fellow horn-dog.

So, I ply through a few more songs, some Dylan, Stones, and so forth. Well, might as well make the best of it huh. Bob is buying the drinks, and I think the only reason he asked me to hang out this long was so he could have a witness to his antics. In the back of any guy's mind is this thought: you want to tell other guy's about what you did and to whom. And I don't think it is limited to sex. Just hang around a big businessman's office or a locker room and you will hear them bragging about what they did to whom, and how much they got out of it, and who got screwed in the end, and so on. That's what guys like to talk about. At the very base level of the arts, rap music is the perfect vehicle for the guy thought--ever listen to the lyrics of that stuff? The themes are as follows:

I am one mean motherfucker so don't fuck around with me;
I have a lot of money, so don't fuck around with me;
I am really good at what I do, so don't fuck around with me;
I am God's gift to women, so don't fuck around with me...

(To all you aspiring rap artists out there--you can use the previous words in a song if you want.)

In this case, Bob is playing out "I am God's gift to women because I got a lot of money" shtick. To make it more provocative, Bob pays Miss Noi to take off all her clothes, which she does with no hesitation. This is her job, this is what she gets paid for, and besides all that, this is why she loves her job!

Miss Noi jumps around and bumps and grinds in that particular Thai way of dancing. It isn't sleazy... it isn't ugly like you see at bars like Hooters or Jilly's"where the girls take themselves far too seriously and so do the guys actually. It really is pathetic to think that those shows are passed off as sexy. I went once this past summer to one of them and was nauseated by the whole thing. Ten bucks here, ten bucks there, and for what? A lousy beer and some ugly cow/crack addict who smelled like sweat trying to pretend she was the earth mother throwing around her fat ass and grotesquely deformed large breasts, her tongue hanging out of her mouth in what was supposed to be provocative but actually looked like a bovine dying for a drink of water. And over in the corner is the lap dance thing. Some cow that supposes she is the hottest broad on earth lowers her heavy haunches onto some weasly oversexed, browbeaten worm and does a pelvic grind a few inches from his groin--for exactly 3 minutes, which is how long the lap dance lasts. Total cost $25--a total rip. Guys, listen up: that isn't sexy. It's pathetic. If you want to know how pathetic, get you ass over here and see what sexy means.

Anyway, pretty soon Bob is groping Miss Noi's naked body. I flip through the songbook. Aha, I found one! So, I punch up the numbers and then I cut into the first lyric:

Hey, hey momma, say the way you groove, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you move...

Then Jimmy Page kicks in with the lead and we're off. Bob's in heat, and by now has the buck-naked Miss Noi on all fours, hind legs parted a little too widely, her pelvis arched back and up for easy entry, just as God created her to do, arms holding her weight, her head tilted back in wanton desire, and there is our man.... Scotsman Bob... the retired endocrinologist...fully dressed...the blazer, the poly/cotton shirt, the tartan tie, the beige slacks, the plastic name card... on his knees behind Miss Noi, dry humping away.

I often thought about lounge singers and what their take was of the things they saw people do in the shadows while they crooned. I guess after a while Frank Sinatra got so big he couldn't see anything, nor did he want to. But I bet in the early days, playing the Log Cabin in Hoboken, the Mafia joint where he got his first few gigs, he saw plenty of people groping to his songs. I wonder if Frank had the occasion to witness this sort of thing: a naked gal and a fully dressed mesmerized jerk, dry humping away while he sang Black Dog. Naw...I think I got dibs on that.

Gaga (2,129 words in 2 hours)

One from a Gagaite, Gaga Comments.

originally written September 25, 2002

Gagaite:
[Saddam] already has comitted the crime and gotten away several times He "invaded " Kuwait dude... INVADED, he Killed thousands of Kurds, murdered... actually it wasn't war... it was murder they had no notice or defences! The towns were sleeping when he gassed them till they died in their streets running out of their homes while their eyes bled! And their insides burned through their skin.

The US and the allies are no angels of course but geeeeeeeeez... we don't need hidden camera video on this guy...no? He has thrown away millions of his soldiers' lives in his own personal vendettas against Iran... left them to die in the desert in the Gulf war and killed millions of birds, fish and did massive damage to the environment when he burned the oil fields, etc...etc... Gosh Gaga... get angry! I don't like US policy at all but I dislike monsters even more.

Gaga Sez:
Hmm,
I don't know if my anger is going to make the world a safer or better place--particularly if my anger is played out unskillfully. I wouldn't know where to direct it, and chances are the anger would envelope me and I'd not be acting in any way that was skillful. I suppose I could join the army and learn how to kill people--I even thought of that--but they won't accept me now-- too old, bad eyes, bad hip. I am not a lawyer and so the thought of meting out justice is not a possibility. If I allow fear to consume me-- like it used to when I was kid and afraid of the dark, so much so that I would be afraid to move, afraid to go outside, or speak, or do anything-- I don't know if that is a solution either. All I ever felt being scared was my muscles were stiff andI ached from being locked-up inside all the time, my mind would spin with all sorts of weird thoughts of ghosts and monsters, and my stomach acid would make little holes in the stomach lining, which caused uncomfort. I couldn't even sleep at night--I was tired and miserable. Then I tried to look at fear. It was very irrationale, my fear. So I became a photographer, where you must spend time in a completely dark room. After the initial panic, I learned it to be the same room, that no ghosts or horrible creatures would suddenly come out and kill me. It was the same room. Just dark. That's all.

I saw that fear was this feeling I had, it had nothing to do with anything outside me. I met fear. He's pretty shallow actually. And what if someday something came out of the dark and actually DID kill me-- well, that's going to happen, isn't it? It happens to everyone. If it happens when a coconut falls on my head in paradise, or if I am in a prison tortured to death, or suffer a massive stroke or heart attack, or any number of the ways it might happen--it's going to happen. I can't stop it, so what's the use in being afraid?

I suppose I am selfish. I enjoy writing these things that enter my mind. I don't know where they come from, but they appear, and I write them down. There is something very gratifying in doing this. Occasionally people write back, such as you do, to agree, disagree, or just communicate that something moved them in some way.

I suppose this is what I write the Gaga stuff for. To communicate--to bark, and then others to bark back--even if ever so rarely. It's barking. Woof Woof! Hey, I'm here and now. This is what I think about. How about you? Are you there? Woof woof!

I don't have much anger. The world is an angry place, so I'll let others be angry.

I fly off Saturday for Japan to work. I want to make a lot of money, and then leave. Once I have some money, I hope to move to some tropical place. From there, well, I don't know. Do you?

I'm selfish.

Three-eighths of a Paragraph

While the ponderous Sir Professor explains the entire mystery of life, he has in distraction forgotten his own name; that he is a man, neither more nor less, not a fantastic three-eighths of a paragraph.

—Soren Kirkegaard, talking about G.W.F Hegel

And such it is sometimes when we get too caught up in thoughts about what we are and what we do, what expectations we have about ourselves, perceived or placed on us by external conditions. What are you? A most remarkable breathing bag! In this world of rampant materialism, that is essentially what you are. It will only be through insight (literally looking inside!) you will see clearly the impermanence of what we cherish in the material world. All concocted things rise because of conditions, last as long as those conditions remain stable, and then eventually end. Even thoughts are conditioned things. They rise and go away. Just sit and watch. The best movie in town is watching how your mind fabricates reality. It is all illusion, all of it. If your looking for something built to last, there is Dhamma. That's about it-- and nibbana-- the extinguishing of all desire.

Last March I meditated for the first time in my life. At that time, I fasted 14 days before the 10 day retreat. It was very difficult for me to sit. My body was starving! It was difficult to support my thoracic cavity as I had nothing solid below my diaphragm. Breathing was hard as when my lungs filled my spine would move upwards and my thorax down, creating pressure on my intestines. This would make them angry for they wanted food, not air, to make them happy. But when I ate my body said, "whoa, hold on, what is this you're putting in here?!" and it would panic and feel suddenly overwhelmed. Then I regretted eating and desired to get rid of all the wonderful Thai curry and rice I gave to my body. My body was confused by my mind. My mind thought it knew what the body wanted, but it just went from extreme to extreme, from the angst of hunger to the angst of wanting to get rid of it. What a cycle! Proof positive you really have to watch carefully to see how desire is a hindrance. I wasn't listening to my body, I was dictating to it. It was to gain a sense of control. But the controller was a little dictator-- JoJo Stalin could have learned a few things from this power play within.

Then there was walking meditation. I chose a spot by the reflecting pond in the hot sun and would walk there, sweating it out. My mind was all over the place, but in very brief, sudden moments, something would happen-- an insight! Then I would try to consciously recall it. But there was no "it" to recall actually, it was more a sense of just being. The insight occurred when the mind shut up and stopped complaining or tantalizing with thoughts, and there was no desire, and then a sudden surge of contentment arose that lasted ever so briefly. After such an experience, I wanted that feeling again, and tried to backtrack to get to the same place again. But it was futile because things had changed. One has to guard against attaching to "feelings". Attachment is the product of desire ("I want that feeling again!"), and then the vicious cycle begins. So it is a very curious practice meditation. It's a seeming tautology: a desire to end desire, which some people have dismissed because it seems like one can never end desire. But actually the desire to do meditation will eventually lead to happiness--that kind of equanimous happiness of just being. At the very least, meditation calms the body (we naturally want to meditate--a deep sigh or a yawn gives us a brief moment of relaxed contentment), and meditation will calm the mind, and then it is possible to gain insight by reflecting on impermanence, suffering, no-self.

They say "practice, practice, practice," and ever so slowly, you'll recognize these cycles, see them for what they are, and then they no longer will have control over you. New cycles are born, old ones go away, it is just to recognize them for what they are--impermanent.

One year and a month later I was back at the retreat center where I first learned about meditation. This time it was so much easier in many ways. The meditation helped me to see it was no use beating myself up for the way things are, the way I am, and all sorts of remorse about past actions or yearnings for future ones. So, I can say meditation helped me in this regard over the past year. Sitting this time was very comfortable as I wasn't starving--my body was pretty happy about that! Then I decided I would walk in the meditation hall that had fans. So, I walked in a cool breeze on a nice, clean, tiled floor. The food this time was excellent. I had no problems other than an occasional constipation, but I looked carefully into the matter and instead of being Stalin, I just coaxed my body to be nice and release. It took a few days, but a little loving kindness went a long way to make the body respond in kind.

Well, I should say something about the Wat Suan Mokh ("Wat" means temple; "Suan Mokh" is short for "Suan Mokkhabalarma", which means the Garden of Liberation ). It's a beautiful garden-forest, which consists of two parts, the original Wat is on one side of the highway between Chaiya and Surat Thani, and the new international Wat, started in 1991, on the other. The original Wat was started in 1932 by the Venerable Buddhadasa Bikkhu (which means "slave to the Buddha"), an ethnic Chinese whose parents had a small shop in Chaiya. He became a monk in his early twenties and went to Bangkok to study. He hated Bangkok because it was full of traffic and too crowded even then, and that the type of Buddhism practiced there seemed to stray from the original teachings of the Buddha. So he wandered around a while. He became an expert in Pali, the language the Buddha spoke. He lived in the caves and the forests near his hometown, and then had the idea of starting his own Wat to teach the fundamentals of what the Buddha taught and practiced, which was "vipassana", or mental cultivation to see clearly into reality, or simply "insight".

In the 1960's he visited India and met the Dalai Lama. He learned about Tibetan Buddhism and found some of the teachings quite useful, notably the Tibetan Wheel of Life. When he returned to Suan Mokh he incorporated the wheel into his teaching, but the main teaching remains "anapanasiti", mindfulness through breathing to gain insight.

At first the established order of Thai Buddhists scorned his practice, but now he is recognized as one of the most important and influential Buddhist teachers in the history of Thailand. His international reputation has grown too as he sought to unite all religious-minded individuals to work together to help humanity. He had been invited to speak to religious councils of Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, and Jews.

In 1993, Buddhadasa died. One of Buddhadasa's dreams was to open an International Dhamma center to teach insight meditation to beginners. Since he died, Wat Suan Mokh has been run by Ajarn Po, who continues to teach Buddhadasa's method. The first ten days of every month they run a 10-day silent meditation retreat for foreigners.

When you arrive you put your valuables in a bag and they are locked up for safe keeping. It costs 120 Baht a day ($3.25 US) which covers the cost of preparing two meals a day (which are vegetarian--the fruit and vegetables are grown locally, you can eat as much as you want in a sitting, and it's delicious!). Accommodation is free (since I volunteered to help out this time they waived all fees--the meals were free too).

Accommodations are Spartan. You get your own "cell"-- it really looks like a cell--bars on the windows in a concrete and brick rectangular complex. The bed is a slab of concrete. You get a thin straw mat, a block of wood for a pillow, a blanket, and a mosquito net (I'll admit I brought my "Therm-a-Rest" camping mattress and used it for some comfort. I'm done beating myself up). In the middle of the complex is a grassy area. Along the periphery are large concrete vats that contain water. You bathe with the water by using a little bowl and pouring water over yourself. You aren't to touch the water in the vats with your hands, so there is a trick to scooping up the water so as not to touch and contaminate the vat water. It takes practice to get used to it, but it's not so bad. It's cool water but because it's hot out, it's quite refreshing. One cannot be nude either (the dorms are single sex, one for women and one for men), so you bathe with a bathing suit or underwear on. I imagine the women wear a sarong.

The toilets are actually western style, which was a change from last year--they were "squat shitters" then. You cannot put toilet paper in the toilets-- I know that first hand. Last year my chore was cleaning the toilets, and whenever anyone put paper in the toilets, it was a messy disaster I had to clean up because the shit would get blocked up and run all over the place. I got used to using no paper--you just time it so that you use the toilet just before taking a bath.

About chores--everyone has about 15 minutes to a half hour of work to do each day--watering plants, clearing dead leaves and palm branches, sweeping up the grounds. This time I chose scorpion duty, which was to take away the odd scorpion that would find its way into the dorm to the outer forest area. It sounds bad, but at this time of the year (the dry hot season) there weren't any scorpions around, so I had nothing to do really. Like I said, this retreat I decided I wasn't going to beat myself up!

There is a hot spring too, and so you can go and soak twice a day outside, shaded under the palms. Other than that, the day is pretty full. A bell rings to start the day at 4:00 am (the bell is actually the tip of an American bomb that didn't blow up during the Vietnam war--but it makes for a great bell!). At 4:30 there is a short morning talk, usually an inspired piece by Dhamma writers, and then meditation. A break at 5:30 for an hour and a half of Yoga, then Ajahn Po gives a Dhamma talk. More meditation and then breakfast. After breakfast its chore time and bathing until 10:30. Another Dhamma talk, then sitting and walking meditation until 12:30--lunch time. Lunch is the last meal of the day. At 2:00 it's another Dhamma talk and then sitting and walking meditation till 5:00. There is some Pali chanting (at least it gives you a chance to use your voice--don't forget everyone in the retreat is silent) and then a tea break. At 7:30 another Dhamma talk and then sitting meditation. By 9:30 you're in your hard bed fast asleep. Then it starts again the next day.

The best thing about such a retreat (although each of you will find out for yourself what you like should you do it) is the silence, the regimen, and that you don't have to think or worry about anything. Although you are part of a group of about 100 people, it is quite refreshing to be quiet with yourself. It's a powerful experience I'd recommend to anyone (and all those that have followed my rants for the past year you know how much in favour I am of this stuff). It also helps that the location is a beautiful forest garden, fresh air, and great food.

Yet another attachment!

So, I had some insights this time that were useful:
1) it was great going back because things had changed. It wasn't the same, although the place seems the same. The monks I met last year had left, the group was different this time, the schedule a little different. Ajahn Po remains a rock of inspiration as he has never changed his tune. It is always the same teaching. Imagine that--month after month, year after year--always the same. But the material existence of all things, even Ajarn Po, are impermanent. That is the Dhamma.

2) there is no use beating yourself up. The Buddha, after 6 years of being a renunciate sadhu wandering through north India, realized through his starving he wasn't getting any closer to his goal, which was to end suffering. So he found the middle way. Great advice-- so I've put that in my mind as something to be mindful of.

3) a little bit of effort goes a long way. Too much effort, and you lose the point. It was useful to really try hard at first to cultivate the practice, but insight is very subtle and cannot be forced. It's like a cut on your hand. No matter how hard you try or wish it would be healed, it has to take its own time. It helps, however, to put a bandaid on to protect it, and to keep it clean. Same with cultivating mindfulness and insight--you gotta create the right conditions to make it grow.

4) it's OK to be who you are. How else are you going to be?

5) what about living in the world? Hmmm...this is a big challenge, one that I ruminate on quite a bit. It would be great to feel more engaged in work or something than I am currently.

6) a little practice everyday, and the fetters, hindrances, and distractions will hopefully peel away. That is all one can do.

7) after the silence, I loved talking! I wanted to talk, talk, talk. This was much different from the first time when I really didn't want to talk anymore. I realized I want to be in a community where I can get along and be with people. Living in Thailand I don't have such an outlet. I have yet to cultivate a proper support group. That much I do know. So, that's on the agenda. It might mean leaving here after my contract is up in October.

That's it for now. Next time I'll talk about how within 24 hours of the retreat I did all the usual vices. And do you know what? It was great!

Who wants to be a fantastic three eighths of a paragraph?

John Cage Explained

Gagaite:

Well, it's late at night and I'm sitting here working on musical essays for the MA program that I've enrolled in. I plan to write my last essay about John Cage's piece, 4'32". I know you know it. I would be curious to know what you think of the piece.

What the hell does silence have to do with music?

Your musical debutante,

H

Gaga Sez:

Dear H,

Isn't it 4'33"? I forgot, but it was the length of time it took John to smoke a cigarette while sitting at a piano in front of a packed house.

The purpose of that exercise was to suggest that sound can be organized into meaningful segments in ways that are just as true as organizing tones produced by a vibrating string (found by Pythagoras--the father of the diatonic scale). It's really an analysis of expectations based on convention, and the analysis of overall structures humans put on things. If musical tones can be orchestrated into meaningful arrays, then other types of sound events that unfold through a duration can also be orchestrated into something meaningful, with ascribed structures and rules. So, in a way he was liberating music from the centuries old problem of "the tyranny of the bar line", of academically set rules of composition, and the theories of harmony and counterpoint. He was influenced in the early part of his career by the notion of the "12 tone row" by Schoenberg, his teacher. Of course we know Schoenberg's system gave equal value to every note in an arbitrarily selected set of twelve tones, which was a separation from classical theory which is based on chord formation (harmony). A 12 tone row is introduced, and the variations could be played to achieve a "composition" with as much richness and variation as the fugue form, which predates Bach himself by at least 100 years.

There is another element Cage was exploring--the notion of "silence". Is there such a state in the human condition? If we have this sense of "hearing", then is it possible for such a thing as silence? Much of this inquiry is rooted in Cage's Zen Buddhist interests. In a famous essay, he said that in exploring the idea of silence, he went into an anachoic chamber, only to discover in this soundproof room two sounds: a low one and a high one. He was told by the scientists that the low tone was the sound of his blood rushing through his body, the high tone the sound of his nervous system. So, even in a completely silent environment, sound exists because of the nature of our sense organs. It was his keen perception and his Buddhist understanding (nama/rupa or body/mind, and passa or contact) that surely influenced his later works.

And I think you above all would know how critical silence plays a part in music! Music is a relationship of intervals that take place over time (melody), or intervals that take place simultaneously (harmony). Certainly the rest in classical music is as vital an indication to a composition as the actual notes. If not, there would be no such thing as music, or an arranged, sequence of sounds designed in some structure or by some rules. On/off, yes/no, stress/unstress, tension/release, good/bad.. all are the hyperbolic points at either end of a continuum. It is the manipulation of these dichotomous states that give rise to all things, including music. Music can be the systematic way in which the composer manipulates sounds, and as equally silence, to give rise to an effect that can create emotive responses. I won't go into Aristotle's notion of aesthetics, but he wrote the fundaments on what art is and what it should achieve, and we are still mainly governed by his observations.

But they are only observations, after all. The human mind has the capacity to embrace all sorts of possibilities, and one of which is to abstract from the conditions provided by nature. As certainly as Pythagoras found a relationship in the way strings vibrate, Cage was equally exploring the way we structure a duration into something meaningful.

So, Cage was looking at and talking about all of this in that 4'33" of silence. Like I always feel about his work, it is not music you throw on at a party to feel good, but I think his ideas forever expanded our concepts of music, silence, and performance. For that he contributed a lot.

The Future ? Lumbini in Tow

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

-Leonard Cohen, "The Future"

Lumbini is what this is supposed to be about, but Lumbini is so inconsequential, there is really not much to write about.

What I did notice was the enduring trip aboard a mini-bus through the winding hills of the Kathmandu valley that dropped sharply to the flat Terai plain, which is what you imagine India to be like, because, well, it is India. The lower part of Nepal, before it gets scrunched up into the Himalayas, is a continuation of the northern plain of Uttar Pradesh and Gangetic Plains--a hazy, sun beaten and Monsoon-washed flat pancake of land that is the grain basket for Nepal.

But this bus trip! I had the seat between the driver and the passenger seat, my legs knit together in an uncomfortable pose for the 9 hour journey of 200kms.

As you leave the Kathmandu Valley and its affluence, you enter a surreal world you thought only existed in dioramas at the local museum of civilization. There are people that live in mud huts that get washed away regularly at the first rains of the monsoon season (which is maybe a week away). Women sweep dust into the air, which settles quickly in their houses. Chickens, goats, pigs, Brahmin cows and oxen crowd together with humans on a small bit of land they live on--all huddled together in a time-honored method of survival. It's hard to imagine what life must be like for them, for it surely seemed difficult.

One thing that catches the Western--or modern-- eye, is the lack of sanitation--something I noticed in India many years ago and it came up again here in the subtropical Terai. They put fresh cow dung around the entrances of their homes to sanitize them; a cut is treated with a handful of mud. They have some insights into first aid that the regular couch potato who accidently jams his big toe at the fridge door while reaching for a beer and that bag of sour cream 'n' onion flavored chips might not be familiar with, but to the couch potato, it seems utterly disgusting--but I ask, who has survived longer--the folks in the mud huts, or the folks in Cleveland? As Henry Miller (Collosus of Maroussi, 1941) wrote:
~

Power fades away in ugly decrepitude, leaving little vulture-like knobs of manifested will here and there to indicate the ravages of pride, envy, malice, greed, superstition, ritual, dogma. Left to his own resources man always begins again in the Greek way-- a few goats or sheep, a rude hut, a patch of crops, a clump of olive trees, a running stream, a flute.

~

I expected to spend two days at Lumbini, but there were mitigating circumstances that had me leave about 10 hours after I arrived. First was the agonizing hour and a half 22km local bus ride from the crossroads at Bhairawa to get to Lumbini. Again, I was jammed beide the driver, who constantly leaned on his horn to move the goats, cattle, and people off the ugly little dirt road. Once in Lumbini, you wouldn't think this was a place of any interest at all--there are no real monuments or special things about the place where the Lord Buddha was born--it is no Bethlehem or Mecca--or Niagra Falls for that matter--you can't even buy a postcard there. A few ruins, Ashoke's stupa saying it was here that Buddha was born, and the Maya Devi pond: Maya Devi was Buddha's mother, and she took a dip in this pond just before leaning up against a tree and dropping Buddha on the ground from her womb (that was the fashion for giving birth at that time--it has no reflection on her social status--which was a high ranking Brahman and wife of a king).

Another reason for a short stay was that the hotel wanted $15 US to stay the night, although they had no electricity or water--and I had to negotiate to say that $15 was an outrageous amount of money to pay for a room with not one facility available. So I got it down to half price recall I stay with a Tibetan family and pay $2 a night in downtown Kathmandu for comparison) but at 5 am got up and paid and was on my way. I snapped a few pics (to be seen soon--I go to Bangkok today) and hitched a ride with the first bus to Bhairawa. I got out of the bus, it still being a fresh morning before the pounding sun and heat took over, and thought about eating breakfast until I saw this absurd sight. There was a boy in his teens crouched low like Asians tend to do when they are waiting around, and his hair was shiny black and ruffled. But then I looked at his hand, or where his hand should have been, and instead I saw on outline of a human hand that was black and was crawling. When I looked closely, the boy was squatting there staring at his hand which was covered with flies--thousands of flies--so that no skin was visible.

I really had no way to react to this sight. It was so bizarre I just passed him. A thought came to photograph him, but then a sense of propriety said, "no, that'd be wrong." Funny how some sort of knee-jerk training on how we should behave came to mind. Then I thought about what to do, thinking I might do this or that to help the boy, but they were fleeting, and I carried on. I have no feeling about whether I did the right or wrong thing--all I did was watch contact (passa) and see how memory might deal with it. Unmoved, I continued on, but the image remains with me.

It was at that point I had had enough of this surreal Terai, and thought a city-boy ought to head on back to the city.

I have more to write, but time is tight, and I'll report more as it descends into my pores.

Finally, I thought this bit from Henry Miller (1941) was a useful and appropriate piece to end this missive:

I stopped a moment to gaze at the window of a bookshop. Conspicuous was a volume in Greek of "Twenty thousand leagues under the sea". What impressed me at the moment was the thought that the world in which this fantastic yarn lay buried was far more fantastic than anything Jules Verne had imagined. How could anyone possibly imagine, coming out of the sky from another planet in the middle of the night, let us say, and finding himself in this weird community, that there existed on earth other beings who lived in towering skyscrapers the very material of which would baffle the mind to describe? To see even fifty or a hundred years ahead taxes our imagination to the utmost; we are incapable of seeing beyond the repetitious cycle of war and peace, rich and poor, right and wrong, good and bad. Look twenty thousand years ahead: do you still see battleships, skyscrapers, churches, lunatic asylums, slums, mansions, national frontiers, tractors, sewing machines, canned sardines, little liver pills, etc, etc? How will these things be eradicated? How will the new world, brave or poor, come about? Looking at the beautiful volume of Jules Verne I seriously asked myself the question-- how will it come about? I wondered, indeed, if the elimination of these things ever seriously occupied our imagination. For as I stood there daydreaming I had the impression that everything was at a standstill, that I was not a man living in the twentieth century but a visitor from no century seeing what he had seen before and would see again and again, and the thought that that might be possible was utterly depressing.

Indeed, how do you see the future?

The Great White North

All is not so great about the Great White North, alas...

I shouldn't necessarily wave the Canadian flag every time I read about something sane and life giving that comes from the folks in Canada. No siree.

There are many inane things one has to deal with there...like taxes. Sure, taxes are a measure to spread the wealth around for the benefit of the public good (or at least that's what they supposed to do...right?), but in Canada the taxes are insanely high. Last year my gross salary was $50,000 CDN. At the end of the day, I think I made like $23,000. More than half my earnings were taken in tax.

Canada boasts a free medical care program. When you get the care, it is generally excellent. The operative word here is when you get it. Health care is one of those escalating costs, particularly with the aging of society, and so it's not as easy as one would think in getting service. Add to that the cut backs in hospitals and staff and all that because of high costs, and you can see why some people can wait up to three years for elective surgery. Some of it might be elective, but it certainly can be painful waiting around three years to get your gall bladder sorted out, or that cyst in your eye, and so on and so forth. So, for all those taxes and free health care, there is a little bit of inconvenience.

The relly tricky thing about Canada is the way they list prices. You go to a shop and read a label. "Two bucks for this hose! Great!" you say to yourself as you go to the cash at Canadian Tire (a Canadian version of Walmart mixed with a Mister Muffler shop). Then you go to the cash to pay for the hose, and it costs like $5.59. So where's the two buck hose? The joke is on you, hoser, for thinking it was two bucks. So what's a fellow to do? You can't believe any advertised prices becuase the tax is not included, and you end up paying quite a lot for things. One time I bought a book...it was expensive to start, around $40, but when I got done at the cash that single book weighed in at $95! Imagine.

So you see there are two things not good about Canada so far: taxes, health care, and taxes.

Then there is this politically correct business. A friend just wrote to tell me they've taken to calling Christmas the 'Holiday Gift Giving' time. The Christmas Tree was touted as the 'Holiday Tree' in Toronto, until Mayor Lastman said that was enough of the politically correct already (Mayor Lastman is Jewish).

I mean, since when can you say the day celebrated by Christians is not that anymore, but the day you go out and buy some crap to give someone, and then pay extortion on it in the way of taxes, and keep a straight face?

Sheesh.

At some point we ought not to clutter our minds with such nonsense.

As for Gaga?

Well, I'll be on some beach in a Buddhist land, avoiding at all costs taxes, health problems, and silly names of moments when human beings decide to celebrate.

Like I've always said, everday is Christmas day. why waste 364 days a year waiting for the one?

Have a good time...all the time!