a bit too early

as predicted, it snowed yesterday and today but mostly a dusting. but somehow it still feels like spring. especially as i saw and heard the first robin of the season yesterday evening. a plump adult singing alone, the fluted notes ringing in the soft spring rain. the snow on the ground has all but melted but then this is minnesota where snow storms in april are not uncommon.

21/22: we got lots more snow although less than half the ten inches predicted. so instead of candytufts and dandelion fluffs, we had snow flurries. went for a walk around silverlake to see how the geese are doing. the lake is now completely ice-free but there were very few geese. it was a lazy saturday afternoon, overcast. most of the mallards were asleep amid the flurries and the restless geese. a lone mallard was repeatedly diving and then fluttering to shake the water off its wings, almost as if it was trying to get rid of something clinging to it. heard the first "potato chip" but couldn't see the goldfinch. friday was also the vernal equinox, officially the first day of spring. despite the robin and the goldfinch and the buds bursting with life, the snow decided to defer the festivities. hopefully not for too long.

pondered a bit on haiku/hokku and what belongs and what does not. specifically, was thinking about the appropriateness (or lack) of including things like jet engine noises in haiku as a photo taken on blackdog lake brought to mind plane roars (the lake being close to the airport). the belief that only sounds of nature should constitute haiku not only seems dogmatic but also seems a perverted view of buddha nature. it is the same mind which says that a dog does not have buddha nature. poets like david coomler are attached to form and your average haiku world, english language poets writing about random things in random versifications are attached to emptiness. there is clearly a middle path, even though one cannot pin it down in words. and as i wrote an, someone might be inspired to write about fallen hair in the bathtub but i probably would not- even if it turned colour in autumn. an also had me thinking about the use of "i" in haiku. there definitely is a place for it no more important and no less than any other natural phenomenon. the mind which separates "i" from nature is no different from the mind that removes it altogether. most of the classic poets including ryokan have used "i" albeit sparingly. after all, there is the alaya vinjana, which observes. this is a more neutral, a pastel coloured consciousness as opposed to a flashy, gaudily dressed ego mind. of course, some poets might disagree and say the first kiss or the day after are equally valid haiku topics. i think i would agree but it also depends on how it is written and the mood it evokes.

early spring

this past week, there has been tantalizing glimpses of spring. for the first time in several months, we were able to walk without wearing jackets at lunchtime. however, the forecast for tonight is freezing rain.

most of the snow is melting, leaving lovely puddles, which promptly freeze overnight and form again during the day, making the usual dreary evening walk exciting. and the plastic hydrangeas are now floating in water, almost.

over sparrow chatter
and cardinal songs-
chickadee-dee-dee.

hokku

stumbled into david coomler's wonderful hokku site from this interesting haiblog cheekily titled that was zen, this is tao. started a lively correspondence with david who started this site, fed up with the three lines of punctuation-less, often, subjective ambiguity, passing off as haiku. he spells out very clearly the rules that underlie classical hokku, a form honed by such masters as basho, buson, issa and ryokan. hokku focuses on objective expression of experiences (as opposed to thinking or conceptualization) and is intimately in harmony with nature and the seasons. the form eventually degenerated into hackneyed themes of moon watching and sakura watching; shiki masaoka is credited with the revival of the modern day haiku. however, shiki also introduced modernity (including ideas such as baseball and glass into his haiku), something which david views like a vegetarian eyeing a caterpillar in his salad. he accuses shiki of hokkucide by his introduction of the less rigid haiku form. there is definitely a lot of validity to his criticism of modern day haiku with is arbitrariness of form and subject matter but his view (esp on insistence of capitalization of the starting word of each line) seems equally dogmatic.

so david (rightly) dismissed my

sunny winter morn
water drops await rebirth
on icicle tips!

as haiku (not hokku). the rebirth is my thinking added to nature, he said. of course, he was critical of my lack of capitals and punctuation.

so here are a couple which might qualify -



tiny footprints on snow
end...
a walnut tree.

birches creak;
dancing in the snow-
a lone leaf.

evanescence

here is a lovely waka by the 18th century japanese poet ryokan titled white hair-

though frosts come down
night after night,
what does it matter?
they melt in the morning sun.
though the snow falls
each passing year,
what does it matter?
with spring days it thaws.
yet once let them settle
on a man's head,
fall and pile up,
go on piling up-
then the new year
may come and go,
but never will you see them fade away !

murder

that there is something beautiful about black and white photos is almost a cliche. there certainly is something timeless and luminous about black and white photography in winter. how much more contrast can there be than between freshly, fallen snow on the ground- silent and white and a murder of crows overhead- raucous and black.

no other "groups" of words are as fascinating, colourful and trivia-worthy and yet as illogical as names for groups of animals/birds. all your -phobias and -philias, -mancy, -cracy and -logy have rock-solid, grecian pedigrees. why is a group of larks an exaltation? (this also happens to be the title of james lipton's lovely, illustrated gem of a book which is a collection of these obscure, often obsolete collective nouns tracing back to sources in medieval texts and hunting manuals). or for that matter a group of crows a murder or an unkindness of ravens or my personal favourite- a fesnyng of ferrets? for the curious, here is one such collection. some of these words are not uncommon in the birdwatching patois- kettle, rafter, skein, charm.. but it is as rare to hear a birder refer to a murmuration of starlings as it is to spot a parliament of owls !!

occultation

an amazing total lunar eclipse occurred on wednesday feb 20. for a sciaphile, especially in photographs, it was simply amazing to see the earth's shadow on the moon- as grand as shadows can ever get. the sky was crystal clear and the 5F minnesota winter air actually felt good.

crisp winter night!
stars arrayed out for cosmic
shadow puppetry

deep

today is supposedly the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol. it was created and used in the uk, first by the anti-nuclear movement. the semaphoric symbols for N and D are indicated by a holding flags like a reverse v (N) and a two flags-one up and one down (D) which are fused to make up the now near universal symbol which literally reads ND standing for nuclear disarmament.

did work practice at the lake calhoun zen center- cleaning zabutons and zafus and then doing the dishes. on the kitchen window was this sign-

if you cannot hear the pots and pans crying out as they clang into each other while washing in the kitchen, your zazen is not deep enough -uchiyama roshi

☮ (created by typing "\&\#x262E" in html without the backslashes)

found in translation

reading robert aitken roshi's brilliant expositions on basho's haikus (a zen wave: basho's haiku and zen). they are a unique blend of literary criticism and dharma talks. the structure of each essay which is focused on a specific haiku is as follows- it starts with the main haiku written in english phoneics, then an english rendering (usually not adhering to the 5-7-5 syllabary of the original japanese form), and finally a more literal translation which follows closely the peculiarities and nuances of the japanese language with its cutting words and postpositions. for instance, the last line of basho's famous haiku is rendered as water of sound instead of sound of water. incidentally, tamizh has the same form- for example it would be thanniin o-sai where the postposition in modifies thanni. my theory is that languages which are sensitive to poetry will also be flexible to allow poets to play with syntax.

then the commentary on the haiku itself, often employing other haikus of basho or his contemporaries or even modern poets (eliot, snyder) and finally a capping verse, usually aitken's. in other words, the structure is very similar to how koans are treated classically in the blue cliff records or the gateless gate.

for the past few days, my routine following the obligatory matutinal ablutions is to make chai and read a chapter, slowly savouring the words and the sweet chai. the morning walk to work has also been enjoyable, despite the weather.

deep white snow
finally covered by the drifts-
the plastic hyacinth !

note: on the front garden of one of the houses along my walk, someone with a weird sense of humour has planted a plastic hyacinth plant. it was, strangely, not very apparent in the fall but with the snows, the green and violet stood out. it was amusing to note it, every morning.

goodbye

i found out yesterday that michael passed away on jan 15. a few years ago, he had been diagnosed with a rare form of parathyroid cancer; he beat all odds and lived a full life, literally till the very end. it was only in dec 07 that i came across michael's remarkable blog (from where i took the picture). it is a beautiful chronicle of his courage and grace, even in the face of death. besides his remarkable photographs and touching poems. he did not dwell much on his sickness but sometimes, whilst in great pain, he did write about it but in a remarkably detached way. some of his writings are reminiscent of the great shiki masaoka, tanka poet extraordinaire and who was in great pain towards the end of his short life, afflicted with spinal caries (tb). a nihonophileand a zen practitioner, michael received his dharma name daiku (great sky) just a few days before, in a solemn jukai ceremony signifying his life-long commitment to zen practice.

it is remarkable how one can be deeply touched by someone one has never met or even corresponded with. "to my newer readers, welcome aboard. speak up now and then." he wrote in his blog. i never did, then. i write now, choking back tears. great sky, happy journey and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

rumination

loved this image and stole it from the speaking of faith website. i am listening to today's edition right now featuring krista's readings from her book.

oh, in case you are indolent and were wondering what is written on the image-

time is limited, and the abundant water is flowing away.
drink, before you fall into pieces.

sit like a mountain, breathe like a flower

having only read thich nhat hahn's writings before, it was incredible to watch peace is every step, a documentary about this gentle vietnamese monk, his teachings and his background. a young novice monk of 16 during the french colonial period in vietnam, he and his brother monks and sister nuns spontaneously practised, what he calls engaged buddhism, during the vietnam war. "when there are bombs falling all around and people suffering from hunger, would you still meditate?". his simple response is "do both". thinking deeply and acting deeply are both meditation, he says. they risked the crossfire between the nationalists and communists to supply food and medicines to remote areas connected only by river. he himself escaped death several times, watched fellow monks self-immolate whilst remaining in seated meditation(an image that will be indelibly etched in one's mind and used beautifully in bergman's persona) and eventually was exiled to france, victimized by both sides for his pro-peace stance. what is amazing is his subtle but powerful recasting of anti-war as pro-peace. "there is a lot of anger in the anti-war movement and that is a form of war", he observed visiting the states during the 60s. having been through so much suffering and horrors, he still emanates compassion and love when he speaks in dc, days before the gulf war.

invariably, one is reminded of that other ocean of compassion. the new documentary dalai lama renaissance is equally compelling. it is incredible that for his holiness, the first priority is humanity, then buddhism and only after that tibet.

context:

my friend l has started a discussion group on engaged buddhism prompted by her friend's skepticism about the merits of sitting while there was "work to do outside". the first meeting was last sunday; we had readings and discussed a bit of this and that. it was interesting to be in the midst of a group who all practise mindfulness, albeit in different styles (as evidenced by the myriad meditation postures and mudras assumed during the opening meditation session !). this question (in the guise of activism) had assailed me constantly during my erstwhile active days with aid and activism. return to india was a sobering experience and when s and i visited the narmada valley, what was amazing to me was the energy, clear thinking and determination with which the villagers and adivasis participated in their struggle against the dam, hopeless as it was inexorably going up meter by meter as of 2003. for them it was the only choice and the right choice. in other words, there are already problems and suffering right where we are, inside and immediately outside that need attending to. as one of the women puts it eloquently in the dalai lama documenrary, "we all have our tibets". thich nhat hahn asks the vietnam veteran to help the children in his block rather than go back to vietnam ask forgiveness for his crime of 25 years past.

to me it is not something to be discussed inasmuch as a koan could be, as to grapple with it inside and come to a deeper, intuitive understanding. it is a koan. after all, seung sahn sunim's favourite koan (and the eponymous title of his popular book) is called dropping ashes on the buddha (the context being what do you do when someone walks into the zendo and flicks his cigarette ash on the buddha statue)? as sahn sunim would say "open mouth, already big mistake".

oh and on the title of this post, it is thich nhat hahn's final advice. when one is mindful, right or wrong drops off and every act is a compassionate one.

sunny winter morn
water drops await rebirth-
on icicle tips !



photo by v

subtitled: lost in translation

i have always been enchanted by "foreign" films with their subtitles- starting from the mid 80s, when doordarshan would telecast late night foreign films. of course, even the assamese or bengali or malayalam movies we watched on languorous sunday afternoons were subtitled in english. one is always left wondering when watching movies or reading books (especially poetry) in a foreign language, if one is missing something. traduttore, tradittore goes a saying in italian(translator, traitor). another wit quips "reading poetry in translation is like viewing a piece of embroidery from the backside".

but. but i have disported myself for hours watching rai, truffaut, tarkovsky and ozu; reading murakami, turgenev, rumi and kafka all in english or listening to thiagaraja or syama sastry in telugu, a language i can barely follow. i know i am missing something, probably a lot but it raises a more fundamental question concerning the relationship between art, the artist and the rasika. (hmm.. i was groping for an english word which can capture the perceiver/viewer/subject that is less cold and more involved and couldn't find one. rasika is one who enjoys the rasas). even in an abstract language like painting or sculpture, the viewer does not necessarily interpret the art form in the same way the artiste intended it to be and in some cases artistes are deliberately silent or better yet ambiguous about their intentions. resnais , for instance, refused to explain or interpret his movies; a famous writer quipped "god does not indulge in theology" when asked about his intentions behind an opus.

all of these thoughts came up as i was reading the introduction to aitken roshi's book a zen wave: basho's haiku and zen. haiku is a complex art form which is deceptively simple- there is the issue of the japanese language and its poetic conventions, its post-positions, cutting words and seasonal words. there is also the deeper issue of trying to convey the absolute in relative terms- convey infinity, eternity and paradoxically evanescence in seventeen syllables, describing an "ah!" moment. it is here that the introducer makes a leap from haiku to art itself. any art form is an attempt to express the absolute and the infinite in relative and finite terms. it is almost as if there is a new creation each time one reads a poem or watches a movie, something which the artiste may or may not have intended. that is why i can appreciate basho's classic-

furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

old pond!
frog jumps in
water of sound.

and the 2000 year old sangam era gem from kuruntokai attributed to cempulappeyanirar and translated by ak ramanujan as

what he said

what could my mother be to yours? 
what kin is my father to yours anyway? 
and how did you and I meet ever?
but in love our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain.

knowing fully well that i am missing something but does it matter?

notes: the last line of the poem is also the name of vikram chandra's bestseller (afaik there were no acknowledgments). this poem featured in the tube's poems on the underground project.

the pen-name of the poet cempulappeyanirar is a pun which translates to red earth and pouring rain. (the convention being she is henceforth known by this name)

a link to 30 different translations of basho's same frog haiku !!

imbricate

the entry in merriam webster's entry says it is related to greek ombros or rain. baffling. googled more and found this here

Etymology [of imbricate]: The ancient Romans knew how to keep the interior of their villas dry when it rained. They covered their roofs with overlapping curved tiles so the "imber" (Latin for "pelting rain" or "rain shower") couldn't seep in. The tiles were, in effect, "rain tiles," so the Romans called them "imbrices" (singular "imbrex"). The verb for installing the tiles was "imbricare," and English speakers used its past participle -- "imbricatus" -- to create "imbricate," which was first used as adjective meaning "overlapping (like roof tiles)" and later became a verb meaning "to overlap." .

intricate. tessellate is also a form of tiling but involves no overlap. tessellate traces back to tessera(e) which are square tablets used in mosaics and ultimately going back to tetra(gk four).

a citizen, a detective and a thief

the lovely word bathos (a fall from the sublime to the ridiculous, Gk depth) comes to mind when describing this egyptian comedy, apparently a big hit in the arab world, despite its depictions of sexuality and criticism of censorship and police inefficiency. it opens with a soulful number by the thief (also a poet-singer) who is serving time and ends in a ludicrous macarena number by the three eponymous characters. citizen selim, a handsome young writer with western sensibilities (opera, ballet, impressionist art), bumps into an old family friend detective gefour, now a bumbling police sergeant, when he goes to the police station to report a stolen car. gefour, the human fly is drawn to selim, the flypaper and to thank selim for a favour, foists hayat, a beautiful young woman (shown on the movie cover) as a housekeeper. selim, while in love with the sultry madiha, is increasingly attracted to hayat, unaware that she is the thief's lover. their worlds collide when hayat steals the manuscript of the novel selim is working on and gives it to the thief who has since been released. the thief appears to have his own worldview on books and morality (his favourite fuel for making tea is a book or two, preferably lacking in morals). things get hopelessly entwined when the thief burns selim's manuscript for its paucity of "good" characters and in a shocking scene selim puts out the thief's eye in a fit of anger. from here on, the movie's descent into banality is swift. the detective brokers a truce whereby selim is exonerated of the crime in return for a tidy sum of money. in a inexplicable turn of events, the three start a publishing house with the thief publishing selim's works, selim lands up marrying hayat and the thief falls for madiha, everyone enters middle age and the detective becomes a politician.

early on, in a voiceover, it is pointed out that selim (the rich, bourgeoisie) and the thief inhabit vastly different worlds and it is the detective who can straddle both worlds. however, these worlds become absurdly united in the end. except for the last macarena number, the songs were actually enjoyable, despite some of them having the look and feel of bollywood item numbers (replete with generously bosomed, scantily clad women). any message- police inefficiency (when selim tries to lodge a complaint), censorship (when the thief presents an italian nude fitted with egyptian clothes), class issues, sexuality- is drowned out by the noisy, absurd latter half of the movie. characters seem to change overnight- selim slips into middle age and mediocrity, ghefour, who brutally kicks hayat many times in the stomach becomes a close family friend and the thief seems to have ditched his religious past although he continues to sing. the movie is definitely worth watching for its songs, the earlier half and for the fact that it is rare to come across movies from this part.

winterscape

the mercury has dropped finally and its flurry time. this was shot off i-90 near albert lea during xmas break. watched a fascinating japanese movie yesterday called charisma by kiyoshi kurosawa (not to be confused with akira kurosawa) which is about a tree (or is it about a group of trees or the forest itself?). will review it later this week.























































just felt like adding emptiness to the page

one straw revolution

many moons ago, dvr gave me a slender paperpack called the one straw revolution to read on the flight from chennai to chicago. i read it cover to cover and then re-read it before the plane landed. little did i know then that the book is not just about farming but a non-dualistic approach to life and farming, in particular- a zen approach to farming long before zen become a marketable buzzword. little did i know that i would meet the writer of the introduction to the book, partapji, one day at navadarshanam . i can remember few books which have had that spellbinding effect. i have reread the book a few times since the first dual reading and each time its simplicity and power never ceases to amaze me. over the years, i have noticed that it is also the bible for back-to-the-landers; paperback indian editions were still relatively easily available in bangalore at bookworm books on mg road among other places long after rodale press in the us stopped publishing it. fukukoka's later book the road back to nature is also interesting but it is more about his critique of what has gone wrong than a subjective account of his life-changing experiential approach life-farming.

today, i got this email from partap-ji which sent me down memory lane. it is his introduction to the forthcoming new kannada translation of the book (in english)-

Most people think of One Straw Revolution as a book on natural farming. Of course it has several chapters describing the way Fukuoka farmed without plowing, or weeding, and by broadcasting the seeds by hand over the land. But this is only a small part of the message of the book; its core is far deeper.

As a young man Fukuoka was a customs official specializing in plant quarantine. His expertise was in plant pathology and he studied fungi, viruses, and pests. He spent long hours working in labs and often got fatigued to the point of exhaustion. Many times he fell unconscious and remained in that condition for hours. During one of these spells he experienced "a shock, a flash" that changed his life. He woke up into a completely new world that wouldn't fit into words. Many years later he talked of it as a realization that "Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything, and every action is futile, meaningless effort." For months he walked like a mad man, or like one with a fishbone stuck in his throat that he was neither able to swallow nor throw out. Finally he felt led to return to his village and work on the family's land.

He instinctively practiced what nature does in the forest. He called it do-nothing faming; for he grew grains, vegetables and fruit, without doing anything that farmers normally do. His yields were on par with his neighbors, and his input cost close to zero. Condition of his soil improved each year as it happens on the forest floor. The very opposite of this happens on all cultivated lands. By doing this he was able to demonstrate his insight that humans know nothing about agriculture. He proved that the agricultural 'scientists' were not only ignorant, but their ideas and techniques were harmful.

Fukuoka farmed his family's land for nearly 40 years. In the process, he not only gained control of his mind and body but also got a new vision of the universe and his own place in it. Many Japanese and American young men and women were attracted to Fukuoka's vision and came to spend extended periods on his farm. Together they learned more and made Fukuoka's original insights clearer.

To the 'scientists' who came to his farm he said, "since you are researching spiders, you are interested in only one among the many predators of the leaf-hopper. This year spiders appeared in great numbers, but last year it was toads. Besides that, it was frogs that predominated. There is countless variation." Nature cannot be understood in parts. For it is a seamless unity and must be felt as a whole with the heart.

Fukuoka insisted that understanding of nature lies beyond the reach of human intellect. He further pointed out that agriculture is the root of all our problems. Today our civilization is the most violent in all human history. This attitude flows from our violence to soil, plants and animals. By digging we kill the soil and turn it into sand. By clear-cutting the forest we destroy the plants. By growing only human food on the land we increase our own numbers by leaps and starve all other animal species to death. We have the preposterous idea that we can own the land when in fact it's the other way round. We are virtually at war with nature.

Fukuoka says, "Unless people become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food." "Right food, Right action, Right awareness." Progress cannot come out of turmoil and confusion. Purposeless development invites nothing less than degradation and collapse of human kind.

Obviously, knowing Fukuoka does not end with natural farming. It only begins there and takes us on and on toward the truth of the universe. It leads us to self-awareness, knowing our place in the community of life, living with full consciousness of our oneness with all life.

I must stop, for it is not my job to anticipate the book for you. You must read it yourself and find out what it says to you. I am trying only to point to the riches this book offers. You must read the whole of it very carefully. If you read only bits and parts, you will miss the core idea, for it is in the whole of it.

Partap Aggarwal
January 13, 2008

as one of my friends put it, i cannot wait until spring to sow again- to feel the earth and watch life sprout out of small sere seeds.

to be continued.

global chilling

this morning, during zazen (where else), a phrase pops up- global chilling. chilling as in the opposite of warming but also in the sense of relaxation. relax is from the latin laxus meaning loose. beyond the physical sense, to relax is to loosen, to let go of ideas and opinions, one of the, if not the goal of zazen. i googled it of course and a bunch of references to al gore's jan 2004 ny speech on a bitterly cold day popped up. a global chilling movement might not be a bad idea- relax oneself and save the planet. it's imperative to create a counter culture sort of like the slow food movement.

with a little effort, it has been possible to eliminate a lot of wasteful stuff, starting from home. our local co-op stocks pretty much everything in bulk including moisturizers, olive oil, liquid soap, and shampoos besides the de rigeur granolae, grains, pastas, soup mixes and spices. we have started making yogurt from milk sold in glass bottles, eliminating the plastic tubs. after all there is a limit to the spices that can be stored in yogurt containers. veggies go directly sans the plastic wrap into canvas bags. of course there is still a long way to go starting from eliminating most toxic packaged chemical based stuff we have become dependent on to making more serious life style changes. colin beavan aka no impact man , whose blog is one of my favourites has done some amazing work in proving that these principles can be followed in an urban setting (downtown manhattan, to be precise). of course its a continuum and one has to draw the line somewhere- do i want to hand wash (or leg stomp, to be precise) clothes in my washtub? maybe not. can i take my mug/water bottle and canvas bag everywhere? easily. can i eliminate car usage? sometimes yes sometimes no.

on a related theme, visited my friends t and e who live near spring valley MN. they live on a farm about 25 miles from rochester and run a csa , which i was part of this past summer-fall. they believe in treading lightly on the earth and are off the grid i.e do not have electricity on their farm. their ox hercules helps out when he is in the mood. they just built a solar kitchen this summer, which will be inaugurated this coming spring. on the photo, you can see their wood burning stove range on the right and in the back to the left is a victrola- yes, the good old gramaphone player which you have to wind the crank on the right side to play. entering their living room is like stepping into late 19th century- kerosene lamps, candles, antiques, hand pumps. we had dinner, played scrabble, read to their kids (aged 7 and 9, who are home schooled, already speak german and have had will durant's work read to) all under the warm glow of candles and kerosene lamps whilst their fireplace and their hospitality exuded warmth.

silk road

checked out, from the public library, an interesting coffee-table-cookbook called silk road cooking: a vegetarian journey by the iranian chef najmieh batmanglij. it is a bit unusual to see such an exotic vegetarian cookbook (okay, also happen to possess a french vegetarian cooking by master chef jean conil which is fabulous, although quail eggs seem a bit over the top in a veggie cookbook). it was delightful to page through this exotic cookbook with lovely photos and recipes from italy all the way to china covering the "stans" in between, detouring through india, once or twice dipping down as far as madras which afaik was not on the "silk road" although kanchipuram stranglely is, famous for its silk sarees. interestingly, wiki claims that bodhidharma left for china from kanchi, taking buddhism and varmakalai with him. would be interesting to find out if there are still varmakalai masters left in tamilnadu and if they have students in this computer crazy world.

anyway, it's interesting to see samosas, pulaos and chais (i am deliberately making chai plural as various infusions and tisanes are generically referred to as teas in the book, with the more exotic ones containing jujubes, rose petals, valerian and the like) in various countries along the silk road, absorbing local traditions and spices and name variations, much like buddhism itself as it travelled from india to japan and now to the west and probably back into india one day. najmieh claims that persian food was originally vegetarian and her documentation of myriad meatless dishes along the silkroad countries is heartening. it was delicious to even think about the cities- venice, istanbul, konya, erzurum, tabriz, isfahan, shiraz, herat, ashkabad, bukhara, samarkand, tashkent, kashi, khotan, xian, beijing, shanghai...

here is a bold pulao experiment inspired by the cookbook, probably completely wrong but delicious-

in a little ghee (used a 1/2 cm thick square of butter and heated it till the foul smelling low molecular weight hydrocarbons boiled off, leaving the fragrant but slightly browned ghee), fry some almonds, pistachios, cranberries and raisins and keep aside.

add more oil and fry sliced green chillies, ginger, a star anise, cumin seeds and finally the chopped onions, green peppers (sliced into 1.5 inch strips) and orange peels cut into long thin strips (used a satsuma mandarin which was not bitter at all and delightful).

when the onions brown, add 2 cups of basmati rice (used sona masuri, which made it a tad soggy) and slightly fry it before transferring the contents into a rice cooker. add 4-5 cups of water and the orange wedges (slightly bruised to release the juices) and cook till done.

just before it is fully done, stir in the cran-nuts mixture and garnish with cilantro and let it steam for a bit. serve with raita.

didn't photograph the pulao even though the colours looked beautiful- green peppers, orange peels, rose onions, red cranberries, white rice. but here is an amazing stone chain at the varadarajaswamy temple in kanchi, incredibly and painstakingly carved from a single block of granite.

trains of thought and speech

was shooting the breeze with b and p (who work here at mayo and are very minnesotan- pleasant, respectful and friendly) the other day and somehow the conversation came to the topic of names. it jumped from mia to maia (mother of the muses and incidentally the name of garrison keillor's daughter) to maya. when i mentioned that maya means illusion in sanskrit, it jumped to religion and before we knew, there was a lively conversation on creation, prayer and meditation. and inevitably buddhism.

it is strange that most people don't realize that buddhism is an non-theistic (apropos atheistic) religion. true, in some of the mahayana countries, people do "pray" to the buddha but for the most part there is no belief in an external power even though the hindu gods are recognized- indra, brahma and yama make frequent appearances and mara of course. and the vajrayana tradition shows traces of vedantic/hindu influences. it is an universe populated with gods, demons, beasts, hell realms which can easily be interpreted also as mind-states. the buddha himself was famously silent on metaphysical issues, refusing to be drawn into it. it was a very practical stance, given the polemic nature of the debate. anyway we got from there to reincarnation and chatting about body, soul and spirit and when i mentioned that the hindu-buddhist worldview and goal is to end the cycle of birth and death, p asked me where one goes if one is not born. good question to which i could only reply (at that time) who am i?. maybe a better answer would be there was nowhere to go just as there is nothing to attain. anyway, as the conversation continued, i realized that we or at least i was "shooting the breeze". seung sahn sunim's admonition comes to mind, albeit late- open mouth, already a mistake. oh well, time to brush up on merton and listen to his meditations on prayer and meditation. and whilst at it, to pick up aurelius as well. yes the same aurelius which is agastya's favourite in english august.

here is the famous creation hymn from the rig veda translated by vv raman

Not even nothing existed then
No air yet, nor a heaven.
Who encased and kept it where?
Was water in the darkness there?
Neither deathlessness nor decay
No, nor the rhythm of night and day:
The self-existent, with breath sans air:
That, and that alone was there.
Darkness was in darkness found
Like light-less water all around.
One emerged, with nothing on
It was from heat that this was born.
Into it, Desire, its way did find:
The primordial seed born of mind.
Sages know deep in the heart:
What exists is kin to what does not.
Across the void the cord was thrown,
The place of every thing was known.
Seed-sowers and powers now came by,
Impulse below and force on high.
Who really knows, and who can swear,
How creation came, when or where!
Even gods came after creation's day,
Who really knows, who can truly say
When and how did creation start?
Did He do it? Or did He not?
Only He, up there, knows, maybe;
Or perhaps, not even He.

and just for kicks a link to what the wiki says about the big bang.

i see

black dog lake, close to the minneapolis airport is one of the best winter birding areas in MN due to the power plant which keeps the lake from totally freezing over. we were there on one of the coldest days of this winter (at least so far)-jan 1- looking for, well, birds. didn't find much except for some mergansers and trumpeter swans. however, on the edge of the lake, water had been transmuted into multitudinous polycrystalline forms including this beautiful ice floret hanging from a reed, which we savoured and managed to capture.



and this wonderful ice-sculpture/still life bathed in the lambent glow of the setting sun.



needless to say, we were glad to get into the car and warm our fingers, especially after sunset.

mara

i felt uneasy and sad walking into work this morning. most of the piled up snow had melted,exposing the dirty brown soil underneath and whatever snow there was, was dirty. maybe it is global war{m,n,p}ing; may be not but it was sad to see the thermometer read 40F in early january. let me be clear. i am not a big fan of 0F days, which it was early last week before the mercury jumped up abruptly or rather mercurially.

etymological aside: the adjective mercurial is used to refer to people born under the planet mercury (roman mercurius, greek hermes) and supposedly of a volatile temperament. the metal mercury was alchemically associated with the planet mercury probably through the association of quick silver. it is not clear whether mercurius himself possessed these qualities but his greek counterpart hermes is depicted with winged feet and is a messenger of the gods. interestingly, mercury was god of tradesman and thieves, an association that survives in words like merchant and mercantile ultimately from the latin merx.

part of my un-ease was also mental (from dealing with some personal issues) not to ignore a painful boil on the side of my hip which whilst less than 5mm was causing an awful lot of pain and preventing me from sleeping on my left side. maybe it is all mara's doing.

reading a book by stephen batchelor called living with the devil (subtitled, of course, a meditation on good and evil), where he presents a different take on mara, the classical tempter of the buddha. he makes the argument (probably not the first one as he acknowledges someone) that buddha and mara are entwined and one has to face them both, at all times, everywhere. he extends the metaphor further and compares them to birth and death and ultimately to nirvana and samsara. the prose is exquisite as always but the logic is a bit strained at times. it leaves the reader with a feeling that buddhism is much more monotheistic in the sense of having absolute good and evil (of course, in judaism, christianity and islam, they are diametric opposites and cannot coexist which it does in all eastern traditions- hinduism, taoism, buddhism) and closer to christianity and more problematically equates buddha to the opposite of the devil. true, jesus and buddha had a lot in common and were both tempted by the devil. i have not finished the book so i should not comment. but i am not sure if i buy the argument completely; it seems out of context considering the milieu in which it developed where nothing is absolute. not even god. not even brahman according to the buddha. of course, one can go down the nihilistic path and say if nothing exists, then does that statement itself exist (and is true), thereby entering a russelian paradox. nagarjuna, arguably the greatest (buddhist) thinker since the buddha, dealt with these questions brilliantly and walked truly on the razor's edge; his unparalleled work mUlamAdhyamikakArika has been brilliantly rendered in verse by stephen in his verses from the center, earlier.

anyway, stephen's main point is to emphasize the coexistence of these opposing principles and suggest ways of dealing with it. it is also yet another attempt to disabuse notions of what enlightenment means (or what it does not). while the prose is beautiful for the most part, there are stretches of verbal diarrhoea on the origins of life and evolution and the big bang and such. most zen literature stress that the only way to get rid of duality is to transcend it- to enter a realm which is beyond duality. how to enter it is obviously and deliberately avoided. stephen also skilfully avoids suggesting formulae (despite a glowing review in the back cover which promises enlightenment as one reads the book. well almost. okay v, hyperbola is my favourite curve.) at least none 2/3rds into the book. he quotes milton, baudelaire and pascal extensively including that famous quote of pascal which strangely the incomparable chatwin also quotes in songlines-

All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly in a room

postscript: mara in hindu mythology is kama, the god of love. i suppose to a meditator, eros could be thanatos.

love has nothing to do with the five senses

love has nothing to do with the five senses and the six directions:
its goal is only to experience the attraction exerted by the Beloved.
afterwards, perhaps, permission will come from God:
the secrets that ought to be told will be told
with an eloquence nearer to the understanding
than these subtle confusing allusions.
the secret is partner with none but the knower of the secret:
in the skeptic's ear the secret is no secret at all.

mathnawi VI:5-8
version by camille and kabir helminski "Rumi: jewels of remembrance", threshold books, 1996

senses census

smell
sweaty socks
musty cushion

taste
bitter saliva
clear space

touch
tips of thumbs
cottony feel of the zabuton
back of left hand against right palm


sight
wood grain patterns
legs: mine and andy's (left)
sheet with the five mindfulness trainings
yellow and red oak leaf checkerboard motifs on carpet

sound
coughs
silence
deep sighs
borborygmi
motor noises
parrot squawks
swish of a woolen throw
peals of a nearby church
blood pulsing in the thumbs
feet dragging on wooden floor

a poem and a story

finally found the poem i had been searching for and lifted it shamelessly from here.

Conversation With A Stone by Wislawa Szymborska

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I want to enter your insides,
have a look round,
breathe my fill of you."

"Go away," says the stone.
"I'm shut tight.
Even if you break me to pieces,
we'll all still be closed.
You can grind us to sand,
we still won't let you in."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I've come out of pure curiosity.
Only life can quench it.
I mean to stroll through your palace,
then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.
I don't have much time.
My mortality should touch you."

"I'm made of stone," says the stone,
"and must therefore keep a straight face.
Go away.
I don't have the muscles to laugh."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I hear you have great empty halls inside you,
unseen, their beauty in vain,
soundless, not echoing anyone's steps.
Admit you don't know them well yourself."

"Great and empty, true enough," says the stone,
"but there isn't any room.
Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste
of your poor senses.
You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through.
My whole surface is turned toward you,
all my insides turned away."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I don't seek refuge for eternity.
I'm not unhappy.
I'm not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I'll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe."

"You shall not enter," says the stone.
"You lack the sense of taking part.
No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part.
Even sight heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part.
You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be,
only its seed, imagination."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I haven't got two thousand centuries,
so let me come under your roof."

"If you don't believe me," says the stone,
"just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.
Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.
And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.
I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter,
although I don't know how to laugh."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in."

"I don't have a door," says the stone.

a story from zen flesh, zen bones by paul reps

keichu, the great zen teacher of the meiji era was the head of tofukuji in kyoto. one day the governor of kyoto called on him. his attendant presented a card which read: kitagaki, governor of kyoto.

"i have no business with such a fellow", said keichu to his attendant. "tell him to get out of here".

the attendant carried the card back. "that was my error", said the governor and scratched out the words governor of kyoto. "ask your teacher again", he said.

"oh, is that kitagaki", exclaimed the teacher when he saw the card. "I want to see that fellow".

letting go, of 2007

we went to three different and i mean different new year parties yesterday. first, to the minneapolis zen center for a 30 min zazen period followed by a potluck dinner (where our "red" and "green" potato curries were too hot for most minnesotans though). we then swapped poetry- mostly rumi and dogen. then we did something interesting. someone had brought some magic paper, which upon setting fire, literally vanished into thin air, like the table tennis balls we used to set fire to as kids. we then wrote on this piece of paper all the things we wanted to let go off from 2007 and set fire to it, literally letting-it-go. it is hard to believe 2007 is gone, over. it all seems a blur.

the next two parties were an american and a desi party respectively. there was the de rigeur uncorking of the champagne bottle and the new year welcoming (luckily no one counted down).

new scrabble word: auxetic. as he was uncorking the bubbly, sanat enlightened us of this interesting property some materials have of thickening when stretched (due to negative poisson's ratio) and that cork was the only natural auxetic material. cool eh?

here is a beautiful poem by rumi translated by coleman barks and john moyne which cal recited after dinner -


The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my loving now.
I've heard it said there's a window that opens
from one mind to another,
but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.