East Asia Tour

9/30/19
Shangri-La -- Aimee and I are two nights in Shangri-La, a quite posh hotel in Singapore.
This evening we had our AHI Orientation and Reception with our Malaysian-tour group. Our First guide is Andrew. Joining Aimee and me are three others -- two, a couple, are from Raleigh, N.C. and one tall, bearded single Califronian. We may be a quite intimate clatch of folks by tour's end. 

Two pieces of art I favored (in fabric and  being showcased by the restaurant in Shangri-La's recepton) are below. 

  

The artist is Benny Ong.

10/1/19
A  picture of the lobby/reception area is next.

It is quite fancy. Today on our official Singapore tour with Antony as our guide, we visited the following: Old China town, the fromer British government buildings; part of the upcoming formula one race track and infield; Arabic town; little India; and a Hindu temple within new China town and new China town proper. We had lunch in the Raffles center, a ginormus shopping center and hotel. 

Antony, a third generation Chinese, is  a former floor trader for various financial markets. He did that job for 21 years before computers and super job stresses made him become a tour guide. Chinese are up to 75% of the Singapore population, but Chinese is but one of the four official languages used in Singapore. The languages are Malay, English, Mandarin, and Tamil.The membershiip ranking of the major religions is Mahayana Buddhism; Islam; Christianity; & Hinduism.

A very important Buddhist temple is here. It allegedly contains one of the Buddha's teeth. It is apprpriately called Buddha Tooth Relic temple.  

10/2/19
After visiting Taiwan and now Singapore, I feel like, irrespective of my affinity and deep respect for much of Buddhaism, it is not by any stretch, a smooth fit for me. "Buddha's tooth" was surrounded by gold and jewels in a hermetically sealed, very limited access room. The devout including guide Andrew in hushed tones called this shrine "Nervana." 

If I harbored any conciet of becoming a bone fide devotee, I could never have thought the tooth to be clearly not of human origin. To my jaundiced eyes it looked like it might have belonged to a small ass. An over active scepticism and skewed sense of attribution seems (as always) to be the stories binding me against complete committment.

Today we are doing the Paranakan Heritage areas, lunch on our own, then to the Eastern Oriental Expresrs train heaking North. Next is a picture of Aimee and I in Peranakanian wedding attire. 

10/5/19
Three days and two nights we rode the Eastern Oriental Express from Singapore to Bangkok. Sleeping was somewhat challenging because the ride was bumpy. This is a picture of Aimee and I in the last car called the observation car.


Our Guide for the train and Bangkok part of the tour was Victor. He is super. Trained as an Immunologist, he couldn't continue in academics because he became allergic not only to many yeasts and organisms but also the media components. He also spent two years in adulthood as a cloistered Buddhist monk

On the first excusion as our train made a refilling, restocking, and refueling stop we chose to attend a cooking class on making Thai food.  The class venue was a raft on the river Khwae-noi -- made famous by the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" starring Alec Guinness and Wm Holden. Then Aimee cooked "Tom Kha Gai", a chicken stew with fresh garden herbs and coconut cream. Next is a pic of our naval culinary adventure. 

It turned out quite tasty even though she had to leave out the chili flakes, chili oil, and dried chili garnish so I could enjoy it too. 

So far I have not had an incident of an allergic reaction. Even though Thais love their chilis, they have managed to graciously accomodate my need to avoid them.

At our second technical stop, we climbed a hill overlooking Durian fruit and palm oil plantations. At the base of the hill was a small rubber grove. Aimee tried her hand at tapping a rubber tree. The surprising thing to me was how instantly the latex-filled white sap transformed into latex rubber. Next is a link to a picture of the tree Aimee operated on. 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KK-2l87qakjKHvASPno2PYsVofYDoruJ

On the next day we arrived in Bangkok. 

Blacksmith poem

Chores
Pull say we pull yeah!
papa to hear you
old man spit yell
and groan,

Give a hand here you five ne'r do aught.
My pyre here needs its thick
bark blanket
a kiln free from air
cooks the teepeed rick black
coals come out to feed my hungry fire
pot then bellies with mama's help

burn my iron pig
to white and flowing like butter
held neith my blow
in billy long tongs for a whang
and fold -- whang again
doubling, fireing, flat'ning, fold
doubling again

mix mash black charcoal with iron
forging steel blend through each layer
turning slimy wrought
stone hard
glass sharp

work blade and grind saber scalper
bone barrer, blood birther, wrothfull
barter 'gainst kings call
 "More, more fighters afoot."
Grist to this ash dump
endless
war

Harbor rainbow

Honolulu holiday treats.

Outline of Sam Harris’s talk titled “It is always now” and my commentary

Death – all try to avoid death. But human adults all know about mortality. We know that we can be or have been suddenly given the full time job of engaging in active dying or fighting death in ourselves or someone we love.

What most people ask of themselves at such times is “how have I spent my time?” Most judge that they have misspent their time and cared about the wrong sort of things. Although we know such an epiphany inducing moment is imminent, we tend to live like we live forever.

There are ways to live in the moment (bring high value to the time we experience). It is a reality of our mental life that it is always NOW.

Caveats: It is not now in the visible universe (what we experience as now occurred in some cases 13.5 billion years ago) and not now in neurological or neurochemical understanding (it takes a minimum of tens of milliseconds to process and register a perception). However it is a liberating truth about our own minds that can make us happy [wrong word i.e. that we can attribute as worthwhile -- time well spent – leading to increased wellbeing and mental equilibrium]. Past memories are thoughts arising presently and likewise the “future” is a thought arising now. We forget this truth, and succeed in fooling ourselves by looking over our shoulders and attaching undue value to a memory [that is usually deeply flawed] or give time to the illusion of what is coming next [Luke 12:27 "Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in his splendor was dressed like one of these.”]

To enjoy [wrong word i.e. optimize the mental construct of our existence] whatever is true of life in the present requires a change in both attitude and awareness to experience each now, each present moment fully.

JRH Commentary – When we undergo the transformation in attribution, attitude, and awareness like Harris’s puts forward the moral stakes change. And I don’t mean we cannot and must not make reasoned global judgments about the gains or losses that arise throughout the transition, but I believe that a discipline/practice/focus on being fully present with each moment we are granted is, on balance, a boon to our wellbeing.

It is not without costs. Engaging in this practice changes our viable options. This truth holds for any and all disciplines, e.g. going to church regularly, daily devotions, playing a musical instrument, regular physical exercise, paddling along IN rivers. Unexpected consequences or hidden outcomes are unpredictable but may include the following: you falsely attribute present pain with future gain; you forgo unfettered Sunday mornings when you could do chores or surf the web; you selfishly sequester time for yourself on a piano bench or in a canoe away from other high priority activities or venues such as wife, family, internet, etc. So being in the eternal present can bring with it subjectivism, hedonism, self-centeredness, and a collapse of the transcendent – but it needn’t do that. Reflective practice can bring awareness to the conditions of our awareness and can make the “invisible” [things we are blind to] manifest.

When applying invectives like hedonistic, airy fairy, selfish, etc. it seems to me we paint a time-tested option for spiritual formation with an overly broad negative bias. Isn’t the “bottom-line” of Christian spiritual practice your worthiness in Gods sight? Practicing eternal presence means that in each and every moment we are given the opportunity to breathe in grace and each acknowledged heart beat gives life irrespective of our striving. You now are everything that is!

“All this universe to the furthest stars

all beyond them is your flesh, your fruit [your NOW]

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between two

contradictions …. For god wants

to know himself in you”   Rilke

Desolation’s downfall

Desolation’s downfall

Now truly white a minus two mid-January White River mostly frozen solid orders famished great blue herons by dozens innate territoriality ignored forgotten for hours to stand sentinel-like on ice as collapsed faded umbrellas fencing its western strand None shall fish again until weather warmed water changes phase and coursing torrents but a foot below shred the heron’s bitter platform forcing it down-stream Notice the clear water not five hundred yards East Alas, greats somehow know their spearing virtuosity vaunts no match to prey braving both such violent unrest and minus two Relaying to you this chilling scene and conjuring herons from many dark shapes I see at a quarter mile on a hazy day is a conceit Muse made it so from the picture on my warm office window a painting full of loneliness hunger cold yet completely full of hope and assurance that thaw will fly home after laboring in March to climb slowly above a dark scrub-wood on the bank and soar away with this fierce brief grievance come June.

Sandberg on This Campaign

Sandberg 
on This Campaign

‘Tis at once sunset and dawn

moonrise and noon

dying and birthing time

dry leaves of autumn last

blossoms of springtime

Twixt distant poles

compromises -- interludes

impregnated by evasion, treachery

lucid language long gone

Words sucked of meaning

mock new pogroms

to be too soon wrought upon

historic anvils amid smoke, mist 

a sodden fog of reckless slang

moorings, old bonds broken

old wine-skins burst, thongs

rent, anchors hoisted as waves

Fling beating foamy crests

‘gainst palisades of adamant

A 25-mile view

Is the future open? Are possibilities and potentials almost limitless? My imagination is quite limited. Isn't even the best imagination minuscule compared to all possible future outcomes?

Biking along the White River on a rare, still early spring in Indianapolis is so magical it stirs the imagination. I began to articulate what made Indiana commendable. After 25 years of saying we have the "Track" as a reason for outsiders to visit, I now offer another reason. We have rare but as nearly perfect as possible spring days and an entire season -- autumn. Both are spectacular. Both are evanescent, which is why they are magical.

 The interface or interfaces with our spiritual world which we have available seem badly outdated. What are the current symbols or iconography that might quickly bring us under the spell of the numinous? What has quashed our sanctity? What role do the following have: big sporting events; corporationization of medical care; television; television evangelists?