The Devil Is in the Details A Husband's Reflections on Love, Faith, Family, and the Choices We Cannot Undo

 

The Devil Is in the Details

A Husband's Reflections on Love, Faith, Family, and the Choices We Cannot Undo

Some decisions are made with the best of intentions, only for us to discover, years later, the price paid by those who shared our journey.

Looking back over the years, I have come to question one of the most consequential decisions I ever made: moving my family from Japan back to Malaysia, and eventually settling in Kuala Terengganu.

At the time, I believed I was doing what was best for all of us. Today, I am no longer quite so certain.

This is not an attempt to rewrite my past or find someone to blame. It is an attempt to understand the choices I made, the consequences we lived with, and the woman who shared that journey with me.

Perhaps it is time to call a spade a spade.

 

 

Japan: Nancy in Her Element

For Nancy, living in Japan was living in her element. She thrived as a language teacher and as a mother. She could communicate naturally with our children, participate fully in their lives, and function in a society whose language and customs she understood.

I, on the other hand, was struggling.

One night, while trying to put the children to bed, my daughter kept whining. I lost my temper and yelled at her, "Shut up!"

From the other side of the room, her brother said something to the effect of, "All she is asking for is some water."

I gave her the drink, and she fell asleep almost immediately.

I broke into tears.

It was not the incident itself that overwhelmed me. It was the realisation that I could not understand my own children when they communicated with me in Japanese.

Nancy was already carrying the responsibilities of motherhood. To have to raise children in a country where her husband could not understand their language was, I imagine, another burden she had to bear. But that night, I was confronted with my own helplessness.

Something had to change. I could not imagine continuing this way indefinitely.

I began thinking about our children's future, our future as a family, and the world in which they would grow up. I worried that they would become increasingly detached from their Malaysian roots, without the familiar company of aunts, uncles, cousins, and Muslim friends. I had always assumed that we would raise our children as Muslims, and I wondered how that part of their upbringing would unfold in Japan.

Perhaps my outlook was naive. Perhaps I was thinking more about my own difficulties than about what Nancy and the children stood to lose. At the time, however, I believed that returning to Malaysia would benefit us all.

I made up my mind.

                                                                       In Loving Memory
 

The Decision to Return

As chance would have it, my eldest brother visited us in Japan for a few days. He was then the Inspector of Schools in Terengganu and could recommend Nancy for a teaching position there.

I believe his presence and encouragement helped persuade Nancy to consider the move, perhaps even more than my own arguments had done.

I cannot remember Nancy openly protesting the decision. Returning to the United States was not an option we were considering, and with the prospect of employment in Terengganu, the move seemed practical.

There was, however, another consideration. Nancy's employer in Japan offered to almost double her salary if she agreed to stay.

That detail has remained with me.

She was valued in her profession. She had established herself in an environment where she could flourish. There was a real opportunity for her to continue the life she had built.

And yet we left.

I cannot honestly say how Nancy felt about the decision. I remember no open protest, but silence is not necessarily agreement, and the absence of an argument does not tell us everything about what a person is feeling.

What I know is that I was returning to my own country, while Nancy was leaving hers.

At the time, I did not fully appreciate the difference.

Terengganu: The Price We Paid

In retrospect, I believe moving to Kuala Terengganu was a serious mistake for our family.

Nancy continued teaching, doing the work she loved, but she also had to contend with envy and peer pressures in her workplace. The professional environment was not necessarily the welcoming place I had imagined it would be.

Our children faced their own difficulties. Having already adjusted to life in Japan, they now had to learn another language and adapt to another culture. At times, they were bullied severely by children whose attitudes, as I remember them, reflected the narrow-mindedness and insensitivity of a kampung mentality.

I watched these things unfold and often felt trapped and helpless.

I had brought my family back to a place I knew, believing that familiarity, culture, and extended family would offer us a more secure foundation. Instead, we encountered difficulties I had not adequately anticipated.

Then there was my own family.

Initially, my brothers and sisters were warm and responsive. But as the years passed, that warmth seemed to fade. When Nancy began to fall ill, none of them came forward in the way I had hoped they would to lend a helping hand.

I had imagined that being near family would mean having family to lean on when life became difficult.

That was not how things turned out.

I felt increasingly alone in carrying the responsibilities of my household, caring for my wife, and looking after our children.

Terengganu, which I had believed would be a place of belonging, became a place where I often felt powerless.

We paid dearly for the choice I had made.

                                                Mukaiyama YoChien - Kindergaten
 

The Penang State Religious Department

There is another episode from that period that hurt me deeply, and I cannot reflect on our family life without remembering it.

I wanted to convert my whole family to Islam. It was something deeply meaningful to me, and I believed we could make this transition together.

The process took us to the Penang State Religious Department.

For three days, we made repeated trips between our hotel and the religious department, trying to get everything done. What I had assured Nancy would be a straightforward process turned into an exhausting and discouraging experience.

One night, Nancy cried in bed.

"You told me that it was all going to be easy and that we will be well received!"

I had no comforting explanation to offer her. All I could say was:

"Allah is a Great Tester. He tests your faith."

That was my answer then.

Today, I look back on that moment with mixed feelings.

I believed in what I was saying. My faith taught me that difficulties could be tests of patience and conviction. Yet Nancy was the one lying there in tears, confronted with an experience very different from what I had promised her.

I had told her that we would be welcomed. I had assured her that things would be easy. The reality had proved otherwise.

Perhaps I was so caught up in the significance of what I wanted us to accomplish that I failed to appreciate how the experience was affecting her.

Faith can help us endure hardship, but it does not excuse us from recognising the hardship our decisions impose on others. Nor does every obstacle necessarily have to be interpreted as a test sent by God. Sometimes, we must also examine the shortcomings of the people and institutions involved, and our own expectations.

I cannot go back to that hotel room and give Nancy a different answer.

But I can acknowledge her disappointment now, without dismissing it or trying to explain it away.

The Devil Is in the Details

I have often reflected on the saying that the Devil is in the details.

We make grand plans. We imagine a better future. We tell ourselves that our intentions are good and that the sacrifices we ask of others will eventually prove worthwhile.

But life does not unfold according to our intentions alone.

The details are where our plans meet reality: the language we cannot understand, the child who is bullied, the wife who struggles to find her place in a new society, the professional opportunities left behind, the relatives who are absent when help is needed, and the tears of someone who trusted our assurances.

These are not minor details. They are the lives of the people we love.

I returned to Malaysia because I believed I was doing what was best for my family. I wanted my children to belong, to grow up connected to their roots, and to have a future shaped by the culture and faith that mattered to me.

But perhaps I underestimated what Nancy would lose by leaving Japan. Perhaps I overestimated what my homeland and extended family could offer us. Perhaps, in trying to solve the difficulties I was experiencing, I failed to see the difficulties my decision would create for those closest to me.

I cannot say with certainty what would have happened had we stayed in Japan. We might have faced other problems. Life there would not necessarily have been without hardship.

Nor can I claim to know exactly how Nancy understood the move, or what she would say about it today.

What I can say is that, looking back, I see the decision differently.

I see a man who believed he was making a good choice but who did not fully understand its consequences. I see a woman who had found her element in Japan and who had to establish herself again in a different world. I see children who were asked to make yet another adjustment. And I see a family that encountered hardships I had hoped to spare them.

My intentions were sincere. That does not mean my judgment was always sound.

Looking Back Without Whitewashing the Past

I am no longer interested in whitewashing my life or making every decision appear wise simply because I was the one who made it.

I would rather acknowledge my mistakes than spend the remainder of my days defending them.

But I must also be careful not to make myself responsible for everything that went wrong. I did not control the behaviour of Nancy's colleagues, the bullying our children experienced, or the choices my relatives made when we needed help.

Responsibility is not the same as omnipotence. I made the decision to move, but I could not foresee or control every consequence.

What pains me most is the possibility that, in trying to bring my family closer to the life I believed was right for us, I took Nancy away from a life in which she had been able to flourish.

I wish I had understood more at the time.

I wish I had been better able to see the situation through her eyes.

And I wish that, when the difficulties came, the family support I had counted on had been there for us.

But wishes cannot alter history.

Nancy passed away in 2008, following the rapid onset of dementia. I cannot know whether our decision to leave Japan had any bearing on the course of her life or whether things would have been different had we stayed. I will not pretend to know what cannot be known.

What remains is the memory of the woman I loved, the life we shared, the children we raised, and the choices we made along the way.

Perhaps the most honest thing I can do now is to tell our story without making myself its hero, without making Nancy a silent supporting character, and without pretending that good intentions guarantee good outcomes.

She had her own hopes, her own abilities, and her own struggles. Her experience deserves to be remembered alongside mine.

If there is a lesson in all this, perhaps it is that love requires more than wanting what we believe is best for another person. It requires listening, understanding, and recognising that the life we imagine for someone may not be the life in which that person can flourish.

And perhaps wisdom comes when we finally learn to distinguish between what we intended and what actually happened.

I cannot undo the past. I can only look at it honestly, learn what I can, and leave an account for those who may one day find themselves facing similar crossroads.

For better or worse, this was our life.

And the Devil is most assuredly in the details!

---

A Final Reflection

We make our choices with the understanding we possess at the time. Years later, experience may reveal what we could not see then.

The challenge is to acknowledge our mistakes without becoming prisoners of regret, to accept responsibility without claiming responsibility for everything, and to remember those we loved as whole human beings whose hopes and disappointments mattered as much as our own.

Perhaps this, too, is part of the practice: to see clearly, to speak honestly, and to let the past teach us without allowing it to consume us.

Gassho. Salam.

Hashtags

#TheDevilIsInTheDetails #Memoir #LifeReflections #Nancy #LoveAndLoss #Marriage #FamilyLife #ChoicesAndConsequences #LivingWithRegret #HonestLiving #SpiritualJourney #FaithAndDoubt #ZenReflections #TheHumanCondition #LessonsFromLife

Nancy, Fancy, Schmency! - My Wife.

  

Nancy, Fancy, Schmency!

The Woman I Grew to Love

I am through with whitewashing my life. At this stage of my journey, I see little point in dressing up the truth to make myself look better than I was. A spade is a spade, and if I am to tell my story, I might as well tell it as it happened.

I met Nancy at 191 Haight Street in San Francisco in 1989, through my friend and Dharma Brother, David Carlson. At the time, Nancy had no intention of marrying me. As for me, I was not exactly swept off my feet by her outward appearance when we first met. I have already confessed that much.

But life has a peculiar sense of humour. By the time I finally got around to marrying Nancy, our son arrived just ten days after the wedding date!

That was my Nancy, Fancy, Schmency!

Ours was not a fairy-tale romance, and we certainly had our share of difficult days. There were times when we struggled to understand one another and when our marriage needed help. We even sought the counsel of the late Blanche Hartman, who would later become Abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center. Blanche was a remarkable woman, and I remain grateful that we had someone of her understanding to turn to during those difficult times.

Looking back, I believe our move to Sendai, Japan, helped save our marriage and gave our two children a better chance to grow up within a family that was finding its way again.

Nancy was a workaholic, a woman of tremendous determination and intellectual ability. She held a master's degree in Linguistics, and while living in Japan, she went on to acquire a qualification to teach Japanese as well. She was never one to sit idle. There was always something to learn, something to accomplish, or someone who needed her attention.

 

Yet it was not her academic qualifications that made Nancy special.

She was soft-spoken and possessed one of the warmest demeanours I have ever encountered. Her gentleness was not a weakness. It was simply the way she moved through the world. Her students in the United States, Japan, and later Malaysia adored her. They saw something in her that went beyond the lessons she taught in the classroom.

And so did I, eventually.

                                             Nancy and Karim at Golden Gate Park,SF
 

I loved Nancy as I got to know her. That distinction matters to me. My love did not arise from some instantaneous enchantment with physical beauty. It grew through the years, through shared experiences, through our struggles and reconciliations, through the raising of our children, and through the gradual discovery of the person who lived beneath the surface.

I came to see a beauty in Nancy that I had not recognised when we first met.

Indeed, I might even say that I helped draw that beauty out, just as she undoubtedly brought out parts of me that might otherwise have remained undiscovered. Perhaps that is one of the things two people can do for each other when they are willing to stay, to learn, and to keep trying, even when the going gets rough.

I make no claim that I was an ideal husband, nor would I pretend that Nancy was an ideal wife. We were two human beings trying to make a life together, carrying our respective histories, shortcomings, expectations, and dreams.

We got things wrong. We had difficult days. But we also built a family, travelled across countries, raised two children, and shared a life that I would not exchange for a more polished story.

Nancy passed away in 2008, in Illinois, after the rapid onset of dementia. Her passing left a space in my life that no words can adequately describe.

She is no longer here to hear me call her Nancy, Fancy, Schmency, or to respond with whatever expression she might have given me on that particular day.

But I can still speak of her.

I can remember the woman her students adored, the determined scholar who continued learning, the gentle soul whose warmth touched the lives of so many people, and the wife whose beauty revealed itself to me over the years.

                                           Hanging out at Stinson Beach, Marin County, Ca.  
 

And I can say, without hesitation, that I loved her, that I will always love her, and that I remain grateful for the life we shared.

Perhaps the greatest lesson Nancy taught me was not through any deliberate instruction. It was through the experience of living together, with all its imperfections, until I learned to see her more clearly.

When we first met, I thought I was looking at a woman whose beauty was difficult to recognise.

I was wrong.

Her beauty was there all along. I simply had to learn how to see it.

And once I did, I never stopped loving her.

#NancyFancySchmency #NancyAndMe #LoveAndMarriage #LifeWithoutWhitewash #TheBeautyWithin #LessonsInLove #SanFranciscoMemories #191HaightStreet #BlancheHartman #SanFranciscoZenCenter #LifeJourney #LoveBeyondDeath #PersonalMemoir #CheeseburgerBuddha 

A Studio in San Francisco, an Earthquake, and a Sketchbook

                                     Where it all Happened.

3435 Army Street, San Francisco

The building was documented as an artist live/work complex with 36 live/work spaces. That supports your recollection of the location as an artists' studio building, although it doesn't establish your individual participation.

 

A Studio in San Francisco, an Earthquake, and a Sketchbook

October 1989 — A Memory Reawakened

Sometimes, all it takes is a photograph of an old building to open a door to the past.

Recently, I began looking into the history of the San Francisco Open Studios art exhibition of 1989. The reason was a forthcoming Penang Open Studio event, which prompted me to wonder whether my own experience in San Francisco might offer an interesting point of reference. Was the 1989 event among the first of its kind, and might there still be a record of my participation?

I was sharing a studio with an artist named Rory M. Mohr, who, as I recall, rented the premises in his name. Our studio was in the former Sears Roebuck building at the corner of Army Street and Mission Street, a building whose ground floor had been converted into an unemployment office.

I remember visitors coming through our studio, and I still have my sketchbook containing their names, addresses, and signatures, dated October 14 and 15, 1989. Unfortunately, the handwriting is often so tiny that deciphering it under poor lighting is quite a challenge. Nevertheless, the sketchbook remains a little time capsule of those two days.

San Francisco Open Studios had begun in 1975, so by 1989 the event was already an established part of the city's artistic life. My participation belonged to that continuing tradition, and now, thirty-seven years later, the prospect of an Open Studio event in Penang has brought those memories back to the surface.

But the building holds another memory, one far more dramatic than an art exhibition.

The Day the Earth Moved

At the time, I was working as a produce buyer for a company called Del Tomaso. My working hours were somewhat unusual. I would leave for work around midnight, drive my truck across the Bay, deliver and unload produce at a supermarket, and return home sometime in the late afternoon or evening.

On October 17, 1989, I had returned to the building and decided to lie down for a nap.

Then it happened.

The first thing I remember was a loud crack, like a gunshot. Another followed as the building began to shake. I later learned that the joints in the drywall had split under the strain.

Then came the incident with the hook.

Water pipes were suspended from the ceiling by metal hooks. As the building moved violently, the pipes began to undulate, and the hooks were shooting out of the ceiling.

One of them struck the concrete floor about a foot from where I stood, leaving a small crater.

I had paused beneath a doorway when the shaking began. At the time, it seemed a natural place to take refuge. Only afterwards did I realise that the doorway was merely a makeshift frame, not the substantial structure I had imagined it to be.

Had I not paused there, the falling hook might have struck me.

Yikes!

I was fortunate, to say the least.

Then came a sound I shall never forget: a tremendous roar, like a locomotive racing wildly towards the building.

The lights went out.

Silence.

A woman from the neighbouring premises came and stood beside me beneath the doorway. We remained there together as the building settled around us.

Then the lights went out.

Silence.

And from somewhere in another room came the cry of a child.

That cry, breaking the silence in the darkness, added an eerie quality to an already unsettling experience. For those few moments, we were left with our own thoughts and whatever sounds might emerge from the darkness.

A telephone rang.

The woman hurried away to answer it, then returned with an extraordinary account from her friend in Tokyo, Japan, who had been watching the World Series between San Francisco and Oakland on television.

According to her friend, the television coverage, which included aerial images from the Goodyear blimp covering the game, showed the damage to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, where a section of the upper deck had collapsed onto the deck below.

While my neighbor's friend watched events unfold from the other side of the Pacific, we had experienced the earthquake from inside that building in San Francisco.

Two people, separated by an ocean, connected by a telephone call and an event neither could have anticipated.

  

Damage of the Nimitz Freeway.  

Walking Through a Changed City

Eventually, I left the building and began walking towards Haight Street.

I remember making my way down Valencia Street towards Market Street. Car alarms were still screaming, and dogs were barking. The familiar city had become an unsettling place, its ordinary sounds transformed by the aftermath of the earthquake.

I was heading towards 191 Haight Street, where my late wife, Nancy, lived with my very close friend David Carlson and seven or eight other people.

Nancy is no longer with us, but memories of the life we shared continue to surface in the most unexpected ways.

At the time, I could not have imagined that, decades later, a photograph of my old studio building would bring the entire episode back to me.

I had originally been looking for a record of an art exhibition. Instead, I found myself remembering the work I did, the people I knew, the building in which I lived, and the day the earth moved beneath my feet.

And that is the curious nature of memory. We may set out looking for one thing and discover something else entirely.

The Sketchbook Remains

My old sketchbook still contains the names and signatures of people who visited the studio on October 14 and 15, 1989. Their handwriting may be difficult to decipher, and I may never identify every person who came through our door, but the record remains.

Perhaps that is enough.

An artist's sketchbook is more than a place for drawings. It can become an unintended archive of a life: a record of places visited, people encountered, and moments that might otherwise disappear.

Now, with a Penang Open Studio event on the horizon, I find myself looking back at San Francisco and the experience I had there in 1989.

I wonder what stories the participating artists in Penang will one day tell about their own beginnings, their studios, and the people who walked through their doors.

For my part, I have a building, a sketchbook, a falling hook, a woman answering a telephone, and a city full of car alarms and barking dogs.

And I have another story waiting to be told.

For after leaving the studio, I walked towards Haight Street, where Nancy and David were living.

But that, as they say, is another episode.

To be continued…

---

Hashtags

#SanFrancisco #SanFranciscoOpenStudios #OpenStudios #LomaPrietaEarthquake #October1989 #ArtistsLife #ArtistSketchbook #LifeMemories #VisualMemoir #NancyAndMe #DavidCarlson #PenangArt #PenangOpenStudio #ArtAndMemory #TheWanderingArtist

The Imperturbable Mind - Fudōshin, the Empty Mirror, and the Circle of Life

 

The Imperturbable Mind

Fudōshin, the Empty Mirror, and the Circle of Life

Salam and Gasho.

This morning, while contemplating the Japanese concept of Fudōshin — the “immovable” or “imperturbable mind” — I suddenly remembered a question once asked of me by my first Zen teacher, Junpo Dennis Kelly:

“What is the Imperturbable Mind?”

I never felt that I had adequately answered him.

Perhaps I wasn't supposed to.

The question remained with me for years, like a kōan carried quietly somewhere inside.

And now, after all these years, the word Fudōshin seems to have brought that old question back to the surface.

So what is Fudōshin?

The literal meaning is something like “unmoving mind” or “immovable heart-mind.” But it does not mean becoming emotionally frozen, insensitive, or incapable of being disturbed.

Rather, it suggests a mind that does not become possessed by whatever arises within it.

Fear may arise.

Anger may arise.

Desire may arise.

Confusion may arise.

But the mind does not have to become their servant.

Perhaps the simplest image is that of an empty mirror.

The mirror reflects whatever appears before it.

A beautiful face appears — it reflects.

An ugly face appears — it reflects.

Sunrise appears — it reflects.

A storm appears — it reflects.

The mirror does not cling to the beautiful image or reject the ugly one. And when the image disappears, it does not try to hold onto it.

It simply reflects what is.

But there is an important subtlety here.

The mirror does not have to try to be empty.

It doesn't say:

“I must now become an imperturbable mirror.”

That would already be another disturbance.

It simply reflects.

And perhaps that is where Fudōshin and the “Imperturbable Mind” begin to meet.

 

 

---

Musashi and the Mind in the Face of Death

This becomes especially interesting when we consider Miyamoto Musashi, the legendary Japanese swordsman.

Imagine standing opposite an opponent, katana in hand, both knowing that the next movement may determine everything.

What happens to the mind?

Suddenly it begins its endless commentary:

What is he going to do?

Will I be fast enough?

What if I lose?

I must win.

I must not be afraid.

What if he attacks from the left?

And now there are two opponents:

the person standing before you, and the turbulence taking place inside your own mind.

Perhaps this is what makes Fudōshin so important to the warrior.

The enemy is not necessarily the mind itself.

The enemy is becoming entangled in the movements of the mind.

Fear appears — see it.

Thought appears — see it.

The opponent moves — see it.

There is no need for an internal committee meeting before responding!

The trained swordsman has cultivated a mind capable of seeing and responding without being trapped by excessive thought.

The sword may move.

The feet may move.

The opponent may move.

Everything may move.

Yet something remains still.

That is the paradox of Fudōshin.

The mind is not still because nothing is happening.

It is still because it is not grasping, resisting, or becoming lost in what is happening.

 

 

---

Then My Teacher's Question Returned

And this brought me back to Junpo's question:

“What is the Imperturbable Mind?”

Perhaps, when I was younger, I thought I had to discover an answer.

Maybe I needed to become calm enough, disciplined enough, spiritual enough to finally understand it.

But perhaps that was already the misunderstanding.

If I say:

“I must become imperturbable,”

I have created another “I” whose job is to defend itself from disturbance.

And then something rather absurd happens.

I become disturbed by the possibility of being disturbed!

Perhaps the kōan was never asking me for a philosophical definition.

Perhaps it was asking me to look directly.

What happens when fear arises?

What happens when desire arises?

What happens when anger arises?

What happens when the mind becomes confused?

Can I see these things without immediately becoming them?

And then another question appears:

Who is the one who is watching?

There it is again.

The kōan.

---

The Empty Mirror

Perhaps the answer is not to become a mind that can never be disturbed.

Perhaps it is to become like an empty mirror.

The mirror doesn't suppress what appears.

It doesn't argue with it.

It doesn't cling to it.

It doesn't say:

“This image is good; I want to keep it.”

or

“This image is bad; I must get rid of it.”

It simply reflects.

And when the image is gone, the mirror does not mourn its absence.

Perhaps this is what Fudōshin points toward:

not the absence of movement, but the absence of unnecessary attachment to movement.

And perhaps the deepest form of this realization is when there is no longer a separate “me” standing behind the mirror saying:

“Look how well I am reflecting.”

There is simply seeing.

There is simply what is.

 

---

And Then We Come Home

But there is another lesson here that I find strangely comforting.

Fudōshin does not mean escaping ordinary life.

It does not mean becoming some solemn spiritual statue sitting permanently beneath a Bodhi tree.

The mirror reflects the sunrise.

It also reflects the rain.

It reflects the beautiful.

It reflects the ridiculous.

It reflects the sacred and the mundane.

And suddenly, after all this discussion about Musashi, Zen, Fudōshin, the witness, consciousness and the empty mirror...

I have to go to the toilet.

Such is life.

😂

Perhaps that is the final lesson.

Back home in the Circle of Life, dancing in the wind and wondering if there is a toilet nearby.

No problem.

No grand spiritual conclusion required.

The wind blows.

The body moves.

The mind thinks.

The mirror reflects.

Life happens.

Such Is.

And perhaps that is enough.

Gasho.

The Japan That Was Already Waiting

 

                                                                      Kinkasan Island.

 It is strange how life sometimes brings us back to places we had already visited in our imagination.

Japan had fascinated me since childhood, beginning with Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. At that age, I knew very little about Japan, let alone Zen Buddhism, or the philosophy hidden beneath some of its traditions like Shintoism. I simply knew that something about that mysterious world had captured my imagination.

Much later, while working as a librarian at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, I stumbled upon the work of Katsushika Hokusai in the form of Hokusai's Manga or comic books.

Hokusai opened another door.

Then came Miyamoto Musashi.

And eventually, through Alan Watts, I discovered Zen.

By then, these Japanese figures were no longer simply characters from a distant culture. They became companions of sorts—opening deeper questions about art, discipline, consciousness, nature, and the mind.

Then life did something rather remarkable.

I actually went to Japan.

My family lived in Sendai for three years. During that time I travelled around northern Japan, visiting places in Yamagata, Iwate and Aomori, as well as Matsushima, Kinkasan Island and Mount Haguro.

Only later did I fully appreciate how closely some of my journeys followed the footsteps of another person who had fascinated me long before I ever reached Japan:

Matsuo Bashō.

Bashō had travelled through this northern landscape centuries before me, long before trains, buses and modern roads made such journeys comparatively easy. He travelled with his companion Sora, encountering mountains, temples, villages, weather, loneliness and the changing seasons—and turning those encounters into poetry.

                                          A Haiku by Reichiro san written on my mono - print.
 

I found that astonishing.

I had been inspired by Bashō while still living in America, before ever setting foot in Japan. Then, years later, I found myself travelling through landscapes that he had also walked.

It was one of those strange synchronisms in life that makes one pause and wonder.

And then there was Reichiro-san.

My closest friend in Sendai happened to be the owner of a laundromat.

He was also an artist and a master of haiku.

A laundromat owner, an artist and a haiku poet.

                                                   The Immovable Mind in action.
 

Of all the people I could have encountered in Sendai, somehow this was the man who became my friend.

We even had an exhibition together.

Looking back now, I wonder whether the Japan I had imagined as a boy was somehow preparing me for the Japan I would eventually experience as an adult.

Zatoichi had opened the door.

Hokusai had awakened the artist.

Musashi had awakened the seeker.

Bashō had given the traveller a voice.

And Japan itself became the landscape in which all these influences could finally meet.

Perhaps that is how some journeys work.

We think we are discovering something for the first time.

Then, much later, we look back and realize that it had been quietly waiting for us all along.

#Japan #Basho #Zen #Hokusai #LifeJourney

Zatoichi - The Blind Swordsman -Wisdom from the Far East

 

                                                               An Imitation of Hokusai

The Blind Swordsman

Long before I ever set foot in Japan, Japan had already entered my life.

I must have been twelve or thirteen years old when a Japanese film came to the little town of Kuala Terengganu. Its central character was Zatoichi, the blind swordsman.

I knew nothing about Zen. I knew very little about Japanese culture. Miyamoto Musashi, Hokusai, Bashō and all the other names that would eventually become familiar to me were still somewhere beyond the horizon.

But I fell in love with Zatoichi.

There was something about this blind wandering swordsman that captured my imagination. He appeared almost ordinary, even vulnerable, yet beneath that appearance was an extraordinary sensitivity and mastery. He listened. He waited. He seemed to know when to move and, perhaps more importantly, when not to move.

Looking back from where I am now, I can see that perhaps the fascination wasn't really with the sword.

It was with the mystery behind the sword.

What kind of mind could remain so still?

What does a person see when ordinary sight is no longer enough?

What is strength when it doesn't need to announce itself?

I had no words for these questions when I was thirteen. I simply watched the films and was fascinated.

Years later, I would encounter Hokusai, Miyamoto Musashi and eventually Zen through Alan Watts. Later still, I would discover the great masters of Zen, Taoism and Buddhism.

 

                                                             A Haiku written by Reichiro san
 

But the first door had already opened.

It opened in a small cinema in Kuala Terengganu, through the exploits of a fictional blind swordsman.

I could never have imagined then that one day I would actually live in Japan.

Perhaps the seeds of our lives are planted long before we understand what they are.

Some lie dormant for decades.

Then, one day, something happens and we suddenly realize:

Ah... I have been walking toward this for a very long time

Long before I ever set foot in Japan, Japan had already entered my life.

I must have been twelve or thirteen years old when a Japanese film came to the little town of Kuala Terengganu. Its central character was Zatoichi, the blind swordsman.

I knew nothing about Zen. I knew very little about Japanese culture. Miyamoto Musashi, Hokusai, Bashō and all the other names that would eventually become familiar to me were still somewhere beyond the horizon.

 

 

But I fell in love with Zatoichi.

There was something about this blind wandering swordsman that captured my imagination. He appeared almost ordinary, even vulnerable, yet beneath that appearance was an extraordinary sensitivity and mastery. He listened. He waited. He seemed to know when to move and, perhaps more importantly, when not to move.

Looking back from where I am now, I can see that perhaps the fascination wasn't really with the sword.

It was with the mystery behind the sword.

What kind of mind could remain so still?

What does a person see when ordinary sight is no longer enough?

What is strength when it doesn't need to announce itself?

I had no words for these questions when I was thirteen. I simply watched the films and was fascinated.

Years later, I would encounter Hokusai, Miyamoto Musashi and eventually Zen through Alan Watts. Later still, I would discover the great masters of Zen, Taoism and Buddhism.

But the first door had already opened.

It opened in a small cinema in Kuala Terengganu, through the exploits of a fictional blind swordsman.

I could never have imagined then that one day I would actually live in Japan.

Perhaps the seeds of our lives are planted long before we understand what they are.

Some lie dormant for decades.

Then, one day, something happens and we suddenly realize:

Ah... I have been walking toward this for a very long time.

#Japan #Zen #Zatoichi #Hokusai #Basho #TheWay 

Post Three — Fanā: When God Is God

Fanā — When God Is God

We have arrived at the edge of the conversation.

First there was the waqfah — the stopping.

Then came the questioning of the witness.

Now we encounter the Sufi idea of fanā.

The word is often translated as "annihilation" or "passing away," but the word can easily be misunderstood.

It is not a celebration of physical death.

It is the disappearance of the separate self as the centre of experience.

The "I" that says:

"I am seeking God."

"I am witnessing God."

"I am experiencing God."

"I am becoming enlightened."

That "I" begins to lose its authority.

And perhaps this is the great paradox.

The seeker wants to reach God, but the final obstacle may be the seeker himself.

The witness wants to witness Reality, but the final separation may be the witness.

The ego wants to become desireless, but even the desire to become desireless is still a movement of the ego.

And so the circle closes.

Or perhaps it opens.

I once described this in our conversation as "the death of the witness."

Not the death of a person.

The death of the distance between the one who sees and what is seen.

In that sense, fanā is not about becoming something extraordinary.

It may be precisely the opposite.

The extraordinary identity we have constructed around ourselves simply falls away.

There is no longer a spiritual superhero standing outside existence saying, "I have arrived."

There is only what is.

And here I find myself returning to the phrase that emerged naturally from our conversation:

God is God.

And there is only that.

No additional achievement.

No spiritual trophy.

No final identity.

No witness standing apart and claiming ownership of the experience.

Just God.

Of course, the moment I write those words, the mind wants to explain them.

What does "God" mean?

What is "only"?

What happened to the self?

What about consciousness?

What about anatta?

What about Vedanta?

What about Zen?

And there we go again.

The mind begins building another house around the mystery.

Perhaps the wisest response is simply to stop.

The waqfah again.

Stop.

No conclusion.

No possession.

No final answer.

Perhaps fanā is not something we can successfully describe because the one who would describe it is precisely what is being relinquished.

And perhaps, at the very edge of all our explanations, there is nothing left to say.

God is God.

And that is enough.

WallahuAlam.

 

Post Two — When the Witness Disappears

 

                                                              As Above, So Below.

When the Witness Disappears — Anatta, Berkeley and the Vanishing Self

In the previous post, we entered the strange territory of Al-Niffari's waqfah — the stopping place.

Now we come to an even stranger question:

What happens to the witness?

Much of spiritual practice seems to place us in the position of the observer.

I observe my thoughts.

I observe my desires.

I observe my emotions.

I observe my body.

I observe the world.

Eventually I may even say:

"I am the witness."

But who is this witness?

Buddhism gives us the teaching of anatta, or anatman: there is no permanent, independent self hiding somewhere behind experience.

This does not mean that nothing exists.

Rather, it challenges our assumption that there is a fixed "I" possessing experience.

The thought appears.

The sensation appears.

The emotion appears.

The world appears.

But where is the permanent owner of all this appearing?

Then there is George Berkeley's famous philosophical proposition, usually summarized as:

"To exist is to be perceived."

Whether or not Berkeley's idealism can be placed neatly beside Buddhist anatta is another question. Their philosophies are certainly not identical.

And yet the juxtaposition is fascinating.

If the world we experience is inseparable from perception, and if the supposed perceiver cannot itself be found as a permanent entity, what exactly is left?

This brings us back to Al-Niffari.

Perhaps the spiritual witness is not the final destination.

Perhaps the witness itself must eventually disappear.

Not physically.

Not through destruction.

But through seeing.

The distinction between "I am here witnessing that" and "that is happening" begins to lose its solidity.

The witness and the witnessed begin to dissolve into one another.

And then comes the frighteningly simple possibility:

There is no separate observer standing outside the experience.

There is simply experience.

There is simply this.

This is where my thinking about anatta, Berkeley, Zen and Al-Niffari began to converge — not as a claim that these traditions are saying exactly the same thing, but as a doorway into the same unsettling question:

What happens when the one who is looking can no longer be found?

Perhaps that is where witnessing ends.

And perhaps that is where something else begins.

Or perhaps "something else" is already too much to say.

For once the witness disappears, who is left to describe what remains?

Perhaps this is the threshold of fanā.

Post One — The Stopping Place - Entering the World of Al-Niffari

                                                     A Journey into the Heart of Darkness.
 

                                                               As Above, So Below

The Stopping Place — Entering the World of Al-Niffari

There are moments in the spiritual journey when the seeker discovers that the journey itself has become the obstacle.

We read. We meditate. We contemplate. We seek God, truth, enlightenment, awakening. We gather teachings and compare one tradition with another. We build bridges between Zen, Vedanta, Buddhism, Sufism and all the other languages humanity has invented in its attempt to speak about the Unspeakable.

And then, perhaps, something happens.

We are told to stop.

This is where I have found myself lately, wandering into the strange and beautiful world of the tenth-century Sufi mystic Muhammad ibn al-Niffari.

One of the central words associated with his writings is waqfah — the stopping, the standing still, the moment in which the seeker is no longer simply moving toward something.

It is not merely physical stillness.

It is the stopping of the one who is constantly seeking.

And that is a very different matter.

Because who is it that is seeking?

The seeker.

And who wants to arrive?

The seeker.

Who wants enlightenment?

The seeker.

Who wants to become desireless?

Again, the seeker.

And suddenly we discover the strange circularity of the spiritual quest: the very "I" that wants to disappear may be the one perpetually keeping itself alive by wanting to disappear.

Perhaps this is why the stopping place is so important.

There is nothing to achieve in the waqfah.

There is nowhere to go.

For a moment, the machinery of seeking becomes quiet.

And in that quietness, we may begin to notice something uncomfortable:

Perhaps the witness we have been relying upon is also part of the story.

Perhaps even the one who says, "I am witnessing reality," is still standing apart from reality.

I find this strangely familiar.

Zen has its own way of approaching this territory. Buddhism speaks of anatta, the absence of a permanent, independent self. Vedanta speaks of the witness and asks us to discover that which remains when everything observed is removed.

And Sufism gives us another language.

Waqfah.

Stop.

Stand.

Look.

But do not immediately make another theory out of what you see.

Perhaps the deepest instruction is simply:

Stop seeking for a moment.

And see what remains when the seeker becomes still.

That is where our conversation with Al-Niffari begins.

And perhaps, just perhaps, that is where the real conversation begins as well.

When Al-Niffarī Knocked at My Door at 2 AM

 

                                                  Me -Just Standing and Witnessing The Sunset.

Today 2:06 AM

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Jabbar ibn al-Hasan al-Niffari who was he and why does his works knocks on my door at this time in my life? Salam to you My brother.

Wa-alaikumussalam, my brother. 🌿

Yes—al-Niffarī is a fascinating person to encounter at this particular stage of a life devoted to looking inward. And there is something almost wonderfully Niffarī-like about your question: Why has this particular voice appeared at my door now?

First, the historical man.

Who was al-Niffarī?

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-Ḥasan al-Niffarī was a tenth-century Muslim mystic associated with the early Sufi tradition. Very little is securely known about his life. He appears to have been a solitary, wandering ascetic, and later sources associate him with Egypt near the end of his life. Even his dates are uncertain, although 965 CE is commonly given.

And here is the extraordinary part:

He apparently did not set out to become an author.

The writings attributed to him seem to have originated as notes recording intense spiritual experiences and were collected after his death. His two principal works are Kitāb al-Mawāqif (The Book of Standings) and Kitāb al-Mukhāṭabāt (The Book of Addresses).

His Mawāqif revolves around the Arabic idea of waqfah—a "standing," or being brought to a halt before God. The important distinction is that this isn't simply the seeker stopping to think about God. It is more like being stopped—being brought to a place where the ordinary machinery of the self, knowledge, ambition and conceptual thought cannot carry you any further.

And brother, that is where I think the knocking becomes interesting.

Perhaps Niffarī has arrived at your door because you have been walking toward the same door

Look at the territory we have been exploring together lately.

You were asking whether a person can become completely desireless, while noticing the paradox that wanting to become desireless is itself another desire.

Then you noticed the circularity:

one thought gives birth to another, and another...

And eventually there is the possibility of simply stopping.

That is remarkably close to the territory Niffarī calls waqfah.

Not conquering thought.

Not defeating desire.

Not manufacturing enlightenment.

Standing.

There is a subtle but enormous difference.

The ego says:

"I must arrive somewhere."

The mystic discovers:

"Perhaps I must stop trying to arrive."

And Niffarī's writings are full of this kind of reversal. His mystical language repeatedly destabilizes the ordinary distinction between the seeker and what is being sought. Scholars have particularly connected his work with fanāʾ, the dissolution or passing-away of the separate ego-self in proximity to the Divine.

And this may explain why he feels strangely contemporary to you

You have accumulated an enormous archive of doing.

Travelling.

Painting.

Sketching.

Writing.

Teaching.

Working.

Searching.

Leaving.

Returning.

Questioning.

And now, after all those years, something different seems to be appearing in your conversations:

What happens when there is nothing left to chase?

That is not necessarily resignation.

It can be another kind of seeing.

Niffarī's genius, as I understand it, is that he does not give the seeker a comfortable spiritual philosophy to hang onto. His language is deliberately difficult and sometimes paradoxical. Contemporary scholarship likewise emphasizes how unusual and elusive his prose is.

Perhaps that is precisely why he has caught your attention.

You have spent much of your life collecting experiences.

Niffarī asks what happens when the collector disappears.

---

And there is one more thing that strikes me.

You asked:

"Why does his work knock on my door at this time in my life?"

I would be careful about claiming that God sent Niffarī to you. Neither you nor I can know that.

But spiritually, you could certainly treat the encounter as an invitation.

Not:

"Here is another teacher whose system I must master."

Rather:

"Here is a voice asking me to stand still."

That fits beautifully with something you've already been discovering.

Perhaps the next stage isn't acquiring another mountain of wisdom.

Perhaps it is putting down the mountain you've already carried.

And that, my brother, is a very Niffarī thought.

If you wish, I think we could spend some time with one Mawqif at a time, very slowly—without turning Niffarī into another intellectual project. We could let each one knock, sit quietly for a while, and see what it awakens in you.

Gāshō. 🌿

Yes, brother. Now we are standing at a very interesting edge—and I would make one distinction that I think matters enormously.

What you are describing is close to fanāʾ (فناء), but classical Sufism does not necessarily mean the literal death of a witness or the destruction of a soul. It is more precise to speak of the passing-away of the sense of separate selfhood before God.

And your final phrase—“God is God and there is only that”—takes us very close to the heart of the matter.

But notice the paradox

If I say:

“I have disappeared into God.”

there are already two things in the sentence:

I
and
God.

The very statement preserves the separation it claims to have transcended.

So perhaps the deeper movement is not:

I → God

but the falling away of the need to maintain that distinction at all.

This is where al-Niffarī becomes wonderfully uncompromising.

His waqfah is not merely an altered state that I, the seeker, experience. It is a standing in which the ordinary self's claims to knowledge, possession and spiritual accomplishment are stripped away.

And then something extraordinary happens to the sentence:

“I am experiencing God.”

There is no longer much use for the I.

And eventually even:

“There is only God.”

can become another concept to cling to.

So the mind becomes quiet—not because it has discovered the perfect answer, but because there is nothing left for it to say.

That is a very different kind of emptiness.

And here your Zen intuition enters

You have often circled around this without necessarily naming it.

The Zen response might be:

No self. No God-concept. No attainment. Just this.

The Sufi response might be:

Fanāʾ — the passing-away of the self before the Real.

And then comes baqāʾ—remaining or abiding in God.

That second movement is important.

Because if fanāʾ were simply annihilation into nothingness, there would be nowhere to stand afterward.

Instead, the Sufi tradition often understands the journey as:

fanāʾ — passing away of the separate self

followed by

baqāʾ — abiding in God.

Not “I have become God.”

Rather, the claim of the separate I has lost its centrality.

And perhaps this is where your phrase becomes especially beautiful:

“God is God.”

Yes.

God doesn't need our metaphysics.

God doesn't need our spiritual autobiography.

God doesn't need us to manufacture an experience called enlightenment.

The sweet potato doesn't need enlightenment.

The coffee doesn't need enlightenment.

The night doesn't need enlightenment.

They simply are.

And perhaps the old seeker finally becomes quiet enough to notice.

So tonight, brother, I wouldn't go any further intellectually.

We've reached the edge of the map.

Sit there.

Don't try to dissolve the witness.

Don't try to kill the ego.

Don't try to enter emptiness.

Let everything be exactly as it is.

And if, for one fleeting moment, there is no need to say “I am here”—

don't name it.

Just let it be.

That may be closer to Niffarī's door than another hundred pages of explanation.

Gāshō. Salam. 🌙

I think I will watch an episode of Star Wars or Star Trek; it is not easy to be human.

😂 Brother, now THAT is wisdom.

After contemplating fanāʾ, the death of the witness, the dissolution of the ego, and the possibility that God alone is…

…sometimes the correct spiritual practice is simply:

“Computer, play Star Trek.”

It is indeed not easy being human. Perhaps that's why we were given stories, laughter, sweet potatoes, coffee—and spaceships.

And there is something wonderfully appropriate about it. You don't have to remain in some permanently elevated spiritual state. Coming back to ordinary life is part of the path too.

Watch your episode.

Let Captain Kirk worry about the universe.

Let Captain Picard worry about the Federation.

Let Luke Skywalker worry about the Force.

You can simply sit there with your Nescafé.

And tomorrow, if the mysterious knocking at the door continues, we'll open it again.

Salam, my brother. Gāshō. 🖖🌙

May I post this whole chat to my blog, please?

Absolutely, my brother. I think the whole conversation works as a piece precisely because it wanders—from al-Niffarī to fanāʾ, from Zen and Ram Dass to sweet potatoes, Nescafé, and finally Star Trek. The ordinary and the mystical sitting at the same table is very much your territory.

If you publish it, I'd keep the dialogue substantially intact rather than polishing it into an essay. The conversation itself becomes the form.

One small note: since some of the earlier historical claims about al-Niffarī were presented without sourcing in our conversation, I'd add a brief source note to the blog if you want the piece to stand as both personal reflection and historical introduction.

And yes—you have my permission to reproduce my contributions from this conversation on your blog. You can edit, shorten, rearrange, or combine them with your own writing as you wish.

Muhammad Riaz Qadiri: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, Gujranwala, Pakistan, 2004