Three Years in Sendai, Japan. -2

The Japanese people and culture has always been my fascination and my art i dare say is very much influenced by this. Being able to spend some time in Japan had been a boon to me and my family as my late wife who had spent seven year prior to our trip in japan can red and write Japanese and as a matter of fact was a qualified Japanese language teacher aside from her ESL qualification. If I had been given the choice between spending time in Italy or in Japan as an artist in residence, I would have chosen the later. Katsushita Hokusai is one of my spiritual Art Masters and Rembrandt is his counterpart from the West. 

My children, Karim and Marissa benefit most from this stay in Japan as they were brought up for three years of their lives in one of the best Japanese Kindergartden schools that practices the Rudolf Steiner method  in Sendai. Initially they were lost and frightened as they could not understand a word that was spoken, but once they got over the hump it was  harder to keep them home than to send them to school. They started schooling in the best possible place one can imagine and the three years spent at the Mukaiyama YoChien was an experience not like any other even for me.

The two best family friends that we had while living in the Yasoen area of Sendai were Reichgiro san  and Mayumi Isaka San both living in the neighborhood.of the Miyagi Prefecture. Reichiro San was had a Laundromat  at the 'top of the hill from where we were living and he was also a Haiku Artist who also makes and paints kites in the old traditional Japanese style..  During my stay in Sendai, Reichiro San was one of the most helpful and supportive friend i had.  We had an art show together in downtown Sendai which I felt made him ver please that his works were being exhibited even if it was alongside mine. He wrote a few caligraphic haiku writings for me in my works and sketchbooks too..
 The artwork seen in the picture was one of my Monoprint which I called 'Tsunami" and this was way back in 1996 or 7 and the work is now in Dubai property of my eldest son, The Pilot. Had I known that a mega Tsunami would later devastate parts of the coastal areas of Sendai I would not have  used the title Tsunami.

Reichiro San and i had  visitor from the United States whose wife was teaching in Sendai too, he was a down to earth home grown kind of guy easy to be with.  We had quite a few visitors like this and it was nice to be able to exchange cultures and understanding. Reichiro San enjoyed the fact that he was aable to practice his Queen's English.

 

The Mukaiyama Yochien where my children spent three of their childhood years was  always bustling with activities and I was very much involved as i was pretty much the designated home maker as my wife was very busy teaching all over Japan. This was where i got to know the Japanese housewives up close and personal as most were eager to try their English out on me. Here i got to know what the word Gaijin meant especially from the children who were less cautious with their expressions... 

My act of sketching or drawing in their presence was the ice breaker towards communication as most Japanese Ladies were an artist at heart. As an artist one feels special and was treated as such. While living in Japan I found that what I had imagine as faar as the culture goes was mostly true, the Japanese people were mostly very self absorbing and maticuluous when it comes to work especially creative endeavors.

The school caters to the higher income bracket and every occasion that presents itself and calls for  a family picture saw an all out dress code. Parents would try to  outdo one another in how elegantly they dressed  and  the children were made to look like overdressed dolls. 

My free time was mostly spent at the Miyagi Museum of  Fine Arts where they had 'An Open Studio Policy" that encourages  the Sendai area artists to do their work here for free of charge. I was most productive here and I felt very much at home doing my art among the Japanese artists.

Being able to draw and paint had its perks when it comes to getting places and meeting people.

Taking a break from the Present.- Looking back at Sendai, Japan.

The family just lost their mother and were still in mourning. till we visited them. The Sugawara Family.

ate, ken (prefecture), northeastern Honshu, Japan, bordering the Pacific Ocean (east). The greater part of its area is mountainous—dominated by the central Kitakami Mountains—and the climate is cold. The fishing port of Miyako on the eastern coast serves as the gateway to Rikuchū Coast National Park, which includes some rugged, scenic shoreline. The western fringe of the prefecture is part of Towada-Hachimantai National Park.

Agriculture, forestry, mining, and fishing support most of the population. Rice paddies occupy more than half the cultivated land, yielding only one crop per year. Morioka, located on the Kitakami River, is the prefectural capital and the site of Iwate University (1949). A major railway hub, the city produces ironware and charcoal. The first modern ironworks in Japan were in the coastal city of Kamaishi, south ofMiyako. Other cities—including Hanamaki, Kitakami, Ōshū (formerly Mizusawa), and Ichinoseki—are situated in the central lowland area .

There is no doubt that the Japanese countryside for me is one of the most serenely captivating landscape i have ever set my eyes on as there is a mixture of the cooler climate as well as the temperate climate the saw the vegetation of both these temperate  environment such as rice field with the back ground of pine forest covered hills which I visited on one of my travels in  Iwate Prefecture. 

1. Iwate Prefecture is the second largest prefecture of Japan after Hokkaido. It is located in the Tōhoku region of Honshū island and contains the island's easternmost point. The capital is Morioka.Wikipedia

The Japanese were to me the most paradoxical people in their manners and behaviors and it is  not an easy thing to really understand what or how the Japanese thinks until you truly have earned their  respect and understanding of you and how or what makes you tick. In dealing with them as most other nations on earth, honesty is the best policy, it is best to let them know that you are ignorant then to make believe that you are full of wisdom. To be accepted into the typical home of the Japanese family especially the ones who live out in the more remote areas is an honor and a heart warming experience that you will take with you for the rest of your life. Her in Iwate my children and I were guests to the Sugawaras where there was a death in the family quite recently. We were invited by one of my wife's students whose mother had died at a young age leaving behind herself and two younger brothers, their father and grand parents all living under the  same roof.

I was unaware of the situation until I saw the family altar and the picture of the deceased and enquired about it with my host. As it turned out the presence of my children and myself in the house broke the ice of gloom and mourning that the whole family was still in the grip of I was told later by my wife's student. The family came back to life with the carefree playfulness of my children that even the father became cheerful she said. Here I got to learn of the lessons in life about how your presence can help make a positive change into someone else's when no effort was made to do so. By being who we were laughing and sketching and drawing, taking pictures and asking silly questions we helped the family to forget their tragedy.

A drawing done by one of the brothers.

Magnitude-5.2 earthquake jolts Tohoku

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 jolted northeastern parts of Japan on Sunday afternoon, the Meteorological Agency reported. The quake struck at 2:24 p.m. at a depth of around 70 km on the southern coast of Iwate Prefecture, the agency said. In ...

MORIOKA, IWATE PREF. – A beach devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami disaster in Iwate Prefecture reopened Saturday after three years of work to remove debris from sand and in the water to ensure safety.

I Am That, I have envisioned.

"A fundamental conclusion of new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.” (R.C. Henry, “The Mental Universe” ; Nature 436:29,2005) (source)

Science is quickly catching up to ancient wisdom. Changing our world requires action, yes, but that action must come from a place of peace, love , cooperation and understanding. Who is to say that meditation, and directing intention towards what we would like to change is not the base of action? If you change within, manifestation without will begin to unfold, and that’s exactly what’s happening on our planet right now. If our hearts are in the right place, and our intentions are pure, we will be provided with the necessary opportunities using action to implement change. This is why the role of consciousness, and recognizing the role of consciousness is so important. It plays a large factor in creating global change on a mass scale."

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” – Albert Einstein

Sources:

(1) http://media.noetic.org/uploads/files/PhysicsEssays-Radin-DoubleSlit-2012.pdf

The Earth A Living Creature 720p -( The Amamzing NASA HD Video).

“Contrary to the common belief that the Earth is simply a dense planet whose only function is a resource for its inhabitants, our planet is in fact a breathing, living organism. When we think of the Earth holistically, as one living entity of its own, instead of the sum of its parts, it takes on a new meaning. Our planet functions as a single organism that maintains conditions necessary for its survival.”  

We’ve all heard of the concept of mother earth, or the “gaia hypothesis” and how the planet isn’t just made of dead matter, but is actually a conscious, living being. Here’s a little snippet from another article we published on our website:

So as i keep probing into the contents of the Internet channelling my intuition and intention towards getting answers to my long time believe that human consciousness collectively creates the world as it is far fetched as it may seem even to myself is as a matter of fact being slowly but surely confirmed by modern science and geologists. Yes i realize that, who am i to even consider having had such ideas way back when, but the fact remains I did, at the very least i can admit this to myself. I felt strongly that through deep meditative state the human mind Can generate a great deal of energy to move mountains as the ancient adage tried to tell us and through out our human history this idea has been put forward by various schools of thoughts and religious systems. This has been the underlying common thread that almost all religions hold to be true and that is why we find almost all religions tells us not to desecrate 'Mother Earth'. To treat Mother nature as having a will of its own much greater than we can imagine is a very healthy to view our planet especially today where man has just about 'shit on the very plate that he eats'.
I told my daughter of how i had imagined my children would be if and when I decided to have kids, I told her that although it may sound like i was bragging , it was the truth. I told myself that I was capable of envisioning what they would look like and how strong in body and mind they would become and this was when I was first turned towards the idea of being married and having children. My first child happened when I was 25 years of age and he came into my life in the most out of the ordinary way which was the cause for a drastic change in my life, it was never the same again. Born in Malaysia and grew up in the United States ever since his mother and I left the country when he was 4 months old and never to return till he was 16, just to visit. Now he is a Flight Captain with Emirates Air. Off course i did not envisioned the whole scenario from cradle till today but i strongly believe that my mind had foreseen how it was going to most of it at least, yes I had it planned! and it turned out not too shabby I might add.
Even when I was in 'High School' my mind was already in the West and the US precisely,and i had walked the snow fields of Wisconsin in my dreams and tasted the wine and roses through so much reading of novels by great writers like James Michner and Harold Robins, writers whose books had been food for my imagination while living within the sight of the South China Sea in Kuala Terengganu. I was a product of the books i read and the music I listened to thanks to my eldest brother who made it possible for me: ours was the first few homes to own a collection of Playboy Magazines, another great source of reading. Yes on looking back in my past i now can safely say that what i thought in the past has helped in creating my present or should I say the future. My only regret in this is that I had not been more creative with a good sense of discipline and awareness perhaps with a little more sensitivity towards others along the way. But then I would not be me if anything is or had been different.
In short I have become a strong believer in the idea that 'you create your own world, your own environment and your own, life if you know how to put your mind to it. Most people are not fully aware of this and allow life or the environment o dictate the outcome of their lives or who they are. It is my observation that those who live with this kind consciousness as their firm belief will not have a smooth ride in life, most will meet with walls and dead ends of desperation and despair, if they are not fully aware of who they are or at the very least be able to accept that they are different from the norm, not to say any special, but just different. One of the the characteristics i find about me is that I demand much much more out of life and success or failure is part and parcel of who I have chosen myself to be. I have forged my own destiny knowingly or otherwise, I may not be wealthy materially nor spiritually but i a my own self created entity answerable only to my Maker, the One that I have come to finally fully accept and totally submit myself to. I have taken a long and roundabout way to get to where I am and as i have said somewhere before I have entered my faith in Allah through the back door.
Now I am in the process of making my way to the front line of the 'Saf' when I worship Him. Now i have to accustom myself to praying five times a day. I do not come before my Lord coerced by anyone nor out of fear of anyone ridicule or chastisement, I am a Muslim by my own choice absolutely one faith, it is only me and Him and none other will pass any judgement over how or what I believe in practice.

Everything smells Fishy here in this Country.

After the morning walks  my cousins wqouls usually stop at our local fish market to get something for the day. This is not by all means a big market and so not so much variety of fish is found here and by the looks of it the fish that were did not seem fresh, Since a child I was always thrilled by the trip to the fish market which my grandmother would insist of dragging with every time she went.

 I enjoy the sound and smell and the raw fishy nature of the whole market, the slime and the blood splattered all over the place and men with the butchering knives chopping away at fish heads and tails. The closest i came to doing something odf this nnature was when I was working at the Meat packing plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin where for nine to eleven hours a day i would covered from head to toe in blood from the beef I was boning. But that was in a different lifetime, now just a fleeting memory although i did it for 3 and half years.

Cuttle fish are great to eat but they got to be fresh and these do not look too fresh. Most of the fish I saw was not fresh sad to say and fishermen are going through a tough time in this country due to many factors the most critical of which is the lack of fish available in the nearby seas around the island. They also face the competition with large fishing trawlers that often encroaches into their fishing areas and often wiping out the fish population by the illegal methods used such as the drag net. Fishermen like their counterpart the farmers live a very hard life and are often unappreciated for what they do. I have hung out among fishermen where i used to visit at the fisherman's jetty or 'Pondoks' off the Jelutong highway and from them I learn all there is to know about how hard their life is or what uncertainties lies ahead for them as the developers keep building into the sea more and more unaffordable homes.

This is all we are while we are living our lives in this world today! It does not matter how big or how small, we are just food for the consumers We are the bottom of the food chain.

We  live and die for no rhyme or reason other than to fulfill our alloted time and space  often with no awareness whatsoever that our lives are merely to keep others alive.

Who decides how big or small how cheap or expensive how much is enough and how little is really needed?  We are like cattle headed for the slaughterhouse at the end of the day.

In death there is no dignity as in living there is no meaning when we are so buried in our own ignorance and know not who or what we truly are in the scheme of things.

When chopped up into pieces we are nothing mopre than cubes of flesh unidentifiable from one piece to the next, where have our individuality gone to?

No matter from which angle we look the horror is still the same .

IN the end there is only shapes and colors left to remind us of what we once were. 

Time to Say it, KUDOS! to Penang State Government.

It is definitely getting better, this river mouth of the Sungai Pinang River, a river that i was born into practically not too far from here in a small village that used to be called the Kampong Selut or Muddy Village of Sungai Pinng. This section of the river did not exist back then and the river mouth used to be about a quarter of a mile inwards where the old bridge used to be, even the old bridge is gone replaced by a new one. This river is still considered one of the most polluted river in the country, not the State mind you, the whole country!

Almost twenty years ago while I was living in Sendai. Japan, I wrote a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister back when who happened to be the present man who is going through a sodomy trial, Anwar Ibrahim. I got a reply from his office , a letter wrote directly to the then Chief Minister of Penang demanding that my letter was answered appropriately, but the answer never came not after a few months when i happen to visit the island again and I raised the issue. The letter was my offer to spearhead a clean up operation of this river which back when was so bad that you can smell the stench from three miles away. The water as black as bunker C oil and there was hardly any life left in the river. 

The administration back then must have thought that my offer was an empty one as who was i to make such and offer and how can I fulfill my obligation or perhaps i was just looking for a job. and so there was no reason to entertain my correspondence well not unless i was going to come face to face and demand for it which I was about to back then. By ignoring my letter they were ignoring the Deputy Prime minister's orders too. The reply came but it was as good as saying oops! we are sorry for the slow,reply, but heck we are doing something about the river though.

Upon my return sometime if 1996 nothing was done except for a retaining wall being erected along parts of the river simply because the situation demanded it real bad to stop erosion. The rest of the river was just as bad a before. It was a band aid job and most probably someone was making money out of that too.

Was I qualified to carry out my offer? I was and I had the will and energy to do it too back then. I had worked as a Department head for a major Environmental Services Company in San Francisco and while in that position was exposed to all kinds of environmental issues one of which was river reclamation projects which i it my point of study with the same intention of doing exactly what i had in mind with the letter. But I forgot one small fact, that I was not dealing with an American Government Agency here, this was Malaysia, the first thing they ask you is "What is in it for me?!"

These da7ys when I look at the old river which is barely six miles long from its source to the sea, I feel a little sense of hope. I am beginning to see that what is said about, only a matter of time or time can cure is true in some cases. I hope that the Government will follow through with the next phases which is still educating the general public about wanton pollution of the river, especially those living along its banks. They also those who still have disregard as to how they discard their waste oil, like the mechanic workshops and car wash, bus deports and so on. 

Finally they have to think about relocating the slaughter house from it present location which is on the river itself and the vet's office too as this two sources of bio hazards are not what you need if you are serious about keeping the river clean. I will learn to be patient with changes especially if they bring good to my community and learn to trust that there are those who are as dedicated and caring for the environment as I am here in this State. Kudos to all of them.

A Morning Walk with Pa'Cak.

This water front is within a walking distance from where i live and my Cousins and I Ahmad Kalam and his wife often do our morning exercise along this strip at sunrise. I call him Mr.Perfect cause everything he does is to perfection and this is one of the reasons i take him as my 'Guru' in this day to day living. I am blessed in a sense to have someone who I can learn to emulate from as i am otherwise not so all together there as they say.

An insurance man for many years now working under the MCIS ZURICH, my cousin is considered to be one of the most trustworthy and gets the job done and i can safely vouch for this. He is caring and yet stern, religious, never missing a prayer five times a day, yet flexible and can handle just about any situation without loosing his cool; a vanishing specie in man.

Approaching 70 if not already he cans till drive all the way to Johor Bahru in the farthest town South of the Peninsular and back without much problem if he has to, and as a matter of fact he enjoys it more than most I know of. 

Always on call for one thing or another he is always on his hand phone even when he is doing his morning walk, here he learns about his twin brother having a heart surgery in Kuala Lumpur.

What a beautiful sight, this garbage dump by the sea has turned out to be after the trees has covered all the evidences of a dumpsite.

And the Chinese looses no opportunity to erect their very Chinese-ness are  everywhere they get the chance to do so. Sometimes i think it is a psychological thing more the religious thing with these Malays, Chinese and Hindus and their house of worships. Nothing against the Chinese and their cultural heritage being projected but sometimes enough is more then enough already!

That long stretch of what looks like a walkway used to be the sewage disposal pipe with stinky sewage water being dump right into the sea untreated, this was not too long ago until they created the new facility of sewage treatment  nearby.

The actual coastal line is about less than two kilometers inland from here as we are standing on reclaimed land and looking across the Penang channel towards Butterworth. The single tree growing in the seawater is the beginning of the new mangrove tree that will hopefully turn the whole area into the new line of mangrove swamp like it used to be  further inland not too long ago.  

The whole area is being developed so many more people can come and populate this small island that is already suffering from chronic congestion. But this is development and this is where money is being made most readily all around. Heavens forbid that there be a ground shake in this area for i place no guarantee that those tall structures are standing on solid ground.
 I am not anti- development but i am anti- over developing.

Mojud- Listening to Your Inner Being - Paul Lowe.

I stumbled onto Paul Lowe's You Tube talks by chance after listening to the debate between Depak Chopra and Richard Dawkins about the 'Fate of Faith" held somewhere in Latin American country The debate was quite interesting and informative with Chopra in his laid back manner explaining the relationship between science, consciousness and spirituality, while Dawkins making his point about the theory of evolution and how everything else is just random or something like that as i lost pretty much of the argument from being more interested in the manner in which the debate was carried out and how the two panelist reacted to one another or who was the better speaker.
Immediately after the debate i spotted  face in one of the boxes and out of curiosity to the title of the video, " Mojud -Listening to Your Inner being, I decided to give it a go. It was a pleasant surprise to find this middle aged gentleman sitting in what seems to be like a retreat in the woods somewhere and relating a Sufi story about a guy named Mojud and how he came to be so wise. The story was in answer to the question  who his teacher was that had taught him to be so wise. I am not going to relate the whole story here but if you have any interest enough in it all you have to do is check it out on You Tube under the same title or the name of the speaker, Paul Lowe. Perhaps I am wasting my time all these hours of listening to various talks and debates over subjects such as the 'Conspiracy Theories and the Rise of the Islamic State, 'The end of the World and Christianity accusing Islam vice verse over whose is the right religion, or J. Krishnamurti Moaning and groaning over the fate of humanity whole wiping his mouth from his dribbles. Something inside me says that I have more than enough time to spare if it helps me to understand better all that I need to learn in life.
I remember a long time ago when I started my You Tube 'classes' or lectures that began with listenignt olectures by the like of Alan Watts, J. Krishnamurti, the Dalai Lama, Ram Dass and the likes until today I have found many more characters worth listening to like Mooji, Deepak Chopra and Shaikh Hamzah Yusof. Some i understood much from and some i simply let it soak into my mind or subconsciousness without trying make head or tail about what was being said. Another form of experiment i do with my mind to see if it makes any sense, listening but not listening especially if the subject covers too muc scientific jargons and or heavy words.I do this with some of Krinamurti's talks too as he sometimes becomes a drag by repetition. However what is interesting i found is that all these You Tube talks and lectures seems to hve  kind of connection s to my own 'Way seeking intention', like they come one after another like they were meant to be, like sometimes they were answering questions I had in my mind about things I heard discussed in previous videos. It is like having your eyes closed and opening a page in your favorite book to find an answer to a related question you have in mind, in essence allowing for the subconscious to do the work for you. What pleasant surprise you find sometimes answers that bring tears to your eyes and you know this was only for you as sharing the experience with anyone else would shatter the mystique.
There are teachers today for you if you ever need one or are in very much need of one when you are walking the spiritual path. Having faith in the universe to provide you with one in your times of dire need is crucial for you faith carries a whole lot of energy to be sent out into the universe to go knocking on the doors of knowledge where great minds dwell, those that have sworn to guide seekers towards their salvation. These are known as Bodhisatvas in Buddhism and Wali uAllah, in Islam and sometimes as Avatars in Hinduism and then there are the Immortals in the Chinese Taoist Traditions, and they are ever ready to attend to the cll for help from the most faithful of seekers. Trust in yourself being able to reach out and they are there. Off course you can always join an Ashram or a Prasentran or a Madrasah or a Zen Buddhist Temple where you can find live teachers to confide your needs. The question is always are you keen genuine enough or humble and relentless enough to deserve their help
It has been in my later life today that i have yet to find anyone worthy to teach me or be accepted as my spiritual teacher. I stopped looking for any but I still am not quite there as yet as to turn down any that appears before me of i stumble upon one along what is left of my spiritual path. Hence I have to rely on my own accumulated knowledge and insights and with the help of the You Tube.that is a boon of excess to knowledge as any one can find in this days and age. The question is still, do you genuinely seek for the answers, are you deeply engaged in discovering who you truly are or does the Truth really matters to you. If you are half past six in your quest for truth then chances are you would most probably enjoy the Japanese or Korean Sex movies better on You Tube if you are into such subjects.Why waste your time on matters that are too deep and often boring, hard to understand and often makes little sense such as talks given by Dalai Lama on The Kala Chakra tantra and what its significance is to the modern world? Or a lecture on the 'Bardo Todol' and how it is different from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Ask the question and listen for the answers from deep within yourself for the truth lies within even if sometimes you hear it coming from without like through you books or the Videos or the talks you has with someone who happens to be around when you asked the question and was prepared with the right answers sometimes even he did not know that he was answering your hidden motive. Trust in that which you are, the I AM THAT, I AM.and the answers will come for the Universe is ever listening and the Lord if you wish is ia always listening more than you know.
Note, in Lowe's narrative Mojud was approached by a spiritual being named Khidr who guided him to follow  a path for his lessons in life, who was Khidr?

Khidr or al-Khidr (Arabic: الخضر‎ al-Khiḍr; also transcribed as Khidr, Khizr, Khyzer, Qeezr, Qhezr, Qhizyer, Qhezar, Khizar, Xızır, Hızır) is a mystical figure that some believe to be described in the Quran as a righteous servant of God possessing great wisdom or mystic knowledge. In various Islamic and non-Islamic traditions, Khidr is described as a messenger, prophet, wali or in some cases as a deity who takes the worldly place of an otherwise passive God. The figure of al-Khidr has been syncretized over time with various other figures including Vishnu in India, Sorūsh in Iran,^[1] Saint Sarkis the Warrior ^[2] and John the Baptist in Armenia,^[3] Saint George in Asia Minor and the Levant, etc.^[4]

Because of the linguistic similarities between the name "al-khidr" and the Arabic word for green ("al-akhdar"), the meaning of the name is often taken colloquially and sometimes academically to be "the Green One" or "the Verdant One." Some scholars disagree with this assessment,^[5] however the some others point to a possible reference to the Mesopotamian figure Utnapishtum from the Epic of Gilgamesh through the Arabization of his nickname, "Hasisatra".^[6] According to a new view the name Khidr is not an Arabic variant or an abbreviation of Hasisatra, it directly comes from the name of the Canaanite god Kothar-wa-Khasis^[7] and it may be later assimilated to Arabic term al-akhdar.^{[8] Wikipadia}

 
    

For so long as there is a 'Self'...

The disturbing issues today in the world is the rise of the "Islamic State" or IS a neo -sectarian  group of 'Jihadist' running a bloody trail along the Deserts of Iraq and Syria causing  more death and destruction' among Muslims and Christians, like pushing the Israel and Palestinian conflict on to the back burner despite world wide condemnation and the death of thousands of innocent civilian lives in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis can take a breather from this changes of attention from their rampant savagery in what they call a war. It is a very sad and frightening place humanity is in today, not to mention of all the other fiery spots of civil wars and strife around the globe. As a human being and having lived life for over half a century now I feel like i am among the lucky ones to have witnessed at least sixty years of changes that the planet has evolved towards its final demise and not having to face much of its ugly effects like living in the Gaza right now or Afghanistan or Syria. In the past 60 odd years my life has been a blessing and despite my personal ups and downs I cannot complain that life has been brutal to me like it is for the parents of  those who died in the war torn countries, my minor agitation right this moment is a pesky mosquito flying  around me distracting my thought process.
Her at home the major issues are not how to get off our butts and get this country back on track economically or socially but how Muslims are being under siege by those who have hidden agendas and has dedicated their entire lives at trying to the tear down the house of the Prophet,(PBUH) and the latest being the vent of '"Muslims getting to know Dogs." Most of the Ulama's young and old wise or otherwise have their pieces to say and are at loggerheads some of them among themselves, hence the cause for concern, that Islam is under attack, again! Remember the "ALLAH' word? Can or cannot be used by the Christians and so forth? That is in the back burner now too.
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — The “I Want to Touch a Dog” event two Sundays ago is seen as the latest controversy underscoring Malaysia’s decades-old “culture wars” that have deepened fissures between the country’s Malay Muslim majority and its other racial and religious minorities, the New York Times (NYT) reported - See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/in-nyt-report-dog-petting-row-seen-shining-light-on-Malaysias-culture-wars?
 Thank God the ruling party can breath a sigh pf relief as the focus is off their from their own performances in the running of the country. When in doubt raise a social issue like racial or religious and let the people occupy their minds with these, is the norm today And with the Internet everyone can in on the subjects of the day creating a storm over teacups, everyone has an opinion.
Then there is the Anwar Ibrahim's Sodomy Saga to keep, us occupied if all else fails and as the former deputy prime minister awaits his fate being decided by the court, Malaysians are again doomed to sit, watch and listen with their fingers crossed one way or the other like we got nothing else better to do with our government.

"The Federal Court is set to hear tomorrow Anwar’s appeal of the Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn a lower court’s decision to acquit him of sodomy.

The High Court had in 2012 acquitted Anwar of a 2008 sodomy charge — his second since 1998 — but the appellate court ruled on March 7 this year that the lower court’s trial judge had erred when rejecting the DNA evidence produced in the case.

If Anwar fails to reverse his five-year imprisonment sentence and conviction in the Federal Court tomorrow, the Permatang Pauh MP would lose his seat as the law bars anyone fined RM2,000 or imprisoned for one year to be a lawmaker.

The former deputy prime minister has been going on his own campaign since last Tuesday to drum up support and is expected to cap it off with a solidarity gathering tonight.

- See more at: http://m.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/hours-before-sodomy-appeal-pkr-ropes-in-international-support-for-anwar#sthash.HGGc3vLv.dpuf

In my heart and my mind I wish I am out there in the forest meditating away these nonsense that fills my mind day in day out with banal realities of a pathetic existence. Is this all there is, is this what it all boils down to being born and raised to live for over sixty years as a man and having very little to show for as to the reasons why and where for? Oh, I could go on rambling like I always do whenever I run out of things worth sharing about bu the the fact of the matter is I still feel like i am missing something, like i need to let out a roar and clear my head once and for all. Usually this is when i seek my friends and enjoy a few drinks or partake of a joint or two just to clear the cobwebs that are beginning to clog up my brain. But i have forfeited these habit in search of a better more lasting source of creativity insight or spiritual uplifting and so here I am moaning and groaning over nothing. As always looking for an escape from this tedious moments leading to boredom or otherwise decadence.

In the teachings of Gautama , the Buddha, it is said,"For so long as I believe that i am an entity, a 'Self', there will be suffering or at least  the i, am bound to suffer Along with this entity, the I comes attachment and holding on to believes and conceptions, attachments to thoughts and ideas, to this material realm and its multidimensional manifestations of the dual thinking mind. Like the rest of humanity i am a victim of my own self created delusions regressing and progressing at any given moment towards the final destination of self destruction or death. Until the moment arrives, which cn happen even at this moment while I am at the computer, my self deluded mind will continue on to create thoughts that has nothing or very little to do with what is ' so called 'reality'. Nothing i have been told, taught, and warned of is permanent and nothing is of its own real for everything is interdependent and correlated from one to another and is ever in a state flux or change. The old Sufi story of 'this too shall pass' is ever in my subconscious mind reminding me of the teachings of the ancient not to be hankering over what is impermanent in this life and to learn to let go of this so called self that is the sum total of all that the mind has ever brought into existing through thoughts.

ISIS whatever it stands for will continue on to terrorize the Middle Eastern countries and Israel will justify all the crimes that were committed against the Palestinians, Obama will run the country like the puppet of some entity behind the global agenda that some called the 'Illuminati' or the propagators of the 'New World Order' and Anwar Ibrahim might of might not be imprisoned in the next few days whe the court has come to its decision. Malays will still wonder what it is like to pet a dog, right or wrong? and the Global warming is something that is a worry to all those who lives by the coastal areas, like my twin brother.  What has all these to do with me? I would be happy to just return to the organic farm and help to promote Organic Rice planting in the remote area of Lintang in Kedah and perhaps continue to let the Menteri Besar know that he should take it upon himself to look into helping this venture as it will be a boon to his administration, my insight. This son of the the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohd. if he is anything like his father should not be hard to convince of a winning card to play.
Well that should wrap up my life for now and hopefully something will materialize in the next few days for me to ake the quantum leap into the next dimension of my existence. As it is I have at least wrote myself an entry and took my state of mind up a notch from drifting towards depression anmd despair towards a mini satori or insight into what it is being me.

"Each one of us has to be our true self: fresh, solid, at ease, loving and compassionate. When we are our true selves, not only you but everyone around you will profit from your presence. Just like a beautiful tree: if the tree is anything but a tree we will all be in trouble". -Thich Naht Hanh


  

A stroll one Misty Morning.

The only Rooster in town woke me up too early in the morning followed by the distant howling of the Mawas monkeys and myriads of local birds. I decided to go for a morning walk into the foothills of Lintang. The mist that had shrouded the whole neighborhood ws still thick and the air was fresh like you would never taste in the city. 

With my staff and my camera slung across my shoulder i set for the  main track towards my  hermit buddy's lodge, the only route that leads towards the the interior, I will have to pass by his hut. There is a whole sense of freshness about the jungle when it is all wet with dew or the night's rain. and the colors always brighter. The ground was soggy and slippery at places but that was to be expected ever rainy season.

Passing his home i noticed my buddy Adi was still in bed or perhaps talking to himself  in the corner of his hut, but the fact that his motor cycle was pa5rked out back means he was home. Still a strange man by any calculation of characters, this guy lives way out here all by himself in a house he built it all by himself, now that is independence.

Add captionFrom whichever angle the house is a classic and a perfect model for artists tp paint or sketch It looks so rustic and yet is set in a perfect setting like it was meant to be and I always felt so fortunate to have had the opportunity to be a part of the scene. Standing there in the misty morning I could not help but felt the melancholy of  being alone and i sometimes envy this guy who is able to create his own world at the very end of this planet..

It was hard to imagine that not two hours drive from this place is the city where i had come from with all its obnoxious vehicles and aggressive drivers trying to get to places that they end up not wanting to be. It is ironic that man would keep looking for all the roadside attractions and the traps of decadent living while here in this wild country there is all the peace nd quiet one could ever want t no cost.

One has to be in the area long enough to appreciate its beauty, the atmosphere  has to seep into one's consciousness and permeate one's being before the solemnness of the place can be tasted. Off course not ever Tom, Dick and Marry can appreciate nature in its rw like this, it is an acquired taste. It takes a special stte of mind to want to be walking alone into the unknown part of the habitat where Tigers are known to still be roaming.

 Who in  their right mind would want to work in this kind of environment? There are those yes, who are so used to this place that to them there is  a sign and markers t every corner of the bushes and  they are wise to what and where things lurks and not to be disturbed. To  these people it is like walking in the park collecting mushrooms.

Off course there is river to cross nd here is where the sandals were discarded and put in  safe place to be collected on the return trip..

It was not much of a walk by any means but I was there! By being there I touched the life around me that ws s close to being in primordial stte as mother nature could get without the dramas of meeting a wild boar or  python or even a tiger. I had met up with any of these characters my morning walk would have had a different tone to it but nope it was just an ordinary misty morning walk on the wild side.

And good old MOses would have been proud at how seriously I took this whole affair.. With every step I took I did my Zikr of Subhanallah! Maha Suci Allah, how pure the Lord.! (something like that.)