DAILY PHOTO: Monserrate
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PROMPT: Karma
Do you believe in karma?
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As a general principle about how acting selflessly and as a force for good tends to help one find one’s way, YES. As a clockwork cause-and-effect accounting of one’s life activities, NO. In fact, in the latter sense, I believe the idea has quite a dark side that is frequently overlooked.
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BOOK: “Senjutsu to Ninjutsu” by Doshi Shigetsu (Trans. by Eric Shahan)
Senjutsu to Ninjutsu by Doshi ShigetsuMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Author’s Amazon Site
This essay presents thoughts about the practices of what Taoists would call “Immortals.” (The work was apparently created as a speech or lecture.) The translation used in the book is “mountain ascetics,” which might lead readers to believe that it is talking about Shugenja or Yamabushi. I don’t know a great deal about the Japanese language or those systems, but the character used — 仙 (Xiān, in Chinese) — is almost always translated as Immortal in the Chinese language. Shugendo is a syncretic tradition of Esoteric Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, and folk religion, and it certainly has some overlap (mountain setting, Taoist influence, harsh training practices, etc.) but I don’t know that the two systems would be viewed as equivalent. (Though maybe they were considered so at the time and place of publication.) The author does try to clarify who it is he is talking about, largely by distinguishing them from Celestial Maidens (天人) and Tengu (天狗, crow-goblin-swordsmen.)
At any rate, the primary objective of the lecture / essay is to counter the tendency to be dismissive of these systems. The piece is dated 1901, and so there was an increasing proclivity to dismiss the supernormal as mere superstition. The author argues that practitioners who develop unwavering self-confidence through the practice of intense / death-defying activities (e.g. fasting) may be capable of things that would be unfathomable by ordinary people, leading ordinary lives.
The “ninjutsu” bit of the title results from the proposition of a linkage of the methods and approaches between Japan’s famous caste of warrior-spies, i.e. the ninja, and the ascetics / immortals discussed throughout most of the book.
This is an interesting read, particularly so because of its timing (after the era of Samurai and Ninja, but before modernity so advanced that the supernatural was entirely relegated to a societal fringe.)
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Head of the Table [Haiku]
yellow bird perches:
the chairback at table's head.
it's eyed like a boss.
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Slaughter-bot [Free Verse]
Clumsy Kung Fu robots
will become slaughter-bots
in our time.
What they lack in Zen spontaneity
and warrior ethos they will make
up for in speed, power, and
dense metal alloy.
Replaced limbs will make them more
-- not less -- capable fighters.
Will a battling robot ever wonder
How did we get here?
or
What is the point?
Or will it only wonder why it is
using its feet as impact weapons
when it has ray-guns?
(It is a little like building a typing pool
of robots... only way, way cooler.)
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DAILY PHOTO: Views of Medellin
PROMPT: Want to Read
How do you write what people actually want to read?
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Step 1: Accept the fact that the overwhelming majority of people don’t want to (or like to) read. The only items I put up in paragraphs (these days) are book reviews. People will read reviews to know what a book says without having to actually read it. The book review is considered the lesser of two evils by those who don’t love reading.
Step 2: Read anything that’s more than a few punchy lines for the “reader.” (i.e. use audio files or YouTube-style video segments.)
Alternatively: Don’t give a rat’s ass and write for yourself.
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Speed Kills [Kyōka]
speeding across
the river bridge by car,
i miss the scent --
sweet riverine perfume --
that I'd smell from the bank.
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Askew [Haiku]
a tree grows, askew;
canopy stretched one way -
wind can’t shake it.
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BOOK: “Health, Healing, and Beyond” by TKV Desikachar (Trans. by R.H. Cravens)
Health, Healing, And Beyond: Yoga and the Living Tradition of Krishnamacharya by R.H. CravensMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – FSG / North Point Press
I was eager to read this book because I found Desikachar’s “The Heart of Yoga” to be one of the most important books for yoga practitioners. The book under review is in large part (but not entirely) a biography of T.T. Krishnamacharya — T.K.V. Desikachar’s father and arguably the most important figure in the development of modern yoga. Krishnamacharya was sponsored by the King of Mysore to build a school at the palace, and luminaries such as B.K.S. Iyengar (prop yoga,) Pattabhi Jois (Ashtanga Vinyasa,) Indira Devi (the Russian-born Johnny Appleseed of Yoga,) and others came to be his students.
The book not entirely a biography. It might more accurately be described as an exploration of Krishnamacharya’s philosophy that use stories from his life to elucidate his lived philosophy. Readers will find that the building and maintaining of health is a major element of Krishnamacharya’s philosophy, but perhaps not so much that they find the title apt. The book also spends a fair amount of time on other topics such as yogic ethics and an approach to teaching.
I continue to respect Desikachar’s candor and lack of dogmatism. He discusses his father as a teacher and parent, warts and all. The lack of dogmatism seems to reflect the apple not falling far from the tree. Throughout, Desikachar emphasizes that his father, whatever his faults may have been, was tolerant and saw yoga as a no-strings-attached gift to the world. Krishnamacharya did not require his students, not even his son, to adopt any particular religious belief – despite being a believer himself.
I’d highly recommend this book for all yoga practitioners.
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