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"People try to work out the riddle of their own consciousness, and they have been doing so for millennia. In the 1960s, for many people in the world, this question became urgent. An entire generation—faced with war, and at the same instant a plethora of new ways to expand their consciousness—pursued it with everything they had. The fruits of this exploration were many, but what answers have we found to the original riddle? Having survived a brush with death as a young child, the writer, filmmaker, and philosopher Masanori Oe set out on a journey to understand this fundamental question. The answers he has found have guided his thousands of readers on a path of sustainability and to a deeper understanding of what it really means to be alive."
"“This is the same fire that burned with the blast from Hiroshima,” Masanori Oe says to me, pointing to a
small brass lantern on a table in front of us with a tiny flame burning inside.
“This very flame?” I ask, taken aback somewhat.
“Yes. It has been kept burning, passed on from person to person to help us each remember what happened that day, and how it must not happen again.” He explains that in August of 1945, a woman who lost her son in the bombing went to the city while it was still burning and, believing that the spirit of her son was inside that flame, captured a bit of fire and brought it to her home a hundred miles away. She kept it burning for more than twenty years, and then passed it on to a Buddhist priest, who decided to make it a symbol of peace, and took the flame on a walking pilgrimage across Japan, burning in a lantern, and passed it on to others, lighting new lanterns for those who would take the flame. “We have it here for some time before we pass it on,” Masanori says.
The presence of the flame as we speak is both sobering and intensely powerful. I soon learn that Masanori’s awareness of the presence of death has shaped the course of his entire life."
I ask him, “So do you think that this statue itself has power?”
“Yes,” he says, “but only because it is a conduit between the deity and the person looking at it.”
“Hmm. But for Americans they’ve never even heard of this god. Does it have power for them?”
“No,” he says, “and that’s how it is possible for people to destroy the sacred sites of the Native Americans: because they have no meaning for them.”
“But does this statue actually have power?”
“It is only in the relationship of the person to this statue that there is any meaning. The god is in the relationship. On New Year’s Day, as you know, Japanese people go to shrines to speak to the gods. When they feel this relatedness, the god ‘exists.’ But it’s not simply a stone statue; there’s a feeling between it and the person, and that is its reality.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“When I feel or sense that stone statue, I have an awareness of it, and in that conversation, that related
ness, the statue has a reality. We could say that the relationship is an existence in itself. That’s what I mean by the liberated mind not creating boundaries. If we deny the relatedness, and focus on solidity and material objects, as is common in Western philosophy, then we are more likely to create clashes or conflicts.”
He then offers another example. “Flowers are currently used in flower arrangements, in ikebana, or as gifts; but previous to that, they were offerings, a conduit for connecting the living to the souls or spirits of the dead. They were something to go in between. That is why flowers are offered at graves. It is in our relation to those flowers, that feeling, that we are able to relate to the spirits of the dead.”
We think that we’ve created a materialistic world, but actually we created this world through the game played by consciousness. Television is a product of consciousness, as is the Internet. The hardware for these is extremely materialistic, yet before these material things were created, first a world was built inside of human consciousness, and we continue to go after our desires within our own consciousness today.
As a result, we have created a culture extremely rich in materials, yet at the same time we are losing our physical, bodily awareness.
Our bodies are facing a danger not seen in the past, and we are at the same time in danger of losing awareness of our hearts and spirits.
On the other hand, people who are drawn to the spiritual world often lean too strongly or overly focus on the spirit and heart. They are drawn to the universal consciousness to such a degree that they also are losing awareness of their physicality. Their awareness travels to somewhere beyond, and they lose perception of the presentness of their bodies, the quality of being here now.
What is “the good life”? To many it’s a code word for high-end design, gourmet food, and a red convertible. And so on. To others it’s narrowly defined as total rural food self-sufficiency. For Cynthia and me, it’s an everyday negotiation with the world as it is, a negotiation that must include a continual returning to our values, and a reexamination of whether we are holding to them as strongly as we are able. It’s also about how we relate to others.
I am yoking myself to the reality of the world. I think that is tremendously important. Too much of my humanity is lost if everything is push button, or if all my hours are spent in the mesmerizing world of shifting philosophical concepts.
When I get a letter from someone who’s been moved by this book, I think of the thousands of hours I spent writing and rewriting it, and rewriting it again over fifteen years. I believe that that amount of time is resident in the words and sentences of the book.
Finished it. This is a terrific book. It's very well written. I'm surprised at the quality of the conversations and the depth of the insights. Many of the interviewees left the corporate world to make a much more spiritual and self-reliant life. They sought close contact with mother nature as farmer-artists and live in traditional homes. A common thing they did was to acquire practical crafts/farming skills and spend years in India and learn Buddhism to cultivate higher consciousness.
I spend a lot of my weekend time in the countryside and can see some connections. I also enjoy being in traditional Japanese architecture.
http://www.theabundanceofless.com/blog
http://adifferentkindofluxury.blogspot.com/
I have this on audio and have listened to part of it. This was a best seller in Japan and it was translated and sold in the West.
In reality there is nothing "new" about Minimalism; the culture of Old Japan was minimalist until the 20th century. So far it's a good account on on the true nature of happiness, the emptiness of mindless consumption/consumer marketing, and what it takes to obtain enduring happiness. He even refers to the science behind it, which is accurate (eg. the feeling of joy from great successes lasting 3 hours in total and the feeling of defeat being exponentially greater. There is also the "blowback" of post-victory- you feel a sense of profound disappointment when you realize that the joy did not match up with the enormous struggles and cost it took to obtain that victory.)
I learned some of the lessons here through comparably modest, avoidable, but still too high cost in my 20s; a lot of people never learn these lessons or suffer great personal tragedy and loss from being ignorant. Where I feel is missing however, is the discussion about how people take each other for granted so quickly, in particular in the modern world and why this became the case. It wasn't always like this. The "commodification" of human relationships into a more shallow of empty style of mercenary engagements.
Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism
https://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Things-New-Japanese-Minimalism/dp/0393609030
On 9/5/2018 at 4:47 AM, Cult Icon said:
The theme of "Man's Search for Meaning" is about creating meaning in whatever circumstances you are in. In this case, he focuses on extreme suffering- i the Jews in the death camps and their lives postwar.
On 9/6/2018 at 2:10 AM, Cult Icon said:about Frankl's book- an iconic discussion is about the impact flower growing on a barbed-wire fence. (the publisher changed it to a bird). It reminds me of a scene from silence of the lambs: 0:36. I wonder if the screenplay writers/author was familiar with this. When the prospects of survival were low, prisoners that survived the longest sought to make meaning out of their suffering, and to do what they could to survive as long as possible and thus with dignity. Their eventual death was immaterial; they sought a "good death".
^ along the same lines with that:
the significance of finding a meaning in hardships, and the four rules of surviving ten years in siberian gulag camps and remaining optimistic despite all that
https://dailynewshungary.com/father-placid-dies-age-101/
On 9/14/2018 at 3:08 PM, 17 Moments of Spring said:
^ along the same lines with that:
the significance of finding a meaning in hardships, and the four rules of surviving ten years in siberian gulag camps and remaining optimistic despite all that
https://dailynewshungary.com/father-placid-dies-age-101/
Tibetian monks imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese have similar such ways; the happiness material does show that belief in organized religion does lead to higher satisfaction, community engagement, and optimism.
I finished listening to "Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism".
It's well written. Just 4 1/2 hours long and it identifies the lifestyle and psychological effects of minimizing. Also, he references a lot of the happiness literature.
On 9/5/2018 at 2:34 PM, 17 Moments of Spring said:i find his idea that all conflicts in societies can be abolished utterly naive and utopistic. (utopies are the way of the left.)
I've just been starting to write a WW2 epic/historical story as of late- it's been one of my dreams to get up to the level for a very long time. Among the themes that I am tackling is the true nature of men hidden by our contemporary ignorance.
In some time, I will finish writing the basic plan for the story.
Author of the book I just posted about:
He's effeminate which is not a surprise
I was listening to her book on the road today and found this:
Apparently Elizabeth Thames, a "minimalist" guru/blogger selling the idea of leaving the corporate world and making a sustainable living as a farmer in the countryside- told lies of omission ( to me just as bad as a direct lie ) by failing to disclose to her fanbase that her husband makes + /- $250,000 every year with real estate holdings worth 1.6 million.
Achieve a super carefree and fulfilling lifestyle by marrying well?
Extreme frugality allowed me to retire at 32 – and regain control of my life
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/08/how-to-retire-early-frugal-spending
interesting interview with Brando: (1-6)
more info about the remake
I received my copy of the history of the 21st Panzer Division!! So I can now start on the West Front:
Normandy 1944
-Tigers in Normandy
--Didier Lodieu's 3 books on various topics
-Reynold's 4 x books
-Memoirs: Grenadiers, Panzer Commander
-Unit Histories:
21.Pz, 12.SS, 17.SS, Panzer Lehr
1.SS, 9.SS, 10.SS, Tiger 503
116.Pz
West Front Sept 1944 -Jan 1945
Ardennes 1944, Bergstrom
-Unit Histories:
21.Pz, 12.SS, 2.SS, Panzer Lehr, 1.SS, 9.SS, 10.SS, 116.Pz
- Victory was beyond their grasp, Hold the Westwall
-Reynold's 4 x books
-Memoirs: Grenadiers, Panzer Commander
-To be released: Smashing Hitler's Panzers: the defeat of the 12.SS
**other supporting material
I've started listening to a 12- hour NYU seminar that teaches Nietzsche - taught by two professors of philosophy from the University at Austin. Very interesting analysis of what it was.
- Survivor psych and bushido materials