A pastel coloured day in Ohara, Kyoto

The photos in this post are from a recent day trip to Ohara, a semi-rural village on the edge of Kyoto with a group of impressive temples and gardens. My wife suggested it, as we were looking for parts of Kyoto with more advanced autumn colours, seeing we were there a couple of weeks before "peak autumn", and it seemed that Ohara was a likely place to go.  While it's still technically part of the city,  the bus and train trip takes about 50 minutes or so, and I think this alone may be the reason the place doesn't seem to have a huge number of Western visitors, but it is clearly pretty popular with the Japanese.  

While I like the photos here, I don't think they do the place justice.  Overcast days make the exposure of garden photos particularly tricky,  and although I like the pastel colour look in many of them, it's a pity the intensity of the moist green mossy ground cover isn't quite there.  I could fiddle with colour filters, but don't have the time for that form of cheating :) . 

Really, I think it was my favourite temple visit on this trip because of the grounds and gardens:  they were quite extensive, peaceful and charming; and there was one place where you sit on a terrace and contemplate the gardens in the very Japanese way (with a cup of matcha and sweet.)    

As for the large temple below:  it's called the Shorin-in temple, which has an interesting history in light of my recent reading about Pure Land Buddhism:

Ennin (794-864), posthumously known as Jikaku Daishi, was one of the monks famous for strengthening the practices of Tendai Buddhism in Japan after it was brought over from China, and is credited with bringing over the practice of shōmyō, Tendai Buddhist chanting.  In 1013, Shōrin-in was established by Ennin’s ninth generation disciple, the Tendai monk Jakugen, (secular name Minamoto no Tokinobu), the eighth son of the Heian period Minister of the Left, Minamoto no Masazane.  Alongside Raigō-in, Shōrin-in served as a training hall for shōmyō, a style of Tendai Buddhist chanting. 

In 1186, Shōrin-in was the host of what would later be called The Ōhara Debate.  In those days it was common for monks to meet and discuss the philosophical points of Buddhist law amongst themselves, and in this particular meeting Kenshin, a Tendai monk who lived in seclusion in Ōhara, had called upon Hōnen, (who would later go on to found Pure Land Buddhism), to debate the merits of the nenbutsu practice, which promised salvation to the Pure Land of Amitabha to those who simple called upon the divinity in sincerity.  Hōnen-in invited the monk in charge of reconstructing Tōdai-ji in Nara, Chogen, who arrived with an entourage of disciples curious to hear, and other Tendai scholars and Ōhara priests made it a large gathering that questioned Hōnen on the scriptures and support for the nenbutsu for a whole day before Kenshin, seized with passion, began to lead everyone in chanting the nenbutsu for what legends say was three days and three nights.

 Another website (oddly, a travel guide for vegetarians!) explains a bit more:

The reason why debates were required at the time is that the Pureland sect was a new Buddhist school.

The idea of the Pureland sect is simple. Any kind person who has accumulated a lot of good deeds can be welcomed into Amida Buddha’s Pureland if one can continuously focus on chanting the Buddha’s name (which is quite hard if you think about it).

Compared to other Buddhist sects, the Pureland sect’s way of achieving enlightenment is the simplest. Many commoners, therefore, switched to the Pureland sect.

Obviously, this upset some monks of other sects who had undergone difficult training. They just couldn’t accept the idea that one could be born into the Pureland by simply chanting the Buddha’s name.

Therefore, a large debate of 380 eminent monks vs. Hōnen was held. It is said that Hōnen responded to the 12 tricky topics perfectly, which set the groundwork for the Pureland sect in Japan. Being impressed by Hōnen’s understanding of Buddhism, the 380 eminent monks believe he is the reincarnation of Mahasthamaprapta, the Bodhisattva of wisdom.

Gaining faith in the power of chanting the Buddha’s name, the monks who joined the debate chanted ‘Amida Buddha’ for three days and three nights in the Hondō after the debate.

As is usual in Japan, though, the current temple building is not as old as the history of the place may first indicate - it seems that barely a temple in the country has ever survived more than three or four hundred years without having to be completely rebuilt due to fire or earthquake.  But given that they seem to always rebuild in the same design, temples do routinely look a lot older than they really are.   

This one caught my eye because the outer skin of the roof looks like corrugated iron - not a common feature on temples.  Looking around the web, it seems that there was renovation work done on the roof a few years ago, and my suspicion that this was a recent change was correct.

The rest of the temple, however, which was does look quite aged, was re-built in 1778, and the large gold statue inside (I do like my photo below) is also a reconstruction.  Its history:

The statue of the seated Amida Buddha (Amitābha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light) dominates Shōrin-in’s main hall.  A rope made of five colored threads woven together hangs down in front of the altar and is connected to Amida Buddha’s hands, allowing those who are praying to hold the rope and be connected to the divinity.  First made in 1013 and said to be created by Kōshō, a famed Buddhist sculptor of the mid-Heian period, this Amida Buddha’s body was recreated after fires in the Edo period, and its benevolent expression has been looking down on visitors for five hundred years.  Due to the story of The Ōhara Debate, this statue is known as the “Amida of Proof”.  

The vegetarian website throws a bit of folklore in:

...during the Ōhara Mondō debate, it is said that the hands of the Amida Buddha statue in the Hondō were glowing, indicating his approval of the truthfulness of Hōnen’s statements.

Unfortunately, those glowing hands were probably lost in one of the fires since then.

Anyway, I would strongly recommend it as a day trip for anyone staying in Kyoto.  This site is a good guide with some nice additional photos. 

Drug assisted religion?

Charles Jones' book on Pure Land Buddhism notes how early Buddhism always had "a trove of utopian imagery ready to hand."  He gives two examples, one of the alleged (but former) grandeur of the town where the original Buddha died:

 

And a second description from generic Buddhist cosmology of a fabled continent:

Okay.  That bit about using rubies to cook on reminded me of Minecraft, actually!   I wouldn't be surprised to find that some Buddhist nerd from Asian has been creating a "Pure Land" world in Minecraft as his life's goal.

But more generally, this has made me curious as to why Buddhism has, even from close to the start, had quite the thing about imagining what a "perfect" or heavenly realm looks like.   I mean, I would guess that it is something more likely to come from a religion originating in a desert, rather than one from a relatively lush part of the world such as India (or the other Eastern Asian countries it migrated to.)   But the Jewish and Christian imagination has not spent that much time on the question, comparatively.

It also made me think that imagining jewelled cities and gold trees and magical landscapes is something we now associate a bit with tripping on LSD or other substances, at least if it's a "good" trip, and this reminded me of the somewhat nutty theory semi-popular for a time in the 1970's - that Jesus was a completely imagined figure from a cult of psychedelic mushroom eaters hanging around the Middle East.   

I googled up topic of what natural drug might be most inclined to give visions of a jewelled heaven, and came up with Dr James Cooke, a neuroscientist into psychedelics research.  

As usual, I'm not the first person to have had this thought:

Mike Crowley, author of Secret Drugs of Buddhism, has argued that in both Hinduism and Buddhism, the blue peacock acted as a symbol for psilocybin mushrooms.  Psilocybin breaks down into psilocin and, when this happens, the chemicals give off a blue appearance.  As a result, mushrooms like psilocybe cubensis turn blue when bruised, and this color may have resonated with the appearance of the peacock.  The soma of the Vedas is also referred to as amrita, and this is the name of the sacrament consumed in Tibetan Buddhism.  In this tradition, amrita is also associated with peacocks.  Furthermore, the name of a Hindu order of monks who worship Shiva, matta-mayuri, translates as “the intoxicated peacocks”.  According to Crowley, this may be explained by the peacock symbolizing a psychedelic mushroom sacrament.

The deliriant datura has traditionally been used in Tibetan Buddhism.  A paste made from the seeds can be applied to the skin, formed into pills, placed in the eyes, or the wood can be burnt and the smoke inhaled in religious ceremonies.  Datura has been found at the site of cave paintings, indicating that it may have a strong legacy of being used in visionary religious ceremonies.  As with the other major religions of the Indian subcontinent, cannabis appears to have also been used.  Tibetan Buddhism formed out of the merger between Buddhism and the indigenous, shamanistic Bon religion of Tibet.  It may be this direct link to a shamanistic religion that accounts for the presence of mind-altering substances in this particular Buddhist tradition.

Western Buddhism has had a deep link with psychedelics, both emerging on the US scene in the 50s and 60s.  Both acted as avenues for self-transcendence and have been linked in Western culture ever since.  An exploration of the relationship between psychedelics and Buddhism can be found in a collection of essays entitled Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics.

He also has an entry on psychedelics in the Bible, in which he is sensible enough to dismiss the "Jesus was a mushroom" theory, but he lists various other ideas people have suggested for what may have been influencing Biblical figures.   

So, there you go.  Blissed out Buddhist visions of their version of a (kind of) heaven might have something to do with drug assisted reveries?   An interesting theory, at least. 

Update:   A lengthy old article in Tricycle, mostly about the relationship between interest in both psychedelics and Eastern religion in the West in the 20th century:

If the sixties was the high point of the Zen generation, the seventies belonged to the Tibetans. The proximate cause, of course, was the Tibetan Diaspora. But the hallucinogenic aspect of the psychedelic experience itself was certainly a contributing factor. The visual pyrotechnics of psychedelia made a close fit with the colorful flamboyance of the radiant gods and goddesses and fiery deities of Tibetan art. The putative correspondence was further strengthened by seeming similarities between the visionary experience of the most popular Tibetan text of the sixties, the Bardo Thodal or Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the psychedelic experience. These elements of psychedelia had their part to play in the increasing popularity of Tibetan Buddhism. But as most would-be practitioners soon discovered, the first wave of lamas were more interested in students who were willing and able to engage in a series of demanding practices. The point was not to have visions, but to visualize. 

Read along if you wish

I suspect few of my readers are all that interested in my slowly rambling interest in Buddhism, but as this blog now works pretty much as my journal where I can record (more-or-less) searchable notes of anything that interests me, I make this post anyway.

I've started on Charles B Jones' book Pure Land - History, Tradition and Practice, and I did find this pithy explanation of the origins of Mahayana Buddhism very clear and useful: 

I don't know that I have ever such a clear explanation before.  (Mind you, it's also possible that something similar was explained in one of the books on comparative religion I read in my 20's - I've always been interested in this topic...)

The relaxed one

Took this photo in Ohara, Kyoto, before I saw the "no photos" sign:

And saw this statue in the oldest  temple in the city, which is actually little visited by tourists:

I will come back later to explain more...

 

OK, I'm back.

 

As The Met website explains, in relation to this bronze statue - 

 

 which is now in the National Museum of Korea (my bold):

...the bodhisattva is seated with his right leg crossed over his left, and the fingers of his right hand gently touching his cheek. This combination of posture and gesture, a pan-Asian iconography known as the "pensive pose," became popular in Korea in the sixth and seventh centuries, influenced particularly by prototypes in Chinese Buddhist art of the mid-sixth century.

Unlike Buddhas, the ultimate enlightened beings who have transcended mortal concerns, bodhisattvas have chosen to remain accessible to help and guide others in the phenomenal world. Particularly in Korea and Japan, bodhisattvas in the "pensive pose" are usually identified as Maitreya (彌勒), a bodhisattva in the cosmic era who will become the teaching Buddha of the next great period of time. Maitreya was one of the more popular bodhisattvas in East Asia from the fifth to the seventh century.

An almost identical sculpture is preserved in the Kōryūji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. Debate continues regarding the origin of this statue: Was it made in one of the Korean kingdoms, possibly Silla, and gifted to its eastern neighbor? Or made by Korean immigrant artisans living in Japan? It is worth noting that the Kōryūji piece is carved from red pine, a wood commonly found on the Korean peninsula. Moreover, during this period, Korean monks and artists are known to have lived and worked in Japan.

Maitreya's compassion and understanding are elegantly embodied in the beautifully cast National Treasure 83. His quietude and peace is shown in his sublime facial features like the downcast eyes and in the simple contours of his upper body. His continuing engagement with the world is embodied in the subtle movement of his fingers, the charmingly upturned toes of the right foot, and the lively folds of his drapery.

Indeed, a Kyoto website for the Koryu-ji temple in Japan identifies the statue as Maitreya, as follows:

Imperial Prince Shotoku Taishi donated a Buddhist statue of Miroku Bosatsu (Maitreya), who it is said will come down to the earthly plane 5,670,000,000 years after Guatama's (Buddha) death to save those who have not yet attained enlightenment.

I don't know - I find it wryly amusing for a religion to have such a precise prediction that is nevertheless safe from verification for a long, long time.

Actually, for readers with long memories, I have posted before about Maitreya as being the dominant figure in the main temple of the Buddha's Tooth Temple in Singapore.   

I was reading more about the wooden statue in the dark hall of the Koryu-ji temple, perhaps on a pamphlet from the temple, as to work done to try to see if it was made in Korea or Japan.   I will look for it at home.   A Korean website puts the argument that it was a gift from Korea, based on the bronze statue:  

The "Miroku Bosatsu" statue at the Koryu-ji Temple of Kyoto is virtually the twin of this Ban-gasayu-sang, although it was carved from red pine rather than cast from bronze. Experts on oriental art agree that it is almost certainly of Korean origin, probably brought to Japan as a gift by Korean missionaries when they were introducing civilization to those islands in sixth century. It may even be the statue that the ``Nihon Shoki" historical record mentions that a King of Silla sent to the Yamato court. Chances are high that it was carved as a copy of the bronze original, out of pinewood so as to be lighter and more easily transported. 

In any event, it would seem the statues are from around 600CE, making them very old indeed.  In Koryu-Ji, the hall it is kept in has several other statues of various Buddhist figures, but no photography is allowed.  The statue is nearly life size in dimensions, incidentally.

I am a little surprised that the Temple and the statue does not receive many visitors, if my recent holiday is any indication.  

I find the relaxed pose, with the foot on knee (technically called a "half lotus" pose on some sites) a particularly charming way to depict a mystical saviour of the universe, if that's the appropriate way to describe him.   Seems quite a contrast to the rather, shall we say, angst-y (or at least, serious) way Jesus is depicted in art.   I am trying to think of some artwork that shows him looking relaxed, but nothing is coming to mind....

Update:   I suppose it's worth noting that, to throw things into further confusion for the casual Western observer of all things Buddhist, Maitreya went within a few centuries (at least in China) from the svelte and relaxed physical depiction shown in the statues above to this:

 Yeah, I either didn't know, or had forgotten, this:

The bald, chubby, laughing fellow many Westerners think of as Buddha is a character from tenth-century Chinese folklore. In Buddhism, the celestial Buddha named Hotei (Japan) or Pu-Tai (China) is best known as the jolly Laughing Buddha. He symbolizes happiness and abundance, serving as a protector of children, the sick, and the weak. In some stories, he is explained as an emanation of Maitreya, the future Buddha.

In China, he is known as the Loving or Friendly One. He is based on an eccentric Chinese Ch'an (Zen) monk who lived over 1,000 years ago and has become a significant figure in Buddhist and Shinto culture. Due to this monk's benevolent nature, he came to be regarded as an incarnation of the bodhisattva who will be Maitreya (the Future Buddha).

Another site explains in a bit more detail:

The Laughing Buddha, it turns out, was one such avatar, a 10th-century Chinese monk named Budai. According to accounts written centuries later, Budai was a gregarious, pot-bellied monk who wandered from village to village carrying a large sack over his shoulder. (Budai means "cloth sack" in Chinese.) He was beloved by children and the poor, to whom he would give rice and sweets from his sack.

On his deathbed, Budai penned a poem in which he revealed himself as the avatar of Maitreya, a deity also known as the "Future Buddha."

"In our lifetime, this great cosmic era you and I are sharing, there is a 'teaching Buddha' named Siddhartha Gautama or Shakyamuni," explains Leidy. "The world will ultimately destroy itself; I don't know when. But when the world is reborn, Maitreya will come back as the teaching Buddha of that era."

Over time, Budai became a subject of popular devotion in Zen Buddhism, both in China and in Japan, where he goes by the name Hotei. His large belly and sack are believed to represent abundance, and he is included among the Seven Lucky Gods of Japan as a harbinger of abundance and good health. At some point, he also became the patron deity of restaurateurs and bartenders, hence his prized location next to the cash register.

Leidy isn't sure of the exact historical provenance of today's Laughing Buddha statues, but she believes that Bodai imagery in Chinese art and sculpture started popping up in the 15th century.

Still, in either form, I guess you can say that Maitreya is always portrayed as "pretty chill"!

Update2:  This video is interesting - a curator from the British Museum shows off the earliest dateable depiction of Buddha in human form (first century CE), with a mystery figure who might be Maitreya.   Everyone looks pretty Western, giving the artwork look pretty similar to later Christian art depictions. 

Sure, the Voice would have worked in presenting unified advice to government...

I always said that if the Voice succeeded, history showed that we could expect many of its recommendations to immediately be the subject of dispute within the wider indigenous community, leaving governments back to square one as to who they should listen to, given there was no obligation to adhere to Voice recommendations.

There is no better evidence for this pessimistic take than the sudden rush to endorse everything Palestine, so to speak, by the more radical side of aboriginal politics, and the counter-position put up by Marcia Langton:

 

The "scumbag" Tanuki refers to is Langton, who had written in The Australian:

“As an Indigenous Australian, I can have little effect in stopping these horrors but it is necessary to be clear about a few matters. “Blak sovereignty” advocates have entwined two extraordinary propositions – one that is simply untrue and one that is a moral outrage.

First, they claim that “Indigenous Australians feel solidarity with Palestinians”. This is false; it is the view of a tiny few, if put in those words. Most of us are aware of the complexity and that there is very little comparable in our respective situations, other than our humanity. 

Second, they refuse to condemn Hamas. I am aghast and embarrassed. They do not speak for me. I fear and loathe the possibility of further loss of life in this terrible crisis. I fear also that our multicultural society is being torn apart by people deluded about terrorism who have used their protests as a cover for anti-Semitism.

Our Jewish and Palestinian communities deserve respect and compassion. I do not support the violence we have seen in Australia recently as a result of this conflict.

Hamas are terrorists; Palestinian Islamic Jihad are terrorists. The slogan “Not all Palestinians are Hamas” denies the fact that innocent Palestinians are being used as human shields by these terrorists. 

No legitimate Aboriginal leader will permit our movement to be associated with terrorists. I can state confidently, based on my long experience in Aboriginal communities and giving advice to Indigenous corporations, that the majority Aboriginal view is a repulsion of terrorism.”

Adam Briggs, the guy so into aboriginal culture he makes a living by copying American black culture, thinks that we shouldn't be using this against them.  Because, I don't know, it's unfair to point to the poisonous, fractious nature of indigenous politics amongst the indigenous?:

 I agree with these views, by the way:

Oh, and in other "everything's OK in the world of aboriginal academia" tweets:

Blackwell is an academic (well, research fellow) at ANU who has been on The Drum and other ABC shows, apparently, and is Lefty enough to tweet a lot of support for Palestine.  But he obviously can't stand Watego.

The thing you can't click on in that tweet:

Soon, the grounds of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) will be a place where Indigenous wisdom and culture is not only celebrated but given an intellectual space that supports Blak excellence and innovation.

The new faculty of Indigenous Knowledges and Culture, announced this week, will operate as a stand-alone faculty, and will deliver academic programs and conduct research.

Angela Barney-Leitch, QUT’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Australians, told NITV that the faculty could influence other academic disciplines.

"The idea for us now is to focus on what Indigenous knowledges means to all knowledge ... and what difference it can make to the way people at university look at different issues and problems and perspectives."

"It's going to be like a whole Indigenous learning community.

"And the good thing about it for all Australians is that non-Indigenous students and staff can be part of this, but it will be Indigenous led."

Professor Chelsea Watego, QUT’s Carumba Institute Executive Director, told NITV that the new faculty will be a welcoming space that counters colonial narratives.

"The faculty that we will offer here will provide so many of our Blackfullas with the kind of environment to know who they are [and] where they come from.

"[The faculty] contests the violent knowledges that have been produced about us, that hold systems accountable, that should be doing better."

I have posted about Watego before.   She seems very talented at losing court cases against her previous university, and the police, at least.  But here are her hopes for her new faculty:

"I think the exciting part for non-Indigenous students is when your foreground Indigenous intellectual sovereignty there's a whole different understanding of humanity," she said.

"What I find when we bring non-Indigenous people along into these spaces, is the way in which they reconfigure themselves in their relationship to this place, but also what it means to be human."

By centring Indigenous knowledges, Professor Watego believes other areas of learning can see radical change.

"And there are really exciting transformative possibilities of rethinking what it means to be a nurse, an engineer, or teacher or social worker when you operate on an Indigenous terms of reference."

"You can't even begin to imagine the transformative possibilities and that's the exciting thing for me to be a part of, is to see what our people can do with the tools of these institutions for the betterment of our mob," she said.

It used to be said that any new University in Australia would open a law school because it was relatively cheap and sounded semi-prestigious to have such a discipline in your faculty.

It now seems that any University will seek "social conscience" credit points by giving well paid jobs to female academics fully into the self serving piffle that the academic Left creates for itself.  

I suspect that QUT will find appointing Watego as its head will all end in tears, actually.

Update:   I see Margaret Sheil, the VC and President of QUT, was in the news recently for another reason:

• QUT has doubled down on its plans to remove references to "merit" from its hiring policy
• Vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil says supposedly merit-based recruitments are actually swayed by unconscious bias
• Professor Sheil says the new approach will factor in gender, ethnicity, and departmental balance

Wow.  Seems a sound way to undermine a university's reputation, if you ask me!

What is her background?   A little to my surprise, it's in chemistry and the sciences.

Hmmm. 

I share the sentiment

Unusual criminal case

I saw this on the news last night:

An elderly Queensland man has been charged in relation to an alleged string of assaults on women in parks over a two-month period this year.

The 83-year-old man allegedly approached multiple women in public parks, in separate incidents, before assaulting them.

The alleged attacks occurred in the Acacia Ridge and Springfield areas between September and October this year.

I have heard before that elderly men in nursing homes can be sex pests - it's pretty rare to hear of one who has put it into practice in public parks.  And I don't mean to imply that this guy was a mere "pest" - he's actually charged with one count of rape:

The Springfield Lakes man has been charged with three counts of sexual assault and one count of rape.

Gawd.

Things noticed

Look, if Noah Smith, David Roberts and David Frum quit Twitter/X I will too, but while ever they are posting there I'll keep reading it. I mean, I don't really want to move into Zuckerworld, which still seems to be the main competitor.

Anyway, a few things from  disgraceful Musk's playhouse:

Back and, um, mildly depressed?

Before I get to regular life again, a few other points to remind myself in future:

*  when buying a data SIM in another country, for me, 3 GB per week seems to be plenty.  And that's with quite a  bit of use for Google Maps.

*  don't forget to take the pin like tool for opening the phone's sim card tray.

*  Japan doesn't give you a mobile number with its traveller's SIMs.  Singapore does.  In fact, Singapore is the most ridiculously generous place for tourist SIM deals, it seems - $12 for 15 days with 100GB of data.  

* curry ramen (a particularly Kyoto thing) is pretty "meh".

* Kobe seems particularly into Indian and Tibetan curry.  Not that I ate any, but it definitely has a lot of restaurants of that kind.

* wearing loafers on a day you are visiting a lot of temples makes the whole "shoes off/shoes on" thing a lot easier than wearing sneakers.

* peak Kyoto autumn is the second half of November, but the first half is very nice too.

*  despite an increasingly tough line being taken in Japan about where smokers can do their smoking, you can still find yourself beside someone doing it in an eating place in Japan - especially a cheaper izakaya.

*  basic "business hotels" are cheap but not exactly tourist orientated.  But a hotel that caters for both the business and tourist market can feature neat things, such as microwaves being available in a central room with which you can reheat food bought from one of the incredible department store basement food halls.

 

Random Japanese notes

* I mentioned before the news stories about the unusually large number of bear attacks this year, and yeah, the country was still talking about it during the visit. Well, by that I mean, I saw a lengthy NHK studio discussion about it on TV, in the rather boring style Japanese TV specialises in.  

*  I also never noticed on earlier visits how much they were interested in eating them.  Maybe some sort of revenge logic going on? :).  There was this bowl of noodles for sale in a rural area:

which translates as "bear soba". But then, even in Kyoto there was a ramen shop (popular with locals) near my hotel which I am reliably told used broth made with bear bones.  

* I also got the impression that hunting has generally become more of a thing in the country.  And look at this story:

Bear bounty introduced by Akita governor pays ¥5,000 per bear to hunters

* OK, apart from bear madness, what else is new?  Well, as every story about tourism in Japan says, there are a lot of tourists around, especially in Kyoto, but people seem to forget how much the Japanese love to visit the city too.  And justifiably.  If temples, history, gardens and food are your thing (or just any one of the above) it's fantastic.  I mean, seriously:

* Why are taxi drivers in this country seemingly all over 60?  It's always been like this, I think, but you just never seem to see a driver younger than 50, I reckon.

* Oh it looks like my flight is soon. Later.

Another minor post about Japan

I'm still in Japan for another couple of days, and can't be bothered doing a lengthier post yet, but just wanted to mention that one TV station here seems to show mainly retro shows from the 70s and later.  

That's how I found myself watching an episode of Galaxy Express 999, 

a Japanese anime series from the late 70s.

I have the feeling I had seen a snippet of this before, but I have to say, the imagery from it is very, very "trippy", for want of a better word.

I was interested to read that the guy who wrote it acknowledged the inspiration for a spacefaring train came from a well known kids book by Kenji Miyazawa (who died in 1933).  

I see from Wikipedia that the series plot is rather complicated, and I can tell from the one episode that it's "sci fi melodramatic" in that peculiar way often found in Japanese anime.  

But yeah, the imagery alone is impressive as a feat of imagination.

May be a Westerner cliche to still be impressed by them, but seriously...

...if Japan doesn't have the first permanent toilet on the Moon, there ain't no justice.  Look at this beauty, in a shop window on a street in Kyoto, looking about as futuristic as a toilet possibly can:

Still looking at leaves

And shrines/temples:

And eating (sometimes) like this:

More soon...

Holiday snaps, continued

As you can see on the right hand side of this photo, even Buddhism can't escape kawaii in Japan:

More detail here:

Anyway, this temple has a family connection, and I think I have visited each time  I have been in Japan.

The gardens around it are very well maintained, and the different colours to be seen today were very pleasing.

Down the road, another temple uphosts a pretty spectacular set of ginkgo trees:

And to the side:

Also, an unusual but of signage:

And tonight, a nicely dressed local:

I have high hopes for some more autumn photos tomorrow, as a result of venturing into the countryside.

Starts with T

Guess the city...

No bears have yet been sighted.

More....

The central station has quite a fan base...and in fact I reckon more so amongst the locals than the foreigners.

Here's a more distant shot..

Behind here, you run into the grounds of the Imperial palace, which you can't see.  But there is a park near here too, which was busy today because it was a public holiday, and about 22 degrees.  

But if course, a nice day outside can't keep me from a good bookstore, and Maruzen, right beside the station, probably has the biggest English section I have ever seen in Japan.  I mean, look at this - this is just the philosophy row!

This is where I found books that ask the big questions:

Indeed.

And:

Tonight I have ventured North, and the wifi in the otherwise modest hotel is about 10 times faster than what I get at home on the NBN.  

At those speeds, I'll be posting more. Seems a waste not to.

Pretty accurate satire

Odd details of madness

CNA talks about the guy with schizophrenia who killed 18 in Maine:

The Reserve unit told the sheriff's office that Card, a 40-year-old sergeant, had reported "hearing voices" that tormented him with accusations of paedophilia and of having a small penis, and that he had threatened to "shoot up" the Saco drill centre and other places, according to an incident report released by the sheriff's office.

At least one soldier who was friendly with Card told his unit leaders that Card's behaviour was so alarming that he feared "Card was going to snap and commit a mass shooting", according to the Army Reserve unit's September email released by the sheriff's office....

In the Sagadahoc County sheriff's account, his office agreed not to make direct contact with Card after his teenage son and ex-wife reported their concerns on May 3, in which they told a deputy that Card's anger and paranoia worsened after he got a hearing aid in February.

They said Card had recently picked up 10 to 15 handguns and rifles he had stored at his brother's house and that they feared his anger if Card learned they had contacted the police, an incident report said.

You can read the rest of the report to hear how half-arsed was the attempt to find him and remove access to a mini arsenal of guns. 

But it is interesting how his "hearing voices" worsened after he got a hearing aid.   It's a common feature of modern schizophrenia that sufferers rationalise a technological reason why they can now hear what they couldn't before.  I'm pretty sure that's what happened to Evelyn Waugh when he had a bout of hearing voices and put it into mildly fictionalised form in a book.   I did a brief post about this once before - back in 2011 - and it links to an article about this.

This always makes me wonder about how it's odd that this rationalisation is not recognised by the sufferer as a clear sign they are starting on a mental illness.   (Along the lines of "hey, I never used to believe telepathy was possible, and I have heard that people with madness often think it's a new technology, just like I am wondering.  Am I going mad?)   Although I guess it's also quite likely that most people who come down with schizophrenia have not read accounts of it.   

I know, that's not how mental illness works, but I still like to hope I would recognise it...

Hurricane damage

It stills seems that war in Gaza has sucked most of the attention away from the remarkable amount of destruction in Acapulco.   These photos at NPR give a pretty good indication.

I wasn't sure how big a city it was - Google tells me about 850,000.   A great many of them no doubt without any livelihood now due to what appears to be the complete destruction of tourist infrastructure.

Can we just ban reality TV?

Is it just me getting cranky as I age, but this is my second complaint about a reality TV format - this time, Alone.

I've barely seen it - but my main objection is similar to that I have with respect to SAS Australia:  I find the idea of people completely unnecessarily punishing themselves for money or "fame" to be a semi-offensive waste of time.   In the case of Alone, I can throw in some general animal cruelty misgivings too.  Yeah, that rabbit, possum, or (apparently, in the case of overseas version of the show) beaver, moose or wolverine (!) is being hunted and killed for entertainment purposes, basically.  (Well, it seems the wolverine was killed when it came to eat some of the moose the dude had killed.)   

Now look - some hunting of animals I'm not going to lose sleep over, provided it's done humanely and it is put to good use.   But deliberately going out in a competition where you have to kill something to live, which might turn into a "clean kill" or might not, when you could stick to your day job and eat a farmed animal killed in pretty humane conditions ... yeah, I have a problem with that.  Why don't more people?  (This topic did get a run on Reddit, I see. A lot of people defend it by saying that the contestants eat a lot less meat than they would at home - so it's a net benefit to the animal kingdom.  I remain very dubious.)

As for people punishing themselves - well, it probably helps explain why I don't have time for any extreme sport.   Running through deserts, even marathons strike me as a waste of time and effort.  The biggest punishment in Alone is apparently contestants starving - or being cold and wet.  How entertaining.  (Not.)

I'm going to sort this all out when I am crowned benefit dictator by our new alien overlords.  (According to Twitter, they are about to arrive any day now.  I wonder how I get them to pick me?)  

This seems under reported

On NHK, the Japanese government news service:

Bear attacks in Japan are on the rise, with the number of incidents reaching a record high for the period from April to July this year. Amid the escalating cases, the environmental ministry is calling on people to be on alert and take extra precautions.

Bear encounters led to 53 reported cases of injury across the country, including 15 in Iwate Prefecture, nine in Akita Prefecture and seven in Fukushima Prefecture. The overall number represents an all-time high since record keeping began in fiscal 2007.

Some attacks have been fatal. In May, a fisherman went missing while out on a lake in Hokkaido. A search party found a bear with waders in its mouth and partial human remains nearby. A hunter in the search party shot dead the 1.5-meter-long bear. Later, DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to the missing person.

Ministry officials warn that more bears are likely to appear in residential areas in the northern part of the country this autumn as they forage for food. The acorns that make up their diet have become scarce in their natural habitat.

 I'm going to be in one of those prefectures soon!  

There's also an 8 minute video on the problem, which towards the end features one of those very unintentionally funny to the rest of us Japanese idea where a man in a bear suit is used for educational purposes. 

On a side note

I've only see ads for it on Channel 7 while watching the news or a bit of breakfast TV, but surely I can't be the only person in Australia who finds it truly bizarre that there is a reality TV show that is inspired by the exploits of the SAS despite the ongoing revelations from the Ben Roberts-Smith trial and elsewhere that the organisation has been a dysfunctional mess for many, many years, and has hosted members who will eventually (if a puzzlingly slow investigation will ever finish) result in war crime trials?  

Words means whatever they want it to mean, apparently

I've been interested to note that the indigenous victimhood professionals are very, very onside with Palestine:

 

Of course, the situation is very, very messy, and I have no doubt innocent Palestinian lives are being lost. 

But I still have trouble taking seriously any commentary that does not start with a call for Hammas to release civilian hostages.

Speaking of windbaggery, I see that Stan Grant has gone pompous to the max in his complaint about the outcome of the Voice referendum:

"Reconciliation is not a word. Not any more. Healing is not a word. Not any more. Unity is not a word. What once were words are now antiseptic," he said.

From another source:

“The Voice was never about resentment, it was never about identity – it was a release, it was a moment to lay our burdens down,” Grant said.

“But Australia would not shoulder that load.

“Instead, we got a lecture about unity.

“Those who own history claimed for themselves history’s final word: ‘no’.”

And:

“We have laid the sod over [my ancestors], sealed them in,” he said.

“I thought in me they may be able to speak, that those two sides of me might find a common voice.

He's a walking word salad generator.

 

I do wonder if it's the only thing that has stopped it being nuked, though

 

I know prominence given to deaths is subject to all sorts of odd influences, but still...

...I am a bit bothered when media seems to be giving bigger prominence to Matthew Perry's unexpected death than to the equally unexpected HURRICANE THAT INTENSIFIED RAPIDLY TO BECOME INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS AS IT SMASHED INTO A MAJOR MEXICAN CITY AND HAS KILLED AT LEAST 39 PEOPLE.

From Science:

Early Wednesday morning, Hurricane Otis became the strongest storm in recorded history to strike the Pacific coast of Mexico. The Category 5 hurricane made landfall near Acapulco, where its heavy rain and 265-kilometer-per-hour (kph) winds unleashed massive landslides and knocked out power lines, killing at least 2 dozen people and causing widespread devastation.

But just 2 days earlier, meteorologists doubted whether Otis—then a tropical storm—would even achieve hurricane status. Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center expected the storm to undergo “gradual strengthening,” with most computer models predicting maximum wind speeds of about 100 kph. Instead, as Otis careened toward Mexico’s coastline, its winds increased by 180 kph in 24 hours, a record amount of “rapid intensification.”

So many books...

It was only via a Tweet today that I learnt about Anna's Archive.

It's this:

About

Anna’s Archive is a non-profit project with two goals:

1. Preservation: Backing up all knowledge and culture of humanity.
2. Access: Making this knowledge and culture available to anyone in the world.

Preservation

We preserve books, papers, comics, magazines, and more, by bringing these materials from various shadow libraries together in one place. All this data is preserved forever by making it easy to duplicate it in bulk, resulting in many copies around the world. This wide distribution, combined with open-source code, also makes our website resilient to takedowns. Learn more about our datasets.

We estimate that we have preserved about 5% of the world’s books.

Access

We work with partners to make our collections easily and freely accessible to anyone. We believe that everyone has a right to the collective wisdom of humanity. And not at the expense of authors.

I have tried it to find something I thought pretty esoteric (1960's juvenile science fiction partly set in Australia which I read as a child, but which is little known now) and all of the books were there.

I also tried looking for a recent book on Pure Land Buddhism, and it was there!

I may (or may not) have downloaded the latter, and I may (or may not) have found that it was easy and quick.

I am impressed.

 

 

Final thoughts on Graham Greene

Looking back at this open-to-the-world diary, I see that I have read more Graham Greene than I had remembered.  I also started one of his key novels - The Power and The Glory - more than a year ago, and after losing interest, picked it up again a month or so ago, and have been slowly finishing it.

It's odd, though, that I started reading him with a couple of his later, less well know, novels, and liked them.  Yet the more I have read his best known works, especially the very overtly Catholic ones, the less I have come to enjoy him.

My basic problem is that, in his most famous early books, while often clearly "Catholic" in influence or theme,  his views about the religion don't often ring particularly true, or profound, to me.   His interest in the religion (since I don't know that he actively practised it for long), at least in his middle aged years, seems so very idiosyncratic and muddled (as I suppose befits someone who suffered poor mental health much of his life), that I don't feel he is providing anything much in the way of useful Catholic insight.   Yet I felt in his somewhat later novel A Burnt Out Case he had a more normal and sympathetic religious take, from a jaded Catholic point of view.  

In other words, it seems to me that when he was trying his hardest to "write Catholic", the less convincing I find him.  

I think this is particularly clear when he is compared to Evelyn Waugh.  In reading his books, I always felt that the Catholic influence was clear in an orthodox and comprehensible way, despite the author also being a bit of a jerk in real life.  (No where near as big a jerk as Greene, though.)

I also got a feeling in some parts of The Power and The Glory that Greene was showing a deep lack of empathy to suffering, be it human or animal.   I seem to recall reading his brief account of a pet dog of his dying after being taken on an exhausting hike, and thought it sounded like he had a distinct lack of empathy.  And this novel has a particularly pathetic scene of dog suffering, too.  Given the widespread view now that dangerous men usually have no sense of empathy with animals, it does make me wonder whether if people meeting Greene in real life ever felt like they were perhaps dealing with a borderline psychopath.

Maybe that's harsh, given the incredible number of women who were happy to sleep with him.  (Although, as noted in my previous posts, a lot of them were prostitutes!)   

Anyway, many years ago I bought (second hand) two volumes of the very famous Greene biography (the author of which I forget now), but I feel less inclined to ever get stuck into those.   Or maybe there is a sort of perverse enjoyment in reading in great detail about what a peculiar man he was?

Anyway, I don't think I will try any more of his novels.            

Movie problem noted

Hey, I wasn't wrong:  the Guardian notes that box office for the latest Mission Impossible movie was underwhelming, despite heaps of critical praise.  (A bit too much praise, in my opinion.)   

As the article notes, one obvious thing they can do for the next (final) movie would be this:

...as much as that video of Tom Cruise jumping off a motorbike on a mountain cheered us all up in the depths of Covid, there might also be a lesson to learn here. Why on earth would any film choose to lead with repeated shots of the film’s biggest stunt being executed? By the time the actual film came out, everyone assumed that they’d already seen the best bit for free on YouTube. Next time, Mission: Impossible should try saving some excitement for the actual film.

Yes, we were all so familiar with the stunt by the time we were watching it in the cinema, it felt anti-climatic.  (We also knew, from the "making of" nature of the publicity, that there was CGI involved in the version on the screen - to hide the fact that he was riding up a ramp.)   

The final one should be shorter, punchier, and (ideally, but I know it won't happen) not be directed by McQuarrie.

 

Points noted

Also, hasn't Anwar Ibrahim been a major disappointment, even allowing for the fact that Malaysian politics is a complete mess:

Thousands rallied in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday in support of Palestine, following smaller-scale protests across the country in recent days. It was organised by local groups Viva Palestina Malaysia (VPM) and MyCare, who have been behind humanitarian assistance from Malaysia, Al Jazeera reports. Huge turnout, but a bit of scandal involved — attendees say they were banned from using placards attacking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden (maybe reasonable, I’ve seen some stuff that is yeesh) as well as chanting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ or ‘God Is Great,’ which is a stretch in my opinion. You can’t tell people to abandon a well-known, frequently used phrase because it’s misunderstood elsewhere.    

No such reports, as of yet at least, from a government-arranged demonstration last night in Kuala Lumpur. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told about 19,000 people that Malaysia won’t be backing down: “It's a level of insanity to allow people to be butchered, babies to be killed, hospitals to be bombed, and schools to be destroyed... it's the height of barbarism in this world … We are with the Palestinian people yesterday, today and tomorrow” he told the crowd, as per Reuters.