December 7, 2014|10:37 am

In 73 years (I was born December 5, 1941, two days before Pearl Harbor) I have never seen the world situation more volatile.

The Pearl Harbor attack is loaded with personal as well as geopolitical lessons. To learn them is to make oneself less vulnerable to the adversary's surprise attacks. Here are a few:

1The spiritual is everything.

As discussed in Part 1, Pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese culture was a blending (syncretism) of the Samurai spirit made sacred through Shintoism and the Zen Buddhism of that period. However, all cultures even atheistic ones ultimately arise from and try to sustain themselves through mystical spirituality.

Marxism embraced the Hegelian idea that history was being guided to the "paradise" of pure Communism. Mao and his Red Book became the spirituality of the destructive Red Guard Movement in the late 1960s. Crowds lined up in bitter cold to see the embalmed remains of their gods Lenin and (for a while) Stalin in Red Square. North Koreans pray to the founder of their atheistic state, sanction marriages, and lay flowers at the base of his statues. Goebbels dressed Hitler rallies in mystical spectacle.

Even professed Christians are sometimes guilty. Some pastors in the American slavery era tried to get biblical sanction for the hideous institution that saw fellow human beings made in the image of God as chattel.

Sociologists Pitirim Sorokin and Samuel Huntington, as well as historians like Will Durant, David Aikman, and even Edward Gibbon (in a back-handed way) have demonstrated the primacy of the spiritual in the development and behaviors of civilizations.

The Bible, however, gives us not mere theory, but literal truth, when it says, in Ephesians 6:12, "We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places..." (NLT)

The ultimate enemy in the Second World War was not the Japanese Samurai warriors or the German Nazis, and is not now Islamic terrorists, would-be global tyrants, young black men, white policemen, illegal immigrants, Barack Obama, House Republicans, or any other individuals or groups varying partisans see as villainous.

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Pearl Harbor: 4 Spiritual Lessons We Can Apply Personally (Pt. 2)

December 6, 2014|10:15 am

The conditions that led to the Pearl Harbor attack in Hawaii exist today, on an even broader scale.

The United States was in a high state of vulnerability on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 a date President Franklin Roosevelt declared would "live in infamy." But it was also a day full of lessons vital for our times.

Enemies probe the vulnerable points and seek to exploit them, as the Japanese did. States whose strategic thinking is based on delusion are the most exposed.

Hillary Clinton was right December 3 when she said at George Washington University that the United States should use "every tool and partner" in pursuit of peace. But then Mrs. Clinton said America should try to "empathize" with its enemies, understanding their "perspective and point of view."

One can trust empathetic leaders who are also realists, but progressives are prone to romantic idealism which forms delusory policies that make their nations more vulnerable. Here are six varieties:

1The delusion of invulnerability

America in the first half of the 20th century was still under the spell of 18th century manifest destiny doctrine (the idea of the inherent right to westward expansion), the adventurism of Theodore Roosevelt, the idealism of Woodrow Wilson, and the seemingly heroic stature of Franklin D. Roosevelt. American Christianity too easily became a syncretism of the Bible and the cultural ethos of that period (as it is now in a much different way).

Albrecht Furst von Urach was a Nazi journalist stationed at one point in Tokyo. Writing in 1942, von Urach characterized Japan's 80-year rise to "world power" status as "the greatest miracle in world history." The secret was the Samurai spirit, and its idea of the nobility of warfare, made transcendent in the Zen Buddhism and Shintoism of the era, thought von Urach. Japan's army was a "spiritual school," favoring the "strength of the spirit over the strength of the material."1

America's sense of invulnerability resulted in a lack of preparedness. Japan's delusionary confidence in her invulnerability drew her to overreach, and launch war against a foe that would guarantee her defeat and humiliation.

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Pearl Harbor: 6 Things We Should Remember to Avoid Repeating History (Pt. 1)

The Hospital Suite, written and drawn by John Porcellino and published by Canada-based Drawn + Quarterly, is the autobiographical story of a man's struggles through crippling illness, both physical and mental. The comics medium is seemingly a perfect fit for autobiographical writing as it shows the intensity of a moment in time while seamlessly hopping to another moment whether minutes later or months. Like Art Spiegelman's Maus and Mimi Pond's Over Easy, The Hospital Suite gives a poignant tale that gives readers the chance to experience a fellow human's life.

John Porcellino is no stranger at all to comics. Twenty-five years ago as still something of a kid, he began publishing his own zines, a champion to indie creators as the movement boomed in the early 1990s. His collected work King-Cat and Stories runs for hundreds of pages giving snippets of life as the basis for thought-provoking and emotionally-inspiring tales through the years. Each comes in the form of "Mini-Comics," a subgenre not often seen outside the pages of MAD and a few anthologies. These entire stories play out over just a few pages, quickly paced and made all the more powerful through brevity.

The mini-comics work well into the longer form style of autobiographical years. The Hospital Suite actually includes three stories, with the titular introduction joined with 1998, a year of emotional and social turmoil from the fallout of illness, and True Anxiety, exploring Porcellino's struggles with depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. For an extra bonus, the appendices give examples of Porcellino's earlier works referenced in The Hospital Suite from the perspective of the creator, including original "True Anxiety" tales from 1992.

Through each of its pieces, The Hospital Suite paints the powerful picture of major and mysterious illness. One panel shows a doctor examining Porcellino and letting out a string of surprised swears with an editor's note: "*actual quote." "The Hospital Suite" discusses physical illness that knocked Porcellino off his feet (literally at times) and devastated his body. In 1998, he shows the weight that the struggles with his health put on his own sanity and his marriage. "True Anxiety? goes back to Porcellino's childhood, tracing anxious feelings back to his earliest memory when, as a child, he worries that playing with a toy might only break it.

Just as in real life, the pages of events are a rollercoaster of emotions. There is terror as he blacks out and wakes up in a hospital, compassion from loved ones, laughter with observations that his hospital bed is surrounded with machines like in Star Trek, and wasting depression, leading him to the accepting mantra to live life, "If I die, I die." Throughout the book, Porcellino references his spiritual growth and its impact on his life, from his Catholic upbringing to his discovery and dedication to Zen Buddhism, complete with Zen illustrations and mantras.

Contributing to the impact of Porcellino's story is his style of art. At first glance, one might take the minimalistic drawings as doodles, but the words and events that accompany the lines of icons give the reader all the more engagement through closure. Porcellino traces the pain through his body as jagged bundles of nerves with his heart standing out, cartoonish and vivid. When he hugs his cat, Maisie bears a tiny question mark, giving the reader a laugh.

With its welcoming simplicity, The Hospital Suite is an effective and genuinely literary discussion of struggle with which every reader can identify.

View the original article on blogcritics.org

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Graphic Novel Review: 'The Hospital Suite,' Autobiographical Comics by John Porcellino

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Zen Buddhism in America
Project for SO317A. Created by Mike Sobolewski and Anthony Lancia.

By: Michael Sobolewski

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Zen Buddhism in America - Video

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Sameness Difference In Zen Buddhism

By: dtseringdorje

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Sameness & Difference In Zen Buddhism - Video

Piecing it together: Jigsaws can reward a second look.

Americans are fond of noting (perhaps too often) that, if the only tool you possess is a hammer, then every problem tends to resemble a nail. What, though, do problems look like if your sole tool is a jigsaw puzzle?

I have pondered that question while struggling vainly and interminably with a present from Paris' Musee d'Orsay. The woman I love, evidently resolved on torture, brought home a jigsaw puzzle with no right-angle corners, containing hundreds of tiny pieces in bizarrely convoluted shapes, including a fair number sawn into miniature statues, torches or blank squares of wood. If your only tool is a puzzle as weird and tough as that, then every problem needs to be treated as a puzzle in itself, then a sequence of interlocking puzzles, all to be finally puzzled out. I still await that happy ending.

Books of management advice draw on all manner of nutty sources, ones as eclectic as Zen Buddhism, cricket, yoga or dog training. Management counsel based on jigsaw puzzles would be eminently more practical and pointed.

Jigsaw puzzles teach how to focus on one object alone, to the exclusion of all the world beyond. I have been known to disappear down the jigsaw hole for half an hour scrabbling and scrounging around in search of a single piece, refusing to put on the air conditioning as an incentive to make rapid progress.

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Jigsaws reward a second look or a second thought, especially for those prepared to look and think again after doing something else, allowing time to elapse, and only then coming back to the table. Solving crossword clues works in the same way. The puzzles oblige us to explore all possible permutations, turning our minds as well as the pieces this way and that to fit colours and shapes harmoniously together. They force us to be logical, because improvisation, even allied to common sense, just will not solve the problem.

Finally, but critically, jigsaw puzzles offer us a rare opportunity to deal with a problem from beginning to end, and actually just for once to bring a task to a successful conclusion. Putting in the final piece is, obviously enough, the simplest of all, but simplicity and satisfaction can be synonymous. If many problems cannot be fixed, most puzzles can still be solved.

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First Word: Jigsaws an exquisite torture for Mark Thomas

Throughout the ages, certain cultures have bestowed a mystical sense of peace upon their homes through their spiritual connections with nature. When Columbus came to the New World in 1942, historians estimate that there were approximately 15 million native Americans in North America. Depending upon their tribal ways, their shelters were either temporary or permanent, and were made of earth, willow, reeds, bark, wood, stone, straw, animal hide, or other natural materials. Hive-like pueblos in the Southwest were built from clusters of adobe brick or stone; while portable tepees were made of bark or animal hides and designed to open up to the rising sun. Inside their homes were the necessities of life, such as food and cooking utensils, hunting tools, religious objects, back rests made of willow, warm buffalo robes, personal belongings, and little else. To the native Americans, home with its circle of fire traditionally has been a holy place. Mother Earth is a divine source of materials, tools, and beauty. The Great Spirit speaks through river and sea, forest and hill, buffalo and salmon, gentle winds and fierce thunderstorms, and, indeed, all creation.

While native Americans believe that all human life is intertwined with nature, the ancient Japanese people believed that natural objects such as rocks, trees, waterfalls, streams, and mountains were dwelling places of kami, or spirits. The spiritual paths of Shinto (the indigenous religion of Japan) and Zen Buddhism continue to inspire a strong affinity for the outdoors among the Japanese; in fact, the people perceive their homes and gardens as one harmonious entity without boundary. Japanese interior design respectfully celebrates the splendor of the four seasons through such items as delicate paintings, colorful screens and banners, and translucent sliding doors that open onto nature. Also, the home or garden tea house is the center for the tea ceremony, often described as the heart of Japans traditional culture. Introduced to Japan by Zen monks in the twelfth century, the tea ceremony is an intricately orchestrated ritual designed to spotlight beauty and hospitality and to inspire a serene state of mind. The ceremony invites appreciation for simple pleasures: enjoying artfully prepared tea and cakes, admiring perfectly arranged flowers, caressing cherished old pottery, sitting on tatami mats made of woven rice straw, and sharing quiet reflection among friends. While crowded conditions make compact apartments and homes the norm in modern Japan, the Japanese devotion to cleanliness, order, nature, and ancient traditions leads them to create intimate and calm living spaces. Today, we read much about the ancient Chinese art of feng shui in relation to the harmony of our homes, offices, and gardens. Feng shui, which means wind and water, offers us specific ways to select appropriate sites for building our dwellings and to arrange our interiors to create optimum environments for happiness, creativity, growth, health, and success. Feng shui suggests that everything in the universe is represented by five elements: Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal. The natural environments in which we live can be classified by their main element; for example, if you live in an English country cottage surrounded by a garden and trees, yours is a Wood environment. Our office and home interiors are also ruled according to their primary element; for example, an office featuring steel storage cabinets and a window that overlooks a river spanned by a metal bridge has a Metal landscape. While our interior environments are a mosaic of all five elements, if one element overpowers the others, there is imbalance. For example, an unruly garden that reminds us of the overgrown thicket around Sleeping Beautys castle has far too much Wood element, and needs to be pruned in order for us to feel in control. Another aspect of feng shui is the concept of chi: cosmic energy. Chi is all around us and, according to Taoism, the ancient religion of China, it is either yang (lively, positive,bright) or yin (calm, reflective, soothing dark). The complementary forces of yang and yin must be in balance for us to have a sense of serenity. If we spend the day at the beach, actively collecting seashells and building sand castles, we experience good yang energy. But if we are Christmas shopping in a crowded department store with few clerks and long lines of customers, we would likely be frustrated by excessive yang. When we take a bath by candlelight, we soak in a velvety atmosphere of soothing yin. Yet if we spend our weekdays deprived of natural light in a dismal office cubicle, we experience the dark side of yin. Inside our homes, if our rooms are overburdened with too much yin or yang, they make us feel uncomfortable. An abundance of yang contributes to crowded and littered spaces; while too much yin creates a negative, hostile, even deathly ambiance. We know there is imbalance if our rooms feel too cluttered or bright, or too gloomy or chilly. The key is to allow chi to flow through our rooms in one entrance and out another, like shafts of sunlight that stream through the living room window to the floor and down the hallway. Many things can influence the movement of this energy, including color, shape, texture, fragrances, sounds, icons, running water, and wind chimes. Removing obstacles that block the flow of chi (such as large or badly placed pieces of furniture) is said to bring harmony and balance to our rooms and our lives.

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Peaceful living

Newport, KY (PRWEB) November 11, 2014

The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra has performed a mountain of repertoire in its 22 years, yet still hasnt played some of the best-known works in the orchestral repertoire. This seasons All-20th century theme has allowed music director James Cassidy to narrow the focus and add to the orchestras bucket-list of famous works. Keeping with the KSO's flair for truly unique concert experiences, the audience will see the orchestra up-close and personal as several on-stage cameras will offer audience members various shots of the musicians simulcast live on three video screens suspended in the back and above the stage. Cassidy has often described the traditional orchestral setting as a sea of penguins (referring to the conventional black and white concert attire). Allowing everyone to see performers close up offers a different perspective of the teamwork required of 70+ individuals to paint a sonic canvas that we call symphonic music, said Cassidy.

The evening opens with Jean Sibeliuss turn of the century Finlandia. The work written in 1899-1900 features rousing and turbulent music, evoking the national struggle of the Finnish people under Russian oppression. At the end Sibelius writes a calming hymn that was later adopted as the melody to the Christian hymn Be Still My Soul. The Finlandia hymn today remains a popular Finnish national song (much like our America the Beautiful). The general populace may recognize the piece from its prominent use in Bruce Williss 1990 Die Hard 2: Die Harder, or perhaps as the name of a premium vodka.

The 1952 work 433 by John Cage for any instrument or combination of instruments will receive the full orchestral treatment. The work in three movements offers exactly four minutes and 33 seconds of complete silence. The performers turn pages (quietly), but no notes or sounds are emitted. John Cage was an experimental composer and likely took a cue from Theatre of the Absurd (i.e. Beckett, Pinter)." said conductor James Cassidy. Cage studied Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, and believed that any ambient sounds may constitute music. In a 1982 interview, and on numerous occasions, Cage stated that 433 was, in his opinion, his most important work.

Ithink, for the orchestra, avoiding eye contact with each other and the conductor will be essential to rendering a convincing performance of the work, said Cassidy. It will be a different experience for all.

In 1920 Maurice Ravel conceived La Valse as a choreographed poem and tribute to the waltz form and its champion Johann Strauss II. Originally titled Vienna the work, in one-movement for large orchestra, is often described as a metaphor for the predicament of European civilization following World War I.

Following intermission the KSO crosses Igor Stravinskys 1947 edition of the puppet ballet Petroushka off the Symphonys bucket-list, completing KSO performances of all three of the composers large ballet scores The Firebird (performed in 1999) and The Rite of Spring (1997). Given the variety and one-of-a-kind presentations that have distinguished KSO programming for 22 years, the opportunity to simply perform some of the greatest works in the orchestral repertoire makes a rare and exciting event.

Put on your discerning eyes and ears and enjoy an evening of 20th century classics and KSO premieres 8:00 p.m., Saturday, November 22 at Florence Baptist Church at Mt. Zion. Tickets are $19, $27, $35 (children 6-18 receive 50% off) and are available online, by phone or at the door. http://www.kyso.org / (859) 431-6216.

About the KSO: The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra takes the phony out of symphony through thematic concerts that culturally enrich, educate and entertain the residents of Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati. The KSO performs throughout Northern Kentucky performing three series of concerts, for the schools, in the parks and at various indoor venues.

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The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra Goes Silent...for 4'33"

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Ryugen Watanabe Osho Part 3 Zen Buddhism Personal Questions Kar
Ryugen Watanabe Osho Part 3 Zen Buddhism Personal Questions Karm Ryugen Watanabe Osho Part 3 Zen Buddhism Personal Questions Karm Part 3 Ryugen Watanabe Osho...

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Ryugen Watanabe Osho Part 3 Zen Buddhism Personal Questions Kar - Video

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Dr. Walter Martin - Kingdom of the Cults Part 7/7 - Zen Buddhism, Meher Baba, and Hare Krish
Dr. Walter Martin - Kingdom of the Cults Part 7/7 - Zen Buddhism, Meher Baba, and Hare Krishn Dr. Walter Martin - Kingdom of the Cults Part 7/7 - Zen Buddhis...

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Dr. Walter Martin - Kingdom of the Cults Part 7/7 - Zen Buddhism, Meher Baba, and Hare Krish - Video