The sound of one hand clapping and David Lynch
December 12, 2009
The question, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" is perhaps the most famous Zen Koan. The gist is that if you know the answer then you get a bit of enlightenment.
I have heard someone suggest that it is the sound of fingers slapping a palm! No, surely not. Or again that it is simply un-thinkable, beyond the bounds of that which a human mind can frame, and so, to frame the answer, requires that one takes a step back, into the chaotic, emptiness of the flowing, floating world. That sounds more likely, and more difficult.
Shinto....
I don't find to time to go to a Shinto shrine often. Shrine visiting for me has always been part of my jogging. I am more of a joggist than a Shintoist. Lately, or for the past several years, my jogging route does not end, or turn back, at a Shrine. It ends instead by the side of a river and there I pray, Shinto style, by bowing twice, clapping twice and bowing once again.
I have feelings for the river! It is quite magnificent. In flood it threatens to overun its banks, and the first floor of our house. It is a powerful little, and sometimes big, river. I try to see it as god or a Spirit or at least at the end of my run in my slightly befuddled, adrenalined state to feel the awesomeness of the place, and I clap, to the river, as earnestly as I can, "clap clap."
First, an aside about hats. Someone opined that in Shinto it is more polite to be hatted than to be hatless. I remember ages ago I went into the cathedral in Bath (UK) with my hat on a member of the congregation 'tsk-tsked' me to take my hat off. I am sorry. In Christianity it is polite to be hatless, but perhaps in Shino it helps to be wearing a hat.
Anyway, in these winter evenings, when I stand at the end of my jog, I look out of the gun emplacement of my hatted mind at the river.
I would like you to imagine a photo taken not from a camera at my brow, but from a camera shooting from behind my eyes, that sees the band of hat framing the river.
And I clap. I hear the two clapping sounds. Then sometimes it seems to me as those my clapps are my speach, they, "pachi, (clap)" "pachi (clap)" are my prayer to the river. They are my greeting, my "thank you," my "yoroshiku (be nice to me)."
Normally I think that I identify with the presumed origin of my speach, especially my self-speach in the worded silence of my mind. "God be good to me, yoroshiku" "There goes someone with a saxaphone," whatever, I figure myself to be the thing that says the words, a thing inside my head. But when I do the Shinto clap, clap praying bit, it is like the center of myself moves from within my head to my hands.
Out out damn self!?
Well, I don't achieve enlightenment, but I do get this feeling that I am the clapper, not the speaker. And yet I can see my hands, and see that there is nothing between them.
Now for a bit of David Lynch! (Can this have any relevance at all? I would not blame you for wondering.)
In two David Lynch films ("Blue Velvet", and "Mulholland Drive") the protagonists have a powerful, rather painful it seems from their expressions, experience before a mime artist. In both cases the singer sings a Roy Orbison song. Blue Velvet (particularly at 1:23)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-DjluKLY14
or Mulholland Dr. (particularly at about 6:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoBUe-A2RkM
In the latter there is greater emphasis on the deception of mime, on the fact that in mime, it really looks like someone visual is making a noise, when in fact the noise and the vision are not linked.
Well, going back to the clapping, at the river, it seems to me that there is the river, and there are the hands, and the hands come together and there is a sound and yet, does the sound really come from the same place, that place where the hands meet? The sound track of my clapping and the visible act want to be together. They clap a love song to the river, but from different places.
What is the opposite of mime? When is it ever the case that sound comes from vision?
And, to return to the question, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" I can't answer. But, first of all, it makes better sense to me to understand the question in the context of Shinto prayer. And further, I wonder whether the sound of one hand clapping is any different to the sound of two hands clapping. Did two hands ever clap? Did they ever make a sound?
Thanks to Christine and Mr. Tachibana for the inspiration to write this post.
Central Figures in Shinto
March 30, 2008
Who are the major figures in Shinto, I was asked perhaps by someone attempting to write a report for their religion class. My answer was Amateras the spirit of the sun. Some would argue that she is not all that important at all and only became important as a result of the post Meiji imperialisation of Shinto but, being a fan of the Kurozumi Kyou sect I am inclined to put her (she was once a guy) in the top spot as orthorodox and nationalist scholars would agree. In second place, for my money is Amaterasu's father, Izanagi who helped to pull the world out of the brine and is the Adam or perhaps Eve of Japanese myth of the fall. Then their is his wife, Izanami who is perhaps the origin of all scariest of Japanese Horror movies. Then, as a fan of Kagura I would have to recommend Susanoo as the slayer of that eight headed dragon, Amaterasu's sister and a god of war. Then for those that like Shinto old style, more natural perhaps, before the arrival of the Shining princes, then Ookuninushi the chief of the spirits of the land that resides in the Grand Shrine at Izumo, who helps those who come and pray to him, good luck in love.
Hachiman or Oujin deserves a mention since there are more Shrines to him than to any other spirit. There are plenty of other spirits that are important but, with regard to humans the nationalist Shinto scholars Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane also deserve mention as thinkers that shaped the way that Shinto is percieved.
Overcoming Fear
July 19, 2007
Fear is the mind killer, said James Herbert.
To overcome fear, I guess that perhaps a Shintoist might go to a shrine to have a priest perform a sweeping (harai), purification ceremony, wherein the 'ethereal vampire' which is your fear would hopefully be swept of into nowhere you would, hopefully, be left feeling pure and free of fear.
It would be difficult, to say the least, if not impossible, to perform this ceremony upon yourself, but there are instructions for making the paper wand used in the ceremony at the bottom here and prayers used in the ceremony can be found here. You may be able to get a friend to perform it for you.
Better still perhaps, another method of purification is ritual rinsing (misogi) of which there are various techniques, including getting under a waterfall (preferably not such a big one) or into a stream or river, and reciting perhaps the misogi prayer also included on the page above.
People do Misogi in Watefalls, rivers (I think that this may be Rev Barrish, in Oregon) and in the sea.
I think that it helps if the water is not warm, and you are in a natural setting. I used to do misogi in a little waterfall up on Kora mountain in Kurume, Kyushu, and I highly recommend it. Getting under a mountain waterfall and reciting something can cure you of all manner of concern, if only via brain freeze and general numbness, leaving you with a pleasant warm feeling afterwards. Please don't over do it though.
My Buddhist Beckian interpretation of both rituals is that they aim for 'emptiness' or freedom from 'automatic thoughts.' Under this interpretation, the ethereal vampires are ideas or words going round and around in your head and these can be swept away by concentrating on something else, nice white pieces of paper fluttering around, cold running water, and with the help and belief in your favourite spirit.
Amae
May 21, 2007
Amae(ru) is according to Dr. Takeo Doi a word that cannot be directly translated into English. Doi starts out by making a Sapir-Whorf hypothesis based observation that any word that exists in one language but cannot be expressed easily in others, refers to a phenomena which is culturally important in culture of the first language, but not so important in the culture of the others which lack a means of its expression.
It is very true that Amae(ru) does not translate well into English. I would use "(to) fawn upon" or perhaps "to be a baby," or "to be cute." It refers to the action and emotional state of mind of a baby towards its mother (care giver). By "emotional state" I mean that it involves the expectation, need or desire to evoke the love in the other. Another way of putting amae(ru) is "passive love" i.e. feeling and behaving in such a way as to be loved (by a parent). It does not refer to being sexy, flirting or pouting or all the other ways of attracting eros (i.e. being "erotic" ?) but ways of attracting what C.S. Lewis calls "affection," the love of parents towards children. So amae is anticipating, and behaving in such a way as to receive love, affection, or induldence. The last word is moot too since the active form of amae in Japanese, amayakasu is usually traslated as "to indulge". One of Doi's most accessible examples is the behaviour of a puppy. A puppy (or an older dog, since dogs are always children to their masters) might roll on its back and wait for its belly to be stroked. Or it might come up to you wagging not only its tail, panting, and looking you in the eye. This is partly just being happy to see you but it is also a call for affection.
On top of the fact that Doi's insight regardign Amae started from a Sapir-Whorfian insight, it has a yet stronger relationship with language, or rather the lack of language. This connection can be approached in two ways.
First of all Doi's first, and for me most memorable, example of amae, is from when he arrived in the USA and visited a friend. His friend put some cookies or something on a table and said "If you are hungry, please help yourself." Coming from the culture of "amae," Doi felt put out. He was hungry, but he was in an amae frame of mind. He did not want to say, "Well I don't mind if I do," and tuck into the cookies. He wanted his host to actively perceive ("sasshi") that he was hungry and give him a plate of cookies. He wanted to be mollycoddled. The word "mollycoddle," not so common in English, helps us to understand the term amae. Some one who wants to be mollycoddled does not articulate their desire but hopes by their person or their actions to elicit indulgence from an other without the use of language. As soon as they put their desire into language they are putting themselves on an equal footing, as another separate desiring individual - but the person who "amaes" (if I am allowed to conjugate the verb) wants to merge (Doi argues) with the other.
This brings us on to the second connection between amae and the absence of language. Doi, argues that amae is the desire to merge with the other, as if (?) still not an independent entity, and puts forward a theory of individuality (quite common these days among narrative psychologists) that says that being an individual is to linguistically articulate oneself and ones desires. To amae is to refuse to go down that path to linguistic self-hood.
Endo Shusaku is possibly Japan's most famous Christian. Not only was he a Christian but also, as mentioned above, he tried to define a sort of Japanese Christianity. Indeed, Endo Shusaku attempted to take the best of Christian and Japanese culture to propose a more Japanese, and in a sense an even more Christian version of Christianity! In perhaps his most famous book ("Silence") Endo Shusaku raised the question of the martyr, the person that sacrifices themselves for others. The Christian bible tells us, "There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." However, Endo suggests that there is greater love. Endo seems to come to the conclusion that the ultimate "martyr" could and would lay down his life for another, but ultimately she would also refrain for doing so, even if it meant rejecting all that she had lived for, if she felt that she would be held as an example, and thus encourage friends to lay down their lives as well. Putting it as tritely as this does not do service to Endo's sentiment but, Endo argues (successfully judging by the rave reviews from Western Catholics at Amazon.com) that sometimes it is even more difficult to *live on*.
Living on, even when this means not being entirely true to ones beliefs, is close to the philosophy of the Bodhisattva, such as. Kannon. A Bodhisattva is someone that could throw off their ego and reach nirvana/satori but decides to hang around, at the brink of satori, in the hope, working towards the day when, all other sentient beings reach nirvana/satori too.
It also reminds me of "About Schmidt" a film I saw today, in which the hero, played by Jack Nicholson, doesn't say what he really thinks, what he really believes, but chooses a polite, positive *silence* for the sake of those that he loves (perhaps a controversial reading of this bleak, but real and interesting film.)
Putting Endo's question back in terms of a possibly non PC gender related question: "who loves more, the fathers that go to war -- perhaps to die -- to protect those they loves, or the mothers that refuses to go to war, and would rather live in slavery, and abjection, for the same reason?" I think that opinions are likely to be divided. I am afraid that my sentiment is on the side of the warrior, but one might argue that a true blue Shinto-ist would come out on the side of the mother.
Shusaku Endo is a very famous novelist. His books are even more popular among Japanese Christians, who make up less than 1% of Japanese Christians.
Takeo Doi is also, as far as I am aware, a Japanese Christian. It is concievable therefore, in my opinion, that Takeo Doi may have been in part, subliminally inspired by the novels of Shusaku Endo. This is however, highly unlikely since (as kindly pointed out by Maraku below) Doi makes no mention of Shusaku in Amae no Kouzou. Takeo Doi does however, suggest, in the first chapter of his seminal work, that the origin of the word amae may be related to the name of the deity at the top of the Japanese panthenon, Amaterasu Oomikami. This suggests to me a common sensitivity motivating Shusaku Endo's and Takeo Doi's realisation that Japan is a country of amae. To Japanese Christians as they both are, it may be striking that there is a strong difference between their own religion, as expressed in the Bible, and that of the majority of Japanese who are much more enclined to amaeru to, request indulgence of, their deities.
Thanks to VikingSlav for the first paragraph and inspiration for this article.
N.B.
I would like to apologize for an earlier version of this article that suggested a closer link between the work of Shusaku Endo and Takeo Doi. This suggestion was entirely my own and based entirely upon supposition and speculation. In any event, nothing can be taken from Takeo Doi's immense achievement of making the notion of amae available to generations of psychologists, some of whom use the theory to cure people. And incidentally, academically, I am of course not fit to wipe Dr. Doi's shoes.
Japanese Superstitions
May 08, 2007
The following is a fairly long list of Japanese superstitions, or at least the ones that I do not recognise has existing in the UK. But I may be wrong about origins. Most of them are not connected with Shinto directly but there are a few towards the end. Many of them are from the Japanese language Wikipedia article on superstions.
If you whistle at night a snake, ghost or monster will come and get you. Originates in the time when there was slavery in Japan and one would attract a trader (to whom one might sell someone) by whistling at night. Thus children were taught to avoid whistling at night by stories of snakes and ghosts. This was the 3rd most popularly believed superstition among Japanese men and women in 2006.
There are many superstitions related to the Chinese calendar and various regular unlucky and lucky days related to Buddhist 'six day' interpretations of the calendar. The six day cycle
includes "daian" (big peace) the most auspicious day, "butsu metsu" (anihilation of the Buddha) the most unlucky when it is a bad news to hold a wedding (and wedding reception halls
are very cheap) and tomobiki (friend pulling) on which day it is bad news to hold a funeral lest friends of the deceased are pulled towards their deceased friend.
A calendar related superstitions that seems to have been widely believed is that females born in the year of the fire horse ("hi no e uma") every sixty years, last time 1966) will turn
into devils and cause suffering to their husband and children. The birth rate in Japan nominally declined by 25% in that the last Fire Horse year. I say "nominally" because, for example, a family member of mine is registered as having been born on the first day of 1967 but there is some question, at least in my mind, whether she may not have been born a little earlier. She is charming and her family members are fit and well.
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