Zen monks risk death on extraordinary journey

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Journeyman.TV (Journeyman Pictures)

The Monks Risking Death On An Extraordinary Journey (Produced by ABC Australia. Ref - 2471)

The lionized Bodhidharma

The "Marathon Monks" of Japan undertake a perilous journey to "enlightenment" (satori, which is not enlightenment in Zen or kenshō but only an "epiphany") -- choosing suicide if they fail to complete the journey, and often dying en route. 

The world's greatest athletes may well live on top of a sacred mountain in Japan. As part of their spiritual training, the monks run 84 km every day for over three months.

 

"First Day of Zen Garden School" (Dan Piraro/bizarrocomics.com)

 
Genshin Fujinami runs through the forest for 17 hours every day. His straw sandals offer him little protection from the venomous snakes and jagged rocks. His feet are blistered and bruised.

But if he stops, he would be obliged to immediately kill himself (in a foolish act of hari kari or honor killing to save face).

What endogenous drugs are created by asceticism?

"You must think positively," he explains. "I cannot allow myself to think, 'What if?'" The grueling Kaihygo is the conclusion of seven years of training. He must also go nine days without food, water, or sleep. If he completes the quest, he will become a living "saint."

But only 46 monks have completed it in the last four centuries, and fewer and fewer people are attempting it.

[These are the ascetic extremes the Buddha warned about, self-mortification, the clinging to rites and rituals as if they could ever lead to actual enlightenment. The way to enlightenment is calm-and-insight (systematic contemplation founded on profound concentration), nothing more, nothing less.]

"Japanese culture is gradually dying away," Fujinami laments. The monks may have a wonderful history, but their future is one of uncertainty.

  

Journeyman Pictures is an independent source for the world's most powerful films, exploring the burning issues of the day. It brings out stories from the world's top producers, with new content coming in all the time. Its channel has outstanding and controversial journalism covering almost all global subjects imaginable.

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Rosecrans Baldwin (npr.org); Nikil Saval

What are you doing? - I'm just happy to see you. - I can tell. You're outta here because you're nothing more than a third cousin to a chimp, Macpherson. Soundly Coldhotcar said so!*

Hell hath many names... Hades, Gehenna, Niraya, and can be very ironic in Buddhism.

 

So long, palace, riches, and power!

Man was not meant to waste away in quiet desperation in a cubicle. Woman, maybe. Probably not either. That is what "work" in the West has become. We have been cubed. 

To think I, like Siddhartha, could cut the cord and go. Go on a quest. Become a truthseeker. But my boss is calling, and she doesn't like to be kept waiting no matter what I'm doing. 

 

Hello, severe austerities and peace.

"Macpherson, what are you doing?!" Thinking 'bout bananas? "Here's a notepad; take some dictation!"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Uh-oh. This is going to be a long one. Good thing NPR/SCPR never stops whispering in the background. Author Nikil Saval proves it wasn't always like this. There was a time when a person could earn a right livelihood doing something more than shuffling papers from the in-box to the out-box before the clock on the wall lets us go for the day.

NPR is not good for dogs, but humans like it where Free Speech Radio is not available.

Cubed

Cubed (Nikil Saval)

I was fresh out of college, working at a Web design company. The office had an open layout. We all shared long tables. I did have a window that looked onto a stone wall. Otherwise, I was given a computer, a drawer, and a fancy ergonomic chair.

Then, about a month into the job, my hands completely froze over the keyboard. I couldn't move my fingers for half a minute, in the grip of my very first panic attack. I'd wonder later, was I simply not cut out for office work? Or was office work not cut out for anybody at all:

• AUDIO (Rosecrans Baldwin, NPR)
• LISTEN NOW: Nikil Saval interviewed by Rachel Martin (Weekend Edition Sunday)

Soundly Coldhotcar (Sonali Kohlhatkar) with Dr. Jared Diamond

*(Uprising Radio) In The Third Chimpanzee (newly reissued for young adults in April 2014), Pulitzer Prize-winning author and UCLA researcher Jared Diamond (famous for Guns, Germs, and Steel) explores how humans fit among other animal species and also what sets us apart. He explains how we have evolved in our behaviors to perpetuate our genes into future generations, how and why we developed language, culture, art, and what the future holds for the human race given our evolutionary past.

World travelers find beauty in Nepal (photos)

Adventure traveler Alex Saurel; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Stupa, Buddhist reliquary, Himalaya, Nepal (Raimond Klavins/artmif/flickr.com)

Day 37: Alex self-portrait, Kolyma road, Yakutia, Siberia, Russia (AlexSaurel/flickr.com)

Children looking and laughing and asking for money "Baksheesh!" "Why?" I ask. They laugh again. Nepalis are very cool, friendly, and take things in stride.

 
It was Day 166 of my World Tour 2013-2014. I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the Bhaktapur neighborhood, one of the main tourist centers around the ancient city.

It is worth a visit. Since navigating south through the Tibetan border crossing, I have been amazed by the beauty of Nepali girls. So every opportunity I got became a good time to take a picture.

• Lonely Planet guides: Against the high wall of the Himalaya, Nepal is a land of snow peaks and Sherpas, yaks and yetis, monasteries and mantras.

The Kumari Devi, living goddess, with redhead

The incredible thing -- and it may just be the result of being a man on a long journey -- is that an unattractive Nepali girl is extremely uncommon in the city. And it is non-existent in the villages.

Alas, after giving birth to their first child, most of them let themselves go and gain weight, as I remember happening in Cape Verde and Tahiti.

Durbar Square, Katmandu (Amazing Nepal)

Day 160 of the adventure, I crossed the Nepalese border via the Friendship Bridge. It crosses a major Himalayan river coming from Tibet, a gateway to the Himalayan range. The river of melting ice marks the border between the two countries.
 
Since I made an oath to travel progressively, I decided not to follow such a scenic journey by entering spectacular Kathmandu right away. I stopped over in the small village of Dhulikhel, from which I could easily explore traditional old town neighborhoods with traditional Newari architecture and meet local families.

Alex, let's walk to the Buddhist temple!

My new friend and her sister, standing in the background, and I visited a Buddhist temple, which meant a walk of considerable distance through the countryside. At the first sign of a little monsoon rain, they donned their veils. More

 

Tibetan Vajrayana novices undergoing monastic training (AlexSaurel/flicker.com)

Nelson Mandela is reborn (video)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Sambotin Alexandru; Recent Black History

The 14th Dalai Lama together with the great Nelson Mandela in South Africa (AP)

Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid activist, spoke at the International tribute to Free South Africa concert in 1990 at Wembley Stadium two months after his release from prison. More

The Dharma has reached African continent

Actress Lenora Crichlow sets off to discover the story of how Nelson Mandela brought peace to his country of South Africa and what he means to people there today. She uncovers a more complex and fascinating picture of Mandela and his country than she ever imagined, discovering a vibrant rainbow nation but also learning more about the horrors of apartheid and the extent of poverty and violence. On her journey she unlocks the secrets of who Mandela really is and why his achievements are so special and so admired around the world.

The Monkey King literature (video)

Stephan David, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; A.C. Yu, "Journey to the West" (Hsi Yu Chi)

 

The story of Monkey was written hundreds of years ago, sometime in the middle of the sixteenth century, by a Chinese author and satirist, based on an ancient Chinese legend called "The Monkey King." 

 

Its original name was Hsi Yu Chi ("Record of the Journey to the West," Saiyuki or Suy Yuw Gey in Japanese). The full story is enormous, comparable in size to the Bible. There are various English translations, both full-length and abridged. Full-length versions are usually translated as "Journey to the West," while abridged versions usually have "Monkey King" or at least "Monkey" in the title.

(Col. Angus) Episode 1: The Monkey King, Zhang Jizhong

Monkey King

The novel is a fictionalized account of the legendary pilgrimage to the "holy land," India, by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang. It is loosely based on source material from the historic text Great Tang Records on the Western Regions and traditional folk tales. The monk traveled to the "Western Regions" during the Tang Dynasty, to obtain sacred texts (sūtras). Guanyin (Kwan Yin Bodhisattva), on instruction from the Buddha Amitabha, gives this task to the monk and his three protectors in the form of disciples -- namely Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing -- together with a dragon (naga) prince who acts as Xuanzang's steed, a white horse. These four characters have agreed to help Xuanzang as atonement for past unskillful karma. More

 

What is the Monkey King literature?

Amazon.com

The Monkey (abridged version)

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West, initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time.

Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the14-year pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous spiritual heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures.

 

Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights "demons" (yakkhas, asuras) who wish to eat him, communes with spirits (devas, pretas), and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canon is by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.

 

With over a 100 chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. 

 

But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. 

Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible. One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but in Yu’s elegant rendering, it is also a delight for any reader.

• "Journey To The West" (Univ. of Chicago Press), Anthony C. Yu [4 volumes].
• [new] Revised Edition (2013) [new]
• On 21 December 2012, a revised edition of the four volumes of "Journey To The West" was published by Univ. of Chicago Press.
• On February 15, 2013 they were published in the UK, and on April 5, 2013, the Kindle editions were released.