For the week of 16 November 2009, read:
Master Sun's Art of War
Monday 16 November Chapters 1-5
Wednesday 18 November Chapters 6-10
Friday 20 November Chapters 11-13
SignUp for the second part of the semester. Students will lead discussion. Try to get everybody to process the information in the stories.
Third paper will be due after we finish these readings. The topic will be: "The Zen World-view," and you will use only the teaching stories
as the basis for your papers. You must use no outside sources. I am not interested in what some "authority" thinks. I need for you to come
to your own understanding and then to try to express your understanding in words for your favorite high school teacher, your grandmother, or some other "average well-informed reader." Students should not want "their noses firmly held by others" if they "expect to attain their end." (p. 406)
The intended audience for this paper is some interested adult, e.g., your favorite junior high school teacher, someone who is generally well read but is not familiar with either martial arts or with the cultures of China and Japan. So you would like them to understand in what ways activities such as karate are not taught with the idea of making people able to beat other people up. As Perfection of Character says, the martial artist is supposed to be someone who works for the good of the community. But by learning how to fight s/he develops another dimension of ability, a kind of "moving zen" that both perfects his/her martial arts ability and also goes beyond martial arts to a general kind of enlightened behavior in the world.
Teaching Stories in ‘’Zen and Japanese Culture’’
p. 13. The swordsman’s story
p. 65 2/3 of the way doan. Tokimune asked Bukkoo…
p. 70, bottom. To quote one of the stories cited in the ‘’Hagakure’’…
p. 74, top. “Let the enemy touch your skin…”
p. 74, bottom: “When Bokuden was crossing Lake Biwa…”
p. 75, bottom. Bokuden’s three sons.
p. 76, bottom: In one of the pitched battles at Kawanaka…”
p. 117f, The bullfighter
p. 128, middle, I do not know…
p. 131, bottom to 136
p. 182 Desperate servant
p. 189 The Teaman and the Ruffian
p. 193 Real life example
p. 194 bottom Mr. Ogura Masatsune…
p. 210 Forced to fight
p. 212 A quiet walk in the garden
Keep in mind that the average Samurai must not have had much choice about whether he would be a samurai or not. All of his conditioning up until adulthood, and even beyond, had probably been directed toward making him a dependable samurai. After he had become a samurai, the threat of death must have become apparent to him, and if he survived death long enough, then he probably sought out the best ways not to get killed himself. It must have been at this point for most of them that Zen offered both a way to preserve life and also a way to try to gain freedom for themselves. Without Zen they were the captives of a system in which they must kill others or be killed themselves. They were trapped by obligations to their own wives and children, to the expectations of their father, mothers, and communities, and they were trapped either into being killed or feeling guilty for the people whom they were forced to kill.
Syllabus
Recent key points
If yellow is "hot" and blue is "cold," then green is "don't feel anything." When absolute opposites collapse
into each other they leave our world of experience.
If yellow is "phenomenal" (fringes) and blue is "noumenal" (embryo hidden in the womb), then green is "back to the state before the Big Bang.
In the first chapter of the DDJ this is the "embryonic" and the "mammary" aspects of reality, i.e., the noumenal and the phenomenal. It's as though the part of the universe that is totally out of our experience (what the photon is doing in flight) and the parts of the universe that is available to inspection (the spot of light that you see) both collapse into each other and go down a singularity like a black hole.
Buddhist existence. Each moment is a new creation. The person in frame 1 is not the person in frame 2, and so on. What determines that each person is connected with the previous one so that showing the movie will make it appear that there is one person doing something?
Compare and contrast these ideas to
Yi Jing (Book of Changes) ideas.
==Notes on class discussions ==
26 August 2009 Covered in class and planned for Friday
28 August 2009 Finish introductions and view part of The Last Samurai.
31 August 2009 Continue with The Last Samurai.
02 September 2009? Continue with The Last Samurai.
04 September 2009 Work on the Hakagure.
07 September 2009? Questions over Perfection of Character --
you are responsible for reading the entire book.
09 September 2009? Chapter One of the Dao De Jing. Phenomenal and noumenal.
11 September 2009? Double-slit experiment
No thing is observed between the laser and the detection screen.
There are macro-world observations at both ends,
but only speculations in between.
- "For those who are not shocked when they first come across
- quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
- --Niels Bohr, quoted in Heisenberg, Werner (1971).
- Physics and Beyond. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 206.
14 September 2009? Discussion of the paper topic.
- Minamoto no Musashi had a career consisting essentially of killing people.
- Bernie Madoff had a career consisting of harvesting other people's money.
- The Dao De Jing (and Master Sun's Art of War) teach minimizing violence.
- Tradition says that the father of the historical Buddha was told that his son would either become a "World King" or would become a great religious leader. His father, the king, isolated his son from anything that might make him "religious." Siddhārtha Gautama chose otherwise, anyway.
16 September 2009 Read DDJ parts that relate to "the Uncarved Block" and (its relation
to) desire (i.e., any subjective motivation). Those are chapters 1, 15, 19, 28, 32, 34, 37,
46, 57, 64.
18 September 2009 Re-read the above chapters. Discussion on preconceptions.
21 September 2009 First set of readings from Zhuang Zi.
23 September 2009 Second set.
25 September 2009 Third set. With comments and explication.
2 October 2009 Review of some of the main ideas explored thus far.
5 October 2009 From Piaget to Einstein by way of immune responses.
7 October 2009 Detailed examination of Chapter 2 of the Zhuang Zi, first half
9 October 2009 Detailed examination of Chapter 2 of the Zhuang Zi, second half.
21 October 2009 Basic Buddhist Concepts
23 October 2009 Buddhist idea of time and karma
26 October 2009 Zen, from Suzuki's book
28 October 2009 Zen, from Suzuki's book
30 October 2009 Zen, from Suzuki's book
2 November 2009, Zen and the invisible string puller.
4 November 2009, Second part of the first Appendix
==Help with Writing==
General Critique notes on various problems common to many of your papers. Notes like [9] mean that you have a problem that is covered in note 9 on this page.
Second paper, due just before Fall Break:
Third paper due in mid November
Fourth paper due at end of semester
Questions to help you think about the second paper:
According to the Daoists, what is the position of human beings in nature, and how does that in turn instruct us in how we had best conduct our lives?
- The main things to cover -- "Common sense" ideas versus Daoism.
- The bigger opponent wins, so at least act big and confident, vs. _________
- Human beings and other things are completely separate from each other (they are discrete entities), and we can ordinarily get as clear information about anything as we are willing to work to get, vs. __________
- "What you see is what is really there," vs. __________
- How to regain freedom and become an autonomous person.
- Concrete prisons
- Ankle bracelets and life on the reservation or in a ghetto.
- Prisons of thought.
- Inculcated values
- Social "realities" constructed on the basis of a few "marker traits" (the cowboys in white hats are the good guys)
- Bugs Moran ||, Ard Rí (high king) of the Green Militia wants you to sell dope to fund the mission.
- One useful approach
- The basic idea is simple. The whole universe is a single thing with no real gaps in between what humans see as "separate things."
- From this "Uncarved Block" humans each make their individual fabrications. (They sometimes fabricate "fish traps" like "witch" that catch ordinary people.)
- Most often the fabrications that an individual makes are learned from other humans. Some of them are dysfunctional.
- Grouping dogs and wolves together con-fuses a friendly species with an unfriendly species.
- Grouping whales and fish together almost completely assures that people would misunderstand the whales, that veterinarians could not treat the whales correctly, that aquariums might not make it possible for them to breathe properly, etc. It might not be a good thing for people familiar with friendly dolphins to assume that sharks have the same attitudes toward humans.
- So if you put these basic premises through your own logical processes, and assume that these premises are correct, what can you conclude about how to be a successful organism in a very harsh environment?
==Assignments==
Assignments:
a selection, about 60 pp. It is one of the statements of Samurai ideals/ideology.
(Password protected. Remember our password? If not, look up "Japan's M _ _ _ F _ _ _ _ _ swordsman."
- Before Friday, 4 September 2009, read the first half of Mr. Okazaki's book. (It's for sale in the bookstore.)
- For Monday, 7 September 2009, finish reading the Okazaki book. Be ready to discuss its content, and to answer the question: To whom, or to what, does Mr. Okazaki believe individuals should hold the highest allegiance?
- For Wednesday, 16 September 2009, read DDJ chapters that relate to "the Uncarved
Block" and (its relation to) desire (i.e., any subjective motivation). Those are
chapters 1, 15, 19, 28, 32, 34, 37, 46, 57, 64.
- For Friday, 18 September 2009, Re-read the pages above.
- For Monday, 21 September 2009: Read and comment on:
- For Wednesday, 23 September 2009. Read and comment on:
- For Friday, 25 September 2009. Read and comment on:
- For Monday, 28 September 2009. Read and comment on:
- For Wednesday,30 September 2009. Read the entire chapter:
- Chapter Four of the Zhuang Zi. General principles of making one's way in the world.
- For Friday, 2 October 2009. Read the entire chapter:
- For Monday, 5 October 2009. Read the entire chapter:
- For Wednesday, 7 October 2009. Review the ideas seen so far. The "dao" in "karatedo" is a way to a higher competency. It involves going back to the Uncarved Block. Its aim is deconstructing malformed social constructs, the things that the mind "fabricates" out of the Uncarved Block. Its utility can be clearly seen in cases like Einstein's Theory of Relativity where our ordinary "common sense" ideas had blinded us from seeing how things really work all the way through human history up to the point that he broke the old "fish trap."
- For Friday, 9 October 2009. Bring your own examples of things that need to be deconstructed to class.
- For Monday, 12 October 2009. Retrospective. The difference between the ideals of the martial artist as presented in Pefection of Character and in the Hagakure. The Chinese Xia (knight errant) vs. the Samurai ideal. Thoughts about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and its relevance to modern life.
For lessons after Fall Break, see the sign-up schedule above.
For the week of 16 November 2009, read:
Master Sun's Art of War
Monday 16 November Chapters 1-5
Wednesday 18 November Chapters 6-10
Friday 20 November Chapters 11-13
First paper: In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna discusses life with his chariot driver Arjuna. He says that it is better to do whatever it is your innermost nature to do than to do the task in life that is suited to another. In our culture we are not forced to be a samurai, nor are we forced to be a serf. However, we are often "directed" by guidance counselors, well-meaning parents, and other authority figures, and we are often influenced by "opinion leaders" in the mass media. So how does one find a way in life that will be rewarding instead of being a drudge or a torture?
Most form of employment give benefits not only to the the individual worker but also to others. In advising someone, it would be good to outline everything from the simplest (someone providing for his or her own survival) to more complicated situations in which not only the individual is benefited, but also his or her family, community... all the way out to the entire world.
Many careers can empower people in other careers. Scientists provide new technologies for doctors, engineers, etc. Theologians help priests, pastors, and people in those kinds of careers to think more clearly about the challenges that they face.
What are the main kinds of choices that you and other individuals face, and how is one to decide how to find what your true vocation is, what will be more self fulfilling?
Second paper, due just before Fall Break: According to the Daoists, what is the position of human beings in nature, and how does that in turn instruct us in how we had best conduct our lives?
==Class members==
新生 Students and their work:
- Apple, Elizabeth Contact information and self-intro
- Bae, Jinsoo with Contact information and self-intro
- Borg, Gavin with Contact information and self-intro
- Carpenter, Andrew with Contact information and self-intro
- Glendon, Steven with Contact information and self-intro
- Kim, Yo Seob with Contact information and self-intro
- Krienke, Blake with Contact information and self-intro
- Kwak, Christine with Contact information and self-intro
- Lauria, Alexis with Contact information and self-intro
- Lee, Jae Hyung with Contact information and self-intro
- LoCicero, Michael with Contact information and self-intro
- Moodie, Gregory with Contact information and self-intro
- Moran, Patrick with Contact information and self-intro
- Ruffin, Dale with Contact information and self-intro
- Schroeder, Katherine with Contact information and self-intro
- Selverian, Kendall with Contact information and self-intro
- Simsarian, Colin with Contact information and self-intro
- Sponholz, Richard with Contact information and self-intro
- Waddell, Trevor with Contact information and self-intro
[[Extras==
::http://www.content4reprint.com/personal-development/the-success-secrets-of-michael-jordan.htm
For Saturday, 24 October 2009:
- Demo 拳套 quan2 tao4, kata. Sometimes called ping-an #1 or hei-an #1
- Basic path looks like:
- 1 ⏉ 2---Start at the middle, top. Go to "2" with first down block and stepping punch
- 3 ⏊ 4---0➔2◡0➔1◟0 ↓↓↓0╮3◠4╮0↑↑↑0╰2╮1 (All turn go toward the center.)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakuradamon_incident_(1860)
This incident gives you some background for
The Last Samurai.
