Only a Blockhead

Equinox flowers

Some past posts to celebrate 10 years of Only A Blockhead; this from 2008

The higanbana spider lilies are coming into bloom.  To my unprejudiced eyes, they've always been as beautiful as the daffodils they resemble in size: long green stalks with a spindly flower on top; splashes of scarlet on roadsides, riverbanks, around paddy fields, carpeting orchards.

But the beauty has been veiled because higanbana, literally equinox flower, are viewed as embodiments of death. Perhaps because the blooms are the color of blood; because they uniquely grow and flower without leaves; because the filigreed heads are as sinister as the spiders they resemble; because they bloom at the equinox when people visit the graves of their ancestors; because their love of moist, disturbed ground leads them to colonize graveyards – the sight of spider lilies in bloom provoked shivers rather than rapture.

But attitudes are changing. Here in Chigasaki, it went unremarked that higanbana make a spectacular show along the banks of the nearby Koidegawa river (or what's left of the Koidegawa, encased as it is in concrete). But year by year, more people stopped their cars to take in the sight, and were even drawn to walk the banks among the hosts of flowers. Then a few years ago a nature park opened nearby and the seasonal blooms appeared on its maps of local flora and fauna, bringing even more people to admire them.

Perhaps the change comes as traditional relationships with nature unravel, leaving urban residents free to respond to beauty as they see it. Perhaps it comes from the loosening of family ties, with generations living apart and lessons not being passed on the way they used to be. M remembers his grandmother telling him not to trample or pick spider lilies because when people die their souls enter them. But last Sunday we saw a couple walking with a little boy happily running and waving one of the flowers about.

Finally this year the scales have tipped. Next Saturday, the 1st Koidegawa Higanbana Festival will be held. With a contemporary understanding of the financial benefits of tourism, local people will sell vegetables, crafts, and cotton candy to the visitors.

And the beauty of the flowers will be celebrated without prejudice.

--Julian

On Enlightenment

A few years back fellow Blockhead Julian and I had a discussion (off-blog) about enlightenment: whether such a state exists, and if it does whether it is worth pursuing.  Basically Julian answered yes, and I answered no.  This, by Mr. Furious, reminded me of that discussion:

The adventure lies in getting up every morning and not only figuring out a way to get out of bed and dealing with all the oppressive daily minutia, but in succeeding and in being triumphant and still finding room to love, care, and suffer for other people. To enjoy such true-blue miracles as the cherry and plum blossoms sprouting every spring, the mosquitoes flying into your ear, the peanut butter sandwiches with a little honey and sliced bananas is true enlightenment. Why do you think all of the really smart, spiritual poets write about everyday things? Basho wrote about frogs, snowy mornings, and a monk drinking tea. Issa wrote about spiders, idiot poets who write about snow, and flies making love. Po Chi I wrote about laziness. Li Po wrote about getting drunk and looking at the moon. Ikkyu wrote about jacking off and performing cunnilingus. Bukowski wrote about fighting bullies on the playground. The GZA wrote about Larry’s Bird flying out of Nicholas Cage. Lao Tzu wrote,

“Without going out of doors one may know the whole world; without looking out of the window, one may see the Way of Heaven. The further one travels, the less one may know.”

These are the adventures.

But not to an enlightened person.

Read the whole thing here.

--David

Quoth

--David

The hidden side of relationships

Marriage. Intimate relationships. Love. Sex. There’s little that engages our thoughts more. Or is as taboo and shrouded in mystery. How often did my parents have sex? When did they stop having it? Did they fall in love or lust with anyone else? Or to turn the spotlight on myself, how many people know the answers to similar questions about myself and my present partner? I’ve revealed this and that to the odd brother or good friend, but sex and attraction are pretty much hidden parts of our relationship. And my boyfriend and I probably aren’t alone in not sharing as much about them with each other as we do, say, our preferences and desires for food or music.

It was a Big Think blog post by Kayt Sukel (“Is Monogamy the Only Way to Be Happy?”) that made me think about this. I’ve spent a lot of energy and anxiety over the years trying to shoehorn myself into monogamy, which, in the absence of information, seemed like the proper thing to do. Perhaps there are viable alternatives.   

god, I love being alive at a time when basic assumptions about things like sexuality and religion are being healthily questioned. It’s not exciting to be alive at a time when we seem to be polluting ourselves off the planet. And no, I don’t think the two are connected.

--Julian

In Pune

--David

We've Needed this Book for a Long Time

My annoyance really peaked when I read through these catalogues, and saw that the endless sessions advertised in them all seemed to sit happily side-by-side. Yet if you literally believed the metaphysical and empirical claims they made and implied, they were more often than not logically incompatible. There seemed to be an illogical almost anti-rational and extreme open-mindedness. No claim, no matter how preposterous or unfeasible, seemed to be unacceptable—and to question the claims was seen as either spiritually naïve or as being locked into some kind of pro-conflict, old-religion mindset of harsh exclusivism. For me, when looking at particular new-age material this ‘everyone is right, all paths are valid’ approach was not only untenable and intellectually insulting, it all too often edged into smugness.

From How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy by David Webster.

—David

Still With Us

New Agers, it seems have always been with us, and, mysteriously, people often take them seriously.  I write about some proto-New Agers, and the people who took them seriously, in my review of Andrei Znamenski's Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia.  You can read it here.

—David

Let's Get Spiritual

Me on The Tibetan Book of the Dead": A Biography by Robert S. Lopez:

In 2005 a journalist telephoned the eminent scholar of Buddhism and Tibetan Studies, Donald S. Lopez, Jr., and asked him whether "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" was the most important work in Tibetan Buddhism.

"No," Lopez replied.

"Do all Tibetans own a copy?"

"No."

"Have all Tibetans read it?"

Again, "no."

The journalist makes a final attempt:

"Have all Tibetans heard of it?"

Lopez: "Probably not."

More here.

—David

Oh Wow, Man

—David