Thursday, September 9, 2010

Make Sure You Tail Isn't Wagging Your Head

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the head of the turning of the cycle of the year. It is one of about four distinct celebrations of the beginning of the year.

Tu B'Shvat celebrates the first blossoms of the almond trees at the tail end of winter, hinting at the beginning of spring.

Pesach marks the beginning of the first month of the Hebrew calendar, celebrates the birth of the Israelites as a people, and their annual intentional renewal of their descendants' freedom from the slavery in the Narrow Places we often find ourselves in, whether we are being squeezed from the outside or are doing the squeezing form within ourselves. The Israelites are, of course, the genetic/ethnic/cultural ancestors of not only most Jewish people (Rabbinic and Karaites), but also Samaritans and probably an awful lot of currently Muslim, Christian, and otherwise non-Jewish long-term inhabitants of the Middle East (the Levant in particular) and their decedents all over the world. Indeed the Torah even reminds us that a multitude of peoples followed Moses and his Hebrew tribes out of the Narrow Place and into the desert, the place of no-thing, where together they formed a new identity as Israelites.

Rosh Hashanah, on the other hand, is not about us, its about the birth of the world, or at least the birth of the world as we know it. Since we like to lay cycles on top of cycles, the beginning of the new year does not correspond with the beginning of the first month of it. This Rosh Hashanah brings us into the year 5771 by the ancient Hebrew recognition, meaning this beginning took place around 3761 bce. If you look at it from a larger geologic or astronomical time scale, this is very close to the beginning of the Mayan calendar (3114 bce) and the beginning of the current Kali Yuga cycle in the ancient Indian calendar (3102 bce).

Now, i think someone would be hard pressed to claim that our species, homo sapiens sapiens came into existence only 5771 years ago, not to mention the living planet we are a small part of; the solar system Earth is a small part of, with the living Sun at its heart; the Milky Way Galaxy Sol is a small part of, with a living supermassive black hole at its heart; the galactic cluster Milky Way is a part of with nothing at its heart but the combined center of gravity of its constituent galaxies; the galactic super cluster that the Milky Way's cluster is a part of; or the larger unimaginably large and old universe that even our unimaginably large super cluster is but an unimaginably small part of.

On the other hand, if you let go of the notion that scriptures should be taken literally and think about what we know about what our species was up to during the 4th millennium, it seems totally rational to see that time period as a huge change in the world as we perceive it and thus the beginning of the world as we know it. This was a time when agriculture, metalworking and living in permanent settlements was becoming more wide spread. Think about how different the world view and experiences of someone from a big city vs a small town can be, and magnify it enormously. This was also the beginning of the current desertification of the Sahara.

In settling down, people had to learn to trust and belong to a larger group. Often this larger group was in conflict with another group of roughly similar size over resources, potable water, arable land, natural beauty, etc. The good part of this was that people learned to be a part of a larger community, but they also learned about the other.

This served its purpose for a time, but that time is long since passed, and yet we cling ever so tightly to pointing to the other as a way to deflect from our own internal problems. Its great and wonderful to feel that you belong to a community of people who accept you for who you are.

This can be based on religion, culture, nationality, languages and many other factors and that is all good because its hard to perceive the whole of the humanity, but we have to get to a place where we understand them as dynamic and dotted lines. Because when you follow back in time, all these categories eventually disappear. Every one of them, though they may go back a handful of thousands of years, have evolved a great deal over that time and all started in the last 6000 years or so. Abraham the Hebrew would not have recognized the practices of David the Israelite, any more than David would have recognized Classical Judaism of Talmudic period, or Rabbi Akiva would recognize any service by any current genre of Judaism - no matter how traditional they think they are.

The point is, if you follow any of these identifications back far enough, you see how they came to be founded by other previous ones and the historical context that reforged it. As completely and totally positive as they are for our emotional well being, we can't be attached to them to the extent that we miss what it is that we all have in common.

Every human, without exception, belong to the species homo sapiens sapiens who have shown time and again through history to be able to adapt to almost any circumstances. We have developed different languages and cultures and religions at different places and in different times, not to express something unique of that context, but to express the same universal human experience of the world through whatever current context it and we need to adapt to.

I am truly saddened lately by all the talk about the so called "Ground Zero Mosque", which is neither a mosque, nor at "Ground Zero." I am also truly saddened by this preacher in Florida and his Koran burning, which G-d Willing won't happen this Saturday.

The first large european settlements which lead to our United States of America were largely religious zealots who's ways and beliefs were not that far from the Taliban or the Maccabees of the Chanukah story, completely happy to slaughter not only those who weren't of the same religion as them, but even more especially those who were, but just not in the "right" way.

Luckily, by the time United States came into being itself, our founding fathers, though flawed in plenty of other ways, were not religious zealots, but rational thinkers who saw the wisdom in creating a nation-state FOUNDED on the idea of absolute religious freedom for all and separation of "church" and state. Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran and made his own translation of the new testament that removed all the miracles and just focused on Jesus' actual teachings.

Also the thankful reality is that the religious nutjobs are almost always a small minority in any religion. They just happen to be a loud, vocal, and often violent minority. But it we accept that as true, we can stop wasting time trying to stop one religion or another from some imagined world wide conspiracy and realize the problem is asshole extremists of all backgrounds, not any background in particular.

Because of this foresight of our founding father, the Jewish population in the US has enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity not seen since the Golden Age in Muslim controlled Spain, which was ended by the same Christian Spanish King & Queen who tried to send Columbus to India.

Even if there is regional conflict over resources between those who are Mulim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist (Tibet invaded China in the Tang Dynasty), or whatever religion, that doesn't mean that its a Holy War between all members of that religion. Even if some loud extremist idiot says that it is, most people of whatever background just want to live their lives in peace.

If there is one thing this country is founded on, its freedom from religious persecution, and we need to all wake up and realize that if we let one group get persecuted, we easily could be next. If you don't believe me, pick of a history book. Its a cycle that will continue to repeat until we stop pretending to tolerate one another and actually accept each others differences as not just ok, but important for adding to the dynamic cultural richness that we as a species have built. And giving up our unique cultures to be a part of a shallow homogeneous world culture is not a realistic answer either.

There are plenty of other very real things for us to worry about without wasting one more minute hating on each other out of pure ignorance. Its only a matter of time before an asteroid hits the earth, or a supervolcano erupts or the next ice age comes, not to mention the very real human accelerated environmental and climatic changes which will not destroy our galaxy or solar system or planet, but will render the earth unable to sustain us.

My greatest hope for this new year is for us to all let go of the illusion that we are separate and to choose to come together to extinguish human causes suffering by stopping the finger pointing. If we can ensure that everyone has their basic needs met (food, potable water, safe shelter, healthcare, education, freedom to worship or not worship as they please) - and there is enough to go around, its our modes of distribution that are uneven - then there will be a significant drop in war, famine, etc.

May all beings have a year of great sweetness, but not so sweet as to deprive others of their sweetnesses.

L'Shanah Tovah,
jason

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Ling vs Shen: Grasping Without What

i was just checking out the character - Ling at

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?searchChinese=1&zi=%E9%9C%9D#

so...?

there are 2 people performing and skilled labor of some kind together, an element of ritual.
is it two people or, as in many cultures, one with two souls?
人+人 --> 从
从 + 工 -->
巫 Wu

above them, rain, yang water is falling from the heavens.
雨 - Yu
"Drops of water ⺀ falling 丨 from clouds 冂 under the sky 一."
bringing nourishment to tu / soil and di / land
rain has to do with fertility and creativity and new beginnings.
in hebrew, heaven or sky is HaShamayim השמים
Ha means "the"
Shamayim is aiSh אש (fire) and Mayim מים (water).
1 fire for fire --> yang, 2 water for water -->yin
and HaShamayim, The Sky, is the above place of sun and rain, fire and water
and according to the most ancient elemental ordering of the sephirot
first there is
breath of the living creative forces
wind from breath
water from wind
fire from water
sky from fire
earth from sky
then the 4 winds / directions
north south east west
10, not 9
10, not 11
and they are BeliMah
"without what" - beyond reach
so water comes before fire, which comes before sky

- Yu. similarly, we have that part of the Du that descends from Du 17 diagonally out to the inner Shu points of the UB (Yang Water) Channel, starting with UB12 Wind Gate and flowing into the Kidneys, where the San Jiao can then convert Yuan Qi into Yang Qi which flows up the Du and out to the Shu points. another water ritual.

between Wu's ritual on the Earth and 雨 Yu's ritual in the Heaven are three mouths
mouths are gates, they lead somewhere, and there are three
there are 3 Hun.
many earth centered traditions have Wu/Shaman/etc who traverse between the three worlds.
perhaps the ritual is to get the blood moving?
which gets the 3 Hun moving
and maybe it is they whom the Wu rides through these gates to the three worlds?
the above world,
the below world,
and sometimes the hardest,
the inner world.

so my question is about understanding Ling relative to Shen.
i think i get why Ling is more Yin, because one must do something in the physical world to evoke them?
it is possible that the idea of Ling is older, more related to predynastic Shamanism?

Shen is less tanglible. Its more like one's intangible conscious experience of life.
Meditation is more suited to working with Shen?
Ritual is more suited to working with Ling?

i got Jeffrey Pang to talk about the Shen one night
he talked about the Shi Shen in the brain (probably same as Jerry's Zhi Shen, just cantonese)
our normal busy rational mind
and the yuan shen in the heart
that true quiet place from which we (hopefully) rule our inner landscape
and then there are the 5 zang shen
hun shen yi p'o zhi
which is more emotional

except perhaps originally one skilled in such arts might take their 3 Hun for a walk through the gates into the 3 worlds.
in Jewish, Hun is pretty much similar to Ruach, which is the level of spirit that has the character of Wind and is involved in prophesy, dreams, creativity, inspiration etc.
all hard to utilize if one doesn't have a sail or a windmill.
we don't have three Ruach (that i know of), but there are the three Mother letters which represent air water and fire, the 3 worlds.

Maciocia seem to consider the Yi and Zhi as parts of the Shen, but the Hun and P'o as related, but semi-autonomous Gui/ghosts.

Jeffrey Yuen talks about Yi and Zhi being added around the Song Dynasty (<-- if i remember correct) out of a wanting to make it fit the
newly popular Wu Xing Zang Fu Theories.
maybe Song is when they we teased out to be more separate ideas, even though an equal group of 5 entities might not be proportionally accurate?

then there's the 7 P'o. on some level i think i have a general grasp of what P'o is as the hungry corporeal soul which has close relationship with the Breathe and therefore the Lungs. Its essentially the same thing as what we call in hebrew, Nefesh.

but i don't 100 percent have the 7 aspects of it down. i think i remember someone mentioning a relationship to the 7 Chakras.
after the 3 Mothers of air water fire (heaven earth and life in between)

there are the 7 doubles, which relate to the 7 directions
north south east west above below and center

the 7 planets in space
sun moon mercury venus mars jupiter saturn
the souls of which are considered to be the 7 named archangels
michael gabriel, etc

the 7 sensory orifices in Nefesh
eye eye ear ear nostril nostril mouth
and the cycles of 7 in time

7 days in a week
shabbos is the 7th day
every 7 years is a shabbat for the earth
after every 7 of those (49), the 50th year is the jubilee year
where all debts are forgiven, slaves are freed, and land goes back to its ancestral owners

what's with there being 7 P'o? 7 is the completion of a cycle. do you move through 7 P'o on your way somewhere.

weird thing is that P'o/Nefesh is itself more Yin~Physical than Hun/Ruach, but maybe that's why you need a ritual to invoke the Ling & Hun spirit guides, whereas the P'o are always there with you. they help orient you to the 7 directions of physical tangible life? maybe they don't transcend newtonian mechanical "reality?" and that center place, the 7th direction, is the heart place, the seat of the Yuan Shen who watches over it all, smiling, and hopefully driving the bus.

maybe the 7 P'o are what help you move through daily life, without dying whereas if the P'o drive the bus, one's appetites will get the best of them?
and the 3 Hun are your guides to other places one might journey in the inner worlds, but if Hun drive the bus, one will have trouble living in the world in which they have been birthed?
one's Yuan Shen, hopefully, makes the final call, with the help of the external & internal data from Hun and P'o, the rational deliberations of the Shi Shen, and the emotional feelings of the Zang Shen?

am i on track or have i lost my way? i'm sure there's a question in there somewhere?

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

There's earth... and there's Earth.

In my studies of Chinese Medicine, I often run into the concept of "Earth". It comes up as one of Wu Xing - Five Phases (Wood Fire Earth Metal Water) and also in relationship with "Heaven". I recently learned these are actually two different Chinese characters (~words), both of which we generally translate as "Earth." I also found that they correspond respectively to two Hebrew words which are also generally translated as "Earth."


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地 - Di - earth, ground, field, place, land

ארץ - Eretz - country, land, territory, district, region, earth, Earth, ground, soil


土 - Tu - earth, dust, clay, local , indigenous

אדמה - Adamah - earth, soil, land


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地 - Di often is seen in relationship with 天 - Tian and 人 - Ren.

天 - Tian - sky, heaven, god, celestial, day

人 - Ren - man, person, people, mankind, someone else


This is not unlike the very first line of our תורה - Torah,


.בראשית ברא אלהים, את השמים, ואת הארץ

Bereshit Bara Elohim, Et HaShamayim, V'et HaEretz.

In Beginning Created Many Powers, the Heavens, and the Earth.


It is interesting to note that some commentators say that שמים ("Heaven") is made up of אש - aish - fire & מים - mayim - water, which makes sense, considering that to folks wandering back and forth across a desert, שמים - sky would have been the source of fire (light, heat and energy from Sun and stars) and water (precipitation). In the ancient pre-Kabbalistic text (ספר יצירה - Sefer Yetzirah - Book of Formation), the Three Mother letters are א–מ–ש, representing (אש - aish - fire), (מים - mayim - water), along with the addition of (אויר - avir - air), which mediates between the other do, as does (人 - ren), between (天 - tian) and (地 - di).


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土 - - earth is often seen along with:

木 - mù - wood

火 - huǒ - fire

金 - jīn - metal/gold

水 - shuǐ - water


Together them make up 五行 - wǔ xíng.

五 - - 5

行 - xíng - phase, go, walk, move, travel, circulate, (often translated as Elements)


Within this context, i've seen (土 - tǔ - earth) contextualized two different ways.


The older way has it in the middle of the other 4 (行 - xíng - phases) which represent the 4 seasons and directions.


火 - huǒ - fire

木 - mù - wood - tǔ - earth 金 - jīn - metal


水 - shuǐ - water


In this scenario, water is winter/north/midnight, wood is spring/east/morning, fire is summer/south/noon, and metal is autumn/west/evening.


The other is similar, but it presents them all in a circle, with (土 - tǔ - earth) coming in the middle of the rotation of wood, fire, earth, metal, water and being given a 5th damp season between hot summer and dry autumn. This is the version more often seen pictured today.


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Its also interesting to note that both traditions have ancient stories about humans being formed out of clay (土 אדמה) and surviving a flood. In the Hebrew tradition, the first human [called אדם - Adam - Earth Being] is formed out of אדמה - Adamah - Clay. Ten generations later, his descendent נח - Noah, along with his wife, sons, and their wives were the only survivors who then began repopulating the earth.


In the Chinese tradition, the order is a little different. The flood is survived by Fuxi (伏羲) and his sister/wife Nüwa (女媧) who then begin to repopulate the earth. To speed things up, they began to form people out of clay. I'm not sure if 土 - tu is the character for "earth/clay" used in this story, but i'd be interested to find out.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

無極 ~ אין סוף ~ Limitlessness

(L --> R) (L <-- R)
無極 אין סוף
Wu Ji Sof Ayn
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無 - Wu - no, none, not, to lack, -less, un-
אין - Ayn - no, not, is not, are not
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極 - Ji - extremely, pole (geography, physics), utmost, top, ultimate, limit
סוף - Sof - end, limit, finish, conclusion, termination, last, ultimateness
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For a while, I've had a sense that the concepts underlying Wu Ji and Ayn Sof were related. After all, the more i dig into the primordial pre-histories of the Chinese and Hebrew languages, cultures, and traditions of healing & spirituality, the more they converge. In my research, i have long since abandoned the notion of finding exact 1:1 correlations between the two, but look for larger trends.

Imagine my surprise, when i actually looked at the definitions of 無極 (Wu Ji) and אין סוף (Ayn Sof), words which represent that which is about as primordial as it gets, i was somewhat surprised to actually find a near 1:1 correlation in this case. Wu and Ayn both denote negation of all they come into close relationship with. Ji and Sof both denote the extreme ultimate end of a boundary or limit.

Wu Ji and Ayn Sof, then, both denote a state of absolute lack of any and all boundaries or limitations separating anything from everything. They both represent absolute unity, impossible for us to fully grasp all at once. Difficult even to write or talk about, so bear with me as i fail.

In Judaism, most especially within the mystery traditions, Ayn Sof is considered to be the Name for an aspect of the Divine representing absolute limitless totality of everything & nothing. Its the place that isn't, where all extremes meet there opposites and dissolve into one another. Ayn Sof is preceded only by Ayn itself... absolute nothingness.

Ayn Sof is the source of אין סוף אור (Ayn Sof Aur ~ Limitless Light) which itself is differentiated through the prism of the ספירות (Sephirot) into the myriad forms of diversity we experience in this life.

道生一, Dao Sheng Yi, The Way generates One,
一生二, Yi Sheng Er, One generates Two,
二生三, Er Sheng San, Two generates Three,
三生萬物. San Sheng Wan Wu. Three generates innumerable things.
(Dao De Jing: 42)

無極(Wu Ji)generates to 太極(Tai Ji ~ Supreme Ultimate),
Tai Ji generates 陰陽(Yin & Yang),
Yin & Yang generate 三寶 (Sān Bǎo ~ 3 Treasures),
Sān Bǎo generates 五行 (Wu Xing ~ 5 Phases).

There are many correlations between these two similarly ancient traditions, both based upon the underlying notion that humans (人 - Ren ~ אדמ - Adam) served as a bridge between the Heavens (天 - Tian ~ השמים - HaShamayim) to the Earth (地 - Di ~ הארץ - HaEretz), but the only 1:1 i've found are that of the core concepts of Wu Ji and Ayn Sof. There are still many other close correlations, but the further toward the surface you head, and away from this undifferentiated whole you get, the more labored connections become to make. We shall further explore some of these other layers at another time.


Friday, September 25, 2009

What's a Judai?

Pronunciation

Proper noun

Judai (plural Judai or Judai)

  1. One who treads the Way of the Judai.
  2. One who studies the mystical, medical, and meditative congruences of all ancient traditions, while emphasizing those of the Judaic and Chinese traditions.
  3. Like a Jedi, but funnier and more self-deprecating.