That the self advances
and confirms the ten thousand things
is called delusion;
That the ten thousand
things advance and
confirm the self is
called enlightenment
- Dogen Zenshi
The ability to be fully present yet not controlled by conditions create a stable mental and emotional foundation even in the midst of turmoil. - Dogen
In Fujian, China using flakey chalk Lucky wrote Blues Music Story on a broken green board for eighty classless university students.
He spoke of the African Diaspora, history and slavery in America and how indentured humans gathered to make music and dance after long hard days in the sunshine of their love.
The blues manifested stories and songs as men and women left rural villages on economic migrations for city jobs like China now. Floating people in a floating world.
The blues expressed physical and spiritual loss from family, friends and communities. It’s “feeling, emotional, deep in your spirit soul” music. He pulled out his blues harp and they said, “Oh it’s a cochin.”
“Want to hear some blues?”
“Yes.”
He blew sweet slow stuff, picking up the tempo blasting rifts of wailing train whistles and a sense of loss forever.
“This is called, ‘If you don’t help me I’ll find someone else,’ by Howling Wolf. When you’re a wandering minstrel or a Griot - a West African performer who perpetuates oral traditions of a family or village by singing histories and tales, considered by musicologists to be a link with the acoustic blues - or a Seanachai - a traditional Irish storyteller of truths, myths and legends - or a shaman, seer and adept it’s natural. I am a conduit for music. It comes through me.”
After hearing and feeling the blues students practiced making a Western sandwich: bread, tomatoes, mayo, relish, turkey slices, mustard, onions and lettuce. How do you consume a sand wish with chopsticks?
Let’s eat, said 1.6 billion peasants. We’ll eat anything with wings and legs except tables and planes.
New music echoed outside Room 317. Students ran to painless windows.
Across the street a young Indonesian boy sat on a piece of plywood in the shadow of a long tall Sally art deco three-story concrete building.
It towered above a gated Jakarta middle-class community filled with designer homes, wild tropical blossoming fruit trees and displaced dysfunctional spoiled offspring spinning yoyos.
In his left hand he held a silver chisel. In his right a flat edged hammer. He slammed metal against metal on a bronze bridge between stone and iron ages.
Between knowledge and wisdom.
Between an object and a concept.
Tap-tap-tap. Music flaked dust. Wind-spirits carried his chorale and tribal memories of family, rice paddies, nature and seasons.
Accompanying him a girl using a brothel broom of tree branches whisked a gentle rhythm creating their symphony of sadness, loss and neglect. They went on tour. Standing Room Only. Sold out forever and a day.
The other TLC cranium belonged to the Director of Natives. From the Big Apple core with a PR background she recruited them, interviewed them, hired them, trained them and centered them. She was off center. She took orders from two daughters managing her, accountants, center service managers, personal tutors and eloquent savages.
At a teacher training class in Constantinople chaired by a Spanish princess burning witches at an Inquisition running behind schedule because nobody knew what the fuck was going on the Director kept asking Lucky, “Where’s your watch? Where’s your watch?”
He put an hourglass on the table. He turned it over addressing the gravity of the situation. Sand dancing through time sang, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”
Everyone creates his/her sandcastle.
The Director achieved her position because the owners knew she’d cause no turbulence during their ambitious tricycle. Training wheels had rusty mudguards and broken spokes.
“We have time,” said a native to foreign explorers in rain forests, “but you have the machines to controls time. Time is free.”
Leo, the Chief of Unemployed Cannibals showed white invaders the alarm clock strangling him, “Time is an abstract infinite concept. What’s strange is what’s going on inside time. In your world when you retire they give you a gold watch and not enough time to wind it. Life’s little joke. Here we have all the time in the world.”
Downcast broken Turkish females wearing too much foundation makeup portrayed a beautiful face above a big behind tomorrow as merchants hung Ottoman carpets, caressed friendships, soles, heels and leather working tools.
A one-eyed Bursa shoemaker sharpened his utilitarian knife. One blind brown eye reflected Winter Hawk’s wings in rods, cones, a retina, iris, and cornea. He heard unemployed grizzle-faced men in a nearby teahouse slap cards on a green felt table.
Shoemaker in his small blue shack threaded uppers to lowers. His steel Blade Runner revealed reflections. He smashed his left hand on a window sparking conversations with a wealthy barefoot beggar seeking alms.
Another day dead he flicked a yellow switch extinguishing a single bulb. Carrying his bent arthritic back he shuffled across fresh packed sticky asphalt into a diner for rice, beans, coarse bread and brown tea.
A silver teaspoon tinkled glass music.
A player shuffled a deck.
Your deal, said Omar the blind.
Wind-spirits turned a page.
The world is a myth. We live in a fable.
I used to be someone else but I traded him in.
Vientiane, Laos.
Helping grades 6-7 how to be more human. Develop character - strength, optimism, persistence, social intelligence, gratitude, with curiosity and humor.
Practice good manners. Treat everyone with respect. Be aware of other people's feelings and find ways to help those whose feelings have been hurt. Help others.
Moral character: fairness, generosity, integrity.
Trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, caring, citizenship.
Performance character: effort, diligence, perseverance.
Are you fair?
Are you honest in dealings with other people?
Are you a cheater?
Are you a good person?
Behavior and values.
Kids needs challenges - hardships and deprivation. Trial and error. Taking risks.
How do you build grit and self-control? Through failure.
Think for Yourself Academy exam questions.
Why do we exist?
Why are we here?
What's it all about?
When your legs get tired walk with your heart.
If its not in the heart it's not in the head.
Focus and simplicity.
Have the courage to follow your heart & intuition.
Real eyes realize real lies.
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