The Inspiration-Letters editor, in possession of red pen and hugely discounted bargains, proceeds to the check-out, continues his introduction:

“As the cashier was checking me out, I happened to glance at her name tag: ‘Karamvir’ it said.

I knew ‘vir’ means hero in many Indian languages. I asked her what ‘karam’ meant. She told me that ‘karam’ means fate.

So ‘Karamvir’ means ‘she who is the master of her destiny, the one who is victorious over her fate!’

Apparently she had never thought about the meaning of her name before, so she just nodded, smiled shyly and handed me my merchandise.”

I am reminded of a supermarket closer to home, where checkout operators are likely as not to be Indian, lowly in station but sweeter in nature than the most expensive chocolates, and names hand-picked from the loftiest spiritual literature. While shopping for bread and milk I have been charmed and served by the entire pantheon of Indian goddesses—Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga included.

The topic for this latest issue of Inspiration-Letters is “Destiny”, and it was the destiny of seven writers and myself to contribute, stories all of the moving and workings of nature’s most mysterious force—fate, and its invisible hold on our lives.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Inspiration-Letters opens with top-drawer writer Sumangali Morhall’s Home Is Where The Heart Is, a tale of time spent in Thailand and the titular lesson learned: home is where the heart is, no matter where mind or body may roam. Sumangali is a master of poetry and lyricism—her gentle evocation of landscapes inner and outer sing a tale of destiny as sweetly as a nightingale’s call, and moved one reader to comment “no one describes nature better than her. Her description of monsoon rains will rise like steam in your memory every time you get caught in heavy rain ever again.”

“I arrived at the start of monsoon. From a veranda I would watch the sky as it jealously gathered navy blue cloud with long grey fingers, until its arms could hold no more, and the whole hoard was spilt on the earth at once. The traffic thickened and curdled, borders between road and path were eaten away by hungry torrents, where sandalled feet sloshed towards any cover they could find. It was at those times I liked to go for a walk.”

It Is Written

Alaskan Palyati Fouse weaves in It Is Written the working of destiny with film of the moment Slumdog Millionaire, and recounts a recent discussion with someone described only as a genius:

“I had a lengthy discussion with a genius recently about destiny. I asked many questions because, at first, I did not agree with what he had to say.”

I for one am highly curious to discover the name of the genius, for it is not written. Perhaps he is unnamed deliberately by the author, lest lost sheep like myself beat a grassy path to his isolated mountain top.

Telling of living alone like a beacon in the dark, just her and destiny on the uppermost edge of the American continent, Palyati talks and inspires with her account of swimming against the spiritual tide, and deserves more than just the respect of some distant shaper of destiny in doing so.

There Was A Child Went Forth

A reader of my own story, There Was A Child Went Forth—title lifted directly from Whitman—commented that he found me to be a good writer, but my stories somewhat depressing. While not ego-shattering, his feedback was certainly unexpected, and from far enough left field to make me pause and reflect. Am I a depressing person; is there less joy in my writing than there should be; in my life as well?

“The journey from child to man is said to be a passage, but for me childhood and adulthood were separated not by distance but a straight line, worlds cleaved apart as if by sharpest knife.”

There is a simple answer to both question and self-doubt—the true story of my life is a tale far more intense than any written. The experiences I went through before joining the spiritual life were more harrowing than any yet related, and while as prone to exaggeration as any writer, in the case of my own backstory, I am not writing larger than reality.

With admirable honesty, Palyati Fouse in It Is Written follows the very same thread:

“Recalling life experiences and my reactions to them before joining this path makes my stomach knot up. There is nothing for me there in the deepest sense. It is the continual inner urge to progress spiritually that keeps me alive.”

Destiny may at times be a blunt instrument, but none can deny the necessity of its scalpel-like role, its work and operation, through trial and tribulation, needed for our ultimate good. Yes this is an intimidating truth, but it is one anything but depressing, for it speaks of perfection, promises a happiness never-ending.

Magical Mystery Tour

In Magical Mystery Tour, professional writer and published author Noivedya Juddery tells of his new preoccupation as film screenwriter, and how the casting of a young aspiring actress really is an act of destiny. At times a treatise on the millennia old debate on determinism, Noivedya writes and winds to the conclusion that life is the greatest mystery tour of them all.

“Occasionally, airlines and tour organisers speak of mystery tours, for which adventurous travellers pay for a tour to a place unknown. It might not be where you wanted or expected to go, but you will hopefully enjoy the destination. Life, of course, is the greatest mystery tour of them all – and however much you might influence your pilot, you never know where he will take you.”

How I Came To The Spiritual Life

In How I Came To The Spiritual Life, Abhinabha Tangerman relates with a Zen-like directness how he came to the spiritual life. To approximate an old Zen saying, if you see the Buddha on the road, you see the Buddha on the road, and in getting lost on a dark Dutch road Abhinabha found his own path to enlightenment—a lecture that would change his life forever.

“The speaker was a Belgian man of about forty years, exuding a marked inner poise. As soon as he started speaking my disappointment vanished. He talked about a spiritual life, a life of peace, love and happiness and the ways to bring these qualities to the fore through meditation. The man was very nice, humble and likeable. And his words were like music to my ears.”

Courageously, Abhinabha shares two dreams of Sri Chinmoy which convinced him to become a full time student of meditation, and concludes that he guesses it was destiny. For me there is no guesswork in this convincing, inspiring story.

Some Thoughts On The Way Forward

In Some Thoughts On The Way Forward, Jogyata Dallas waves the banner and writes a ringing call to arms on karma yoga—the yoga of action and work, and his forceful words are like an Emersonian edict for a new spiritual age. Jogyata is at his best writing of nature inner and outer, poetically intertwining the idyllic landscape of Bali with the sometimes smooth, sometimes rocky contours of the human soul:

“Horizoned and other-worldly, magnified by haze, the grey pencil sketch of Mt. Agung soars up to improbable altitudes, its ragged bulk cloud-garlanded, mysterious and remote from the far-below, scrambling destinies of man. Beyond the shoreline grey skeins of wrinkled seas crest and break—long ocean rollers at their journey’s end. Away from our usual melodramas, Bali’s peace and languor and the heavy gravity of the afternoon conspire, press you down supine.”

Overcoming Destiny

Mahiruha Klein writes in Overcoming Destiny of his first personal message from Sri Chinmoy, and of the message received the very eve of his Guru’s passing: “Hope is sweeter than the sweetest. Sweeter than ambrosia.” Chasing hope like a bee to nectar, Mahiruha is all parts sincere and heart-felt, and his words possess the silent width and weight of the best, other-world inspired writing.

“That was the last time I ever saw Sri Chinmoy. He passed away the following morning, quite early. But his last words to us, that hope is sweeter than ambrosia, touched me deeply. My Master told me in that phrase to keep a positive attitude, to stay happy and well, and to remain hopeful. Sri Chinmoy’s first message to me was to forswear anxiety about what people think of me or how I am judged in the eyes of society. His last message to me was to keep hope alive forever.”

In my case, it is tempting to dwell upon the fact that I had few personal messages from Sri Chinmoy, but like doubt itself this is the path and fiat of a false, never profitable coin. I was one of Sri Chinmoy’s students who had very little outer contact with him—I can count literally on fingertips the times he spoke to me—but to flail now for what will never be would be to miss totally an inner contact that has always been. I can write books of all the messages that have come in quiet moments and dreams, and it this inner communication that is the true currency of spirituality, a wealth of heart and soul that can never be spent, now or when the flickering flame of human life finally burns out.

Again where doubt is concerned, memory is without doubt the quickest, easiest to reach for antidote, and I need look no further than my own submission to Inspiration-Letters to be reunited with Destiny’s eternal, inner communion:

“I remember a vivid dream not long after I returned to New Zealand, of a most beautiful young woman who took me to house where many people were meeting, and above the head of each a small, shining speck of light. The woman, whom I instantly felt a deep, wordless love for, explained this point of light as the soul. Her name may well have been Destiny, for that was what I found upon joining Sri Chinmoy’s path.”

There is a sense now that we students of Sri Chinmoy are swimming in lonely seas, all coming to terms with a sudden, unexpected change of course. But how much and what has changed, and what exactly has been lost? In vanishing from sight it can be said that the boatman has merely charged garments, shed his human appearance to become the ocean and sea itself. In staying the course and continuing to sail, even though upon seas uncharted, are we not in the heart of where we have always been? In the Master’s boat. On board an immortal journey of the soul.

Travelling. Again. In Melbourne Airport, for four and half hours, but not my final destination, or even second to final in this marathon, budget airline leapfrog across the Pacific, Tasman and Indian Oceans. I am in an airport café sipping the oh so treasured caffeinated chocolate beverage I swore yet again to give up. And shall swear again, once the well of heart-quickened words dries, trails to a final period, final drop of coffee swallowed at the end of this page…

I am flying to Bali today, a Christmas holiday come a month late but not a moment too soon. A break from work and yet more work, a break of some considerable force to my cheerfully forgotten, paid just on time bottom line. Work to live or live to work? In truth I would prefer neither, but forced to choose I am working to be alive, and right now is the time for living.

It is not such a bad place to be stranded, this sun-burned, lucky land. I have always liked Australia—more so than anywhere else on Earth save the United Kingdom, it is just like home—albeit a sun-drenched, sun-worshiping version of such. Hotter of temperature and temperament than New Zealand, it is our louder, brasher “across the ditch” own.

I admire the self-confidence and assertiveness here, rare in my home of birds that do not fly and single lone predator—the Katipo spider, a pint-sized beast of passive-aggressive hostility at best, likely to bite only when pushed into corner or shoe. New Zealanders, more like the sheep who outnumber us twenty to one than killer spiders, tend to follow the herd, herd instinctively to the back of a pen. Like the damp, green pastures from mountains to sea, we are softer round surface and edge than Australians; we shrink from a person of loud, sure hand.

Australia has a vastness not just of its land, although perhaps learned of it; of wide open spaces and limitless, continental horizons—a vastness of heart and mind less sighted in smaller, skinnier isles. “Mateship,” the word for universal friendship between blokes really exists in Australia. The airport security officer who gave directions not with authority but airless amity; the student who made my coffee neither embarrassed to be serving me, or by way of compensation, haughty—such is far from common in less secure, narrow lands.

It took a while, several hours in fact, and all of the previous words, before untold Australian flags, t-shirts and hats of yellow and green led me to realise that today is January 26, Australia Day, the one day of three hundred and sixty-five that Australians take even more pride in being themselves than their unabashed norm. Serendipity has a way of following me around, especially when writing…

Salutation To The Soul Of Australia
My aspiring heart is saluting you.
My illumining soul is loving you.
In you I see the perfect combination of the
body’s service and the vital’s dynamism.
Your soul is at once the embodiment
of the ancient sun and revelation
of tomorrow’s dawn.
Your body’s consciousness is the expansion
of vastness.
Your heart’s delight is the perfection
of illumination.
Slowly and steadily your body walks.
Pointedly and unerringly your mind runs.
Devotedly and unconditionally your heart
dives.
Eternally and supremely your soul flies.
Your life’s greatness-dream is humanity’s
transcendental pride.
Your life’s goodness-reality is humanity’s
universal treasure.
—Sri Chinmoy, My Heart’s Salutation To Australia, Part 1.

* * *

During my first year of university, a time now so long ago tales of such begin increasingly to sound like they belong in the history books I read there, one of the highlights of each week was the student newspaper, more read by the student community than any tiresome book or text. I would in maturity and time end up working for this newspaper—my first ever graphic design and typesetting role, and my first ever writing—but for now, unaware of greater horizons ahead, I admired those vaster in others. In the writing of the editor and staff of this newspaper there was an assuredness of thought and pen that I, just out of high school not yet out of teenage angst, desperately, instinctively craved—an assuredness of self I sought the words for but could not actually name. Meditation would eventually provide that name.

That year the editor wrote the same editorial twenty-six times, every week of publication drafted different versions of the same theme—how to get to the end and find the words to fill his long past due, inspiration long past gone editorial. It was an editorial on writing an editorial if you will, and was often surprisingly funny.

Some fifteen years later I am reminded of this editor’s confident, stream of consciousness notes about nothing, for it seems I too am writing a story about writing a story—a feat I literally thought myself incapable of once upon a distant time.

Like running a race I expect this story will have an ebb and flow, tired and energetic patches, and in time, one foot and word in front of the other, a second wind. Then, hopefully and finally, second cup of coffee consumed, an end.

* * *

Hours are passing slowly, words less easily in this airport coffee shop, sitting in a corner surrounded by no-one, monopolising a power outlet meant not for laptop but lamp. My coffee is finished, once confident pen not so loud or bold, its flight near grounded and my plane, hours yet to board, not yet departed.

They say the most common opening sentence in blogging is “Sorry I haven’t written for a long time…” Is this the internet era version of every English teacher’s most hated closure, “And then I woke up”? I certainly hope, as my pen leans into a drifting doze, that unlike newspaper reading students in a university lecture, my readers are still half awake…

It’s a funny thing, the waxing and waning of creativity, writing’s ebb and flow. When you ”want” words they often do not come, for writing is a horse that can be ridden but not controlled, a ship to be sailed rather than boat to be rowed. Like meditation, you don’t “do” it—it is a state that comes to you when you forget to ”do,” cease to strive and struggle, control and command.

Becoming a good writer is often described as a process of finding your “voice;” an analogy to the meditative discipline of listening to the still small voice within. Like true meditation, good writing comes from a place deep within, beyond the noisy, scattered and often directionless voice of the mind.

So am I doing good writing? I hope so, but can a writer truly judge his own cover? Such is surely the prerogative of his readers, not pejorative of a caffeine-addled ego, and to know the answer to this question it surely would not hurt to listen longer to the writer’s voice within…

“We can listen to the dictates of the soul, or feel the presence of the inner voice, without being guided by a very deep meditation. Even in the hustle and bustle of life we can hear the inner voice, but if we meditate, then it becomes extremely easy to listen to the voice within. Without practising spirituality we may hear the inner voice, we may even see the soul, but we will doubt our experience. We will say, “This cannot be the soul; this voice is not coming from the soul.” But if we have a very good, deep meditation, we can hear the voice, we can see the soul with inner certainty.”
—Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy Answers, Part 13.

January 26th, Australia Day, 2009.

Karate, kata, perfect form and perfectionism in Japan

At the age of seven, the result of an I don’t know from where interest in Japan, I began learning karate, lessons undertaken at my own insistence, my mother’s weary acquiescence. Perhaps she sensed that it would be either breaking blocks of wood or chopping bones on a rugby field, and thus surrendered to my desire to learn this more refined, disciplined form of violence.

The early eighties were a slightly unusual time to learn martial arts. The Bruce Lee, one-inch-punch inspired craze of the seventies had faded, perhaps on a pair of roller skates, while the ninja craze of straight to video fame had yet to take strangle-hold. I was therefore the youngest student at my local Japanese karate dojo, the only without sideburns or handle-bar moustache, trading punches, blocks and kicks with teenagers and adults who had started learning while the star of Enter the Dragon had still been alive. I had not even been born when Lee mysteriously died.

From time to time younger students like myself would join our small neighbourhood group, but few would last more than a fistful of lessons; the iron discipline of stretching, exercise and practicing technique, over and over again, was less attractive than computer games or television, and actual sparring sessions—the tofu and potatoes of martial arts, where long-honed technique is finally put into wrist snapping, high kicking practice—were few and far between. Unlike Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid, few ever graduated from “wax on, wax off…”

Pure Zen Quote from The Karate Kid:
The Karate Kid: Hey, where do these cars come from?
Mr Miyagi: Detroit.

Perhaps all those cranky, letter to the newspaper editor writers are right. Discipline and patience are, high-scores on a Playstation aside, mostly foreign to my generation.

Rather than fighting an actual opponent, karate lessons would culminate in hours learning kata—stylised, dance-like movements performed in a series and, initially at least, in slow motion. Kata is said to represent the technique required to simultaneously fight and defeat an overwhelming number of opponents—a theory of combat put into action most famously by master Japanese swordsman and strategist Miyamoto Musashi. It was a little like learning to swing a golf club or a tennis racket—learning the correct form, through repetition, to master perfection in physical action.

There are around 100 kata in total across the various disciplines of karate, with the ultimate said to be Suparinpei, a word of Chinese origin which literally translates as “108”—the number of actions in this supreme kata. For those who, like the subtle flavours of a sushi roll, prefer to find meanings wrapped inside meanings, the number 108 is not only an “abundant,” “semi-perfect,” “tetranacci” and “refactorable” number in mathematics, but a total of great spiritual significance.

The Spiritual Significance of the Number 108

• the essence of the Vedic scriptures, considered to be the greatest heritage of India and foundation of Hinduism, are the 108 Upanishads, or writings which expound the philosophic principles of the Vedas;
• Japa mala used for repetition of mantra contain 108 beads;
• Hindu deities are said to have 108 names;
• Many Buddhist temples have 108 steps;
• The number of sins in Tibetan Buddhism total 108;
• At the end of the each year in Japan a bell is chimed 108 times to finish the old year and welcome the new. Each ring is said to represent one of the 108 earthly temptations a person must overcome to achieve nirvana.
• There are said to be 108 energy lines converging to form the spiritual heart chakra;
• 108 is the sum of “the numbers” in the at times mystical TV show Lost (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42). I admit that the spiritual significance of this last fact may be questionable…

There is more to kata than grown men practising martial arts in pyjamas—over and over again. How much more? Wax on, wax off, my friend…

Kata and Perfection Through Perfect Form

The word kata, like karate, was born in Japan, and translates literally as “form.” Kata is more than simple outer appearance, structure or method; it is derived, both in word and concept, from shikata—“way of doing things”. Like “the Way” of Taoism, shikata is synonymous with a striving for perfection: a perfect way of doing will eventually reveal a perfect way of being, just as the course of a river wears smooth the jagged surface of a stone.

Over the course of centuries kata evolved to the point where there became a perfect way of doing everything. Every facet of existence in traditional Japan was perfected, down to the arrangement of food upon a tray or flowers within a vase.

Kata however is more than a purely physical concept, more than action or object of the human hand. Zen Buddhism, which entered Japan from China in the 12th century, introduced into the national consciousness the insight that perfection has an inner component as well; that mental training was just as important, if not even more so, than physical mastery in achieving the perfection of any skill.

Illumined by the the influence of Zen, mastery of kata came to mean the attainment of a meditative oneness with the action or discipline practised. A painter would seek not just to paint, but become the brush upon the page; a swordsman become one with the sword in hand.

“Early in their history the Japanese developed the belief that form had a reality of its own, and that it often took precedence over substance. They also believed that anything could be accomplished if the right kata was mentally and physically practised long enough.”
—Boyé Lafayette De Mente, Kata: The Key to Understanding and Dealing with the Japanese

Kata, the correct, harmonious way of doing things, links the inner and the outer in Japan—it links body and soul, man and the gods. The inner order, which the Japanese call “heart,” is linked directly to the outer, cosmic order by correct form—the spiritual realm manifested in the physical through perfect action.

“To the Japanese there was an inner order (the individual heart) and a natural order (the cosmos), and these two were linked together by form—by kata. It was kata that linked the individual and society. If one did not follow the correct form, he was out of harmony with both his fellow man and nature. The challenge facing the Japanese was to know their own honshin, “true” or “right heart,” then learn and follow the kata that would keep them in sync with society and the cosmos.
—Boyé Lafayette De Mente, Kata: The Key to Understanding and Dealing with the Japanese

Japanese will not accept a minimum standard as a goal; rather they expect absolute perfection—nothing is considered finished or complete until perfect. Which of course, lofty Zen masters aside, is near impossible for the average mortal to achieve. Hence the Japanese expression Kiga Susumanai—“my spirit is not satisfied.” Trapped between the inflexible postures of kata and insurmountable heights of perfection, Japanese are said to suffer constantly from this chronic spiritual dissatisfaction, a deeply felt discomfort at their inability to be perfect in everything they do:

“This spiritual discomfort burns in “pure” Japanese like an undying flame, constantly spurring them on to do more and do better…”
—Boyé Lafayette De Mente, The Japanese Have a Word for It

The Path of My Own Perfection

I was not born Japanese, and have spent no more than ten days there in this life, but the quest for kata and perfection rings true in me without cause or reason, speaks if from an instruction manual to self lost before birth.

My path to mastering kata in this life however, quelling the dissatisfaction of imperfection was neither straight nor direct, for I never did get that far with karate. I studied for three years, attained a purple belt and attended, without notable success, a solitary tournament—the experience literally of getting kicked in the face. An extended period overseas then saw my burning desire to acquire a black belt, and I presumed, the eventual attainment of mysterious insight and powers, thwarted.

But desire for martial perfection was not lost so easily, and I am to this day, somewhat impracticably and yet to defeat a group of opponents with my bare knuckles and toes, dissatisfied at my imperfection in this particular kata or form. I guess there will be another lifetime…

Life, the greatest teacher and master of them all, doesn’t give up easily when there is a lesson to learn, and some decade after ceasing lessons in karate I discovered the practise of meditation, first introduced briefly in those childhood sparring halls. In meditation, I found the kata of perfection I had always been seeking, a perfection requiring a form and method within.

“If we say that someone’s body is perfect, then we are just giving an overall view. But when we say “perfect perfection,” it means that each cell is perfect; everything that is inside that body is perfect. Perfect perfection is the perfection of the entire being. Whatever the being has and whatever the being is, is perfect.”
—Sri Chinmoy, excerpt from Philosophy, Religion And Yoga.

Bob Munden is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest man with a gun who has ever lived, and we’re not talking about a 4×100 metre relay with gun in hand.

Of the eighteen world records you can hold in fast draw shooting—the sport of drawing and shooting a gun in the manner of wild west lore—Bob has held all eighteen since 1960, and he holds them still in his ultra steady hand. This fastest gunslinger than the rest has won 3,500 trophies and 800 major championships, and while his picture might be on the back of cereal boxes, his sheriff’s badge didn’t come out of one.

Is Bob the fastest man with a gun alive? Yes, but that’s barely grazing the surface of his intergalactic prowess. Friends, humans and countrymen, Bob Munden is the fastest human being alive. Fire away Bob, tell us just how fast you are…

“Fast draw is the fastest thing a human being does…”

Bob Munden is a straight shooter. Being interviewed, he drawls but never hesitates before taking aim, and if certainty was a target, he would hit the bulls-eye every time.

Being interviewed, Bob Munden doesn’t just tell the television reporter how fast he is—he verbally shoots his questioner directly between the eyes, for so fast is this dead-eye gunslinger, he can answer questions even before they are asked.

“Nobody does anything faster than what I do with guns…”

Which was a statement, not answer or explanation. Like Newton or Einstein, Sheriff Bob is laying down the law—of physics and of time.

Slightly slower than Bob Munden on the universal scale of speed, a barely perceptible flicker of doubt fires across the television interviewer’s mind. Suspicious, the reporter takes aim, queries: “Can you give it a comparison to something that would come close?”

“The speed of light…” drawls big shot Bob, laconically, and uncharacteristically slowly. “There is nothing next to it.”

Is this man fast with the truth as well? Is he on a supersonic flight of fancy that only reality can rein in?

Bob Munden may talk fast and loose, but his gun is quicker than even his tongue. Already believers, a crowd of Western movie extras gather, stand and applaud his every move at a shooting demonstration, stiffly. In less than two one hundredths of one second, Bob will blow all of their minds.

“It’s a number we’re not familiar with…”

Two hundredths of one second is the time it takes Bob to fire and hit a target; draw, cock, level, fire, shoot and hit almost at the speed of light. One day we may build space ships fast enough to go where only Bob has gone before. Bob Munden, star of shooting may go supernova one day, explode into empty space with the sound of his gun his only reminder, like speeding light from a long dead star.

Bob Munden lives in moments unexplored by humanity—he shoots his gun faster than you or I can think. Bob may just be consciousness itself—the acme of sense and thought, the sea upon which the human mind floats. Does Bob fire the gun, or is Bob the gun itself; trigger, bullet and mind at one?

“He shot two and it sounded like it was one shot,” the reporter exclaims upon viewing Bob burst two balloons mounted meters apart, faster than you or I could shoot one. Faster than you or I could shoot none would be a more mathematically correct description of the scene.

“Here’s one going into the gun.” Bob Munden may fire with bullets, but he talks with poetry.

At the shooing demonstration, but not entirely on the same planet, the reporter again declares that “two shots are going to sound like one.” Is this a moment of Zen, a moment of universal oneness, or a song by U2 from 1983?

Stuck with the rest of us in the everyday dimensions of time and space, the television reporter is clearly unable to comprehend the singularity of Bob Munden’s genius. What is the sound of one gun firing? Silence in the infinite forest of Bob Munden’s Buddha-mind.

Honorifics and keigo in Japan—the language of politeness

Different from the major Western languages, and a further refinement of the systems used in other Asian languages, Japanese has an extensive, complicated system of honorifics—keigo—to explicitly express politeness, humility and formality.

Relationships are seldom equal in Japan, and the grammar employed in any given context is dependent upon a complex combination of factors such as age, gender, job and experience of both the person speaking and person spoken to. Simply put, speaking to one of higher position requires a polite form of speech, while speaking to one lower dictates a plainer form. Intent also plays a role—when asking for a favour humble language is expected, and previous favours done or owed dictate a requisite humility in language spoken.

Strangers, even when not familiar with rank or position, also will usually speak to one another politely in Japanese, using a neutral language middle-ground if a difference in status is not immediately apparent. Women generally speak a more polite style of language than men, and use it in a broader range of circumstances. Interestingly, in Heian Japan, a period approximately one thousand years ago, not just language but handwriting was gender-specific—women were confined to the hiragana script, with its rounder, so-called “feminine” edges.

Other Asian languages do employ honorifics, for example Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese and Javanese—all with exalted terms for others and terms humble for self, but the Japanese system is by far the most complex, a simple sentence capable of being expressed in more than twenty different ways, dependent on the context of speaker and spoken to. Unlike other languages, Japanese honorifics alter the level of respect or humility based upon context as well as the person spoken to or about. For example, when talking about a company president inside the company, exalted terms are used, but referring to the same person outside the company requires humble language.

The relativity of keigo is in sharp contrast to the Korean system of absolute honorifics, where the same register used regardless of the context or relationship of those speaking. Translated verbatim in Japanese, the Korean language comes across as extremely presumptuous; the perfectly acceptable “Our Mr. Company-President” in Korean totally inappropriate if used “out-of-group,” or outside the company, in Japanese.

Keigo is not learned in Japan until the teens, a time when one is expected to begin to learn to speak “politely.” This is partly due the complexity of the language and its honorific forms, although no doubt some would suggest that the rudeness of young is a universal trait. New employees are frequently sent on courses by employers to refine their use of honorifics, and it is not uncommon for even university graduates to have not completely mastered all the polite forms of the Japanese language.

In recent years some Japanese companies, in the face of a long economic slump, have attempted to abandon keigo in favour of a more open, hopefully competitive culture; parents often no longer emphasise honorific language to their children, and most schools no longer expect its use in the classroom. The result is that many young people in Japan today have a poor understanding of honorifics, and feel little compulsion to use them.

No doubt ardent writer-patriot and master of the Japanese language Yukio Mishima, along with every other long-dead champion of old Japan, will be spinning in his grave.

Related articles

• Policing manners: In Yokohama “Smile-Manner-Squadron” has been charged with bringing back the standards of “old Japan”—politely encouraging the young to give up their seats to those more needy on the city’s overcrowded trains.
• Mono no aware: Beauty in Japan: Meaning literally “a sensitivity to things,” mono no aware is a concept coined to describe the essence of Japanese culture, and is the central artistic imperative in Japan to this day.
• The Most Shocking Ending in All Literature: Biography of author and master of the Japanese language Yukio Mishima.
  

Rhino attack drill at Tokyo Zoo

Fear has four legs, walks in circles and is covered in paper and glue in Tokyo, Japan. But is Japanese nonetheless, following the direction of public signs and never moving faster than a brisk walk.

Should you meet Fear—say on an outing to the zoo—lull him into a false sense of security with beach volleyball nets, then take him down with a tranquilizer dart.

Because you never know when two men disguised as a rhinoceros may attack your zoo, it is prudent to practise as though they may. Seriously and vigilantly.

Muppet makes German police look like one

Muppets. Beloved children’s television puppets of the late 70’s, and slang for a grown up person who resembles one. Both definitions are true in Germany, where police have had the fur pulled over their eyes and their speed cameras—literally.

Traffic police in Bayreuth, Bavaria have been made to look like muppets by the driver of a British registered Audi TT who, repeatedly caught speeding, has driven through a blind-spot in the Teutonic traffic control master plan—German speed cameras are calibrated for left-hand driving, and thus unable to capture his face.

Precision engineered German technology has instead photographed a life-size muppet sitting in the passenger seat—out of control drummer Animal of The Muppet Show’s Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem band.

A German police source said:

“The number plate is not enough. We need clear evidence of who is driving the vehicle too.

“But because this is a British vehicle we can never get a decent picture. The driver has obviously worked this out because he has placed a large puppet in the passenger seat.

“This may be an example of the famous British sense of humour but it is still dangerous driving. The driver has been caught on camera on several occasions and the puppet is on the passenger seat every time. We suspect he positions the toy deliberately before accelerating past the camera.”

One suspects German police may well catch their suspect before they catch on to the British sense of humour.

Sinking of British Humour

Not for the first time the German accent is made innately funny in this Berlitz language programme ad featuring “ze German Coast Guard.”

While I certainly remember being so bored at High School that the imaginary was a sole relief, and really did once see a student running on the roof, convinced she was a cat and chased by teachers, students in Barnegat, New Jersey went completely off the page recently, confined to class after reporting a ninja running through the woods.

With all public schools in the area locked down, and presumably guarded by clueless B-movie henchmen, the ninja was within half an hour revealed, mask torn climatically off, to be something else: a camp counselor dressed in karate uniform, carrying a plastic sword.

Which is only marginally less disturbing than an actual ninja in the woods.

By way of explanation, the counselor, apparently late to a costume day at a nearby middle school, entered fully into the spirit of a shinobi assassin and took a stealthy, speedy shortcut through the trees.

It seems crying “crazy man dressed all in black!” really can get you off class. But don’t forget to mention that he ate your homework.

Ninja Dragon: The Final Fight Scene

With quite a lot to do with the previous story—ninjas, swords and being completely lost in the trees—Godfrey Ho’s seminally bad Ninja Dragon (1986) features a final fight scene somebody should have called the police on—twenty-three somersaults, two moustaches, a quite disturbing use of eyeliner and the following script:

Bruce Stallion (Paulo Tocha): You’re so stupid—you killed Fox and my men

Gordon the Ninja (Richard Harrison): And you, you started the war.

Bruce: You were the winner, but I’m not going to give you that chance, this time.

Gordon: You’re on. You don’t know an important Chinese principle.

Bruce: My principle is to chop you down!

Gordon: Hmm. You must use the Chinese against the Chinese. You’re playing the game of death!

Bruce: Nonsense! You’re going to give me back every piece that you took.

Gordon: Unless you die a ninja.

Bruce: Ok…

Meaning “little beach” and literally located on one, the Japanese Obama lies due north of Kyoto and five hours by train from Tokyo, and until the junior Senator from Illinois entered national politics, was better known for not much at all—fishing and lacquered chopsticks in between.

But Obama the President has changed everything for Obama the town, and the change is—to appropriate the campaign slogan—“change you can believe.”

Change began in February when resident and president of the Obama for Obama Support Group Seiji Fujihara asked a friend and occasional graphic designer to draw an image of the then Senator. Sketched in ten minutes and only a partial likeness, the presidential seal style logo was none the less immediately liked, and soon appeared city-wide on t-shirts, chop-sticks and even steamed cakes—Obama’s head grilled onto the back of sweet adzuki bean cakes. Thousands of citizens have signed up for membership.

Caught in the spirit of the moment, and possibly something even stronger, Support Group members have recorded a theme song truly hard to believe: Obama is Beautiful World—a catchy sing along part Village People, part Casiotone preset melody; every part uniquely Japanese (music video at bottom):

Obama is Beautiful World
The sea spreading far out
and the bright sunshine reflect the future of your country,
America…
La-la-la-la-la Obama!
Obama is beautiful world!
Obama is No. 1!

What’s next for the town that would be President and could be without precedent?

With the Obama Girls hula troup still dancing in the streets, Obama Mayor Kouji Matsuzaki has announced a statue of the President Elect for City Hall—“a token of the great historical moment for the name Obama,” while November 4th will henceforth be an annual city holiday—presumably named “Obama Day.”

Obama Is Beautiful World

The Obama for Obama song, as performed by the Anyone Brothers Band.

Yes, there actually is an album too…

Still searching for the secret of happiness it seems…

Author and meditation teacher Jogyata Dallas suggests however that happiness can be found, and not just torn to shreds by the roadside but within—his Seven Secrets of Meditation tells you how:

• Seven Secrets of Meditation by Jogyata Dallas.