"Life's But A Walking Shadow" series

"...
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

-- William Shakespeare, "Macbeth": Act 5. scene V.

"Spirit and Body" Quote

"Too often
we put saddlebags on Jesus and let the donkey
run loose in the pasture."
-- Coleman Rumi

Some of My Artwork

Protesters

The Tibetan protester was outside of my apartment building again yesterday, because my building is right beside the Chinese Consulate. They blocked the road, and made a big scene. I wish they realize that their further action would only harm their cause, as people may actually become annoyed of their shows. It is especially unpleasant when they block the road in front of a old-age house to do their protests on the private property of an apartment building. What if some of those old people get a heart attack and need ambulance?

In fact, their actions has already damaged their cause. It makes it pretty obvious that H.H. The Dalai Lama is not really their leader, because H.H. said that the Olympics is the time to celebrate. It also makes the majority of Chinese people more united against their cause. In other words, they've made more than 1 billion enemies.

Good luck to those poor protesters. Maybe they should study "The Art of War" before deciding on their actions, but actually, what they should REALLY study are the Buddhist Sutras. Lord Buddha said: the Sanga does NOT deal with politics.

Woman of Ishtar

Many years ago, I had a woman. She bore my child. Both the woman and the child had fine black curls. I did not think of her highly. Despite her love, I treated her like a nuisance, and supported her only out of duty.

Ah! How I want, wish, and desire now to brush the black curls off her ivory brow, and to kiss her on those rosy lips turning pale. I would look into those almond eyes, and whisper: " I am sorry. I love you."

Alas, I have those slender olive fingers no more.

Some love takes seven thousand years to realize. Too late. Way too late. All that can be said remains this verse.

( Detail of the Ishtar Gate)

Sweet nights of Tigris,
Seven gated fortress,
Guarding that flying paradise.
My pink woman of Ishtar,
Wherest art thou now?

Ornamented windows,
Gilded buttress.
Desert breeze,
And your Sirius bright gaze.
My Babel woman of Ishtar,
Wherest art thou now?

Mother.
Mother Nile,
Upon thy amber breast I suckle,
In thy blood red sunset I soak.
Please,
I beg thou.
Carry this thousand apologies
To my rosy woman of Ishtar.

Father,
Father Osiris.
My eternal king,
In thy sage scented smoke I swirl.
Please
Hear your son,
His heart ripping regrets,
For his tender woman of Ishtar.

Woman of Ishtar,
My raven curled woman.
Please,
Close your eyes.
So I can kiss you
Sorry and love,
With these lips,
No longer bronze.

Fly in A Jar

It is summer now, the season of insects, and every night there are some insects trapped inside of my apartment. The smaller ones go into the florescent lamp, exhaust themselves during the effort of getting into the light, and die. The bigger ones can often last until day time, when they become trapped at the windows. If no action is done on my part, they also exhaust and die.

One day, I caught the sight of a moth trapped at my bathroom window, which does not open. The moth flapped and struggled, and struggled and flapped to join the bright daylight. Moved by her effort, I took pity on the moth, and decided to help her. I tried to persuade the moth to give up the bathroom window and go to the slide door by waving at her, but that did not work. The moth kept crushing into the window screen, and trying to break the screen with her fragile wings and antennas. Seeing that waving did not help, I used a transparent box and a piece of card paper to catch the moth. When in the box, the moth seemed to be blinded by the lure of the window, and kept crushing the walls of the box to try to get closer to the window that does not open.During the entire process, I clearly felt the moth's pain, frustration, and hatred. She hated me, this unknown monster who constantly obstructed her heroic flight into the light. That hatred reminds me of a saying: "Tell people things they know, they thank you for it. Tell people things they don't know, they hate you for it."

In many ways, we humans are just like the moth. We feel a internal "something" missing, but inexperienced, we do not know what that thing is. We externalize it as wealth, fame, power, prestige, etc. and we use all of our energy to chase after those. During the process, if someone points out how frugal those chases are. If some person tell us that wealth, fame, power, prestige, all corrupt, become corrupted, and finally deteriorates into nothingness, just like the nothingness where they come from. We would not listen, and we think to ourselves:" This fool who is trying to divert my dream with idle and stupid talks. How foolish he is! The whole world is about ________, and of course everyone wants ________. After getting more ________, I will become more perfect, and everyone will automatically fall in love with me."

In practice, this wishful thinking does not happen. As it is seen in theater, on screen, in books, and even in the news over and over again, when people acquire more of the external achievements, they often become more miserable. They are just like the moth trapped in false gateway to the daylight. To make it even worse, many common people also become allured and "aspired" to become like the "model citizens" who are rich, famous, powerful, and prestigious. In failing to do so, they also become miserable, and start thinking: even if I just appear a little bit like the person on TV, I'll be better off. Consequently, they consume, and consume, and consume to no end. That in turn causes problems like high maintenance society etc. Meanwhile, this "American Dream" becomes contagious, and travels worldwide. When middle class Indians and Chinese start living like the middle class North Americans, the world's environment falls apart. Chasing after "false light" also causes problems such as poverty, food shortage, crime, moral degeneration and so forth. If we are willing to generalize, we can even stretch to say that almost all of the world's problem is caused by chasing the false light.

What, then, is the true light? That is a very big question. So big, in fact, that there is no definite answer to it. However, in order to go after the true light, and find the internal "something" we all long for, shouldn't we try find ourselves first? The self we need to find, is not the self that we come to take ourselves to be. It is not forged by our up-bringing, cultural/religion background, or hair colour. What is it? What am I? That is the question we, as a human specie and as individual persons, need to sit down and think about.

As I set the moth free, and as it flapped happily into the wide blue sky, I knew that the moth would soon find another false light, be trapped there, exhaust and die. That is the destiny of a moth, but that is not the destiny of humans. While watching the moth disappearing into the sun, I prayed for mankind. I prayed, and I still pray that all humans open their eyes to find their true self.

The Most Romantic Thing I Can Think to Do

The most romantic thing I can think to do,

Is to be buried with you.

The nightly owls howl

For the haunting moon,

And my lone wolf leaves her paw marks at your feet.

On the tombstone, our names tangle,

Just like our ashen legs in the soil.

An age fig shall grow,

Feed on our soul.

And we’ll glow,

As icicles on its branches,

And with its leaves, we chant.

Years will go by,

Fresh snow,

Spring blossom and then forest shall cover our place.

Foxes,

Red as passion they flame, will be our guest.

Tease, cuddle, and make love they will.

So when the moon is full,

I can rest my hair on your shoulder,

And knowingly smile:

"Look, how much like them,

We used to be."

A Friendly Dialogue on Destiny, Reincarnation etc.

Dolby (D): Franky, I am confused.

Franky (F): That’s no news, Dolby. What is it this time?

D: When I was travelling across the field today, I saw two men greeting one another, and over heard their conversation. Apparently, they were childhood friends growing up on the same street, but one man moved to another city when he was eleven. His friend Joe, the other man, went to another country for education a few years alter. Neither place was on this continent. The two friend became employed in the government of a near by city, but in different department, and lived life in total ignorance of each other. However, they happened to take vacation in the same country club on the same weekend, and encountered each other. Now they have resumed their friendship.

That conversation made me wonder. Why is that we keep meeting the same person, or people with similar backgrounds? Is there a thing such as destiny?

F: Interesting thoughts, Dolby, but that was just one incident. Couldn't it be mere chance?

D: Fine, let me tell you another incident. I often visit my generous neighbours. One of them was deeply involved with a girl during his early teenage in China, but both families deem the lovers too juvenile and unsuitable of each other. In short, they separated. Quite a few years later, the boy decided to do a degree in Canada, and over the course of his education, he want to Liverpool, England for an exchange year. One weekend, he went shopping in London, and bumped into the girl! They hit it off right away, and now are getting married.

I am sure either you have had similar experiences, or have heard real life stories of similar sorts. If one type of events happens over and over again, we should not label them as mere chance, should we?

F: Hmm…I have never thought about it that way. Maybe those events happen by statistical distribution. You see, we meet countless people everyday, and among them, there is a distribution of people with similar background. It is with in our nature to prone to interact and to become friends with those ones having similarity. This is verified by the studies of psychology.

D: That explanation is plausible, and I do think statistic is the key, but your model doesn’t explain why SAME people keep encountering each other. Of all forty billion people in the world, the probability of meeting the same person is quite low. If it really happens by random probability, isn’t it more likely for acquaintances to NOT encounter each other? In fact, destiny seems to offer a better explanation.

F: I have enormous difficulty accepting the notion that all our actions and encounters are predestined.

D: True, the word destiny is grossly over used, but I cannot think of a better term. Let’s define some terminology before we move on. (1) I call the fact we meet whom we meet, or the outcome of our lives destiny. (2) All happenings are called events. (3) The choices we make, and what we carry out due to those choices are called acts and actions. (Let us assume the validity of free will for the sake of this argument.) (4) I call possible individual events probability, and the measure of which possible event is more prone to happen the likeliness of probabilities. Do you know what I mean, Franky?

F: Yes, now that we have those terms. What do you propose?

D: This is really a sophisticated issue, and Franky I beg your assistance in completing the argument.

F: Yes, please go on.

D: Consider one arbitrary point in your lifetime, you have the freedom to choose which action to take, but you cannot take any action. For example, you cannot change your personality or biological make up. Therefore, your choice is limited to certain probabilities of all events. Among the probabilities, some are more likely to happen than other. The likeliness of probabilities is dictated by personal preference or the environment at the specific space and time. However, as soon as you make an action, your mental state and the environment change, the likeliness of each probability and available probabilities change accordingly.

F: Okay, but how does that relate to my life?

D: Yes, yes, I am getting there. What I just said was a magnified view on one action and its outcome. It should be clear that each action of yours is inflicted and limited by your previous action through probability. By carrying out those actions, your complete your destiny. In that sense, your destiny depends both on your individuality and your environment. Destiny can be seen as a collective term for the phenomenon I have just described.

F: You did a good job of losing me. Could you give an example?

D: Of course! For example, you are walking down the street and suddenly feel hungry. That is the specific time, space and environment. You have events open for you: (1) you can go hunt down an elephant and have that for lunch; (2) you can go to a bar on your right, and (3) you can go for sushi. Now, (1) is quite impossible: how are you suppose to find an elephant in the middle of the street, and how is a unarmed one like you suppose to hunt down an elephant, so event (1) is not a probability; only event (2) and (3) are. But Franky you don’t drink, so (2) has less likeliness than (3). Then you carry out the action of going to the sushi house, and bump in your friend Bohra. She gets there by another series of action-event chains. You have lunch with Bohra, and decide to go shopping with her. In that way, you are destined to spend the afternoon with Bohra, but if you choose to ignore the non-drinking factor, and go have fish and ships in the bar, you can avoid that part of destiny.

Do I need to give one more example?

F: I vaguely understand what you mean. This needs a little time to sink in, but for now, could your explain how is this statistical destiny of yours relate to the traditional use of destiny?

D: By traditional usage of destiny you mean how you were born a male, and who your parents are?

F: That’s right, and also the decisions my parents made to shape me when I was young and impressionable.

D: That we will have to move beyond the secular discussion, and walk on more theological ground. Since destiny is a theological concept, I do not expect pure secular explanation to be satisfactory.

For the theological discussion, let’s adopt one more premise. We assume life beyond this life. Such assumption is general a reasonably valid since it is the corner stone of most religion.

Before your birth, you have probabilities of who your parents are and which species you will be born into. The moment you were born, all but one probability remains, and that is called the action of birth. As for the decisions your parents made for you, I think they are analogous event-action chains based on your environment and your parents’ individuality.

F: Fine, but during the action of birth, which dictates the specific outcome such as me being born a male human with black hair?

D: That, my friend, differs from religion to religion. I personally believe in reincarnation and think of it as the most probable model, but please voice your opinion if you disagree.

One thing that always bewilders me is that YOU were born to your parents, not of any other parents. In other words, why do your parents conceive you, instead of some other children?

F: Well, my identity depends largely on the nurturing, is that not true?

D: True, but parental experience and psychology shows that infants do have distinct personality.

F: The scientific reason is in the genetics, and that is practically why identical twins have similar personality.

D: I am not so sure about the twin example, but that is not very important. If genetics is the cue, what then dictates which sperm reacts with which egg? If you say it happens by random chance, it is reasonable that an infant’s destiny can be results of random chance, but what about the parents’? As established earlier on, an adult’s destiny is not by random chance, while the event of birth is as important to the infant as to the parents.

F: I am all ears Dolby.

D: Based on the spirit of analogy, which we often use in physics, mathematics and other sciences, isn’t it most likely for the destiny before birth to operate in similar ways as after birth?

F: I suppose so.

D: Then it should be based on event-action chains?

F: It seems to me.

D: But before the embryo is conscious, and more over, before it even exists, what decides its actions?

F: What’s your opinion on this?

D: Isn’t it most convincing that an infant’s destiny is determined by its event-action interaction in the previous life? What the infant has conducted in its previous life affects the probabilities and their likeliness for it to be conceived by its parents. The destiny of the embryo and its parents intersect just like when you run in to Bohra in the imaginary sushi house.

F: Your argument pro reincarnation heavily on the premise that there EXISTS life beyond the present life. What if I completely reject this idea of an afterlife, and even the concept of a non-physical dimension of my being?

D: Well, in that case it gets even simpler. If you consider your being as a purely physical collection of elements and atoms, isn’t it true that the matters of this universe is conserved as is shown by the conservation of total energy and the relation between energy and matter.

F: You are treading up my alley Dolby.

D: Yes, so please help to point out my misunderstandings, and let us continue. I have heard that sciences as proven many times that the very same carbon ion in your heart can be from the core of the vegetable you eat for lunch, which intern comes from a chicken’s dropping.

F: Well, I am not sure if it is demonstrated experimentally, as I haven’t heard about a way to label individual particles. But inferring from the conservation of matter and energy, that statement is valid.

D: Then it seems to me that you are “reincarnating” in the very physical and scientifically verifiable way if you hold the purely secular point of view. When you, ie. your body deceases, it soon deteriorates, and become mixed with other elements of the environment to join the cycle of our good old secular action-event chains consisting of chemical reactions, food choices etc.

F: That does have a point, but I will have to think it through. For now, I am hungry, let us go for snacks.

D: Sure, let us find Bohra and go for lunch.

Dark Side of The Globe

Is it dark now?
The other side of the Globe
Eight hundred miles propagating,
Mountain ridges elapsing the throne of Constantine.
Blood and fleshed Caucasus,
Who shall be thy guide
Across this wordless barren
To carry the potion of Caspian
To his water borne Black Bride?

The far off twilight upon the sky?
Or perhaps,
The glowing lamps beneath the rye?
Neither, maybe
As the howl of the four-legged queen,
Soaks our imagination.

Rise then, spirit of earth and teaming lava,
Tear the delicious vile
Of this dense summer night
With your enraged orange fist.

Ah, I shan't be violent, my love
All I call for, is to hymn,
Sweat and tangle with the soul of this
Endless green.
I shall nourish them with my fiery veins,
And feel most elevated,
By the sound of suckling
On my flesh.

Well then, shall I
Burry my wings, my star lit pack?
To sink with you
Into this bottomless green, and
Offer my marrow
To the dark side of this Globe.

Demonic Lover of The Moon

Cease, demonic lover of the moon,
Can’t you see?
Thousand miles across space,
The waves are rolling, tolling, troubling for you.

You, demonic lover of the moon,
What have you done?
To make her ache,
Shed her celestine tears, drag out
The milky way.

Listen to the waves, demonic lover,
The pulse of the moon
It is the sky, the mountain, the forests they reflect,
Alas, but it’s the thoughts of you they carry.

Hello World

Hello world,

I have decided to open a blog purely in English to save my English speaking friends from searching for English entries from my used-to-be bilingual blog, and my Chinese speaking friends from the similarly extraneous opposite task.
First things first, I will post some old poetry and prose done in English, and the new entries will come along as they do. Of course, all visitors are also welcome to drop by my art blog at http://rebextrip.deviantart.com/
Best merit to all.