A Truly Christ-like Art

I currently practice karate. No, you needn't worry. I'm only a white belt, the lowest rank in karate, so I'm not dangerous.

After becoming involved with our club I was struck by the incongruity between the image I had of traditional "martial arts" with what I was experiencing in practice. I expected that the martial arts was a peaceful pursuit. The reason to study martial arts, such as karate, is to learn how to not fight, to learn to have peace, etc. Yet in our karate club, like other karate or martial arts schools, we learn how to hurt people. We learn techniques to use that are oftentimes meant to hurt, possibly used to kill, and we learn places on our opponents' bodies to use these techniques. We spar with each other, after which I often have bruises on my shins. (Nothing worse than that, thank goodness. My club is made of great people who care for each other and try to prevent any serious injuries.)

I don't fault karate for this incongruity. It's the nature of self defense, just as it is the nature of our communal defense (e.g. military), that you learn to hurt the other person. With most styles of self defense, anyway. As long as defending one's self is a part of achieving and maintaining peace training for and practicing conflict will be a part of it.

I find that because of my karate training I think about getting in fights more now. I think about what I carry on my person that I can use as a weapon if I find myself in a fight situation. Where should I hit, how should I hit, what's the best way to "end the fight"? These are all good questions when one is studying how to defend one's self. At the same time I think there are drawbacks to having these thoughts. I feel more aggressive (though I haven't gotten and don't plan on getting into any fights). I start seeing people as opponents, even though it is just in a "sparring" way rather than a "fight in a dark alley" way. These are not peaceful thoughts.

The way I see it, there are trade-offs in the study of karate and other martial arts.

Not all martial arts have the same approach toward self defense. Aikido seems to more closely match my previous expectations of martial arts with respect to learning how to not fight and encouraging peace with others. I understand there are different schools of thought within aikido, but in general the goal is to (quoting Wikipedia) "defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury". The founder, Morihei Ueshiba, seems to have greatly cared for the people in our world and desired peace among us.

I recently read a blog post that pointed to a story told by Terry Dobson, a well-known American aikido practitioner who was able to study under Morihei Ueshiba. His story is profound, and tells of what I consider to be a truly Christ-like art.

THE TRAIN CLANKED and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. Our car was comparatively empty - a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows.

At one station the doors opened, and suddenly the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into our car. He wore laborer’s clothing, and he was big, drunk, and dirty. Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that she was unharmed.

Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. The laborer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood up.

The Rest of the Story

Funny Comic

I was pointed to a comic that is, at the same time, both funny and insightful.

http://www.freethunk.net/russells-teapot/comics-russells-teapot-strip-10.php

Some thoughts this New Year

Happy New Year, everyone!

New Years Day is a day where we look both backward and forward in time. Maybe we only do it one year back and one year forward. I can't help but go farther out and back then just one year, though.

I don't have a particularly good memory. I think everyone believes that, except for maybe those rare people with photographic memories, but my wife can verify that I do, indeed, have a bad memory. Because of this, sometimes looking backward is a saddening thing for me to do. I feel like with every day forward I take I lose more of my past to the ravages of time. Even more than what we know we've forgotten. (There are things we remember, things we know we forgot, and things we don't know we forgot. Thanks go to Donald Rumsfeld.)

I wish there was some way of reconstructing my past. Sometimes I wish there was some way I could relive my past -- not to go back and change things, just to have and understand the feelings and experiences I had before. Then maybe somehow I could save all those feelings and experiences and sensations as Memories(tm), the total package. And this time around they would not get lost.

As far as I know this is not possible. As far as I understand physics it isn't possible, anyway. (But then, damn it Jim, I'm a programmer, not a theoretical physicist!) And even if it were possible I don't see how it could ever be the same as the original memory without being the original person -- meaning without all of the knowledge and additional memories and changes we've had since that point in time. Can the me of now really completely understand the me of 10, 20, 30 years ago?

And then, my past is inextricably tied into the lives of so many other people, most especially my parents and siblings. Would I need to reconstruct their experiences to be able to reconstruct mine?

Will there ever be any way of recovering our past? If so, what can I do toward the goal?

I guess I really should have been keeping a journal all these years.

What will the future be like? It's an interesting question. I really don't know.

I am looking forward to Space Ship Two and White Knight Two! Even though I don't have $200,000, and the flights only spend a short time in weightlessness I think the idea of having private flight to space is awesome, and hopefully it portends even more involvement in space in our future.

I'm looking forward to better computer user interfaces that can read our thoughts. No more typing, or talking, or mousing, or carpal tunnel or shoulder problems or whatever. Just think it and your computer does it. Almost unbelievable, yet scientists are in the middle of our first clumsy steps and mind reading. Just two weeks ago I saw this Star Wars toy that senses one's brainwaves as input for raising a ball in a tube. Force Trainer or something. I wanted to buy it but my cheap self held back.

I follow the headlines of some techy websites, and it is amazing to me the number of blurbs there are about progress humanity is making in technology. Most of them are in the 3-5 year- and 5-10 year-out ranges, and thus haven't "arrived". Maybe these articles are giving an impression that we are progressing faster than we really are. Still, if even half of these modern miracles materialize it will be amazing. Over the past few years I've seen progress being made on retinal implants to help certain blind people see. The last time we could even imagine this was 2000 years ago when Jesus was annointing eyes with clay.

Many people much smarter than I fear our future. Death by asteroid, robot attack, engineered (or natural) supervirus, environmental disaster, World War III and so on certainly are plausible futures. I understand and share a fear of the future. The future demands a great amount of caution and foresight from us, I think.

Yet if we have an expectation of annihilation, where does that take us? I worry that the result is us fulfilling the prophecy. It is important that we take an optimistic view of the future, and work toward that future, as the first step toward a future where we (humans) are still living.

The future will be amazing. Our future will be to us even more amazing than today is to a caveman.

Delivering Words

Words, like tsuki, are best delivered from a relaxed state.

And, like tsuki, words require practice.

Fighting Nearsightedness

There's an interesting article on New Scientist about studies that have been undertaken to determine the cause of nearsightedness. One recommendation is to be outside. Apparently the bright light that people encounter somehow causes the eyeball to grow less long, which is the problem in nearsightedness. Myopia is growing rapidly in many areas of the world, and this is explained by people being inside much more than before.

Article here.

Evolution: The Grand Experiment

And what a grand experiment it is.

A week or two ago I saw on one of the local channels a show entitled "Evolution: The Grand Experiment". At first I thought it was going to be a nice, dry documentary about evolution, but after only a bit of watching it became clear that it was a disguised anti-evolution video. So I decided to record it in its entirety and watch it later to see what they had to say.

It's disappointing. I don't think the creators really understand either biology or how it gives rise to evolution very well. It's like they only know half of the story. They point at that half and say, "See, it just doesn't match up." Well, if you only allow half the bridge to be used of course you can't get to the other side.

I took the entry-level biology class in college. Well, I took two entry level biology classes -- one for the non-biology people and one for the biology people. (I was entertaining thoughts of changing my major at the time.) I occasionally watch Nova on our local PBS station. But that's about it. I'm no biologist. Still, even I can see some of their misunderstandings or omissions, and that's sad.

There is a cool Nova show on epigenetics that came to mind at one point. Epigenetics. That stuff is cool. It multiplies the complexity of DNA, allowing some measure of adaptability even within an individual, and that adaptation can be inherited. While epigenetics is not involved in evolution it was interesting that they interviewed some biologist who said something like individuals can change in response to their environment and this change can be passed on to the individual's offspring, and then the narrator said something like this is obviously not true because of DNA. I think the biologist had epigenetics in mind, so it can happen, and it doesn't contradict our understanding of DNA. And of course there can be environmental influences on DNA mutation that can be passed on to the offspring, as well.

Sorry, just wanted to show off some trivia.

On a different note I remember the first day I was in that biology class for the non-biology majors. Well, it may have been the first day of talking about evolution, not the first day of class. It's been too long for the ol' brain to remember. The teacher was, if I remember correctly, a pretty popular and had a fun, dynamic way of teaching, which made the class of many hundreds of people still fun to be in. He knew that a significant enough portion of our class had or would have a problem with either believing in evolution or trying to reconcile a belief in evolution with religious belief. So he had a handout prepared with various quotations from religious leaders on evolution, to help us reconcile it with religion. I do remember the butterflies I had in the pit of my stomach.

That was one of the first times in my life that I'd really been confronted with the issue of "science vs religion" to any real extent. Oh, I'm sure it had come up before. I can't remember it ever being this potent, though. Prior to that point I had fairly successfully kept science and religion separate. Never keep them them in RAM simultaneously, just swapped one out to disk when I wanted to swap the other in to RAM. If ever they were both swapped in, well one of them was on it's way out, and religion would just trump in that case. At least until it was swapped out again.

I wish I could say that my biology class was the turning point for me in my reconciliation of science and religion. It wasn't "the" turning point. But it was an important course correction. I understand the importance of that moment when that teacher handed out this paper more now in retrospect than I did at the time, I think. I say Hallelujah for people who recognize the truths in both scientifically- and religiously-inspired ideas.

And hallelujah for people who don't see them as separate.

I expect our scientific understandings of things will evolve. Scientists don't always get things right, nor complete. Partly this is because we humans just aren't capable of understanding everything yet. (I sincerely hope that to be true.) Of course, sometimes we just get things wrong, anyway. So we must hope for evolution in our scientific understandings.

I expect our religious understandings of things will evolve. This is a part of my faith, and is a central tenet of my religion, as well. Just like science, this is partly because we humans just aren't capable of understanding everything yet. Sometimes we just get things wrong, too. So we must hope for evolution in our religious understandings.

All things denote there is a God, said someone once. Yep. Including evolution.

Some words from the Buddha

I was poking around the 'Net last night reading about karate when I came across this quote attributed to the Buddha. My initial reaction was to think, "Oh yeah!". My second reaction was to think, "But it's more complicated than that." and to start thinking about it more deeply. I expect the Buddha, and God, would encourage that. Because of reaction number two I decided it was worth presenting here for your thoughts.

Do you agree or disagree with it?
Can you think of any scriptures that are in harmony or conflict with the idea presented?

Do not believe on the strength of traditions even if they have been held in honour for many generations and in many places; do not believe anything because many people speak of it; do not believe on the strength of sages of old times; do not believe that which you have yourselves imagined, thinking that a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends only on the authority of your masters or of priests. After investigation believe that which you have yourselves tested and found reasonable, and which is for your good and that of others.