Cousin Mark!

Mark and Jess at Inari shrine, Kyoto.
Yasuchika and Satoru. Being around both of these amazing souls at the same time was pretty intense, as those of you who know them can imagine. Sure, I know there is depth and beauty permeating every point in the universe, but some points are particularly deep and beautiful. Here are two such particular points, on a train in Tokyo, hanging out with lucky little me.
Kazu let us stay at his place and took us to many wonderful places. He is a great friend.
Maiko in Kyoto. She walked so fast, but then to our luck she had to stop at the traffic light, giving us an opportunity to photograph her.
Monkey Mountain was covered in babies.

Here I am singing with The Fixations at the show in Osaka.
I met Mark and Jessica at Ueno park. First place we went was the lotus field there.

Then we met Nic Swindler, Yasuchika, and Satoru at Yoyogo park, had a picnic, and played a killer round of Apples to Apples.

Mark and Jessica on the train to Kamakura.
Me, singing.
Buddha of Infinite Light (Amida) in Kamakura.
Maiko (or Geisha) we saw at Gion in Kyoto. She walked so fast!


Swimming in Kamakura
Ty on a bridge at Mt. Koya
Toy offering to Jizo, Mt. Koya

Megan and Ty

Ryoanji, Kyoto




Daddy Long Leg



Kinkakuji, Kyoto

The Fixations in Osaka

I'm now one of the backup singers for the sixties cover band The Fixations. Here is the flyer for our upcoming show. The next day (Sunday) I will bullet train it up to Tokyo to meet my cousin Mark and his girlfriend and some other people, have a picnic at Yoyogi park at 1:00, and then take a week to see Japan. Let me know if you can come and need details about the show or the picnic.

Puddles and bubbles

Here is the first layer of a new painting. Can you see the crow flying deep inside?



And here are a couple kids from my neighborhood who bombarded me with bubbles yesterday.

Drawing Party

Ma and Takashi drawing on my patio. I miss Charlie.

Taken by others

Mom,
I thought you might like some pictures of me I found on the internet.  Traveler's Cafe, Matsuyama





Niihama Secret Garden Cemetery, Grandbetty's house?, Saijo, Yakushima
Niihama Secret Garden Blue Boat project!
Mt. Koya five-tiered pagodas symbolize the five elements that make up every body.
Mt. Koya Bridge into The Deep
Mt. Koya
Tokyo (Asakusa Shrine, really big deal)
Mt. Koya with random strangers
Taiko Festival with Damien and Niihama
The top Secret Garden in Niihama
Some tiny island, Okinawa. We had that entire beach to ourselves.

Dance

This video is so good (it made me cry).

Look within your own mind. See how deep it is? It goes on and on, layer upon layer, on and on forever, might as well be, since if you look deeply into your mind you can't find an end anywhere. Not one boundary or limit. It’s a boundaryless ocean of awareness, this radiant depth of your interior, and it's you to the core; all the way down, you you you you you.

Since everything is but an apparition,
Perfect in being what it is,
Having nothing to do with good or bad,
Acceptance or rejection,
You might as well burst out laughing!

~ Longchenpa

camping by the river

This weekend I went camping by a river deep in the mountains with some friends. We jumped off big rocks, swam naked in the cold water, got sunburned, had a campfire and sang around it, barbecued, beered, bonded. Something happens to a group of people who go camping together. After all, it's a very, very long party, with continuous conversations with each other and with nature. Friendship, that sacred and mysterious love, is shared and strengthened, and many people report having a kind of mystical experience (feeling of connection and peace) when spending extended periods outside, surrounded by nature. The environmental change is often quite dramatic, providing the individual and group with a prolonged "altered state of consciousness." We feel ecstatic and moved to dance and shout and get dirty. Some of us don't get out much.

The feeling is captured beautifully in this new Sigur Ros video. This is what my camping was like.





We listened to the new Sigur Ros album on repeat the entire 3 hours back, actually. The song in the video is track # 1. If you like Sigur Ros, you will love this album. On our trip to the campsite we listened to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Sleeping beauty, and The Nutcracker. Kind of interesting.
Ma, the guy pictured above, gave me and some friends a ride. He is also a dancer.





I had never seen an orange-red roof like this one. Stunning against that green.

Shining Eyes

Memorable moment: I made a vow, and the vow was, "I will never say anything that couldn't stand as the last thing I ever say."

Fresh Air

Matsuyama Castle

Castle Shrine

Exchange students

Ancient Samurai Armor

Matsuyama

View from my roof in Niihama

From the roof

from my front balcony

Matsuyama Castle

exchange students

The Secret Garden in Niihama

View from one of my schools

Damien at his farewell party

"Indra's Net" this morning on my walk to school. An old, old lady was hobbling down the street and when she saw me kneel down to take this picture she laughed and said, "extremely beautiful, isn't it!"
We walked and talked together all they way to school.

My good friend Taka, who left today to go to school in Italy. Sad sad.

My legs are really sore today because Saturday I helped plant a rice field with Terri, which was totally awesome, walking around barefoot in mud paddies filling up with water. And then in the evening I went to that all night rave in the mountains, covered in mist. I wore all white, and Taka, the organizer of the event, painted on me like Jackson Pollack with acrylic paint. Then I danced around in the rain like a crazy man, careful not to touch anybody. Dancing is also a religion.

Today I went Matsuyama with the exchange students from Franklin, Wisconsin, who are home staying here for a week. I love spending time with high schoolers--they are a wonderful mix of child and adult. One boy in particular seemed to be so wise for his age, and yet also so, so innocent. What a burst of fresh air! And the rain stopped today; the sky showered us in blue and white sunlight. Matsuyama castle was stunning, as you can tell from the photos.

You might like this post I recently added to the New Realism blog. It's a short video, important I think, in showing the difference between conventional religion and post-conventional religion, which is an extremely important and profound difference often overlooked completely by my friends who argue against "religion." (Religion? what level of religion are you talking about? There are at least three or four very different ones, for example premodern, modern, postmodern, and nondual! And there is an esoteric and exoteric, or an interior and an exterior aspect of each of those levels! And there is a personal and a cultural manifestation of all of those! What level or altitude of religion are you talking about? What level of Christ?) People often group all those levels of Christ Jesus into one, and then say that that Jesus is a joke. They "throw the baby of with the bathwater", the baby, in this case, being Christ as Love-in-Action, which is a complete waste of perfectly good Love-in-Action if you ask me.

So this video demonstrates beautifully the differences between a conventional Jesus and a post-conventional, mystical Jesus, a difference which looks like that between a self-ish Jesus and a self-less Jesus, to be blunt about it. To the Christian Mystic in the video, Jesus is a manifestation of a self-less, compassionate God, which is "Love in Action." And that quality of Jesus, which was God, was what was speaking when it said "I am the truth, the life, and the way."

To the conventional Christian, Jesus is a limited, historic being commanding others to worship himself.

I tend to appreciate the self-less, "Jesus is an infinite Love-in-Action that everyone, including Buddhists and atheists, has access to" version more, but what do I know.