WHOM WOULD YOU DIE FOR?*

(*See end note on who/whom.) We asked Gina Stoner to expound a little more on her philosophy. Gina is the author of the profoundly simple and ostensibly 'young adult' novel, TALKS WITH AL, now available on Buzzword.

You are in some terrible gulag. You are nineteen. With you is a supreme artist who has not yet filled his potential. And you know his potential because you are aware of the possible future and have an adult mind. Your companion - depending on your personal passion for art - is the young Bach, Mozart, Rembrandt or Van Gogh.

And the guards at this gulag are determined to shoot one of you. They will either shoot you and spare the other. Or shoot the other and spare you. It's your choice.

The firing squad is there and waiting on your decision.

What will you do? Will you die so that The Art of The Fugue, The Magic Flute or Starry Night will not be lost to the world? Or will you destroy your companion and live?

Now forget this question for a moment and read on.


INNER AND OUTER WORLDS

A fundamental concept of self-transformation is the notion of two worlds.

All of us are obliged to live in physical surroundings. We know the taste, weight, resistance of things and the need to struggle against the entropy that will eventually destroy us. We are threatened forms—soft creatures in a hard world. And we know the outcome of our brief time here. Suffering, decay and death.

So we defend ourselves at all costs—and this makes us reactive. Not that instinctive reactions are foolish. (We need to pull our hands away from a flame or step back from a cliff.) But psychological reactions plague us and destroy whatever latent possibilities we possess.

This inner world of personal psychology includes our emotions, thoughts, and physical tensions. It includes our greed, envy, stupidity, dreams, opinions, regrets, ambitions, fixations, ignorance and all our self-defending strategies. This vastly over-elaborated territory is a morass of inter-reactions. Our thoughts drive our emotions. Our emotions drive our thoughts. And our body suffers from tension which, in turn, reduces its immunity to disease.

So we have an inner world and an outer—neither under our control. Because where is the 'our' in this? 'We' exist as automatonsa—functions of physical and psychological drives.

EGO AS SELF-DEFENCE

But, as we prefer not to see ourselves as functions, we develop a touchy ego. This hoary self-defence, common to humanity for thousands of years, has become both blessing and curse. It's a cumbersome shell for those wishing to shield themselves and a barrier for those intent on self-enquiry.

The aim of religions everywhere is to reconcile the opposites - to 'justify the ways of God to man'. In this beautiful, callous universe, we exist as an aberration—unsure of our role, importance and function like cosmic orphans without a map. Religions claim to fill this gap. Unfortunately, their dogmas have degraded into forms so antiquated, illogical and self-serving that they increasingly appeal to credulous self-calmers and fanatics.

The problem for people intent on self-transformation is that both processes are automatic. If even our most prized emotions and thoughts are reactive, what is there left to call ourselves?

ON THE CUSP

South East Asia travel writer and academic, Pam Scott, muses on a life change and the trials of being a quirky Aquarian and lunar Monkey. Take it away, Pam:

I was born on the 22nd January. Now, if I’d come into the world just hours earlier, I’d have been a steadfast, sensible Capricorn instead of a quirky Aquarian who marches to the beat of a different drum according to Western astrologers.

On the other hand, according to the Chinese lunar calendar, had I been born just hours later, I’d have been a Rooster pecking at the ground in the chicken coop instead of a mischievous Monkey swinging up in the trees. How about that? Two cusps, east and west.

Then there is the issue of the year of my birth – 1945.  Technically I’m not a Baby Boomer since World War II was still in progress in January 1945. But I can usually sneak into that group. Again, I’m on the cusp.

It was much the same with the Swinging Sixties and the early Feminist Movement.  Those revolutions came along just a fraction too late to make a difference at the critical time and so I found myself married and heading for a life modelled on my mother’s era before I had a chance to absorb the new role models and follow a different path. Luckily, after a decade of marriage, no-fault divorce reforms came along, giving me another chance for a new way of being.

Although more women were studying at university in the early 1960s, it was still unusual.  I was the first female in my large extended family to attend university and I remember hearing my mother volleying comments such as, ‘Why would you want to educate a girl? She’ll just go off and get married!’  

However, the courses women studied in those days tended to cluster in the ‘caring’ professions traditionally allocated to women. I was encouraged to study pharmacy when I showed an interest in science – ‘A nice place for a girl to work,’ opined the neighbours –‘all those cosmetics and perfumes!’ 

When I floated the idea that I might like to study veterinary science the horrified response was swift and firm: ‘What if you had to look after a sick horse,’ the neighbours asked.  ‘Did they think I’d have to lift a horse onto an operating table,’ I laughed with my friends. But it sowed enough doubt to send me back to the prescriptions and perfumes.

Despite this false start with my career, a decade later I was ready to take advantage of the Whitlam Government education reforms. For once I wasn’t too late or too early and I managed to fit in three degrees between 1975 and 1986 while being a sole parent to my two sons at the same time. Thanks Gough, you changed my life! 

I became an academic at Wollongong University for a number of years which then led to an opportunity to live in Vietnam at the moment in history when that country was on the cusp of its amazing economic takeoff and social change. Living in Hanoi and HoChiMinh City for more than a decade meant I had a front row seat to witness the remarkable changes that were taking place.

Now I’m retired.  But as I head into older, old age, I’m working hard to stay fit and healthy. You see, I think I’m on another cusp and I want to hang on until all those ‘real’ Baby Boomers charge into their 60s and 70s and make the next revolution that will allow us the opportunities to enjoy the old age we want - more flexible accommodation and care options, medical advances, more life choices, greater visibility and attention.

Yes, this old Monkey still hears a different drum beat off in the distance and wants to join that parade.

©Pam Scott 2014

Several of Pam's fine travel books are available in the Buzzword Travel Section.

TV - ORIGIN AND TRIUMPH

The most viewed post on this site was Ben Smith's introduction to the 1950s. We may post it again one day as it's now dropped off the list. So we urged Ben to write another post, this time concentrating on his experience of the first years of television in Australia when he worked at ABN Channel 2, Gore Hill, Sydney. He's obliged and here it is. (Ben Smith, by the way, is the author of the hilariously bitter sweet memoir No Time for the Smiths, now available from Buzzword.)

It's been a long journey. And most of you are too young to remember the beginning.
For me, it began in 1958 when I scored a job as a studio hand at ABN Channel 2, Gore Hill.

TV, in this country, was black and white and around two years old. We had ponderous equipment and transmitted shows live.

Yes, we had videotape, but only just. It was so old-fangled that its two-inch wide strip couldn't be edited successfully. (We'll, you could cut it on the diagonal with a knife.) It was so bizarre, even then, that I've kept one dub - still have it here on the bookcase in the study. It should be in the Powerhouse Museum. The format was then called 'broadcast quality'.

And yes, we had telecine. But the cost of film restricted us to a ten minute insert for every one hour program. So we used it mostly for location shots.

THE TECHNOLOGY, THEN STATE-OF-THE-ART, SEEMS LAUGHABLE NOW.
 For instance, opening and closing credits were printed on a long strip of thin green cardboard and loaded into a machine with two rollers that scrolled it in front of the camera. While the opening scene appeared on Camera One, and Camera Two was cued for shot two, Camera Three was locked off on the titles which were then supered over the Camera One image.

Imagine. No way to rely on tape. No editing. No VCRs. No CGI. Nothing in the can. Just ominous real-time calls from the control room. 'Ready on Two. Take Two. Ready on One. Take One.'

And if you, Mr Cameraman, tangled your cable or botched your transition and weren't in position for your next shot, (written on a cue card clipped to the pedestal-based behemoth in front of you) then God help you - and the production!

BUT THE ABC HAD THE BEST GEAR
A TV studio was expensive, but the ABC, of course, had the best equipment for the time. Two sixty by forty foot studios with lighting grids, elevated control rooms. An extensive props department. A contingent of carpenters and painters to make sets - which, by the way were coloured. (But those colours were chosen to transmit properly in black and white.)

It also had a presentation suite for small cooking programs and the news. The cream on the cakes was shaving cream. It was more stable under hot lights.

Oh, and there were a couple of enormous Steinways - mounted on Y shaped metal frames with castors at each end. Each time you moved one into a studio, a man had to come in and re-tune them.

WHAT ABOUT PROGRAMS?
At Channel 2, we had children's programs, women's programs, tilts at science, current affairs. And a whole range of BBC programs as back-up. Remember Z Cars? You do? Then happy 80th birthday.

There was Six O'clock Rock featuring the energetic Johnny O'Keefe. He was always hoarse because he yelled his voice to bits. It was considered a daring program for its time.

There was the Lorrae Desmond Show starring that always excellent and then youthful trouper and her dapper wingman, Colin Croft.

There was the inimitable puppet program, Mr Squiggle, with the delightful Pat Lovell as Miss Pat. 

The Children's program had an art section hosted by a young and serious Jeff Smart.

There was also Gaslight Music Hall. I vaguely remember the proscenium arch with the  studio audience seated in front - at small tables, I think - watching a tired list of faded tragics.

And there was the irascible Professor Julius Sumner Miller who asked 'Why is it so?' as he created vacuums in milk bottles so that peeled hard boiled eggs sitting on top of them were sucked irretrievably in and down.
THE THREE-FINGER HAND-STAND
Talking of tired acts, there was also Cafe Continental - a cabaret show that sometimes featured circus refugees. You never knew who or what the producers would drag in.

One act I remember with sheer joy. It involved a short, powerful, cheery man with a wooden peg-leg who dressed as a pirate. Aided by his somewhat larger, underdressed and besotted female assistant, he placed a three-pronged candlestick on a restaurant table and did a one-arm handstand on top of it - supported only by two fingers and the thumb of one hand.  That was his entire act. And memorable it was. 

CODE RED

Red face is more like it!


Well, just how stupid can we be? Although we are basically an eBook publisher, we went to great trouble to upload hundreds of used books on our site. Yes, actual pre-loved books. (Buzzword used books, by the way, can only be purchased if you live in Australia. Too much fiddling with postage otherwise.) Anyway, vastly proud of ourselves, we waited for  orders to flow in.

And did they?

Not a sausage. Not a single sale. Until someone was sharp enough to try the links. None worked. Our Paypal shopping cart requires swathes of code. And yes, the code was there - but someone had forgotten to include the first line of it on each entry.

So nothing worked! Week after week!

Should we plaster egg on our faces and tell you this? Of course. 

Anyway, all fixed now. And if we have inconvenienced anyone, we grovel and apologise.

For the record, Buzzword has four Used Book sections. 

Biographies and auto-biogs of authors. 

Literature. 

Esoteric and Hermetic texts. 

And, just for the hell of it, a Lucky Dip section. 

All pretty pointless. But then, what isn't? 

Has it occurred to you that life is a mirage? Then the Esoteric section is for you.

The Crucifixion - according to esoteric research.

What really happened just before and after Christ's crucifixion? If you're a fundamentalist Christian, don't read on. Author Clinton Smith is preparing two books of his previously published stories for Buzzword. In the process, he was prompted to write another story or three. This one, based on esoteric research, we considered so significant that we're putting it on the blog. Read at your peril. And be advised that the views of our authors are not necessarily those of Buzzword.


THE STAND-IN

"What do you know of Judas? He was a great initiate.

He was the second disciple after St John the Baptist.

All that is told about him is false.

If you wish to know, he was even the master of Christ."

                                                                G.I. Gurdjieff,  1944

When he left the dormitory, Jesus and Judas were snoring.  He had been told not to wake them and to come while the moon was still high. The Essenes, unlike Sadducees and Pharisees, did their most sacrosanct work before dawn. Yet the heat was still oppressive—even here in the inner court's gloom.
    He walked up the three marble steps, across the tessellated floor, past the scented oil lamps, past bronze sphinxes to the sanctum.
    When he entered, the tortoise-like Empty One, raised collar and prune-like face—some said he was a hundred and fifty—was seated in his niche.
    Aaron did not speak, knowing the other could read his thoughts. He sat on the ivory-inlaid stool and brought his mind to the pristine state—the stabilized mind was the only true pilgrimage and penance—then glanced at his superior, the one established in the Self.
    'It is neither being nor non-being,' the sage chanted, 'or of the nature of both. It is beginningless, endless, changeless and throbs as the self-effulgent light.'
    Aaron joined the recitation. 'There is no worship, pardon, remission of sins, salvation attainment, merit, act. Apart from I AM there is nothing to be known.'
    The liturgy ended. They sat in silence again. He pondered the word "salvation". They were, happily, free of the violence provoked by that pervasive idolatry. Any god that could be pleased or appeased was already a dualistic fiction. How to explain to people that everything was one?
    Eventually the Empty One said, 'Two days and I die.'
    Aaron felt surprise, then sadness—and recognised the sadness as self-pity.
    'Exactly,' his teacher smiled. 'Reaction is inaction and whatever changes is not absolute. So where is the ambiguous place where the unmanifest and manifest join?'
    But he was now too concerned for profundities—fearful about the effect of the Empty One's departure on the Passion Play. Although blocked out in scenario, much of it was still being pondered—The Sermon on the Mount, for instance, and the wording of the parables. It was far too early for rehearsals and casting was unfinished. They had sent those already cast as fishermen to the port to work for the Phoenicians but had still not agreed on the pivotal messianic figure.
    The best choice was the admirable Judas, but the role was arduous and his weak lungs concerned them. That left the meticulous Jesus as his possible replacement. Both young men, indentured to them since children, were exemplary.
    But this was to be far more than a demonstration for locals in the valley.
    It was designed to be played out in life.
    And the man chosen had to die on a cross.
    The sacrifice was indispensable because the cross symbolised two worlds—the one above, the one below and the place between that united them where the vertical met the horizontal—between the inner and outer life. Through the centuries, it would indicate, to the few who could decipher its significance, the fulcrum required for transformation.
    They had developed the concept from the Shiva myth —the god, blue-throated from eating the poison of the world. Its echo of atonement still concerned them but they hoped to minimise that aspect.
    Others in the drama would die, too. The waste of adepts chilled him.
    'They will die anyway,' the Empty One said, voice percolating from his gut. Manifestation is relative. No death, no source of anguish, no path. Still, physically we die. And lose contact with one another.'
    Unless.... he thought.
    'That's why you're here.'
    Simple people had a ritual called blood brotherhood but knew nothing of its origin or power. It was a technique for keeping in touch with an adept after death. Here, in this school disguised as a monastery, the practice was applied. But it worked only for a time—only with the newly dead.
    The one about to die shed his blood into a grail and also cut off and distributed a portion of his flesh. Those wishing to communicate with him were constrained to drink and eat. Of course the later communication was not by speech but transmitted by intuitive feeling, though images could sometimes appear. It was this practice, in fact, moving out into general life and half-understood by the ignorant, that sustained the myth of resurrection.
    Aaron nodded. 'When?'
    Tomorrow at dawn.
    'And who will sup?
     'You, Jesus and Judas. Come with them tomorrow.'
    'Four.' He frowned. The seminal number was three.
    'Three. Remember, I'm leaving. You three will remain.'

Buddha's Four Noble Truths reconsidered

Gina Stoner, author of 'Talks With Al' has here condensed a talk given in a Zen group by the late Sexton Bourke in 2001. She explains that the talk so impressed her that she wished to share it more widely. She was careful to tell us that her condensation is a paraphrase that borrows nothing of the original talk except its essential argument.

The Four Noble truths are considered to be the bedrock of Buddhism, yet are merely an expression of something that words cannot define. They are not truth but expressions of the truth.

The first is the noble truth of dukkha or suffering. It states that life is suffering. Do you agree with this? Certainly, much of life is unpleasant and things seem so arranged that good and bad generally alternate, with just enough comfort around to stop us cutting our throats.

However dukkha is Pali word - a word from a language and culture that no longer exists. And so the original meaning could be obscure. Fortunately Buddha spoke a lot about dukkha. In fact he equated it with attachment, reaction to things - the process of getting caught, obsessed, intrigued with outward objects. And, once, he broadly defined dukkha as 'impermanence'.

So, in this context, dukkha is everything around us. Because everything we see is impermanent. Everything is subject to entropy. Even life or 'negative entropy' finally succumbs. Reality as we know it is subjective, dependent, conditional. It is a flux with no finality. An alphabet soup continually stirred.

The second noble truth states the origin of this dukkha, how it comes about. The standard explanation is the cause of dukkha, or suffering, is desire. An unwanted moral element enters in here. But if we take suffering as 'impermanence' then this interpretation does not stand. The second noble truth then becomes: 'impermanence is not absolute'. Unfortunately our egos are invested in 'impermanence' even though our hearts seek an absolute value. In this sense, ego is dukkha - impermanent.

So what then would the absolute be? It would be something that does not change. Not in the sense of a dead thing because this something would be intensely alive, creative, profound. And it would also transcend time - or, one could say, would have no beginning or end. A limitless thing - able to be sensed, perhaps, but impossible to define.

So we come to the third noble truth which is usually presented as the extinction of desire. Once again we are back in value judgements.

But, if we agree that the conditioned world is not absolute and that the ego is the cause of its arising, what, then, is the third noble truth?

Surely that suffering is ended by experiencing the absolute.

For some, this means manufacturing a kind of blankness. This is the blind alley that many Buddhists teachers warn against. The absolute is not a negation but the most lively affirmation possible. But even Zen, in this context, is merely a finger pointing to the moon.

The fourth noble truth refers to method - the eightfold noble path. This provides practical ways to approach the third - the experience of the absolute. It sets down precise codes of conduct irrelevant to the conversation here.

To restate:

1. Life is impermanence.
2. Impermanence is not absolute.
3. The angst of impermanence is ended by experiencing the absolute.

The advantage of this definition is that value judgements are negated. There is no longer a moral issue in the conventional sense. Simply an invocation to truly practise your spiritual tradition.

Pushing stones up-hill - the myth of Sisyphus

Among the books in the late Joy Lonsdale's library was Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus - which is, among other things, a polemic on the rationality of suicide. And inserted into this book was a note in Joy's handwriting that is possibly her own work. Appended here for your interest:

This King of Corinth earned the enmity of Zeus by informing and angry father that the King of the Gods had carried off his daughter, Aegina - who was to become great-grandmother to Achilles.

Zeus decided that Sisyphus must die, but did not wish to honour him by sending Hermes to conduct him to Tartarus (region of Hell). He sent a lesser messenger Thanatos, whose name meant 'death'.

However, Sisyphus, a man of infinite resource and courage, succeeded in binding Thanatos in chains and returned calmly to take his place among the living.

After some time, Thanatos was released and sent again to Sisyphus. This time, however, Sisyphus made another plan. He instructed his wife to omit any funeral rites and to offer none of the special gifts to Persephone which were supposed to placate that goddess of the underworld and ease the passage of the one who had died.

Persephone, thus, has no knowledge of Sisyphus's death and, when confronted by him, was persuaded that he had been conducted to Tartarus by mistake. She ordered him to be freed.

So Sisyphus again escaped Tartarus and resumed his life.

Now Zeus was determined that there should be no third escape. Sisyphus was taken again to Tartarus under strong guard and his impiety was blazoned forth for all to know. Once in Tartarus he was condemned to a unique punishment - to roll a huge rock up a hill. Just when the summit was reached, the rock rolled back and he was forced to resume his task at the bottom of the hill. And this went on through eternity.

In another legend, Sisyphus appears as the father of Odysseus. Indeed, the great voyager displayed the same kind of cunning and resourcefulness but never bent them to impious deed.

Here ends Joy's presumed rant on Sisyphus, the most crafty prince of the heroic ages. Where she found the information, we'll never know. We note that in Lempriere's Classical Dictionary of 1919, Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, is cited as the one who imposed the rock-rolling punishment. And the institution of the Pythian games is attributed to Sisyphus.

So where does all that leave you? Between a rock and a hard place?  You can read Joy's erudite books on Buzzword.