I tried to change the world

Now I can listen & hear what three wise men,  Krishnamurti, Roy Fraser & the Dalai Lama, have told me, I don’t know why but there it IS, maybe cos am old?this was Roy Fraser’s little ceramic Buddhai what I drew…

OM MADI PADME HUMMMmm

Like many others of the Sixties generation I tried to change the world these past 50 years. But, like the US forces going into Saddam’s Iraq, I never had a contingency for what to put in the old world’s place. I found out that nobody changes the world cos the world just carries on in it’s own bittersweet way, forever. The world in which we live, or should I say Universe, has been going on for millions of years and will continue with or without us ubeings. In fact if we blow the Earth to smithereens the universe just keeps rolling along with what’s left of the Earth and all who dwelt there re-constituted. We are in fact always re-constituting, part of you and me was in the BIG BANG what made the existence we became aware of. When we die our bodies will re-constitute once more and help make up other things. If we have a spirit or a soul that carries on somehow.

This is my spirit guide

‘This mug is a combination of particles, atoms, quarks [like the old man in the sketch above which is for me maybe the best thing I have ever created. I very rarely draw things from my mind without any visual prompt but this old guy just arrived from my pencil. Like Lennon used to say he didn’t ‘write’ his songs, he was a conduit thru which they came, same with this old guy]. But each particle is not ‘mug’. The same can be said of everything, including yourself. The mug, ‘me’, are merely labels, something we use to describe everyday reality. The mug, me, came into existence because of a complex web of causes and conditions. They do not exist independently [our] existence is dependent on an infinite, intricately linked series of events, people, causes and conditions.’ Dalai Lama in The Wisdom Of Compassion.

One of the Dalai Lama’s teachers was Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and I found a beautiful film about him here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQPmnGTUHYU at about 25 mins in it gets very good, seems we are taken into a Shangrila! I even see them printing off pages of a pothi, one of their bookforms. It’s amazing to me how similar looking Khyentse was to one of my mentors in life, an old friend who I painted awhile ago called Roy Fraser. Roy was also into spiritual searching and I had lots of interesting chats late into the night with him alongside a ‘spirit in a bottle’ called Glenn Fiddich.

Roy FraserDilgo Khyentse

If you have a couple of hours to spare, take a look at this Buddhist woman and her take on Compassion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=datWeGjthJU&feature=youtu.be

Both Tai Chi and Ashtanga Yoga help body and mind to gain good health and equilibrium. I won’t bother to explain that here, just believe me.

I was lucky enough to be able to start doing Tai Chi and Ashtanga Yoga with Gareth Chandler http://www.garethchandler.com/links.htm out of Chelmsford about 5 years ago. Like lots of people I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I discover that what I let myself into was an incredible asset for (my) life (and yours too if you want to try it!). I have moved on to learn Tai Chi with Master Ch’ng Lay Seng in Witham. http://clstaichichuan.co.uk/

Master Ch’ng Lay Seng

Both forms do incredible benefits for the body and mind. These couple and inter-relate with my interest in Tibetan Buddhist ideas, zen and meditation. The more I do it the more I learn how much they are so interconnected. All of them have had a profound effect on all that I do.

I read a book ‘Finding Balance in the Midst of Chaos’ by a ‘Peter Strong PhD’ which is strong medicine, in fact it’s too difficult to read without making notes and having a dictionary of sanscrit/pali words handy but I would like to share a passage where he talks about our body & mind’s ability to maintain ‘homeostasis’ or ‘same state’ balance in our life. Our body is regulated by responses designed to maintain physiological & psychological equilibrium by adapting to ‘instability created by external or internal stress’.

The Dalai Lama also says ‘…karma means cause & effect. Suffering (dukkha) is unavoidable [it is a ‘given’ in human- ubeing- life, ed.] it is something we have to deal with. Accepting the situation decreases anxiety. Acceptance gives peace of mind’.

Psychological equilibrium comes when ‘there is freedom from conflict and suffering. This state is called dukkha-nirodha, ‘dukkha’ being ‘suffering’ and ‘nirodha’ meaning extinction. [think of suffrin-eroder, to erode suffering maybe] Before I befuddle you more with Strong’s words I must say that if you look at the writing of B S Iyengar you’ll find the benefits the different yoga moves/positions (asanas) manifest on us ‘yogis’ [a ‘yogi’ is just anyone who does yoga].

Also when Krishnamurti revealed his secret to life he said, “Don’t mind what happens”. This gives us a clue as to how to reach a place where we find our own equilibrium but it’s very hard. His choice of words as always is very clever. He doesn’t advocate not being interested nor taking initiatives, he just says “Don’t mind what happens”, which to me means, don’t ‘attach’ to what happens, don’t cling to memories, things, ideas etc., we all have our experiences and sometimes we get embroiled, we can’t detach and that can lead to all sorts of issues.

[a spurious aside- Like I can’t, or couldn’t detach from the idea that my art was worthy and the world did me a dis-service by not attaching to it and giving me loads a money and praise and love and attachment. Then I look see what those results brought for the likes of Michael Jackson, John Lennon & Elvis the Pelvis and I can see I don’t want loads a money and praise and love and attachment. I am now more ready to give up my forlorn attempts to be up there with the famous ones, or the special one Mourn-inho! I think myself lucky that I never made it. I no longer ‘mind’, even if I did in the past and that’s really an ‘if’. I have had moments, I’ve had positive feedback which has gone into the burner and helped energise me as did criticisms cos often I’d not take them laying down, I’d up and at ‘em. I’d make my next ting beat better. All the time I wanted to improve. Which is funny when you’re running in the wrong direction with all the prizes under your arms, and then they begin to melt or even worse, rot. I had an instinctive feeling when Mourn-inho returned to Chelsea he would regret it, and now he does. Then again, I wouldn’t put it past Mourninho to have manipulated the situation so that he became persona non grata at Chelsea FC just as it was becoming obvious that Van Gaal had underestimated the task at Man U FC and is proving a little short of the required level to sort that old monster out quickly enough for the expectations in a league where measure has become greatly distorted by vast amounts of money?]

Not ‘attaching’ gives us the opportunity to establish and maintain equilibrium so that if we need to assess some situation we can be non-judgemental. Thereby, having no side to take our reactivity is lessened, maybe to nil. We become observers. His mind, in Strong’s words, is “free to respond in the best way possible to resolve suffering (known as dukkha) and restore stability. Strong cites the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics which he states states that all systems seek a state of maximum (thermos) stability and will change (dynamic) if given freedom to change. It’s a battle between habitual reactivity (habits formed thru conditioning & experience) and the natural intelligence which innate (existent but usually dormant within us) in our psyche. Habits so often overrule the intuitive wisdom. Krishnamurti leapfrogs this conundrum by a conviction not to be bothered by what occurs (Am Oi Bovvad?!). I am going to make it my New Year’s resolution to try not to ‘attach’ to trial, tribulation and triumph!

 

The Silver Sword of Yin

I was on the roof of next door’s ‘wash-house’ early-1960’s when I heard Freda Lister sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow beautifully, it was the first time I had heard the song. There was a bunch of us kids up there on a warm summer’s day during school hols. One of the group shewed me a paperback book and said they had just read it and it was wonderful. That book The Silver Sword, (probably the first ‘serious’ book I ever read after my staple diet of Enid Blyton’s fairy & goblins and Beanos), was about refugees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Sword

Whilst working as a consultant for NASA James Lovelock developed the Gaia Hypothesis in his book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (Oxford, 1979). [He also claims to have invented the microwave oven.] Having invested a few paragraphs in rehearsing the improbability behind the assembly of sentient self-replicating life from a chemical soup, in turbulent conditions over immense timescales, Lovelock cheerfully resolves it all by concluding, “Life on Earth was thus an almost utterly improbable event with almost infinite opportunities of happening. So it did.” p.14 (Tim Radford Friday 27 August 2010 Guardian Science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock

‘Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe.’ (Decca Aitkenhead The Guardian, Saturday 1 March 2008) http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

Before 2000 I had read various predictions that the biggest problem awaiting the 21^st century would be shifting populations, from a number of causations; war being the primary one, famine and epidemics following rapidly in its wake. Now it has come to pass. War is never a solution, maybe sometimes a stopgap, but the issues rage on. Hitler thought that through war he could build a 3^rd Reich Empire to rival those of Britain & France of the 19^th century. He was proved wrong but at GREAT cost. My parents’ generation was embroiled in the outcomes at the time. Ted Walker, an 18 year old from Burnley who I came to meet in the 1960s, was taken at Dunkirk and effectively enslaved in a Stalag in Poland for the rest of the war then, like the childers in The Silver Sword, eventually left to walk back to Burnley. I have a postcard to prove it. And after that war there were millions of displaced people.

Ted in 1939 before capture at Dunkirk.

So we move to the modern day, nothing has changed, the results of war are refugees, migrants, pilgrims whatever you call people desperate to escape enough to leave familiar territories and jump aboard unseaworthy vessels after paying crooks extortionate sums of money, they are in flight, searching for some safe haven and maybe a better future.

So what do they do, the so called ‘Heads of Europe’. They squabble. They bring up all the age old prejudices. They build walls. They place razor wire on fences.

There have been oases of hope, like Germany allowing in a lot very quickly. Germany knows what it’s like to grow out from the ruins of a war which its leader had lost years before he shot himself and stemmed the advance of troops from all sides.

Syria looks like a country devastated by such a war now. I don’t need to tell you, it’s there in all the news. It seems the Head of State in Syria has no compunction about the people who live in the cities his forces bomb. There are many other forces at work there too, like the head of Russia’s ‘special forces’ is ‘advising’ the government side and has been filmed leading Assad’s forces, (purportedly), the result is that millions flee.

If only countries could use money directed for armament in building new towns in lands of plenty there may be a medium term miracle but my 64 years of living this life doesn’t indicate that’s about to occur. Even if it did there would need to be a big turn-around in the way we humans (ubeings I like to call us) treat one another. All this ‘he’s a muslim, he’s a Brit, he’s a Sunni, he’s a Sikh, he’s the other side’ etc needs to be sifted over. It’s called prejudice I think. It’s so hard for ubeings to let bygones be bygones, to shake hands and make up. So many prefer to reek revenge, an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. Often we get pre-emptive revenge, just in case they attack us we attack first.  But violence begets violence. When we feel aggressed upon it seems a natural instinct to re-act against the perceived aggressor, the Dalai Lama and his followers walk away from that idea. In Tai Chi too, albeit a martial art from China (a lot of good does hail from China) the idea which seems so counter-intuitive for a novice like me is that you DON’T react, you go with the flow, you give ground or rather you deflect the incoming assault by using your ‘yin’ (negative/nil) force ‘against’ the ‘yang’ of the attack. So the aggressor has nothing to fight as the one he attacks offers no resistance, ‘…the Taoists call T’ai Hsu the Great Nothing‘ Hoff says in his Tao of Pooh and elsewhere he aptly describes the force of T’ai Hsu as like a cork bobbing on water and if you try to hit it it just bobs more and more as you try harder to make contact, eventually the assailant becomes tired and the cork bobs on down the river of life unscathed.

Take a leaf from the Dalai Lama’s book and promote peace. I know it’s hard to just let it go. Our prejudices rule our actions all too often.

But prejudice takes strange forms. South African leaders refused the Dalai Lama permission to attend a Nobel Peace summit because they don’t want to lose Chinese trades. China had invaded un-prepared Tibet in 1950 http://tibetoffice.org/tibet-info/invasion-after and by 1959 thousands of political refugees, including the Dalai Lama, felt the need to flee Tibet because of Chinese repression of their rights in the name of freedom for the common man from what they saw as feudal repression by an upper class dominated by religious ideas which Mao’s boys didn’t consider of any worth. (Ironically there is a regeneration of the main religions in Modern China and in Mongolia Buddhist ideas have undergone a substantial revival since it got out of the Soviet bloc. http://www.brill.com/change-democratic-mongolia )

The lines of refugees that came over the mountains into India then are comparable to those being seen coming out of Syria and Libya today but the West turned a blind eye. It was heavily involved fighting North Korea with its Chinese ‘advisers’. I have met and been very impressed by a number of Chinese people’s intelligence, yet the masses in China can do little to stop the systematic pillaging of Tibet’s resources and the subjugation of its spiritual ideas.

Apulhed Spirit o’ The Dalai Lama

The Chinese leaders need to re-consider their approach to Tibet, but they won’t because [I believe] they see Tibet as a buffer to any move coming into China from the West. They have destroyed the Tibet monasteries, and continue to harass the indigenous population. Tibet had so many monasteries because they had turned their backs on war and chosen paths of peace, quite an accomplishment as they were of Mongol descent and had once conquered China, China never forgets.

Britain is not without guilt, apart from being the first country to invade Tibet (in 1903) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_expedition_to_Tibet when Younghusband slaughtered hundreds of ill-armed Tibetans who had the audacity to not want British sovereignty, now they make pacts with China. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/nobel-peace-summit-south-africa-dalai-lama-visa.

 ‘XXIII. Both sides stand ready to deepen understanding of each other’s development paths and strengthen political trust. Both sides emphasise the importance of promoting and protecting human rights and the rule of law and stand ready to strengthen their human rights dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect. In line with its longstanding policy, the UK recognises that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China and does not support Tibetan independence. Both sides agreed it is both in China and the UK’s interests to promote the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong in accordance with the “one country, two systems” principle and the basic law.’ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-from-government-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-government-of-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland

George Osborne, Conservative finance minister is in China today, no doubt he won’t mention Tibet. You’re not allowed to mention Tibet, it’s a bit like John Cleese mentioning the war.

Chinese leaders will make a return visit to Britain in October. I am afraid none of them will hear me urge them to alleviate the repressive conditions imposed on indigenous Tibetans nor request them to allow the Dalai Lama and his people freedom to return and control their own actions in Tibet. He has said they wish for Tibetan autonomy now rather than independence.

Dukar wheel made by Tashi Lunpho monks.

But I am forever grateful to the peace-loving Tibet people whose work I witnessed this week at a gobsmackingly wonder-full show by the Tashi Lunpho monks in London. Since their monastery/university in Tibet was destroyed under Chinese rule the Tashi Lunpho monks have built a new centre in Sikkim, South India. http://www.tashi-lhunpo.org.uk/monastery_15.html

I’d love to go see the Dalai Lama too but can’t afford the 70-90£ asking prices. I tried to blag my way in by telling them I been aksed to write an article for the Tibet Foundation and some up to date photos would be good, but they didn’t listen or they weren’t impressed.

Dalai Lama at his Peace Garden.

Sunset for ‘Radar Ken’

 Here’s a photo taken of me in a moment of reflection back around 1994 and below are some of the reflections on where the spirit which inhabits the body whilst we ‘live’ goes when we ‘die’: I’d like to thank those of you who have ‘liked’ this post and all of you who have written to me with your feelings & thoughts, Namaste.

I ‘found’ myself when I finally refrained from looking and chasing around. I had relaxed and was just taking my part in the journey of life. I picked up some notes from 2002 where I had mentioned my then 84 year old mother and my father who had died aged 73 (both born in 1918). My mum lived a further 7 years into her 90s. I was reading the Dalai Lama then as I am now and then I likened him to an alien presence, realising that we all are, as we are visitors to this planet. Our ‘spirit’ or ‘essence’ is merely passing through…However, although I respect their vision I must point out there are millions of other stars and planets out there. Don’t we visit some of them as well?

Tibetan insight into existence would have us believe that what we refer to as ‘life’ is the Bardo of Living and what we see as ‘death’ is their Bardo Of Dying. These are opposites like yin & yang which can’t exist without each other. Tibetan monks see existence as a series of steps or ‘transitions’ through these bardos. We inhabit the bardo of living when we are born and enter the bardo of dying when we ‘depart this mortal coil’. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition says our spirit returns to the bardo of living many (millions of) times in rebirth until we eventually get ‘Enlightenment’ and quit this scene for good.

I been lucky as I been around (in this lifetime) 64 years + some months & days hours minutes & seconds. Let’s crunch numbers- in 1967 when I were 16 Lennon wrote When Am 64 with his old mucka. None of us 16 year olds anticipated back then in 67 that we’d ever be 64 but now 48 yearns later I have become 64 and in 48 years from noo, in October 2063 had I lived that long I’d be 112. Few of us in the west ever think about our deaths as it’s almost taboo to talk about death and writing a blog about the subject is a rather risky ting to do on the face of it but I insist it is a good idea to address the issue before I die cos afterwards it’d be difficult no doubt. I don’t intend to be, and I insist I am not being, morbid. On the contrary I am elucidating to those of you what don’t know the Tibetan take on death is that they take it on early in their thinking lives so that when it does arrive it won’t take them by surprise, they are ready.

Buddhists perceive the human condition as one permeated by ‘suffering’ and their aim is to become a Buddha through gaining Enlightenment. This is intangible to me with the only way to ‘see’ or ‘understand’ it being only by ‘nuance’ or a glimpse.

Occasionally I ‘glimpse’ a sense of the presence of my dead dad. I may see a symbol which represents him for me like a lacewing and often in moments rather appropriate for my memory of time spent with him.

The same applies to seeing or remembering past lives. In a recurring dream I see a 19^th century helmet in mud on a battlefield which speaks to me of a previous life-death in the Crimean war. It’s a rather strange view but I ‘get’ that was from a previous life but it would be more convincing if I had a snitchet of conversation or more detail about the site.

I am not sure if the Dalai Lama ‘sees’ his past lives (on Earth, in Tibet) clearly. Until I myself have had such vivid clear sight I remain unsure as to whether anyone else can do so.

Thinking like a materialist or a logical positivist empiricist I could/would say I can tell you what I saw or felt. So, I can look back and see myself walking up Manchester Road in Burnley ahead of my mum who was pushing a pram plus my sister after we had seen the Queen Elizabeth at Burnley town hall in 1955 when I was 4 years old.

Queen Liz arriving to obsequiousness at Burnley town hall.

Liz was more interested in looking in the crowd for ‘Littul Pete’ and his mum.

I can see myself playing with a big tin American model toy car in the mud near my home on Wycoller Avenue. I have memories of playing football and wrestling other boys. These memories are real in various degrees. My wife often comments that what I just recalled doesn’t fit her memory of an event we shared together, ‘That’s not how I remember it.’ That calls into question my retention skills and also the idea that we all see the same thing or same event the same way which of course we never can cos we are different folks. As for seeing back into different incarnations, well there’s even less ‘proof’.

Regarding seeing forward to what will happen when I die again there’s no apparent cognisance. Recently some three of my personal friends have died. With each of us, when we die, what happens is the ‘life’ leaves the body. We see that.

My old friend Roy Fraser leaving his earth body watched by Apulsfinx.

The evidence is clear. The body ceases to function and we can no longer have a conversation with them, in a physical sense, any more. And soon enough it will occur to my own body, it will ‘die’. (Tibetans say that everything is impermanent and this is true scientifically too. The body we call ‘ours’ is in constant flux, never remaining the same from one moment to the next, subtle changes we are mostly unaware of. Once the spirit leaves the body it has no further use for that body becomes surplus to requirement. Some people donate parts of their old body to science and the medical needs of others which I believe is a generous action. In old Tibet they used sky burials, thus providing the wildlife (usually birds) with sustenance. This was partly to do with the lack of soft earth to dig nor wood to cremate with as in India. I have found a beautiful poem by Robert Okaji in a blog I follow-  http://atomicgeography.com/2015/08/13/another-sky-burial/ Whatever is done with our body after we die in one way or another it reconstitutes. It is said that in all of us there is a trace of elements from the original Big Bang. Everything is always changing. That is a mantra I wrote in the early 1970’s when I used to keep a journal towards my future books. Once you accept that you can see the need to cling onto even our old discarded body is unnecessary. I sense some folk may find this writing a bit difficult. yes it may be with the old taboos that are so prevalent in our society which i believe need to be lifted. I see a need to be able to speak about the subject called death with compassion and harmony rather than fear and trepidation. One lady in reply to this blog revealed to me that she used to care for the body of the person who had died and that she saw the activity as “what a privilege it is to perform this final act of care but for most people who die”. Tibetan writings as in Sogyal Rinpoche’s Book of Living & Dying give guidance on how to stay with the deceased person and help them acclimatise to the bardo of dying. I have thought about Ken this week and whilst listening to some beautiful Tibetan monks chanting on cd I could imagine his spirit coming over the mountain to meet thoise monks who would be ready to recieve & welcome hoim along with their ability to put him at ease in his new form. Namaste, Bless you, Shalom. ) What will happen to this thing which is making this pen write these words is unbeknown to me. I have my suspicions, my thoughts on what may happen and emotion and romanticism will inevitably creep into my ideas. We age from the moment of conception, aging is no crime, it’s a fact of life. The idea that this ‘entity’/spirit me which inhabits this aging body will cease to exist because the body that houses it stops functioning seems naïve and ridiculous to me. But we seem to have no proof, after some millions of years in the process of evolving into ‘modern’ humans (ubeings to take gender out of the term) there seems no proof of what happens to this entity that writes these words when the body that enables the mind to drive the impulse from the brain to the hand to the pen ceases functioning because the life force that impulses the body to pump blood around and send minute (my newt) messages almost instantaneously from brain along the cerebral cortex to the fingers and out thru the pen, stops. There’s a circle there. The life force drives the thought, the nervous system and the blood pump and when that life-force stops the processing stops. There must be a yin-yang or positive-negative force going on. The body cannot function without the life force which cannot function without the body, seemingly, at least we have no proof.

Here is a rather sombre/somber song by Len Cohen which seems to be a reflection on all aspects of life and death. I love Cohen’s work he does the most beautiful poems which translate so well into song accompanied always by stunning musicians and singers. This however seems to be his reflections on life without the faintest gilding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x12oo8diKE

We have no proof that there is life on the other planets that have now been proven to be going around many of the billions of stars that exist. We have proof of the minutest microbes because they can be magnified and ‘seen’ but we cannot ‘see’ the life force which inhabits our bodies. Can we?

My life force goes to bed to sleep about 11pm and awakens between 4 (thanks cats) and 7am. Whilst it sleeps it is still functioning. It still pumps from the heart and ‘sees’ dreams and certain sounds impinge enough to wake me up. I don’t wish to give a blow by blow, puff by puff account of ‘living’ what I am trying to get to, to understand, is the life-force. On top of mundane tasks like toileting, washing up, eating, I create ‘art’ including the words on this paper. That’s just above existing. I dance. I drive a car etc. one day in the next 40 years for sure all that will stop. Bound to. My body will have aged and deteriorated so much that it cannot continue to function. Then am gone. This is where the words don’t come. I cannot anticipate what happens. Some say nothing, dead end- pardon the pun. That seems a shame & a waste after all the effort that went in from me being 3 and walking up Manchester Road ‘til now in 2015 with my GCEs & Masters degrees and all. But it’s a fact, it stops, the physical part. So my dad died and took all of his steeplejack knowledge with him, his second world war experience went too.

In a way that’s why I write and create art so that I leave a footprint other than the natural residue of having lived x years but in many ways my ‘work’ is clutter, rubbish and it will dissipate. So enjoy it, drink it while you still can.

longer deeper version ‘we all want a happy life’

There’s a short version of this at https://apulhed.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/we-all-want-a-happy-life/ but this one’s delving deeper into my passion, ‘What makes things tick and why are we here?’

We all want a happy life!

‘May I be Nothing but the peeling of a lotus papering the distance for you underfoot. Tiny yellow bundles bursting like stars Like smiles And the laughter of the bells’ Said Patti Smith on reading her pome to the Dalai Lama commemorating his 6^th july 80^th birthday forthcoming. Then surprise surprise out he came at Glastonbury! http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e84mxj/live/c9wrbp He cut a cake full of fresh fruit. Then walked out front and did a speech, “We all want a happy life Each new day Birthday In order to be more happy day Keep here (points his chest) More Compassion It creates Honest, Truthful Transference And Trust We are social animals Friendship does not come thru money” Then he let Patti kiss his forehead and he blessed the crowd and was led away.

Patti did a great set, especially her ‘Horses’ and Sir Van’s ‘Gloria’. Other highlights for me were Mike Scott & his new Waterboys. He sang a song about Kerouac & Cassady. He is on the track by Jackie Leven that inspired my Clay jug series. Seems we sing from the same songsheet only I don’t sing/can’t sing. I loved the masks they wore. Also ‘Goat ‘ wore great masks too. I thought my masks were good, but now I must return to the mask-board. Here’s one I made earlier, The Squidgerat King.

In fact I ain’t got no time to mek masks right now am making books and stuff ready for BALTIC bookfair in a couple o weeks. http://balticmill.com/whats-on/artist-event/artists-book-market

Some Implications of seeing Gyatso at Glasto

I seem to have had ‘some deep realisation, some moment of realisation’ (Miller) but be wary too, cos the Dalai Lama warns that nothing is permanent nor as it seems. (And I must thank Auntis BeBe Cee for the use of images they projected to the world over iplayer. Mere fleeting moments of my joy not just watching Patti Smith and her white haired band perform so ‘strongly’ as the Lama put it but also the shock & glee at seeing the man known to his people as The Ocean of Wisdom appear in person at Glasto (something I have never done, altho I did go to its inspiration, The Bath Festival 1970).

Now let me delve deeper. Overnight I slept on what the implications are of seeing two folk I have much admiration for, Patti Smith & Tensin Gyatso, together on stage, two such apparently diverse lives and styles. Like Rabindranath Tagore reportedly said, ‘You and I are artists Dilip, not yogis by temperament.’ So Patti the artist and Gyatso the yogi meet! I had picked up a book I read (reed) but never finish, DALAI LAMA- THE CHANGE INITIATOR published in Bombay 1993 and written in almost pigeon-English by two (very) Indian men, Dr Bhaskar Vyas & Dr D V Nene. Their turn of phrase is of course from their cultural background, their use of English is not quite ‘correct’ but still better than my use of Indian, cos I don’t use it at all. Nevertheless they have written pretty profound stuff and my almost chance picking up this book to browse again has led me to a personal realisation which I shall inform you of. If you can come with me and ‘get’ what am about to try to reveal then you’ll maybe agree it is special. If you are too busy etc, then so be it. Patti’s first line was ‘May I be Nothing’, immediately I thought about Nothingness, termed in India as ‘Sunyata’ the experience of peace, devoid of any content. Also Sunyata is defined as pratit-yasam-utpada dependant arising which the Dalai Lama says is the way everything depends on everything else, nothing is not interconnected. In fact EVERYTHING JUST IS. And in fact every no-thing ‘just is’ too. OK bear with me. Our Indian authors Vyas & Nene in a very short passage in the book mention several renowned spiritual leaders in quick succession, I shall quote directly as it is complex and you will need to read thru several times but for me it makes so much sense: ‘… is best explained in modern [the] modern astrophysical term of ‘Black Hole’. This is where the entire Universe is collapsing into; and all that goes into black hole is reduced into such a density that is hardly exists at all but then the black hole might also be the originator of “new universe” at the other end of it. Sunyata is like a black hole. All phenomena collapse into it and it becomes nothingness; yet, it gives rise to all the phenomena as we see them. Action within or action without ultimately may mean nothingness. But at the same time, it is action that characterises life. We may therefore choose as to what kind of action we may take recourse to, but act we shall have to, so long as we are alive.” Interestingly the Dalai Lama commented on Patti’s form of action whilst he also mentioned her age vis her and group players’ white haired bonnets. He seemed tickled pink by her powerful voice and the strength of her actions (at her age). Then Patti said his voice carries much further than hers. Such mutual respect from so diverse natures. Gyatso is so considerate of others’ feelings yet Patti seems to ride her rude horses slipshod over accepted norms as she swears cusses and spits her way thru her set both are masters of illusion. Neither are what you seem to see. He looks meek yet is strong like a mountain yak. She looks hard yet she’s such a soft internal spirit. I saw her at the Blake society give a speech-reading-recital-sing her own poemsongs and those of Blake. She was so intimate with the audience, so loving and gentle. You must watch it on iplayer.

ps I have decided to send this out to all of youse who are starring at the forthcoming Artists’ Book Market at BALTIC where I have a table under my title Apulhed Originals. I have done ‘Apulhed’ since I created him in 1971, he’s like a weird Rupert/Tin Tin/Snoopy character created to carry my ideas & explorations in graphic form altho nowadays he only makes cameo appearances like in the header above. Apulhed was my alter ego and companion thru the early days of my writing and art-making. I look forward to meeting some of yez at BALTIC.

I hope nobody gets upset at my ‘networking’ to my fellow table holders at BALTIC but I come from the same generation as Pattis Smith and we got the balls to get out there and tell it. But I do not condone spitting on stage, am not going to do that, there’s a limit!

We all want a happy life!

‘May I be Nothing but the peeling of a lotus papering the distance for you underfoot.

Tiny yellow bundles bursting like stars

Like smiles

And the laughter of the bells’

Said Patti Smith on reading her pome to the Dalai Lame commemorating his 6^th july 80^th birthday forthcoming.

Then surprise surprise out he came at Glastonbury!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e84mxj/live/c9wrbp

He cut a cake full of fresh fruit. Then walked out front and did a speech,

“We all want a happy life

Each new day

Birthday

In order to be more happy day

Keep here (points his chest)

More Compassion

It creates Honest,

Truthful

Transference

And Trust

We are social animals

Friendship does not come thru money”

Then he let Patti kiss his forehead and he blessed the crowd and was led away.

The image of Apulhed in the top o ma blArt is drawn around a photo of the Dalai Lama taken during his flight from Mao’s Chinese invaders when he was very young.

Patti did a great set, especially her ‘Horses’ and Sir Van’s ‘Gloria’.

Other highlights for me were Mike Scott & his new Waterboys. He sang a song about Kerouac & Cassady. He is on the track by Jackie Leven that inspired my Clay jug series. Seems we sing from the same songsheet only I don’t sing/can’t sing. I loved the masks they wore.

Also ‘Goat ‘ wore great masks too.

I thought my masks were good, but now I must return to the mask-board.

In fact I ain’t got no time to mek masks right now am making books and stuff ready for BALTIC bookfair in a couple o weeks.