Sunday, January 12, 2014

Some Time the Hating Has to Stop





Monday morning.  I trodded down the stairs at 5:05 for my morning routine.  My younger daughter, who is an early riser but never usually this early, came down behind me.  I got her a glass of juice and told her to head back up.  “It’s too early baby.  Go climb in bed with mama.”  I wanted to get started with the meditation bit but she didn’t want to go back to bed.  I told her she could stay up but ‘no screens.”  Walking off, my better nature caught up with me and I went back and invited her to join me. 

I’d assumed she’d never want to, but she took to the invitation.  “OK then, just concentrate on breathing in your nose and out your nose.  If you’re mind starts wandering, just think about the breathing. “ I had low expectations.  It’s hard enough for adults to sit still for an hour.  Selfishly I wanted quiet.  But she did great.  I was impressed.  She asked “how much longer” at roughly 15 minute intervals, which isn’t so bad.  It's a private matter up at such an un-godly hour that I never thought to invite anyone along.  But she’s welcome any time, from now on.



I’ve just plowed into this by myself, really.  A good friend took a course on the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Vipassana.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81  He studied with one S. N. Goenka and raved about it.  I’m sure there is much that would helpful to pursue this in a more structured way.  But for now, what I’ve time for is me, vs. me.  My friend sent me a video of the gentleman that was helpful.  At the end he talked about the impact of meditation on kids at school, helping them to concentrate, improve memory etc.  I thought of that this morning with our inter generational session:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbfHERChbmw.  Proud of that little girl.

A reading list from my grad school, the Fletcher School had a provocative title and that caught my attention:  “Sometime the Hating has to Stop.”  This is a quote from a new film “The Railway Man” which explores the difficult story of a British PoW Eric Lomax who as tortured by his Japanese captor Nagase Takashi.  I haven’t seen the film but apparently the two meet up and Lomax accepts the apology of Mr. Takashi. 

Through this reconciliation he said he ‘found some kind of peace and resolution‘. When Eric’s wife accompanied him back to the graves of British PoWs who died in the war,  she asked if reconciliation with Nagase might be some kind of betrayal. He did not see it that way, replying to her “Patti, some time the hating has to stop”. Finally Patti had those words written on her husband’s grave.

That article had a link to an account that was written by Mr. Lomax himself which is even more stirring, as he goes from his life of wanting to choke Mr. Nagase to the moment they meet, when his former captor breaks down in tears, and they become friends.  Remarkable.


In the first article a letter to the Telegraph by the Chinese ambassador to the U.K. Ambassador Liu is quoted.  It is noted that he nor, it would seem, most Chinese in general are prepared to consider Mr. Lomax suggestion.  By raising the film, Ambassador Liu, does little to buttress Sino-Anglo affinities through shared opposition to Imperial Japan, but rather to illustrate that England has made progress toward reconciliation that China has still yet to.  The Japanese Ambassador's legalistic reply also illustrates that Japan should do more to broaden this spirit of reconciliation rather than turn from it with visits to the Yasukuni shrine. 

I should like to see this film.  How brave both those veterans were to meet that way.  I wonder if there might not be some similar tale of reconciliation between Imperial Japan and China and/or Korea.  Perhaps there are some well documented accounts.  The days are fading when living men and women can personally model, what the former enemies need to eventually do for the sake of their people.  I often think of forgiveness as fundamental to the western tradition because of its centrality to Christianity, and that, it is a foreign concept in North Asia.  Fortunately this isn't true.  All three nations can draw from their Confucian antecedents, if they’re ready: 不念旧[1]



There are a half a dozen other news items and media encounters I thought to refer to today, but it’s Monday morning and there’s quite a few other matters to get started on.  I’m just glad my daughter helped me start things off with a surprise this week.  Stay nimble, stay patient.  I showed her my routine this morning, how I usually get her breakfast and wake her and her mother up and put on some blues for her to chomp Cheerios with.  This morning we threw on the "Texas Nightingale" who hailed from Arkansas, Ms. Sippie Wallace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sippie_Wallace


One article that's really just a first line, that I’ll leave you with briefly from this report on Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI):  “Chinese investment in the United States doubled in 2013”

Um, wow.  It wasn’t so long ago that we traced foreign FDI into China.  That’s a remarkable statistic that will begin to thoroughly change the nature of the U.S. China relationship.  Get ready.  










[1] bùniànjiù'è do not recall old grievances (idiom, from Analects); forgive and forget

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