Neither in the east nor west can it be found,
Nor amongst the strong and the weak can it be heard.

Elusive,
its form is ever changing.

How can one define the taste of water,
the color of the wind?

In between the shades it remains,
amongst all things it resides.

Difficult to see,
impossible to enter.

But once perceived,
no longer can it be,

unseen.

We think we are there
and yet we are not.

Oh how so very lost,
we all are!

In the past few months, I have been wondering where he’d gone because he is usually very active on the net. I was a little bit afraid that the darkness would consume him as I feel that it was in there from our exchange of thoughts, but because I never knew him at personal level, I never asked the question. He left me a message before saying he will respond to my latest comment, but never did.

Weeks passed, and today I received a DM from his twitter account – @VinaMist notified me that Chris (lethe’s real name) had passed away a month ago. I was just at Taste Of Melbourne, in rapture after savouring the myriad of beautiful food and wine in that place. To receive news of death at such a joyous occasion is a new experience to me.

To be honest I feel for him, not many people connects to others with that amount of sincerity. He connects to people through his work – I feel that had he not died, he would have contributed greatly to the world of literature. He invited me once to converse over Skype, I wished I had taken that opportunity while it was still knocking on my door. But such is life, I guess.

I don’t think that the news ruined the experience. I accept that this is the nature of things, that for every beginning there is an end. At the back of my mind I wanted to know, how did he passed away? But for me who is on the other side of the world, and with no means to find out, it is a no-question. I will never know. And so I let go of the question and appreciate what little is left.

Lethe, this will be my final poetry for you. May you rest in peace, my friend.

The Day Turned

With eyes open I stepped outside;
on the pond was the moon,
reflected.

Darkness falls, the day is gone
and the sun’s warmth in my heart,
remembered.

Wept the Autumn Wind
and all, hundred-thousand
cherry blossom petals,
rains upon the ground.

In awe and admiration,
I observe this change of season.
Oh, heavenly orchestration!
How did you become?

My own self dies
as I realize
the “I”
that was never there

Beautiful is
the heart that appreciates,
the eye that sees
the world as is.

-

written in response to one by Lethe Bashar called ‘The theatre is self-contained‘. Note: tree image is found through google, I didn’t take this picture.

Every entity in this world will go through this cycle of living and dying. Nothing shall escape it.

This applies to the most obvious entity of all, our own self. However this also applies to other concept in life. Take for example, a computer system.

A computer system is often the result of a software project. There is the moment where an idea is being formulated, a prototype is built to pitch the project, budget acquired, team formulated and grown, and finally, the project took off (birth). Over time, the system is crafted, again and again it is perfected, broken, fixed, patched, deployed. installed, broken again, fixed again, and so on (aging).

However, as software system changes hand from one team to another, fixes and enhancement done to it may or may not be in accordance with the original structure conceived by its creators. This will eventually result in various internal complication and inconsistencies. Sometimes it is not the software that age, but the hardware. Disks failing, cables aging, memory corruption, dead power supply, and so on. Indeed, nothing last forever! (sickness).

Finally, at some point, all software system will be retired. It may became obsolete, replaced by a newer system, or simply, broke down (death). On that fateful day, management, end-users, or whoever it is that work closely with the system will eventually look back and reflect upon the value it has contributed to the organization or end users. Even future systems implemented will be measured, directly or indirectly, against its older counterparts.

Therefore for those of you who works in the realm of computing, do keep in mind this principle. Take it to your heart that nothing in this world is permanent.

In doing so, when crafting and scoping a system, it is important that we ask ourself (and the client) – what is the intended lifecycle of this project or software system? how will it be supported and maintained? who will look after the system when your team is gone?

Remember that a software system is an entity as much as you are. How you write each of your system reflects your view and life-state in general. And verily so, you can infer the character of a programmer from a piece of code that he has written. From the various decision points he made which is visible in the way the system is structured, organized, partitioned and optimized.

Have that system lived a life worth living?

Well, have you?

Indeed it is true that truth emerges and lies stripped bare when one reflects upon Death. When the system has reached the end of its live, and your name written as craftsman of that system in the various source code and documentations that surrounds the system, how would you like to be perceived?

So if there is one credo for a programmer to follow, this would be it:

Live a life worth living – Craft a system worth crafting.
The two goes hand in hand.

Didn’t someone say…
“life is what happens when you are busy making plans”

In a blink, your life will be over.
Old age, sickness and Death, will soon be upon you.

When that moment come,
a question will enter your mind.

Have I lived a life worth living?

You will know the answer,
not from the amount of wealth you have created
nor from the conquest you have achieved,

But from the sum
of all the moments that you have lived
and the ones that you have missed.

Bodhidharma said:

When mortals are alive, they worry about death.
When they’re full, they worry about hunger.
Theirs is the Great Uncertainty.

But sages don’t consider the past.
And they don’t worry about the future.
Nor do they cling to the present.
And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

On Genius, Blog of Innocence

Bashar’s post is very well written and thought-provoking. I would urge you to first read the post, because what I write here is merely a response to this amazing insight that Bashar have glimpsed on, and expressed (very well) through his post.

He laments on the art critic’s presentation of genius and talent. Here is the text from the post that interest me the most:

We read, “No one writing in English today produces anything quite like them.” And then, a passage that illustrates the reviewer’s claim.The passage is beautiful; I was certainly moved by it.

But let me challenge you to another point of view, a point of view which is provisional and openly philosophical . . .What we think of as a writer’s unique and individual gifts, those sparkling sentences that critics extol–in my present understanding–are really the effervescence of language itself.

What I mean to say by that is, art in poetry or prose is language in its purest, most accessible, most fluid form, nearly on a separate wavelength. It’s on a wavelength most of us can hear, just not all of the time. When we hear it, our hearts swoon, our minds expand.

…
I believe the magical passage, the stunning work of art, is not the watermark of individual genius, but instead the reflection of a higher state of mind. The artwork is evidence of some journey. Art criticism flattens the journey, however, by making it into a vacation. Now it’s as if the artist went on a vacation and brought us back a souvenir. We grab for the souvenir at our first chance because it really is magnificent to have such a beautiful thing in our hands. Blinded by the act of possession, having stamped our names across the material object, we see no further–

In this mode of appreciating art, the furthest I can see is not far enough. Fixated on the individual and her gifts, I lose sight of the deeper meaning or beauty in the work of art. By reducing art to the individual, and setting a spotlight on the hand that wrought perfection, I mistakenly short-circuit the whole enterprise of art.

Read full post here

Enter Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk

When I read through Bashar’s post, I can’t help but to revisit and re-think about my understanding of ‘genius artworks’ and immediately this video, a TED talk from Elizabeth Gilbert (the author of Eat, Pray, Love) on Nurturing Creativity that I watched several months ago floats in my mind.

A quick google on ‘TED genius creativity individual’ lands me on the right video: Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity. I would encourage you to watch this video, as it is very beautiful and inspirational:

Elizabeth landed on a similar insight (through a different process) that Genius is a divine insight, and it should not be individualized. The fact that we’ve individualized and attributes it to an individual puts tremendous pressure on the individual (the artists) and leads to an unhealthy artistic culture.

The relevance of the video to Bashar’s post is just too much to of a coincidence. It’s like the two is made to complement one another, and to me, it’s two pieces of the same puzzle.

The Genius Puzzle

So I posted a comment reply to Bashar’s post and in it I wrote my vague opinion on this topic. But shortly after that, as I was about to work again on my theory on model for distributed system , two Buddhism concept pops in my head:

The first is The Ten Realms of Awareness (or The Ten Wo which haven’t wrote down in any online form, but a very simple version can be found here), and the second is Finger Pointing Away To The Moon.

Which is very interesting because the two are seemingly unrelated, and yet at that moment I can see the connection as clear as day. I wanted to reply to Bashar but I thought that since it will be one very long reply and the concept might not appeal to him or the reader of his blog, perhaps I should capture it here instead, in my own blog. Afterall, it is the perfect medium to voice my opinions on things.

So here is my attempt at putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

The Ten Realms of Awareness

So what does The 10 Realms have anything to do with great works of art? Firstly, let’s try to understand what it is:

The 10 Realms describes a model of varying level of awareness / state of mind. In its most simplistic description, it partitions the varying state of awareness into 10 level. The order from the lowest to the highest is as follow: (lowest) Hell, Hunger, Beastiality, Anger, Tranquility, Rapture, Learning, Realization, Boddhisatva, Buddha (highest). More information can be found by googling it – a brief summary can be found in this link or in this wikipedia page,

The realms are not static, meaning that one doesn’t reside in a given state of awareness / world and stuck in it for the rest of your life. In fact, we constantly jump from one world to another as our mind changes. However, across all 10 level of awareness, one will be dominant – and that is the level where you spend the most time at.

Side Note: The teaching encourage us at first to understand the concept, thus giving us the capability to analyse our own life state. And secondly, now knowing where we are, we can consciously work on various aspect in our life to make it better.

Great works of art through the lens of Buddhism

The Ten Realm of Awareness is applicable to each aspect in our live, and it’s very, very dynamic. Someone could be in permanent Realization in their professional work, but constantly fall into Anger or Beastiality in their relationship (or vice versa). So when looking at the artistic work of many creative geniuses in the past through the lens of Buddhism, we need to be very specific about what aspect are we looking at.

So here I will try to dissect the puzzle using The Ten Realm of Awareness on the aspect of artistic and literary appreciation, which is really the one aspect we want to look at right now.

I sat down and think about this, and I came to the conclusion that in this particular aspect of life (artistic and literary appreciation) artists would linger in the world of Learning and Realization. They are constantly pushing the borderline of realization, practising, learning, and perfecting their art.

The less artistic ones (most of us) would probably jump around in the other realms: Hell (zero interest in art); Hunger (constantly in need of the next good stuff); Bestiality (using the art to satisfy an immediate desire without thinking of the consequences); Hunger (egoistic point of view of the art work, and complete ignorance); Tranquility (neutral and unbiased appreciation of the art work), or Rapture (extremely delighted by the work of art)

People in different level of awareness basically experience the world differently. Let’s take a simplistic example of experiencing Winter.

Have a look at this picture.

There are people like that around. For instance a lot of people who are migrants from tropical origin who usually only have 2 season: Rainy and Dry, can’t stand winter.

They’re not used to it, it’s cold, it’s bitter, it’s just very, very annoying. For these people, Winter are only there to make Spring awesome and they just want to go through it as fast as possible!

Trapped in this mindset, they dwell in the realms of Hell, Hunger, Bestiality, and Anger. They suffer the cold and gloom (Hell), they hunger for the warmth of Spring (Hunger), They bitch about Winter all the time with people around them to satisfy their desire to, well, bitch about it (Bestiality) and of course, as a result they are grumpier most of the time (Anger).

Indeed, for these poor souls there is little or nothing artistic about Winter at all.

Yet, another person looked at not only Winter, but also Spring, Summer, and Autumn and marvel at the majesty of the turning of the season, and sees the beauty in ALL of the season. In fact, this person wrote a whole concerto piece for it, aptly named The Four Season, and etched his name forever in the history of classical music: Antonio Vivaldi.

So here we have two individuals that experiences Winter very differently from one another, as they both dwell in a different mental realm.

Of course, what they think of Winter is of little importance in the bigger scheme of things. And yet, these insignificant opinion plays a key part in their decisions on what to be done about it: One decided to bitch about it. The other decided to write a music to capture the experience of the four seasons, including Winter. And what a difference it is.

Experts now marvel at how Vivaldi does it, there’s even computer projects now that analyses the musical score by Vivaldi and attempt to create music that are similar to it. Obviously Vivaldi have been called Classical music Genius millions times over.

So let us now divert our buddhism lens into this artistic process: Vivaldi’s attempt to capture Winter.

The Finger That Points Away To The Winter Moon

I think the concept of ‘finger pointing away to the moon’ is the best model to illustrate this. The finger points away to the moon, in the hope that whoever looked at the finger, can then look at the moon (whose beauty is not obvious to the uninformed) and perceive its ‘heavenly glory’.

Just as religion points to the experience of enlightenment and the transcending of humanity, so does Vivaldi’s Winter piece points to the experience of Winter in the context of the Four Season.

But of course, it is not enough to describe it. Just like it is not enough to describe what the Winter piece by Vivaldi is like, one must experience it to understand its significance. And so here it is, by the grace of You Tube. If you can, close your eye and picture the last winter you experienced. The cold, bitter wind, runny nose, and so on. Also if you can, listen to at least the first one minute of the track:

… What is so compelling about this musical piece ? What do you hear when you listen to this music? Did you hear the fast-paced pitch-change of the violin, are you taken in awe by the skill of the performer?

Or are you more taken by how vividly this piece describes the cold and bitter winter? If you can hear the emotional content within the piece, one can almost picture people dressed in black/dark clothing walking out in the cold in a fast pace, body bent down to keep the chest warm – when suddenly, a gust of cold, bitter wind swept through the street, literally numbing our face.

That is how I experienced this piece – and I know that I am not the only one who interpret it this way. A lot of people describes that bit between minute 0:43 – 1:08 as ‘the bitter, cold winter gust’.Can you hear it? 3 gust of wind, every last one colder than the one before.

Side Note: Funnily enough, as I am writing this post, I did a quick search on the interpretation of this piece and found this video, which is also very amazing. In that video, part of the piece is described with expression like ‘tiptoe-ing through the cold streets’, ‘gust of cold winter wind’, and ‘teeth clattering from the cold’.

Genius ?

In Vivaldi’s case -The winter is the moon, the music is the finger. Through his work, we experience Vivalid’s perception of the beauty of Winter. And I think this is precisely what Genius is all about:

The ability to let others experience an aspect of life as experienced by one’s elevated state of awareness.

But for one so uninformed, we can be very easily distracted by the finger. And indeed we have, bickering left right and center about our interpretations of the music – a very abstract and subjective thing! Bruce Lee said it himself:

… Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory!

Indeed, one can not, and most not credit Vivaldi for the beauty of the Winter, as the Winter is a divine thing.

Rather, we should -and must- give credit to Vivaldi for wanting to capture this experience, for being able to express this emotional content through his state of mind, and for capturing it so vividly as a musical souvenir for musicians to play and for us mere mortals to behold and enjoy, as it has now become a treasure for humanity.

In realizing the truth, perhaps it can be said that I have walked through the valley of death while reading this text, or that I have seen a glimpse of enlightenment, even though I may not have the capacity to retain the light for an extended duration. A very curious piece of literature indeed!

God, to a mortal questioning His existence:

First of all it is inaccurate to speak of my role in the scheme of things. I am the scheme of things. Secondly, it is equally misleading to speak of my aiding the process of sentient beings attaining enlightenment. I am the process.

The ancient Taoists were quite close when they said of me (whom they called “Tao”) that I do not do things, yet through me all things get done. In more modem terms, I am not the cause of Cosmic Process, I am Cosmic Process itself. I think the most accurate and fruitful definition of me which man can frame — at least in his present state of evolution — is that I am the very process of enlightenment.

I have mirrored the text into my notes (here), but I really do not wish to plagiarize Raymond’s work, and so if you do wish to read it, I urge you to check out his web site here:
http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html

I sincerely hope that you enjoyed the journey as much as I do.

Software bugs are more similar to problems in our characters than you realize.
From looking at various errors, you can deduce that they stems from a single bug.

Similarly by looking at various bugs, you can deduce that they stems from the same character.
Verily you can tell a lot about a programmer’s character from the bugs he introduce into his works.

Fix one bug, and you fix all the errors that could stem from it.
Fix one flaw in your character, and you fix all the problems that could manifest from that flaw.

Diligent programmers hunt for bugs to improve the software he’s working on.
Similarly we should constantly refine our character to improve the life we’re living atm.

The ignorant programmers asks – why the trouble?
But the enlightened one would say – why not?

Working on a Software Project, is like taking a journey.
In a journey, there is a beginning and there is an end.
Some journeys are long, some are short.
Some terminated abruptly, some age and die.

But in all cases, a journey is like a ship sailing in a sea.
Moving towards a destination.

Life is a journey.

But what makes our journey so?
Our lives are manifestations of our characters.
Our characters, manifestations of our beliefs.
Our beliefs == our thoughts manifest.

Therefore the change in our life,
for better or for worse,
begins in our head.

Our thoughts makes our life so.
What begins in our mind, will manifest into reality.

Who determines the success of a Software Project?
Who determines the success of your own life?

Everything begins with a single thought.
The moment the thought is manifest,
your belief, character, and life-possibility of that thread,
is manifest at the same instant.

This is Cause and Effect.
When a cause is made, the effect is bound to it.
At the same instant.

A chain reaction,
we may call it.

Strange, no?
The lessons of life we can learn
from fixing software bugs.