Truth And Arrogance

Truth and Arrogance

No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.

When I was a child, I thought this was an issue of pride, of "face" as we say in Chinese culture. That the emperor was a divine symbol of the Chinese people, that to bow in submission to a conqueror would do nothing but forfeit the soul of the kingdom to shame. Perhaps this is still partly true. After all, it's not as if other lives would be spared had the emperor chosen to humiliate himself, while much (if not all) of the respect and faith placed in him by the people would have been lost. Perhaps the emperor had already recognized that Shan Yu had returned with little more than a hunting party, not even capable of conquering a single city, much less all of China.

But there's more to it than simply putting on a strong face, I think. There's that line that's tossed around in films constantly, "We do not negotiate with terrorists." To negotiate means to recognize the other party as at least some kind of equal. And while this may or may not be true in the case of real-life issues of terrorists, in the context of Disney's Mulan I believe it's more a question of universal truths. Shan Yu, having taken the castle by storm and cornered the emperor, asks not for a display of equality, but for submission, to prove his worth as a mighty warrior and conquering lord. But what authority does the emperor recognize in Shan Yu? A powerful leader and dangerous foe, of course, but these things mean little to him. Threatening his life means little as well in the grand scheme of the universe, a truth which eludes Shan Yu to the end.

A telling reversal occurs at the finale when the emperor bows to Mulan, heroine of the day and savior of China. He bows to her before her wisdom, her tenacity, and her virtue. These are things he recognizes as worthy of his respect and humility. The mountain, it would seem, will only bow when it has something greater than itself to bow to.

Music makes for an apt analogy to Daoism, and if it wasn't for joining band in middle school, I doubt that I would even be half as enriched as I am today, and hardly likely to have even thought of such an analogy. Not only the power of music, but the power of music education and the camaraderie of playing in a group; the benefits these things have for our children are beyond words (although I will continue to do my best). The discipline, dedication, and pursuit of excellence that comes from studying an instrument teaches us that with hard work we can achieve great things by ourselves. The harmony and collaboration required to play in an orchestra, band, or ensemble teaches us that through cooperation and respect we can create beauty as a team. And the leadership skills necessary to conduct a performance or direct a section or even just teach a chord to a new student teaches us that the next generation will always be there waiting for us to pass on what we've learned.

If you're interested in doing more for school music programs, find out what schools in your area need from the community. It could be as simple as just spreading the word, or it could be raising donations for new equipment. VH1's Save the Music program is a good place to start if you need one, but a simple phone call to your nearest public school could be just as good.

Reblog if band has changed your life.

Changing the Moment to Be in the Moment

or, Stepping Off the Path to See the Path or, How Habit Doesn't Equate to Harmony

Well, today marks the beginning of another semester. Even though I've been very sleepy all day from working all night, it's good to be back at school. The professor had us go through a very interesting exercise today, one that really made me stop and think for a moment. After some general warm up figure studies, he asked us all to switch gears and draw a 15 minute pose with our non-dominant hand. As you can probably imagine, we were all pretty stunned at first, and then incredibly resistant to the idea. It was awkward, it was mind-bending, and it felt more than a little foolish. But we all wanted to be professional and see the task done.

After the pose finished, we took a break from drawing and he had everyone do a quick walk around the room to see the work of our classmates. Unbelievably, the majority of the work was fantastic, on par or even better than the drawings we had done earlier in the class with our dominant hand. The professor explained in thus: because of the strangeness, because of how sure we all were about how terrible the piece would look, we all subconsciously pay that much more attention to what we are drawing. Every line suddenly becomes of the utmost importance as we struggle to make the charcoal go where we want it to go on the paper. By putting ourselves in the most uncomfortable of situations, we are forced to exist entirely within the present moment, unable to be distracted by the day-to-day musings that we can generally handle while drawing normally.

Of course, the goal of this exercise wasn't to convince us to draw off-hand forever. The main point, as he put it, was to apply this mode of thinking every time we go back to drawing, especially when we switched back to our dominant hand in the next pose. Every stroke is important, every shape is vital. We cannot let ourselves get too habituated in our present situation, or we risk wandering off the Path without ever realizing it. Always mind the present waking moment, even when doing something we've done a thousand times before. Chop wood, carry water.

A New Year

It is a new year, I suppose.

And yet the world turns on.

Tomoe Nage and Sumi Gaeshi were actually two of my strongest throws when I did Judo regularly. The beauty of sacrifice throws is their complete surrender to the flow of your opponent, giving them what they want while completely tossing them aside. I have a much longer post on Daoism and martial arts planned for later, but this should suffice for now.

My new computer wallpaper. This is one of my favorite throws. 

Such is the nature of life, after all.