Confucius Says

One of the great gifts a conscious elder has to offer the young is the recognition that “we’ve been here before. And here’s what helped.” Insights that can only come from a long life of wholly lived experience.

 

Likewise, people of any age who read books from the days of yore can discover the same. How social forces twenty, two hundred, even two thousand years ago, had some similarities to today and how the courageous and wise people of the time dealt with it, can speak across the years to us. 

 

Take Confucius. He was born in 551 BCE in what is now the Shandong province of China. This father died when Confucius was but three-years-old and he grew up in a time when rival warlords were fighting to gain power. Highly educated, Confucius gathered a group of disciples who recognized his wisdom and was eventually given a small town to govern. His philosophical teachings emphasized personal and governmental morality, harmonious social relations, righteousness, kindness, sincerity, and a ruler's responsibilities to lead by virtue. These ideas felt threatening to those benefiting from their selfish and lavish lifestyle. At odds with the rulers,  he voluntarily exiled himself from his home province, not returning until he was 68 years old, and died at 72. 

 

As described in the Inspiring Quotes entry: 

 

“To Confucius, happiness came not through gluttony and self-indulgence, but through frugality and duty to others. He believed fulfilling the needs of others could also fill oneself with serenity and gratitude. Forgoing one’s duty to serve, on the other hand, could have wider damaging effects: A ruler who ignored the needs of their subjects might unbalance the cosmos and suffer a reign beset with natural disasters.”

 

As I suggested at the beginning, wisdom is timeless. Connect the dots with today. The entry continues:

 

“Confucius set out four simple virtues that he believed were enough to keep the world in its proper order: benevolence, moral wisdom, righteousness, and observance of traditional rituals. According to Confucianism, ritual brings together a community in peace and helps to cultivate humanity, goodness, and love. Confucius taught that once we understand our shared humanity, we open ourselves up to feelings of altruism, respect for one another, and even friendship.

In Confucius’ idea of the ideal state, the rulers were kind, religion was properly celebrated, and the wise were treasured. Despite living in difficult times and often in exile, Confucius spent his life seeking to help others achieve this.”

 

I believe Confucius would be quite at home in the No Kings Rallies. Some quotes from his writings that speak to us directly today:

 

“If you see what is right and fail to act on it, you lack courage.”

 

“The person of virtue is not left to stand alone. Those who practice it will have neighbors.”

 

“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

 

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."

 

“Study the past if you would define the future.”

 

Let us hope these reminders from the past will help shaped the future.

 

Land of Contrasts: Photo Gallery

 

Land of Contrasts

The day begins in Paradise with a bad soundtrack. A long morning swim in the Holiday Inn pool and then my dreams of summer bliss sitting poolside with a good book thwarted by soul-crushing musicrap raining down on me from the speakers. Why do we run from silence? What’s wrong with just listening to the wind rustle the water? Some time later, the music switches to some light pop with a bossa-nova beat, a blessed relief from the pounding disco beat and a just-right movie soundtrack that doesn’t intrude, but actually perfectly frames the moment and makes it yet a bit sweeter. 

 

Then off into the streets of Little India in search of lunch and doesn’t take long to choose a masala dhosa (South Indian thin crepe with potatoes inside) for $2.50 Singapore dollars (around $2 U.S.). Eat with my fingers as I used to do when I briefly lived in Kerala, India 47 (but who’s counting?) years ago, feeling the thread between that young man with an old soul and this old man with a still-youthful spirit. Wander down the crowded streets past the long chain of stores selling jewelry, clothing, electronics, food, none of which I need at the moment, none of which light my flame. But good to be out walking, even when a slight drizzle sends me under the eaves of the stores. 

 

Within five blocks or so, I pass a Hindu Temple, a Muslim Mosque, a Buddhist Shrine and a Christian Church. Diversity is woven into the very fabric of Singapore culture and while I’ve portrayed this modern city as one giant mall, the truth is larger than that. In-between those brightly lit shrines to Shopping are funky food courts, back alleys, strings of stall-like stores, roosters roaming freely, the hum of the crowds out on the streets and if you know where and when to look, some ancient festivals that include trance-dance and direct communion with the spirits. 

 

Out to dinner with some Orff acquaintances and catapulted back to the ultra-modern mall, where the restaurant charges $25 for a beer, $45 for a chicken and waffle entrée, all accompanied, naturally, with the disco beat from hell in the background and too-cold air-conditioning. There is a waterway inside the mall with boats you can board (for a fee). After dinner, we escaped into the perfect- temperature of the night air, just in time to see a light show over the waters with coordinated music soundtrack. Quite well done, I have to say, and standing there, feeling a bit of my childhood 4^th-of-July-fireworks-wonder.

 

Good to be a “tourist” briefly before turning to plan my next two-day workshop at a school. Stay tuned for the Photo Gallery.  

Apologies to Chiyo

With an upcoming trip to Tokyo, I decided to listen to a book I read a long time ago and remember liking —“Memoirs of a Geisha.” It is not easy to listen to, this tour of the ravages of Patriarchy and women’s complicity in salting the wounds of its cruelty rather than massaging each other and plotting resistance. The constant insults and beatings and just plain meanness that mark each day in this house training Geishas is testimony to the notion that human beings are the most wretched species to walk the face of this earth. Whether the setting takes place in Japan or China or South Africa, in Germany or Australia or Chile or the United States, our determination to make each other miserable all leads inexorably to two choices: 

 

1)    Our default setting is cruelty. We win the game by being the victorious attackers rather than the pathetic victims. Kindness is weakness, caring for others is ridiculous when you have to watch out for Number One. 

 

2)   Our deeper default setting that awaits our awakening is kindness. Cruelty is weakness, narcissism is toxic to both the community and the narcissist, deferring to meanness is cowardness.

 

Comparing these stories I read to my actual experience in the world and the quality of the people I meet and hang out with is what gives me hope that against all odds, we have evolved significantly and are continuing to move closer to our God than our Devil. Each day in my life is an indisputable testimony to this truth— especially in the classes I teach, but also in the neighborhood clean-ups my wife organizes, the alum teacher gatherings hiking out in nature, the No Kings Rallies I attend. 

 

The change we are all desperately awaiting does not just come from the voting booth, but from the switch in default setting that makes kindness the norm and cruelty the aberration. I’m not naïve— recent events expose how very far away we are from where we need to be. But also how much closer we’re getting. 

 

I only wish this had happened earlier for poor, suffering, abused, Chiyo in her geisha house. 

Surfing on the Waves of Love

Don’t think I’ve ever written a Blog post in a car, but here I am in an Uber (called “Grab”) in Singapore on my way to my Holiday Inn Hotel in Little India. 

Had a lovely day yesterday teaching a “non-jazz” Orff workshop to 30 people. My host Siew Ling kept insisting on group reflections during each of the 4 days of teaching and she was right. In order to lock any usable ideas in, they need to be said out loud and better yet, shared. I often am so impatient to fill every minute of the workshop with music that I often let this go and this was an important reminder. And also so satisfying for me to hear their takeaways and feel that they indeed, had some understanding of the key points I’m always hoping to make to transform their teaching. Many were heartfelt testimonies as to not only how they were inspired, but deeply touched by the little 7 hours of life we shared.

 

Walked the mile back to my hotel and had the good sense to plunge into the pool for one last swim. Perfect! Then send off the day’s notes, pack and turn to the plans for my next day teaching at XCL World Academy, where Brazilian friend Luciana teaches. It looked to be a full and challenging day, with three morning classes with 3rd, 4^th and 5^th grade — each one with 60 kids!! Then an improvisation class with twelve 12^th graders, another with twenty four 11^th graders and then a workshop for some 16 teachers at their staff meeting. 

 

I did it all and it was glorious. Yet another testimony that after four long days of teaching and then thrown into the challenge above, I should be exhausted, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I feel wholly energized and uplifted and ready to have dinner with another friend tonight. Because, as I say time and time again, when you know how to teach so it’s fun, the children pick up on it immediately and send all their happiness back to you. All the smiles and laughter and sheer joy comes back as energy that creates more energy. And then when the music is good, it’s another major jolt of energy charging every nerve, muscle, brain cells, heartbeat of the human organism. 

 

I am a deeply flawed human being like all of us with my fair share of disappointments, but when my activities are wholly aligned with what I do best, what I love most, what I value and care about, all of it echoing back to me in waves of love from the energies I set in motion and the people whose lives I touch, whether for a single class, a whole course or a long connection, well, then I might as well say it plainly.  I am the luckiest person alive. 

 

And now, I have arrived at the hotel. 

 

Bridge to Childhood

It’s nighttime in Singapore and I’m listening to Offenbach’s Barcarolle in my 12^th story hotel room. The body fortified by another simple dinner at “my” vegetarian restaurant, topped off by a $.35 (US dollars) soy ice cream cone from Ikea, the Spirit uplifted by the final day of my three-day Jazz Course, my Soul at peace after a full 9:00 to 5:30 day of teaching and another two hours gathering the notes to send out while planning tomorrow’s workshop on the theme The Humanitarian Musician. Busy, but also moved to tears at least four times today, not counting a brief awakening in the middle of the night last night and getting an e-mail from a group of college friends reaching out to each other in this time of great darkness. 

 

Spotify sent me from the Barcarolle to Saint-Saen’s The Swan and here in this blessed Solitude, the space is cleared for the notes and the feelings behind them to fully enter. Now it’s on to Carmen and all of this music that I’ve known for oh- so- many years. The mere arrangement of tones and rhythms is walking me across the bridge to my childhood, where I sat in this same sanctuary of solitude and let my imagination roam freely. Each piece bringing me to a different land, but all lands sharing the sense that this world is a beautiful place to be wholly savored and enjoyed. A place where everything makes sense, where I could feel invisible helpers assuring me that I was put here for a purpose, and they were here to escort me to the life I mysteriously was meant to live. 

Adult life seemed a confusing interlude, determined to distract me from my childhood wonder and bury me under busyness, to damp down or downright trample my dreams, to lure me into the trivial and away from listening dreamily to music and letting it carry me where it will. Like everyone, I kept losing that thread. 

But if I’m to claim any merit, it would be a certain tenacious determination to not wholly let go. So yet another day of playing with strangers become instant fellow travelers, creating the space for both laughter and tears. As I mentioned, the latter came to the edge of the eyes many times today, most profoundly watching the video of Nina Simone singing I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free. In a mere six minutes and ten seconds, her singing and playing travelled the full range of emotion that constitutes an authentic life—the tender hopes and dreams, the angry outrage and fury, the sly smile of joy untouched by other’s failings, the humility and grace, the courage and purity to be wholly herself. 

 

Back in my hotel room, the music rolls on, now Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, bringing this aging man back into his 10-year-old body and mind. But the adult-mind reminding him that he’s in charge of 30 people tomorrow for 7 more hours and that it might be a good idea to go to sleep. So I’ll leave off here, grateful have revisited that child filled with wonder, innocence, dreams and love for this life. 

Good night.

 

Intelligence Having Fun

Back to the life I was born to live. In a room with teachers eager to learn, sharing the music I love with 50 years of learning how to share it effectively and joyfully. A small group of 11 in this Singapore workshop on teaching the Blues, so enthusiastic in their playing and insightful in their reflections, noticing the details of the magic that emerged. 

 

Alongside the pleasure of playing great music that everyone could do, could hear, could feel and could understand (my 4H club of hand/ heart / head and hearing), I shared some of the historical context. I told them that it will mean something different to them because it is not their history and yet, I found them nodding their heads hearing the story of human beings owned as property and 400 years (and still counting) of unfathomable suffering so white folks could get rich without working, a nonverbal “Word!” to information that Americans find so difficult to hear. From there, they joined in on a powerful improvised field holler and the path was paved to keep walking all the way to the Blues. 

 

Having paid their dues of attending to a difficult history, they were qualified to receive the full weight of the joy the music offers. Especially when invited to improvise their own particular style of expressing themselves musically. Smiles abounded and I shared with them a quote I saw in a window on my Saturday Singapore walk and wander. Attributed to Albert Einstein, it perfectly captures why I love teaching the way I do so much and never want to stop:

 

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

 

Yep! I would have loved to have Einstein in my Orff class! We understand each other.

I ended the day walking the mile and a half from the school to my hotel, stopped at a charming vegetarian restaurant where I ate the other day and tried the pho noodle dish (delicious!). Then stopped in IKEA next to my hotel. Why? I went there last night to buy a bowl for my breakfast cereal and after buying it—for 70 cents U.S.!— I noticed there was a machine dispensing Soy Ice Cream for 30 cents U.S.! I haven’t had ice cream that cheap since Uncle Gaylords in San Francisco in 1975, so I felt morally obligated to get some. But the problem was you first had to get a token and the line for the tokens was 30 people long! In fact, the entire IKEA was like a Black Friday Walmart, packed wall-to-wall with people out shopping on Sunday night. Really?

 

So having forgone the line last night, I thought I’d peek in and there was exactly no one in line. The whole store with just a few people wandering about. I guess Sunday night at IKEA is a thing in Singapore! I got my token and my coin and enjoyed my refreshing treat and topped off the early evening with a long swim in the hotel’s Infinity pool. 

 

The teaching is enough for me to exclaim time and time again, “I love this life!” but when combined with warm weather in January, good cuisine at amazing prices and a daily/nightly swim in a silky-smooth pool, one could get spoiled. Maybe I should write a blog about it, something like “Confessions of a Traveling Music Teacher.” The theme would be the meeting point of creativity, intelligence and fun. I think I’ll look into it. 

(Ha ha!)