Alternate Vision

Anyone seen this? Looks interesting. Wish there was a screening nearby..

We sat around the gong-fu tea service table in the Pu-erh room on small, low stools watching as he rinsed the utensils on the table itself, which is clearly designed for this elaborate and artful preparation of tea. Indeed, success in gong-fu tea mandates patience, attention to detail and sufficient practice. The liquids flowed through openings in the table into a catcher underneath for later discard. He served us some aged, black Pu-erh tea in miniature clay cups. The more tea we drank, the more tea he brewed for us, and the more I started to feel at home with the eclectic group of people around me, none of whom I knew but all of whom were at this table embracing a common purpose - their passion for tea.

R and I escaped indoors from the relentless storm in search of the elusive 'Empty Boat' tea house, a quaint space on squid-row dedicated to the art of tea. Mind you, it is not your average tea house with cup cakes and laptop studded coffee tables. In fact, laptops aren't permitted in this tea house. In ancient times, Chaikhana's were tea houses along the Silk Road linking China to the Middle East and were intended as a place to rest, shake dust off the road and sip tea as you read poems of divinity in an effort to elevate oneself from the mundane. Such is the vibe that David has artfully fostered at the Empty Boat. The rooms abound in antique Southeast Asian wooden furnishings with exquisite art and wall hangings on display that transport you back in time.

The mystical sounds of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Qawwali floated through the room just as David went to pick out a book of Sufi poetry from his library. And as the Asian photographer on the neighboring table went about her weekly ritual of sorting through photographs while working on her pot of 2003 Xiauguan Tocha, and the gentleman next to me started sketching feverishly in his little book, David read out loud to us his favorite story of all time "Mojud: The Man with the Inexplicable Life."

So the biographers constructed for Mojud a wonderful and exciting story: because all saints must have their story, and the story must be in accordance with the appetite of the listener, not with the realities of life.

And nobody is allowed to speak of Khidr directly. That is why this story is not true. It is a representation of a life. This is the real life of one of the greatest Sufis.

"If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
even though he is a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not be angry.

If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you..

Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost amidst the masses of men?
He will follow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home.
Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool.
His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He has nothing, has no reputation.

Since he judges no one, no one judges him.
Such is the perfect man:
His boat is empty."

Quotations from Chuang Tzu
by Thomas Merton

In the Bay Area's funky, urban environs, women wearing big, heavy boots don't raise many eyebrows. But when she arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, Maykovich recalls Femi Kuti's dancers telling her, "Take off your boots. You are in Africa."

Aphrodesia - a San Francisco world-beat band, which includes 10 to 15 musicians on any given evening - has been known to tour in a vegetable-oil-fueled bus. The group has made a commitment to alternative energy, bassist-bandleader Ezra Gale says.

More recently, Aphrodesia made a commitment to deepen its sound by returning to the music's roots. While touring West Africa in a lime green and purple bus (gas powered, unfortunately) last year, the band became the first American group to play the New Afrika Shrine, Kuti's combination compound and performance space in Lagos. And with the release of its new album "Lagos by Bus," Aphrodesia has staked its claim as not only the area's most original Afrobeat outfit, but also as one of the leading proponents of the genre's resurgence. More.

Ever so fresh, ever so clean. During the entire show I felt guilty for having kept my djembe in an attic for the last 8 months. Add 'bring djembe out of attic' to my endless new year's laundry list of resolutions. Right below 'get to bed at a decent hour.'

"If you increase energy prices too much, then you'll face a public backlash; if you increase them too little, then you won't reduce emissions. This is the heart of the problem with Kyoto. For any regulatory approach to work, the price of dirty energy must increase enough so that what is currently more expensive clean energy alternatives become cost-competitive.

There is a better way. Instead of making clean energy relatively cheaper, a new, post-Kyoto agreement should instead focus on making clean energy absolutely cheaper. The model we should follow comes not from past efforts dealing with past pollution problems, like acid rain and the ozone hole, but rather from past investments in technology innovation and infrastructure. Silicon Valley, we often forget, was largely built on U.S. government contracts. In the 1950s, the Pentagon guaranteed the market for computer microchips, driving the cost of a single microchip down from $1,000 to $20 in less than a decade. The precursor to the Internet was literally invented in a Defense Department lab." Shellenberger & Nordhaus (from the Breakthrough Institute)

At first when I looked them up and realized they were pushing for "The Death of Environmentalism" as we currently know it, I was skeptical. But upon realizing that they are pushing for a paradigm shift, one that reverses the way we think about environmentalism, it struck me as profound. I'll have to get a copy of the Break through soon. In the mean time, I hope to get my foot in the door at their talk tomorrow on the google campus. Fingers crossed.

As I reflect on the past and attempt to connect the dots, I am slowly realizing what I want in my life. As is the case every time I venture to self introspect, I bring up this timeless masterpiece of a video to help me wade through this infinite whirlwind of emotion and thought, as it did over a decade ago. And while doing so, I stop to ponder on this passage from the scriptures about Varuna - the keeper of divine order, bringer of rain and enforcer of contracts - in his highest form.

The mighty Lord on high our deeds, as if at hand, espies;

The gods know all men do, though men would fain their acts disguise;

Whoever stands, whoever moves, or steals from place to place,

Or hides him in his secret cell--the gods his movements trace.

Wherever two together plot, and deem they are alone,

King Varuna is there, a third, and all their schemes are known.

This earth is his, to him belong those vast and boundless skies;

Both seas within him rest, and yet in that small pool he lies,

Whoever far beyond the sky should think his way to wing.

He could not there elude the grasp of Varuna the King.

His spies, descending from the skies, glide all this world around;

Their thousand eyes all-scanning sweep to earth's remotest bound.

- The Arthava Veda