Happy Halloween!

Halloween, celebrated on October 31^st, most commonly associated with trick-or-treating, costume parties, bonfires, and jack-o’-lanterns.  This annual holiday originated from the ancient Celtic festival, Samhain(pronounced sah-win).  Samhain celebrates the end of summer and the beginning of the dark, cold winter.  Samhain became the evening of “All Hallows” (Hallowed=Holy) which eventually became “Halloween”. The Celts believed that on the night of Samhain, the boundary between the living and the dead became thinner, and ghosts of the dead returned to earth to cause havoc.

Traditions:

1) Costume wearing

The tradition of wearing costumes was believed to have been able to avoid or appease evil ghosts.  Dressing up as a harmful spirit would drive off other evil spirits, thus avoiding harm.

2) Bonfires

Samhain was also a time to take stock of food supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores.  Farmers and herders killed weak animals which they believed would not survive the winter.  Bonfires were created by burning animal bones to ward off evil spirits.  Sometimes, two bonfires were lit side-by-side, and people and their livestock would walk through it as a cleansing ritual.

3) Trick-or-treating

In some countries, this is a custom for children on Halloween.  Children would dress up in costumes and walk around in their neighborhood from house to house, knocking on doors and asking “Trick-or-treat?”.  Homeowners would normally respond by giving the children some candy.  The “trick” in the question is a threat to play a prank on the homeowner if no treat was given.

4) Jack-o’-lanterns

A Jack-o’-lantern is a carved pumpkin with a candle placed inside at night to illuminate it.  The tradition of carving Jack-o’-lanterns comes from an Irish myth about a man named “Stingy Jack”, a lazy but clever farmer who tricked the Devil.  The story goes that Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him.  Being “Stingy” Jack, he didn’t want to pay for his drinks, so he tricked the Devil to turn into a coin that he could use to buy the drinks.  Once the Devil changed, Jack kept the coin in his pocket next to a cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back.  Later, Jack freed the Devil, on the condition that the Devil would not bother him for a year, and should Jack die, the Devil would not claim his soul.  One year later, Jack tricked the Devil to climb up an apple tree.  Once the Devil was up there, Jack carved a cross into the bark of the tree, again preventing the Devil from escaping.  Once the Devil promised him not to bother him for ten more years, he set the Devil free.  Soon after, Jack died.  He was refused entry to Heaven, since he was such a dishonest man.  However, he was also refused entry to Hell, since the Devil had promised not to claim his soul.  Jack asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light.  The Devil mockingly threw him a piece of coal from Hell, which Jack put into a carved out turnip, and roamed the earth ever since.  The Irish referred to the ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern”, then simply “Jack-o’-lantern”.  Other than turnips and potatoes, pumpkins are more commonly used to carve Jack-o’-lanterns.

 

Modern Halloween still sees people practicing the above traditions, not because of their original purposes, but more for fun.  Halloween is now associated with the Grim-reaper, vampires, werewolves, and many other creatures of the night.  There are also many horror films that use Halloween as a setting for the film, or are shown in cinemas during the Halloween season.

**The Chinese Ghost Festival（中元节/鬼节）

According to Chinese tradition, the seventh month in the lunar calendar is the “Ghost Month”, and the 15^th day of the seventh month is “Ghost Day”.  Similar to Halloween, the border between the living and the dead in thinner on the fifteenth, allowing ghosts and spirits to come back to earth.  Taoists and Buddhists perform rituals to absolve the sufferings of the deceased.  Descendants are also supposed to prepare ritualistic food offerings, burn incense and joss paper (a paper form of items such as clothes or money) for their ancestors as a way of showing that the descendants’ filial piety extends to their ancestors even after death.  This festival is also known as “Chinese Halloween”.

The Chinese Ghost Festival is not to be confused with the Qingming Festvial（清明节, 104^th day after the winter solstice, usually occurring around April 5^th）.  The Chinese Ghost Festival includes paying respects to all the deceased, including the same or younger generations, while the Qingming Festival only includes older generations.

Learning Chinese

Did you know that, including the rarely used and archaic ones, there are about 50,000 Chinese characters? However, “full” literacy only requires a knowledge between three to four thousand characters…

 

Chinese markings dating back even earlier than the Mesopotamian writing system were reportedly found, although there have been doubts on whether or not these should be considered writings.  The Oracle Bone Script（甲骨文, literally “shell bone script”）are the oldest known Chinese inscriptions which are unmistakably writings.  They were discovered on pieces of bone and turtle shell, thus earning its name.  It is a well-developed writing system, dating back to the Shang Dynasty (1200 – 1050 BC).  Since then, characters in the Chinese language have developed over time into the traditional Chinese writing often seen in older versions of books, and the simplified Chinese writing we more commonly use today.

The Oracle Bone Script

Chinese characters, or Han characters （汉字）were formed through various ways, such as resemblance of an object (pictograms), or sound (phono-semantic compounds).  In most cases, however, the resemblance can no longer be seen or heard.  Chinese characters, as a whole, are now classified as logograms (symbols used to represent a word, for example the $ sign for dollar).

 

Based on the formation of characters, they are usually classified into six categories:

 

1. Pictograms （象形字）

Characters derived from pictures and simplified to make writing easier.

Example: “日”, for “sun”; “木”, for “tree”  

2. Ideograms（指事字）

Literally meaning “indicating the object”, these characters are mostly direct iconic illustrations.

Example: “上”and“下”, for “up” and “down”, the character for “up” has two strokes above a line, while the character for “down” has two strokes below the line.

 

3. Ideogrammic compounds（会意字）

Characters created from the combination of pictograms or ideograms.

Example: By doubling and tripling the pictogram “木”, the characters “森林”are produced, meaning “forest”.

 

4. Phono-semantic compounds（形声字）

Characters composed of two parts: the first part, known as the radical, is a set of pictographs which represent the general meaning of the character or what they’re related to (semantic); the other is an existing character pronounced about the same as the new character (phono).

Example: “河”for “river”, and“湖”for “lake”.  Both characters have three dots as the radical, which is the pictogram for water droplets, indicating that the meanings of the characters have something to do with water.  The phonetic indicator for “河” (pronounced “hé”) is “可” (pronounced “kĕ”), and in the case of “湖”it is“胡”, both pronounced “hú”.

 

Strictly speaking, the last two categories,” transformed cognates” （转注字）and “rebus”（假借字）are not categories based on the formation of characters, but more on the usage of characters.  Transformed cognates are characters which were originally one character with multiple meanings, later on separated into different but similar characters.  Rebus, literally meaning “falsely borrowing a character”, covers cases where another character is “borrowed” to represent another unrelated word with a similar pronunciation.

 

A single Chinese character can have multiple meanings and also multiple pronunciations.  Note that Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words.  Chinese characters have a single syllable, whereas Chinese words require two or more characters put together, thus being poly-syllabic, but have meaning that can be derived from the characters they are made out of.  For example, “手”means “hand”, and“机”can mean “machine”.  Put them together and you have “手机”, which means “hand phone”.  Since different meanings, pronunciations, and combinations of characters produce different words with different meanings, it is, of course, somewhat difficult to determine the meaning of a word you haven’t come across before.

 

The funny thing about Chinese characters is that when you play around with them, you often get ironic, but also meaningful results.  Here are a few examples:

 

1. Have you ever seen the Chinese character “福”pasted upside-down on someone’s front door?

 

Well, it wasn’t an accident.  The character “福”means “happiness”, or “good fortune”.  The Chinese character for upside-down is “倒”, pronounced the same as“到”, which means “arrive”.  So when “福”is upside-down, it is“福倒”, which sounds exactly like “福到”, meaning “happiness/good fortune has arrived/will be arriving”.

 

2. The Chinese word for “crisis” is “危机”.  Broken down into characters, “危”means “danger”, while“机”means “opportunity”.  Thus, it could be interpreted as a reminder to see the golden opportunity offered in every crisis.

 

3. The character “饭”means “rice”.  The radical for this character is also used in characters related to food, such as “饿”, meaning “hungry”.  The right side of the character is “反”, meaning “anti-” or “against”.  As often seen in the history of China, once the people of the country do not have enough food to survive, they rebel.

 

4. “不”means “no”.  “可”and “能”means “can”, or “able to”.  Put together, “不可能”means “impossible”.  However, adding a comma makes “不，可能”meaning “no, it’s possible!”

 

So, anyone interested in learning Chinese?

Quote of the day

 

“It is better to inspire jealousy than to have people feeling sorry for you”

by John Heywood, an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of  proverbs

Quote of the day

 

“When another is vastly superior to you, there is no remedy but to love him”

by Goethe, a German poet, novelist and a philosoper

Quote of the day

 

 

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him”

by Booker. T Washington , an American educator, orator and author

Quote of the day

 

” Never have a companion who casts you in the shade “

by Baltasar Gracian, a prose writer

Quote of the day

 

” How rare , men with the character to praise a friend’ s success , without a trace of envy “

by Aeschylus, a Greek playwright

the full text of Emerson’s Self Reliance

http://www.youmeworks.com/selfreliance.html

Historic Schools of Psychology

School/Major Proponents	Key Concepts	Current Status
Structuralism	The mind can be studied scientifically by using introspection to discover the basic elements of experience. Conscious experience can be broken down into objective sensations such as sight and taste, and subjective feelings such as emotional responses, will, and mental images like memories or dreams.	We do not encounter structuralists today, but cognitive and experimental psychologists study related topics such as sensations and perception, emotion, memory, and states of consciousness (including dreams).
Wilhelm Wundt
Functionalism	There is a relationship between consciousness and behaviour. Consciousness is fluid and streamlike. Experience cannot be broken down into objective sensations and subjective feelings, Funtionalists focused on how experience help us to function more adaptively in our environments.	We do not have pure functionalists today, but functionalism preceded behaviourism in its interest in how habits are formed by experience and help us adapt. Behaviour is seen as evolving: Adaptive behaviour is maintained, whereas maladaptive behaviour tends to drop out.
William James
Behaviourism	Psychology must limit itself to observable, measurable events – to behaviour, not mental processes. Organisms learn to behave in certain ways because of the effects of their behaviour.	Some “pure” behaviourists remain, but behaviourism more generally has contributed to experimental psychology, the psychology of learning, and methods of therapy (behaviour therapy). Although many contemporary psychologists argue that it is desirable to study consciousness and mental processes, the behaviourist influence has encouraged them to base many of their conclusions on measurable behaviour.
John B. Watson B F. Skinner
Gestalt Psychology	Gestalt psychologists focused on perception, thinking and problem solving. Whereas structuralists tried to isolate basic elements of experience, Gestalt psychologists focused on the tendency to see perceptions as wholes that give meaning to parts.	Gestalt principles continue to be studied in the field of sensations and perception. Other Gestalt ideas, such as those involving thinking and problem solving, continue to be studied by cognitive psychologists and experimental psychologists. Gestalt therapy – which aims to help people integrate conflicting parts of their personalities – remains in use.
Max Wertheimer Kurt Koffka Wolfgang Köhler
Psychoanalysis	Visible behaviour and conscious thinking are influenced by unconscious ideas and conflicts. People are motivated to gratify primitive sexual and aggressive impulses, even if they are unaware of their true motives. Unconscious processes are more influential than conscious thought in determining human behaviour.	Psychoanalytic thinking remains quite alive in the popular culture. Among psychologists, many discount psychoanalysis altogether, because many of its concepts cannot be studied by scientific means. Modern psychoanalytic therapists tend to place more emphasis in the roles of conscious motives, conscious thinking, and decision making.
Sigmund Freud Carl Jung Alfred Adler Karen Horney Erik Erikson

Source: Psychology: Concepts and Connections, Spencer A. Rathus, 2007

The First Noble Truth

The painting of  the nine scenes from the Book of Genesis on the Sistine Chapel ceiling was finally done and unveiled to the Pope.But the Pope wanted to change it to more ultramarine, with more flex of gold as he thought it looked “poor” without gold.So Michelangelo said to the Pope: ” The people depicted in the painting, they are poor too.They are struggling, suffering but you wouldnt know about that, would you?……..”

I am here to share with you one aspect of the buddhist PHILOSOPHY.

The First Noble Truth with its three aspects is:”There is suffering, suffering should be understood,and suffering has been understood.This is a very skilful teaching because it is expressed in a simple formula which is weasy to remember, and it also applies to everything that you can possibly experience or do or think concernong the past, the present or the future.

Suffering is the common bond we share.Everybody everywhere suffers.Human beings sufferd in the past,in ancient India;they suffer in modern Britain;and in the future,human beings will also suffer.What do we have in common with Queen Elizabeth?-we suffer.With a tramp in Charing Cross, what do we have in common?-suffering.It includes all levels from the most privileged human beings to the most desperate and underprivileged ones, all ranges in between.Everybody everywhee suffers.It is a bond we have with each other, something we all understand

When we talk about our human suffering, it brings out our compassionate tendencies.But when we talk about our opinions, about what i think and what you think about politics and religion, then we can go into wars.In the past, most of the western propaganda made the Russians out to be titanic monsters or cold hearted, reptilian people, so they were never thought of as human beings.If you want to kill people, you have to make them out to be that way;you cannot very well kill someone if you realised they suffer the same way you do.you have to think that they are evil and that it is good to get rid of evil.With this attitude, you might feel justified in bombing and machine gunning them.If you keep in mind our common bond of suffering, that makes you quite incapable of doing those things

The First Noble Truth is not a dismal metaphysical statement saying everything is suffering.Notice that there is a difference a metaphysical doctrine in which you are making a statement about The Absolute truth and a Noble Truth which is a reflection.A Noble Truth is a truth to reflect upon.It is NOT absolute.This is where some people are confused because they interpret this Noble Truth as a kind of metaphysical truth of Buddhism, which on the contrary,is something it was never meant to be.

You can see that the First Noble Truth is not an absolute statement because of the Fourth Noble Truth, which is the way of non-suffering. You cannot have absolute suffering and then have a way out of it, can you?That doesnt make sense

Suffering and self view

It is important to reflect upon the phrasing of the First Noble Truth.It is phrased in a very clear way:’There is suffering’ rather than ‘i suffer’ .Psychologically, that reflection is a much skilful way to put it. We tend to interpret our suffering as ‘i’am really suffering.I suffer a lot-and i dont want to suffer.’This is the way our thinking mind is conditioned.

‘I am suffering’always converys the sense of’i am somebody who is suffering a lot.This suffering is mine;i have a lot of suffering in my life.’Then the wjole process, the association with one’s self and one’s memory, take off.

But note, we are not saying there is someone who has suffering.It is not personal suffering anymore when we see it as  ‘There is suffering’.It is not:Oh poor me, why do i have to suffer so much?what did i do to deserve this? Why do i have to get old?Why do i have to have sorrow, pain, grief and despair? i only want happiness and security.’This kind of thinking comes from ignorance whcih complicates everything and results in personality problems

To let go of suffering, we have to admit it into consciousness.But the admission in Buddhist meditation is not from a position of’ i am suffering’  but rather, ‘there is the presence of suffering’ because we are trying not to identify with the problem but simply acknowledge that there is one. It is unskilful to think in terms of:’i am an angry person;i get angry so easily;how do i get rid of it?’.That triggers off all the underlying assumptions of a self and it is very hard to get any perspective on that.It becomes very confused because the sense of my problems or my thoughts takes us very easily to suppression or to make judgement about it and criticising ourselves.We tend to grasp and identify rather than to observe, witness and understand things as they are. When you are just admitting that there is this feeling of confusion, that there is this greed or anger, then there is an honest reflection on the way it is and you have taken out all underlying assumption – or at least undermined them.

So do not grasp these things as personal faults but keep contemplating these conditions as impermanent, unsatisfactory and non self.Keep reflecting , seeing them as they are.the tendency is to view life from the sense that these are my problems, and that one is being very honest and forthright in admitting this. Then our life tends to reaffirm that because we keep operating from that wrong assumption.But that viewpoint is impermanent, unsatisfactory and non self.