.

Let us thin slice this Television, Commercial Journey from Water to a hard metal Circle (the drum of the washer):

                Our sight is from the sky.

                Empathy is with the flying white, flapping creations (shirts) in their     

                   parallax view of the earth and water.

                The path is water.

                Release comes from a lovely, young female on a cliff overlooking the world.

                Mists and waterfalls are before us.

                Our destination is a circle (the interior of the washer).

                The Unknown becomes a known commercial product with the hope that

                    IT, the Whirlpool washer, is sold to us. Like many products in the West,

                    clothes are white.

Certainly, the “real” products that are being “sold” on the television screen are SURREAL birds, PEACE, mystery, NATURE, the grandeur of WATER, a good-looking ‘FEMALE ON A CLIFF’ and the rushing, falling adventure into the UNKNOWN (which, in this case, turns into the interior drum of a washer for our white clothes). Like many things today, PEACE has become a product to be marketed and sold in the 21^st century.

One might comment: “At least, it creates a living for an artist, doesn’t it?

“There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one’s means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half of the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliations, it cuts your wings, it eats into you soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.”

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, 1915

So as we walk out the door and collectively shake our heads, I am reminded of Maugham’s advice and think, “A good commercial that gives us a bastard form of peace is better than a bad one, isn’t it?” While I was teaching abroad, I told my Republic of Georgia university students who were propagandized by the Soviet Communists so that they made light of money: “Money is like the wheels on your car. It gets you to someplace where you wish to go faster than your feet. Not better, just faster. It is where and how you drive that makes a difference.” (Aside: I forget who said it but it is also true, “There never has been a good war or a bad peace.” Remark: Is it not important who said it as long as it was said?) People can make a living with bad art that is not in the class of the Ming Dynasty hand scroll but, none the less, they make a living making art. Seeing priorities of living, not everyone can afford a long, Ming Dynasty hand scroll to peacefully journey through at their leisure. We leave the house and drive twenty miles to the Chinese restaurant. No reservations are needed.

As we drove to the restaurant, I told this story:  One day in Japan, the Buddhist priest, Ryofu Pussel, was preparing tea for a large charity tea gathering and many guests.

He discusses the experience like this: “There were a lot of guests present, and I had to improvise many things. So I realized that the development of a student of the Way of Tea really proceeds through three stages: 1) shu, the student learns the procedures by heart; 2) ha, he is no longer hindered by the rules; and 3) ri, he breaks free and develops his own forms and patterns. Ryofu’s poem…was found true: “Practice involves beginning to learn from one (the very first procedure; preparing tea using a tray) and coming to know ten (mastering the highest level procedures); then returning from ten to the original one.” This has just happened to me today.

I felt completely one with the “Way of Tea”, the procedure, the utensils and equipment, myself and the guests. I became very still, collected, happy and peaceful, and it felt as though my mind would pass through one level after the other (although this is difficult to describe). …I was very collected and felt very much “here and now”….In other words, I felt completely “one” and was no longer attached to any concept of “rules”, equipment, and “guests”…. I was in a state of no-thought- at least during this period of tea preparation.”

How does this story relate to the concept of “wonder” and “oneness” with the Ming Dynasty hand scroll lake/mountain/mists/unknown journey and not relate to the large, “bad art” mural at the Chinese Restaurant?

The Restaurant: We arrived at the Hunan Chef III, established in 1980, and entered the two red doors, flanked by Foo Dogs, (or Fu Dogs, or Foo Lions, or Guardian Lions; symbols for power, happiness, prosperity and luck. The male lion, to our right, has one paw on a banded globe- the jewel of the law, and the female lion, on our left, has a paw on a cub- all living beings. “Foo” comes from the city of Foo Chow and also from the Chinese word for Buddhism.) . On the far wall is the “bad” art mural of a scene similar to that which we had journeyed through on our Ming Dynasty hand scroll peace adventure.

Define “bad” art: I called the mural at the restaurant “bad art” because it: 1) followed all the cliché rules of the Ming Dynasty scroll but without “imperfect beauty” (it was too “nice”- in the worst sense of that word “nice”), 2) it left almost no holes for the imagination to come into the process of seeing (I could discern all that was featured in the briefest thin slicing without having anything to back up the generalities), 3) it never broke a rule but followed them numbly without a glimmer of an ideate (idea wedded to image), 4) nothing surprised the viewer (it was all superficially there) and 5) the brushwork had no magic, no meaning besides description of the most elementary kind and no new ideas (certainly no subtlety). I could examine the Ming Dynasty hand scroll for another thirty years and it would still reveal new wonders and secrets while, at the same time, hiding something behind the closed door of the subconscious which would keep us/me coming back to see more.  Compare the area of mist in the Ming Dynasty scroll to the restaurant’s wall mural of waterfalls and lake.

One Problem with the Restaurant Mural:

The painting was done by one who could paint a mural for sale but only “almost learned” the underlying procedures of painting (not by heart, only by hand). It is painted so that the viewer could dismiss the scene after first glancing at it for a moment.  The Ming Dynasty hand scroll has revealed secrets for over 30 years for me and it is not finished. In both paintings, one could find peace but in one it is lasting and the other it is fleeting and transitory.

What can be learned from the restaurant mural? Many of the same elements that we saw in the Ming Dynasty hand scroll are there:

A view from above.

Emphasis on Nature.

A shelter with guardian trees.

Number sequences of 2s and 3s.

Boats to guide guests, fellow travelers and lead the path of our eyes.

A centering of mists from waterfalls.

The Problem: It is design without emotional and creative depth; it is not even “here and now.”  It is whimsy without magic.  When you count the strokes, they make no pattern of sense. They do not invite further inquiry. What you see is less than what you get.

Let us summarize the main elements of the restaurant mural:

On the right side, there are two trees and one shelter. There are two small waterfalls and three larger ones. There are two trunks to trees in full bloom. Twos are symbols of balance; threes are the maverick numbers. In the whole work, there is no symbol for sadness (therefore no contrast to the peace of the scene).

In the middle are two boats (one with a rider but no masts, although it does have two cross boards to the raft, and another with no rider and two masts in full sail), each coming at the other diagonally so that we look into the distance where the circle of mist congregates (design elements for perspective).

At a position of golden section (exactly as a textbook might draw it up) is one pyramid stone pointing toward the final mist and the dreamy unknown. Above this, near the top of the mural, is a line of jagged peaks, holding our eye down in the middle of the picture. In the distance, it is light blue fading into white.

On the left side is a green wall near two bushes with three trunks, three sections of rounded green with two waterfalls flowing into the calm, sheet of ice-like lake. (It is a repeat of the right side, therefore ABA).

We see all this quickly because we took the Ming Dynasty hand scroll apart piece by piece to find PEACE in a centering of mists. In both works, the elements of design and suggestions of meaning are the same but in one, the Ming hand scroll, there is subtlety and mystery that could last a lifetime and in the other, the restaurant mural, there is only a distraction for the briefest of moments. 

In the best of art, you are in a state of “no-thought” and transcend any concept of “rules." Standing in front of the Rembrandt painting of the “Nightwatch” and journeying through the Ming Dynasty hand scroll are two examples of how this is possible when coming in contact with “the best of art." You do not have to be an artist or art historian to know and experience this state of being.

Story: As I sat at one of the tables in the restaurant, drawing a sketch of the major elements of the composition of the restaurant mural, a waiter came over and asked what I was doing.  I said, “I am trying to find out why this work has all the elements of a good painting but it still leaves me empty.”

 He smiled as one who lives with this painting every day while working, led me away to a back room, opened the door which separated the main area of the restaurant from this special party section and pointed to the far wall. On it was another mural but this was lovely, painted in the traditional “grass style” brushstrokes with a flare, a ch’i (life) and some reds for color on the blossoms. He left as soon as he ushered me into the room, somehow knowing that I wanted to study it for a time. The whole sequence of events was the same process that I had encountered 33 years earlier when I first saw the Ming Dynasty hand scroll at the art gallery in Hong Kong. I have gone through dozens of scrolls without finding anything that interested me. None of the works caught me by surprise (what I call “the wonder factor”) and I dismissed them quickly. Finally, the owner said, “You seem to know something about Chinese painting. Maybe these others will interest you.” With those words, he took me into a back room and began opening drawers with just a few select scrolls. That is where I found and fell in love with the Ming Dynasty hand scroll (the same one that I have taken you, my fellow travelers, on during these multiple parts). This has happened many times as I look with the eyes of a collector. In my experience, it is a Chinese art gallery tradition that you are not shown the “good stuff” until you can prove that you know “good stuff."

We left the restaurant, admiring once again the two large vases with the flared tops that mirrored the architecture on the front of the building.

Observation on leaving: What we have journeyed through in the Ming Dynasty lake and mountain landscape, over the swamps to the waterfalls of the Whirlpool Washer commercial, and in the “bad art” mural at our restaurant are all nature scenes. They come from a time when values, perceptions, insights, peace and understanding came from a nature-oriented, rural point of view. It was a point of view from a distance. It was part of the Romantic Movement of the 19^th century.

“She walks in beauty like the night of starry skies and cloudless climes.” William Blake.

Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary, was raised in Vermont with this nature-based, romantic vision of the world. His journey toward Rotary started there, as he stated in A Road I Have Traveled, from The Rotarian, February 1934:  “It began as a path over hills and through dales, but the cool mists of morning were in the air, and the rising sun gave promise of a fair day. The path soon widened into a road, the road into a turnpike, and the turnpike into a super-highway.” (Even for the founder of Rotary, the 21^st century started to encroach on his life in the 20^th century.) Walking in the Vermont Mountains alone or with a few friends, Harris never lost that boyhood vision of the world. He asked Rotarians to use this kind of “distant vision” when looking further than their own community: “Standing close to the Sistine Madonna one would see nothing but a hopeless confusion of meaningless colors. At a proper distance every touch of the brush has its meaning and the colors blend into a wonderful altogether that stands peerless throughout time…. Distance lends its enchantment.”  It is like a mother telling her child, “Don’t stand too close to the television. It will destroy your brain cells.”

Harris, as well as many leaders in the 19^th and 20^th century, were educated into a Renaissance way of seeing (the proper distance for seeing a Renaissance painting was thirteen feet, four inches according to critics and teachers of the 15^th and 16^th century in Italy) and reinforced by a standard Classical/Romantic education in the 19^th and 20^th.  style of viewing the world: which was “cities surrounded by nature." The proper question for any viewer in that 19^th and 20^th century mind-time was “What is it?” It was a question with the accepted understanding that “all-the-world” could be reduced to an “IT." In fact, EBay still sells that 20^th century concept through its commercials of “IT."

But what happens to our vision when, as Harriet Fulbright points out: “Nature is now surrounded by cities. More than two-thirds of the world’s population lives in or near cities”? Our view of the world in the 21^st century is both Renaissance at eye level, extreme close-ups at a microscopic level and global at a satellite level. But more than anything, it is crowded and not traditional NATURE. Virtual competes with real. Today, a vision for peace must be flexible, fitting our needs for sight and insight, depending on the circumstances for what it is used.  Joseph Campbell had a photograph of the earth from space on his wall as the challenge for seeing in the 21^st century: A GLOBAL VISION WITHOUT BORDERS.

Certainly, we live in multiple, conflicting worlds. We live in a world of “haves” and “have-nots." One of these worlds is a Dr. Seuss greedy, business establishment of “Thneeds." As my guests and I sat in the restaurant, we noticed across the way that several of the men wore Rotary pins in their suits. I had to wonder, but knew in my heart, that Rotary’s businessmen would have to adjust their sight and ethics to this 21^st century vision of today’s commercial world: Nature surrounded by cities!

“I meant no harm. I most truly did not.

But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.

I biggered my factory. I biggered my tools.

I biggered my wagons. I biggered by loads

of the Thneeds I shipped out. I was shipping them forth

to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North!

I went right on biggering…selling more Thneeds,

And I biggered my money, which everyone needs.”

Paul Harris might ask, “Why can’t we distance ourselves and center ourselves on the mission of peace and understanding? Can’t we be successful in business and service? Isn’t business a force for peace?” In fact, he did pose the question in a 1940 article in The Rotarian, called We Must Plan for Peace: “But, we ask, must the best genius of man be devoted to the science of war and none to the science of averting it.” I told my fellow companions of my observations and they again shook their heads but no answers came forward.  Harris would agree with Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuk that the first purpose of a government is GNH (gross national happiness) and then comes GNP (gross national product). Without the first, the second is not fulfilling; without both, there cannot be peace.

On the way home, during our forty-minute drive in high traffic of the city, we discussed our conclusions after thin slicing all that we had seen, thought about, read, viewed and explored.

Thin Slicing the Whole Journey of Peace and Looking For Some Solutions:

Peace Elements to Consider:

              1) our recent journeys of peace:

                              Ming Dynasty hand scroll lake/mountain journey

                              The guide’s journey through creativity and his work

                              A commercial for Whirlpool washers

                              “Bad Art” mural at a Chinese restaurant, Houston, Texas.                 

                              Each traveler’s voyage of discovery and peace at home and work

           2) multiple dimensions to peace:

                              personal and individual (betterment)

                              cultural and national (fellowship)

                              global and world (understanding and tolerance)

             3) multiple points of view in the 21^st century when exploring a state of peace:

                              spiritual (religious and non-religious)

                              scientific (microscopic and logical)

                              human (a Renaissance viewpoint: one on one-use, real and feeling)

                              global (computer, satellite, outer space)

                              self and other (inner and outside realities)

                              governmental (nation state and global)

                              mega-business (green is the color of the world without borders)

             4) universal elements of peace to consider:

                              Compositions: ABA, golden section, asymmetrical and balanced

                              Gestalt thinking: looking for the dots and patterns

                              Basic things: Water, earth, fire, air and man kind

                              Data: Known, unknown and unknowable

                              “A secret place”: self in nature, nature around groups

                              Human conflict: constructive and destructive actions

                              Systems: flexible and absolute

                              Human factors: id, ego and super ego

                              History: what is it and who writes it?

                              Creativity and love: two forces in life that must have peace

Man and Nature. Nature and Man. Man in Nature. Nature in Man. Peace in Man. Man in Peace. Nature in Peace. Peace in Nature.

Very strange! Answers few!

What do we know? We know that both peace and war are states of conflict, one positively constructive and one definitely destructive. Let us ask an ex-President. Where does politics enter when we talk of peace?

Excerpt from Former President William Jefferson Clinton’s acceptance speech, receiving the 2005 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding:

…For a man who was in some ways very proper and very distant- not exactly your standard back-slapping politician- Fulbright has an uncanny understanding that the purpose of politics was to create a framework in which people could live their personal lives according to their dreams. That almost all aberrational behavior- whether it’s impressing children into tribal wars in Africa or selling drugs or setting off bombs in marketplaces in Israel or Iraq or anywhere else, or in those hotels in Jordan- almost all aberrational behavior like that is basically the product of people who, for whatever reason, have decided to put their power lust ahead of letting children live their dreams.

…little kids sang at my library dedication. Because they want peace. It’s important to remember that. All authority and force in the end can only work it it’s somehow brought into alignment with people’s dreams. When you run the risk of killing somebody, it’s okay if you have to do it to save lives, to stop abuses, but we should remember. Fulbright was always humble about power. He always understood it had a very limited purpose: to create the conditions and give people the tools and stop the abuses so that there would be a space for people to live their dreams.

…You’ve done me a great honor today. I hope we can do the memory of Senator Fulbright honor by making America not only the strongest country in the world, but the world’s best partner in the fight for our common dreams.

Comment: As a Rotarian, I see creating “a space for people to live their dreams” as a condition for individual and collective peace.

Where do all these Journeys of Peace take us? At the end of unwinding the Ming hand scroll, at the end of the guide’s journey through his life and work, in the belly of the machine (a Whirlpool washer) and after examining “bad art” at our Chinese restaurant, we are left with mists, waterfalls, questions unanswered and the Unknown as a destination. On the Ming Dynasty hand scroll lake/mountain/mist trip, we are left with inner peace. Where this unsaid peace resides is in the fog that Paul Harris did not like when he looked at the Sistine Madonna. He wanted “sure” and “certain” answers or at least road maps toward peace. In this short (but time consuming) voyage, we may have started that.

Some Things We Know: We know that one must examine a journey of peace in detail with magnifying lens or a microscope sometimes, with a view from the sky at other times, and an earth-bound viewpoint of fellowship when all our options seem few. We must take the time to SEE, EXAMINE, UNDERSTAND and APPRECIATE. We know from thin slicing that there will be times when we know what we experience and cannot tell anyone else until we have more information. Our process of discovery on this journey has been, and will be in the future: data gathering (information), incubation (time to think about what we see and experience), ah ha (enlightenment), and formulation (putting our thoughts, images, feelings, etc. into some form so that we can communicate this to others). Our answer to peace is similar to what the Buddhists call in The Way of Tea, “wabi sabi” or “imperfect beauty." We know when we find it but it hard to define or explain except in poetry, stories and visions.  

WHAT NOW?  

A guide, a teacher, tells you what he knows and can identify. He points out number sequences where the fellow traveler might have overlooked them. He tells you stories about other travelers that he has known in his travels. He asks for your comments, stories, insights and possible enlightened visions of how to achieve peace for our self, our community and our world. He discusses the spirituality of the Unknown. Then, being a seasoned guide, he steps back and listens, watches, gathers information and revelations, and begins a new journey toward peace.

“WHAT NOW?” IS YOU NOW!

This is the end of this journey of peace and the start of many more where we can share fellowship, experiences, knowledge, values, ethics, understanding, tolerance and an inner sense of PEACE. Let us see what the dictionary says about “peace”:  

Peace: a state of tranquility, serene; free from strife; harmonious relations; absence of war; an agreement or treaty; public security; inner contentment.

Peace offering: any offering made to an adversary in the interests of peace or reconciliation.  

The hard questions still linger in the fog: Is it the truth? And is it truth if we know or do not know the author? “Anyone can make history. Only a great man can write it.” Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900 Is the peace fair and beneficial to all? Is compromise fair and just if it destroys an idea, an image or a person? “It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.” Edmund Burke 1729-1797.  Since peace is hard (or we would have it all the time) and war is easy (we do have it all the time, it seems) in which of these spheres will we live: today, tomorrow and in the distant vision of the future? “It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won.” John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1917-1963, in a July 4, 1960 address.

What do we know about Peace: “First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.”  Thomas Kempis, 1380-1471

“Peace hath her victories

No less renown’d than war.” John Milton 1608-1674

“Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.” Benedict Baruch Spinoza 1632-1677

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

“We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise

And then, if we are true to plan

Our statures touch the skies.” Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

I tell my fellow travelers on leaving that I am a Rotarian and PEACE is stepping up, rising and touching the sky. It is “Service Above Self."  

Some Parting Thoughts about PEACE: We have come home through a circle: Here am I-You are there-We are home-Here am I. Let us thin slice this statement about “I” and “you." Let’s go back to the 13^th century and the sayings of Jelaluddin Rumi (my favorite Islamic mystic poet). He had some answers to what ‘I/we/you’ ask about the nature of PEACE.

FIND BEAUTY: “May the beauty we love be what we do.”

DANCE:                       “Dance, when you’re broken open.

Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance, when you’re perfectly free”

THINK OUTSIDE SELF:        “I you he she we

In the Garden of Mystic Lovers,

These are not true distinctions-

I YOU HE SHE WE”

DREAM:                       “I am so small I can barely be seen.

How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small,

but they see enormous things.”

“Why should I seek?  I am the same as

he. His essence speaks through me,

I have been looking for myself!”

Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary, told everyone to “lead the way” TO UNDERSTANDING AND PEACE. Service Above Self.

“We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise

And then, if we are true to plan

Our statures touch the skies.”

Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

Good Advise for Peace: Step Up, Rise and Touch the Sky!

Johnathan Borofsky, “Walking to the Sky”, installed 2005 at Carnegie Mellow University

PEACE  W HERE AND HOW DO WE FIND IT?

What are your thoughts, comments, insights, stories, and journeys of peace? “I/you/he/she/we” should share them!