Saturday, October 27, 2012

"preach ye upon the housetops" - Buddhism to Save the World


Refurbished Tokyo Station


Buddhism to Save the World

Daisetsu Suzuki is one of the most respected Buddhist philosopher in Japan even today.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (October 18, 1870 – July 12, 1966[2]) was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin (and Far Eastern philosophy in general) to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities, and devoted many years to a professorship at Otani University, a Japanese Buddhist school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._T._Suzuki 
Daisetsu is well known as a person who introduced Buddhism in the upper society of the U.S.

One day he made a speech in Japan.  He said that he had never seen money when he was a child.

In those days everybody practiced bill-and-hold trade in their daily life, especially in local places in Japan.  General shops and country stores in a village and a local town before WWII usually sold goods and commodities on credit.  People  settled accounts once in a year, or usually at the end of the year.

So, children in a village  went on an errand without holding coins and sometimes with vague notion about what to buy.  But a shop owner could find what the child wanted.  So, he handed goods precisely his or her family wanted.  Such a shop owner even knew what state each family nearby was in.  Then he put it down into a book to collect money at the end of the year.

So, most of local people lived in close human relationships in Japan.  Japanese villages were places to grow and harvest rice mostly.  People ate rice with vegetables, fish and some other animal protein though the Japanese Buddhism forbade meat eating.  The land tax was paid with rice in the samurai era.   However money economy was also  active in big cities such as Edo (Tokyo), Kyoto, and Osaka.

But in a local village where Daisetsu was raised, money was a rare thing for children even in the late 19th century.

Daisetsu Suzuki continued his speech, saying that the Empire of Japan failed in WWII since it had adopted the German philosophy when it abolished the samurai rule and opened the nation to the world in the 1860s.  He continued that someday the world would be stalled if people continued to rely on Western philosophy as the Empire of Japan had experienced.

After WWII, Japanese people switched their philosophical base from the German ideals to the American style of democracy based on the American Christianity.  It has worked so  far well.  But even the US would be lost in maze of complicated situations in the modern society.  Japan would follow suit.

If Japan borrowed any Western philosophy, it should be driven to the wall.  Someday, Japan will have to pay for its easy introduction of foreign philosophy on credit.

So, Daisetsu emphasized that  oriental ideas or the ideals of the East would be needed and wanted in future.

But India has lost Buddhism for 1000 years or more; Chinese has been brainwashed by Western communism and then capitalism without democracy.

Of course, various schools of Buddhism are preserved and practiced by some other people in South East Asia in addition to Tibetans and some other tribes in the east of the Indus River.  And Japan is the largest Asian country that keeps and practices its own version of Buddhism today though Japanese are living in the very Westernized and advanced society.

Put simply, in this context, you can still expect Japan to exert its cultural potential to contribute to salvation of the world, spiritually and materially, as it did in the 20th century when it became the first non-European leading power in the world.


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Mat 10:27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.

"nothing covered, that shall not be revealed" - Black vs. White

Tokyo...


Black vs. White 

It is said that 60% of the American whites support Mr. Romney but only 36% of them support Mr. Obama.

It is decisive.

In these four years, President Mr. Obama should have made a full effort to gain support from European Americans or to promote African Americans in the society as much as possible.

But we have not heard that the living standards or the social status of African Americans have been improved so drastically in these four years.

We have neither heard that more and more European Americans have come to respect Mr. Obama, the first African American President.

Maybe President Mr. Obama  has been helping American Muslims or Chinese Americans with all of his resources.

Then, he has opted for his philosophy rather than his success.

By the way if we read the name Romney in the reverse direction, it is "Yen More."  It might suggest "President Romney" is good for Japan.

If we read the name Obama in the reverse direction, it is "Am a Bo..."  It might be a bogy...




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Mat 10:26 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
Mat 10:27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

"the eye of a needle" - The Supreme Relationship


Tokyo Railroad Station with Sight Seers...

The Supreme Relationship

It is simple but it has a deep meaning.

The Bible describes the God as the Lord.

It is a little strange; why can the God be the Lord of every human?  Does He use everybody as His servant.  Or otherwise, the Bible must term Him as the supreme observer or watcher of mankind.  But, the Bible uses the title that implicates direct and intimate relationship between the God and a man: the Lord and a servant if not a slave.

If the God created mankind just to see how they will live, fight, and perish, the God must be indeed a cool observer and a cold watcher.  He must have no feeling to see all the human beings get terminated some day in future.  And He would not even send His messengers, His prophets, His angels, and His Son to the human world.

If a good lord has bad servants in a remote place, he would surely send his messenger to them to correct them.   Why?  Because the lord has responsibility for their behaviors and deeds.  As long as the lord admits that they are servant under his authority, he has to guide them and discipline them to make them reasonable servants who do not harm reputation of the lord.

So, as the God created the universe and mankind, he must want the universe to work precisely according to his expectation and mankind to behave precisely according to his expectation.  So, the universe must follow the laws He set.  And mankind must follow the code of conduct he has suggested.

So, the idea that the God sent His Son to this world to save and guide human beings and their souls supports the above idea.  However, His Son just appeared in a restricted place in a specific era just in the appearance of an ordinary man.  So, it would take 2000 years that the coming of His Son to this world has an influence on all over the world.  And in these 2000 years many lived and died in various places on the earth without knowing the fact of the coming of His Son.  It might really puzzle people.

Why did not His Son come at one time in history like a superman flying on a super aircraft which would carry Him all over the world and show Him to everybody living on the earth.  Then only within a month all the Europeans, Africans, Asians, and others would see Him so as to realize that the God is real and His Son is real.  But the God sent His Son as if a human lord had sent his human son to a remote place.

Apart from this puzzle, this relationship, if established or realized, indicates that there is a kind of love between the God and mankind.  From a religious point of view, it is interpreted as that the God tries to save as many souls as possible.  The God is trying to prevent human beings from falling to the hell.  This is indeed love in a religious sense.  So, His Son, namely Christ Jesus, even taught His disciples to call the God Father in Heaven.  It means that we, humans, are allowed to receive love from the God as if we received it from our own true father.

But, still, the basic relationship for the God and mankind is the Lord and servants.   Only though His Son, Christ Jesus, we are allowed to call the God our Father in Heaven and receive love as such.

Yet, in Islam, there is no such a possibility to keep the said relationship.   Muslims are all treated like bad servants before Allah, namely the God.   They are all requested to prostrate themselves when praying to the God.  Muslims are not allowed to call their God the Father in Heaven.

Judaists have a simple relationship  with the God.  The God just created their ancestors.  And the God protects them so long as Judaists have faith in Him.  And Judaists know that their God loves good and hates evil.  It is as if to know their own God was the most important thing.  So, to change their religion or their God is the most serious sin.  Their God mostly requests them to keep faith in Him.  It must have been, however, very difficult in the long human history with full of turmoils, wars, and tragedies to find, always remember, and stick to one God.  So, Judaists have been requested  such a simple thing of.  It looks like a primitive relationship even before the concept of the father and the lord prevailed in the religious sphere.

So, anyway, we have to advance this relationship with the God, since it is the 21st century now.

But what is the relationship to be?  It must be more than the Father and sons and daughters, the Lord and servants, the Creator and creatures, or the Cool Observer and poor living things.

What will it be?

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Mar 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

"And Cornelius waited for them" - US President vs. China


Near the Tokyo Station...


US President vs. China

This year while Syrian people were suffering the cruel civil war, Europeans and other people were enjoying the London Olympics games.

This is very bad.  The God must be angry at Europeans and other people.  However as it was one year after 2011 when Japan experienced the huge natural calamity and the nuclear accident, Japanese people had psychological room in their minds to enjoy the sports events.

In 2008, it was bad.  The Beijing Olympics were crazy as athletes were forced to compete in heavily contaminated air of Beijing.  Even before the Olympics games, a big earthquake occurred in southern China, especially, around a region where there were many nuclear weapon related facilities and installations run by the Chinese defense sector.

What was worse, the sub-prime mortgage crisis finally entered its worst phase; the oil price hit the highest level in history; and decisively the Lehman Shock started in Wall Street.

Riding on this exceptionally bad trend, Mr. Barack Obama was elected as US President.

And four years later, today, no American elites passionately talk about the coming of the G2 era, like they did before 2008, where every issue in the world is supposed to be solved by G2, the US and China.      

Now let's see what President Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney have said about China:

Obama, Romney say China needs to play by the rules 
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON | Associated Press – Tue, Oct 23, 2012
"I want a great relationship with China," Romney said. "China can be our partner. But that does not mean they can just roll all over us and take our jobs on an unfair basis." 
Obama described China as both an adversary and a potential international partner. He defended his record in addressing China's trade violations, saying his administration had brought more cases than his predecessor, George W. Bush, did in two terms. 
Neither candidate grappled with the deeper challenges of China's rise: that it has managed to build a competitive economy while maintaining an authoritarian political system. There was also little substantive discussion of the challenge posed to U.S. military pre-eminence in the Asia-Pacific by China's rapid military buildup. 
Romney said China needs to create 20 million jobs every year, and that it wants a stable world in which it can trade its goods. But he said China would not respect a United States that has a heavily indebted economy and is cutting back its military.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-romney-china-needs-play-rules-034530218--election.html

By Elizabeth Dwoskin on July 05, 2012   
At a campaign stop in Toledo on Thursday, President Barack Obama announced his latest gambit in the race to demonstrate a tough line against China: a World Trade Organization case against the Chinese government’s tariffs on American cars.
This is the seventh such case the U.S. has brought against China during Obama’s tenure, and the location and timing are significant. Toledo, as my Bloomberg colleague Kate Brower reports, is home to a Chrysler plant that manufactures the Jeep Wrangler.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-05/obama-to-china-dump-the-car-tariffs

14 November 2011 Last updated at 12:42 GMT 
To be fair Barack Obama was a little more circumspect about the way he put it, but it's still a pretty extraordinary statement to make. 
He was careful to begin by saying he welcomed China's "peaceful rise", and believed there could be "friendly and constructive competition" between the two.
But China's leaders, he said, need "to understand that their role is different now than it might have been 20 years ago or 30 years ago when, if they were breaking some rules, it didn't really matter, it didn't have a significant impact".
"Now they have grown up. They are going to have to help manage this process in a responsible way." 
There is a widespread view in America that China's rise is happening because it is willing to flout the rules that others follow, profiting at their expense.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-15718392

BUSINESS | 9/13/2011  
Romney Takes On China 
Romney promised last Tuesday that one of his initial executive orders on his first day as president would be to “clamp down on the cheaters” by slapping duties on Chinese imports if Beijing doesn’t move quickly to float its currency. “I will label China as it is, a currency manipulator and I will go after them for stealing our intellectual property,” he said while unveiling his plan to revive the troubled U.S. economy and create jobs.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2011/09/13/romney-takes-on-china/

Mitt Romney on Free Trade

China doesn't want to have a trade war; so push hard

Source: 2011 GOP debate at Dartmouth College, NH , Oct 11, 2011

Q: Candidates have talked tough on China before--George W. Bush did it, Barack Obama did it--but once elected, the president takes a much more cautious approach.
A: They have been played like a fiddle by the Chinese. And the Chinese are smiling all the way to the bank, taking our currency and taking our jobs and taking a lot of our future. And I'm not willing to let that happen. We've got to call cheating for what it is. 
Q: Isn't that risking a trade war?
A: Well, now, think about that. We buy this much stuff from China; they buy that much stuff from us. You think they want to have a trade war? This is a time when we're being hollowed out by China that is artificially holding down their prices. On day one, I will issue an executive order identifying China as a currency manipulator. We'll bring an action against them in front of the WTO for manipulating their currency. If you're not willing to stand up to China, you'll get run over by China. And that's what's happened for 20 years.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Mitt_Romney_Free_Trade.htm
Nobody wants war between the US and China.

Nobody minds if poor Chinese get rich.

But it might lead to a de facto war between the coalition of the US and Japan and China, if rich Chinese are all bad.


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Act 10:24 And the morrow after they entered into Caesarea. And Cornelius waited for them, and he had called together his kinsmen and near friends.
Act 10:25 And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.
Act 10:26 But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

"Blessed are the eyes" - More Christian President


Tokyo Station 2012

More Christian President

The US President should observe the teaching by Christ Jesus as much as possible, as the US is the richest nation in the world.

Should a Christian be a Republican or a Democrat? 
Should a Christian be a conservative or a liberal/progressive?   
... 
The Bible teaches that a leader in the church should be a godly, moral, ethical person (1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:6-9). This should apply to political leaders as well. If politicians are going to make wise, God-honoring decisions, they must have a basic morality and worldview on which to base the decisions they are going to have to make. So if there is a clear moral distinction between candidates, as Christians, we should choose the more moral, honest, and ethical of the candidates.
http://www.gotquestions.org/Republican-Democrat.html

There is a slight difference between Republicans and Democrats in terms of Christianity:

How Does the Faith of Republicans, Democrats Measure Up?
By Audrey Barrick , Christian Post Reporter
March 6, 2007|4:30 pm

According to survey results, 57 percent of Republicans assert that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches compared to 40 percent of Democrats. Republicans are also twice as likely to believe Satan is a real spiritual entity (33 percent versus 17 percent); more likely to reject the idea that good works can earn salvation (35 percent versus 23 percent); more commonly describe themselves as absolutely committed to Christianity (61 percent versus 48 percent); more likely to deem their religious faith to be important in their life (77 percent versus 67 percent); and more likely to believe that God is the all-knowing, perfect Creator and Ruler of the universe (75 percent to 65 percent).

Overall, 51 percent of Republicans qualify as born-again Christians, according to the Barna Group, compared to 38 percent of Democrats.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/how-does-the-faith-of-republicans-democrats-measure-up-26175/

But specifically, how do Americans feel about the degree of being Christians of their political leaders?

Are Republicans more Christian than Democrats? 
I am sorry but even though Barak Obama is not as much of a Christian as I would like for him to be, I have concluded that neither is John McCain and the Republican Party. The Republicans don't care about the poor, they want to continue to war and continue to see thousands of young Americans losing their lives, and they have no real interest to see a national health care system that supplies health coverage for everyone. Approximately 18,000 people die every year because they did not have health coverage. Is this any better than killing an unborn baby? By the way, during George Bush's presidency, who is supposedly against abortion, who is a Republican, approximately 1.2 million abortions occured every year. Doesn't sound very anti-abortion to me. The Republicans have been in power but abortion has continued.
http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080913134659AA9JHtA

More interestingly with a deep insight....

Column: God vs. GOP politics
By Tom Krattenmaker Updated 9/25/2012 4:50 PM 
As if we harbored any last doubts, we now have statistical evidence of a truth that's seems more obvious by the year. "God" appears 12 times in the Republican platform this election season and just once in the Democrats'.

Couple this with the rhetoric of the candidates and GOP enthusiasts, and it seems clearer than ever that Republicans, the party of tax cuts for the wealthy and up-by-your-own-bootstraps regard for the poor, is the God party, the Christian party, in American politics.

If you're like me, you have often puzzled over the combination of Christianity and hard-edged conservative politics and, like many progressives, you've probably asked how a religion of love, compassion and selflessness could lead to the positions and tactics that seem so at odds with what we think about Jesus.
Allow me to answer the question — by rejecting its premise.

Consider the very real possibility that Christianity is not what fuels Republican politics but rather that the two co-exist in today's conservative movement, as they do in the hearts and minds of its members. 
Not to say that GOP positions are untethered from Christian ideas and teachings. You'll invariably find religious conservatives citing chapter and verse in their justifications for policy stands against gay marriage, for instance, or for keeping government hands off our wallets and religious practices.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-09-25/republicans-religion-evangelicals-election/57841682/1

There is no conclusion in this theme, since an individual should stand before the God but not as a political party.

Nonetheless, if Hitler had not authorized the killing of European Judaists before the end of WWII, he might be still regarded as a great German hero even today.

But, if his decision to terminate existence of those Judaists had been found as a lack of his faith in God and some pious Germans could have stopped Hitler based on their religious motivation, we must admit that Christianity or religion is so important as a measure to check politicians.

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Luk 10:23 And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see:
Luk 10:24 For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

Monday, October 22, 2012

"he addeth no sorrow with it" - Nanjing in 1920s

The Tokyo Railroad Station Refurbished to the Original State...


Nanjing in 1920s

It was not that crazy Imperial Japanese troops invaded well-governed and peaceful Nation China in 1930s.

There were more complicated backgrounds.

In other word, existence of the Imperial Army in China in 1930s might have been like some European troops stationed in the US during the era of the Civil War in 1860s.

Both the Union Army and  the Confederate Army might have tried to desperately involve such foreign forces in battles going on to turn the situation in favor of them.  If the Union troops had been losing the war, they would have offered the Confederation to cease the fire between them and tie up to fight those foreign troops.  And, meanwhile, the Union Army might have been able to gain strength again, while making the Confederation fight the European Army, and the Union would find a chance to attack the Confederation.  In this case, the European troops were abused.

Nanking Incident 
This event should not be confused with the Nanking Massacre in 1937. 
The Nanking Incident, or Nanjing Incident occurred in March 1927 during the capture of Nanjing by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in their Northern Expedition. Foreign warships bombarded Nanjing in defense of the foreign citizens against rioting and looting within the city. Several ships were involved in the engagement, including vessels from Great Britain and the United States. Marines and sailors were also landed for rescue operations. Both Nationalists and Communists soldiers within the NRA participated in the rioting and looting of foreign residents in Nanjing.[1]
.....
Nanking in 1927 was a treaty port located on the southern shores of the Yangtze River, a large waterway that separates northern and southern China. Because the foreign interests in China were largely American and European, squadrons of foreign naval vessels were stationed along the Yangtze to protect their citizens doing business at the treaty ports. The British Royal Navy operated the China Station under Rear Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt and the United States Navy the Yangtze Patrol; both lasted for around 80 years until World War II.
.....
By March 26, NRA commander Cheng Qian restored order in Nanjing and successfully restrained soldiers from further hostile actions against foreign forces, while requesting the Red Cross to mediate a cease fire with foreign naval vessels. On March 27, with 70 more refugees aboard, Preston left Nanking and headed downriver. Lieutenant Commander G. B. Ashe later recalled that the Chinese had emplaced a field-piece at a river bend outside of Nanking so he ordered general quarters well in advance of the battery, but when the ship went around the bend the Chinese did not fire. By the end of that day all hostilities ended and about 40 people were killed in total. At least one British sailor was killed, and there was only one American casualty, Fireman Ray D. Plumley. American forces involved in the Nanking incident received the Yangtze Service Medal, three sailors also were awarded the Navy Cross.[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Incident


Shanghai massacre of 1927 
The April 12 Incident of 1927 refers to the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party organizations in Shanghai by the military forces of Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions in the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party). Following the incident, conservative KMT elements carried out a full-scale purge of Communists in all areas under their control, and even more violent suppressions occurred in cities such as Guangzhou and Changsha.[1] The purge led to an open split between KMT left and right wings, with Chiang Kai-shek establishing himself as the leader of the right wing at Nanjing in opposition to the original left-wing KMT government in Wuhan. 
...
On April 9 Chiang declared martial law in Shanghai and the Central Control Commission issued the "Party Protection and National Salvation" proclamation, denouncing the Wuhan Nationalist Government's policy of cooperation with CPC. On April 11 Chiang issued a secret order to all provinces under the control of his forces to purge Communists from the KMT. 
Before dawn on April 12 gang members began to attack district offices controlled by the union workers, including Zhabei, Nanshi and Pudong. Under an emergency decree, Chiang ordered the 26th Army to disarm the workers' militias, that process resulting in more than 300 people being killed and wounded. The union workers organized a mass meeting denouncing Chiang Kai-shek on April 13, and thousands of workers and students went to the headquarters of the 2nd Division of the 26th Army to protest. Soldiers opened fire, killing 100 and wounding many more. Chiang dissolved the provisional government of Shanghai, labor unions and all other organizations under Communist control, and reorganized a network of unions with allegiance to the Kuomintang and under the control of Du Yuesheng. Over 1000 Communists were arrested, some 300 were officially executed and more than 5,000 went missing. Western news reports later nicknamed General Bai "The Hewer of Communist Heads".[9] Some National Revolutionary Army commanders with Communist backgrounds who were graduates of Whampoa Military Academy kept their sympathies for the Communists hidden and were not arrested, and many switched their allegiance to the CPC after the start of the Chinese Civil War.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_massacre_of_1927





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Pro 10:21 The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom.
Pro 10:22 The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.
Pro 10:23 It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom.
Pro 10:24 The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.