Author: Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

If the world were a food village of 100 people

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This is an English translation I made of an essay called If the world were a village of 100 people: food edition by Ikeda Kayoko (ISBN 9784838770045). As far as I know it is only available in the original Japanese. There are many interesting and important facts in it, so I felt it important to get an English translation out there. This translation is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 unported licence.

Grilled salty pike and simmered taro, with rice, miso (bean paste) soup and pickled vegetables … that was the hearty meal one have in Japan forty, fifty years ago.

Everyone had 112kg[1](*see notes at the end) of rice to eat for one year – twice as much as we have today.

Do you still think this is a poor person’s meal? Back then, Japan produced close to 80 percent of all its food needs.

And now in the twenty-first century … the world has 6.7 billion people.

If the world were a village of 100 people and we look how we live with food what do you think this would look like?

Continue reading “If the world were a food village of 100 people” →

Mornings are the best time to meditate

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I used to meditate at night because it was the only time I could do it … or at least that was the excuse I gave myself. Actually while I was at Bukkokuji Temple in Obama, Fukui the routine was to meditate once in the morning (twice during winter) and three times at night. So my belief for a long time was that night meditation is the best.

But this is simply not true.

For lay people a morning session is usually the best because it is the time when we have least to do, less rushed by life. It is also quiet as everyone is still asleep and therefore one can concentrate better. One is also fresh from rest.

At the Temple as monks one can concentrate because that is the life monks have chosen, to devote their lives to save all others. Lay people do not have this “luxury”.

Money blinds people to nuclear risks – pro-nuclear mayor re-elected

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Shigemi Kashiwabara, the mayor of Kaminoseki City in Yamaguchi Prefecture, has been reelected. He won his seat on a pro-nulcear platform. It is a shame that people still buy into carrots dangled in front of them. This was the first municipal election held in Japan since the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Very democratic but not very Buddhist – cigarettes in Bhutan

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Buddhism has never been a religion (is it a religion?) about forcing someone to do things they do not want to do.

The restrictions of sales and use of cigarettes in Bhutan with its five year jail sentence is not only excessive it is counterproductive. The forming of a black market is an indication of how liberalism can go wrong. Moving to a democracy does not mean a better life. It is simply different. And different does not mean better though ‘better’ is what advocates of liberalism and democracy want you to believe.

Politics and government are not easy and lighthearted tasks. I still wish Bhutan good luck. But I also believe their move to democratic rule was wrong. Let’s just hope GNH will not turn into GNU (Gross National Unhappiness).

What exactly does TEPCO have to hide?

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Does submitting a three page document where only two lines are uncensored constitute a submission at all?

Trilakshana – the marks of existence in Buddhism

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If ever there were important discoveries they are these.

The Buddha said there are three marks of existence – impermanance, suffering and no-self. Everything (yes, everything) in the world is impermanent. There are no exceptions to this. We suffer because we think there is something permanent. It doesn’t matter what that thing is, if one thinks it is permanent then we suffer the consequences for that belief. More often than not the thing we believe most to be permanent is the self. And The Buddha unequivocally states even this is impermanent.

Know that there is no self would end suffering which in turn leads to the understanding of impermanence.

But coming to this understanding is harder than it sounds. It usually takes years of training. When you have achieved this, though, rest assured you will be enlightened. Good to know, isn’t it.

Structures in nature maybe inbuilt geometrics

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In the past people have marvelled at the intricacy of nature and at times have attributed it to some kind of divine power. ‘How could something so perfect and complex,’  they would ask, ‘be created by chance?’

Now a team of scientists in Russia have shown how electroplating if left unchecked can create structures remarkably similar to structures of leaves, trees, buds and corals, suggesting that the patterns in nature may be following some kind of geometric formula.

The shapes created truly looked like unscented gardens.

What does the underside of the Arctic ice look like?

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What an amazing expedition.

I just finished watching Under the Pole. It’s about an expedition to trek from the North Pole towards land all the while doing dives (51 to be exact) to film the little seen underside of the Arctic Ice. Some fantiastic footage of unusual ice formations and creatures (arctic shrimp, sea angels and more) in their habitat. The ability of man to take on and survive in such an inhospitable environment is truly amazing.

Definitely worth watching if you get a chance.

Official homepage here.
Trailer on YouTube here.

David Suzuki – the DVD

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If you haven’t heard of David Suzuki, you have now.

A DVD about this Japanese-Canadian environmentalist, David Suzuki, has been just released.

The number of Hiroshima A-bombs …

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… 168.

That is how much Cesium has been released from the Fukushima nuclear accident. But that is still only one-sixth of the Chernobyl accident.