A Song: Last Will and Testament

A  Song:          Last Will and Testament

I don’t want to

Die a hard-wired, concrete,

Plastic-tubed, metallic death.

I don’t want to

Be surrounded with mechanical sounds drowning

Out the voices of

The wife and sons

I have loved for all these years.

I want to

Lie down on the hills,

On the snow covered mountains.

I want to

Hear voices

As the breeze blows through the long grass

Of the meadows.

I want to

Rest in the warm sands of the deserts

Or bathe in cool rivers.

I want to

sink in to the gently lapping seas,

drowning in its saltiness.

So please don’t

Put me in some ambulance

With flashing light and blaring siren

To be operated on

Under the cruel glare of hospital lights.

Leave me in the sun

Hold my hand through the pain

Until my breathing is no more.

Taking a Walk in the River

 We are in the rainforest of Southern India among the giant roots, the elephant dung, the unidentifiable song, the close heat and the leeches.  These attach themselves unobtrusively and gorge on our blood, transforming their sleek bodies to grotesque inflations of their former selves, clinging to their unwilling hosts with alarming tenacity.  They inhabit the ground of the forest and wait.

We have taken the path down the hillside through the land that has been reclaimed for the rainforest from the vast tea plantations.  All around are the sounds of living creatures, the cries of birds, the crash of the monkeys swinging through the branches and those noises that are identifiable only to those who inhabit that land.

Now we enter the river.  It swirls around our legs pulling strongly as walk against the current.  Our feet are bare and feel the soft mud beneath.  There is a difference to being in the river to that of being on it; on a boat you watch the water pass and the land change shape, whilst in the water you experience the movement and flow, observing the land more slowly and with greater attention.

We are following the path that many young people have taken on their stay in the rainforest.  Here, far away from their city environment, they participate in connecting with the force of nature that is the forest and all the life that it supports.  These children leave comfort and distraction behind and are plunged into an alien life.  However, their response is quickly one of energetic engagement for part of their education is the exploration of the relationship that exists between humanity and the natural world.  This experience, though only temporary, is vital to their understanding of their place in the world.  They discover that their individual existence is as an integral part of all that is living and, consequently, they are less likely to subscribe to the myth that the individual is the centre from which all action takes place.

…

In our data filled, success driven, judgemental world we are inclined to overlook the ordinary, the unremarkable, the small.  We are exhorted to ‘make a difference’, to ‘be the change’ and to ‘follow our dreams’ – all on a big scale.  These exhortations can make us feel powerless, useless against a tapestry of the charismatic, influential and successful role models set up as both inspirational and signposts of aspiration.  However, when you take a walk in the river your significance is revealed against the backdrop of nature and your existence is no less and no greater than the land that surrounds you and the water than flows past you.

India

This was written in 1990, 19 years after I first travelled to India. This proved to be the first of many visits since.  I consider my many trips to India to have been an enormous privilege where the intensity of learning has been balanced by an apparent constant lack of comprehension.  And where the all too visible effects of human indifference and suffering are intensified by the depth of affection I have received – often to my continuing surprise. 

…

Two weeks in India.  The cities are horrifying the noise of the traffic with its constant hooting and anarchic progress is abominable.  The stench of the roadside dumps littered with vegetable matter of all kinds, intermingled with articles such as bits of old shoes, assaults the nostrils incessantly.  It is a place of smells: spices, food cooking, excrement and urine, blooming flowers, incense.

Noise: chatter, shouting, traffic, animals, bells, horns, birdsong, coughing, spitting.  Silence:  walking through countryside, walking in the quiet lanes of some ancient town, sitting by the pond in a village.  The animals, people, birds merge and are part of the living earth.  We meet villagers, water buffalo, and goats moving easily along the dusty paths.  Expanding beauty and peace in a land of rock, trees and scrub.  Open skies, wheeling birds, clear light and the lost tread of bare feet.

This is a land of paradox, the rich and living closely together in apparent ignorance.  The horror of the cities and the beauty of the countryside.  The capabilities of the intellectuals and the illiteracy of so many.  The exquisite craftsmanship and the plethora of appalling, garish plastic.  The reverence for life and the wanton killing.  The affection of individuals and the fear in the crowds.

T o sit and listen to drumming, singing and watch the graceful movement of the dancers.  To feel the freedom and lack of inhibition, and to be away from passive entertainment and to be part of it all.

Travelling over the badly made up roads, weaving like a drunken cyclist through the crowded streets, just missing the nose of a donkey.  Beware any innocent who might stray into our pathway.  Driving straight at the lumbering trucks, the arrogant camels and patient oxen.  Cutting back in at the last minute.

Lying back on the first class bunk in a dirty, dusty carriage.  No light, just the sound of the train.  Throwing us about, tossed like leaves in the wind.  Occasionally we stop, voices sound close.  Coughing, spitting, eerie sounds of the night.  We start up again, slowly, jerkily, grinding into action.  The morning light begins to make its way through the shutters and another day dawns.  Through the rattling gloom the sun makes its way bringing brilliant blue and searing heat.

In the city it is difficult to look beyond the squalor, filth and human degradation.  But in the eyes of the beggar girl, the proud bearing of the holy man, the flash of the sari and the turban, vivid explosions in a brown dusty haze there is a different world. 

In the country there is the upright swinging walk of women expertly balancing unfeasible loads, the smile of the child and the weather-beaten walnut faces of men….

…

In the river of life I have moved from the rushing shallows that vigorously plunge from the mountains to the deeper, slow moving progress towards the sea.  How far away from its completion I am it is impossible to tell.  There is unspoken richness from my long marriage, my grown up children, my young grandchildren and my friends far and wide. 

As the river gathers richness as it journeys through the land creating fertile soil in its final stages, then humanity has that possibility to acknowledge the debt of gratitude and to give back whatever can be given.  Not through superiority of knowledge or experience, but out of the humility of understanding the fragility of all life.

To be Young.

He is sixteen years old and from Turkey; she is also sixteen and comes from St. Lucia. Shaded from the ferocious Rajasthan sun by the branches of a few trees, a group of young people and three adults from a school in England are visiting India to explore and observe what life is like in a different culture.  The girl and boy are loudly discussing the merits of flat screen televisions.  They are arguing about size, make, quality of picture and sound, comparing the rooms they have in there respective homes given to visual entertainment.  They are oblivious to their surroundings.

A thin man, whose dark face seems to have been etched from the desert rock, talks to us with passion of the work they are doing to ensure that water reaches the fields enabling the people of the village to grow the crops that will sustain their lives.   A little way beyond a group of women are digging out a trench in the stone littered dry earth through which a pathetic dribble of water is running.  Their saris dazzle in the glare of the sun.

 Sometimes, he says, the monsoon sends us so little rain that we have to pay for tankers to bring in water, but that is just for the people to drink.  Drilling has become too expensive, and, anyway, often the ground water is found to contain arsenic, fluoride or is too saline to be able to support food crops.

The boy and girl have been gently reminded where they are and their conversation, which has digressed to films they have seen recently, comes to a close and they join the main group.  Another boy asks for water for he is thirsty and he has already consumed the contents of his water bottle.  It is hot and it is not yet midday.

…

We quickly blame the young for the shortcomings we see in them.  As parents we want to control, protect, manipulate, own and love them.  Sometimes we see them as extensions of ourselves; too often we forget that they are individual, independent members of the human species.

The vast majority of my schooling took place during the 1960s.  To be young in that decade was to be aware of the growing excitement, colour and richness of life; influences came from all over the world and there appeared to be endless possibilities.   It became clear that it was not necessary to conform to post war expectations and a unifying spirit amongst the young seemed to exist that I could feel, even from the claustrophobic and cloistered surroundings of a boy’s boarding school.  For a brief time there was a sense of equality, search for peace, care for the world and concern for each other, blossoming as values for a generation.  However, all too quickly these delicate flowers withered and died as these values were packaged and made into saleable commodities; for there was money to be made from the empty ‘ everything is beautiful’ mantra in all its fantastical trappings.  There was also the ugly side; the drugs that created lives lived on make-believe; the exploitation of naivety and the desperate disappointment of dreams unfulfilled. 

Now, freedom is viewed as having choice not as a state of mind, aspiration is considered as an important aspect of young people’s thinking and worth is only given to the thing that will bring material success.  The education system serves as the ‘materialistic exploitation of young people’ and ‘being well-educated means economically effective or successful’ (quotations from a recent conversation with the Principal of an alternative school in India).  The future can be described as a grim place or be given the illusion of a paradise; each extreme is a story built on falsehood.  However, if we view education is an ‘exploration into what is happening today without the barrier of condemnation’ (from the same conversation), then we move into a different realm.  This is not dependent on ideals, not part of an ideology, but is an active and vital process of finding out, of discovery.

Listening is exploration.  Not just listening to others, but listening to yourself; not out of a selfish individualism, but out of the realisation that what you feel – the love, fear, loneliness, hope, faith, joy- is the common to all of humanity.  Involving young people in the act of listening may be a key to joining with them in finding freedom them from the tyranny of anxiety, aspiration, despair and suffering.

Trust and Affection

The dog, thin and tired, walks in to the room and lies down with a sigh of contentment.  Its lightly breathing black and white body does not appear to distract any of the group of fifteen children seated in a circle around it.  The dog is quite comfortable on the hard concrete surface and the children are at ease sitting cross-legged on threadbare rugs.  The teacher sits among the children and at first I am not aware that she is there, as I try to maintain a relaxed position on the impossibly unforgiving ground.  The children are aged between thirteen and fourteen years, girls and boys sit together and some quietly chatter.  Then a silence, not one that is enforced neither one that comes instantly from some regimented reaction.  This silence is natural and brings an air of calm expectancy; certainly the dog is at ease as it stirs, in a fluid movement shifting position.

Despite the discomfort I am experiencing, I sit fascinated listening to the free flowing conversation amongst the children.  Occasionally there is laughter; from time to time there is quiet, neither awkward nor giving space to shuffling embarrassment.  The teacher interjects, questions, challenges, but she is not in control.  There is respect, trust and affection.  Some children switch off for a time; some whisper to each other, however, there is no disruption.  There is a silence at the end of the lesson that brings the children together, sitting straight backed, unforced and in good humour.  The teacher smiles, she thanks the children and they leave chattering and laughing.  Two children stay behind and sit next to the teacher, talking intensely in low voices.  She holds the boy’s hand, the girl rests her hand on the teacher’s arm; there is a different feeling here.

It is time for me to go.  I raise myself somewhat painfully from the rug; I am a sufferer from stiff joints and too much time sitting on chairs.  As I make my way to the heat outside to yet again be subjected to the burning sun, the dog yawns, stretches and effortlessly gets on to its feet.  It joins me with a wag of its tail and we walk together from the concrete to the hot sand.  There we say our goodbyes as I go for cup of chai and the dog goes in search of water.

…

 ‘While we want our students to internalise the ‘right’ principles, if we have any humility we also want them to be able to go beyond our values and develop their own moral sense.  One way to accomplish this is to make time for frequent and open dialogue among students and teachers, in an environment of trust and affection.  This guarantees nothing, of course!  Yet it seems only right that young people be given the opportunity to challenge adults and be challenged in return, and most school environments make this difficult, if not impossible.’              

‘In our schools and classrooms, we generally reward ability rather than effort, and most systems outside school function in a similar way.  If we believe it is worthwhile to question these deeply rooted practices, again it seems we need to engage our students in open dialogue about these issues.  Here, we as teachers are not giving them our rules; rather, we are sharing the complexity of human life in the hope that they can go beyond us.’   Kamala Mukunda  ‘ What Did You Ask At School Today?’ published in India in 2009 by Collins

…

I am working on a proposal to bring dialogue into education in the UK arising from my experience as a teacher, my observations and conversations in India and my connections with the work of J Krishnamurti and Rabindranath Tagore.  I am proposing to entitle this ‘Conversations on Living:  talking together with Young People’.  I shall be exploring further ideas in this area in future blogs and commenting on each step taken.

Exploitation and Freedom

One is aware of the increasing violence: systemic, institutionalised and accepted as a matter of course.  All religions preach peace, but many form an integral part of this aggression as they are divided, factionalised and have, in the past, contributed to some of the most spectacularly violent passages of human history.  A materialistic outlook breeds violence.  It searches for its own gain, devouring everything in its mechanistic blunderings.  The earth is exploited, animals are exploited, and all that is living is exploited for profit of the few.  This is the value of the modern world: everything has its price and we are all consumers paying whatever we are charged.

There is tremendous exploitation and, consequently violence in the education system in the UK.  Competition is the underlying motivational force; school pitted against school through league tables; young people forced to perform against narrow measurement of success; standardised tests are the guidelines of learning and data driven decisions ignore the intricate diversity of human abilities.  Conformity is ensured by an inspectorate that disempowers educators, dehumanises children and squeezes the process of learning into consumable packages.  The political mantra of ‘raising standards’ exists to convince the electorate that central Government  should be the sole arbiter of how our young are educated.  History shows that the instigation of a centrally controlled education is a very effective way of brainwashing a whole society.

Language is very revealing if you want to understand what has happened in education.  Young people are now ‘learners’ who ‘access the curriculum’ which teachers ‘deliver’ – all terms that indicate that learning is a matter of the consumption of knowledge.  Parents are given the illusion of choice and that they are encouraged to complain about their children’s education as if it was something they had purchased from the supermarket.  They want to see at what level their child is performing: a term better used for animals in a circus or actors on a stage.  So education is a transaction of knowledge and skills, not the exploration of life.  In this operation, or perhaps business deal, the teacher gives as an authority and the student receives gratefully so that she or he may become a fully operational economic unit in an aggressively material world.

…

The child must be only three or four years old.  A few moments ago his older sisters passed us laughing and chattering excitedly, pausing to glance shyly in our direction.  This little boy is strolling slowly towards us staring with the direct gaze of absorbed fascination.   It is quite early in the morning and the air is still cool.  Around us is the noise of so many birds going about their business.  But the boy has no awareness of this.  He sees only the pink faces, reddened by the past few days’ exposure to the increasing heat of the sun, and it is quite likely in this dusty remote part of the country that in his short life he has rarely come across Westerners; he appears to be enthralled.  We are not accustomed to being held by such an unwavering stare.  He has slowed to almost standing, but there is no sense of fear or anxiety, just freedom and wonder.  His shirt is a dirty blue and his shorts are ragged and stained, he wears nothing on his feet.  Behind him the lane stretches back to the village, he is making his way to the fields where his parents are working; high with sugar cane ready for harvesting.  His sisters are almost there.

We are close now, still his gaze holds us, a look of such innocence it is if we are touching a life unsullied by suffering.  In a moment we both move in an involuntary gesture of respect, folding our hands in formal greeting.  Bringing his hands together with a clap, he laughs with delight.  An instant of such stillness and perfection we are lifted up into his world of pure joy.  It passes and we are left with the perfume of something that will never be repeated.

Now the little boy has broken into a run to join his older sister who has turned back, realising that her brother is not with them.  On turning to watch them we are rewarded with smiles and waves.  Then they disappear into the field.  Such is the experience of freedom.

Life's passing.

Although the sound of the engine is obtrusive and cuts out much of what can be heard from the shore, the fact that we are in the middle of the Ganges moving steadily towards the city of Varanasi brings intense joy and wonder.  Ahead is the vast iron bridge supporting both the passage of road and rail traffic.  Some years ago we had crossed the river on the bridge a man and his young daughter with us in the carriage; as we passed above the sacred water they swiftly and unobtrusively closed their palms together and, pressing their fingers to their foreheads, said a prayer to the river.  It is a revered being.

Along the banks of the wide stretch of water there is much life, cows are wallowing knee deep in the mud, children playing on the shore and dogs picking through the rubbish washing up on the sands.  A little way from our boat floats a blackened shape, on top sits a large crow staring defiantly out as if to challenge anyone to take its prize.  After some moments gazing at this spectacle, which I take as a large log floating along borne by the current, I realise that it is in fact a corpse blackened and misshapen from being partially burnt, undoubtedly further downstream on the steps of the city’s burning ghats.  And that the fierce bird is not defending its means of travel, but its potential food.  Here is the death of a human being in its throwaway form; the family of the dead may not have been able to afford enough wood, or, once the family have left the burning pyre the body may have been thrown into the river.  For the poor human life is cheap wherever you are and even death has little dignity.  

We travel along the edge of the ancient city, its tightly packed buildings appearing to tumble towards the water.  By the edge are piles of wood waiting to be used and next to them the smouldering fires of  the dead whose ashes will soon be consigned to the slow moving river.  Nearby people are immersing themselves, washing away the past in rituals of purification.

Impermanence is death: the dying of the leaves, the plants and all that is living.  Impermanence is also rebirth: new shoots, young life, the newborn.  We may strenuously try to deny this circle, to prolong existence, to worship youth, fearful of the changes that we see before us.  But we are also blind to the beauty of life’s passing, to the wisdom of age and to the acceptance of our own mortality.  The sweet sounds of melancholy fill much great music and poetry acknowledging the passage of earthly time and our fleeting existence, as well as sharpening our awareness of the temporary suffering that we all must feel.  For sorrow itself is also impermanent.

How can we come to terms with this?  How do we engage and learn about impermanence?  It seems to me that the observation and connection with nature is key this understanding.  Many small children will see a dead animal or bird and  respond to it; questioning its passing and relating that to their own existence.  Watching the seasons change, connecting with all ages and being aware of the constant movement of life without succumbing to the illusion that we can control our existence teaches us to maintain balance and experience the joy of living; even if we live in the city.

As human beings we are strange in our approach to death.  Our militaristic societies that are always prepared for or involved in war spending vast amounts on creating and devising more and more efficient ways of killing.  Political ends seem to justify wholesale slaughter of people we will never see and do not understand.  We glorify killing and raise as heroes the killers as long as their cause is our cause.  But I wonder how many mothers bring their children into the world, care for them and love them so that these children will be blown apart  or will destroy the lives of others.  Whilst some scientists are working tirelessly for the alleviation of the suffering of humanity, many others are putting similar energy into methods of untold destruction; ensuring that we are quite capable of destroying all human life.

So I want to end this with the questions of the relationship between death and violence, and death and peace.  Do we consider the importance of living peacefully?  If so how does this impact on the way we educate each other, as friends, parents, students and teachers?