Good Video: Не могу оторвать глаз от тебя

Though it's generally unknown to Western Buddhists, Russia is one of the formative homelands of our religion. Not only has Buddhism been practiced there for as long as many another Asian nation – for example, the Volga republic of Kalmykia is the only region of Europe to have a historical Buddhist majority – Russia also hosts today what is likely the most fervent and productive conversion movement in the Eurosphere (i.e., nations with white majorities).

I was reminded of this while, for the first time in years, rewatching the above video. I originally encountered this song via primeval Internet radio, and it first appeared on Rusty Ring away back in January 2011, at the bottom of my third-ever post. (Those earliest articles sometimes ended with a premium, called the Cereal Box Prize. When, inevitably, finding and formatting this treat began to eat appalling amounts of blogging time, I abandoned that quirk, though not without regret.)

But having listened to Не могу оторвать глаз от тебя again (and remarveled at that awesome video), I figure it's due for a 14-year bump.

Аквариум (Aquarium) are a seminal Russian pop group, with roots deep in the perilous (for rock musicians) Soviet era. Today they're one of a handful of contemporaries routinely compared to the Beatles. Although founder Boris Grebenshchikov's precise religious convictions remain elusive, he's published multiple translations of Buddhist and Hindu texts and has a long history of including consequent themes in his music.

Just what (or whom) he is singing to here is a bit enigmatic. That chanting refrain suggests your standard love poem; you know, to another human. But the moiling mysticism of those verses opposes that hypothesis.

Still, his repeated second-person appeal at least seems to rule out a Buddhist theme; the author is clearly addressing an interlocutor he can see and calls "you". Our religion generally, though not categorically, refuses to speculate on such things.

The Eastern church, meanwhile – Russia's majority faith – has spoken of and to God in tones very like these for two thousand years.

So there it is: the song is Christian.

But what about that video? Seriously, fellow Buddhists, what about that awesome video? That's not just patently Buddhist, that's outright Zen.

Bodhidharma if ever I saw him.

So maybe "you" is enlightenment. Or the Path. Or the Great Matter. Or Kanzeon. Or some other glib Buddhist euphemism for God.

I don't know.

(See what I did there?)

Anyway, it's in front of you. Watch it. Hear it. See if it doesn't key your bodhisattva nature as hard as it does mine.

The video is of slightly – if very – higher quality than the one shared all those years ago. I was unable to find better, even on our Currently Superior Internet. But no trouble; it still works.

More irksome is the lack of reliable English interpretation. I can grasp the thrust of these lyrics, but my Russian is not up to translating them, at least not accurately. But I can tell that the translation supplied here is a little better than several others I found, by a slim margin.

I'd bet all were generated by artificial ignorance. Buy human, folks.

But for the moment, it seems our only recourse is to accept the best of them, however flawed. Just bridge the gaps with your koanic intelligence.

It's worked for me for 20 years.

WW: Pet bluegill

(Lepomis macrochirus)

A Brief History of the Stick

You can't beat the stick for longevity. (Actually, you can't beat a stick at all. Think about it; it's like biting your teeth, or seeing your eye.)

This is our first tool. Humans have been using it since before we were human. Even people without trees go somewhere else to get one. Picture an Inuit on the move. Guy has a stick, right?

To this day, the walking stick occupies a profound niche in our psychology. Some time ago I read a blog by a professional craftsman of walking sticks, which sadly I can't find to link to now. In it, he pointed out that an elderly person holding a walker or aluminium cane comes off as disabled, mentally and physically, while the same person with a natural wooden stick becomes an Elder, a curator of wisdom and judgement. He's right. Do the thought experiment yourself.

Amazing, eh?

Sanding is a meditative process

It's true that wise old rustics are usually depicted this way in the media, but I'm going to go out on a limb (get it?) and suggest that this phenomenon is rooted in our genetic matrix. After hundreds of millennia, the Spiritual Stick of Authority runs deep in blood memory.

With apologies to the Freudians, I don't believe any of this is phallic. The thing simply made us, and, back when other animals had a competitive edge, even defined us. When was the last time you saw a lion, or a kangaroo, or even a chimpanzee, walk with a stick? (UPDATE! Turns out we ain't so cool after all. Read all about it here.) That's why the pursuit of a higher life, to this day, is signaled by taking one up.

Bigleaf maple sands very nicely

My stick is on both orders. That is, it's a symbol of my hermit practice, and a working tool. It's a limb in every sense of the word, an extension of my body; I feel unbalanced when I'm without it. It used to be a bigleaf maple sapling, until I did some yard work at the zendo. As a wood it's light, strong, and takes a polish.

The hook on the end greatly extends the stick's usefulness. With it I pull down fruit, hang fudos, drag apart wads of stuff on the beach, and hang up the stick when at home or rest.

The blank was stripped and allowed to dry in a stable climate for several weeks, then trimmed and machine sanded with medium-grit sandpaper. Then it was hand-sanded with medium grit, and again with four successively finer grits.

To keep your monk stick strong Eeeeeyou must whip it!

The ground end was whipped with tarred seine twine and coated with PVC cement to prevent splitting. (Update on this experiment here.)

Finally the whole thing was rubbed several times with trinity tar and hung near the woodstove for half a day between coats to cure. The ultimate polish was done with nothing but my hands, rubbing vigorously enough to raise heat, for about an hour total. (Though not all at once.) Naturally, my hands also continue to polish it with daily use.

I now have a renewable finish that raises the natural grain of the wood, pleasing to the hand, with a silky feel and deep, three-dimensional luster you can't beat with a... well, you just gotta admire.

Behold, I have mastered humanity's earliest technology!

I already had a stick, so I made myself one.

Gassho!

This week's cereal box prize: Terrific video by Russian Buddhist Boris Grebenshchikov and his band Аквариум (Aquarium). It's called Не могу оторвать глаз от тебя ("I can't even look away from you"), but in spite of the pedestrian boy-girl title, it's a love song of a different kind. One of my favourite vids of all time.