The Talkative Man

Zen Koan #31: Parable of Everything Is Best – Buddhist Teaching on Listening

Zen Koan #31: Parable of Everything Is Best - Buddhist Teaching on Listening Criticism is usually unjustified. Yet even in the midst of this noisy and crowded world, we are given a small area to practice. After defining all those you have to work out how to do it in real life—that’s the hard part—how to abstain from all these. If others can practice, then at least you can endeavor. Let us verbalize about rest. You should have faith that every method is a good method and every individual is good practitioner. If any part of your body feels painful, you should try to relax it. However, this Bodhi tree is alive and growing. When examining a branch, we can’t disconnect it from the earlier branches, the trunk, or the roots. They’re all part of the whole.

A Bodhi tree (ficus religiosa) is withal a stringy looking fig tree, with branches that infrequently weave into each other, and then back out again. So long as you practice diligently, practice is the totality. If you were to leave the water alone, the ripples would eventually subside and the surface would be still.

You may be critical of the food, or the style of the retreat. It is just as if when one side senses it is losing the battle, suddenly all resistance is gone and they are defeated very quickly. This was due to his greed for the experience.

Zen Koan: “Everything Is Best” Parable

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer.

“Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. “You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”

At these words Banzan became enlightened.

Buddhist Insight on Listening

Anger, hatred, aversion is related qualities, according to Zen Buddhism. It’s not that you should do it, but these are just laws of what makes life richer or better off in some way. They should be reminded that there are some listening eternal truths, which can never become out-of-date. However, if you have an interesting idea or very original thought, listening, ill will is willing to hear it out. Shunryu Suzuki, the Japanese-American Zen monk who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, writes in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,

When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions; you should just listen to him, just observe the way he is. We put very little emphasis on right and wrong or good or bad. We just see things as they are with him, and accept them. This is how we communicate with each other. Usually when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself. You are actually listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion you may accept it, but if it does not, you will reject it or you may not even really hear it.

Zen Koan #30: Parable of Calling Card – Buddhist Teaching on Understanding and Awakening

Zen Koan #30: Parable of Calling Card - Buddhist Teaching on Understanding and Awakening In the commencement, the Buddha wasn’t composing stuff like that and it had more effect in those days—there were lots more people who seemed to be doing a lot better in their Zen Meditation with fewer diversions—things were simpler. People used to just cogitate and heedfully aurally perceive the construal of the words. To come to a retreat merely out of curiosity shows a lack of faith in yourself and in the practice; it would be impossible for you to get good results.

Generally, people enjoy living in the world of confusion for the reason that it is much more entertaining. So long as your mind is filled with greed, hatred, or ignorance, you will be immersed in vexation and suffering. There are two types of food for the body: nutrition and contact. Later when your Zen Meditation is not as pleasurable, you may try to analyze how you sat so well that one time and why you are so uncomfortable now.

Disassociate yourself from the part of your body that is painful. Trouble can only develop in a state of discrimination. The more you go after it, the more it eludes you. The more you want benefits from Zen, the further you will be from obtaining them. Practice is a foolish endeavor, like climbing a crystal mountain covered with oil.

Zen Koan: “Calling Card” Parable

Keichu, the great Zen teacher of the Meiji era, was the head of Tofuku, a cathedral in Kyoto. One day the governor of Kyoto called upon him for the first time.

His attendant presented the card of the governor, which read: Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto.

“I have no business with such a fellow,” said Keichu to his attendant. “Tell him to get out of here.”

The attendant carried the card back with apologies. “That was my error,” said the governor, and with a pencil he scratched out the words Governor of Kyoto. “Ask your teacher again.”

“Oh, is that Kitagaki?” exclaimed the teacher when he saw the card. “I want to see that fellow.”

Buddhist Insight on Understanding and Awakening

The uncontrolled harm of things is limitless. Take a few minutes off your daily chores, sit down in a quiet place, and be mindful of your thoughts. That doesn’t mean that we have to go off in a hermitage, but our household life, our driving, our interpersonal relations, they are our considerate practice, and they require some working with. She wrote this note after a couple of days of trying meditation awareness. The British meditation teacher Christina Feldman and American vipassana teacher Jack Kornfield write in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart,

In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.

The Different Types and Varieties of Rice

Rice is usually divided into three general categories: long, medium and short grains. All have their special bites, textures, sizes and colours.

Long-grain rice, as the name denotes, is long and thin. It has a fluffy texture when cooked, and its grains remain separate. Parboiled rice is similar in appearance and texture to long-grain rice, but has been steamed and cooked before being milled.
Medium-grain rice is slightly shorter and fatter than the other types. It absorbs more liquid and has a creamier finish when cooked.
Short-grain rice is very short, and absorbs an immense amount of liquid during cooking, making the end result sticky and wet.

Primary Dietary Staple

At just under 400 calories for every lOOg in its raw state, rice is the main dietary staple of half the world’s population. From standard white grains to nutty-flavoured brown, to creamy risotto rice, to the exotic wild, rice offers something to tantalise most appetites.

American Longgrain: you’re bound to have this as a staple in your store-cupboard. American longgrain is the most commonly available rice, and a standard in the kitchen.
White Basmati: from the foothills of the Himalayas, this rice, with the bran taken out, is full of flavour and aroma. Serve with curries or other dishes which have a sauce to mingle with the rice.
Brown Basmati: the same as white basmati but with the bran left in. Use this like the white variety.
Carnaroli Rice: these tubby grains release starch as they cook, which is why Italian risotto is such a great comfort food.
Red Camargue Rice: this is French rice with a distinctive red colour and nutty flavour. It’s good when served with fish, meat or in salads.
Sushi Rice: this small, chubby Japanese grain is the perfect rice for making sushi because it gets so sticky when cooked.
Thai Fragrant: this is grown in the paddy fields of Thailand; it becomes fluffy when cooked and has a faint jasmine fragrance. It is delicious with any Thai dish.
Wild Rice: this is not true rice but an aquatic American grass. It must be cooked for longer, but the texture is satisfying and the nutty flavour is delicious. It is good mixed with white rice, but you can’t cook the two together. Cook them separately, starting the wild rice ahead of time, and then mix them together.

The highest consumption of rice per capita is in Myanmar (Burma), which is perhaps not surprising when you consider that Burma is smack in the middle of territory where rice cultivation most likely originated thousands of years ago. Radiocarbon dating of strata containing grains of rice found in south China indicates rice was cultivated as far back as 7,000 years ago. Researchers say that rice may have been indigenous to India and then moved eastward to Indochina and south-east Asia.

Rice is a Primary Dietary Staple It is amylose—a linear polymer of glucose—in cooked long-grain rice that causes it to seize up or harden when refrigerated. This is called retrogradation; the starch cells collapse, squeezing the moisture out and causing the realignment of the starch molecules. Much to the chagrin of the cook, the rice turns hard. Retrogradation cannot be avoided, but it can be reversed when the rice is reheated. Don’t keep cooked rice in the fridge for long. Cooked rice is one of the most common causes of food poisoning, brought about by the bacteria Bacillus Cereus, which develops when cooked rice is left too long in the fridge. Cooked rice should be cooled rapidly and stored in a clean, sealed container within an hour of cooking. Treat it like meat: no more than four days in the fridge.

Rice is gluten-free and easily digestible, making it a good choice for infants and people with wheat allergies or digestive problems. A half-cup of cooked white rice provides 82 calories; an equal amount of brown rice provides 89 calories.

Zen Koan #29: Parable of No Water, No Moon – Buddhist Teaching on the Present Moment

Zen Koan #29: Parable of No Water, No Moon - Buddhist Teaching on the Present Moment Material development alone sometimes solves one quandary but engenders another. For example, certain people may have acquired wealth, a good edification, and a high convivial standing, yet ecstasy eludes them. They take slumbering pills and drink an extravagant amount of alcohol.

Something is missing, something still not consummated, so these people take refuge in drugs or in a bottle. It is when you do not feel successful that you put in the effort. As soon as you become attached to something, you lose the direction of the method. When you experience everything as equal, all distinctions will naturally disappear. You are definitely in this place and not some other. The realization of a koan is not just a cognitive understanding, and this naturally follows from the essential theme cited earlier that logic cannot be used to understand a koan. If you try to eliminate the difficulties, it would be like observing a pan of water. In fact, their efforts have only increased their mental vexations, and have created physical ones as well.

By practicing daily Zen Meditation and going on recedes, at least you are pumping the air into the tire to some extent. On the contrary, everything is there clearly, and in place.

Zen Koan: “No Water, No Moon” Parable

When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.

At last one moonlit night she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was set free!

In commemoration, she wrote a poem:

In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!

Buddhist Insight on Return to the Present Moment

In Zen Buddhism, you can practice with annoyance with your partner or your spouse in the present moment. Moreover, you can be as happy watching a sunset or taking a walk as having an overgenerous night out on the town because you know how to relate to those things. There’s a mythology of returning to the present moment in our country that is false. When you’ve gotten good, you can even try loving some of our politicians. The American Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck writes in Nothing Special: Living Zen,

Most of our difficulties, our hopes, and our worries are empty fantasies. Nothing has ever existed except this moment. That’s all there is. That’s all we are. Yet most of us human beings spend 50 to 90 percent or more of their time in their imagination, living in fantasy. We think about what has happened to us, what might have happened, how we feel about it, how we should be different, how others should be different, how it’s all a shame, and so on; it’s all fantasy, all imagination. Memory is imagination. Every memory that we stick to devastates our life.

Balestrand’s Dragon Style or Swiss Chalet Style of Architecture

Dragon Motif and the Viking Protective Function

Located on the Norway’s most spectacular Sognefjorden fjord, Balestrand is small town that was named by Henrik Wergeland (1808–45), the Norwegian a poet and playwright, in 1832. Bale was the name of a farm here; in Old Norse this meant a ‘Grass-covered Field sloping down to the Sea’ with strand meaning ‘seashore.’

The Dragon Motif in Switzerland Style of Architecture

Surrounded by fjords, mountains, waterfalls and breathtaking panoramas, Balestrand was the adopted home of numerous 19th-century national romantic painters, whose paintings and presence contributed to an explosion in tourism—a vestige that continues to this day. Balestrand is perfectly situated for rest and relaxation as well as for exploring the surrounding area on the optional excursions.

Red Villa in Balestrand with Dragon Style or Switzerland Style

Switzerland Style is the name given to a way of building with heads of dragons and hallways which we find in many villas from the 1890s along the fjord in Balestrand. The architecture has very little to do with Switzerland. The villas are a result of an effort in trying to make a national style of architecture in wooden houses.

Dragon Heads Rising from the Gables in Balestrand Architecture

This architecture was inspired by old store houses on pillars, stave churches, and so on. The architect Karl Norum has drawn several of the houses, and they are mainly precut in Trondheim. By means of a catalog, the owner could order heads of dragons and other decorative elements according to taste.

Red Dragon-head Villas in Balestrand Architecture

Any visitor to Balestrand will be charmed by its setting and its welcoming locals eager to share the artistic history of their Nordic ecstasy. The famous white gingerbread Kviknes Hotel at water’s edge, the red dragon-head villas on the lane skirting the fjord, and the yellow and brown stave-like St. Olaf’s Church not only signify the architecture of the national romantic period but lend a fairy-tale ambiance to this quietly rolling patch of landscape thrust between mountains and sea.

Heads of Dragons in in Balestrand Architecture

Kviknes Hotel has been owned by the same family since 1877. You can opt for a more modern stay in the 1960s wing, but we’d endorse a room in the original building, parts of which date from 1752. There’s an old world charm to them with spectacular views over the water.

Architecture Along Fjord in Balestrand

In 1891, Eilert Normann built a summer home on the Sognefjord. This a red villa in what is called “dragon style” or “Switzerland style” borrowing a motif from the Vikings, with dragon heads rising from the gables.

Balestrand Dragon Style or Switzerland Style of Architecture

Normann was the first artist to build a house in this particular style, which became the prototype for the ones that came later. These houses created the special atmosphere of the town and were of great importance to tourism.

Dragon-like Heads and Serpentine Bodies in Norwegian Architecture

In Switzerland Style, the dragon motif is revived in an architectural context. The dragon symbol so often employed by the Vikings “had a protective function” that made it the ideal adornment for a shelter.

Dragon Motif is Revived in an Architectural Context in Norway

Creatures with dragon-like heads and serpentine bodies can be traced in Norway as early as the Bronze Age. They were well developed by the time of the Vikings, who carved them on their long boats, wagons, sleds, tents and beds. Later the dragon appeared on drinking vessels, at the portals of churches and in other places.

Architecture in Wooden Houses in Norway

The dragon heads jutting out from the gable peaks were typical of stave churches, and were adopted as an important symbol during the national romantic period, as Norway sought to assert its cultural identity.

The Fascinating History of Ann Arbor’s Iconic Bookstore Mural

The Fascinating History of Ann Arbor's Iconic Bookstore Mural

Ann Arbor’s The Bookstore Mural is a famous outdoor mural by artist Richard Wolk located on the corner of Liberty Street and State Street in downtown. The mural is an Ann Arbor emblem and one of the city’s most prominent pieces of public art.

The work, sometime ago known as the Bookstore Mural, was painted in 1984 when David’s Books occupied the corner of Liberty Street and State Street. A Potbelly Sandwich store presently is housed in the building.

Bloomfield Hills-based Richard Wolk, who graduated from the University of Michigan, contacted the management at David’s Books (which closed in 2011) in early 1984 on the subject of replacing a preceding bookstore-related mural with something a bit more fun: actual authors. He started work in March 1984 and completed it in June 1984.

According to a feature in the July 8, 1984 issue of the Ann Arbor News,

The mural certainly rebels against bare cement, but whether it’s an artisitic rebellion is, well, unclear.

Larger than life, the giants of literature beckon passersby into David’s Books, the owner of which commissioned the mural.

Is the mural a billboard, a clever advertisement for the books and ideas behind the wall? Perhaps partly, but to Ed Koster, the owner of the bookshop, who hired the artist, the mural is “aesthetic.”

“I like the portraits themselves,” he said, “but I would have preferred a different background.” The background is in two parts: a starry night sky above a field a flowers.

The Fascinating History of Ann Arbor's Iconic Bookstore Mural

Measuring about 60 feet by 20 feet, the mural portrays the headshots of five cultural icons, whose work was familiar to the artist Richard Wolk.

Woody Allen: the American film director, scriptwriter, and actor. Allen has starred in most of his own films, many of which have won Oscars and which hilariously survey themes of psychosis and sexual shortcomings. Artist Wolk chose Woody Allen because of the proximity of the mural to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater and State Theater.
Edgar Allan Poe: the American short-story writer, poet, and critic whose fiction and poetry are Gothic and characterized by their examination of the gruesome and the bizarre.
Hermann Hesse: the German-born Swiss novelist and poet whose written works reflect his concern in spiritual Eastern values and his enthusiasm for Jungian psychoanalysis.
Franz Kafka: the Prague-born Czech German-language novelist, who wrote in German whose written works portray of an mysterious and terrifying realism where the individual is apparent as lonesome, confused, and defenseless.
Anais Nin: the French-American writer whose first novel House of Incest (1936) evokes haunting images of love, lust, desire, emotion, and pain. Wolk selected Anais Nin because his 1984 girlfriend liked Nin’s writing.

The Bookstore Mural has also been called The Poet Mural, Liberty Street Mural, and East Liberty Street Wall Mural.

In 2010, the mural gained significant media attention as the original painter was hired to touch it up, 26 years after he originally painted it.

The Bookstore Mural was represented in the official movie posters for the 2011 film, Answer This, which was mainly filmed in various locations around Ann Arbor—the setting is the University of Michigan.

The famous mural is also one of the most prominent public places for the setting of wedding pictures.

Zen Koan #28: Parable of Open Your Own Treasure House – Buddhist Teaching on Wise Choices

Zen Koan #28: Parable of Open Your Own Treasure House - Buddhist Teaching on Wise Choices Buddha just means awake; one who is awake. When we allow thoughts, we can create incredible stories that make us laugh and make us cry. The more you try to control your mind, the more stray thoughts will come up to bother you. At this point, we may have come to the conclusion that we should drop the whole game of spiritual materialism; that is; we should give up trying to defend and improve ourselves.

Let’s return to the opening lines of the poem, “The Supreme Way is not difficult if only you do not pick and choose.” Actually, it is not hard to reach enlightenment if you do not grasp or reject. If you carried it home with you, your bowels would be in serious trouble. They ponder over all sorts of issues. They doubt the method and whether they can reach their objective. It requires meticulous attention. Those who do not practice Zen are not aware of their deepest vexations.

Daily problems and the pain of daily life may often feel almost poisonous. However, meditative awareness can help you to convert that poison into medicine, the medicine of cheerfulness. Taking refuge in the Dharma means taking refuge in the law, in the way things are; it is acknowledging our surrender to the truth and allowing the Dharma to unfold within us.

Zen Koan: “Open Your Own Treasure House” Parable

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: “What do you seek?”

“Enlightenment,” replied Daiju.

“You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?” Baso asked.

Daiju inquired: “Where is my treasure house?”

Baso answered: “What you are asking is your treasure house.”

Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends: “Open your own treasure house and use those treasures.”

Buddhist Insight on Wise Choices

In Zen Buddhism, these words embody an experience just as the world love embodies an experience of mind and body. All these phenomena arise dependent upon a number of casual factors. Doing so will help one to forget one’s insignificant worries and troubles, to clarify one’s thinking, and to recall the decisive values and truths upon which one should build one’s life. With wise choices, no discipline is ever needed. The British meditation teacher Christina Feldman writes in The Buddhist Path to Simplicity,

How much of the knowledge, information, and strategies of our story serve us well? In our life story we experience hurt, pain, fear and rejection, at times caused by others, at others self-inflicted. Understanding what causes sorrow, pain, and devastation translates into discriminating wisdom, and we do not knowingly expose ourselves to these conditions. We are all asked to make wise choices in our lives – choices rooted in understanding rather than fear.

The Buddha used the analogy of a raft. Walking beside a great river, the bank we are standing on is dangerous and frightening and the other bank is safe. We collect branches and foliage to build a raft to transport us to the other shore. Having made the journey safely, supposing we picked up the raft and carried it on our head wherever we went. Would we be using the raft wisely? The obvious answer is “No.” A reasonable person would know how useful the raft has been, but wisdom would be to leave the raft behind and walk on unencumbered.

The Romantic Rome at Nighttime

During the day, Rome is a very busy modern city of two and a half million people and people are going about their business—they are crowding onto the buses, they are trying to hail a taxi, there speeding like heck through traffic—and it really can be very exhausting.

When the sun goes down, the entire character changes and it’s not just for tourists but for the people there and this is what they live for in Rome. To be able to come out and socialize and everything becomes more relaxed and people’s attitude changes. For them, the and evening is not “I’m going to rush here to this concert” and “I’m going to rush there to get dinner” and “I’m going to grab something to go” the way many Americans would do—instead it’s settling down into this easy rhythm of life and seeing what’s going to happen next.

Think about to the traditional Roman siesta. People will take their large meal in the afternoon and maybe even sit down and take a little nap or watch a little TV for 20 minutes or something—all in order to recharge their batteries so that they can come out at night and that’s when they really live and that’s what tourist should also do. Take a little break from your sightseeing in the heat of the mid-afternoon, take your little siesta, and gear up for the wonder of Roman nighttime.

Archaeologist Rome Romantic Rome by Night

Archaeologist’s Rome by Day and the Romantic Rome by Night

Get ready for the transformation of Roman grandiosity to Italian intimacy. What makes an intimate Rome easier is the way the city is lit at night. It was a deliberate choice on the part of the city administration not to have this neon glare that sort of flattens everything and makes everything look the same, but to have these very soft orange lights that are supposed to imitate the light of a torches in the past. So when you stroll through the city at night you can’t see everything together from afar. You have to discover it closely as you get to it. All this affords a gradual intimate look that you’ll really love and also makes you imagine the city in the evening.

There is an interesting distinction—there’s the grand Rome and then there’s the intimate Rome. By day it really is the grand Rome with icons such as the great Roman monuments, the Coliseum, and Pantheon. But really that the night-time Rome is the small, medieval lanes the people walk through. By day it’s the archaeologist’s Rome and by night is the romantic Rome.

The Aperitivo Culture - Romantic Rome at Nighttime

The Aperitivo Culture

Even if you’re not a type of person that likes a cocktail before dinner, have a drink on a piece of expensive real estate, enjoy the little munchies surrounded by local people doing exactly that. If you’re in the mood to splurge, join in a rooftop bar at a hotel downtown, or just have an aperitivo on one of the squares. Then have dinner, skip dessert, take an after-dinner stroll with gelato.

A wonderful Roman night is all about the pace of things. Romans don’t try to fit in like dinner and a show … it just kind of dinner. You linger over each course because the meal becomes the evening’s entertainment itself and the Romans love to dress up to go out to meet their friends, sit at a little cafe or restaurant with rickety tables and traffic roaring past them. It’s that little slice of intimacy where they can then get into that pace of life and that rhythm of life where each course becomes a new magical thing. Don’t be a traveler who wants to keep it moving.

Charming Medieval Roman Neighborhood Trastevere

Trastevere—a Charming Medieval Roman Neighborhood with an Intense Character

You got that that local pride; there was a time when they would never cross the river on the other side of the Tiber River. In fact, literally Trastevere means “the other side of the river”—the district’s name derives from the Latin words “Trans Tiberim” beyond the Tiber River.

This is that other side of Rome—the intimate side of Rome—the Rome of the narrow lanes of the red pastel colors, buildings with green ivy hanging down with the people’s laundry hanging overhead, lanes pop into tiny little squares that feature little cafes, restaurants, pizzerias where you can sit down and enjoy your meal. The food is great, the aperitifs are great, but it really is presenting you the theater of the people. Don’t let that pass by. Hang out in these squares and you’re paying your cover charge for a great celebration of life.

Nighttime Romantic Walks - Romantic Rome at Nighttime

Nighttime Romantic Walks in Roman

For a great walk, start from St Peter’s Square because in the evening is lit up splendidly and I would just walk towards the river where the Castel Sant’Angelo, a Fortress where the Popes used to escape to in the past. It’s also a little beautifully lit monument cross the river Tiber, where you can cross the bridge of the Angels which is decorated with his beautiful Bernini statues. Walk along the Via dei Coronari and it does give us that back street village that is very romantic and end up at the beautiful square Piazza Navona.

Castel Sant’Angelo was originally a tomb for Emperor Hadrian. That was the original structure and then it took on other uses as time went on and in the medieval times because it was so tall and so monumental, it was used as a castle and as a prison. This tomb for Emperor Hadrian is across from the river Tiber because Ancient Roman laws established that the dead had to be buried outside the city.

it’s a wonderful place to go up at sunset. A great way to kick off your evening you go up there and you look across and you have this incredible view of Michelangelo’s Dome and all of the other domes of the city. You watch the sun turn orange and you watch the pigeons as they start flying by and this is where you begin to see night descend on the Eternal City.

What’s great about Rome at night is that on the one hand you’re walking down a little alley way or a little narrow street and then torch lit or seemingly torch lit with this new lighting and on all of a sudden you pop out and there’s a floodlit monument … there’s the pantheon … and all that then surprise element and you’re getting that mix of this very romantic and dark that this then punctuated with a blaze of light and glory from ancient monument and you can have a kind of a quiet street and suddenly you step into a floodlit square with three grand fountains and artists and street musicians and outdoor cafes in the evening.

Via del Corso Spanish Steps - Romantic Rome at Nighttime

Via del Corso, the Fountains, and the Spanish Steps in Rome

The main drag, the Via del Corso is shutdown, with police on horses monitoring the activities. It says a lot about the way in which an urban setting can be experienced … the Romans hate crowds as much as anybody else but they also don’t like deserted places. The passeggiata can feel that you’re part of a community … part of something bigger than just yourself.

Go to the Spanish Steps because that’s where all of Rome will be descending for nightfall and you will see the things that are typical of Rome at night. Witness the flood lights, see Bernini’s fountain down at the base, with people sitting on the on the steps, and if you wanted to you could climb up to the top where you can get a great view out over all of Rome so you can really feel like you are in one place but you’re taking part of the entire city.

Fall in Love with Nighttime Rome

During the day it can be an overwhelming city by day where everyone’s in a hurry and traffic generally competes with some of the greatest city views anywhere, but after dark that’s when Rome becomes a true spectacle.

Architectural Charm of the Chalukyan Durga Temple in Aihole, Karnataka

Durga temple is the biggest and arguably the most attractive temple at Aihole. Though it is called Durga Temple, it has nothing to do with goddess Durga or Durgi. The name of the temple may have derived from the word ‘durga’ meaning fort. As one enters Aihole from the north, this temple is found near the fort and people should have named it Durga (fort) temple.

Durga Fort Temple in Aihole - Chalukyan Architecture The most important charm of this temple for which it is celebrated is the apsidal character of the posterior part of this architecture. Generally apsidal or gajapristha form is found in Buddhist monuments. Nevertheless, this temple being non-Buddhist and yet having an apsidal posterior part is an mystery, which has not been explained satisfactorily by art historians. Conceivably one of the architects experimented with this type of plan in the Hindu temple and it did not become popular and for this reason given up. There is a comparable apsidal temple at Mahakuta, very close to Aihole which was also an primitive Chalukyan art center.

The temple consists of an apsidal garbhagriha, sabhamandapa, a mandapa and a mukhamandapa in east-west axis and the temple opens to the east. The temple has a base of six different moldings. The temple is entered through two flights of steps to the south and north of the mandapa. On the basement are square pillars all the way through the construction including the apsidal garbhagriha.

Hindu Temples Architecture during Chalukyas - Durga Temple, Aihole

The rows of pillars contains two pradakshinapathas, which is an exceptional architectural feature. The longish sabhamandapa has been divided into three portions by its pillars. The large number of pillars in this temple have been utilized by the artists to carve a large number puranic stories and self-supporting sculptures. These sculptures are of high order and add refinement and charisma to this temple.

Shiva Dancing Statue Durga Temple in Aihole, Karnataka On the pillars of the mukhamandapa are found passionate couples in various suggestive poses. On another pillar is found Shiva dancing on apasmara. The inner wall of the mukhamandapa has Ramayana panel, Ardhanarisvara and Ugranarasimha killing Hiranyakashipu. The front entrance of the mandapa is well carved with dvarapalas, Yamuna and Ganga, and further sculptures.

Unfortunately, there are no inscriptions to date this temple. Derived from stylistic evidence, various dates have been assigned to this temple. While many scholars consider 600 C.E. as the date of this temple, some others assign it to seventh century C.E.

The Phenomenon That’s Guernica—Picasso’s Fabled Artwork

The Phenomenon that's Guernica---Picasso's Fabled Artwork

To tackle appreciating the art of Spain, you can certainly hit the top highlights. That would include the Prado Museum in Madrid, arguably Europe’s greatest painting museum. Also in Madrid is Picasso’s Guernica, a monster painting that not only is a testament against modern warfare but is so much part of the Spanish history with its horses and bulls and weeping women imagery and gets right to the heart of Spain’s Civil War.

I’d certainly put on the list the Alhambra in Granada. This is evocative of 700 years of Muslim settlement in Spain which we now think of this great Catholic country but for 700 years ago it was Muslim. The Alhambra is a lush Arabian-nights-wonderland is the best place to appreciate the Muslim settlement of Spain.

Finally there’s Gaudi’s unfinished Cathedral of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. This gives the grandeur of Spanish dreams into this cake-melting-in-the-rain sort of architecture with the soaring towers this become very much the symbol of the city of Barcelona.

The Prado Museum’s incredible wealth of paintings is my favorite collection of paintings from all of Europe. Madrid has so many art treasures because it was the capital of the Spanish colonial empire. The Prado’s collection is illustrative of the how important Spain was in the past. There are a lot of famous Flemish paintings there because the Netherlands was actually a Spanish colony.

The Guernica, located in Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Spain’s National Museum, is incredible painting by Picasso. In a lot of ways it is the painting of Europe—when you talk about the struggles of the 20th century. The reason why Guernica is located in Madrid is that Picasso was the curator of the Prado Museum during those 12 years in the Spanish Civil War and that is always his cubist interpretation of the Spanish Civil War. The message is absolutely bleak, with direct impact. In black and white, the piece has the importance of a newspaper photo. Flailing bulls and horses illustrate that the visceral horrors of war are not just an insult to human civilization, but to human life.

Picasso Painting Guernica For many years Picasso’s Guernica was actually in exile in New York City and that’s because Picasso insisted that the painting was so much against the then dictatorial government of Spain, led by Francisco Franco. Picasso would not allow his painting to be in a Franco-ruled Spain and it wasn’t until Franco finally died and a new democratic regime came in to power that that painting could be repatriated and brought back to its homeland. Guernica is a vast canvas in solemn tones of grey and blue, it shows in scorching detail the suffering of people and animals as bombs fell on their town.

Guernica is actually a town in the Basque Province of northern Spain, to the east of Bilbao. Formerly the seat of a Basque parliament and it was bombed in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, by German planes in support of Franco. This event is depicted in the famous painting by Picasso. Picasso’s painting of the bombing of Guernica is one of the 20th century’s most famous images.

Franco died in 1975, but sadly Picasso died two years before that and he lived to see the day when his most famous painting went back to his homeland. Picasso pledged that neither he nor this painting would ever pay a visit to Spain until democracy was restored. This did not happen until 1978, five years after his death.

Zen Koan: “Everything Is Best” Parable

Buddhist Insight on Listening

Zen Koan: “Calling Card” Parable

Buddhist Insight on Understanding and Awakening

Primary Dietary Staple

Zen Koan: “No Water, No Moon” Parable

Buddhist Insight on Return to the Present Moment

Related Posts

Zen Koan: “Open Your Own Treasure House” Parable

Buddhist Insight on Wise Choices

Related Posts

Archaeologist’s Rome by Day and the Romantic Rome by Night

The Aperitivo Culture

Trastevere—a Charming Medieval Roman Neighborhood with an Intense Character

Nighttime Romantic Walks in Roman

Via del Corso, the Fountains, and the Spanish Steps in Rome

Fall in Love with Nighttime Rome

Related Posts

Related Posts