If we could see the future of what we are thinking, saying and doing today, would we change what we are thinking, saying and doing?<\/p>\n
Mindful of Aryadeva pointing out that what results from a given moment is determined by our intention and compassion<\/em> and interested in the recent discussion about the book, Cloud Atlas<\/em>, I wanted to share my enthusiasm for the book, encourage you to read it and invite all of us to share books (and other media) which serve to expand, refine, inform and deepen our study of TSK. I had never heard of David Mitchell before this and the film will not be in England until next February, so I came fresh to it.<\/p>\n Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the book points to how decisions taken in ignorance repercuss across time. It weaves a series of interconnected tales which criss-cross temporal lineages, through an awesome versatility of language, style and sensitivity to historical period. I was reminded often of Jack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reference to our endeavour in studying and practising TSK as being \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcheroic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and that in communicating as we do through this site, we are building a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcheroic community.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n Dust jacket blurb:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific Ocean in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in Belgium between the\u00c2\u00a0 First and Second World Wars; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; the testament of a genetically modified \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdinery server\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation – the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.<\/em><\/p>\n If you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like knowing endings ahead of time, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read this next bit\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The book ends with Adam Ewing (the scrivener of the Pacific Journal) saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we believe<\/em> that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe<\/em> divers races and creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe<\/em> leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth and its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pen or a vainglorious general\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sword.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n And\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!<\/p>\n Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If we could see the future of what we are thinking, saying and doing today, would we change what we are thinking, saying and doing? Mindful of Aryadeva pointing out that what results from a given moment is determined by … Continue reading