I just got back from Koyasan. It was an amazing experience.
The day we arrived the head monk gave us a speech about the mandalas in the Kongobuji temple of Koyasan. There was a very impressive ceremony and dancing by women from the temple at the end. We all sat around inside the main temple room and listened. (I snuck around a bit and took pictures.) A magazine, AERA, is doing a story about me and the cameraman was also snooping around taking pictures of me taking pictures of stuff.
Koyasan only has temples and no hotels, but many of the temples are a lot like nice Japanese ryokan. The one we stayed at was beautiful.
The next morning, there was a panel lead by Nakazawa-san, a famous expert on religion, Miyazaki-san, a monk from Koyasan and Pema Gyalpo Gyari, the liaison for the Dali Lama and a Tibetan. Here are some notes from the panel. It is all a bunch of significant trivia. I wonder if I should call it signifia... It's probably not a good idea for me to try to come up with words in the middle of the night... anyway.
Buddha was the son of a destroyed state so like the Jews and the Christians, he taught not to worship idols and things since that's a good way to get caught in a hostile state.
When the Taliban bombed the statues in Afghanistan, many Japanese monks were indifferent, saying only, "well it doesn't really matter if we have statues."
Miyazaki-san went as far as to say, blowing up the big Buddha in Nara may be a good thing for Buddhism in Japan.
The mandala is also just a representation of the impression of where Buddha meditated. It is a tool for meditation and NOT something to worship. Therefore, like idols, it doesn't really matter if we have them or not. What is important is knowing one's self.
The Tibetans teach from the Book of the Dead about life. Death is one of the most important things to teach. Japanese Buddhist universities do not teach enough about death. Monks are live half way between the world of the dead and the world of the living and that should be their primary job.
Japanese temples were all originally set up to keep graves and the most important task of a monk is to help the living pass to the world of the dead.
Koyasan which is basically graves, trees and a training ground for the soul is being considered for a position as a world treasure. The monk thought it would be bad. Koyasan really don't have anything and the attention would probably be detrimental. The main asset physically is the graves of most of the emperors and famous people, letting everyone know that EVERYONE dies.
Koyasan was originally a Shinto shrine that was ovetaken by Buddhists. This is a little known/publicized fact. On the other hand, without the entry of Buddhism, Shinto would probably not have taken the more organized form it has taken today.
They talked about the fact that Hirofumi Ito studied religion of the West and decided that one God and a unified religion were necessary for a strong nation. He split Shinto and Buddhism and made the Emperor the God of the Shinto religion, even until the then the Emperor was a great believer of Buddhism and most of them were buried at Koyasan. Then, Japan lost the war, the Emperor lost his power and Japan became atheist.
Another point was that the world "religion" was imported during the Meiji Restoration and is a new word in Japan. Japan referred to the Way of Buddha or the Way of Shinto and believed in things, but organized religion was not defined until Japan started to copy the west.
Another interested point was that Japan was the only country where Buddhists had graves. The monk said that he thought it was to keep the dead people from coming back. The more important the person, the bigger the grave. ;-) Pema said that he thought Japanese funerals where everyone talked about the person while the monk was trying to send them on their way was rude since it probably made it difficult to go to the other side.
One other interesting piece of information was that Tibetan Buddhists don't kill mosquitos. They blow them off their bodies. Also, Pema told us that he was less concerned at eating whale than small fish since each life is precious and one life to feed many is better than many lives to feed one...
Engin01, the cultural non-profit that I helped start is having an offsite meeting at one of the most famous temples in Japan, Koyasan. There are no hotels to stay in, just temples. I will be staying in a temple with Mizuka, Yanai-san of Pia and his wife Makiko-san. I will be bringing my camera and computer, so I may be able to bring my blog with me, but if I am out of touch for a few days, sorry! I'll upload stuff when I get back.
A pretty funny article in Satirewire. What is particularly amusing is that I sometimes think this. I know it is best practice to encrypt everything. (Otherwise it is obvious that encrypted messages are important.) But I've been having problems with PGP on my PC and sometimes I spend a great deal of effort to decrypt a message that just turns out to be some silly email that didn't NEED to be encrypted. ;-)
Of course, this is exactly the wrong position to take. We really should encrypt everything. This is not meant as a message for people to stop sending me stuff in encrypted form. It is just very funny because I often FEEL the same way.
Surprisingly, computer security experts agree. "I get this all the time: 'Should I encrypt? I don't want anyone to steal my identity,'" said LockUpOnline President Bing D'aahl. "The textbook answer has been 'Yes,' but now we are advising people to first ask themselves, 'Do I have an identity that anyone would really want to steal?'"
If you answer truthfully, D'aahl said, chances are you'll forego the digital ID and save everyone a lot of trouble.
"Remember, the Internet wasn't built just for you," Haxor added.
This morning was nice an cool after a rainy night. Mizuka and I went to get the morning paper and there was this homeless guy rustling around at the entrance to our home. It appeared like he was changing or something so we decided not to bother him and let him get dressed or whatever in peace. After quite awhile of what sounded like complete overhaul of his wearable computing gear, we heard him leave. When we got to the entrance where the paper is, we noticed a big mess. I wonder if the mess he left (some old rice, cat food and wrappers) was just laziness, a political statement of some sort, something he thought was funny, a work of art, a gift for us, or none of the above. In any event, we found it very annoying. I guess if he thought it was a gift, it would be kind of like what the Americans do to some countries. ;-p Anyway, the next time he comes back, maybe we should engage in some foreign policy and tell him that we in fact don't need any food, but that we are happy with him using our territory to organize his next movement as long as he leaves nothing behind.
Japan has a process where they make boards and inquiry panels to discuss important issues with experts and the public. These inquiry panels are defined by law and are supposed to be an important part of the law making process, but in fact they are often used to diffuse public pressure and just act like they care. I am often asked to join such panels and I find I learn a lot about what is going on and can usually influence the direction ever so slightly. I usually feel this is better than not doing anything, but I am often citied as having been co-opted. In the past, the issues haven't been so important or public so it hasn't really mattered. This time it does.
A month or so ago, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications which is in charge of the National ID that I have been protesting approached me and asked me if I could organize a panel to review the privacy issues around the National ID. I consulted with our protest movement we decided that if the results were made public and we could fund some privacy research, this was probably a good thing. We are now in the process of organizing a global survey of privacy technology, privacy commissioners and other things that would be useful in considering how to set up the Japanese government privacy policy. We hope to create a recommendation about what Japan should do in creating new system as well as what we can do to minimize privacy invasiveness in the current system. So far so good.
Now I have been contacted again, but this time the request is to be on the board of the National ID committee and be in charge of privacy! Apparently this is a request from the minister. (Very interesting since I practically called him a liar on a live national news program where we debated against each other and I think he called me something that sounded a lot like "stupid." Anyway...) It is probably a move to try to co-opt me. I replied saying that I have no intention of stopping my anti-National ID activity or becoming "quiet." I said I would consider taking the post if I was allowed to be completely open and public about what we discussed in the meetings and if I were allowed to continue to protest the National ID. I think that if I were to take such a post, it would negatively impact the movement. Having said that, as we all know from Karl Auerbach's ability to really be a pain in the ass to ICANN as a board member, I think co-opting doesn't work when one is able to be public with one's comments. So I'm thinking about this. If they come back and tell me that I have to stop protesting or I have to keep the meeting discussions confidential, I will obviously say, "No." On the other hand, if I am able to blog everything that is going on inside, I wonder if they will be able to co-opt me. Anyway, this may end up being quite an interesting test for this medium and my blog...
On the other hand, (since I know my investors, board members and employees are now reading my blog...) I probably don't have to time to do the job properly considering the fact that I have a REAL JOB and this whole thing was supposed to be just a hobby... hmm.... And if I focus my REAL JOB too much on my hobby, it compromises my independence... hmm... All this is SO difficult.
This is EXACTLY the point I'm trying to make. Kenji Eno, my Japanese guest blogger and successful game creator wanted to become a musician, but became a game creator instead because there was more freedom in the game industry at the time. People who used to spend their money on CD's moved to spending money on the i-mode data packet bills. Creators and consumers / participants can switch formats. If the music industry continues to suck as a platform, I'm sure people will be happy to move on for awhile until it basically collapses. Music will never go away, but music can be encapsulated in games, karaoke, ring tones, live performances and many other things that are our of reach of the stupid record companies. Record companies are like pharaohs and their pyramids. You can't have slaves anymore on the Net so stop trying to build and protect pyramids!
Hit Charade
The music industry's self-inflicted wounds.
By Mark Jenkins
Posted Tuesday, August 20, 2002, at 8:19 AM PT
2001 may not be the year the music died, but the pop biz did develop a nagging headache, and it's not going away. The recorded-music industry's first slump in more than two decades continues this year; the number of discs sold is slipping and so is the appeal of last year's stars. Britney Spears' latest album has moved 4 million copies - a big number, but less than half what its predecessor did.
I just got a call from a Kyodo News reporter asking for a comment about the Ministry of Finance (MOF) leaking (accidentally?) financial metrics on their web page before the official annoucement date. They are apparently going to make some announcement about their mistake and he wanted a quote from me to run in the story. I can't seem to find anything on the web about this. Does anyone know anything? (I thought it was the FSA, but it was the MOF)
Anyway, the comment I made was that comparing Nippon Ham vs. Worldcom the CFO of Worldcom is taken away in handcuffs and in Japan apologies and some shifting around (although I would agree Worldcom is probably worse than Nippon Ham.) is all that happens at Nippon Ham. When US agencies leak information risking national security, it is treason. In Japan, it is just a breach of a confidentiality agreement and the guy might lose his job. When Yamaichi went bust, the CEO cried and the Ministry of Finance which really guided Yamaichi down their path to death, shook their finger at them instead of taking responsibility. My feeling is that accountability in Japan is weak and that the government's use of IT just increases the damage they can cause. Although The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications is creating the National ID, the risk is to be taken at the local government level. I will be interested to see who takes the blame for this FSA botch up. It probably won't have a huge impact on the economy, but releasing numbers before the official announcement date could impact the market.
Since I've started bashing the National ID publicly, every time there is a government screwup in IT, the reporters call me for comments. That's how I find out about the incidents early. Now that I have a blog, I can scoop them. ;-)
This is scary in many ways. On the one hand, the Chinese are trying to "cleanse Yahoo". On the other hand, the RIAA is trying to cleanse the US of Chinese copyright pirates. The RIAA is attacking the Internet backbone. Andy Oram and I talked before about the idea that the Internet may break up into a bunch of networks, each with different rules and much less end-to-end connectivity. It feels like it is starting to happen.
Maybe the great push for connectivity is going change to the great push for division. I guess alternative networks may emerge in the way that alternet emerged to carry the Usenet "alt." traffic, but I suppose this is much harder to do in a transnational context. I have a feeling that the Net may turn into a bunch of separate networks. On the other hand, most of the traffic in China is local within each province, I heard, so maybe it doesn't matter to most people. This push for dividing the Internet may be one of the main hurdles for our push for personal publishing, like blogs who don't have the political power to push through transborder doors when the filters come crashing down. Maybe only Time-Warner will be able to "get into" China in the future... And even then, they get banned every once in awhile.
For Immediate Release: Monday, August 19, 2002 Recording Industry Attacks Internet to Stop Chinese Pirates
Lawsuit Would Extend Great Internet Firewall of China to US
Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
New York, NY - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asked a court Friday to order four Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who maintain the Internet "backbone" to prevent access to a Chinese website that provides unauthorized copies of copyrighted music.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opposes the RIAA action because it seeks to establish a precedent that anyone alleging piracy could shut down access to parts of the Internet, resulting in inappropriate shutdowns, undue administrative burden for ISPs, and imperiling the basic principle of unfettered exchange of information on the Internet.
"This latest lawsuit, along with the recently proposed Berman bill, demonstrates that the major record labels have declared war on the infrastructure of the Internet in their campaign to stop the digital music revolution," said EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "The Business Software Alliance and software industries, who have for years battled overseas pirates, have never resorted to lawsuits against Internet backbone providers that is both pointless and dangerous to innocent bystanders."
"We shouldn't be copying the Great Firewall of China here in the United States," noted von Lohmann. "Offering U.S. consumers a compelling, fairly-priced alternative to the black market will stop illicit traffic to Chinese websites far more effectively than dragging ISPs into 'whack-a-mole' Internet blocking efforts."
EFF expresses its concern that attempts to shut down parts of the Internet will spread to "proxy services," like Anonymizer.com, which are crucial to privacy and free expression online.
A great positive article by Dan Gillmor in his column in the Mercury News. Says some good things. Although I quoted Jun saying this just yesterday, it is 30% easier to sound smart being negative. I think it is significant to try to point out some of the good things going on.
I've been thinking and talking a lot about how consumers are waking up from their semi-conscious state where communication was through buying, voting and rioting to a state where customers could think, act and discuss. Here is a quote from Dan's article that makes this point.
CUSTOMERS AWAKEN: Everyday people are starting to realize that they are not just ``consumers'' but customers -- that is, they are becoming serious participants in the marketplace of goods and services. This is a crucial distinction.
A consumer's role is limited to ordering what's on the menu and paying for it. A customer wonders what's not on the menu, asks for something he or she actually wants and then negotiates the terms.
This awakening takes many forms, but a common one is the customer's empowerment. Technology is the catalyst.
Prospective customers ignore press releases and product pitches. Instead, they are heading to Web sites where they can research the reality and see what current customers have to say.
Journalism organizations watch, mostly dumbfounded, as weblogs and other multidirectional media bring new voices to the conversation. They offer new choices to what I call the ``former audience,'' the people who are now becoming part of the journalism process itself -- to the ultimate benefit of everyone.
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