Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Flower children tripped to the East—
Flower children originated as a synonym for hippies, especially the idealistic young people who gathered in San Francisco and Bay Area during the 1967 Summer of Love. It was the custom of "flower children" to wear and distribute flowers or floral-themed decorations to symbolize altruistic ideals of universal brotherhood, peace and love. The Summer of Love became a watershed event in the development of a worldwide 1960s counterculture. Flower children were also associated with the flower power political movement, which originated in ideas written by Allen Ginsberg in 1965. The counterculture music of the late 1960s moved towards an electric psychedelic version of rock— Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead. Eastern philosophy became popular among the counterculture movement. The Beatles and Mia Farrow went to Bangor, India and studied transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Use of marijuana, peyote, sacred mushrooms, and LSD became rampant among the flower children, hence "tripped to the East" denotes their acid trips beside trips to India. (Image Source: Hippies movement, dannymiller.typepad.com)

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song written primarily by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney), and recorded by The Beatles for their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). The lyrics of the song— which is commonly believed to be about an acid trip—feature image-laden verses which present an overtly psychedelic travelogue, describing a boat trip through a fantastic land of "rocking horse people", "newspaper taxis" and "marshmallow pies", alternating with chorus sections which simply repeat the song's title. The Beatles, however, have steadily maintained that the initials of the title forming the word "LSD" (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) is mere coincidence, as the title is taken from a drawing by a young Julian Lennon. (Image Source: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, beatles.wikia.com)

Hare Krishna, yoga, and zen—
The Hare Krishna movement (also known as The International Society for Krishna Consciousness) was founded in New York City (1966) by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Its core beliefs are based on the Hindu scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita (circa 500 BC). The group chanted "Hare Krisha, Hare Rama" in the streets to spread the practice of bhakti yoga (devotion to God) in recruiting members for their international organization. Yoga is the traditional physical and mental disciplines that began in India. The Sanskrit word yoga means "to yoke" or "to unite". Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (circa 200 BC) begins with "Yoga is cessation of the flow of thoughts" and "Yoga is skill in action". Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism. Zen (Japanese), Ch'an (Chinese), and Dhyana (Sanskrit) may be translated as "meditation". Bodhidharma was the first Zen Patriarch (527 AD) in China. D.T. Suzuki's translations of classical Buddhist texts popularized Zen in the West. Zen teachers in America include Philip Kapleau and Shunryu Suzuki. (Images: Hare Krishna, George Harrison Interview; Bodhidharma, 1st Zen Patriarch, www.zenguide.com)

guru hunting that never ends
Swami Chinmayananda gave 10-day lectures on the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads at MIT (circa 1972-1978). Students would come to his temporary faculty apartment for consultation. On one such occasion, they asked him about visiting ashrams in India for gurus. Swami laughed saying "Before Westerners came to India for safari, hunting black rhinos and Bengal tigers. Now younger folks are coming to India for guru hunting. Even in the cold Himalayas, honey bees are attracted to flowers blooming. So stay where you are and purify your minds. Then the gurus will come to you." (Image Source: India Safari Cartoon, There Is A Price for A Life)

Monkey King journeyed to the West fighting wild beasts, demons, ghosts
to bring back sacred Buddhist texts and found the scrolls to be void.
Journey to the West or Hsi-yu Chi (1592) is one of the most beloved classics of Chinese literature. Written by Wu Ch'eng-en (1500-1582), it recounts the 16-year pilgrimage of monk Hsüan-tsang (596-664) to India. He is accompanied by four animal disciples in quest of Buddhist scriptures to bring back to China. The Monkey King (Sun Wukong) is a main character in this epic novel. Born from a stone, Monkey King acquired supernatural powers through Taoist practices. He lifts his 17,000 pounds staff with ease, leaps 33,000 miles in one somersault, shape shifts to 72 animals and objects, as well cloning himself. He knows spells to command wind and water and skilled in fighting entire armies, demons and ghosts. In Chapter 85, the pilgrim monk tells Monkey "For when the mind is pure, it shines forth as a solitary lamp, and when the mind is secure, the entire phenomenal world becomes clarified." At the Great Hero Treasure Hall of the Thunderclap Monastery, Monkey King was given the Buddhist scrolls. On their way back, they found the scrolls to be empty. The pilgrims returned and asked why they were duped with wordless texts. The Buddhist Patriarch said "These blank texts are actually true, wordless scripture, and they are just as good as those with words. But your Land of the East are so foolish and unenlightened that I have no choice but to impart to you now the texts with words." (Images: Journey to the West, gss.ucsb.edu; Monkey King fights demon, allshmily.blogspot.com)

Enlightenment— Rousseau & Buddha— Outer and inner search for truth
through research science and meditating on awakened mind.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe. Truth was no longer the province of popes and kings, but through the experiments of science. The Pope may quote the Bible as the words of God— "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." (Psalms 104.5) and "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place" (Ecclesiastes 1.5). Galileo (1564-1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. He observed planetary motion with telescopes and championed the Copernican heliocentric theory that the earth revolved around the sun. Pope Urban VIII placed Galileo under house arrest so he could not teach at the University of Pisa. Galileo muttered the rebellious phrase "And yet it moves." Eastern Enlightenment is focused more on spiritual awakening as taught by Buddha (563 BC-483 BC). After his enlightenment, Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths that life is suffering, suffering comes from craving, cease craving to end suffering, follow the Eightfold Path (right thought, right speech, right action, right effort, right concentration, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right understanding) to enlightenment. When a friend asked me to summarize Western & Eastern Enlightenment in one sentence, I said "Outer & inner search for truth." The Western approach is scientific experiments to establish truth in the physical world. The Eastern way is meditation to awaken the mind to one's true nature or essence. Having practiced meditation, I found it helpful in purifying my mind to do better research in protein structures. That's why I paid my respect to Rousseau in my web page on Enlightenment News. (Images: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Buddha, WisdomPortal.com)

Henri Atlan's book shows towering
magic mushrooms soaring high—
Henri Atlan, a French Algerian biophysicist and philosopher gave a talk on "Sparks of Randomness" based on his recent book at Stanford Humanities Center on November 18, 2010, 5:00-7:20 pm. Searching for his photo in Google Images, it occurred to me that I'm familiar with his face. Then I realized it was in Professor Dupuy's "Problem of Evil" lecture (Class #6, May 11, 2009). Before Henri Atlan's lecture, I found his 1993 book Enlightenment to Enlightenment (Q175.A8613.1993) in the Stanford stacks. Thumbing through the index, I was surprised to find three references to Ramana Maharshi (pp. 99, 238, 239). Since Ramana was introduced to the West by Paul Brunton in A Search in Secret India (1934), and I've studied their books often, it was a delight to meet Henri Atlan. His book is translated from the French A tort et à raison, which implies an untranslatable pun: "Right and Wrong" or "Wrong and Reasonable". Atlan's goal is to show that there are several rationalities, methods of science as well as mystical and mythological traditions. I was intrigued by the book cover showing towering magic mushrooms representing the myth of nature, and a lone bicycle symbolizing science and technology. Atlan told me Roland Cat's painting La Promenade is bigger than that shown on the cover. When I asked him whether he ingested sacred mushrooms, he confided that he had psilocybin. Before I could ask him about his psychedelic experience, it was time for his talk. Professor Jean-Pierre Dupuy flew back from Paris to introduce Atlan. (Images: Atlan's Enlightenment to Enlightenment, Wisdomportal.com; Psilocybin in Sacred Mushrooms, Health Jockey)

What is the bicycle doing here?— Aha!
Kitty Hawk— man's first flight to the sky.
I was perplexed by the bicycle amidst the gigantic mushrooms and thought it represented the invention of the wheel. Then it suddenly dawned upon me— the Wright Brothers owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. They opened a repair and sales shop in 1892 (Wright Cycle Exchange, later Wright Cycle Company) and began manufacturing their own brand in 1896. It was their mechanical ingenuity that made them successful at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903 when they accomplished man's first flight to the sky. It's interesting that the town Kitty Hawk has hawk in its name, a bird with acuity of vision (five times of human beings) soaring high in the sky. (Images: Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop, jorydayne's photostream; Wright Cycle Co. Ad, ToysPeriod.com; First Flight at Kitty Hawk, Wisdomportal.com)

                                                Peter Y. Chou
                                                Mountain View, 2-9-2011