I am pleased to announce the print availability of “First Dogen Book”, a brand new book containing extensively annotated translations of selected fascicles from Dogen’s Shobogenzo.

First Dogen Book is available for $19.95 from:

• CreateSpace, the publisher
• Amazon.com

The fascicles included are:

• Bendowa (Dialog on the Way of Commitment)
• Genjo Koan (Truth Unfolding)
• Uji (A Particular Hour)
• Soshi Seirai I (Why the First Patriarch Came from the West)

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I’m pleased to make available a new compendium of my Dogen translations, under the name “First Dogen Book,” including my most recent project, a translation of “Why The First Patriarch Came From The West.” I have also revised and updated my previous translations.

As with my previous translations, this translation is distinguished by an intensive level of research and analysis not seen elsewhere, as well as an obsessive attention to style, rhythm and nuance.

The four essays in the book span the range from introductory to advanced. “Dialog on the Way of Commitment,” or Bendowa, is an introductory essay directed towards the newcomer to Zen Buddhism. “Truth Unfolding,” or Genjo Koan, is a definitive, elegant exposition of the importance of practice, one of Dogen’s primary themes. “A Particular Hour,” or Uji, is a compelling testament to the urgency of attending to the moment. Finally, the latest translation “Why the First Patriarch Came from the West,” or Soshi Seirai I, is a Zen meditation on the human condition. Together, they represent the essence, albeit highly distilled, of Dogen’s writings and teachings.

The translations are exhaustively annotated. The annotations are not in general meant to elucidate the essays’ deeper meaning. Dogen can speak for himself if only given the voice to do so. Rather, the focus is on pointing out interesting aspects of Dogen’s prose and possible alternative interpretations. The notes also present historical and cultural background.

TechCrunch had an insightful post about why MySpace and Facebook are failing in Japan.

I had a glimmering of Facebook’s potential problems in Japan when I noticed that my son Ko was spending the great majority of his time online on Japanese social networking site Mixi. He even pays money for the service, although only a few dollars a month. Imagine how many Facebook subscribers would remain if they had to pay.

The reason given in the post for Facebook’s failure is its lack of cultural sensitivity and late entry. But the broader reason is simply hubris, or more kindly, a poor analysis of its real strengths and how to leverage them in Japan. Read the rest of this entry »

“Life’s experiences add molecular switches to the genes that control our brain activity,” is the subhead on an article in a recent issue of SciAm Mind. The article presents the new field known as epigenetics, which holds that experience can cause chemical changes that boost or depress the expression of certain genes.

This is a rich potential mechanism for describing interaction of nature and nurture in general, but in particular the progress of spiritual development associated with ongoing practices such as Zen meditation. Simply put, meditation practice could have chemical effects such as attaching methyl groups to genes, which quiets the gene by interfering with the ability of the RNA-based transcription mechanism. Or it could attach acetyl groups with the opposite effect, letting the genes express themselves more easily.

This is an intriguing supplement or alternative to other explanations of the long-term effects of meditation, such as neuroplasticity, but what is the gene, or genes, in question? Such a hypothesis will be a prerequisite for experimental design in this field.

Image of chromatin created by Nicolas Bouvier; courtesy of Genevieve Almouzni, Curie Institute, Paris, France.

Italian neuroscientists have reported that bombarding mice with easy listening music increases levels of brain-derived neurotropic factor (Wikipedia), in their hypothalmus specifically. However, levels of another neurotropic factor, NGF (nerve growth factor), declined. The findings suggest, according to the authors, that physiological effects of music, such as lowered blood pressure and heart rate or mood improvements, “might in part be mediated by modulation of neurotrophins.”

Branching sequences are common in real life. For instance, a recipe can be represented as a sequence of steps, with branches corresponding to variations. Games of go or chess, of course, are the classic example of branching sequences, where branches handle the “could have/should have played there” comments. Branching sequences can even be used to handle linear text, with branches used for optional or alternate material.

If we have complete control over the programming environment we can implement branching sequences in any way we want, most of them quite obvious. But in today’s web-based world, there are good reasons to represent such structures using XML (for transformations, interoperability, or even storage in XML databases) and HTML (for display). What is the best way to do so?

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Rev. Hubert Nearman, O.B.C. has put out an ambitious new translation of Shobogenzo, a 14-year labor of love, now available both online and from Shasta Abbey Press.

I got a copy of Douglas Hofstadter’s “I Am a Strange Loop” (Amazon) for my birthday and spent the next month puzzling over why this inane book ever got written, other than to make a few bucks from aging technohippies with fond memories of Godel, Escher and Bach. It’s basically a random collection of unstructured jottings, boring personal stories, and contentless musings. Try as he might, Hofstadter never manages to convince us of the connection between Godel’s proof and some kind of loop that supposedly lies at the basis of our consciousness. Oddly, there’s almost no reference to any of the actual research in neuroscience or related fields which has started to cast light on the phenomenon of consciousness in recent years.

Hofstadter’s treatment of Zen in the book is emblematic of its problems. In a dialog between “Strange Loop #641″, a believer in the ideas of I Am a Strange Loop (such as they are), and “Strange Loop #642″, a doubter, he has them saying: Read the rest of this entry »

The magazine IEEE Spectrum is running a Special Report on the Singularity. Well worth glancing at.

Another interesting social issue related to the Singularity is its effect on our penal system, especially the millions of folks we’ve got locked up right now. Take a prisoner with a 50-year sentence. If he has to serve his entire sentence he wouldn’t be out until 2050, but by that time we expect inconceivable advances in genetics, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence/robotics, all of which could have implications for his case. Read the rest of this entry »