Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, referred to in Chinese as Chán. Chán is itself derived from the Sanskrit Dhyāna, which means “meditation“

Zen emphasizes experiential wisdom—particularly as realized in the form of meditation known as zazen—in the attainment of awakening, often simply called the path of enlightenment. As such, it de-emphasizes both theoretical knowledge and the study of religious texts in favor of direct, experiential realization through meditation and dharma practice.

The establishment of Zen is traditionally credited to the South Indian Pallava prince-turned-monk Bodhidharma, who is recorded as having come to China to teach a “special transmission outside scriptures” which “did not stand upon words”. The emergence of Zen as a distinct school of Buddhism was first documented in China in the 7th century CE. It is thought to have developed as an amalgam of various currents in Mahāyāna Buddhist thought—among them the Yogācāra and Madhyamaka philosophies and the Prajñāpāramitā literature—and of local traditions in China, particularly Taoism and Huáyán Buddhism. From China, Zen subsequently spread southwards to Vietnam and eastwards to Korea and Japan.

Buddhism can be divided up into branches in much the same way that Christianity can be thought of in terms of denominations. In Buddhism, the two main branches of the religion are Theravada and Mayayana Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism is the most traditional and oldest form; it takes its teachings only from the original Pali Texts of Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism sees Buddhist scripture as open ended and growing. As a result, the many different sub-branches of Mahayana Buddism have added to the original Pali Texts other sutras and writings that they thought useful. While Theravada Buddhism is fairly homogeneous, Mahayana Buddhism is diverse.

Zen is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism. It was started in China (where it is called Chán). Zen emphasizes spiritual awakening and meditation. It reduces the dependence on religious texts and discussions of metaphysical issues. Instead, it promotes introspection as the path to enlightenment and awakening.

Zen is more popular in Japan, but it is common in East Asia. Aspects of Zen Buddhism have become popular in Western countries, as well, where they are blended with pop psychology.

The essence of Zen is its freedom. Not freedom from, but freedom in the world and the law of causation.

Research has shown that our brain changes if we practise meditation. These changes trigger a more positive frame of mind, and may even slow the ageing process.In his book Destructive Emotions, Daniel Goleman describes a very interesting collaboration between Professor Richard Davidson, a leading brain science, and an experienced Tibetan Buddhist meditator who used the pseudonym ‘Lama Oeser’. The Lama was asked to practise certain kinds of meditation, such as one-pointedness of mind and a meditation on compassion. During each of these meditation exercises, researchers looked to see whether there were any changes in the fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging).

In ‘plain speak’ this means that in some areas of the brain the lining gets thicker proportional to the length of time that a person has practised meditation. These changes indicate that a meditator learns to process emotions and thoughts in a way that makes them feel happier.

Zen places an importance on experiencing life as it is, without any structure or belief system. Zazen is an important part of the process of experiencing this kind of bliss. Zazen means sitting meditation and is usually done in a variety of sitting postures.

This form of meditation is quite akin to yoga. One can meditate either by oneself at one home, or one can participate in long sessions of Zen meditation held at various meditation halls. This type of meditation practice is a group activity and lasts for anywhere between a week to ten days.

The Zen masters suggest that lone practitioners need to practice this meditation for at least 5 minutes or more on a daily basis. They say that regularity is an important part of the process of coming closer to awareness via Zazen. Practicing Zen monks practice this meditation technique for at least 30 to 40 minutes for at least 4 to 6 times a day. This meditation is often followed by brief periods of walking, known as kinhin, which helps relax the legs between two periods of meditation.

Awakening can happen in a sudden burst, or it may sneak up on you over time. You may experience a moment when there is just the call of a bird, or the flush of the toilet, or a word heard in passing–and nothing else. That moment fills the whole universe.

Each experience is different. But most experiences have two aspects in common. One is a preliminary sense of gathering; the other is a final sense of deep familiarity.

When we act habitually, we nearly always produce suffering. When we act with compassion, wisdom and creativity, then we ease suffering. So in this way, Zen is not ordinary.

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Just as one of them is fast paced and exciting the other is slow paced boring and tedious to watch

The expectations

Having a father who is a producer and director (Ajit Singh Deol) Dharmendra as his uncle and action based movie stars Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol as his cousins, one would expect Abhay Deol to follow in their footsteps of being an action hero. Instead he chooses to be a guy next door in roles that can be often described as an anti hero.

Movie Debut

Debuting in the 2005 film Socha Na Tha also starring Ayesha Takia, the storyline which creates a confusion of the age old formula of a love triangle was a box office flop. Abhay did get some amount of good reviews, but with a weak and confusing storyline, the large scale kudos were sadly missing

Second coming

His second film was Ahista Ahista in 2006 which was also a box office flop,

Third time lucky – 2007

2007 saw three movies which I have watched at least three times. No mean task since I loathe Hollywood flicks which most often than not poorly written, slow paced and have unbelievably huge gaps in their storyline. The three films of Abhay Doel in 2007 not only brought back my interest n bollywood movies but also rekindled my hope that there is a bundle of talent which is waiting to emerge from the shadows of the formula films.

Although these movies may not have the same box office success such as the Khans do, but their storylines are sure to evoke some pleasant reaction from the Indian audiences.

Abhay took a chance with these offbeat movies as did the producer and the director. I daresay these are three of my top 10 favourite movies

• Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd

• Ek Chalis Ki Last Local

• Manorama Six Feet Under

The luck continues with Lucky 2008

His 2008 movie Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! was a big hit not just with critics but with the masses as well and established him as a dependable mainstream actor.

2009 and moving ahead

Dev.D, a modern day version of Devdas which he himself devised, and in which he enacts the title role.

I am sure as I write this that I am an increasing tribe of people who look forward to your movies Abhay

[Caption]

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What is Bollywood?

Bollywood is the popular name for the film industry in India which combines the name of Hollywood, and the older name for the city of Mumbai, – Bombay, which is the location of the industry.

Language

The bulk of Bollywood films are in Hindi, Urdu, or Hindustani, although it is becoming more and more common for Bollywood films to feature extensive English as well, both in songs and in dialogue, for the export market. Although to be honest the language used much of the time is a reflection of the local dialect which has evolved also know as Bambaiya – am mixture of Hindi, Marathi and other Indian languages. Market Size Bollywood is by far the largest film market in the world accounting for the largest number of releases and tickets sold. Estimated sales are in excess of four billion tickets are sold each year to Bollywood productions. Tickets typically cost around USD$ 2 or less and hence the disparity in the incomes between Bollywood and Hollywood.

Are all Bollywood movies musicals?

Typically a musical film is a film genre in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. The songs are used to advance the plot or develop the film’s characters; however in Bollywood the music is developed loosely based on the story and most of the times audiences will find that a song is just forcibly squeezed into the movie without making much sense. A recent trend is to make a music video which acts as a promo for the movie and does not have any part to play in the narrative. Such songs are usually shown during the ending credits of the movie.

Bollywood Song and Dance sequence

Almost all movies have at least one song-and-dance number. To give full value to the audience packed in a 3 hour capsule movies include songs and dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil and are usually termed as masala movies.

Storylines, inspirations and plagiarism

Melodramatic plots with formula story that include star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences are typical of these masala movies. Certain filmmakers are known to resort to plagiarism, although music is one of the most copied even storylines have been lifted right off a bollywood flick and delivered with an Indian context. It is a know fact that scriptwriters in Indian are a underpaid lot and the producers are not willing to take a risk with a new idea, it is easier for them to be inspired by a rented DVD Kaante, which borrowed a lot from Reservoir Dogs and not a even an acknowledgment about the original move

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Delhi-6 with its Maskali has already drawn popular appeal with a lovable fan tail pigeon as the main theme, it is sure to be a hit. The song  featuring Sonam and Abhishek and Masakali the pigeon song was not part of the original film

Delhi 6 is based on Mehr growing up years in Chandni Chowk area of Old Delhi. Amitabh Bachchan has a small role in the movie, where he will play the grandfather of  Abhishek Bachchan.  Waheeda Rahman playing grandmother of the same nature.

In the movie Abhishek Bachchan is a young man who has grown up in the melting pot that is America and comes to India to leave his grandmother, who wants to spend her last years in the country of her birth

The name of the movie is Delhi-6 based on  the pincode of old Delhi, that is, 110006

A.R. Rahman is the music director of this film. Prasoon Joshi is the lyricist

The previews show the movie as fast paced with inter spread comedy.

The editing looks good, but what catches the eye is the photography. The trailers show amazing human emotions which is sadly missing in other bollywood flicks, givne his background of directed over 150 commercials for Indian and international clients, the visuals will stand to impress rather than linger as they do in other masala movies

My standing is that Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is sure to deliver another smash hit of a movie.

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what a pair

1. US president allows Special Forces in Afghanistan to conduct cross-border raids on Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in tribal areas.
2. International atomic agency has disclosed that blueprints for making nuclear bombs were shared with other countries by the Khan network
3. Parvez Musharraf, the blue eyed boy of the American politics is out of power
4. The new Pakistan President has to make sure that he is not seen as a lackey of the US
5. The new President of Pakistan does not have control over the ISI which many believe has the control of Pakistan nuclear weapons and assets.
6. Obama says Pakistan misusing US aid for war against India

Current Situation in Pakistan

1. Food inflation soars to record 34 per cent :
2. Anti-America sentiments run high in Pakistan, which has grown higher based on the recent incursions in the tribal areas

The Pakistani politicians would definitely like to sever ties with the Americans and in doing so risk ending billions of dollars in U.S. aid at a time when its economy desperately needs foreign assistance.
The previous regime could say one thing to the local population and do the exact opposite to built up its ties with the US, a strategy it can no longer follow given the power of the media.

Bush needs a blue ribbon in the last days of his presidency, by declaring that it has made significant progress against the war on terror. The US presence for the last 7 years in Afghanistan has not made any significant progress and now the hunt for terrorist is expanding to Pakistan.

It seems slowly but surely a case is being built up for cornering Pakistan and lining up of all the cards in declaring it a terrorist state.

If Pakistan resists the US incursion then it faces the double whammy of the US aid being withdrawn and being declared a terrorist state, which mean most of the developed countries will also not be able offer any assistance.

The Bush administration seems has the proverbial ace up in its sleeve and in this case two aces.

Whether this game ploy will succeed is anyone guess and it all comes down to the success of military strikes in Pakistan, specifically on the ratio of civilians killed to the militants and on the capture or death of the terror network kingpin.

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Although her initial position of returning the 400 acres of land has toned down and after all the excitement that she has generated it seems to be rather dull for the last couple of days only because the media is not been used now for highlighting the issue.

As in all political games, background discussion and behind the curtain negotiations are at full pace. Given her earlier stand Mamta cannot afford the citizen of India to know the kind of deal making that she is striking with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

1. From the current news that is emerging it looks very likely that Tata will not withdraw from Singur and all the hype of possible withdrawal was a stand taken by the company to put pressure on the political parties to come to consensus as soon as possible. In hindsight this was a brilliant move by Mamta by sticking to her position.

L N Mittal in his statement has said that a Singur like situation can happen anywhere in India. Which is quite true.
Singur has created a lot of negative publicity for West Bengal and for the CPI-M and as we search for a silver lining in the whole episode it is this one.

Land acquisitions in India have and always will be a contentious issue. With this episode all state governments and also industries will be double careful that a similar situation does not arise and that land acquisition for industries will be done as per the laws of the land and keeping the sentiments of the local landowners in mind.

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George W. Bush (via last.fm)

With his term as president coming to an end, George Bush would like to leave a legacy of having dealt with terrorism and of giving it a stunning blow. His aim would be to close a chapter which shook the very foundations of USA. The seventh anniversary of 9/11 has yet to see the brain and mastermind of this act being punished. In his last gamble President Bush has allowed raids into Pakistan knowing quite well that this will create a unique and unpredictable situation which may be very difficult to handle. He knows for sure that the consequences of this last gambit will not his to deal with and most certainly with the first biggest challenge for the next president, be It Obama or Mcain. So why were the incursions into Pakistan not allowed earlier? Why did the policy of hot pursuit of terrorist given a dose of cold water? For answers we need to evaluate the aftermath of 9/11, the options available to the Bush administration and the relationship that America had to develop with Pakistan.

Aftermath of 9/11 and options for the Bush administration.

In the aftermath of 9/11 it was quite clear that Afghanistan was the training and recruitment grounds for terrorists. In spite of all evidence pointing towards the links between Saudi Arabian funding and Afghanistan serving as an excellent training ground, Bush chose to free Iraq from Saddam and use the anti terror hype to attack and invade Iraq. A task, many felt that he was compelled to finish on behalf of his father.

• That 15 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia had to be deliberately ignored, since any action against that country would mean dealing with an oil embargo seen in 1979.
• If USA had perused the policy of engaging the Saudi government, its economy would have to take a very hard hit. What went behind the curtains of diplomacy is for history to reveal itself in the next 10 to 15 years. The best option at that time was to invade the state supporting terrorists.

The first attach on Afghanistan was devastating resulting in large scale killing s of civilians, the terrorist that America was after managed to escape into the tribal areas of north west frontiers in Pakistan. Although the Americans would have like to continue with their hot pursuit, their ally in General Parvez Musharraf seems to have convinced Bush that his forces would hunt down the terrorist. He must have also made it very clear to the Bush administration that any hot pursuit would be seen in an extremely negative fashion by the local population giving rise to anti American sentiments.

Relationship of USA with Pakistan

Pakistan was always a close ally to the USA especially during the soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Americans always had a deep suspect for India with its socialist roots and close ties with Russia. It was seen as a brilliant move to be keep Pakistan as a strategic ally and use it to counter the Russians in Afghanistan, China and India. Pakistanis influence on Iran although was questionable, but the overall equation which was so good that it had to followed through. The resultant was stalemate situation where the Americans could not publically blame the Saudis or carry out their mission into capturing terrorist in Pakistan. It had to be a wait and watch situation where fingers were crossed that General Musharraf would keep his promise of using internal resources to track and capture terrorist. And initially a number of them were captured who were of middle of low ranking designations. The top masterminds were still in hiding.

ISI and Terrorism

The ISI, the intelligence wing of Pakistan has been given the authority of recruiting and training ‘militants’ for the Kashmir cause. It had been quite successful in destabilising the state. The objective was simple to use a proxy war against India, since two direct wars had seen it loose considerable ground and self respect. It proved quite difficult of the ISI to keep recruiting the local Kashmir population and hence the trained Pathans from the Afghan region were deployed to carry out the subterfuge. As the activities of the ISI became more and more clandestine it became a power of its own separated from the military command. ISI leaders knew that if any of its actives were to come out in the open with supporting proof, it would result in Pakistan being declared as a terrorist nation. This acted a double edged sword to the ISI to grow it power base. Whether the ISI has made inroads into the local populations is still a question; however the recent terrorist attacks in India unfortunately have a significant local hand. Pakistan too has not escaped from terrorism, what the ISI cultivated has now become a snake which has started striking it back.

Turning point

In it prime objective of destabilising India ISI had to give a large supporting role on attacking the Indian mission in Kabul. Evidence of which was quite strong and compelling.

There are 4 general English news channels which have a pan India coverage available both on Conditional access system and by Direct to Home Satellite television.

1. CNN-IBM
2. Times Now
3. NDTV 24/7
4. Headlines Today

International new channels available in India are

1. CNN
2. BBC News

In addition to the above English news channels there are three channels which are specifically devoted to finance i.e stock market

1. CNBC TV 18
2. NDTV Profit
3. UTV News

Quality of news coverage:

There seems to be a standard coverage of one main story which is dragged on for quite some while. Change any of the channels and almost 90% there same story is carried on all of them. In contrast the financial news channels covering the same stock market i.e BSE and NSE carry different stories and interviews which make it worthwhile to switch between them. The ranking that has been given above may hold true depending on their launches, however the quality of coverage of TV 18 and NDTV profit is slightly better than UTV news which has just been launched.

NDTV 24/7 has recently started news documentaries and had a programme called the Big fight which is quite popular and is recommended viewing for those who like to have a different view point. The issues here is that these news channels are bound to Indian news and do not show international news or the impact that it has on India. The job of covering in-depth international news is done quite well by BBC.

Although the English news channels have a huge scope of improvement, they can be proud of the fact that they are uncensored and have the capacity of launch sting operations on their own, a privialge enjoyed only by a handful of countries in ASIA.

Recommendation

Five points which will improve the quality of the English news channels in India

1. Keep the story short and crisp. Do not draf it for 10 mins with long interviews.
2. Panellist, especially politicians should be briefed, that they should not resort to shouting during discussions
3. Interviewers , panel moderators especially the editors should not take a direct position with respect to the discussion
4. Add humour through good comments, the articulation by news anchor is there, but real communication is missing. Compare the BBC news anchors to see what I mean.
5. Report tragedy with a human touch.

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Times of India Article : Fresh Chinese incursions across LAC

Indians have a deep mistrust of China and even the common man says that the Chinese government can never be trusted, they say one things, do the opposite and cover it up by a dialogue which is almost like a fifth grader trying to make an excuse, when he has done something wrong.

It is quite clear that China in all its heart did not want the Indo- US nuclear deal to happen and in trying to appease Pakistan and divert attention, it is increasing the number of incursions into India.

A similar pattern in the 1967 war that was adopted.

The Chinese realise that with the slowing down of the world economy, its own industry will take a hit. It is for all to know that banking system in China is very weak and that loans have been given for manufacturing plants without adequate back of assets or collaterals.

If the manufacturing plants start shutting down in China as some reports suggests and with shipping and fright cost becoming more expensive which will result in global manufacturers shifting their base back their home country or region of sale.

China’s Manufacturing Contracts for Second Month

Manufacturing Costs Drive Business Home

Any downward shift will mean unemployment for the local labour market. in order to distract its citizen, a war with India on territorial grounds will be the best option for the powers if they want to retain their base.

A full scale war is doubtful since it will take the economies of the three countries back 20 years, what seems most viable is low scaled skirmishes around the border area, which will be projected as full war in the local Chinese media.

It is tough road ahead for the current Indian government and with economic slow down, high inflation and now dealing with a new Pakistan president, Chinese incursion and an election just around the corner.

It seems that it is high time that the incursions are dealt on an equal level to be replied by Indian incursions into Chinese’s territory. India has a claim on Aksai Chen, how about incursions in that area for a start !

It is time for Indian’s to start their own dadagiri !

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