No Mission

In for Sanity and the Good Life

"Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings" [Publilius Syrus]

This site honours Shankaracharya Brahmananda (1871-1953) and his gurudeva Krishnananda. - Tormod Byrn Kinnes, site owner

The No in No Mission

We advocate a good and deep enough life, and 'No' in 'No Mission' derives from Japanese No, which is derived from 'talent' or 'skill'. No performers are storytellers who express something essential by the means in their hands. No plays traditionally advocate peace, longevity, and prosperity, and at least one type of them contain supernatural beings and has humorous parts. No texts survive in full - about 2,000 of them. And some style innovations have also been taking place lately.
We do advocate making fit use of your talents and skills for the good life - at times irreverently, at times without a thought in our heads (these are major facets of Deep Zen). Health is into it . . . our concern for health is largely holistic.

A Story of Light

A student came to the Zen abode of Gasan and departed a few years later. Gasan cautioned him,
"Studying the truth speculatively is useful as a way of collecting preaching material. But remember that unless you meditate constantly your light of truth may go out." [Zf 55]

Winsome Buddhist Ways and Others

On this site a human is viewed as a whole with organic systems capable of relating and interacting to others within limits - maybe not full well at the first attempts. The division of man into body, mind and soul (or being) is useful. This triune unity interacts with the environment and others in it, and much can go wrong at times. Much can go well too.
We want to bring knowledge of winsome Buddhist living, and recommend many facets of Buddhism.

To avoid calamity, wisdom helps. It rests on assessments.
To increase health reserves, contemplation may be useful, as well as basic knowledge that enables self-care or home care.
To lessen and counteract stress - a big disease agent - humour can help. It may at least bring relief from fear and high stress levels at the moment. Better main adjustments should not be overlooked, though.
Art that is fit for the family, may be good for health too, as Pablo Picasso says, "You know, music, art - these are not just little decorations to make life prettier. They are very deep necessitites which people cannot live without."
Extracts that are well enough made, helps surveying of many things, including problems. And proficient surveys increase understanding. Good mind-maps help that, and the basics of scientific presentations.
It helps to link up to basic and good outputs of the human races too - it often helps being educated. We have included classics here too.

This is to say our main profile is advocating a good life, whereas "Those who mortify their bodies have not understood the doctrine." [Asvaghosha, in Amitabha 10]

"From little acorns tall oaks grow." [American]

OURS has been is to arrange or group filets or titbits (keywords and key phrases) to arrive at as coherent and stringent teachings as we can. Our approach is rooted in essential cybernetics. It helps handling and dealing with life too. Aligned with it, there are things we advocate; things we go against as they seem to make good folks flounder; and there are things we expose actively.
Note it could be very necessary to read through a work (page) to find out what attitudes might be held underneath the turf, so to speak. The best ideas behind or within a work (ie page) or page system may not be revealed until the overall effects sail in on you. For example, when on a series of pages we expose guru tricks with the Christian message, many have got the wrong idea that we are Fundamentalists Christians. Not so, and far from it.
We go against being taken in, go against tomfoolery for most part.

Mission or policy

"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." [Werner von Braun (1921-77)]

Sir Alfred

SIR ALFRED Hitchcock (1899-1980) on his mission in life: "To simply scare the hell out of people."
Sir Alfred, known to audiences as "master of suspense", also said: "Themes emerge as we go along."
Now and then things are quite in line with Sir Alfred's lax-looking: "Themes emerge as we go along." We often think that is an appropriate way.

Solvency Ethics

Great solvency-teachings devoted to the bright side of life should be plumbed.
Very much needs to be reshaped or designed for the modern fare inside the general human condition.
One should strive to bridge the best, being very selective.
Fair and fit and advanced study should yield wisdom: and favourably crystallised essentials should help.

Great swindles that are called divine, need to be exposed for what they are. Have you considered that letting innocents pay for the crimes of culprit is far from ideal? Now that sort of business is what Christianity is about. It would be stupid to confuse divine righteousness with such a scam. Who is a swindler? Jesus. He calls his alleged Father righteous for sacrifices arranged as a religion which utilizes brutality against innocents to favour the sinners on and on. It is ugly. Normally, single persons who take to such vile doings, probably turn insane as time goes by. Scapegoating is neurotic, and fairness and what is truly divine, must be markedly different.
These things that are briefly touched upon now, could help some to understand why Jesus says he did not come for sound persons, only for sick ones. They are compared to sick, stunted sheep, then. See his words [Matthew 9:12; John 10:27]. If you do not want to be a sick sheep any more, see what you can do about it. At any rate, it should be essential to stop cooperating with evil. Victims of false teachings and brainwashing, however, may not be able to derive immediate benefit from staggering clarifications and great solvency teachings.

How does your stuff relate to that of the ancient philosopher Confucius?

To like from one's heart is in part as good as to honour reverently. We like Confucius, or Kongfu Zi as he is called too. His analects are classics in culture-forming. Confucian heritage also consist of teaching stories and incidents and thinking in a large, educative encounter.

Gold eggs and tools for thinking

We advocate a constructive Taoism - universal and all right. [LINK]

You say some things that Dogen said earlier. Is there a connection?

Our typical, extensive mode of presenting points levels with that of Eihei Dogen (1200-53), as the Zen reverend Nishijima has understood his ways of presentation. [LINK]
We like to assist good thinking. Good tales confain fair teachings that can be lifted and used for adressing topics later. Find it in fables of Aesop too. It's one of the finest helpers for those who grow up.
There are good stories around that may cater to growth. That sort of "stuff" is to be promoted world-wide.
Outdoing Zen in a Dogen-allied style means being about without disturbing thoughts, hopefully. You may not know about contemplation (Zen, dhyana, meditation), but we hand out much rather essential information on how to derive benefit from it too. That part of education - along with the one that caters to growth of rich INNER and self-processed imagery or figures at large, needs encouragement today.

1.25 million page visits yearly

Over the last seven years or so it seems to have been about that, give or take - based on a four-week's NVG count in 1999 and Google Analytics statistics from late 2005. It could be that things that "Interest the Child in me, may be of interest to [the Child (id) in] many others too." The ability to become interested and enjoy things is fine. The Child with a capital C is a TA (Transactional Analysis) term. What is meant by it, has been nuanced by Eric Berne and others. The Child (innate drives in a human) is witty, observant, full of pranks, want to play - zestful, and so on. There are some excellent reasons to take care of one's deep childnature. Health depends on it, psychosomatic medicine shows, even massively. For the lack of zest and good id care, some appear to get hurt and ill and suffer throughout life.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!", but "That's funny..." [Isaac Asimov]

Why all this roundabout stuff for free?

Sometimes good things are free. And evolving well may perhaps demand such freedom. There may be unrecognised values - and splendid teachers have used roundabout ways of showing things. Buddha used lovely parables. Figurative language and parable-allied instructions may work well at times. [LINK].

Expertise

"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field," said Niels Bohr (1885-1962).
It should also help to be informed of what a famous Nobel laureate and president at Columbia said, "An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less . . ." [Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947]

Man hands on misery to man.
Don't have any kids yourself.
- Philip Larkin

The question is whether Larkin is an expert on this in a wider picture.

- Tormod Kinnes

Literature
Asb: Carus, Paul. Amitabha. A Story of Buddhist Theology. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1906.
Zf: Reps, Paul. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, updated 1997.

   USER'S GUIDE to abbreviations, the site's large bibliography, letter codes, dictionaries, site design and navigation, tips for searching the site and page referrals. [LINK]
   DISCLAIMER: To help us out: [LINK]
   © 1999–2008, Tormod ByrnKinnes. All rights reserved. [E-MAIL]