Babelsalat's blog ^pro

The posted 18 drawings came into existence during my 1-year teaching job at Wuhan Polytechnic University, where I've tried my best to introduce the German language to more than 70 students whose major was "brewery". The students have been divided into 3 classes, each of them got 4 hours per week with me. I used those self-made flashcards during the first term from September 2007 to January 2008. Altogether I created 63; here you see the minority of good ones. Some of the students tried to pass a test in order to apply for a scholarship in Munich. Only one was successful! Maybe I did a bad job. . .

Now I got a new teaching job as a German teacher in Shenzhen, that's why I dug those pictures out these days. I'm going to use them again it seems! This time I'm going to teach Chinese adults who work here in local companies who cooperate with German ones. Let's see how good I'm going to teach my new students this time!

真爱与幻觉,有时候我想是同一回事... 但是也有我相信我把这两个分得清楚的日子.

真爱第1个证明:

我原来不喜欢坐在一个吃饭的样子是野蛮的人对面...可是你很久没有跟我吃饭时候我在想念你吃饭的风格.

真爱第2个证明:

闻到你体味时我就想:对我这是世界上最珍贵的香水.

真爱第3个证明:

如果我们只能生一个孩子的话,我就想要个女儿,因为女儿长得像爸爸.

真爱第4个证明:

我老是喜欢做有危险的事情,但是我不会出大事的原因好像是你在我心里看护.

真爱第5个证明:

我想,很可能我已经80多岁才受到你对我对你的爱的答复...;好!没关系,我受得了!中间时间我会继续享受咱俩个人的暧昧!

"人生就像坐火车;

爱情停停走走, 朋友去去留留

有人中途下车,有人半路上车,

多少人在你生命列车与你擦肩而过,

只有知心朋友和爱你的人

留到最后陪你走"

.

The void of space

and the void in me

are one. They need

to find each other.

Time produces ego,

both are fake; the

ego distracts from

the might of now.

The now is the

only true moment,

forever or never.

My-thoughts are trivia,

me is trivia; the space

that contains them

is essential.

Enjoy the space.

Breathe the space.

Be the space.

[If you need help

read this book.]

原来我从小要避免变成一个摆动熨斗的女士, 也很少看到妈妈弄这个恐怖的电器 ~ 可是我应该确认我老是喜欢那个熨衣服的香味.

当我在柏林的一个设计家具公司实习时候我对男朋友发展反感了;主要原因是他虽然在银行里工作并且每周自己熨衣服的他同时竟然习惯了用水烟筒吸毒. 一两年之前，大概1998年，他已经跟我分过手. 但不久他又要我的, 说了因为当时他考虑了做自杀所以要我离开. 那个〝银行世界〞的人就这么有矛盾的. 他们尽量地注意可靠性的外表, 反而私人的话就很不平稳. 从那个时段起来熨斗对我就象征那个假装的世界.

最近单位的管理叫我们天天一定要穿像职业装之类的. 本来我穿的已经算比较整洁的但是最后我就屈服和自己买好熨斗了; 这让我心里有所辛酸. 我只希望我会保持我原来的行为，不过穿华丽的衣服就太容易夸张自己了.

.

上个月终于觉悟了朋友们都一直在说得对，我的确无法接触我的梦牛！前几年我一直在期待他会抱我的那一天；这几天就只好确认梦牛飞走了，对自己当然特别愤怒， 想来想去本人到底多么傻？没关系，傻不傻，每个危机都带来机会；现在我有足够的压力学习无所目标找到方向这个高等级的艺术！

我已经不怕无目标地过日子，但是我仍然在怕看不到远方是怎么样的那个情况。其实看不到远方有时候难以避免，关键应该是本人具有经历和信心没有~~~如果有的话,小路就会自动地显出来!

从大概一年起来我是proz.com的一个会员，它是个翻译网络。最近有人请我当评奖人参加汉德翻译比赛。因此我碰到了下面的小文章。

“我们常常听人说，自己醒悟了，明白了，觉悟了之类的。

或许是的，或许不是的，更多的是在途中说的话。

我们没有可能说终极性的、不会变的话。那么这句话本身是不是终极的呢？这句话和它指向的话并不在一个意义上说的，这是一种视角立场，我们最好不要这样问。

我们常常感到自己醒悟了，例如我感到每一个月，每一个学期，每一年，甚至每一天都会感到自己醒悟了。然而，从历史的眼光看，我们只是说出了当下的感受和理解。事实上，时间一推移，什么都会变的。对一个人的爱，似乎也如此。你对一个人说，我爱你，直到永远。这句话其实是当时自己的体验和理解以及甚至是许诺，但时间是那样的严肃，生活是那样的偶然，你在另一个时间和条件下，你会把原来的话放下，或者淡化之，甚至完全背叛了 。

醒悟，我觉得把它理解为一个过程比较合适。我们对生活处于不断的醒悟中。对个人的生命，对群体生活，对组织单位，对民族文化，对自然宇宙，对未知者，对平时不被注视者处于不断的醒悟中，出现新的意识。一般地说，我们的醒悟依赖我们的方法论之发展，立场之改变，语言之变化，异质的交流，语言的反复运动，默观的实践等。我们的醒悟是历史中的醒悟。“

Source: (摘自中大记事（23）：醒悟(王志成))

found at www.proz.com/contests
with translations in English and German

对一些人来说生活太黑色幽默的：人在讨厌的事情一直不改变，人在热爱的事情很快就不在了。怎么可能生活这么不公平！最少每个事情应该同样地具有暂时性吧！

上面放的文章的确还是有效的；我们感觉到某个事情一直不会改变的原因是宇宙的惰性挺大的并且人生那么短。变化似乎太慢这是个角度的问题。

我喜欢打坐好像跟这些难题都有关系。打坐时候要改变眼光的角度，跟宇宙的惰性同步。结果是人对特慢的变化会敏感一些了，可以看到微笑的倾向。

最后还要说到爱情的暂时性。我仍然相信我会一辈子爱一个人。不过爱情要通过不同的生活价段，它的颜色会不断地变。我想，颜色会越来越深，也可能会越来越浅。

中国的上帝终于听到了我。

今天去上班时后第一次看到了我会喜欢的广告，哈哈！

To say it in a neutral tone: the unaware being is a drifter without a path. - Don't get me wrong. That we need to have a destination is not what I'm suggesting; just moving along is fine with me. Then, let me add: From time to time it's great to know, though, where we are, how we came here and which way we can go ahead, ain't it? So, what I want to express today is, how I think one can know one's path.

(reedited on March 18th, 2009)

Basically, I feel like our identity, for the bigger part of the whole thing, is where we have been to and how the places and their people we've seen have moved us. We are the path we already have drawn behind us, and moreover, we are also the path we'd like to find ahead of us.

And what about being aware or unaware - doesn't that simply mean "I know what I'm thinking"? There's a little bit more to that. How about this: being aware means to have a path yet to remain aimlessly orientated, to have an imagination of tomorrow without clinging to one's expectations.

Otherwise it happens what buddhist teachers call the "common misery": Being unaware of the greater picture; of what is actually going on around you – because you concentrate so much on your chosen aim – you suddenly realize that one or the other expectation of yours will stay unfulfilled and consequently days of frustrations are awaiting.

Some of you may grumpily utter: "Why the hell do you guys always have to preach that awareness-thing? As far as I'm concerned, I was never as sorrowfree and blissful as I've been in my childhood years." - You're right of course. To be peaceful is only possible if you know how to be carefree. So, bless you and be carefree, and, simultaneously, perceive that you did ran around that bend and flipped over that hole. If you do not, I may scold you as an ignorant consumer.

As I often realize, from one moment to the other my habit of identifying myself with something can have totally different results. The twists can be really funny. As orthodox buddhists like to put it: Any feeling of identity is a fine piece of illusion. You are not a continuum.

A valued friend of mine, Klaus, had a surprising reaction when I once quoted that buddhist principle for him. Delighted he evoked: "That's it! I'm a CONTINUUM!" Somehow speechless I accepted that he did - in perfect awareness of it - ignore the little word "no" between "you are" and "continuum". Obviously, the word "continuum" carried the meaning he was looking for as a means of expressing identity - and he didn't care a bit about what buddhists say about illusion.

In the meantime I became convinced that we can be an aware non-continuum and an erratic, drifting soul at the same time, walking a path without knowing it. Just as we are and are not at the same time. And just the same with everything is real yet merely an ingenious illusion - you know what I mean, don't you?

Since one year, or so, I'm playing with the thought of "recording" my dreams - I mean, just with a pen and paper. Tonight I finally wrote the first draft into my note book. Moreover, I did also surf the web for some help concerning dream interpretations; anyone who shares my interest is welcomed to leave some notes!

Here's my dream from last night, the - I admit - stupid title is:

Half~under~water,

floating on a poor raft in flooded Prenzl'berg*

I'd like to note first that I, since four years already, don't live anymore in Berlin, which is my hometown. Still, my dreams take often place in Berlin and I mostly dream of caucasian people. Since I moved to China, I dreamt about Chinese people only twice! It's unbelievable how slowly my unconsciousness is adapting . .. still living in old Germany, man!

Ok, here it comes now:

The setting is quite grey, sky is overcast, people live on rafts like in "Waterworld". Circumstances are disastrous, people rob each other from time to time. I'm on a raft with someone who seems to be my boyfriend, { he resembles noone I've ever met in real life, and I don't have a boyfriend at all, so he's totally made-up ~ which appears to me now to be the weirdest thing in the whole dream ~ I suggest it's perhaps not a boyfriend but an alter ego of myself instead } so, "we" are on the raft and it's maybe afternoon and both of us feel quite exhausted.

The buoyancy of our raft is very poor, therefore we are half under water. I don't feel cold but I do desire stable ground under my feet and some dry clothes. It's also tiresome that we have to watch over our belongings. Not that we posess much, but we've got some precious electronical instruments to observe something { now, I don't know what in detail, though }.

Our equipment is vacuum-packed and also protected by some layers of bubble-wrap, or whatever, therefore it's no problem that it's submerged in the water all the time. So, that "boyfriend" and me are both lying in the water, when I suddenly realize that two devices loosened from the safety net on the raft and will be lost unless I immediatedly dive after them. My boyfriend is asleep, by the way. The situation is critical because the water is not the least transparent, its color is a muddy-green khaki. Yet, I can eventually catch the instruments and bring them back onto the raft.

Back on the raft I realize something is wrong with my boyfriend/ my alter ego - I can't wake him/ me up. At this point I'm already conscious again; the dream is over . .. . quite bizarre, isn't it?

~ ~ ~~ I n t e r p r e t a t i o n

Well, after my in-depth investigation on dream interpretation and the key symbols of water and rafts, I concluded that this dream was indeed an echo of my current worries; the ones circling around my friendship with Zhu Qing: it is a very unstable thing and the cause why I'm regularly lost in big emotional turmoils.

In a broader context it also reflects my anticipation of our world going down ~ and me as being capable only of looking at it going down. I try to comfort myself by pointing out it's not necessarily a complete break-down, maybe just a big slide which will be followed by an up-turn soon.

Yeah, actually, I'm not in a depressed mood; I still appreciate being an observer on this lovely globe; I feel quite allright after all. Must be the meditation that keeps me up, I guess.

*(Prenzl'berg is a north-eastern district of Berlin)

_

This month I offer you a special feature, showing twelve pics shot by my friend Zhu Qing, who's working in the special police force of Shen Zhen, Kanton. During the last two months he had several deployments, leading him far away to Wen Chuan, Si Chuan Province, where an earth-quake wreaked havoc over the entire area. The Chinese title was choosen by himself, playing with the fact that it took two arduous months to rebuild the only road leading to Wen Chuan. The 6th picture is an auto-portrait of him.

Since my first attempt of doing something that at least looks like meditation,

some years have gone by already; five years if I remember it right. The first

type of meditation I learned is the Japanese Zazen ("sitting in Zen"), which

seems to be a very pure and basic technique. Although I was determined to

meditate not less than three times per week, I couldn't do as I wanted.

Only this month a change happened: I've learned a new technique, one which

gives me the strength to be disciplined enough to sit every day for one or two

times, each time for one hour. The technique's name is Vipassana ("seeing

things as they are", pronounced like "Vee-pash-shana"), a method that survi-

ved the slack period, for around two thousand years, in Burma/ Myanmar, be-

fore it came back to its land of origin, India, from where it eventually spread all

over the world. The organisation which teaches Vipassana works non-profit;

each student is free to decide after the course if and how much (s)he wants

to pay.

The courses are open for every one, no matter what religion, nor is there a

need to believe in anything at all. The teaching is easy to grasp. Actually,

I dare to say, the method is as transcendent as empirical science - simply

perfect for Meditation-Dummies like me!

Give it a try and you will be thankful for every hour of the

10-day course.

www.dhamma.org/

In August 2007 I wrote an essay and gave it to my buddhist mentor Thorre Schlaméus. His feedback has been better than expected. . .

Because I like translating, I translated it this week into English (LOL). Everyone who is eager to get a new and provoking view on the subject may find this attempt interesting.

I post it directly into the blog, but I also offer you a PDF-file with a better layout and the original German version.

Deliverance –

The self-fulfillment of an illusion

1\2 The Eternal Loop

For the human eye – actually the human conception altogether – the way of things is conceived through contrasts. We can’t perceive light without darkness; warmth we notice only, because we also know the cold, and so on.

Generally speaking, everything we observe is based on our judgment whether or not an appearance is current or absent. Even the phenomenon of consciousness becomes evident for us only, because we do experience unconsciousness as well.

Every one of us, once in a while, happens to feel how it is to wake up slowly from a sound sleep. With sticky eye lids, we are diving up to the surface of clarity. Sometimes it needs incredulous five seconds before we recognize inside whose house it is we’re waking up this morning.

One or two moments after our striving for clarity, we see ourselves triumphantly taking back the full power of consciousness. And, we Buddhists are in no way an exception. But, aren’t we a little bit inconsistent by doing so? Isn’t the state of unconscious, deep sleep already the absolute painless,teasingly peaceful Nirvana? I suspect, the only reason why we live with might and main, is in order to fall asleep exhausted the coming night and to get rewarded anew with deep, painless sleep.

Ok, I admit, it's just joking around. The true, ever-lasting Nirvana has to be earned by means of a life-long training. Otherwise, everything would start all over again from the very beginning; life-cycle after life-cycle we would be kept in the loop of rebirth, which in the end appears to be as arduous as the daily struggle of awakening.

Hence originates our commitment to a lifetime of drudgery walking the Eightfold Path. We want to make sure that after the end of this life we will never have to wake up again, that we never again need to become aware, triumphantly, of our power of consciousness. And, we aren't even irritated by those foolhardy voices who want to assure us that eternity doesn’t last longer than a calm, motionless night.

However the nature of eternity is; before we’re able to subside into the cosmic, permanent sleep, we have to tread the aforementioned path, which demands a high degree of discipline and patience. One wants to say: Tough task! –Right, and don’t forget; during your hike on that long road, your sufferings will never be eased even a little bit! Now you may wonder: “What? No ease at all? Didn’t the masters promise on that road I’ll learn how to eliminate the sources of pain, one by one?” Yes, but that still doesn’t change the intensity of pain you have to perceive. I see, you’re shaking your head. Consider to read the second part!

2\2 The staircase without steps

I’m saying again, the effect of downgrading your suffering-level will never be recognized by you. Every time you cut it down one more degree, your desire for the next cut remains as strong as before. (“Degree” is of course an artificial term to illustrate the process.) You won’t feel a tiny bit more coolly, no matter how low you already have been descending. Let’s suppose you’ve already reached the lowest possible degree of suffering-perception; even then, your longing to leave the last level and obtain deliverance would be intense. – And this is because:

There’s a simple mechanism preventing the joy of relieve. The less pain we have to endure, the finer calibrates our receiver. As I said at the beginning, our system of perception is founded on the rule of contrast. If the “input” of pain is fading, the system has to sensitize itself, simply in order to sustain the sharpness of contrast. In effect, the milder pain of tomorrow feels as tormenting as the severer pain of today. That is the paradox of what I call “descending the staircase without steps”.

Now you know the reason why the last day of your life will feel as sorrowful as today, although you decided going the path of the paths. You are doing a seemingly never-ending work just to make sure you'll escape rebirth – given your work was really good. The crux is, it is all a matter of faith! It's potentially insane to believe in a result which impossibly will ever be proved by anyone! So, please keep in mind the last conclusion I want to give you now.

In the moment of death, as you leave the last threshold and enter the here-after, you're losing all your capability of feeling anything. Not just the pain, but also the not-pain. Therefore you weren't able to enjoy the not-pain after death. So, when is the right time to enjoy the deliverance? – Now! You have to imagine it now, and this is why you should meditate regularly. Through meditation you harvest the fruit of deliverance. Indeed, a very transcendental fruit, since you only can anticipate it rather than observe it in real-time, when it really came after your last breath faded. Therefore, I wish you sufficient courage and madness to keep going – no matter what!

Nicole Lüderitz, 2007

. . . in Form einer Kurzgeschichte? Der Link führt zur Download-Seite, auf der es auch einen Klappentext gibt. Es lohnt sich, versprochen!

www.ipernity.com/doc/fern0zt/2066116

_

_

First of all, I feel quite delighted, because I realized that another

clichee is about to die. The young french folks are definitely willing

to communicate in English! Merci beaucoup dessus mes nouvelles

amies Lison du Var et Elsa West!

And, at the same time, I'm very thank-

ful ipernity urges me somehow to revive my French aswell! I browse

through the streams and I can't help but have to figure out what the

French messages are about. So, my rosty French comes back slowly.

In high school, my evil french and english teachers convinced me I

don't have the brains to study foreign languages. The marks of those two

subjects had always torn down my otherwise quite good marks quota.

Yet, as I entered the university I challenged myself. I chose Precolum-

bian America Studies and Sinology, consequently I had to take courses

in Spanish* and Chinese.

After I learned that, besides English, they're

the most spoken languages on earth, I was even more motivated. So, a

decade after my discouraging high school degree, I'm a Language

Maniac who speaks four languages and is determined to add French and

Japanese aswell!

Never trust other peoples' judgements about you - except for very good

friends of course, and maybe those rare white-haired wise men and wo-

men... .

*Yes, although it is "Precolumbian", the primary study sources are most-

ly written by the Spanish conquerors.

.

I just posted pictures of the place I lived two years ago. When I watch them I feel sorry for how hard it is to make compromises. Back then, I had just two travel bags with me and my bike, brought from Berlin, and I had the amazing feeling to be able to move anywhere, just now, without having to leave behind anything.

In the meantime I moved three times and I have to carry 13 cardboard boxes with me when I want to change my place of residence. So, I need someone to drive it by car now in order to move. That's really annoying me.

At the same time I'm so thankful for having a well-paid job now and that my living standard raised to a more comfortable level compared with where I was two years ago. I definitely can't be happy without books I can call my own, and nice lamps, and bla bla bla . . .

The only thing that gives me some confidence, still, is that I see me throwing things away reguarly, so that it won't grow exponentially. Maybe I should establish a box limit: never hoard more than the volume of 15 boxes!

In August I was hitch-hiking along the

northeastern coast of Japan. I can only

recommend that to other travellers. It was

one of my best and most adventurous trips ever. As

always, I didn't had enough time, but it

worked quite fast. From Hitachi to Aomori

and back in only two weeks! A good way to

come into contact with interesting folks, a

natural way.