Thank you for this: we’re thinking of you and Minagawa sensei and your mission in Nanjing and I’m looking forward to hearing much about this important journey and conference.

I wanted to say that I hugely appreciated your passing on Aoki Sensei’s feeling about Millet’s painting. Both the pictures he talks about are surely wonderful images of ‘ma’, with the space between the two silent characters so richly felt, a life-long kumite full of understanding and acceptance. And the Angelus is a great image of UN, of a simple and pure reverence for both earth and heaven, naturally breaking into the drudgery of everyday work when the air vibrates to the angelus bell. This everyday call to spiritual awareness is something that has since passed from western life (though I think they still broadcast the angelus nightly on Irish radio, a minute of mediation interrupting the endless chatter), but is surely one of the most attractive aspects of Islam.

Can we dream of one day Tenshingoso being as natural a part of peoples’ everyday routine as the angelus once was, and Muslim prayers now are?

With thanks from (I hope) ‘real me’

Peter Furtado