| |
was far more clear than the master himself. And saying to the monk that, NOW MAKE YOUR BOWS AND RETIRE, freaks me out! Joshu should have touched his feet and asked for forgiveness. He did not prove his steel.
Now again we have to listen to the schoolmaster Setcho: Setcho says, THE REAL WAY IS NOT DIFFICULT.
This is what is called parrot thinking. Now what is the point to repeat it?
THE REAL WAY IS NOT DIFFICULT.
DIRECT WORD! DIRECT SPEECH!
Now this idiot does not understand a word and he is saying that what Joshu has said is:
DIRECT WORD! DIRECT SPEECH!
ONE WITH MANY PHASES,
TWO WITH ONE.
FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENS THE SUN RISES, THE MOON SETS;
BEYOND THE HILLS THE HIGH MOUNTAINS, THE COLD WATERS.
THE SKULL HAS NO CONSCIOUSNESS, NO DELIGHT;
THE DEAD TREE SINGS IN THE WIND, NOT YET ROTTEN.
DIFFICULT, DIFFICULT!
ATTACHMENT AND CLARITY; WATCH, AND PENETRATE THE SECRET!
There is no secret. Joshu's statement is simply without any reality in it, the question of any secret does not arise. But the schoolmaster tries to make it look as if there is some great secret. As a camouflage he writes some beautiful, poetic lines, but they have nothing to do with Joshu's remark. They are simply an attempt to express, to exhibit that "I am a man of great understanding, I know the secret; now you penetrate..." And there is no secret at all.
He reminds me of an old proverb...
In ancient Greece, in the times of Anagoras... Anagoras was one of the great predecessors of Socrates, not a great philosopher, but he became great because people poisoned him also. I have never talked about him because there is nothing much about him, but still -- by poisoning him, people have put him in the same category as Socrates and Jesus. Anagoras used to say -- and from him comes the proverb -- that a philosopher is a blind man in a dark night, in a dark house, searching for a black cat which is not there.
Question 1
Maneesha, you are asking:
"IN LIFE ONE CONTINUALLY HAS TO MAKE PRACTICAL DECISIONS -- ABOUT HOW ONE WILL USE ONE'S TIME AND KEEP ENERGY, WITH WHOM ONE WILL
|
|
|