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cherydactylNote to less interested friends o' mine: Sorry for all the Buddhist stuff lately; it's truly not that I plan to do this all the time. It's just been that the last few daily dharma emails have been things I think I need to be reminded of.
Metaphysical Questions
The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, "Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same." Another time he said, "Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first." Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, in Zen Keys from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
Metaphysical Questions
The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, "Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same." Another time he said, "Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first." Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, in Zen Keys from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
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Date: 2006-08-28 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 11:42 pm (UTC)Never appologize for what interests you. LJ is totally about you. :) Unless of course appologizing is a Buddhist thing with which I'd be unfamiliar. ;)
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Date: 2006-08-29 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 03:25 am (UTC)That's one quote I love to refer to. Well, the quote that Thich Nhat Hanh is referring to is one that I like and have referred to, I should say. I think I just got tired of typing, "Just pull the damn arrow out!" But maybe I stopped thinking other people needed to hear it more than I did, too. That seems more likely.
Anyway, fun quote.
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Date: 2006-08-30 01:59 am (UTC)yeah, I have to remind myself not to get wrapped up in trying to understand the universe. There's an old Computer Science story about how you can't model the universe completely, because to be able to do that you would need to be able to store and access as much information as the universe holds, which would take all the material in the universe to build to be able to code all that information, and there really isn't any stuff left over from the universe itself to do that with....I don't think I'm explaining this very well...but anyway, one major point of both these stories for me is that maybe it's entertaining to BS about the deeper meaning of the universe and it processes, but usually it's a distraction from the real work that needs to be done.