WHY DO WE SUFFER
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| Suffer Definition |
The art of exaggeration and you always
have to allow for that you always have to realize that he's slightly pulling
his own leg he is as in a group of people who are enthusiastic for something
you have but have humor who very often find that when they're talking among
themselves they carry their own ideas to ludicrous extremes and roar with
laughter about it and drunk that does that now for example he has a great deal
to say about the value of the useless life the whole notion of something of
life any moment in life or any event in life being useful that is to say
serving the end of some future event in life is to a taoist absurd because
nothing is useful at all the universe is viewed as purposeless and useless
through and through because it's it's a game more than that our game doesn't
really convey the sense of this when a taoist sage is wandering through the
forest he isn't going anywhere he's just wandering when he watches the clouds
he loves them because they have no special destination he watches birds moving
around he watches the waves lapping on the shore and just because all this is
not busy in the way that human beings are busy because it serves no end other
than being what it is now it is for that reason that he admires it and it is
for that reason that you get the peculiar styles of Chinese painting in the
Tang song and later dynasties where nature in its way would wandering nature is
the main subject when we say that something is without purpose that's a put
down phrase say well it's no future in it what's the use now we say what's the
future is not important now you can exaggerate this and drugs are does in a
very humorous way by describing the ideal useless man he's a hunchback and he's
so deformed that his chin rests on his navel and so on and but he says now this
man is very admirable he's found the secret of life because when the social
service workers come around he's the first to get a free handout and when the
military officers come around to conscripted army he's the first to be rejected
therefore he lives long and he also describes the case of some travelers came
across an enormous tree fantastic thing and this too never did anyone see such
a tree so they went up and looked at it at first they tested the leaves and
found that they were rough and disagreeable and no good to eat then they looked
at the branches and found that they were all twisted and absolutely no good for
using a sticks then they examined the wood and found it was full of piss and
absolutely useless for a carpenter so nobody had disturbed this tree it was not
used for cutting down on any purpose whatsoever and so it grew to an enormous
size and was of great age now Johnson is here pulling our legs he is not
exactly asking us to take all that literally but this is his way of doing
things then also he describes the behavior of the high form of man and he says
the man of character that is in this case the word death we were discussing
yesterday the man of character lives at home without exercising his mind and
performs actions without worry the notions of right and wrong and the praise
and blame of others do not disturb him when within the fourthies all people can
enjoy themselves that is happiness for him when all people are well provided
that is peace for him sorrowful in countenance he looks like a baby who has
lost its mother appearing stupid he goes about like one who has lost his way he
has plenty of money to spend and does not know where it comes from he drinks
and eats just enough and does not know where the food comes from this is the
demeanor of the man of character then by contrast the hypocrites are those
people who regard as good whatever the worldA claims as good and regard as
right whatever the world acclaimed was right when you tell them that they are
men of dhow then their countenance the countenance is changed with satisfaction
when you call them hypocrites then they look displeased all their lives they
call themselves men of Dow and all their lives they remain hypocrites they know
how to go a good speech until appropriate anecdotes in order to attract the
crowd but from the very beginning to the very end they do not know what it's
all about they put on the proper garb and dress in the proper colors and put on
a decorative Xperia pearance in order to make themselves popular but refused to
admit that they're hypocrites time but this explanation of the man who is
stupid in countenance and appearance and is wandering
about as if he had lost his way and doesn't know anything of course is based on
the text and loud sigh where he says the people of the world of merrymaking is
partaking of the sacrificial feasts as if mounting the Paris in spring I alone
am mild like one unemployed like a newborn babe that cannot yet smile
unattached like one without a home the people of the world have enough and
despair but I'm like one left out my heart must be that of a fool being muddled
nebulous
The vulgar are knowing luminous the rain who doesn't compete everybody
else gets before him to the prizes of material prizes of life and even to the
spiritual prizes the fool is to see the person who isn't going anywhere he sits
by the road and go but even the fool is like a mongolian idiot child who isn't
interested in survival who will take a plate of food and run his finger round
in it and make a wonderful slosh with the steel and then watch it dripped from
the tip of his finger he won't eat for quite a while and then he'll play with
it in all sorts of ways then he's attentional would be distracted by something
else and he'll chase after that to see but he if so long as you don't cross him
this is the case of the mongolian idiot he remains the most wonderfully
friendly swinging kind of a and but he has no ambition he doesn't fight for
himself and nobody can ever get him to so the fool has always been used as a
kind of analog of the sage there's a Hindu verse which says sometimes naked
sometimes mad now as a scholar now the fool thus they appear on earth the
freemen and if you read the biographies absolutely wild now not all of this you see again
just as in reading drunk sir you mustn't take it too literally these things are
said by way of a kind of over stress to correct another kind of over stress in
the opposite direction when a Japanese scholar many years ago explained the
teaching of Buddhism to me he said something I had never heard anybody else say
that the Buddha taught for example that life is suffering in order to correct
the wrong view that it ought to be pleasure he said that there everything is
impermanent in order to correct the wrong view that reality lasts forever in
time so the idea of the middle way is set up in this fashion by going to one
extreme in order to correct another and this is a very common Asian technique
and it is found especially in Zen where teachers when they are asked about
something sacred we'll always answer in terms of something secular what is the
Buddha the tree in the garden then when you asked about something secular they
answer in terms of something sacred see...
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