Chinese
is perhaps the most difficult language in the world, because it has no
alphabet. It is pictorial and to read it means years of hard work to
memorize those symbols. To the born Chinese it is not so difficult,
because from the very birth it becomes ingrained into his mind, but
anybody who is studying Chinese from the outside world ... I have been
told by friends that it takes ten years at least, if one works
strenuously; thirty years if one works the way any ordinary student will
work.
At the age of four, to understand Chinese -- and not only
Chinese, but Chinese poetry; that makes it even more difficult. Because
to understand the prose of any language is simple, but the poetry has
wings, it flies to faraway places. Prose is very marketplace, very
earthly; it creeps on the earth. Poetry flies. What prose cannot say,
poetry can manage to indicate. Prose is connected with your mind, poetry
is more connected with your heart; it is more like love than like
logic.
At the age of four, Dogen's understanding of Chinese poetry
immediately showed that he was not going to be an ordinary human being.
From that very age his behavior was not that of a mediocre child; he
behaved like a buddha, so serene, so graceful, not interested in toys.
All children are interested in toys, teddy-bears ... who cares about
poetry?
But, fortunately or unfortunately, his father died when he
was only two years old and his mother died when he was seven. Dogen used
to say later on to his disciples, when he became a fully-fledged master
in his own right, that everybody thought it was a misfortune: "What
will happen to this beautiful, intelligent child?" But in his deepest
heart he felt it was an opportunity; now there was no barrier.
Modern psychologists will perhaps understand it: you may be grown up --
fifty, sixty, seventy -- your father and mother may be dead ... still
they dominate you in a very psychological way. If you silently listen to
the voices within you can work out that, "This voice comes from my
father, or from my mother, or from my uncle, or from my teacher, or from
the priest."
Dogen used to say, "It was a great opportunity that
both the people who could have distracted me, who loved me and I loved
them ... and that was the danger. They died at the right time. I am
infinitely grateful to them just because they died at the right time
without destroying me."
It is something very strange for a
seven-year-old child to understand this. It has been discovered only now
by the psychologists that man's greatest barriers are the father, the
mother. If you want to be a totally free consciousness you have to drop,
somewhere on the way, your teddy-bears, your toys, the teachings that
have been forced upon you. They have all been of good intent, there is
no question about it, but as it is said in an ancient proverb, "The path
to hell is paved with good intentions."
Just good intentions are
not enough; what is needed is a conscious intention, which is very rare.
To find a father and mother with a conscious meditative energy is just
hoping for the hopeless.
When his mother died Dogen was translating
the most significant Buddhist scripture, abhidharma -- "the essence of
religion" -- from Chinese into Japanese. He showed every sign of a
tremendous future. And at the age of seven, when his father and mother
had both died, the first thing he did -- which is unbelievable -- was to
become a sannyasin. Even the neighbors, relatives, could not believe
it. And Dogen said, "I will not miss this opportunity. Perhaps if my
father and mother were alive, I might not have left the world in search
of truth." He became a sannyasin and started searching for the master.
by
k.jagadeesh
Mobile: 91-9841121780, 9543187772.
EmaiL: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com
Web:
http://www.pinterest.com/jagadeeshkri/books-worth-reading/
Web:http://www.bookbyte.com/searchresults.aspx?type=books&author=jagadeesh%20krishnan
Web;http://issuu.com/home/publications
Web:
https://www.morebooks.de/search/gb?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=jagadeesh+krishnan
Web:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/275-9424466-2127042?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=jagadeesh%20krishnan
Web:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/378-4986394-6216105?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=jagadeesh+krishnan
WEb:
http://www.amazon.es/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=jagadeesh%20krishnan
WEb:
my books
http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/180-0191351-1760005?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=jagadeesh%20krishnan
No comments:
Post a Comment