tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1586334565449361221..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Parts of the Unseen: R. H. Blyth: Lawrence and Eastern CultureUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45787532157609952322011-06-27T09:25:00.123-07:002011-06-27T09:25:00.123-07:00Indeed. The little I know here suggests that this ...Indeed. The little I know here suggests that this is a genre -'deaths of Zen masters' - designed to exemplify an achieved enlightenment that the rest of us might distantly approximate. As someone saddled, for better of worse, with a 'personal identity'which doesn't show any sign yet of loosening its grip, I find it all a bit strenuous too.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-18790714971585284252011-06-27T08:08:46.253-07:002011-06-27T08:08:46.253-07:00Yes, certainly. To envisage circumstance all calm,...Yes, certainly. To envisage circumstance all calm, as Keats suggested in his first period of intermittent fevers, or to see and accept the world as everything that is the case, would perhaps be the idea...<br /><br />If only.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-35186232374873254522011-06-26T12:30:02.093-07:002011-06-26T12:30:02.093-07:00Tom, Don -
It might be helpful to see the story ...Tom, Don - <br /><br />It might be helpful to see the story of Shinshitsu's response to Rotan's death as an illustration of the Buddha-wisdom passed down in the Thana Sutta (AN IV.192), as translated here from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu:<br /><br />There is the case where a person, suffering loss of relatives, loss of wealth, or loss through<br />disease, does not reflect: 'That's how it is when living together in the world. That's how it is<br />when gaining a personal identity.2 When there is living in the world, when there is the gaining<br />of a personal identity, these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins<br />after these eight worldly conditions: gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, &<br />pain.' Suffering loss of relatives, loss of wealth, or loss through disease, he sorrows, grieves,<br />& laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. And then there is the case where a person,<br />suffering loss of relatives, loss of wealth, or loss through disease, reflects: 'That's how it is<br />when living together in the world. That's how it is when gaining a personal identity. When<br />there is living in the world, when there is the gaining of a personal identity, these eight<br />worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly<br />conditions: gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain.' Suffering loss of<br />relatives, loss of wealth, or loss through disease, he does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does<br />not beat his breast or become distraught.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-30466461559183478072011-06-21T10:13:02.894-07:002011-06-21T10:13:02.894-07:00Each time I read it, I get a different feel. Now I...Each time I read it, I get a different feel. Now I feel like it is the old men and the young people who feel that the his words, his weeping, was uncalled for. The additional sentences are helpful - Heaven says it was the right time for him to be called, the right time for him to come and it is the people who have misunderstood and not Rôtan.<br /><br />Of course, I'm still holding out the possibility that I haven't got a clue.<br /><br />I googled Rôtan's death for maybe some other thoughts and all I got back was this very post.<br /><br />So there is that!<br /><br />Thanks for extending this on through the fog in my brain.Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89631828470468078512011-06-21T07:00:35.953-07:002011-06-21T07:00:35.953-07:00Don, I too wondered a bit... and concluded in my w...Don, I too wondered a bit... and concluded in my wandering way that the point was, one ought to make an attempt to approach the end with at least a smidgeon of dignity intact, if at all possible.<br /><br />But what do I know?<br /><br />In any case, the passage Blyth quotes has two more sentences, which perhaps helped to inform my wobbly view.<br /><br />"The ancient called this, 'the punishment of not being in accordance with Heaven.' It was the right time for the Master to come; it was the right time when he went."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42049800415164356622011-06-21T06:12:28.666-07:002011-06-21T06:12:28.666-07:00Was just having this conversation in a pub with a ...Was just having this conversation in a pub with a friend. Indeed, for me, all poems, all books are death awareness books, on some level. My friend suggested to me that it was because I was old and I had to demure. I think he was thinking of the poems of youth, of love, of passion.<br /><br />But aren't they simply anti-death poems (of course, it also enters the mind that orgasm has been described as a little death)? <br /><br />The section that struck you, Tom, is puzzling for me, especially perhaps in translation? I take it to mean that all the weeping being uncalled for is because perhaps something is incomplete or left unfinished? I suppose the opposite, too, may be true - that Rôtan was not a man, perhaps is was a saintly figure?<br /><br />It leaves me puzzled. That, too, might be the point?Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-55356376769855532732011-06-21T01:20:09.640-07:002011-06-21T01:20:09.640-07:00Don,
Speaking of your bedside death-awareness boo...Don,<br /><br />Speaking of your bedside death-awareness books (familiar) --<br /><br />"And speaking of the necessity of death" --<br /><br />Does there come a point beyond which all books are death-awareness books?<br /><br /><br />What caught me here, and still has me hooked:<br /><br />"The reason for this must have been that he uttered uncalled-for words, wept uncalled-for tears. This was fleeing from Heaven, multiplying emotions, forgetting whence he had received (his nature)."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46951281359842730512011-06-20T06:08:32.658-07:002011-06-20T06:08:32.658-07:00Such a privilege ... thanks, Tom.
Blyth, Wordsw...Such a privilege ... thanks, Tom. <br /><br />Blyth, Wordsworth - and soon, I'm sure, Lawrence - together with a volume of death awareness poems I'm currently reading, are piled high by the bed. Oh, and Santoka, too.<br /><br />Such riches in one lifetime ... I feel almost embarrassed at the extravagance.Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91049825902692148222011-06-20T05:34:19.748-07:002011-06-20T05:34:19.748-07:00Tom,
Very nice to find all this here, including t...Tom,<br /><br />Very nice to find all this here, including this--<br /><br />"Moments of vision come when least expected, unbidden, and in most men, pass into oblivion, unnoticed and unremembered."<br /><br />and this --<br /><br />.........Night deepens,<br />And sleep in the villages;<br />.........Sounds of falling water.<br /><br /><br />6.20<br /><br />first light coming into sky above still<br />black ridge, silver of planet by branch<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> material which moves a line,<br /> real time co-ordinates<br /><br /> in such a way that measured,<br /> thus, there seems that<br /><br />grey white fog against invisible ridge,<br />wingspan of tern flapping toward pointSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-27399191174195273312011-06-20T04:48:44.429-07:002011-06-20T04:48:44.429-07:00Don,
Of course you were the invisible spiritual m...Don,<br /><br />Of course you were the invisible spiritual mechanic in the engine room during the selection and composition of parts in this post.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59877574354089844972011-06-19T08:42:58.409-07:002011-06-19T08:42:58.409-07:00And they say man cannot levitate ...
Like those p...And they say man cannot levitate ...<br /><br />Like those peonies, I am quivering ...<br /><br />The way that is not the Way, beauty beyond beauty.<br /><br />Transcendent, Tom. Thank you. It seems to have all flowed through you and out again to the world. To us.Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88539219272554348852011-06-19T08:15:34.153-07:002011-06-19T08:15:34.153-07:00Barry,
Yes, it's that heavy wagon does it, ev...Barry,<br /><br />Yes, it's that heavy wagon does it, every time.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13557815123353379252011-06-19T08:03:13.947-07:002011-06-19T08:03:13.947-07:00Tom - These quotations have a particular power and...Tom - These quotations have a particular power and necessity for me this weekend - the heavy wagon is rumbling by, and I envy the peonies their power of giving before the shock and swaying back. Too cryptic and too personal all at once - forgive me, but the words here fell on ready soil.<br /><br />- flower and fade, and follow the natural curve -Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.com