Seems I'm always facing a choice: either take what I know and talk about it, or take what I know and become it.
I can blab about peace. Or I can be peace.
I can blab about truth. Or I can be truth.
I can blab about Buddha. Or I can be Buddha.
I can blab about justice. Or I can be justice.
I can blab about responsibility. Or I can be responsibility.
I can blab about insight. Or I can be insight.
And yes, I can't shake the idea that the two options stand in inverse proportion to one another, are mutually incompatible, are at odds with one another. Time spent on one is not time spent on the other. Attention spent on one is not attention spent on the other.
I'm getting close to undoing my whole professional life! I never did metaphysics. I gave up epistemology. I'm close to being done with ethics and political theory, too.
Whatever will become of me?
Have you read/studied Shobogenzo Gabyo?
ReplyDeleteI recommend the Nishijima/Cross translation... but I would say that!
Personally I reckon it can't possibly be a question of not blabbing or theorising; that might be just some remote, impoverished existence... but it may be a matter of the right sort of blabbing and theorising, informed of course by stopping blabbing and theorising.
Hee Jin kim blabs and theorises about this very well (the use of language in rendering the Big Picture, and the balancing of it) in his writings on Dogen's venerable blabbing and theorising.
Regards,
Harry.