I wrote this pertaining to the comment in Opening the Hand of Thought... that life is accidental.
If life is accidental (as are the ping pong balls falling into a bell curve at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago), it would seem that it should be that way all the time. When we think of an untimely death we are implying that "such and such will happen (long healthily life) unless... an accident occurs." But I think the guy who said that life is accidental is saying that even the expected result is an accident. If you say heads and the coin lands on heads then heads is an accident rather than an event caused by one flipping a coin and predicting a result. Perhaps we should feel gratitude that we can flip a coin over and over again, and not begrudge too much when it is tails despite our calling "heads."
Does that make sense?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Reflections on Talks on Buddha's Lists
During a recent Appamada Intensive our students gave talks on Buddha's lists. Here are my reflections on their talks.
-
Rhinoceros Fan (an infamous koan) One day Yanguan called to his attendant, "Bring me the rhinoceros fan." The attendant said, ...
2 comments:
If you accept the premise than the only possible answer is "yes". It makes sense .
Can you say more?
Post a Comment