正文
Today my sister and I went shopping in the morning. When we came back, we met a mid-age woman selling sweet pastry made by glutinous rice powder and the filling is liquide sugar. It's delicious, not very sweet, so we bought some. At that time, another old lady passed by and she was selling the fragrant flowers, a basket in her arm and it was plenty of gardenia. I bought 2 bouquets for 4yuan.
In the South under everlasting rain of spring and fire-flow summer (七月流火, from the Book of Songs), there are always women selling fragrant white flowers: gardenia bouquets, jasmine necklaces, and Burma-magnolia (緬桂) - two magnolias holding by the iron wire and you may hang it over the bouton. The sellers are usually old ladies with grey hair, they put those flowers in a plate and cover it by a wet towel, they wander between streets and dirts, under the sun - or the rain - with men, beautiful and foxy men, a near feminine beauty - from Jiujiang, selling the blue and white porcelaines of their hometown, with the handicapped beggers without legs or arms, bow and kowtow to us - they often carry a speaker with them and from the speaker the pop-music sounds so pathetique. When I was young, I felt so timide that I dared not to look at them or give them the money, I had to leave quickly...now it's fine, life made me tough enough.
When I was young there were still immense lotus ponds surrounding the city: I mean Lotus, not water lily or sleeping lotus of emperor Wudi of Han dynasty (according to the legend this sleeping beauty only blooms in the night). In the summer if you went to the early morning market, you could buy bouquets of lotus: pink or white, and the fragrance is totally different from the above white flowers, it's clear, with a slight fishy smell and smell of water. When the season of lotus passed, then you could taste the fresh lotus seed. In Bouddhisme the "nymph" or "birth by transformation" - this form of life comes exactly from lotus seed: they have a big head, a boy's face with a malignant smile: they smile to us, yes WE, we poor creature coming from ovum and sperm. They do not have parents, nature is their parents, they are born spontaneously, a life with lightness, without any responsability. How lucky they are! If I had a child I would like to give it a name as 蓮生or荷生 (born from lotus), I wish it could be as emotionless as birth by transformation.
Today I started to read A History of Western Philosophy by Russell, the introduction attracted me already: some quotations here: Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science...to teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.
Life is so bitter, I know I consider Bouddhisme only as a philosophy, but - is it more intelligent to live desirelessly than to live "love your neighbor as yourself"?
In the South under everlasting rain of spring and fire-flow summer (七月流火, from the Book of Songs), there are always women selling fragrant white flowers: gardenia bouquets, jasmine necklaces, and Burma-magnolia (緬桂) - two magnolias holding by the iron wire and you may hang it over the bouton. The sellers are usually old ladies with grey hair, they put those flowers in a plate and cover it by a wet towel, they wander between streets and dirts, under the sun - or the rain - with men, beautiful and foxy men, a near feminine beauty - from Jiujiang, selling the blue and white porcelaines of their hometown, with the handicapped beggers without legs or arms, bow and kowtow to us - they often carry a speaker with them and from the speaker the pop-music sounds so pathetique. When I was young, I felt so timide that I dared not to look at them or give them the money, I had to leave quickly...now it's fine, life made me tough enough.
When I was young there were still immense lotus ponds surrounding the city: I mean Lotus, not water lily or sleeping lotus of emperor Wudi of Han dynasty (according to the legend this sleeping beauty only blooms in the night). In the summer if you went to the early morning market, you could buy bouquets of lotus: pink or white, and the fragrance is totally different from the above white flowers, it's clear, with a slight fishy smell and smell of water. When the season of lotus passed, then you could taste the fresh lotus seed. In Bouddhisme the "nymph" or "birth by transformation" - this form of life comes exactly from lotus seed: they have a big head, a boy's face with a malignant smile: they smile to us, yes WE, we poor creature coming from ovum and sperm. They do not have parents, nature is their parents, they are born spontaneously, a life with lightness, without any responsability. How lucky they are! If I had a child I would like to give it a name as 蓮生or荷生 (born from lotus), I wish it could be as emotionless as birth by transformation.
Today I started to read A History of Western Philosophy by Russell, the introduction attracted me already: some quotations here: Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science...to teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.
Life is so bitter, I know I consider Bouddhisme only as a philosophy, but - is it more intelligent to live desirelessly than to live "love your neighbor as yourself"?
評論
wushu
2012-06-03 01:30:14
回複
悄悄話
For one is desireless, one would not choose. Not between an eastern philosophy and a western religion. For one would "love your neighbor as yourself",love the Buddha as he may live the next door.
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