Upside Down

     At some level, every single one of us knows what the mystics, sages and saints have embodied throughout the ages - that all of us, everything, is a manifestation of the great heart of perfect wisdom.

     But there's a mysterious divide between what we know, and what we pretend is true.
     Much of our life is lived in painful pretense - why? - we can choose to live authentically.

Commitment to Benevolent Inexhaustibility

     Mystics, shamans, and artists seem to share a tremendous capacity for perseverance. Taoist sages live very long lives ("immortals") so as to evolve as much as possible spiritually. Perhaps the ultimate in benevolent perseverance is expressed in the Buddhist bodhisattva vow:

               Beings are numberless, I vow to save them
               Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them
               Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them
               Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it.

     "Knausgaard has his own artistic commitment to inexhaustibility ... which manifests itself as a kind of tiring tirelessness."
       James Woods' review of Knausgaard's book "My Struggle": http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/total-recall


     But why would this critic describe it as "tiring" tirelessness? Could there not be an energizing form of tirelessness?

Jonathan Chua Kiat, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com