It is the one
without obsession who is noble.
Just do not act in a contrived manner; simply be normal.
When you go searching elsewhere outside yourself, your whole approach
is already mistaken. You just try to seek buddhahood, but
buddhahood is just a name, an expression.
Do you know the one who is doing
the searching?
Our task
as humans is to find
the few principles that will calm the
infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend
what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable
again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness
a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by
the misery of the century. Naturally, it is
a superhuman task. But superhuman
is the term for tasks [we] take
a long time to accomplish,
that’s all.
Let us
know our aims then,
holding fast to the mind, even if
force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable
face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to
despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim
that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily,
and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have
been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic
times. But too many people confuse tragedy with
despair. “Tragedy,” [D.H.] Lawrence said,
“ought to be a great kick at misery.”
This is a healthy and immediately
applicable thought. There are
many things today
deserving such
a kick.
If we are
to save the mind we must
ignore its gloomy virtues and celebrate
its strength and wonder. Our world is poisoned
by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly
surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called
the spirit of heaviness. Let us not add to this.
It is futile to weep over the mind,
it is enough to labor
for it.
But where
are the conquering virtues
of the mind? The same Nietzsche listed
them as mortal enemies to heaviness of the spirit.
For him, they are strength of character, taste, the “world,”
classical happiness, severe pride, the cold frugality of
the wise. More than ever, these virtues are
necessary today, and each of us can
choose the one that suits
him best.
Before the
vastness of the undertaking,
let no one forget strength of character.
I don’t mean the theatrical kind on political
platforms, complete with frowns and threatening
gestures. But the kind that through the virtue of its purity
and its sap, stands up to all the winds that blow in
from the sea. Such is the strength of character
that in the winter of the world
will prepare the
fruit.
Want
to study with
an enlightened teacher?
Just stop giving rise to thoughts
and divisions and distinctions. When
self and other, good and bad, right
and wrong are replaced with
emptiness, you are your
own master.
You should be aloof
and independent — stand alone and go alone.
You should cut off sentiments and detach from perception
and make yourself empty and silent so there is not a single thing
that can be grasped. Cut off the myriad entanglements, and make
yourself free and untrammeled, and reach the stage of great
peace. When this is closely continuous without any leaks,
this is what is called standing like a wall
miles high, lofty and steep.
But also
I say this: that light is
an invitation to happiness, and
that happiness, when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness, palpable
and redemptive.
