I was reading a book about modern art and came across a few words about James Ensor, who often drew absurd looking images which represented not only his own struggles but also about the ludicrousness and suffering that we all experience in life, and it's hypocrisies and lunacies.
One image I found particularly striking, and it made me think of two religious fundamentalists fighting over what they each believed was the narrow way....
I can see myself there.......
(Sorry, just having one of my silly sessions.....)
@SW-User This picture is complicated. There is death coming thru the door. The rest of the characters do resemble us in our mad world of conflict. I wonder why we can't get along with one another even thought it makes so much sense.
SW-User
@sree251 More the absurdity of fighting over what are no more than conceptual formulations. Missing the "marrow" that is the living heart.
@sree251 No, just a virtually pointless fact. I think the more easily a few words can be translated into another language, the simpler the words are, having little real significance beyond the bare fact.. "The cat sat on the mat". Easy.
"In the beginning was the Word......" etc etc. Well, try translating that prologue into Chinese or a few other eastern languages.
There is understanding of what a word means as in "this is a cat" However, "understanding" is a word for the action of apprehension.
At the superficial level, understanding is a matter of being instructed as to what is what. A cat is a cat. It is not a dog. A proton is not a neutron. The moon is not the sun. All that, as you said, are virtual pointless facts. All those pointless facts are the sum total of our knowledge of ourselves and our world. We teach ourselves about our reality, so to speak. We are both the student and the teacher in the school we set up. We accredit ourselves as authorities of understanding. The clueless student educates himself to become the professor of all that he understands. Einstein is the village idiot. The former is highly regarded, the latter is not.
This dharma makes me laugh. Does it give you a bump?
