/lit/ - Literature

>>11010036
what a cuck

westerners call these koans logic short circuits
not much thinking involved

>>11010036
Pretty Kafkaesque desu.

Is that so?

>>11010036
What's the origin of this story? Looks like Akutagawa used it as inspiration for his short story "The Martyr", except it was a Christian and not a Zen master.

>>11010036
Pretty good taoist parable. Whole ethic of taoism is basically to just roll with the punches, to accept and love whatever path your life leads you down knowing it's not under your control, no more than water can control it rolling downhill. In truth it's very similar to stoicism, just with a more positive spin on things. They go together well.

>>11010094
zen

>>11010036
Pretty good

>>11010094
Except no because they must ask themselves what in his mind compelled him to accept the child without challenging their accusation, so to speak accepting the verdict of him being guilty. Obviously he must have done something wrong? Or known something? Since we are mortal, he wasted a good portion of his life as an ineffective pariah, and possibly also to the detriment of the entire village who lost faith in their Zen master for that time. So not only did he damage his own life but also that of the entire village by not standing up for himself.

>>11010190
It's a parable you idiot.

>this is what passes for Eastern wisdom

>>11010036
nice

>>11010201
Found the mouthbreather.

1. Either all parables are worthless because they do not stand up to slightest bit of thought and scrutiny, or
2. This particular parable is stupid and Taoism isn't, or
3. Taoism is stupid if this parable actually does represent it well.

Your choice, ye-who-has-an-IQ-of-below-135 and therefore is not capable of independent thought.

>>11010208
>ye-who-has-an-IQ-of-below-135

>>11010208
>Doesn't know what a parable is
>Doesn't know what Taoism is
>IQ-posting
Bingo?

>>11010220
>>11010225
:/
I'm glad I'm me. Imagine being one of you and being duped into believing anything by reading silly parables.

>>11010208
>ye-who-has-an-IQ-of-below-135
WEW

>>11010234
I don't believe in Taoism, I was just complimenting on the sharpness of your katana

>>11010225
>Daoism
>Zen master
My almonds... they're activating on their own

>>11010238
>>11010236
So apart from my entirely warranted but impolite insult, you seem to agree with me then.

>>11010234
Kid, just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it bad
The OP is just a short and sweet little piece about taking life as it is in stride

>>11010248
Useless label. Don't judge a book by it's cover. Zen, Taoist, who cares. Could be either. Focus on the content and the message it sends.

>>11010234
>:/
>doesn't understand parables
Holy shit my dude.

>>11010252
But it only works in fictional world. It's wrong not to argue against parables if they require docile consent to be believable.

>>11010208
Holy shit this is the bait I’ve seen in a while

>>11010277
Parables, like analogies, only go so far. The message of this parable does not go far at all. it says "take it in the ass and life will sort things out for you by itself". Which is nonsense, you must see that.

>>11010298
You're embarrassing us.

>>11010297
It's your fault if you accept the fact that parables produces messages that are automatically good messages if the parable is cute and short. You must be very flexible.

>>11010310
Speaking for the voices in your head or an imagined hive-mind?

Focus on the message of the parable and stop crying.

No one? Come on, I'll even build a strawman for you:

1. Parables are incomplete representations that require suspension of disbelief to the degree that your mind becomes open enough for your brains to fall out.
2. Parables are propaganda that targets the masses
3. This specific parable is a useful political tool

Have at me.

>>11010190
You're assuming that
1) He lived his life primarily for the benefit of the village
2) That avoidance of illicit trysts is the greatest virtue that he was trying to promote assuming he was living primarily for the benefit of the village
3) That he didn't believe his own acceptance would lead to good in the end (such as confession of a lie)

clearly a paedophile

>>11010352
You have to go back

>>11010190
>nobody would take care of an abandoned child unless they've done something wrong
let's hope not.

>>11010036
absolutely based Hakuin

>>11010099
Zen is a buddhism highly influenced by taoism

>>11010374
I don't see how any of those alleged assumptions play a role in
>>11010352
but for the sake of the argument

1. I'm assuming that because he is a master, he is a teacher and obviously also a role model ("revered by everyone for being pure"). Role models are messages in and of themselves.

2. That's interesting, but what we know for sure is that he was trying to promote and live by his own ideology. Otherwise he wouldn't have accepted the child or be the locally revered Zen master.

3. What he believes or not isn't part of the equation because he does not resist an outside force. Perhaps he even thought "fuck this, I'll show them by playing the long con martyr" and make them all feel bad later on.

>>11010387
>audible breathing through the mouth obscures message
What?

>>11010388
Taking care of a child does not mean tarnishing your reputation as a revered master. He could have said "it's not mine but i'll do it anyway because it doesn't matter if it's mine or not".

If everyone followed this parable as a maxim, the legal system would stop working because you'd have everyone claiming to be the actual perpetrators. And no one would resist injustice.

The categorical imperative is a good quick shit-test.

>>11010190
So many spooks in this paragraph it's hard to know where to begin.

There's another Taoist parable about a Zen master whose asked to come to a village having a drought to make it rain, and he agrees. And he's there for months and still no rain and the people are getting pissed at him, then finally it rains and the people rejoice and run to him and ask him what he did and he's just like "I didn't do anything, I just came because I wanted a change of scenery."

Taoists are Chad af.

>>11010445
>He could have said "it's not mine but i'll do it anyway because it doesn't matter if it's mine or not."

that is what he said, except he says it in the form of a question that is more than just a response. if he had said it, people might have thought he was somehow happy or fulfilled by this choice, or comfortably bitter. by not saying this, something else happens. it actually does matter whether or not the child is his own, but it also matters how he responds to this encounter.

>If everyone followed this parable as a maxim, the legal system would stop working because you'd have everyone claiming to be the actual perpetrators. And no one would resist injustice.

the injustice proceeds from the deception. without a deception there is no injustice. by accepting the injustice for what it is - injustice - the truth eventually reveals itself.

>everyone would claim to be the actual perpetrators

even if that were the case, if you lived in a land where when an infraction was created people immediately owned up to it, how would that be such a bad thing? you wouldn't need a legal system at all if people immediately confessed to crimes they had committed or lies they had told.
this is the taoist ideal, basically.

sometimes i think that in a taoist sense laws can be understood to be like standing armies. after the war is over the army disbands and everybody goes back to the farms, since the army has served its purpose. it might be the same thing for laws in a sort of taoist-inspired commune. everything is basically ad hoc and provisional.

>>11010484
yes to all of that, that's not what i'm really arguing about though. it makes sense in that fictional world but not in this one. if every person were a zen master or a patient stoic it would work, i do not doubt that. but getting there requires sacrifice and subservience (at least detachment from the ego) from everyone. i doubt that this sacrifice would be overall beneficial for a nation in the long run. doesn't it create a nation of slaves? you'll say it might work on a small, village-like scale. well, it might do that.

>>11010530
>i doubt that this sacrifice would be overall beneficial for a nation in the long run. doesn't it create a nation of slaves? you'll say it might work on a small, village-like scale. well, it might do that.

in china at least this is why the conversation between confucius and laozi matters. the taoist political ideal is a small commune and not an imperial state.

>therefore the wise ruler does not suggest unnecessary things, but seeks to satisfy the minds of his people. He seeks to allay appetites but strengthen bones. He ever tries by keeping people in ignorance to keep them satisfied and those who have knowledge he restrains from evil. If he, himself, practices restraint then everything is in quietness.

this kind of stuff sounds, of course, like totalitarianism to us westies. keeping people in ignorance? how dare you! treating people as straw dogs? off with his head! but this is only a kind of superficial reading.

confucius is the scholar of the state for this reason, not laozi, but you'll see even there he strives to govern through implicit appeals to morality rather than the laws. this is where confucius and laozi will differ, because laozi is nearer to hakuin and the world of zen, where morality itself is a part of a topsy-turvy inside-out universe of cause-effect reversal and much else.

the ideal is a kind of small, village-like scale. extrapolate up from this and you inevitably need laws. much as socrates himself says, at the beginning of the republic: all you need, really, is a carpenter, a farmer, a couple other guys. but of course, we want more than that, we want rich food, jewelry, music...