My Starting point (2)

” What made me to go into the Buddhism “

( Sorry, the order of writing is not necessary follows  what you may expect, I just write about

the subject when / suddenly / its shape comes up ——To structuring  and make it solid is

the more logical,  intellectual process than the intuition of the Zen ——–Zen follows flash )

——————–

Strangely you might think, I spent 3 years of my High school time to read a book of

French Poet, Jean Arthur Rimbaud. (along side of mountain climbing, skiing and photos of  flowers)

Since, his symbolism poetry needed to be read 100 times to understand what he meant

but, his poems carries the deadly virus of self-destruction too.   Rimbaud was doing his

” Alchemy of Life ” (which is the analysis of his life’s journey and who he is ) which was depicted

in his poem “A season in hell” or ” Drunken Boat ” it led to the inevitable wreck,  which he

actuary got and end up in Abyssinia.

—– (After 3 years, I became a copy of him, seeing in his way and thinking like him )  I completely lost

the certainty of who I am. ( Later I found, anybody who was infected by this virus experienced the same )

—– From this experience, now I confidently say  “Anyone who read the same Mantra 1000 

times, it would be embedded into your subconscious and become the base of who you are”

—– so, be careful which one to read 😀

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What makes the reading of Rimbaud Poems somewhat common with Buddhists Pathway

was, that his approach to be a Boyant ( Seer / Watcher) in  Alchemy of Life  was,   

to examine the own mind again and again, deeper and deeper, exposing everything

like as a dissected dead body = effectively made his own mind (and the life) a completely

detached dried object.  Detachment while having cut-off the Emotion will lose the tag 

of the SELF,  hence creating a state of mind similar to the Buddhists’ Selflessness.

(This process is very similar to the Hinayana Buddhists practice  = Process of  Self-denial )

And as Rimbaud’s subject, include his own life became a detached object without the 

emotional attachment, it was described as a metaphorical object or the Symbol =

thence his poetry was called Symbolism.  (This detachment was the self-alienation too, so that

Rimbaud called the state of mind before, as a slumber of the animal —– he missed it

with tears but it was too late)

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It was in the late 60th.  In order to re-construct myself, I resorted to Jean-Paul Sartre’s  Existentialism

and later, then popular  Structuralism  ( I liked this more than  Carl Jung as the theory extended to the

society )

The Sartre’s idea of  “The self defined by the self”, shifted to  “The self defined by other’s eyes”,   then to

“The self defined by the History”  was smoothly evolved to the  “self in the structure” in my eyes.

But in hindsight, I was more influenced by the Max Weber’s idea of Ethos. (as I was studying

Sociology for my degree )

Weber’s theory was, such as the Ethos of the self devoting Protestantism created the self-enterprise

of the own business and hard-working attitude, which led to the development of the Capitalism.

Yet, my eyes was a bit more afar, not just each profession or race, there must be more universal,

fundamental Ethos of Human being.—— My eyes turned to the Buddhism.

——- So that my starting point was more intellectual than the spiritual, and not because of my

farther’s influence. (though, the Ethos and the way of thinking of the Buddhism was THE environment)

——– ( Yet still, to cast the eyes to such direction instead of Technology or Art in my case,  it must be

driven by the deep spirituality,  which I can say only now, it must be the way  how the Dharma works.)

And this was the very timing of my  Karmic encounter to Master Kogetsu.

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