The Elflord and the Mayfly - A Comic about Life, Death, and Eternity

[gaurdianaq]

http://existentialcomics.com/comic/353

Just read this today and thought I should share it.

I find it interesting, the mayfly laments it's short life, while the elf considers the mayflys short life and death to be a gift it can never have. I like to think at the end the elf finds a middle way from talking to the mayfly and found some sense of acceptance of it's own eternity.

Thoughts?


Evan,
Sat Today

[Shokai]

He certainly was inspired enough to start a new project. Something we all need from time to time. We Buddhists use the time of Ango just for that renewal. Thank you for your practice and for sharing this teaching.

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[gaurdianaq]

He certainly was inspired enough to start a new project. Something we all need from time to time. We Buddhists use the time of Ango just for that renewal. Thank you for your practice and for sharing this teaching.

gassho, Shokai
stlah

My pleasure, if enough people enjoy this I'll share another one. The author of this comic also did another one that touches on ideas of impermanence and consciousness/


Evan,
Sat Today!

[Jundo]

Lovely.

There is some lovely philosophizing by a fellow name Leon Kass that I stumbled on for my recent book project (I have projects too), insisting that mortality gives us meaning. It is debated here:

Life extension and the burden of mortality: Leon Kass versus John Harris

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236932795_Life_extension_and_the_burden_of_mortality_Leon_Kass_versus_John_Harris

Personally, I would not mind to live until about 150, if in reasonably good health. After that, things might get dull, for how many Star Wars sequels can one watch, and how many new hobbies might one undertake? Yes, mortality is a gift. In fact, the Zen fellow learns to drop all measure of "long or short" in time, realizing that every moment holds all eternity. If one picks up a flower and truly examines it slowly, its features are infinite, always filled with new discoveries!

And yes, our Zen practice has been called "a lifetime of practice for a graceful exit." Master Dogen wrote this in Shobogenzo-Shoji (Life & Death):

When it is called life, there is nothing but life. When it is called death, there is nothing but death. If life comes, this is life. If death comes, this is death. There is no reason to try to escape from it, and their is no reason to cling to it either.

This life and death is the life of the Buddha. If you try to throw it away you lose the life of the Buddha. If you cling to it you also lose the life of the Buddha, and you will obstruct the activity of Buddha. When you neither deny nor seek, you are manifesting the mind of the Buddha. But don’t try to measure this by your mind. Don’t try to explain it by your words.

When you let go of your body and mind and forget them completely and you throw yourself into the Buddha’s abode, then everything is done from the side of Buddha and you just follow along without effort or anxiety – you break free from life’s suffering and are Buddha yourself. How can you then have any hindrance in your mind?

Dogen's death poem ("Yellow Springs" is the traditional entrance to the beyond in Chinese imagery) ...


Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs

Finally (pun intended), there is one more perspective that Zen wisdom may have to offer: We are already "immortal" or, better said, "timeless" (for not a matter of infinite time, but some condition beyond time or timeless or measure altogether.) If there is some aspect of this universe or reality which is beyond our daily measures of time (and there must be, assuming that something came "before" the start of the start of the start, such that our usual human understanding of "start and finish" and passing time is just our limited thinking based upon living in a world where most things appear to start and stop, come and go) then this is just us, and we are just this. Leaves come and go from the tree, but if the tree is timeless then the leaves also are fundamentally timeless because the leaves are just the staying tree, not only leaves which leave.

Who knows, perhaps we are just the universe which divides itself into separate "lives" of finite measure, none able to see beyond the "firewall" of its own body and lifespan, because it wishes to do much, feel the pressure of time, not be bored. After all, the forest is but its interconnected trees, and the trees and their leaves come and go, grow and fall or burn and grow again, so that the forest can continue on. Were the leaves never to leave, the trees never to tumble, the fires never to burn, the forest would be frozen, lifeless.

Gassho, J

STLah

(Obviously, more than three sentences, but it will kill some time to read.)

[gaurdianaq]

Personally, I would not mind to live until about 150, if in reasonably good health. After that, things might get dull, for how many Star Wars sequels can one watch, and how many new hobbies might one undertake? Yes, mortality is a gift. In fact, the Zen fellow learns to drop all measure of "long or short" in time, realizing that every moment holds all eternity. If one picks up a flower and truly examines it slowly, its features are infinite, always filled with new discoveries!

150 would be nice, heck I'd take 300... Seems like a nice number, leaves plenty of time to grow and learn (I'm of the opinion that you could live a thousand life times and not exhaust your options for hobbies/things to do/learn)

Finally (pun intended), there is one more perspective that Zen wisdom may have to offer: We are already "immortal" or, better said, "timeless" (for not a matter of infinite time, but some condition beyond time or timeless or measure altogether.) If there is some aspect of this universe or reality which is beyond our daily measures of time (and there must be, assuming that something came "before" the start of the start of the start, such that our usual human understanding of "start and finish" and passing time is just our limited thinking based upon living in a world where most things appear to start and stop, come and go) then this is just us, and we are just this. Leaves come and go from the tree, but if the tree is timeless then the leaves also are fundamentally timeless because the leaves are just the staying tree, not only leaves which leave.

Who knows, perhaps we are just the universe which divides itself into separate "lives" of finite measure, none able to see beyond the "firewall" of its own body and lifespan, because it wishes to do much, feel the pressure of time, not be bored. After all, the forest is but its interconnected trees, and the trees and their leaves come and go, grow and fall or burn and grow again, so that the forest can continue on. Were the leaves never to leave, the trees never to tumble, the fires never to burn, the forest would be frozen, lifeless.

I recently finished reading a book called "No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism" that mentions this very idea. To paraphrase, the author basically says that God was bored, being the only being in existence. So God splits himself up into the universe as we know it, and forgets himself in the process. The game ends when God wakes up and remembers himself.

Which makes me think of another book called "Biocentrism" by Robert Lanza, which proposes the idea that consciousness is not a by product of the universe, but rather that the universe is a by product of conciousness.


Evan
Sat Today!

[Horin]

Lovely.

There is some lovely philosophizing by a fellow name Leon Kass that I stumbled on for my recent book project (I have projects too), insisting that mortality gives us meaning. It is debated here:

Life extension and the burden of mortality: Leon Kass versus John Harris

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236932795_Life_extension_and_the_burden_of_mortality_Leon_Kass_versus_John_Harris

Personally, I would not mind to live until about 150, if in reasonably good health. After that, things might get dull, for how many Star Wars sequels can one watch, and how many new hobbies might one undertake? Yes, mortality is a gift. In fact, the Zen fellow learns to drop all measure of "long or short" in time, realizing that every moment holds all eternity. If one picks up a flower and truly examines it slowly, its features are infinite, always filled with new discoveries!

And yes, our Zen practice has been called "a lifetime of practice for a graceful exit." Master Dogen wrote this in Shobogenzo-Shoji (Life & Death):



Dogen's death poem ("Yellow Springs" is the traditional entrance to the beyond in Chinese imagery) ...


Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs

Finally (pun intended), there is one more perspective that Zen wisdom may have to offer: We are already "immortal" or, better said, "timeless" (for not a matter of infinite time, but some condition beyond time or timeless or measure altogether.) If there is some aspect of this universe or reality which is beyond our daily measures of time (and there must be, assuming that something came "before" the start of the start of the start, such that our usual human understanding of "start and finish" and passing time is just our limited thinking based upon living in a world where most things appear to start and stop, come and go) then this is just us, and we are just this. Leaves come and go from the tree, but if the tree is timeless then the leaves also are fundamentally timeless because the leaves are just the staying tree, not only leaves which leave.

Who knows, perhaps we are just the universe which divides itself into separate "lives" of finite measure, none able to see beyond the "firewall" of its own body and lifespan, because it wishes to do much, feel the pressure of time, not be bored. After all, the forest is but its interconnected trees, and the trees and their leaves come and go, grow and fall or burn and grow again, so that the forest can continue on. Were the leaves never to leave, the trees never to tumble, the fires never to burn, the forest would be frozen, lifeless.

Gassho, J

STLah

(Obviously, more than three sentences, but it will kill some time to read.)

Thanks for that wonderful response


Gassho

Horin

Stlah

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