On Sun, 29 Dec 2002, "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"In my father's house are many mansions." "Let a thousand flowers
>blossom." Universalizing Culture is not exclusionary. If Papuans
>have already gone further than Thomas Jefferson, Kant and Husserl,
>that would be a welcome discovery. However, this reminds me
>of something else from Bertolt Brecht I recently read:
>
> A Zen master decided to make a journey.
> When he gets to the border, the customs
> officer asks him to tarry a while and
> write down his wisdom. The customs
> officer provides the hospitality, and
> the Zen master provides the wisdom.
>
> Had it not been for the customs officer,
> the Zen master's wisdom would have
> gone with him to the grave.
>
>Perhaps the meaning of Europe is only to be
>the customs officer, and not the wise man,
>also. In that case, Europe would still
>be important.
Ah, one of my favourite stories. He wasn't Zen, this was in China long
before Zen arose in Japan. As I have read it, the customs officer
was also a gatekeeper on an early section of the Great Wall, and
the sage was the inestimable Lao Tzu. I have written of this before,
and I will try to paraphrase myself here:
Consider these two contemporaries: Confucious, the moral
philosopher, spends his life composing earnest aphorisms
to instruct the diligent in the ways of proper behaviour.
Lao Tzu, entreated as he passes out the gate into the
wilderness, sits down and bangs out the transcendant
Tao Te Ching in an afternoon.
Pete Vincent
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