Arte - L'uomo che piantava gli alberi

Se avete desiderio di passare una mezz'ora di pace assaporando la bellezza, vi suggerisco di guardarvi questo film d'animazione di Frédérick Back tratto dal romanzo di Jean Giono. Vincitore del premio Oscar per il miglior cortometraggio d'animazione nel 1988. Buona visione.

A lesson in Stoicism from Marcus Aurelius - Una lezione di stoicismo da parte di Marco Aurelio

Despite the ironic impudence of the designer, by Marcus Aurelius there is much to learn:

"As physicians and chirurgeons have always their instruments ready at hand for all sudden cures; so have thou always thy dogmata in a readiness for the knowledge of things, both divine and human: and whatsoever thou dost, even in the smallest things that thou dost, thou must ever remember that mutual relation, and connection that is between these two things divine, and things human. For without relation unto God, thou shalt never speed in any worldly actions; nor on the other side in any divine, without some respect had to things human."
Marco Aurelio, "Meditations"  III,13, 1-2.


The cartoon is from: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/48

Nonostante l'ironica impudenza del disegnatore, da Marco Aurelio c'è molto da imparare:

"Come i medici hanno sempre sottomano gli strumenti e i ferri per intervenire d'urgenza, così tu tieni sempre pronti i principi per conoscere l'umano e il divino, e per agire in ogni cosa, anche nella più piccola, come chi ha ben presente il reciproco legame tra l'uno e l'altro. Perchè ignorando la correlazione con le cose divine non potrai compiere bene nulla di umano, e viceversa."
Marco Aurelio, "A se stesso" III,13, 1-2.


La vignetta è tratta da: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/48

What's in your head?

Dis-identifying ourselves from ‘our own’ thoughts.

We usually identify with a lot of things, most of all with our own thoughts. Except that, which we call ‘our thoughts’ (ideas, knowledge, beliefs) is nothing more than the information that we have accumulated over our lifetime. If you talk about communism you most certainly have been born after Carl Marx. Had you been born before him, you would not have spoken of the hammer and sickle, you would have talked about something else. Even the fact that you are able to create new ideas by mixing different data is an equally great illusion. We basically repeat things that we have heard or read somewhere, and those that we claim to be original combinations of ideas, have already been expressed by who knows how many others before us. We are part of an ocean of thoughts. We read something and then expect to pass it off as ours; we appropriate it. And, from that moment on, we really think that the thought belongs to us, we identify ourselves with an idea or with a particular (actually, we judge it as particular) version of that idea.

I'm sure this has happened to you. You tell someone something, and, just a few months later, you hear from this same person the same thing that you had previously told them. It is as if this person has had a new thought they must urgently share with you. This is more common than we might think, and we must not let it upset us - this is inherent to how the human mind works.

K. G. Jung called this phenomenon cryptomnesia and, in his book, Psychology Of Occult Phenomena, he reports a famous and very clear case of this phenomenon:

Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra At the time when Zarathustra was staying on the blessed islands, a ship anchored close to the island on which the smoking mountain stands; and his crew went ashore to hunt for rabbits. And, towards noon, when they had once again gathered all together, the captain and his men suddenly saw a man coming towards them through the air, and a voice distinctly said: «It is time! This is the moment!» But when the figure came closer - and passed by them flying swiftly like a shadow in the direction of the volcano - they were greatly amazed to realize that it was Zarathustra [...] . «Look here», said the old helmsman, «here is Zarathustra as he goes to hell!»

Kerner The Seeress of Prevorst The four captains and a trader, Mr. Bell, went ashore on the Island of Stromboli, to shoot rabbits. At three, while making the crew’s attendance, before returning on board, they saw, with indescribable amazement, two men who were quickly flying through the air towards them. One was dressed in black, the other in grey. The two darted around them and, with great terror, they went down in between the blazing flames in the crater of the terrible volcano, Stromboli. In these two men they recognized some friends from London.

I do not think there is any doubt about the fact that one of them has ‘copied’ the other. Now, the curious thing is that Kerner wrote these lines about fifty years before Nietzsche wrote the famous, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. So, it is a case of unconscious plagiarism, since, as Jung pointed out, Nietzsche had read Kerner during his adolescence, but if he had wanted to copy him voluntarily, he would have at least left out the unimportant detail about hunting rabbits.

Original ideas are rare, and they are the result of a creative process that has its roots in the substrate of existing knowledge. Know that even Copernicus, though he was a bearer of a revolutionary idea that predicted that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way round, simply retrieved a very ancient theory. About eighteen centuries before, in fact, a Greek astronomer, Aristarchus of Samos, had introduced the same idea, but no one was able to believe him. So, was Copernicus an imposter? Of course not! The Polish astronomer has made his own contribution, especially by providing the theory with a credible mathematical framework and ensuring that the knowledge of mankind would proceed in its evolution. Afterwards, someone corrected his errors (the Sun, for example, is not a fixed star) and pursued the topic further. Anyway, at best, each of us is a contributor, not an originator. If you have had some original insights in your life ... good, but keep in mind that you are pursuing something that has certainly begun a long time ago and that most of the thoughts you have in your head do not actually belong to you. The vast amounts of what we say, consists of thoughts that have been recycled and chewed over countless times by countless people. But best of all, there is nothing wrong with this, on the contrary. Try to look at this from another point of view: you are continuing a great tradition of thought (scientific, philosophical, or any other kind), “a link in a chain” that goes on and keeps alive the work of many people who came before you. Do you not feel better? Do you not feel you are in great company? Do you not feel that you are accompanied by a terrific force that sustains you?

Taken from the book "Flying with your feet on the ground - Finding the meaning of life in our daily gestures"

Spirituality - Cause and effect: If also the Dalai Lama fall ...

In the book, Compassion and Purity*, conversations between the writer and journalist Jean Claude Carrière and the Dalai Lama are reported. 
At one point, the dialogue focuses on the theme of compassion, and his holiness (as he is often called) says:

«Compassion. If we seek it in depth, inside ourselves, it is logical that we will find this sentiment. And it must be practiced on any life that is not ours. Although, sometimes it seems difficult to practice. So, at the moment, I am trying to feel compassion for those who are called my enemies, for the Chinese who have invaded Tibet. The actions they have committed and continue to commit, contribute to forming a bad karma in them, for which, they will one day or another receive, punishment.»

Then after a few pages, the dialogue returns to the same subject and the journalist asks:

«Speaking of Tibet, did you not recall, in several of your books, you spoke of a collective karma?»

«This is an intimate part of our classical teaching. What is true for an individual – that he will feel in one of his lives the effects, whether favorable or not, of his own karma – is also true for groups, for a family, for a nation, and for a population.»

«Did Tibet, therefore, have something to ‘pay’? Was this punishment inevitable?»

«We can ask ourselves about it. For a long time, Tibet was cut off from the world, it had rejected any change, any influence. It wanted to believe itself to be the only one to possess the truth, and to be able to live in isolation.»

«But Tibet was reminded that the rest of the world still exists.»

«Very harshly. And we wonder, in fact, if our collective karma has not brought us to this clash, which proved to be a disaster.»

«Would it be about a subtle form of collective responsibility?»

«Maybe.»

«Do you still believe that today?»

«As always, in Buddhism, we must distinguish the causes and conditions. The main causes of aggression, of so many misfortunes and sufferings, are to be searched for in previous lives, and not necessarily just those of the Tibetan people.»

«In other populations?»

«Perhaps even in other stars, other galaxies. Everything is united. No event can be considered isolated, unrelated to others. We have already discussed this. Other sentient and responsible beings, through their behavior, could create a negative karma, the effect of which was felt at that time. This unlimited chain of causes and effects is almost impossible to see clearly, but it exists. All our actions have weight. This weight will be felt, one day or another, here or there, either individually or collectively. This is one more reason to respect the path of Dharma.» I do not know why the Dalai Lama in this dialogue is using this “illogic-logic.” May be because he is also the political leader of Tibet, and so, he is perhaps wants to avoid theological arguments that would blame his own people and justify the Chinese invasion. Or perhaps he is simply using two different measuring sticks for the Chinese and Tibetans. In fact, for his enemies, he uses a very clear consequential logic: bad actions = negative karma in their next lives. For the Tibetan people, the logic he uses (after sickening beating around the bush) is: bad karma in this life = maybe due to bad actions in the previous lives of anyone from anywhere, even from other galaxies or stars! And then, just to complete the picture he drew of esoteric relativity in the style of ‘whatever is better for me’, he reminds us that all is one, that we are all connected, and that it is still almost impossible to determine with precision the relations of cause and effect (except when it concerns the Chinese! Bad actions = negative karma in the next life).

It should be obvious that even if ‘his holiness’ falls into the temptation to manipulate the relations of cause and effect to support his cause, how can we imagine ourselves to be immune from falling into the same trap?

Taken from the book "Flying with your feet on the ground"

*This is the translation of the Italian book La compasione e la purezza, R.C.S. Libri S.p.A., (Fabbri Editori) Milano 1997 – collana I Classici dello Spirito – Original title: La Force Du Bouddhisme, Editions Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris 1994.

ART - The Man Who Planted Trees

If you desire to spend half an hour enjoying the beauty of peace, I suggest you watch this animated film of Frédérick Back from the novel by Jean Giono. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1988. Good vision.