... Chapter 17 ....... Contents ...
 |
| 16. To you who are impressed by scientific and cultural progress |
We mustn't forget that today's science and culture have only developed out of the lowest levels of consciousness.
Everybody is talking about culture, but what is it besides a refinement of our illusions? However much we iron out our drives, from a Buddhist standpoint it's got nothing to do with progress or civilization. Everyone is talking these days about progress, but I wonder in which direction we're actually progressing.
Everybody is talking about culture, but what kind of culture is it really? Lewd music, erotic dancing, pornographic literature - completely barbaric. We stir up our own illusions and then complain about today's youth and ask, "Who's responsible for education these days?" Faith means clarity and purity. It means settling down.
Everyone is talking about art, but what is it really? Men and women glued to each other. What is it besides stimulation for our sexual desires?
No animal is as dishonest as a human being. Humans eat their party snacks and dance in a circle; they do scientific research and drop hydrogen bombs on each other.
When you observe insects in a tank, you see how they bite onto each other and hold on with all their might. It must be amusing to observe from another corner of the universe how humans stock up on atomic and hydrogen bombs.
Acting clever while at the same time being the biggest idiots - that's human fate.
People love it when things are complicated. Though things are complicated enough - even when we try to keep them as simple as possible - there are still some who make an effort to be especially complicated in everything they do.
The modern world musters up all of its knowledge just to run down a dead end street.
Wisdom means having a thoroughly solid faculty of judgment at your disposal.
People were idiots in the old days too. They wasted a fortune in gold and manpower building castles. And what was it all for? To bicker with each other. Today, people are even dumber. They build atomic and hydrogen bombs in order to erase humanity with one push of a button.
How is it that humanity itself, unlike its science, hasn't progressed in the least?
The Americans are only ordinary people, the Russians are ordinary people, the Chinese too are ordinary people: ordinary people who desperately compete with other ordinary people. No matter how much coal you pile up, it's still just coal.
Science can build on the results of others, so it constantly makes progress. But humans can't build on the lives of others, so they make no progress. That's why everywhere we look we see helpless greenhorns brandishing deadly weapons - and that's dangerous!
An idiot sits at the computer, a dimwit in the cockpit of the jet and a madman at the control panel of the atomic rockets - that's the current problem.
In the buddha-dharma we can't live on what others have left behind. The reason science progresses is that it can build on what previous generations have left behind. In the buddha-dharma it's just the opposite - it's putting an end to this attitude of wanting to feed off of what others have left behind.
Perhaps we can save our friends with atomic and hydrogen bombs - but not our enemies. Only zazen is capable of saving friends as well as enemies.
Everyone is worried about humanity, but it's a matter of putting an end to 'humanity' and turning everyone into buddha.
That which serves humans only leads them down a dead end.
People negotiate the market price of objects, but this market price isn't something you can rely on. Things whose market value can be disputed are just practical commodities. They're products. Buddha isn't a product.
The Chinese character for 'falsehood' means 'serving humans'. Today, we consider culture and arts to be a service to humanity. The world of culture and arts is constantly changing. Culture doesn't mean anything more than the further development of artifice. That's why culture is a tragedy. What can we rely on no matter where we go? Only on life itself - which is unlimited in all directions.
The inventions and ideas of Europeans are just playthings which have nothing to do with life itself.
When we carefully read Marx and Engels, we realize that the whole thing is just a matter of how we split up the loot.
Even if the whole of humanity were communist, until each and every one of us attains true freedom, we would still always have this ceaseless bickering. As long as each of us isn't truly free, none of us can truly enjoy peace of mind.
... Chapter 17 ....... Contents ...