“My old landlady, got rich a couple years ago. Used to be poorer than me. Now she laughs that I don’t have money. She laughs that I’ve fallen behind. I laugh that she’s gotten ahead. Both of us laughing, no stopping us. Lady of the Land, and the Lord of the West” Han Shan
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From a certain point of view — we are presented with an enigma. What’s so funny about getting ahead in life? And what could possibly be funny about falling behind?
Han Shan sees through relativity. Success and achievement are culturally defined. These days they involve a high salary, one of a handful of respectable professions, owning a car, and so on. Yet, a few centuries earlier success looked entirely different. A few millennia earlier it was even different! The human being has been coming to Earth to do a lot more than succeed in a relative cultural sense. Our birthright is much deeper than finding the right career. Why have we come to this planet? Why have we taken a human incarnation?
“If one imagines that a saw is a hammer — one will not merely fail to drive nails into wood; one will damage the saw” Khandro Dechen
If you think that life is about getting ahead — you will injure both yourself and others. Getting ahead has meant different things to different people in…
