Shoshin-Zazen

This post marks my entrance into university.

It seemed not too long ago that i was caned by my form teacher in primary school.

It also seemed not long ago that every afternoon after school meant playing soccer under the void deck in my neighbourhood and making a hell of a noise, much to the disdian of the residents. Of course, sometimes the police came to “book” us, but we always get lucky.

It was also not too long ago that i was in conscripted service in the Army, in the name of patriotism.

And here i am in the confines of a room with a lecturer explaining organic chemistry - just day four in University.

How long have i been in the education system? How long more? 10 years seem a long time. From primary school to university, there always seem to have a perennial abundance of more advanced knowledge from the one that i had just learned. Knowledge is authority; the might of today’s world. Yet, to me the process in acquiring greater knowledge is a big headache.

Just yesterday i woke up to a new day, not quite rearing to the day’s activities. I moved my legs to a stretch and my ungrateful body rewarded me with got a painful muscle cramp. Ouch. I didn’t want to wake up at all. It’s not that i am lazy but my body doesnt want to…

Yeah, lame excuses.

Ok, i have to remind myself that knowledge is not for the sake of power or monetary gains. Knowledge is, in my sense, the ability to appreciate the work of nature; the beauty of the clockwork world of Newton to the chaos of Quantum weirdness to the elusive character of the human consciousness. Issac Newton recognised this when he said

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)

It cannot be more aptly put.
–

Picture credit from APOD
Credit & Copyright: Nicolas Outters (Observatoire d’Orange)

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus. This picture, taken in false colour, also features the nearby Pelican Nebula, (IC 5070).

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