Chapter 27

Chapter 27

A good traveler leaves no tracks,
and a skillful speaker is well rehearsed.
A good bookkeeper has an excellent memory,
and a well made door is easy to open and needs no locks.
A good knot needs no rope and it can not come undone.

Thus the Master is willing to help everyone,
and doesn’t know the meaning of rejection.
She is there to help all of creation,
and doesn’t abandon even the smallest creature.
This is called embracing the light.

What is a good person but a bad person’s teacher?
What is a bad person but raw material for his teacher?
If you fail to honor your teacher or fail to enjoy your student,
you will become deluded no matter how smart you are.
It is the secret of prime importance.

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Somebody that does something very well is recognized instantly for his talent.  When other people see what he does, they know that he is on a different level in what he does because everything that he does regarding what he is very good at is so spontaneous. What he does does not seem to be much labored.

When I first learned swimming, I was a bit disappointed with my lack of cardio.  I saw some school kids that were good swimmers and had no trouble flapping their arms and legs for a long time.  For me, it was exhausting.  When I dipped my head in the pool water, I felt a bit panicky.  I felt slightly terrified because it was uncomfortable and it was not a normal situation that I would be in.  The most difficult part for me was to learn how to breathe in and out.  As I turned my head sideways to inhale air, for example, water would come into my nostrils and mouth.  I unintentionally swallowed the water and my throat hurt. 

However, as time went by, my swimming improved.  I won’t discuss in too much detail the process of my progress, but here is one fact that I realized.  The more uncomfortable you are with something, the more energy you have to consume to deal with it.  If you are good at something, you do not even consider it to be a demanding work.  The high school kids that I thought were very good cardio-wise because they were young were just ordinary girls and no athletes.  They simply learned to be at ease with swimming through training (actually, girls are faster learners of swimming than adult men).  When my techniques improved, I no longer gasped for more breath and did not pant heavily after finishing a lane.  I was very comfortable, at least in a pool (I’ve never tried open water swimming, but if I do try it, I know it will be a totally different environment, so I’m not really up for it.).

I remember reading an article written on MRI experiments on people speaking a foreign language.  The experiment subjects are asked to speak some expressions in a particular foreign language, and the experimenter takes MRI scans of their brains.  One guy that is very fluent in that language shows very little activity in the brain.  On the other hand, another guy that has just started to learn that language shows lots of activity in his brain areas.  This means that the less competent guy’s brain is still trying to figure out what to do and at the stage of developing as regards speaking the foreign language.

This lack of effort is also observed among janitors.  An experienced janitor does his job very swiftly and with less effort than an inexperienced janitor.  Blue-collar jobs or hard labors also require huge levels of efforts and skills.

“What is a good person but a bad person’s teacher? What is a bad person but raw material for his teacher?”

Conservative hardliners must be well aware of the meaning of the above quote. Say that South Korea achieves unification with the North or at least establishes lasting peace or amicable relationships between the two Koreas. What happens then? The staunch conservatives lose influence among the moderate conservatives. They need a target or enemy to fight against so that they can continue voicing their thoughts and instill the fear of the North in the minds of the moderate conservatives. They actually thrive on terror. If we achieve unification, we no longer need these anti-North politicians. I believe that North Korea is a real substantial threat to our security, but what happens if these threats disappear completely? The politicians of the conservative party may lose most of their fan base; they lose power, to put it briefly.

Many Japanese animation films for children are based on the themes of good versus evil. The robots and good-looking characters take revenge on the evil, ugly people that harm the society. The thing is, if these evil roles disappear completely, the righteous robots and characters will lose their place. Ironically, they may be the first ones to lament the disappearance of evil. This is no laughing matter because Sherlock Holmes also agonized over his boredom after the death of Professor Moriarty. He lost an evil man that he could regard as a target to teach a lesson. That is why Holmes mourned Moriarty’s death.

Likewise, Yahweh had to create Satan to make the stories unfold in the Bible. There had to be evil doers on earth so that He could later punish them through floods or Armageddon.

Likewise, the people of the warring states of ancient China had to find themselves in deep trouble in order for Laozi to write down the tao te ching to teach them. Nevertheless, because Laozi did not want to be seen as a sage making use of the political chaos and elevating his status as a thoughtful spiritual guru of the times, he opted to retreat into countryside. He did write the tao te ching, but did not tell much about himself. To this day, we still do not know whether Laozi was a single person or merely a name for referring to a group of recluse intellectuals.