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- Herausgeber: BookRix
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This book explores the benefits of acquiring ancient wisdom for a good life. Drawing on a wide range of insights, it shows how ancient wisdom can help us to live more meaningful, fulfilling, and happy lives.
In today's fast-paced world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed. We are constantly bombarded with information, and it can be hard to know what's really important. In this chaos, it's more important than ever to find ways to slow down, reflect, and find meaning in our lives.
Ancient wisdom can offer us a much-needed dose of perspective. The wisdom of the ages has been distilled over centuries, and it can teach us valuable lessons about life, love, and happiness. By learning from the past we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
A small amount of reflection can provide;
… A greater sense of purpose. We can understand our place in the world and the purpose of our lives. It can also give us a sense of direction and motivation
… Increased resilience. Wisdom can help us to cope with the challenges of life. It can teach us how to deal with stress, setbacks, and loss.
… Deeper relationships. We can help ourselves to build stronger relationships with ourselves and others. It can suggest to us how to communicate more effectively, forgive more easily, and love more unconditionally.
… Greater happiness. Wisdom can help us to live happier lives. It can teach us how to appreciate the simple things in life, find joy in everyday moments, and live in the present moment.
All that is needed is to begin your search.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Dedication
To all of those that wonder.
With special thanks to Bob Hopkins and Illustratum for all of the original artwork created specifically for this book including the cover art.
Table of Contents
Dedication
A Little History
The Story
His Words and Thoughts
Being Alive is not Enough
The Wisdom of Kuan-Yin Tsou
‘Do not look too long; do not look too deep. There is life to be lived’
The true story of Kuan-Yin Tsou is lost in time. He lived in the 14th century.
Kayi, as he liked to be known, never wrote down a word. Not one. But his spoken thoughts were written down by his followers over many years. Kayi’s words have never been collected before in one volume. It is hoped that this collection of over 300 of his thoughts will bring Kayi into greater prominence, as he deserves.
His followers thought of Kayi as wise, even all-knowing, which he always denied, but people regularly traveled to hear him speak.
Over the years he was visited bymany travellers from near and far who sought his advice. It is said that no one left his company feeling anything but happier and with a new sense of direction. Kayi himself said that once you have felt the inclination to move then you can travel in the mind as well as in the body.
Kayi was always happy to hear all questions but was never known to say ‘here is the answer’. He particularly wanted to explore life itself. To do this he tried to guide his followers through theirthoughts and questions and discuss their possible meaning. Kayi’s interest was in the practice of debate, all the better to illuminate the everyday.
Kayi was happy to talk and debate any questions on any matter but he always expressed an enthusiasm for the following;
Life and Change, through Time
The love of others
The fear of being wrong, and the role of ignorance
Belief in the good in others
Thepower of listening
Reason and the cautious mind
The price of intelligence
Feelings and reactions
How to improve the everyday life
Wisdom versus ‘nothing’
Why anything has ‘value’
The true value of a mind.
Kayi believed that through open and considered discussion all problems would be clarified. All further considerations would therefore have a solid base.
A Little History
Kayi is believed to have lived in the most western area of China in the middle ages. Nothing is known of his early life. As a man in his late 30’s he travelled out of China into what would eventually become Bhutan. He settled in the head of a remote valley, surrounded by mountains.
Kayi lived to a great age and never left his mountain home.
The Story
There is little known about Kayi until he reached a village in the remote black mountains. The barest of writings from his eventual followers tell us that;
Kayi arrived in the village cold, wet and starving. As was the custom he was welcomed and taken in.
Kayi offered to work the village land for simple shelter and food.
Around the fires at night Kayi talked about the questions that came to all in the course of their lives. He became known as a ‘wise one’, an honour usually reserved for an elder.
Knowledge of his wisdom spread beyond the valley. More and more visitors gradually arrived to seek his council.
One day he explained that he needed to find the peace of the mountains and would be leaving. Kayi sought to find a place of shelter on the mountain where he could reflect on the unresolved questions of his life. Several of the villagers felt the need to follow Kayi up through the clouds and seek his council.
Kayi’s hope for a quiet reflective life did not materialise. His followers scribed his words which spread far and wide. Learned people travelled to debate many questions. Some stayed, some travelled away and dispersed the ideas they had come to understand from meeting Kayi.
The one thing that is known about Kayi is that he never claimed to have an answer to any question. He claimed that it was the question that mattered. The purpose of thought he suggested might be to find the questions that really mattered and consider those.
When one of his followers asked him how were they to find the ‘questions’ Kayi laughed. “Why, by asking what you have just asked!”
Kayi’s teaching was based around questionsand statements. He then called on anyone who wished to do so to return the next day with any thoughts they had found in contemplating the words they had heard.
Over the years many of the thoughts of Kayi were written down although many were lost through time. Others turned up far away, some were written into other texts.
It was not until many centuries later that a scholar named Qiang Bai Shen, a Mongolian by birth, read a small number of Kayi’s words. It was the beginning of a mission for Qiang to collect as many of the thoughts that Kayi had spoken. He gradually accumulated over 300 of Kayi’s thoughts.
The 300 have been translated and form the bulk of this book. The ancient languages are difficult. Any translation is fraught with potential issues around interpretation and translation.
There is no order to the pages. Nor any sorting by themes. We have what we have and that is it.
Kayi’s original intention was not to suggest answers but to stimulate discussion. To open the mind, to become receptive to the world as it is, for good or bad. Although Kayi may not have used those emotive terms.
Kayi would have been the last to instruct anyone on how to live their life. W What he wanted people to do was to think, without bias. To read as much or as little as they wished.
He once said that a beautiful thought can stay with you forever. Maybe in his words, you can find one or two of them.
His Words and Thoughts
Kuan-Yin Tsou (or Kayi)
<
Always ready
No you are not!
Do not blame anyone for failing; blame them for not trying.
Life itself is all you have been given…
Living is enough, for now.
Love yourself, but be careful of deceit…
Your legacy is within the minds and hearts of those you have touched with grace.
With my dying breath I truly hope that I’m never pleased that the room is clean and the washing is done.
Wisdom is rarely the result of a minutes work.
Is there always an answer?
No thought is singular. Follow the trail…
A semblance of reason is insufficient at all times…
We are all ignorant and ignorance is the cause of so much conflict.
I’m under a tree in pleasant shade.
We are both filled with life.
Do not blindly follow the wishes of others. All of their problems flow through their judgements...
If your religion makes you hate, then perhaps you have missed something?
Your opinion is just that. You may be wrong.
The progressive evolution of wanton greed is mankind’s most appalling scandal...
Wish everyone you love to be lucky…
How can we know where our choices will take us?
Can you be yourself?
How?
Reason versus passion; the ongoing story of our kind.
It is said that you cannot be in two places at once. At this moment, where would your other place be?
The innocent man has not yet lived.
‘Time’ is a currency. Spend it well. We will all be paupers in the end…
The smallest minds contain the greatest negatives.
Can the voice of wisdom ever be in error?
