Reason and Response.

I’m currently reading Siddhartha on the recommendation of the increasingly esteemed Brooklyn Belle. I came across this excerpt, close to the start of the chapter entitled ‘Awakening’:

…for to recognize causes, it seemed to him, is to think, and through thought alone feelings become knowledge and are not lost, but become real and begin to mature.

Well now, what a succinct way of encapsulating one of the many reconciliations I’ve been attempting all my life. Like all expositions of wisdom, of course, it’s open to the forces of flux. It seems to me that there is no truth of today that can’t become a Buddhist sand mandala tomorrow.

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And to flick with indecent haste from one end of the rational spectrum to the other (just so you know I’m not reclining on a cloud, radiating the light of potential pretension) I was talking to the coalman recently. He said ‘There’s no such thing as King Coal any more. It’s too dirty. People don’t want the mess these days.’

I like the mess. I like all that clearing of the grate, emptying of the ash box, sweeping of the hearth, filling of the scuttle, and soiling of the fingers in laying the foundation for the provision of bodily comfort. It’s all a matter of cause, effect and consequent association.