Deathless Eastern Philosophies

DATELINE MANILA
by: BINGO P. DEJARESCO In the midst of endless national crises and personal disorientation resulting there from, it is sometimes safer to seek refuge in the timeless thoughts and deathless philosophies of the East.

We Filipinos can learn a great deal from them.

Take for instance, the penchant of Filipinos to bash national leaders seeking solutions to the nation’s ills.

The Chinese would have said: “Sometimes towers are measured by their shadow, great men by those who speak ill of them.”

For the one-track-minded, obstinate negotiator, the Eastern Arabs would advise: “Better to have the camel inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.” The virtue of compromise in elegant metaphor.

Our own Filipino poets have often pricked the bubble of the boastful braggarts by referring to our own common rice fields. In the rice fields, they say the best stalks are those that bend heavy with grain, not the proud haughty stalks that stand erect, full of emptiness.

The Eastern zen philosophy is based in the spirit of selfreliance and effectively coping with life through mind-andbody techniques.

The old TV series “Kung Fu” flashes back a scene of the master and the student-grasshopper underlying the value of self-reliance.

With the former facing the student with both his fists closed the master asked: “Grasshopper, is the bird I hold dead or alive?”

The student unable to answer, the master said: “If you had answered the bird is alive, I would squeeze it to its death; if you say it’s dead, I will simply open my palm and set it free.”

“So shall it be grasshopper, your fate is completely in your hand - - no one else’s”.

A grim reminder to those afflicted with mendicancy to a foreign power and a clinging attitude to government dole-outs.

In the zen philosophy, both the teacher and student share the work burden as a normal work ethic. Once, the student sensing that the teacher was losophy, “No work, no eat.” The student returned the tools to him.

Contrast this with many Pinoy’s endless creative ways to skip work, cut corners or hide from responsibility. The success of the Chinoys in the country, on the other hand, can be attributed to their patience and die-hard work ethic. Says Chinese Lao Tzu.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Then he plods along, content with the thin profit margins compared to the Pinoy’s “quick buck” mentality since as he gamely started, the Chinoy said “I have plenty of nothing and nothing is plenty for me.”

Being an ethnic minority, the Chinoys have dealt with the marketplace with extreme caution. “There is no prosperity in anger,” they say. India cursed with overpopulation and with a generally barren land, is today one of the world’s most respected economies.

Indians learned to make do as their favorite proverb says: “If there is no wind, row.” Apparently, they have learned to make haste slowly.