Creating a World That Works for All
Mark Levy Asks Me About Life, Chickens, and Jimmy Hoffa
Author Mark Levy asks:1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Why is there something and not nothing?
3. What came first, the chicken or the egg?
4. Why do good things happen to bad people?
5. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
6. Where is Jimmy Hoffa buried?
From time to time I am asked these questions by elders, leaders, statesmen, the Dalai Lama, and Miley Ray Cyrus. The answers are, of course, simple:
1. The meaning of life is a life of meaning.
2. There's always something and not nothing because even nothing is something. (A bit like the words of the immortal Geddy Lee: If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.)
3. The egg came first. All chickens lay eggs but not all eggs come from chickens, so the only logical conclusion is that of all given possibilities, the chicken arrived first.
4. Good things happen to bad people because, unfortunately, bad things happen to good people. Good things also happen to good people and bad things also happen to bad people -- the universe must balance out all things.
5. That depends on what the one hand is clapping. Clapping, by it's very nature, is an activity that requires two components so a single hand can't clap by itself. Or you can just say that the sound of one hand clapping is very much the same as the sound of a rabbit yawning. Yeah, figure that one out, silly Zen Buddhists.
6. Where is Jimmy Hoffa buried? Who said he was dead?
Views: 8
Replies to This Conversation
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Permalink Reply by John Kador on -
All these questions are challenges and challenges tempt one to be self-defensive. Trying to defend yourself is like biting your own teeth. It's better to swallow and count the clouds.
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Permalink Reply by Kathy Scheiern on
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Chicken and egg conundrum - since the inception of the chicken lies within the egg, and the inception of the egg lies within the chicken, the answer must lie within a holistic viewpoint that rejects linearity and subscribes to a more universal and all-encompassing response - to wit - YES!
Thus are chickens and eggs known as profound mysteries to be revealed by the light which casts no shadows.
Interpreted from the Tome of Advanced Guru Studies, chapter on Mind Bending exercises for the New Age. :-)
(Too much coffee and time today!) -
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Permalink Reply by Jeevan Sivasubramaniam on -
Kathy, that answer is far cleverer than mine. Come on, girl, you can't be making me look bad (easy as it is)!
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Sorry! It's just that chickens hold a special place in my heart. Ever since a strange and mystical journey to Cornwall over a decade ago in which intermittent road signs warned of the presence of shadow cows (all black beasts inscribed on sacred yellow diamonds). It was the invocation of the chicken of light that saved us from potentially dire consequences. For numerous years thereafter, celebration of our delivery from evil was an annual event that included drums, large bonfires, and liquid libation. Thus, mystical chicken questions call forth my more creative nature. I will leave subsequent explorations of such fowl mysteries to you.
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Permalink Reply by Myron Rogers on -
Jeevan--
I read yesterday that biological and genetic researchers at the U. of Manchester (England) have determined that the chicken came first. Something about enzymes only found inside the chicken...you look it up.
Second, you're Zen needs work. The sound of one hand clapping is a koan, and has no intellectual answer. You can get close by recognizing the non-duality implied, but that's still an idea. Koans move you past ideas, thoughts, rationalizations, into embodied reality. See, how simple...and this, too, is intellectualizing, leaving us back where we began...which came first? -
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