The LORD shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.According to the writer, God has a weird sense of humor; he delights in knowing that the evil will get their comeuppance soon enough.
~ King James version ~
Tao is not a prognosticator.
~ possible Taoist alternative ~
Tao does not gaze into the future nor look back upon the past. This notion of linear time is the purview of humans. In nature, existence is a circle; one form transforming into another or being merging with nonbeing.
If you're interested in reading more from this experimental series, go to the Tao Bible Index page.
actually this one reminds me of that Zen Story about the farmer who keeps saying "we'll see" whenever a seemingly good or bad thing happens. He knews that good follows bad, so he can laugh at it
ReplyDeleteActually, that's an old Chinese folk story about "luck", the farmer and the horse...the idea is not so much that good follows bad, but that each thing is neither good nor bad, just changes...what appears to be good may be bad, and the converse. You just can't tell at the time.
ReplyDeleteThose who are expert in the I Ching actually do a kind of prognostication.
Yeah, I use the term "Zen" in a broader sense than just that specific sense. Anyways I read it on a Zen Stories website.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, we are each free to read it as we will, there's not just one explaination for it.
Of course. I first heard it told by a Chinese qigong teacher from Hong Kong. And being perhaps somewhat "sinophilically" prejudiced, when I hear Zen I think Japan...
ReplyDeleteIt's a rich and meaningful story.