[Buddha-l] Koheleth

[Ben Carral]

On Sunday, June 27, 2010, 12:15:07 AM, Franz wrote:

> Good  to  see you here! I'm glad you like Koheleth so
> much.  I  am  with  you  in seeing it as "the kind of
> Buddhism  I  can  relate  to." As for verse 9:9, I am
> trying!

   Thank you for your nice words.

   I'm  also  trying  Kohelet  9:9. I think that it's a
life-time learning experience. Ibn Arabi said something
along these lines, and more recently Aryeh Kaplan wrote
about  it  in  _Jewish  Meditation_ (a very interesting
book imho).

   There  is  another Kohelet's verse that I enjoy very
much  too, 9:7 (cf. 2:24). I found it quite interesting
to  constrat  Kohelet  9:7,  2:24  with  Huanbo's Chan:
"Thus,  there  is  sensual eating and wise eating. When
the   body  [...]  suffers  the  pangs  of  hunger  and
accordingly  you  provide  it  with  food,  but without
greed,  that  is called wise eating. On the other hand,
if  you gluttonously delight in purity and flavour, you
are  permitting the distinctions which arise from wrong
thinking."  ("The  Chün  Chou  Record," 12, in Blofed's
_The  Zen  Teaching  of Huang-Po_). I myself enjoy very
much the purity and flavour of Asturian food and cider,
so   Master  Huangbo  would  not  be  very  happy  with
me--however, I think that Kohelet would gladly join the
party.

   (BTW,  I  appreciate the references that I have read
on  Buddha-L  to Kohelet's commentaries--I have enjoyed
very  much  the Choon-Leong Seow's one, but I have some
others quite interesting too.)

   Best wishes,

   Ben (Oviedo, Asturias, Spain)