The Buddha, Chinese poets, wei wu wei, detachment, Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism

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                As the Buddha suggested, "life is suffering", the eastern mind rationalized another, perhaps still more valid, justification for escaping and retreating from life.

              Thus these two antecedents combined to create a cosmological ambiance of indifference and detachment regarding the actuality of every day life.

               The Buddha did exactly that, leaving behind the world of men which disgusted him with its uncreative, profane, and unyielding perspectives. And this suggestion- to withdraw and avoid the complexities and mitigations of worldly life- also came from Gotama, the Buddha, who announced,

               The message given then is simply that only through avoidance- in the absence of distraction, a-musement, haste, and all the petty concerns of mankind- can the individual evolve consciously (or spiritually, as it were) and so re-enter the space of peace and wonderment.

               Similar temperaments were exhibited by many of the Chinese poets of old who were not inclined to partake in the busy-ness of the world, and were, for the most part, a recalcitrant, irresponsible breed of drunkards, idlers, and layabouts, who had come to the ambivalence of action, and to the joy of doing nothing. Apathy and wonder, under the slogan of  wei wu wei- action without action- became their modus operandi and their battle cry.

                These sages of antiquity belonged to an era grown weary from the useless profanity of common life, and so chose to leave it and revel in the sublime, magnificent secret of being. They knew that they belonged nowhere in the world of men, and therefore took stoic leave of society and sought their home within. These words are recalling similar realizations quoted in the chapter 'Contra Education', and the message is the same: conventional society is way off the mark, wholly gone astray, and is better avoided than tampered with. Nietzsche would say, with them, that we must 'overcome' the world (here 'overcome' is the equivalent of 'transcend').

                And yet we have seen now that we cannot 'overcome' the world by fleeing from it, for, since it is 'illusion', any re-action whatsoever is itself an illusion; to run away from it is as dumb as participating in it, for then we are neither 'in' it nor 'of' it (and there is little value in such a life, for "we do not put a lamp in the corner of a room, but instead place it right in the centre, where its light gives light to everyone", as it is said). This is the recognition eventually come to and manifested in the 'middle path', outlined by the Buddha; a way of 'being' which became more favorably understood in the east as the preferred method of transcendence (hence Buddhism evolved from Hinayana- emancipation of the individual, or, lesser vehicle- to Mahayana- salvation for none until all are saved, or, the greater vehicle), and slowly developed over the centuries, and suggested that the 'way' was not found through avoidance of, nor complete participation in life, but through the natural balance of the self;

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These fragments are taken from unpublished writings by Jack Haas, selected from the notebooks 1990-2005.