Re: Salingertori
Michael Sussman (qironzh@rocketmail.com)
Thu, 28 May 1998 13:49:58 -0700 (PDT)
---J J R <jrovira@juno.com> wrote:
>
> I have to agree that Seymour/Buddy's and maybe even Salinger's
> understanding of the teachings of Christ are filtered through an
>Eastern Filter. This is looking at it a bit backwards from the
quoted >passage, but I think the idea of interplay between the New
Testament
>(yeah, I don't see too much of the OT) and Taoism is unavoidable.
>The possible link between Seymour's refusal to wed and classical Taoism
>sounds interesting. Do you have references to Taoist works?
>
> Jim
At present I've only read Lao Tzu (trans. Victor Mair, 1990). But I
hope to read Chuang Tzu soon, after I finish a book on Shinto. Lao
Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_ is full of the idea of action through inaction,
etc. When I was reading Lao Tzu, I was struck by the similarity
between it and some lines from Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Compare,
for example, "The softest thing under heaven gallops over the hardest
thing under heaven" with "The meek shall inherit the earth." Of
course, there are big differences; Lao Tzu is laid back and Christ is
fanatical.
Of course, it could be a Hindu connexion too. The Bhagavad-Gita is
full of the idea of acting without desire, and acting without concern
for the fruits of action. In the appendix to Mair's version of Lao
Tzu, he writes about the similarities between the Tao and the Gita.
------- Sussby
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