a tale for the time being

currently reading ruth ozeki's 'a tale for the time being'.

read something interesting and thought i should write it down somewhere so it doesn't go meaningless after i forgot about it when i finish the book.

The only part I remember goes like this: Shiki fu i ku, ku fu i shiki.

It's pretty abstract. Old Jiko tried to explain it to me, and I don't know if I understood it correctly or not, but I think it means that nothing in the world is solid or real, because nothing is permanent, and all things - including trees and animals and pebbles and mountains and rivers and even me and you - are just kind of flowing through for the time being. I think that's true, and it's very reassuring,

by the way, 'shiki fu i ku, ku fu i shiki' means 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form'.
it comes from a line from Maka Hanya Haramita Shingyo, a central text in Mahayana Buddhism... (i just copied everything from the book.)

basically, it's a Buddhist hymn chanted at funerals. (i'm not sure if it's only at Japanese funerals, but since this was a Japanese context, so yes, at Japanese funerals.)

anyway.
i thought it made sense. when it says we're just flowing through for the time being. in the next moment we're not where we used to be, and you know time has passed no matter what you did and did not.

and nothing is permanent, and you know even ourselves are not permanent, so life isn't permanent, because you know death will come someday. i'm just being scientific here, about us dying.

i think it's quite an interesting concept. view? thought? what?


but anyway.
literature can do and be anything. that's why it's awesome.