Saturday, October 16, 2010

Teaching

"It is hard to fill a cup which is already full."
- Avatar

Ain't dat de truth? The best defence ignorance have is ignorance of ignorance. If you think you already know a lot, you are not looking for more learning, particularly not that which does not fit in with what you "know".

5 comments:

neeraj said...

Thats an old Zen metapher.

Every real master will tell you, that growing into truth means letting go of untruth.

(And yes, "Avatar" is a masterpiece in my opinion.)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes.

Or even just the feeling that you already *know*, whether you do or not, and whether how true it is, will prevent you from looking and studying.

Even ol' L-Ron has this in his study course. He was studying photography to learn about photography, and noticed he tended to forget to do his lessons. Then he realized that since he'd photographed his whole life, he thought he had nothing to learn, but that actually he didn't know so much, and after that he made swift progress.

neeraj said...

Yes, its one of the hardest things (as simple as it sounds) to realize again and again "I don't know what I don't know", and to go further beyond it.

I think it was good old Goethe saying something like "nobody is as much stuck as someone being in a jail and thinking he is free."

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

That's very true. It gives the feeling of having to start over and over at the same place.

Mary Ann said...

what do we know? or even better what do we think we know? maybe we just don't know much, but we think we know...cheers..enjoyed your blog..