Did I hear a tweet?


It's not surprising Mr Lama is a tweeter, or loves fame.

In my view one of the best aphorisms ever written is Cioran's: 

"The more we try to wrest ourselves from our ego, the deeper we sink into it"

The idea that you can escape from or transcend the self is an illusion, a false salvation, and so at the heart of Buddhism is a lot of rampant egomania. Twitter being a vulgar platform for the inanities of ego, it's little wonder the DL is there.

Ironically the very people best disposed to write well on there are also the least likely to do so. A Pascal or Cioran would run a mile. Alain de Bottom [sic], however...

Bob, seeing as you are a Francophile and a lover of esoterica, have you come across EM Cioran? The English translations of his work are unsurpassable, and the French themselves consider him to be the greatest prose stylist in their language (remarkable considering he hated French and it was his 3rd language!)

I would recommend The Trouble with Being Born and Tears and Saints. The former for searing, distilled and stunningly poetic insights into the self, existence, Eastern religions, every day life etc and the latter for the relationship between music, tears and sainthood.

There would be some seriously interesting and far ranging 'paths' to come from Cioran...
That comment was added to 'Do bodhisattvas need to tweet?' by Susan. I am saying nothing other than that it is remarkable where what another reader described as "anti-Twitter salvos" lead to.

Photo of the overgrown cat in the overgrown garden is my (c) 2012. Also on Facebook and among the rampant egomaniacs of Twitter. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Tim said…
hang on a second...

how does Susan's response at all diminish (or even relate to) my observations regarding your comments about twitter?
Pliable said…
Tim, hang on a second. Did anyone say it did?
Pliable said…
Tim, thanks for your further comment.

By now you will have gathered that I am dovish about Twitter in particular and other social media in general. The reason I write this blog (definition personal weblog) is to express my own views.

I try, wherever possible, to give reasonable exposure to other points of view. But I think it is now time to accept I am not the world's biggest Twitter fan and chill a little.

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