Читать книгу Rilke, Zen Master: On Awakening to Beauty. Part 1. About a Broken Nose - - Страница 3

I must admit that I have tried very hard to organise and polish this book to an appropriate level of rigour, but it has still come out as quirky as a chaotic kaleidoscope. Nevertheless, I hope that even a cursory glance at the contents of the book will be enough to surprise the reader who is familiar with Rilke’s work, at least a little, and to raise natural questions: ́So what is the connection between Buddha and Rilke? And what can an early twentieth-century European modernist poet and an Eastern patriarch of non-action, who lived in the far seventh century, discuss for so long and so enthusiastically? And finally, what is the role of this strange head with the broken nose?́

As for myself, I still haven’t found an answer to any of these rather fair questions. Although, as the author of this book, I’m supposed to have found them. Otherwise, what would be the point of writing it? The only thing that excuses me is that I have tried to find the answers in the pages of this work, albeit with naive hope: first in the pathetic introduction on beauty, written, of course, on the basis of my own self-confident ideas. And then in the main text, in the dialogues which, although imaginary, involve historical characters with their authentic rather than fictional voices.

In order to finally arouse the reader’s interest in this book, I would like to assure him that it is not only the head of the old man with the broken nose that will be found in its pages. There is, of course, something more fascinating. A very rare and exotic butterfly, for example. A Chan butterfly of enlightenment. It is said that if it flutters even for a moment in front of the astonished reader, the primordial beauty will instantly reveal its true face to the viewer. And that will be the beauty that shines with its own light.

Gioconda with the smile of Nirvana.