Knowlege and Silence

Knowledge and Silence

I received an email forwarded from a friend, in which there was a series of exchanges about knowledge concerning Vietnamese culture, meditation, and Buddhism. I read the email with keen interest and amusement. However, by the time I reached the end of the exchanges, I stopped feeling amused. Instead, I experienced a strange mixture of sobering humility and self-awareness.

The subjects discussed in the email are familiar with me since they have been the areas of interest to me for a long time. I don’t fancy that I am an expert of these subjects but I think I know more than an average person. In fact, I am perusing a book which touches on religion, God, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, logic, language, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. Some of the materials covered are tough going for me, but I am not totally lost. I fancy that I am in good company and on the right path to an understanding of where I am in relation to life around me and my place in the universe. What I need to guard myself is not to heap scorn on those who love to show off their meager knowledge and pretend that they know more than they actually do. What I need to control is not to have feelings of nausea and disgust when I see amateurish attempts of pontification and poor reasoning skills displayed in the forum of which I am a member. What I need to do is to practice silence and not be like those who make me want to puke whenever I read their words; in other words, I need to write only when silence is no longer necessary and I only write for the common good, for the sake of my home country, and not to satisfy my ego.

CanNgon
August 24, 2009