one long rosy crucifixion

"and if it be asked- "didst thou enjoy thy stay on earth?"- i shall reply: "my life was one long rosy crucifixion."

As to the meaning of this, if it is not already clear, it shall be elucidated. if i fail then i am but a dog in the manger.

once i thought i had been wounded as no man ever had. because i felt thus i vowed to write this book. but long before i began the book the wound had healed. since i had sworn to fulfill my task i reopened the horrible wound.

let me put it another way....perhaps in opening the wound, my own wound, i closed other wounds, other people's wounds. something dies, something blossoms. to suffer in ignorance is horrible. to suffer deliberately, in order to understand the nature of suffering and abolish it forever, is quite another matter. the buddha had one fixed thought in mind all his life, as we know. it was to eliminate suffering.

suffering is unnecessary. but one has to suffer before he is able to realize that this is so. it is only then, moreover, that the true significance of human suffering becomes clear. at that last desperate moment -when one can suffer no more!- something happens which is in the nature of a miracle. the great open wound which was draining the blood of life closes up, the organism blossoms like a rose. one is "free" at last, and not "with a yearning for russia," but with a yearning for ever more freedom, ever more bliss. the tree of life is kept alive not by tears but by the knowledge that freedom is real and everlasting."
- henry miller

2004-12-02 | 8:45 p.m.
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