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A couple of days ago I read letter LVI by Seneca in which he somewhat comically describes all the noises he hears in his apartment above a public bath-house. The second part of his letter is an explanation of how distractions shouldn't affect a good stoic with a sound mind. Do the monks who live and work at this temple put the sounds of the city and the whoops and hollers from the next-door mini-golf course out of their minds when they pray and meditate? If they can, I imagine they are well on their way to Nirvana.
I also want to find peace in the chaotic Korean city. I could study more stoicism and perhaps take up meditation, but it's easier to just ride my bicycle out into the countryside where I can avoid people and the clamour of urban life. Similarly, at the end of his letter, Seneca tells his correspondent that he "shall be shortly moving elsewhere." Living above a noisy bath-house was just a good place to test having peace of mind in a distracting environment for him. He ends by writing, "Why should I need to suffer the torture any longer than I want to when Ulysses found so easy a remedy for his companions even against the sirens?"
That's a good shot but I hate the cars. Maybe if I thought about it long enough I would come to love them, maybe even say they are necessary. Often in my photography I want no cars in the shot, but since I can't move them perhaps I should just embrace them. Dunno.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the bike ride for getting away from the noise. For me it's the beach in winter, or the forest.
I usually prefer not to have cars in my photos. I think they fit here, since I was talking about the temple being surrounded by noise and distractions. I had a nice bicycle ride up north today and at times there were no cars or sounds of human activities at all. Very nice.
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