I wrote: we don't need knowledge to be happy but he disagrees:

Robert,  I leave to others to comment.

What I have said applies to my life....I am a Zen person who lives by FEELING and NOT PURSUING KNOWLEDGE which tends to muddle and confuse...
even wisdom falls short of personal experience, insight and intuition.  

I can quote many cases of great people of the past who were geniuses and the most intellectual whose lives were lived in suffering and tragedy---I think you knew such people.

Simplicity, humility, contentment, compassion, being childlike in innocence, wonder and appreciation of beauty, of grace, of gratitude.....this doesn't not require knowledge--
it springs from the pure fountain of the heart,
it is all we ever need for a happy and fulfilling life.  

Kindly share your thoughts--many thanks.

Peter from Melbourne

No one can run away from hurt

        such bruises have to be in silence borne

        how often is the heart found in such girt

       when love has failed and forever gone

My beloved, say nothing
just give me your tender hand
our eyes will do the telling
our very hearts we will understand

..but so many years
have been wasted
and what's left
is but fragments
and vestiges
of once-treasured
hopes and dreams
the past has broken loose
and spoken in derision
love is silent and forlorn--

how the heart
has forgetten
each moment
is so dear and precious
delicate and brittle
too prone to quicken
time is insidious
it takes away in envy
what we have neglected
it couldn't care less

it was spring then,
it sang it danced, it invited
us to share its happiness
its reaching out
was unrequited

and now l
ife is covered
with thickest snow
to walk upon
is to fall-- we've
nothing to hold
on --in the deadening cold

beauty has aged
and is weary
her eyes are deep-sunken
her heart is bolted
all love she has forgotten
she will not walk
the path of pain anymore
life has drawn
its line
and its curtain
has fallen.

Fear imagined is even more threatening
     confronting it makes for its weakening

Someone, so long ago
Listened while I sang my lonely song;
He understood each sad refrain
And chose to sing along

And when he sang I knew
Our two souls were destined to combine;
With three words he conquered my heart,
And lit the flame divine

Had the sun ever shone
As brightly before he came to me?
Life seemed worthless, without meaning --
A pointless destiny

Suddenly, life made sense,
I was a prisoner he set free;
The rain felt good, birdsong was sweet,
I touched infinity!

A beautiful bouquet
He offered me when he came to call;
But the flowers were not mine to keep --
Soon Fate reclaimed them all

But Love's fire is undying,
Though an ember, it still casts a glow,
Reminding me how much I loved
Someone ....... so long ago

Dear M

Thanks for sharing your profound thoughts.
May I say this?


1   I came with nothing........ but to me there's beauty and mystery in that nothing:   could it be the answer to everything?
 
2   We came alone, live alone and die alone despite others--
our aloneness doesn't isolate us from others but rather draws us to them in our 'spiritual' and humane away--- we discover our true self in this being-alone state only to waken to a 'higher' and 'deeper' consciousness.
I could say: we become larger than ourselves in this transformation

3   Love, as long as it is pure and unselfish,  lifts us above all the mundane, the trivial and inane--to have loved and being loved transcends every earthly thing

4   The beyond is not ours to understand--we live as long as life is given to us-- the sun will set as it must, the flower knows its season to wither, the sea has its ebbing time, the heart knows when to cease its yearning at the appointed hour-- there is every reason to welcome the ending of things as a perpetual repeating without closure would be unthinkable.  

The beginning is the kindergarten, the end is the richest lesson.

I hope I make some sense or is this but the rambling of a decadent mind?
Yours truthfully
Peter

Vulnerable I am in old age
but will not supplicate or weep
life has to be lived or endured
faith I will keep--

people should not pray
only in their hour of need
religion should find expression
in every thought, word and deed-

acceptance is the greatest wisdom
courage is but of short stay
in the face of every adversity
the enlightened person does not walk away-

if  in this climate I were placed last
in the queue of salvation-- I will readily accept
without rancour, blame or complaint
grateful to be in patience and humility kept.

Human nature is best tested in worst times and the present climate
is testing time.  It has been rightly said: when someone wins,
you see part of his character but when he loses, you see the whole person--at his worst.

Man is an isolated island and basically selfish--
never mind what Donne wrote: no man is an island.
This is part of evolution: the innate drive and fight for survival.

The C virus is eating into the heart of our daily life-
would I survive? (I am not concerned with others!)--
this runs deep with many.

In Singapore, the expression KIA-SU ( in Hokkian dialect it literally means:  Fear losing) is common to every Singaporean.
No doubt, Singapore is a dog-eat-dog society where material success counts above all.  Money and not humanity is the clarion-call.  

You would have seen the scuffle for toilet-paper and staples from videos that have gone viral in several parts of the world, including Australia where I live. Such an ugly sight!  Human nature at its worst!  

In Japan, after the nuclear fallout, the people affected lined up gently and patiently for their turn to receive water and food. Those who had  gave to others in need.  Here we see a modicum of humanity and selflessness.  Such a fine lesson to learn from!

Let us stop to ponder: living life is not just about our own survival
to the neglect or disregard of our fellow-beings--
after all, we are all capable of kindness and compassion-
could we be really happy to see others suffer or their being left out?
Happiness that is self-serving makes us smaller than what we could be.  All religions teach kindness and compassion without which we would be inhuman.

Such lessons should be inculcated in our children as home is the
best breeding ground for morality, humility, selflessness and true humanity. They should be a living guide for all right-thinking people.

Let us hope this virus would be overcome and let us learn the real meaning of humanity.