Un claro en el bosque De La Mirándola, Heidegger y el Budismo Zen

Abstract

This paper seeks to approximate some reflections on topics like human being condition, being and nothingness, emptiness in Chinese Taoism and Zen Buddhism,establishing a dialogue between Pythagoras, Sophocles, Pico De La Mirandola, MartinHeidegger, Eckhart, and the masters of Taoism like Lao Tze and of Zen Buddhism likeSeng Ts'an. Such dialogue between masters from East and West is taking place along a narrative text that, sprinkled with some element of fantastic realism and of venezuelan popular culture, tells, in addition, an incident that happened in real life to two workers wholabored on a farm, and they were cutting wood from the forest with a double intention: tomake planks for the doors and windows of the house, and to make wooden posts toenclose the pasture. They are arbitrarily detained by an officer of the armed forces that, byhis action, demonstrates abuse of power by seizing timber and power saw, on alleged charges of illegal logging. The happy outcome of this misunderstanding is caused by thetimely intervention of a high-ranking officer, who ordered the return of materials not havingevidence of illegality, freeing them from the unfair accusation. The story concludes with aquote from Lao Tze on emptiness, stillness and the enlightenment.