To Piergiorgio who congratulated me on successfully managing to plan my life (marriage, Rome, baby…), I responded that I often feel as things happen almost by chance to me - and that, on the contrary, I often feel like a tightrope walker at ten metres above the ground without safety-net juggling with three balls, with someone that from time to time throws an additional one at him, while he desperately tries not to have them falling - and not to fall himself…Stimulated by my response, Piergiorgio coined the following koan:
L’equilibrista gioca con tre palline su una fune. Il povero teme la fune e dimentica le palline. Il saggio contempla la luna aldilà delle palline. Fune e palline non fanno l’equilibrista, né il povero, né il saggio.*
Whose meaning though still remains obscure to us…
Do help us to solve the koan: tell us how you would interpret it!
(*) The equilibrist juggles with three balls on a tightrope. The poor man fears the tightrope and forgets the balls. The wise man contemplates the moon beyond the balls. Tightrope and balls do not make the equilibrist, or the poor man, or the wise man.
Brilliant Piergiorgio and Matteo... you are not defined by what you do, but by the way you approach what you do. In other words, you are what you choose to be... and this makes the whole difference. Bellissimo, Gianni
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