XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.zen   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 8/8/2016 9:22 AM, Ned Ludd wrote:   
      
   >  Never wrestle with a pig - you'll both get dirty   
   > and the pig will enjoy it.   
      
   This saying was much invoked in the glory   
   years of TRB, ten or fifteen years ago. It   
   supposedly comes from George Bernard   
   Shaw.   
      
   In theory (I say so because I am purely   
   extrapolating a priori, without any basis in   
   reality), a sage can play the pig, e. g., to   
   help awaken people, with impunity, for he   
   has abandoned self and   
   what-belong-to-self, treats everything and   
   everybody like clouds passing in the sky   
   or water sliding off a duck's back, and   
   uses such a trope in a selfless, salvific   
   manner, without any self-interest from his   
   side, so that he remains unblemished. In   
   a way, he merely uses it in the Soft Way   
   (柔道 rou-dao, Japanese Judo) to flip the   
   belligerent or at least obstinate persons   
   with their own ego (e. g., as manifested in   
   their pomposity and ego inflation) and   
   does not engage his own energy. It can   
   well be that the intended recipients   
   rarely or never "get" the message, but   
   who knows, some of them, or some   
   by-standers, can "click" and come to   
   sense, even from afar, by reading about   
   such an occurrence (which can get   
   recorded as "public case" 公案 gong-an   
   and "case" 則 ze in Chan).   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)