Grace and Humility

A year ago, following encouragement from readers who had read my literary work “confined” to the pages of traditional books, I decided to share my new writings through a Blog to reach new audiences and also to write more freely.  I have been delighted by the reception my decision received from practically every corner of our still-spinning earth!

The name of my Blog was chosen a bit whimsically but to reflect the focus of my new line of essays. ZenSouçis is a phonetic play on the French “Sans Souçis” which means “With no worries”.  The Zen dimension was important as I expected to follow a certain philosophy which became apparent to be germane to my previous work as well, but without my fully realizing it to be the case. Now, I wanted to discover, along with my readers, how what I did, felt, thought or avoided could find a simple explanation in the Zen teachings and recommended attitudes.

… I wrote about dignity, identity, longing, love, harmony, beauty and goodbyes. I have used multiple cultures, languages, and teachings as templates when exploring about how one separates his ‘self' from the flow of time and the 'backpack' of history. We all carry that backpack-- some of us feel its weight when our shoulders are weary of the carry.

And last night, when the sky was full of stars and the desert around me eerily quiet, I picked up a book from my father’s collection and sat by the window to read.

The book is a legend in the world of biology and medicine. The author is Dr. Alexis Carrel and the title “L’homme cet Inconnu” or “Man, the Unknown”.  It was published in the early 1930s and I recall my father saying that no medical professional in those days could pretend to know biology, medicine or philosophy without having read this book. A quick search on the Internet proved his point and more: it is today a cult book, with followers who believe that the book remains science and art, attitude, philosophy and knowledge, from a teacher who was also a wonderer.

In short, a Zen book.

First, about the physical appearance of the book. It is leather-bound; the pages are yellow in courtesy to time, thinned like the hands of those in a nursing home bed. It was published in 1935 in Paris by Librairie Plon. However the most interesting detail about the printing was that only 286 copies were made on special paper for select collections. Is mine one of these copies?

I think so, but the physical character of the book is in the history of those who had owned it. The entire book is covered in handwritten notes using black, red and blue pencil. There are comments, references and thoughts written in French, English, and Armenian and even in Latin! More, there are cut columns from newspapers about the author and the book glued to its pages. Ninety years old glue! Turning the pages or unfolding the newspaper columns takes the careful and caring hands of a surgeon, and many are so thinned and almost transparent that I decided to leave that exploration for another day or perhaps another person.

Second, the previous owners of this almost-a century-old book had many interests. The first page of the book even has algebraic equations with legends written in French and Armenian! One legend, written in Armenian under the fourth equation says “Infinity” but not as one would use it in Algebra but as a poet would write about “perpetuity” or “endlessness”! 

What was that reader trying to do? Perhaps try to describe some of Dr. Carrel’s ideas in a formulaic format?

I will never know, but my curiosity for re-reading this book after 35 years was grander than ever.

.. So I did. I will not write about the book or its messages as one can find better analyses on the internet or a library. What I want to share are dormant definitions that were woken up in me as I read till the early hours of the morning. These are the definitions of Grace and Humility. So, after a few hours of sleep, I decided to research and read more about grace and humility with a special penchant toward the teachings of what can be called Zen.

·         

•       The word Grace has a Greek root as ‘Chairo’ and today it is used as Charis; it also has a Latin origin as ‘Gratus’ meaning thankful or pleasing; finally it also has a Hebrew root as ‘Chanan’ and is today used as ‘Chen’ meaning ‘favor’.
• ·         The word Humility has a more ethical meaning ranging from a posture (lowering oneself vis-à-vis others), to knowing one’s place within a larger context. Interestingly it is said that the act of imposing humility on others is called ‘humiliation’ which today perversely connotes an undesirable behaviour.

Why did those two concepts or definitions pop up in my mind when reading Carrel’s book? He does not discuss them directly, but the philosophy of the unknown, regarding human biology and medicine made me realize that the grace of the human body, human behaviour and the biology we transform into poetry, knowledge, celebration, the tremor of love, and the fear of not being loved is what we all need to recognize, cherish and celebrate. As for humility, I felt that the only way to recognize the grace and gracefulness of the ‘Unknown’ in us is by being humble yet cheerful.

And suddenly I thought about the algebraic equation on the front page—could it be that a reader, almost a century ago, passed through a similar thought process and tried to build an equation with two unknowns? Was the ‘X’ in that equation Grace, while the ‘Y’ addressed Humility?

Can it be possible that two minds converged toward such a distillation upon reading the book? Perpetuity, Infinity… But what about the ‘self’ that we cherish in many cultures? Is there a connection between the ‘self’ and ‘identity’? Or, as I proposed elsewhere (ref¹) there is “no I in Identity”? 

I wondered what Buddha had taught regarding these questions.

Interestingly, it is said that when asked about the above, he refused to answer. But as a good teacher he suggested that the better way to approach an understanding of the ‘self’ one should not worry about the existence of the ‘self’ but ask “How does the perception of the ‘self’’ originate?”

… I was done with the re-read of Dr. Carrel’s book and the hundreds of commentaries various previous owners had written in the margins. This time, I had a new attitude and perspective given the 35 years of life between the two readings. I doubt it very much that I will have another 35 years’ wait for a third reading.

So, I will cherish the years left with grace and humility, without worrying about infinity or any algebraic equation with two unknowns and Armenian legends!

¹ http://vahezen.blogspot.com/2013/06/i-dentity.html


And here are two links worth visiting:

http://academicdepartments.musc.edu/humanvalues/pdf/Transplantationat100years.pdf


http://beingintheformofaquest.blogspot.com/2005/07/wisdom-of-alexis-carrel-on-moral.html

November 26, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014