Let me tell you a parable the Buddha once told one of his monks. This monk had become vexed that for all his devotion, he was still no closer to understanding the ultimate mysteries of life.
Is the Cosmos eternal or not? Are the body and the soul two separate things or one and the same? And what happens to a liberated person after death?
The monk couldn’t get his mind off these questions. So, one day, he approached the Buddha in a fit of anger. He told his master he would either get straight answers, or he would leave him. It was then that the Buddha told him the parable.
‘Imagine a man struck by a poisoned arrow’, the Buddha said.
‘A doctor comes along, ready to pull the arrow out and give him an antidote, but the man stops him.’
‘Not so fast! First, I want to know who shot me. What town or village does he come from? I would also like to know what kind of timber his bow was made out of. Also, was it a crossbow or a longbow?’
‘Clearly,’ the Buddha said, ‘that man would die and his questions would remain unanswered.’
The Buddha explained this is why he refrains from excessive philosophising. Like the man in the parable, we are all shot with the poisoned arrows of suffering and ignorance. Philosophising on the nature of the Cosmos or the soul is unlikely to help us with that.
So, the Buddha says, get your priorities straight. Heal yourself and build yourself up to live a good life. Use philosophy only as a tool to get you there and not as a distraction. Or as Dostoevsky wrote:
‘You shall love life more than the meaning of life.’
Whenever we engage in philosophy, we should ask ourselves: ‘Does this contribute to the perfection of my life or am I just indulging my intellectual appetites?’
I hope this bit of insight serves you well on your own path of inner growth. The parable of the poisoned arrow is a warning about how our misguided efforts to understand the world sometimes get in the way of our inner growth and healing.
If you wish to learn another enlightening Buddhist parable, I suggest the Chariot Simile concerning our core existential delusion: the feeling of being a self.
Some philosphers know that philosophy is nothing but a play of words. However knowing that the impasse of philosophy results in serious problems to human thinking, I honour the effort of a philosopher who tries to formulate a theory that can free the Western mind from the impasse. Of course changes in the way people think is a very slow process, but I think it is better to undertake the effort than not. This is not to say that the influence of philosophy is comparable with that of the teachings an enlightened One. It may however turn the attention of some to these teachings.