浅からず深からず : interested but not involved

浅からず深からず – Asakarazu, fukakarazu.

Technically, this is not a four-letter compound, although it can be written as such, kango-style, 不浅不深 (please correct me, if necessary, I’m not big on kango). I heard it some 20-odd years ago, when a Japanese girl I knew told me that the best way to keep relationships with people is “not too shallow, not too deep”. Coming from a culture where it’s all about emotional extremes, that came across cold and indifferent to me. Not any more though, as life experience has taught me that to enjoy earthlings the best, you ought to keep them at a healthy distance.
There’s another Japanese saying to that effect: 附かず離れず (tsukazu hanarezu), “no attachment, no detachment”. It popped up in an interview I made with a 70-year-old Japanese man in Bangkok last winter. After meditating on the two above sayings as a kind of koan for a while, I had a minor epiphany, triggered by accidentally revisiting the famous talk Krishna gave Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Ghita: “Stay interested, but not involved. There’s nothing about this world that is real.” My own insight was that “interested” is exactly the Middle Path, my dear majjhima, between being indifferent and being too involved.

As usual, the truth is in the middle, just ask those mysterious, exotic and oh so wise Orientals. 🙂

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