On the subject of matters of life and death, it's always interesting to witness that people seem rather jovial when gossiping about other people's death, or at least rather nonchalant.
My explanation is that this is a very base coping mechanism against something so overwhelming - one's mortality - that one does not even try to engage with it seriously and simply laughs.
This however has nothing to do with the way a Zen master would laugh when facing difficult situations. Whereas the wise laugh by softening themselves and their body, reminding themselves of how little the ego can control the situations it has to deal with, the cowards laugh by tensing, such that the wise laugh is pleasant and subtle, whereas the coward's laugh is tense, crude and loud.
It's similar to the pre/trans fallacy, where both sides looks similar on the surface, that is to say without discernment, but in fact couldn't be more different from one another.
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2024-04-13