Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460263" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The life or death question</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">You could guess from the crowd<br>converging on the Memorial Hall<br>and on a Saturday night, that<br>the speaker must be world-famed in his field, <br>making his first visit to the college.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A French scientist of renown –<br>cognitive theory or some such –<br>turned Buddhist monk these thirty, forty years, <br>he carried the blessing and the curse, <br>the burden of responsibility not only of his vocation<br>but his fame. The hall was packed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Serene – ‘together’ has to be the word –<br>he spoke for an hour; enthusiastic applause; <br>then question time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There’s always that tense silence before<br>the first question…how will <br>the hall respond tonight? Will it hold the level<br>of the speaker’s mind? …we knew all too well<br>those ‘first question’ students – the one<br>who had to wrap a compliment in<br>confectioner’s sugar, eliciting an inward groan –<br>as if the speaker were unaware of his own ability...<br>she’d marry rich, then live a life of patronising<br>complacency bestowing well-publicised charity…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">or the one whose ‘clever’ question blatantly advertised<br>to whoever might be impressed, beyond herself, <br>that she was already on the speaker’s wavelength<br>before the lecture and before the rest of us…<br>she’d commit herself to a future academic life<br>of maintaining this self-superiority, <br>exhausting herself, losing friends and influencing few…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">but no – tonight it was that wild and self-abusive student<br>who seldom attended any lecture except to challenge –<br>‘Can you give me one single reason<br>why I should go on living? ’..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You could have heard a cliché drop..<br>a pin; a paperclip; but loud, the universal thought –<br>how could the speaker know, this was the brilliant boy<br>of already three serious suicide attempts…<br>representative of the rite of passage greatly magnified, <br>sex, drugs, rocknroll, and whatever lay beyond…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘No… I cannot…’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This was the boy we detested, despaired of, tried to befriend, <br>hated for his disruption, but almost feared, <br>feared for the wild openness of his mind…<br>the hall united in hushed, waiting silence…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘… for you have given yourself the reason –<br>you have asked the question few of us<br>have dared to ask… and a question<br>sincerely asked, brings its answer with it…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘..when you hear the answer that your question <br>holds in its heart, like some golden lotus, <br>you will have the answers to all questions, <br>and you will be a wiser, happier man than me…’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">only Buddhists and their like can smile<br>with such detached serenity; with<br>a space that’s full of meaning. The hall<br>broke into the laughter of relief; great laughter; <br>the unqualified love of five hundred students<br>poured like a mighty river on that boy</div><div style="margin:10px 0">who was still standing, wild-haired –<br>and I saw that he was laughing too<br>and through my mind flashed the thought, <br>the air is full of angels..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">where had those angels who laughed<br>so lightly with us, where had those angels been, <br>before; and would go, after? <br>The boy, still laughing as he left.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460263" data-title="The life or death question de Michael Shepherd" data-description="You could guess from the crowd
converging on the Memorial Hall
and on a Saturday night, that
the speaker must be world-famed in his field, 
making his first visit to the college.

A French scientist of renown –
cognitive theory or some such –
..."></div>
</div>
</div>