Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23 (訓道篇 1:2, 2:21-23)
33 X 45 cm
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Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23 (訓道篇 1:2, 2:21-23)
33 X 45cm in Regular Script (楷書)
Historical information
Verses from Ecclesiastes according to the Catholic Traditional Chinese Douay Version of the Bible (1)
Text translation (as written in the Catholic English Douay Version of the Bible)
"Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. For when a man laboureth in wisdom, and knowledge, and carefulness, he leaveth what he hath gotten to an idle man: so this also is vanity, and a great evil. For what profit shall a man have of all his labour, and vexation of spirit, with which he hath been tormented under the sun? All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?"
Personal Comments
"Vanity (虛)" applies to all things conceivable, which include all desires, emotions, and circumstances, such as birth, death, joy, suffering, sadness and injustice. God, by its very nature, cannot be entirely conceived and understood by humans and so this “Vanity” does not apply to it.
This "Vanity (虛)" in Ecclesiastes can be likened to a hollow existence that is never concrete. Such is in parallel to the Buddhist concept of “空 (voidness/nothingness)”. For further discussion on “空 (voidness/nothingness)”, see Heart Sutra (般若波羅蜜多心經) and Diamond Sutra (金剛經).
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