hope
At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?
Camus says hope is deception. If a rock was being very naughty and you kept trying, you have hope. And you get disappointed every time your hope gets tested.
Someone on reddit wrote:
It’s his freedom. The release. If we assume he lives in the moment of stress and struggle as he pushes up we should also assume he lives this pause, this release in the moment. In this moment or in his “now” he is living his freedom, experiencing his freedom that the cycle allows. The yin and yang that just exists. The necessity of struggle and release as discipline is the meaning. By rote, by circumstance, by Sisyphus.
Is Sisyphus a Zen practitioner if viewing the climb as yang and the way down again as yin? Well…
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Push stone, walk down, push stone, walk down? Meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Zen aims for non-duality, meaning that one must have no preference between push stone and walk down. Because there is freedom in both.
Why is the walking down period the moment of consciousness? I think the “stone face” is talking about this - In the push stone part, Sisyphus is quite akin to an object, the thoughts are limited by pushing. Must be hard for him, but when one is akin to an object, there is numbness. In contrast the walk down means he is less numb.
It is during that walk down that Sisyphus interests me. He is part of the geology when he goes up. He is conscious on the way down, without hope, and if there isn’t a reason for hope, without hope is right.
For humans however, we have reasons for hope. I am thinking: what exactly satisfies “reasons for hope”
In Zen, there is no reason for hope or preference ever. Hope destroys meaning because of duality, because there is a line between the thing and the wished-thing
Hope is useful. It may be the second best thing.