{
  "id": "a_6ktccqzm",
  "oid": 165578,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165579,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Meditation, effort and the danger of delay",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH08.P024",
      "oid": 217,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH08.P024",
      "exact": "If we want, like the Eastern saints, merely to contemplate how right things are, of course we shall only say that they must go right.",
      "start": 267,
      "end": 400,
      "prefix": "; we shall rather encourage it. ",
      "suffix": " But if we particularly want to ",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P024#char=267,400"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "Meditation does not necessarily mean contemplating that everything is already right. The *Dhammapada* joins meditation to effort: verse 276 requires practitioners themselves to strive; verse 280 warns that an idle person misses wisdom; verse 282 distinguishes advancement from decline. Verses 286–289 then make unanticipated death a reason for urgency. In these passages, the possibility of failure and the danger of delay motivate practice—precisely the structure Chesterton reserves here for the active West. [*Dhammapada*, chapter 20, verses 276, 280–282, 286–289, Acharya Buddharakkhita's 1985 translation, inspected in the Access to Insight transcription](https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.20.budd.html).\n\nThese texts concern liberation and ethical training, not a programme of European revolution. They do not establish that Buddhist and Christian political histories are equivalent. They do show why Chesterton's narrower argument against complacency cannot, without further evidence, sustain his geographical division between contemplative Eastern saints and people who act because things may go wrong.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.20.budd.html",
      "title": "Maggavagga: The Path (Dhammapada XX), translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita",
      "locator": "Verses 276, 280–282, 286–289. Translation first published by Buddhist Publication Society, 1985; online transcription 1996, Access to Insight revision 30 November 2013.",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.20.budd.html",
      "title": "*Dhammapada*, chapter 20, verses 276, 280–282, 286–289, Acharya Buddharakkhita's 1985 translation, inspected in the Access to Insight transcription"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "These canonical texts qualify the portrayal of Buddhist religious practice; they do not by themselves establish any causal account of political reform.",
    "No claim is made that Chesterton read either text or was answering these particular passages."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-08-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P024",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since",
        "question": "Does Buddhist contemplation exclude the sense of danger and effort that Chesterton makes the condition of reform?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:cf8c46fff5e5ac194bdc3f1ab88cca7b3e99fad30fc9ae1cef589b39bbd4e8df",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:31:03Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_6ktccqzm",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_6ktccqzm/r/1",
  "cited_by": [
    {
      "id": "a_rf4hlvbl",
      "revision": 1,
      "title": "The freedom concealed in dogma: orthodoxy as a resource for reform",
      "url": "/a/a_rf4hlvbl"
    }
  ]
}