Is there a limit to words?

[tariki]

Words. I've always been interested in translation, one language into another. An art. What changes, what remains the same?

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" —Wittgenstein, Tractatus

What is it that "cannot be spoken"? 

 

From Chuang Tzu:-

"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to."

 Dogen, the Soto zen master, took issue with the oft quoted:- "Do not mistake the finger that points for the moon itself". Dogen's point was that such an "instruction" implied a duality. Finger and moon. His implication was that "reality" could actually be found in the word; some commentators claim that Dogen saw a fundamental identity of language and enlightenment. 

All much to do with the Word as text. My main objection to certain claims found in Christianity, that Jesus is the Word par excellence. Uniquely unique!

Many see each and every "particular" as containing the universal. Even those such as James Joyce, in the world of literature. 

Alas, Christianity often makes the claim that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the "way" and "no one comes to the Father" but by him. The source of so much conflict, of Inquisitions, bigotry and intolerance.

One of the great Christian mystics, Meister Eckhart, once said:- "They do Him wrong who only know God in one particular way. They end with the way rather than God."

When offering such words for thought and reflection, some have been known to throw back the well known NT verse:- "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me." Spoken by Jesus.

There is a branch of Christian thought concerned with interpretation of the Biblical text. Hermeneutics. Some claim that the Spirit guides the true believer in their interpretation. Which leads to those who believe vastly different things each claiming to be the "true" Christian..... 

As I see it, the actual import of Eckhart's words can be related with the words of Jesus by a simple application of hermaneutics. A way of understanding, of interpretation, that is NOT "new age", NOT a "turning away from what has always been taught" - NOT any other claim made by a certain kind of Biblical Fundamentalist. It is rather an understanding that has been held throughout the twenty centuries of the Christian Faith.

The One who speaks is the Eternal Logos. The Universal Christ. Otherwise known as the Tao, Brahman, Buddha Nature. "Truth is one, sages know it by various names".

Well, I am no sage, but I get the drift.....

In fact, it is the Biblical Fundamentalist who is the "modernist". Their way of thought, their teaching, their understanding, is derived from Martin Luther and the Reformation. Such thought is NOT "going back to the Bible" and the "original teaching". There was no Bible back at the start, during the early centuries. Since, we have various Canons, and there have always been a rich diversity of teachings, of understanding.

And so we each must find our "way". The One Way is, given my argument, unique to each of us. Declaring ourselves the "true" this, that or anything else, is in fact a denial of Christ; the Universal Christ.

 

The Word as text. Each and every particular is the Universal. Suggesting that only one has ever been the "truth", uniquely unique, is disjointed, corrupting. 

 

Well, possibly this post has been a bit disjointed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by tariki

[romansh]

Here's a quote that sort of intrigues me:

The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other.
Kurt Gödel

[tariki]

11 hours ago, romansh said:

Here's a quote that sort of intrigues me:

The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other.
Kurt Gödel

Yes, language is a treacherous sea. Yet as Dogen says, "nothing is concealed". There is no riddle. 

I downloaded a sample of a book that is about the influence of Wittgenstein on the thought and works of Samuel Beckett. Not much chance of me buying it, it is one of those ridiculously priced ebooks books. But the sample, free, contained a few quotes which I found interesting, in between cracking another couple of levels of Candy Crush Soda Saga. 

 

Here are a couple:-

“Words fail us.” Why then don’t we introduce more? What would the case have to be for us to be able to do so?

(Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations)

 

Is not that so, Willie, that even words fail, at times? (Pause. Back front.) What is one to do then, until they come again?

(Beckett, Happy Days)

 

Good stuff if you want to confuse yourself. 

 

I'm just rambling really, back in McDonald's after getting the grandchildren to school, then a bus into town. 

I actually read the Samuel Beckett play "Krapp's Last Tape" again yesterday. Short, like a lot of Beckett's plays. The guy listening to his "wise" words of yesteryear and wondering where all the "insight" went......😜Is there ever a "summing up"? Where are we now?

 

Beckett once wrote a few words about the ending of Dante's Divine Comedy, about eventually "seeing the stars again." He put these words into the mouth of a tramp-like waif as he contemplated death: -

 "There's a way out there, there's a way out somewhere, the rest would come, the other words, sooner or later, and the power to get there, and the way to get there, and pass out, and see the beauties of the skies, and see the stars again."

 Apparently from the "Ninth Monologue" whatever that is, so I don't really know the full context of the words. Knowing Beckett, he was expressing the forlorn hopes of another character lost in a bemusing reality. Yet, strangely, I see more compassion in his words than in virtually all the "religious" b******t that is passed around.

No blame. Be kind. Love everything.

[PaulS]

On 10/11/2022 at 9:22 PM, tariki said:

In fact, it is the Biblical Fundamentalist who is the "modernist". Their way of thought, their teaching, their understanding, is derived from Martin Luther and the Reformation. Such thought is NOT "going back to the Bible" and the "original teaching". There was no Bible back at the start, during the early centuries. Since, we have various Canons, and there have always been a rich diversity of teachings, of understanding.

Yes, I have always found  this puzzling that largely Christianity completely overlooks that much of what is taken for granted today as the immutable word of God wasn't even around for those actually living in the time of the said writings!  People in Old Testament times weren't reading from the Old Testament!  Christians for the first several hundred years of Christianity didn't even have a New Testament.  It's taken Christianity hundreds of years, even millennia, to refine itself into the narrow band of ideology that it is today.

I'm not convinced there actually is One who speaks, whether that be Eternal Logos or other, and I think that most likely it is our human reasoning that is deducing there is 'something' higher than ourselves when in fact there isn't, but I am open to the concept still.

[tariki]

10 hours ago, PaulS said:

 

I'm not convinced there actually is One who speaks, whether that be Eternal Logos or other, and I think that most likely it is our human reasoning that is deducing there is 'something' higher than ourselves when in fact there isn't, but I am open to the concept still.

This is why I think it best to simply ask if Reality has significance rather than asking ourselves if we "believe in God". For me the simply FACT that there is indisputably something rather than nothing implies "significance"; rather than Reality simply being mindless matter in motion, a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

 Once we start asking if there is "One who speaks" (or any other phrase denoting some "higher" being) then we are sucked into the endless dialectic of reason, its conflicts and confusions. One thought leads to another, questions, objections. And "who shall untangle this tangle", as per the very beginning of the Visuddhimagga (the Path of Purification) by Buddhaghosa. The Buddha's answer, as mentioned elsewhere, was to be silent in the face of all metaphysical questions, simply because any "answer", clung to and "believed in", was inimical to the Holy Life, the path to the final end of suffering (dukkha)

 

The true path is pathless, beyond definitions, beginning where we are. Faith. But if we confuse faith with "belief" the game is up, at least as I see it. Faith is a complete letting go, which - strangely perhaps - guarantees absolutely nothing. 

 

 

 

 

[PaulS]

16 hours ago, tariki said:

This is why I think it best to simply ask if Reality has significance rather than asking ourselves if we "believe in God". For me the simply FACT that there is indisputably something rather than nothing implies "significance"; rather than Reality simply being mindless matter in motion, a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Love it.

[tariki]

19 hours ago, PaulS said:

Love it.

 

Just had a nice day visiting relations in a little village about 22 miles distant. Travelling there with our daughter and grandchildren. A good day.

Just to say, regarding "significance", I'm not so sure that "significance" would actually imply a destination, an end product. At least not one that we could ever imagine. The heartwood of the Dharma according to Theravada Buddhism, is "unshakeable deliverance of mind" (Majjhima Nikaya). The Bible speaks of being set free by "truth". So it is freedom, beyond any "answers", "conclusions" or an ultimate terminus. Poetically, the "journey itself is home."

For me this all relates to the way of unknowing. Reality is mystery, but not a mystery that is hidden or unknown in darkness or which will be revealed or made known in the future. Rather, it is more a present intimacy, transparency, and vividness, this of thusness/suchness, for “nothing throughout the entire universe is concealed” ( Dogen) Nevertheless, this mystery of emptiness and thusness has to go beyond this: intimacy must be ever penetrated. Or as another has said, "the only extension to the present is intensity."

All this may well be why Buddhism is sometimes dismissed, even condemned, as nihilistic. Related phrases such as "casting off the body-mind" are simply not understood. Dogen, the 13th century Japanese zen master, began to understand when he was himself a novice in a Chinese monastery and the pupil next to him slumped forward and the Master struck the man with the keisaku (awakening stick) and shouted:- "How dare you fall asleep when you seek to drop body and mind!" Such was a moment of illumination to Dogen!

As a commentator on Dogen has written:-

To cast off the body-mind did not nullify historical and social existence so much as to put it into action so that it could be the self-creative and self-expressive embodiment of Buddha-nature. In being “cast off,” however, concrete human existence was fashioned in the mode of radical freedom—purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. Buddha-nature was not to be enfolded in, but was to unfold through, human activities and expressions. The meaning of existence was finally freed from and authenticated by its all-too-human conditions only if, and when, it lived co-eternally with ultimate meaninglessness.

Or, perhaps, as the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart has said:-

"Love has no why"

Edited October 15, 2022 by tariki

[PaulS]

On 10/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, tariki said:

 

Just had a nice day visiting relations in a little village about 22 miles distant. Travelling there with our daughter and grandchildren. A good day.

Nice.

On 10/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, tariki said:

Just to say, regarding "significance", I'm not so sure that "significance" would actually imply a destination, an end product. At least not one that we could ever imagine. The heartwood of the Dharma according to Theravada Buddhism, is "unshakeable deliverance of mind" (Majjhima Nikaya). The Bible speaks of being set free by "truth". So it is freedom, beyond any "answers", "conclusions" or an ultimate terminus. Poetically, the "journey itself is home.

Agreed - I don't think it would imply a destination.  More it just implies an acceptance of a particular understanding if anything.  In my mind, it would seem to provide an answer of sorts to those who feel there is something 'more' but cannot identify what that more is, whilst simultaneously giving everyone an opportunity just to be at peace with knowing there is significance, even if 'what' that significance actually is is not agreed upon.

On 10/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, tariki said:

For me this all relates to the way of unknowing. Reality is mystery, but not a mystery that is hidden or unknown in darkness or which will be revealed or made known in the future. Rather, it is more a present intimacy, transparency, and vividness, this of thusness/suchness, for “nothing throughout the entire universe is concealed” ( Dogen) Nevertheless, this mystery of emptiness and thusness has to go beyond this: intimacy must be ever penetrated. Or as another has said, "the only extension to the present is intensity."

A longer way of saying "life is what it is", perhaps?

On 10/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, tariki said:

All this may well be why Buddhism is sometimes dismissed, even condemned, as nihilistic. Related phrases such as "casting off the body-mind" are simply not understood. Dogen, the 13th century Japanese zen master, began to understand when he was himself a novice in a Chinese monastery and the pupil next to him slumped forward and the Master struck the man with the keisaku (awakening stick) and shouted:- "How dare you fall asleep when you seek to drop body and mind!" Such was a moment of illumination to Dogen!

I've been thinking about 'nihilism' a bit lately.  I probably need to read up on it a bit more, but I'm thinking I hold a fairly nihilistic view of life (in that I don't think life has any particular 'purpose' or 'meaning' and that there are no timeless morals or values), but I don't see this as a negative.  It just is what it is.  Enjoy it while you can, or don't.

[tariki]

6 hours ago, PaulS said:

 

A longer way of saying "life is what it is", perhaps?

Oh yes, I'm rather good at that!

😀

[tariki]

6 hours ago, PaulS said:

 

I've been thinking about 'nihilism' a bit lately.  I probably need to read up on it a bit more, but I'm thinking I hold a fairly nihilistic view of life (in that I don't think life has any particular 'purpose' or 'meaning' and that there are no timeless morals or values), but I don't see this as a negative.  It just is what it is.  Enjoy it while you can, or don't.

Subjectively I'd say that anyone with a deep nihilistic view would carry with them a sense of ultimate absurdity and pointlessness. As I see it, this comes back to the "silence of the Buddha" in the face of all metaphysical questions. Any "view" at all will obstruct the living of the "Holy Life".

 

A slight tangent, but I think of Dogen once more, and of his time in China when he was seeking for the answers to his very own questions. His then teacher taught "the power of the present moment as the only moment". Yet also that this doesn’t mean that there is no future result from practice.

The circle of the way, yet a "movement toward Buddha".

[PaulS]

1 hour ago, tariki said:

A slight tangent, but I think of Dogen once more, and of his time in China when he was seeking for the answers to his very own questions. His then teacher taught "the power of the present moment as the only moment". Yet also that this doesn’t mean that there is no future result from practice.

The circle of the way, yet a "movement toward Buddha".

Yeah, trying to stay in the present is a real hard one for me - I'm often looking forward, either worrying a little or trying to plan out what's to come.  I'm a work in progress!

[tariki]

1 hour ago, PaulS said:

Yeah, trying to stay in the present is a real hard one for me - I'm often looking forward, either worrying a little or trying to plan out what's to come.  I'm a work in progress!

I can sympathise. Thich Nhat Hahn would always say:- "When walking just walk" but I've yet to get the hang of it. 

"Progress" I have little interest in, more just getting lost. Expectations seem to be killers. 

Maybe Faith, complete letting go, is the only work in progress, yet it seems to happen beyond my calculations. 

Thanks

 

[tariki]

10 minutes ago, tariki said:

 

"Progress" I have little interest in, more just getting lost. Expectations seem to be killers. 

 

 

I'm still one for quotes, for better or worse. when tapping out the above there were some words of Thomas Merton hovering somewhere in my grey matter. I've found them, they are from the Introduction to "The Way of Chuang Tzu", a book of loose (very loose) translations of that ancient sage by Merton.

To share Merton's words:-

 

For Chuang Tzu, as for the Gospel, to lose one’s life is to save it, and to seek to save it for one’s own sake is to lose it. There is an affirmation of the world that is nothing but ruin and loss. There is a renunciation of the world that finds and saves man in his own home, which is God’s world. In any event, the “way” of Chuang Tzu is mysterious because it is so simple that it can get along without being a way at all. Least of all is it a “way out.” Chuang Tzu would have agreed with St. John of the Cross, that you enter upon this kind of way when you leave all ways and, in some sense, get lost.

 

Finding our own home, our own path, time and place. One and the same thing as being lost. Everything is paradox, beyond the mind's calculations.

 

"For the earth brings forth fruits of herself"

(St Marks Gospel)