Is it “One Thing,” “All,” “Not Two,” “Limitless”?
Language remains conceptual/conditional, conventional so
that it cannot describe that which cannot be labeled.
So, why bother with language if words cannot say it?
Still, if intentionally “turned,” language can point toward
that which cannot be labeled:
· Language
can negate, saying not or without or no
[i.e., not this, no end, endless].
· Language
can challenge dualisms/polarities, saying
“All things are it,” “This exists because that exists,” “It is inside and
outside,” or, for example, that “It stands still and outruns all that are
running.”
· But
perhaps in its clearest teaching form, language can skillfully link words
that seem disparate: “the limitless is
everyday” or “whole body mind seeing” [Dogen] or mix metaphors such as “see
sound.”
[Negate, challenge dualisms, link
terms: Adapted from lecture by Anantanand Rambachan, Professor of Religion,
Philosophy and
Asian Studies at Saint Olaf
College, 10/9/2014, Drake University]
Why bother to point toward that which cannot be
labeled?
That which cannot be labeled is not esoteric, not
distant. Suffering develops from
the domination of polarity and dualism because it is not the real nature of the
world. It does not actualize who
we are.
“Who we are” is inherent in the phenomena/the objective
world, the everyday world/the relative world: the clouds and sky, the flower,
the dewfall and rain, the snow and frost.
Mountains and oceans and clouds and flowers literally bring us into
being, and so they are walking in each of our steps, they are dimensions of
self. We are actualized by the
“ineffable” that is expressing the myriad things.
So, in any age, looking at a tree or a leaf or a river or a
star, a “turning word” can point something that we can see but not say that is
the real working essence of the self/world.
“Elephant” and “house” and “mountain”—“ same” or
“different,” “One” or “Two” or “Not Two or “zero”?
Then, seeing elephant or house or mountain, what appears?
