Symbolism
Zen is the unsymbolisation of the world.
(R H Blyth)
Symbols
A symbol represents something else.
Consider your computer. The operating system may be 'Windows'...
Windows is a 'graphic user interface'. It is filled with little pictures that
can be clicked on using a mouse.
These pictures are symbols. The symbol for Excel is not Excel. It is a shortcut,
pointing to the program itself.
When you click on the symbol, the program is activated.
The most common form of symbolism is
language. Words.
The word is not the thing
You cannot eat the
word 'chocolate'.
The word points at the thing, at the real, at the tangible. It is not the thing
itself.
Herein lies the danger with language.
Zen koan
are designed to highlight the danger of confusing the word with the actual.
They deliberately expose
flaws in our thinking.
If your mind perceives reality in terms of symbols, then you may find koan to be
extremely
irritating.
Reading a koan over a lengthy period should result in a psychological change.
You have taken the first step towards
freeing your mind.
Child-like
Children do not see the world in terms of symbols. They want to to see, touch,
taste and feel everything.
They are not satisfied with a description or with a word. They want the actual,
the tangible, the real.
Verbal understanding
There is no verbal understanding. This is a silly delusion. All
understanding must be actual.
A blind person may claim to understand what 'red' means, but do they?
Of course not.
A chair is not the word 'chair'. It is not a picture. It the
experience
of the sitting. The functionality.
The substance. The reality of the thing. The 'this-ness' of the chair.
This is why you cannot learn tai chi from a book or a video. You need human
contact. You need to
touch people, to feel.
Deeper meanings
One aspect of zen is the skill of
seeing things as
they are. We do not look for a
deeper
meaning.
There is no need to.
What we need is
clarity. If we really see, the so-called depths are immediately evident and
there is no need to search further.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
(Shakespeare)
'Reading into' things leads us astray. We miss the essence, the nature, the
character, the quality of a thing.
We miss the obvious.
The danger we are faced with is that we see what we want to see, what we are
capable of seeing.
In our quest for
answers we fail to comprehend the actual because it does not fit with our
view of how things should be.
Page created 30 December 1999