Introduction

From the very first days when we learnt to speak, we began using words to describe the world around us. This ability to express ourselves through symbolic thought has been one of the driving forces for our development as a species and as a civilization. Actually, some anthropologists claim that the ability to express ourselves abstractly is one of the main differences that separate us from other animals.

Nonetheless, using languages has its limitations. Words often fall short when we try to explain complex interrelationships between phenomena or when we try to express the full range of what we experience.

Unfortunately, even after reaching the heights of sophistication, words cannot fully grasp what they intend to depict. The beauty of a sunset, the warmth of a cup of coffee, the sound of birds chirping outside your window… All these visceral experiences are much more than verbal utterances. In this regard, words act as substitutes. They are low-resolution shadows of our direct experience.

Language, logic, and opinions

The great XX-century Indian public speaker Jiddu Krishnamurti was very wary of language and the limitations that conditioned thought imposes on us. In one of his public speeches, he said:

“We live by words, and words become our prison. Words are necessary to communicate, but the word is never the thing.”

Being raised in the spirit of the Logos, many people deify the word with an almost godly aura. As written in the Gospel of St. John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

For a person that gives so much weight to language and what it expresses, nothing of true importance exists if it cannot be put into words. Pushed to an extreme, articulation may even become more important than its content — the visceral experience of being and existence. As said by the German philosopher Hegel when responding to his critic’s claim that his theories contradict the facts: “…the worse for the facts!“

At this point, we can raise a question. If I cannot describe something, does it mean that it exists? This question is similar to an old and now almost cliché inquiry of: “If a tree fell in a forest and no one was there to hear it, did it make a sound?”

Abiding by the rules and manners of a civilized conversation, we should play around with such ideas, express our opinions, and further the discussion by theorizing about this and that. Nonetheless, not everyone shares this viewpoint. As pointed out by Marcus Aurelius:

“You always own the option of having no opinion.”

In most situations, not having an opinion might appear as spineless, even weak-minded. For an instance, if you respond by saying: “I don’t have much to say about that”; “I don’t feel a necessity to be bothered with such a conversation”; or even by seemingly nonsensical words like “Three pounds of flax” people may perceive you as a bit of a wacko. Still, even if it may appear a bit odd to respond this way, it will be so only to those who follow the conventional rules of language — a way of seeing the world as if it was made out of concepts, and not perceived experientially.

Where do you live? In the world of experience, or the world of thought?

Being overconcerned with concepts we lose sight of the things in themselves, their suchness. Probably from this point of view strange statements such as Derrida’s “There is nothing outside the text” start to appear. Providing a counterbalance to Derrida’s claim, Krishnamurti expresses an alternative viewpoint, putting his center of attention outside of text. For example, while presenting one of his public talks, he spontaneously asked his audience:

“Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say, `That is an oak tree’, or `that is a banyan tree’, the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree? To come in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it and the word will not help you to touch it.” says J. Krishnamurti.

The difference between the two thinkers is in how they see and understand the process of thought. While for Derrida thought is the ultimate and the only expression of reality, for Krishnamurti it is only but its shadow.

The nature of divisions

As an integrated process, existence does not seem to have any firm boundaries. Nature, although expressing itself in great variety, seems to be an interconnected and interdependent process of immense complexity. Simple divisions, on the other hand, tend to come about only from one source — our low-resolution way of thinking.

Although poets, philosophers, and other scholars have tried to think outside the box and move away from simple light and dark, good and bad, or red and blue dualism, it is not easy to escape the entanglements that our conditioned way of thinking has woven ourselves into.

I believe that one way to circumvent our dualistic predicament is through the careful application of metaphor. For instance, in Mahayana Buddhism, we can find one such metaphor in the story about Indra.

Indra, In the Vedic texts, is the ruler of all gods. He lives on Mount Meru and is charged with the protection and guidance of mankind. In one story, Indra casts a vast net from the top of Mt. Meru that extends in all directions, infinitely. Each node of the net is set with a jewel and each jewel reflects all the other jewels in the net within its many facets. The net is infinite, and so are its reflections. What affects one of the jewels, affects them all.

This is a great metaphor to illustrate and explain the words of Krishnamurti, when he said:

“You are the world, and the world is you. Therefore you bear a tremendous responsibility.”

But how can you be the world? Isn’t your skin the barrier separating “you” from “the rest of it”?

Perceptually speaking, yes, there is a difference between the two. Here is a body and there is a tree. Guided by sight you see empty space between the two. Also, the shape and molecular composition of the two objects are different as well.

But what if we look at it experientially? Could you experience anything, if it was not first “inside of you”, or in other words, in your realm of experience? Could you exist without the seemingly independent, external substances that nourish you?

Knowing how greatly every organism is dependent on its environment, we can say that nothing in our existence is truly independent. All of it is the working of the same process that various cultures have named in different ways. And the most important part of this statement is that you are not independent of this process either. You are it, and it is you.

As expressed beautifully by the British philosopher Alan Watts:

“If you become aware of the fact that you are all of your own body, and that the beating of your heart is not just something that happens to you, but something you’re doing, then you become aware also in the same moment and at the same time that you’re not only beating your heart but that you are shining the sun.”

Can thoughts exist independently from experience?

One question that is left unsought, is whether thoughts that mentally split the person from the rest of existence are themselves separate phenomena, or are they but unexplained ripples, waving through the fabric of being?

According to the diseased Zen abbot Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi, all passing thoughts, images, and experiences are best perceived as a scenery of life. In his book The Approach to Zen, he states:

“While we are living in this world, there will be happiness and unhappiness; favorable conditions and adverse conditions; interesting things and boring things. There will be pleasant times and painful times; times to laugh and times to be sad. Really these are all scenery of life.”

This, I feel, is a good metaphor to represent both the external and internal manifestations of life. All of them come and go as a type of scenery, a scenery of life. As we experience clouds, so we experience thoughts. As we see the waves, so we perceive our emotions. We don’t know their origins, and we don’t know their exact direction or meaning. All we know is that they make the fabric of our perceived existence. Also, we shouldn’t get too attached to it, because our scenery can change in an instance with a shift in the unseen tides.

In conclusion

As thinking and feeling creatures we constantly project ideas and theories onto the world. Being part of the world, we weave it into conceptual nets, every layer further hiding its naked reality. Sometimes, this conceptual net breaks and we suddenly see the world for what it is — a purely visceral experience of untold magnitude, beauty and complexity.

When the senses are not clouded by preconceived notions, we are left with the world in its raw essence. Then, we understand we are a part of a greater acting in its own right. Then, we understand we are that existence, without a clear verbal comprehension of its workings. This makes us stop our verbal judgements of existence as being right or wrong. As beautifully illustrated by the Chinese Chán master Wumen Huikai:

“Spring comes with its flowers, autumn with the moon,
summer with breezes, winter with snow;
when useless things don’t stick in the mind,
every season is a good season.”

Thanks for reading!

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