On the Meaning of Koans (Column 211)
With God’s help
Not long ago I received by email a link to a TED talk by a Canadian philosopher named Dr. Puqun Li and to a short article by Boaz Mizrahi that describes and explains it. According to the subtitle of the article, the lecture presents examples of koans that are thought experiments helping Zen monks come to terms with the unknown and with the limits of knowledge and understanding, and this is the summary that appears at the opening of the article:
Zen Buddhist monks believe that one must learn to live with doubt and lack of understanding as an integral part of life. In order to accept this mental state, which naturally arouses anxiety, they use koans – short, enigmatic Zen stories that provide much food for thought and few clear answers. A TEDEd video explains the secret of their charm.
It sounds very deep, but on a second look it seems that what is being offered here is nothing more than a psychiatric pill against anxiety. True, it comes without chemistry, but the work it does is still essentially similar. I intend to argue that the koans presented here (and many others like them) are a branch of psychology/psychiatry, not of philosophy. To sharpen the point, I recommend reading the series of columns (155–160) that deal with the question of what philosophy is. Let me say at the outset that my remarks here are aimed mainly at the Western infatuation with Zen Buddhism and less at Zen itself (see a note on this at the end of the column).
A few words about Zen Buddhism and New Age
The East has always been distant, and therefore seems exotic and magical to many of us. But the craze for the East in general, and Zen in particular, spread more with the rise of the New Age. Some communicate with aliens or read coffee grounds, and others meditate and scatter meaningless Zen aphorisms into the air. The idea seems to me overall quite similar (my impression is that this interest has declined somewhat lately, perhaps because people have already understood that it is an illusion). It seems to me that the secret of the allure of Eastern teachings lies in despair of reason. That leads to the New Age, to postmodernism, to fundamentalism (see my introduction to Emet Ve-lo Yatziv), and also to Eastern teachings.[1] The main charm of koans is that they are not Western thinking; they are different and strange, and therefore they arouse hopes that perhaps they can satisfy the desperate yearning for certainty or calm within the frustrating Western vacuum in which we all live. The vast majority of them focus on questions and offer no answers at all (see the quoted paragraph above), which fits even better with the contemporary ideology that has turned doubt itself into an ideology. People hope that even if truth or certainty will not come from there, perhaps something else will (after we despaired of aliens, or of the rebbe who knows everything. At bottom, all of these are the same phenomenon).
I, as an inveterate Litvak, relate to these koans roughly as I do to Hasidic tales (there is quite a noticeable similarity in genre), or to communicating with aliens. Usually Zen stories and koans may sharpen a point and give us an interesting perspective on it; some contain an amusingly sharp formulation, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, in my opinion, this is something rather worthless. The point, even if there is one, can be understood perfectly well without them.
Reminder: between tension and contradiction
I remind the holy audience of the debate I had with Tomer Persico following Column 208. In my remarks there I distinguished between tension and contradiction. When there is tension between two ideas or values (such as religious faith or conservatism and libertarianism), it is certainly possible to live with both poles together, although at least psychologically many people do tend to choose one of the two. In such cases that tendency is merely psychological, since philosophically the two poles are compatible with one another. By contrast, when there is a logical contradiction between two values or ideas, this is not possible. Many failed arguments present tension as contradiction (as I showed in Persico), and fall into this logical trap.
Thus, for example, many mystics and religious thinkers speak of the “unity of opposites” while some veil of mystical depth clouds their eyes.[2] For a moment one can fall into this trap and forget that this is lazy nonsense. If there is a contradiction, no declaration about the “unity of opposites” will help, and when there is merely tension there is no need for such declarations. We must analyze the issue and show that there is no contradiction, that is, resolve it. But those who resort to koans, instead of analyzing and dissolving the contradiction, prefer to evade it with some noncommittal statement. Incidentally, a similar phenomenon exists in the philosophy of quantum theory. There too there are those who “explain” its oddities by declaring a “quantum logic,” different from our ordinary logic. They of course ignore the fact that logic is a priori and unique, and quantum theory cannot criticize logic, since it is part of physics. In my article “What Is Halut?” I discussed this strange phenomenon and argued that the instruments by which quantum phenomena are measured are based on completely standard mathematics and logic. If standard logic were empirically refuted by quantum theory, that would bring down quantum theory along with it.
Back to koans
Quite a few koans deal with logical contradictions, and therefore, to the best of my understanding, fall into one of two types: 1. In the best case – they offer a sharpened literary presentation of the contradiction, and that is all. 2. In the worst case, and more commonly – they are based on a simple mistake (for there is no contradiction here, but at most a tension, if even that). Where such a koan offers some sort of answer (a rare minority), this usually expresses intellectual laziness. A pointed saying is offered in place of a systematic and orderly analysis that breaks the problem down and offers a solution. Another possibility is that this is just nonsense, a pseudo-answer (see more on this in Column 17).
In short, I claim that Zen stories cannot do anything that philosophy cannot do, just as Hasidic tales or Kabbalah cannot. They are not a substitute for thought, but at most offer a tranquilizer to one who does not want to think. At most they can help us internalize some answer or some difficulty, or give them a more apt formulation. That can certainly have some value, but I would not exaggerate it. To demonstrate these claims, let us proceed to read the above-mentioned article critically.[3]
The framework of the discussion
Li and Mizrahi begin by saying that a person (the Western one?) strives for knowledge almost obsessively. Knowledge calms him and gives him security and satisfaction, and when he does not possess the full information he may fall into anxiety. The strategy common among us is to gather as much information as possible, but Zen offers a different strategy: to accustom oneself to the absence of information, clarity, and understanding, and to make peace with them.
And here is a passage from Mizrahi that reveals what this is really about:
Since this approach runs counter to our basic psychology, it requires practice. For that purpose the koan was developed – a short and enigmatic story that ends without one clear message. Koans are meant to serve as philosophical thought experiments that leave those who engage with them without unequivocal answers. The ultimate aim, in the final analysis, is to come to terms with an existential condition in which we do not have explanations for everything. Dr. Li presents several examples of Zen stories and how they do this.
Our venerable author is really explaining here that the koan is a psychiatric pill (without chemistry; it hypnotizes us without that) meant to calm us and bring us to philosophical nirvana. In essence, this is a kind of exercise that leads us to reconcile ourselves to an existential condition in which we do not have explanations for everything. Exactly as I said: this is a branch of psychology.
It is important to sharpen the point further. One might claim that ordinary philosophy too is meant to calm us, that is, to give us answers (although today people tend to think, mistakenly in my opinion, that its main purpose is to sharpen the questions, which greatly blurs the difference between it and Zen koans). But that is a mistake. Think of a person who, out of unease, goes to hoe his field in order to calm down. What he is doing is not engaging in psychology but working in the field. Along with that, however, he gets a side psychological benefit. The same is true here. If a person engages in philosophy because of restlessness, the activity itself is not psychological. Philosophy seeks answers to questions, and the calm that follows them, if it does, is a bonus (which sometimes is also the goal of the activity, but that does not matter). By contrast, reading koans is itself an engagement in psychology (and not an activity that merely yields us an additional psychological value). That is to say, my distinction between philosophy and Zen Buddhism does not concern the goal of the activity (which may perhaps be similar) but the character of the activity itself. The koan does nothing except calm us, whereas ordinary philosophy is meant to find answers, which in the end may perhaps also calm us. Anyone who compares the two, by that very fact identifies philosophy with psychology.
One of the implications of this distinction is that, from the perspective of the Zen practitioner, if the person has calmed down then the goal has been achieved, something that cannot be said about engaging in philosophy. There, if the answer does not answer the question, then even if calm was achieved it is irrelevant. The koan, the question, or the answer (to the extent there is one), is not judged in terms of true and false, but in terms of the psychological result (calm and serenity). By contrast, no philosopher can argue for his position on the grounds that it is very calming (even if indeed it is).[4]
In this connection it is worth seeing my distinction in Column 159 (and also here) between Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and a genuine search for meaning (the former belongs to psychology and is measured by its effect on the person, whereas the latter belongs to philosophy and is measured through concepts such as truth and falsehood, good and evil, fitting and unfitting, right and wrong, and the like). To clarify the point further, let us enter a little into the examples brought in this little lecture.
First example: Buddhist laws of modesty
Li brings the following example (the quotation is from Mizrahi):
One of the famous koans tells of two monks who were walking along the road and met a beautiful young woman who was unable to cross the river. One of them carried her to the other bank, and they continued on their way. The second monk, who saw this violation of Buddhist law, was shocked but remained silent. But after some time he could no longer restrain himself and asked his companion how he could have done such a blatant thing. In response he answered him: “I put the woman down on the riverbank; you are still carrying her“.
This is very reminiscent of the story about the Kotzker Rebbe, who was asked by someone why he flees from honor and yet it does not pursue him. The Rebbe answered that it is because he keeps looking back. One can of course ask what the message of this story is. It can be formulated very simply: fleeing from honor is only a real flight, not a façade of flight. One who does this only so that honor will pursue him is not really fleeing from honor (in looking back he carries it with him, exactly like the Zen monk).[5] Likewise, the Zen monk who is troubled by that woman is really carrying her with him, even though ostensibly he is fleeing from her.
What, then, is wrong with this formulation? True, it is less sharp and incisive, but it says the same thing. But that is only a difference in formulation. The more basic question is whether this koan in any way enables us to live with ambiguity. Does it address some dilemma? I do not see any ambiguity here. This is a routine yeshiva-style “inquiry”: is modesty about the acts, or are the acts only means to preserve modesty in thought? From another angle, one can ask whether a person who is indifferent to a woman on his shoulder is more modest than one who is shaken by it. My personal opinion is that he is not, but of course one can discuss and argue about that. But in what sense can one see ambiguity here, and what good does the story do that cannot be achieved by ordinary systematic analysis? Where is that serenity here which does not exist for a Litvak like me and is supposed to exist for one who hears this koan? I have not been privileged to understand. What we have here is a lazy evasion of a not especially complicated intellectual analysis of a fairly simple issue.
Mizrahi himself notes that this philosopher Li explains it as follows:
Li explains that the message conveyed by the koan on the surface concerns avoiding mental attachment. The monk who rebuked his companion allowed resentment to seize him for a long time. However, when one turns the parable over, it turns out that this is “a conflict that probes the gray area between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law“. Let us formulate this in a more confusing way in order to understand the technique of koans. Who is right? The monk who violated Buddhist law, or the monk who violated Buddhist law? If your instinct is to give an answer, that is precisely what the koan does not ask of you. All it urges us to do is simply to accept the ambiguity calmly.
Well then, this I really did not understand. What is the problem with thinking that one of them is right and the other is wrong? Or alternatively, that each of them has a side that is right and a side that is not. All of this can be said in ordinary Western logic, and one can arrive at philosophical serenity without chemistry-free psychiatric pills like this koan. It is worth comparing this to my remarks in the lecture on religious postmodernism. There you can better understand the argument and see the similarity between the Zen Buddhist pretension and the postmodern and New Age pretension, which in both cases merely covers over, at best, a lazy vacuum.
Even if, for the sake of discussion, we adopt the interpretation that what we have here is a description of the tension between the law and the spirit of the law (something discussed ad nauseam also in the halakhic context), there are countless examples of this in philosophical and halakhic thinking, and I truly do not see what this koan adds (apart from offering, of course, a sharp and charming formulation of the dilemma. That has some literary value, like the story of the Kotzker Rebbe). The claim is basically that sometimes keeping the law leads to harming the spirit of the law, and vice versa. One can now discuss what is preferable: preserving the law or preserving the spirit of the law. Alternatively, one can discuss what the law is (a prohibition on the act or on the thought). A person can formulate one or another position regarding these two questions, or even leave the matter unresolved. But what is a priori wrong with formulating a position? Why, instead of discussing, is it preferable to take a psychiatric pill, enter nirvana, read a little story, and thereby give up the answer and live with the ambiguity? Once again we see the postmodern and New Age infrastructure that underlies the proposal of Zen Buddhism. As I explained, that is the secret of its charm in our world. Because of laziness and despair of reason, people in our culture like to turn doubt into an ideal, even when there is no necessity whatever to remain in it.
Second example: is the pretzel dough around a hole, or a hole inside dough?
Another example that Li brings deals with different ways of describing some phenomenon (again, the quotation is from Mizrahi):
Another koan tells of three monks who were observing a flag fluttering in the wind. One maintained that they were seeing a piece of cloth in motion, while the second argued that what they were really seeing was the wind. The third remained silent while the others argued, until at last he told them that neither the cloth nor the wind was moving, but their thoughts.
Very deep, isn’t it? The simple, indisputable, and unambiguous truth is that they are seeing a piece of cloth fluttering in the wind. Another truth is that through it one can also discern the existence of wind (which in itself is not visible to our eyes). Is there a contradiction between these two? Is there anything ambiguous here? If you are a solipsist, you can also explain, like the third monk, that what we see is the image in our consciousness and not reality itself, which is essentially the Kantian distinction between phenomena and noumena. Fine; there too there is nothing new. What is the difference between the koan and Kant, who is so obviously Western? With Kant this distinction is well conceptualized and defined, and one can discuss it, whereas here they prefer to leave it vague and devoid of real meaning. Why? After all, everything here can be defined perfectly well without any problem. Simply because we feel like sounding deep without saying anything clear.
Incidentally, when one considers the Kantian distinction and is not too lazy to think about it (which does not happen in Zen practice through koans), one understands that this is not an alternative to the first two suggestions. The picture of the flag’s fluttering indeed exists only in our consciousness, but it is a reflection of reality itself translated into the language of our consciousness (only in the last few days I was asked about this here).
Kill me if I understand what depth these fellows find in this foolish story. How Li decided to choose specifically this one from among hundreds and thousands of Zen stories and aphorisms in order to demonstrate the special depth and beauty found in koans is beyond me. I am baffled!
Mizrahi describes the Zen Buddhist meaning of this koan as follows:
Again, here too there is a distinctly Buddhist message: “to ridicule people who claimed a complete understanding of the world around them.” The devotion of each of them to his insight regarding the flag pushes him into binary thinking, which according to Buddhism is not a proper approach to the world. The third monk seemingly resolves the discussion, but his answer can have several meanings. Does he mean that no matter what they claim, the reality they experience occurs solely in their minds? Or perhaps he means that their thoughts are moving far from Buddhist teaching? Once again we will have to live without an answer, “because the purpose of these koans is not to arrive at a simple solution,” Li concludes, “rather, it is the very struggle with these paradoxical riddles that challenges our longing for solution and our understanding of understanding itself“.
I do not understand. What is wrong with an understanding composed of several aspects, as I described (they see a flag and through it the wind)? There you have a completely full understanding that combines the aspects (utterly banal, I must say) that the koan describes. Did the author of the koan want to convey all these messages to us? Then let him say them all. Did he want to convey one of them? Then let him convey it. Did he want to say that there is a dispute? Fine, let him say so. Or perhaps he simply wanted to confuse us? I must say that, at least in my case, he did not really succeed. For me, as a Litvak, or just an incorrigible Western philosopher, this does not work even as a psychological exercise. It is just drivel, nothing more whatsoever. Who can even manage to become confused by such a story, even if he tries very, very hard?! Such a person would have to possess rather limited intellectual abilities. To such a person I would recommend sitting down and engaging a little in philosophy or logic, rather than wrapping himself in nonsense stories instead of developing his abilities. This is cheap skepticism trying to sound deeper than the sea. Postmodernism and New Age, did I mention it already?…
Summary
Li explains to us that koans are impossible to explain and confront us with the inability to understand and the futility of searching for an explanation. He sees them as paradoxical riddles. It is strange to hear this from a doctor of philosophy in present-day Canada (who was even chosen to deliver a TED talk, and is presumably supposed to be a particularly talented person). Such a person ought to be equipped with reasonably decent modern tools of thought, and here that does not seem to be the case.
My feeling upon reading these koans (and others) is that this is a culture whose thinking was not sufficiently developed, that is, whose members had not yet attained a mature ability to discuss complex situations. People lacking the philosophical ability of conceptualization, definition, and analysis, who instead of developing those abilities turn their absence into a deep and exalted ideal. Let us not forget that we are speaking of China of the 9th–13th centuries (which arouses in me some gloomy thoughts about our thesis of the “decline of the generations”), but from a lecturer at a Western university in our time I would expect more. Instead of obscuring, blurring, and confusing, where there is no real need for that, it would be better if they invested their energies in developing a reasonable philosophical ability that would handle these simple problems.
But even if it does manage to confuse someone, that does not stem from any innovation but from thought-tricks. Exactly as I said, this is a branch of psychology (and not a constructive one) rather than of philosophy. If you are looking for interesting and thought-provoking paradoxes, any simple riddle someone asks you in a quiz will do a better job. Any paradox you hear, at least if it appears in a Western text, will present things more precisely and more sharply, thereby contributing sevenfold even to the welcome encounter with states of doubt and perplexity and with an ambiguous reality, and certainly to dealing with them and coping with them.
One more remark in closing
To conclude I will only say that I have already seen koans more complex and more thought-provoking than these two examples (see, for example, here and perhaps a bit here). It is not clear to me why Li, and Mizrahi following him, focused specifically on these two. True, in my opinion all of them can be given a systematic and recursive analysis that explains the point far better than the vague Buddhist “poetry” of the koans (see the columns on poetry, 113 – 107). As stated, in the best case koans have an amusing and charming literary value, but generally they are devoid of philosophical value. I cannot refrain from mentioning here the most famous Zen riddle, which wonders about the sound made by one hand clapping. I never understood the depth of this business. For any of my readers who wonder: it makes no sound at all. As our sages have already said: it takes two to tango (there is a parallel Western aphorism, without pretensions to philosophical depth. Fie).
In any case, my remarks here are not about Zen Buddhism as such, certainly not all of it, but mainly about the Western infatuation with it, which, in its search for a cure for the maladies of the postmodern vacuum, sees in every heap of mud a unique and promising pearl. Self-abasement before primitive cultures is a widespread fashion in our regions, and it has quite a few expressions in the political and cultural sphere as well, from Edward Said’s Orientalism to the phenomenon of the sympathetic and encouraging (and certainly undemanding) attitude toward backward states (such as those in the Middle East and its surroundings). Of this our sages have already said: not every bastard is a king, and not everything that does not glitter is gold…
[1] Incidentally, in Indian philosophy there are branches that are very logical and systematic (one can read about this in some of the writings of Shlomo Biderman). When I say here “Eastern teachings,” I mean that part of them which offers an alternative to the systematic logical thinking prevalent in the West, of which Zen Buddhism and its koans (and and Samuel among those who call upon His name) are a clear part.
[2] I believe that in Shtei Agalot I brought two comments by Benny Ish-Shalom in his book on Rabbi Kook in which he uses Lukasiewicz’s three-valued logic as though it offers a solution to problems and logical contradictions. In both comments he treated tension as though it were contradiction.
[3] I can already foresee the critical claims accusing me of begging the question: looking for a logical structure and meaning in a Zen Buddhist koan that is trying precisely to escape those straits. I am sorry, but if someone wants to help me with philosophical or logical problems, he must use tools I understand and not stuff my mind with meaningless chatter. And again, I mean philosophical assistance, not a psychiatric pill.
[4] Excluded from this rule are pragmatism (which I have already touched on more than once) and also existentialism, which is a branch of psychology. Any connection between it and philosophy is entirely accidental (see on this in Column 140). And indeed, any connection between these two and philosophy is entirely accidental.
[5] This reminds me of the well-known story about the maskil Adam HaKohen, who thought of repenting on his deathbed only in order to refute the Sages’ saying that the wicked, even at the entrance to Gehinnom, do not repent.
Discussion
Psychology is your territory. 🙂
But to me it seems very understandable. Lack of knowledge can certainly be troubling, and depending on a person’s confidence and character, it can also lead to anxiety and the like.
Shai. A Zen monk would surely answer you that you’re not afraid because you’re afraid of fear.
Gil, I didn’t understand what that monk wants from my life …
I suspect that the fear of lack of knowledge comes from fear of lacking control over life (which Freud’s rival school, Alfred Adler’s, strongly emphasizes: that a person feels weak and helpless in the world and seeks power).
Their “solution,” that nothing can really be known, is just stupid. A person needs to be brave and know that he is doing everything he can to arrive at the truth, so that morally he has done his duty even if he doesn’t succeed.
Maybe it would be better to recommend that they work on parent guidance instead of this strange philosophizing—teach parents how to give a child a sense of security in his existence. Philosophy is not supposed to be a remedy, but a value-driven act of drawing closer to the truth.
Gil, this idea only shows how psychology can be the “science of nonsense” …
With regard to the comments, I want to say that fear is a normal state among people, and it stems from concerns about future outcomes. There is small temporary fear, and there are major long-term fears. A person needs to know how to minimize fear. Therefore, lack of knowledge in certain respects does arouse fear. In my opinion, lack of knowledge regarding the commandments should not arouse fear, because a person who studies and changes his actions in accordance with what he has learned is in good shape.
Hello,
First I’ll say in advance that I agree with your analysis, although I do miss the story about the two fellows going down the chimney…
On the other hand, it seems to me that the analysis stems from the fact that you personally come with dozens of years of Talmudic study, and the koans seem childish to you. This is not a product for Jews… The wealth of Jewish culture and Jewish education gives us enough experience in coping with different angles on the same situation and in encountering what is not understood.
That also explains why the lecturer brings only the simpler examples: apparently that’s already a lot for the average Western mind…
By the way, there’s an urban legend about an Israeli who came to the Dalai Lama and wanted to learn from him, and he asked him why he needed him at all, since Judaism has enough things to help one become “a wise and good person.”
To conclude, an oddity: https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-the-talmud-became-a-best-seller-in-south-korea/amp
A kosher and happy Passover
Avraham
Well, here you got carried away. An ordinary Western person has no less analytical ability than the average Jew, and I think these koans are stupid from his perspective too. I don’t like these bizarre theses that we invented everything and we’re better than everyone else. Sometimes that’s true, but many times it isn’t. And this urban legend about the Dalai Lama is also said about many others. It indicates that the Dalai Lama probably doesn’t know the Talmud, and also that he has a humility and willingness to learn that many of us lack. And I’d say the same to you about South Korea. What they’ve invented in science, and even more so in technology, in South Korea, none of the yeshivot have even begun to understand. Here too it points to their seriousness and humility, in contrast to us.
The koans and the craze after them characterize the New Age, not the Western world as a whole. At best this is an expression of the humility (excessive in this case) of Western thought, which gives credit (excessive credit) to what lies outside it.
The first koan about the two monks reminded me of the story about Rav Aha (Ketubot 17a), who would carry the bride on his shoulders. “The Rabbis said to him: What about us—may we do this as well? He said to them: If they are like a beam to you—yes; and if not”…
Indeed.
Rabbi Michi,
Maybe one can judge these types favorably from a philosophical standpoint. They despaired of thinking, because that faculty is unstable and has great potential for error. That is not the case with feeling, which is stable and secure; direct experience is not something one constructs through logic, but something one simply encounters in its objects. So although I don’t agree with the absolute despair of thought, I do identify with exalting direct and immediate experience.
I think there is no contradiction. The initial intuition gives us the foundational principles, and thought uses them.
In any case, these koans give nothing of what you described. This is a banal declarative description of trivial possibilities in a remarkably simple issue, only without conceptualization and without analysis.
Rabbi Michi. How many of your philosopher colleagues have already given a TED talk, and even the Israeli Yuval Noah Harari has reaped mountains of success. Why not prepare a 20-minute talk on your synthetic doctrine and give us all the pleasure of a full-size TED appearance? That way you could also gain exposure for translating your books into English. And the Messiah has already commanded: “When your wellsprings shall spread outward”!
Wonderful article! More power to you!
Among your remarks you wrote:
“From another angle, one can ask whether a person who is indifferent to a woman on his shoulder is more modest than one who is stirred up by it. In my personal opinion not, but of course one can discuss and argue about that.”
Could the rabbi expand a bit on this? Is the whole obsessive preoccupation with modesty itself a lack of modesty? A person who is indifferent to it is simply more modest, isn’t that so? (I understand that there are opposite situations too—where a person is so coarse that he is indifferent to it.)
Hello,
I took you a bit out of context 🙂 I wasn’t clear enough…
I wasn’t for a moment belittling Westerners’ abilities. And I don’t buy the stories that we are the best at everything.
I only meant that the West’s attraction to Eastern cultures or to Kabbalah, for example, stems in my view from a vacuum created after society abandoned the traditional sources of Christianity.
Looking at this as observant Israeli Jews is different.
Avraham
I don’t know how one does that. Isn’t it supposed to be someone who belongs to their organization?
If only. Lately I too have been thinking so.
As I understand it, koans are a unique rhetoric, whose purpose is to implant direct insights into consciousness. A kind of direct arrival at the “thing in itself,” perhaps. Someone who understands something through a koan will not be able to explain it logically unless he first analyzes it, and that is a drawback. But on the other hand, to reach that level of understanding through ordinary study you would need much more time, knowledge, and ability.
The question is whether you don’t need to be a “colorful type” for this. Rabbi Michi is a rationalist with a cool and precise mind, and I doubt people are interested in pure philosophy—it’s not cool enough.
In any case, I searched online and found this:
http://liorz.co.il/ted/
(How do you get accepted to TED? It seems like a celebrity thing.)
Those are general statements. Test them against the examples brought here.
Rabbi Michael, may his light shine,
Haven’t you exaggerated? I think it never occurred to anyone to make an issue of the parable itself, only of the lesson it teaches. You could have written the same article about the parables of the Dubno Maggid. The moral itself does indeed provoke interesting thoughts, and that is the main thing.
Regarding doubt that gives rise to fear—these are well-known things. Anyone whose livelihood is not secure and whose future is shrouded in uncertainty lives with fears. Of course this varies from person to person (usually stupidity is a wonderful quality for fearlessness).
This is not Boaz Mizrachi, lest there be any doubt.
I’m pretty sure there’s no such organization you need to be part of. If anything, the organization is precisely for intellectuals from all over the world to offer their wares. At one time I read in Hebrew the TED talks guidebook (in Hebrew) by the founder of the project, and if I find it during Passover cleaning I’ll look there for the instructions on submitting a proposal. I just get the impression from the book that you need to prepare a polished, interesting talk that succinctly contains the idea and is accompanied by a few diagrams/numbers/stories—and that you send it to TED and it undergoes some kind of review and criticism—and after a certain process reminiscent of trying to publish an article in a scientific journal (though in a different way), you buy a plane ticket and go pamper the world with what you, and only you, can give. I’ll update you, then, when I have a lead.
Here is a demonstration of how to prepare for a TED talk—from its founder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FOCpMAww28
And here’s a parody of it, which teaches a lot
It’s hard to elaborate here, because this has several different aspects.
Beyond the situation you described (regarding coarseness that causes indifference), I’ll say briefly that the question is whether we are talking about modesty as a trait of the soul or as observance of halakhah. That is not necessarily the same thing. Another question is whether modesty is a state or a mode of action/attitude. Values are not mental states but work undertaken in order to achieve those states. Therefore, a person who is indifferent to it is simply like that, but a person who is troubled by it is acting for the sake of his modesty, and in that sense he is more value-driven.
No one presents the parables of the Dubno Maggid as an alternative to philosophy, nor do they make such a big issue of them. I wrote that I have no problem with the koans themselves, only with the Western craze that sees in them what isn’t there.
On this occasion I will thank you for your books and articles, which are rich in wisdom and knowledge.
You are truly a ray of light amid the darkness of ignorance of many who are considered the great Torah scholars of our time.
Hello Rabbi Michi,
It seems to me that some of the facts presented here are not precise. To the best of my recollection, Suzuki in his book on Zen argues that regarding understanding a koan, a simple student cannot claim that he has understood it; rather he must wait years until he understands its meaning. He tells there of a teacher who harshly rebuked a student who acted as if he had understood the meaning of the koan. In our terms, even if you do not agree with Zen ideology, this is a kind of “he recognizes his Creator and rebels against Him,” that is, a postmodernist who understands philosophy well and nevertheless inclines away from it.
Another remark: I would be glad if you would develop the discussion somewhat in the direction it is pursued in scholarship—namely the logical direction of Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle and the possibility or impossibility of reconciling it with Zen ideology (there is some sutra they always refer to, something along the lines of there is and there isn’t, and also there isn’t and also there is—in short, the four possibilities).
Of course you could argue that here too there is another postmodern claim of the unity of opposites, etc., but I am not sure that this is Zen’s philosophical intention (perhaps only its psychological one).
Fascinating article. Thank you.
I agree with part of it.
Regarding the paradox of “the sound of one hand clapping,” I would like to propose, at my own risk, a solution:
The idea behind the paradox—though I am almost convinced this was not what its author intended—is a quasi-Platonic conception of the nature of sounds and tones and their source.
Just as there is a tangible sound (with physical meaning—waves), there is also an abstract and “spiritual” “sound” standing behind it. The abstract “sound” serves as a kind of idea of the tangible sound.
The assumption is that the abstract sound always exists in the background, even if it is not heard by my fleshly ears, but the untrained “ear” cannot hear it.
Then the paradox comes and says this: given that the practitioner succeeds in attaining meaningful spiritual attentiveness, he will be able—like Plato’s prisoners from the cave—to rise above the tangible sounds and “hear” that spiritual sound (which is the source of the physical sound).
This “sound” is indeed physically equivalent to silence (no sound waves moving through the air), but that silence is precisely the more authentic (metaphysical) “sound.”
In conclusion: even if this parable does not take the analytical-conceptual step (and thus, as you claim, does not go beyond the trivial), it still inspires philosophical reflection in us in a highly sophisticated way. It is doubtful that utility poles could do so as effectively.
Hello Matan.
Which “facts” were you talking about? I assume you meant claims.
Anyone can claim that no one understands his nonsense, and that is why they think it is nonsense. That is why I directed my remarks to the two examples and to those who presented them. In those two examples, an explanation of the matter was offered, and their nakedness was exposed. If no explanation had been offered, I would simply have thought to myself that this was nonsense and that would be it. But here I can actually show it. I said that the main thrust of my claims is not against the koans but against the Western craze after them. Don’t forget that this Suzuki makes his living from that craze.
In general, this kind of claim is immune to refutation or challenge, because when I analyze the things and show that they are either nonsense (meaningless statements) or banal and trivial statements, they will tell me that this is only because I analyzed it with a logical scalpel. In other words, you are supposed to become convinced of the greatness and depth of these things without analysis. Fine—I did not manage to discern it.
By the way, in the profound claim “blah blah blah” you also will never manage to discern depth through analytic tools. But there are indeed deep secrets of the universe here. I see no point in opening a discussion here about the unity of opposites (here there is nothing to discuss) or the principle of the excluded middle (here there actually is). But if you want—you are certainly welcome, here or in a separate thread.
I’ve already said more than once that I have no argument with psychology. It is judged in terms of result (its effects on me), not in terms of truth. True, it doesn’t do much for me, but if someone tells me that reading this nonsense does something for him—who am I to argue with him?!
As for the claim that one hand clapping makes a silent-spiritual sound without a physical correlate, I can make a hundred such claims for pennies. Go refute them. See my reply to your predecessor.
By facts I meant the systematic method of Zen, and apparently I did not explain myself well enough. Suzuki is a scholar of Zen, and he explains that the koan is an element that must be understood within the general systematic teaching of Zen. Therefore, when you respond in a way that implies that perhaps a certain kind of koan could indeed accord with Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle, that strengthens my claim. I will try to elaborate a bit more. Suzuki tries to organize the oral teachings of the Zen sages and to characterize a method from within them. We can call it a philosophical method, or we can refrain from calling it that for now. Suzuki argues that only a few among the Zen sages opposed philosophy, from which it can be inferred that there were disagreements among them regarding the nature of Zen and its derivative, the koan. Therefore, it is not much of an achievement to say that anyone can claim his own sayings are wise and nobody understands them, etc. (just as, incidentally, the Sages said about a student who does not understand his teacher’s דעת). The remarks are detached from the framework.
What I meant earlier to say in Suzuki’s name is (again, if my memory does not fail me) that there were cases in which a Zen sage’s student jumped to a conclusion—not as in your analysis of these specific problems through logical analysis, which of course I do not dispute—but the conclusion, to the best of my understanding, is a kind of knowledge of the essence of the koanic problem, let us say for now a general resolution of the issue of the law of the excluded middle, with some problem.
And if you ask, what’s the big deal? Then: a) I agree that overall this is just a different mode of thought. b) As part of the general Platonic claim about knowledge, there is a difference between knowing and merely having the concept of knowledge. In short, knowledge at a higher level, one that leads to living in accordance with the object of knowledge (do you dispute that too? Can a doctor smoke?).
In conclusion, I did not say that there is abyssal depth in every koanic problem. There is disagreement there, just as there was among our sages, and whoever wants can make a nice systematic web out of it that leads to something of some value. I am not merely trying to judge our rabbis, the sages of Zen, favorably; I am simply trying to take the sayings of their wisest figures (gently) and examine whether there is a general method. The context of logical analysis is, in my opinion, problematic here—not because this is poetry or literature (as indeed some of it is), but because there is a foundation behind (some of) the koan. And yes, I agree about the craze after penny-ante New Age, etc.
1. If you claim that the koans in themselves are not philosophy in its formal, precise sense and do not require systematic and critical thought from those involved with them, then you are right.
2. But if you claim that their value is only subjective psychological value and therefore their status is like that of utility poles—it seems to me you are mistaken.
3. One could do a comparative experiment in which people are exposed to koans and to utility poles and see where more genuine philosophical inspiration is generated (the kind that can indeed be formulated in a logical, systematic, and critical way).
4. I would bet that in this case the utility poles would come off second best.
5. If I am right, then koans nevertheless have a distinctive theoretical value, a value beyond “psychology” pure and simple.
6. The living example is the very idea I myself presented to you concerning the “Platonic” significance of sounds.
7. If a zāv and leper like me managed to come up in my feeble mind with such a Platonic idea as a result of the inspiration of the one-hand parable, then just think what that parable could do for more complex minds.
8. In any case, if in your opinion the idea of a spiritual correlate to physical reality is worth a penny, then for you most of philosophy is worth that much.
9. In any case, at least the koans I know (including the one about the one hand) succeed in arousing our philosophical instinct more than trivial statements like blah blah blah or even sayings in Pirkei Avot. The very touch of paradox (in those cases where they do indeed succeed in doing this) is the trigger required. In my eyes that is no small thing.
10. And of course all this has nothing to do with the over-enchantment of all kinds of confused romantics who abound in the “West.”
I know Suzuki. And still, we have not gotten beyond a set of declarations that cannot be refuted.
Doron, what you are describing is exactly the psychology I was talking about. The fact that it creates more psychological inspiration, even if true, says nothing. Sitting on the toilet also creates more philosophical inspiration than playing basketball, so is sitting on the toilet philosophy? Likewise drinking wine as opposed to cola. When I ask what the philosophical value of a given passage is, I am not asking whether it inspires, but what content it contains.
1. These are empty hairsplittings. Utility poles and sitting on the toilet (a practice whose value I am the last to belittle) have no content in themselves, since they are not text (words).
2. Koans are text.
3. Not only are they text (and after all, so are Pirkei Avot and the works of Static and Ben El), but they usually touch on paradoxes and more generally on the limits of logic and meaning.
4. The engagement with those limits is precisely their content—their meaning. In that respect they do contain, if only implicitly, philosophical positions.
5. Therefore they have a broad common denominator with philosophy, unlike the practices you gave as examples.
6. I already agreed with you about the rest: indeed, this is not philosophy in the formal, precise sense. In that respect my view of them may even be more extreme than yours, since I think they express a certain basic spiritual poverty that lies upon those “magical” Eastern cultures.
I see no principled difference. So what if it’s a text? Chifopo is also a text.
The first koan is an excellent example. It is quite parallel to the statement, “Sinful thoughts are worse than the sin,” but besides the claim it also contains an example from reality, an explanation, and narrative techniques that help settle the claim in the listener’s heart much more than its dry formulation does (for example, using the familiar figures of the monk and the student, the surprise in the monk’s answer at the end, etc.).
At the end of the day, someone who hears this koan will probably internalize the claim much more than an average person, who would have difficulty understanding why sinful thoughts are worse than the sin. This is not a psychiatric pill, because there will not be only a change in behavior, but also a certain level of understanding that with a bit of thought can also be conceptualized in normal words.
I responded to this by mistake in the previous one. See there.
So far this is a combination of psychology and literature. I am still waiting for the insights that surely exist there and can be conceptualized and formulated.
I don’t understand. “Sinful thoughts are worse than the sin” isn’t an insight?
That is an insight that has nothing to do with the koan and the koanic style of writing.
Michi, I want to draw your attention to the following strange fact: philosophy is a medium conveyed to us by means of words (texts). There is no philosophy, to the best of my knowledge, conveyed through utility poles.
From this it follows that language is a necessary condition (certainly not a sufficient one) for “maintaining” philosophy and expressing philosophical ideas.
As for Chifopo… which is also “made” of words—well, even though it meets the initial necessary threshold—unlike your beloved utility poles—the distance between it and philosophy proper is even greater than in the case of koans. That is because of the traditional content of koans (the limits of logic, etc.)—content that is apparently absent from that resourceful monkey.
Another decisive point you did not address concerns which Chifopo you are referring to: there is “Chifopo in Tibet,” “Chifopo at the North Pole,” “in space,” etc.
That is merely a technical and unimportant matter. A koan is like a utility pole except that it is in words. Isn’t an Escher drawing philosophical in the same sense as the koans are (and much more so), even though it is not composed of words?
1. How is it technical, and what is technical about it? Perhaps the technicians of the air force. At most.
2. Escher’s drawings are not “philosophical”; rather, at best they arouse us to philosophical thought. They are an aesthetic and psychological catalyst. That’s all.
3. Think about people with no linguistic ability at all who happened into an exhibition of Escher’s drawings. At most, those drawings (magnificent!!!) would arouse in them “thoughts” or movements of the soul, but not even the slightest trace of a philosophical claim.
4. By contrast, koans, although they also function in that way (as catalysts), at the same time are also the “material” from which philosophy in its precise sense is made. In that respect, and of course in terms of their traditional content, they come very close to philosophy proper.
5. Those creatures devoid of language who happened into a koanic environment would not even be able to know that. From their perspective, the “blotches” on the paper (the words) would be nothing but strange and foreign drawings. Zero impact.
6. I suspect that your use of the word “technical” in this context is meant to say that language is not necessary for philosophy. But that is not so.
7. Which brings to mind—and forgive me for jumping to something not quite related—your claim that mathematics is the formal side of philosophy. At first glance, that seems to me to be a mistaken insight, but before I jump to a hasty conclusion (and I do rather like hasty conclusions), could you direct me to a place where you expanded on that a bit?
It seems to me that we have reached the expected stage where we part as friends until next time.
I don’t recall a place where I expanded on mathematics as a branch of philosophy.
A reminder of what you wrote about mathematics
(column 155):
“If one adopts this conception, it is easy to see why mathematics is a branch of philosophy. Both mathematics and philosophy are offspring of observing ideas. In fact, mathematics is the formal and precise part of philosophy. These are insights of our ideational vision that we can formulate precisely and draw conclusions about using formal tools. Mathematics is nothing but formal philosophy.”
That is clear. It is my view, and I have written it in several places. But I do not recall a place where I expanded on it.
Hmm….
I was led to this because from our discussion it emerged, in my opinion, that you do not see a necessary connection between language and philosophy.
When I connected that to your mistaken thesis that mathematics is formal philosophy, it occurred to me that there is here a fundamentally incorrect view of philosophy specifically and of rationality in general.
For some reason this also connects in my mind with your statements that one cannot go beyond logic when discussing the concept of God.
In my next incarnation I intend to obtain an enlarged brain and then publish a series of books that will prove my point.
Good luck. You’ll need an encyclopedia for that 🙂
There is nothing I will not do for filthy lucre 🙂
Hello, honored rabbi,
It seems that you defend your claim rather rigidly (and sharply, it must be said), but for the sake of understanding the first part of my response, please try to set aside the voice of proof and try to appreciate the “difference” or alternative offered by Eastern beliefs, with Zen Buddhism at their center (and this is probably what forms the focus of attraction for followers of New Age culture who seek to resolve the existential paradox arising from the existentialist point of view; more on that later in the comment). Zen Buddhism is a kind of “experiential doctrine” based on Buddhist philosophy. One of the central issues (in my view) in Buddhist philosophy is the duality, tension, or contradiction between “relative truth”—the everyday subjective physical existence in which the acts and choices of the individual have meaning—and “absolute truth”—the eternal subjectless existence in which the individual is entirely insignificant in his decisions and actions. Most cultures that are products of Judeo-Christian thought, which we tend to call Western, tend to ground and sanctify sharp, conscious logical thinking. There is no doubt that as humanity we have greatly benefited from this “clarification” of discourse and the elevation of critical logical thought; various systems of knowledge have developed from this and “technologies” have been built with their help. But all these have meaning only in the context of the physical world and “relative truth.” Different religions and metaphysical systems of belief try to resolve or separate this tension/contradiction in different ways. For secular Western culture, existentialism brought this duality as a given—and man standing at its center is doomed: he will commit suicide, lose his sanity, and be unable to contain the paradox. The product of this line of thought, together with the understanding of the law of the excluded middle, is basically the foundation of postmodernism, which was built atop the ruins of modernism. If there is no one truth, then the dispute can be resolved—every truth, every point of view, is independent and exists and is real and true in itself in an orthogonal way to others. One of the problems with postmodernism is that man remains floating in a void full of “truths” without the ability to distinguish or sort among them. The New Age as a “multi-faith culture” exists and copes with and within precisely this difficulty, and because of that it must turn to other cultures that dealt with similar difficulties. One of the central ways is to reach the margins—to the exceptions to the law of the excluded middle, where there is room to be neither “true” nor “false.” These are the realms of nonsense, madness, lack of coherence and cohesion, the realms of the ambivalent, the pictorial, the allegorical, and the allusive. Allusion (in my eyes) has a special status among them, because it contains power by being meaningful to those in the know and meaningless to laymen. The ancient Jews, too, saw the great power in allusion. In Judaism as well, allusion comes as an additional layer, and at times it interferes with the coherent meaning of the direct claim, even among the most meticulous thinkers, and they allow for that quite consciously.
The experience at which Zen Buddhism aims is a derivative of Buddhist “enlightenment”; it is a kind of momentary transcendence that identifies with and exists within Buddha-nature, in the moment itself, in reality “as it is.” It cannot be spoken of, and therefore cannot be stated as a proposition, and for that reason too it indeed cannot be refuted. Koans are a development of, and were built around, different traditions practiced in the East in ancient times: they were a kind of poetic philosophical disputation in royal courts; there were monks who composed verses about truth, about Buddha-nature, about nature, and about existence; there was the Buddha who, according to stories, “awakened” and “illumined” people through simple sentences; and many other wonderful examples. The purpose of the koan is to reveal Buddha-nature to you externally (and for that reason it is indeed also a psychological pill), but it also reveals philosophical truth. Most koans contain various truths at different levels, and apparently according to the degree of deepening and experiential knowledge, a person will know how to uncover which of them. Not all of these understandings can be conceptualized, and moreover even those that can require deep discussion and engagement in order to be conceptualized. If you are looking for one sharp and clear claim in a koan, your hand will come up empty. There are infinitely many such claims there, and not one among them. Looking for the claim in a koan is like looking for the meaning in the fluttering flag. For one person, the fluttering flag is in itself—its essence is enough in itself to be meaningful; for another, the fluttering flag is an expression of the wind that carries it—its essence is to show us the direction and power of the wind; and for a third, who is not excluded here, the flag is an expression of the consciousness of the observers, and its essence is to point to the difference in experience and the difference in meaning for the observer.
As for the masses flocking after different beliefs in the world—fashion is a dangerous thing; sometimes it leaves us with the impression that there is no content behind it, because it sweeps the masses along blindly. Eastern beliefs and traditions, as well as those from South America, are many and varied, and much can be learned from them, and I would not dismiss their validity outside their cultural context so quickly. There are herds in every culture that run after empty and glittering ideas; proof of that is those that exist in our culture too (whatever that culture may be). But that is not a reason to deny the existence of meaning or of a philosophical claim or its understanding. From all my teachers I have gained wisdom. A wise and discerning person can derive meaning(s) even from a utility pole. As a simple example, one can infer the time of day and the season of the year from a utility pole; admittedly that is not a philosophical claim, but it is a claim. On the other hand, even in a precise and well-formulated philosophical argument, the meaning is not in the words written on the page or in the sequence of sounds registered in our brain, or in the air vibrations produced by uttering the claim. The meaning exists in another dimension, non-physical, in our experience, in our consciousness?
Perhaps this is the point at which one must be precise? What is the existential essence of a claim, and where is it located? Does a claim have physical existence? And if not, can a claim have non-physical existence? These questions probably already depend more on faith, and on the way a person sees existence in the world and the human being within it.
In my eyes, meaning is subjective and does not exist in things themselves; it is granted to them—or not granted—by consciousness, a subject, an action, or an experience. I am sorry that your experience of koans is not full of philosophical and mystical content. I wish for everyone that their world be filled with content of that kind, and that a speck of flying dust awaken in them an experience of enlightenment and free them from their chains in this world. Happy Festival of Freedom! May all beings be free and happy.
Hello,
Thank you for the long response, and forgive me if I answer briefly (on Passover eve).
At bottom, there is here a thesis that cannot be refuted. You claim that reading koans arouses insights in you that cannot be aroused in a systematic explicit way. I cannot argue with that, and of course I also cannot refute it. If I say that no insights are aroused in me, you will tell me that I am captive to Western philosophical thinking. So how am I to know that there really is something there? After all, two examples were brought here that supposedly were meant to demonstrate to an ignoramus like me the depth in koans; that is, there was an attempt there also to conceptualize and translate. The attempt failed. As I showed, they are at most banal. You will certainly say that they contain marvelous depth that I do not grasp. But what am I supposed to do with such a statement? By the same token I could tell you that blah blah blah arouses profound insights in me. Go refute that… And perhaps you agree with that too, but then there is no longer any distinction between deep and not deep; everything is deep. And again we return to the emptiness in koans.
Beyond that, one more philosophical remark that seems to me to underlie the discussion. The insights are indeed created within us, but the conclusion that because of that a telephone pole is a philosophical text is exaggerated. The insights are supposed to be found in the text and to be understood by me. If there are insights that are created only in me and the trigger can be anything whatsoever, then the trigger has no importance or significance. That is what I noted above regarding koans. I have already written here several times that Kant’s interpreters err when they think he is speaking about a subjective world. He speaks of an objective world that is formulated and translated into subjective (or more correctly: intersubjective) language. For example, color exists only in my consciousness, but I do not invent it. Its source is in the world itself, and it is translated in my consciousness into color. My claim is that there is nothing in the koan. And if insights are generated in me, that is an invention, not a perception from within the koan; therefore I claim that the koan is devoid of importance and value. The same applies to a telephone pole.
All the rest are merely local comments.
Intermediate days greetings,
There are people who cannot distinguish between red and green because of color blindness. The source of the concept of color is essentially a potential, and each of our consciousnesses may realize that potential, and may realize it differently. Therefore, even if the source of the experience is indeed one and contains within it the quality of the specific color, it actually serves as “inspiration” for different and varied experiences, and sometimes does not serve as such “inspiration” at all. Is color really sourced in the ‘real thing’? Our brains themselves produce a broad portion of what we experience, and we have no way of knowing the ‘real thing’ except through our senses—and therefore we cannot know its essence. Here faith enters, apparently. I believe that the ‘real thing’ is actually many potentials in parallel, a kind of superposition, and all the understandings that are possible or conceivable do indeed all exist in it simultaneously. The fact that some of us see certain ones and some do not does not indicate any deficiency in the real thing, but differences between the subjects experiencing it. Sometimes the difference is a world of contexts; sometimes the level of discourse the subject has with himself; sometimes a person simply has no receptors for colors; sometimes one language does not distinguish between two colors. There are people who learn to identify qualities verbally and logically, and there are those who learn in a more experiential way. There are people who will read Kant and come away without understanding a single sentence; there are those who will look at a postmodernist painting of a yellow square and derive from it a statement about the essence of existence. Would you accept that a certain meaning exists only if a certain percentage of the population recognizes it? What about encryption? Double meaning? Esoteric knowledge? Let us take a thought experiment—suppose the whole world understands a certain meaning from my poem, but in fact I, who wrote it, did not put that meaning into the poem. Does that meaning exist in the poem? Does meaning exist only when it is created intentionally? I do not think there is no meaning in the thing itself; I believe there are infinitely many such meanings—we just need to see them. The same is true of the koan, the same is true of a utility pole, the same is true of Kant, the same is true of the whole world. Meaning originates in consciousness and cannot teach us anything about the real world. When a consciousness writes an article, it can only believe and hope that on the other side there will be another consciousness to understand its meaning.
I can only repeat what I wrote:
1. I do understand these koans, and on that basis I claim that there is nothing in them. You too do not raise here even a shred of new insight that you drew from these koans.
2. If everything arouses insights, then there are no things of value. By your own testimony, a koan is like a telephone pole or a piece of stone. That is exactly what I claimed.
3. What you say at the end contradicts your claim. If the meaning of the thing does not require intentional creation, then there is no reason whatsoever to speak of the koan author’s hopes for an understanding reader.
I do not disagree with these three points, but:
1. You understand a certain shade of the meanings latent in the koans you experienced. I too understand another certain shade, or an overlapping one, and so does every subject whatsoever. I have not yet encountered a consciousness that claims it can understand all the meanings of something.
2. Indeed, nothing has value in itself; consciousness ‘gives’ a thing value, or does not. People with an analytical cast of mind tend to give value to sharp logical propositions; people with an aesthetic sense will give value to beautiful things, etc. Meaning does not point to a quality in the thing, but in consciousness.
3. What I said is not contradictory. The hope and belief that someone will understand my claim (rational or not, whatever it may be) exists regardless of the probability or possibility that someone will understand it. All I said here is that we (like a person stranded on a deserted island who sends a note in a bottle) can *only* believe and hope.
1. Quite apart from this shade or that, I have seen here nothing meaningful that you drew from the koan beyond the banal things I understood from it. So we are left with a vague and general declaration that in you there arose enormous depths of insight that are not clear to me and that you also did not explain to me. Fine.
2. What I wrote was that consciousness gives a thing value and does not invent it out of nothing. If it invents it, then the thing in itself is valueless (like a telephone pole). That is the distinction I pointed to, and you are merely repeating it.
3. Read again what I wrote. Your words are contradictory, because you wrote that the meaning is not put into the thing at all by its author/creator, and you ended by saying that the author/creator hopes his words will be understood.
1. I did not present here something meaningful that I learned from the koan, and in my opinion even if I did, the discussion would only emphasize the conceptual gap between us and would not lead to any understanding. The truth is that in my eyes the matter of koans is the consciousness of bodhichitta, which is a kind of understanding that is more emotional than logical. One can only feel it and describe it, but it cannot be explained.
2. I do not know how familiar you are with Buddhist concepts, but at the basis of Buddhism there are four seals (as distinct from the Four Noble Truths):
All compounded things are impermanent.
All emotions are pain.
All things lack independent existence.
Nirvana lies beyond the conceptual.
These understandings, in their deeper meaning, are the philosophical foundation required in order to arrive at the type of consciousness I described. Since the basic assumptions are different and perhaps even contradictory, it is difficult to conduct a real discussion regarding the validity of any claim whatsoever—I am hinting mainly at the third seal.
The first chapter of this book— https://www.e-vrit.co.il/מה_עושה_אותך_לא_בודהיסט-details.aspx#firstchapter
deals with misconceptions about Buddhism and its derivatives; highly recommended. The first chapter appears on the site and allows a general impression.
3. The contradiction you describe assumes that the creator is highly self-aware. Creators generally believe that the message will be understood from their creation. And my claim is that this is a non-logical hope. If human beings were rational at their base, there would be a contradiction here—but then we also would not succeed in producing technology (scientific inference, too, is not logical). There is power in taking a leap of faith that is not critical, and therefore despite the lack of logic in the matter, the creator believes that his creation will create inspiration that will lead to the understanding he tried to express; sometimes that even succeeds?
Hello,
A few years late, as I can see here from the comments.
I think that in our time we understand the importance of leaving the question open and the imagination that follows from it.
More educational institutions today are internalizing that passing knowledge from generation to generation only creates patterns that are hard to move away from afterward.
As evidence, consider the accelerated pace of change in everyday reality and technology, which mainly stems from students who are ‘less good’ by your standards but possess courage and imagination.
Judaism is full of Zen stories, and of influential people who spent long periods in isolation, where they presumably practiced some kind of meditation and pondered unresolved problems.
As someone who does not follow the ‘news’ broadcast in the media day after day, and hears about it from others, I have noticed how the interpretation and the basis for the ‘personal opinion’ about every matter changes regarding the same item, as the direction shifts and new findings are discovered.
When we understand that most of the things known to us may also be incorrect, even lies, or suffer from a lack of supporting basis, we can accept these changes more smoothly.
I will conclude with a Hasidic Zen story known to me; perhaps I am not formulating it well, but the intention is clear.
They say that a known Hasidic custom is to place two notes, one in the right pocket and one in the left pocket.
On one is written, ‘The world was created for me,’ and on the other, ‘From dust I came and to dust I shall return.’
The two ends of this non-logical ruler can be found together when we put the very existence of the ruler to the test of reality and do not accept it at face value merely because that is how we were educated.
I don’t understand why lack of knowledge arouses fear. Personally, I’m lacking knowledge of a great many facts and interpretations, and it doesn’t arouse any anxiety in me—only humility. Do you have any idea about this psychology of dread in the face of not knowing?