Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Zen is a frustrating and beautiful. Everything and nothing, what words can describe it? None. It is no thing. What is the work for "unask the question"? What is the word for no thing? These words cannot possibly exist really, the concept might, but words are a system, and zen is anything but. after reading zen flesh zen bones I'm left feeling like zen can be felt eveytwhere, or touched in every place, but cannot be spoken of. The koans, or little stories in 101 zen stories are intoxicating. At once meaningful and meaningless. Some are pithy, like the first story "A cup of tea", or fourteen, "a muddy road" (this latter passage I am particularly fond of, and I have learned a lot from it).

Others are pure beautiful nonsense. "No water, no moon" is a fantastic example. the gateless gate is where things get particularly nonsensical. Written in a style that is quite unfamiliar to westerners, it takes a passage, explains it (sometimes farcically or intentionally wrong), and is then followed up by a poem. I like the format, and have taken to writing my own little explanations and rephrasings of many philosophical or pithy stories.

I favor conciseness, so I like my hemingwayed versions. having read Godel, Escher, Bach, I knew what to expect with the zen flesh zen bones. The acknowledgement that your words cannot possibly explain everything, and there will always be a some kind of circular self reference in human speech is a reminder that zen desires to express itself wordlessly, for words cannot describe "no thing ness". Even satori as a word fails to express the awakening one achieves.

I cannot say that I understand zen or Buddhism in any way. I do understand the parables and the ridiculous noise that is daily life, the importance and unimportance of it. All time is an instant. All this has happened already and will happen again, all at once. So much of what I believe to be "true" is reflected in a combination of zen and stoicism that although the philosophies are supposed to be be mutually exclusive, I feel as though perhaps they are compatible. I find myself reflecting simultaneously on Epictetus and Joshu, so I admit to my own brand of common sense and philosophy.

Systems are meaningless. I will continue to play with zen. In fact, I think I have learned at least from zen a kind of discompassionate compassion, and that these seemingly paradoxical statements are not so.