Chapter Eight The Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism (1955)α

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This chapter is in the book Alan Watts - In the Academy

127chapter eightThe Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism (1955)αWords can express no more than a tiny fragment of human knowledge, for what we can say and think is always immea-surably less than what we experience. This is not only because there are no limits to the exhaustive description of an event, as there are no limits to the possible divisions of an inch; it is also because there are experiences that defy the very structure of our language, as water cannot be carried in a sieve. But the intellectual, the man who has a great skill with words, is always in danger of restricting what can be known to what can be described. He is therefore apt to be puzzled and suspicious when anyone tries to use ordinary language to convey an experience which shatters its logic, an experience that words can express only at the cost of losing their meaning. He is suspicious of fuzzy and ill-conceived thinking, and concludes that there is no experience that can cor-respond to such apparently nonsensical forms of words.This is particularly true of an idea that crops up repeatedly in the his-tory of philosophy and religion—the idea that the seeming multiplicity of facts, things, and events is in reality One, or, more correctly, beyond duality. This idea is usually intended to convey more than a speculative theory; it is intended to convey the actual experience of unity, which may also be described as the sense that everything that happens or can happen is right and natural in so positive a way that it can even be called divine. To put it in the words of the Shinjinmei:Reprinted from Asian Study Monographs, No. 1, by the permission of HSG Agency as agent for the author. The Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism. Copyright © 1955 by A. W. Watts.

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127chapter eightThe Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism (1955)αWords can express no more than a tiny fragment of human knowledge, for what we can say and think is always immea-surably less than what we experience. This is not only because there are no limits to the exhaustive description of an event, as there are no limits to the possible divisions of an inch; it is also because there are experiences that defy the very structure of our language, as water cannot be carried in a sieve. But the intellectual, the man who has a great skill with words, is always in danger of restricting what can be known to what can be described. He is therefore apt to be puzzled and suspicious when anyone tries to use ordinary language to convey an experience which shatters its logic, an experience that words can express only at the cost of losing their meaning. He is suspicious of fuzzy and ill-conceived thinking, and concludes that there is no experience that can cor-respond to such apparently nonsensical forms of words.This is particularly true of an idea that crops up repeatedly in the his-tory of philosophy and religion—the idea that the seeming multiplicity of facts, things, and events is in reality One, or, more correctly, beyond duality. This idea is usually intended to convey more than a speculative theory; it is intended to convey the actual experience of unity, which may also be described as the sense that everything that happens or can happen is right and natural in so positive a way that it can even be called divine. To put it in the words of the Shinjinmei:Reprinted from Asian Study Monographs, No. 1, by the permission of HSG Agency as agent for the author. The Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism. Copyright © 1955 by A. W. Watts.

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