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Semantics and Zen
Semantics and Zen
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I think it is important to emphasize the fact that Zazen is not an isolated aspect of living that is done only while sitting down. Zazen can be
done during any activity. In my own experience, I have found this type of awareness to be very peaceful and unifying. In semantic terms,
Zazen allows one to experience optimal tonicity, the feeling that enables us to use one's potentialities most effectively. The "pointedcenteredness" or relaxed alertness that results from the practice of Zazen can be the basic feeling of one's living. It is a somewhat different
feeling with different activities, but the basic underlying feeling and attitude of "letting experience happen" is present in "Zazen awareness".
To quote Watts:
"This awareness is attented by the most vivid sensation of 'nondifference' between one self and the external world, between the mind and it
contents-the various sounds, sights, and other impressions of the surrounding environment (Watts, 1957, pp. 152-153).
Surprisingly enough, this mode of awareness is almost precisely what Freud called hovering attentiveness, which he contended is ideally
suited for psychoanalyzing a person. To quote Freud: "The technique (listening) simply consists in making no effort to concentrate the
attention on anything in particular, and in maintaining in regard to all that one hears the same measure of calm, quiet, auentivenessof 'evenly
hovering attention'...One has simply to listen and not to trouble to keep in mind anything in particular." This technique avoids strain of the
analyst and also tends to create an unprejudiced interpretation because material is not "selected out" from the flow of talking.
It is extremely interesting to point out here that though Zen and Semantics are somewhat different approaches (Semantics being essentially a
"rational" approach and Zen being essentially an intuitive or non-raiional approach) toward living, their methods are sometimes strikingly
similar.
Wendell Johnson suggests a "Non-Verbal Abstracting" exercise:
Hold an object (ash tray, pencil or anything else that may be handy) in both hands and look at it steadily, examining ii. As soon as you begin to
verbalize about it to yourself, put it down. Take it up and try again. See how long you can 'stay on the silent level' of abstracting. This should
be practiced for a short time each day, for at least a week or two, using different objects. You can also do it while watching a person, viewing a
painting, listening to music or watching a game of some sort. In such cases, of course, you cannot hold in your hands what you arc observing,
and so you need to use a slightly different technique: before you begin to observe cross your arms, and when you begin to verbalize uncross
them. This is an unusually effective exercise for demonstrating the degree to which your observations are influenced by your verbalizations
about whatever you are observing (Johnson, 1946, pp. 128-129).
Quoting Chang Chen-Chi's Zen method, we find essentially the same exercise:
1. Look inwardly at your state of mind before any thought arises. 2. When any thought does arise cut it off and bring your mind back to the
work (Ross. 1960, p. 211). Johnson goes on to suggest a "moment to movment" application of Semantic principles:
He suggests concentration on any Semantic principle and its application to what you are doing at the moment (Ross, 1960, p. 211). Chang
Chen-Chi continues his suggestions with: "3. Try to look at the mind all of rhe time. 4. Try to remember this 'looking sensation' in daily
activities" (Kapleau, 1965, p. 64).
I have presented a rather short but basic description of Zazen. It is my opinion that the general semanticist take time to experiment with Zazen
(or a similar method) himself, since Zazen is an extremely good tool for enabling one's self to experience deeply non-verbal levels with which
he possibly has not come in contact. This could easily lead to a more complete comprehension of semantics itself. For Zazen enables one to
experience directly the "process nature of reality" that semantics so much emphasizes. Zazen, furthermore, enables one to feel at home in a
process reality, for as Zazen experience deepens, one feels a constancy in the change and even an identity with it. One directly senses the unity
of the universe and the constant flow of it. For example:
The earth, the trees, the sky,...
they are my creator
They are my creator, yet I, too, create them
Together we are different, though all children of Life's freedom
Together we are eternal reflections...
expanding......contracting......pulsating.....
. Within the boundless mirror that is Love.
KOAN
The Koan exercise is a uniquely Zen method used in "opening one's eyes" to the life of Zen. Tt is probably the most intriguing Zen method
because of its completely baffling non-rationality. Koans are riddles or puzzles that cannot be solved by logic or reasoning, but only by
awakening deeper levels of the mind can Koans be solved. To quote a Zen Master: "The aim of every koan is to liberate the mind from the
snare of langnaoe which fits over experience like a strait jacket" Three of the best known koans are: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
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What is your original face before your parents were born? When the many are reduced to one, what is the one reduced to?
The Master Yasutani explains the rationale behind all koans:
Koans take as their subjects tangible, down-to-earth objects such as a dog, as tree, a face, a finger, to make us see, on the one hand that every
object has absolute value and, on the other, to arrest the tendency of the intellect to anchor itself in abstract concepts. But the import of every
koan is the same: the world is one interdependent Whole and that each separate one of us is that Whole...In the process they pry us loose from
our tightly held dogmas and prejudices, and empty us of the false notion of self-and-other, to the end that we may one day perceive that the
world of Perfection is in fact no different from that in which we eat and excrete, laugh and weep (Kaplean, 1965, p. 64).
Koans are usually combined with Zazen, as both methods have the same end in mind. Because of my own experience with koans, I feel that
the semanticist could broaden his understanding of semantics by experimenting with various koans.s, For example, one summer, I tried to
devote all of my attention to the koan: What is mu? I realized that there is no acceptable intellectual answer to koans; there is only an
experienced answer. Thus, whenever I expressed an answer to the question of "what is mu?"in wordsI immediately told myself I was
incorrect and that I should get back to concentrating on the koan. The change in my perception of the everyday world was extremely startling.
I was experiencing without thinking, and the world was as if it had been transformed. The veil of words between myself and my experience
had been lifted. The beauty and wonder of simple, everyday experiences was almost beyond belief. In semantic terms I was experiencing
something very similar to Weinberg's (1959, p. 201) description:
The non-verbal level is timeless; it has only the immeasurable now. At this level there is no beginning, no end, only flow and change.
Beginning and end are high order abstractions resulting from our thinking and talking about our feelings and sensings, and like all high-order
abstractions they are static; they are symbols and do not apply to the object level of senses and feelings...When concentration is wholly upon
sensing and feeling without any notion of measurement, without any high order thinking about what we are experiencing on the non-verbal
level, there comes to us the feeling of timelessness which is profoundly moving and utterly mysterious.
These levels are those at which Zen methods are directly pointing. As a person attempts to solve a koan, intense doubt is aroused similar to the
emotions involved in Nagarjuna's dialectic. A person's "common sense undergoes a radical change. Sometimes, anything seems completely
absurd, sometimes, utterly mysterious. It could probably be said that the amount of genuine doubt aroused by a koan corresponds to the effect
(in changing perception) it has on a person. Watts gives a vivid account of the subjective feeling of doubt that can be aroused be concentrating
on a koan: By such means the student is at last brought to a point of feeling completely stupid- as if he were encased in a huge block of ice,
unable to move or think. He just knows nothing; the whole world, including himself, is an enormous mass of pure doubt. Everything he hears,
touches, or sees is as incomprehensible as 'nothing' or 'the sound of one hand clapping.' He walks or sits all day in a 'vivid daze, conscious of
every thing going on around him, responding mechanically to circumstances, but totally baffled by everything.
After some time in this state there comes a moment w hen the block of ice suddenly collapses, when this vast lump of unintellisibliiv instantly
comes alive. The problem of who or what it is becomes transparently absurd-a question which from the beginning meant nothing whatsoever.
There is no one left to ask himself the question or answer it. Yet at the same time this transparent meaninglessness can laugh and talk, eat and
drink, run up and down, look at the earth and sky, and all this without any sense of there being a problem, a sort of psychological knot in the
midst of it. There is no knot because the 'mind seeking to know the mind' or the 'self seeking to control the self has been defeated out of
existence and exposed for the abstraction which it always was (Watts, 1957, p. 162).
The koan is an extremely effective method for teasing the mind out of thought and dualistic awareness. It is thus a very worthwhile tool for
anyone who desires deepening his non-verbalawareness.
MONDO
"I have no peace of mind" said Hui-k'o. "Please "pacify my mind."
"Bring out your mind here before me." replied Boddhidharma and I will pacify it!"
"But when I seek my own mind" said Hui-k'o, "I cannot find it."
"There!" snapped Bodhidhanna. "I have pacified your mind." (Watts, 1957, p. 92)
This was purportedly to have been Hni-k'o's satori or enHghtment, and the beginning of the Zen method known as the mondo or "rapid fire"
question and answers. Mondos usually take place between Zen students and Zen masters. The questions are relevant to some area the student
has been studying which he does not fully understand. The master replies without recourse to theory or logic in order to evoke an intuitive
response deep within the student's mind. Though mondos are usually between master and student, sometimes two masters confront one
another. The mondo is another Zen method of direct pointing at non-verbal reality. Thus, to offer an explanation of a mondo would rob it of its
direct intention. To really get the "feel" of a mondo it is necessary to participate in one.
I do think it is useful though, to quote a few more examples and possibly stimulate thought, or better yetnon-thought.
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A: Why seek a doctrine? As soon as you have a doctrine you fall into dualistic thought.
Q: Just now, you said that beginningless time and present time are the same. What do you mean by that?
A: It is just because of your seeking that you make a difference between them. If you were to stop seeking, how could there be any difference
between them?
Q: If they are not different why did you employ separate terms for them?
A: If you hadn't mentioned ordinary and Enlightened, who would have bothered to say such things? Just as those categories have no real
existence, so Mind is not really 'mind.' And, as both Mind and those categories are illusions wherever can you hope to find anything? (Ross,
1960, pp. 70-71)
In this interview, we can see how the Zen master is using semantic principles in teaching the student, although he probably is not aware he is
using "semantic principles" as such. We see that the student identifies abstraction levels and that the Zen master points out this confusion to
him. The basic point of the interview is that categories are "illusory" or useless in trying to "know" reality; or perhaps "whatever you say a fact
(reality) is, it isn't."
We have seen that all of the Zen methods are aimed at awakening intuitive non-verbal levels within the person's mind. In my own experience.
I have found the previously mentioned methods very effective in cultivating "non-verbal consciousness". These methods also help one to
apply semantic principles. I therefore, recommend that the general semanticist look into the life of Zen.
ETC.
I think it is somewhat appropriate, here for me to apologize for my "treatment" of Zen. I have spoken of it mainly from a methodological point
of view. It should be made very clear that Zen is not only a method. Zen Buddhism is a religious way of life, although not religious in the
ordinary sense of the word. For to Zen, any living activity is religious in that one's entire being is devoted to this activity.
In order to understand Zen in a much broader perspective, we should not separate it from its historical origins in China and Japan and its
influences on Japanese culture. Zen has directly influenced architecture, drama, the tea ceremony, humor, judo, painting, archery, gardening,
fencing, psychotherapy, poetry, including haiku, and nearly every area of human endeavor which requires use of intuitive,unconscious
faculties. Volumes could be devoted to each one of these topics.
I have written some Haiku and other related poetry and these creative experiences are extremely gratifying. They almost always follow
moments of acute awareness of the immediate environment. Many times the poems seem to write themselves. Here are a few:
as wheat sways slowly
a lone lark embraces
wind of autumn calm
a silver star falls
swiftly through vast open space
and kisses the night
silver misty haze
lightening present everywhere
leaf floats gently on
flow of gentle wind
rustles leaves through dark forest
of serene stillness
CONCLUSION
I hope that the questions raised at the beginning of this paper have been reasonably well-answered in the preceding pages.
It is true thai semantics and Zen are uniquely Western and Eastern ways of life. Surprisingly, the two, rather than being mutually exclusive,
seem mutually complementary. It seems that Zen being essentially intuitive, and semantics being essentially rational, need one another in
order to develop human potential on all levels of abstraction. Thus, semantics and Zen have much 10 learn from each other. Although
semantics certainly dce? not exclude two-verbal levels, it is clear that Zen has more experience and knowledge of these levels. It is true that
Zen does not exclude verbal levels although semantics is more thorough in its comprehension of these levels.
Both semantics and Zen agree that man must first be "at home" on the non-verbal, sensory, levels in order to function properly on the verbal
levels of abstraction. As Weinberg points out: "The verbal level, with its plotting, planning, theorizing, predicting, operates in the final analysis
for the sake of the non-verbal and not vice versa. This is one reason the general semanticist assigns more value to this level than to the verbal
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