What, then
are we talking about when we talk about a meaningful life?
I think we should use a little more precision here than we usually employ in
answering that question.
In a very strict sense, words have meaning, but reality is meaning, and
therefore it has none.
The word, or the idea – which is a complex of words or other symbols –
functions as a pointer to something other than itself. And that ‘other’ is
its meaning.
So when you ask the question, “What do trees and rivers mean?” the answer is
they don’t, because they are not words and they are not signs, unless you
say, “A river is a sign of rain.”
This is a redundant statement because a river is rain draining from the
land.
The splendour of the river is that it is the meaning and has none.
(Alan Watts)
Words are not reality
Words are a way of expressing ideas but they are not actually
real.
A word does not have physical substance.
You cannot eat the word 'bread'.
At best, words can point at things. At worst, words can confuse.
We are all lost in a forest of words and victim of the disease
created by words: thought.
Thought is the rambling of the conscious mind in its attempt to make
reality fit the frame of words.
In
taoism we realise that reality cannot be contained by
ideas and words; it is too vast, too detailed; it is unknowable.
Names divide things
In order to catalogue, measure and explain reality we have applied names to
things.
This serves as a convenient tool but has drawbacks.
We apply the word 'bear' to a creature and other people can picture what we
mean.
If the listener cannot speak English, the label 'bear' will be meaningless.
Does the name 'bear' in any way at all extend to an understanding of
the creature?
The word simply allows us to differentiate between 'bear' and 'tree'.
The label is a tool for dividing reality into different parts.
Names are given substance by
the chain of ideas attached to them: bears are large, they can be ferocious,
they are furry, teddy bear and so on...
Communicate
It is not so good to use obscure words.
Acronyms, slang, colloquialisms, management buzzwords, discipline-specific
terminology all assume an existing framework of familiarity and
understanding.
Admittedly, some things have a particular attributed name, and that name
conveys a range of associated concepts and knowledge.
For example: 'jing' or
'neigong'.
Technical terms are useful for people within a certain subject
or knowledge base, but beyond it, the words are meaningless.
To fully understand most words, you need to go beyond words and have
first-hand experience of
what the word is referring to.
Try explaining the colour red to a blind man?
Some people use words to hide behind.
They deliberate obscure clarity by
fabricating a wordy hocus-pocus of jargon.
The danger you are faced with is that no one will know what you are talking
about, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of communication.
Undivided
The difficulty with having divided reality into parts is putting it back
together again.
Reality itself is undivided.
It is our thoughts that are divided.
We cannot hope to apprehend reality using thought.
Reality is too complex to be thought.
Names have created the illusion that reality is made up
of parts, ourselves included.
This illusion makes it difficult to find
harmony with reality.
The oceans of the world are one mass of
water, the lines on a map are fictitious, countries do not exist and all humans
are one people.
Page created 1 January 2005