Re: 2+2 = 2+2
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:25:15 -0500
> Can somebody please describe, in one concise sentence, exactly what
> Buddhism is, what it's relevance is to Zen, and how Salingers' Buddhism
> differs from them (as Jim said). If it is absoloutely necessary to present
> me with koans or stories about dead cats, so be it, but I would prefer a
> 'conventional' Brittanica encyclopaedia definiton.
I doubt you'll find such a thing -- in fact, one of the classic
English-language texts is D.T. Suzuki's "What is Zen?" and it doesn't
presume to satisfactorily answer the question -- because Zen is (if you'll
bear with me) a kind of meta-state, something like this analogy: a
dictionary is a book of words, as Zen is a philosophy about itself. Or (as
some would argue) about nothing except what you bring to it.
> The '2+2=' thing still reminds me of Orwell's 1984 statement.
> I've thought about the 2+2 question a lot and I've decided that the
>answer is:
>
> 2+2 = 2+2
>
> Buddhism wouldn't be as presumptuous as to provide no answer to the
> question. I think it would say that 2+2 = 2+2, because we have created the
> boundaries and limitations of this language, this question, and
> consequently, we have already assigned an answer to it. If you ask a blind
> man to describe the colour blue he will say 'But it is blue, of course'.
> Because how else can we ask him, how else can he reply and how else can we
> understand?
Actually, "no answer" to the question "What is 2+2?" is a perfect example
of Zen at work. The point of it is to discover the answer for yourself.
The classic koan is, of course, the epigraph of Nine Stories, "We know the
sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
There have been various expositions on this, but the most plausible one,
for me, is that a master asks this question of a student, and the student
simply thrusts out his single hand with gusto, which satisfies the master.
It's nearly antithetical to the philosophy to try to define it. By its
nature it defies definition and logic. I do find Suzuki's books to be (no
pun intended) enlightening, but not definitive. He recognized, I think,
that the western audience wanted its answer pinned and wriggling like any
exotic specimen, but given the inherent tension between the eastern view
and the western, he tried to strike a balance, to make one more palatable
to the other.
As for the blind man and the color blue, it's not an entirely fair
comparison (and also depends on whether the blind man has been blind all
his life). If I answered your question about Zen by saying, "It is Zen, of
course," your instinct might be to slug me, but in reality it's the most
"Zen" answer I can think of.
--tim