The Tao of Zen
20 Dec '10 09:33A book that helped relate philosophical Taoism to Zen is "The Tao of Zen" by Ray Grigg, Tuttle Pub. 1994.
In it he makes a strong and convincing argument that Zen actually owes more to Taoism than its portrayed Buddhist roots. Zen, originally "Chan" in China, before its Japanese expedition, is clothed by the history of formal (and questionable) Buddhist "claiming" of it.
But that (in "Part 1" of the book) was not its major aid to me, but rather the way it brings threads from both Zen and Taoist masters together in "Part 2" - "Taoism and Zen: The Philosophical Similarities" His manner of writing is clear and helpful, and has a simple Taoist "taste", yet conceptually solid.
Here is an excerpt from his chapter (p.196) on "Wordlessness", as he refers to the "Lao Tzu", another name for the "Tao Te Ching":
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"...Translations abound. Some fifteen hundred commentaries have been added to the core texts. For a system of understanding that cautions against the use of words, a great deal of effort has been expended on them. But, just as Zen is not its literature, Taoism is not the "Lao Tzu". Both Taoism and Zen literally or symbolically burn their own words:
'Those who know...cannot explain.
And those who can explain...do not know'
Language, like pure intellect, moves experience inexorably into the abstract, away from the finality of grounded reality. This reality defies words. After all the fancy words and profound thoughts, after all the sublime rhetoric and transcendent experience engendered by the spell of words, there remains the certain bounds set by the natural absolutes of physical existence. Life is punctuated by the blood of birth and the stillness of death. Words may fabricate abstractions and attempt to disconnect experience from this earthy condition. But all words, regardless of how high they soar, are ultimately rooted in the fact of substantiality, far closer to the soil of feeling and instinct than a deliberating consciousness often recognizes or admits."
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In it he makes a strong and convincing argument that Zen actually owes more to Taoism than its portrayed Buddhist roots. Zen, originally "Chan" in China, before its Japanese expedition, is clothed by the history of formal (and questionable) Buddhist "claiming" of it.
But that (in "Part 1" of the book) was not its major aid to me, but rather the way it brings threads from both Zen and Taoist masters together in "Part 2" - "Taoism and Zen: The Philosophical Similarities" His manner of writing is clear and helpful, and has a simple Taoist "taste", yet conceptually solid.
Here is an excerpt from his chapter (p.196) on "Wordlessness", as he refers to the "Lao Tzu", another name for the "Tao Te Ching":
>>>
"...Translations abound. Some fifteen hundred commentaries have been added to the core texts. For a system of understanding that cautions against the use of words, a great deal of effort has been expended on them. But, just as Zen is not its literature, Taoism is not the "Lao Tzu". Both Taoism and Zen literally or symbolically burn their own words:
'Those who know...cannot explain.
And those who can explain...do not know'
Language, like pure intellect, moves experience inexorably into the abstract, away from the finality of grounded reality. This reality defies words. After all the fancy words and profound thoughts, after all the sublime rhetoric and transcendent experience engendered by the spell of words, there remains the certain bounds set by the natural absolutes of physical existence. Life is punctuated by the blood of birth and the stillness of death. Words may fabricate abstractions and attempt to disconnect experience from this earthy condition. But all words, regardless of how high they soar, are ultimately rooted in the fact of substantiality, far closer to the soil of feeling and instinct than a deliberating consciousness often recognizes or admits."
>>>
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