Quote:
(Words
and Concepts)
With
words it is especially difficult to escape from conceptual categorizations; and
even if the speaker skillfully avoids them, the listener can still fall into
their traps. Remember the empty bottles? They had definite shapes and sizes
even before being filled. People who practice Zen often advise not using words.
This is
not to discredit words, but to avoid the danger of becoming stuck in them. It is to encourage us
to use words as skillfully as possible for the sake of those who hear them.
In the
second century, Nagarjuna wrote The Madhyamika Sastra, in which he used
concepts to destroy concepts. He was not trying to create a new doctrine, but
to break all the bottles, all the flasks, all the vases, all the containers, to
prove that water needs no form to exist. He outlined a dance for us, a dance
for us to drop our categories and barriers so that we can directly encounter
reality and not content ourselves with its mere reflection.
(Knowledge
is a Barrier to Understanding)
Old
knowledge is the obstacle to new understanding; Buddhism
calls it
"the barrier built of knowledge." Like those who are awakened, great
scientists have undergone great internal changes. If they are able to achieve
profound realizations, it is because their powers of observation,
concentration, and awareness are deeply developed.
Understanding
is not an accumulation of knowledge. To the contrary, it is the result of the
struggle to become free of knowledge. Understanding shatters old knowledge to
make room for the new that accords better with reality.
(Unable
to Describe It)
Understanding,
in humans, is translated into concepts, thoughts, and words. Understanding is
not an aggregate of bits of knowledge. It is a direct and immediate
penetration. In the realm of sentiment, it is feeling. In the realm of
intellect, it is perception.
It is an
intuition rather than the culmination of reasoning. Every now and again it is
fully present in us, and we find we cannot express it in words, thoughts, or
concepts. "Unable to describe
it,"
that is our situation at such moments. Insights like this are spoken of in
Buddhism as "impossible to reason about, to discuss, or to incorporate
into doctrines or systems of thought."
:Unquote(My commentary)
Notions, ideas, perceptions and words are for separations created by human ego (separate self). They cause separations (discrimination) and prevent people from attaining freedom. (Freedom can be attained only through non-separation, or non-discrimination.) So, they are the source of afflictions which cause people sufferings. That's why we need to throw away all notions to attain full enlightenment. For the extinction of all notions, we (awareness) need to touch the true nature of reality through mindfulness, concentration and insight.
(Cf.) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014NYEP04
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