I’m occasionally at a loss for words.
I either freeze in mid speech because I don’t know precisely what to say, or I babble on and on because I can’t find quite the right sounds to emit from my mouth that would best impart my meaning to the listener.
This is not a pleasant experience for a scientist. It is, however, a common experience among humans who are trying to describe a unique experience or a powerful sensation. In the huge ocean of sounds we can make with our vocal chords and mouths, we are stuck by the few thousand words of which we and our listeners might know the meaning.
Wine makers are challenged in this way. My father works in a winery, and around him I have heard many sips of wine described as “plummy”, “oaky”, or “structured”. But my father tells me those words don’t even begin to describe the wine he is tasting! Often he hands me the glass—taste it, then you’ll know.
Terms people use for wine are famously subjective and vague, and so many wines are complex and distinctive. If you were to hear someone describe six wines using the same terms “crisp”, “honeyed”, and “fruit-forward”, you could not be faulted for expecting all of those wines to taste the same. They don’t, of course; the error comes only from the words and how each of us understands them.
The folks who write the notes on wine labels must regularly despair of our lean language for complex tastes. But even if we were to add a thousand new words to our language for wine flavors, when we tasted an exceptional and unique wine we would still be ‘at a loss for words.’
That is because what we are trying to describe is a rich experience, a sensation so deep and unique and thrilling that it is hard to describe and always better to experience for oneself.
A realization in Zen is similar. It is deep, unique, and thrilling. And the experience can bring not only a loss for words, but also a loss of words. When human ideas about the world are dropped away and one breathes and sees and smells and touches the world just as it is, right here, in this moment…then words become meaningless and foolish. They become one and the same! Even when thoughts come in, their words don’t matter at all: blah blah blah. Ha ha ha!
Imagine, me being a scientist who understands that words fundamentally don’t matter! Words are the mainstay of science—little could be ‘accomplished’ without them. Scientific writing and speech are the critical factors in helping an audience understand and accept a new research finding or a well supported idea. It is why a prominent but poorly written article tends to create a whirlwind of rebuttals, attacks, and derogatory citations, and why a carefully worded commentary gains wide and appreciative readership.
I have produced both, so I have learned that words are critically important to the World of People. But many times, words are ineffective. Even worse, they can be entrapments. Once a word is seen or heard, the human brain wants to place the ‘thing’ described by that word into its own inferred structure of reality. The ‘thing’ becomes reduced to the word, and the word limits the ‘thing’ within our own minds.
For example, if someone hands you wine and asks, “Can you taste plum?” you are more likely to taste plum. But now the wine, to your brain, has a noticeable flavor of plum. That can be merciful if the wine is a poor one but unfortunate if the wine is a great and subtle combination of complex flavors. Your experience can be hindered now that you definitely taste ‘plum’. The word has limited the ‘thing’.
In Zen literature, the masters are always having to get around this problem of words. They are constantly being asked what an enlightenment experience is like, or how the world seems when one has the clarity of a Buddha. The masters are at a loss for words: no terms will adequately convey the understanding that the questioner desires. But the masters do amazing things with the few words they have, particularly when they provide a final nudge that allows the prepared mind to collapse into realization.
One way to do this with speech or writing is to evoke a memory of an experience that is comparable but far more common. For example, if you ask me what it is like to learn to walk a slackline (a sagging tightrope made of flat nylon webbing) I might respond, “Do you remember the first time you tried to ride a bicycle?” Many people in my country will immediately remember that experience and will gain a reasonably accurate impression of what it is like for me to walk a slackline.
Metaphors and allusions are therefore common in Zen writings because they help us get a sense of someone else’s profound, yet personal, event. This is a man leaping free of the brambles, a golden fish passing through a net.
Even better, a Zen person might choose to use no words at all. The ‘loss for words’ in this case is deliberate and revealing. Challenged by Nansen to say a good word, Joshu put his sandals upon his head and walked out of the room, to his colleague’s great approval [Blue Cliff Record, case 64]. Asked by Hyakujo to say what a water jug was without using its name, Isan tipped it over with his foot [Gateless Gate, case 40]. When a group of monks requested a new instruction, Yakusan sat before them silently, then left the room [Book of Equanimity, case 7]. These are all expressions that meet each request perfectly by using a physical action in a way that exceeds the value of words.
Such stories of expression can be thought of as pointers. They intentionally point to an experience or an understanding, most often a profound experience that is not possible to describe or share with words.
This is like my father handing me his glass of wine: taste this, experience it, then you will know.
To what experience are the Zen masters avidly pointing? The Here and Now, the place where you stand, complete as it is without human description or ideas…just This.
And what is that experience like? I strongly recommend you find out. Taste the wine and see what the experience is like for you. Find out just how wonderful that ‘loss for words’ can be.
