Words and Concepts
Awhile back I read an interview of Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, called "America's brainiest couple," by Steve Paulson in Salon. I was struck by what the brainy Ms. Goldstein said about language.
"Obviously, much of our thinking is being filtered through language," she said. For example, the way we construct sentences -- nouns and objects connected by verbs -- affects how we understand cause and effect. However, she also described a kind of sub-linguistic thinking, in which thoughts are not constrained and structured by nouns and verbs and objects. She described her writing process as translating her intuition into language.
In other words, once we can conceptualize whatever’s clanking around in our heads, we can describe it with language. But concepts are an interface; they aren’t the thing itself. By the same token, we filter the experiences of our lives through prefabricated concepts about ourselves and the world around us. Swaddled in our filters and concepts, constrained by the limits of language, we cut ourselves off from reality as-it-is.
I bring this up because Friday, February 15, marks the observance of Nirvana Day for many Mahayana Buddhists. This is an observation of the Parinirvana -- death and entry into Nirvana -- of the historical Buddha. But there's that noun-verb-object thing -- the Buddha entered Nirvana. The syntax constricts how we understand Nirvana, and Buddha as well.
But my task is to write about these things for About.com. I struggled with that syntax for a long time, but could do no better than "The day commemorates the death of the historical Buddha and his entry into Nirvana." I don't think that's right, but I'm at a loss to explain it any better using words. If someone else wants to take a stab at this, be my guest and add it to the comments.
Photo Credit: Jupiter Images
Comments
Paraphrasing John Gillespie Magee, Jr., on Feb 15 the Buddha slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Still wrong, of course.
BTW, if you have not read the whole poem High Flight
Sorry I can’t improve on “entered Nirvana” (though I agree with you that it’s annoyingly misleading!)
But I went on to read the article on Parinirvana, and — talking about language — I just wanted to mention an alternative translation of the Buddha’s last words, which I find more inspiring (as well as more aesthetically pleasing): “All conditioned things are impermanent. With mindfulness, strive on.”
…and thanks for all your articles.
I’m going to flirt with copyright violation and do an extended quote from Roger Zelazny’s delightful Lord of Light:
“Names are not important …. To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, ‘What is it like, this thing you have seen?’ So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, ‘It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.’ Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it ‘fire.’
“If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant.
“Therefore, ‘fire’ does not matter, ‘earth’ and ‘air’ and ‘water’ do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming.
“The thing that has never happened before is still happening. It is still a miracle. The great burning blossom squats, flowing, upon the limb of the world, excreting the ash of the world, and being none of these things I have named and at the same time all of them, and *this* is reality– the Nameless.
“Therefore, I charge you — forget the names you bear, forget the words I speak as soon as they are uttered. Look, rather, upon the Nameless within yourselves, which arises as I address it. It hearkens not to my words, but to the reality within me, of which it is part. This is the *atman*,which hears *me* rather than my words. All else is unreal. To define is to lose. The essence of all things is the Nameless. The Nameless is unknowable, mightier even than Brahma. Things pass, but the essence remains. You sit, therefore, in the midst of a dream.
He did not enter, as there is no one to enter,. He did not enter, as there is no thing to enter. This is The profoundness of the blissfull state of mind that is Nirvana. The undescribable, unfathomable truth that can only be relized by direct experience. With Metta Truthsublime.
Enter-for vacation only. Never far removed from her responsibility to Earth. Whether manifesting as male or female, dakini or drala, the presence is always permiating the mundane open to those who are daring enough to live in this world without living of it.
I SENT YOU A POEM OF MINE FROM MY BLOG SITE “ABOUT” THE “STATE OF BEING” OF “NIRVANA.” IT IS CALLED “THE EVERYWHERE OF NOWHERE LAND.”
Worship
A white heron
Hiding itself
In the snowy field
Where even the winter grass
Cannot be seen
~ Dogen
HI BARBARA, EVEN ATTEMPTING TO DESCRIBE THIS PHENOMENA LEADS ONE TO A SPIRAL OF THOUGHTS ENDING IN A UNENDING BLACKHOLE!
Nirvana is as real as anything else.
Either everything is an idea
or nothing.
your choice.
where do you go now?
Nirvana is just right here
where else could it be ?
why do say we can talk about this and that
but we can´t talk about Nirvana ?
Nirvana is a car, a face, a house, a smile, a smell, an orange, some garbage,
your income tax,
the bum in the street,
or the reflection of the moon
in a raindrop.
Nirvana is a word and everything you want it to be or not to be.
Thanks, everyone, for the great comments. I’m no teacher — just a student — but I think the most important thing is not to cling to what we think we know and to always stay open to deeper understanding.
every religion has its devoted followers ( like most of you are to christianity) so no one is in the position to judge
I love it. The ultimate power of nothing. No thing.
I would say, in essence, the Buddha BECAME Nirvana.
The day commemorates the death of the historical Buddha and his entry into Nirvana. There is no-death and entry calls to mind a door of sorts. How about the day the Buddha was enfolded in the infinite? No? well, language… whaddaya gonna do?