The Failure of Language: Two Critiques of Intellectual Thought

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H. Connor Moss

Professor Malek Moazzam-Doulat

Rels 225: Sufism

December 15, 2012

The Failure of Language: Two Critiques of Intellectual Thought

As human beings we uniquely possess the gift of intellectual thought. The

Intellect is the power of rationality and discernment, granting us the ability to take in our

raw experience of reality and sort, identify, and interpret this experience into a

comprehensible account of what is going on. We rely on countless of these interpretationsand conceptual frameworks in our everyday life. For example, we interpret a friends

facial expression as meaning a certain thing, or we recognize a certain social situation as

calling for specific protocol in our behavior. Such thoughts and calculations are

invaluable to us in navigating experience in the world; however, there is a limitation to

this type of knowledge. For one, such intellectual thought cloaks our experience in

certain contextual clothes. If we always experience A as meaning B, we will be closed to

new interpretations of A in a different context. This can cause a close mindedness by

becoming attached to one specific contextual framework as the only way to interpret

experience. In addition, such rational, intellectual thought fails to conceptualize complete

unity, as is called for in some theological and philosophical pursuits.

Philosophers and religious scholars in the past and more recently have recognized

this limitation of rational discursive thought. This paper will explore two religions

approaches to surpassing intellectual thought in order to approach the unspeakable. First I

will examine Japanese Zen Buddhisms attempt to shed the intellects grasping and


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distorting interpretations of experience in order to abide in the presence experience of

reality. Next I will explore Sufi Islams admonition of intellectual thought because of its

failure to approach Gods Essence. Both traditions recognize the failure of the intellect to

talk about things outside of our experienced reality and offer alternatives to intellectual

thought in order to somehow know the world in an esoteric, non-ordinary mode of

consciousness.

Both Sufism and Zen Buddhism attempt to describe something outside of our

ordinary experience, and both recognize the failure of the intellect to satisfactorily

approach such non-ordinary modes of being. The intellect necessarily is limited todescribing discrete phenomena in a plural setting. That is to say, one cannot talk about

complete unity or complete multiplicity by way of rational thought. This is because the

action of the intellect is to discern, we know things by recognizing differences between

things. We can only know day by knowing its difference from night, we can only know

good by knowing its difference from bad. Language and intellectual thought only work

by describing relations between concepts, and therefore such thought fails when

approaching a concept with no context or relation to any other concept. It is for this

reason that T.P. Kasulis states Since language can never leave its own constructs and

internal rules, it cannot serve as a vehicle for philosophical truth .1 If we approach

something which has no other, is comparable to nothing, and exists on its own in

complete unity, language breaks down and fails to aid us in our understanding. Both Sufi

Islam and Zen Buddhism have such an ineffable object of contemplation that must be

explained.

1 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person , p. 22.


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For Sufism, this object of contemplation is Gods Essence, the ineffable source of

being from which all meaning in the world emanates. Gods Essence is necessarily

unapproachable by language, because it is outside of the created world in which linguistic

constructs make sense. In response to this failure, the Sufis advocate an esoteric gnosis 2

of Gods Essence which bypasses the intellect altogether. Zen Buddhism on the other

hand is a strictly non-theistic 3 religion, however there is still an ineffable concept, the Tao

(Chinese: path, way), which Buddhism attempts to address. Similar to Islams Essence,

the Tao is ineffable because it cannot be compared to anything, it has no opposite and its

only relation to being is that it is the source of all being and non-being at once. It is for this reason that T.P. Kasulis names the Tao the pre-ontology of being 4 as the Tao exists

before the dichotomy of being and non-being.

How then is one to discuss the ineffable that which cannot be spoken? It is

precisely this issue which Jacques Derrida discusses in his How to Avoid Speaking:

Denials. Derrida admonishes against previous attempts to approach the ineffable by ways

of apophatic descryptions of the ineffable by stating what attributes it does not have. For

example, in Chitticks explanation of the Attributes of the Essence of God, he states that

God is not dead, weak, blind, etc. 5 However, such a description of the ineffable, for

Derrida, is an insufficient and failed attempt. If we define God as not weak, we are

limiting the attributes of the Essence to something which God in his complete unity must

2

Gnosis comes from the Greek root meaning knowledge, it implies an experiential, mystical insight, asopposed to a rational, epistemic understanding of the world.3 Buddhism can be thought of as non -theistic, rather than a-thiestic because Buddhism does not confirm nor deny the existence of God. Buddhisms Tao could be thought of as a type of God as ineffable source of all being, however the Buddhists do not attribute divinity as such to the Tao.4 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person, p. 29.5 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, p. 45.


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possess. Any statement we make about the ineffable is contradicted by God (or the Tao)

in their complete unity and radical relationality. As Derrida states every predicative

language is inadequate to the essence, in truth to the hyperessentiality (the being beyond

being) of God. 6 We cannot make any satisfactory statements about the ineffable using

rational thought because any such statements necessarily exclude their opposite and

therefore limit Gods unlimitable Essence.

Despite the failures of speech and intellectual thought, many religious traditions

have attempted to approach the ineffable and to know it in some other way outside of

our intellectual rational thought. Zen Buddhism distrusts the intellect because of theconstrictive filters it places on our direct experience and therefore attempts to calm the

discursive mind through ritual practice and to somehow experience reality unconstrained

by meditative thought, in a moment of satori (Japanese: enlightenment, awakening,

understanding). Sufi Islam rejects the intellectual path to God because language

necessarily fails when attempting to realize Gods Essence, therefore the Sufis attempt to

exceed the bodys limited capacity of intellect in order to know God through a direct

gnosis . Both religious traditions shy away from linguistic intellectual meditations on

reality, instead claiming the true way to reach God or enlightenment is through applied

practice of their beliefs through rituals.

Zen Buddhism

The Japanese Zen Buddhist tradition emerged in the 6 th century CE. Buddhism

began in India around the 5 th century BCE and spread throughout Asia in the centuries

after the death of the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. Each of the countries

6 Jacques Derrida, How to Avoid Speaking, p. 3.


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Buddhism spread through: India, Vietnam, China, Korea, and lastly Japan, profoundly

changed and adapted Buddhism to their specific cultural setting. The result of this is that

by the time Buddhism arrived in Japan, it had taken on many of the philosophical and

folk traditions of the countries that influenced it. Japan, too, approached Buddhism from

its own unique perspective and developed what became a recognizable Zen tradition that

is both influenced by Buddhisms storied past, and adapted to the specific setting of the

Japanese culture.

Zen Theory

Zen Buddhism shies away from making any metaphysical claims about the natureof reality, instead it is concerned only with becoming fully awakened to the present

moment. Zen is strictly empirical, concerned only with commonsensical, this-worldly

experience. As a testament to this emphasis Zen Buddhism is the only Buddhist school

that does not make a stance on rebirth in their beliefs, unlike many other Buddhist

schools such as Tibetan Buddhism which claim rebirth as of central importance to the

religion. Because there can be no empirical experience of rebirth, the Zen Buddhist

school ignores this aspect of Buddhism.

An oft-cited teaching of the Buddha sheds some light on why Buddhism ignores

metaphysical claims and focuses instead on the present reality. In this teaching the

Buddha compares us to a man pierced with a poison arrow. The arrow is our suffering,

and the immediate goal then of any religious tradition should be to remove the arrow and

alleviate the suffering. In this metaphor the Buddha likened any quest for

philosophical/metaphysical truth or questioning about the nature of reality to the man

trying to discover where the poison arrow was shot from, before attempting to remove the


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arrow. Buddhism therefore emphasizes practical knowledge how do I remove this

arrow over metaphysical exploration where did this arrow come from? . From this

metaphor it is clear that the emphasis of Zen Buddhism is on practice, not theory, and

Buddhism is primarily a prescription rather than a description .

Of central importance to Buddhism is the Buddhas teaching of the four noble

truths 7 which explain why we experience dukkha (Pali: anxiety, inadequacy, suffering).

The second truth states that the origin of our suffering is attachment. Attachment can take

many forms, one common form being our attachment to specific interpretations of reality.

In our experience we inevitably construct conceptual frameworks to categorize andexplain our surroundings. This can be dangerous according to Buddhism, because we can

all too easily become attached to these tendencies as the only possible interpretations of

experience. Language can remove us from the present experience by interpreting and

responding to the present through conceptual frameworks learned in the past.

Zens distrust for linguistic distinctions comes from the long history of

Buddhisms evolution. In the 2 nd century B.C.E. Indian philosopher N g rjuna set out to

logically prove the central Buddhist doctrine of sunyata (Sanskrit: emptiness, openness,

hollowness). The concept of sunyata states that everything, including our philosophical

meditations on reality are at their core empty they have no inherent existence or truth.

N g rjuna attempted to prove the emptiness of language, and its inability to point to

higher philosophical truth by examining commonly held presumptions about cause and

effect.

7 To briefly summarize the truths: : 1) Life is dukkha , 2) The origin of dukkha is attachment, 3) The truth of the (possibility) of the cessation of dukkha , 4) The cessation of dukkha is made possible by the eightfold

path of Buddhism.


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N g rjunas proof called into question the dichotomy of cause and effect, stating

that their separation is not a perfect representation of experienced reality, it is an arbitrary

distinction that only makes sense looking at experience retrospectively. 8 N g rjunas

analysis posits that cause and effect make sense when talking about something

retrospectively, however in the present moment we do not experience the bifurcation of

cause and effect. These concepts are essentially sunyata , they have no philosophical

truth, they only help us interpret reality but in doing so they misrepresent certain facets of

reality. This essential argument can be extended to all conceptual-linguistic distinctions

we make about reality. All dualities are composite phenomena; cause and effect arisetogether , and both concepts are mutually necessary, you cannot define one without its

relation to the other. In fact the only characteristic of cause that we can define is its

relation to effect, the two terms exist as two sides of the same coin, they are both opposite

and the same. In light of this, our retrospective analysis of experienced reality makes

distinctions about dualities that do not accurately represent how we experience things. In

this way, our conceptual frameworks of reality divide what is experienced as one into two

distinct parts. 9 For this reason we find the essential mistrust for language in the Zen

tradition.

To elaborate on N g rjunas analysis, let us take the example (borrowed from

T.P. Kasulis 10) of an acorn and an oak tree in order to examine the casual connection and

the way language distorts this connection. It is obvious that (a) acorn and oak tree are

separate, we must differentiate between an acorn and an oak tree because in certain

8 For a detailed exploration of N g rjunas argument, see David Kalupahana, Buddhist Philosophy, ch. 11.9 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person, p. 23.10 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person, p. 24.


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contexts, from certain perspectives, they are experienced as different. However it is also

true that (b) oak and acorn are the same, they are the same phenomena because one

emerges from another, one cannot exist without the other. N g rjuna argues that our

characterization of the causal connection between acorn and oak does not accurately

represent the experienced reality of the phenomena of an acorn growing to an oak tree.

Neither (a) nor (b) is inherently, absolutely true, instead they each make sense in certain

contexts and explain certain aspects of the phenomena but fail to describe other equally

important aspects. In our characterization of cause and effect, acorn and oak, or any two

dualities, we inevitably focus on only one aspect of the relation between them. We either see them as wholly different or exactly identical. To summarize the Zen perspective on

duality and relation, T.R.V. Murti explains:

Relation has to perform two mutually opposed functions: as connecting the twoterms, in making them relevant to each other, it has to identify them; but asconnecting the two, it has to differentiate them. 11

If we rely on certain perspectives and conceptual frameworks to interpret reality we

inevitably miss some other perspective. In light of this, Zen Buddhism mistrusts

discursive intellectual thought because it only highlights one aspect of a phenomena,

while casting into shadow some other equally important aspect.

In Zen Buddhism truth is considered true only to the extent that it serves a

particular context. What is true for one context might not be true for another. Therefore

different characterizations and explanations of experience are only useful to us in the

specific context of the particular truth. From different conceptual postures we determine

different contextual truths, which are true only in the certain situation in which they

11 T.P. Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person, p. 18.


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arose. Therefore our attempts to arrive at absolute truth through our discursive,

intellectual thought are misguided because they only point to one aspect of reality, but

they can never leave their own conceptual frameworks to describe reality as it is.

Why is this dangerous, though, and why does Zen Buddhism put so much effort

into calming this discursive process of intellectual thought? The reason is that it is

precisely this process that causes us so much dukkha in our lives. There are many

translations of the word dukkha however one that I would like to focus on is inadequacy .

The inadequacy of our experienced reality is caused by our attachment to certain

interpretations of reality which necessarily only give us one side of the picture. As alltruth is relative and contextual, if we cling to one characterization of an experienced

phenomena we will necessarily be blind to other characterizations that might better serve

us in that moment. All distinctions simply emphasize certain aspects of experience while

casting into shadow others, and therefore we experience suffering as the inadequacy of

our representations of reality.

Further, we can experience dukkha when we fall into patterns of certain

interpretations of reality without being open to alternatives. If we always see an

experience in a certain way because that is how we learned it to be in the past, we are

applying previously learned conceptual categories to present reality. We might therefore

only see certain possibilities because of how we have looked at things in the past.

Therefore we are not responding directly to the present moment but instead are filtering

the present through previously learned categorizations. For example if I have always

experienced theater as boring and unpleasant (perhaps my mother dragged me to too

many plays when I was young, and this colored my experience) I will categorize all new


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encounters with the idea of theater as negative and boring. If I do this I am missing

something though, theater was only negative to me in the context of me as a child, bored

and uninterested, however perhaps I will have a completely different experience of

theater in the context of me as an adult. If I close myself off to new interpretations and

characterizations of reality I am attached to certain interpretations and can never

experience reality in the present moment, uncolored by past experience.

Zen Practice

Zazen (Japanese: seated meditation) is the central ritual practice of Zen

Buddhism. Zazen is an attempt to calm the discursive mind in order to abide in the present experience of reality without applying active intellectual thought to experience.

Influential Zen master D gen (b. 1200 CE) was instrumental in the popularization of

Zazen in Japan. D gen posited that in order to cultivate a pre-reflective non-discursive

mode of consciousness, one must relinquish all yearning or grasping for goals in the

practice of Zazen. Meditation, then, is not a means to an end, but rather it is the end itself.

D gens novel argument was that This distinction between methods and goals . . . [is]

erroneous: zazen is not a technique by which to achieve enlightenment; it is

enlightenment itself 12. That is to say that in Zazen a Buddhist practitioner cultivates the

mindset of enlightenment, and if one is successful in their meditative practice, one will be

enlightened or awakened to the present moment during the practice of Zazen.

D gens instructions for Zazen are at the same time paradoxical and frustratingly

simple, Think of not thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Without thinking. 13.

12 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person , p. 67.13 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person , p. 71.


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Here D gen is trying to differentiate between three distinct modes of thought. During

Zazen one is attempting to calm discursive thought and to abide in the present moment

without thinking. However, in this teaching D gen is pointing to the fact that simply not

thinking is unsatisfactory. Not thinking is simply the reversal, or negation of thinking,

however it still assumes a certain intellectual posture where the practitioner is

approaching their practice with an active goal in mind. Not- thinking is unsatisfactory

because in this mode of thought one will be actively trying to suppress thought, which is

a form of active thought in itself one will be thinking about not -thinking. Instead,

during Zazen one should attempt to abide in the moment of pre-thought, in the moment before the intellect interprets and filters our experience. Without -thinking differs from

not-thinking in that the goal of Zazen is to approach meditation with no calculative

intellectual thought attached to the experience. One is not to sit in order to (in order to

not think, reach enlightenment, or alleviate stress) because in doing so one slips into a

conceptual posture that inevitably approaches reality form a specific perspective. Rather,

D gen urges to sit to sit with no higher goal in mind, emphasized by D gen's teaching of

shikantaza (Japanese: just sitting, nothing but sitting).

Ideally, in a Zazen session a Buddhist practitioner is able to calm discursive

thinking and abide without thinking in the present moment. In this state one is able to

become aware in a different way than though logical discursive knowledge. The other

type of knowledge that Zazen attempts to cultivate is prajna. Prajna (Sanskrit: wisdom,

insight, understanding) is an insightful, experiential state of consciousness that transcends

(or exists before ) our everyday linguistic determinations. Prajna is the state of being

aware of the emptiness ( sunyata ) of the world, and simply abiding in the non-


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differentiated, pre-reflective experience of reality. It is through prajna that one can

become awakened, or enlightened. It is important to note, however, that even in a state of

awakened experience thoughts still do occur. Abiding without thinking is never a

completely achievable goal, as thoughts inevitably penetrate our consciousness and bring

us back into our conceptual categories.

There is no way to completely shut off the endless categorization,

conceptualization, discrimination, and filtering that happens in our consciousness

thoughts still occur even to Monks deep in a session of zazen. However it is not these

thoughts themselves which pull the monk out of the pre-reflective state of prajna , it is the persons potential response to the thoughts which would remove him from without-

thinking back to the state of analytical thought. When thoughts occur during zazen, an

experienced Zen practitioner will observe the thought, and simply release it without

attaching any further calculative thought to it. To clarify, here is a quote by Uchiyama

Kosho on cultivating without- thinking in zazen meditation:

Some thoughts will occur to you. But if only the thought does not grasp, it willnot be formed into any thing. . . . If thought A (a flower) occurs to you, aslong as it is not followed by thought B (is beautiful) no significance such as Ais B (a flower is beautiful) is formed . . . If thought A does occur in your head,as long as you dont continue the thought, A stands before the formation of meaning. 14

Here we see how achieving prajna is not simply blocking out all thought, but it is

learning to stop the minds instant response and analysis of thought. Calming the mind to

be able to ignore any further analytical thought after a flower is a skill that takes years

for Zen Masters to cultivate.

14 Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person , p. 45.


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In the Zen school another practical ritual is used in conjunction with zazen to pull

a student out of his ordinary mode of consciousness. This is the recitation and discussion

of k ans ; illogical poems meant to destabilize ones contextual posture of thought. In

contrast with Zazen, the use of k ans is meant to offer a sudden flash of insight rather

than a gradual transformation of mind. In the Zen tradition the Master will pose the k an

as a question to the student, and he will then attempt to respond in the present moment

without applying discursive thought to his response. If the student cannot respond

satisfactorily he will return to Zazen and contemplate the k an before meeting again with

the master. It is in this way that k

ans are used in conjunction with zazen in order to traina Zen practitioner. The meditation is time for the student to practice his pre-reflective

mode of consciousness and the k an meetings are time for him to apply that

consciousness to a real world present example for the Zen master to judge his progress.

K ans are often presented as a non-ordinary, paradoxical verse which is intended

to jolt the student out of his reflective consciousness.

Question: Do the results of religious practices vary according to theextent [of realization]?

Answer: When a drop of water falls from the cliff, it knows the morningsea. 15

In the k an printed above, the asker of the question is assuming a certain perspective on

the difference between religious practices and is grasping for an intellectual, rational

account of the situation. However, in the answer of the question his rational thought

process is disrupted in order to bring him out of his contextual perspective to approach

the problem from a radically different context a drop of water falling into the sea.

15 Heine, et al, The Koan, p. 60


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Intellectual approaches to this response will fail to make any sense of it, therefore this

disruption of intellectual thought is meant to jolt the questioner out of his attachment to

the rational. As Dale Wright states when discussing Zens unusual rhetoric It [Zens

rhetoric of disruption] is imagined as undercutting and disrupting [the] interlocutors

ingrained posture as a grasping subject 16. In this way the k ans posed by a Zen master

forces the student to become self aware of his discursive thought patterns in approach to

the k an, and the ritual is intended to force the student to think outside of these patterns

of thought.

In Zen Buddhism the goal is to recognize the sunyata of all contexts and to beable to respond directly to the present moment without applying previously learned

conceptual categories. An enlightened Zen Master would not merely remain silent; they

would be able to respond to experience directly, unfiltered by past experience, and to use

language only to the extent that it serves the contextual truth of the specific situation. A

truly awakened Zen practitioner would be able to ignore the pull of intellectual thought

which has a tendency to remove one from the present experience of reality. Hence Zens

mistrust for the intellect; it pulls one away from the direct experience of the present by

constructing conceptual frameworks which filter and color experience.

Sufi Islam

Sufism is a branch of Islam that emphasizes the esoteric, mystical dimensions of

the religion. Sufism emerged in the 6 th and 7 th centuries in Bagdad during the rule of a

defunct, corrupt Umayyad caliphate, which emphasized the exoteric teachings of the

Hadith. The early Sufis sought to gain to an esoteric knowledge of God and the world

16 Wright, Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, p. 96.


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that was not necessarily tied to the exoteric Hadith and Sharia. Early Sufis followed

Mohammads example of isolation and asceticism in order to come to a direct knowledge

of God that they claimed the exoteric teachings lacked. This esoteric understanding of

God came not from an intellectual, rational pursuit, but from a direct insight of God. The

reason the Sufis shied away from the exoteric and intellectual for the esoteric is tied to

their theological beliefs.

Sufi Theology and Metaphysics

In contrast with the Zen Buddhist approach of engrossing of the self in the

physical reality and ignoring questions of metaphysics and philosophy, Sufism has astrong tradition of constructing metaphysical explanations of reality. The reason that Sufi

shaykhs (Arabic: spiritual teacher, leader) delved so deeply into metaphysical questions is

they believed that the physical was merely the surface layer of reality and that what really

matters was the meaning behind reality, emanating from God. For Sufis knowing the

physical reality is the lowest form of knowledge, to truly know something you must

recognize the unity behind the physical manifestation of the world.

I will now briefly summarize the popular Sufi theology, as described by such Sufi

masters as Jalal al Din Rumi (d. 1273 CE) and Abu Bakr al Wasiti (d. ca. 932 CE). Sufi

metaphysics starts with Gods Essence, the incomparable, unnamable source of all being.

The Essence is God as complete unity, independent of any relation to space or time;

Being without delimitation. This is God as He is unknowable, impossible to

conceptualize, and impossible even to properly allude to. The Attributes, a lower

emanation of God, are aspects of the Essence extended and realized in space and time. It

is through the Attributes that most people experience the Essence, because the attribute is


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the aspect of the Essence that interacts with human existence. The Attribute is the

Essence as it relates to the created world, as seen from the perspective of human

existence. The Attributes, unlike the Essence, are knowable and nameable. The Acts, the

lowest and most common emanation of God, are what we interact with on a day-to-day

basis. These are the specific instantiations of the Attributes that exist in a particular space

and time. The Acts occupy material space, they are the physical manifestations of Gods

Essence emanating through the specific Attributes. 17 As an example, an Act of God

would be a specific Dog, the Attribute would be the idea of dog-ness, and the Essence

is the source of the existence of the Dog itself.For Wasiti, the extent to which one recognizes the common source of The

Essence in all things, the closer one is to God, and the extent to which one notices and

focuses on the separation between all things, the farther away one is from God. Hence the

problem Sufis have with linguistic and intellectual discerning thought; such exoteric

knowledge of the world misrepresents the unity of Gods Essence. Intellectual, discursive

thought necessarily names the differences between things and therefore divides what is

one into multiple parts. In Islam, the aql (Arabic: Intellect), the ordinary way humans

understands the world, is the power of discernment; the ability to discern between good

and evil, day and night. Language only works within a differentiated, plural world. We

name differences, (we name this a Dog and this a Cat, because they are different) and we

recognize similarities between differentiated things (we understand that this is a Dog

because we recognize his Dog-ness among other differentiated characteristics). Therefore

17 Silvers, A Soaring Minaret , ch. 5, 6, 7.


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rational, discursive thought fails to approach the Essence, and it misleads us by focusing

on the perceived multiplicity in the world.

The Essence has no other, and cannot be compared to anything; therefore,

language fails when we try to conceptualize Gods Essence. It is this incomparability of

the Essence that restricts our access to God by means of rational thought. Because

languages action is to name differences, we cannot name or conceptualize Gods

Essence. For example, if we were to name God as a male, that would not be naming

Gods Essence, but naming one of Gods Attributes. The Essence is neither male nor

female. Gods Essence is neither differentiable, limited, nor comparable; therefore wecannot name Him in any satisfactory way without imposing languages distinguishing

nature.

Sufi Practice

If language and the intellect fail to approach the Essence, what faculties do the

Sufis use to know God? In the same way that Zen Buddhism only is meaningful to the

extent that its rituals are practiced, Sufism emphasizes an experiential, esoteric

knowledge of the world through ritual practice. This esoteric knowledge, comparable to

the Prajna of Zen Buddhism bypasses the rational intellect for a direct, insightful gnosis

of the world, and of God. The elect shaykhs who succeed in overcoming the body

experience God in a direct gnosis of the Essence, an intuitive tasting of truth, rather

than a merely intellectual seeing or understanding. This direct tasting of the truth of

God comes not through he power of the intellect, but from the capacity of the qalb

(Arabic: heart, secret heart). This capacity of the heart would allow one to recognize the

unity and common source of Gods Oneness in all differentiated things on this earth.


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Many Sufis engaged in brutal ascetic practices in the hope that they could

somehow overcome the body, thereby exceeding its limitations and knowing the world in

this esoteric way. Many ascetic Sufis practiced isolation and fasting in order to break

their ties to merely physical understandings of the world. Some Sufis practiced a form of

sleep deprivation called night vigils, which consisted of staying up all night to recite

prayers until the morning prayer at sunrise. All of these practices were meant to break the

bodys ties to the physical and to somehow break away from their ordinary knowledge of

the world. In addition artistic pursuits such as sema, the wild dancing of the whirling

dervishes, and the recitation of beautiful, insightful poetry were popular Sufi practices.The most celebrated Sufi poet, and perhaps one of the most celebrated poets of all

time is Jalal al Din Rumi. Rumi wrote tens of thousands of verses of beautiful poetry

exclaiming the joy and wonder of recognizing God in the world. Many of his verses point

to the exoteric/esoteric dichotomy discussed in Sufi theology. Rumi divides reality into

the two distinct components of form and meaning. Form is only the outward appearance

of reality, while what truly matters is the meaning behind reality given by the common

source of Gods Essence. As Chittick summarizes Meaning by definition is beyond form

and its constrictions 18. Form is merely the mirror in which the meaning of Gods Unity

is reflected, and to obtain insightful gnosis of God necessitates looking beyond the

outward physical form of something.

How many words the world contains! But all have one meaning. Whenyou smash the Jugs, the water is one. (D 32108) 19

18 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, p. 21.19 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love , p. 8.


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Oh worthless peoples, grasp bread, bread! Oh fortunate peoples, seizespirit, spirit! (D 21377) 20

Form is shadow, meaning the Sun. (M VI 4747) 21

Close down speechs door and open up the hearts window! The Moonwill only kiss you through the window. (D 19863) 22

In these verses, the metaphor of the jug is simply the outward form of something, which

we name with the intellect, while the water inside of it is the common source of Gods

unity which can be known only through the gnosis of the secret heart. In addition, Rumi

emphasizes the dichotomy of form and meaning. The bread is only the most simple,

lowest manifestation of God, while spirit is the meaning, or higher truth to be found. HereRumi explains the limitations of the intellect and the power of the heart ( qalb ). Rumis

poetry urges us to search beyond the merely physical form of the world, beyond the

merely intellectual understanding of the world, towards an openness of the heart which

can know the world in an mystical, esoteric recognition of God in all things.

Conclusion

As we can see, both Sufi Islam and Zen Buddhism share an essential mistrust for

intellectual, linguistic thought, however for very different reasons. Islams critique of the

intellect is that it ties us too closely the physical reality, the discerning nature of language

always names differences and therefore obscures our recognition of the higher truth

behind all of reality which is Gods Essence. Buddhisms critique is that language tends

to remove us from the present experience of reality by applying previously learned

categories which color and filter present experience. Therefore Islams distrust for

20 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love , p. 32.21 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love , p. 19.22 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love , p. 38.


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language is rooted in the intellects power to anchor us in the material world , while

Buddhisms distrust is rooted in the intellects power to distort the present experience of

the material world . These differences are due to the varying approaches to metaphysical,

philosophical truth. While Buddhism ignores metaphysical claims, Islam is justified only

through the metaphysical. Both religious traditions recognize the failure of intellectual,

discursive descriptions of the world, and both advocate a transcendence of the merely

intellectual modes of being through ritual practice.


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Heine, Steven, and Dale S. Wright. The K an: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism . New

York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Kalupahana, David J. Buddhist Philosophy . Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii

Press, 1976.Kasulis, T.P. Zen Action/Zen Person . Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press,

1981.

Scharlemann, Robert P., and David E. Klemm. "Open Secrets: Derrida and Negative

Theology." Negation and Theology . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,

1992.

Silvers, Laury. A Soaring Minaret: Abu Bakr al-Wasiti and the Rise of Baghdadi Sufism .

Ablany, New York: SUNY Press, 2010.

Wright, Dale S. Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism . Cambridge, UK:

Cambridge Press, 1998.

Documents

The Failure of Language: Two Critiques of Intellectual Thought