On Zen Language and Paradoxes
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Description: A philosophical analysis of Zen koans by John King-Farlow.
ON "ON ZEN LANGUAGE AND ZEN PARADOXES": ON "ON ZEN LANGUAGE AND ZEN PARADOXES": ANGLOS-SAXON QUESTIONS FOR CHUNG-YING CHENG Copyright (c) 1983 by Dialogue Publishing Company, . P.285 Professor Cheng's remarkable paper "ON Zen (Ch'an) Languages and Zen Paradoxes", (Journal of Chinese Philosophy, I 1973) 77-102), is extremely welcome. Unlike the more popular interpreters of Zen, such as D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts, Cheng speaks as a scholar no less at home with Harvard-style analysantia than with the Buddhist and Taoist background of Zen analysantia. Thanks to Cheng's encouragement, I shall offer a series of requests for clarification. This may enable him to bridge still further the gap between the Zen Masters' understanding of paradox as a tool and the initial puzzlement of Anglo-Saxon analysts. It should be clear that I write as one of those to whom Cheng addresses himself, as someone with only a European training, who cannot tell whether even the translations are close renderings. My questions to Cheng will be mainly of the form: How useful for understanding Zen discourse is the following body of comment, which arises from my still very limited understanding of your most welcome cross-cultural essay? Part 1 Question I: ANALYSIS OF TYPE 1 OF THE ZEN "PARADOXES" MENTIONED How useful is the folliwng Body-of Comment I ? Comment : Cheng provides the following general formula for the "schemata of paradoxes": "(H) P is q if and only if P is not q, where q is some suitable sentential predicate of either logical or semantical or pragmatical significance." (85) Among the possible values for q he specifically mentions (A) "meaningful", (B) "intelligible", (C) "relevant", (D) "acceptable", (E) "satisfactory" and (F) "relevant (for some purpose)". What Cheng calls Zen paradoxes must exemplify one of these possible values of q in H, or several of them, or several of them and other possible
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