Why Express The Unexplainable?

  I sometimes wonder what it is that makes journal writing a kind of spiritual practice. I have sometimes subscribed to the view that journaling is only meant to be a form of representation. Just as a picture is a direct reflection of whatever is in front of it, the journal is meant to be a kind of reflection of a person's direct thoughts and moments. But then there is the other view, which states that writing is only a construction of an identity, and therefore it has no correspondence with an objective or mutually observable world.
  In a way, I consider writing to be the practice of knowing that there is something which cannot be written at all: something that is beyond the constructed self, as well as beyond the sensory inputs. In Liberated in Stillness and Motion, Master Sheng Yen relates that "The true Chan is without language and words" (p.1). Yet, at the same time, he alludes to the fact that language is like the finger pointing to the moon. While words serve a purpose, the point is not to get enthralled by the tip of the finger, but to know that it is always intimating something that is unspeakable.
     Language is sometimes a kind of play. I may not have anything in particular to say in the moment, but if my heart is open enough, I know that the words are just the backdrop through which connections are formed in often 'still' and 'silent' mutual interchange and presence. I suppose this can be best explained using the example of introducing people at a party. If I am in that situation wondering what the introductions will 'accomplish', I will end up not really enjoying the interchange, because there really isn't a literal purpose to the conversation: it only sets the tone for the sense of connection that may be developing on different levels between people over time.
   The problem is that as a culture, I don't think that we have developed or even fully understood this hidden 'language', or 'meta-language' that happens between words and language: establishing the tone of inter-being that ends up making connections seem meaningful. I wonder if developing at least an awareness of the hidden 'language' of interconnection might help people appreciate daily interchanges more. I suppose another way of putting it is: where can we find the phenomenological study of the way meaning is formed or experienced through everyday communication?


Shengyen (2016). Liberated in Stillness and Motion. New York: Dharma Drum Publishing