In an earlier article, I introduced the difference between Relative and Absolute. Here, I begin the discussion of how Science works in one plane of human understanding and Zen works in another.
Science’s effectiveness is grounded in the Relative. We use labels to define ‘things’ that we can then measure and manipulate. Each ‘thing’ makes sense only in relation to other ‘things’. In this way, all terms and categories in science fit a standard definition of relative.
When we create any kind of label, we also inadvertently create its opposite. For example, by naming something ‘oxygen’, we unintentionally create the concept of ‘not oxygen’. By naming something ‘dry’, we create the idea of ‘wet’. By describing something as ‘heavy’, we then discern what it means to be ‘light’.
The Tao Te Ching (circa 450 B.C.E.) also notes this truth about terms:
Recognize beauty and ugliness is born. Recognize good and evil is born.
‘To be’ creates ‘not to be’. To be, then, only exists as a human concept because we compare it to ‘not to be’. The two terms are relative to one another. It is unlikely that a water flea uses either of these concepts; to it, things probably just are, and no thinking about ‘to be’ and ‘not to be’ is required.
So, terms are relative, and they are human constructs. Science is also relative, and it is also a human construct.
Zen, by contrast, attempts to deal more with the Absolute and less with the Relative. Naming things comes easily to us and is a natural process in humans. Zen sees the value of putting that naming aside for a while when we try to understand the world as it is, without all of those labels and the subsequent ideas they help create in our minds.
Hence, there is a difference between what the tool of Science and the tool of Zen can bring to our understanding. Here, in my purposefully shallow paraphrase of a koan (#40 in the Gateless Gate), I hope to illustrate:
Hyakujo needed someone to oversee a new Zen center. He placed a pitcher of water on the floor and asked the assembly, “You may not call this a water pitcher. What will you call it?” The head monk said, “It cannot be called a wooden sandal.” But Isan, the head cook, quickly kicked over the pitcher of water and left the room. The position was given to Isan.
In this story, the head monk (let’s call him Science) is requested not to use the label ‘water pitcher’ so he finds another relative label: “not a wooden sandal.” What the monk is doing has a much deeper meaning that matches Hyakujo's expression, but a scientist is likely to interpret this phrase as it stands: the head monk has found another label for a 'thing'. We scientists do so because we work in the Relative, which means we need labels and categories to explain to others what we are doing and what we are discovering.
Our hero Isan (let’s call him Zen) uses no labels at all. He simply kicks over the water pitcher.
Both approaches reveal something about the water pitcher, but to a scientist the first one is recognizable (albeit considered weak) because it is grounded in the Relative: compared to a sandal, this thing is not a sandal. Isan's unique approach, however, is a flawless demonstration of the Absolute nature of the water pitcher.
Put in the same situation, I might playfully have said, “A grasshopper.” That is because it doesn’t matter what I name it: fundamentally, it is still the formation we label a ‘water pitcher’, whether I call it a grasshopper or not. And fundamentally, both a grasshopper and a water pitcher are This (which is also 'me').
Or I might have said, "A robin listens for a worm." That is my spontaneous reflection of the Absolute, right here in this moment. Hyakujo is not really asking about the 'thing' called a water pitcher at all; he probably is using it as an example of the Absolute, in which case he is saying, "Show me what is This!"
My responses, odd to a scientist, are still only superficial answers when compared to Isan’s wordless eloquence. With an immediate action he revealed the absolute nature of the water pitcher. And by leaving the room, he might even have been pointing out how silly the question was in the first place. How cheeky! How marvelous!
As a practicing scientist, I choose when to use labels. If you were to ask me to bring a water pitcher to the lab tomorrow for an experiment, it would be better if I didn’t show up with a grasshopper instead. The experiment requires a formation that we agree to call a ‘water pitcher’, so little would be gained for science by putting a grasshopper in its place.
But there are times when we benefit from the Absolute understanding of what we study. There are times when understanding a water pitcher is best done by kicking one over. And for those seeking true awareness, it is necessary to drop away all conceptions of a ‘water pitcher’ entirely and just see it for what it is.
That is not something Science is trying to do, but it is certainly another tool for understanding reality.
