Words as Vessels

Ideas purporting the totality of everything existing as one singular function are made very clear by Tzu-Chi in his passage “Discussion on Making All Things Equal”. He began simply by discussing the implications of cramped understanding, highlighting ways in which an objectifying perspective may leave one’s mind disconcerted. Seeing people, places, events, or things as disparate or disconnected scorns the true nature of those phenomena, because if they came to fruition, there is surely a variety of reasons which led to that occurrence. Tzu-Chi utilizes his body as an example, stating that no organ is more his body than any other, and that these organs exist and function outside of his control, perhaps dictated by a god, but no matter, because they continue to operate regardless. The dividedness which we see in objects can only be discerned when viewed in relation to other, and since object and other are innately related when making assessments, separation between the objects in existence cannot really exist. Tzu-Chi then discusses the convention of words, and how they work to convey messages which are really nothing at all. Words are created and conceptualized in the mind, and have no tangible nature. They rely upon nothing to exist, have no baseline for what they could mean, yet they have something which they say. This alludes to ideas supporting the recognition of “the Middle Way.” The idea of words as a convention, which may carry as much meaning as meaning can have, all whilst remaining as hollow as empty space, represents a duality. If we recognize this thorough emptiness of meaning, we can utilize words to our wholesome advantage as we lend them their significance, and further reject their usage as we see unfit.