"What is truth?" said Pontius Pilate to Jesus. The gospel tells us that Jesus made no reply.
Perhaps Pontius Pilate thought that Jesus was avoiding his question and refusing to answer. But Jesus was answering him. He was answering Pilate with his silence.
No set of words can ever encompass truth. Because words are grounded in duality. We cannot form the concept of "up" without the concept of "down." We can't form the concept of "hot" without the concept of "cold," and so on. So words are always expressing a limitation of some kind, because they can never include the whole.
But truth is vast. It cannot be encircled by mere words. It is vast, incomprehensible, all around us. And words only describe it; they can't be it, just as a menu can describe the food but can't be the food.
That's why when someone asked the Buddha if God existed, he refused to give an answer. When asked why he wouldn't answer, he said the following (I'm paraphrasing):
"If I say 'yes,' all I've done is add one more belief to the ten thousand that you already have. And if I say 'no,' all I've done is add one more belief to the ten thousand that you already have. But come sit beside me and meditate for a year, and then you'll know the truth for yourself."
That the real truth becomes apparent in deep silence is what Ramana Maharshi was referring to when he said, "Silence is the greatest teacher."
The great early Zen masters also indicated this when they talked about a transmission outside of words, outside the scriptures, grounded in the silence of "just sitting." They were talking about a truth that cannot be contained in words, but only in silence—as Jesus indicated to Pilate.
—jim sloman, summer 2000 for Nov 12
|
