To speak or not to speak

It’s my Hamlet koan, found of all places, in two books resting on my shelf. We find our koans, those apparent paradoxes to which we return again and again as we work to free ourselves from our conditioning, in the strangest places. I found many of my koans, plowing through the 300-odd in four hallowed collections with Roshi Bob. I found some in lines of liturgy which is not surprising. Others I found in unexpected places. Here’s one I found by putting together two book titles:

Seung Sahn Nim said, “Open mouth already a mistake.”

Later Dainin Katagiri said, “You have to say something.”

Seung Sahn was among the most influential of the Korean Zen teachers, coming to the US in1972. He died in 2004.  Katagiri Roshi came to the US in 1965, assisting Suzuki Roshi in establishing the San Francisco Zen Center before moving to Minneapolis in 1972 to establish the Minnesota Zen Center. I don’t know if Katagiri and Seung Sahn ever met, but to me, they seemed to be talking to each. It sounds like an argument. Who’s right?

I picked up my copy of Wu Kwang’s Open Mouth on Roshi Eve Marko’s recommendation shortly after its publication in 1997. It’s a rarity today. I’d never heard of the author and knew little of Seung Sahn, didn’t have any idea that in his title, Kwang was quoting his teacher. I picked up Say Something shortly after its publication in 1998, having already dog-eared my copy of Katagiri’s earlier Returning to Silence.

When these books landed together on my shelf, the koan was right there. Their titles together make a koan to which I keep returning. Speaking out, standing up against injustice, was a core value in my family. The Quakers said, “Speak truth to power.” I loved the courage in that. For most of my life, I’d had little doubt about the rightness of my opinions. Until graduate school. In graduate school Wittgenstein and Austin began to undermine my confidence in “truth,” but it was when I got to Zen that an axe was taken to my certainties. Although it would be years before Bernie began to use his “It’s only my opinion, man,” I’d got the idea. The truths, the important truths in life, can never be captured in words. Almost by osmosis, my confidence in my opinions was eroding. Seung Sahn put my realization into words.

Katagiri yanked my rug, brought me back to my childhood. You have to say something. You have to speak the truth. Even if it’s dangerous speak truth to power. Bear witness. But he wasn’t saying that Seung Sahn was wrong. Seung Sahn wasn’t saying that Katagiri was wrong.

They’re both right. You have to say something even though you know, as you speak, that what you are saying is not THE truth, not the whole truth, not the whole story. As I speak, as I bear witness, I can tell only my story, give voice only to my experience, to my piece of the truth. Hard to do? Yes. Hard indeed to hold these two seemingly antagonistic injunctions at the same time.