Wisteria Around A Tree

A koan about words and conceptual frameworks reveals how questions themselves trap us, until laughter dissolves the trap.

Quote

Words of being and words of non-being are just like wisteria wound around a tree. If suddenly the tree falls down and the wisteria withers, where will the words go?
—Case 91, Shōyōroku.

In late 25’, I started reading Hoftstadter’s Gödel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. There, I was introduced to koans: short stories in zen buddhism commonly used to probe its readers to question their very own thoughts, and to let go of conceptual binaries like right and wrong, or existence and non-existence. When read carefully, koans often defy expectations and stimulate deeper self-reflection.

Out of curiousity, I got my hands on collections of koans and began reading them leisurely ever since. If you have never read a koan before, you might find reading them extremely puzzling—maybe even mind-numbing. It’s usually recommended that one seek a mentor before approaching these texts so that you have the necessary context to understand them, and to avoid misinterpreting them. Yes, they are both difficult to understand and easy to misunderstand.

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed certain recurring ideas across many koans: our reliance on conceptual frameworks; how these frameworks constrain our thinking; how we instinctively demand answers to questions, and how we unconsciously structure our questions to demand answers; how asking such questions ensnare us deeper in conceptual frameworks, and so on. One might describe such ideas as metacognition—thinking about thinking.

Back to the koan in question: Case 91, from the Book of Equanimity or Shōyōroku. In this koan, the character Sozan asks another character, Isan, the question featured at the top of this article. The quote contains a metaphor that depicts wisteria1 growing around a tree, and words are being compared to this twining vine. While I will not discuss the koan in its entirely, one may find the koan in at the bottom of the article.

First, notice that the vines are separate from the tree. Notice also that vines depends on trees for their survival—if the tree dies then so does the wisteria. But what exactly is the tree supposed to represent? And what does Sozan mean by words going places after the tree falls? I have come across several possible interpretations to this metaphor but I will go over the one that most resonates with me. The tree represents ontology, the nature of things’ being or non-being. In other words, ontology describes whether something exists or not, how they exist if they do, how they fit into categories like “real” or “conceptual” etc.

We use words to describe the nature of things, and these words depend on such structures to convey meaning. Now, I am hesitant to go any further as I fear I may end up constructing another conceptual structure by talking about there being some kind of metaphysical state outside of being and non-being. Remember, the point isn’t to arrive at some ‘correct’ position within or outside of the binary, or to assert something more or less about being/non-being. Personally, I think the point is to notice your patterns of thought and to let go of one’s attachment to specific outcomes and answers. And it is only by the end of the koan, when Sozan sought the advice of another figure did he retrospectively find the answer he was looking for in Isan’s reply (he laughed at Sozan’s question).

We can see how Sozan traps himself in conceptual frameworks in the final clause of his question. In asking “where” will words go, he presupposes that there must be a place for words. So, in relinquishing one conceptual framework, he lands himself in another. It is quite possible that he thought enlightenment could be attained by choosing the ‘correct’ side of a conceptual binary. Understandably, at the time of asking this question, Sozan wasn’t yet capable of receiving the answers he sought.

By extension, the character of Sozan can be read as an extension of the reader. The story begins with Sozan’s folly and ends in his epiphany, similar to the transformation readers of this koan may undergo as they ponder over this koan. Put simply, we are reading about a transformation that seeks to transform us. Have you realized that you’re looking at yourself in this proverbial mirror?! I was deeply pleased when I realized how this koan paralleled my own epiphany.

Before I conclude, I must add a disclaimer: most koans do not end in intelligent quips or contain magnificent punchlines. In fact, one must be careful not to attach a definitive response, action, or thought to a koan, lest it reduces the koan into an intellectual puzzle, bypassing the koan’s main function. I wrote about this koan because I found it especially intriguing, and because of how obvious its message is once you’ve decoded the metaphor. Is it obvious that the message is obvious? Not at all. Do most koans have even such skillfully woven metaphors? Unfortunately not.

Again, my core takeaway from this is how our dependence on conceptual frameworks trap our thought processes. We lose sight of a greater awareness of ourselves and our thinking. In fact, I don’t think the core question here was ever about reflecting on words and conceptual structures at all. Rather, I think it asks us to reflect on what Sozan (we) wanted from Isan in asking him this question, and what Isan’s laughter granted him (us).

For the full koan, see below.

Footnotes

  1. Wisteria is a genus of flowering plants that includes species of woody twining vines. ↩

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