I think it is a truism to say that the player cannot be understood by analyzing the many card games invented, including the cards dealt to the player in a card game. In that sense even our language cannot tell us about the user of language although I suspect there will be a lot of people who might disagree with me.
It is convenient and practical for us to use language as if it were the truth; as if it could speak on behalf of the user of language. In the case of Zen it is already aware that language is totally in adequate to penetrate the mystery of our true nature or the same, the Buddha-nature. Words, in other words, can't speak for the speaker of words nor even the thinker of thoughts.
When I use the term thinking, in the sense of producing thoughts, I have no idea or any way of seeing just how thoughts are formed by thinking. If I were to see the thinker before a thought is produced or, the same, at the precise moment a thought disappears, I might succeed in my endeavor.
Not only is Zen a direct attack on the usefulness of language for getting to ultimate reality, but also it is an attack on thought itself which is the basis of our ideas and concepts. In this sense, thought is like the quantum, the smallest amount of thingness that you canโt break into smaller parts or sub-thoughts.
Thought is never ultimate reality. If anything thought is congealed spirit, spirit being ultimate reality which is also absolutely universal, i.e., nowhere determinate. In the practice of Zen thought is useful insofar as it is finite and subject to total cessation (nirodha). The enlightening surprise for the Zen adept is when Mu/the barrier completely disappears (nirodha). Only then is the Buddha-nature realized which is thoroughly universal and spiritual.
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