Why is truth inexpressible?

Why is truth inexpressible? Why can't it be told?

All words are small. All human efforts are limited. And then, it cannot be told straight. It can be communicated straight, but it cannot be told straight -- and that is the difference between a thinker and a meditator. The thinker goes roundabout because he has to go through thought. He searches for the sky through the clouds and gets lost in the clouds, may never reach the sky. The thinker gets lost in thoughts. The meditator starts by dropping thoughts. He starts by dropping thinking itself, and a moment comes when there is no thought: then there is immediacy. Then there is nothing between you and that which is. Then there is nothing at all -- you are bridged with reality. But that is an experience. Whenever you would like to tell that experience to somebody else you will have to use words, out of necessity, and words cannot…

A friend has asked: You say that truth cannot be expressed in words?

It cannot be said. That which is known by rising beyond the mind has no way of being told, because to tell it one needs the mind. What is not known through the mind cannot be said through the mind either.

A puzzled monk once said to fuketsu, "you say truth can be expressed without speaking, and without keeping silent. How can this be?" fuketsu answered, "in southern china, in the spring, when I was only a lad, ah!. How the birds sang among the blossoms."

Zen brings the whole truth to the world. Zen is a great blessing to the world; it brings the whole truth. The whole truth is: Truth cannot be said, and yet can be said. If not said, then showed, indicated. The ordinary duality is transcended. We are always moving from one pole of the duality to the other. Sometimes we say, "Yes, it can be said"; this is one pole. Then we become aware, "How can it be said?" -- the other pole. Then we keep silent, but then again we become aware that there is something left: "Yes, it can be said." This way it goes on moving, it swings. Zen says truth is a transcendence, transcendence of all duality. The duality between the word and the silence is also to be transcended. The Bible says in the beginning there was the word. The Vedas say in the beginning…

Beloved master, when you say that truth can only be realized and can't be described, what do you actually mean?

If you experience only things which can be explained, described, defined, then your world is very small and your mind is very childish. You go beyond mind only when you start experiencing things which mind finds itself incapable of bringing to language. To transcend language is one of the most significant things for anyone who is intelligent enough; otherwise, as far as idiots are concerned, they can express everything. They have never experienced anything which goes beyond mind. The truth is beyond mind; the truth is beyond language. That's why, Rahul, it can be experienced, but it cannot be described. One of the most absurd and most loving mystics of China was Chuang Tzu. If Rahul had gone to Chuang Tzu... He used to push sweets into people's mouths, forcibly. And you were asking, "Why can truth not be described?" and after you had swallowed the delicious sweet he would…

The master foso hoyen said: 'they say that buddha uttered five thousand and forty-eight truths during his lifetime. They include the truth of emptiness and the truth of being. They include the truth of sudden enlightenment and the truth of gradual enlightenment. Are not all these yea-sayings?

'BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, YOKA, IN THE "SONG OF ENLIGHTENMENT" SAYS THERE ARE NO BEINGS AND NO BUDDHAS -- SAGES ARE SEA-BUBBLES, AND GREAT MINDS ARE ONLY FLICKERINGS OF LIGHTNING. ARE NOT ALL THESE NAY-SAYINGS? 'OH MY DISCIPLES, IF YOU SAY YEA, YOU DENY YOKA, AND IF YOU SAY NAY, YOU CONTRADICT BUDDHA. IF BUDDHA WERE HERE WITH YOU, HOW WOULD HE SOLVE THIS PROBLEM? 'IF WE KNEW WHERE TO STAND WE WOULD QUESTION BUDDHA EVERY MORNING AND GREET HIM EVERY NIGHT. BUT AS WE DON'T KNOW WHERE TO STAND I WILL LET YOU INTO A SECRET: WHEN I SAY THIS IS SO, PERHAPS IT IS NOT A YEA-SAYING. WHEN I SAY THIS IS NOT SO, PERHAPS IT IS NOT A NAY-SAYING. 'TURN TO THE EAST AND SEE THE HOLY WESTERN LAND, FACE SOUTH TO SEE THE NORTHERN STAR.' But if a man is stupid and he becomes silent,…