Raven 28: Buddha

What is the holy that cannot be spoken? Hint: Any answer that involves words isn't it. Wittgenstein said, in the final line of his cryptic Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent." But perhaps silence is not the only alternative to speaking? Or, what if speaking IS silence? I should have shut up after the first question. If not sooner.

Case

The next evening Woodpecker spoke up and said, "I'd like to follow up on Buddhist terms. Let's start with the basic one. What is Buddha?"
Raven said, "I won't say."
"Oh, come on!" Woodpecker exclaimed.
Raven let out a croak and flew into the Assembly Oak.

Verse

The most basic most eludes definition.
Would you constrain the stream of love poems?
Or otherwise delimit the limitless?
When a single leaf is clear,
what the master is talking about
doesn't much need to be.

Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon

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