In this essay I discuss language and its relation to Zen. In some sense these are really pre-zen ideas. By pre-zen I mean that one of the first obstacles to be overcome on the Zen path is the habit of always thinking in language. Once this step has been taken language becomes one more tool in the mental toolbox, to be picked up and put down when convenient or necessary. But this step is not an easy one.
Language pervades our thinking and reasoning more than many people realize.
In particular, I have freely borrowed from the many ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein . In no way do I mean to dismiss the ideas of the traditional Western philosophers. They worked with what they had in the milieu they were born into. While they may have tended to overgeneralize their findings, they nonetheless advanced our understanding of our world. Their work also led directly to symbolic logic, and thus to the computer you are presumably using to read this.