Configuring a Set of Zen Koan as a Wisdom Container: Formatting the Gateless Gate for Twitter

Possibilities of polyhedral configuration of complex patterns of insight

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Introduction

The Zen koan offers a widely admired example of a provocative question to elicit insight. The classic collection of 48 such koan was compiled in 1228 by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai. The collection is known in Mandarin as Wúménguan and in Japanese as Mumonkan. It is commonly translated in English as The Gateless Gate, although the implications of this are contested -- as evident in the translation by Robert Aitken (The Gateless Barrier, 1991). A 49th koan, which appeared in a classic edition, has also been considered part of the set.

As noted in the extensive Wikipedia profile The Gateless Gate, the common theme of the koans and the commentary is the inquiry and introspection of dualistic conceptualization. Each koan epitomizes one or more of the polarities of consciousness that act like an obstacle or wall to the insight. The student is challenged to transcend the polarity that the koan represents and demonstrate or show that transcendence to the Zen teacher.

The following exercise is an experiment in adapting the succinct commentary on the 48 koan by Wumen -- namely not the koans themselves -- into the 140 character format of Twitter (onto which they were posted on 8 April 2012). Experiments have been made by others with Japanese 17-syllable haiku poetry on Twitter -- occasionally referred to as twaiku. It is to be noted that the ideograms of Chinese and Japanese allow for much more compact renderings of longer text within the Twitter format. It is therefore to be expected that the Wumen commentary already appears there in those scripts.

This initiative follows previous experimental adaptations of the classic Chinese texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and the T'ai Hsüan Ching. The most extensive of these experiments is Transformation Metaphors derived experimentally from the Chinese Book of Changes (I Ching) for sustainable dialogue, vision, conferencing, policy, network, community and lifestyle (1997). Others are listed separately (Documents relating to Patterns of I Ching / Tao te Ching). Possible associations to the role of Twitter are also discussed separately (Re-Emergence of the Language of the Birds through Twitter? Harmonising the configuration of pattern-breaking interjections and expletives, 2010; Tweeter, Tweeter, Little Star; How I wonder what you are, 2012).

Of particular interest in these experiments is the degree to which the set of distinct insights merits consideration as a form of concept map. It follows that there is a case for exploring configurations suggestive of the integrity they imply. One such exploration is undertaken here by mapping the 48 original koans onto a 48-edge rhombicuboctahedron. This could be considered a cognitive complexification of the cuboctahedron which, as the "vector equilibrium", was the form central to the preoccupations of R. Buckminster Fuller (Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, 1975/1979) as discussed separately (Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance: Cognitive Implication of Synergetics, 2009).

The argument is further developed separately -- in what is effectively a second part of this paper (Enabling Wisdom Dynamically within Intertwined Tori: rRequisite resonance in global knowledge architecture, 2012). It is there that the extensive conclusions and references are located.

It might well be said that global governance could certainly do with a "gateless gate" through which to transcend the polarized thinking into which it so frequently sinks.

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