The Unexamined God: Understanding Kōan and Eckhart's Language

The Unexamined God is Not Worth Worshipping: Understanding Kōan Literature and Meister
Eckhart’s Language of the Ground Through the Lens of Literary Performative Analysis
A senior thesis presented
By
Corbin G. Nall
to
The Department of Religious Studies
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the major in Religious Studies
Randolph College, founded as Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in 1891
April, 2012

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Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Part I: The Kōan
Structural Semantics…………………………………………………………………......10
How to Make Sense of the Senseless……………………………………………….........17
Part II: Eckhart and the Grunt
How to Perform the Ineffable………………………………............................................30
Final Thoughts…………………………………………………………………………………...39
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..42

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Introduction
A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Has a dog the Buddha Nature?” Zhaozhou answered, “No.”
This exchange between an unidentified monk and the Tang dynasty Chan master Zhaozhou
Congshen (778-897) is perhaps the most influential gong’an, or “public case,” in the Chinese
Chan, Korean Son, and Japanese Zen traditions. Within the Zen tradition, it is known as Jōshū’s
“Mu,” and is the first case usually assigned to beginning monks in the early stages of their
spiritual training. Song dynasty master Wumen Huikai (1183-1260) placed this exchange at the
beginning of his famous gong’an collection, the Gateless Barrier of the Chan Tradition
(Chanzong wumen guan, 1228). This work is a collection of forty-eight gong’an, to each of
which Wumen added a comment and a verse.
Wumen’s collection is by no means the only collection, nor the most comprehensive of
the collections. Indeed, the Gateless Barrier is much simpler and shorter in comparison to
another collection within the tradition, the Blue Cliff Record of Chan Master Foguo Yuanwu
(Foguo Yuanwu Chanshi Biyan lu). The Blue Cliff Record was composed about a hundred years
earlier than the Gateless Barrier and contains one hundred gong’an, to each of which has also
been added comments and verse by later masters.1
There are many more collections that gained
authority in the Chan tradition and by the late Song dynasty the gong’an earned a central place
within the literary and institutional identity of the Chan school, and later in the Korean Son and
Japanese Zen schools.2
Robert Sharf explains that many of the popular books written about Chan and Zen
1
More will be said about the structure of these collections below.
2
Robert H. Sharf, “How to Think with Chan Gong’an,” in Thinking with Cases: Special Knowledge in
Chinese Cultural History, ed. Charlotte Furth, Judith T. Zeitlin, and Ping-chen Hsiung (Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press, 2007), 206.

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Buddhism present the gong’an as “intentionally incoherent or meaningless.”3
According to one
interpretation, gong’an are “enigmatic and often shocking spiritual expressions based on
dialogical encounters between masters and disciples that were used as pedagogical tools for
religious training in the Zen Buddhist tradition.”4
This understanding of gong’an is associated
with the view that gong’an, received as the kōan in the Japanese Rinzai tradition, are conceived
of as a tool that triggers enlightenment and intends gong’an “not to communicate ideas so much
as to induce a transformative experience.”5
This experience is said to be ineffable and
incommunicable and comes about not as a result of thinking or reasoning.6
Sharf makes clear that the “notion that Chan is designed to induce a nonconceptual or
pure experience can be traced in part to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japanese
intellectuals such as D.T. Suzuki and Nishida Kitarō, who were culling from Western sources,
notably William James.”7
Such an experiential view belies the fact that the gong’an centers on a
monastic curriculum and a literary genre. As a result, scholars are now approaching gong’an
literature and Chan tradition through the lens of historical analysis, paying close attention to its
institutional context and literary history.8
According to Sharf, “it is no longer possible to reduce
Chan practice and Chan literature to a mere means intended to engender a singular and ineffable
spiritual experience.”9
Sharf may be partly right, and this essay does not intend to interpret
3
Ibid.
4
Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, ed., The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 3.
5
Sharf, “Gong’an,” 206.
6
Ruth Fuller Sasaki and Isshū Miura, The Zen Kōan: Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen, trans. Ruth Fuller
Sasaki (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1965), 8.
7
8
There is a large body of writing about the history of kōan interpretations. For further historical background
on kōan literature, see The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright.
The editors in this work provide an anthology that looks at the development of the kōan in its socio-political and
cultural contexts. They believe that much of the literature and recent scholarship of the kōan is limited by its
ahistorical context, possessing limited historical sources that have been misappropriated and misinterpreted.
9

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gong’an through the Jamesian mystical lens of descriptive experience. Rather, I intend to analyze
how gong’an literature operates linguistically in the light of performativity, which is to say, I
understand gong’an language not to be reporting or inducing any ineffable experience, but
working to perform ineffability through certain linguistic operations and strategies.
This literary performative analysis takes as its basis a perceived structural kinship
between the gong’an literature of Chan and Zen Buddhism and the vernacular sermons of
German Dominican Meister Eckhart (d. 1328). Eckhart is arguably the most influential and most
controversial medieval mystic author. His papal condemnation in 1329 attainted twenty-eight
propositions drawn from his works. Eckhart served as master at the University of Paris for two
periods during the fourteenth century and a teacher at the Dominican theologates at Strassburg
and Cologne. He wrote sermons both in Latin and his vernacular Middle High German (MHG),
wherein he took as his central theme the indistinct identity of God and the soul and employed a
variety of metaphors, allusions, paradox, oxymoron, and other forms of wordplay to express this
identity. There is much scholarly debate over how much weight should be given to his Latin and
MHG works in interpreting his mystical theology. My purpose is not to enter such conflict, but
rather to examine the fundamental term grunt found in his vernacular sermons.
There are many entries into Eckhart’s thought and theology, but I believe that the grunt is
a more appropriate route than others. According to Bernard McGinn, “The semantic basis in
Germanic linguistics for grunt is evident from the fact that there is no real equivalent for it in
other vernacular mysticism of the late Middle Ages or in Latin mystical literature, though
naturally there are a variety of analogues.”10
Grunt is a term present throughout Eckhart’s
10
Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man From Whom God Hid Nothing (New
York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001), 39.

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vernacular works and sermons and one which had considerable influence on subsequent
followers. In addition, almost everyone who has written on Eckhart, whether on his Latin or
vernacular works, has had something to say about the term grunt.11
Another reason for preferring grunt as the point of entry is because it is what McGinn
calls a “master” and “explosive metaphor.”12
Grunt as a master metaphor serves as an organizing
power for the whole range of linguistic strategies employed by Eckhart. Grunt as an explosive
metaphor breaks through normal categories of speech, as in the statement, “Here God’s ground is
my ground, and my ground is God’s ground.”13
McGinn also notes that grunt has a pragmatic
function as an explosive metaphor because it is based on “deep philosophical and theological
speculation” that are “meant to transform, or overturn, ordinary limited forms of consciousness
through the process of making the inner meaning of the metaphor one’s own in everyday life.”14
When studying the pragmatic function of Eckhart’s grunt, I turn to Greco-Roman scholar
Pierre Hadot, who, in his book Philosophy as a Way of Life, presents a radical thesis that
philosophy in the ancient world was not abstract doctrines of intellectual discourse, but rather
practices of self-mastery that concentrated on transforming particular attitudes and behaviors,
and the network of habits rooted therein. Such practices of existential transformation he calls
“spiritual exercises.”15
As a scholar of Greco-Roman antiquity and a historian of philosophy, Hadot developed
an acute awareness of Greco-Roman influences on the modern world. As cultures received
philosophical texts throughout the centuries, much of Greco-Roman literary and philosophical
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid., 37-38.
13
Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, trans., Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries,
Treatises and Defense (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1981), Sermon 5b, 183.
14
McGinn, Mystical Thought, 38.
15
Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase (Malden:
Blackwell Publishing, 1995), 81.

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works were modified, transformed, and misinterpreted to the point where they lost their original
meaning, or adopted an entirely new meaning. Hadot's task is to reclaim what philosophy meant
to its original audience by paying particular attention not just to the structure of philosophical
texts, but even more to the historical context in which they breathe. Many contemporary
understandings of philosophy presume that philosophical texts consist of abstract discourses to
be puzzled through by the analytical intellect. This presumption results in approaching
philosophical texts as documents to be understood rather than as meanings to be lived. Hadot
perceived a pattern behind the logical incoherencies, contradictions, and defects found within
Greco-Roman philosophical texts. Analysis of that pattern led him to believe that philosophy was
not primarily about knowledge, but about transformation. Ancient philosophical discourse was a
particular kind of teaching that sought to transform an individual’s very life by providing these
“spiritual exercises,” somatic and intellectual practices of self-mastery.
Hadot places great emphasis on the oral dimension of ancient philosophy as an essential
aspect of spiritual exercises. The philosophical texts handed down to us today were originally
intended as “material support for a spoken word intended to become spoken word again.”16
The
written word was therefore intended to be supplemental aid and to compliment the spoken word.
This material support was not primarily for the purposes of transmitting information or
knowledge, but to bring about a certain effect on the reader or listener. In this way, ancient
philosophical discourse intended “to form more than to inform.”17
Hadot sees this dimension of philosophical discourse within Platonic and Socratic
dialogues. Though the Platonic dialogues that we have today are not real dialogues, but are
16
Arnold I. Davidson, introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1995),
19.
17
Hadot, quoted in Davidson, introduction, 20.

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instead model dialogues that are intended to represent idealized dialogues,18
they have,
nevertheless, as in Socratic dialogues, the essential dialectical character that calls attention not to
“what is being talked about, but who is doing the talking.”19
For instance, in a Socratic dialogue,
Socrates’ interlocutor does not walk away with any imparted knowledge, for Socrates does not
teach anything, so to speak. Instead, Socrates annoyingly questions his interlocutor’s questions,
in effect putting the questions themselves into question. By doing so, Socrates forces not only the
interlocutor, but the reader “to pay attention to and take care of themselves.”20
Thus, Socrates
calls attention to the who rather than to the what.
A dialogue is a spiritual exercise because the interlocutor is invited to participate in a
communal examination of herself by putting the self in relation to itself.21
Every dialogue is a
spiritual exercise because it is an “exercise of authentic presence, to oneself and to others.”22
A
Socratic dialogue, exhibits this “authentic presence” because it shows that what is important is
not an object of knowledge or solution to a problem, but the path traversed, 23
the dialectical path
taken by the interlocutor and reader, which is why in most Socratic dialogues the conversation
abruptly ends without any solution to the problem posed at the beginning. This essential
characteristic “prevents the dialogue from being a theoretical, dogmatic exposé, and forces it to
be a concrete, practical exercise. For the point is not to set forth a doctrine, but rather to guide the
interlocutor towards a determinate mental attitude. It is a combat, amicable but real.”24
Thus,
Platonic and Socratic dialogues are both spiritual exercises “precisely insofar as they are
18
Hadot, Philosophy, 91.
19
Ibid., 89.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., 90.
22
Ibid., 91.
23
Davidson, introduction, 20.
24

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dialogues” that possess the “dialectical character of all spiritual exercises.”25
Hadot’s point is worth stressing because such combat is enacted in every spiritual
exercise. He says that “we must let ourselves be changed, in our point of view, attitudes, and
convictions. This means that we must dialogue with ourselves, and hence we must do battle with
ourselves.”26
For Hadot, “to philosophize is to learn how to dialogue.”27
Hadot argues that in order to “emerge victorious from this battle, it is not enough to
disclose the truth. It is not even enough to demonstrate it.”28
He goes on to say that “what is
needed is persuasion… the art of seducing souls.”29
In order to persuade, it is not enough to use
only philosophical discourse. Rather, what is needed most is “dialectic, which demands the
explicit consent of the interlocutor at every moment.”30
Dialectic keeps the interlocutor en route,
that is, it keeps the interlocutor ever engaged. It puts the interlocutor on a living path, meaning a
path that is actively lived and traversed at all times.
This path begins by calling attention to certain habits, conceptual patterns that often go
unnoticed. In doing so, the path interrupts these habits, bringing the interlocutor into
conversation with herself. This disruption calls the interlocutor’s very being into question,
“bring[ing] the interlocutor to discover the contradictions of his own position.”31
However,
“‘with a great deal of effort, one rubs names, definitions, visions and sensations against one
another’; one ‘spends a long time in the company of these questions’; one ‘lives with them’ until
the light blazes forth.”32
In other words, these disruptions become a way of life as they
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid.
27
Davidson, introduction, 20.
28
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
Plato, quoted in Ibid.

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reconstruct habits.
Hadot calls dialectic a spiritual exercise because the dialogue that puts the interlocutor on
a path “guides the interlocutor—and the reader—towards a conversion.”33
In other words, the
dialectical characteristic within a dialogue alters radically the interlocutor’s life. It prompts a
change in direction. It is this dialectical characteristic that seems to be present within gong’an
literature and Eckhart’s mystical theology. Is it possible to claim that there is something that
corresponds to a spiritual exercise—a dialogue—within gong’an literature and Eckhart’s
employment of grunt? Or must spiritual exercises be strictly limited to antiquity?
The following essay does not attempt to offer a comprehensive picture of any of the
theological or philosophical systems within gong’an literature or Eckhart’s mystical theology. I
selected texts that I felt most intensely, appropriately, and representatively support my thesis
about the performativity of and the dialectical character within gong’an34
literature and
Eckhart’s mystical theology. The primary mode of analysis is comparative and contextual. As a
comparative analysis, I hope that these readings will allow their language to echo and respond to
one another in a variety of historical, literary, and cultural contexts.
Part 1: The Kōan
Structural Semantics
T. Griffith Foulk argues that, “To fully master the kōan genre, in other words, one must
realize that it is in fact a literary genre with a distinct set of structures and rules, and furthermore
that it is a product of the poetic and philosophical imagination, not simply a historical record of
33
Hadot, Philosophy, 93. My emphasis.
34
In this introduction I have used Chinese names and terms. Henceforth, I will try to render Chinese names
and terms in their respective Japanese pronunciation, regardless of whether they were originally Chinese or
Japanese. This has been done in order not to disturb my secondary sources’ use of translational and transliteration
uses. If any Chinese appears, it is to preserve that secondary sources language.

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the utterances of awakened people.”35
According to Foulk, kōans are understood only in the
context of a literary genre. The full meaning of a kōan cannot be grasped without attention to the
protocols of that genre. It must be placed within the historical genre that concerns the discourses
and biographies of Chan patriarchs and the subsequent authoritative commentaries. Foulk goes
on to claim that “without that attribution, which is after all a literary device, the words in
question would no longer seem extraordinary, profound, or particularly worthy of
contemplation.”36
Thus, what is needed at the start of any kōan analysis is an understanding of
the genre to which the kōan belongs. For the purposes of keeping this study of kōans focused, I
will follow Foulk's definition and categorization of kōan literature.
According to Foulk, a kōan is a type of literature that consists of at least the following
formal features: (1) a narrative from the biography or record of a Chan patriarch or master, and
(2) a commentary on that narrative.37
This narrative is called a root case. A root case is
understood as the actual words or narrative of an ancient Chan patriarch. Foulk informs us that
“typically a root case takes the form of a dialogue between a patriarch and a disciple or some
other interlocutor who serves as a foil for a demonstration of the patriarch's wit and insight.”38
The commentary serves as an authoritative judgment on the root case, and therefore is in keeping
with the understanding of kōan as gong’an (“public case”). As we will see, this commentarial
authority is integral to the structure of kōans and therefore necessary in understanding the kōan
as a literary genre.
35
Griffith T. Foulk, “The Form and Function of Kōan Literature: A Historical Overview” in Heine and
Wright, Kōan, 41.
36
Ibid., 39.
37
Ibid., 27.
38
Ibid., 33.

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A text that contains a multitude of kōans, sometimes without any logical grouping that
may be reflected in the narrative, and numbered for reference is what Foulk calls a “kōan
collection.”39
These collections can be categorized as one of three types based on the number of
commentaries present. A collection that contains a number of old cases and commentary by a
single master is what Foulk refers to as “primary collections,”40
the most famous example being
the Mumonkan. “Secondary collections” are collections resembling primary collections, but
which include additional commentary by a second master, such as the Hekiganroku. Lastly, there
are the “tertiary collections” that are secondary collections that include additional commentary
by a third, contemporary master.41
In defining kōans, Foulk draws heavily upon Chung-feng Ming-pen's (1264-1325)
interpretation of gong’an found in his Extensive Record of Master Chung-feng (Chung-feng ho-
shang, kuang-lu):
Someone also asked, “Why is it that the [records] of the [teaching] devices and
circumstances (chi-yüan) of the buddhas and patriarchs are commonly called
kung-an?”
Huan [Chung-feng, of the Huan-chu Hermitage] replied, “The term kung-an is a
metaphor that compares [the records of Ch’an dialogues] to government
documents (kung-fu an-tu). The latter are what embody the law, and the
suppression of disorder in the kingly way truly depends on them. Government
(kung) is the principle (li) which unifies the wheel ruts of the imperial sages and
standardizes the roads of the empire. The existence of an empire presupposes
government, and the existence of government presupposes legal documents. After
all, the purpose of laws is to cut off impropriety in the empire. When government
documents (kung-an) are employed, then legal principles are in force; and when
legal principles are in force, the empire is rectified. When the empire is rectified,
kingly rule prevails.
39
Ibid., 27.
40
Ibid., 28.
41
Ibid.

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Now, when the devices and circumstances of the buddhas and patriarchs are
called “government documents” (kung-an), it is because they are also like this.
After all, they are not matters for individual speculation. [They are about] the
ultimate principle that corresponds with the spiritual source, tallies with the
marvelous signification, destroys birth and death, transcends sensate calculation,
and is proclaimed alike by all of the hundreds of thousands of bodhisattvas in the
three times and ten directions. Furthermore, [this principle] cannot be
comprehended through meanings, transmitted by words, discussed in texts, or
passed on through consciousness….
[Cases] such as “the oak tree in the courtyard,” three pounds of flax,” and “a dried
piece of shit,” which are impenetrable to the intellect, were devised and given to
people to bore into. This is like having to penetrate a silver mountain or a steel
wall. Even if there are bright-eyed people who can turn the tables and usurp
[some meaning from] the written expressions, their every comment in harmony, if
they wander self-indulgently every which way on the thousand roads and ten
thousand wheel ruts, they are without attainment and their opinions are
fraudulent…
Those who are regarded as elders [Ch'an patriarchs] in the world today are, as it
were, the “senior government officials” of the public [Ch'an] monasteries. Their
published biographies and collected records are the “official documents” (kung-
an) that record their inspiring pronouncements. Occasionally, men of old, when
they had some leisure from assisting disciples or when their doors were shut,
would take up (nien) those documents, categorize (p’an) them, comment on them
in verse (sung), and supply alternate responses (pieh) to them. Surely they did not
do so just to show off their own opinions or contradict the ancient worthies.
Certainly they did it because they grieved to think that the great dharma might be
misapprehended in the future. They only resorted to such expedients (fang-pien)
to open the wisdom eye of all who followed, and because they hoped to enable
them to attain awakening. [The records of the patriarchs] are called “official”
(kung) because they prevent private interpretations, and they are called
“documents” (an) because they require that one match tallies with the buddhas
and patriarchs.42
According to Chung-feng, gong’an referred to collections of old cases that have been
commented on as a clarifying and protective measure by Chan masters, texts such as the
Hekiganroku and Mumonkan, which today are known as kōan collections.43
Foulk argues that
Chung-feng’s main point in the above passage was that kōans were used as a measure to assess
42
Chung-feng Ming-pen, quoted in Foulk, “Form and Function,” 21-22.
43
Foulk, “Form and Function,” 22.

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the attainment of students.44
They were called gong-an because they were likened to government
laws that exerted some level of authority.45
As we see in this quote, kōans are meant to “match
tallies with the buddhas and patriarchs,” assessing one’s appropriation of the dharma, which is to
say, commentarial discourses in kōan literature exert a certain level of authority that can stand
alongside the authorities of the ancient patriarchs. Kōan literature contains at least two formal
features that reflect this authority: (1) a master or patriarch in a root case who sits in the position
of a judge over his interlocutor student, and (2) a master commenting on a root case who sits in
the position of judge over that particular case, and therefore by extension the ancient patriarch.46
At the heart of kōan collections is the root case to which the commentaries are appended.
A Chan patriarch with a root case is one who has achieved enlightenment and therefore
represents the perspective of one who is enlightened, seeing all of reality clearly, and acting as
judge over the inferior student, who has not achieved enlightenment and does not see clearly.
The authority of judge falls upon the ancient patriarch in the root case.
When a root case is commented on and put into the contents of a kōan collection, the
authority shifts to the voice of the commentator, who now acts as judge over the root case. In
doing so, the commentator's voice takes on the role as judge in the dichotomy of the master and
disciple relationship. However, as Foulk notes, this replication should not be seen as simply an
additional awakened voice to that of the patriarch, but rather as a “hierarchy of authoritative
voices in which the level of commentarial discourse is privileged over that of the root case.”47
The commentator's voice now serves as a new foil for a new demonstration of his insights
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., 20.
47
Ibid., 33.

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against that of the patriarch's. For example, in primary collections, the verse comments put that
commentator in the position of judge over the Chan masters and patriarchs. In doing so, the
commentator becomes the new authoritative heir to the lineage and also demonstrates his own
enlightened interpretation of that particular root case. Similarly, in secondary collections, this
hierarchy is reproduced in the secondary verse comments. This commentator not only assumes a
position of authority in reference to Chan masters and patriarchs, but also to the previous verse
comments. In this way, kōan collections become living literature as each commentator strives to
surpass the previous authority. Whoever has the last word, the last judgment, inherits the position
of master.
This dialectic can be interpreted as embodying the principle of emptiness, as understood
in the Mahayana perfection of wisdom sūtras, the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras. According to this
principle, phenomena lack any inherent existence. All predicates, both positive and negative,
when asserted, assume the inherent or substantial existence of phenomena. Therefore, all
predication is ultimately false insofar as there is no inherent subject that can be appropriately and
definitively posited. This means that all predications can be refuted insofar as it is impossible to
have any ultimate meaning. This creates what Foulk calls the “dialectic of negation” where “each
successive rebuttal of a preceding remark is both 'true' in that it points to the impossibility of the
attempted predication and 'false' in that it unavoidably employs predication in the process.”48
Kōan literature, understood according to the “dialectic of negation,” is a rhetorical device
wherein even the insights and voices of Chan masters and patriarchs are “fundamentally flawed
and in need of rebuttal lest someone cling to them as ultimately meaningful expressions of
48
Ibid., 35.

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truth.”49
Thus, kōan literature embodies not so much a truth, but rather a radical deconstructive
dialectical technique that always reiterates the principle of emptiness.50
There are other ways to understand this interpretation. Mahayana Buddhists liken the
Buddha's teaching to a raft that is used to cross a river. After one has used the raft to cross the
river, the raft should be discarded. Otherwise, the raft will become a burden for the one trying to
carry it. As with the raft, the Buddha's teachings should not be taken as definitive, for even his
teachings are empty of substantial meaning and inherent value. The Buddha will become a
burden, an obstacle, if one takes his teachings as the truth itself. In a similar vein, through the
“dialectic of negation,” the kōan functions as a radical rhetorical device to quash those who
would otherwise reify the insights and voices of the Chan masters and patriarchs. The challenge
for the commentator, then, is to respond in such a way that does not uphold the previous
authorities in a manner that would posit ultimate meanings of truth. As Sharf explains, “Chan
doctrine, best exemplified by the gong’an genre, functioned not as a prescriptive model but as a
metacritique... serving as a reminder of the contingency of all forms, including the teachings of
the Buddha himself.”51
As a radical deconstructive dialectical technique, kōan study is comparable to Hadot’s
“dialectical exercise.” There are two reasons for this. In the first place, through verse comments
the commentator is put into a dialogue with the Chan masters and patriarchs. Any subsequent
commentator is also put into a dialogue with the preceding commentator, masters, and patriarchs.
The commentator is comparable to Hadot’s interlocutor in a Platonic or Socratic dialogue, who is
guided by the kōan dialogue.
49
Ibid.
50
Sharf, “Gong'an,” 214-216.
51
Ibid., 216.

17
In the second place, the commentator prevents the kōan from becoming any kind of
doctrine that expresses some kind of truth. This is because the commentator creates a dialogue
that not only embodies the principle of emptiness but also performs it. This point is worth
stressing because as we saw earlier, according to Hadot, a dialogue is “not to set forth a doctrine,
but rather to guide the interlocutor towards a determinate mental attitude.”52
This is also true of
kōans. The dialectical characteristic present within a kōan is precisely Foulk’s “dialectic of
negation” that uses deconstructive discourse to avoid positing any meanings of truth, and in
doing so, performs emptiness.
How to Make Sense of the Senseless
Empty-handed I go, and behold the spade is
in my hands;
I walk on foot, and yet on the back of an ox
I am riding;
When I pass over the bridge,
Lo, the water floweth not, but the bridge doth flow.53
As D.T. Suzuki notes, “nothing can be more illogical and contrary to common sense than these
four lines.”54
However, this stanza is truthful to the spirit of Zen, so often characterized and
misrepresented as anti-intellectual and illogical. Indeed, Zen’s mythical origins begin with the
giving of a flower, a smile between two individuals, a transmission passed without the use of
words. Yet, Zen enjoys a rich history of literature, evident in its production of one of the largest
bodies of literature in East Asian Buddhism. For instance, the Mumonkan and Hekiganroku
collections of Zen comprise a total of 148 kōans, each of which may strike many readers as
illogical. Consider case 37 of the Mumonkan:
52
53
Jenye (Shan-hui, 497-569), sometimes known as Fudaishi (Fu-tai-shih), quoted in D.T. Suzuki, An
Introduction to Zen Buddhism (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1949), 58.
54
Suzuki, Introduction, 58.

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A monk asked Jōshū, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming to China?”
Jōshū said, “The oak tree in the garden.”
Mumon’s comment:
If you understand Jōshū’s answer intimately, there is no Shakya before you, no
Maitreya to come.
Mumon’s verse:
Words cannot express things;
Speech does not convey the spirit.
Swayed by words, one is lost;
Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.55
Or case 44:
Basho Oshō said to his disciples, “If you have a staff, I will give you a staff. If
you have no staff, I will take it from you.”
Mumon’s comment:
It helps me wade across a river when the bridge is down. It accompanies me to the
village on a moonless night. If you call it a staff, you will enter hell like an arrow.
Mumon’s verse:
The depths and shallows of the world
Are all in its grasp.
It supports the heavens and sustains the earth.
Everywhere, it enhances the doctrine.
Or case 18:
A monk asked Tōzan, “What is Buddha?” Tōzan said, “Masagin!” [three pounds
of flax].
Mumon’s comment:
Old Tōzan attained the poor Zen of a clam. He opened the two halves of the shell
a little and exposed all the liver and intestines inside. But tell me, how do you see
Tōzan?
Mumon’s verse:
“Three pounds of flax” came sweeping along;
55
Henceforth, all kōans will be from Katsuki Sekida, trans., Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and the
Blue Cliff Records, ed. A.V. Grimstone, (Shambhala Publications, 2005).

19
Close were the words, but closer was the meaning.
Those who argue about right and wrong
Are those enslaved by right and wrong.
What possible logical connection can there be between Bodhidharma’s arrival and an oak
tree or between the Buddha and three pounds of flax? How are readers and critics supposed to
approach these and other kōans given the apparent breakdown of normal language use? Henry
Rosemont explains that “every speaker and writer has basic commitments to the rules of logic
and language.”56
We rely on these shared commitments, so what do we do when that reliance
fails? We should be able to respond that the Buddha was perhaps a holy man, a mendicant, or a
prince, but surely not three pounds of flax.
Many think that Zen is against intellectualization. Suzuki reinforces this view when he
says that intellectualization “leads us nowhere but to an endless maze of entangling thistles.”57
He also states that the intellect is the “most deadly enemy of Zen.”58
Yet, Zen cannot hold an
anti-intellectualist view, for nonsense has no rationale, nor can nonsense serve as the basis for an
established curriculum and literary genre. Do Zen masters reject those “basic commitments” of
“every speaker and writer”—have they lost their senses?
The dilemma we face in approaching the kōan is in determining whether or not there was
reason in the rhyme of the Zen masters. If not, then Zen literature is little more than poetry. But
if indeed there is some reason in their rhyme, then there would seem to be, as Rosemont says, a
“method to their madness.”59
56
Henry, Rosemont, Jr., “The Meaning is the Use: Kōan and Mondo as Linguistic Tools of the Zen Masters,”
Philosophy East and West 20 (1970), 111, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1398142.
57
D.T. Suzuki, quoted in Ibid., 110.
58
D.T. Suzuki, quoted in Ibid.
59
Rosemont, “The Meaning is the Use,” 110.

20
Zen Buddhism holds that language hinders our perception and appreciation of reality. In
exposition of this aspect of Zen, D.T. Suzuki argues that “we are too much of slaves to words
and logic. So long as we remain thus fettered we are miserable and go through untold
suffering.”60
As a hindrance to a clear view of reality, language is a source of suffering.
Language hinders insofar as it makes artificial distinctions. Conventional thinking is dualistic,
discriminating between subject and object, and the communicative function of language is built
upon such discrimination. Zen seeks to bring about a new way of understanding reality apart
from such a dualistic framework. It demands that the student take on a new perspective, a
perspective from the standpoint of the All, and in turn a new way of life. If Zen wishes to instill a
new orientation toward the world in the student, it must eschew the conventions of language and
thus the artificial, constructed framework of names and logic. The principal task of the master is
to alter radically the discriminating intellect and the language that serves it by convention. An
existential metamorphosis is needed. The old framework of logic and intellect “must be cut short
if Zen consciousness is to unfold itself, and the kōan is constructed eminently to serve this
end.”61
However, a master cannot simply replace the old perspective of the student with a new
one. In the first place, “it is not possible for him to abandon cognitively that frame of reference
on the strength of arguments”62
alone, especially given the conventionality of argumentation. For
instance, I may read and understand Nagarjuna’s logical analysis of emptiness in his
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, but still be unable to view reality through the lens of emptiness. I
cannot ‘see’ the lack of inherent existence in the desk before me. Similarly, simply knowing that
60
Suzuki, Introduction, 61.
61
D.T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 2nd
ser. (London; Rider and Co., 1950), 89.
62

21
all matter is comprised of atoms does not allow me to see the desk as a conglomeration of atoms.
No matter what I am told, under my current and conventional condition I still see the desk, not
the atoms, nor its emptiness.
It is also not possible to simply tell the student her source of trouble, for doing so does
not alleviate the problem, but merely identifies it, usually without any meaningful
transformation. A doctor does not cure a disease by naming it, but by applying the appropriate
antidote. A poor man does not alleviate his hunger nor quench his thirst by knowledge of food
and water. Hence, “purely logical analysis, even if correct, will in all probability not eliminate
the problem for them.”63
The Zen masters, therefore, devised the kōan as a method of
metamorphosis. They operationalized language to point to its own limitations. How, then, is a
kōan employed to alter radically the student’s existential frame? Consider case 43 from the
Mumonkan:
Shuzan Oshō held up a shippei [staff of office] before his disciples and said, “You
monks! If you call this a shippei, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a
shippei, you ignore the fact. Tell me, you monks, what will you call it?”
Mumon’s comment:
If you call it a shippei, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a shippei, you
ignore the fact. Words are not available; silence is not available. Now, tell me
quickly, what is it?
Mumon’s verse
Holding up the shippei,
He takes life, he gives life.
Opposing and ignoring interweave.
Even Buddhas and patriarchs beg for their lives.
Using this same example, Rosemont observes that it is easy to conclude that a Zen master
may be using language either for the factual purpose of conveying or requesting information, or
63
Ibid., 113.

22
for the literary purpose of producing feelings and moods, as found in poetry. However,
Rosemont insists that “such a conclusion is incorrect.”64
While the kōan may use language for
factual and literary purposes, the primary purpose is not to achieve factual and literary ends.
Anyone who approaches kōans as conveying some kind of truth or a form of poetry entirely
misses their primary purpose. In fact, to do so is to no longer understand a kōan as a kōan. It is
neither an information delivery system nor art.
Rosemont’s approach to kōan study uses J.L. Austin’s distinction between
“perlocutionary” and “illocutionary” speech acts.65
The British philosopher J.L. Austin once
observed that there was a class of utterances that were meaningful, but did not express any truth
value. He assumed that when someone says, “I promise to come to your room,” she is neither
reporting nor describing the promise, but rather is doing the promise. He labeled such utterances
“performatives” in contrast to “constatives.” Performatives are utterances that are neither true
nor false as mere sayings or statements, but are supposed to be utterances that perform some kind
of action. In contrast, constatives are utterances that are sayings or statements that communicate
some kind of truth value.66
Austin would later abandon such a distinction. Performatives turned
out to be capable of truth value and constatives turned out to be capable of performing.67
He later
replaced the performative-constative distinction with the locutionary, illocutionary, and
perlocutionary model.
Austin called “illocutionary” and “perlocutionary” those speech acts that can be
performed. These speech acts are but one of three levels of an utterance, where there is the act of
saying something, what is done in saying something, and what is done by saying something, to
64
Ibid., 115.
65
Ibid., 116.
66
John R. Searle, “Contemporary Philosophy in the United States,” in A Blackwell Companion to
Philosophy, 2nd
ed., ed. Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 7.
67
Ibid., 7-8.

23
which he labeled “locutionary,” “illocutionary,” and “perlocutionary” speech acts, respectively.68
For instance, suppose that a store manager utters the statement, “The store will be closing in ten
minutes.” The manager is performing the locutionary act of saying that the store will be closing
in ten minutes. In saying this, the manager is also performing the illocutionary act of informing
the customers that the store will close soon and that they should conclude their shopping. The
manager is performing the perlocutionary act by telling the customers to stop shopping and buy
their merchandise. However, the perlocutionary act is completed only if the customers actually
do finish shopping and buy their merchandise. Thus, all three levels may be performed by the
same utterance.
Locutionary speech acts are important in such situations “where the speaker says one
thing but, not speaking literally, means (in the sense of trying to convey) something else instead,
where the speaker means what he says and indirectly means something else as well, and where
the speaker says something but doesn't mean anything at all.”69
Locutionary speech acts also give
us the linguistic information needed for other acts. Because utterances are more than just for
communicative or informative ends, we need Austin’s illocutionary and perlocutionary
distinction. These speech acts have two levels of success: “considered merely as an illocutionary
act, a request (for example) succeeds if your audience recognizes your desire that they do a
certain thing, but as a perlocutionary act it succeeds only if they actually do it.”70
Thus, a certain
kind of response is needed from someone before a perlocutionary act is deemed successful.
This point is worth stressing because, according to Rosemont, it is the particular kind of
response—the perlocutionary act—that is the primary function of a kōan. He argues that a kōan’s
68
“Speech Acts and Pragmatics,” in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language, ed. Michael Devitt
and Richard Hanley (Blackwell Publishing, 2003), http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/Spch.Prag.htm (accessed April
22, 2012).
69
Ibid.
70
Ibid.

24
intention is to extract a specific kind of response from its listener: in the kōan the “Zen master is
not performing illocutionary but perlocutionary speech acts; he has a specific intent, a specific
response which he is desirous of eliciting from his students, and the content of his utterances has
little relevance to that response.”71
In this way, a kōan has a rationale, no matter how nonsensical
at the locutionary level. However, unlike Rosemont, I argue that the locutionary level and
illocutionary levels are as equally important as the perlocutionary level, for it alone cannot lead
to a transformation.
Let us return to case 18 of the Mumonkan that we encountered earlier: A monk asked
Tōzan, “What is Buddha?” Tōzan said, “Masagin!” [three pounds of flax]. We notice at first
glance that the locutionary level of this kōan does not accord with our conventional language.
How can the Buddha be three pounds of flax? We discussed earlier that a kōan is a dialogue of
negation that uses radical deconstructive discourse. It is true that on one level this dialogue
performs emptiness, but what else might it do?
On the locutionary level, the language of the kōan is both responding to something and
offering something new. Rosemont may think that the answers “three pounds of flax” or “shit-
stick” to the question of “What is Buddha?” is to make a categorical mistake because these
predicates in no way apply to people.72
But it is precisely these kinds of nonconventional answers
that are critical for understanding kōans. Master Lin-chi instructs us that “If you meet a Buddha,
kill the Buddha.”73
Why such an antagonistic attitude? Is not Buddha to be revered? He will later
tell us that “there’s no Buddha, no Dharma, no practice, no enlightenment. Yet you go off like
71
72
Ibid.
73
Burton Watson, trans., The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi (Columbia: Columbia University Press,
1999), 52.

25
this on side roads, trying to find something.”74
What is it that we are trying to find? What is
Master Lin-chi responding to? Consider other examples:
A monk asked Ummon, “What is Buddha?” Ummon replied, “Kanshiketsu!”
Mumon’s comment:
Ummon was too poor to prepare plain food, too busy to speak from notes. He
hurriedly took up shiketsu to support the Way. The decline of Buddhism was thus
foreshadowed.
Mumon’s verse:
Lightning flashing,
Sparks shooting;
A moment’s blinking,
Missed forever.
In this example from case 21 of the Mumonkan, Ummon’s reply to the question “What is
Buddha?” is nonconventional, for kanshiketsu refers to a dry shit-stick, which was used in old
times like toilet paper. The image is at once both sickening and polluting. As a religious image,
the Buddha should be glorious, pure, and sacred, not a kanshiketsu. Ummon’s answer comes to
the monk like a slap in the face. It smashes the fixed religious image of the Buddha.
Daibai asked Baso, “What is the Buddha?” Baso answered, “This very mind is the
Buddha.”
Mumon’s comment:
If you directly grasp Baso’s meaning, you wear the Buddha’s clothes, eat the
Buddha’s food, speak the Buddha’s words, do the Buddha’s deeds—that is, you
are the Buddha himself. However, alas! Daibai misled not a few people into
taking the mark on the balance for the weight itself. How could he realize that
even mentioning the “Buddha” should make us rinse out our mouths for three
days? If a man of understanding hears anyone say, “This very mind is the
Buddha,” he will cover his ears and rush away.
Mumon’s verse:
The blue sky and bright day,
No more searching around!
“What is the Buddha?” you ask:
With loot in your pocket, you declare yourself innocent.
74
Ibid., 53.

26
This example from case 30 of the Mumonkan should be read in unison with case 33: A monk
asked Baso, “What is the Buddha?” Baso answered, “No mind, no Buddha.” It is an old saying
that the mind is the Buddha, as we see in case 30. But in case 33, Baso denies the mind and the
Buddha himself. Mumon tells us in case 30 that based on Baso’s answer, Dubai “misled not a
few people into taking the mark on the balance for the weight itself.” Here, Mumon is cautioning
us not to fall into the trap of thinking about the Buddha as one might normally, that is, as a
constructed concept outside of oneself. Earlier in his preface, Mumon warns us not to follow the
words of others, “As for those who try to understand through other people’s words, they are
striking at the moon with a stick; scratching a shoe, whereas it is the foot that itches.” In a similar
vein, Mumon tells us in his comment on case 1, “In order to master Zen, you must pass the
barrier of the patriarchs.” Both Baso and Mumon warn us against becoming too attached to the
words of the Buddhas and patriarchs. Indeed, we should kill the Buddha.
What does it mean to kill the Buddha? Should we actually seek out and murder the
Buddha? If not, how should we think of this and the other above examples? In these kōans, we
see a student asking the master “What is Buddha?” This is a common question posed to Zen
masters and each master answers differently. When a student poses such a question, they already
have an expectation. They might have in their mind a fixed image of the Buddha—pure and
sacred—and the master’s answer should reflect such images. Yet, the Zen master’s answer
comes as a blow to such an expectation. This kind of answer is called “breaking the thinking
stream of consciousness.”75
In other words, a kōan uses language to cut short our expectations. It
challenges our religious signifiers. In doing so, it makes us reflect and refocus our religious
75
Two Zen Classics, 78.

27
vocabularies. Thus, a kōan is a critical response to conventional ways of thinking. It works
against our conventional language, reality, and understanding.
However, a kōan is not merely an object or tool. Its primary function is not to sever the
root of thinking. Rather, a kōan is and belongs to a process. Remember that a kōan is similar to
Hadot’s “dialectical exercise.” This process involves three key features: recognition of the self,
disruption of the self, and reconstruction of the self, to which I ascribe the locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary levels, respectively.
The locutionary level lies in the act of saying something unconventional. This dialogue
begins the first part of a conversation that the student may have with herself. It opens the door
for her to begin building a relationship of the self to the self by the recognition of herself in her
habitual, conventional ways of thinking. Calling the Buddha three pounds of flax or a shit-stick
sets the stage for her to enter into a relationship with herself.
The radical deconstructive discourse of the dialogue then creates a “dialectic of negation”
that ‘negates’ conventional predication. In other words, the radical deconstructive technique of a
kōan disrupts the student by shocking her out of the rut of dualistic thinking—there is no ‘right’
or ‘wrong’ way of thinking of the Buddha. Conventional concepts are placed alongside
nonconventional concepts. As the two rub against each other, they create static that shocks her.
Here, the illocutionary level is what is done in saying the kōan, that is, a disruption of the self
occurs in studying the kōan.
As she lives in the company of this disruption, it becomes a way of life for her. This
disruption as a way of life is the reconstruction of the self because it is a transformation of the
self, and the habits rooted therein. Here lies the perlocutionary level where the kōan has
extracted a specific kind of response. In other words, through vigilant study, she has enabled the

28
kōan to become a way of life. The response, the perlocutionary act, is a transformation of the self
and a reorientation towards the world.
We can now account for the dense literary genre of the kōan and its monastic curriculum.
As mentioned earlier, the written word of ancient philosophical texts was intended to be
supplemental aid and to compliment the spoken word. The material support was not intended to
impart any knowledge, but to help in producing an effect on the student. The kōan collections
work in a similar way. They are written word meant to be a support practice to help students
learn disruption as a way of life.
In addition to material support, there were also certain practices that ancient
philosophical schools engaged in. According to Hadot, the art of meditation was practiced by
Socrates and among his disciples.76
He quotes Aristophanes in his Clouds, who alludes to the
Socratic meditative habits:
Now, think hard and cogitate; spin round in every way as you concentrate. If you
come up against an insoluble point, jump to another… Now don’t keep your mind
always spinning around itself, but let your thoughts out into the air a bit, like a
may-beetle tied by its foot.77
Hadot calls meditation the “practice of dialogue with oneself.”78
Meditation as a spiritual
exercise is an examination of the self, or one’s essential being. Doing so makes one attentive to
oneself. Only one who has truly conversed with oneself can have a genuine encounter with
others. Following this, Hadot tells us that “dialogue can be genuine only within the framework of
presence to others and to oneself.”79
76
77
Aristophanes, Clouds, quoted in Ibid., 90-91.
78
79
Ibid.

29
Meditation, or zazen, is also a support practice in Zen Buddhism that functions alongside
kōan study within Zen’s monastic curriculum. Insofar as meditation is an examination or
dialogue with oneself that allows for dialogue with others, zazen is also a study of the self. Zen
Master Dōgen once wrote that, “To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is
to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.”80
To study the self is to
break through subject-object duality. Realizing that the self is merely a reified concept—a
construction—one is no longer separated from others. Only then can one have an authentic
encounter with others.
Such a transformation and breakdown of the self is not easy, and it is precisely here that
Hadot’s “spiritual exercises” come in. Through vigilant study these exercises aid in
reconstructing the self. “Spiritual exercises,” like dialogues and meditation practices, are support
practices that help the student learn disruption as a way of life. As a “dialectical exercise,” the
kōan corresponds exactly to a “spiritual exercise.” This is because the kōan guides an individual
towards a conversion by calling attention to oneself, disrupting oneself, and reconstructing
oneself. The literary genre of the kōan is situated among other support practices, such as zazen,
that also aid in this transformation and exist within the larger monastic curriculum of Zen
Buddhism. As these exercises become a way of life, they change the very life of the individual.
Rosemont’s insight into kōans as perlocutionary speech acts is useful alongside Hadot’s
“spiritual exercises.” What both show us is that the kōan is not meant to be an object of
knowledge, but is meant to do something. In the light of performativity, the kōan is meant to
80
Eihei Dōgen, Moon in a Dewdrop, ed. Kazuaki Tanahashi, trans. Kazuaki Tanahashi et al. (New York:
North Point Press, 1995), 70.

30
transform rather than to inform. Insofar as the kōan is meant to bring about a transformation in
an individual, it can correspond to a “spiritual exercise.”
Part II: Eckhart and the Grunt
How to Perform the Ineffable
In Sermon 52, Eckhart addresses his audience with the following words:
Now I say that God, so far as he is “God,” is not the perfect end of created beings.
The least of these beings possesses in God as much as he possesses. If it could be
that a fly had reason and could with its reason seek out the eternal depths of the
divine being from which it issued, I say that God, with all that he has as he is
“God,” could not fulfill or satisfy the fly. So therefore let us pray to God that we
may be free of “God.”81
These words invite us to consider the dilemma of divine ineffability embodied in Eckhart’s use
of language. For the first thing to note about Eckhart is his constant insistence upon divine
ineffability. He does not, however, simply state that God is ineffable. Eckhart realized that to
state divine ineffability is to fall into a logical contradiction. McGinn quotes St. Augustine from
his On Christian Doctrine, who remarked, “If what is said were ineffable, it would not be said.
And for this reason God should not be said to be ineffable, for when this is said something is
said. A contradiction in terms is created, since if that is ineffable which cannot be spoken, then
that is not ineffable which can be called ineffable.”82
In other words, if one were to claim
ineffability, a name “X” must be given, as in the statement “X is ineffable.” Any such kind of
statement “generates the aporia that the subject of the statement must be named (as X) in order
81
Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, Sermon 52, 200.
82
Augustine, quoted in Bernard McGinn, “The God Beyond God: Theology and Mysticism in the Thought
of Meister Eckhart,” The Journal of Religion 61 (1981), 11, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1202156.

31
for us to affirm that it is beyond names.”83
If X is said to be unknown, beyond names, then it
cannot be called X. A move of negation is therefore required. But even in the act of negation,
there must necessarily be substitutes for a name that is beyond all names. An infinite spiral of
linguistic regress ensues, wherein “each statement I make—positive or ‘negative’—reveals itself
as in need of correction. The correcting statement must then itself be corrected, ad infinitum.”84
This dilemma did not reduce Eckhart to silence, however. Rather, in response to this
dilemma, Eckhart began with the assertion of ineffability and pushed the “discursive
consequences of that assertion to the extreme.”85
He developed strategies not for expressing what
cannot be expressed, but for performing it. In these linguistic strategies, “the regress is harnessed
and becomes the guiding semantic force, the dynamis, of a new kind of language,”86
and
therefore a new orientation toward the world.
Similar to the Zen masters, Eckhart operationalized language and pushed it to its logical
conclusion in order to point to its own limitations and beyond itself. Eckhart employed a variety
of metaphors to perform such a task: the desert motif; nothingness (nihtheit); the godhead
(gotheit); the spark (vünkelîn) of the soul; the ground (grunt) of the soul; naked (blos) being; and
the little castle or town (bürgelîn) into which Jesus was received, among others. According to
Michael Sells, the proliferation of metaphors used by Eckhart is “for keeping such references
from hardening into false names for the unnameable.”87
83
Michael Sells, Mystical Language of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 2.
84
Ibid.
85
Ibid., 7.
86
Ibid., 2.
87
Ibid., 148.

32
The topic of concern for this essay is Eckhart’s use of the term grunt. According to
McGinn, the term grunt can be understood in four different ways—two literal and two abstract.88
First, it may be understood as the literal and physical ground of the Earth where one stands.
Second, it may refer to the base or bottom of something. Abstractly, it may refer to the origin,
cause, or beginning of something. Finally, it may refer to the innermost essence of something. It
is in this last sense that Eckhart employed the metaphor of grunt to refer to the hidden depths of
God, where the soul and God are ultimately one without distinction. Grunt is the uncreated part
in the soul that is identical to God, as in the statement, “God’s ground is my ground, and my
ground is God’s ground.”89
McGinn notes that “the language of the ground is meant to confuse in order to
enlighten.”90
Indeed, Eckhart delights in creating a language teeming with seeming paradoxes,
contradictions, and other forms of wordplay to perform divine ineffability. These wordplays,
including the language of the ground, are meant to be “both playful and serious insofar as they
‘play’ a role in the practice of deconstructing the self and freeing it from all that pertains to the
created world.”91
In the introduction, I mentioned that McGinn classifies the grunt as both a “master
metaphor,” because it guides most of Eckhart’s theological discourse and linguistic strategies to
describe the relationship between God and soul, and as an “explosive metaphor,” because it
breaks through traditional manners of speaking to create new forms of speech, one that
88
89
Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, Sermon 5b, 183.
90
91
Ibid.

33
transforms language.92
In order to see how the grunt is an explosive metaphor, we must see how
Eckhart actually employed it.
While grunt is employed in a variety of ways, the basic intention is the same throughout:
indistinct identity of God and the soul. Grunt is nothing other than the identity of God’s ground
with the ground of the soul. Because the language of the ground is performative, as seen when
Eckhart said, “Out of the purity he everlastingly bore me, his only-born Son, into that same
image of his eternal Fatherhood, that I may be Father and give birth to him of whom I am
born,”93
grunt “should be understood not as a state or condition, but as the activity of
grounding—the event or action of being in a fused relation.”94
This may be the basic meaning of grunt, but Eckhart employs the term in a variety of
themes and motifs, two of the most powerful being those of ocean and desert. Eckhart transforms
geographical landscapes into landscapes of divinity to suggest a vast and empty barrenness.
Eckhart must have had these images of infinity in mind “to refer to both the limitlessness of the
soul and to the unfathomable expanse of the hidden divinity.”95
But where is this desert, this
grunt, or indistinct identity? How does one get to it—become it? What keeps us from getting
there besides the fact that it is a non-geographical geography?
In a number of Eckhart’s vernacular sermons he distinguishes between God (got) and the
ground of God (gotheit). It would probably be more appropriate to say that he distinguishes
between God and God. The potency of this expression is often lost in translation, however. As
we saw earlier in Sermon 52, the translator made the distinction between God and “God,” as if to
92
Ibid., 38.
93
94
95
Ibid.

34
express a distinction between God-in-and-of-himself and God-as-in-creatures. I believe Eckhart
never meant there to be such grammatical separation. The potency of his language lies in the fact
that in this expression he creates a syntax that moves beyond duality. It seems that the translator
did not notice how Eckhart operationalizes the limits of language to point beyond itself.
Eckhart offers us two paradigms concerning the gotheit. In the first, the ground of God is
identified with the Father as the source, the ground, of the other Persons of the Trinity. In the
more radical second paradigm, Eckhart places the gotheit beyond the Trinitarian Persons. This
occurs in Sermon 48:
This spark rejects all created things, and wants nothing but its naked God, as he is
in himself. It is not content with the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit, or with
the three Persons so far as each of them persists in his properties. I say truly that
this light is not content with the divine nature’s generative or fruitful qualities. I
will say more, surprising though this is. I speak in all truth, truth that is eternal
and enduring, that this same light is not content with the simple divine essence in
its repose, as it neither gives nor receives; but it wants to know the source of this
essence, it wants to go into the simple ground, into the quiet desert, into which
distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit.96
In Sermon 2, Eckhart speaks of a little town (bürgelîn) that is so simple and so one,
beyond description, that not even God is worthy to glimpse it. This town, or the grunt of God
(and the soul), is only available if God gives up the got, or the properties (eigenschaft) of the
persons. God must breakthrough got and into gotheit. The passage reads:
This little town is so truly one and simple, and this simple one is exalted above
every manner and every power, that no power, no manner, not God himself may
look at it. It is as true that this is true and that I speak truly as that God is alive!
God himself never for an instant looks into it, never yet did he look on it, so far as
he possesses himself in the manner and according to the properties of his Persons.
And therefore, if God were ever to look upon it, that must cost him all his divine
names and the properties of his Persons; that he must wholly forsake, if he is ever
once to look into it. But as he is simply one, without any manner and properties,
96

35
he is not Father or Son or Holy Spirit, and yet he is a something that is neither this
nor that.97
As Sells notes, eigenschaft also refers to attachment: “the attachment of the soul to its own
images and desires, and by extension, the attachment of the deity to its own properties and
person.”98
It is possible for eigensschaft to refer to both the soul and God because the grunt is the
indistinct identity of the soul and God. God and the soul, therefore, must detach themselves from
images. We will return to this idea of detachment momentarily.
Grunt is necessarily related to Eckhart’s concern for the got, of a God outside of the self,
or a reified God. He warns us in Sermon 6 that,
If a man obtains or accepts something from outside himself, he is in this wrong.
One should not accept or esteem God as being outside oneself, but as one’s own
and as what is within one; nor should one serve or labor for any recompense, not
for God or for his honor or for anything that is outside oneself, but only for that
which is one’s own being and one’s own life is within one. Some simple people
think that they will see God as if he were standing there and they here. It is not so.
God and I, we are one.99
Eckhart recognized that there may be names that are more appropriate to God than others,
such as those given to us by saints or by Scripture. These names are necessary in order for us to
first learn how to pray.100
But, ultimately, God is above and beyond all names and expressions
and any name given would be utterly lacking. Everyone desires to attach an image to God, and
they all “come as close as they can in uttering him, and yet they cannot utter him.”101
In arguably
97
Ibid., Sermon 2, 181.
98
Sells, Unsaying, 162.
99
100
Ibid., Sermon 53, 204.
101
Ibid.

36
one of Eckhart’s most provocative statements, he declares that “whoever perceives something in
God and attaches thereby some name to him, that is not God.”102
The language found in Eckhart’s vernacular sermons shows us how it challenged, and
still does challenge, traditional Christian understandings. Grunt is at once a simple and complex
term. It is a “master metaphor that is also an explosive metaphor in the sense that it breaks
through old categories, inviting the hearer to perform the same breakthrough in life.”103
Eckhart’s language should remind the reader of Hadot’s dialogue. The dialectical
characteristic of a dialogue prevents a text from being a theoretical or dogmatic exposition
because it focuses on the who rather than the what. Eckhart’s use of multiple metaphors creates a
kind of dialogue that, as Sells point out, prevents one metaphor from being concrete. The
language is always keeping the reader on the move. This motion tells us that Eckhart is not as
concerned with the what, or the correct name, as he is with how the names force his reader (or
audience) along a path. Through a proliferation of metaphors, Eckhart guides his interlocutor(s)
towards a certain attitude, an attitude that is meant to reorient the interlocutor’s traditional
perspective of God. As we saw above in the kōan collections, the authoritative shift to the
commentator from the patriarch by his verse comments creates a “dialectic of negation” that
prevents the words of the patriarch from becoming concrete expressions of truth. This dialectic is
a rhetorical device that performs the principle of emptiness. Similarly, Eckhart’s language
functions as a “dialectic of negation” that is always pointing beyond itself. His rhetorical strategy
actually points towards transcendence as it performs ineffability, for Eckhart says, “We should
102
Ibid.
103

37
learn not to give any name to God, lest we imagine that in so doing we have praised and exalted
him as we should; for God is ‘above names’ and ineffable.”104
Eckhart’s language is unique in the way that he uses images to destabilize images. The
proliferation of metaphors prevents us from attaching any image to God. In his sermon “On
Detachment,” Eckhart remarks, “And if man is to become equal with God, insofar as a creature
can have equality with God, that must happen through detachment.”105
According to Eckhart, it
is only through detachment of created things and images that we are brought towards God: “Now
a heart that has pure detachment is free of all created things, and so it is wholly submitted to
God, and so it achieves the highest uniformity with God, and is most susceptible to the divine
inflowing.”106
What Eckhart teaches is detachment as a way of life. In order for one to
breakthrough to the grunt, she must first detach herself from images that place God outside of
herself, for God is not found outside but within because she and God share the same ground. In
Sermon 5b, Eckhart says, “Where the creature stops, there God begins to be.” He goes on to say
that,
God wants no more from you than that you should in creaturely fashion go out of
yourself, and let God be God in you. The smallest creaturely image that ever
forms in you is as great as God is great. Why? Because it comes between you and
the whole of God. As soon as the image comes in, God and all his divinity have to
give way. But as the image goes out, God goes in. God wants you to go out of
yourself in creaturely fashion as much as if all his blessedness consisted in it.107
Detachment as a way of life is the same as living without a “why.” It is out of the grunt
that one should perform works without a “why.” In accordance with this line of thought, Eckhart
tells his audience,
104
105
Ibid., “On Detachment,” 288.
106
Ibid., 293.
107
Ibid., Sermon 5b, 184.

38
So long as you perform your works for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, or for
God’s sake, or the sake of your eternal blessedness, and you work them from
without, you are going completely astray. You may well be tolerated, but it is not
the best. Because truly, when people think that they are acquiring more of God in
inwardness, in devotion, in sweetness and in various approaches than they do by
the fireside or in the stable, you are acting just as if you took God and muffled his
head up in a cloak and pushed him under a bench. Whoever is seeking God by
ways is finding ways and losing God, who in ways is hidden.108
Yet, detachment is a way to God insofar as detachment is being detached to ways of God.
Detachment, or living without a “why,” is a desire without purpose or possessiveness—an
unacquistitive desire. Detachment is a transformation away from the dominating self. The God
that we desire, pray, and/or fast for is a construction of the ego, and insofar as God is a
construction, God is an object within the realm of differentiation and therefore outside of us.
When one is detached, one leaves the realm of differentiation, breaking through to the grunt,
where the soul and God are identical.
Detachment is breaking away from a utilitarian God. The moment God becomes an
object, the divine nature becomes something. A God that is something is nothing. When God
becomes an image, God becomes an idol and is limited, and therefore, is finite. If we are to hold
fast to God as being infinite, God cannot be something. So we must detach ourselves from the
image. Hence, God must become no-thing. Insofar as we make God something, we make God
nothing, a God that does not exist. As we are advised to kill the Buddha, we should also kill God.
Eckhart’s theory of detachment is a way of operationalizing grunt. As an explosive
metaphor, the meaning of grunt is meant to be absorbed into one’s everyday life. It is this
pragmatic function that allows us to place grunt, and therefore detachment, into the context of
108
Ibid., 183.

39
Hadot’s “spiritual exercises” because it is a transformation to a new way of life by living without
a “why.”
Final Thoughts
Within these texts, we see a certain dialectical characteristic at play that aims at
deconstructing the self, while at the same time providing a new way in which to live by
reconstructing the self. This dialectical characteristic is a “dialectic of negation” that ‘negates’
predication through deconstructive discourse. This radical deconstructive dialectical technique
operates similarly within kōan literature and in Eckhart’s mystical theology. In the former, this
rhetorical strategy functions on the structural level to dismantle the insights of the Chan masters
and patriarchs, which would otherwise become teachings embodying some kind of truth. On this
level, the “dialectic of negation” actually performs the principle of emptiness by not allowing
any ultimate meanings of truth to cement.
Within the kōan itself, we see how three levels of speech acts create a dialogue with
oneself. The locutionary act lies in the kōan itself as an utterance using nonconventional
predication. The illocutionary act is performed when the kōan disrupts the individual’s very
being. When this disruption becomes a way of life, coupled with other support practices like
zazen, a certain kind of response is triggered that transforms the individual—the perlocutionary
act. Insofar as a kōan is a dialogue that invites one to participate in a communal dialogue with
oneself, and therefore with others, it corresponds to a “spiritual exercise.” This dialogue is also a
path that leads to a conversion. It alters radically an individual’s life and prompts a change in

40
direction. Insofar as a kōan is a dialectic that keeps an individual on a path towards a conversion,
it also corresponds to a “spiritual exercise.”
In Eckhart, we also see this “dialectic of negation” performed in his proliferation of
metaphors. Eckhart operationalized language to point to its own limitations and beyond itself.
This rhetorical strategy, similar to the “dialectic of negation” in the structure of kōan collections,
keeps names and images from hardening into false names for God. As I said earlier, Eckhart’s
language keeps us on the move. This motion is a dialectic that performs ineffability as language
is constantly pointing beyond itself and to the transcendent. Eckhart uses images to destabilize
images and "if the image that is present does not make us think of one that is absent, if an image
does not determine an abundance—an explosion—of unusual images, then there is no
imagination . . . a stable and completely realized image clips the wings of the imagination."109
Eckhart’s language also guides an individual to a conversion. We see that as an
“explosive metaphor,” the meaning of grunt is meant to be lived through detachment.
Detachment allows us to break through to the grunt of the soul and God. It is out of the grunt and
through detachment that one lives without a “why.” Thus, Eckhart’s language teaches us how to
live and its pragmatic function corresponds to a “spiritual exercise.”
According to Hadot, philosophy in the ancient world was learning how to live:
The philosophical act is not situated merely on the cognitive level, but on that of
the self and of being. It is a progress which causes us to be more fully, and makes
us better. It is a conversion which turns our entire life upside down, changing the
life of the person who goes through it. It raises the individual from an inauthentic
condition of life, darkened by unconsciousness and harassed by worry, to an
109
Gaston Bachelard, Air and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Movement, trans. Edith R. Farrell and
C. Frederick Farrell (Dallas: Dallas Institute Publications, 1988), 1-2.

41
authentic state of life, in which he attains self-consciousness, an exact vision of
the world, inner peace, and freedom.110
Insofar as the kōan and Eckart’s mystical theology teaches us how to live by arriving at a
complete transformation of our attitudes and behaviors, and therefore towards a new vision of
the world, we are able to claim that they correspond exactly to Hadot’s understanding of
philosophy.
110

42
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