It probably isn't exclusively a professional habit, but I am always urgently seeking a kind of language. Language for me has always had an air of mystery about it. The reason why the myriad things that one encounters on the road of life are speechless and silent is mainly because they have lost their language. Language is proof. It is evidence. It is the fundamental substance which allows continued progress forward. The language which I seek can reach in all directions. It is something which has its source in the mountain ranges and in the soil. It is as animated as life itself and as hard as solid rock. It has form, but no form. It has sound, but no sound. It is scattered all over the untamed land and lies hidden amid the myriad things. The river water gurgles as it flows. The great ocean roars day and night. Birds sing and people shout---these are all the languages of separation. Where then hides the language which can reach in all directions?
It is so much like gold in the soil. It waits for us to live through all of our hardships before it leaps forth. On that day when my strength has all been spent, what meaning is there even if all my wishes have been fulfilled? Like everyone else, I am apprehensive, dejected and despairing. I don't know where my objective lies. My mood is at once desolate, elevated and remote. All in all, the pain of having no language is difficult to endure. It is a genuine pain. It is not that my aspirations are great. What I wish to evoke is no more than a single phrase. But sadly, and cruelly, not a a single word is uttered.
I plunge myself into the embrace my native place, as it draws me near and inflames my heart, but I can speak nothing but endless nonsense. Only after rambling on for a long time do I realize that it is still utterly mute. It makes me feel truly awkward. I know that, regardless of whether it is the chirping of autumnal insects or the joyous speech of humans, there is always something hidden. It is the silences in their utterings which convey true meaning. What I collect are but the echoes of the low register of those utterings.
On the site of an old abandoned village I discovered a mill stone which had been left among grass and weeds. Its surface was covered with well-worn grooves. Once it had been surrounded by crowds of people busily going about their work and must have been engraved with their incessant babbling. There were also piles of broken pottery shards which the grasses could not conceal. Did they still hold that sharp sound which issued from them in the moment they were shattered? Of that I am firmly convinced. It is just that I still cannot break the code. In the fissures in the ground beneath my feet were tiny living spirits which peered up through the leaves of grass. The sun was about to set and the golden red flames burned all the way from the horizon to my feet. In that moment of nostalgia and recollection I felt forlorn, but even more I felt the immense emotion possessed by the natural world. Still, no words passed between us.
The sense of familiarity and intimacy which I felt when first I drew near my native place began to dissipate gradually. A profound sense of strangeness came in its place. I recognized that, beneath the surface layer there were things which I had never in my life approached. How many times had I stood on the wild outskirts under the setting sun, silently watching and contemplating, as though waiting for an opportunity? It was just at such times that I would occasionally think of the passing months and years. This evoked a twinge of bitter pain. Fortunately, I now no longer feel the need to confess as a student does, but rather, I am filled with love and gratitude. So, happily and willingly, I wait and wait. When I recall my childhood, it isn't the stories, but rather the joyfulness of that time that I think of. What is astonishing is that the joy of those days has never reappeared. To some extent I have come to understand that back then it was still actually possible to have a dialogue with Nature, for there had been no time to gain a command of much common speech. The joy I felt came from communication and exchange. In my childhood I had still not entirely cut myself away from Nature's maternal body. The common speech of the human realm appears to have a certain gravity, but to the ears of the myriad things of nature it is a vulgar, alien tongue. People who make use of that kind of speech will have very little hope. Comprehending this has filled me with a sense of great relief, and I heave a long sigh.
There are many people labouring in the fields. They crawl on the ground, covered with dust. The green of the grain stalks obscures their bronze-coloured bodies and absorbs them into a single sheet. Labour is the language that connects humans with the land. In the midst of their labour people forget the common speech of society. When that happens they join with the earth and all the life forms surrounding them to form a single body. It appears that people have blended into the murkiness. Do you want to listen to their words? They have now truly entered into the soil and grown into green coloured stalks and leaves. This is a grand conference of labour and interchange. Wishing to join that grand banquet I throw myself into the labour. I, too, want to blend in.
If people abandon labour they will fall into benightedness. I have made an exquisite and forgettable observation which is: Once those labourers leave their work they will immediately begin to use the common language of society. Then they will no longer have the tools of intercommunication and they will lose their contact with the world which surrounds them. This will leave them completely without strength. Language is not only expression, it is also principle. It has its own life, quality and form. It is essential spirit which has been rendered illusory. By expressing oneself in a language which is only sound, only external appearance remains, the soul has flown away. I adore language and elevate it to the position of something divinely sage and mysterious.
