1937 and my children: The Zen of Language

I am a lover of Zen, though my notion of Zen is quite specific to a certain perspective, as most peoples' interpretations of that word seem to be. To me, Zen is about a conceptual purity and simplicity but also a high level of appropriateness or correctness for a context. I have thought quite a lot about what this means for design but I am not ready to share that now.

In any case, recently I have been exposed to another kind of Zen in a vaguely unexpected environment. During my masters here in korea, one of the fundamental things I am learning is the value of a Zen like approach to language. In this case, english, from my professor, who speaks english as a second language. What I mean by this Zen is a kind of ideal use of language to describe exactly what is meant, despite arbitrary complexity and the possibility of various interpretations of words. I think this kind of english is favoured in Korea, because of the way people learn english, as a kind of exact science, and also, favoured at my university, KAIST, because of the kind of publications expected here. Personally, my english is still far from Zen-like, and I think, though I am learning to improve it to participate here, it is probably never going to be as exact as many academics here make it. I believe this because I think native english speakers simply do not tend to treat words with such subtlety of application. Some poets and authors seem to be able to do it, however, most seem to use words like the USA uses oil.

I have never really liked reading, because I am slow at it and distracted easily, however, all my life I have enjoyed learning and acquiring knowledge, especially on mass. I have, on many occasions complained that books are aggravating because they act as a jail for knowledge, hiding it among numerous useless pages of imprecise words. Zen language is thus when every word counts and contributes fully to the meaning, not only of the sentence but to the whole work.

This view of Zen seems to act as a good framing example of what I think the general concept of Zen implies. What do you think? (I am sure my notion of Zen is not in accordance with more formal definitions, let me know if you have a more informed perspective)

Also, does anyone have suggestions about how to become able to write with Zen language?

The images are a little bit random, just three shots of a lotus farm in Chungdu in SiChuan China. It seems that lotuses are often depicted in relation to Zen.