Day of the Iron Scepter, 7th of Summer, 525 M.E. (Castor): I'm not a Zen Buddhist, but let me summon the hubris to explain what Daofu meant when he told Bodhidharma, "As I see it, it is not bound by words and phrases, nor is it separate from words and phrases. This is the function of the Way." 

The red-bearded one (Barbarosa), that is, Bodhidharma, had asked his four disciples to demonstrate their understanding, and gave the highest praise to the monk Huike's statement. Many people mistake the story to imply that the statements of the other disciples were somehow "wrong," but that is not the case. The Way is not, in fact, bound by words and phrases, as Daofu correctly said, nor is it separate from words and phrases.

I'm not a Zen Buddhist but I find parallels to the wisdom of Zen in many other traditions. In his Carol of Words, the American Transcendentalist poet Walt Whitman tells us those upright lines on the printed page, those curves, angles, dots, and so on, are not words. The substantial words, he says, are the ones in the ground and in the sea. I'm reminded of James Joyce's "wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide" of the Irish Sea.

Whitman asks, "Were you thinking that those were the words---those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths? No, the real words are more delicious than they."

The late American Zen teacher John Dado Loori has said that it can't be proven or disproven, but he suspects that Whitman may have had an awakening similar to but outside of the Zen or other Buddhist tradition. Historically, there may have been others as well - Joan of Arc, Jesus of Nazareth, Hildegard of Bingen, and probably others who left no historical footprint. 

To Whitman, the true words weren't mere linguistic symbols but the things themselves to which the words pointed. "Human bodies are words, myriads of words. In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, natural, gay, every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame."

Among the core tenets of Buddhism are the interdependence of all things and selflessness, for even the self exists only in relation to the myriad other things. Whitman seemed to recognize this, and said "Air, soil, water, fire---these are words. I myself am a word with them---my qualities interpenetrate with theirs---my name is nothing to them; though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?"

According to Daofu, the Way is not bound by words nor is it separate from words. According to Whitman, words can include "a healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture. . . the charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women."

Despite nonattachment to them, Doufu's excellent answer demonstrated skillful use of words. Whitman's Carol of Words tells us "the great masters know the earth's words, and use them more than the audible words," as "the workmanship of souls is by the inaudible words of the earth."