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bad, night and day, summer and winter, God and devil -- black and white! And there are no other mid-stages. Who is in between God and the devil? -- nobody. This is not possible. Watch a rainbow: seven colors. Black on one side, white on the other side, and between these two a great range of colors, step by step.
The whole of life is colorful. Think in colors, don't think in black and white. That is one of the greatest diseases that has happened to humanity. The name of the disease is 'Aristotle-itis' -- it comes from Aristotle. You say: This man is good. What do you mean? And then you say: That man is bad. What do you mean? You say: This man is a saint, and that man is a sinner. What do you mean? Have you ever seen a sinner in whom the saint has completely disappeared? Have you ever seen a saint in whom the sinner has completely disappeared? The difference may be of degrees; it is not that of black and white.
Black and white thinking makes humanity schizophrenic. You say: This is my friend and that is my enemy. But the enemy can become a friend tomorrow, and the friend can become an enemy tomorrow. So the difference can be, at the most, relative; it cannot be absolute.
Think in color -- don't think in black and white.
Visualization is the language of children, of all primitive people, and of the unconscious. Your unconscious also thinks in pictures.
Kakuan first tried the unconscious language because that is the deepest: he painted these ten bulls. But he felt dissatisfied. Then he wrote ten poems as a supplement, as an appendix. Poetry is mid-way between the unconscious and the conscious: a bridge, a misty land where things are not absolutely in the dark and are not absolutely in the light -- just somewhere in the middle. That's why where prose fails, poetry can indicate. Prose is too superficial; poetry goes deeper. Poetry is more indirect but more meaningful, richer.
But still Kakuan felt dissatisfied, so he wrote prose commentaries.
First he wrote the language of the unconscious, the language of painters, sculptors, dreamers; then he wrote the language of the poets, the bridge between the unconscious and the conscious
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