As a beginner on my mindset Zen journey, my understanding is that Zen masters frequently use vivid metaphors—such as water, waves, mirrors, lamps, and plant imagery—to express concepts like impermanence, non-duality, and enlightenment. Famous Zen sayings and koans (“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “Show me your original face before you were born”) function as extended metaphors designed to break conventional thought patterns and invite direct, unmediated experience.
As I understand it (as one just starting in Zen), Zen views metaphor as a powerful but paradoxical tool: metaphors are commonly used to convey teachings, provoke insight, and challenge the limits of rational understanding, but Zen ultimately regards metaphor—and all language—as limited and provisional.
I will attempt to show Shakespeare used metaphor in an identical way, as a poetic “conceit” to make a larger point that is not necessarily core to the metaphor.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is one of his most famous, and is one of his best uses of metaphor.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 praises the beauty of the poet’s beloved, declaring it superior to a summer’s day, which is often imperfect and short-lived.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
The poet argues that while natural beauty fades due to time and chance, the beloved’s “eternal summer” will not diminish, because the poem itself immortalizes that beauty.
“When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
As in Zen’s use of metaphor, Shakespeare contrasts the two, even before that conclusion, to show that these two things are not the same. But the comparison and contrast is the thing that has value:
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, …”
In both the Zen and Shakespeare examples, we see that metaphor is used to get to a heart of a thing, often not the metaphor itself, but an aspect of one of the contrasting items, or even a third and different idea not contained in the metaphor.
Try some non obvious metaphors yourself and see if you can get them to come to a meaningful conclusion, and you can be like Zen Shakespeare.
