Full Article: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/mahder/issue/58063/809890
Abstract
The aim of the study is to examine Nasreddin Hodja anecdotes in parallel with the stories of sages in the Japanese Zen tradition and to reveal the methodological parallels in the stories of these two distant geographies. When we look at the stories of these two different old wise man representations produced by two different religions and two distant geographies, the first striking similarity that is noticed is that, as a maturing approach, they both invite their interlocutors to the area where logical thought ends and another state of knowing begins. This paradoxical field, which we can also call the field where the opposites can unite; With examples from Nasreddin Hodja anecdotes; it is a completely different dimension of reality that the lake can retain yeast, the donkey is in the barn and not at the same time, and a pot can give a birth. Again, in this field of reality, Nasreddin Hodja has a right reasoning for riding his donkey backwards. Similarly; Zen sages also give their students paradoxical riddles called “koan” so that they can overcome the patterns in their minds and become free. With these riddles, the master of Zen sometimes invites his student to experiences that seem impossible, such as hearing the sound of one-handed applause, sometimes to redefine ordinary everyday objects and facts with a new understanding beyond the limitations of words. While doing this, he never accepts rational answers that are accepted by everyone, and expects answers that seem funny and absurd at first glance but not at all, like the motifs in Nasreddin Hodja’s stories. The study also created the need for a third complementary objective basis from a different field. The similarities that occur despite geographical and temporal differences have suggested that a dynamic beyond the explanation such as “the physical transport of information from one geography to another” and from this point of view, the concept of “collective unconscious” of Jungian thought has been included in connection with the subject.