Thanks for the suggestion. I have not read it. But there are maps and then there are maps. Map being the salient metaphor, we might see one map of the human form as a stick figure, another as Rembradt or Titian might compose them. They both point to the same territory, and you take their meaning without ambiguity, at a glance--yet their degree of information density is quite different. You might even say that one is minimalist, the other maximalist. This is true for every symbol, a container that holds a payload that points to something else. And the something else can never be known, even in its most naked expression--because our nervous system presents a symbolic representation of the object of perception. We can never know anything but through the mediation of the symbol. Yet, if you stop me on the street and ask me for a cigarette, and then proceed to pull a knife on me--your meaning is quite apparent, and there is no mystery regarding your intentions. However, if you then proceed to cut off the filter, or clean your fingernails, and say good evening slipping the blade into your pocket--why then my grasp of your 'meaning' was completely inaccurate--as initially perceived. Such is life, and such is the challenge of communication. "meaning" when applied to whole complex systems of interdependency, breaks down as a carrier of the payload. the wheels come off the axles. The clay feet shatter under the weight. That is why concepts like 'suchness' which are pointers to an ineffable manifestation of Being, are as close to the meaning of meaning we as we can approach with our limitations of form and perceptual boundary.

Martin Heidegger was right. The problem with modern people is that they no longer know how to answer the question: what is the Being of beings?

You attempt to divide 'reality' up into categories, when in fact, that is the process of abstraction. To say that objects are polymorphous because they can be put to different purposes is no great insight. You call the word tree a convenience--but you seem to forget that the context of the word tree is communication between entities separated by space and sometimes by time. I want to request that you cut down this tree. I could draw a picture of someone cutting down a tree and send it to you, but maybe you would not understand I want YOU to cut it down. Maybe you would think that I cut it down. I could draw a heart as well, and now we have hieroglyphics, but maybe you would think I love trees.

I look at a forest and I have no words. I run and stumble into a tree. The tree is the forest and the tree is not the forest. What did I strike?

The whole of the Universe consists of a relationship between what is manifest and what is unmanifest. But to say that the manifest is unreal or has no actuality because it reflects the unmanifest is to divide the Universe, which is indivisible in reality and point of fact. Not only that, but it offers no practical or pragmatic value. If I pound a nail with a plate. I call it a plate because that was it's raison d' etre. Just because it became a hammer doesn't mean it isn't also a plate a wall decoration or a pedestal for a steaming pile of shit. If it become a hat it still belongs to the class of plates. It has all the attributes that qualify the meaning and definition of plate. It has the uses of a plate, and the boundaries of a plate, and the essence of a plate. Even when I shatter it, is it still a plate. A shattered plate, but, a plate. A mummy in a sarcophagus is still a pharoah.