when you and I look at one and the same object of reality, say a hat, and you think it is great looking and I think it's heinous, the only thing that both of us can agree on is that "it is what it is" -- and this "it is what it is" is the only truth that allows both of us to be right. By proclaiming that "it is what it is" we both rise above our subjective aesthetics and acknowledge the objective suchness of the object that we were previously trying to judge. We are acknowledging its true nature -- that it is the kind of hat that you see as perfect and I see as imperfect. Thus, this hat is both great looking and heinous, depending on whose mind is appraising it, and, at the same time, this hat is neither good looking nor heinous (when no one is looking) but is a "thing in itself," such as it is.
All truths are relative, i.e. related to one and the same truth, the truth of suchness, the truth that "it" (whatever the "it" may be) is what it is. But to say that something "is what it is" is to say nothing. Functionally, the phrase "it is what it is" is a form of interpretive silence, a form of informational silence. In saying nothing, we are saying nothing false -- and that is, perhaps, the closest we come to expressing that ultimate (one, non-dual) truth that we can all agree upon!
soa lets all say it together ,,,it is what it is ,,!!!
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Friday, November 26th 2010 at 5:04PM
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