In Buddhism there is a term Yatha butham which means "just as it is" --
and this appeals to me, though I see now and then that people are
interested in symbols. But what they mean by symbols seems to be
different from what I thought they meant. There's a very fine fellow I'm
working with on HPSCHD, and his name is Calvin Sumison -- he's in the
design department, and he used the word "symbol" enthusiastically the
other day; it dawned on me that what he meant was a representation of
visual things, rather than abstraction, and that "all he meant by
symbols" was that. He didn't mean, for instance, that a dove means
"peace". He meant that a picture of the dove was a symbol of the dove.
And that's very different from what I would have meant, so I'm getting
more interested in symbols. {Don Finegan et al, 1969, CC, 233}