I found it! The most Zen passage in all of Derrida (each sentence of which is like a kiss from the Buddha):
“As soon as a sign emerges, it begins by repeating itself. Without this, it would not be a sign, would not be what it is, that is to say, the non-self-identity which regularly refers to the same. That is to say, to another sign, which itself will be born of having been divided. The grapheme, repeating itself in this fashion, thus has neither natural site nor natural center. But did it ever lose them? Is its ex-centricity a de-centering? Can one not affirm the non-referral to the center, rather than bemoan the absence of the center? Why would one mourn for the center? Is not the center, the absence of play and difference, another name for death?” (Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, “Ellipsis”, p. 297).
I love: “another sign, which itself will be born of having been divided.” The proverbial moon the finger points to is always already an other/different finger, pointing elsewhere (in its own “non-self-identity”); to outer space, or to nighttime, or to the tide. And I love: “Can one not affirm the non-referral to the center, rather than bemoan the absence of the center? Why would one mourn for the center?” I’ve read entire books on Zen that don’t contain a statement as Zen as that!
So many contemporary critics misrepresent Derrida because they misunderstand him. They assume (quite western-metaphysically) that his opposition to “Logocentrism” is a rejection of Logos (reason, logic, the divine or absolute, etc.). But what he really rejects is the centrism. His point isn’t that Logos “doesn’t exist” or isn’t valuable (i.e. mere nihilism), but that all that exists, all that is valuable, “Logos” included, is non-centered necessarily (with the exception of death). The Absolute itself (i.e. Logos), to the extent that it can be said to exist in either tradition (deconstruction or Zen), is always de-centered, semi-marginal, made up of “play and difference” (like the concept of Lila or Divine Play, in Vedantic thought).
