The Way of Zen
- Kind
- Book
- Date
- 1957
- Retrieved
- May 6, 2025
20 memes from this reference
Abstraction is a Necessity for Communication
The English words "man," "fish," "star," "Hower," ·run," "grow," all denote classes of objects or events which may be recognized as members of their class by very simple attributes, abstracted from the total complexity of the things themselves. Abstraction is thus almost a necessity for communication, since it enables…
Breaking out of Symbology
A monk asked Ts'ui-wei, "For what reason did the First Patriarch come from the West?" Ts'ui-wei answered, "Pass me that chin-rest." As soon as the monk passed it, Ts'ui-wei hit him with it. Another master was having tea with two of his students when he suddenly tossed his fan to one of them, saying, "What's this?" The…
Bushido is Zen for the Samurai
The Rinzai School of Zen was introduced into Japan in 1191 by the Japanese T'ien-t'ai monk Eisai ( 1141-1215 ), who established monasteries at Kyoto and Kamakura under imperial patronage. The Soto School was introduced in 1227 by the extraordinary genius Dog en ( 1200-1253 ), who established the great monastery of…
Confucianism and Taoism
When we tum to ancient Chinese society, we find two "philosophical" traditions playing complementary parts-Confucianism and Taoism. Generally speaking, the former concerns itself with the linguistic, ethical, legal, and ritual conventions which provide the society with its system of communication. Confucianism, in…
Contaminated with Purity
Hui-neng's position was that a man with an empty consciousness was no better than "a block of wood or a lump of stone." He insisted that the whole idea of purifying the mind was irrelevant and confusing, because "our own nature is fundamentally clear and pure." In other words, there is no analogy between consciousness…
Grasping for Nirvana is Grasping
"If my grasping of life involves me in a vicious circle, how am I to learn not to grasp? How can I try to let go when trying is precisely not letting go?" Stated in another way, to try not to grasp is the same thing as to grasp, since its motivation is the same-my urgent desire to save myself from a difficulty. I…
Greed is Less Destructive Than Fanaticism
It was a basic Confucian principle that "it is man who makes truth great, not truth which makes man great." For this reason, "humanness" or ''human-heartedness" ( fen a ) was always felt to be superior to "righteousness" ( i b ), since man himself is greater than any idea which he may invent. There are times when…
Hinduism is the Myth of God Playing Hide-and-Seek with Itself
Fundamental to the life and thought of India from the very earliest times is the great mythological theme of atma-ya;na-the act of "self-sacrifice" whereby God gives birth to the world, and whereby men, following the divine pattern, reintegrate themselves with God. The act by which the world is created is the same act…
Insistence on Impermanence Is not Nihilism
To serve their purpose, names and terms must of necessity be fixed and definite like all other units of measurement. But their use is-up to a point-so satisfactory that man is always in danger of confusing his measures with the world so measured, of identifying money with wealth, fixed convention with fluid reality…
Moritake Haiku
A fallen flower Returning to the branch? It was a butterfly.
Releasing the Cramp in the Mind
One method of muscular relaxation is to begin by increasing tension in the muscles so as to have a clear feeling of what not to do.15 In this sense there is some point in using the initial koan as a means of intensifying the mind's absurd effort to grasp itself. But to identify satori with the consequent feeling of…
Sitting Buddha
To train yourself in sitting meditation [za-zen] is to train yourself to be a sitting Buddha. If you train yourself in za-zen, (you should know that) Zen is neither sitting nor lying. If you train yourself to be a sitting Buddha, (you should know that) the Buddha is not a fixed form. Since the Dharma has no ( fixed)…
Symbols as Abstractions and Zen
Men feel themselves to be victims or puppets of their experience because they separate "themselves" from their minds, thinking that the nature of the mind-body is something involuntarily thrust upon "them." They think that they did not ask to be born, did not ask to be "given" a sensitive organism to be frustrated by…
Tantric work by Saraha
If it [the Truth] is already manifest, what's the use of meditation? And if it is hidden, one is fust measuring darkness. (20) Mantras and tantras, meditation and concentration, They are all a cause of self-deception. Do not defile in contemplation thought that is pure in its own nature, But abide in the bliss of…
The Function of Negative Knowledge
...the function of negative knowledge is not unlike the uses of space-the empty page upon which words can be written, the empty jar into which liquid can be poured, the empty window through which light can be admitted, and the empty pipe through which water can Bow. Obviously the value of emptiness lies in the…
Zen and the Art of Mastering Something
Every one of the arts which have been discussed involves a technical training which follows the same essential principles as training in Zen. The best account of this training thus far available in a Western language is Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, which is the author's story of his own experience under…
Zen Perception of Time
In its own way, each one of the arts which Zen has inspired gives vivid expression to the sudden or instantaneous quality of its view of the world. The momentariness of sumi paintings and haiku, and the total presence of mind required in cha-no-yu and kendo, bring out the real reason why Zen has always called itself…
Zen Spontanaity
Suzuki has translated a long letter from the Zen master Takuan on the relationship of Zen to the art of fencing, and this is certainly the best literary source of what Zen means by mo chih ch'u, by "going straight ahead without stopping." 13 Both Takuan and Bankei stressed the fact that the "original'' or "unborn"…
Grammatical Conventions Delineate Reality
Thus the task of education is to make children fit to live in a society by persuading them to learn and accept its codes-the rules and conventions of communication whereby the society holds itself together. There is first the spoken language. The child is taught to accept "tree" and not "boojum" as the agreed sign for…
Our Historical Selves Become More Defining Than Our Present Selves
...it is easy to see the conventional character of roles. For a man who is a father may also be a doctor and an artist, as well as an employee and a brother. And it is obvious that even the sum total of these role labels will be far from supplying an adequate description of the man himself, even though it may place…