The Way of Zen

awakening will not come to pass when one is trying to escape or change the everyday world of form, or to get away from the particular experience in which one finds oneself at this moment. Every such attempt is a manifestation of grasping. Even the grasping itself is not to be changed by force, for bodhi [awakening] is the five offenses, and the fiv

But a universe which grows utterly excludes the possibility of knowing how it grows in the clumsy terms of thought and language, so that no Taoist would dream of asking whether the Tao knows how it produces the universe. For it operates according to spontaneity, not according to plan.

By far the greater part of our important decisions depend upon “hunch”–in other words, upon the “peripheral vision” of the mind. Thus the reliability of our decisions rests ultimately upon our ability to “feel” the situation, upon the degree to which this “peripheral vision” has been developed.

It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature–whether theological or technological–is a kind of schizophrenia.

1 Samyag-drishti, or complete view. 2 Samyak-samkalpa, or complete understanding. 3 Samyag-vak, or complete (i.e., truthful) speech. 4 Samyak-karmanta, or complete action. 5 Samyagajiva, or complete vocation. 6 Samyag-vyayama, or complete application. 7 Samyak-smriti, or complete recollectedness. 8 Samyak-samadhi, or complete contemplation.

The difficulty is not so much in the language as in the thought-patterns which have hitherto seemed inseparable from the academic and scientific way of approaching a subject.

Sitting meditation is not, as is often supposed, a spiritual “exercise,” a practice followed for some ulterior object. From a Buddhist standpoint, it is simply the proper way to sit, and it seems perfectly natural to remain sitting so long as there is nothing else to be done, and so long as one is not consumed with nervous agitation. To the restles

Abstraction is thus almost a necessity for communication, since it enables us to represent our experiences with simple and rapidly made “grasps” of the mind.

Superior te is not te, and thus has te. Inferior te does not let go of te, and thus is not te. Superior te is non-active [wu-wei] and aimless. Inferior te is active and has an aim. (38)