The danger of scholarship is always that, in extreme specialization, it may be unable to see the forest for the trees. But the problem of gaining some idea of the thought of India at the time of the Buddha, six centuries before Christ, is not to be solved by careful piece-work alone–necessary as this may be. There is, however, enough reliable

The point is not to make an effort to silence the feelings and cultivate bland indifference. It is to see through the universal illusion that what is pleasant or good may be wrested from what is painful or evil.

Though the guests avoid political, financial, or business matters in their conversation, there is sometimes non-argumentative discussion of philosophical matters, though the preferred topics are artistic and natural. It must be remembered that Japanese people take to such subjects as readily and un-self-consciously as we talk of sports or travel,

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.

Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen are expressions of a mentality which feels completely at home in this universe, and which sees man as an integral part of his environment. Human intelligence is not an imprisoned spirit from afar but an aspect of the whole intricately balanced organism of the natural world, whose principles were first explored in the

The doctrine of the Dharmadhatu is, approximately, that the proper harmony of the universe is realized when each “thing-event” is allowed to be freely and spontaneously itself, without interference. Stated more subjectively, it is saying, “Let everything be free to be just as it is. Do not separate yourself from the world and try to order it

The reason why Taoism and Zen present, at first sight, such a puzzle to the Western mind is that we have taken a restricted view of human knowledge. For us, almost all knowledge is what a Taoist would call conventional knowledge, because we do not feel that we really know anything unless we can represent it to ourselves in words, or in some other

I am not in favor of “importing” Zen from the Far East, for it has become deeply involved with cultural institutions which are quite foreign to us. But there is no doubt that there are things which we can learn, or unlearn, from it and apply in our own way. It has the special merit of a mode of expressing itself which is as intelligible–or perhaps

Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life which does not belong to any of the formal categories of modern Western thought. It is not religion or philosophy; it is not a psychology or a type of science. It is an example of what is known in India and China as a “way of liberation,” and is similar in this respect to Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga.