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IN SEARCH OF ZEN
75 the natural simplicity of life which springs from the rediscovery of our Essence of Mind. There is even a sense of inconsequence, from understanding of the relative unimportance of habitual affairs. Yet at the same time there is a growing awareness of the significance of things and events, impersonal now, but immediate. The humblest act is a sacrament, the humblest thing, mindmade though it is, is now of absolute value. There is, in brief, an increasing sense of balance, a refusal to rest the mind in any of the pairs of opposites, a refusal, indeed, to let the mind rest anywhere at all.
This firm refusal comes from a new-born sense of flow. Asked, "What is Zen?", a Master replied, “Walk on!" For life is like a river, filling each form and bursting its limitations as it moves unceasing on. It is therefore useless to sit down in achievement, or in any concept, even "Zen". Hsin (in Japanese, shin) becomes mu-shin, “no mind," for who shall confine the sunset or the morning wind in a labelled box of thought, however splendid its construction and design? Speaking of Huineng, Dr. Suzuki writes, “The Mind of Self-Nature was to be apprehended in the midst of its working or functioning. The object of dhyâna (Zen) was thus not to stop the working of Self-Nature but to make us plunge right into its stream and seize it in the very act. His intuitionalism was dynamic. ..."1 For the truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect. Is it not the most natural thing for Zen, therefore, that its development should be towards acting or rather living its truth instead of demonstrating or illustrating its truth in words, that is to say,
1 Essays I, p. 207.
