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BUT WHAT IS ZEN? accurately than any of the glorious Scriptures of the world. You will remember the beginning of chapter 2: “I should see the garden far better," said Alice to herself, "if I could get to the top of that hill: and here's a path that leads straight to it—at least, no, it doesn't do that " (after going a few yards along the path, and turning several sharp corners), “but I suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists! It's more like a corkscrew than a path! Well, this turn goes to the hill, I suppose—no, it doesn't! This goes straight back to the house! Well then, I'll try it the other way."
And she did, but it was no use. She tried a dozen ways and, finally, "resolutely turning her back on the house, she set out once more down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill. For a few minutes all went well, and she was just saying, "I really shall do it this time," when the path gave a sudden twist and shook itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment she found herself actually walking in at the door.” This immortal passage is the purest of Zen, while for those who like a ponderous analogy, let the house be the intellect ... or let it be Zen.
But perhaps we are trying too hard. Let us relax again, and let things happen, including the wakening of the flower of Zen. As a patient of Carl Jung wrote to him, "By keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and hand in hand with that, accepting realitytaking things as they are, and not as I wanted them to be-by doing all this, rare knowledge came to me, and rare powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before. I always thought that when we accept things, they overpower us in one way or another. Now this is
