________________
128
ZEN BUDDHISM
whole of the man is bent to the task in hand. The whole powers of the intellect are brought to bear on the problem, not merely for a daily period of time but for every moment of the waking day and probably in sleep. Oblivious to all else, the student wrestles fiercely with his enemy. Eating, working, doing his temple "chores”, no less than in the long hours of his still communion", the coldly directed will of the aspirant struggles to be free. Again and again he returns to his Master, who, watching him with an old, experienced eye, gives such experienced help as his wisdom may direct, but never allows the fighter's tremendous tension to relax. While the mind still seeks some intellectual escape there is the slight relief of lateral movement; not till the mental extremity admits no rational escape does the real battle begin. Now the tiger is trapped and struggles violently to be free. The tension rises; often the body breaks under the strain and the man is ill. He may refuse all food, be feverish, unsleeping, wild in his regard. He cares not, and the Master watches him. Why live, if to live be a life of slavery? To pass beyond the discriminative world of false antitheses, to know that all is One, here's glory worth the winning, and at the end of it to KNOW that the two that are one are also two, that still the sun will rise and set, and still the morning blossom with the rose.
All this pertains to the realm of psychology, and a psychological approach to the koan is probably the best for the western mind. Dr. Suzuki, himself a student of Carl Jung, has attempted this approach. The purpose of the koan, he says, is "to bring about a highly wrought-up state of consciousness. The reasoning faculty is kept in abeyance, that is, the more superficial activity of the
