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CHAPTER TEN
ZEN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
This chapter is inspired by and based upon R. H. Blyth's Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, of which, I regret to say, I know of only three copies in England, two in the Library of the Buddhist Society, London, and a third which the author gave me in Japan. In the course of its 450 pages, the author displays a knowledge of English Literature and of Zen which no other one man can possess. In a single chapter on the subject, therefore, I can but acknowledge the source of my inspiration; the quotations from the poets, however, are for the most part my own.
Witness to the frequency of satori in western life has already been given in “The Results of Satori". A great many more examples could be given, although it is always difficult to assess the spiritual experience described, and to place it fairly in the field of "mysticism”. Not all experiences of a super-normal consciousness are satori, and the serpent of psychic illusion lies at the heart of every flower. Thus Wordsworth's famous lines on Tintern Abbey describe satori.
"A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. ..."
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