Zen Buddhism

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: William Heinemann LTD

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CHAPTER ONE
BEYOND THE INTELLECT
BUDDHISM is the religion-philosophy built up round the Teaching of Gotama, the Buddha. Zen Buddhism is a sect of the Mahayana, the Northern School of Buddhism. Zen, a corruption of the Chinese Ch'an, which is in turn a corruption of the Sanskrit word, Dhyana, is a Japanese term for that Wisdom-Power-Compassion which lies beyond all words, and cannot be confined in the largest
ism”. It is the Light in the darkness of avidya, Ignorance, the Life within all changing, perishable forms. It is the meaning in circumstance. It is at once the Life, the Truth, and the Way.
This Light or Wisdom—and who shall bind awareness in a word?—is the goal of mysticism and the subject matter of all religions. All alike are concerned with an Ultimate which lies beyond change and the sway of the "opposites"; all seek or claim to seek, to KNOW. Zen, however, using the term as a means to achieve this plane of consciousness, is unique. Zen Buddhism, to the extent that it is a form of Buddhism, may be compared with other attempts to erect a ladder from the unreal to the Real; but Zen, as the direct, im-mediate, sudden" path to Awareness is, in the history and present state of spiritual experience, unique. It eschews the machinery of philosophy, the mediation of religion, and the practical "devices" of ritual and magic. It climbs, with empty