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ZEN FOR THE WEST
199 "accommodate” the local beliefs, and this tolerance has at times undoubtedly gone too far for the purity of Buddhism. But at least the spirit of accommodation is right, for it places the life of the Message before its forms, and is ever prepared to find new forms to express the evolving life. Hence the ethics of Thera Vâda, the philosophy and metaphysics of the Mahayana, and the ritual and magic of Tibet all find their place in the great field of Buddhism. There is therefore not only room in this for Zen, but room for limitless forms of Zen. For Buddhism cares not for the letter which killeth, but looks to the spirit which is life.
Already in the West the Hinayana, or Thera Vâda form of Buddhism has been studied and taught for fifty years; the Mahayana for nearly as long. Theosophy, established in London by H. P. Blavatsky in the 80s of last century, paved the way for the acceptance of principles common to both, and Zen has proved immensely popular among those who seek Reality beyond all forms. It may be that out of these various studies, at first kept separate by those who studied them, will come a western "yana” or vehicle for the Buddha's Enlightenment, a western Buddhism, by whatever name this new/old way of life may be known. The Thera Vâda purists would deplore such an event, and already evince their displeasure at the growing tendency. Buddhism, they say, is what they find in translations of the Pali Canon; all else is a lamentable waste of time. The Mahayanists, who regard the Thera Vâda as already contained in the Mahayana, would approve; Zenthusiasts (I apologise-Zen enthusiasts) could not care less. All forms or yanas are to them but means or devices; all good, all equally bad.
