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ZEN BUDDHISM earned it to those who may be trusted not to abuse it. Atomic energy should not be in the hands of the a-moral few, and in the East it would never be "revealed" save to those who would use it only in the service of mankind. As for social service, this is a result and not a cause; it is, or should be, the result of right thinking and, what is more rare and far more important, right understanding. At its best, and the phrase is coming to mean no more than political interference, it is the effect of a true religion or philosophy; it does not in itself supply that need.
What else does the West want? Something practical, that can be immediately applied to "usual life”. Zen offers a "divination of the daily round", as it has been aptly described. It wants "a man's religion", for I agree with the late Dwight Goddard that the West is overburdened with the other kind, religions of authority and priest-craft, or ritual, and a faith that demands the setting aside of the individual mind, and the acceptance [of] and obedience to irrational dogmas and arbitrary authority". A man's religion, he says, must leave a man to do his own thinking and free to work out his own salvation in a way of his own choosing. “It must carry with it the lure of a great adventure. There must be no sham, no promise of quick and easy returns of magical healing and cheap emotion. It must not involve an unending expense, and it must tend toward the support of the simple life. Such a man's religion is offered by Zen Buddhism."1
As for ritual, Aldous Huxley says that "ritual and ceremonial will arise almost spontaneously wherever
1 From an article: "Zen as a World Religion", in Buddhism in England, Vol. V, p. 116.
