Zen Buddhism

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

Page 66

THE NATURE OF ZEN BUDDHISM 45 is evil, to be thrust aside as a barrier which intervenes between the seeker and his goal.
Yet religion can be used as a raft whereby to cross the raging flood of Samsara, and to reach the farther shore, But he is a fool who carries the raft thereafter, and religion is at the best a means to an end, to be cast aside when its purpose is fulfilled. And without doubt religions may be used to heal: "All religions," says Dr. Jung, "are therapies for the sorrows and disorders of the soul," for when the part is sick it seeks reunion with the whole, and religion, a re-binding, is a means for effecting, by penance and sacrifice and inward prayer, a re-integration of the soul. And in a way, it would seem, we are all sick men, for only in a state of consciousness beyond the desires of self lies health or wholeness, and until we find that light within we sit in the darkness of the soul's disease.
It seems that man must have a religion, even though it should bear a disguise remote from its normal seeming. “Having lost the old faith, they turn eagerly to new ones, and science, psycho-analysis, spiritualism, social reform and nationalism have all in turn acted as substitutes for religion."1 Of these the most evil is the State. God, a convenient invention, may at least be a God of love. The State is cold, impersonal, has neither warmth nor love nor mystery: is purely conscious, having no controllable relation with the vast forces of the unconscious mind, and being without heart, it rejects the devotee in the moment of his greatest need. Like all things large, it has no meaning, and I for one hate all things large, be it a department store, a limited company or a world society.
1 Diagnosis of Man, WALKER, P. 243,