THE SENSE OF ZEN
Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world.
Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world.
We can say that Zen liberates all the energies
properly and naturally stored in each of us, which are in ordinary
circumstances cramped and distorted so that they find no adequate
channel for activity.
This body of ours is something like an
electric battery in which a mysterious power latently lies. When this
power is not properly brought into operation, it either grows mouldy and
withers away or is warped and expresses itself abnormally. It is the
object of Zen, therefore, to save us from going crazy or being crippled.
This is what I mean by freedom, giving free play to all the creative
and benevolent impulses inherently lying in our hearts. Generally, we
are blind to this fact, that we are in possession of all the necessary
faculties that will make us happy and loving towards one another. All
the struggles that we see around us come from this ignorance.
We now know the signification of life, we know that it
is not blind striving, nor is it a mere display of brutal forces, but
that while we know not definitely what the ultimate purport of life is,
there is something in it that makes us feel infinitely blessed in the
living of it and remain quite contented with it in all its evolution,
without raising questions or entertaining pessimistic doubts.
Zen Buddhism - Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki, 1956, Anchor Books
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