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CHAPTER THREE
THE NATURE OF ZEN BUDDHISM
THERE are men, and plenty of them, who think that when something has been classified in accordance with the prevailing system of filing, they know more about it. But nothing has happened; such men know nothing more about a flower to which they have in triumph added a Latin name of fourteen syllables, and they are no nearer to the spiritual experience known as Zen by announcing that Zen is this or that. Zen is, and the noises made in its presence affect it no more than a flower is impressed by its labelling.
Yet questions are asked, and some of the questions are worth answering.
Is Zen Buddhism a religion? It depends, of course, upon what is meant by religion. “It is not a religion in the sense that the term is popularly understood; for Zen has no God to worship, no ceremonial rites to observe, no future abode to which the dead are destined, and, last of all, Zen has no soul whose welfare is to be looked after by somebody else and whose immortality is a matter of intense concern with some people. Zen is free from all these dogmatic and religious' encumbrances."1 If, on the other hand, it is as Professor Whitehead conceives it, the answer is otherwise. "It is the vision of something
1 Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 14.
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