We might wish that he had taken more account of the differences between the pre-industrial conditions of traditional Zen and our society. One difference is that it would be easier in an agricultural setting to accept the Zen warning against taking books too seriously. Reading now has become not only a practical necessity but almost the only way of learning about Zen in the West. Suzuki and we who respond to him here are readers. So, this Zen man's love of old scriptures in various tongues and his command of modern languages give force to his warning against verbalism. Perhaps a word-burdened generation could be warned in no better way.

　　 Whatever bothers or intrigues us in Zen, and however we miss reliance on science, the teaching is refreshing that Zen is life. If Zen is life, whatever seems lacking in Zen must be there, if vital. Zen's recommendation of purposelessness can then be seen to have the good use and purpose of releasing life. This high practicality justifies transcending much that passes for practical. The Zen goal is a process that is its own goal. Why argue whether this is teleological or not, rational or not, realistic or religious? If we are to be excited and romantic about anything, why not about being realistic and practical? If we can find in this world an other-worldly afflatus, as Fung Yu-lan has interpreted the men of Ch'an to have done, [58] then Suzuki and Hu are both right in what they contend (if wrong in what they deny). Then the fascination of the philosophy of Ch'an or Zen lies in its being both transcendental and pragmatic, unthinkable as such a combination would be to a gross materialist or to a pure supernaturalist: this living of life for all it is worth and finding it worth infinitely more than people suppose possible

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58. Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1948), Chap. 22.

 

 

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on the natural level-when they are not enlightened by what may as well be called praj~naa-intuition.

　　 If Zen is life, the question is, "What is life?" and this leads to asking, "What ought life to be?" And for the living to ask how to live is to inquire how to live now, in this century anti this situation. Resenting the idea that Zen can be confined to its historical setting, Suzuki replies with "the fact that Zen is still fully alive." [59] Being alive with it himself, he can say what it is, regardless of what it may seem to have been in history, and regardless of whatever it has been out of history.

　　 If it helps us to understand Zen to see it as life, it helps us appreciate life to say it is Zen, or should be Zen. In our desperate need to find our path we may learn from Zen's enigmatic and pragmatic masters. We are coming to see that we cannot do without either science or kindness, that, with them, we might do much. Zen teaches the joy and the joke of doing what needs to be done; shows how simple and good life could be if emancipated. Perhaps we could all have a Zen life if Buddhist compassion were made more pragmatic through science and democracy. If we can develop truly human science and democracy we may be much less helpless. When we are less helpless we can drop "the gospel of insensibility," for it will not be so painful to know what is taking place around us. God can rest from "the gigantic task of effacing man from the earth" if we can attain satori insight. The thunderous humor of it may shake us while we are getting dressed or going to work worth doing, while we are walking because we feel like walking, or sitting when we want to sit. Then we can believe with James that "life is worth living" and, by our belief, "help create the fact." [60] With Dewey we can overcome the dualism of sacred and secular, through his "intense conception of a union of ideal ends with actual conditions." [61] Then, as Rinzai said, nothing would be needed but to go on with our life as we find it: with "no hankering after Buddhahood, not the remotest thought of it." [62]

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59. D. T. Suzuki, Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih," p. 26.

60. William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York, London, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), p. 62.

61. John Dewey, A Common Faith, p. 51.

62. D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series, p. 281.