For an American this brings back the question of the assumption, which must have been easier to make in a simpler society, that it is advisable and possible to live without "deliberate effort or purposeful mind." If the real point is to avoid being over-anxious, that is understandable and laudable. But any society, and especially a democratic one, depends upon a considerable amount of responsible effort and reflective intention. Not only must able leaders be informed and critical, with some idea of what they are working toward and why, but so must the people themselves, or risk being deprived of conditions which would justify the joyous relaxa-

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25. Ibid. pp. 129-130.

26. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series, p. 31.

27. Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1948), p. 259.

 

 

p. 320

tion of Zen. The time has passed, if there ever was such a time for more than a few, when to have the Zen joy it was enough to shun society like the early Taoists. In the atom age men cannot take to the woods with any more peace of mind than they can stay with neighbors. It is too late for Zen if men cannot be happy at home.

　　 To try now to "be darkly ignorant," with a mind "like a piece of rock," might seem as far from wisdom as folly could get. Yet, men seem to be ignorant of any Absolute Purpose Beyond; they are in the dark about anything so pretentious as teleology. But men can know enough to do what needs doing, while relying on life to see them through. Jefferson and Emerson knew this, Thoreau, and many an American down to Dewey. But what they said can be better appreciated when it is seen how much they were giving the wisdom of the East in their own. If what is required of men takes more than Zen, it also calls for more Zen: so that the purposeful can flow into the purposeless, the moral into the aesthetic, knowing into doing, and doing into doing nothing but making the most of the moment, as in having a cup of tea.