Zen Buddhism is a way and a view of life which does not belong to any of the formal categories
 of modern Western thought.
 It is not a religion or philosophy, it is not a psychology or a type of science.
 It is an example of what is known in India and China as a way of liberation and is similar
 in this respect to Taoism, Vedanta and Yoga.
 As will soon be obvious, a way of liberation can have no positive definition.
 It has to be suggested by saying what it is not, somewhat as a sculptor reveals an image
 by the act of removing pieces of stone from a block.
 Historically, Zen may be regarded as the fulfillment of long traditions of Indian and Chinese culture,
 though it is actually much more Chinese than Indian, and since the 12th century it has
 rooted itself deeply and most creatively in the culture of Japan.
 As the fruition of these great cultures and as a unique and particularly instructive example
 of a way of liberation, Zen is one of the most precious gifts of Asia to the world.
 [Music]
 This word Zen is Japanese way of pronouncing the Chinese word Chan, which in turn is the
 Chinese way of pronouncing the Sanskrit word Jhana.
 And Jhana is a very difficult word to translate into English, if not impossible.
 It's been called meditation.
 Meditation in English generally means sitting quietly and thinking about something, and
 that's not what Zen is.
 Contemplation might come a little nearer if you use the word in a very technical sense,
 the sense that it was used, or still is used, among Catholic mystics.
 Perhaps that's something a bit like Zen.
 But again, contemplation, as we normally use the word, has a sense of inactivity, a sense
 of not doing anything, of being completely still and passive, whereas Zen is something
 highly active.
 So we really don't have an English word for Jhana, Chan, Zen.
 But I would say that we do know what it is because we do all sorts of things every day
 of our lives in the spirit.
 When for example, you drive a car, or when a rider of a horse is one being with a horse
 when you watch a good cowboy, or a cavalry rider, he's glued to the horse.
 He's like a centaur almost.
 As the horse moves, he moves.
 Which is in control?
 Is the horse riding the man, or the man riding the horse?
 You practically don't know.
 Same way when you have an excellent dancing partner.
 Who leads?
 Who follows?
 It seems as if you are one body and you move together.
 That is Zen, that is Jhana.
 And so in a wider sense, when a person doesn't react to life on the one hand, or try to dominate
 it on the other, but when the internal world of one's own organism and the external world
 of other people and other things move together as if they were and indeed are one and the
 same motion, that is Zen.
 So you could say in a very, very simple way that the real concern of Zen is to realize,
 not merely to think, but to know in your bones that the inside world inside your skin and
 the outside world outside your skin going out as far as anything can go into galaxies
 beyond galaxies is all one world and all one being, oneself, and you're it.


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