THE essence of Zen Buddhism consists in acquiring a new
viewpoint of looking at life and things generally. By this I
mean that if we want to get into the inmost life of Zen, we
must forgo all our ordinary habits of thinking which control
our everyday life, we must try to see if there is any other
way of judging things, or rather if our ordinary way is
always sufficient to give us the ultimate satisfaction of our
spiritual needs. If we feel dissatisfied somehow with this
life, if there is something in our ordinary way of living that
deprives us of freedom in its most sanctified sense, we must
endeavour to find a way somewhere which gives us a sense
of finality and contentment. Zen proposes to do this for us
and assures us of the acquirement of a new point of view in
which life assumes a fresher, deeper, and more satisfying
aspect. This acquirement, however, is really and naturally
the greatest mental cataclysm one can go through with in
life. It is no......
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