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Zen Comes West

The present and future of Zenbuddhism in britain

CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS

Ruskin House

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN . LTD

Museum street London

PREFACE

The purpose and scope of this book are sufficiently describe in the introduction. Chapters 1,2,8,9 and 10 first appeared in the Middle way, the organ of the Buddhist Society, London, and I am grateful to its editor, Mrs Muriel Robins, for permission to reprint. For retyping the atrocious typing in which I ‘write’ my books I am grateful to many assistants, notably Miss Amy Bedwell, Mrs Mary Anthony and Miss Peggy Kennett. The Frontispiece is the only known photograph of the three persons mos concerned in the subject of Zen comes west, Dr D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts and myself. The snapshot was taken in the lounge of the Rembrant hotel, south Kensington in June 1958 by Miss Mihoko Okamura.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

                        PART ONE : ZEN COMES WEST

I.                    ZEN BUDDHISM

II.                 ZEN COMES WEST

III.               THE PROBLEM BECOMES ACUTE

PART TWO : CLASS WORK

IV.              PREPARATION FOR THE JOURNEY

Letter I to MR. BRAMPTON.Zen is within. What will you pay for it? What you must drop. The tramlines of the intellect. Non – duality.

Letter 2 to MARTHA. Zen not ‘an additional activity’. One does not ‘find time for zen’. Zen is, call it what you will.

Letter 3 TO ZENUK. Zen cannot be found with thinking. Thought form. Thinking to the end of thought.

Letter 4 TO RODNEY. The zen teacher/ pupil relationship. Don’t learn forward or backward or either side. The ‘moving rock in a moving sea’.

Letter 5 TO MISS MELAND. If in love work throught it. Then give whole time to Zen.

Letter 6 TO BUNGY. Thirty masks for thirty minds in class. How see through them, and mine? A class gets the teacher it deserves.

Letter 7 TO MADAM.  Goodness not enough for Enlightenment. The NOTHING, the one, the two, the many. Why do we want Zen?

Letter 8 TO MARY. The injury caused by spiteful criticism. Criticism preserves distinctions, which are all ‘falsely imagined’. Zen knows none.

Letter 9 TO SILVER. How prove that satori not merely subjective? Proof and the intuition.

Letter 10 TO MARTHA. Psychic visions. Psychic faculties. Devas and fairies.

Letter 11 TO MARY. The small things that annoy and please us. Loneliness. Taming the animal. Patience. Peeps at the high peaks.

Letter 12 TO ZELNUK. Escaping from bonds of thought . direct action. Sterility of concepts.

Letter 13.TO MR GUNTHER. Zen is not a system of thought.

Letter 14. TO MR.TOLSON. the high role of the teacher.

Letter 15 TO RODNEY. How to help a friend going blind.

Letter 16 TO BRAMPTON. ‘what is zen’. What is a life?

Letter 17 TO SILVER. Our present bodies. Cutting new channels of thought.

Letter 18 TO RAMPTON . the relation of God and Zen.

Letter 19 TO SILVER. The Mahatmas of India and Zen Masters.

Letter 20 TO BRAMPTON. First beginnings and ultimate ends. What is satori?

Letter 21 TO MARTHA. Study will not lead to Zen. Its true uses. Zen is non-duality.

Letter 22 TO SILVER. The need and uses of discipline.

Letter 23 TO MARY. Loneliness. Pain inevitable. The Bodhisattva and compassion.

Letter 24 TO BUNGY. No ‘advanced stuff’ too soon. The mixture of types in the class. How best to proceed. My Dharma.

V.                THE WAY OPENS

Letter 25 TO THE ZEN CLASS. What do you want? Who wants it? Whay? How will you find it?

Letter 26 TO MARY. On happiness and being unhappy.

Letter 27 TO SALLY. The need to be unhappy. Look at what you see. Listen to what you hear.

Letter 28 TO THE ZEN CLASS. Direct action. Facing situations directly.

Letter 29 TO SILVER. Zen is not about anything. Don’t attempt to define the indefinable.

Letter 30 TO MARTHA. Can the intuition flood the emotion as it does the intellect?

Letter 31 TO MARY. Happiness,, unhappiness, contentment and joy.

Letter 32 TO SALLY. Depression will pass. The artist’s cycle of inspiration. Appraisal versus self-praise.

Letter 33 TO BUNGY. Clinging to one’s balance. Frivolous verses on ‘the Goose is out’.

Letter 34 TO SILVER. Tolerance and intolerance. True co-operation. Members must be allowed to decide own methods.

Letter 35. TO MR. CRASHAW. What has zen that Western mystics have not got? The answer.

Letter 36 TO BUNGY. The guru. Chela relationship compared with Zen master and pupil. The Western psychiatrist and patient. The ideal teacher.

Letter 37 TO SILVER. Intuitive inspiration versus spiritualist visions. Spiritualism. Damage to mediums and ‘departed entity’. The psychic graveyard of the séance room.

Letter 38 TO MARY. The self, the Atman and the one SELF.

Letter 39 TO BILLY. Advice on books to study which rouse the intuition. None is ‘authority’.

Letter 40 TO RODNEY. Motive, right and wrong.

Letter 41 TO SALLY. Intuition, thought and emotion.

Letter 42 TO LETCHWORTH. ‘Slick cleverness’ in class. The infinitely subtle Middle way.

Letter 43 TO SILVER. Criticism of teacher may be a good sign, of independence.

Letter 44 TO BRAMPTON. ‘Drop it’. Barries on the way. What must be dropped. Value of laughter.

Letter 45 TO SALLY. Value of ritual in Zen monasteries.

Letter 46 TO MARY. Life cannot be ‘too complicated’. Mountains and trees. The great are simple-minded.

Letter 47 NOTES FROM A TALK TO THE ZEN CLASS. Zen and morality. The ‘three fires and the Zen life’. Criterion of morality.

Letter 48 TO RODNEY. We must teach what we learn.

Letter 49 TO MARTHA. On losing one’s friends

Letter 50 NOTES FROM A TALK TO THE ZEN CLASS. Fresh troubles inevitable for all who attempt inner development. A good sign.

Letter 51 TO BILLY. All troubles are ‘fair’. We suffer from our sins, not for them.

Letter 52 TO MRS. WELLING. All suffering is deserved. The law of Karma. All sufferers need our help.

Letter 53 TO BUNGY. Psychologists. Their superior attitude to spiritual experience. Their own concrete ceiling.

Letter 54 TO BUNGY. Good and bad psychiatrists. Buddhism and Western psychology.

Letter 55 TO CAPLAN. Is a trained intellect needed for Zen? Progress seen and unseen. Thre progress that brain may not known

Letter 56 TO RODNEY. All that happens right. Acceptance versus indifference.

Letter 57 TO MARY. Vulnerability. Coping with intruding thought quickly, as they arise. Keeping the higher mind unsullied by circumstance.

Letter 58 TO MARTHA. Peace and war. The war within. The price of peace is self. Folly of fear.

Letter 59 TO BRAMPTON. The limits of logic. Eastern approach to truth.

Letter 60 TO MR WILMINGTON. Duty and riches. Non-attachment. Right use of possessions.

Letter 61 NOTES FROM A TALK TO THE ZEN CLASS. Be the self and forget your self and others’. We should meet as Selves of one SELF.

Letter 62 TO MARY. ‘Tired of Zen’. Impossible.

Letter 63 TO RODNEY. ‘More time for Zen’. You have time all the time.

Letter 64 TO MARY. On feeling hurt.

Letter 65.TO SALLY. ‘Getting tired’. There must be tension in a bi-polar field. How to relax.

Letter 66 NOTES FROM A TALK TO THE ZEN CLASS. Facing the shadow. Withdrawing projections. The withdrawal within. Ceasing to learn.

Letter 67 TO BUNGY. On walking on. Never stop.

Letter 68 TO SILVER. On seeing straight.

Letter 69 TO MARTHA. An exercise un fusing the opposites.

Letter 70 TO CRASHAW. Solving a problem. All are mind-made sa such. Use of advice.

Letter 71 TO THE ZEN CLASS. Zen and the School of Zen. We must teach what we learn.

VI.              CONCENTRATION AND MEDITATION

VII.           THE APPROACH TO ZEN

Letter 72 TO MRS MANFIELD. Addressing the situation. Preparing the mind to cope.

Letter 73 TO MARTHA. Acquiring merit. The reservoir created.

Letter 74 TO SILVER. Self-analysis can be overdone

Letter 75 TO RODNEY. Gradual and sudden enlightenment

Letter 76 TO MARY.  Suffering , self and compassion. Everything is right.

Letter 77 TO BRAMPTON. ZEN logic oa ‘A is not A’. why got created the universe. The absolute and the One, the Two, the Three. One’s ‘Original face’

Letter 78 TO MRS WILMER. The change of the inner centre.

Letter 79 TO SILVER. The necessity of paradox

Letter 80 TO CLARENCE. WHEN concepts ‘blend and blur’

Letter 81 TO BUNGY. On seeing straight. Right reading.

Letter 82 TO MARY. The ultimate affirmation – Yes!

Letter 83 TO THE CLASS. The class and its teacher. Why no koans given. Why no talk of ultimates. The ultimate is.

PART THREE : EXPERIMENTS IN ZEN

     VIII                        EXPERIMENT IN ZEN

      IX              FURTHER EXPERIMENT IN ZEN

      X               THIRD EXPERIMENT IN ZEN

      XI              SURVEY AND PROPHECY

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