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Quote by Heinrich Dumoulin

“In Zen an altered state of consciousness is no more than an ancillary phenomenon, never to be sought after for its own sake. When altered states and the expansion of consciousness are emphasized, as occurred in America and Europe, Zen falls into the proximity of drugs—an association not heard of in Japan.”

Quote by Heinrich Dumoulin

Work

Zen Enlightenment: Origins And Meaning

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Heinrich Dumoulin

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“The nonthinking taught by Zen practice entails stilling the conscious activities of the ego in order to prepare for the experience. This Zen exercise reduces the ego to silence and clears space for what is essential. What thereby occurs is anything but the cult of the ego, narcissism, or egocentrism. Rather, the ego is compelled to make room for an experience that establishes communication with the reality of all existing things.”

“There has been a tendency to find Zen so radically different from other Buddhist schools, especially during the Zen boom in America, that a distinction was drawn between Zen and Buddhism in general. It goes without saying that this sort of distinction is nonsense. Zen in its entirety belongs to Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. It counts as one of the classical Buddhist schools in China, each of which can claim a certain autonomy. Zen itself professes to be that particular lineage of immediate transmission which, bound to no holy scriptures, hands down to progeny the original way to Buddha-enlightenment. It is, in brief, the meditation school of Mahayana Buddhism.”

“Zen particularly regards rational inquiry and academic scholarship as a hindrance along the way of enlightenment. The life story we told earlier of Hui-neng makes the Sixth Patriarch completely illiterate. Although this part of the story is contradicted by other reports giving testimony to his intimate knowledge of the sutras, this illiteracy is taken as a criterion for the authenticity of his way of Zen.”

“If we can unify the apparent duality between the great uncontrollable energy and the natural wisdom of our monkey mind, if we moderate its impulsive tendencies and incorporate its intuitive wisdom, we can express our being in all its capacity and transform into calm and enlightened individuals.”