Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen
by Alan Watts
Orignial version as published the spring 1958 issue of the Chicago Review
http://www.bluesforpeace.com/beat_zen.htm
It is as difficult for Anglo-Saxons as for the Japanese to absorb anything
quite so Chinese as Zen. For though the word "Zen" is Japanese and though
Japan is now its home, Zen Buddhism is the creation of T'ang dynasty
China. I do not say this as a prelude to harping upon the ncommunicable
subtleties of alien cultures. The point is simply that people who feel a
profound need to justify themselves have difficulty in understanding the
viewpoints of those who do not, and the Chinese who created Zen were the
same kind of people as Lao-tzu, who, centures before, said, "Those who
justify themselves do not convince." For the urge to make or prove oneself
right has always jiggled the Chinese sense of the ludicrous, since as both
Confucians and Taoists-however different these philosophies in other ways-
they have invariably appreciated the man who can "come off it." To
Confucius it seemed much better to be human-hearted then righteous, and
to the great Taoists, Lao-tzu and Chang-tzu, it was obvious that one could
not be right without also being wrong, because the two were as inseparable
as back and front. As Chang-tzu said, "Those who would have good
government without its correlative misrule, and right without its correlative
wrong, do not understand the principles of the universe."
To Western ears such words may sound cynical, and the Confucian
admiration of "reasonableness" and compromise may appear to be a weak-
kneed lack of commitment to principle. Actually they reflect a marvelous
understanding and respect for what we call the balance of nature, human
and otherwise-a universal vision of life as the Tao or way of nature in which
the good and evil, the creature and the destructive, the wise and the foolish
are the inseparable polarities of existence. "Tao," said the Chung-yung, "is
that from which one cannot depart. That from which one can depart is not
the Tao