Zen for Americans

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ... on one side only? The pendulum owes its existence to a constant swinging from one side to the other. When this is stopped, it ceases to be itself and exists no more. To live is to move, to change, to walk up and down, to come in and out, to enjoy and to suffer, to smile and to weep. To refuse to do so is simply courting death. Life is a fabric interwoven with the woof of pain and the warp of pleasure. It cannot be a monotonous series of pleasures, nor that of pains. Therefore, to enjoy life is not to crave for agreeable stimulations alone, nor is it to shun evils. It is to be above them, both pain and pleasure. It is to use the world, as not abusing it, to state it from the Christian point of view. But many are they that are ignorant of this our actual experience of life. How hard they endeavor to create as much pleasure as they can and to cling to it as long as they can, utterly regardless of the true meaning of life! But it is altogether outside of their power to check the approaching shadow of misery which gradually and stealthily but surely envelops them in the end. The greater the joy of the moment, the stronger its reverse. For where the mountains are high, the seas are deep; and the blackness of a raven looks blacker in the whiteness of snow. It is therefore well to remind these hedonists of the necessary condition of life, that there is no pleasure that is not mingled with pain, that there is no bliss which can be obtained without struggle. Whatever blind pleasure-seekers think to be bliss or curse is no other than the products of sensualism and egoism, so long as they are bound with the iron chain of ignorance. Their deeds, sentiments, and thoughts have no moral or religious significance whatever. Their lives are like the bubbles or foam that vani...