Personally I believe that this passion for Nature worked more favourably on literature than on painting. The typical Zen picture, dashed off in a moment of exaltation—perhaps a moonlit river expressed in three blurs and a flourish—belongs rather to the art of calligraphy than to that of painting.
In his more elaborate depictions of nature the Zen artist is led by his love of nature into that common pitfall of lovers—sentimentality. The forms of Nature tend with him to function not as forms but as symbols.
Something resembling the mystic belief which Zen embraces is found in many countries and under many names. But Zen differs from other religions of the same kind in that it admits only one means by which the perception of Truth can be attained. Prayer, fasting, asceticism—all are dismissed as useless, giving place to one single resource, the method of self-hypnosis which I have here described.
I have, indeed, omitted any mention of an important adjunct of Zen, namely tea-drinking, which was as constant a feature in the life of Zen monasteries as it is here in the régime of charwomen and girl-clerks. I have not space to describe the various tea-ceremonies. The tendency of monasteries was to create in them as in every part of daily life a more and more elaborate ritual, calculated to give some pattern to days otherwise devoid of any incident. We possess minute descriptions of every ceremony—the initiation of novices, the celebration of birth and death anniversaries of the Patriarchs, the procedure in cases of sickness, madness, disobedience, disappearance or death of monks; the selection and investiture of abbots; the lectures, liturgies and sessions which constituted the curriculum of Zen instruction.
In China decay set in after the fifteenth century. The Zen monasteries became almost indistinguishable from those of popular, idolatrous Buddhism. In Japan, on the other hand, Zen has remained absolutely distinct and is now the favourite creed of the educated classes. It has not hitherto conducted any propaganda in Europe, whereas the Amida Sect has sent out both missionaries and pamphlets. But I believe that Zen would find many converts in England. Something rather near it we already possess. Quakerism, like Zen, is a non-dogmatic religion, laying stress on the doctrine of Immanence. But whereas the Quakers seek communion with the Divine Spark in corporate meditation and deliberately exploit the mysterious potencies of crowd-psychology—the Zen adept probes in solitude (or at least without reference to his neighbour) for the Buddha within him.
In cases where a Quaker meeting passes in silence, the members having meditated quietly for a whole hour, a very near approach to a Zen gathering has been made. But more often than not the Holy Spirit, choosing his mouthpiece with an apparent lack of discrimination, quickly descends upon some member of the meeting. The ineffable, which Zen wisely refused to express, is then drowned in a torrent of pedestrian oration.
Some, then, may turn to Zen as a purer Quakerism. Others will be attracted to it by the resemblance of its doctrines to the hypotheses of recent psychology. The Buddha consciousness of Zen exactly corresponds to the Universal Consciousness which, according to certain modern investigators, lies hid beneath the personal Consciousness. Such converts will probably use a kind of applied Zen, much as the Japanese have done; that is to say, they will not seek to spend their days in complete Samādhi, but will dive occasionally, for rest or encouragement, into the deeper recesses of the soul.
It is not likely that they will rest content with the traditional Eastern methods of self-hypnosis. If certain states of consciousness are indeed more valuable than those with which we are familiar in ordinary life—then we must seek them unflinchingly by whatever means we can devise. I can imagine a kind of dentist’s chair fitted with revolving mirrors, flashing lights, sulphurous haloes expanding and contracting—in short a mechanism that by the pressure of a single knob should whirl a dustman into Nirvāna.
Whether such states of mind are actually more valuable than our ordinary consciousness is difficult to determine. Certainly no one has much right to an opinion who has not experienced them. But something akin to Samādhi—a sudden feeling of contact with a unity more real than the apparent complexity of things—is probably not an uncommon experience. The athlete, the creative artist, the lover, the philosopher—all, I fancy, get a share of it, not when seeking to escape from the visible world; but rather just when that world was seeming to them most sublimely real.
To seek by contemplation of the navel or of the tip of the nose a repetition of spiritual experiences such as these seems to us inane; and indeed the negative trance of Zen is very different from the positive ecstasies to which I have just referred. I say that it is different; but how do I know? “Zen,” said Bodhidharma, “cannot be described in words nor chronicled in books”; and I have no other experience of Zen. If I knew, I might transmit to you my knowledge, but it would have to be by a direct spiritual communication, symbolised only by a smile, a gesture, or the plucking of a flower.