“The flower is not red, the willow is not green” This is regarded by Zen devotees as most refreshingly satisfying. So long as we think logic is final, we are chained, we have no freedom of spirit and the real facts of life are lost sight of. Now, however, we have the key to the whole situation; we have no freedom of spirit, and the real facts of life are lost sight of. Now, however, we have the key to the whole situation; we are masters of realities; words have given up their domination over us. If we are pleased to call a spade not a spade, we have the perfect right to do so; a spade need not always remain a spade; and moreover, this according to the Zen master, expresses more correctly the state of reality which refuses to be tied up to names.
This breaking up of the tyranny of name and logic is at the same time spiritual emancipation; for the soul is no longer divided against itself. By acquiring the intellectual freedom the soul is in full possession of itself; birth and death no longer torment it; for there are no such dualities anywhere; we live even through death. Hitherto we have been looking at things in their contradicting and differentiating aspect, and have assumed an attitude toward them in accordance with that view, that is more or less antagonistic. But this has been revolutionized, we have at last attained the point where the world can be viewed, as it were from within. Therefore, “the iron trees are in full bloom”; and “in the midst of pouring rain I am not wet”. The soul is thus made whole, perfect and filled with bliss.
Zen deals with facts and not with their logical, verbal, prejudiced and lame representations. Direct simplicity is the soul of Zen; hence its vitality, freedom and originality. Christianity speaks much of simplicity of heart and so do other religions, but this does not always mean not to be simple hearted or to be a simple Simon. In Zen it means not to get entangled in intellectual subtleties, not to be carried away by philosophical reasoning that is so often ingenuous and full of sophistry. It means, again, to recognize facts as facts and to know that words are words and nothing else. Zen often compares the mind to a mirror free from stains. To be simple, therefore, according to Zen, will be to keep this mirror always bright and pure and ready to reflect simplicity and absolutely whatever comes before it. The result will be to acknowledge a spade and at the same time not to be a spade. To recognize the first only is a common sense view, and there is no Zen until the second is also admitted along with the first. The common sense view is flat and tame, whereas that of Zen is always original and stimulating. Each time Zen is asserted things get vitalized, there is an act of creation.
Zen thinks we are too much of the slaves to words and logic. So long as we remain thus fettered we are miserable and go through untold suffering. But if we want to see something really worth knowing, that is conductive to our spiritual happiness, we must endeavor once for all to free ourselves from all conditions, we must see if we cannot gain a new point of view from which the world can be surveyed in its wholeness and life comprehended inwardly. This consideration has compelled one to plunge oneself deep into the abyss of the “Nameless” and take hold directly of the spirit as it is engaged in the business of creating the world. Here is no logic, no philosophizing; here is no twisting of facts to suit our artificial measures; here is no murdering of human nature in order to submit it to intellectual dissections; the one spirit stands face to face with the other spirit like two mirrors facing each other, and there is nothing to intervene between their mutual reflections.
In this sense Zen is pre-eminently practical. It has nothing to do with abstractions or with subtleties of dialectics. It seizes the spade lying in front of you, and holding it forth, makes the bold declaration, “I hold a spade, yet I hold it not.” No reference is made to God or to the soul, there is no talk about the infinite or a life after death. This handling of a homely spade, a most ordinary thing to see about us, opens all the secrets we encounter in life. And nothing more is wanted. Why? Because Zen has now cleared up a new approach to the reality of things. When a humble flower in the crannied wall is understood. In Zen the spade is the key to the whole riddle. How fresh and full of life, it is - the way Zen grapples with the knottiest questions of Philosophy!