Religion in the West such as Christianity is generally understood in a literal and historical context. This is in direct opposition to religion understood allegorically in which the proper interpretation of text reveals itself to be an inner spiritual journey meant to take the adept directly to gnosis of ultimate reality (which I can say happened to me in a most extraordinary way).
How disheartening it is to see the literal and historical context growing in Zen when, for example, I look at the Jingde chuandeng lu (The Transmission of the Lamp, 1004), seeing how it is treated. This particular work is, generally, taken to have historical significance as an actual transmission. In truth, however, the Jingde chuandeng lu is nothing more than an ingenious Zen myth, the purpose of which, is to show the continuity of enlightenment as it enters into the temporal world being recognized and passed on.
This is as much as telling us that we all have the potential to realize our Buddha-nature or essence which is concealed within the temporal body of our birth and kept hidden by our worldly ways. But by practicing Zen, we hope to awaken to this spiritual nature or essence and join the line of eternal Buddhas.
Western Zennists will, of course, not get my message. They will just politely nod their heads. As I judge them, they have been the unfortunate victims of Christian religion and culture which has a mistaken view of Christianity in which its true spiritual context and meaning has long been anathematized and suppressed going as far back as the time of Constantine the Great (272–337). Even today, most Westerners who take up Zen, specifically, or some other Buddhist tradition like Tibetan Buddhism seem thoroughly ignorant of the fact that there is an spiritual inner quest involved in Buddhism; that ultimate reality is found within the darkness of the corporeal body of birth like a lamp hidden under a bushel basket.
The interest these unfortunates have in Zen is largely psychological; moreover I would have to say also that their interest leans more towards being irreligious—not quite Marxism but close. They are unable to escape the ideology of Western culture which vacillates back and forth between a deep sense of meaninglessness and engrossment in objective materialism.
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