58 Notes & Topics
is our spontaneous subjective life and not our
opinionatedlife, ~vhichis one ste~ rentovedfrom
reality. The latter should perhaps be happy
according to our standards, yet it is not; and
vice-versa. Weare unexpectedly happy whenwe
are doing uphill work like Till Eulenspiegel,
and should be gloomy,at least by all reasonable
expectations. Wehate and fear ihe irrationality
of the things within, and thus never learn the
art of living with the things as they are. We
prefer opinions to real life and believe in words
rather than facts, with the result that our
existence is rather two- than three-dimensional.
The morethis is the case, the morethe long-
ing for wholenessintensifies. But instead of con-
sidering one’s own irrationality one eagerly
studies Zen and Yoga, if possible the more
obvious and tangible parts of both. If one is
patient enough(e.g., in spendingyears and years
in learning Zen archery) one is rewarded,a~ one
always is, when one is doing something dis-
agreeable with utmost patience and discipline,
which are in themselves reward enough, but not
more.
c. C.ju,
Neither Lotus Nor Robot
N o v ~ M B E R issue of ENCOUNTER,
I N T H E
John Stracheyaccusedme,rather flatteringly,
of having started "with Darkness at Noon...
the literature of reaction...the retreat from
rationalism...a reaction against five hundred
years of rationalism and empiricism; against,
in short, the enlightenment.That is its scandal."
In the Decemberissue, Mr. Christmas Humph-
reys, Q.C., accused me of the oDposit¢ crime,
of being too muchof a rationalist to share in
the "intuitive delights" of his particular brand
of mysticism, i.e., Zcn. I amnot complaining;
falling bet~veentwo stools maybe preferable to
settling down,if both of themsmell of dry rot.
That Western rationalism has acquired that
smell is evident, and tacitly agreed by all par-
ticipants in this controversy. It seemsequally
obvious,and inevitable, that a culture threatened
by strontium clouds should yearn for the Cloud
of Unknowing. Mypoint was that the simple
abdication of reason in favour of a spurious
mysticism does not resolve the dilemma; and
I have tried to prove that both Yogaand Zen,
as practised to-day, are spurious and degenerate.
I amgrateful to ProfessorJung for his autl’,ori-
tative endorsement of this diagnosis, and not
only for personal reasons; his statement will
* ZenandJapaneseCulture(London,x959),P. 63.
PRODUCED 2003 BY UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
help to dispel the fog. With the remainder of
bi~ articlc, defendingintuition against the mono-
polistic claims of logic, I amin full agreement;
be apparently did not realise that this was the
starting point of mybook (and implied in its
title, The Lotus and the Robot).
Mr. Christmas Humphreys objected to my
being only concerned with Zen in Japan and not
in China. But Chinese Zen, which went into
decline somefive hundredyears ago, is virtually
extinct; and it is the Japanese brand, packaged
for export by Professor Suzuki, that is dumped
on the West. Then he quoted Suzuki himself to
showthat Zen should be tied neither to Japan
nor to China, because it "has its ownlife in-
dependent of history." Nowthat statement is
true of any systemof ideas, but no longer true
when that system becomes embodied in a
church, cult, or school; and the only contem-
Forary embodimentof Zen is Japanese Zen, as
Mr. Humphreyswell knows. So whyquibble?
ANDWHY MUST the Master and his pupils write
book after book to explain that Zen cannot be
explained, that it is "literally beyondthought,
beyondthe reach of thought, beyond the limits
of the finest and most subtle thinking," in a
word, that it cannot be put into words? We
knowthat not only mystical experience defies
verbalisation; there is a whole range of in-
tuitions, visual impressions, bodily sensations,
which also refuse to be converted into verbal
currency. Painters paint, dancers dance,
musicians make music, instead of explaining
that they are practising no-thoughtin their no-
minds. Inarticulateness is not a monopolyof
Zen; but it is the only school which made a
philosophyout of it, whoseexponentsburst into
verbal diarrhcea to prove constipation.
In medixval Japan and earlier in China, Zen
fulfilled a vital function as a deliberately amoral
and illogical antidote to the rigours of a hier-
archic, cramped,self-conscious society. Its motto
was: reverse the paradoxof the centipede, don’t
think, just walk. That’s good advice to the
centipede, but very bad in societies which tend
to run amok.In the form in which it is taught
and practised to-day, Zen spells intellectual and
moral nihilism. The first, because the emphasis
is not on marrying intuition to reason but on
castrating reason. Andthe second, because its
moral detachment has degenerated into com-
placency towards, and complicity with, evil. As
the Masterhimself tells us:
Zenis... extremelyflexible in adaptingitself
to ahnost any philosophyand moral doctrine as
long as its intuitive teachingis not interfered
with. It maybe found weddedto anarchism or
fascism, communism or democracy..... *
 Notes & Topics
What is one to think of an "intuitive teach-
ing" that can be "wedded" to the mystique of
genocide? By virtue of its anti-rationality and
amorality, Zen always held a fascination for a
category of people in whombrutishness com-
bines with pseudo-mysticism, from Samurai to
Kamikaze to Beatnik. Mr. Humphreys is an
exception; but the case of Herrigel (Zen in the
Art o[ Archery), mentioned in Professor
Scholem’s letter [in this number, p. 96] is
typical. He was the star pupil among Western
converts both before and after his Nazi career.
In Dr. Suzuki’s preface, written in 1953, to
"’this wonderful little book by a Germanphilo-
sopher," there ]s no mention of that past and
no word of apology; instead the Master has the
sweet gall to tell us hmv, through the practice
o~ archery,
the mind is brought into contact with the ulti-
mate reality... "childlikeness" is restored after
long years of training .... Whena manreaches
London Contmentary
From Walpole to Macmillan
By Henry Fairlie
D ~at ~aScarborough
his speech
last
October, when he was
addressing the Conserv-
ative Party conference,
Mr. Macmillan brack-
eted intellectuals and
hooligans together, be-
tween commas. The
conference--and a Con-
servative Party confer-
ence, I imagine, is what is meant by a captive
audience--delighted in the remark. At the back
of the hall, I merely pondered the fact that three
years ago Mr. Macmillan would never have
made it. He is himself an intellectual--one of
the most intellectual politicians of his genera-
tion-and he used to pride himself on being
one. (He is also, one mayruefully point out, the
Chancellor of Oxford University.) That he
should make the commonplace association
between intellectuals and hooligans, in order
to win an easy cheer, left me unhappily won-
dering whether power had seriously begun to
corrupt.
We ought now to be able to make some esti-
PRODUCED 2003 BY UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
59
that stage of spiritual development, he is a Zen
artist of life .... He is the showers, the ocean,
the stars, the foliage.
And the gas-chambers.
Wues XnE ARC~irRhad gone to Valhalla, Frau
Gustie, his faithful and formidable widow, pub-
lished a companion volume about Zen in the
Art o[ Flower Arrangement, with another gush-
ing preface by Dr. Suzuki in which reference
was made to "the lilies of the field whose beauty
was not surpassed by Solomon." It is time for
the Professor to shut up and for the Western
intelligentsia to recognise contemporary Zen as
one of the "sick" jokes, slightly gangrened,
which are always fashionable in ages of anxiety.
Debunking is not an inspiring job. When
John Donne wrote, "T’is all in pieces, all
cohesion gone," he was uttering an earlier
"strangled cry." He also wrote, "With a strong
sober thirst, my some attends"; and that thirst
cannot be quenched by hooch.
Artkur Koestler
mate of Mr. Macmillan, since he has been
Prime Minister for four years; and we certainly
ought to try, since he seems likely to remain
so for at least another three. By that time, he
will have enjoyed a longer continuous term of
office than any of his predecessors since the
Reform Act of i83~ , with the exception only of
two: Salisbury (seven years and one month) and
Asquith (eight years and eight months). There
will be another opportunity to consider both
his policy and the temper of the country which
so tranquilly supports him, but this note is con-
cerned only with the character of the political
leadership which he offers. For the kind of
politician that he is determines, as muchas any
other single factor, the kind of policies he
pursues.
Two YEARSAGO,I AStern Mr. Macmillan which,
of all the peace-time Prime Ministers who had
preceded him, he thought was the greatest. Hc
played for a moment with the names of Bald-
win and Disraeli. Then he gave his reply--
Robert Walpole--and pointed to the picture
hanging above the Cabinet table. In his portrait
of Walpole, which is not as flattering as Mr.