Status Updates From Zen and the Birds of Appetite

If revelation is regarded simply as a system of truths about God, then Christianity is reduced to a worldview. “Experience” of the inner meaning of Christian revelation will necessarily be distorted and finished in such a theological setting. What will such experience be? Not so much a living experience of the presence of God, but rather a sense of security in one’s correctness.

Zen is not a systematic explanation of life, it is not an ideology, it is not a world view, it is not a theology of revelation and salvation, it is not a mystique, it is not a way of ascetic perfection, it is not mysticism as this is understood in the West, in fact it fits no convenient category of ours.