Word: zens
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...analysis is suspect if it conjoins such disparate groups as the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, the practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, the Jesus freaks, Scientology, est, the newfound devotees of Oriental religions in the U.S. like Sufi or Zen Buddhism, and the followers of individual cult leaders like Jim Jones or Guru Maharaj Ji. But since academic sociologists refuse to take these groups seriously enough to study them, the general ignorance on the whole matter may be lightened by a few generalized stabs in the dark...
...Decade, perhaps this is not all bad. People may be quitting political movements to Find Themselves, may be leaving the New Left communes as well as the nice homes in the suburbs to become Zen Buddhists, may be giving up trying to save the world to experience union with that world, but who can say they are objectively wrong? With political change as a value, of course one rejects beliefs like, "The best thing a man can do for his fellows is to achieve enlightenment" or "Everything is interconnected, the good with the bad, how can you change anything...
Belying the clubhouse gaiety, the Yanks dumped the Toronto Blue Jays 5-1, staying a game ahead with only four to go. "Zen doesn't really apply here any more," Lee said. "What we need is Karma...
...Zen student, he knows that the danger in any quest is having great expectations. Watching passively and eliminating the distinctions between the observer and the observed are Zen basics that have been familiar to Western readers since Eugen Herrigel told us how the bow and arrow became an extension of his body in Zen in the Art of Archery (1953). Matthiessen has a full quiver and considerable patience; his problem seems to be an overabundance of targets...
Matthiessen's excursions into intellectual history and "one's true nature" distract from his sensuous descriptions of nature, and his discourses on Zen often get in the way of his personal reflections. He bears his pilgrim's burden with melancholy dignity, but, ironically, his book lacks an essential Zen element: wit, the lightness of touch that is absolutely necessary when jiggling the web of paradoxes nature has stretched across its secrets...