Until we recognize the SELF that exists apart from who we think we are - we cannot know the Ch'an ( ZEN ) MIND

Because since the beginningless past we are running after objects, not knowing where our Self is, we lose track of the Original Mind and are tormented all the time by the threatening objective world, regarding it as good or bad, true or false, agreeable or disagreeable. We are thus slaves of things and circumstances.

Personal experience, therefore, is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.

Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life.

I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring woods:-in all these I am practicing Zen, I am living Zen. No worldly discussion is necessary, or any explanation.

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.