A useful historical overview of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, what its core principles were and how they were adapted over thousands of years, how it differs from Confucianism and Daoism (it sits in the middle, neither rigid in its boundaries nor entirely passive and porous). My greatest insights arose from the author’s insistence that Buddhism is not something you read about, or something you master, but something you perform. Masters, in other words, can perform with attentive virtuosity all the time. Goobers like myself can only do it occasionally, and usually when the room is very still and quiet.
The big lesson: To approach Buddhism as a theory and the Buddha as a concept is analogous to treating them like hitching posts for donkeys. A-
