We don’t figure out in words or in ordered thoughts how we grow our own bodies, how we structure our bones, how we regulate our metabolism. And we don’t really even know how we manage to be conscious, how we actually think, and how we actually make decisions. We do these things, indeed, but the processes of the order of the physical body which underlie them are completely mysterious to us.
The process of upbringing involves some warping of our nature. And Zen and Buddhism in general have as their objective a curing of this inevitable disease which we contract as a kind of poisonous byproduct of being civilized. You know, it’s like you salt meat to preserve it. But when you want to eat it, you have to soak the salt out of it.
We are so unaccustomed to acting with spontaneity that we have no faith in it, and therefore we don’t (as it were) acquire practice in the use of spontaneous action. We are only practiced in the use of deliberate action. And what Zen proposes to do is to give us training in the practice of spontaneous action.
