ABSTRACT
Dear Mrs Mansfield, As you could not attend the series of talks on 'Every Minute Zen' I am answering your letter as to coping with situations as they arise. As I was told long ago, one of the main purposes of Zen training is to fit the pupil to cope with any situation at any time. Hence, no doubt, by way of training, the 'impossible situations' described, for example, in the Mutnonkwan where the man is hanging over the precipice by his teeth, or Nansen holding up the cat in order to create such a violent situation-(see Ogata's Zen for the West Appendix I), and W. J. Gabb made much in his own The Goose is Out of 'The Address to the Situation'. Professor Ogata at the 1957 Summer School invented a situation to get our reaction to it, and life is certainly presenting them every day. How can we train ourselves to the 'right' reaction to these situations? I think we can do it, but here as always I can but offer the principles which work in my own case and may work in yours.
