ABSTRACT
ZEN Buddhism has been described as the religion of tranquillity. This is a good description but, like so many brief statements, it is misleading; for it encourages the charges that the practice of zazen is a quietistic practice and that it leads to retirement from the world. The person who tries zazen soon sees through the first charge. He finds that it takes enormous activity of certain kind to prevent his mind from racing along as he sits. There is no quietism in the overcoming of this business and in the rigorous use of counting and then koans in the struggle. The impression that Zen Buddhism is quietism is and has been so strong even in the Orient that some of the developments in its history have been moves to counteract this impression. The matter has not been improved by the fact that there are tendencies on the part of those who come to Zen to slide into mere quietism.
