Definition of "Zen"

For Orientals these mysterious formulae are clear and familiar truths, but for us they are completely bewildering... Dhyana Buddhism, which is known in Japan as "Zen"... is not speculation at all but immediate experience of what, as the bottomless ground of Being, cannot be apprehended by intellectual means, and cannot be conceived or interpreted even after the most unequivocal and incontestable experiences: one knows it by not knowing it.

1953, Richard Francis Carrington Hull translating Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, p. 3

Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable and can be apprehended only by nonrational means, has been with us since the beginning of history. It's the basis of Zen practice.

1974, Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, page 235

While Christianity teaches that man was expelled from the Garden of Eden, Zen teaches that we are living in paradise right now, even amid all the shit that's going down. This world is the Pure Land. This world is paradise. In fact, this world is better than paradise—but all we can do is piss and moan, and look around for something better.

2003, Brad Warner, Hardcore Zen, page 25

Hōyen... used to produce his own hand and ask his disciples, why it was called a hand? When we know the reason, there is satori and we have Zen.

1934, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, page 102

"It sounds very Zen," I said. "A log cabin with no logs."

2010, Martin Avery et al., Zen Forest

Part of him is still so much the newbie, amazed to find this place of sand and sun stuck onto the ass end of the greatest city in the world, but the rest of him has relaxed into acceptance already. He's Zen like that.

2020, N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became, Orbit, page 431