The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West

by Aldous Huxley

Of this second kind of paradox the masters of Taoism and Zen Buddhism were particularly fond. The latter, indeed, made use of paralogisms and even of nonsense as a device for “taking the kingdom of heaven by violence.” Aspirants to the life of perfection were encouraged to practice discursive meditation on some completely non-logical formula. The result was a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the whole self-centred and world-centred discursive process, a sudden breaking through from “reason” (in the language of scholastic philosophy) to intuitive “intellect,” capable of a genuine insight into the divine Ground of all being. This method strikes us as odd and eccentric; but the fact remains that it worked to the extent of producing in many persons the final metanoia, or transformation of consciousness and character.