One critic1 regards Zen as “the Buddhist counterpart of the ‘Spiritual Exercises’ of St. Ignatius Loyala”. The critic shows a great inclination to find Christian analogies for things Buddhistic, and this is one of such instances. Those who have at all a clear understanding of Zen will at once see how wide of the mark this comparison is. Even superficially speaking, there is not a shadow of similitude between the exercises of Zen and those proposed by the founder of the Society of Jesus.
