For those new to Zen, it contains a barrier to their commonsense understanding. As a result, anyone approaching Zen for the first time finds themselves walking a fine line between nihilism (meaninglessness) and ultimate meaning (discovering within one's self the essence of reality). It forces the beginner to decide whether to take Zen as a cosmic joke: it's illusion all the way down, hence, meaningless, or there is an experience the beginner is lacking which will clear-up his confusion and doubt. The former is the easy way out. "You take the blue pill," as Morpheus says to Neo in the film, The Matrix, "the story ends." Also, this is where traditional Zen ends.

Abject Zen arrives which prevents the beginner from discovering their real nature or essence. Instead, every beginner learns to become a hypocrite—a Zen actor. The same beginner becomes an anti-intellectual who is really a pseudo-intellectual. This abject Zennist also learns to despise spirit and worship the absurd in its place. He has nothing to say about Zen that is meaningful except, "Just sit." Sitting is the answer. It makes one something akin to a bump on a log or it is what Zen master Hakuin called "dead sitting" which is almost like saying this corporeal body of mine is enlightened.

Sorry, but the history of Zen in the West is that of abject Zen. I saw it in my teacher and other highly esteemed teachers of Zen. Looking at the underbelly of Zen in the West it is not without a checkered past. Nor does contemporary Zen appear to understand that the practice of Zen is to see our true nature or the same, behold the One Mind. This also means that we must train not to get bewitched by sense impressions, getting lost in them, being unable to break their spell. If we choose to sit in zazen at some Zen center, then it means our mind must practice—sitting is not practice.