It is not very difficult to understand these poetic and mystical feelings as expressed by the highly sensitive souls, though we may not all realise exactly as they felt. Even when Eckhart declares that “the eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me,” or when Plotinus refers to “that which mind, when it turns back, thinks before it thinks itself,” we do not find it altogether beyond our understanding to get at their meaning as far as the ideas are concerned which they try to convey in these mystical utterances. But when we come to statements by the Zen masters, we are entirely at sea how to take them. Their affirmations are as irrelevant, so inappropriate, so irrational, and so nonsensical—at least superficially, that those who have not gained the Zen way of looking at things can hardly make, as we say, heads or tails of them. The truth is that even with full-fledged mystics they are unable to be quite free from the taint of intellection, and leave as a rule “traces” by which their holy abode could be reached. Plotinus’ “flight from alone to alone” is a great mystical utterance proving how deeply he delved into the inner sanctuary of our consciousness. But there is still something speculative or metaphysical about it, and when it is put side by side with the Zen utterances to be cited below, it has, as the masters would say, a mystic flavour on the surface. So long as the masters are indulging in negations, denials, contradictions, or paradoxes, the stain of speculation is not quite washed off of them. Naturally, Zen is not opposed to speculation as it is also one of the functions of the mind. But Zen has travelled along a different path altogether unique, I think, in the history of mysticism, whether Eastern or Western, Christian or Buddhist. A few examples will suffice to illustrate my point.