Crasses et Voluptés

 “Face existence” might not have been the first and greatest of the commandments, but it is the first and greatest of realizations, and on it hang not only all the law and the prophets but all religion in the modern sense whatsoever, whether Paul, Augustine, Kierkegaard, Scheler or Sartre. This is where the religious experience begins. The vessel must be emptied before it can be filled. Western philosophers and theologians are verbally explicit, but this is the meaning of the emptying sought as the preliminary to religious growth in all the philosophical religions of the Far East, whether Buddhism or Hinduism. Zen is only a practical nonverbal technique for realizing the philosophy of the Void. St. Paul’s word was “kenosis” — “emptying out.”

Ecclesiastes (extrait) Kenneth Rexroth, 1966