Zen is the final flowering of all religious ascension

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Listener (L): Spiritual way tends to be more direct and I feel Zen-Buddhism actually misleads from the direct path.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Zen never imposes any rule. Or does it? Is that your question that Zen imposes rule?

L: Yes

AP: What kind of rules?

L: Rules of the way of living, thinking.

AP: Zen is the simplest, purest and most direct way of living. Almost living like a plant, living like winds, and stones and animals. So, that could be said about many other traditional practices but not at all about Zen.

If you go to a Zen practitioner and ask, “What rules do you follow?” He will have very few rules to tell you. May be he will say, “When I sit down for meditation, I face the wall” or if he has picked up a few practices from here and there, he will talk about them, but nothing very elaborate.

From where did you pick this idea, that Zen involves a bundle of rules? Have you met practitioners?

L: No, I just went through one of the books and perceived that living by Zen means living in a special way.