Similarities and Dissimilarities

The views expressed in the Zen Parables and those expressed in Existentialism by Jean-Paul Sartre are similar in that they show that the world can be viewed in a completely different way. They both give examples and different situations where someone is actually thinking about the world around them or doing something that gets them to come to a realization that the world is that as was presumed. In The Zen Parables, there is a story where a man is running away from a tiger in a field. This man tries to escape the tiger by grabbing a hold of a root hanging from a ledge. Unfortunately there is another tiger waiting for him at the bottom. This man knows he’s in between a rock and a hard place, but he notices a strawberry on one of the vines. He eats that strawberry and says, “How sweet it tasted”. This man realized he was in a really bad situation but decided to think about the good things in life and not worry over past or future. Similarly in Existentialism, Sartre talks about anguish and how you must accept the consequences even though it might have negative effects towards others. In this case the man accepted that he was going to be eaten and instead decided to enjoy what little bit of life that he had.

            The Zen Parables are different from Existentialism by using parables to describe how the world can be seen differently. In the first parable, Muddy Road, the writer uses the story to show how things can be seen differently if we put our minds to it. Ekido was so attached to the idea that monks are not supposed to go near females, that he forgot that monks are also supposed to help people in need. In the Existentialism reading, Sartre uses his own philosophical ideas of anguish and freedom, and the idea that existence precedes essence to try to make sense of the universe in which we live.