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This branch of Buddhism appeals to people of creativity by teaching about awakening without studying the texts, understanding the teaching systems, without working on themselves simply as a result of a sudden insight (the northern Zen school, which taught about gradual enlightenment, disappeared from the pages of history). It reminds them of the idea of creative insight.
And entrepreneurs value Zen practices for saving time. After all, Zen contemplation can be practiced during any “mundane” activity.
Plus, of course, Zen attracts the modern Western consumer, who wants to get everything at once, with the opportunity to achieve liberation without a long series of reincarnations in this life.
The founders of modern psychology, Carl-Gustav Jung and Erich Fromm, have already had a hand in popularizing Zen. Later, the Zen concept of instant enlightenment and related paradoxical practices designed to demonstrate the absurdity of the traditional worldview and worldview were in tune with existentialism, especially in its psychological aspect.
Here I must say that it is psychology (primarily humanistic, existential), which initially arose largely as a response of society to the severe stress of the industrial revolution and the subsequent civilizational crisis of the first half of the 20th century, helped the newly emerged industrial society to realize itself and gave new forms of describing reality, which are now perceived as the only possible ones. Buddhism in general, not only Zen, was quickly extremely psychologized and began to be perceived as a kind of psychoanalytic practice. That is, in fact, a new, purely Western cultural phenomenon was created, which has little resemblance to the Far Eastern original.
It can also be said that this “Western Zen” is often taken as synonymous with Buddhism in general. True, in this field it competes with Tibetan Lamaism, which also successfully created, thanks to the efforts of the Dalai Lama, a new, well-selling westernized “spiritual practice”.