Q. Buddhism relies a lot on understanding, so would that indicate it was an intellectual religion?
A. No, it's more an emotional religion. The intellectual religion is Yoga, Raja not Hatha. The Buddhist religion is so vast there would be sections of it which were intellectual - in Zen and Chan the approach is quite intellectual. But mainly it would be emotional.
Q. But in the sense of what the Buddha achieved and how it was set out, wasn't it basically an analytical problem?
A. The religion itself was emotional because the Buddha was emotionally upset by the people he saw suffering from old age and poverty. He would have used his intellect, of course, because he was a balanced man. There is no doubt he was fairly well developed at the beginning, and if he wasn't at first completely balanced, he didn't take long to become balanced.....
Q. Buddhism doesn't appear to be emotional because it doesn't have the sentiment of some religions, or the personalised conception of God?
A. Yet many people try to give these things to the Buddhist religion, especially the Theravada people. There's another Zen story about a teacher who was in a very cold place in the mountains, in a monastery renowned for it's priceless wooden statues of the Buddha. One particular cold day the teacher made a fire with the statues, which shows the understanding that man had.