Overly religious orthodoxies might view the comic as an affront to the sacred. Not Zen. The comic perspective plays an integral rôle in Zen, perhaps second only to the cosmic. Zen’s childlike, foolish, playful side is embodied in the spirit of Han-shan, that carefree eccentric poet who lived during the Tang dynasty. Does his lighthearted Zen pose a real threat to the sober-sided meditative Zen of Bodhidharma? No, it rounds it out, as does yin to yang. As does the act of that destitute man in the charming fable of the Juggler of Notre Dame. The only thing of worth he could possibly offer Our Lady—and the one she would value the most—was simply that gift of juggling his very best in front of her altar.

From James H. Austin’s Zen and the Brain, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999 (first published in 1998), p. 414.