The popular usage [of the word Zen] implies that Zen is simply an attitude of undistracted concentration that can be applied to any human endeavor. If you get fully involved in the task at hand, become one with it, and allow yourself to flow according to its natural rhythms, then your performance of that task will improve accordingly—which is a discovery of substantial benefit to professional athletes, creative writers, and many others. I have also seen the word Zen used to describe home electronics projects and lines of cosmetic products, in which the word is used in the sense of a bare-bones simplicity and ease of use; of course, the latter may also include some “oriental” aesthetic sense for all I know. No doubt there is an exotic cachet to invoking Zen in all these contexts as well...Although undivided concentration and bare-bones simplicity are legitimate messages of Chinese Chan as a mode of self-cultivation, the Chan tradition, as we have already seen, involves far more than this.
John Mcrae, “Chapter 5. Zen and the Art of Fundraising”, Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Geneology in Chinese Chan Buddhism, pg. 56-57
