 The designation of this school of the Buddha-Way as Zen, which means sitting meditation, is derived from a transliteration of the Chinese word Chán. Because the Chinese term is in turn a transliteration of the Sanskrit term dhyāna, however, Zen owes its historical origin to early Indian Buddhism, where a deepened state of meditation, called samādhi, was singled out as one of the three components of study a Buddhist was required to master, the other two being an observation of ethical precepts (sīla) and an embodiment of nondiscriminatory wisdom (prajñā). Meditation was picked as the name for this school because the historical Buddha achieved enlightenment (nirvāna) through the practice of meditation. In the context of Zen Buddhism, the perfection of nondiscriminatory wisdom (Jpn.: hannya haramitsu; Skrt.: prajñāpāramitā) designates practical, experiential knowledge. Only secondarily and derivatively does it mean theoretical, intellectual knowledge. This is, Zen explains, because theoretical knowledge is a form of “language game” (Jpn.: keron; Skrt.: prapañca), i.e., discrimination through the use of language, constructed as it is at least in part on distinction-making. Zen believes that theoretical reference ultimately carries no existential meaning for emancipating a human being from his or her predicaments, for it maintains that discriminatory knowledge of any kind is delusory/illusory in nature. To this effect it holds that it is through a practical transformation of the psychophysiological constitution of one’s being that one prepares for embodying nondiscriminatory wisdom. This preparation involves the training of the whole person and is called “self-cultivation” (shugyō) in Japanese. It is a practical method of correcting the modality of one’s mind by correcting the modality of one’s body, in which practice (prāxis) is given precedence over theory (theōria) (Yuasa, 1987).