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Buddhism at large is reluctant to address questions that other religions would consider crucial. Ideas such as the nature of God, what exactly happens after death, and so forth are fundamental to most faiths; in Buddhism, they are usually considered irrelevant mysteries. Zen Buddhism categorizes all such inquiries as literally impossible to answer and deeply distracting to one’s focus on the now. The combination of living in the moment, personal experience, inwardly directed meditation, and an overt rejection of certain metaphysical questions gives Zen Buddhism an interesting application of the concept of upaya. Strictly speaking, upaya is a spiritual form of pragmatism, best characterized as “whatever works.