The Buddhist Zen thought gives us the teaching:work out your own salvation with dili-gence,extinct the self and worldly desires as in the whole world that that is not,is;that that is,is not.Holden Caulfield,a protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye,well represents such Buddhist para-dox:not being a catcher is a catcher,and he wants to be a responsible member of society,to guide and protect those younger than him.When our world has become a mechanical,scientific and dualis-tic one,in this condition,the Buddhist thought presented in The Catcher in the Rye is surely a major way to find the lost spiritual garden.