Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series

I do not however mean that they are both material existences, but they are what they are, regardless of their conditions of spiritual development. As the Buddhist scriptures have it, the darkness of the cave itself turns into enlightenment when a torch of spiritual insight burns. It is not that a thing called darkness is first taken out and another thing known by the name of enlightenment is carried in later, but that enlightenment and darkness are substantially one and the same thing from the very beginning, the change from the one to the other has taken place only inwardly or subjectively. Therefore, the finite is the infinite, and vice versa. These are not two separate things, though we are compelled to conceive them so, intellectually. This is the idea, logically interpreted, perhaps contained in Bokuju’s answer given to the monk. The mistake consists in our splitting into two what is really and absolutely one. Is not life one as we live it, which we cut to pieces by recklessly applying the murderous knife of intellectual surgery?

On being requested by the monks to deliver a sermon, Hyakujo Nehan (Pai-chang Nieh-p‘an)[1.12] told them to work on the farm, after which he would give them a talk on the great subject of Buddhism. They did as they were told, and came to the master for a sermon, when the latter, without saying a word, merely extended his open arms towards the monks. Perhaps there is after all nothing mysterious in Zen. Everything is open to your full view. If you eat your food and keep yourself cleanly dressed and work on the farm to raise your rice or vegetables, you are doing all that is required of you on this earth, and the infinite is realised in you. How realised? When Bokuju was asked what Zen was, he recited a Sanskrit phrase from a Sutra, “Mahāprajñāpāramitā!” (in Japanese, Makahannyaharamii!). The inquirer acknowledged his inability to understand the purport of the strange phrase, and the master put a comment on it, saying,

Whatever this is, there is one thing in this connection which we can never afford to lose sight of, that is, the peace or poverty (for peace is only possible in poverty) is obtained after a fierce battle fought with the entire strength of your personality. A contentment gleaned from idleness or from a laissez-faire attitude of mind is a thing most to be abhorred. There is no Zen in this, but sloth and mere vegetation. The battle must rage in its full vigour and masculinity. Without it, whatever peace that obtains is a simulacrum, and it has no deep foundation, the first storm it may encounter will crush it to the ground. Zen is quite emphatic in this. Certainly, the moral virility to be found in Zen, apart from its mystic flight, comes from the fighting of the battle of life courageously and undauntedly.

From the ethical point of view, therefore, Zen may be considered a discipline aiming at the reconstruction of character. Our ordinary life only touches the fringe of personality, it does not cause a commotion in the deepest parts of the soul. Even when the religious consciousness is awakened, most of us lightly pass over it so as to leave no marks of a bitter fighting on the soul. We are thus made to live on the superficiality of things. We may be clever, bright, and all that, but what we produce lacks depth, sincerity, and does not appeal to the inmost feelings. Some are utterly unable to create anything except makeshifts or imitations betraying their shallowness of character and want of spiritual experience. While Zen is primarily religious, it also moulds our moral character. It may be better to say that a deep spiritual experience is bound to effect a change in the moral structure of one’s personality.

The truth of Zen is such that when we want to comprehend it penetratingly we have to go through with a great struggle, sometimes very long and exacting constant vigilance. To be disciplined in Zen is no easy task. A Zen master once remarked that the life of a monk can be attained only by a man of great moral strength, and that even a minister of the state cannot expect to become a successful monk. (Let us remark here that in China to be a minister of the state was considered to be the greatest achievement a man could ever hope for in this world.) Not that a monkish life requires the austere practice of asceticism, but that it implies the elevation of one’s spiritual powers to their highest notch. All the utterances or activities of the great Zen masters have come from this elevation. They are not intended to be enigmatic or driving us to confusion. They are the overflowing of a soul filled with deep experiences. Therefore, unless we are ourselves elevated to the same height as the masters, we cannot gain the same commanding views of life. Says Ruskin: “And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once,—nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parable, in order that he may be sure you want it.

I cannot see quite the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it.” And this key to the royal treasury of wisdom is given us only after patient and painful moral struggle.

The mind is ordinarily chock-full with all kinds of intellectual nonsense and passional rubbish. They are of course useful in their own ways in our daily life. There is no denying that. But it is chiefly because of these accumulations that we are made miserable and groan under the feeling of bondage. Each time we want to make a movement, they fetter us, they choke us, and cast a heavy veil over our spiritual horizon. We feel as if we are constantly living under restraint. We long for naturalness and freedom, yet we do not seem to attain them. The Zen masters know this, for they have gone through with the same experiences once. They want to have us get rid of all these wearisome burdens which we really do not have to carry in order to live a life of truth and enlightenment. Thus they utter a few words and demonstrate with action that, when rightly comprehended, will deliver us from the oppression and tyranny of these intellectual accumulations. But the comprehension does not come to us so easily. Being so long accustomed to the oppression, the mental inertia becomes hard to remove. In fact it has gone down deep into the roots of our own being, and the whole structure of personality is to be overturned. The process of reconstruction is stained with tears and blood. But the height the great masters have climbed cannot otherwise be reached; the truth of Zen can never be attained unless it is attacked with the full force of personality. The passage is strewn with thistles and brambles, and the climb is slippery in the extreme.

It is no pastime but the most serious task in life, no idlers will ever dare attempt it. It is indeed a moral anvil on which your character is hammered and hammered. To the question, “What is Zen?” a master gave this answer, “Boiling oil over a blazing fire.”[1.14] This scorching experience we have to go through with before Zen smiles on us and says, “Here is your home.”

One of these utterances by the Zen masters that will stir a revolution in our minds is this: Hōkoji (P‘ang-yün), formerly a Confucian, asked Baso (Ma-tsu, –788), “What kind of man is he who does not keep company with any thing?” Replied the master, “I will tell you when you have swallowed up in one draught all the waters in the West River.”[1.15] What an irrelevant reply to the most serious question one can ever raise in the history of thought! It sounds almost sacrilegious when we know how many souls there are who go down under the weight of this question. But Baso’s earnestness leaves no room for doubt as is quite well known to all the students of Zen. In fact, the rise of Zen after the sixth patriarch, Hui-nêng, was due to the brilliant career of Baso under whom there arose more than eighty fully-qualified masters, and Hōkoji who was one of the foremost lay disciples of Zen, earned a well-deserved reputation as the Vimalakīrti of Chinese Buddhism. A talk between two such veteran Zen masters could not be an idle sport. However easy and even careless it may appear, there is hidden in it a most precious gem in the literature of Zen. We do not know how many students of Zen were made to sweat and cry in tears because of the inscrutability of this statement of Baso’s.

To give another instance: a monk asked the master Shin of Chōsa (Chang-sha Ching-ch‘ên), “Where has Nansen (Nan-ch‘üan) gone after his death?” Replied the master, “When Sekito (Shih-tou) was still in the order of young novitiates, he saw the sixth patriarch.” “I am not asking about the young novitiate. What I wish to know is, where is Nansen gone after his death?” “As to that,” said the master, “it makes one think.”[1.16]

The immortality of the soul is another big question. The history of religion is built upon this one question, one may almost say. Everybody wants to know about life after death. Where do we go when we pass away from this earth? Is there really another life? or is the end of this the end of all? While there may be many who do not worry themselves as to the ultimate significance of the solitary, “companionless” One, there are none perhaps who have not once at least in their lives asked themselves concerning their destiny after death. Whether Sekito when young saw the sixth patriarch or not, does not seem to have any inherent connection with the departure of Nansen. The latter was the teacher of Chōsa, and naturally the monk asked him whither the teacher finally passed. Chōsa’s answer is no answer, judged by the ordinary rules of logic. Hence the second question, but still a sort of equivocation from the lips of the master. What does this “making one think” explain? From this it is apparent that Zen is one thing and logic another. When we fail to make this distinction and expect of Zen to give us something logically consistent and intellectually illuminating, we altogether misinterpret the signification of Zen. Did I not state in the beginning that Zen deals with facts and not with generalisations? And this is the very point where Zen goes straight down to the foundations of personality. The intellect ordinarily does not lead us there, for we do not live in the intellect, but in the will.

Brother Lawrence speaks the truth when he says (“The Practice of the Presence of God”), “That we ought to make a great difference between the acts of the understanding and those of the will: that the first were comparatively of little value, and the others, all.”

Zen literature is all brimful of such statements, which seem to have been uttered so casually, so innocently, but those who actually know what Zen is will testify to the fact that all these utterances dropped so naturally from the lips of the masters are like deadly poisons, that when they are once taken in they cause such a violent pain as to make one’s intestines wriggle nine times and more, as the Chinese would express it. But it is only after such pain and turbulence that all the internal impurities are purged and one is born with quite a new outlook on life. It is strange that Zen grows intelligible when these mental struggles are gone through. But the fact is that Zen is an experience actual and personal, and not a knowledge to be gained by analysis or comparison. “Do not talk poetry except to a poet; only the sick know how to sympathise with the sick.” This explains the whole situation. Our minds are to be so matured as to be in tune with those of the masters. Let this be accomplished, and when one string is struck, the other will inevitably respond. Harmonious notes always result from the sympathetic resonance of two or more chords. And what Zen does for us is to prepare our minds to be yielding and appreciative recipients of old masters. In other words, psychologically Zen releases whatever energies we may have in store, of which we are not conscious in ordinary circumstances.

Some say that Zen is self-suggestion. But this does not explain anything. When the word “Yamato-damashi” is mentioned, it seems to awaken in most Japanese a fervent patriotic passion. The children are taught to respect the flag of the rising sun, and when the soldiers come in front of the regimental colours they involuntarily salute. When a boy is reproached for not acting like a little samurai and disgracing the name of his ancestor, he at once musters his courage and will resist temptations. All these ideas are energy-releasing ideas for the Japanese, and this release, according to some psychologists, is self-suggestion. Social conventions and imitative instincts may also be regarded as self-suggestions. So is moral discipline. An example is given to the students to follow or imitate it. The idea gradually takes root in them through suggestion, and they finally come to act as if it were their own. Self-suggestion is a barren theory, it does not explain anything. When they say that Zen is self-suggestion, do we get any clearer idea of Zen? Some think it scientific to call certain phenomena by a term newly come into fashion, and rest satisfied with it as if they disposed of them in an illuminating way. The study of Zen must be taken up by the profounder psychologists.

Some think that there is still an unknown region in our consciousness which has not yet been thoroughly and systematically explored. It is sometimes called the Unconscious or the Subconscious. This is a territory filled with dark images, and naturally most scientists are afraid of treading upon it. But this must not be taken as denying the fact of its existence. Just as our ordinary field of consciousness is filled with all possible kinds of images, beneficial and harmful, systematic and confusing, clear and obscure, forcefully assertive and weakly fading; so is the Subconscious a storehouse of every form of occultism or mysticism, understanding by the term all that is known as latent or abnormal or psychic or spiritualistic. The power to see into the nature of one’s own being may lie also hidden there, and what Zen awakens in our consciousness may be that. At any rate the masters speak figuratively of the opening of a third eye. “Satori” is the popular name given to this opening or awakening.

By meditating on those utterances or actions that are directly poured out from the inner region undimmed by the intellect or the imagination, and that are calculated successfully to exterminate all the turmoils arising from ignorance and confusion.f7

It may be interesting to readers in this connection to get acquainted with some of the methodsf8 used by the masters in order to open the spiritual eye of the disciple. It is natural that they frequently make use of the various religious insignia which they carry when going out to the Hall of the Dharma. Such are generally the “hossu,”f9 “shippe,”f10 “nyoi,”f11 or “shujyo” (or a staff).[1.17] The last-mentioned seems to have been the most favourite instrument used in the demonstration of the truth of Zen. Let me cite some examples of its use.

According to Yê-ryo (Hui-lêng), of Chōkei (Chang-ch‘ing),[1.18] “when one knows what that staff is, one’s life study of Zen comes to an end.” This reminds us of Tennyson’s flower in the crannied wall. For when we understand the reason of the staff, we know “what God and man is,” that is to say, we get an insight into the nature of our own being, and this insight finally puts a stop to all the doubts and hankerings that have upset our mental tranquillity. The significance of the staff in Zen can thus readily be comprehended.

Yê-sei (Hui-ch‘ing), of Basho (Pa-chiao), probably of the tenth century, once made the following declaration: “When you have a staff, I will give you one; when you have none, I will take it away from you.”[1.19] This is one of the most characteristic statements of Zen, but later Bokitsu (Mu-chi), of Daiyi (Ta-wei), was bold enough to challenge this by saying what directly contradicts it, viz., “As to myself, I differ from him. When you have a staff, I will take it away from you; and when you have none, I will give you one. This is my statement. Can you make use of the staff? or can you not? If you can, Tokusan (Tê-shan) will be your vanguard and Rinzai (Lin-chi) your rearguard. But if you cannot, let it be restored to its original master.”[1.20]

A monk approached Bokuju and said, “What is the statement surpassing [the wisdom of] all Buddhas and Patriarchs?” The master instantly held forth his staff before the congregation, and said, “I call this a staff, and what do you call it?” The monk who asked the question uttered not a word. The master holding it out again, said, “A statement surpassing [the wisdom of] all Buddhas and Patriarchs,—was that not your question, O monk?”[1.21]

To those who carelessly go over such remarks as Bokuju’s may regard them as quite nonsensical. Whether the stick is called a staff or not, it does not seem to matter very much as far as the divine wisdom surpassing the limits of our knowledge is concerned. But the one made by Ummon, another great master of Zen, is perhaps more accessible. He also once lifted his staff before a congregation and remarked: “In the scriptures we read that the ignorant take this for a real thing, the Hinayanists resolve it into a nonentity, the Pratyekabuddhas regard it as a hallucination, while the Bodhisattvas admit its apparent reality, which is, however, essentially empty.” “But,” continued the master, “monks, you simply call it a staff when you see one. Walk or sit as you will, but do not stand irresolute.”[1.22]

The same old insignificant staff and yet more mystical statements from Ummon. One day his announcement was: “My staff has turned into a dragon, and it has swallowed up the whole universe; where would the great earth with its mountains and rivers be?”[1.23] On another occasion, Ummon, quoting an ancient Buddhist philosopher who said that “Knock at the emptiness of space and you hear a voice; strike a piece of wood and there is no sound,” Ummon took out his staff, and striking space, he cried, “Oh, how it hurts!” Then tapping at the board, he asked, “Any noise?” A monk responded, “Yes, there is a noise.”f12[1.24] Thereupon exclaimed the master, “O you ignoramus!”

If I go on like this, there will be no end. So I stop, but expect some of you asking me the following questions: “Have these utterances anything to do with one’s seeing into the nature of one’s being? Is there any relationship possible between those apparently nonsensical talks about the staff and the all-important problem of the reality of life?”

In answer I append these two passages, one from Jimyo (Tz‘u-ming)[1.26] and the other from Yengo (Yüan-wu): In one of his sermons, Jimyo said: “As soon as one particle of dust is raised, the great earth manifests itself there in its entirety. In one lion are revealed millions of lions, and in millions of lions is revealed one lion. Thousands and thousands of them there are indeed, but know ye just one, one only.” So saying he lifted up his staff, and continued, “Here is my own staff, and where is that one lion?” Bursting out into a “Kwats” (hê), he set the staff down, and left the pulpit.

“One particle of dust is raised and the great earth lies therein; one flower blooms and the universe rises with it. But where should our eye be fixed when the dust is not yet stirred and the flower has not yet bloomed? Therefore, it is said that, like cutting a bundle of thread, one cut cuts all asunder; again, like dyeing a bundle of thread, one dyeing dyes all in the same colour. Now yourself get out of all the entangling relations and rip them up to pieces, but do not lose track of your inner treasure; for it is through this that the high and the low universally responding and the advanced and the backward making no distinction, each manifests itself in full perfection.”

The foregoing sketch of Zen I hope will give the reader a general, though necessarily vague, idea of Zen as it is and has been taught in the Far East for more than one thousand years. In what follows I will try first to seek the origin of Zen in the spiritual enlightenment itself of the Buddha; for Zen has been frequently criticised for deviating too far from what is popularly understood to be the teaching of the Buddha as it is recorded especially in the Āgamas or Nikāyas. While Zen, as it is, is no doubt the native product of the Chinese mind, the line of its development must be traced back to the personal experience of the Indian founder himself. Unless this is understood in connection with the psychological characteristics of the people, the growth of Zen among the Chinese Buddhists would be unintelligible. Zen is after all one of the Mahayana schools of Buddhism shorn of its Indian garb. Next I have tried to write a history of Zen in China after Bodhi-Dharma, who is the real author of the school. Zen was quietly matured and transmitted by the five successive patriarchs so-called after the passing of the first propagator from India. When Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, began to teach the gospel of Zen Buddhism, it was no more Indian but thoroughly Chinese, and what we call Zen now in the form as we have it, dates from him. The course thus definitely given shape by the sixth patriarch to the development of Zen in China gained its strength not only in volume but in content by the masterful handling of it by the spiritual descendants of Hui-nêng.

The first section of the Chinese history of Zen therefore naturally closes with him. As the central fact of Zen lies in the attainment of “satori” or the opening of a spiritual eye, I have next dwelt upon the subject. The treatment is somewhat popular, for the main idea is to present the fact that there is such a thing as an intuitional understanding of the truth of Zen, which is “satori,” and also to illustrate the uniqueness of “satori” as experienced by Zen devotees. When we understand the significance of “satori” in Zen, we may logically wish to know something about the methods whereby the masters contrive to bring about such a revolutionary experience, more or less noetic, in the minds of the students. Some of the practical Zen methods resorted to by the masters are classified under a certain number of headings, but in this classification I have not attempted to be thoroughly exhaustive here. The Meditation Hall is an institution quite peculiar to Zen Buddhism, and those who want to know something about Zen and its educational system cannot afford to ignore the subject. This unique organ of Zen Buddhism however has never been described before. The reader I hope will find here a subject interesting enough for his thorough investigation. While Zen claims to be the “ultra-abrupt” wing of Buddhism, it has a well-marked gradation in its progress towards the ultimate goal. Hence the concluding chapter on “The Ten Cow-herding Pictures.”