Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s own
being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us
drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the
yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world.
We can say that Zen liberates all the energies properly and naturally
stored in each of us, which are in ordinary circumstances cramped and
distorted so that they find no adequate channel for activity. This body
of ours is something like an electric battery in which a mysterious
power latently lies. When this power is not properly brought into
operation, it either grows mouldy and withers away or is warped and
expresses itself abnormally. It is the object of Zen, therefore, to
save us from going crazy or being crippled. This is what I mean by
freedom, giving free play to all the creative and benevolent impulses
inherently lying in our hearts. Generally, we are blind to this fact,
that we are in possession of all the necessary faculties that will
make us happy and loving towards one another. All the struggles that
we see around us come from this ignorance. Zen, therefore, wants us to
open a “third eye,” as Buddhists call it, to the hitherto undreamed-of
region shut away from us through our own ignorance. When the cloud of
ignorance disappears, the infinity of the heavens is manifested where
we see for the first time into the nature of our own being. We now
know the signification of life, we know that it is not blind striving,
nor is it a mere display of brutal forces, but that while we know not
definitely what the ultimate purport of life is, there is something in
it that makes us feel infinitely blessed in the living of it and
remain quite contented with it in all its evolution, without raising
questions or entertaining pessimistic doubts.
When we are full of vitality and not yet awakened to the knowledge
of life, we cannot comprehend the seriousness of all the conflicts
involved in it which are apparently for the moment in a state of
quiescence. But sooner or later the time will come when we have to
face life squarely and solve its most perplexing and most pressing
riddles. Says Confucius, “At fifteen my mind was directed to study, and
at thirty I knew where to stand.” This is one of the wisest sayings of
the Chinese sage. Psychologists will all agree to this statement of
his; for, generally speaking, fifteen is about the age youth begins to
look around seriously and inquire into the meaning of life. All the
spiritual powers until now securely hidden in the subconscious part
of the mind break out almost simultaneously. And when this breaking
out is too precipitous and violent, the mind may lose its balance more
or less permanently; in fact, so many cases of nervous prostration
reported during adolescence are chiefly due to this loss of the mental
equilibrium. In most cases the effect is not very grave and the crisis
may pass without leaving deep marks. But in some characters, either
through their inherent tendencies or on account of the influence of
environment upon their plastic constitution, the spiritual awakening
stirs them up to the very depths of their personality. This is the
time you will be asked to choose between the “Everlasting No” and the
“Everlasting Yea.” This choosing is what Confucius means by “study,” it
is not studying the classics, but deeply delving into the mysteries of
life.
Normally, the outcome of the struggle is the “Everlasting Yea,” or “Let
thy will be done”; for life is after all a form of affirmation however
negatively it might be conceived by the pessimists. But we cannot deny
the fact that there are many things in this world which will turn our
too sensitive minds towards the other direction and make us exclaim
with Andreyev in “The Life of Man”: “I curse everything that you have
given. I curse the day on which I was born. I curse the day on which I
shall die. I curse the whole of my life. I fling everything back at
your cruel face, senseless Fate! Be accursed, be forever accursed! With
my curses I conquer you. What else can you do to me?... With my last
thought I will shout into your asinine ears: Be accursed, be accursed!”
This is a terrible indictment of life, it is a complete negation of
life, it is a most dismal picture of the destiny of man on earth.
“Leaving no trace” is quite true, for we know nothing of our future
except that we all pass away including the very earth from which we
have come. There are certainly things justifying pessimism.
Life, as most of us live it, is suffering. There is no denying the
fact. As long as life is a form of struggle, it cannot be anything but
pain. Does not a struggle mean the impact of two conflicting forces,
each trying to get the upperhand of the other? If the battle is lost,
the outcome is death, and death is the fearsomest thing in the world.
Even when death is conquered, one is left alone, and the loneliness
is sometimes more unbearable than the struggle itself. One may not
be conscious of all this, and may go on indulging in those momentary
pleasures that are afforded by the senses. But this being unconscious
does not in the least alter the facts of life. However insistently the
blind may deny the existence of the sun, they cannot annihilate it.
The tropical heat will mercilessly scorch them, and if they do not
take proper care, they will all be wiped away from the surface of the
earth. The Buddha was perfectly right when he propounded his “Fourfold
Noble Truth” the first of which is that life is pain. Did not everyone
of us come to this world screaming and in a way protesting? To come
out into cold and prohibitive surroundings after a soft, warm motherly
womb was surely a painful incident to say the least. Growth is always
attended with pain. Teething is more or less a painful process. Puberty
is usually accompanied with a mental as well as a physical disturbance.
The growth of the organism called society is also marked with painful
cataclysms, and we are at present witnessing one of its birth-throes.
We may calmly reason and say that this is all inevitable, that inasmuch
as every reconstruction means the destruction of the old regime,
we cannot help going through a painful operation. But this cold
intellectual analysis does not alleviate whatever harrowing feelings
we have to undergo. The pain heartlessly inflicted on our nerves is
ineradicable. Life is, after all arguing, a painful struggle.
This however is providential. For the more you suffer the deeper grows
your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the
more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all
great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out
of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently
in tears and with bleeding hearts. Unless you eat your bread in sorrow,
you cannot taste of real life. Mencius is right when he says that when
Heaven wants to perfect a great man it tries him in every possible way
until he comes out triumphantly from all his painful experiences. To
me Oscar Wilde seems always posing or striving for an effect; he may
be a great artist, but there is something in him that turns me away
from him. Yet he exclaims in his _De Profundis_: “During the last few
months I have, after terrible difficulties and struggles, been able to
comprehend some of the lessons hidden in the heart of pain. Clergymen
and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering
as a mystery. It is really a revelation. One discerns things one never
discerned before. One approaches the whole of history from a different
standpoint.” You will observe here what sanctifying effects his prison
life produced on his character. If he had had to go through a similar
trial in the beginning of his career, he might have been able to
produce far greater works than those we have of him at present.
We are too ego-centred. The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest
thing to outgrow. We seem to carry it all the time from childhood up
to the time we finally pass away. We are, however, given many chances
to break through this shell, and the first and greatest of them is
when we reach adolescence. This is the first time the ego really comes
to recognise the “other.” I mean the awakening of sexual love. An ego,
entire and undivided, now begins to feel a sort of split in itself.
Love hitherto dormant deep in his heart lifts its head and causes
a great commotion in it. For the love now stirred demands at once
the assertion of the ego and its annihilation. Love makes the ego
lose itself in the object it loves, and yet at the same time it wants
to have the object as its own. This is a contradiction, and a great
tragedy of life. This elemental feeling must be one of the divine
agencies whereby man is urged to advance in his upward walk. God
gives tragedies to perfect man. The greatest bulk of literature ever
produced in this world is but the harping on the same string of love,
and we never seem to grow weary of it. But this is not the topic we
are concerned with here. What I want to emphasise in this connection
is this, that through the awakening of love we get a glimpse into the
infinity of things, and that this glimpse urges youth to Romanticism
or to Rationalism according to his temperament and environment and
education.
When the ego-shell is broken and the “other” is taken into its own
body, we can say that the ego has denied itself or that the ego has
taken its first steps towards the infinite. Religiously, here ensues
an intense struggle between the finite and the infinite, between the
intellect and a higher power, or, more plainly, between the flesh and
the spirit. This is the problem of problems that has driven many a
youth into the hands of Satan. When a grown-up man looks back to these
youthful days, he cannot but feel a sort of shudder going through
his entire frame. The struggle to be fought in sincerity may go on
up to the age of thirty when Confucius states that he knew where to
stand. The religious consciousness is now fully awakened, and all the
possible ways of escaping from the struggle or bringing it to an end
are most earnestly sought in every direction. Books are read, lectures
are attended, sermons are greedily taken in, and various religious
exercises or disciplines are tried. And naturally Zen too comes to be
inquired into.
How does Zen solve the problem of problems?
In the first place, Zen proposes its solution by directly appealing
to facts of personal experience and not to book-knowledge. The nature
of one’s own being where apparently rages the struggle between the
finite and the infinite is to be grasped by a higher faculty than the
intellect. For Zen says it is the latter that first made us raise
the question which it could not answer by itself, and that therefore
it is to be put aside to make room for something higher and more
enlightening. For the intellect has a peculiarly disquieting quality
in it. Though it raises questions enough to disturb the serenity of
the mind, it is too frequently unable to give satisfactory answers
to them. It upsets the blissful peace of ignorance and yet it does
not restore the former state of things by offering something else.
Because it points out ignorance, it is often considered illuminating,
whereas the fact is that it disturbs, not necessarily always bringing
light on its path. It is not final, it waits for something higher than
itself for the solution of all the questions it will raise regardless
of consequences. If it were able to bring a new order into the
disturbance and settle it once for all, there would have been no need
for philosophy after it had been first systematised by a great thinker,
by an Aristotle, or by a Hegel. But the history of thought proves that
each new structure raised by a man of extraordinary intellect is sure
to be pulled down by the succeeding ones. This constant pulling down
and building up is all right as far as philosophy itself is concerned;
for the inherent nature of the intellect, as I take it, demands it and
we cannot put a stop to the progress of philosophical inquiries any
more than to our breathing. But when it comes to the question of life
itself we cannot wait for the ultimate solution to be offered by the
intellect even if it could do so. We cannot suspend even for a moment
our life-activity for philosophy to unravel its mysteries. Let the
mysteries remain as they are, but live we must. The hungry cannot wait
until a complete analysis of food is obtained and the nourishing value
of each element is determined. For the dead the scientific knowledge
of food will be of no use whatever. Zen therefore does not rely on the
intellect for the solution of its deepest problems.
By personal experience it is meant to get at the fact at first hand
and not through any intermediary whatever this may be. Its favorite
analogy is: to point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to
those who take the finger for the moon; a basket is welcome to carry
our fish home, but when the fish are safely on the table why should
we eternally bother ourselves with the basket? Here stands the fact,
and let us grasp it with the naked hands lest it should slip away—this
is what Zen proposes to do. As nature abhors a vacuum, Zen abhors
anything coming between the fact and ourselves. According to Zen, there
is no struggle in the fact itself such as between the finite and the
infinite, between the flesh and the spirit. These are idle distinctions
fictitiously designed by the intellect for its own interest. Those who
take them too seriously or those who try to read them into the very
fact of life are those who take the finger for the moon. When we are
hungry we eat; when we are sleepy we lay ourselves down; and where
does the infinite or the finite come in here? Are not we complete in
ourselves and each in himself? Life as it is lived suffices. It is only
when the disquieting intellect steps in and tries to murder it that
we stop to live and imagine ourselves to be short of or in something.
Let the intellect alone, it has its usefulness in its proper sphere,
but let it not interfere with the flowing of the life-stream. If you
are at all tempted to look into it, do so while letting it flow. The
fact of flowing must under no circumstances be arrested or meddled
with; for the moment your hands are dipped into it, its transparency is
disturbed, it ceases to reflect your image which you have had from the
very beginning and will continue to have to the end of time.
Almost corresponding to the “Four Maxims” of the Nichiren Sect, Zen has
its own four statements:
“A special transmission outside the Scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing to the soul of man;
Seeing into one’s nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.”[f3][1.1]
This sums up all that is claimed by Zen as religion. Of course we
must not forget that there is a historical background to this bold
pronunciamento. At the time of the introduction of Zen into China,
most of the Buddhists were addicted to the discussion of highly
metaphysical questions, or satisfied with the merely observing of
the ethical precepts laid down by the Buddha or with the leading
of a lethargic life entirely absorbed in the contemplation of the
evanescence of things worldly. They all missed apprehending the great
fact of life itself which flows altogether outside of these vain
exercises of the intellect or of the imagination. Bodhi-Dharma and
his successors recognised this pitiful state of affairs. Hence their
proclamation of “The Four Great Statements” of Zen as above cited. In
a word they mean that Zen has its own way of pointing to the nature of
one’s own being and that when this is done, one attains to Buddhahood
in which all the contradictions and disturbances caused by the
intellect are entirely harmonised in a unity of higher order.
For this reason Zen never explains but indicates, it does not
appeal to circumlocution, nor does it generalise. It always deals
with facts, concrete and tangible. Logically considered, Zen may be
full of contradictions and repetitions. But as it stands above all
things, it goes serenely on its own way. As a Zen master aptly puts
it, “carrying his home-made cane on the shoulder, he goes right on
among the mountains one rising above another.” It does not challenge
logic, it simply walks its path of facts, leaving all the rest to
their own fates. It is only when logic neglecting its proper functions
tries to step into the track of Zen that it loudly proclaims its
principles and forcibly drives out the intruder. Zen is not an enemy
of anything. There is no reason why it should antagonise the intellect
which may sometimes be utilised for the cause of Zen itself. To show
some examples of Zen’s direct dealing with the fundamental facts of
existence, the following are selected:
Rinzai[f4][1.2] (Lin-chi) once delivered a sermon, saying “Over a mass
of reddish flesh there sits a true man who has no title; he is all the
time coming in and out from your sense-organs. If you have not yet
testified to the fact, Look! Look!” A monk came forward and asked,
“Who is this true man of no title?” Rinzai came right down from his
straw-chair and taking hold of the monk exclaimed, “Speak! Speak!” The
monk remained irresolute not knowing what to say, whereupon the master
letting him go remarked, “What worthless stuff is this true man of no
title!” Rinzai then went straight back to his room.[1.3]
Rinzai was noted for his “rough” and direct treatment of his disciples.
He never liked those roundabout dealings which generally characterised
the methods of a lukewarm master. He must have got this directness
from his own teacher Obaku (Huang-nieh),[1.4] by whom he was struck
three times by asking what the fundamental principle of Buddhism was.
It goes without saying that Zen has nothing to do with mere striking
or roughly shaking the questioner. If you take this as constituting
the essentials of Zen, you would commit the same gross error as one
who took the finger for the moon. As in everything else, but most
particularly in Zen, all its outward manifestations or demonstrations
must never be regarded as final. They just indicate the way where to
look for the facts. Therefore these indicators are important, we cannot
do well without them. But once caught in them which are like entangling
meshes we are doomed; for Zen can never be comprehended. Some may
think Zen is always trying to catch you in the net of logic or by the
snare of words. If you once slip your steps, you are bound for eternal
damnation, you will never get to freedom for which your hearts are so
burning. Therefore, Rinzai grasps with his naked hands what is directly
presented to us all. If a third eye of ours is opened undimmed, we
shall know in a most unmistakable manner where Rinzai is driving us.
We have first of all to get into the very spirit of the master and
interview the inner man right there. No amount of wordy explanations
will ever lead us into the nature of our own selves. The more you
explain, the further it runs away from you. It is like trying to get
hold of your own shadow. You run after it and it runs with you at the
identical rate of speed. When you realise it, you read deep into the
spirit of Rinzai or Obaku, and their real kind-heartedness will begin
to be appreciated.
Ummon[f5][1.5] (Yün-mên), was another great master of Zen at the
end of the T‘ang dynasty. He had to lose one of his legs in order to
get an insight into the life-principle from which the whole universe
takes rise, including his own humble existence. He had to visit his
teacher Bokuju (Mu-chou)[1.6] who was a senior disciple of Rinzai
under Obaku, three times before he was admitted to see him. The master
asked, “Who are you?” “I am Bun-yen (Wên-yen),” answered the monk.
(Bun-yen was his name, while Ummon was the name of the monastery where
he was settled later). When the truth-seeking monk was allowed to go
inside the gate, the master took hold of him by the chest and demanded,
“Speak! Speak!” Ummon hesitated, whereupon the master pushed him out of
the gate, saying, “Oh, you good-for-nothing fellow!”[f6][1.7] While the
gate was hastily shut, one of Ummon’s legs was caught and broken. The
intense pain resulting from this apparently awakened the poor fellow to
the greatest fact of life. He was no more a solicitous, pity-begging
monk, the realisation now gained paid more than enough for the loss of
his leg. He was not however a solitary instance in this respect, there
were many such in the history of Zen who were willing to sacrifice a
part of the body for the truth. Says Confucius: “If a man understands
the Tao in the morning, it is well with him even when he dies in the
evening.” Some would feel indeed that truth is of more value than mere
living, mere vegetative or animal living. But in the world, alas,
there are so many living corpses wallowing in the mud of ignorance and
sensuality.
This is where Zen is most difficult to understand. Why this sarcastic
vituperation? Why this seeming heartlessness? What fault had Ummon
to deserve the loss of his leg? He was a poor truth-seeking monk,
earnestly anxious to get enlightenment from the master. Was it really
necessary for the latter from his way of understanding Zen to shut him
out three times, and when the gate was half opened to close it again
so violently, so inhumanly? Was this the truth of Buddhism Ummon was
so eager to get? But the outcome of all this singularly was what
was desired by both of them. As to the master, he was satisfied to
see the disciple attain an insight into the secrets of his being; and
as regards the disciple he was most grateful for all that was done to
him. Evidently, Zen is the most irrational, inconceivable thing in
the world. And this is why I said before that Zen was not subject to
logical analysis or to intellectual treatment. It must be directly and
personally experienced by each of us in his inner spirit. Just as two
stainless mirrors reflect each other, the fact and our own spirits must
stand facing each other with no intervening agents. When this is done,
we are able to seize upon the living, pulsating fact itself.
Freedom is an empty word until then. The first object was to escape
the bondage in which all finite beings find themselves, but if we do
not cut asunder the very chain of ignorance with which we are bound
hands and feet, where shall we look for deliverance? And this chain of
ignorance is wrought of nothing else but the intellect and sensuous
infatuation, which cling tightly to every thought we may have, to every
feeling we may entertain. They are hard to get rid of, they are like
wet clothes as is aptly expressed by the Zen masters. “We are born
free and equal.” Whatever this may mean socially or politically, Zen
maintains that it is absolutely true in the spiritual domain, and that
all the fetters and manacles we seem to be carrying about ourselves
are put on later through ignorance of the true condition of existence.
All the treatments, sometimes literary and sometimes physical,
which are most liberally and kindheartedly given by the masters to
inquiring souls, are intended to get them back to the original state
of freedom. And this is never really realised until we once personally
experience it through our own efforts, independent of any ideational
representation. The ultimate standpoint of Zen, therefore, is that
we have been led astray through ignorance to find a split in our own
being, that there was from the very beginning no need for a struggle
between the finite and the infinite, that the peace we are seeking so
eagerly after has been there all the time. Sotoba (Su Tung-p‘o),[1.8]
the noted Chinese poet and statesman, expresses the idea in the
following verse:
“Misty rain on Mount Lu,
And waves surging in Chê-chiang;
When you have not yet been there,
Many a regret surely you have;
But once there and homeward you wend,
And how matter-of-fact things look!
Misty rain on Mount Lu,
And waves surging in Chê-chiang.”[9]
This is what is also asserted by Seigen Ishin (Ch‘ing-yüan Wei-hsin),
according to whom, “Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are
mountains and waters are waters; after he gets an insight into the
truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him
are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when he
really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains
and waters are waters.”[1.10]
Bokuju (Mu-chou) who lived in the latter half of the ninth century, was
once asked, “We have to dress and eat every day, and how can we escape
from all that?” The master replied, “We dress, we eat.” “I do not
understand you,” said the questioner. “If you don’t understand put your
dress on and eat your food.”[1.11]
Zen always deals in concrete facts and does not indulge in
generalisation. And I do not wish to add unnecessary legs to the
painted snake, but if I try to waste my philosophical comments on
Bokuju, I may say this. We are all finite, we cannot live out of time
and space; inasmuch as we are earth-created, there is no way to grasp
the infinite, how can we deliver ourselves from the limitations of
existence? This is perhaps the idea put in the first question of the
monk, to which the master replies: Salvation must be sought in the
finite itself, there is nothing infinite apart from finite things; if
you seek something transcendental, that will cut you off from this
world of relativity, which is the same thing as the annihilation of
yourself. You do not want salvation at the cost of your own existence.
If so, drink and eat, and find your way of freedom in this drinking
and eating. This was too much for the questioner, who, therefore,
confessed himself as not understanding the meaning of the master.
Therefore, the latter continued: Whether you understand or not, just
the same go on living in the finite, with the finite; for you die if
you stop eating and keeping yourself warm on account of your aspiration
for the infinite. No matter how you struggle, Nirvana is to be sought
in the midst of Samsara (birth-and-death). Whether an enlightened Zen
master or an ignoramus of the first degree, neither can escape the
so-called laws of nature. When the stomach is empty, both are hungry;
when it snows, both have to put on an extra flannel. 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,
“My robe is all worn out after so many years’ usage.
And parts of it in shreds loosely hanging have been blown away to
the clouds.”[1.13]
Is the infinite after all such a poverty-stricken mendicant?
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.
How is this so?
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.
How is this to be effected?
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 methods[f8] 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.
In the _Hekigan_ (Pi-yen-lu),[f13] Yengo expresses the same idea in his
introductory remark to the “one finger Zen” of Gutei (_Chūh-chih i chih
t‘ou ch‘an_)[f14]:[1.27]
“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.”
There are many more topics with which one ought to be acquainted in
the study of Zen Buddhism, and some of them, considered by the author
the more important, will be treated in the second series of the Essays.