_Foreword_
Before I proceed to the discussion of the main idea of this essay,
which is to consider Zen the Chinese way of applying the doctrine of
Enlightenment in our practical life, I wish to make some preliminary
remarks concerning the attitude of some Zen critics and thereby to
define the position of Zen in the general body of Buddhism. According
to them, Zen Buddhism is not Buddhism, it is something foreign to the
spirit of Buddhism, and that it is one of those aberrations which we
often see growing up in the history of any religion. Zen is thus,
they think, an abnormality prevailing among the people whose thought
and feeling flow along a channel different from the main current of
Buddhist thought. Whether this allegation is true or not, will be
decided, on the one hand, when we understand what is really the essence
or genuine spirit of Buddhism, and, on the other, when we know the
exact status of Zen doctrine in regard to the ruling ideas of Buddhism
as they are accepted in the Far East. It may also be desirable to know
something about the development of religious experience in general.
When we are not prepared thoroughly to understand these questions
in the light of the history and philosophy of religion, we may come
dogmatically to assert that Zen is not Buddhism just because it looks
so different on its surface from what some people with a certain set
of preconceived notions consider Buddhism to be. The statement of my
position as regards these points will therefore pave the way to the
development of the principal thesis.
Superficially, indeed, there is something in Zen so bizarre and
even irrational, as to frighten the pious literary followers of the
so-called primitive Buddhism and to make them declare that Zen is
not Buddhism but a Chinese anomaly of it. What, for instance, would
they really make out of such statements as follows: In the _Sayings of
Nan-ch‘üan_[2.l] we read that, when Ts‘ui, governor of Ch‘i District,
asked the fifth patriarch of the Zen sect, that is, Hung-jên, how it
was that while he had five hundred followers, Hui-nêng, in preference
to all others, was singled out to be given the orthodox robe of
transmission as the sixth patriarch, replied the fifth patriarch:
“Four hundred and ninety-nine out of my disciples understand well what
Buddhism is, except one Hui-nêng. He is a man not to be measured by an
ordinary standard. Hence the robe of faith was handed over to him.”
On this comments Nan-ch‘üan: “In the age of Void there are no words
whatever; as soon as the Buddha appears on earth, words come into
existence, hence our clinging to signs.... And thus as we now so firmly
take hold of words, we limit ourselves in various ways, while in the
Great Way there are absolutely no such things as ignorance or holiness.
Everything that has a name thereby limits itself. Therefore, the old
master of Chiang-hsi declared that ‘it is neither mind, nor Buddha, nor
a thing.’ It was in this way that he wished to guide his followers,
while these days they vainly endeavour to experience the Great Way by
hypostatising such an entity as mind. If the Way could be mastered in
this manner, it would be well for them to wait until the appearance
of Maitreya Buddha [which is said to be at the end of the world] and
then to awaken the enlightenment-thought. How could such ones ever
hope for spiritual freedom? Under the fifth patriarch, all of his five
hundred disciples, except one Hui-nêng, understood Buddhism well. The
lay-disciple, Nêng, was quite unique in this respect, for _he did not
at all understand Buddhism_.[f15] He understood the Way only and no
other thing.”
These are not very extraordinary statements in Zen, but to most of
the Zen critics they must spell abomination. Buddhism is flatly denied,
and its knowledge is regarded not to be indispensable to the mastery of
Zen, the Great Way, which on the contrary is more or less identified
with the negation of Buddhism. How is this? In the following pages an
attempt is made to answer this question.
_The Life and Spirit of Buddhism_
To make this point clear and to justify the claim for Zen that it
transmits the essence of Buddhism and not its formulated articles of
faith as are recorded in letters, it is necessary to strip the spirit
of Buddhism off all its outer casings and appendages, which, hindering
the working of its original life-force, are apt to make us take the
unessential for the essential. We know that the acorn is so different
from the oak, but as long as there is a continuation of growth, their
identity is a logical conclusion. To see really into the nature of the
acorn is to trace an uninterrupted development through its various
historical stages. When the seed remains a seed and means nothing more,
there is no life in it, it is a finished piece of work and except
as an object of historical curiosity, it has no value whatever in
our religious experience. In like manner, to determine the nature of
Buddhism we must go along its whole line of development and see what
are the healthiest and most vital germs in it which have brought it to
the present state of maturity. When this is done, we shall see in what
manner Zen is to be recognised as one of the various phases of Buddhism
and in fact as the most essential factor in it.
To comprehend fully, therefore, the constitution of any existent
religion that has a long history, it is advisable to separate its
founder from his teaching, as a most powerful determinant in the
development of the latter. By this I mean, in the first place, that
the founder so called had in the beginning no idea of being the
founder of any religious system which would later grow up in his name;
in the second that to his disciples, while he was yet alive, his
personality was not regarded as independent of his teaching, at least
as far as they were conscious of the fact; in the third that what was
unconsciously working in their minds as regards the nature of their
master’s personality came out in the foreground after his passing with
all the possible intensity that had been latently gaining strength
within them, and lastly that the personality of the founder grew up in
his disciples’ minds so powerful as to make itself the very nucleus
of his teaching, that is to say, the latter was made to serve as
explanation of the meaning of the former.
It is a great mistake to think that any existent religious system was
handed down to posterity by its founder as the fully matured product of
his mind, and, therefore, that what the followers had to do with their
religious founder and his teaching was to embrace both the founder and
his teaching as sacred heritage—a treasure not to be profaned by the
content of their individual spiritual experience. For this view fails
to take into consideration what our spiritual life is and petrifies
religion to its very core. This static conservatism, however, is always
opposed by a progressive party which looks at a religious system from a
dynamic point of view. And these two forces which are seen conflicting
against each other in every field of human activity, weave out the
history of religion as in other cases. In fact, history is the record
of these struggles everywhere. But the very fact that there are such
struggles in religion shows that they are here to some purpose and
that religion is a living force; for they gradually bring to light the
hidden implications of the original faith and enrich it in a manner
undreamed of in the beginning. This takes place not only with regard to
the personality of the founder but with regard to his teaching, and the
result is an astounding complexity or rather confusion which sometimes
prevents us from properly seeing into the constitution of a living
religious system.
While the founder was still walking among his followers and
disciples, the latter did not distinguish between the person of their
leader and his teaching; for the teaching was realised in the person
and the person was livingly explained in the teaching. To embrace the
teaching was to follow his steps, that is, to believe in him. His
presence among them was enough to inspire them and convince them of the
truth of his teaching. They might not have comprehended it thoroughly,
but his authoritative way of presenting it left in their hearts no
shadow of doubt as to its truth and eternal value. So long as he lived
among them and spoke to them, his teaching and his person appealed to
them as an individual unity. Even when they retired into a solitary
place and meditated on the truth of his teaching, which they did as a
form of spiritual discipline, the image of his person was always before
their mental eyes.
But things went differently when his stately and inspiring personality
was no more seen in the flesh. His teaching was still there, his
followers could recite it perfectly from memory, but its personal
connection with the author was lost, the living chain which solidly
united him and his doctrine as one was for ever broken. When they
reflected on the truth of the doctrine, they could not help thinking
of their teacher as a soul far deeper and nobler than themselves.
The similarities that were, either consciously or unconsciously,
recognised as existing in various forms between leader and disciple
gradually vanished, and as they vanished, the other side, that is,
that which made him so distinctly different from his followers came
to assert itself all the more emphatically and irresistibly. The
result was the conviction that he must have come from quite a unique
spiritual source. The process of deification thus constantly went
on until, some centuries after the death of the Master, he became a
direct manifestation of the Supreme Being himself, in fact, he was
the Highest One in the flesh, in him there was a divine humanity in
perfect realisation. He was Son of God or the Buddha and the Redeemer
of the world. He will then be considered by himself independently of
his teaching; he will occupy the centre of interest in the eyes of
his followers. The teaching is of course important, but mainly
as having come from the mouth of such an exalted spirit, and not
necessarily as containing the truth of love or Enlightenment. Indeed,
the teaching is to be interpreted in the light of the teacher’s divine
personality. The latter now predominates over the whole system, he is
the centre whence radiate the rays of Enlightenment, salvation is only
possible in believing in him as saviour.[f16]
Around this personality or this divine nature there will now grow
various systems of philosophy essentially based on his own teaching,
but more or less modified according to the spiritual experiences of the
disciples. This would perhaps never have taken place if the personality
of the founder were not such as to stir up the deep religious feelings
in the hearts of his followers; which is to say, what most attracted
the latter to the teaching was not primarily the teaching itself but
that which gave life to it, and without which it would never have been
what it was. We are not always convinced of the truth of a statement
because it is so logically advanced, but mainly because there is an
inspiring life-impulse running through it. We are first struck with it
and later try to verify its truth. The understanding is needed, but
this alone will never move us to risk the fate of our souls.
One of the greatest religious souls in Japan once confessed,[f17] “I
do not care whether I go to hell or elsewhere, but because my old
master taught me to invoke the name of the Buddha, I practise the
teaching.” This was not a blind acceptance of the master, in whom there
was something deeply appealing to one’s soul, and the disciple embraced
this something with his whole being. Mere logic never moves us; there
must be something transcending the intellect. When Paul insisted that
“if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your
sins,” he was not appealing to our logical idea of things, but to our
spiritual yearnings. It did not matter whether things existed as facts
of chronological history or not, the vital concern of ours was the
fulfilment of our inmost inspirations; even so-called objective facts
could be so moulded as to yield the best result to the requirements of
our spiritual life. The personality of the founder of any religious
system that has survived through centuries of growth must have had all
the qualities that fully meet such spiritual requirements. As soon as
the person and his teaching are separated after his own passing in the
religious consciousness of his followers, if he was sufficiently great,
he will at once occupy the centre of their spiritual interest and all
his teachings will be made to explain this fact in various ways.
To state it more concretely, how much Christianity, for instance,
as we have it to-day is the teaching of Christ himself? and how
much of it is the contribution of Paul, John, Peter, Augustine, and
even Aristotle? The magnificent structure of Christian dogmatics is
the work of Christian faith as has been experienced successively by
its leaders, it is not the work of one person, even of Christ. For
dogmatics is not necessarily always concerned with historical facts
which are rather secondary in importance compared with the religious
truth of Christianity: the latter is what ought to be rather than what
is or what was. It aims at the establishment of what is universally
valid, which is not to be jeopardised by the fact or non-fact of
historical elements, as is maintained by some of the modern exponents
of Christian dogmatics. Whether Christ really claimed to be the Messiah
or not is a great historical discussion still unsettled among Christian
theologians. Some say that it does not make any difference as far
as Christian faith is concerned whether or not Christ claimed to be
the Messiah. In spite of all such theological difficulties, Christ
is the centre of Christianity. The Christian edifice is built around
the person of Jesus. Buddhists may accept some of his teachings and
sympathise with the content of his religious experience, but so long as
they do not cherish any faith in Jesus as “Christ” or Lord, they are
not Christians.
Christianity is therefore constituted not only with the teaching
of Jesus himself but with all the dogmatical and speculative
interpretations concerning the personality of Jesus and his doctrine
that have accumulated ever since the death of the founder. In other
words, Christ did not found the religious system known by his name,
but he was made its founder by his followers. If he were still among
them, it is highly improbable that he would sanction all the theories,
beliefs, and practices, which are now imposed upon self-styled
Christians. If he were asked whether their learned dogmatics were his
religion, he might not know how to answer. He would in all likelihood
profess complete ignorance of all the philosophical subtleties of
Christian theology of the present day. But from the modern Christians’
point of view they will most definitely assure us that their religion
is to be referred to “a unitary starting point and to an original
basic character,” which is Jesus as Christ and that whatever manifold
constructions and transformations that were experienced in the body
of their religion did not interfere with their specific Christ-faith.
They are Christians just as much as the brethren of their primitive
community were; for there is an historical continuation of the
same faith all along its growth and development which is its inner
necessity. To regard the form of culture of a particular time as
something sacred and to be transmitted for ever as such is to suppress
our spiritual yearnings after eternal validity. This I believe is the
position taken up by progressive modern Christians.
How about progressive modern Buddhists then in regard to their attitude
towards Buddhist faith constituting the essence of Buddhism? How is
the Buddha conceived by his disciples? What is the nature and value of
Buddhahood? When Buddhism is defined merely as the teaching of the
Buddha, does it explain the life of Buddhism as it moves on through the
course of history? Is not the life of Buddhism the unfolding of the
inner spiritual life of the Buddha himself rather than his exposition
of it, which is recorded as the Dharma in Buddhist literature? Is there
not something in the wordy teaching of the Buddha, which gives life
to it and which lieth underneath all the arguments and controversies
characterising the history of Buddhism throughout Asia? This life is
what progressive Buddhists endeavour to lay hands on.
It is therefore not quite in accordance with the life and teaching of
the Buddha to regard Buddhism merely as a system of religious doctrines
and practices established by the Buddha himself; for it is more than
that, and comprises as its most important constituent elements, all
the experiences and speculations of the Buddha’s followers especially
concerning the personality of their master and his relations to his
own doctrine. Buddhism did not come out of the Buddha’s mind fully
armed, as did Minerva from Jupiter. The theory of a perfect Buddhism
from the beginning is the static view of it, and cuts it short from
its continuous and never-ceasing growth. Our religious experience
transcends the limitations of time, and its ever-expanding content
requires a more vital form which will grow without doing violence to
itself. Inasmuch as Buddhism is a living religion and not an historical
mummy stuffed with dead and functionless materials, it must be able to
absorb and assimilate all that is helpful to its growth. This is the
most natural thing for any organism endowed with life. And this life
may be traceable under divergent forms and constructions.
According to scholars of Pali Buddhism and of the Āgama literature, all
that the Buddha taught, as far as his systematic teaching went, seems
to be summed up by the Fourfold Noble Truth, the Twelvefold Chain of
Causation, the Eightfold Path of Righteous Living, and the doctrine of
Non-ego (_Anātman_) and Nirvana. If this was the case, what we call
primitive Buddhism was quite a simple affair when its doctrinal aspect
alone is considered. There was nothing very promising in these
doctrines that would eventually build up a magnificent structure to be
known as Buddhism comprising both the Hinayana and the Mahayana. When
we wish to understand Buddhism thoroughly, we must dive deep into its
bottom where lies its living spirit. Those that are satisfied with
a superficial view of its dogmatical aspect are apt to let go the
spirit which will truly explain the inner life of Buddhism. To some of
the Buddha’s immediate disciples the deeper things in his teachings
failed to appeal, or they were not conscious of the real spiritual
forces which moved them towards their Master. We must look underneath
if we want to come in contact with the ever-growing life-impetus of
Buddhism. However great the Buddha was, he could not convert a jackal
into a lion, nor could a jackal comprehend the Buddha above his beastly
nature. As the later Buddhists state, a Buddha alone understands
another Buddha; when our subjective life is not raised to the same
level as the Buddha’s, many things that go to make up his inner life
escape us; we cannot live in any other world than our own.[f18]
Therefore, if the primitive Buddhists read so much in the life of their
Master as is recorded in their writings, and no more, this does
not prove that everything belonging to the Buddha has thereby been
exhausted. There were probably other Buddhists who penetrated deeper
into his life, as their own inner consciousness had a richer content.
The history of religion thus becomes the history of our own spiritual
unfolding. Buddhism must be conceived biologically, so to speak, and
not mechanically. When we take this attitude, even the doctrine of the
Fourfold Noble Truth becomes pregnant with yet deeper truths.
The Buddha was not a metaphysician and naturally avoided discussing
such subjects as were strictly theoretical and had no practical bearing
on the attainment of Nirvana. He might have had his own views on those
philosophical problems that at the time engaged Indian minds. But like
other religious leaders his chief interest was in the practical result
of speculation and not in speculation as such. He was too busy in
trying to get rid of the poisonous arrow that had pierced the flesh,
he had no desire to inquire into the history, object, and constitution
of the arrow; for life was too short for that. He thus took the world
as it was, that is, he interpreted it as it appeared to his religious
insight and according to his own valuation. He did not intend to go any
further. He called his way of looking at the world and life “Dharma,”
a very comprehensive and flexible term, though it was not a term first
used by the Buddha; for it had been in vogue some time prior to him
mainly in the sense of ritual and law, but the Buddha gave it a
deeper spiritual signification.
That the Buddha was practical and not metaphysical, may be seen from
the criticism which was hurled at him by his opponents: “As Gautama is
always found alone sitting in an empty room, he has lost his wisdom....
Even Sariputra who is the wisest and best disciple of his is like a
babe, so stupid and without eloquence.”[f19] Here however lies the seed
of a future development. If the Buddha had been given up to theorising
his teaching never could be expected to grow. Speculation may be deep
and subtle, but if it has no spiritual life in it, its possibilities
are soon exhausted. The Dharma was ever maturing, because it was
mysteriously creative.
The Buddha evidently had quite a pragmatic conception of the intellect
and left many philosophical problems unsolved as unnecessary for the
attainment of the final goal of life. This was quite natural with
him. Whilst he was still alive among his disciples, he was the living
illustration of all that was implied in his doctrine. The Dharma was
manifest in him in all its vital aspects, and there was no need to
indulge in idle speculation as to the ultimate meaning of such concepts
as Dharma, Nirvana, Atman (ego), Karma, Bodhi (enlightenment), etc.
The Buddha’s personality was the key to the solution of all these. The
disciples were not fully aware of the significance of this fact. When
they thought they understood the Dharma, they did not know that this
understanding was really taking refuge in the Buddha. His presence
somehow had a pacifying and satisfying effect on whatever spiritual
anguish they had; they felt as if they were securely embraced in the
arms of a loving, consoling mother; to them the Buddha was really
such.[f20] Therefore, they had no need to press the Buddha very
hard to enlighten them on many of the philosophical problems that they
might have grown conscious of. They were easily reconciled in this
respect to the Buddha’s unwillingness to take them into the heart of
metaphysics. But at the same time this left much room for the later
Buddhists to develop their own theories not only as to the teaching of
the Buddha but mainly as to its relation to his personality.
* * * * *
The Buddha’s entrance into Nirvana meant to his disciples the loss
of the World-Light,[f21] through which they had such an illuminating
view of things. The Dharma was there and in it they tried to see the
Buddha as they were instructed by him, but it had no enlivening effect
on them as before; the moral precepts consisting of many rules were
regularly observed in the Brotherhood, but the authoritativeness of
these regulations was missed somehow. They retired into a quietude and
meditated on the teaching of the Master, but the meditation was not
quite so life-giving and satisfying because they were ever assailed by
doubts, and, as a natural consequence, their intellectual activities
were resumed. Everything was now to be explained to the full extent
of the reasoning faculty. The metaphysician began to assert himself
against the simple-hearted devotion of the disciple. What has been
accepted as an authoritative injunction from the mouth of the Buddha,
was now to be examined as a subject of philosophical discussion. Two
factions were ready to divide the field with each other, and radicalism
was opposed to conservatism, and between the two wings there were
arranged schools of various tendencies. The Sthaviras were pitted
against the Mahāsaṁghikas, with twenty or more different schools
representing various grades of diversity.[f22]
We cannot, however, exclude from the body of Buddhism all the divergent
views on the Buddha and his teaching as something foreign and not
belonging to the constituent elements of Buddhism. For these views are
exactly what support the frame of Buddhism, and without them the frame
itself will be a non-entity altogether. The error with most critics of
any existent religion with a long history of development is to conceive
it as a completed system which is to be accepted as such, while the
fact is that anything organic and spiritual—and we consider religion
such—has no geometrical outline which can be traced on paper by ruler
and compass. It refuses to be objectively defined, for this will be
setting a limit to the growth of its spirit. Thus to know what Buddhism
is will be to get into the life of Buddhism and to understand it from
the inside as it unfolds itself objectively in history. Therefore, the
definition of Buddhism must be that of the life-force which carries
forward a spiritual movement called Buddhism. All these doctrines,
controversies, constructions, and interpretations that were offered
after the Buddha’s death as regards his person, life, and teaching were
what essentially constituted the life of Indian Buddhism, and without
these there could be no spiritual activity to be known as Buddhism.
In a word what constituted the life and spirit of Buddhism is nothing
else than the inner life and spirit of the Buddha himself; Buddhism is
the structure erected around the inmost consciousness of its founder.
The style and material of the outer structure may vary as history
moves forward, but the inner meaning of Buddhahood which supports the
whole edifice remains the same and ever living. While on earth, the
Buddha tried to make it intelligible in accordance with the capacities
of his immediate followers, that is to say, the latter did their best
to comprehend the deeper significance of the various discourses
of their master, in which he pointed the way to final deliverance. As
we are told, the Buddha discoursed “with one voice,”[f23] but this
was interpreted and understood by his devotees in as manifold manners
as possible. This was inevitable, for we have each his own inner
experience which is to be explained in terms of his own creation,
naturally varying in depth and breadth. In most cases these so-called
individual inner experiences, however, may not be so deep and forceful
as to demand absolutely original phraseology, but may remain satisfied
with new interpretations of the old terms—once brought into use by an
ancient original spiritual leader. And this is the way every great
historical religion grows enriched in its contents or ideas. In some
cases this enrichment may mean the overgrowth of superstructures ending
in a complete burial of the original spirit. This is where critical
judgment is needed, but otherwise we must not forget to recognise the
living principle still in activity. In the case of Buddhism we must not
neglect to read the inner life of the Buddha himself asserting itself
in the history of a religious system designated after his name. The
claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of
Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening
spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal
garments.
_Some vital problems of Buddhism_
To the earlier Buddhists the problem did not present itself in this
light; that is to say, they did not realise that the centre of all
their dogmatics and controversies was to ascertain the real inner life
of the Buddha, which constituted their active faith in the Buddha and
his teaching. Without exactly knowing why, they first entertained,
after the passing of the Buddha, a strong desire to speculate on
the nature of his personality. They had no power to check the
constant and insistent cry of this desire brimming over in their
inmost hearts. What constituted Buddhahood? What was the essence of
Buddhahood? Questions like these assailed them one after another, and
among those there were the following which stood out more prominently
as they were more vitally interesting. They were those concerned with
the Enlightenment of the Buddha, his entrance into Nirvana, his former
life as a Bodhisattva (that is, as one capable of Enlightenment), and
his teaching as viewed from their way of understanding the Buddha.
Thus his teaching ceased to be considered independently of its author,
the truth of the teaching was so organically connected with the
Buddha’s personality, the Dharma was to be believed because it was the
very embodiment of Buddhahood, and not necessarily because it was so
logically consistent or philosophically tenable. The Buddha was the key
to the truth of Buddhism.
When attention thus centres in the person of the Buddha as the
author of the Dharma, the question of his inner experience known as
Enlightenment becomes the most vital one. Without this experience
the Buddha could not be called a Buddha; in fact, the term “Buddha,”
the Enlightened One, was his own making. If a man understands what
enlightenment is or really experiences it in himself, he knows the
whole secret of the Buddha’s superhuman nature and with it the riddle
of life and the world. The essence of Buddhism must then lie in the
Doctrine of Perfect Enlightenment. In the enlightened mind of the
Buddha there were many things which he did not and could not divulge
to his disciples. When he refused to answer metaphysical questions, it
was not because the minds of the questioners were not developed enough
to comprehend the full implications of them. If however the Buddhists
really desired to know their master, and his teaching, they had to
study the secrets of Enlightenment. As they had no living master now
they had to solve the problems by themselves if they could, and they
were never tired of exhausting their intellectual ingenuity on them.
Various theories were then advanced, and Buddhism grew richer in
content, it came to reflect something eternally valid besides mere
personal teaching of an individual. It ceased to be a thing merely
historical, but a system ever living, growing, and energy-imparting.
Various Mahayana Sutras and Shastras were produced to develop various
aspects of the content of Enlightenment as realised by the Buddha. Some
of them were speculative, others mystical, and still others ethical and
practical. In the idea of Enlightenment was thus focussed all Buddhist
thought.
Nirvana as the ideal of Buddhist life next engaged the serious
attention of Buddhist philosophers. Was it an annihilation of
existence, or that of passions or desires, or the dispelling of
ignorance, or a state of egolessness? Did the Buddha really enter
into a state of utter extinction leaving all sentient beings to their
own fate? Did the love he showed to his followers vanish with his
passing? Would he not come back among them in order to guide them, to
enlighten them, to listen to their spiritual anguish? The value of such
a grand personality as the Buddha could not perish with his physical
existence, it ought to remain with us for ever as a thing of eternal
validity. How could this notion be reconciled with the annihilation
theory of Nirvana so prevalent among the personal disciples of the
Buddha? When history conflicts with our idea of value, can it not be
interpreted to the satisfaction of our religious yearnings? What is
the objective authority of “facts” if not supported by an inwardly
grounded authority? Varieties of interpretation are then set forth in
the Mahayana texts as to the implications of Nirvana and other cognate
conceptions to be found in the “original” teaching of the Buddha.[f24]
What is the relationship between Enlightenment and Nirvana? How did
Buddhists come to realise Arhatship? What convinced them of their
attainment? Is the Enlightenment of an Arhat the same as that of
the Buddha? To answer these questions and many others in close
connection with them was the task imposed upon various schools of
Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism. While they quarrelled much, they never
forgot that they were all Buddhists and whatever interpretations they
gave to these problems they were faithful to their Buddhist experience.
They were firmly attached to the founder of their religion and only
wished to get thoroughly intimate with the faith and teaching as were
first promulgated by the Buddha. Some of them were naturally more
conservative and wished to submit to the orthodox and traditional way
of understanding the Dharma; but there were others as in every field of
human life, whose inner experience meant more to them, and to harmonise
this with the traditional authority they resorted to metaphysics to
its fullest extent. Their efforts, there is no doubt, were honest
and sincere, and when they thought they solved the difficulties or
contradictions they were satisfied inwardly as well as intellectually.
In fact they had no other means of egress from the spiritual impasse in
which they found themselves through the natural and inevitable growth
of their inmost life. This was the way Buddhism had to develop if it
ever had in it any life to grow.
While Enlightenment and Nirvana were closely related to the conception
of Buddhahood itself, there was another idea of great importance to
the development of Buddhism, which however had no direct connection
apparently, though not in its ultimate signification, with the
personality of the Buddha. This idea naturally proved to be most
fruitful in the history of Buddhist dogmatics along with the
doctrines of Enlightenment and Nirvana. I mean by this the doctrine
of non-Atman which denies the existence of an ego-substance in our
psychic life. When the notion of Atman was ruling Indian minds, it
was a bold announcement on the part of the Buddha to regard it as the
source of ignorance and transmigration. The theory of Origination
(_pratītya-samutpāda_) which seems to make up the foundation of the
Buddha’s teaching is thus finally resolved into the finding of a
mischievous “designer” who works behind all our spiritual restlessness.
Whatever interpretation was given to the doctrine of non-Atman in
the early days of Buddhism, the idea came to be extended over to things
inanimate as well. Not only there was no ego-substance behind our
mental life, but there was no ego in the physical world, which meant
that we could not separate in reality acting from actor, force from
mass, or life from its manifestations. As far as thinking goes, we can
establish these two pairs of conception as limiting each other, but
in the actuality of things they must all be one, as we cannot impose
our logical way of thinking upon reality in its concreteness. When we
transfer this separation from thought into reality, we encounter many
difficulties not only intellectual but moral and spiritual, from which
we suffer unspeakable anguish later. This was felt by the Buddha, and
he called this mixing up Ignorance (_avidyā_). The Mahayana doctrine of
Śūnyatā was a natural conclusion. But I need not make any remark here
to the effect that the Śūnyatā theory is not nihilism or acosmism, but
that it has its positive background which sustains it and gives life to
it.
It was in the natural order of thought now for Buddhists to endeavour
to find a philosophical explanation of Enlightenment and Nirvana in
the theory of non-Atman or Śūnyatā, and this to the best of their
intellectual power and in the light of their spiritual experience.
They finally found out that Enlightenment was not a thing exclusively
belonging to the Buddha, but that each one of us could attain it if he
got rid of ignorance by abandoning the dualistic conception of life and
of the world; they further concluded that Nirvana was not vanishing
into a state of absolute non-existence which was an impossibility
as long as we had to reckon with the actual facts of life, and that
Nirvana in its ultimate signification was an affirmation—an affirmation
beyond opposites of all kinds. This metaphysical understanding of the
fundamental problem of Buddhism marks the features of the Mahayana
philosophy. As to its practical side where the theory of Śūnyatā and
the doctrine of Enlightenment are harmoniously united and realised in
life, or where the Buddhists aim to enter into the inner consciousness
of the Buddha as was revealed to him under the Bodhi tree, we will
refer to it in the following section.
* * * * *
Almost all Buddhist scholars in Japan agree that all these
characteristic ideas of the Mahayana are systematically traceable
in Hinayana literature; and that all the reconstructions and
transformations which the Mahayanists are supposed to have put on
the original form of Buddhism are really nothing but an unbroken
continuation of one original Buddhist spirit and life, and further
that even the so-called primitive Buddhism as is expounded in the
Pali canons and in the Agama texts of the Chinese Tripitaka, is also
the result of an elaboration on the part of the earlier followers of
the Buddha. If the Mahayana is not Buddhism proper, neither is the
Hinayana, for the historical reason that neither of them represents
the teaching of the Buddha as it was preached by the Master himself.
Unless one limits the use of the term Buddhism very narrowly and only
to a certain form of it, no one can very well refuse to include both
Mahayana and Hinayana in the same denomination. And, in my opinion,
it is proper, considering the organic relation between system and
experience and the fact that the spirit of the Buddha himself is
present in all these constructions, it is proper that the term Buddhism
should be used in a broad, comprehensive, and inward sense.
This is not the place to enter into the details of organic relationship
existing between the Hinayana and the Mahayana; for the object of this
essay is to delineate the course of development as traversed by Zen
Buddhism before it has reached the present form. Having outlined my
position with regard to the definition of Buddhism and the Mahayana in
general as a manifestation of Buddhist life and thought, or rather of
the inner experience of the Buddha himself, the next step will be to
see where lies the source of Zen and how it is one of the legitimate
successors and transmitters of the Buddha’s spirit.
_Zen and Enlightenment_
The origin of Zen, as is the case with all other forms of
Buddhism, is to be sought in Supreme Perfect Enlightenment
(_anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi_) attained by the Buddha while he was sitting
under the Bodhi-tree, near the city of Gaya. If this Enlightenment
is of no value and signification to the development of Buddhism, Zen
then has nothing to do with Buddhism, it was altogether another thing
created by the genius of Bodhi-Dharma who visited China early in the
sixth century. But if Enlightenment is the _raison d’être_ of Buddhism,
that is to say, if Buddhism is an edifice erected on the solid basis
of Enlightenment, realised by the Buddha and making up his being, Zen
is the central pillar which supports the entire structure, it composes
the direct line of continuation drawn out from the content of the
Buddha’s illumined mind. Traditionally Zen is considered to have been
transmitted by the Buddha to his foremost disciple, Mahākāśyapa, when
the Buddha held out a bunch of flowers to his congregation, the meaning
of which was at once grasped by Mahākāśyapa who quietly smiled at him.
The historicity of this incident is justly criticised, but knowing the
value of Enlightenment we cannot ascribe the authority of Zen just
to such an episode as this. Zen was in fact handed over not only to
Mahākāśyapa but to all beings who will follow the steps of the Buddha,
the Enlightened One.
Like a true Indian the Buddha’s idea of ascetic meditation was to
attain Vimoksha (or simply Moksha, deliverance) from the bondage of
birth and death. There were several ways open to him to reach the
goal. According to the Brahman philosophers of those days, the great
fruit of deliverance could be matured by embracing religious truth, or
by practising asceticism or chastity, or by learning, or by freeing
oneself from passions. Each in its way was an excellent means, and if
they were practised severally or all together, they might result in
emancipation of some kind. But the philosophers talked about methods
and did not give one any trustworthy information concerning their
actual spiritual experience, and what the Buddha wished was this
self-realisation, a personal experience, an actual insight into truth,
and not mere discoursing about methods, or playing with concepts.[f25]
He detested all philosophical reasonings which he called _dṛishti_ or
_darśana_, for they would lead him nowhere, bring him no practical
result in his spiritual life. He was never satisfied until he
inwardly realised the Bodhi as the truth immediately presented to his
transcendental consciousness and whose absolute nature was so inner,
so self-convincing that he had no doubt whatever in regard to its
universal validity. The content of this Enlightenment was explained
by the Buddha as the Dharma which was to be directly perceived
(_sandiṭṭhika_), beyond limits of time (_akalika_), to be personally
experienced (_ehipassika_), altogether persuasive (_opanayika_), and
to be understood each for himself by the wise (_paccattaṁ veditabbo
viññuhi_). This meant that the Dharma was to be intuited and not to
be analytically reached by concepts. The reason why the Buddha so
frequently refused to answer metaphysical problems was partly due to
his conviction that the ultimate truth was to be realised in oneself
through one’s own efforts;[f26] for all that could be gained through
discursive understanding was the surface of things and not things
themselves, conceptual knowledge never gave full satisfaction to one’s
religious yearning. The attainment of the Bodhi could not be the
accumulation of dialectical subtleties. And this is the position taken
up by Zen Buddhism as regards what it considers a final reality. Zen in
this respect faithfully follows the injunction of the Master.
That the Buddha had an insight of higher order into the nature of
things than that which could be obtained through ordinary logical
reasoning is evidenced everywhere even in the so-called Hinayana
literature. To cite just one instance from the _Brahmajāla Sutta_ in
which the Buddha deals with all the heretical schools that were in
existence in his days, he invariably makes reference after refuting
them to the Tathagata’s deeper understanding which goes beyond their
speculations “wriggling like an eel.” What they discuss just for the
sake of discussion and to show the keenness of their analytical faculty
about the soul, future life, eternity, and other important spiritual
subjects, is not productive of any actual benefits for our inner
welfare. The Buddha knew well where these reasonings would finally lead
to and how trivial and unwholesome they were after all. So we read in
the _Brahmajāla Sutta_: “Of these, Brethren, the Tathagata knows that
these speculations thus arrived at, thus insisted on, will have such
and such a result, such and such an effect on the future condition of
those who trust in them. That does he know, and he knows also other
things far beyond (far better than those speculations): and having that
knowledge he is not puffed up, and thus untarnished he has in his own
heart realised the way of escape from them, has understood, as they
really are, the rising up and passing away of sensations, their sweet
taste, their danger, how they cannot be relied on; and not grasping
after any [of those things men are eager for], he, the Tathagata, is
quite set free.”[f27]
While the ideal of Arhatship was no doubt the entering into Nirvana
that leaves nothing behind (_anupādhiśesha_), whatever this may mean,
it did not ignore the significance of Enlightenment, no, it could not
do so very well without endangering its own reason of existence. For
Nirvana was nothing else in its essence than Enlightenment, the content
was identical in either case. Enlightenment was Nirvana reached while
yet in the flesh, and no Nirvana was ever possible without obtaining
Enlightenment. The latter may have a more intellectual note in it
than the former, which is a psychological state realised through
Enlightenment. Bodhi is spoken of in the so-called primitive
Buddhism just as much as Nirvana. So long as passions (_kleśa_) were
not subdued, and the mind still remained enshrouded in ignorance, no
Buddhists could ever dream of obtaining a Moksha (deliverance) which
is Nirvana, and this deliverance from Ignorance and passions was the
work of Enlightenment. Generally Nirvana is understood in its negative
aspect as the total extinction of everything, body and soul, but in the
actuality of life no such negativist conception could ever prevail,
and the Buddha never meant Nirvana to be so interpreted. If there
were nothing affirmative in Nirvana, the Mahayanists could never have
evolved the positive conception of it later. Though the immediate
disciples of the Buddha were not conscious of this, there was always
the thought of Enlightenment implied in it. Enlightenment attained by
the Buddha after a week’s meditation under the Bodhi-tree could not be
of no consequence to his Arhat-disciples, however negatively the latter
tended to apply this principle to the attainment of their life-object.
The true significance of Enlightenment was effectively brought out
by the Mahayanists not only in its intellectual implications but in
its moral and religious bearings. The result was the conception of
Bodhisattvaship in contradistinction to Arhatship, the ideal of their
rival school. The Arhat and the Bodhisattva are essentially the same.
But the Mahayanists, perceiving a deeper sense in Enlightenment as
the most important constituent element in the attainment of the final
goal of Buddhism, which is spiritual freedom (_ceto-vimutti_), as
the Nikāyas have it, did not wish to have it operated in themselves
only, but wanted to see it realised in every being sentient and even
non-sentient. Not only this was their subjective yearning, but there
was an objective basis on which the yearning could be justified
and realised. It was the presence in every individual of a faculty
designated by the Mahayanists as Prajñā.[f28] This was the
principle that made Enlightenment possible in us as well as in the
Buddha. Without Prajñā there could be no Enlightenment, which was
the highest spiritual power in our possession. The intellect or what
is ordinarily known by Buddhist scholars as Vijñāna, was relative in
its activity, and could not comprehend the ultimate truth which was
Enlightenment. And it was due to this ultimate truth that we could
lift ourselves above the dualism of matter and spirit, of ignorance
and wisdom, of passion and non-attachment. Enlightenment consisted in
personally realising the truth, ultimate and absolute and capable of
affirmation. Thus we are all Bodhisattvas now, beings of Enlightenment,
if not in actuality, then potentially. Bodhi-sattvas are also
Prajñā-sattvas, as we are universally endowed with Prajñā, which,
when fully and truly operating, will realise in us Enlightenment, and
intellectually (in its highest sense) lift us above appearances, which
is a state designated by Nikaya Buddhists as “emancipation of mind or
reason” (_paññā-vimutti_ or _sammad-aññā vimutti_).
If by virtue of Enlightenment Gautama was transformed into the
Buddha, and then if all beings are endowed with Prajñā and capable of
Enlightenment, that is, if they are thus Bodhisattvas, the logical
conclusion will be that Bodhisattvas are all Buddhas, or destined to
be Buddhas as soon as sufficient conditions obtain. Hence the Mahayana
doctrine that all beings, sentient or non-sentient, are endowed with
the Buddha-nature, and that our minds are the Buddha-mind and our
bodies are the Buddha-body. The Buddha before his Enlightenment was an
ordinary mortal, and we, ordinary mortals, will be Buddhas the moment
our mental eyes[f29] open in Enlightenment. In this do we not see
plainly the most natural and most logical course of things leading up
to the main teaching of Zen as it later developed in China and Japan?
How extensively and intensively the concept of Enlightenment
influenced the development of Mahayana Buddhism may be seen in the
composition of the _Saddharmapuṇḍarīka_, which is really one of the
profoundest Mahayana protests against the Hinayana conception of the
Buddha’s Enlightenment. According to the latter, the Buddha attained it
at Gayā while meditating under the Bodhi-tree, for they regarded the
Buddha as a mortal being like themselves, subject to historical and
psychological conditions. But the Mahayanists could not be satisfied
with such a realistic common-sense interpretation of the personality of
the Buddha, they saw something in it which went deep into their hearts
and wanted to come in immediate touch with it. What they sought was
finally given, and they found that the idea of the Buddha’s being a
common soul was a delusion, that the Tathagata arrived in his Supreme
Perfect Enlightenment “many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of æons
ago,” and that all those historical “facts” in his life which are
recorded in the Agama or Nikaya literature are his “skilful devices”
(_upāya-kauśalya_) to lead creatures to full ripeness and go in the
Buddha Way.[f30] In other words, this means that Enlightenment is the
absolute reason of the universe and the essence of Buddhahood, and
therefore that to obtain Enlightenment is to realise in one’s inner
consciousness the ultimate truth of the world which for ever is. While
the _Puṇḍarīka_ emphasises the Buddha-aspect of Enlightenment, Zen
directs its attention mainly to the Enlightenment-aspect of Buddhahood.
When this latter aspect is considered intellectually, we have the
philosophy of Buddhist dogmatics, which is studied by scholars of the
Tendai (_t‘ien-tai_), Kegon (_avataṁsaka_), Hosso, (_dharmalaksha_),
and other schools. Zen approaches it from the practical side of life,
that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.
Seeing that the idea of Enlightenment played such an important rôle in
the development of Mahayana Buddhism, what is the content of it? Can we
describe it in an intelligible manner so that our analytical intellect
could grasp it and make it an object of thought? The Fourfold Noble
Truth was not the content of Enlightenment, nor was the Twelvefold
Chain of Causation, nor the Eightfold Righteous Path. The truth flashed
through the Buddha’s consciousness was not such a thought capable of
discursive unfolding. When he exclaimed:
“Through birth and rebirth’s endless round,
Seeking in vain, I hastened on,
To find who framed this edifice,
What misery!—birth incessantly!
“O builder! I’ve discovered thee!
This fabric thou shall ne’er rebuild!
The rafters all are broken now,
And pointed roof demolished lies!
This mind has demolition reached,
And seen the last of all desire!”[f31]
he must have grasped something much deeper than mere dialectics.
There must have been something most fundamental and ultimate which
at once set all his doubts at rest, not only intellectual doubts but
spiritual anguish. Indeed, forty-nine years of his active life after
Enlightenment were commentaries on it, and yet they did not exhaust its
content; nor did all the later speculations of Nāgārjuna, Aśvaghosha,
and Vasubandhu, and Asanga explain it away. In the _Laṅkāvatāra_
therefore the author makes the Buddha confess that since his
Enlightenment, till his passing into Nirvana he uttered not a word.[f32]
Therefore, again with all his memory and learning, Ānanda could not
sound the bottom of the Buddha’s wisdom, while the latter was still
alive. According to tradition, Ānanda’s attainment to Arhatship
took place at the time of the First Convocation in which he was not
allowed to take part in spite of his twenty-five years’ attendance
upon the Buddha. Grieving over the fact, he spent the whole night
perambulating in an open square, and when he was about to lay himself
down on a couch all exhausted, he all of a sudden came to realise the
truth of Buddhism, which with all his knowledge and understanding had
escaped him all those years.
What does this mean? Arhatship is evidently not a matter of
scholarship; it is something realised in the twinkling of an eye after
a long arduous application to the matter. The preparatory course may
occupy a long stretch of time, but the crisis breaks out at a point
instantaneously, and one is an Arhat, or a Bodhisattva, or even a
Buddha. The content of Enlightenment must be quite simple in nature
and yet tremendous in effect. That is to say, intellectually, it
must transcend all the complications involved in an epistemological
exposition of it; and psychologically, it must be the reconstruction
of one’s entire personality. Such a fundamental fact naturally evades
description, and can be grasped only by an act of intuition and through
personal experience. It is really the Dharma in its highest sense.
If by “the stirring of one thought” Ignorance came into our life,
the awakening of another thought must put a stop to Ignorance and
bring about Enlightenment.[f33] And in this there is no thought to
be an object of logical consciousness or empirical reasoning; for in
Enlightenment thinker and thinking and thought are merged in the one
act of seeing into the very being of Self. No further explanation of
the Dharma is possible, hence an appeal to _via negativa_. And this has
reached its climax in the Śūnyatā philosophy of Nāgārjuna, which is
based upon the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā literature of Buddhism.
So we see that Enlightenment is not the outcome of an intellectual
process in which one idea follows another in sequence finally to
terminate in conclusion or judgment. There is neither process nor
judgment in Enlightenment, it is something more fundamental, something
which makes a judgment possible, and without which no form of
judgment can take place. In judgment there are a subject and a
predicate; in Enlightenment subject is predicate, and predicate is
subject; they are here merged as one, but not as one of which something
can be stated, but as one from which arises judgment. We cannot go
beyond this absolute oneness; all the intellectual operations stop
here; when they endeavour to go further, they draw a circle in which
they for ever repeat themselves. This is the wall against which all
philosophies have beaten in vain. This is an intellectual _terra
incognita_, in which prevails the principle, “Credo quia absurdum est.”
This region of darkness, however, gives up its secrets when attacked by
the will, by the force of one’s entire personality. Enlightenment is
the illuminating of this dark region, when the whole thing is seen at
one glance, and all intellectual inquiries find here their rationale.
Hitherto one may have been intellectually convinced of the truth of a
certain proposition, but somehow it has not yet entered into his life,
the truth still lacks ultimate confirmation, and he cannot help feeling
a vague sense of indeterminateness and uneasiness. Enlightenment now
comes upon him in a mysterious way without any previous announcement,
and all is settled with him, he is an Arhat or even a Buddha. The
dragon has got its eyes dotted, and it is no more a lifeless image
painted on a canvas, but winds and rains are its willing servants now.
It is quite evident that Enlightenment is not the consciousness of
logical perspicuity or analytical completeness, it is something more
than an intellectual sense of conclusiveness, there is something in it
which engages the entire field of consciousness not only by throwing
light on the whole series of links welded for the purpose of solving
the problems of life, but by giving a feeling of finality to all the
spiritual anguish that has ever been so disquieting to one’s soul.
The logical links however accurately adjusted and perfectly wrought
together, fail by themselves to be pacifying to the soul in the most
thoroughgoing manner. We require something more fundamental or more
immediate for the purpose, and I maintain that the mere reviewing of
the Fourfold Noble Truth or the Twelvefold Chain of Origination does
not result in the attainment of the Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. The
Buddha must have experienced something that went far deeper into his
inmost consciousness than the mere intellectual grasping of empirical
truths. He must have gone beyond the sphere of analytical reasoning.
He must have come in touch with that which makes our intellectual
operations possible, in fact that which conditions the very existence
of our conscious life.
When Śāriputra saw Aśvajit, he noticed how composed the latter was,
with all his organs of sense well controlled and how clear and bright
the colour of his skin was. Śāriputra could not help asking him who was
his teacher and what doctrine he taught. To this Aśvajit replied: “The
great Śākyamuni, the Blessed One, is my teacher and his doctrine in
substance is this:
“The Buddha hath the cause told
Of all things springing from a cause;
And also how things cease to be—
’Tis this the Mighty Monk proclaims.”
It is said that on hearing this exposition of the Dharma, there arose
in the mind of Śāriputra a clear and distinct perception of the Dharma
that whatever is subject to origination is subject also to cessation.
Śāriputra then attained to the deathless, sorrowless state, lost sight
of and neglected for many myriads of kalpas.
The point to which I wish to call attention here is this: Is there
anything intellectually remarkable and extraordinary and altogether
original in this stanza that has so miraculously awakened Śāriputra
from his habitually cherished way of thinking? As far as the Buddha’s
Dharma (Doctrine) was concerned, there was not much of anything in
these four lines. It is said that they are the substance of the Dharma;
if so, the Dharma may be said to be rather devoid of substance, and how
could Śāriputra ever find here a truth concrete and efficient enough to
turn him away from the old rut? The stanza which is noted for having
achieved the conversion of not only Śāriputra but Maudgalyāyana, has
really nothing characteristic of Buddhistic thought, strong enough to
produce such a great result. The reason for this, therefore, must
be sought somewhere else, that is, not in the formal truth contained
in the stanza, but in the subjective condition of the one to whose
ears it chanced to fall and in whom it awakened a vision of another
world. It was in the mind of Śāriputra itself that opened up to a clear
and distinct understanding of the Dharma; in other words, the Dharma
was revealed in him as something growing out of himself and not as an
external truth poured into him. In a sense the Dharma had been in his
mind all the time but he was not aware of its presence there until
Aśvajit’s stanza was uttered. He was not a mere passive recipient into
which something not native to his Self was poured. The hearing of the
stanza gave him an opportunity to experience the supreme moment. If
Śāriputra’s understanding was intellectual and discursive, his dialogue
with Ānanda later on could not take place in the way it did. In the
Saṁyutta-Nikāya, iii., 235f, we read:
Ānanda saw Śāriputra coming afar off, and he said to him; “Serene and
pure and radiant is your face. Brother Śāriputra! In what mood has
Śāriputra been to-day?”
“I have been alone in Dhyana, and to me came never the thought: _I_ am
attaining it! _I_ have got it! _I_ have emerged from it!”
Here we notice the distinction between an intellectual and a spiritual
understanding which is Enlightenment. When Śāriputra referred to the
cause of his being so serene, pure and radiant, he did not explain
it logically but just stated the fact as he subjectively interpreted
it himself. Whether this interpretation of his own was correct or
not takes the psychologist to decide. What I wish to see here is
that Śāriputra’s understanding of the doctrine of “origination and
cessation” was not the outcome of his intellectual analysis but an
intuitive comprehension of his own inner life-process. Between the
Buddha’s Enlightenment which is sung in the Hymn of Victory and
Śāriputra’s insight into the Dharma as the doctrine of causation,
there is a close connection in the way their minds worked. In the
one Enlightenment came first and then its expression; in the other
a definite statement was addressed first and then came an insight;
the process is reversed here. But the inadequacy of relation
between antecedent and consequence remains the same. The one does not
sufficiently explain the other, when the logical and intellectual
understanding alone is taken into consideration. The explanation must
be sought not in the objective truth contained in the doctrine of
causation, but in the state of consciousness itself of the enlightened
subject. Otherwise, how do we account for the establishment of
such a firm faith in self-realisation or self-deliverance as this?
“He has destroyed all evil passions (_āsava_); he has attained to
heart-emancipation (_ceto-vimutti_) and intellect-emancipation
(_pannā-vimutti_), here in this visible world he has by himself
understood, realised, and mastered the Dharma, he has dived deep into
it, has passed beyond doubt, has put away perplexity, has gained full
confidence, he has lived the life, has done what was to be done, has
destroyed the fetter of rebirth, he has comprehended the Dharma as it
is truly in itself.”[f34]
This is why the _Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra_ tries so hard to tell us that
language is altogether inadequate as the means of expressing and
communicating the inner state of Enlightenment. While without language
we may fare worse at least in our practical life, we must guard
ourselves most deliberately against our trusting it too much beyond its
legitimate office. The Sutra gives the main reason for this, which is
that language is the product of causal dependence, subject to change,
unsteady, mutually conditioned, and based on false judgment as to the
true nature of consciousness. For this reason language cannot reveal
to us the ultimate signification of things (_paramārtha_). The noted
analogy of finger and moon is most appropriate to illustrate the
relation between language and sense, symbol and reality.
If the Buddha’s Enlightenment really contained so much in it that he
himself could not sufficiently demonstrate or illustrate it with his
“long thin tongue” (_prabhūtatanujihva_) through his long peaceful life
given to meditation and discoursing, how could those less than he ever
hope to grasp it and attain spiritual emancipation? This is the
position taken up by Zen: To comprehend the truth of Enlightenment,
therefore, we must exercise some other mental power than intellection,
if we are at all in possession of such. Discoursing fails to reach the
goal and yet we have an unsatiated aspiration after the unattainable.
Are we then meant to live and die thus tormented for ever? If so,
this is the most lamentable situation in which we find ourselves
on earth. Buddhists have applied themselves most earnestly to the
solution of the problem and have finally come to see that we have after
all within ourselves what we need. This is the power of intuition
possessed by spirit and able to comprehend spiritual truth which will
show us all the secrets of life making up the content of the Buddha’s
Enlightenment. It is not an ordinary intellectual process of reasoning,
but a power that will grasp something most fundamental in an instant
and in the directest way. Prajñā is the name given to this power by the
Buddhists, as I said, and what Zen Buddhism aims at in its relation to
the doctrine of Enlightenment is to awaken Prajñā by the exercise of
meditation.
We read in the _Saddharma-puṇḍarīka_: “O Śāriputra, the true Law
understood by the Tathagata cannot be reasoned, is beyond the pale of
reasoning. Why? For the Tathagata appears in the world to carry out one
great object, which is to make all beings accept, see, enter into, and
comprehend the knowledge and insight gained by the Tathagata, and also
to make them enter upon the path of knowledge and insight attained by
the Tathagata.... Those who learn it from the Tathagata also reach his
Supreme Perfect Enlightenment.”[f35] If such was the one great object
of the Buddha’s appearance on earth, how do we get into the path of
insight and realise Supreme Perfect Enlightenment? And if this Dharma
of Enlightenment is beyond the limits of the understanding, no amount
of philosophising will ever bring us nearer the goal. How do we then
learn it from the Tathagata? Decidedly not from his mouth, nor from the
records of his sermons, nor from the ascetic practise, but from our own
inner consciousness through the exercise of dhyana. And this is the
doctrine of Zen.
_Enlightenment and Spiritual Freedom_
When the doctrine of Enlightenment makes its appeal to the inner
experience of the Buddhist and its content is to be grasped immediately
without any conceptual medium, the sole authority in his spiritual
life will have to be found within himself; traditionalism or
institutionalism will naturally lose all its binding force. According
to him, then, propositions will be true, that is, living, because
they are in accordance with his spiritual insight; and his actions
will permit no external standard of judgment; as long as they are
the inevitable overflow of his inner life, they are good, even holy.
The direct issue of this interpretation of Enlightenment will be the
upholding of absolute spiritual freedom in every way, which will
further lead to the unlimited expansion of his mental outlook going
beyond the narrow bounds of monastic and scholastic Buddhism. This was
not however, from the Mahayanistic point of view, against the spirit of
the Buddha.
The constitution of the Brotherhood will now have to change. In the
beginning of Buddhism, it was a congregation of homeless monks who
subjected themselves to a certain set of ascetic rules of life. In this
Buddhism was an exclusive possession of the _élite_, and the general
public or Upāsaka group who accepted the Threefold Refuge Formula
was a sort of appendage to the regular or professional Brotherhood.
When Buddhism was still in its first stage of development, even
nuns (_bhikshuṇī_) were not allowed to come into the community; the
Buddha received them only after great reluctance, prophesying that
Buddhism would now live only half of its normal life. We can readily
see from this fact that the teaching of the Buddha and the doctrine
of Enlightenment were meant to be practised and realised only among
limited classes of people. While the Buddha regarded the various
elements of his congregation with perfect impartiality, cherishing no
prejudices as to their social, racial, and other distinctions, the
full benefit of his teaching could not extend beyond the monastic
boundaries. If there was nothing in it that could benefit mankind in
general, this exclusiveness was naturally to be expected. But the
doctrine of Enlightenment was something that could not be kept thus
imprisoned, it had many things in it that would overflow all the
limitations set to it. When the conception of Bodhisattvahood came to
be emphatically asserted, a monastic and self-excluding community could
no longer hold its ground, a religion of monks and nuns had to become
a religion of laymen and laywomen. An ascetic discipline leading to
the Anūpādhiśesha-Nirvāṇa had to give way to a system of teaching that
would make any one attain Enlightenment and demonstrate Nirvana in his
daily life. In all the Mahayana Sutras, this general tendency in the
unfoldment of Buddhism is vehemently asserted, showing how intense was
the struggle between conservatism and progressivism.
* * * * *
This spirit of freedom which is the power impelling Buddhism to
break through its monastic shell and bringing forward the idea of
Enlightenment ever vigorously before the masses, is the life-impulse of
the universe,—this unhampered activity of spirit, and everything that
interferes with it is destined to be defeated. The history of Buddhism
is thus also a history of freedom in one’s spiritual, intellectual,
and moral life. The moral aristocracy and disciplinary formalism of
primitive Buddhism could not bind our spirit for a very long period
of time. As the doctrine of Enlightenment grew to be more and more
inwardly interpreted, the spirit rose above the formalism of Buddhist
discipline. It was of no absolute necessity for one to leave his home
life and follow the footsteps of the wandering monks in order to reach
the supreme fruit of Enlightenment. Inward purity, and not external
piety, was the thing needed for the Buddhist life. The Upāsakas were
in this respect as good as the Bhikshus. The fact is most eloquently
illustrated in the _Vimalakīrti-Sūtra_. The chief character here is
Vimalakīrti, a lay philosopher, outside the pale of the Brotherhood.
None of the Buddha’s disciples were his matches in the depth, breadth,
and subtleties of thought, and when the Buddha told them to visit
his sickroom, they all excused themselves for some reason or other,
except Mañjuśrī, who is Prajñā incarnate in Mahayana Buddhism.
That the lay-devotees thus asserted themselves even at the expense
of the Arhats, may also be gleaned from other sources than the
_Vimalakīrti_, but especially from such Sutras as the _Śrīmālā_,
_Gaṇḍhavyūha_, _Vajrasamādhi_, _Candrottara-dārikā_, etc. What is the
most noteworthy in this connection is that woman plays an important
rôle on various occasions. Not only is she endowed with philosophising
talents, but she stands on equal footing with man. Among the
fifty-three philosophers or leaders of thought visited by Sudhana in
his religious pilgrimage, he interviewed many women in various walks of
life, and some of whom were even courtesans. They all wisely discoursed
with the insatiable seeker of truth. What a different state of affairs
this was when compared with the reluctant admission of women into the
Sangha in the early days of Buddhism! Later Buddhism may have lost
something in austerity, aloofness, and even saintliness, which appeal
strongly to our religious imagination, but it has gained in democracy,
picturesqueness, and largely in humanity.
* * * * *
The free spirit which wanders out beyond the monastic walls of the
Brotherhood now follows its natural consequence and endeavours to
transcend the disciplinary rules and the ascetic formalism of the
Hinayanists. The moral rules that were given by the Buddha to his
followers as they were called for by the contingencies of life, were
concerned more or less with externalism. When the Buddha remained
with them as the living spirit of the Brotherhood, these rules were
the direct expressions of the subjective life; but with the Buddha’s
departure, they grew rigid and failed to reach the inner spirit of
their author, and the followers of Enlightenment revolted against
them, upholding “the spirit that giveth life.” They advocated perfect
freedom of spirit, even after the fashion of antinomians. If the spirit
were pure, no acts of the body could spoil it; it could wander about
anywhere it liked with absolute immunity. It would even go down to
hell, if it were necessary or expedient for them to do so, for the
sake of the salvation of the depraved. It would indefinitely postpone
the entering into Nirvana if there were still souls to save and minds
to enlighten. According to “the letter that killeth” no Buddhists were
allowed to enter a liquor shop, or to be familiar with inmates of the
houses barred from respectability, in short, even for a moment to be
thinking of violating any of the moral precepts. But to the Mahayanists
all kinds of “expediency” or “devices” were granted if they were fully
enlightened and had their spirits thoroughly purified. They were living
in a realm beyond good and evil, and as long as they were there, no
acts of theirs could be classified and judged according to the ordinary
measure of ethics; they were neither moral nor immoral. These relative
terms had no application in a kingdom governed by free spirits which
soared above the relative world of differences and oppositions. This
was most slippery ground for the Mahayanists. When they were really
enlightened and fathomed the depths of spirituality, every deed of
theirs was a creative act of God, but in this extreme form of idealism,
objectivity had no room, and consequently who could ever distinguish
libertinism from spiritualism? In spite of this pitfall the Mahayanists
were in the right in consistently following up all the implications
of the doctrine of Enlightenment. Their parting company with the
Hinayanists was inevitable.
* * * * *
The doctrine of Enlightenment leads to the inwardness of one’s
spiritual experience, which cannot be analysed intellectually without
somehow involving logical contradictions. It thus seeks to break
through every intelligent barrier that may be set against it, it longs
for emancipation in every form, not only in the understanding but in
life itself. The unscrupulous followers of Enlightenment are thus
liable to degenerate into votaries of libertinism. If the Mahayanists
remained here and did not see further into the real nature of Prajñā,
they would have certainly followed the fates of the Friends of Free
Spirit, but they knew how Enlightenment realises its true signification
in love for all beings and how freedom of spirit has its own principle
to follow though nothing external is imposed upon it. For freedom
does not mean lawlessness, which is the destruction and annihilation
of itself, but creating out of its inner life-force all that is good
and beautiful. This creating is called by the Mahayanists “skilful
device” (_upāya-kauśalya_), in which Enlightenment is harmoniously
wedded to love. Enlightenment when intellectually conceived is not
dynamical and stops at illumining the path which love will tread. But
Prajñā is more than merely intellectual, it produces Karuṇā (love or
pity), and with her co-operation it achieves the great end of life,
the salvation of all beings from Ignorance and passions and misery.
It now knows no end in devising all kinds of means to carry out its
own teleological functions. The _Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka_ regards the
Buddha’s appearance on earth and his life in history as the “skilful
devices” of world-salvation on the part of the Supreme Being of Eternal
Enlightenment. This creation, however, ceases to be a creation in its
perfect sense when the creator grows conscious of its teleological
implications[f36]; for here then is a split in his consciousness which
will check the spontaneous flowing-out of spirit, and then freedom will
be lost at its source. Such devices as have grown conscious of their
purposes are no more “skilful devices,” and according to the Buddhists
they do not reflect the perfect state of Enlightenment.
Thus the doctrine of Enlightenment is to be supplemented by the
doctrine of Device (_upāya_), or the latter may be said to evolve by
itself from the first when it is conceived dynamically and not as
merely a contemplative state of consciousness. The earlier Buddhists
showed the tendency to consider Enlightenment essentially reflective or
a state of tranquillity. They made it something lifeless and altogether
uncreative. This however did not bring out all that was contained in
Enlightenment. The affective or will element which moved the Buddha
to come out of his Sāgaramudrā-Samādhi,—a samadhi in which the whole
universe was reflected in his consciousness as the moon stamps her
image upon the ocean,—has now developed into the doctrine of Device.
For the will is more fundamental than the intellect and makes up the
ultimate principle of life. Without the “devising” and self-regulating
will, life will be the mad display of a mere blind force. The
wantonness of “a free spirit” is thus now regulated to operate in the
great work of universal salvation. Its creative activity will devise
all possible means for the sake of love for all beings animate as well
as inanimate. Dhyana is one of those devices which will keep our minds
in balance and well under the control of the will. Zen is the outcome
of the dhyana discipline applied to the attainment of Enlightenment.