VII

It may not be altogether out of place here to make a few remarks

concerning the popular view which identifies the philosophy of

Schopenhauer with Buddhism. According to this view, the Buddha is

supposed to have taught the negation of the will to live, which was

insisted upon by the German pessimist, but nothing is further from the

correct understanding of Buddhism than this negativism. The Buddha does

not consider the will blind, irrational, and therefore to be denied;

what he really denies is the notion of ego-entity due to Ignorance,

from which notion come craving, attachment to things impermanent,

and the giving way to the egotistic impulses. The object the Buddha

always has in view and never forgets to set forth whenever he thinks

opportune, is the Enlightenment of the will and not its negation. His

teaching is based upon affirmative propositions. The reason why he does

not countenance life as it is lived by most of us is because it is the

product of Ignorance and egoism, which never fail to throw us into the

abyss of pain and misery. The Buddha pointed the way to escape this by

Enlightenment and not by annihilation.

The will as it is in itself is pure act, and no taint of egotism is

there; this is awakened only when the intellect through its own error

grows blind as to the true working of the will and falsely recognises

here the principle of individuation. The Buddha thus wants an illumined

will and not the negation of it. When the will is illumined, and

thereby when the intellect is properly directed to follow its

original course, we are liberated from the fetters which are put upon

us by wrong understanding, and purified of all the defilements which

ooze from the will not being correctly interpreted. Enlightenment and

emancipation are the two central ideas of Buddhism.

The argument Aśvaghosha puts into the mouth of the Buddha against

Arada (or Ālāra Kālāma), the Samkhya philosopher, is illuminating in

this respect. When Arada told the Buddha to liberate the soul from

the body as when the bird flies from the cage or the reed’s stalk is

loosened from its sheath, which will result in the abandonment of

egoism, the Buddha reasons in the following way: “As long as the soul

continues there is no abandonment of egoism. The soul does not become

free from qualities as long as it is not released from number and the

rest; therefore, as long as there is no freedom from qualities, there

is no liberation declared for it. There is no real separation of the

qualities and their subject; for fire cannot be conceived apart from

its form and heat. Before the body there will be nothing embodied,

so before the qualities there will be no subject; how, if it was

originally free, could the soul ever become bound? The body-knower

(the soul) which is unembodied, must be either knowing or unknowing;

if it is knowing, there must be some object to be known, and if there

is this object, it is not liberated. Or if the soul be declared to be

unknowing, then what use to you is this imagined soul? Even without

such a soul, the existence of the absence of knowledge is notorious as,

for instance, in a log of wood or a wall. And since each successive

abandonment is held to be still accompanied by qualities, I maintain

that the absolute attainment of our end can only be found in the

abandonment of everything.”[f74]

As long as the dualistic conception is maintained in regard to the

liberation of the soul, there will be no real freedom as is truly

declared by the Buddha. “The abandonment of everything” means the

transcending of the dualism of soul and body, of subject and object,

of that which knows and that which is known, of “it is” and “it is

not,” of soul and soul-lessness; and this transcending is not attained

by merely negating the soul or the will, but by throwing light

upon its nature, by realising it as it is in itself. This is the act

of the will. An intellectual contemplation which is advocated by the

Samkhya philosophers does not lead one to spiritual freedom, but to

the realm of passivity which is their “realm of nothingness.” Buddhism

teaches freedom and not annihilation, it advocates spiritual discipline

and not mental torpor or emptiness. There must be a certain turning

away in one’s ordinary course of life, there must be a certain opening

up of a new vista in one’s spiritual outlook if one wants to be the

true follower of the Buddha. His aversion to asceticism and nihilism as

well as to hedonism becomes intelligible when seen in this light.

* * * * *

The Majjhima-Nikāya’s account of the Buddha’s interview with the

Samkhya thinkers somewhat differs from the Mahayana poet’s, but in

a way gives a better support to my argument as regards the Buddha’s

Enlightenment. The reason why he was not satisfied with the teaching

and discipline of Ālāra Kālāma and Uddaka is stated to be this: “This

doctrine does not lead to turning away, to dispassion, to cessation,

to quietude, to perfect penetration, to supreme awakening, to Nirvana,

but only to attainment to the Realm of Nothingness.” What did then

the Buddha understand by Nirvana which literally means annihilation

or cessation, but which is grouped here with such terms as awakening,

turning away (that is, revaluation), and penetration, and contrasted

to nothingness? There is no doubt, as far as we can judge from these

qualifications, that Nirvana is a positive conception pointing to

a certain determinable experience. When he came up to the bank of

the Nairañjanā and took his seat of soft grass on a shady, peaceful

spot, he made up his mind not to leave the place until he realised in

himself what he had been after ever since his wandering away from home.

According to the _Lalita-vistara_, he at that moment made this vow

(_praṇidhāna_):

“Let my body be dried up on this seat,

Let my skin and bones and flesh be destroyed:

So long as Bodhi is not attained, so hard to attain for many a kalpa,

My body and thought will not be removed from this seat.”[f75]

Thus resolved, the Buddha finally came to realise Supreme

Enlightenment for which he had belaboured for ever so many lives. How

does this vary from his former attainments under Uddaka and Ālāra

Kālāma? Let him express himself:

“Then, disciples, myself subject to birth, but perceiving the

wretchedness of things subject to birth and seeking after the

incomparable security of Nirvana which is birthless, to that

incomparable security I attained, even to Nirvana which is birthless.

“Myself subject to growth and decay, but perceiving the wretchedness of

things subject to growth and decay and seeking after the incomparable

security of Nirvana which is free from growth and decay, to that

incomparable security I attained, even to Nirvana which is free from

growth and decay.

“Myself subject to disease, but perceiving the wretchedness of things

subject to disease and seeking after the incomparable security of

Nirvana which is free from disease, to that incomparable security I

attained, even to Nirvana which is free from disease.

“Myself subject to death, but perceiving the wretchedness of things

subject to death and seeking after the incomparable security of Nirvana

which is deathless, to that incomparable security I attained, even to

Nirvana which is deathless.

“Myself subject to sorrow, but perceiving the wretchedness of things

subject to sorrow and seeking after the incomparable security of

Nirvana which is sorrowless, to that incomparable security I attained,

even to Nirvana which is sorrowless.

“Myself subject to stain, but perceiving the wretchedness of things

subject to stain and seeking the incomparable security of Nirvana which

is stainless, to that incomparable security I attained, even to Nirvana

which is stainless.

“Then I saw and knew: ‘Assured am I of deliverance; this is my final

birth; never more shall I return to this life!’”[f76]

When Nirvana is qualified as birthless, deathless, stainless,

sorrowless, and free from growth and decay and disease, it looks

negativistic enough. But if there were nothing affirmed even in these

negations, the Buddha could not rest in “the incomparable security”

(_anuttaraṁ yogakkhemaṁ_) of Nirvana and been assured of final

emancipation. What thus the Buddha denied, we can see, was Ignorance as

to the true cause of birth and death, and this Ignorance was dispelled

by the supreme effort of the will and not by mere dialectic reasoning

and contemplation. The will was asserted and the intellect was awakened

to its true significance. All the desires, feelings, thoughts, and

strivings thus illuminated cease to be egotistic and are no more the

cause of defilements and fetters and many other hindrances, of which

so many are referred to in all Buddhist literature, Mahayana and

Hinayana. In this sense the Buddha is the Jina, Conqueror, not an empty

conqueror over nothingness, but the conqueror of confusion, darkness,

and Ignorance.

HISTORY OF ZEN BUDDHISM FROM BODHI-DHARMA TO HUI-NENG (YENO)

(520 A.D.–713 A.D.)

HISTORY OF ZEN BUDDHISM FROM BODHI-DHARMA TO HUI-NENG (YENO)

(520 A.D.–713 A.D.)

My intention here is not to make a thoroughly critical and scientific

study of the history of Zen Buddhism; for this presupposes some

knowledge of the development of Buddhism in China, and there are, as

far as my knowledge extends, no text-books on the subject, which are

accessible to readers of this book. The main object of the present

Essay will therefore be to acquaint them first with the traditional

history of Zen as it is told by its followers both in Japan and China.

Its critical investigation will follow when readers are in a degree

prepared for the task.

The traditional origin of Zen in India before its introduction into

China, which is recorded in Zen literature, is so mixed with legends

that no reliable facts can be gathered from it. In the days when there

was yet no critical study of anything and when things, especially

relating to religion, were believed in a wholesale manner, we could

not expect anything else. It may now be too late to try to unravel the

mysteries enveloping the origin of Zen in India except in a general

and logical way from the historical facts already known concerning the

development of Mahayana Buddhism. In fact, Zen Buddhism, as was already

discussed, is the product of the Chinese mind, or rather the Chinese

elaboration of the Doctrine of Enlightenment. Therefore, when we want

to narrate the history of Zen, it may be better in some respects not

to go to India, but to stay in China and study the psychology and

philosophy of her people and the surrounding conditions that made it

possible for Zen to achieve a successful growth in the land of the

celestials, always remembering that it is a practical interpretation of

the Doctrine of Enlightenment.

Some scholars may however object to this kind of treatment of the

subject, on the ground that if Zen is at all a form of Buddhism or

even the essence of it as is claimed by its followers, it cannot be

separated from the general history of Buddhism in India. This is quite

true, but as far as facts are concerned, Zen as such did not exist in

India, that is, in the form as we have it to-day; and therefore when

we try to go beyond China to trace its origin and development, the

only way open to us will be the one I have followed in my previous

Essays collected here. That is to say, we must consider Zen the Chinese

interpretation of the Doctrine of Enlightenment, which is expounded in

all Buddhist literature, most intensively in the Mahayana and more or

less provisionarily in the Hinayana. As time went on, this doctrine

steadily grew to occupy the minds of the Buddha’s followers and to

control the course of development of Buddhist thought generally; for

was it not through Enlightenment that Gautama became the Buddha, the

Enlightened One? and is it not the object of Buddhism to follow the

footsteps of its founder in the attainment of final emancipation? But

the Chinese adherents of Bodhism[f77] or the upholders of Enlightenment

did not wish to swallow Indian Buddhism undigested. The practical

imagination of the Chinese people came thus to create Zen, and

developed it to the best of their abilities to suit their own religious

requirements.

When we compare Zen as a finished product to the Doctrine of

Enlightenment as the latter began to unfold itself in primitive

Buddhism, we find a wide and seemingly impassable gap between the

two. This was however naturally to be expected. Let us consider the

following facts. In the beginning, the Buddha was somewhat timid to

disclose the entire secrets of the reason of Buddhahood, thinking that

his disciples were not quite capable of following every step he had

taken himself. The feeling he first had after Enlightenment governed

him almost throughout the entire course of his earthly life. It was

this, that the Perfect Supreme Enlightenment attained by him was too

exalted an object for sentient beings to strive after, and that

even when it were disclosed to them they would not fully comprehend

it but might defile it to their own demerit. Did he not even think of

passing into Nirvana right after Enlightenment? His whole life, in

spite of the advice of the Brahmadeva, seems to have been controlled

by this feeling—the reluctance to reveal the entirety of his inmost

self-realisation (_pratyātmajñāna_, according to the terminology of

the _Laṅkāvatāra_). In point of fact, the Buddha himself might have

communicated what he realised to all his disciples unreservedly, but

the impression we get from the Agama or Nikaya literature is that

he was actually reluctant to do so. At least this was the way the

earlier writers of the canonical books attempted to represent their

master whatever their motives might be. This being the case, the idea

of Enlightenment was not brought forward so fully and conspicuously

in Hinayana literature as at once to command our attention. But as I

pointed out, this idea lies only superficially buried among the other

and less important ideas, and can easily be made manifest by logically

and psychologically following up the course of events related in the

canonical writings concerning the Enlightenment of the Buddha.

The earlier writers conceived the Fourfold Noble Truth or the

Twelvefold Chain of Causation, or the Eightfold Path of Righteousness

to be the central teaching of Buddhism, which also included on the

psychological side the theory of non-ego (_anātman_). But when we

reflect, both philosophically and from the Zen point of view, on the

life of the Buddha and on the ultimate principle of Buddhahood, we

cannot help thinking of his Enlightenment as the most significant and

most essential and most fruitful part of Buddhism. Therefore, what

the Buddha really wished to impart to his disciples must be said to

have been the Doctrine of Enlightenment in spite of the Hinayanistic

interpretation or understanding of what is known as primitive Buddhism.

But as long as Buddhism flourished in India, this its central idea

remained what it was, that is, such as is developed in most of the

Mahayana Sutras. It was only after Bodhi-Dharma who brought it to China

that the idea took root there and grew up to what we designate

now specifically as the Zen school of Buddhism. The history of Zen,

therefore, properly speaking or in its narrower sense, may best be

regarded as beginning in China. The Indian soil was too metaphysical,

too rich in romantic imagination for Zen to grow as such in its pure

form.

While the attainment of Buddhahood or Arhatship was the ultimate goal

of his teaching, the Buddha was practical and always close to the

facts of life and insisted in his ordinary sermons on a life regulated

by moral rules. Nor had he any desire to disclose intellectually or

metaphysically the content of Enlightenment which must be experienced

but cannot be explained. He never neglected to emphasise the

significance of self-realisation, for Nirvana or Enlightenment was to

be attained personally through one’s own efforts in one’s own inner

consciousness. The Fourfold Noble Truth or the Twelvefold Chain of

Causation or the Theory of Non-ego was an intellectual guide to the

realisation of the Buddhist life. Such teaching could not have any

practical meaning except as finally leading to Enlightenment. The

Buddha never thought that his followers would come to lay the entire

stress of his teaching on these intellectual structures which could not

stand by themselves without being supported by an inner spirit. The

Eightfold Path of Righteousness was an ethical guide to Enlightenment,

and as such it was regarded by the Buddha. Those who have no higher

insight into his teaching than reading a moral signification in it,

take it for a kind of ethical culture and no more. They think that

Buddhism is a positivism as philosophy and its Brotherhood (_saṁgha_)

a body of moral ascetics. They praise the Buddha as the originator of

a scientific religious system free from spiritualistic superstitions

which so frequently and abundantly grow around religion. But we know

better because these comments are not in full accord with the teaching

of the Buddha, for they only reflect one side of it and fail to take

an inner and comprehensive view of the whole field. If these critics

took up the practise of dhyana as constituting the essence of Buddhism

along with the above considerations, they may be said to have come

nearer to the goal; but even this dhyana is a form of spiritual

exercise which will prepare the way to the final realisation of

Nirvana. Dhyana in itself does not distinguish Buddhism from the other

philosophico-religious systems which existed in India in the day of

the Buddha. Therefore, to understand Zen as expressing the Doctrine of

Enlightenment which is the reason of Buddhism, we must wait for the

rise of the Mahayana movements. And when this was introduced into China

by Bodhi-Dharma, it grew up to what we now know by the name of Zen

Buddhism.

I

The legendary story of the origin of Zen in India runs as follows:

Śākyamuni was once engaged at the Mount of the Holy Vulture in

preaching to a congregation of his disciples. He did not resort to any

lengthy verbal discourse to explain his point, but simply lifted a

bouquet of flowers before the assemblage, which was presented to him

by one of his lay-disciples. Not a word came out of his mouth. Nobody

understood the meaning of this except the old venerable Mahākāśyapa,

who quietly smiled at the Master, as if he fully comprehended the

purport of this silent but eloquent teaching on the part of the

Enlightened One. The latter perceiving this opened his golden-tongued

mouth and proclaimed solemnly: “I have the most precious treasure,

spiritual and transcendental, which this moment I hand over to you, O

venerable Mahākāśyapa!”[4.1]

Orthodox Zen followers generally blindly take this incident to be the

origin of their doctrine, in which, according to them, is disclosed the

inmost mind of the Buddha as well as the secret of the religion. As Zen

claims to be the inmost essence of Buddhism and to have been directly

transmitted by the Buddha to his greatest disciple, Mahākāśyapa,

its followers naturally look for the particular occasion when this

transmission took place between the master and the disciple. We know

in a general way that Mahākāśyapa succeeded the Buddha as the leader

of the Faith, but as to his special transmission of Zen, we have no

historical records in the Indian Buddhist writings at present

in our possession. This fact is however specially mentioned for the

first time as far as we know in a Chinese Zen history called _The

Records of the Spread of the Lamp_,[4.2] compiled by Li Tsun-hsü, in

1029, and also in _The Accounts of the Orthodox Transmission of the

Dharma_ compiled by Ch‘i-sung in 1064,[4.3] where this incident is

only referred to as not quite an authentic one historically. In _The

Records of the Transmission of the Lamp_,[4.4] written in 1004, which

is the earliest Zen history now extant, the author does not record

any particular event in the life of the Buddha regarding the Zen

transmission. As all the earlier histories of Zen are lost, we have at

present no means to ascertain how early the Zen tradition started in

China. Probably it began to be talked about among the Zen followers

when their religion had been well established in China late in the

eighth century.

In those days there must have been some necessity to invent such

a legend for the authorisation of Zen Buddhism; for as Zen grew

in strength the other schools of Buddhism already in existence

grew jealous of its popular influence and attacked it as having no

authorised records of its direct transmission from the founder of

Buddhism, which was claimed by the devotees of Zen. This was the case

especially when the latter made so light of the doctrinal teaching

discussed in the Sutras and Śastras, as they thought that the ultimate

authority of Zen issued out of their own direct personal experience.

In this latter they were quite insistent; but they were not, nor

could they be, so critical and independent as to ignore altogether

the authority of historical Buddhism, and they wanted somehow to find

the record that the Buddha handed Zen over to Mahākāśyapa and from

Mahākāśyapa on to the twenty-eighth patriarch, Bodhi-Dharma, who became

the first patriarch of Zen in China. A line of twenty-eight Indian

patriarchs thus came to be established by Zen historians, while,

according to other schools, there were only twenty-three or twenty-four

patriarchs after the founder. When the historians had the need for

the special transmission of Zen from the Buddha to Mahākāśyapa, they

felt it necessary to fill up the gap between the twenty-third or

twenty-fourth patriarch and Bodhi-Dharma himself, who according

to them was the twenty-eighth. From the modern critical point of view,

it did not matter very much whether Zen originated with Bodhi-Dharma

in China or with the Buddha in India, inasmuch as Zen is true and has

an enduring value. And again from the historian’s point of view which

tries scientifically to ascertain the source of development resulting

in Zen Buddhism, it is only important to find a logical connection

between the Mahayana Doctrine of Enlightenment in India and its

practical application by the Chinese to the actualities of life; and

as to any special line of transmission in India before Bodhi-Dharma

as was established by the Zen devotees, it is not a matter of much

concern nor of great importance. But as soon as Zen is formulated

into an independent system, not only with its characteristic features

but with its historically ascertainable facts, it will be necessary

for the historians to trace its line of transmission complete and

not interrupted; for in Zen, as we shall see later, it is of the

utmost importance for its followers to be duly certified or approved

(_abbhanumodana_) by the master as to the genuineness or orthodox

character of their realisation. Therefore, as long as Zen is the

product of the Chinese soil from the Indian seed of Enlightenment as I

take it, no special line of transmission need be established in India

unless it is in a general logical manner such as was attempted in my

previous Essays.

The twenty-eight patriarchs of Zen regarded by its followers as the

orthodox line of transmission are as follows:

1. Śākyamuni. 12. Aśvaghosha.

2. Mahākāśyapa. 13. Bhikshu Kapimala.

3. Ānanda. 14. Nāgārjuna.

4. Śaṇavāsa. 15. Kāṇadeva.

5. Upagupta. 16. Ārya Rāhulata.

6. Dhṛitaka. 17. Saṁghanandi.

7. Micchaka. 18. Saṁghayaśas.

8. Buddhanandi. 19. Kumārata.

9. Buddhamitra. 20. Jayata.

10. Bhikshu Parśva. 21. Vasubandhu.

11. Puṇyayaśas. 22. Manura.

23. Haklenayaśas. 26. Puṇyamitra.

24. Bhikshu Siṁha. 27. Prajñātara.

25. Vāśasita. 28. Bodhi-Dharma.

To be consistent with the view that Zen was a “special transmission

from the Buddha outside of his doctrinal teaching,” Zen historians

have extended this transmission even beyond Śākyamuni; for, according

to tradition prevalent already among primitive Buddhists, there were

at least six Buddhas prior to the Buddha of the present kalpa who was

the Muni of the Śākyas; and these several Buddhas had each to leave

a gāthā of “Dharma transmission” which is systematically preserved

in Zen history. Now if the six Buddhas of the past had their gāthās,

why not those patriarchs between Śākyamuni and Bodhi-Dharma, all

inclusively? Or, if any one of them had at all any kind of gāthā, why

not the rest of them too? So, they have all bequeathed their gāthās of

transmission regularly prefaced with the words: “I now hand over to you

the eye-treasure of the Great Law, which you will guard and ever be

mindful of.” No doubt they are fictitious productions of the historical

imagination which was so highly exercised by the early writers of Zen

history, evidently inspired by an extraordinary zeal for their orthodox

faith.

The translators of these patriarchal verses are, according

to the author of the _Records of the Right Transmission_,

Chih-chiang-liang-lou,[4.5] of the First Wei dynasty, and

Na-lien-ya-shê,[4.6] of the Eastern Wei; the former came from Middle

India and the latter from Kabul. Their book known as the _Account

of Succession in the Law_[4.7] disappeared after the repeated

persecutions carried out by the reigning dynasties, but the stories of

these patriarchs were quoted at least in the two books, the _Pao-lin

Ch‘uan_[4.8] and the _Shêng-chou Chi_,[4.9] both compiled prior to the

_Transmission of the Lamp_, in which they are referred to. But they

too were lost some time after Kaisu (Ch‘i-sung) in the Sung dynasty.

Therefore at present the _Transmission of the Lamp_ is the earliest

history of Zen where the twenty-eight patriarchs and their verses of

law-transmission are recorded in detail.

To quote as samples two of the six Buddhas’ gāthās, the first

Buddha Vipaśyi declares:

“This body from within the Formless is born,

It is like through magic that all forms and images appear:

Phantom beings with mentality and consciousness have no reality from

the very beginning;

Both evil and happiness are void, have no abodes.”[4.10]

The gāthā of the sixth Buddha, Kāśyapa, who just preceded the Muni of

the Śākyas, runs thus:

“Pure and immaculate is the nature of all sentient beings;

From the very beginning there is no birth, no death;

This body, this mind—a phantom creation it is;

And in phantom transformation there are neither sins nor

merits.[4.11]

When the Buddha belonging to the present age ordered Mahākāśyapa to

be the orthodox transmitter of the Good Law, he uttered the following

verse:

“The Dharma is ultimately a dharma which is no-dharma;

A dharma which is no-dharma is also a dharma:

As I now hand this no-dharma over to thee,

What we call the Dharma, the Dharma—where after all is the

Dharma?”[f78][4.12]

The sixth patriarch Dhṛtaka has:

“Penetrate into the ultimate truth of mind,

And we have neither things nor no-things;

Enlightened and not-enlightened—they are the same;

Neither mind nor thing there is.”[4.13]

The twenty-second patriarch, Manura, gave his view thus:

“The mind moveth with the ten thousand things:

Even when moving, it is serene.

Perceive its essence as it moveth on,

And neither joy nor sorrow there is.”[4.14]

In these gāthās we notice the teaching generally characteristic of

Mahayana Buddhism as it prevailed in India. As I said before, as far

as the doctrinal side of Buddhism was concerned, Zen had nothing

particularly to offer as its own; for its _raison d’être_ consists

in its being a spiritual experience and not in its being a special

system of philosophy or of certain dogmas conceptually synthesised. We

have Zen only when the Mahayana Buddhist speculation is reduced

to the actual things of life and becomes the direct expression of

one’s inner life. And this did not come to pass until Buddhism was

transplanted into China and made there to grow nourished by a people

whose practical turn of mentality refused to swallow the Indian

tradition undigested. The form of thought as adopted in the so-called

patriarchal verses did not appeal to the Chinese mind. When they got

into the thought itself, they wished to express it in their own way,

they wished to live the thought as was natural to them, and not to

hoard it as something imported from abroad and not inherently belonging

to their psychology.

When Bodhi-Dharma gave his full sanction to his disciples, he is

supposed to have composed the following gāthā:

“The original reason of my coming to this country

Was to transmit the Law in order to save the confused:

One flower with five petals is unfolded,

And the bearing of fruit will by itself come.”[4.15]

By this “bearing of fruit” did Dharma prophesy the full development of

Zen later in China? The “five petals” are supposed to mean the five

Zen Fathers in China after Dharma when Zen came to be recognised as a

branch of Buddhism with a message of its own. Whether this gāthā was

really a prophetic one by Dharma himself, or whether it was composed

by some Zen historian after the sixth patriarch Hui-nêng (Yeno), we

have no means to decide. The one thing is certain historically that

Dharma’s teaching began to be naturalised in China about two hundred

years after him and assimilated by her people in a manner best suited

to their mental idiosyncracies. Zen in the form we have it to-day could

not mature anywhere outside China. India was too metaphysical, or

too given up to mystic imagination. It was the home for the Yuishiki

(Yogācāra), the Shingon (Mantra school), the Kegon (Avataṁsaka), or

the Sanron (Śūnyatā or Mādhyamika). As for Zen, it needed a mind which

had already been deeply steeped in the Laotzŭan ideas and feelings and

yet could not detach itself from the details of daily life. Aloofness,

romanticism, a certain practical temperament, and yet an even, steady,

well-balanced character—these were needed to develop Zen to its

present form. That is to say, if Mahayana Buddhism as was expounded by

Nāgārjuna and Aśvaghosha, and in the _Vimalakīrti_, _Prajñāpāramitā_,

and other Sutras, especially in the _Laṅkāvatāra_, were not worked

upon by Chinese genius, Zen as such could not at all have come into

existence.

It may not altogether be out of place here to show by concrete examples

how much the Indian method diverges from the typically Chinese one

in demonstrating the truth of Zen Buddhism. As I have repeatedly

illustrated, Buddhism, whether primitive or developed, is a religion

of freedom and emancipation, and the ultimate aim of its discipline

is to release the spirit from its possible bondage so that it can act

freely in accordance with its own principles. This is what is meant by

non-attachment (_apratishṭita-cittam_). The idea is negative inasmuch

as it is concerned with untying the knots of the intellect and passion,

but the feeling implied is positive, and the final object is attained

only when the spirit is restored to its original activity. The spirit

knows its own way, and what we can do is to rid it of all the obstacles

our ignorance has piled before it. “Throw them down,” is therefore the

recurring note in the Buddhist teaching. The Indian Buddhist way of

impressing the idea is this: A Brahman named Black-nails came to the

Buddha and offered him two huge flowering trees which he carried each

in one of his hands through his magical power. The Buddha called out,

and when the Brahman responded the Buddha said, “Throw them down!”

The Brahman let down the flowering tree in his left hand before the

Buddha. The latter called out again to let them go, whereupon

Black-nails dropped the other flowering tree in the right hand. The

Buddha still kept up his command. Said the Brahman, “I have nothing now

to let go. What do you want me to do?” “I never told you to abandon

your flowering plants,” said the Buddha, “what I want you to do is to

abandon your six objects of sense, your six organs of sense, and your

six consciousnesses. When these are all at once abandoned and there

remains nothing further to be abandoned, it is then that you are

released from the bondage of birth-and-death.”

In contrast to this plain though somewhat round-about talk of the

Buddha, the following case of Jōshu (Chao-chou)[f79][4.16] is direct

and concise and disposes of the matter in a most unequivocal manner.

A monk came and asked the master,[4.17] “How is it when a man brings

nothing with him?” “Throw it away!” was Jōshu’s immediate response.

“What shall he throw down when he is not burdened at all?” “If so,

carry it along!” The Zen masters delight in paradoxes, and Jōshu’s

remark here is a typical one.

The problem of emancipation is important, but the still more important

one is, “Who or what is the Buddha?” When this is mastered, Buddhism

has rendered its full service. What did the Indian philosophers think

of the Buddha? There was an old lady who lived at the time of the

Buddha. She was born at the same time as the Buddha himself and lived

in the eastern part of the city. She had a singular aversion against

the Buddha and never wished to see him. Whenever he passed by she would

run away. But whichever way she turned she would encounter him, east or

west. She covered her face with her hands, and lo! she saw the Buddha

between her fingers. This is beautiful and illuminating. What follows

is the Zen way of treating the subject: A monk came to Ch‘i-an who was

one of the disciples of Ma-tsu,[4.18] and asked: “What is the original

body of Vairochana?” Said the master, “Would you mind passing that

water-pitcher over to me?” The monk handed it to the master as asked.

Then the master requested him to put it back where he got it. The monk

did so. But not getting any answer as he thought to his first question,

he asked again, “What is the original body of Vairochana Buddha?” The

master expressed his regret, saying, “Long it is since the departure of

the old Buddha!” These two instances will suffice to illustrate where

the Chinese Zen mind deviates from the Indian.