As was explained in the preceding section, the principle underlying the
various methods of instruction used by the Zen masters is to awaken
a certain sense in the pupil’s own consciousness, by means of which
he intuitively grasps the truth of Zen. Therefore, the masters always
appeal to what we may designate “direct action” and are loathe to waste
any lengthy discourse on the subject. Their dialogues are always pithy
and apparently not controlled by rules of logic. The “repetitive”
method as in other cases conclusively demonstrates that the so-called
answering is not to explain but to point the way where Zen is to be
intuited. To conceive the truth as something external which is to be
perceived by a perceiving subject, is dualistic and appeals to the
intellect for its understanding, but according to Zen we are living
right in the truth, by the truth, from which we cannot be separated.
Says Gensha (Hsüan-sha),[6.44] “We are here as if immersed in water
head and shoulders underneath the great ocean, and yet how piteously we
are extending our hands for water!” Therefore, when he was asked by a
monk,[6.44] “What is my self?” he at once replied, “What would you do
with a self?” When this is intellectually analysed, he means that when
we begin to talk about self we immediately and inevitably establish
the dualism of self and not-self, thus falling into the errors of
intellectualism. We are in the water—this is the fact, and let us
remain so, Zen would say, for when we begin to beg for water we put
ourselves in an external relation to it and what has hitherto been our
own will be taken away from us.
The following case may be interpreted in the same light: A monk came
to Gensha and said,[6.44] “I understand you to say this that
the whole universe is one transpicuous crystal; how do I get at the
sense of it?” Said the master, “The whole universe is one transpicuous
crystal, and what is the use of understanding it?” The day following
the master himself asked the monk, “The whole universe is one
transpicuous crystal, and how do you understand it?” The monk replied,
“The whole universe is one transpicuous crystal, and what is the use
of understanding it?” “I know,” said the master, “that you are living
in the cave of demons.” While this looks another case of “Repetition,”
there is something different in it, something more of intellection, so
to speak.
Whatever this is, Zen never appeals to our reasoning faculty, but
points directly at the very object one wants to have. While Gensha on
a certain occasion was treating an army officer called Wei to tea, the
latter asked, “What does it mean when they say that in spite of our
having it everyday we do not know it?” Gensha without answering the
question took up a piece of cake and offered it to him. After eating
the cake, the officer asked the master again, who then remarked, “Only
we do not know it even when we are using it everyday.”[6.44] This is
evidently an object lesson. Another time a monk came to him and wanted
to know how to enter upon the path of truth. Gensha asked, “Do you hear
the murmuring of the stream?” “Yes, I do,” said the monk. “There is a
way to enter,” was the master’s instruction.[6.44] Gensha’s method was
thus to make the seeker of the truth directly realise within himself
what it was, and not to make him merely the possessor of a second-hand
knowledge. “Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott,” declares Terstegen.
It is thus no wonder that the Zen masters frequently make an
exclamatory utterance[f131] in response to questions, instead of giving
an intelligible answer. When words are used if at all intelligible we
may feel that we can somehow find a clue to get at the meaning, but
when an inarticulate utterance is given, we are quite at a loss how
to deal with it, unless we are fortified with some previous knowledge
such as I have at some length attempted to give to my readers.
Of all the Zen masters who used to give exclamatory utterance, the
most noted ones are Ummon and Rinzai, the former for his “Kwan!” and
the latter for his “Kwats!” At the end of one summer sojourn Suigan
(Ts‘ui-yen) made the following remark[6.45]: “Since the beginning of
this summer sojourn I have talked much; see if my eyebrows are still
there.” This refers to the tradition that when a man makes false
statements concerning the Dharma of Buddhism he will lose all his hair
in the face. As Suigan gave many sermons during the summer for the
edification of his pupils, while no amount of talk can ever explain
what the truth is, his eye-brows and beard might perhaps by this time
have altogether disappeared. This, as far as its literary meaning is
concerned, is the idea of his remark whatever Zen may be concealed
underneath. Hofuku (Pao-fu), one of the masters, said, “One who turns
into a highwayman has a treacherous heart.” Chōkei (Ch‘ang-ch‘ing),
another master, remarked, “How thickly they are growing!” Ummon,
one of the greatest masters towards the end of the T‘ang dynasty,
exclaimed, “Kwan!” _Kwan_ 關 literally means the gate on a frontier
pass where travellers and their baggage are inspected. In this case,
however, the term does not mean anything of the sort, it is simply
“Kwan!” an exclamatory utterance which does not allow any analytical
or intellectual interpretation. Seccho, the original compiler of the
_Hekigan_, comments on this, “He is like one who, besides losing his
money, is incriminated,” while Hakuin has this to say, “Even an angry
fist does not strike a smiling face.” Something like this is the only
comment we can make on such an utterance as Ummon’s. When we try
anything approaching a conceptual interpretation on the subject we
shall be “ten thousand miles away beyond the clouds,” as the Chinese
would say.
While Rinzai is regarded as the author of “Kwats!” 喝 (_hê_), we have
an earlier record of it; for Baso, successor to Nangaku (Nan-yüeh),
and an epoch-maker in the history of Zen, uttered “Kwats!” to his
disciple, Hyakjo (Pai-chang), when the latter came up to the
master for a second time to be instructed in Zen. This “Kwats!” is said
to have deafened Hyakujo’s ear for the following three days. But it was
principally due to Rinzai that this particular cry was most effectively
and systematically made use of and later came to be one of the special
features of the Rinzai Zen in distinction to the other schools. In
fact the cry came to be so abused by his followers that he had to make
the following remark[6.46]: “You are all so given up to learning my cry
(_hê_), but I want to ask you this: Suppose one man comes out from the
eastern hall and another from the western hall, and suppose both give
out the ‘Kwats!’ simultaneously; and yet I say to you that subject and
predicate are clearly discernible in this. But how will you discern
them? If you are unable to discern them, you are forbidden hereafter to
imitate my cry.”
Rinzai distinguishes four kinds of “Kwats!”[6.47] The first according
to him, is like the sacred sword of Vajrarāja; the second is like the
golden-haired lion squatting on the ground; the third is like the
sounding rod or the grass used as a decoy; and the fourth is the one
that does not at all function as a “Kwats!”
Rinzai once asked his disciple, Rakuho (Lê-p‘u),[6.48] “One man has
been using a stick and another resorting to the “Kwats!” which of them
do you think is the more intimate to the truth? Answered the disciple,
“Neither of them!” “What is the most intimate then?” Rakuho cried out,
“Kwats!” Whereupon Rinzai struck him. This swinging of a stick was the
most favourite method of Tokusan and stands generally contrasted to the
crying utterance of Rinzai; but here the stick is used by Rinzai and
the latter’s speciality is taken up in a most telling manner by his
disciple, Rakuho.
* * * * *
Besides these “skilful contrivances” (_upāya-kauśalya_) so far
enumerated under seven headings, there are a few more “contrivances”
though I am not going to be very exhaustive here on the subject.
One of them is “silence.” Vimalakīrti was silent when Mañjuśrī asked
him as to the doctrine of non-duality, and his silence was later
commented upon by a master as “deafening like thunder.” A monk asked
Basho Yesei (Pa-chiao Hui-ch‘ing)[6.49] to show him the “original face”
without the aid of any intermediary conception, and the master keeping
his seat remained silent. When Shifuku (Tzŭ-fu)[6.50] was asked as to
a word befitting the understanding of the inquirer, he did not utter a
word, he simply kept silent. Bunki (Wên-hsi) of Koshu (Hang-chou)[6.51]
was a disciple of Kyōzan (Yang-shan); he was asked by a monk, “What
is the self?” but he remained silent. As the monk did not know what
to make of it, he asked again, to which the master replied, “When
the sky is clouded, the moon cannot shine out.” A monk asked Sozan
(Ts‘ao-shan),[6.52] “How is the silence inexpressible to be revealed?”
“I do not reveal it here.” “Where would you reveal it?” “At midnight
last night,” said the master, “I lost three pennies by my bed.”
Sometimes the masters sit quiet “for some little while” 良久 (_liang
chiu_) either in response to a question or when in the pulpit. This
_liang-chiu_ does not always merely indicate the passage of time, as we
can see in the following cases: A monk came to Shuzan (Shou-shan) and
asked,[6.53] “Please play me a tune on a stringless harp.” The master
was quiet for some little while, and said, “Do you hear it?” “No, I
do not hear it.” “Why,” said the master, “did you not ask louder?” A
monk asked Hofuku (Pao-fu),[6.54] “I am told that when one wants to
know the path of the uncreate, one should know the source of it. What
is the source, sir?” Hofuku was silent for a while, and then asked his
attendant, “What did the monk ask me now?” When that monk repeated the
question, the master ejected him out, exclaiming, “I am not deaf!”
* * * * *
Next, we may mention the method of counter-questioning,
wherein questions are not answered by plain statements but by
counter-questionings. In Zen, generally speaking, a question is not
a question in its ordinary sense, that is, it is not simply asked
for information, and therefore it is natural that what ordinarily
corresponds to an answer is not an answer at all. Some Zen authority
enumerates eighteen different kinds of questions, against which
we may distinguish eighteen corresponding answers. Thus a
counter-question itself is in its way an illuminating answer. A monk
requested Jimyo (Tzŭ-ming) to “set forth the idea of Dharma’s coming
from the west,” and the master said, “When did you come?”[6.55] When
Rasan Dokan (Lo-shan Tao-hsien) was asked, “Who is the master of the
triple world?” he said, “Do you understand how to eat rice?”[6.56]
Tenryu (T‘ien-lung), the teacher of Gutei, was hailed by a monk who
asked him,[6.57] “How are we released from the triple world?” He
retorted, “Where are you this very moment?” A monk asked Jōshu, “What
would you say when a man is without an inch of cloth on him?” “What did
you say he has not on him?” “An inch of cloth on him, sir.” “Very fine
this, not to have an inch of cloth!” responded the master.[6.58]
When we go on like this, there may be no end to this way of treating
the various “contrivances” devised by the Zen masters for the benefits
of their truth-thirsty pupils. Let me conclude this section by
quoting two more cases in which a kind of reasoning in a circle is
employed, but from another point of view we may detect here a trace
of absolute monism in which all differences are effaced. Whether the
Zen masters agree with this view, however, remains to be seen; for
while the absolute identity of _meum et tuum_ is asserted, facts
of individualisation are not ignored either. A monk asked Daizui
(Tai-sui),[6.59] “What is my [pupil’s] Self?” “That is my [master’s]
Self,” answered the master. “How is it that my Self is your Self?”
The ultimate dictum was, “That is your Self.” To understand this in
a logical fashion, put “ignorant,” or “confused” or “human” in place
of “my [pupil’s] Self,” and in place of “your [master’s] Self” put
“enlightened,” or “Buddha’s,’ or “divine,” and we may have a glimpse
into what was going on in the mind of Daizui. But without his last
remark, “That is your Self,” the whole affair may resolve into a form
of pantheistic philosophy. In the case of Sansho Yenen (San-shêng
Hui-jan) and Kyozan Yejaku (Yang-shan Hui-chi), the thought of Daizui
is more concretely presented. Yejaku asked Yenen,[6.60] “What is your
name?” and Yenen replied, “My name is Yejaku.” Yejaku protested,
“Yejaku is my name.” Thereupon said Yenen, “My name is Yenen,” which
brought out a hearty laugh from Yejaku. These dialogues remind one of
the famous Hindu saying, “Tat tvam asi!” but the difference between
this and “My name is Yejaku” is that between Vedanta philosophy and
Zen Buddhism, or that between Indian idealism and Chinese realism or
practicalness. The latter does not generalise, nor does it speculate
on a higher plane which has no hold on life as we live it. According
to the philosophy of the Kegon (Avatamsaka) school of Buddhism, there
is a spiritual world where one particular object holds within itself
all other particular objects merged, instead of all particular objects
being absorbed in the Great All. Thus in this world it so happens
that when you lift a bunch of flowers or point at a piece of brick,
the whole world in its multitudinosity is seen reflected here. If so,
the Zen masters may be said to be moving also in this mystic realm
which reveals its secrets at the moment of supreme enlightenment
(_anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi_).