IX

While I have not attempted to be very exhaustive in describing all

the different methods of demonstration or rather realisation of the

truth of Zen resorted to by the masters of various schools, the

statements so far made in regard to them, may suffice to give us at

least a glimpse into some of the peculiar features of Zen Buddhism.

Whatever explanations may be given by critics or scholars to the

philosophy of Zen, we must first of all acquire a new point of view

of looking at things, which is altogether beyond our ordinary sphere

of consciousness. Rather, this new viewpoint is gained when we reach

the ultimate limits of our understanding, within which we think we are

always bound and unable to break through. Most people stop at these

limits and are easily persuaded that they cannot go any further. But

there are some whose mental vision is able to penetrate this veil of

contrasts and contradictions. They gain it abruptly. They beat the wall

in utter despair, and lo, it unexpectedly gives way and there opens an

entirely new world. Things hitherto regarded as prosaic and ordinary

and even binding are now arranged in quite a novel scheme. The old

world of the senses has vanished, and something entirely new has come

to take its place. We seem to be in the same objective surroundings,

but subjectively we are rejuvenated, we are born again.

Wu Tao-tzŭ or Godoshi was one of the greatest painters of China, and

lived in the reign of the Emperor Hsüan-tsung, of the T‘ang dynasty.

His last painting, according to legend, was a landscape commissioned

by the Emperor for one of the walls of his palace. The artist

concealed the complete work with a curtain till the Emperor’s arrival,

then drawing it aside exposed his vast picture. The Emperor gazed

with admiration on a marvellous scene: forests, and great mountains,

and clouds in immense distances of sky, and men upon the hills, and

birds in flight. “Look,” said the painter, “in the cave at the foot of

this mountain dwells a spirit.” He clapped his hands; the door at the

cave’s entrance flew open. “The interior is beautiful beyond words,” he

continued, “permit me to show the way.” So saying he passed within; the

gate closed after him; and before the astonished Emperor could speak or

move, all had faded to white wall before his eyes, with not a trace of

the artist’s brush remaining. Wu Tao-tzŭ was seen no more.

The artist has disappeared, and the whole scene has been wiped out;

but from this nothingness there arises a new spiritual world, abiding

in which the Zen masters perform all kinds of antics, assert all kinds

of absurdities, and yet they are in perfect accord with the nature

of things in which a world moves on stripped of all its falsehoods,

conventions, simulations, and intellectual obliquities. Unless one

gets into this world of realities, the truth of Zen will be eternally

a sealed book. This is what I mean by acquiring a new point of view

independent of logic and discursive understanding.

Emerson expresses the same view in his own characteristic manner:

“Foremost among these activities (that is, mathematical combination,

great power of abstraction, the transmutings of the imagination, even

versatility, and concentration), are the somersaults, spells, and

resurrections, wrought by the imagination. When this wakes, a man

seems to multiply ten times or a thousand times his force. It opens

the delicious sense of indeterminate size, and inspires an audacious

mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence

in a book, or a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and

instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the

floor of the pit. And this benefit is real, because we are entitled

to these enlargements, and, once having passed the bounds, shall

never again be quite the miserable pedants we were.”

Here is a good illustration of the difference between a “miserable

pedant” and one who has “passed the bounds.” There was a monk called

Gensoku (Hsüan-tsê)[6.78] who was one of the chief officials of the

monastery under the Zen master Hōgen (Fa-yen), of the early tenth

century. He never came to the master to make inquiries about Zen; so

the master one day asked him why he did not come. The chief official

answered: “When I was under Seiho (Ch‘ing-fêng) I got an idea as to

the truth of Zen.” “What is your understanding then?” demanded the

master. “When I asked my master, who was the Buddha, he said, Ping-ting

T‘ung-tsŭ comes for fire.” “It is a fine answer,” said Hōgen, “but

probably you misunderstand it. Let me see how you take the meaning

of it.” “Well,” explained the official, “Ping-ting is the god of

fire; when he himself comes for fire, it is like myself, who, being

a Buddha from the very beginning, wants to know who the Buddha is.

No questioning is then needed as I am already the Buddha himself.”

“There!” exclaimed the master, “Just as I thought! You are completely

off.” Soku, the chief official, got highly offended because his view

was not countenanced and left the monastery. Hōgen said, “If he comes

back he may be saved; if not, he is lost.” Soku after going some

distance reflected that a master of five hundred monks as Hōgen was

would not chide him without cause, and returned to the old master and

expressed his desire to be instructed in Zen. Hōgen said, “You ask me

and I will answer.” “Who is the Buddha?”—the question came from the

lips of the now penitent monk. “Ping-ting T‘ung-tzŭ comes for fire.”

This made his eyes open to the truth of Zen quite different from what

he formerly understood of it. He was now no more a second-hand “pedant”

but a living creative soul. I need not repeat that Zen refuses to be

explained but that it is to be lived. Without this, all talk is nothing

but an idea, woefully inane and miserably unsatisfactory.

Below is another story illustrating the peculiarity of Zen

understanding as distinguished from our ordinary intellectual

understandings which are based on ideas and representations. The

same phrase is repeated here as in the preceding case, and as far as

its literal meaning goes, we have no reason to suppose its producing

different effects on the mind of the recipient. But as I said elsewhere

Zen is the opening of one’s own inner consciousness occasioned by

some external incidental happening which may be of purely physical

nature but may invoke some mental operation. This opening is therefore

something, we as outsiders not belonging to the inner life of the

individual concerned, have no means to judge beforehand, we know only

when it is opened; but the masters seem to know when this opening

is going to take place and how it is to be brought about from their

own experience. Students of the psychology of Zen will here find an

interesting problem to investigate.

Suigan Kashin (Ts‘ui-yen K‘ê-chên)[6.79] was a disciple of Zimyo

(Tz‘u-ming), 986–1040, who was one of the greatest Sung masters and

under whom the Rinzai school of Zen was divided into two branches,

Woryu (Huang-lung) and Yogi (Yang-ch‘i).[6.80] Kashin was quite proud

of being one of the disciples of the master, he was not yet really a

master himself, but he thought he was. When he had a talk with another

of Zimyo’s disciples, he was found out and laughed at. When they were

having a walk together one day, they discussed Zen. His friend picked

up a piece of a broken tile and putting it on a flat rock, said, “If

you can say a word at this juncture, I will grant your really being

Zimyo’s disciple.” Kashin wavered, looked this way and that, trying to

make some answer. His friend was impatient, who broke out, “Hesitating

and wavering, you have not yet penetrated through illusion, you have

never yet even dreamt as to what the true insight of Zen is.” Kashin

was thoroughly ashamed of himself. He at once returned to the master

who severely reproached him, saying that he came before the termination

of the summer session, which was against the regulations. Full of

tears, he explained how he was taken to task by his fellow-monk and

that it was the reason why he was here even against the monastery

rules. The master abruptly asked him: “What is the fundamental

principle of Buddhism?” Replied Kashin,

“No clouds are gathering over the mountain peaks,

And how serenely the moon is reflected on the waves!”

The master’s eyes flashed with indignation, and he thundered, “Shame on

you! To have such a view for an old seasoned man like you! How can you

expect to be delivered from birth-and-death?” Kashin earnestly implored

to be instructed. Said the master, “You ask me.” Thereupon he repeated

the master’s first question, “What is the fundamental principle of

Buddhism?” The master roared,

“No clouds are gathering over the mountain peaks,

And how serenely the moon is reflected on the waves!”

This opened Kashin’s eye, and another man was he after that.

* * * * *

Let me conclude with a sermon from Goso (Wu-tsu), of whom mention has

already been made:

If people ask me what Zen is like, I will say that it is like learning

the art of burglary. The son of a burglar saw his father growing older

and thought, “If he is unable to carry out his profession, who will

be the bread-winner of this family, except myself? I must learn the

trade.” He intimated the idea to his father, who approved of it. One

night the father took the son to a big house, broke through the fence,

entered the house, and opening one of the large chests, told the son

to go in and pick out the clothings. As soon as he got into it, the

lid was dropped and the lock securely applied. The father now came out

to the courtyard, and loudly knocking at the door woke up the whole

family, whereas he himself quietly slipped away from the former hole

in the fence. The residents got excited and lighted candles, but found

that the burglars had already gone. The son who remained all the time

in the chest securely confined thought of his cruel father. He was

greatly mortified, when a fine idea flashed upon him. He made a noise

which sounded like the gnawing of a rat. The family told the maid to

take a candle and examine the chest. When the lid was unlocked, out

came the prisoner, who blew out the light, pushed away the maid, and

fled. The people ran after him. Noticing a well by the road, he

picked up a large stone and threw it into the water. The pursuers all

gathered around the well trying to find the burglar drowning himself

in the dark hole. In the meantime he was safely back in his father’s

house. He blamed him very much for his narrow escape. Said the father,

“Be not offended, my son. Just tell me how you got off.” When the son

told him all about his adventures, the father remarked, “There you are,

you have learned the art!”