To get a glimpse into the practical and disciplinary side of Zen, we
have to study the institution known as the Meditation Hall. It is
an educational system quite peculiar to the Zen sect. Most of the
main monasteries belonging to this sect are provided with Meditation
Halls, and in the life of the Zen monk more than anywhere else we are
reminded of that of the Buddhist Brotherhood (_Saṁgha_) in India. This
system was founded by the Chinese Zen Master, Hyakujo (Pai-chang,
720–814), more than one thousand years ago. Until his time the monks
used to live in monasteries belonging to the Vinaya sect, which were
governed by a spirit not quite in accordance with the principles of
Zen. As the latter grew more and more flourishing and its followers
kept on increasing in number and in influence, there was need for
its own institution, exclusively devoted to the promotion of its
objects. According to Hyakujo, the Zen monasteries were to be neither
Hinayanistic nor Mahayanistic, but they were to unite the disciplinary
methods of both schools in a new and original manner, best suited
to the realisation of the Zen ideals, as they were conceived by the
masters of the earlier days.
The original book compiled by Hyakujo giving detailed regulations of
the Zen monastery was lost. The one we have now was compiled during the
Yüan dynasty from the actual life in the monastery at the time, which
was then supposed to be a faithful continuation of the old institution
though naturally with some modifications and transformations due to
historical exigencies. This book was compiled under the auspices of the
reigning Emperor Shuu, and is known as “The Imperial Edition of the
Regulations in the Zen Monastery.”[7.1] In Japan the Zen monasteries
have never been established on such a grand scale as in China, and
as the result all the regulations as detailed in the Imperial Edition
were not practised. But their spirit and all that was applicable to
Japanese life and conditions were adopted. The ideals of Zen life were
never lost sight of anywhere. And before I proceed further I wish to
speak briefly of one of such ideals set before the eyes of all Zen
students, for it is really the most important and noteworthy feature in
the monastery life of Zen.
It is indeed this that distinguishes Zen from the other Buddhist
schools originated in China, and is to be considered most
characteristically Zen and at the same time animating its long history.
By this I mean the notion of work or service. Hyakujo left a famous
saying which was the guiding principle of his life and is pre-eminently
the spirit of the Meditation Hall. It is this: “No work, no eating.”
When he was thought by his devoted disciples too old to work in the
garden, which was his daily occupation besides lecturing and educating
the monks in Zen, they hid all his garden implements, as he would not
listen to their repeated oral remonstrances. He then refused to eat,
saying, “No work, no eating.” At all the Meditation Halls work is thus
considered a vital element in the life of a monk. It is altogether a
practical one and chiefly consists in manual labour, such as sweeping,
cleaning, cooking, fuel-gathering, tilling the farm, or going about
begging in the villages far and near. No work is considered beneath
their dignity, and a perfect feeling of brotherhood and democracy
prevails among them. How hard, or how mean from the ordinary point of
view a work may be, they will not shun it. They believe in the sanctity
of manual labour. They keep themselves busy in every way they can;
they are no idlers as some of the so-called monks or mendicants are,
physically at least, as in India for instance.
We can see in this sanctification of work the practical attitude of
the Chinese mind well reflected. When I said that Zen was the Chinese
interpretation of the doctrine of Enlightenment, the Zen conception of
work did not essentially or theoretically enter into my conclusion.
But from the practical point of view work is such an integral part of
the Zen life now that the one cannot be conceived as independent
of the other. In India the monks are mendicants; when they meditate
they retire into a quiet corner from worldly cares; and inasmuch as
they are supported economically by their secular devotees, they do not
propose to work in any menial employment such as Chinese and Japanese
Zen monks are used to. What saved Zen Buddhism from deteriorating into
quietism or mere intellectual gymnastics, which was more or less the
fate befalling other schools of Buddhism, was surely due to the gospel
of work. Apart from its psychological value, it proved an efficient
agency in preserving the health and sanity of Zen Buddhism throughout
its long history of growth.
Whatever may be this historical importance of work, Hyakujo must
have had a profound knowledge of human psychology when he made work
the ruling spirit of the monastery life. His idea of “No work, no
eating”[f133][7.2] did not necessarily originate from an economic or
ethical valuation of life. His sole motive was not that nobody deserved
his daily bread if he did not earn it with the sweat of his face.
True, there is a virtue in not eating the bread of idleness, and there
have been so many Buddhists since the early days of Buddhism, who
thought it a most disgraceful thing to be living on others’ earnings
and savings, Hyakujo’s object, while it might have been unconsciously
conceived, was more psychological in spite of his open declaration, “No
work, no eating.” It was to save his monks from a mental inactivity
or an unbalanced development of mind which too often results from
the meditative habit of the monkish life. When the muscles are not
exercised for the execution of spiritual truths, or when the mind and
body is not put to practical test, the severance generally issues
in inimical results. As the philosophy of Zen is to transcend the
dualistic conception of flesh and spirit, its practical application
will naturally be, dualistically speaking, to make the nerves and
muscles the most ready and absolutely obedient servants of the mind,
and not to make us say that the spirit is truly ready but the
flesh is weak. Whatever religious truths of this latter statement,
psychologically it comes from the lack of a ready channel between mind
and muscles. Unless the hands are habitually trained to do the work of
the brain, the blood ceases to circulate evenly all over the body, it
grows congested somewhere, especially in the brain. The result will
be not only an unsound condition of the body in general but a state
of mental torpidity or drowsiness, in which ideas are presented as if
they were wafting clouds. One is wide awake and yet the mind is filled
with the wildest dreams and visions which are not at all related to
realities of life. Fantasies are fatal to Zen, and those who practise
Zen considering it a form of meditation are too apt to be visited upon
by this insidious enemy. Hyakujo’s insistence upon manual work has
saved Zen from falling into the pitfalls of antinomianism as well as a
hallucinatory mode of mind.
Apart from these psychological considerations, there is a moral reason
which ought not to escape attention in our estimate of Hyakujo’s wisdom
in instituting work as a vital part of Zen life. For the soundness of
ideas must be tested finally by their practical application. When they
fail in this, that is, when they cannot be carried out in everyday life
producing lasting harmony and satisfaction and giving real beneficence
to all concerned,—to oneself as well as to others, no ideas can be
said to be sound and practical. While physical force is no standard to
judge the value of ideas, the latter, however logically consistent,
have no reality when they are not joined to life. Especially in Zen
abstract ideas that do not convince one in practical living are of
no value whatever. Conviction must be gained through experience and
not through abstraction, which means that conviction has no really
solid basis except when it can be tested in our acting efficient life.
Moral assertion or “bearing witness” ought to be over and above an
intellectual judgment, that is to say, the truth must be the product
of ones’ living experiences. An idle reverie is not their business,
the Zen followers will insist. They, of course, sit quiet and practise
“zazen”[f134][7.3]; for they want to reflect on whatever lessons
they have gained while working. But as they are against chewing the
cud all the time, they put in action whatever reflections they have
made during hours of quiet-sitting and test their validity in the vital
field of practicality. It is my strong conviction that if Zen did not
put faith in acting its ideas, the institution would have long before
this sunk into a mere somniferous and trance-inducing system, so that
all the treasure thoughtfully hoarded by the masters in China and Japan
would have been cast away as heaps of rotten stuff.
Perhaps unwittingly supported by these reasons, the value of work
or service has been regarded by all Zen followers as one of their
religious ideals. No doubt the idea was greatly enforced by the
characteristic industry and practicalness of the Chinese people by
whom Zen was mainly elaborated. The fact is that if there is any one
thing that is most emphatically insisted upon by the Zen masters as
the practical expression of their faith, it is serving others, doing
work for others, not ostentatiously indeed but secretly, without making
others know of it. Says Eckhart, “What a man takes in by contemplation
he must pour out in love.” Zen would say, “pour it out in work,”
meaning by work the active and concrete realisation of love. Tauler
made spinning and shoe-making and other homely duties gifts of the Holy
Ghost; Brother Lawrence made cooking sacramental; George Herbert wrote:
“Who sweeps a room as to thy laws
Makes that and the action fine.”
These are all expressive of the spirit of Zen, as far as its practical
side is concerned. Mystics are thus all practical men, they are far
from being visionaries whose souls are too absorbed in things unearthly
or of the other-world to be concerned with their daily life. The common
notion that mystics are dreamers and star-gazers ought to be
corrected, as it has no foundation in facts. Indeed, psychologically,
there is a most intimate and profound relationship between a practical
turn of mind and a certain type of mysticism; the relationship is not
merely conceptual or metaphysical. If mysticism is true, its truth must
be a practical one verifying itself in every act of ours, and, most
decidedly, not a logical one, to be true only in our dialectics. Sings
a Zen poet known as Hō-kōji:[f135][7.4]
“How wondrously supernatural,
And how miraculous, this!
I draw water, and I carry fuel!”[7.5]