Tōsu Daido (T‘ou-tzu Tai-t‘ung),[6.39] of the T‘ang dynasty, who died in the year 914, answered “The Buddha,” when he was questioned, “What is the Buddha?” He said “Tao” when the question was, “What is Tao?” He answered “the Dharma” to the question, “What is the Dharma?”
When Jōshu asked Kwanchu (Tai-tz‘u Huan-chung)[6.40] of the ninth century, “What is the being [or substance] of Prajñā?” Kwanchu without giving any answer simply echoed the question, “What is the being of Prajñā?” And this brought out a hearty laugh on the part of Jōshu. Prajñā may be translated supreme intelligence, and Mañjuśrī is regarded by the Mahayanists as the embodiment of Prajñā. But in this case Mañjuśrī has nothing to do with it. The question is concerned with the substantial conception of Prajñā, which, being a form of mental activity, requires something to abide in. According to Buddhist philosophy, there are three fundamental conceptions to explain the problem of existence: Substance or Being (bhāva), Appearance or Aspect (lakshaṇa), and Function or Activity (kṛitya). Or, to use the terms of the Mādhyamika, the three conceptions are actor, act, and acting. Prajñā being an intellectual acting, there must be an agent or substance back of it. Hence the question: What is the being or body of Prajñā? Now, the answer or echo given out by Kwanchu does not explain anything, we are at a loss as far as its conceptual signification goes. The Zen masters do not give us any literary clue to get around what we see on the surface. When we try to understand it intellectually, it slips away from us. It must be approached therefore from another plane of unconsciousness. Unless we move on to the same plane where the masters stand, or unless we abandon so-called common-sense way of reasoning, there is no possible bridge which will carry us over the chasm dividing our intellection from their apparently psittacine repetitions.
In this case, as in other cases, the idea of the masters is to show the way where the truth of Zen is to be experienced, but not in and through the language which they use and which we all use, as the means of communicating ideas. Language, in case they resort to words, serves as an expression of feelings or moods or inner states, but not of ideas, and therefore it becomes entirely incomprehensible when we search its meaning in the words of the masters as embodying ideas. Of course, words are not to be altogether disregarded inasmuch as they correspond to the feelings or experiences. To know this is more important in the understanding of Zen. Language is then with the Zen masters a kind of exclamation or ejaculation as directly coming out of their inner spiritual experience. No meaning is to be sought in the expression itself, but within ourselves, in our own minds, which are awakened to the same experience. Therefore, when we understand the language of the Zen masters, it is the understanding of ourselves and not the sense of the language which reflects ideas and not the experienced feelings themselves. Thus it is impossible to make those understand Zen who have not had any Zen experience yet, just as it is impossible for the people to realise the sweetness of honey who have never tasted it before. With such people, “sweet” honey will ever remain as an idea altogether devoid of sense, that is, the word has no life with them.
Goso Hōyen first studied the Yogācāra school of Buddhist philosophy and came across the following passage: “When the Bodhisattva enters on the path of knowledge, he finds that the discriminating intellect is identified with Reason, and that the objective world is fused with Intelligence, and there is no distinction to be made between the knowing and the known.” The anti-Yogācārians refuted this statement, saying that if the knowing is not distinguished from the known, how is knowledge at all possible? The Yogācārians could not answer this criticism, when Hsüan-chang who was at the time in India interposed and saved his brethren in faith from the quandary. His answer was: “It is like drinking water, one knows by oneself whether it is cold or not.” When Goso read this, he questioned himself, “What is this that makes one know thus by oneself?” This was the way he started on his Zen tour, for his Yogācāra friends being philosophers could not enlighten him, and he finally came to a Zen master for instruction.
Before we proceed to the next subject, let me cite another case of echoing. Hōgen Mon-yeki (Fa-yen Wen-i), the founder of the Hōgen branch of Zen Buddhism, flourished early in the tenth century. He asked one of his disciples, “What do you understand by this: ‘Let the difference be even a tenth of an inch, and it will grow as wide as heaven and earth’?” The disciple said, “Let the difference be even a tenth of an inch, and it will grow as wide as heaven and earth.” Hōgen however told him that such an answer will never do. Said the disciple, “I cannot do otherwise; how do you understand?” The master at once replied, “Let the difference be even a tenth of an inch, and it will grow as wide as heaven and earth.”f129[6.41]
Hōgen was a great master of repetitions, and there is another interesting instance. After trying to understand the ultimate truth of Zen under fifty-four masters,[6.42] Tokusho (Tê-shao, 907–971) finally came to Hōgen; but tired of making special efforts to master Zen, he simply fell in with the rest of the monks there. One day when the master ascended the platform, a monk asked, “What is one drop of water dripping from the source of Sof130 (Ts‘ao)?” Said the master, “That is one drop of water dripping from the source of So.” The monk failed to make anything out of the repetition and stood as if lost; while Tokusho who happened to be by him had for the first time his spiritual eye opened to the inner meaning of Zen, and all the doubts he had been cherishing secretly down in his heart were thoroughly dissolved. He was altogether another man after that.
Such cases as this conclusively show that Zen is not to be sought in ideas or words, but at the same time they also show that without ideas or words Zen cannot convey itself to others. To grasp the exquisite meaning of Zen as expressing itself in words and yet not in them, is a great art which is to be attained only after so many vain attempts. Tokusho who after such an experience finally came to realise the mystery of Zen, did his best later to give vent to his view which he had gained under Hōgen. It was while he was residing at the Monastery of Prajñā that he had the following “mondo” and sermon.[6.43] When Tokusho came out into the Hall, a monk asked him, “I understand this was an ancient wise man’s saying: When a man sees Prajñā he is tied to it; when he sees it not he is also tied to it. Now I wish to know how it is that a man seeing Prajñā could be tied to it.” Said the master, “You tell me what it is that is seen by Prajñā.” Asked the monk, “When a man sees not Prajñā, how could he be tied to it?” “You tell me,” said the master, “if there is anything that is not seen by Prajñā.” The master then went on: “Prajñā seen is no Prajñā, nor is Prajñā unseen Prajñā: how could one apply the predicate, seen or unseen, to Prajñā? Therefore it is said of old that when one thing is missing the Dharmakāya is not complete; when one thing is superfluous the Dharmakāya is not complete: and again that when there is one thing to be asserted the Dharmakāya is not complete; when there is nothing to be asserted the Dharmakāya is not complete. This is indeed the essence of Prajñā.”
The “repetition” seen in this light may grow to be intelligible to a certain degree.
VII
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 utterancef131 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).
VIII
We now come to the most characteristic feature of Zen Buddhism, by which it is distinguished not only from all the other Buddhist schools, but from all forms of mysticism that are ever known to us. So far the truth of Zen has been expressed through words, articulate or otherwise, however enigmatic they may superficially appear; but now the masters appeal to a more direct method instead of verbal medium. In fact, the truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect. Is it not the most natural thing for Zen, therefore, that its development should be towards acting or rather living its truth instead of demonstrating or illustrating it in words, that is to say, with ideas? In the actual living of life there is no logic, for life is superior to logic. We imagine logic influences life, but in reality man is not a rational creature so much as we make him out, of course he reasons, but he does not act according to the result of his reasoning pure and simple. There is something stronger than ratiocination. We may call it impulse, or instinct, or, more comprehensively, will. Where this will acts there is Zen, but if I am asked whether Zen is a philosophy of will I rather hesitate to give an affirmative answer. Zen is to be explained, if at all explained it should be, rather dynamically than statically. When I raise the hand thus, there is Zen. But when I assert that I have raised the hand, Zen is no more there. Nor is there any Zen when I assume the existence of somewhat that may be named will or anything else. Not that the assertion or assumption is wrong, but that the thing known as Zen is three thousand miles away as they say. An assertion is Zen only when it is in itself an act and does not refer to anything that is asserted in it. In the finger pointed at the moon there is no Zen, but when the pointing finger itself is considered, altogether independent of any external references, there is Zen.
Life delineates itself on the canvas called time; and time never repeats, once gone, forever gone; and so is an act, once done, it is never undone. Life is a sumiye-painting, which must be executed once and for all time and without hesitation, without intellection, and no corrections are permissible or possible. Life is not like an oil-painting which can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the artist is satisfied. With a sumiye-painting, any brush stroke painted over a second time results in a smudge; the life has left it. All corrections show when the ink dries. So is life. We can never retract what we have once committed to deeds, nay, what has once passed through consciousness can never be rubbed out. Zen therefore ought to be caught while the thing is going on, neither before nor after. It is an act of one instant. When Dharma was leaving China, as the legend has it, he asked his disciples what was their understanding of Zen, and one of them who happened to be a nun, replied, “It is like Ānanda’s looking into the kingdom of Akshobhya Buddha, it is seen once and has never been repeated.” This fleeting, unrepeatable, and ungraspable character of life is delineated graphically by Zen masters who have compared it to lightning or spark produced by the percussion of stones: 閃電光, 擊石火 (shan tien kuang, chi shih huo) is the phrase.[6.61]
The idea of direct method appealed to by the masters is to get hold of this fleeting life as it flees and not after it has flown. While it is fleeing, there is no time to recall memory or to build ideas. No reasoning avails here. Language may be used, but this has been associated too long with ideation, and has lost directness or being by itself. As soon as words are used, they express meaning, reasoning; they represent something not belonging to themselves; they have no direct connection with life, except being a faint echo or image of something that is no longer here. This is the reason why the masters often avoid such expressions or statements as are intelligible in any logical way. Their aim is to have the pupil’s attention concentrated in the thing itself which he wishes to grasp and not in anything that is in the remotest possible connection liable to disturb him. Therefore when we attempt to find meaning in dharanis or exclamations or a nonsensical string of sounds taken as such, we are far away from the truth of Zen. We must penetrate into the mind itself as the spring of life, from which all these words are produced. The swinging of a stick, the crying of a “Kwats!” or the kicking of a ball must be understood in this sense, that is, as the directest demonstration of life, no, even as life itself. The direct method is thus not always the violent assertion of life-force, but a gentle movement of the body, the responding to a call, the listening to a murmuring stream, or to a singing bird, or any of our most ordinary everyday assertions of life.
Reiun (Ling-yün)[6.62] was asked, “How were things before the appearance of the Buddha in the world?” He raised his hossu. “How were things after the appearance of the Buddha?” He again raised the hossu. This raising of the hossu was quite a favourite method with many masters to demonstrate the truth of Zen. As I stated elsewhere, the hossu and the staff were the religious insignias of the master, and it was natural that they would be in much display when the monks approached with questions. One day Ōbaku Kiun (Huang-po Hsi-yün)[6.63] ascended the pulpit, and as soon as monks were gathered, the master took up his staff and drove them all out. When they were about all out, he called them, and they turned their heads back. The master said, “The moon looks like a bow, less rain and more wind.” The staff was thus wielded effectively by the masters, but who would ever have thought of a cane being made an instrument of illustrating the most profound truth of religion?
Jōshu was the readiest master for pithy retorts and his “Sayings” (Goroku) is filled with them, but he was also an adept at the direct method. When he was in his pulpit one day, a monk came out of the rank and made bows to him. Without waiting, however, for further movements on the part of the monk, Jōshu folded his hands and a parting salutation was given. Hyakujo Isei’s (Pai-chang Wei-chêng)[6.64] way was somewhat different. He said to the monks, “You open the farm for me and I will talk to you about the great principle [of Zen].” When the monks finished attending to the farm and came back to the master to discourse on the great principle, he merely extended his open arms and said nothing.
A monk came to Yenkwan An,[6.65] the National Teacher, and wanted to know what was the original body of Vairochana Buddha. The Teacher told him to pass the pitcher, which he did. The Teacher then said, “Put it back where you got it.” The monk faithfully obeyed, but not being told what was the original body of the Buddha, he proposed the question once more, “Who is the Buddha?” Answered the master, “Long gone is he!” In this case the direct method was practised more by the monk himself under the direction of the master, but unfortunately the pupil’s spiritual condition was not ripe enough to grasp the meaning of his own “direct method,” and alas, let go “the old Buddha!” Something similar to this case may be found in the following one:
Sekiso (Shih-shuang)[6.66] asked Yenchi (Yüan-chih),[6.67] who was a disciple of Yakusan (Yüeh-shan), “If some one after your death asked me about the ultimate fact, what should I say to him?” The master gave no answer, but instead called up the boy-attendant who at once responded. He said, “Fill up the pitcher,” and remained quiet for some little while. He now asked Sekiso, “What did you ask me before?” Sekiso re-stated the question, whereupon the master rose from his seat and left the room.
As some Zen masters remarked, Zen is our “ordinary mindedness,” that is to say, there is in Zen nothing supernatural or unusual or highly speculative that transcends our everyday life. When you feel sleepy, you retire; when you are hungry, you eat, just as much as the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, taking “no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.” This is the spirit of Zen. Hence no specially didactic or dialectical instruction in the study of Zen except such as is given below by Dōgo.
Ryutan Sōshin (Lung-t‘an Sui-hsin)[6.68] was a disciple of Tenno Dōgo (Tao-wu). He served the master as one of his personal attendants. He was with him for some time when one day he said to the master: “Since I came to you, I have not at all been instructed in the study of mind.” Replied the master, “Ever since you came to me, I have always been pointing to you how to study mind.” “In what way, sir?” “When you brought me a cup of tea, did I not accept it? When you served me with food, did I not partake of it? When you made bows to me, did I not return them? When did I ever neglect in giving you instructions?” Ryutan kept his head hanging for some time, when the master told him, “If you want to see, see directly into it; but when you try to think about it, it is altogether missed.”
Dōgo Yenchi (Tao-wu Yüan-chih) and Ungan Donjo (Yün-yen Tan-shêng) were standing by the master Yakusan (Yüeh-shan) as attendants, when Yakusan remarked,[6.69] “Where our intellect cannot reach, I verily tell you to avoid talking about it; when you do, horns will grow on you. O Yenchi, what will you say to this?” Yenchi thereupon rose from his place and left the room. Ungan asked the master, “How is it, sir, that Brother Chi does not answer you?” “My back aches to-day,” said Yakusan, “You better go to Yenchi himself, for he understands.” Ungan came to his brother monk and inquired thus, “O Brother Senior, why did you not answer our master now?” “You better go back to the master himself and ask,” was all that poor Ungan could get out of his senior brother.
There was another favourite movement often practised by Zen masters, which was to call out to the questioner or somebody else. One case of this has already been given somewhere else in another connection. The following are the typical and classical ones. Chu, the National Teacher, called out to his attendant monk three times, to which the latter responded regularly. Said the Teacher, “I thought I was not fair to you, but it was you that were not fair to me.”f132[6.70] This calling and responding took place also three times between Mayoku (Ma-ku) and Ryosui (Liang-sui), which at last made the latter exclaim: “O this stupid fellow!”[6.71]
This trick of calling out and responding was frequently practised as is seen in the following cases: A high government dignitary called upon Ungo Doyo (Yün-chü Tao-ying) and asked[6.72]: “I am told that the World-honoured One had a secret phrase and Mahākāśyapa did not keep it hidden; what was the secret phrase?” The master called out, “O honoured officer!” and the officer responded. “Do you understand?” demanded the master. “No, Reverend Sir!” was his natural answer. “If you do not understand, there is the secret phrase: if you understand, there is Mahākāśyapa in full revelation.”
Haikyu (P‘ai-hsiu)[6.73] was a local governor in Shinan (Hsin-an) before he was appointed a state-minister. He once visited a Buddhist monastery in his district. While going around in the premises of the monastery, he came across a fine fresco painting and asked the accompanying priests whose portrait this was. “He was one of the high priests,” they answered. The governor now turned towards them and questioned, “Here is his portrait, but where is the high priest himself?” They all did not know how to answer him. He then further asked if there were any Zen monks about here. They replied, “We have recently a new comer in this monastery, he does some menial work for us and looks very much like a Zen monk.” He was then brought in the presence of the governor who at once spoke to him, “I have one question in which I wish to be enlightened, but the gentlemen here grudge the answer. May I ask you to give me a word for them?” “I humbly wish you to ask,” politely requested the monk. The officer repeated the first question, whereupon the monk loudly and clearly called out, “O Haikyu!” Haikyu responded at once, “Here, sir!” “Where is the high priest now?” cross-questioned the monk. This opened the governor’s eye to the sense of the monk’s counter-question, in which he could now read the solution of his first query.
The case between Yisan (Wei-shan) and Kyōzan (Yang-shan) was more intellectual and to that extent more intelligible than this mere calling and responding. Kyōzan was the chief disciple of Yisan, and one of the peculiar features of this school was to demonstrate the truth of Zen concordantly both by the master and disciple. They once went out picking tea-leaves. The master said to Kyōzan,[6.74] “Picking tea-leaves all day, I hear only your voice and do not see your body; manifest your original body and let me see it.” Kyōzan shook the tea-plant. Said Yisan, “You have only got its function, you have not got the substance.” Kyōzan said, “Master, how with you then?” The master was quiet for a while whereupon the disciple said, “O master, you have got only the substance, you have not got the function.” “You will be spared of my twenty blows,” concluded the master. In Buddhist ontology three conceptions are distinguished, as was referred to previously; substance or body, appearance, and function or activity. “Body” or bhāva corresponds to the idea of mass or being, “appearance” (lakshaṇa) to that of form, and “function” (kṛitya) to that of force. Every reality is regarded by Buddhist philosophers as analysable into these three notions. Sometimes, however, the second conception, “appearance” is absorbed in that of “being,” or “body.” Without functioning no objects exist, but functioning cannot take place without something functioning. The two ideas, according to Buddhist philosophers, are thus inseparable for our understanding of the universe. But Yisan and Kyōzan were not metaphysicians and would not argue on the subject. The one shook the tree and the other stood still. We cannot say that there is Zen in this standing and shaking as we may interpret them philosophically, but we may glean something of Zen in their remarks on “body” and “function” together with their direct method.
So far the direct method has not been of any violent character as to involve a bodily injury or nervous shock, but the masters had no qualms if they thought necessary to shake the pupils roughly. Rinzai for one was noted for the directness and incisiveness of his dealings; the point of his sword cut through the heart of the opponent. The monk Jō (Ting)[6.75] was one of his disciples, and when he asked the master what the fundamental principle of Buddhism was, Rinzai came down from his straw chair, and taking hold of the monk slapped him with the palm of his hand, and let him go. Jō stood still without knowing what to make of the whole procedure when a by-standing monk blamed him for not bowing to the master. While doing so, Jō all of a sudden awoke to the truth of Zen. Later, when he was passing over a bridge, he happened to meet a party of three Buddhist scholars, one of whom asked Jō, “The river of Zen is deep, and its bottom must be sounded. What does this mean?” Jō, disciple of Rinzai, at once seized the questioner and was at the point of throwing him over the bridge, when his two friends interceded and asked Jō’s merciful treatment of the offender. Jō released the scholar, saying, “If not for the intercession of his friends I would at once let him sound the bottom of the river himself.” With these people Zen was no joke, no mere play of ideas, it was on the contrary a most serious thing on which they would stake their lives.
Rinzai was a disciple of Ōbaku (Huang-po), but while under the master he did not get any special instruction on Zen; for whenever he asked him as to the fundamental truth of Buddhism, he was struck by Ōbaku. But it was these blows that opened Rinzai’s eye to the ultimate truth of Zen and made him exclaim, “After all there is not much in the Buddhism of Ōbaku!”[6.76] In China and in Korea what little of Zen is left mostly belongs to the school of Rinzai. In Japan alone the Soto branch is flourishing as much as the Rinzai. The rigour and vitality of Zen Buddhism that is still present in the Rinzai school of Japan comes from the three blows of Ōbaku so mercifully dealt out to his poor disciple. There is in fact more truth in a blow or a kick than in the verbosity of logical discourse. At any rate the Zen masters were in dead earnest whenever the demonstration of Zen was demanded. See the following instance.
When Tō-Impo (Têng Yin-fêng)[6.77] was pushing a cart, he happened to see his master Baso stretching his legs a little too far out in the roadway. He said, “Will you please draw your legs in?” Replied the master, “A thing once stretched out will never be contracted.” “If so,” said Tō, “a thing once pushed will never be retracted.” His cart went right over the master’s legs which were thus hurt. Later Baso went up to the Preaching Hall where he carried an axe and said to the monks gathered, “Let the one who wounded the old master’s legs awhile ago come out of the congregation.” Tō came forth and stretched his neck ready to receive the axe, but the master instead of chopping the disciple’s head off, quietly set the axe down.
Tō-Impo was ready to give up his life to re-assert the truth of his deed, through which the master got hurt. Mimicry or simulation was rampant everywhere, and therefore Baso wanted to ascertain the genuineness of Tō’s understanding of Zen. When the thing is at stake, the masters do not hesitate to sacrifice anything. In the case of Nansen, a kitten was done away with: Kyōzan broke a mirror into pieces; a woman follower of Zen burned up a whole house; and another woman threw her baby into a river. This latter was an extreme case, and perhaps the only one of the kind ever recorded in the history of Zen. As to minor cases such as mentioned above, they are plentiful and considered almost matters of course with Zen masters.
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,