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 So[f130] (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.