Essays in Zen Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

THE MEDITATION HALL, AND THE IDEALS OF THE MONKISH DISCIPLINE

I.

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