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]
II
The Meditation Hall[7.6] (Zendo in Japanese and Ch‘an T‘ang in Chinese), as it is built in Japan, is generally a rectangular building of various size according to the number of monks to be accommodated. One at Engakuji,[f136] Kamakura, was about 36 feet by 65 feet. The floors about eight feet wide and three feet high are raised along the longer sides of the building, and an empty space is left in the middle throughout the entire length of the Hall. This space is used for practising an exercise known as “kinhin”[7.7] (ching-hsing) which means literally “sutra-walking.” The space allotted to each monk on the tatami floor does not exceed one mat, three by six feet, where he sits, meditates, and sleeps at night. The bedding for each is never more than one large wadded quilt, summer or winter. He has no regular pillow except that which is temporarily made up by himself out of his own private possessions. These latter, however, are next to nothing: for they are kesa (kashāya in Sanskrit) and koromo (priestly robe), a few books, a razor, and a set of bowls, all of which are put up in a box about three by ten by three and a half inches large. In travelling this box is carried in front supported with a sash about the neck. The entire property thus moves with the owner. “One dress and one bowl, under a tree and on a stone,”[7.8] was the graphical description of the monkish life in India. Compared with this, the modern Zen monk must be said to be abundantly supplied. Still his wants are reduced to a minimum and no one can fail to lead a simple, perhaps the simplest, life if he models his after that of the Zen monk.
The desire to possess is considered by Buddhism to be one of the worst passions mortals are apt to be obsessed with. What in fact causes so much misery in the world is due to a strong impulse of acquisitiveness. As power is desired, the strong always tyrannise over the weak: as wealth is coveted, the rich and poor are always crossing their swords of bitter enmity. International wars rage, social unrest ever goes on, unless the impulse to have and hold is completely uprooted. Cannot a society be reorganised upon an entirely different basis from what we have been used to see from the beginning of history? Cannot we ever hope to stop the amassing of wealth and the wielding of power merely from the desire for individual or national aggrandisement? Despairing of the utter irrationality of human affairs, the Buddhist monks have gone to the other extreme and cut themselves off even from reasonable and perfectly innocent enjoyments of life. However, the Zen ideal of putting up the monk’s belongings in a tiny box a little larger than a foot square and three inches high, is their mute protest, though so far ineffective, against the present order of society.
In this connection it will be of interest to read the admonition left by Daito the National Teacher (1282–1337),[7.9] to his disciples. He was the founder of Daitokuji, Kyoto, in 1326, and is said to have spent about one-third of his life which was not a very long one, among the lowest layers of society under the Gojo bridge, begging his food, doing all kinds of menial work, and despised by the so-called respectable people of the world. He did not care for the magnificence of a prosperous and highly-honoured temple life led by most Buddhist priests of those days, nor did he think much of those pious and sanctimonious deeds that only testify to the superficiality of their religious life. He was for the plainest living and the highest thinking. The admonition reads: