[f99] I.e., Tat tvam asi.
[f100] There is however a variation from five years to fifteen years according to different authorities.
[f101] These accounts, whether truly historical or not, concerning the controversy between the two leaders of Zen early in the T‘ang dynasty prove how heated was the rivalry between the North and the South. The Sermons of the Sixth Patriarch (Fa-pao-tan-ching) itself appears as if written with the sole object of refuting the opponents of the “abrupt” school.
[f102] This is a constant refrain in the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras—to awaken one’s thought where there is no abode whatever (na kvacit pratishṭitaṁ cittaṁ utpādayitavyam). When Jōshu called on Ungo, the latter asked, “O you, old wanderer! how is it that you do not seek an abiding place for yourself?” “Where is my abiding place?” “There is an old temple ruin at the foot of this mountain.” “That is a fitting place for your old self,” responded Jōshu. Later, he came to Shūyūsan, who asked him the same question, saying, “O you, old wanderer! why don’t you get settled?” “Where is the place for me to get settled?” “Why, this old wanderer doesn’t know even where to get settled for himself.” Said Jōshu, “I have been engaged these thirty years in training horses, and to-day I have been kicked around by a donkey!”
[f103] This is the name of the place where Hui-nêng had his Zen headquarters.
[f104] Hsing means nature, character, essence, soul, or what is innate to one. “Seeing into one’s Nature” is one of the set phrases used by the Zen masters, and in fact the avowed object of all Zen discipline. Satori is its more popular expression. When one gets into the inwardness of things, there is satori. This latter however being a broad term, can be used to designate any kind of a thorough understanding, and it is only in Zen that it has a restricted meaning. In this article I have used the term as the most essential thing in the study of Zen; for “seeing into one’s Nature” suggests the idea that Zen has something concrete and substantial which requires being seen into by us. This is misleading, though satori too I admit is a vague and naturally ambiguous word. For ordinary purposes, not too strictly philosophical, satori will answer, and whenever chien-hsing is referred to, it means this, the opening of the mental eye. As to the sixth patriarch’s view on “seeing into one’s Nature,” see above under “[History of Zen Buddhism].”
[f105] According to the Mahāparinirvāna-sūtra, translated into Chinese by Dharmaraksha, A.D. 423, Vol. XXXIII., he was one of the three sons of the Buddha while he was still a Bodhisattva. He was most learned in all Buddhist lore, but his views tended to be nihilistic and he finally fell into hell.
[f106] That is, from the idea that this sitting cross-legged leads to Buddhahood. From the earliest periods of Zen in China, the quietist tendency has been running along the whole history with the intellectual tendency which emphasises the satori element. Even to-day these currents are represented to a certain extent by the Soto on the one hand and the Rinzai on the other, while each has its characteristic features of excellence. My own standpoint is that of the intuitionalist and not that of the quietist; for the essence of Zen lies in the attainment of satori.
[f107] W. Lehmann, Meister Eckhart. Göttingen, 1917, p. 243. Quoted by Prof. Rudolf Otto in his The Idea of the Holy, p. 201.
[f108] In Claud Field’s Mystics and Saints of Islam (p. 25), we read under Hasan Basri, “Another time I saw a child coming toward me holding a lighted torch in his hand, ‘Where have you brought the light from?’ I asked him. He immediately blew it out, and said to me, ‘O Hasan, tell me where it is gone, and I will tell you whence I fetched.’” Of course the parallel here is only apparent, for Tokusan got his enlightenment from quite a different source than the mere blowing out of the candle. Still the parallel in itself is interesting enough to be quoted here.