Essays in Zen Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

I

STRANGE though it may seem, the fact is that Buddhist scholars are engrossed too much in the study of what they regard as the Buddha’s teaching and his disciples’ exposition of the Dharma, so called, while they neglect altogether the study of the Buddha’s spiritual experience itself. According to my view, however, the first thing we have to do in the elucidation of Buddhist thought is to inquire into the nature of this personal experience of the Buddha, which is recorded to have presented itself to his inmost consciousness at the time of Enlightenment (sambodhi). What the Buddha taught his disciples was the conscious outcome of his intellectual elaboration to make them see and realise what he himself had seen and realised. This intellectual outcome, however philosophically presented, does not necessarily enter into the inner essence of Enlightenment experienced by the Buddha. When we want, therefore, to grasp the spirit of Buddhism, which essentially develops from the content of Enlightenment, we have to get acquainted with the signification of the experience of the founder,—experience by virtue of which he is indeed the Buddha and the founder of the religious system which goes under his name. Let us see what record we have of this experience, and what were its antecedents and consequences.[f48]

There is a Sutra in the Dīgha-Nikāya known as the Mahāpadāna Suttanta, in which the Buddha is represented as enlightening his disciples concerning the six Buddhas anterior to him. The facts relating to their lives as Bodhisattvas and Buddhas are almost identical in each case except some incidental details; for the Buddhas are all supposed to have had one and the same career. When therefore Gautama, the Buddha of the present Kalpa, talks about his predecessors in this wise, including the story of Enlightenment, he is simply recapitulating his own earthly life, and everything he states here as having occurred to his predecessors, except such matters as parentage, social rank, birthplace, length of life, etc., must be regarded as also having happened to himself. This is especially true with his spiritual experience known as Enlightenment.[f49]

When the Bodhisattva, as the Buddha is so designated prior to his attainment of Buddhahood, was meditating in seclusion, the following consideration came upon him: “Verily this world has fallen upon trouble (kiccha), one is born, and grows old, and dies, and falls from one state, and springs up in another. And from this suffering, moreover, no one knows of any way of escape, even from decay and death. O when shall a way of escape from this suffering be made known, from decay and death?” Thus thinking, the Bodhisattva reasoned out that decay and death arose from birth, birth from becoming, becoming from grasping, grasping from craving, until he came to the mutual conditioning of name-and-form (namarūpa) and cognition (viññāna).[f50] Then he reasoned back and forth from the coming-to-be of this entire body of evil to its final ceasing-to-be,—and at this thought there arose to the Bodhisattva an insight (cakkhu)[f51] into things not heard of before, and knowledge arose, and reason arose, wisdom arose, light arose. (Bodhisattassa pubbe ananussutesu dhammesu cakkhuṁ udapādi, ñāṇaṁ udapādi, paññā udapādi, vijjā udapādi, āloka udapādi.)”

He then exclaimed: “I have penetrated this Dharma, deep, hard to perceive, hard to understand, calm, sublime, no mere dialectic, subtle, intelligible only to the wise. (Dhammo gambhīro duddaso duranubodho santo panito atakkāvacaro nipuṇo pandito vedanīyo.) But this is a race devoting itself to the things to which it clings, devoted thereto, delighting therein. And for a race devoting itself to the things to which it clings, devoted thereto, delighting therein, this were a matter hard to perceive, to wit, that this is conditioned by that, and all that happens is by way of cause. This too were a matter hard to discern:—the tranquillisation of all the activities of life, the renunciation of all substrata of rebirth, the destruction of craving, the death of passion, quietude of heart, Nirvana.”

The Buddha then uttered the following verse in which he expressed his reluctance to preach the Dharma to the world at large—the Dharma which was realised in him by ñāṇa,—which he saw visibly, face to face, without any traditional instruction:

“This that through many toils I’ve won—

Enough! why should I make it known?

By folk with lust and hate consumed

Not this the Truth[f52] that can be grasped!