In the Hekigan (Pi-yen-lu),[f13] Yengo expresses the same idea in his introductory remark to the “one finger Zen” of Gutei (Chūh-chih i chih t‘ou ch‘an)[f14]:[1.27]
“One particle of dust is raised and the great earth lies therein; one flower blooms and the universe rises with it. But where should our eye be fixed when the dust is not yet stirred and the flower has not yet bloomed? Therefore, it is said that, like cutting a bundle of thread, one cut cuts all asunder; again, like dyeing a bundle of thread, one dyeing dyes all in the same colour. Now yourself get out of all the entangling relations and rip them up to pieces, but do not lose track of your inner treasure; for it is through this that the high and the low universally responding and the advanced and the backward making no distinction, each manifests itself in full perfection.”
The foregoing sketch of Zen I hope will give the reader a general, though necessarily vague, idea of Zen as it is and has been taught in the Far East for more than one thousand years. In what follows I will try first to seek the origin of Zen in the spiritual enlightenment itself of the Buddha; for Zen has been frequently criticised for deviating too far from what is popularly understood to be the teaching of the Buddha as it is recorded especially in the Āgamas or Nikāyas. While Zen, as it is, is no doubt the native product of the Chinese mind, the line of its development must be traced back to the personal experience of the Indian founder himself. Unless this is understood in connection with the psychological characteristics of the people, the growth of Zen among the Chinese Buddhists would be unintelligible. Zen is after all one of the Mahayana schools of Buddhism shorn of its Indian garb. Next I have tried to write a history of Zen in China after Bodhi-Dharma, who is the real author of the school. Zen was quietly matured and transmitted by the five successive patriarchs so-called after the passing of the first propagator from India. When Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, began to teach the gospel of Zen Buddhism, it was no more Indian but thoroughly Chinese, and what we call Zen now in the form as we have it, dates from him. The course thus definitely given shape by the sixth patriarch to the development of Zen in China gained its strength not only in volume but in content by the masterful handling of it by the spiritual descendants of Hui-nêng. The first section of the Chinese history of Zen therefore naturally closes with him. As the central fact of Zen lies in the attainment of “satori” or the opening of a spiritual eye, I have next dwelt upon the subject. The treatment is somewhat popular, for the main idea is to present the fact that there is such a thing as an intuitional understanding of the truth of Zen, which is “satori,” and also to illustrate the uniqueness of “satori” as experienced by Zen devotees. When we understand the significance of “satori” in Zen, we may logically wish to know something about the methods whereby the masters contrive to bring about such a revolutionary experience, more or less noetic, in the minds of the students. Some of the practical Zen methods resorted to by the masters are classified under a certain number of headings, but in this classification I have not attempted to be thoroughly exhaustive here. The Meditation Hall is an institution quite peculiar to Zen Buddhism, and those who want to know something about Zen and its educational system cannot afford to ignore the subject. This unique organ of Zen Buddhism however has never been described before. The reader I hope will find here a subject interesting enough for his thorough investigation. While Zen claims to be the “ultra-abrupt” wing of Buddhism, it has a well-marked gradation in its progress towards the ultimate goal. Hence the concluding chapter on “The Ten Cow-herding Pictures.”
There are many more topics with which one ought to be acquainted in the study of Zen Buddhism, and some of them, considered by the author the more important, will be treated in the second series of the Essays.
ZEN AS CHINESE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
ZEN AS CHINESE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
Foreword
BEFORE I proceed to the discussion of the main idea of this essay, which is to consider Zen the Chinese way of applying the doctrine of Enlightenment in our practical life, I wish to make some preliminary remarks concerning the attitude of some Zen critics and thereby to define the position of Zen in the general body of Buddhism. According to them, Zen Buddhism is not Buddhism, it is something foreign to the spirit of Buddhism, and that it is one of those aberrations which we often see growing up in the history of any religion. Zen is thus, they think, an abnormality prevailing among the people whose thought and feeling flow along a channel different from the main current of Buddhist thought. Whether this allegation is true or not, will be decided, on the one hand, when we understand what is really the essence or genuine spirit of Buddhism, and, on the other, when we know the exact status of Zen doctrine in regard to the ruling ideas of Buddhism as they are accepted in the Far East. It may also be desirable to know something about the development of religious experience in general. When we are not prepared thoroughly to understand these questions in the light of the history and philosophy of religion, we may come dogmatically to assert that Zen is not Buddhism just because it looks so different on its surface from what some people with a certain set of preconceived notions consider Buddhism to be. The statement of my position as regards these points will therefore pave the way to the development of the principal thesis.
Superficially, indeed, there is something in Zen so bizarre and even irrational, as to frighten the pious literary followers of the so-called primitive Buddhism and to make them declare that Zen is not Buddhism but a Chinese anomaly of it. What, for instance, would they really make out of such statements as follows: In the Sayings of Nan-ch‘üan[2.1] we read that, when Ts‘ui, governor of Ch‘i District, asked the fifth patriarch of the Zen sect, that is, Hung-jên, how it was that while he had five hundred followers, Hui-nêng, in preference to all others, was singled out to be given the orthodox robe of transmission as the sixth patriarch, replied the fifth patriarch: “Four hundred and ninety-nine out of my disciples understand well what Buddhism is, except one Hui-nêng. He is a man not to be measured by an ordinary standard. Hence the robe of faith was handed over to him.” On this comments Nan-ch‘üan: “In the age of Void there are no words whatever; as soon as the Buddha appears on earth, words come into existence, hence our clinging to signs.... And thus as we now so firmly take hold of words, we limit ourselves in various ways, while in the Great Way there are absolutely no such things as ignorance or holiness. Everything that has a name thereby limits itself. Therefore, the old master of Chiang-hsi declared that ‘it is neither mind, nor Buddha, nor a thing.’ It was in this way that he wished to guide his followers, while these days they vainly endeavour to experience the Great Way by hypostatising such an entity as mind. If the Way could be mastered in this manner, it would be well for them to wait until the appearance of Maitreya Buddha [which is said to be at the end of the world] and then to awaken the enlightenment-thought. How could such ones ever hope for spiritual freedom? Under the fifth patriarch, all of his five hundred disciples, except one Hui-nêng, understood Buddhism well. The lay-disciple, Nêng, was quite unique in this respect, for he did not at all understand Buddhism.[f15] He understood the Way only and no other thing.”