“Empty-handed I go and yet the spade is in my hands;
I walk on foot, and yet on the back of an ox I am riding:
When I pass over the bridge,
Lo, the water floweth not, but the bridge doth flow.”
This sounds altogether out of reason, but in fact Zen abounds with such graphic irrationalities. “The flower is not red, nor is the willow green”—is one of the best known utterances of Zen, and is regarded as the same as its affirmative: “The flower is red and the willow is green.” To put it in logical formula, it will run like this: “A is at once A and not-A.” If so, I am I and yet you are I. An Indian philosopher asserts that Tat twam asi, Thou art it. If so, heaven is hell and God is Devil. To pious orthodox Christians, what a shocking doctrine this Zen is! When Mr Chang drinks Mr Li grows tipsy. The silent thundering Vimalakīrti confessed that he was sick because all his fellow-beings were sick. All wise and loving souls must be said to be the embodiments of the Great Paradox of the universe. But I am digressing. What I wanted to say was that Zen is more daringly concerte in its paradoxes than other mystical teachings. The latter are more or less confined to general statements concerning life or God or the world, but Zen carries its paradoxical assertions into every detail of our daily life. It has no hesitation in flatly denying all our most familiar facts of experience, “I am writing here and yet I have not written a word. You are perhaps reading this now and yet there is not a person in the world who reads. I am utterly blind and deaf, but every colour is recognised and every sound discerned.” The Zen masters will go on like this indefinitely. Basho (Pa-chiao), a Korean monk of the ninth century, once delivered a famous sermon which ran thus: “If you have a staff (shujo, or chu-chang in Chinese), I will give you one; if you have not, I will take it away from you.”[6.9]
When Jōshu, the great Zen master of whom mention was repeatedly made, was asked what he would give when a poverty-stricken fellow should come to him, he replied, “What is wanting in him?”[f127][6.10] When he was asked on another occasion, “When a man comes to you with nothing, what would you say to him?” his immediate response was, “Cast it away!”[6.11] We may ask him, When a man has nothing, what will he cast? When a man is poor, can he be said to be sufficient unto himself? Is he not in need of everything? Whatever deep meaning there may be in these answers of Jōshu, the paradoxes are quite puzzling and baffle our logically trained intellect. “Carry away the farmer’s oxen, and make off with the hungry man’s food,” is a favourite phrase with the Zen masters who think we can thus best cultivate our spiritual farm and fill up the soul hungry for the substance of things.
It is related that Ōkubo Shibun, famous for painting bamboo, was requested to execute a kakemono representing a bamboo forest. Consenting, he painted with all his known skill a picture in which the entire bamboo grove was in red. The patron upon its receipt marvelled at the extraordinary skill with which the painting had been executed, and, repairing to the artist’s residence, he said: “Master, I have come to thank you for the picture; but, excuse me, you have painted the bamboo red.” “Well,” cried the master, “in what colour would you desire it?” “In black, of course,” replied the patron. “And who,” answered the artist, “ever saw a black-leaved bamboo?” When one is so used to a certain way of looking at things, one finds it so full of difficulties to veer round and start on a new line of procedure. The true colour of the bamboo is perhaps neither red nor black nor green nor any other colour known to us. Perhaps it is red, perhaps it is black just as well. Who knows? The imagined paradoxes may be after all really not paradoxes.
III
The next form in which Zen expresses itself is the denial of opposites, somehow corresponding to the mystic “via negativa.” The point is not to be “caught” as the masters would say in any of the four propositions (catushkotika): 1. “It is A”; 2. “It is not A”; 3. “It is both A and not-A”; and 4. “It is neither A nor not-A.” When we make a negation or an assertion, we are sure to get into one of these logical formulas according to the Indian method of reasoning. As long as the intellect is to move along the ordinary dualistic groove, this is unavoidable. It is in the nature of our logic that any statement we can make is to be so expressed. But Zen thinks that the truth can be reached when it is neither asserted nor negated. This is indeed the dilemma of life, but the Zen masters are ever insistent on escaping the dilemma. Let us see if they escape free.
According to Ummon,[6.12] “In Zen there is absolute freedom; sometimes it negates and at other times it affirms; it does either way at pleasure.” A monk asked, “How does it negate?” “With the passing of winter there cometh spring.” “What happens when spring cometh?” “Carrying a staff across the shoulders, let one ramble about in the fields, east or west, north or south, and beat the old stumps to one’s heart’s content.” This was one way to be free as shown by one of the greatest masters in China. Another way follows.