Ts'ao-shan subsequently left his master and went wandering and teaching. Finally, in late summer of 901, the story says that Ts'ao-shan one evening inquired about the date, and early the next morning he died.
Although the recorded exchanges between Tung-shan and Ts'ao-shan are limited to the two rather brief encounters given, the younger master actually seems to have been the moving force behind the dialectical constructions of the Ts'ao-tung school. The ancient records, such as The Transmission of the Lamp, all declare that Ts'ao-shan was inspired by the Five States of Universality and Particularity to become a great Buddhist. As Dumoulin judges, "It was [Ts'ao-shan] who first, in the spirit of and in accordance with the master's teachings, arranged the five ranks in their transmuted form and explained them in many ways. . . . The fundamental principles, however, stem from [Tung-shan], who for that reason must be considered to be their originator."25
The ultimate concern of both the Ts'ao-tung and Lin-chi doctrines was enlightenment. The difference was that Ts'ao-tung masters believed quiet meditation was the way, rather than the mind-shattering techniques of Lin-chi. Ts'ao-tung (Soto Zen) strives to soothe the spirit rather than deliberately instigate psychic turmoil, as sometimes does the Lin-chi (Rinzai). The aim is to be in the world but not of it; to occupy the physical world but transcend it mentally, aloof and serene.
A further difference has been identified by the British scholar Sir Charles Eliot, who concludes that whereas Lin-chi "regards the knowledge of the Buddha nature ... as an end in itself, all-satisfying and all-engrossing, the [Ts'ao-tung] . . . held that it is necessary to have enlightenment after Enlightenment, that is to say that the inner illumination must display itself in a good life."26 Thus Eliot suggests the Ts'ao-tung took something of an interest in what you do, in distinction to the Lin-chi school, which preferred to focus on inner wisdom.
The Ts'ao-tung sect, at least in its early forms, was fully as dialectical in outlook as was the Lin-chi. In this it was merely carrying on, to some extent, the example of its forebear Shih-t'ou, who was himself remembered as deeply interested in theoretical and intellectual speculations. Today the Ts'ao-tung sect is differentiated from the Lin-chi primarily by its methods for teaching novices. There is no disagreement about the goal, merely about the path.
It is interesting that the whole business of the Five Ranks seems not to have survived the Sung Dynasty. Ts'ao-tung's real contribution was essentially to revive the approach of Northern Ch'an, with its stress on meditation, intellectual inquiry, stages of enlightenment, and the idea that Ch'an is not entirely inner- directed but may also have some place in the world at large. This is the real achievement of Ts'ao-tung, and the quality that enabled it to survive and become Soto.
Chapter Thirteen