69

IV
ILLOGICAL ZEN

69

The critic will be inclined to call Zen absurd, confusing, and beyond the ken of ordinary reasoning. But Zen is inflexible and would protest that the so-called common-sense way of looking at things is not final, and that the reason why we cannot attain to a thoroughgoing comprehension of the truth is due to our unreasonable adherence to a “logical” interpretation of things. If we really want to get to the bottom of life, we must abandon our cherished syllogisms, we must acquire a new way of observation whereby we can escape the tyranny of logic and the one-sidedness of our everyday phraseology. However paradoxical it may seem,

70

What is Zen through these apparent trivialities and irrationalities really driving us to comprehend? The answer is simple. Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs.

71

We generally think that “A is A” is absolute, and that the proposition “A is not-A” or “A is B” is unthinkable. We have never been able to break through these conditions of the understanding; they have been too imposing. But now Zen declares that words are words and no more. When words cease to correspond with facts it is time for us to part with words and return to facts. As long as logic has its practical value it is to be made use of; but when it fails to work, or when it tries to go beyond its proper limits, we must cry, “Halt!” Ever since the awakening of consciousness we have endeavoured to solve the mysteries of being and to quench our thirst for logic through the dualism of “A” and “not-A”; that is, by calling a bridge a bridge, by making the water flow, and dust arise from the earth; but to our great disappointment we have never been able to obtain peace of mind, perfect happiness, and a thorough understanding of life and the world. We have come, as it were, to the end of our wits. No further steps could we take which would lead us to a broader field of reality. The inmost agonies of the soul could not be expressed in words, when lo! light comes over our entire being. This is the beginning of Zen. For we now realize that “A is not-A” after all, that logic is onesided, that illogicality so-called is not in the last analysis necessarily illogical; what is superficially irrational has after all its own logic, which is in correspondence with the true state of things. “Empty-handed I go, and behold the spade is in my hands!” By this we are made perfectly happy, for strangely this contradiction is what we have been seeking for all the time ever since the dawning of the intellect. The dawning of the intellect did not mean the assertion of the intellect but the transcending of itself. The meaning of the proposition “A is A” is realized only when “A is not-A”. To be itself is not to be itself—this is the logic of Zen, and satisfies all our aspirations.

72

“The flower is not red, the willow is not green.” This is regarded by Zen devotees as most refreshingly satisfying. So long as we think logic final we are chained, we have no freedom of spirit, and the real facts of life are lost sight of. Now, however, we have the key to the whole situation; we are master of realities; words have given up their domination over us. If we are pleased to call a spade not a spade, we have the perfect right to do so; a spade need not always remain a spade; and, moreover, this, according to the Zen master, expresses more correctly the state of reality which refuses to be tied up to names.

72

This breaking up of the tyranny of name and logic is at the same time spiritual emancipation; for the soul is no longer divided against itself. By acquiring the intellectual freedom the soul is in full possession of itself; birth and death no longer torment it; for there are no such dualities anywhere; we live even through death. Hitherto we have been looking at things in their contradicting and differentiating aspect, and have assumed an attitude toward them in accordance with that view, that is, more or less antagonistic. But this has been revolutionized, we have at last attained the point where the world can be viewed, as it were, from within. Therefore, “the iron trees are in full bloom”; and “in the midst of pouring rain I am not wet”. The soul is thus made whole, perfect, and filled with bliss.

73

Zen deals with facts and not with their logical, verbal, prejudiced, and lame representations. Direct simplicity is the soul of Zen; hence its vitality, freedom, and originality. Christianity speaks much of simplicity of heart, and so do other religions, but this does not always mean to be simple-hearted or to be a Simple Simon. In Zen it means not to get entangled in intellectual subtleties, not to be carried away by philosophical reasoning that is so often ingenuous and full of sophistry. It means, again, to recognize facts as facts and to know that words are words and nothing else. Zen often compares the mind to a mirror free from stains. To be simple, therefore, according to Zen, will be to keep this mirror always bright and pure and ready to reflect simply and absolutely whatever comes before it. The result will be to acknowledge a spade to be a spade and at the same time not to be a spade. To recognize the first only is a common-sense view, and there is no Zen until the second is also admitted along with the first. The common-sense view is flat and tame, whereas that of Zen is always original and stimulating. Each time Zen is asserted things get vitalized; there is an act of creation.

74

Zen thinks we are too much of slaves to words and logic. So long as we remain thus fettered we are miserable and go through untold suffering. But if we want to see something really worth knowing, that is conducive to our spiritual happiness, we must endeavour once for all to free ourselves from all conditions; we must see if we cannot gain a new point of view from which the world can be surveyed in its wholeness and life comprehended inwardly. This consideration has compelled one to plunge oneself deep into the abyss of the “Nameless” and take hold directly of the spirit as it is engaged in the business of creating the world. Here is no logic, no philosophizing; here is no twisting of facts to suit our artificial measures; here is no murdering of human nature in order to submit it to intellectual dissections; the one spirit stands face to face with the other spirit like two mirrors facing each other, and there is nothing to intervene between their mutual reflections.

74

In this sense Zen is pre-eminently practical. It has nothing to do with abstractions or with subtleties of dialectics. It seizes the spade lying in front of you, and holding it forth, makes the bold declaration, “I hold a spade, yet I hold it not.” No reference is made to God or to the soul; there is no talk about the infinite or a life after death. This handling of a homely spade, a most ordinary thing to see about us, opens all the secrets we encounter in life. And nothing more is wanted. Why? Because Zen has now cleared up a new approach to the reality of things. When a humble flower in the crannied wall is understood, the whole universe and all things in it and out of it are understood. In Zen the spade is the key to the whole riddle. How fresh and full of life it is—the way Zen grapples with the knottiest questions of philosophy!

75

A noted Christian Father of the early Middle Ages once exclaimed: “O poor Aristotle! Thou who has discovered for the heretics the art of dialectics, the art of building up and destroying, the art of discussing all things and accomplishing nothing!” So much ado about nothing, indeed! See how philosophers of all ages contradict one another after spending all their logical acumen and analytical ingenuity on the so-called problems of science and knowledge. No wonder the same old wise man, wanting to put a stop once for all to all such profitless discussions, has boldly thrown the following bomb right into the midst of those sand-builders: “Certum est quia impossible est”; or, more logically, “Credo quia absurdum est.” I believe because it is irrational; is this not an unqualified confirmation of Zen?

75

An old master brought out his stick before an assemblage of monks and said: “O monks, do you see this? If you see it, what is it you see? Would you say, ‘It is a stick’? If you do you are ordinary people, you have no Zen. But if you say, ‘We do not see any stick,’ then I would say, ‘Here I hold one, and how can you deny the fact?’” There is no trifling in Zen. Until you have a third eye opened to see into the inmost secret of things, you cannot be in the company of the ancient sages. What is this third eye that sees the stick and yet sees it not? Where does one get this illogical apprehension of things?

77

A few more words: the reason why Zen is so vehement in its attack on logic, and why the present work treats first of the illogical aspect of Zen, is that logic has so pervasively entered into life as to make most of us conclude that logic is life and without it life has no significance. The map of life has been so definitely and so thoroughly delineated by logic that what we have to do is simply to follow it, and that we ought not to think of violating the laws of thought, which are final. Such a general view of life has come to be held by most people, though I must say that in point of fact they are constantly violating what they think inviolable. That is to say, they are “holding a spade and yet not holding it”, they are making the sum of two and two sometimes three, sometimes five; only they are not conscious of this fact and imagine that their lives are logically or mathematically regulated. Zen wishes to storm this citadel of topsy-turvydom and to show that we live psychologically or biologically and not logically.

78

In logic there is a trace of effort and pain; logic is self-conscious. So is ethics, which is the application of logic to the facts of life. An ethical man performs acts of service which are praiseworthy, but he is all the time conscious of them, and, moreover, he may often be thinking of some future reward. Hence we should say that his mind is tainted and not at all pure, however objectively or socially good his deeds are. Zen abhors this. Life is an art, and like perfect art it should be self-forgetting; there ought not to be any trace of effort or painful feeling. Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air or as a fish swims in the water. As soon as there are signs of elaboration, a man is doomed, he is no more a free being. You are not living as you ought to live, you are suffering under the tyranny of circumstances; you are feeling a constraint of some sort, and you lose your independence. Zen aims at preserving your vitality, your native freedom, and above all the completeness of your being. In other words, Zen wants to live from within. Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one’s own rules—this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live. Hence its illogical, or rather superlogical, statements.

127

VIII

THE KOAN1

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zazen is the prevailing practical method of spiritual discipline in the East, but when it is used in connection with the koan it assumes a special feature and becomes the monopoly of Zen.

129

Originally in Buddhism, Dhyana was one of its three branches of discipline: Sila (moral precepts), Dhyana (contemplation), and Prajna (wisdom). Good Buddhists are supposed to be morally observant of all the precepts laid down by the Buddha, to be thoroughly versed in the methods for keeping their inordinate passions well under control, and finally to be intellectual2 enough to know all the intricacies of logic in the advancement of Buddhist metaphysics. When a man lacks in any of these qualifications he cannot be said to be a very good follower of Sakyamuni. But as time went on differentiation took place, and some Buddhists came to emphasize one of the three more strongly than the others. Some were moralists more than anything else, others were students of Dhyana, and still others were devoted to the mastery of intellectual subtleties implied in the teachings of Buddhism. Zen followers may be considered practisers of Dhyana, but in Zen Dhyana has ceased to be understood in its primitive sense; for Zen has now its own object in the practice of this particular Indian form of spiritual exercises.

129

According to the Mahayana Sastra quoted in the Dhyana-Paramita Systematically Expounded by Chi-sha Daishi, the founder of the T‘ien-tai sect, Dhyana is practised in order to fulfil the four great vows3 cherished by every pious Buddhist:

Dhyana is the storage of good wisdom,

And the farm of blissful merits;

Like unto water free from impurities,

Dhyana washes all the dust of passion;

Dhyana is the armour wrought of vajra,

Which shields the wearer from the arrows of evil desires;

Though you may not yet have attained to a state of non-doing,

You are already gaining towards Nirvana;

For you will gain the Vajra-samadhi,

You will break in pieces the Hindrances and Restrictions, though mountain-high they are,

You will attain the Six Miraculous Powers,

And you will be able to deliver numberless beings;

When the dust of Annoyance rises so high as to screen the heavenly sun,

Great showers may wash it away,

The wind of Intellectual Enlightenment may remove it,

But it is Dhyana that will destroy it altogether.

184

31. All sentient beings, however infinite, I vow to save. 2. All the passions, however inexhaustible, I vow to cut asunder. 3. All the holy teachings, however innumerable, I vow to learn. 4. All the Buddha-ways, however unsurpassable, I vow to fulfil.

130

Dhyana comes from the root dhi, meaning “to perceive”, “to reflect upon”, “to fix the mind upon”; while dhi etymologi-cally may have some connection with dha, “to hold”, “to keep”, “to maintain”. Dhyana thus means to hold one’s thought collected, not to let thought wander away from its legitimate path; that is, it means to have the mind concentrated on a single subject of thought.

130

Therefore, when Zen or Dhyana is practised, all the outer details are to be so controlled as to bring the mind into the most favourable condition in which it will gradually rise above the turbulence of passions and sensualities. For instance, eating and drinking have to be properly regulated; sleep is not to be too much indulged in;

131

As is evident even from this brief account of Dhyana, zazen as is practised by Zen devotees has not the same object in mind as is the case with Buddhists generally. In Zen, Dhyana or zazen is used as the means of reaching the solution of the koan. Zen does not make Dhyana an end in itself, for apart from the koan exercise, the practising of zazen is a secondary consideration. It is no doubt a necessary accompaniment to the mastery of Zen; even when the koan is understood, its deep spiritual truth will not be driven home to the mind of the Zen student if he is not thoroughly trained in zazen. Koan and zazen are the two handmaids of Zen; the first is the eye and the second is the foot.

133

Ko-an literally means “a public document” or “authoritative statute”—a term coming into vogue toward the end of the T‘ang dynasty. It now denotes some anecdote of an ancient master, or a dialogue between a master and monks, or a statement or question put forward by a teacher, all of which are used as the means for opening one’s mind to the truth of Zen. In the beginning, of course, there was no koan as we understand it now; it is a kind of artificial instrument devised out of the fullness of heart by later Zen masters, who by this means would force the evolution of Zen consciousness in the minds of their less endowed disciples.

135

Here then is one of the first koans given to latter-day students. When the Sixth Patriarch was asked by the monk Myo (Ming) what Zen was, he said: “When your mind is not dwelling on the dualism of good and evil, what is your original face before you were born?” (Show me this “face” and you get into the mystery of Zen. Who are you before Abraham was born? When you have had a personal, intimate interview with this personage, you will better know who you are and who God is. The monk is here told to shake hands with this original man, or, if metaphysically put, with his own inner self.)

When this question was put to the monk Myo, he was already mentally ready to see into the truth of it. The questioning is merely on the surface, it is really an affirmation meant to open the mind of the listener. The Patriarch noticed that Myo’s mind was on the verge of unfolding itself to the truth of Zen. The monk had been groping in the dark long and earnestly; his mind had become mature, so mature indeed that it was like a ripe fruit which required only a slight shaking to cause it to drop on the ground; his mind required only a final touch by the hand of the master. The demand for “the original face” was the last finish necessary, and Myo’s mind instantly opened and grasped the truth. But when this statement in the form of a question about “the original face” is given to a novice, who has had no previous discipline in Zen as Myo had, it is usually given with the intention to awaken the student’s mind to the fact that what he has so far accepted as a commonplace fact, or as a logical impossibility, is not necessarily so, and that his former way of looking at things was not always correct or helpful to his spiritual welfare. After this is realized, the student might dwell on the statement itself and endeavour to get at its truth if it has any. To force the student to assume this inquiring attitude is the aim of the koan. The student must then go on with his inquiring attitude until he comes to the edge of a mental precipice, as it were, where there are no other alternatives but to leap over. This giving up of his last hold on life will bring the student to a full view of “his original face”, as desired by the statement of the Sixth Patriarch. Thus it can be seen that the koan is not handled now in precisely the same way that it was in those earlier days. As first proposed, it was the culmination, so to speak, of all that had been working in the mind of the monk Myo, whose elaboration herein received its final finish; instead of coming at the beginning of the Zen exercise, as it does now, the Sixth Patriarch’s question came at the end of the race. But in modern days the koan is used as a starter; it gives an initial movement to the racing for Zen experience. More or less mechanical in the beginning, the movement acquires the tone needed for the maturing of Zen consciousness; the koan works as a leaven. When the sufficient conditions obtain, the mind unfolds itself into the full bloom of a satori. To use a koan thus instrumentally for the opening of the mind to its own secrets is characteristic of modern Zen.

137

Hakuin used to produce one of his hands and demand of his disciples to hear the sound of it. Ordinarily a sound is heard only when two hands are clapped, and in that sense no possible sound can come from one hand alone. Hakuin wants, however, to strike at the root of our everyday experience, which is constructed on a so-called scientific or logical basis. This fundamental overthrowing is necessary in order to build up a new order of things on the basis of Zen experience. Hence this apparently most unnatural and therefore illogical demand macic by Hakuin on his pupils. The former koan was about “the face”, something to look at, while the latter is about “the sound”, something that appeals to the sense of hearing; but the ultimate purport of both is the same; both are meant to open up the secret chamber of the mind, where the devotees can find numberless treasures stored. The sense of seeing or hearing has nothing to do with the essential meaning of the koan; as the Zen masters say, the koan is only a piece of brick used to knock at the gate, an index-finger pointing at the moon. It is only intended to synthesize or transcend—whichever expression you may choose—the dualism of the senses. So long as the mind is not free to perceive a sound produced by one hand, it is limited and is divided against itself. Instead of grasping the key to the secrets of creation, the mind is hopelessly buried in the relativity of things, and, therefore, in their superficiality. Until the mind is free from the fetters, the time never comes for it to view the whole world with any amount of satisfaction. The sound of one hand as a matter of fact reaches the highest heaven as well as the lowest hell, just as one’s original face looks over the entire field of creation even to the end of time. Hakuin and the Sixth Patriarch stand on the same platform with their hands mutually joined.

138

To mention another instance. When Joshu was asked about the significance of Bodhidharma’s coming east (which, proverbially, is the same as asking about the fundamental principle of Buddhism), he replied, “The cypress-tree in the courtyard.”

“You are talking,” said the monk, “of an objective symbol.”

“No, I am not talking of an objective symbol.”

“Then,” asked the monk again, “what is the ultimate principle of Buddhism?”

“The cypress tree in the courtyard,” again replied Joshu.

This is also given to a beginner as a koan.

Abstractly speaking, these koans cannot be said to be altogether nonsensical even from a common-sense point of view, and if we want to reason about them there is perhaps room enough to do so. For instance, some may regard Hakuin’s one hand as symbolizing the universe or the unconditioned, and Joshu’s cypress-tree as a concrete manifestation of the highest principle, through which the pantheistic tendency of Buddhism may be recognized. But to understand the koan thus intellectually is not Zen, nor is such metaphysical symbolism at all present here. Under no circumstances ought Zen to be confounded with philosophy; Zen has its own reason for standing for itself, and this fact must never be lost sight of; otherwise, the entire structure of Zen falls to pieces. The “cypress-tree” is forever a cypress-tree and has nothing to do with pantheism or any other “ism”. Joshu was not a philosopher even in its broadest and most popular sense; he was a Zen master through and through, and all that comes forth from his lips is an utterance directly ensuing from his spiritual experience. Therefore, apart from this much of “subjectivism”, though really there are no such dualities in Zen as subject and object, thought and the world, the “cypress-tree” utterly loses its significance. If it is an intellectual or conceptual statement, we may endeavour to understand its meaning through the ratiocinative chain of ideas as contained in it, and we may come to imagine that we have finally solved the difficulty; but Zen masters will assure you that even then Zen is yet three thousand miles away from you, and the spirit of Joshu will be heard laughing at you from behind the screen, which after all you had failed to remove. The koan is intended to be nourished in those recesses of the mind where no logical analysis can ever reach. When the mind matures so that it becomes attuned to a similar frame to that of Joshu, the meaning of the “cypress-tree” will reveal itself; and without further questioning you will be convinced that you now know it all.

140

A disciple of Joshu called Kaku-tetsu-shi (Chueh T‘ieh-tzu) was asked after the death of his master whether he had really made the statement about the cypress-tree in response to the question, “What is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?” The disciple unhesitatingly declared, “My master never made that statement.” This was a direct contradiction of the fact; for everybody then knew that Joshu had made it, and the one who asked Kaku-tetsu-shi about it was himself not ignorant of it. His questioning was to see what insight this disciple of Joshu had into the meaning of the story of the cypress-tree. Therefore, the questioner further pursued Tetsu by saying, “But this is asserted by everybody, and how can you deny it?” Tetsu insisted, “My master never said it; and you will do well if you do not thus disparage him.” What an audacious statement! But those that know Zen know that this flat denial is the irrevocable proof that Tetsu thoroughly understood the spirit of his master. His Zen was beyond question. But from our common-sense point of view no amount of intellectual resourcefulness can be brought upon his flat denial so that it can somehow be reconciled with the plain fact itself. Zen is, therefore, quite merciless toward those critics who take the story of the cypress-tree for an expression savouring of Mahayana pantheism.

140

The koans, therefore, as we have seen, are generally such as to shut up all possible avenues to rationalization. After a few presentations of your views in the interview with the master, which is technically called san-zen, you are sure to come to the end of your resources, and this coming to a cul-de-sac is really the true starting point in the study of Zen. No one can enter into Zen without this experience. When this point is reached the koans may be regarded as having accomplished a half of the object for which they stand.

141

To speak conventionally—and I think it is easier for the general reader to see Zen thus presented—there are unknown recesses in our minds which lie beyond the threshold of the relatively constructed consciousness. To designate them as “sub-consciousness” or “supra-consciousness” is not correct. The word “beyond” is used simply because it is a most convenient term to indicate their whereabouts. But as a matter of fact there is no “beyond”, no “underneath”, no “upon” in our consciousness. The mind is one indivisible whole and cannot be torn in pieces. The so-called terra incognita is the concession of Zen to our ordinary way of talking, because whatever field of consciousness that is known to us is generally filled with conceptual riffraff, and to get rid of them, which is absolutely necessary for maturing Zen experience, the Zen psychologist sometimes points to the presence of some inaccessible region in our minds. Though in actuality there is no such region apart from our everyday consciousness, we talk of it as generally more easily comprehensible by us. When the koan breaks down all the hindrances to the ultimate truth, we all realize that there are, after all, no such things as “hidden recesses of mind” or even the truth of Zen appearing all the time so mysterious.

142

The koan is neither a riddle nor a witty remark. It has a most definite objective, the arousing of doubt and pushing it to its furthest limits. A statement built upon a logical basis is approachable through its rationality; whatever doubt or difficulty we may have had about it dissolves itself by pursuing the natural current of ideas. All rivers are sure to pour into the ocean; but the koan is an iron wall standing in the way and threatening to overcome one’s every intellectual effort to pass. When Joshu says “the cypress-tree in the courtyard”, or when Hakuin puts out his one hand, there is no logical way to get around it. You feel as if your march of thought had been suddenly cut short. You hesitate, you doubt, you are troubled and agitated, not knowing how to break through the wall which seems altogether impassable. When this climax is reached, your whole personality, your inmost will, your deepest nature, determined to bring the situation to an issue, throws itself with no thought of self or no-self, of this or that, directly and unreservedly against the iron wall of the koan. This throwing your entire being against the koan unexpectedly opens up a hitherto unknown region of the mind. Intellectually, this is the transcending of the limits of logical dualism, but at the same time it is a regeneration, the awakening of an inner sense which enables one to look into the actual working of things. For the first time the meaning of the koan becomes clear, and in the same way that one knows that ice is cold and freezing. The eye sees, the ear hears, to be sure, but it is the mind as a whole that has satori; it is an act of perception, no doubt, but it is a perception of the highest order. Here lies the value of the Zen discipline, as it gives birth to the unshakable conviction that there is something indeed going beyond mere intellection.

143

The wall of koan once broken through and the intellectual obstructions well cleared off, you come back, so to speak, to your everyday relatively constructed consciousness. The one hand does not give out a sound until it is clapped by the other. The cypress-tree stands straight before the window; all human beings have the nose vertically set and the eyes horizontally arranged. Zen is now the most ordinary thing in the world. A field that we formerly supposed to lie far beyond is now found to be the very field in which we walk, day in, day out. When we come out of satori we see the familiar world with all its multitudinous objects and ideas together with their logicalness, and pronounce them “good”.

148

Now let me ask, why all this—shall we say—much ado about nothing? If modern Zen is a system, what kind of a system is it? It seems chaotic, and how conflicting are the masters’ views! Yet from the Zen point of view there is one current running through all these confusions, and each master is supporting the others in a most emphatic manner. An apparent contradiction in no way hinders the real endorsement. In thus mutually complementing each other, not indeed logically but in a fashion characteristically Zen, we find the life and truth of the koan. A dead statement cannot be so productive of results. Hakuin’s “one hand”, Joshu’s “cypress-tree”, or the Sixth Patriarch’s “original face”,6 are all alive to the very core. Once touch the heart of it and the whole universe will rise from its grave where we have buried it with our logic and analysis.

150

Those who regard Zen as speculation and abstraction will never obtain the depths of it, which can be sounded only through the highest will-power. There may be hundreds of koans, or there may be an infinite number of them as there are infinite numbers of objects filling up the universe, but it does not necessarily concern us. Only let one gain an all-viewing and entirely satisfying insight into the living actuality of things and the koans will take care of themselves.

151

This is where lurks the danger of the koan system. One is apt to consider it as everything in the study of Zen, forgetting the true object of Zen, which is the unfolding of a man’s inner life. There are many who have fallen into this pitfall and the inevitable result has been the corruption and decay of Zen. Daiye (Ta-hui) was quite apprehensive of this when he burned up the book on one hundred koans which was compiled by his master Yengo (Yuan-wu). These one hundred koans were selected from Zen literature by Seccho (Hsueh-ton), who commented on them with verses, one to each. Daiye was a true follower of Zen. He knew well the object which his master had in view when he made remarks upon these selections; he knew very well also that they would subsequently prove a self-murdering weapon against Zen; so he committed them all to the flames.

8

FOREWORD

by Dr. C. G. Jung

12

When one examines the Zen text attentively, one cannot escape the impression that, with all that is bizarre in it, satori is, in fact, a matter of natural occurrence, of something so very simple9 that one fails to see the wood for the trees, and in attempting to explain it, invariably says the very thing that drives others into the greatest confusion. Nukariya10 therefore is right when he says that any attempt to explain or analyse the contents of Zen with regard to enlightenment would be in vain. Nevertheless, this author does venture to say of enlightenment that it embraces an insight into the nature of self, and that it is an emancipation of the conscious from an illusionary conception of self.11 The illusion regarding the nature of self is the common confusion of the ego with self. Nukariya understands by “self” the All-Buddha, i.e. simply a total consciousness (Be-wusstseinstotalität) of life. He quotes Pan Shan, who says, “The world of the mind encloses the whole universe in its light,” adding, “It is a cosmic life and a cosmic spirit, and at the same time an individual life and an individual spirit.”12

173

10Religion of the Samurai, p. 123.

11“Enlightenment includes an insight into the nature of self. It is a liberation of the mind from deception regarding self?”

12L.c. p. 132.

12

However one may define self, it is always something other than the ego, and inasmuch as a higher understanding of the ego leads on to self the latter is a thing of wider scope, embracing the knowledge of the ego and therefore surpassing it. In the same way as the ego is a certain knowledge of my self, so is the self a knowledge of my ego, which, however, is no longer experienced in the form of a broader or higher ego, but in the form of a non-ego (Nicht-Ich).

14

Here the master is actually describing a satori experience, a release of the ego through self, to which “Buddha-Nature”, or godly universality, is added. Since, out of scientific modesty, I do not here presume to make any metaphysical declaration, but mean a change of consciousness that can be experienced, I treat satori first of all as a psychological problem. For anyone who does not share or understand this point of view, the “explanation” will consist of nothing but words which have no tangible meaning for him. He is not then able to make of these abstractions a bridge to the facts related; in other words, he cannot understand how the perfume of the blossoming laurel (pp. 60-1) or the tweaked nose (p. 57)should affect such a considerable change of consciousness. The simplest thing would be, of course, to relegate all these anecdotes to the realm of amusing fairy stories, or at least, if one accepts the facts as they are, to dispose of them as instances of self-deception. (One would also willingly use here the expression “auto-suggestion”, that pathetic white elephant from the store of spiritual inadequacies!) A serious and responsible examination of the strange phenomena cannot lightly pass over these facts. We can of course never decide definitely whether a person is really “enlightened” or “redeemed”, or whether he merely imagines it. We have no criteria for this. Moreover, we know well enough that an imaginary pain is often far more painful than a so-called real one, in that it is accompanied by a subtle moral suffering caused by the gloomy feeling of secret self-accusation. It is not, therefore, a question of “actual fact” but of spiritual reality; that is to say, the psychic occurrence of the happening known as satori.

111

VII

SATORI, OR ACQUIRING A NEW VIEWPOINT1

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If you have been in the habit of thinking logically according to the rules of dualism, rid yourself of it and you may come around somewhat to the viewpoint of Zen. You and I are supposedly living in the same world, but who can tell that the thing we popularly call a stone that is lying before my window is the same to both of us? You and I sip a cup of tea. That act is apparently alike to us both, but who can tell what a wide gap there is subjectively between your drinking and my drinking? In your drinking there may be no Zen, while mine is brim-full of it. The reason for it is: you move in a logical circle and I am out of it.

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This acquiring of a new viewpoint in Zen is called satori (wu in C.) and its verb form is satori. Without it there is no Zen, for the life of Zen begins with the “opening of satori”. Satori may be defined as intuitive looking-into, in contradistinction to intellectual and logical understanding. Whatever the definition, satori means the unfolding of a new world hitherto un-perceived in the confusion of a dualistic mind.

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Under Daiye (Ta-hui),2 the great Zen master of the Sung dynasty, there was a monk named Doken (Tao-ch’ien), who bad spent many years in the study of Zen, but who had not as yet uncovered its secrets, if there were any. He was quite discouraged when he was sent on an errand to a distant city. A trip requiring half a year to finish would be a hindrance rather than a help to his study. Sogen (Tsung-yuan), one of his fellow students, was most sympathetic and said, “I will accompany you on this trip and do all I can for you; there is no reason why you cannot go on with your meditation even while travelling.” One evening Doken despairingly implored his friend to assist him in the solution of the mystery of life. The friend said, “I am willing to help you in every way I can, but there are some things in which I cannot be of any help to you; these you must look after for yourself.” Doken expressed the desire to know what these things were. Said his friend: “For instance, when you are hungry or thirsty, my eating of food or drinking will not fill your stomach; you must eat and drink for yourself. When you want to respond to the calls of nature you must take care of yourself, for I cannot be of any use to you. And then it will be nobody else but yourself that will carry your body along this highway.” This friendly counsel at once opened the mind of the truth-seeking monk, who was so transported with his discovery that he did not know how to express his joy. Sogen said that his work was now done and that his further companionship would have no meaning after this; so he left Doken to continue his journey all by himself. After a half year Doken returned to his own monastery. Daiye, on his way down the mountains, happened to meet Doken and at once made the following remark, “This time he knows it all.” What was it, let me ask, that flashed through Doken’s mind when his Mend Sogen gave him such matter-of-fact advice?

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2 Prajna is the highest power of intuition which sounds the depths of our soul-life, and is naturally much more than merely intellectual. For further information read a chapter on the Prajnaparamita in my Essays in Zen Buddhism,

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Kyogen (Hsiang-yen) was a disciple of Hyakujo (Pai-chang). After his master’s death Kyogen went to Yisan (Kuei-shan), who had been a senior disciple of Hyakujo. Yisan asked him: “I am told that you have been studying under my late master, and also that you have remarkable intelligence. The understanding of Zen through this medium necessarily ends in intellectual analytical comprehension, which is not of much use; but nevertheless you may have had an insight into the truth of Zen. Let me have your view as to the reason of birth and death; that is, as to your own being before your parents had given birth to you.”

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Thus asked, Kyogen did not know how to reply. He retired into his own room and assiduously made research into the notes which he had taken of the sermons given by their late master. He failed to come across a suitable passage which he might present as his own view. He returned to Yisan and implored him to teach him in the faith of Zen, but Yisan replied: “I really have nothing to impart to you, and if I tried to do so you might have occasion to make me an object of ridicule. Besides, whatever I can tell you is my own and can never be yours.” Kyogen was disappointed and considered him unkind. Finally he came to the decision to burn up all his notes and memoranda, which seemed to be of no help to his spiritual welfare, and, retiring altogether from the world, to spend the rest of his life in solitude and the simple life in accordance with Buddhist rules. He reasoned: “What is the use of studying Buddhism, which is so difficult to comprehend and which is too subtle to receive as instruction from another? I will be a plain homeless monk, troubled with no desire to master things too deep for thought.” He left Yisan and built a hut near the tomb of Chu, the National Master at Nan-yang. One day he was weeding and sweeping the ground when a pebble which he had swept away struck a bamboo; the unexpected sound produced by the percussion elevated his mind to a state of satori. His joy was boundless. The question proposed by Yisan became transparent; he felt as if meeting his lost parents. Besides, he came to realize the kindness of Yisan in refusing him instruction, for now he realized that this experience could not have happened to him if Yisan had been unkind enough to explain things to him.

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Cannot Zen be so explained that a master can lead all his pupils to enlightenment through explanation? Is satori something that is not at all capable of intellectual analysis? Yes, it is an experience which no amount of explanation or argument can make communicable to others unless the latter themselves had it previously. If satori is amenable to analysis in the sense that by so doing it becomes perfectly clear to another who has never had it, that satori will be no satori. For a satori turned into a concept ceases to be itself; and there will no more be a Zen experience. Therefore, all that we can do in Zen in the way of instruction is to indicate, or to suggest, or to show the way so that one’s attention may be directed towards the goal. As to attaining the goal and taking hold of the thing itself, this must be done by one’s own hands, for nobody else can do it for one.

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As regards the indication, it lies everywhere. When a man’s mind is matured for satori it tumbles over one everywhere. An inarticulate sound, an unintelligent remark, a blooming flower, or a trivial incident such as stumbling, is the condition or occasion that will open his mind to satori. Apparently, an insignificant event produces an effect which in importance is altogether out of proportion. The light touch of an igniting wire, and an explosion follows which will shake the very foundation of the earth. All the causes, all the conditions of satori are in the mind; they are merely waiting for the maturing. When the mind is ready for some reasons or others, a bird flies, or a bell rings, and you at once return to your original home; that is, you discover your now real self. From the very beginning nothing has been kept from you, all that you wished to see has been there all the time before you, it was only yourself that closed the eye to the fact. Therefore, there is in Zen nothing to explain, nothing to teach, that will add to your knowledge. Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only a borrowed plumage.

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Your examples and statements are tentative enough, but we simply know how the wind blows; where is the port the boat finally makes for?” To this the Zen devotee may answer: As far as content goes, there is none in either satori or Zen that can be described or presented or demonstrated for your intellectual appreciation. For Zen has no business with ideas, and satori is a sort of inner perception—not the perception, indeed, of a single individual object but the perception of Reality itself, so to speak. The ultimate destination of satori is towards the Self; it has no other end but to be back within oneself. Therefore, said Joshu, “Have a cup of tea.” Therefore, said Nansen, “This is such a good sickle, it cuts so well.” This is the way the Self functions, and it must be caught, if at all catchable, in the midst of its functioning.

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Before satori, how helpless those monks were! They were like travellers lost in the desert. But after satori they behave like absolute mon-archs; they are no longer slaves to anybody, they are themselves master.

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People often imagine that the discipline of Zen is to produce a state of self-suggestion through meditation. This entirely misses the mark, as can be seen from the various instances cited above. Satori does not consist in producing a certain premeditated condition by intensely thinking of it. It is acquiring a new point of view for looking at things. Ever since the unfoldment of consciousness we have been led to respond to the inner and outer conditions in a certain conceptual and analytical manner. The discipline of Zen consists in upsetting this groundwork once for all and reconstructing the old frame on an entirely new basis. It is evident, therefore, that meditating on metaphysical and symbolical statements, which are products of a relative consciousness, play no part in Zen.

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Without the attainment of satori no one can enter into the truth of Zen. Satori is the sudden flashing into consciousness of a new truth hitherto undreamed of. It is a sort of mental catastrophe taking place all at once, after much piling up of matters intellectual and demonstrative. The piling has reached a limit of stability and the whole edifice has come tumbling to the ground, when, behold, a new heaven is open to full survey. When the freezing point is reached, water suddenly turns into ice; the liquid has suddenly turned into a solid body and no more flows freely. Satori comes upon a man unawares, when he feels that he has exhausted his whole being. Religiously, it is a new birth; intellectually, it is the acquiring of a new viewpoint. The world now appears as if dressed in a new garment, which seems to cover up all the unsightliness of dualism, which is called delusion in Buddhist phraseology.

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Satori is the raison d’être of Zen without which Zen is no Zen. Therefore every contrivance, disciplinary or doctrinal, is directed toward satori. Zen masters could not remain patient for satori to come by itself; that is, to come sporadically or at its own pleasure. In their earnestness to aid their disciples in the search after the truth of Zen their manifestly enigmatical presentations were designed to create in their disciples a state of mind which would more systematically open the way to enlightenment. All the intellectual demonstrations and exhortatory persuasions so far carried out by most religious and philosophical leaders had failed to produce the desired effect, and their disciples thereby had been farther and farther led astray. Especially was this the case when Buddhism was first introduced into China, with all its Indian heritage of highly metaphysical abstractions and most complicated systems of Yoga discipline, which left the more practical Chinese at a loss as to how to grasp the central point of the doctrine of Sakyamuni. Bodhidharma, the Sixth Patriarch, Baso, and other Chinese masters noticed this fact, and the proclamation and development of Zen was the natural outcome. By them satori was placed above sutra-learning and scholarly discussions of the sastras and was identified with Zen itself. Zen, therefore, without satori is like pepper without its pungency. But there is also such a thing as too much attachment to the experience of satori, which is to be detested.

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This emphasizing of satori in Zen makes the fact quite significant that Zen is not a system of Dhyana as practised in India and by other Buddhist schools in China. By Dhyana is generally understood a kind of meditation or contemplation directed toward some fixed thought; in Hinayana Buddhism it was the thought of transiency, while in the Mahayana it was more often the doctrine of emptiness. When the mind has been so trained as to be able to realize a state of perfect void in which there is not a trace of consciousness left, even the sense of being unconscious having departed; in other words, when all forms of mental activity are swept away clean from the field of consciousness, leaving the mind like the sky devoid of every speck of cloud, a mere broad expanse of blue, Dhyana is said to have reached its perfection. This may be called ecstasy or trance, but it is not Zen. In Zen there must be satori; there must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellection and lays down the foundation for a new life; there must be the awakening of a new sense which will review the old things from a hitherto undreamed-of angle of observation. In Dhyana there are none of these things, for it is merely a quieting exercise of mind. As such Dhyana doubtless has its own merit, but Zen must not be identified with it.

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5.Satori is not seeing God as he is, as might be contended by some Christian mystics. Zen has from the beginning made clear and insisted upon the main thesis, which is to see into the work of creation; the creator may be found busy moulding his universe, or he may be absent from his workshop, but Zen goes on with its own work. It is not dependent upon the support of a creator; when it grasps the reason for living a life, it is satisfied. Hoyen (Fa-yen, died 1104) of Go-so-san used to produce his own hand and ask his disciples why it was called a hand. When we know the reason, there is satori and we have Zen. Whereas with the God of mysticism there is the grasping of a definite object; when you have God, what is no-God is excluded. This is self-limiting. Zen wants absolute freedom, even from God. “No abiding place” means that very thing; “Cleanse your mouth when you utter the word Buddha” amounts to the same thing. It is not that Zen wants to be morbidly unholy and godless, but that it recognizes the incompleteness of a mere name. Therefore, when Yakusan (Yueh-shan, 751-834) was asked to give a lecture, he did not say a word, but instead came down from the pulpit and went off to his own room. Hyakujo merely walked forward a few steps, stood still, and then opened out his arms, which was his exposition of the great principle.

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Satori is not a morbid state of mind, a fit subject for the study of abnormal psychology. If anything, it is a perfectly normal state of mind. When I speak of a mental upheaval, some may be led to consider Zen as something to be shunned by ordinary people. This is a most mistaken view of Zen, but one unfortunately often held by prejudiced critics. As Joshu declared, “Zen is your everyday thought”; it all depends on the adjustment of the hinge whether the door opens in or opens out. Even in the twinkling of an eye the whole affair is changed and you have Zen, and you are as perfect and as normal as ever. More than that, you have acquired in the meantime something altogether new. All your mental activities will now be working to a different key, which will be more satisfying, more peaceful, and fuller of joy than anything you ever experienced before. The tone of life will be altered. There is something rejuvenating in the possession of Zen. The spring flowers look prettier, and the mountain stream runs cooler and more transparent. The subjective revolution that brings about this state of things cannot be called abnonnal. When life becomes more enjoyable and its expanse broadens to include the universe itself, there must be something in satori that is quite precious and well worth one’s striving after.

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When Tokusan (Te-shan) gained an insight into the truth of Zen he immediately took out all his commentaries on the Diamond Sutra, once so valued and considered indispensable that he had to carry them wherever he went, and set fire to them, reducing all the manuscripts to ashes. He exclaimed, “However deep one’s knowledge of abstruse philosophy, it is like a piece of hair flying in the vastness of space; however important one’s experience in things worldly, it is like a drop of water thrown into an unfathomable abyss.”

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VI

PRACTICAL ZEN

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Zen abhors media, even the intellectual medium; it is primarily and ultimately a discipline and an experience, which is dependent on no explanation; for an explanation wastes time and energy and is never to the point; all that you get out of it is a misunderstanding and a twisted view of the thing. When Zen wants you to taste the sweetness of sugar, it will put the required article right into your mouth and no further words are said. The followers of Zen would say, A finger is needed to point at the moon, but what a calamity it would be if one took the finger for the moon! This seems improbable, but how many times we are committing this form of error we do not know. Ignorance alone often saves us from being disturbed in our self-complacency. The business of a writer on Zen, however, cannot go beyond the pointing at the moon, as this is the only means permitted to him in the circumstances; and everything that is within his power will be done to make the subject in hand as thoroughly comprehensible as it is capable of being so made. When Zen is metaphysically treated, the reader may get somewhat discouraged about its being at all intelligible, since most people are not generally addicted to speculation or introspection. Let me approach it from quite a different point, which is perhaps more genuinely Zen-like.

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When Joshu (Chao-chou) was asked what the Tao (or the truth of Zen) was, he answered, “Your everyday life, that is the Tao.” In other words, a quiet, self-confident, and trustful existence of your own—this is the truth of Zen, and what I mean when I say that Zen is pre-eminently practical. It appeals directly to life, not even making reference to a soul or to God, or to anything that interferes with or disturbs the ordinary course of living. The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighbouring woods:—in all these I am practising Zen, I am living Zen. No wordy discussion is necessary, nor any explanation. I do not know why—and there is no need of explaining, but when the sun rises the whole world dances with joy and everybody’s heart is filled with bliss. If Zen is at all conceivable, it must be taken hold of here.

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Therefore, when Bodhidharma (Daruma in J.; Ta-mo in C.) was asked who he was, he said, “I do not know.” This was not because he could not explain himself, nor was it because he wanted to avoid any verbal controversy, but just because he did not know what or who he was, save that he was what he was and could not be anything else. The reason was simple enough. When Nangaku (Nan-yueh, 677-744) was approaching the Sixth Patriarch, and was questioned, “What is it that thus walks toward me?” he did not know what to answer. For eight long years he pondered the question, when one day it dawned upon him, and he exclaimed, “Even to say it is something does not hit the mark.” This is the same as saying, “I do not know.”

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Sekito once asked his disciple, Yakusan (Yueh-shan), “What are you doing here?” “I am not doing anything,” answered the latter. “If so you are idling your time away.” “Is not idling away the time doing something?” was Yakusan’s response. Sekito still pursued him. “You say you are not doing anything; who then is this one who is doing nothing?” Yakusan’s reply was the same as that of Bodhidharma, “Even the wisest know it not.” There is no agnosticism in it, nor mysticism either, if this is understood in the sense of mystification. A plain fact is stated here in plain language. If it does not seem so to the reader, it is because he has not attained to this state of mind which enabled Bodhidharma or Sekito to make the statement.

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The Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty requested Fu Daishi (Fu-ta-shih, 497-569) to discourse on a Buddhist sutra. The Daishi taking the chair sat solemnly in it but uttered not a word. The Emperor said, “I asked you to give a discourse, and why do you not begin to speak?” Shih, one of the Emperor’s attendants, said, “The Daishi has finished discoursing.” What kind of a sermon did this silent Buddhist philosopher deliver? Later on, a Zen master commenting on the above says, “What an eloquent sermon it was!” Vimalakirti, the hero of the sutra bearing his name, had the same way of answering the question, “What is the absolute doctrine of non-duality?” Someone remarked, “Thundering, indeed, is this silence of Vimalakirti.” Was this keeping the mouth closed really so deafening? If so, I hold my tongue now, and the whole universe, with all its hullabaloo and hurlyburly, is at once absorbed in this absolute silence. But mimicry does not turn a frog into a green leaf. Where there is no creative originality there is no Zen. I must say: “Too late, too late! The arrow has gone off the string.”

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A monk asked Yeno (Hui-neng), the Sixth Patriarch, “Who has inherited the spirit of the Fifth Patriarch (Hung-jen)?”

Answered Yeno, “One who understands Buddhism.”

“Have you then inherited it?”

“No,” replied Yeno, “I have not.”

“Why have you not?” was naturally the next question of the monk.

“Because I do not understand Buddhism,” Yeno reasoned.

How hard, then, and yet how easy it is to understand the truth of Zen! Hard because to understand it is not to understand it; easy because not to understand it is to understand it. A master declares that even Buddha Sakyamuni and Bodhisattva Maitreya do not understand it, where simple-minded knaves do understand it.

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We can now see why Zen shuns abstractions, representations, and figures of speech. No real value is attached to such words as God, Buddha, the soul, the Infinite, the One, and suchlike words. They are, after all, only words and ideas, and as such are not conducive to the real understanding of Zen. On the contrary, they often falsify and play at cross purposes. We are thus compelled always to be on our guard. Said a Zen master, “Cleanse the mouth thoroughly when you utter the word Buddha.” Or, “There is one word I do not like to hear; that is, Buddha.” Or, “Pass quickly on where there is no Buddha, nor stay where he is.” Why are the followers of Zen so antagonistic toward Buddha? Is not Buddha their Lord? Is he not the highest reality of Buddhism? He cannot be such a hateful or unclean thing as to be avoided by Zen adherents. What they do not like is not the Buddha himself, but the odium attached to the word.

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The answers given by Zen masters to the question “Who or what is the Buddha?” are full of varieties; and why so? One reason at least is that they thus desire to free our minds from all possible entanglements and attachments such as words, ideas, desires, etc., which are put up against us from the outside. Some of the answers are, then, as follows: “One made of clay and decorated with gold.”

“Even the finest artist cannot paint him.”

“The one enshrined in the Buddha Hall.”

“He is no Buddha.”

“Your name is Yecho.”

“The dirt-scraper all dried up.”

“See the eastern mountains moving over the waves.”

“No nonsense here.”

“Surrounded by the mountains are we here.”

“The bamboo grove at the foot of Chang-lin hill.”

“Three pounds of flax.”

“The mouth is the gate of woe.”

“Lo, the waves are rolling over the plateau.”

“See the three-legged donkey go trotting along.”

“A reed has grown piercing through the leg.”

“Here goes a man with the chest exposed and the legs all naked.”

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These are culled at random from a few books I am using for the purpose. When a thorough systematic search is made in the entire body of Zen literature we get quite a collection of the most strange statements ever made concerning such a simple question as, “Who is the Buddha?” Some of the answers given above are altogether irrelevant; they are, indeed, far from being appropriate so far as we judge them from our ordinary standard of reasoning. The others seem to be making sport of the question or of the questioner himself. Can the Zen masters who make such remarks be considered to be in earnest and really desiring the enlightenment of their followers? But the point is to have our minds work in complete union with the state of mind in which the masters uttered these strange words. When this is done, every one of these answers appears in an altogether new light and becomes wonderfully transparent.

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Being practical and directly to the point, Zen never wastes time or words in explanation. Its answers are always curt and pithy; there is nothing circumlocutory in Zen; the master’s words come out spontaneously and without a moment’s delay. A gong is struck and its vibrations instantly follow. If we are not on the alert we fail to catch them; a mere winking and we miss the mark forever. They justly compare Zen to lightning. The rapidity, however, does not constitute Zen; its naturalness, its freedom from artificialities, its being expressive of life itself, its originality—these are the essential characteristics of Zen. Therefore, we have always to be on guard not to be carried away by outward signs when we really desire to get into the core of Zen. How difficult and how misleading it would be to try and understand Zen literally and logically, depending on those statements which have been given above as answers to the question “What is the Buddha?” Of course, so far as they are given as answers they are pointers by which we may know where to look for the presence of the Buddha; but we must remember that the finger pointing at the moon remains a finger and under no circumstances can it be changed into the moon itself. Danger always lurks where the intellect slyly creeps in and takes the index for the moon itself.

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that is why they make those apparently incoherent statements. Their intention is to set the minds of their disciples or of scholars free from being oppressed by any fixed opinions or prejudices or so-called logical interpretations.

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These words came out of his inmost consciousness as water flows out of a spring, or as a bud bursts forth in the sun. There was no premeditation or philosophy on his part. Therefore, if we want to grasp the meaning of “Three pounds of flax,” we first have to penetrate into the inmost recess of Tozan’s consciousness and not to try to follow up his mouth. At another time he may give an entirely different answer, which might directly contradict the one already given. Logicians will naturally be nonplussed; they may declare him altogether out of mind. But the students of Zen will say, “It is raining so gently, see how fresh and green the grass is,” and they know well that their answer is in full accord with Tozan’s “Three pounds of flax.”

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any philosophy that identifies the visible universe with the highest reality, called God, or Mind, or otherwise, and states that God cannot exist independent of his manifestations. In fact, Zen is something more than this. In Zen there is no place for time-wasting philosophical discussion. But philosophy is also a manifestation of life-activity, and therefore Zen does not necessarily shun it. When a philosopher comes to be enlightened, the Zen master is never loath to meet him on his own ground. The earlier Zen masters were comparatively tolerant toward the so-called philosophers and not so impatient as in the case of Rinzai (Lin-chi, died 867) or Tokusan (Te-shan, 780-865), whose dealings with them were swift and most direct. What follows is taken from a treatise by Daiju1 on some principles of Zen compiled in the eighth (or ninth) century, when Zen had begun to flourish in all its brilliance and with all its uniqueness. A monk asked Daiju: “Q. Are words the Mind?

“A. No, words are external conditions (yen in J.; yuan in C.); they are not the Mind.

“Q. Apart from external conditions, where is the Mind to be sought?

“A. There is no Mind independent of words. [That is to say, the Mind is in words, but is not to be identified with them.]

“Q. If there is no Mind independent of words, what is the Mind?

“A. The Mind is formless and imageless. The truth is, it is neither independent of nor dependent upon words. It is eternally serene and free in its activity. Says the Patriarch, ‘When you realize that the Mind is no Mind, you understand the Mind and its workings.’”

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Daiju further writes: “That which produces all things is called Dharma-nature, or Dharmakaya. By the so-called Dharma is meant the Mind of all beings. When this Mind is stirred up, all things are stirred up. When the Mind is not stirred up, there is nothing stirring and there is no name. The confused do not understand that the Dharmakaya, in itself formless, assumes individual forms according to conditions. The confused take the green bamboo for Dharmakaya itself, the yellow blooming tree for Prajna itself. But if the tree were Prajna, Prajna would be identical with the non-sentient. If the bamboo were Dharmakaya, Dharmakaya would be identical with a plant. But Dharmakaya exists, Prajna exists, even when there is no blooming tree, no green bamboo. Otherwise, when one eats a bamboo-shoot, this would be eating up Dharmakaya itself. Such views as this are really not worth talking about.”

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Life is the basis of all things; apart from it nothing can stand. With all our philosophy, with all our grand and enhancing ideas, we cannot escape life as we live it. Star-gazers are still walking on the solid earth.

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What is Zen, then, when made accessible to everybody? Joshu (Chao-chou) once asked a new monk:

“Have you ever been here before?”

The monk answered, “Yes, sir, I have.”

Thereupon the master said, “Have a cup of tea.”

Later on another monk came and he asked him the same question, “Have you ever been here?”

This time the answer was quite opposite. “I have never been here, sir.”

The old master, however, answered just as before, “Have a cup of tea.”

Afterwards the Inju (the managing monk of the monntery) asked the master, “How is it that you make the same offering of a cup of tea no matter what a monk’s reply is?”

The old master called out, “O Inju!” who at once replied, “Yes, master.” Whereupon Joshu said, “Have a cup of tea.”

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Joshu (778–897) was one of the most astute Zen masters during the T‘ang dynasty, and the development of Zen in China owes much to him. He is said to have travelled even when he was eighty years of age, his object being to perfect himself in the mastery of Zen. He died in his one hundred and twentieth year. Whatever utterances he made were like jewels that sparkled brightly. It was said of him, “His Zen shines upon his lips.” A monk who was still a novice came to him and asked to be instructed in Zen.

Joshu said, “Have you not had your breakfast yet?”

Replied the monk, “Yes, sir, I have had it already.”

“If so, wash your dishes.” This remark by the old master opened the novice’s eye to the truth of Zen.

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One day he was sweeping the ground when a monk asked him, “You are such a wise and holy master; tell me how it is that dust ever accumulates in your yard.”

Said the master, “It comes from the outside.”

Another time he was asked, “Why does this holy place attract dust?” To which his reply was, “There, another particle of dust!”

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There was a famous stone bridge at Joshu’s monastery, which was one of the sights there. A stranger monk inquired of him, “I have for some time heard of your famous stone bridge, but I see no such thing here, only a plank.”

Said Joshu, “You see a plank and don’t see a stone bridge.”

“Where then is the stone bridge?”

“You have just crossed it,” was the prompt reply.

At another time when Joshu was asked about this same stone bridge, his answer was, “Horses pass it, people pass it, everybody passes it.”

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In these dialogues do we only see trivial talks about ordinary things of life and nature? Is there nothing spiritual, conducive to the enlightenment of the religious soul? Is Zen, then, too practical, too commonplace? Is it too abrupt a descent from the height of transcendentalism to everyday things? Well, it all depends on how you look at it. A stick of incense is burning on my desk. Is this a trivial affair? An earthquake shakes the earth and Mt. Fuji topples over. Is this a great event? Yes, so long as the conception of space remains. But are we really living confined within an enclosure called space? Zen would answer at once: “With the burning of an incense-stick the whole triloka burns. Within Joshu’s cup of tea the mermaids are dancing.” So long as one is conscious of space and time, Zen will keep a respectable distance from you; your holiday is ill-spent, your sleep is disturbed, and your whole life is a failure.

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Read the following dialogue between Yisan (Kuei-shan) and Kyozan (Yang-than). At the end of his summer’s sojourn Kyozan paid a visit to Yisan, who said, “I have not seen you this whole summer coming up this way; what have you been doing down there?”

Replied Kyozan, “Down there I have been tilling a piece of ground and finished sowing millet seeds.”

Yisan said, “Then you have not wasted your summer.”

It was now Kyozan’s turn to ask Yisan as to his doings during the past summer, and he asked, “How did you pass your summer?”

“One meal a day and a good sleep at night.”

This brought out Kyozan’s comment, “Then you have not wasted your summer.”

104

A Confucian scholar writes, “They seek the truth too far away from themselves, while it is right near them.” The same thing may be said of Zen. We look for its secrets where they are most unlikely to be found, that is, in verbal abstractions and metaphysical subtleties, whereas the truth of Zen really lies in the concrete things of our daily life. A monk asked the master: “It is some time since I came to you to be instructed in the holy path of the Buddha, but you have never given me even an inkling of it. I pray you to be more sympathetic.” To this the following answer was given: “What do you mean, my son? Every morning you salute me, and do I not return it? When you bring me a cup of tea, do I not accept it and enjoy drinking it? Besides this, what more instructions do you desire from me?”

Is this Zen? Is this the kind of life-experience Zen wants us to have? A Zen poet sings:

How wondrously strange, and how miraculous this!

I draw water, I carry fuel.

105

When Zen is said to be illogical and irrational, timid readers are frightened and may wish to have nothing to do with it, but I am confident that the present chapter devoted to practical Zen will mitigate whatever harshness and uncouthness there may have been in it when it was intellectually treated. In so far as the truth of Zen is on its practical side and not in its irrationality, we must not put too much emphasis on its irrationality. This may tend only to make Zen more inaccessible to ordinary intellects, but in order to show further what a simple and matter-of-fact business Zen is, and at the same time to emphasize the practical side of Zen, I will cite some more of the so-called “cases” in which appeal is made to the most naive experience one may have in life. Naïve they are, indeed, in the sense of being free from conceptual demonstration or from intellectual analysis. You see a stick raised, or you are asked to pass a piece of household furniture, or are simply addressed by your name. Such as these are the simplest incidents of life occurring every day and being passed without any particular notice, and yet Zen is there—the Zen that is supposed to be so full of irrationalities, or, if you like to put it so, so full of the highest speculations that are possible to the human understanding. The following are some more of these instances, simple, direct, and practical, and yet pregnant with meaning.

105

Sekkyo (Shih-kung)2 asked one of his accomplished monks, “Can you take hold of empty space?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“Show me how you do it.”

The monk stretched out his arm and clutched at empty space.

Sekkyo said: “Is that the way? But after all you have not got anything.”

“What then,” asked the monk, “is your way?”

The master straightway took hold of the monk’s nose and gave it a hard pull, which made the latter exclaim: “Oh, oh, how hard you pull at my nose! You are hurting me terribly!”

“That is the way to have good hold of empty space,” said the master.

106

When Yenkwan (Yen-kuan), one of Ma-tsu’s disciples, was asked by a monk who the real Vairochana Buddha was, he told the monk to pass over a water-pitcher which was near by. The monk brought it to him as requested, but Yenkwan now ordered it to be taken back to its former place. After obediently following the order, the monk again asked the master who the real Vairochana Buddha was. “The venerable old Buddha is no more here,” was the reply. Concerning this incident another Zen master comments, “Yes, the venerable old Buddha has long been here.”

106

If these incidents are regarded as not entirely free from intellectual complications, what would you think of the following case of Chu (Chung, died 775), the national teacher of Nan-yang, who used to call his attendant three times a day, saying, “O my attendant, my attendant!” To this the attendant would respond regularly, “Yes, master.” Finally the master remarked, “I thought I was in the wrong with you, but it is you that is in the wrong with me.” Is this not simple enough?—just calling one by name? Chu’s last comment may not be so very intelligible from an ordinary logical point of view, but one calling and another responding is one of the commonest and most practical affairs of life. Zen declares that the truth is precisely there, so we can see what a matter-of-fact thing Zen is. There is no mystery in it, the fact is open to all: I hail you, and you call back; one “hallo!” calls forth another “hallo!” and this is all there is to it.

107

Ryosui (Liang-sui) was studying Zen under Mayoku (Ma-ku, a contemporary of Rinzai), and when Mayoku called out, “O Ryosui!” he answered, “Yes!” Thus called three times, he answered three times, when the master remarked, “O you stupid fellow!” This brought Ryosui to his senses; he now understood Zen and exclaimed: “O master, don’t deceive me any more. If I had not come to you I should have been miserably led astray all my life by the sutras and the sastras.” Later on Ryosui said to some of his fellow-monks who had been spending their time in the mastery of Buddhist philosophy, “All that you know, I know; but what I know, none of you know.” Is it not wonderful that Ryosui could make such an utterance just by understanding the significance of his master’s call?

107

Do these examples make the subject in hand any clearer or more intelligible than before? I can multiply such instances indefinitely, but those so far cited may suffice to show that Zen is after all not a very complicated affair, or a study requiring the highest faculty of abstraction and speculation. The truth and power of Zen consists in its very simplicity, directness, and utmost practicalness. “Good morning; how are you today?” “Thank you, I am well”—here is Zen. “Please have a cup of tea”—this, again, is full of Zen. When a hungry monk at work heard the dinner-gong he immediately dropped his work and showed himself in the dining-room. The master, seeing him, laughed heartily, for the monk had been acting Zen to its fullest extent. Nothing could be more natural; the one thing needful is just to open one’s eye to the significance of it all.

108

But here is a dangerous loophole which the student of Zen ought to be especially careful to avoid. Zen must never be confused with naturalism or libertinism, which means to follow one’s natural bent without questioning its origin and value. There is a great difference between human action and that of the animals, which are lacking in moral intuition and religious consciousness. The animals do not know anything about exerting themselves in order to improve their conditions or to progress in the way to higher virtues. Sekkyo was one day working in the kitchen when Baso, his Zen teacher, came in and asked what he was doing. “I am herding the cow,” said the pupil. “How do you attend her?” “If she goes out of the path even once, I pull her back straightway by the nose; not a moment’s delay is allowed.” Said the master, “You truly know how to take care of her.” This is not naturalism. Here is an effort to do the right thing.

108

A distinguished teacher was once asked, “Do you ever make any effort to get disciplined in the truth?”

“Yes, I do.”

“How do you exercise yourself?”

“When I am hungry I eat; when tired I sleep.”

“This is what everybody does; can they be said to be exercising themselves in the same way as you do?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because when they eat they do not eat, but are thinking of various other things, thereby allowing themselves to be disturbed; when they sleep they do not sleep, but dream of a thousand and one things. This is why they are not like myself.”

109

If Zen is to be called a form of naturalism, then it is so with a rigorous discipline at the back of it. It is in that sense, and not as it is understood by libertines, that Zen may be designated naturalism. The libertines have no freedom of will, they are bound hands and feet by external agencies before which they are utterly helpless. Zen, on the contrary, enjoys perfect freedom; that is, it is master of itself. Zen has no “abiding place”, to use a favourite expression in the Prajnaparamita Sutras. When a thing has its fixed abode, it is fettered, it is no more absolute. The following dialogue will very clearly explain this point.

109

A monk asked, “Where is the abiding place for the mind?”

“The mind,” answered the master, “abides where there is no abiding.”

“What is meant by ‘there is no abiding’?”

“When the mind is not abiding in any particular object, we say that it abides where there is no abiding.”

“What is meant by not abiding in any particular object?”

“It means not to be abiding in the dualism of good and evil, being and non-being, thought and matter; it means not to be abiding in emptiness or in non-emptiness, neither in tranquillity nor in non-tranquillity. Where there is no abiding place, this is truly the abiding place for the mind.”

110

Seppo (Hsueh-feng, 822-908) was one of the most earnest truth-seekers in the history of Zen during the T‘ang dynasty. He is said to have carried a ladle throughout the long years of his disciplinary Zen peregrinations. His idea was to serve in one of the most despised and most difficult positions in the monastery life—that is, as cook—and the ladle was his symbol. When he finally succeeded Tokusan (Teh-shan) as Zen master a monk approached him and asked: “What is that you have attained under Tokusan? How serene and self-contained you are!” “Empty-handed I went away from home, and empty-handed I returned.” Is not this a practical explanation of the doctrine of “no abiding place”? The monks wanted their master Hyakujo (Pai-chang) to give a lecture on Zen. He said, “You attend to the farming and later on I will tell you all about Zen.” After they had finished the work the master was requested to fulfil his promise, whereupon he opened out both his arms, but said not a word. This was his great sermon.

10

Not-twoness (Nichtzweiheit)

13

That already states a considerable amount regarding the contents of enlightenment. The occurrence of satori is interpreted and formulated as a breakthrough of a consciousness limited to the ego-form in the form of the non-ego-like self.

15

Every spiritual happening is a picture and an imagination; were this not so, there could be no consciousness and no phenomenality of the occurrence. The imagination itself is a psychic occurrence,

15

Yes, even if all religious reports were nothing but conscious inventions and falsifications, a very interesting psychological treatise could still be written on the fact of such lies, with the same scientific treatment with which the psychopathology of delusions is presented. The fact that there is a religious movement upon which many brilliant minds have worked over a period of many centuries is sufficient reason for venturing at least upon a serious attempt to bring such happenings within the realm of scientific understanding.

16

This new condition of consciousness, arising from religious practice, is distinguished by the fact that outward things no longer affect an ego-like consciousness, whence a reciprocal attachment has arisen, but that an empty consciousness stands open to another influence. This “other” influence will no longer be felt as one’s own activity, but as the work of a non-ego which has consciousness as its object.22 It is as though the subject-character of the ego had been overrun, or taken over, by another subject which has taken the place of the ego.23 It is a question of that well-known religious experience which has been formulated by St. Paul (Gal. ii, 20). Here a new condition of consciousness is undoubtedly described, separated from the former condition of consciousness by means of a far-reaching process of religious transformation.

21

At first glance it would appear that the submission of such a question as food for meditation would mean an anticipation or prejudicing of the final result, and that the contents of the meditation would be determined thereby, rather like the Jesuit Exercises, or certain Yogi meditations, the substance of which is determined by a task submitted by the teacher. The koans, however, are of such great variety, such ambiguity, and above all of such overwhelming paradoxy, that even an expert is completely in the dark as to what may emerge as a suitable solution. Moreover, the descriptions of the experiences are so obscure that in no single case could one perceive any unobjectionable rational connection between the koan and the experience. Since no logical succession can ever be proved, it is to be supposed that the koan method lays not the smallest restriction upon the freedom of the spiritual occurrences, and that the final result therefore comes from nothing but the individual predisposition of the initiate. The complete destruction of the rational intellect aimed at in the training creates an almost perfect lack of supposition of the consciousness. Conscious supposition is thereby excluded as far as possible, but not unconscious supposition; that is, the existing but unperceived psychological disposition, which is anything but emptiness and lack of supposition. It is a nature-given factor, and when it answers—as is obviously the satori experience—it is an answer of Nature, who has succeeded in conveying her reactions direct to the consciousness.28 What the unconscious nature of the student opposes to the teacher or to the koan as an answer is manifestly satori. This, at least, appears to me to be the view which, by all descriptions, would express the essence of satori more or less correctly. This view is also supported by the fact that the “glimpse into one’s own nature”, the “original man” and the depth of the being are often to the Zen master a matter of supreme concern.29

22

Zen differs from all other philosophic and religious meditation practices in its principle of lack of supposition (Voraus-setzung). Buddha himself is sternly rejected; indeed, he is almost blasphemously ignored, although—or perhaps just because—he could be the strongest spiritual supposition of all. But he too is an image and must therefore be set aside. Nothing must be present except what is actually there; that is, man with his complete, unconscious supposition, of which, simply because it is unconscious, he can never, never rid himself. The answer which appears to come from a void, the light which flares up from the blackest darkness, these have always been experiences of wonderful and blessed illumination.

23

The world of consciousness is inevitably a world full of restrictions, of walls blocking the way. It is of necessity always one-sided, resulting from the essence of consciousness. No consciousness can harbour more than a very small number of simultaneous conceptions. All else must lie in shadow, withdrawn from sight. To increase the simultaneous content creates immediately a dimming of consciousness; confusion, in fact, to the point of disorientation. Consciousness does not simply demand, but is, of its very essence, a strict limitation to the few and hence the distinct. For our general orientation we are indebted simply and solely to the fact that through attentiveness we are able to effect a comparatively rapid succession of images. Attentiveness is, however, an effort of which we are not permanently capable. We have therefore to make do, so to speak, with a minimum of simultaneous perceptions and successions of images. Hence wide fields of possible perceptions are permanently eliminated, and consciousness is always bound to the narrowest circle. What would happen if an individual consciousness were to succeed in embracing at one glance a simultaneous picture of all that it could imagine is beyond conception. If man has already succeeded in building up the structure of the world from the few clear things that he can perceive at one and the same time, what godly spectacle would present itself to his eyes were he able to perceive a great deal all at once and distinctly? This question only concerns perceptions that are possible to us. But if we add to those the unconscious contents—i.e. contents which are not yet, or no longer, capable of consciousness—and then try to imagine a complete spectacle, why, this is beyond the most audacious fantasy. This unimagin-ableness is of course a complete impossibility in the conscious form, but in the unconsciousness form it is a fact, inasmuch as all that is seething below is an ever-present potentiality of conception. The unconscious is an unglimpsable completeness of all subliminal psychic factors, a “total exhibition” of potential nature. It constitutes the entire disposition from which consciousness takes fragments from time to time. Now if consciousness is emptied as far as possible of its contents, the latter will fall into a state (at least a transitory state) of unconsciousness. This displacement ensues as a rule in Zen through the fact of the energy of the conscious being withdrawn from the contents and transferred either to the conception of emptiness or to the koan. As the two last-named must be stable, the succession of images is also abolished, and with it the energy which maintains the kinetic of the conscious. The amount of energy that is saved goes over to the unconscious, and reinforces its natural supply up to a certain maximum. This increases the readiness of the unconscious contents to break through to the conscious. Since the emptying and the closing down of the conscious is no easy matter, a special training and an indefinitely long period of time30 is necessary to produce that maximum of tension which leads to the final breakthrough of unconscious contents into the

24

The contents which break through are by no means completely unspecified. As psychiatric experience with insanity shows, peculiar relations exist between the contents of the conscious and the delusions and deliria that break in upon it. They are the same relations as exist between the dreams and the working conscious of normal men. The connection is in substance a compensatory31relationship32: the contents of the unconscious bring to the surface everything necessary33 in the broadest sense for the completion, i.e. the completeness of conscious orientation. If the fragments offered by, or forced up from, the unconscious are successfully built into the life of the conscious, a psychic existence form results, which corresponds better to the whole of the individual personality, and therefore abolishes fruitless conflict between the conscious and the unconscious personality. Modern psychotherapy rests upon this principle, inasmuch as it was able to break away from the historic prejudice that the unconscious harbours only infantile and morally inferior contents. There is certainly an inferior corner, a lumberroom of dirty secrets, which are however not so much unconscious as hidden and only half forgotten. But this has about as much to do with the whole of the unconscious as a hollow tooth has with the complete personality. The unconscious is the matrix of all metaphysical assertions, of all mythology, all philosophy (in so far as it is not merely critical) and all forms of life which are based upon psychological suppositions.

25

Every invasion of the unconscious is an answer to a definite condition of the conscious, and this answer follows from the whole of the idea-possibilities that are present; that is to say, from the complete disposition which, as explained above, is a simultaneous image in potentia of psychic existence. The splitting up into the single, the one-sided, the fragmentary character suits the essence of the conscious. The reaction from the disposition always has the character of completeness, as it corresponds with a nature which has not been divided up by any discriminating conscious.34 Hence its overpowering effect. It is the unexpected, comprehensive, completely illuminating answer, which operates all the more as illumination and revelation, since the conscious has wedged itself into a hopeless blind-alley.35

25

When therefore, after many years of the hardest practice and the most strenuous devastation of rational understanding, the Zen student receives an answer—the only true answer— from Nature herself, everything that is said of satori can be understood. As can easily be seen, it is the naturelike-ness (Naturhaftigkeit) of the answer which shines forth from most of the Zen anecdotes. Yes, one can accept with complete complaisance the enlightened student who, as one story relates, wished his master a sound thrashing as a reward (see pages 63-4). How much wisdom lies in the master’s “Wu”, the answer to the question about the Buddha nature of the dog! One must always consider, however, that on the one hand there are any number of people who cannot distinguish between a spiritual witticism and nonsense, and on the other hand very many people who are convinced of their own cleverness to such an extent that they have never in their lives met any but fools.

27

Taken basically, psychotherapy is a dialectic relationship between the doctor and the patient. It is a discussion between two spiritual wholes, in which all wisdom is merely a tool. The goal is transformation; not indeed a predetermined, but rather an indeterminable, change, the only criterion of which is the disappearance of I-ness. No efforts on the part of the doctor force the experience. The most he can do is to make easy the path of the patient towards the attainment of an attitude which will oppose the least resistance to the decisive experience. If knowledge plays no small part in our Western procedure, this is equivalent to the importance of the traditional spiritual atmosphere of Buddhism in Zen. Zen and its technique could only exist on the basis of Buddhist spiritual culture, and this is its premise. You cannot destroy a rationalist intellect that was never present. A Zen adept is not the outcome of ignorance and lack of culture. Hence even with us it happens not infrequently that a conscious ego and a conscious, cultivated understanding must first be produced by therapy before one can even think about abolishing I-ness or rationalism.

29

I would not under any circumstances have it understood that in what I have said above I am making any recommendation or offering any advice. But when Western men begin to talk about Zen I consider it my duty to show the European where our entrance lies to that “longest of all roads” which leads to satori, and what difficulties strew that path, which has been trodden by only a few of our great men—perhaps as a beacon on a high mountain, shining out in the hazy future. It would be an unhealthy mistake to assume that satori or samadhi are to be met with anywhere below those heights. For a compete experience there can be nothing cheaper or smaller than the whole. The psychological significance of this can be understood by the simple consideration of the fact that the conscious is only a part of the spiritual, and is never therefore capable of spiritual completeness: for that the indefinite expansion of the unconscious is needed. The latter, however, can neither be captured with skilful formulae nor exorcized by means of scientific dogmas, for there is something of Destiny clinging to it—yes, it is sometimes Destiny itself, as Faust and Zarathustra show all too clearly. The attainment of completeness calls for the use of the whole. Nothing less will do; hence there can be no easier conditions, no substitution, no compromise. Inasmuch as both Faust and Zarathustra, despite the highest appreciation, are only on the border-line of what is comprehensible to the European, one can scarcely expect a cultured public who have only just begun to hear about the dim world of the soul to be able to form any adequate conception of the spiritual state of a man who has fallen into the confusions of the individuation process, by which term I have designated the “becoming whole” (Ganz-werdung). People drag forth the vocabulary of pathology, they console themselves with “neurosis” and “psychosis” terminology, whisper about “creative mystery”—but what can a man who is probably not a poet create? The last-mentioned misunderstanding has in modern times caused not a few people to call themselves of their own grace “artists”. As if “art” had nothing at all to do with “ability”! If you have nothing to “create”, perhaps you create yourself.