Essays in Zen Buddhism · 51 of 66

Practical Methods of Zen Instruction, Part 8

As was explained in the preceding section, the principle underlying the various methods of instruction used by the Zen masters is to awaken a certain sense in the pupil’s own consciousness, by means of which he intuitively grasps the truth of Zen. Therefore, the masters always appeal to what we may designate “direct action” and are loathe to waste any lengthy discourse on the subject. Their dialogues are always pithy and apparently not controlled by rules of logic. The “repetitive” method as in other cases conclusively demonstrates that the so-called answering is not to explain but to point the way where Zen is to be intuited. To conceive the truth as something external which is to be perceived by a perceiving subject, is dualistic and appeals to the intellect for its understanding, but according to Zen we are living right in the truth, by the truth, from which we cannot be separated. Says Gensha (Hsüan-sha), “We are here as if immersed in water head and shoulders underneath the great ocean, and yet how piteously we are extending our hands for water!” Therefore, when he was asked by a monk, “What is my self?” he at once replied, “What would you do with a self?” When this is intellectually analysed, he means that when we begin to talk about self we immediately and inevitably establish the dualism of self and not-self, thus falling into the errors of intellectualism. We are in the water—this is the fact, and let us remain so, Zen would say, for when we begin to beg for water we put ourselves in an external relation to it and what has hitherto been our own will be taken away from us.

The following case may be interpreted in the same light: A monk came to Gensha and said, “I understand you to say this that the whole universe is one transpicuous crystal; how do I get at the sense of it?” Said the master, “The whole universe is one transpicuous crystal, and what is the use of understanding it?” The day following the master himself asked the monk, “The whole universe is one transpicuous crystal, and how do you understand it?” The monk replied, “The whole universe is one transpicuous crystal, and what is the use of understanding it?” “I know,” said the master, “that you are living in the cave of demons.” While this looks another case of “Repetition,” there is something different in it, something more of intellection, so to speak.

Whatever this is, Zen never appeals to our reasoning faculty, but points directly at the very object one wants to have. While Gensha on a certain occasion was treating an army officer called Wei to tea, the latter asked, “What does it mean when they say that in spite of our having it everyday we do not know it?” Gensha without answering the question took up a piece of cake and offered it to him. After eating the cake, the officer asked the master again, who then remarked, “Only we do not know it even when we are using it everyday.” This is evidently an object lesson. Another time a monk came to him and wanted to know how to enter upon the path of truth. Gensha asked, “Do you hear the murmuring of the stream?” “Yes, I do,” said the monk. “There is a way to enter,” was the master’s instruction. Gensha’s method was thus to make the seeker of the truth directly realise within himself what it was, and not to make him merely the possessor of a second-hand knowledge. “Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott,” declares Terstegen.

It is thus no wonder that the Zen masters frequently make an exclamatory utterance in response to questions, instead of giving an intelligible answer. When words are used if at all intelligible we may feel that we can somehow find a clue to get at the meaning, but when an inarticulate utterance is given, we are quite at a loss how to deal with it, unless we are fortified with some previous knowledge such as I have at some length attempted to give to my readers.

Of all the Zen masters who used to give exclamatory utterance, the most noted ones are Ummon and Rinzai, the former for his “Kwan!” and the latter for his “Kwats!” At the end of one summer sojourn Suigan (Ts‘ui-yen) made the following remark: “Since the beginning of this summer sojourn I have talked much; see if my eyebrows are still there.” This refers to the tradition that when a man makes false statements concerning the Dharma of Buddhism he will lose all his hair in the face. As Suigan gave many sermons during the summer for the edification of his pupils, while no amount of talk can ever explain what the truth is, his eye-brows and beard might perhaps by this time have altogether disappeared. This, as far as its literary meaning is concerned, is the idea of his remark whatever Zen may be concealed underneath. Hofuku (Pao-fu), one of the masters, said, “One who turns into a highwayman has a treacherous heart.” Chōkei (Ch‘ang-ch‘ing), another master, remarked, “How thickly they are growing!” Ummon, one of the greatest masters towards the end of the T‘ang dynasty, exclaimed, “Kwan!” Kwan 關 literally means the gate on a frontier pass where travellers and their baggage are inspected. In this case, however, the term does not mean anything of the sort, it is simply “Kwan!” an exclamatory utterance which does not allow any analytical or intellectual interpretation. Seccho, the original compiler of the Hekigan, comments on this, “He is like one who, besides losing his money, is incriminated,” while Hakuin has this to say, “Even an angry fist does not strike a smiling face.” Something like this is the only comment we can make on such an utterance as Ummon’s. When we try anything approaching a conceptual interpretation on the subject we shall be “ten thousand miles away beyond the clouds,” as the Chinese would say.

While Rinzai is regarded as the author of “Kwats!” 喝 (hê), we have an earlier record of it; for Baso, successor to Nangaku (Nan-yüeh), and an epoch-maker in the history of Zen, uttered “Kwats!” to his disciple, Hyakjo (Pai-chang), when the latter came up to the master for a second time to be instructed in Zen. This “Kwats!” is said to have deafened Hyakujo’s ear for the following three days. But it was principally due to Rinzai that this particular cry was most effectively and systematically made use of and later came to be one of the special features of the Rinzai Zen in distinction to the other schools. In fact the cry came to be so abused by his followers that he had to make the following remark: “You are all so given up to learning my cry (hê), but I want to ask you this: Suppose one man comes out from the eastern hall and another from the western hall, and suppose both give out the ‘Kwats!’ simultaneously; and yet I say to you that subject and predicate are clearly discernible in this. But how will you discern them? If you are unable to discern them, you are forbidden hereafter to imitate my cry.”

Rinzai distinguishes four kinds of “Kwats!” The first according to him, is like the sacred sword of Vajrarāja; the second is like the golden-haired lion squatting on the ground; the third is like the sounding rod or the grass used as a decoy; and the fourth is the one that does not at all function as a “Kwats!”

Rinzai once asked his disciple, Rakuho (Lê-p‘u), “One man has been using a stick and another resorting to the “Kwats!” which of them do you think is the more intimate to the truth? Answered the disciple, “Neither of them!” “What is the most intimate then?” Rakuho cried out, “Kwats!” Whereupon Rinzai struck him. This swinging of a stick was the most favourite method of Tokusan and stands generally contrasted to the crying utterance of Rinzai; but here the stick is used by Rinzai and the latter’s speciality is taken up in a most telling manner by his disciple, Rakuho.

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Besides these “skilful contrivances” (upāya-kauśalya) so far enumerated under seven headings, there are a few more “contrivances” though I am not going to be very exhaustive here on the subject.

One of them is “silence.” Vimalakīrti was silent when Mañjuśrī asked him as to the doctrine of non-duality, and his silence was later commented upon by a master as “deafening like thunder.” A monk asked Basho Yesei (Pa-chiao Hui-ch‘ing) to show him the “original face” without the aid of any intermediary conception, and the master keeping his seat remained silent. When Shifuku (Tzŭ-fu) was asked as to a word befitting the understanding of the inquirer, he did not utter a word, he simply kept silent. Bunki (Wên-hsi) of Koshu (Hang-chou) was a disciple of Kyōzan (Yang-shan); he was asked by a monk, “What is the self?” but he remained silent. As the monk did not know what to make of it, he asked again, to which the master replied, “When the sky is clouded, the moon cannot shine out.” A monk asked Sozan (Ts‘ao-shan), “How is the silence inexpressible to be revealed?” “I do not reveal it here.” “Where would you reveal it?” “At midnight last night,” said the master, “I lost three pennies by my bed.”

Sometimes the masters sit quiet “for some little while” 良久 (liang chiu) either in response to a question or when in the pulpit. This liang-chiu does not always merely indicate the passage of time, as we can see in the following cases: A monk came to Shuzan (Shou-shan) and asked, “Please play me a tune on a stringless harp.” The master was quiet for some little while, and said, “Do you hear it?” “No, I do not hear it.” “Why,” said the master, “did you not ask louder?” A monk asked Hofuku (Pao-fu), “I am told that when one wants to know the path of the uncreate, one should know the source of it. What is the source, sir?” Hofuku was silent for a while, and then asked his attendant, “What did the monk ask me now?” When that monk repeated the question, the master ejected him out, exclaiming, “I am not deaf!”

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Next, we may mention the method of counter-questioning, wherein questions are not answered by plain statements but by counter-questionings. In Zen, generally speaking, a question is not a question in its ordinary sense, that is, it is not simply asked for information, and therefore it is natural that what ordinarily corresponds to an answer is not an answer at all. Some Zen authority enumerates eighteen different kinds of questions, against which we may distinguish eighteen corresponding answers. Thus a counter-question itself is in its way an illuminating answer. A monk requested Jimyo (Tzŭ-ming) to “set forth the idea of Dharma’s coming from the west,” and the master said, “When did you come?” When Rasan Dokan (Lo-shan Tao-hsien) was asked, “Who is the master of the triple world?” he said, “Do you understand how to eat rice?” Tenryu (T‘ien-lung), the teacher of Gutei, was hailed by a monk who asked him, “How are we released from the triple world?” He retorted, “Where are you this very moment?” A monk asked Jōshu, “What would you say when a man is without an inch of cloth on him?” “What did you say he has not on him?” “An inch of cloth on him, sir.” “Very fine this, not to have an inch of cloth!” responded the master.

When we go on like this, there may be no end to this way of treating the various “contrivances” devised by the Zen masters for the benefits of their truth-thirsty pupils. Let me conclude this section by quoting two more cases in which a kind of reasoning in a circle is employed, but from another point of view we may detect here a trace of absolute monism in which all differences are effaced. Whether the Zen masters agree with this view, however, remains to be seen; for while the absolute identity of meum et tuum is asserted, facts of individualisation are not ignored either. A monk asked Daizui (Tai-sui), “What is my [pupil’s] Self?” “That is my [master’s] Self,” answered the master. “How is it that my Self is your Self?” The ultimate dictum was, “That is your Self.” To understand this in a logical fashion, put “ignorant,” or “confused” or “human” in place of “my [pupil’s] Self,” and in place of “your [master’s] Self” put “enlightened,” or “Buddha’s,’ or “divine,” and we may have a glimpse into what was going on in the mind of Daizui. But without his last remark, “That is your Self,” the whole affair may resolve into a form of pantheistic philosophy. In the case of Sansho Yenen (San-shêng Hui-jan) and Kyozan Yejaku (Yang-shan Hui-chi), the thought of Daizui is more concretely presented. Yejaku asked Yenen, “What is your name?” and Yenen replied, “My name is Yejaku.” Yejaku protested, “Yejaku is my name.” Thereupon said Yenen, “My name is Yenen,” which brought out a hearty laugh from Yejaku. These dialogues remind one of the famous Hindu saying, “Tat tvam asi!” but the difference between this and “My name is Yejaku” is that between Vedanta philosophy and Zen Buddhism, or that between Indian idealism and Chinese realism or practicalness. The latter does not generalise, nor does it speculate on a higher plane which has no hold on life as we live it. According to the philosophy of the Kegon (Avatamsaka) school of Buddhism, there is a spiritual world where one particular object holds within itself all other particular objects merged, instead of all particular objects being absorbed in the Great All. Thus in this world it so happens that when you lift a bunch of flowers or point at a piece of brick, the whole world in its multitudinosity is seen reflected here. If so, the Zen masters may be said to be moving also in this mystic realm which reveals its secrets at the moment of supreme enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi).