Essays in Zen Buddhism · 53 of 66

Practical Methods of Zen Instruction, Part 10

While I have not attempted to be very exhaustive in describing all the different methods of demonstration or rather realisation of the truth of Zen resorted to by the masters of various schools, the statements so far made in regard to them, may suffice to give us at least a glimpse into some of the peculiar features of Zen Buddhism. Whatever explanations may be given by critics or scholars to the philosophy of Zen, we must first of all acquire a new point of view of looking at things, which is altogether beyond our ordinary sphere of consciousness. Rather, this new viewpoint is gained when we reach the ultimate limits of our understanding, within which we think we are always bound and unable to break through. Most people stop at these limits and are easily persuaded that they cannot go any further. But there are some whose mental vision is able to penetrate this veil of contrasts and contradictions. They gain it abruptly. They beat the wall in utter despair, and lo, it unexpectedly gives way and there opens an entirely new world. Things hitherto regarded as prosaic and ordinary and even binding are now arranged in quite a novel scheme. The old world of the senses has vanished, and something entirely new has come to take its place. We seem to be in the same objective surroundings, but subjectively we are rejuvenated, we are born again.

Wu Tao-tzŭ or Godoshi was one of the greatest painters of China, and lived in the reign of the Emperor Hsüan-tsung, of the T‘ang dynasty. His last painting, according to legend, was a landscape commissioned by the Emperor for one of the walls of his palace. The artist concealed the complete work with a curtain till the Emperor’s arrival, then drawing it aside exposed his vast picture. The Emperor gazed with admiration on a marvellous scene: forests, and great mountains, and clouds in immense distances of sky, and men upon the hills, and birds in flight. “Look,” said the painter, “in the cave at the foot of this mountain dwells a spirit.” He clapped his hands; the door at the cave’s entrance flew open. “The interior is beautiful beyond words,” he continued, “permit me to show the way.” So saying he passed within; the gate closed after him; and before the astonished Emperor could speak or move, all had faded to white wall before his eyes, with not a trace of the artist’s brush remaining. Wu Tao-tzŭ was seen no more.

The artist has disappeared, and the whole scene has been wiped out; but from this nothingness there arises a new spiritual world, abiding in which the Zen masters perform all kinds of antics, assert all kinds of absurdities, and yet they are in perfect accord with the nature of things in which a world moves on stripped of all its falsehoods, conventions, simulations, and intellectual obliquities. Unless one gets into this world of realities, the truth of Zen will be eternally a sealed book. This is what I mean by acquiring a new point of view independent of logic and discursive understanding.

Emerson expresses the same view in his own characteristic manner: “Foremost among these activities (that is, mathematical combination, great power of abstraction, the transmutings of the imagination, even versatility, and concentration), are the somersaults, spells, and resurrections, wrought by the imagination. When this wakes, a man seems to multiply ten times or a thousand times his force. It opens the delicious sense of indeterminate size, and inspires an audacious mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence in a book, or a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the pit. And this benefit is real, because we are entitled to these enlargements, and, once having passed the bounds, shall never again be quite the miserable pedants we were.”

Here is a good illustration of the difference between a “miserable pedant” and one who has “passed the bounds.” There was a monk called Gensoku (Hsüan-tsê) who was one of the chief officials of the monastery under the Zen master Hōgen (Fa-yen), of the early tenth century. He never came to the master to make inquiries about Zen; so the master one day asked him why he did not come. The chief official answered: “When I was under Seiho (Ch‘ing-fêng) I got an idea as to the truth of Zen.” “What is your understanding then?” demanded the master. “When I asked my master, who was the Buddha, he said, Ping-ting T‘ung-tsŭ comes for fire.” “It is a fine answer,” said Hōgen, “but probably you misunderstand it. Let me see how you take the meaning of it.” “Well,” explained the official, “Ping-ting is the god of fire; when he himself comes for fire, it is like myself, who, being a Buddha from the very beginning, wants to know who the Buddha is. No questioning is then needed as I am already the Buddha himself.” “There!” exclaimed the master, “Just as I thought! You are completely off.” Soku, the chief official, got highly offended because his view was not countenanced and left the monastery. Hōgen said, “If he comes back he may be saved; if not, he is lost.” Soku after going some distance reflected that a master of five hundred monks as Hōgen was would not chide him without cause, and returned to the old master and expressed his desire to be instructed in Zen. Hōgen said, “You ask me and I will answer.” “Who is the Buddha?”—the question came from the lips of the now penitent monk. “Ping-ting T‘ung-tzŭ comes for fire.” This made his eyes open to the truth of Zen quite different from what he formerly understood of it. He was now no more a second-hand “pedant” but a living creative soul. I need not repeat that Zen refuses to be explained but that it is to be lived. Without this, all talk is nothing but an idea, woefully inane and miserably unsatisfactory.

Below is another story illustrating the peculiarity of Zen understanding as distinguished from our ordinary intellectual understandings which are based on ideas and representations. The same phrase is repeated here as in the preceding case, and as far as its literal meaning goes, we have no reason to suppose its producing different effects on the mind of the recipient. But as I said elsewhere Zen is the opening of one’s own inner consciousness occasioned by some external incidental happening which may be of purely physical nature but may invoke some mental operation. This opening is therefore something, we as outsiders not belonging to the inner life of the individual concerned, have no means to judge beforehand, we know only when it is opened; but the masters seem to know when this opening is going to take place and how it is to be brought about from their own experience. Students of the psychology of Zen will here find an interesting problem to investigate.

Suigan Kashin (Ts‘ui-yen K‘ê-chên) was a disciple of Zimyo (Tz‘u-ming), 986–1040, who was one of the greatest Sung masters and under whom the Rinzai school of Zen was divided into two branches, Woryu (Huang-lung) and Yogi (Yang-ch‘i). Kashin was quite proud of being one of the disciples of the master, he was not yet really a master himself, but he thought he was. When he had a talk with another of Zimyo’s disciples, he was found out and laughed at. When they were having a walk together one day, they discussed Zen. His friend picked up a piece of a broken tile and putting it on a flat rock, said, “If you can say a word at this juncture, I will grant your really being Zimyo’s disciple.” Kashin wavered, looked this way and that, trying to make some answer. His friend was impatient, who broke out, “Hesitating and wavering, you have not yet penetrated through illusion, you have never yet even dreamt as to what the true insight of Zen is.” Kashin was thoroughly ashamed of himself. He at once returned to the master who severely reproached him, saying that he came before the termination of the summer session, which was against the regulations. Full of tears, he explained how he was taken to task by his fellow-monk and that it was the reason why he was here even against the monastery rules. The master abruptly asked him: “What is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?” Replied Kashin,

“No clouds are gathering over the mountain peaks, And how serenely the moon is reflected on the waves!”

The master’s eyes flashed with indignation, and he thundered, “Shame on you! To have such a view for an old seasoned man like you! How can you expect to be delivered from birth-and-death?” Kashin earnestly implored to be instructed. Said the master, “You ask me.” Thereupon he repeated the master’s first question, “What is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?” The master roared,

“No clouds are gathering over the mountain peaks, And how serenely the moon is reflected on the waves!”

This opened Kashin’s eye, and another man was he after that.

* * * * *

Let me conclude with a sermon from Goso (Wu-tsu), of whom mention has already been made:

If people ask me what Zen is like, I will say that it is like learning the art of burglary. The son of a burglar saw his father growing older and thought, “If he is unable to carry out his profession, who will be the bread-winner of this family, except myself? I must learn the trade.” He intimated the idea to his father, who approved of it. One night the father took the son to a big house, broke through the fence, entered the house, and opening one of the large chests, told the son to go in and pick out the clothings. As soon as he got into it, the lid was dropped and the lock securely applied. The father now came out to the courtyard, and loudly knocking at the door woke up the whole family, whereas he himself quietly slipped away from the former hole in the fence. The residents got excited and lighted candles, but found that the burglars had already gone. The son who remained all the time in the chest securely confined thought of his cruel father. He was greatly mortified, when a fine idea flashed upon him. He made a noise which sounded like the gnawing of a rat. The family told the maid to take a candle and examine the chest. When the lid was unlocked, out came the prisoner, who blew out the light, pushed away the maid, and fled. The people ran after him. Noticing a well by the road, he picked up a large stone and threw it into the water. The pursuers all gathered around the well trying to find the burglar drowning himself in the dark hole. In the meantime he was safely back in his father’s house. He blamed him very much for his narrow escape. Said the father, “Be not offended, my son. Just tell me how you got off.” When the son told him all about his adventures, the father remarked, “There you are, you have learned the art!”