Essays in Zen Buddhism · 55 of 66

The Meditation Hall and Monastic Life, Part 2

The Meditation Hall (Zendo in Japanese and Ch‘an T‘ang in Chinese), as it is built in Japan, is generally a rectangular building of various size according to the number of monks to be accommodated. One at Engakuji, Kamakura, was about 36 feet by 65 feet. The floors about eight feet wide and three feet high are raised along the longer sides of the building, and an empty space is left in the middle throughout the entire length of the Hall. This space is used for practising an exercise known as “kinhin” (ching-hsing) which means literally “sutra-walking.” The space allotted to each monk on the tatami floor does not exceed one mat, three by six feet, where he sits, meditates, and sleeps at night. The bedding for each is never more than one large wadded quilt, summer or winter. He has no regular pillow except that which is temporarily made up by himself out of his own private possessions. These latter, however, are next to nothing: for they are kesa (kashāya in Sanskrit) and koromo (priestly robe), a few books, a razor, and a set of bowls, all of which are put up in a box about three by ten by three and a half inches large. In travelling this box is carried in front supported with a sash about the neck. The entire property thus moves with the owner. “One dress and one bowl, under a tree and on a stone,” was the graphical description of the monkish life in India. Compared with this, the modern Zen monk must be said to be abundantly supplied. Still his wants are reduced to a minimum and no one can fail to lead a simple, perhaps the simplest, life if he models his after that of the Zen monk.

The desire to possess is considered by Buddhism to be one of the worst passions mortals are apt to be obsessed with. What in fact causes so much misery in the world is due to a strong impulse of acquisitiveness. As power is desired, the strong always tyrannise over the weak: as wealth is coveted, the rich and poor are always crossing their swords of bitter enmity. International wars rage, social unrest ever goes on, unless the impulse to have and hold is completely uprooted. Cannot a society be reorganised upon an entirely different basis from what we have been used to see from the beginning of history? Cannot we ever hope to stop the amassing of wealth and the wielding of power merely from the desire for individual or national aggrandisement? Despairing of the utter irrationality of human affairs, the Buddhist monks have gone to the other extreme and cut themselves off even from reasonable and perfectly innocent enjoyments of life. However, the Zen ideal of putting up the monk’s belongings in a tiny box a little larger than a foot square and three inches high, is their mute protest, though so far ineffective, against the present order of society.

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In this connection it will be of interest to read the admonition left by Daito the National Teacher (1282–1337), to his disciples. He was the founder of Daitokuji, Kyoto, in 1326, and is said to have spent about one-third of his life which was not a very long one, among the lowest layers of society under the Gojo bridge, begging his food, doing all kinds of menial work, and despised by the so-called respectable people of the world. He did not care for the magnificence of a prosperous and highly-honoured temple life led by most Buddhist priests of those days, nor did he think much of those pious and sanctimonious deeds that only testify to the superficiality of their religious life. He was for the plainest living and the highest thinking. The admonition reads:

“O you, monks, who are here in this mountain monastery, remember that you are gathered for the sake of the religion and not for the sake of clothes and food. As long as we have shoulders [that is, the body], we have to wear clothes, and as long as we have a mouth, we have to eat; but be ever mindful, throughout the twelve hours of the day, to apply yourselves to the study of the Unthinkable. Time passes like an arrow, never let your minds be disturbed by worldly cares. Ever, ever be on the look-out. After my wandering away, some of you may have fine temples in prosperous conditions, towers and halls and holy books all decorated in gold and silver, and devotees may noisily crowd into the grounds; some may pass hours in reading the Sutras and reciting dharanis, and sitting long in contemplation, may not give themselves up to sleep; they may, eating once a day and observing the fastdays, and, throughout the six periods of the day, practise all the religious deeds. Even when they are thus devoted to the cause, if their thoughts are not really dwelling on the mysterious and intransmissible Way of the Buddhas and Fathers, they may yet come to ignore the law of moral causation, ending in a complete downfall of the true religion. Such all belong to the family of evil spirits; however long my departure from the world may be, they are not to be called my descendants. Let however there be just one individual, who may be living in the wilderness in a hut thatched with one bundle of straw and passing his days by eating the roots of wild vegetables cooked in a pot with broken legs; but if he single-mindedly applies himself to the study of his own [spiritual] affairs, he is the very one who has a daily interview with me and knows to be grateful for his life. Who should ever despise such a one? O monks, be diligent, be diligent.”

In India, the Buddhist monks never eat in the afternoon. They properly eat only once a day as their breakfast is no breakfast in the sense that an English or American breakfast is. So, the Zen monks too are not supposed to have any meal in the evening. But the climatic necessity in China and Japan could not be ignored, and they have an evening meal after a fashion; but to ease their conscience it is called “medicinal food” (yüeh-shih). The breakfast which is taken very early in the morning while it is still dark, consists of rice gruel and pickled vegetables (tsukemono).

The principal meal at 10 a.m. is rice (or rice mixed with barley), vegetable soup, and pickles. In the afternoon, at four, they have only what is left of the dinner—no special cooking is done. Unless they are invited out or given an extra treatment at the house of some generous patrons, their meals are such as above described, year in year out. Poverty and simplicity is their motto.

One ought not, however, to consider asceticism the ideal life of Zen. As far as the ultimate signification of Zen is concerned, it is neither asceticism nor any other ethical system. If it appears to advocate either the doctrine of suppression or that of detachment, the supposed fact is merely on the surface; for Zen as a school of Buddhism more or less inherits the odium of a Hindu discipline. The central idea, however, of the monkish life is not to waste, but to make the best possible use of things as they are given us, which is also the spirit of Buddhism in general. In truth, the intellect, imagination, and all other mental faculties as well as the physical objects surrounding us, our own bodies not excepted, are given us for the unfolding and enhancing of the highest powers possessed by us as spiritual entities and not merely for the gratification of our individual whims or desires, which are sure to conflict with and injure the interests and rights asserted by others. These are some of the inner ideas underlying the simplicity and poverty of the monkish life.