ZEN AS CHINESE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

ZEN AS CHINESE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Foreword

BEFORE I proceed to the discussion of the main idea of this essay, which is to consider Zen the Chinese way of applying the doctrine of Enlightenment in our practical life, I wish to make some preliminary remarks concerning the attitude of some Zen critics and thereby to define the position of Zen in the general body of Buddhism. According to them, Zen Buddhism is not Buddhism, it is something foreign to the spirit of Buddhism, and that it is one of those aberrations which we often see growing up in the history of any religion. Zen is thus, they think, an abnormality prevailing among the people whose thought and feeling flow along a channel different from the main current of Buddhist thought. Whether this allegation is true or not, will be decided, on the one hand, when we understand what is really the essence or genuine spirit of Buddhism, and, on the other, when we know the exact status of Zen doctrine in regard to the ruling ideas of Buddhism as they are accepted in the Far East. It may also be desirable to know something about the development of religious experience in general. When we are not prepared thoroughly to understand these questions in the light of the history and philosophy of religion, we may come dogmatically to assert that Zen is not Buddhism just because it looks so different on its surface from what some people with a certain set of preconceived notions consider Buddhism to be. The statement of my position as regards these points will therefore pave the way to the development of the principal thesis.

Superficially, indeed, there is something in Zen so bizarre and even irrational, as to frighten the pious literary followers of the so-called primitive Buddhism and to make them declare that Zen is not Buddhism but a Chinese anomaly of it. What, for instance, would they really make out of such statements as follows: In the Sayings of Nan-ch‘üan[2.1] we read that, when Ts‘ui, governor of Ch‘i District, asked the fifth patriarch of the Zen sect, that is, Hung-jên, how it was that while he had five hundred followers, Hui-nêng, in preference to all others, was singled out to be given the orthodox robe of transmission as the sixth patriarch, replied the fifth patriarch: “Four hundred and ninety-nine out of my disciples understand well what Buddhism is, except one Hui-nêng. He is a man not to be measured by an ordinary standard. Hence the robe of faith was handed over to him.” On this comments Nan-ch‘üan: “In the age of Void there are no words whatever; as soon as the Buddha appears on earth, words come into existence, hence our clinging to signs.... And thus as we now so firmly take hold of words, we limit ourselves in various ways, while in the Great Way there are absolutely no such things as ignorance or holiness. Everything that has a name thereby limits itself. Therefore, the old master of Chiang-hsi declared that ‘it is neither mind, nor Buddha, nor a thing.’ It was in this way that he wished to guide his followers, while these days they vainly endeavour to experience the Great Way by hypostatising such an entity as mind. If the Way could be mastered in this manner, it would be well for them to wait until the appearance of Maitreya Buddha [which is said to be at the end of the world] and then to awaken the enlightenment-thought. How could such ones ever hope for spiritual freedom? Under the fifth patriarch, all of his five hundred disciples, except one Hui-nêng, understood Buddhism well. The lay-disciple, Nêng, was quite unique in this respect, for he did not at all understand Buddhism.f15 He understood the Way only and no other thing.”

These are not very extraordinary statements in Zen, but to most of the Zen critics they must spell abomination. Buddhism is flatly denied, and its knowledge is regarded not to be indispensable to the mastery of Zen, the Great Way, which on the contrary is more or less identified with the negation of Buddhism. How is this? In the following pages an attempt is made to answer this question.

The Life and Spirit of Buddhism

To make this point clear and to justify the claim for Zen that it transmits the essence of Buddhism and not its formulated articles of faith as are recorded in letters, it is necessary to strip the spirit of Buddhism off all its outer casings and appendages, which, hindering the working of its original life-force, are apt to make us take the unessential for the essential. We know that the acorn is so different from the oak, but as long as there is a continuation of growth, their identity is a logical conclusion. To see really into the nature of the acorn is to trace an uninterrupted development through its various historical stages. When the seed remains a seed and means nothing more, there is no life in it, it is a finished piece of work and except as an object of historical curiosity, it has no value whatever in our religious experience. In like manner, to determine the nature of Buddhism we must go along its whole line of development and see what are the healthiest and most vital germs in it which have brought it to the present state of maturity. When this is done, we shall see in what manner Zen is to be recognised as one of the various phases of Buddhism and in fact as the most essential factor in it.

To comprehend fully, therefore, the constitution of any existent religion that has a long history, it is advisable to separate its founder from his teaching, as a most powerful determinant in the development of the latter. By this I mean, in the first place, that the founder so called had in the beginning no idea of being the founder of any religious system which would later grow up in his name; in the second that to his disciples, while he was yet alive, his personality was not regarded as independent of his teaching, at least as far as they were conscious of the fact; in the third that what was unconsciously working in their minds as regards the nature of their master’s personality came out in the foreground after his passing with all the possible intensity that had been latently gaining strength within them, and lastly that the personality of the founder grew up in his disciples’ minds so powerful as to make itself the very nucleus of his teaching, that is to say, the latter was made to serve as explanation of the meaning of the former.

It is a great mistake to think that any existent religious system was handed down to posterity by its founder as the fully matured product of his mind, and, therefore, that what the followers had to do with their religious founder and his teaching was to embrace both the founder and his teaching as sacred heritage—a treasure not to be profaned by the content of their individual spiritual experience. For this view fails to take into consideration what our spiritual life is and petrifies religion to its very core. This static conservatism, however, is always opposed by a progressive party which looks at a religious system from a dynamic point of view. And these two forces which are seen conflicting against each other in every field of human activity, weave out the history of religion as in other cases. In fact, history is the record of these struggles everywhere. But the very fact that there are such struggles in religion shows that they are here to some purpose and that religion is a living force; for they gradually bring to light the hidden implications of the original faith and enrich it in a manner undreamed of in the beginning. This takes place not only with regard to the personality of the founder but with regard to his teaching, and the result is an astounding complexity or rather confusion which sometimes prevents us from properly seeing into the constitution of a living religious system.

While the founder was still walking among his followers and disciples, the latter did not distinguish between the person of their leader and his teaching; for the teaching was realised in the person and the person was livingly explained in the teaching. To embrace the teaching was to follow his steps, that is, to believe in him. His presence among them was enough to inspire them and convince them of the truth of his teaching. They might not have comprehended it thoroughly, but his authoritative way of presenting it left in their hearts no shadow of doubt as to its truth and eternal value. So long as he lived among them and spoke to them, his teaching and his person appealed to them as an individual unity. Even when they retired into a solitary place and meditated on the truth of his teaching, which they did as a form of spiritual discipline, the image of his person was always before their mental eyes.

But things went differently when his stately and inspiring personality was no more seen in the flesh. His teaching was still there, his followers could recite it perfectly from memory, but its personal connection with the author was lost, the living chain which solidly united him and his doctrine as one was for ever broken. When they reflected on the truth of the doctrine, they could not help thinking of their teacher as a soul far deeper and nobler than themselves. The similarities that were, either consciously or unconsciously, recognised as existing in various forms between leader and disciple gradually vanished, and as they vanished, the other side, that is, that which made him so distinctly different from his followers came to assert itself all the more emphatically and irresistibly. The result was the conviction that he must have come from quite a unique spiritual source. The process of deification thus constantly went on until, some centuries after the death of the Master, he became a direct manifestation of the Supreme Being himself, in fact, he was the Highest One in the flesh, in him there was a divine humanity in perfect realisation. He was Son of God or the Buddha and the Redeemer of the world. He will then be considered by himself independently of his teaching; he will occupy the centre of interest in the eyes of his followers. The teaching is of course important, but mainly as having come from the mouth of such an exalted spirit, and not necessarily as containing the truth of love or Enlightenment. Indeed, the teaching is to be interpreted in the light of the teacher’s divine personality. The latter now predominates over the whole system, he is the centre whence radiate the rays of Enlightenment, salvation is only possible in believing in him as saviour.f16

Around this personality or this divine nature there will now grow various systems of philosophy essentially based on his own teaching, but more or less modified according to the spiritual experiences of the disciples. This would perhaps never have taken place if the personality of the founder were not such as to stir up the deep religious feelings in the hearts of his followers; which is to say, what most attracted the latter to the teaching was not primarily the teaching itself but that which gave life to it, and without which it would never have been what it was. We are not always convinced of the truth of a statement because it is so logically advanced, but mainly because there is an inspiring life-impulse running through it. We are first struck with it and later try to verify its truth. The understanding is needed, but this alone will never move us to risk the fate of our souls.

One of the greatest religious souls in Japan once confessed,f17 “I do not care whether I go to hell or elsewhere, but because my old master taught me to invoke the name of the Buddha, I practise the teaching.” This was not a blind acceptance of the master, in whom there was something deeply appealing to one’s soul, and the disciple embraced this something with his whole being. Mere logic never moves us; there must be something transcending the intellect. When Paul insisted that “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins,” he was not appealing to our logical idea of things, but to our spiritual yearnings. It did not matter whether things existed as facts of chronological history or not, the vital concern of ours was the fulfilment of our inmost inspirations; even so-called objective facts could be so moulded as to yield the best result to the requirements of our spiritual life. The personality of the founder of any religious system that has survived through centuries of growth must have had all the qualities that fully meet such spiritual requirements. As soon as the person and his teaching are separated after his own passing in the religious consciousness of his followers, if he was sufficiently great, he will at once occupy the centre of their spiritual interest and all his teachings will be made to explain this fact in various ways.

To state it more concretely, how much Christianity, for instance, as we have it to-day is the teaching of Christ himself? and how much of it is the contribution of Paul, John, Peter, Augustine, and even Aristotle? The magnificent structure of Christian dogmatics is the work of Christian faith as has been experienced successively by its leaders, it is not the work of one person, even of Christ. For dogmatics is not necessarily always concerned with historical facts which are rather secondary in importance compared with the religious truth of Christianity: the latter is what ought to be rather than what is or what was. It aims at the establishment of what is universally valid, which is not to be jeopardised by the fact or non-fact of historical elements, as is maintained by some of the modern exponents of Christian dogmatics. Whether Christ really claimed to be the Messiah or not is a great historical discussion still unsettled among Christian theologians. Some say that it does not make any difference as far as Christian faith is concerned whether or not Christ claimed to be the Messiah. In spite of all such theological difficulties, Christ is the centre of Christianity. The Christian edifice is built around the person of Jesus. Buddhists may accept some of his teachings and sympathise with the content of his religious experience, but so long as they do not cherish any faith in Jesus as “Christ” or Lord, they are not Christians.

Christianity is therefore constituted not only with the teaching of Jesus himself but with all the dogmatical and speculative interpretations concerning the personality of Jesus and his doctrine that have accumulated ever since the death of the founder. In other words, Christ did not found the religious system known by his name, but he was made its founder by his followers. If he were still among them, it is highly improbable that he would sanction all the theories, beliefs, and practices, which are now imposed upon self-styled Christians. If he were asked whether their learned dogmatics were his religion, he might not know how to answer. He would in all likelihood profess complete ignorance of all the philosophical subtleties of Christian theology of the present day. But from the modern Christians’ point of view they will most definitely assure us that their religion is to be referred to “a unitary starting point and to an original basic character,” which is Jesus as Christ and that whatever manifold constructions and transformations that were experienced in the body of their religion did not interfere with their specific Christ-faith. They are Christians just as much as the brethren of their primitive community were; for there is an historical continuation of the same faith all along its growth and development which is its inner necessity. To regard the form of culture of a particular time as something sacred and to be transmitted for ever as such is to suppress our spiritual yearnings after eternal validity. This I believe is the position taken up by progressive modern Christians.

How about progressive modern Buddhists then in regard to their attitude towards Buddhist faith constituting the essence of Buddhism? How is the Buddha conceived by his disciples? What is the nature and value of Buddhahood? When Buddhism is defined merely as the teaching of the Buddha, does it explain the life of Buddhism as it moves on through the course of history? Is not the life of Buddhism the unfolding of the inner spiritual life of the Buddha himself rather than his exposition of it, which is recorded as the Dharma in Buddhist literature? Is there not something in the wordy teaching of the Buddha, which gives life to it and which lieth underneath all the arguments and controversies characterising the history of Buddhism throughout Asia? This life is what progressive Buddhists endeavour to lay hands on.

It is therefore not quite in accordance with the life and teaching of the Buddha to regard Buddhism merely as a system of religious doctrines and practices established by the Buddha himself; for it is more than that, and comprises as its most important constituent elements, all the experiences and speculations of the Buddha’s followers especially concerning the personality of their master and his relations to his own doctrine. Buddhism did not come out of the Buddha’s mind fully armed, as did Minerva from Jupiter. The theory of a perfect Buddhism from the beginning is the static view of it, and cuts it short from its continuous and never-ceasing growth. Our religious experience transcends the limitations of time, and its ever-expanding content requires a more vital form which will grow without doing violence to itself. Inasmuch as Buddhism is a living religion and not an historical mummy stuffed with dead and functionless materials, it must be able to absorb and assimilate all that is helpful to its growth. This is the most natural thing for any organism endowed with life. And this life may be traceable under divergent forms and constructions.

According to scholars of Pali Buddhism and of the Āgama literature, all that the Buddha taught, as far as his systematic teaching went, seems to be summed up by the Fourfold Noble Truth, the Twelvefold Chain of Causation, the Eightfold Path of Righteous Living, and the doctrine of Non-ego (Anātman) and Nirvana. If this was the case, what we call primitive Buddhism was quite a simple affair when its doctrinal aspect alone is considered. There was nothing very promising in these doctrines that would eventually build up a magnificent structure to be known as Buddhism comprising both the Hinayana and the Mahayana. When we wish to understand Buddhism thoroughly, we must dive deep into its bottom where lies its living spirit. Those that are satisfied with a superficial view of its dogmatical aspect are apt to let go the spirit which will truly explain the inner life of Buddhism. To some of the Buddha’s immediate disciples the deeper things in his teachings failed to appeal, or they were not conscious of the real spiritual forces which moved them towards their Master. We must look underneath if we want to come in contact with the ever-growing life-impetus of Buddhism. However great the Buddha was, he could not convert a jackal into a lion, nor could a jackal comprehend the Buddha above his beastly nature. As the later Buddhists state, a Buddha alone understands another Buddha; when our subjective life is not raised to the same level as the Buddha’s, many things that go to make up his inner life escape us; we cannot live in any other world than our own.f18 Therefore, if the primitive Buddhists read so much in the life of their Master as is recorded in their writings, and no more, this does not prove that everything belonging to the Buddha has thereby been exhausted. There were probably other Buddhists who penetrated deeper into his life, as their own inner consciousness had a richer content. The history of religion thus becomes the history of our own spiritual unfolding. Buddhism must be conceived biologically, so to speak, and not mechanically. When we take this attitude, even the doctrine of the Fourfold Noble Truth becomes pregnant with yet deeper truths.

The Buddha was not a metaphysician and naturally avoided discussing such subjects as were strictly theoretical and had no practical bearing on the attainment of Nirvana. He might have had his own views on those philosophical problems that at the time engaged Indian minds. But like other religious leaders his chief interest was in the practical result of speculation and not in speculation as such. He was too busy in trying to get rid of the poisonous arrow that had pierced the flesh, he had no desire to inquire into the history, object, and constitution of the arrow; for life was too short for that. He thus took the world as it was, that is, he interpreted it as it appeared to his religious insight and according to his own valuation. He did not intend to go any further. He called his way of looking at the world and life “Dharma,” a very comprehensive and flexible term, though it was not a term first used by the Buddha; for it had been in vogue some time prior to him mainly in the sense of ritual and law, but the Buddha gave it a deeper spiritual signification.

That the Buddha was practical and not metaphysical, may be seen from the criticism which was hurled at him by his opponents: “As Gautama is always found alone sitting in an empty room, he has lost his wisdom.... Even Sariputra who is the wisest and best disciple of his is like a babe, so stupid and without eloquence.”f19 Here however lies the seed of a future development. If the Buddha had been given up to theorising his teaching never could be expected to grow. Speculation may be deep and subtle, but if it has no spiritual life in it, its possibilities are soon exhausted. The Dharma was ever maturing, because it was mysteriously creative.

The Buddha evidently had quite a pragmatic conception of the intellect and left many philosophical problems unsolved as unnecessary for the attainment of the final goal of life. This was quite natural with him. Whilst he was still alive among his disciples, he was the living illustration of all that was implied in his doctrine. The Dharma was manifest in him in all its vital aspects, and there was no need to indulge in idle speculation as to the ultimate meaning of such concepts as Dharma, Nirvana, Atman (ego), Karma, Bodhi (enlightenment), etc. The Buddha’s personality was the key to the solution of all these. The disciples were not fully aware of the significance of this fact. When they thought they understood the Dharma, they did not know that this understanding was really taking refuge in the Buddha. His presence somehow had a pacifying and satisfying effect on whatever spiritual anguish they had; they felt as if they were securely embraced in the arms of a loving, consoling mother; to them the Buddha was really such.f20 Therefore, they had no need to press the Buddha very hard to enlighten them on many of the philosophical problems that they might have grown conscious of. They were easily reconciled in this respect to the Buddha’s unwillingness to take them into the heart of metaphysics. But at the same time this left much room for the later Buddhists to develop their own theories not only as to the teaching of the Buddha but mainly as to its relation to his personality.

The Buddha’s entrance into Nirvana meant to his disciples the loss of the World-Light,f21 through which they had such an illuminating view of things. The Dharma was there and in it they tried to see the Buddha as they were instructed by him, but it had no enlivening effect on them as before; the moral precepts consisting of many rules were regularly observed in the Brotherhood, but the authoritativeness of these regulations was missed somehow. They retired into a quietude and meditated on the teaching of the Master, but the meditation was not quite so life-giving and satisfying because they were ever assailed by doubts, and, as a natural consequence, their intellectual activities were resumed. Everything was now to be explained to the full extent of the reasoning faculty. The metaphysician began to assert himself against the simple-hearted devotion of the disciple. What has been accepted as an authoritative injunction from the mouth of the Buddha, was now to be examined as a subject of philosophical discussion. Two factions were ready to divide the field with each other, and radicalism was opposed to conservatism, and between the two wings there were arranged schools of various tendencies. The Sthaviras were pitted against the Mahāsaṁghikas, with twenty or more different schools representing various grades of diversity.f22

We cannot, however, exclude from the body of Buddhism all the divergent views on the Buddha and his teaching as something foreign and not belonging to the constituent elements of Buddhism. For these views are exactly what support the frame of Buddhism, and without them the frame itself will be a non-entity altogether. The error with most critics of any existent religion with a long history of development is to conceive it as a completed system which is to be accepted as such, while the fact is that anything organic and spiritual—and we consider religion such—has no geometrical outline which can be traced on paper by ruler and compass. It refuses to be objectively defined, for this will be setting a limit to the growth of its spirit. Thus to know what Buddhism is will be to get into the life of Buddhism and to understand it from the inside as it unfolds itself objectively in history. Therefore, the definition of Buddhism must be that of the life-force which carries forward a spiritual movement called Buddhism. All these doctrines, controversies, constructions, and interpretations that were offered after the Buddha’s death as regards his person, life, and teaching were what essentially constituted the life of Indian Buddhism, and without these there could be no spiritual activity to be known as Buddhism.

In a word what constituted the life and spirit of Buddhism is nothing else than the inner life and spirit of the Buddha himself; Buddhism is the structure erected around the inmost consciousness of its founder. The style and material of the outer structure may vary as history moves forward, but the inner meaning of Buddhahood which supports the whole edifice remains the same and ever living. While on earth, the Buddha tried to make it intelligible in accordance with the capacities of his immediate followers, that is to say, the latter did their best to comprehend the deeper significance of the various discourses of their master, in which he pointed the way to final deliverance. As we are told, the Buddha discoursed “with one voice,”f23 but this was interpreted and understood by his devotees in as manifold manners as possible. This was inevitable, for we have each his own inner experience which is to be explained in terms of his own creation, naturally varying in depth and breadth. In most cases these so-called individual inner experiences, however, may not be so deep and forceful as to demand absolutely original phraseology, but may remain satisfied with new interpretations of the old terms—once brought into use by an ancient original spiritual leader. And this is the way every great historical religion grows enriched in its contents or ideas. In some cases this enrichment may mean the overgrowth of superstructures ending in a complete burial of the original spirit. This is where critical judgment is needed, but otherwise we must not forget to recognise the living principle still in activity. In the case of Buddhism we must not neglect to read the inner life of the Buddha himself asserting itself in the history of a religious system designated after his name. The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.

Some vital problems of Buddhism

To the earlier Buddhists the problem did not present itself in this light; that is to say, they did not realise that the centre of all their dogmatics and controversies was to ascertain the real inner life of the Buddha, which constituted their active faith in the Buddha and his teaching. Without exactly knowing why, they first entertained, after the passing of the Buddha, a strong desire to speculate on the nature of his personality. They had no power to check the constant and insistent cry of this desire brimming over in their inmost hearts. What constituted Buddhahood? What was the essence of Buddhahood? Questions like these assailed them one after another, and among those there were the following which stood out more prominently as they were more vitally interesting. They were those concerned with the Enlightenment of the Buddha, his entrance into Nirvana, his former life as a Bodhisattva (that is, as one capable of Enlightenment), and his teaching as viewed from their way of understanding the Buddha. Thus his teaching ceased to be considered independently of its author, the truth of the teaching was so organically connected with the Buddha’s personality, the Dharma was to be believed because it was the very embodiment of Buddhahood, and not necessarily because it was so logically consistent or philosophically tenable. The Buddha was the key to the truth of Buddhism.

When attention thus centres in the person of the Buddha as the author of the Dharma, the question of his inner experience known as Enlightenment becomes the most vital one. Without this experience the Buddha could not be called a Buddha; in fact, the term “Buddha,” the Enlightened One, was his own making. If a man understands what enlightenment is or really experiences it in himself, he knows the whole secret of the Buddha’s superhuman nature and with it the riddle of life and the world. The essence of Buddhism must then lie in the Doctrine of Perfect Enlightenment. In the enlightened mind of the Buddha there were many things which he did not and could not divulge to his disciples. When he refused to answer metaphysical questions, it was not because the minds of the questioners were not developed enough to comprehend the full implications of them. If however the Buddhists really desired to know their master, and his teaching, they had to study the secrets of Enlightenment. As they had no living master now they had to solve the problems by themselves if they could, and they were never tired of exhausting their intellectual ingenuity on them. Various theories were then advanced, and Buddhism grew richer in content, it came to reflect something eternally valid besides mere personal teaching of an individual. It ceased to be a thing merely historical, but a system ever living, growing, and energy-imparting. Various Mahayana Sutras and Shastras were produced to develop various aspects of the content of Enlightenment as realised by the Buddha. Some of them were speculative, others mystical, and still others ethical and practical. In the idea of Enlightenment was thus focussed all Buddhist thought.

Nirvana as the ideal of Buddhist life next engaged the serious attention of Buddhist philosophers. Was it an annihilation of existence, or that of passions or desires, or the dispelling of ignorance, or a state of egolessness? Did the Buddha really enter into a state of utter extinction leaving all sentient beings to their own fate? Did the love he showed to his followers vanish with his passing? Would he not come back among them in order to guide them, to enlighten them, to listen to their spiritual anguish? The value of such a grand personality as the Buddha could not perish with his physical existence, it ought to remain with us for ever as a thing of eternal validity. How could this notion be reconciled with the annihilation theory of Nirvana so prevalent among the personal disciples of the Buddha? When history conflicts with our idea of value, can it not be interpreted to the satisfaction of our religious yearnings? What is the objective authority of “facts” if not supported by an inwardly grounded authority? Varieties of interpretation are then set forth in the Mahayana texts as to the implications of Nirvana and other cognate conceptions to be found in the “original” teaching of the Buddha.f24

What is the relationship between Enlightenment and Nirvana? How did Buddhists come to realise Arhatship? What convinced them of their attainment? Is the Enlightenment of an Arhat the same as that of the Buddha? To answer these questions and many others in close connection with them was the task imposed upon various schools of Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism. While they quarrelled much, they never forgot that they were all Buddhists and whatever interpretations they gave to these problems they were faithful to their Buddhist experience. They were firmly attached to the founder of their religion and only wished to get thoroughly intimate with the faith and teaching as were first promulgated by the Buddha. Some of them were naturally more conservative and wished to submit to the orthodox and traditional way of understanding the Dharma; but there were others as in every field of human life, whose inner experience meant more to them, and to harmonise this with the traditional authority they resorted to metaphysics to its fullest extent. Their efforts, there is no doubt, were honest and sincere, and when they thought they solved the difficulties or contradictions they were satisfied inwardly as well as intellectually. In fact they had no other means of egress from the spiritual impasse in which they found themselves through the natural and inevitable growth of their inmost life. This was the way Buddhism had to develop if it ever had in it any life to grow.

While Enlightenment and Nirvana were closely related to the conception of Buddhahood itself, there was another idea of great importance to the development of Buddhism, which however had no direct connection apparently, though not in its ultimate signification, with the personality of the Buddha. This idea naturally proved to be most fruitful in the history of Buddhist dogmatics along with the doctrines of Enlightenment and Nirvana. I mean by this the doctrine of non-Atman which denies the existence of an ego-substance in our psychic life. When the notion of Atman was ruling Indian minds, it was a bold announcement on the part of the Buddha to regard it as the source of ignorance and transmigration. The theory of Origination (pratītya-samutpāda) which seems to make up the foundation of the Buddha’s teaching is thus finally resolved into the finding of a mischievous “designer” who works behind all our spiritual restlessness. Whatever interpretation was given to the doctrine of non-Atman in the early days of Buddhism, the idea came to be extended over to things inanimate as well. Not only there was no ego-substance behind our mental life, but there was no ego in the physical world, which meant that we could not separate in reality acting from actor, force from mass, or life from its manifestations. As far as thinking goes, we can establish these two pairs of conception as limiting each other, but in the actuality of things they must all be one, as we cannot impose our logical way of thinking upon reality in its concreteness. When we transfer this separation from thought into reality, we encounter many difficulties not only intellectual but moral and spiritual, from which we suffer unspeakable anguish later. This was felt by the Buddha, and he called this mixing up Ignorance (avidyā). The Mahayana doctrine of Śūnyatā was a natural conclusion. But I need not make any remark here to the effect that the Śūnyatā theory is not nihilism or acosmism, but that it has its positive background which sustains it and gives life to it.

It was in the natural order of thought now for Buddhists to endeavour to find a philosophical explanation of Enlightenment and Nirvana in the theory of non-Atman or Śūnyatā, and this to the best of their intellectual power and in the light of their spiritual experience. They finally found out that Enlightenment was not a thing exclusively belonging to the Buddha, but that each one of us could attain it if he got rid of ignorance by abandoning the dualistic conception of life and of the world; they further concluded that Nirvana was not vanishing into a state of absolute non-existence which was an impossibility as long as we had to reckon with the actual facts of life, and that Nirvana in its ultimate signification was an affirmation—an affirmation beyond opposites of all kinds. This metaphysical understanding of the fundamental problem of Buddhism marks the features of the Mahayana philosophy. As to its practical side where the theory of Śūnyatā and the doctrine of Enlightenment are harmoniously united and realised in life, or where the Buddhists aim to enter into the inner consciousness of the Buddha as was revealed to him under the Bodhi tree, we will refer to it in the following section.

Almost all Buddhist scholars in Japan agree that all these characteristic ideas of the Mahayana are systematically traceable in Hinayana literature; and that all the reconstructions and transformations which the Mahayanists are supposed to have put on the original form of Buddhism are really nothing but an unbroken continuation of one original Buddhist spirit and life, and further that even the so-called primitive Buddhism as is expounded in the Pali canons and in the Agama texts of the Chinese Tripitaka, is also the result of an elaboration on the part of the earlier followers of the Buddha. If the Mahayana is not Buddhism proper, neither is the Hinayana, for the historical reason that neither of them represents the teaching of the Buddha as it was preached by the Master himself. Unless one limits the use of the term Buddhism very narrowly and only to a certain form of it, no one can very well refuse to include both Mahayana and Hinayana in the same denomination. And, in my opinion, it is proper, considering the organic relation between system and experience and the fact that the spirit of the Buddha himself is present in all these constructions, it is proper that the term Buddhism should be used in a broad, comprehensive, and inward sense.

This is not the place to enter into the details of organic relationship existing between the Hinayana and the Mahayana; for the object of this essay is to delineate the course of development as traversed by Zen Buddhism before it has reached the present form. Having outlined my position with regard to the definition of Buddhism and the Mahayana in general as a manifestation of Buddhist life and thought, or rather of the inner experience of the Buddha himself, the next step will be to see where lies the source of Zen and how it is one of the legitimate successors and transmitters of the Buddha’s spirit.

Zen and Enlightenment

The origin of Zen, as is the case with all other forms of Buddhism, is to be sought in Supreme Perfect Enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi) attained by the Buddha while he was sitting under the Bodhi-tree, near the city of Gaya. If this Enlightenment is of no value and signification to the development of Buddhism, Zen then has nothing to do with Buddhism, it was altogether another thing created by the genius of Bodhi-Dharma who visited China early in the sixth century. But if Enlightenment is the raison d’être of Buddhism, that is to say, if Buddhism is an edifice erected on the solid basis of Enlightenment, realised by the Buddha and making up his being, Zen is the central pillar which supports the entire structure, it composes the direct line of continuation drawn out from the content of the Buddha’s illumined mind. Traditionally Zen is considered to have been transmitted by the Buddha to his foremost disciple, Mahākāśyapa, when the Buddha held out a bunch of flowers to his congregation, the meaning of which was at once grasped by Mahākāśyapa who quietly smiled at him. The historicity of this incident is justly criticised, but knowing the value of Enlightenment we cannot ascribe the authority of Zen just to such an episode as this. Zen was in fact handed over not only to Mahākāśyapa but to all beings who will follow the steps of the Buddha, the Enlightened One.

Like a true Indian the Buddha’s idea of ascetic meditation was to attain Vimoksha (or simply Moksha, deliverance) from the bondage of birth and death. There were several ways open to him to reach the goal. According to the Brahman philosophers of those days, the great fruit of deliverance could be matured by embracing religious truth, or by practising asceticism or chastity, or by learning, or by freeing oneself from passions. Each in its way was an excellent means, and if they were practised severally or all together, they might result in emancipation of some kind. But the philosophers talked about methods and did not give one any trustworthy information concerning their actual spiritual experience, and what the Buddha wished was this self-realisation, a personal experience, an actual insight into truth, and not mere discoursing about methods, or playing with concepts.f25 He detested all philosophical reasonings which he called dṛishti or darśana, for they would lead him nowhere, bring him no practical result in his spiritual life. He was never satisfied until he inwardly realised the Bodhi as the truth immediately presented to his transcendental consciousness and whose absolute nature was so inner, so self-convincing that he had no doubt whatever in regard to its universal validity. The content of this Enlightenment was explained by the Buddha as the Dharma which was to be directly perceived (sandiṭṭhika), beyond limits of time (akalika), to be personally experienced (ehipassika), altogether persuasive (opanayika), and to be understood each for himself by the wise (paccattaṁ veditabbo viññuhi). This meant that the Dharma was to be intuited and not to be analytically reached by concepts. The reason why the Buddha so frequently refused to answer metaphysical problems was partly due to his conviction that the ultimate truth was to be realised in oneself through one’s own efforts;f26 for all that could be gained through discursive understanding was the surface of things and not things themselves, conceptual knowledge never gave full satisfaction to one’s religious yearning. The attainment of the Bodhi could not be the accumulation of dialectical subtleties. And this is the position taken up by Zen Buddhism as regards what it considers a final reality. Zen in this respect faithfully follows the injunction of the Master.

That the Buddha had an insight of higher order into the nature of things than that which could be obtained through ordinary logical reasoning is evidenced everywhere even in the so-called Hinayana literature. To cite just one instance from the Brahmajāla Sutta in which the Buddha deals with all the heretical schools that were in existence in his days, he invariably makes reference after refuting them to the Tathagata’s deeper understanding which goes beyond their speculations “wriggling like an eel.” What they discuss just for the sake of discussion and to show the keenness of their analytical faculty about the soul, future life, eternity, and other important spiritual subjects, is not productive of any actual benefits for our inner welfare. The Buddha knew well where these reasonings would finally lead to and how trivial and unwholesome they were after all. So we read in the Brahmajāla Sutta: “Of these, Brethren, the Tathagata knows that these speculations thus arrived at, thus insisted on, will have such and such a result, such and such an effect on the future condition of those who trust in them. That does he know, and he knows also other things far beyond (far better than those speculations): and having that knowledge he is not puffed up, and thus untarnished he has in his own heart realised the way of escape from them, has understood, as they really are, the rising up and passing away of sensations, their sweet taste, their danger, how they cannot be relied on; and not grasping after any [of those things men are eager for], he, the Tathagata, is quite set free.”f27

While the ideal of Arhatship was no doubt the entering into Nirvana that leaves nothing behind (anupādhiśesha), whatever this may mean, it did not ignore the significance of Enlightenment, no, it could not do so very well without endangering its own reason of existence. For Nirvana was nothing else in its essence than Enlightenment, the content was identical in either case. Enlightenment was Nirvana reached while yet in the flesh, and no Nirvana was ever possible without obtaining Enlightenment. The latter may have a more intellectual note in it than the former, which is a psychological state realised through Enlightenment. Bodhi is spoken of in the so-called primitive Buddhism just as much as Nirvana. So long as passions (kleśa) were not subdued, and the mind still remained enshrouded in ignorance, no Buddhists could ever dream of obtaining a Moksha (deliverance) which is Nirvana, and this deliverance from Ignorance and passions was the work of Enlightenment. Generally Nirvana is understood in its negative aspect as the total extinction of everything, body and soul, but in the actuality of life no such negativist conception could ever prevail, and the Buddha never meant Nirvana to be so interpreted. If there were nothing affirmative in Nirvana, the Mahayanists could never have evolved the positive conception of it later. Though the immediate disciples of the Buddha were not conscious of this, there was always the thought of Enlightenment implied in it. Enlightenment attained by the Buddha after a week’s meditation under the Bodhi-tree could not be of no consequence to his Arhat-disciples, however negatively the latter tended to apply this principle to the attainment of their life-object.

The true significance of Enlightenment was effectively brought out by the Mahayanists not only in its intellectual implications but in its moral and religious bearings. The result was the conception of Bodhisattvaship in contradistinction to Arhatship, the ideal of their rival school. The Arhat and the Bodhisattva are essentially the same. But the Mahayanists, perceiving a deeper sense in Enlightenment as the most important constituent element in the attainment of the final goal of Buddhism, which is spiritual freedom (ceto-vimutti), as the Nikāyas have it, did not wish to have it operated in themselves only, but wanted to see it realised in every being sentient and even non-sentient. Not only this was their subjective yearning, but there was an objective basis on which the yearning could be justified and realised. It was the presence in every individual of a faculty designated by the Mahayanists as Prajñā.f28 This was the principle that made Enlightenment possible in us as well as in the Buddha. Without Prajñā there could be no Enlightenment, which was the highest spiritual power in our possession. The intellect or what is ordinarily known by Buddhist scholars as Vijñāna, was relative in its activity, and could not comprehend the ultimate truth which was Enlightenment. And it was due to this ultimate truth that we could lift ourselves above the dualism of matter and spirit, of ignorance and wisdom, of passion and non-attachment. Enlightenment consisted in personally realising the truth, ultimate and absolute and capable of affirmation. Thus we are all Bodhisattvas now, beings of Enlightenment, if not in actuality, then potentially. Bodhi-sattvas are also Prajñā-sattvas, as we are universally endowed with Prajñā, which, when fully and truly operating, will realise in us Enlightenment, and intellectually (in its highest sense) lift us above appearances, which is a state designated by Nikaya Buddhists as “emancipation of mind or reason” (paññā-vimutti or sammad-aññā vimutti).

If by virtue of Enlightenment Gautama was transformed into the Buddha, and then if all beings are endowed with Prajñā and capable of Enlightenment, that is, if they are thus Bodhisattvas, the logical conclusion will be that Bodhisattvas are all Buddhas, or destined to be Buddhas as soon as sufficient conditions obtain. Hence the Mahayana doctrine that all beings, sentient or non-sentient, are endowed with the Buddha-nature, and that our minds are the Buddha-mind and our bodies are the Buddha-body. The Buddha before his Enlightenment was an ordinary mortal, and we, ordinary mortals, will be Buddhas the moment our mental eyesf29 open in Enlightenment. In this do we not see plainly the most natural and most logical course of things leading up to the main teaching of Zen as it later developed in China and Japan?

How extensively and intensively the concept of Enlightenment influenced the development of Mahayana Buddhism may be seen in the composition of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, which is really one of the profoundest Mahayana protests against the Hinayana conception of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. According to the latter, the Buddha attained it at Gayā while meditating under the Bodhi-tree, for they regarded the Buddha as a mortal being like themselves, subject to historical and psychological conditions. But the Mahayanists could not be satisfied with such a realistic common-sense interpretation of the personality of the Buddha, they saw something in it which went deep into their hearts and wanted to come in immediate touch with it. What they sought was finally given, and they found that the idea of the Buddha’s being a common soul was a delusion, that the Tathagata arrived in his Supreme Perfect Enlightenment “many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of æons ago,” and that all those historical “facts” in his life which are recorded in the Agama or Nikaya literature are his “skilful devices” (upāya-kauśalya) to lead creatures to full ripeness and go in the Buddha Way.f30 In other words, this means that Enlightenment is the absolute reason of the universe and the essence of Buddhahood, and therefore that to obtain Enlightenment is to realise in one’s inner consciousness the ultimate truth of the world which for ever is. While the Puṇḍarīka emphasises the Buddha-aspect of Enlightenment, Zen directs its attention mainly to the Enlightenment-aspect of Buddhahood. When this latter aspect is considered intellectually, we have the philosophy of Buddhist dogmatics, which is studied by scholars of the Tendai (t‘ien-tai), Kegon (avataṁsaka), Hosso, (dharmalaksha), and other schools. Zen approaches it from the practical side of life, that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

Seeing that the idea of Enlightenment played such an important rôle in the development of Mahayana Buddhism, what is the content of it? Can we describe it in an intelligible manner so that our analytical intellect could grasp it and make it an object of thought? The Fourfold Noble Truth was not the content of Enlightenment, nor was the Twelvefold Chain of Causation, nor the Eightfold Righteous Path. The truth flashed through the Buddha’s consciousness was not such a thought capable of discursive unfolding. When he exclaimed:

he must have grasped something much deeper than mere dialectics. There must have been something most fundamental and ultimate which at once set all his doubts at rest, not only intellectual doubts but spiritual anguish. Indeed, forty-nine years of his active life after Enlightenment were commentaries on it, and yet they did not exhaust its content; nor did all the later speculations of Nāgārjuna, Aśvaghosha, and Vasubandhu, and Asanga explain it away. In the Laṅkāvatāra therefore the author makes the Buddha confess that since his Enlightenment, till his passing into Nirvana he uttered not a word.f32

Therefore, again with all his memory and learning, Ānanda could not sound the bottom of the Buddha’s wisdom, while the latter was still alive. According to tradition, Ānanda’s attainment to Arhatship took place at the time of the First Convocation in which he was not allowed to take part in spite of his twenty-five years’ attendance upon the Buddha. Grieving over the fact, he spent the whole night perambulating in an open square, and when he was about to lay himself down on a couch all exhausted, he all of a sudden came to realise the truth of Buddhism, which with all his knowledge and understanding had escaped him all those years.

What does this mean? Arhatship is evidently not a matter of scholarship; it is something realised in the twinkling of an eye after a long arduous application to the matter. The preparatory course may occupy a long stretch of time, but the crisis breaks out at a point instantaneously, and one is an Arhat, or a Bodhisattva, or even a Buddha. The content of Enlightenment must be quite simple in nature and yet tremendous in effect. That is to say, intellectually, it must transcend all the complications involved in an epistemological exposition of it; and psychologically, it must be the reconstruction of one’s entire personality. Such a fundamental fact naturally evades description, and can be grasped only by an act of intuition and through personal experience. It is really the Dharma in its highest sense. If by “the stirring of one thought” Ignorance came into our life, the awakening of another thought must put a stop to Ignorance and bring about Enlightenment.f33 And in this there is no thought to be an object of logical consciousness or empirical reasoning; for in Enlightenment thinker and thinking and thought are merged in the one act of seeing into the very being of Self. No further explanation of the Dharma is possible, hence an appeal to via negativa. And this has reached its climax in the Śūnyatā philosophy of Nāgārjuna, which is based upon the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā literature of Buddhism.

So we see that Enlightenment is not the outcome of an intellectual process in which one idea follows another in sequence finally to terminate in conclusion or judgment. There is neither process nor judgment in Enlightenment, it is something more fundamental, something which makes a judgment possible, and without which no form of judgment can take place. In judgment there are a subject and a predicate; in Enlightenment subject is predicate, and predicate is subject; they are here merged as one, but not as one of which something can be stated, but as one from which arises judgment. We cannot go beyond this absolute oneness; all the intellectual operations stop here; when they endeavour to go further, they draw a circle in which they for ever repeat themselves. This is the wall against which all philosophies have beaten in vain. This is an intellectual terra incognita, in which prevails the principle, “Credo quia absurdum est.” This region of darkness, however, gives up its secrets when attacked by the will, by the force of one’s entire personality. Enlightenment is the illuminating of this dark region, when the whole thing is seen at one glance, and all intellectual inquiries find here their rationale. Hitherto one may have been intellectually convinced of the truth of a certain proposition, but somehow it has not yet entered into his life, the truth still lacks ultimate confirmation, and he cannot help feeling a vague sense of indeterminateness and uneasiness. Enlightenment now comes upon him in a mysterious way without any previous announcement, and all is settled with him, he is an Arhat or even a Buddha. The dragon has got its eyes dotted, and it is no more a lifeless image painted on a canvas, but winds and rains are its willing servants now.

It is quite evident that Enlightenment is not the consciousness of logical perspicuity or analytical completeness, it is something more than an intellectual sense of conclusiveness, there is something in it which engages the entire field of consciousness not only by throwing light on the whole series of links welded for the purpose of solving the problems of life, but by giving a feeling of finality to all the spiritual anguish that has ever been so disquieting to one’s soul. The logical links however accurately adjusted and perfectly wrought together, fail by themselves to be pacifying to the soul in the most thoroughgoing manner. We require something more fundamental or more immediate for the purpose, and I maintain that the mere reviewing of the Fourfold Noble Truth or the Twelvefold Chain of Origination does not result in the attainment of the Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. The Buddha must have experienced something that went far deeper into his inmost consciousness than the mere intellectual grasping of empirical truths. He must have gone beyond the sphere of analytical reasoning. He must have come in touch with that which makes our intellectual operations possible, in fact that which conditions the very existence of our conscious life.

When Śāriputra saw Aśvajit, he noticed how composed the latter was, with all his organs of sense well controlled and how clear and bright the colour of his skin was. Śāriputra could not help asking him who was his teacher and what doctrine he taught. To this Aśvajit replied: “The great Śākyamuni, the Blessed One, is my teacher and his doctrine in substance is this:

It is said that on hearing this exposition of the Dharma, there arose in the mind of Śāriputra a clear and distinct perception of the Dharma that whatever is subject to origination is subject also to cessation. Śāriputra then attained to the deathless, sorrowless state, lost sight of and neglected for many myriads of kalpas.

The point to which I wish to call attention here is this: Is there anything intellectually remarkable and extraordinary and altogether original in this stanza that has so miraculously awakened Śāriputra from his habitually cherished way of thinking? As far as the Buddha’s Dharma (Doctrine) was concerned, there was not much of anything in these four lines. It is said that they are the substance of the Dharma; if so, the Dharma may be said to be rather devoid of substance, and how could Śāriputra ever find here a truth concrete and efficient enough to turn him away from the old rut? The stanza which is noted for having achieved the conversion of not only Śāriputra but Maudgalyāyana, has really nothing characteristic of Buddhistic thought, strong enough to produce such a great result. The reason for this, therefore, must be sought somewhere else, that is, not in the formal truth contained in the stanza, but in the subjective condition of the one to whose ears it chanced to fall and in whom it awakened a vision of another world. It was in the mind of Śāriputra itself that opened up to a clear and distinct understanding of the Dharma; in other words, the Dharma was revealed in him as something growing out of himself and not as an external truth poured into him. In a sense the Dharma had been in his mind all the time but he was not aware of its presence there until Aśvajit’s stanza was uttered. He was not a mere passive recipient into which something not native to his Self was poured. The hearing of the stanza gave him an opportunity to experience the supreme moment. If Śāriputra’s understanding was intellectual and discursive, his dialogue with Ānanda later on could not take place in the way it did. In the Saṁyutta-Nikāya, iii., 235f, we read:

Ānanda saw Śāriputra coming afar off, and he said to him; “Serene and pure and radiant is your face. Brother Śāriputra! In what mood has Śāriputra been to-day?”

“I have been alone in Dhyana, and to me came never the thought: I am attaining it! I have got it! I have emerged from it!”

Here we notice the distinction between an intellectual and a spiritual understanding which is Enlightenment. When Śāriputra referred to the cause of his being so serene, pure and radiant, he did not explain it logically but just stated the fact as he subjectively interpreted it himself. Whether this interpretation of his own was correct or not takes the psychologist to decide. What I wish to see here is that Śāriputra’s understanding of the doctrine of “origination and cessation” was not the outcome of his intellectual analysis but an intuitive comprehension of his own inner life-process. Between the Buddha’s Enlightenment which is sung in the Hymn of Victory and Śāriputra’s insight into the Dharma as the doctrine of causation, there is a close connection in the way their minds worked. In the one Enlightenment came first and then its expression; in the other a definite statement was addressed first and then came an insight; the process is reversed here. But the inadequacy of relation between antecedent and consequence remains the same. The one does not sufficiently explain the other, when the logical and intellectual understanding alone is taken into consideration. The explanation must be sought not in the objective truth contained in the doctrine of causation, but in the state of consciousness itself of the enlightened subject. Otherwise, how do we account for the establishment of such a firm faith in self-realisation or self-deliverance as this? “He has destroyed all evil passions (āsava); he has attained to heart-emancipation (ceto-vimutti) and intellect-emancipation (pannā-vimutti), here in this visible world he has by himself understood, realised, and mastered the Dharma, he has dived deep into it, has passed beyond doubt, has put away perplexity, has gained full confidence, he has lived the life, has done what was to be done, has destroyed the fetter of rebirth, he has comprehended the Dharma as it is truly in itself.”f34

This is why the Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra tries so hard to tell us that language is altogether inadequate as the means of expressing and communicating the inner state of Enlightenment. While without language we may fare worse at least in our practical life, we must guard ourselves most deliberately against our trusting it too much beyond its legitimate office. The Sutra gives the main reason for this, which is that language is the product of causal dependence, subject to change, unsteady, mutually conditioned, and based on false judgment as to the true nature of consciousness. For this reason language cannot reveal to us the ultimate signification of things (paramārtha). The noted analogy of finger and moon is most appropriate to illustrate the relation between language and sense, symbol and reality.

If the Buddha’s Enlightenment really contained so much in it that he himself could not sufficiently demonstrate or illustrate it with his “long thin tongue” (prabhūtatanujihva) through his long peaceful life given to meditation and discoursing, how could those less than he ever hope to grasp it and attain spiritual emancipation? This is the position taken up by Zen: To comprehend the truth of Enlightenment, therefore, we must exercise some other mental power than intellection, if we are at all in possession of such. Discoursing fails to reach the goal and yet we have an unsatiated aspiration after the unattainable. Are we then meant to live and die thus tormented for ever? If so, this is the most lamentable situation in which we find ourselves on earth. Buddhists have applied themselves most earnestly to the solution of the problem and have finally come to see that we have after all within ourselves what we need. This is the power of intuition possessed by spirit and able to comprehend spiritual truth which will show us all the secrets of life making up the content of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. It is not an ordinary intellectual process of reasoning, but a power that will grasp something most fundamental in an instant and in the directest way. Prajñā is the name given to this power by the Buddhists, as I said, and what Zen Buddhism aims at in its relation to the doctrine of Enlightenment is to awaken Prajñā by the exercise of meditation.

We read in the Saddharma-puṇḍarīka: “O Śāriputra, the true Law understood by the Tathagata cannot be reasoned, is beyond the pale of reasoning. Why? For the Tathagata appears in the world to carry out one great object, which is to make all beings accept, see, enter into, and comprehend the knowledge and insight gained by the Tathagata, and also to make them enter upon the path of knowledge and insight attained by the Tathagata.... Those who learn it from the Tathagata also reach his Supreme Perfect Enlightenment.”f35 If such was the one great object of the Buddha’s appearance on earth, how do we get into the path of insight and realise Supreme Perfect Enlightenment? And if this Dharma of Enlightenment is beyond the limits of the understanding, no amount of philosophising will ever bring us nearer the goal. How do we then learn it from the Tathagata? Decidedly not from his mouth, nor from the records of his sermons, nor from the ascetic practise, but from our own inner consciousness through the exercise of dhyana. And this is the doctrine of Zen.

Enlightenment and Spiritual Freedom

When the doctrine of Enlightenment makes its appeal to the inner experience of the Buddhist and its content is to be grasped immediately without any conceptual medium, the sole authority in his spiritual life will have to be found within himself; traditionalism or institutionalism will naturally lose all its binding force. According to him, then, propositions will be true, that is, living, because they are in accordance with his spiritual insight; and his actions will permit no external standard of judgment; as long as they are the inevitable overflow of his inner life, they are good, even holy. The direct issue of this interpretation of Enlightenment will be the upholding of absolute spiritual freedom in every way, which will further lead to the unlimited expansion of his mental outlook going beyond the narrow bounds of monastic and scholastic Buddhism. This was not however, from the Mahayanistic point of view, against the spirit of the Buddha.

The constitution of the Brotherhood will now have to change. In the beginning of Buddhism, it was a congregation of homeless monks who subjected themselves to a certain set of ascetic rules of life. In this Buddhism was an exclusive possession of the élite, and the general public or Upāsaka group who accepted the Threefold Refuge Formula was a sort of appendage to the regular or professional Brotherhood. When Buddhism was still in its first stage of development, even nuns (bhikshuṇī) were not allowed to come into the community; the Buddha received them only after great reluctance, prophesying that Buddhism would now live only half of its normal life. We can readily see from this fact that the teaching of the Buddha and the doctrine of Enlightenment were meant to be practised and realised only among limited classes of people. While the Buddha regarded the various elements of his congregation with perfect impartiality, cherishing no prejudices as to their social, racial, and other distinctions, the full benefit of his teaching could not extend beyond the monastic boundaries. If there was nothing in it that could benefit mankind in general, this exclusiveness was naturally to be expected. But the doctrine of Enlightenment was something that could not be kept thus imprisoned, it had many things in it that would overflow all the limitations set to it. When the conception of Bodhisattvahood came to be emphatically asserted, a monastic and self-excluding community could no longer hold its ground, a religion of monks and nuns had to become a religion of laymen and laywomen. An ascetic discipline leading to the Anūpādhiśesha-Nirvāṇa had to give way to a system of teaching that would make any one attain Enlightenment and demonstrate Nirvana in his daily life. In all the Mahayana Sutras, this general tendency in the unfoldment of Buddhism is vehemently asserted, showing how intense was the struggle between conservatism and progressivism.

This spirit of freedom which is the power impelling Buddhism to break through its monastic shell and bringing forward the idea of Enlightenment ever vigorously before the masses, is the life-impulse of the universe,—this unhampered activity of spirit, and everything that interferes with it is destined to be defeated. The history of Buddhism is thus also a history of freedom in one’s spiritual, intellectual, and moral life. The moral aristocracy and disciplinary formalism of primitive Buddhism could not bind our spirit for a very long period of time. As the doctrine of Enlightenment grew to be more and more inwardly interpreted, the spirit rose above the formalism of Buddhist discipline. It was of no absolute necessity for one to leave his home life and follow the footsteps of the wandering monks in order to reach the supreme fruit of Enlightenment. Inward purity, and not external piety, was the thing needed for the Buddhist life. The Upāsakas were in this respect as good as the Bhikshus. The fact is most eloquently illustrated in the Vimalakīrti-Sūtra. The chief character here is Vimalakīrti, a lay philosopher, outside the pale of the Brotherhood. None of the Buddha’s disciples were his matches in the depth, breadth, and subtleties of thought, and when the Buddha told them to visit his sickroom, they all excused themselves for some reason or other, except Mañjuśrī, who is Prajñā incarnate in Mahayana Buddhism.

That the lay-devotees thus asserted themselves even at the expense of the Arhats, may also be gleaned from other sources than the Vimalakīrti, but especially from such Sutras as the Śrīmālā, Gaṇḍhavyūha, Vajrasamādhi, Candrottara-dārikā, etc. What is the most noteworthy in this connection is that woman plays an important rôle on various occasions. Not only is she endowed with philosophising talents, but she stands on equal footing with man. Among the fifty-three philosophers or leaders of thought visited by Sudhana in his religious pilgrimage, he interviewed many women in various walks of life, and some of whom were even courtesans. They all wisely discoursed with the insatiable seeker of truth. What a different state of affairs this was when compared with the reluctant admission of women into the Sangha in the early days of Buddhism! Later Buddhism may have lost something in austerity, aloofness, and even saintliness, which appeal strongly to our religious imagination, but it has gained in democracy, picturesqueness, and largely in humanity.

The free spirit which wanders out beyond the monastic walls of the Brotherhood now follows its natural consequence and endeavours to transcend the disciplinary rules and the ascetic formalism of the Hinayanists. The moral rules that were given by the Buddha to his followers as they were called for by the contingencies of life, were concerned more or less with externalism. When the Buddha remained with them as the living spirit of the Brotherhood, these rules were the direct expressions of the subjective life; but with the Buddha’s departure, they grew rigid and failed to reach the inner spirit of their author, and the followers of Enlightenment revolted against them, upholding “the spirit that giveth life.” They advocated perfect freedom of spirit, even after the fashion of antinomians. If the spirit were pure, no acts of the body could spoil it; it could wander about anywhere it liked with absolute immunity. It would even go down to hell, if it were necessary or expedient for them to do so, for the sake of the salvation of the depraved. It would indefinitely postpone the entering into Nirvana if there were still souls to save and minds to enlighten. According to “the letter that killeth” no Buddhists were allowed to enter a liquor shop, or to be familiar with inmates of the houses barred from respectability, in short, even for a moment to be thinking of violating any of the moral precepts. But to the Mahayanists all kinds of “expediency” or “devices” were granted if they were fully enlightened and had their spirits thoroughly purified. They were living in a realm beyond good and evil, and as long as they were there, no acts of theirs could be classified and judged according to the ordinary measure of ethics; they were neither moral nor immoral. These relative terms had no application in a kingdom governed by free spirits which soared above the relative world of differences and oppositions. This was most slippery ground for the Mahayanists. When they were really enlightened and fathomed the depths of spirituality, every deed of theirs was a creative act of God, but in this extreme form of idealism, objectivity had no room, and consequently who could ever distinguish libertinism from spiritualism? In spite of this pitfall the Mahayanists were in the right in consistently following up all the implications of the doctrine of Enlightenment. Their parting company with the Hinayanists was inevitable.

The doctrine of Enlightenment leads to the inwardness of one’s spiritual experience, which cannot be analysed intellectually without somehow involving logical contradictions. It thus seeks to break through every intelligent barrier that may be set against it, it longs for emancipation in every form, not only in the understanding but in life itself. The unscrupulous followers of Enlightenment are thus liable to degenerate into votaries of libertinism. If the Mahayanists remained here and did not see further into the real nature of Prajñā, they would have certainly followed the fates of the Friends of Free Spirit, but they knew how Enlightenment realises its true signification in love for all beings and how freedom of spirit has its own principle to follow though nothing external is imposed upon it. For freedom does not mean lawlessness, which is the destruction and annihilation of itself, but creating out of its inner life-force all that is good and beautiful. This creating is called by the Mahayanists “skilful device” (upāya-kauśalya), in which Enlightenment is harmoniously wedded to love. Enlightenment when intellectually conceived is not dynamical and stops at illumining the path which love will tread. But Prajñā is more than merely intellectual, it produces Karuṇā (love or pity), and with her co-operation it achieves the great end of life, the salvation of all beings from Ignorance and passions and misery. It now knows no end in devising all kinds of means to carry out its own teleological functions. The Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka regards the Buddha’s appearance on earth and his life in history as the “skilful devices” of world-salvation on the part of the Supreme Being of Eternal Enlightenment. This creation, however, ceases to be a creation in its perfect sense when the creator grows conscious of its teleological implicationsf36; for here then is a split in his consciousness which will check the spontaneous flowing-out of spirit, and then freedom will be lost at its source. Such devices as have grown conscious of their purposes are no more “skilful devices,” and according to the Buddhists they do not reflect the perfect state of Enlightenment.

Thus the doctrine of Enlightenment is to be supplemented by the doctrine of Device (upāya), or the latter may be said to evolve by itself from the first when it is conceived dynamically and not as merely a contemplative state of consciousness. The earlier Buddhists showed the tendency to consider Enlightenment essentially reflective or a state of tranquillity. They made it something lifeless and altogether uncreative. This however did not bring out all that was contained in Enlightenment. The affective or will element which moved the Buddha to come out of his Sāgaramudrā-Samādhi,—a samadhi in which the whole universe was reflected in his consciousness as the moon stamps her image upon the ocean,—has now developed into the doctrine of Device. For the will is more fundamental than the intellect and makes up the ultimate principle of life. Without the “devising” and self-regulating will, life will be the mad display of a mere blind force. The wantonness of “a free spirit” is thus now regulated to operate in the great work of universal salvation. Its creative activity will devise all possible means for the sake of love for all beings animate as well as inanimate. Dhyana is one of those devices which will keep our minds in balance and well under the control of the will. Zen is the outcome of the dhyana discipline applied to the attainment of Enlightenment.

Zen and Dhyana

The term “Zen” (ch‘an in Chinese), is an abbreviated form of Zenna or Ch‘anna,[2.2] which is the Chinese rendering of “dhyāna,” or “jhāna,” and from this fact alone it is evident that Zen has a great deal to do with this practice which has been carried on from the early days of the Buddha, indeed from the beginning of Indian culture. Dhyana is usually rendered in English meditation, and, generally speaking, the idea is to meditate on a truth, religious or philosophical, so that it may be thoroughly comprehended and deeply engraved into the inner consciousness. This is practised in a quiet place away from the noise and confusion of the world. Allusion to this abounds in Indian literature; and “to sit alone in a quiet place and to devote oneself to meditation exclusively” is the phrase one meets everywhere in the Āgamas.

The following conversation between Sandhana, a Buddhist, and Nigrodha, an ascetic, which is recorded in the Udumbarika Sīhanāda Suttanta,f37 will throw much light on the habit of the Buddha. Says Sandhana, “But the Exalted One haunts the lonely and remote recesses of the forest, where noise, where sound there hardly is, where the breezes from the pastures blow, yet which are hidden from the eyes of men, suitable for self-communing.” To this, the ascetic wanderer answers: “Look you now, householder, know you with whom the Samana Gotama talks? with whom he holds conversation? By intercourse with whom does he attain the lucidity in wisdom? The Samana Gotama’s insight is ruined by his habit of seclusion. He is not at home in conducting an assembly. He is not ready in conversation. So he keeps apart from others in solitary places. Even as a one-eyed cow that, walking in a circle, follows only the outskirts, so is the Samana Gotama.”

Again we read in the Sāmañña-phala Suttaf38: “Then, the master of this so excellent body of moral precepts, gifted with this so excellent self-restraint as to the senses, endowed with this so excellent mindfulness and self-possession, filled with this so excellent content, he chooses some lonely spot to rest at on his way—in the woods, at the foot of a tree, on a hill side, in a mountain glen, in a rocky cave, in a charnel place, or on a heap of straw in the open field. And returning thither after his round for alms he seats himself, when his meal is done, cross-legged, keeping his body erect, and his intelligence alert, intent.”

Further, in the days of the Buddha, miracle-working and sophistical discussions seem to have been the chief business of the ascetics, wanderers, and Brahman metaphysicians. The Buddha was thus frequently urged to join in the debates on philosophical questions and also to perform wonders in order to make people embrace his teaching. Nigrodha’s comment on the Buddha conclusively shows that the Buddha was a great disapprover of empty reasoning, devoting himself to things practical and productive of results, as well as that he was always earnestly engaged in meditation away from the world. When Chien-ku, son of a wealthy merchant in Nalanda, asked the Buddha to give his command to his disciples and make them perform for the benefit of his townspeople, the Buddha flatly refused, saying, “My disciples are instructed to sit in solitude quietly and to be earnestly meditating on the Path. If they had something meritorious, let them conceal it, but if they had faults, let them confess.”f39

An appeal to the analytical understanding is never sufficient to thoroughly comprehend the inwardness of a truth, especially when it is a religious one, nor is mere compulsion by an external force adequate for bringing about a spiritual transformation in us. We must experience in our innermost consciousness all that is implied in a doctrine, when we are able not only to understand it but to put it in practice. There will then be no discrepancy between knowledge and life. The Buddha knew this very well, and he endeavoured to produce knowledge out of meditation, this is, to make wisdom grow from personal, spiritual experience. The Buddhist way to deliverance, therefore, consisted in threefold discipline: moral rules (śīla), tranquillisation (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā). By Śīla one’s conduct is regulated externally, by Samādhi quietude is attained, and by Prajñā real understanding takes place. Hence the importance of meditation in Buddhism.

That this threefold discipline was one of the most characteristic features of Buddhism since its earliest days is well attested by the fact that the following formula, which is culled from the Mahāparinibbāna-Sutta, is repeatedly referred to in the Sutra as if it were a subject most frequently discussed by the Buddha for the edification of his followers: “Such and such is upright conduct (śīla); such and such is earnest contemplation (samādhi); such and such is intelligence (prajñā). Great becomes the fruit, great the advantage of intellect when it is set round with earnest contemplation. The mind set round with intelligence is set quite free from the intoxications (āśrava), that is to say, from the intoxication of sensuality (kāma), from the intoxication of becoming (bhāva), from the intoxication of delusion (dṛishti), from the intoxication of ignorance (avidyā)f40.”

Samadhi and dhyana are to a great extent synonymous and interchangeable, but strictly samadhi is a psychological state realised by the exercise of dhyana. The latter is the process and the former is the goal. The Buddhist scriptures make reference to so many samadhis, and before delivering a sermon the Buddha generally enters into a samadhi,f41 but never I think into a dhyana. The latter is practised or exercised. But frequently in China dhyana and samadhi are combined to make one word, ch‘an-ting;[2.3] meaning a state of quietude attained by the exercise of meditation or dhyana. There are some other terms analogous to these two which are met with in Buddhist literature as well as in other Indian religious systems. They are Saṁpatti (coming together), Samāhita (collecting the thoughts), Śamatha (tranquillisation), Cittaikāgratā (concentration), Dṛishta-dharma-sukha-vihāra (abiding in the bliss of the Law perceived), Dhāraṇi or Dhāraṇa (abstraction), etc. They are all connected with the central idea of dhyana, which is to tranquillise the turbulence of self-assertive passions and to bring about a state of absolute identity in which the truth is realised in its inwardness, that is, a state of Enlightenment. The analytical tendency of philosophers is also evident in this when they distinguish four or eight kinds of dhyana.f42

The first dhyana is an exercise in which the mind is made to concentrate on one single subject until all the coarse affective elements are vanished from consciousness except the serene feelings of joy and peace. But the intellect is still active, judgment and reflection operate upon the object of contemplation. When these intellectual operations too are quieted and the mind is simply concentrated on one point, it is said that we have attained the second dhyana, but the feelings of joy and peace are still here. In the third stage of dhyana, perfect serenity obtains as the concentration grows deeper, but the subtlest mental activities are not vanished and at the same time a joyous feeling remains. When the fourth and last stage is reached, even this feeling of self-enjoyment disappears, and what prevails in consciousness now is perfect serenity of contemplation. All the intellectual and the emotional factors liable to disturb spiritual tranquillity are successively controlled, and mind in absolute composure remains absorbed in contemplation. In this there takes place a fully-adjusted equilibrium between Samatha and Vipasayana, that is, between tranquillisation or cessation and contemplation. In all Buddhist discipline this harmony is always sought after. For when the mind tips either way, it grows either too heavy (styānam) or too light (auddhatyam), either too torpid in mental activity or too given up to contemplation. The spiritual exercise ought to steer ahead without being hampered by either tendency, they ought to strike the middle path.

There are further four stages of dhyana called “Arūpa-vimoksha” which are practised by those who have passed beyond the last stage of dhyana. The first is to contemplate the infinity of space, not disturbed by the manifoldness of matter; the second is on the infinity of consciousness as against the first; the third is meant to go still further beyond the distinction of space and thought; and the fourth is to eliminate even this consciousness of non-distinction, to be thus altogether free from any trace of analytical intellection. Besides these eight Samāpatti (“coming together”) exercises, technically so called, the Buddha sometimes refers to still another form of meditation which is considered to be distinctly Buddhist. This is more or less definitely contrasted to the foregoing by not being so exclusively intellectual but partly affective, as it aims at putting a full stop to the operation of Samjñā (thought) and Vedita (sensation), that is, of the essential elements of consciousness. It is almost a state of death, total extinction, except that one in this dhyana has life, warmth, and the sense-organs in perfect condition. But in point of fact it is difficult to distinguish this Nirodha-vimoksha (deliverance by cessation) from the last stage of the Aruppa (or Arūpa) meditation, in both of which consciousness ceases to function even in its simplest and most fundamental acts.

Whatever this was, it is evident that the Buddha like the other Indian leaders of thought endeavoured to make his disciples realise in themselves the content of Enlightenment by means of dhyana, or concentration. They were thus made to gradually progress from a comparatively simple exercise up to the highest stage of concentration in which the dualism of the One and the Many vanished even to the extent of a total cessation of mentation. Apart from these general spiritual exercises, the Buddha at various times told his followers to meditate on such objectsf43 as would make them masters of their disturbing passions and intellectual entanglements.

We can now see how Zen developed out of this system of spiritual exercises. Zen adopted the external form of dhyana as the most practical method to realise the end it had in view, but as to its content Zen had its own way of interpreting the spirit of the Buddha. The dhyana practised by primitive Buddhists was not in full accord with the object of Buddhism, which is no other than the attaining of Enlightenment and demonstrating it in one’s everyday life. To do away with consciousness so that nothing will disturb spiritual serenity was too negative a state of mind to be sought after by those who at all aspired to develop the positive content of the Buddha’s own enlightened mind. Tranquillisation was not the real end of dhyana, nor was the being absorbed in a samadhi the object of Buddhist life. Enlightenment was to be found in life itself, in its fuller and freer expressions, and not in its cessation. What was it that made the Buddha pass all his life in religious peregrination? What was it that moved him to sacrifice his own well-being, in fact his whole life, for the sake of his fellow-creatures? If dhyana had no positive object except in pacifying passions and enjoying absorption in the unconscious, why did the Buddha leave his seat under the Bodhi-tree and come out into the world? If Enlightenment was merely a negative state of cessation, the Buddha could not find any impulse in him that would urge him to exertion in behalf of others. Critics sometimes forget this fact when they try to understand Buddhism simply as a system of teaching as recorded in the Agamas and in Pali Buddhist literature. As I said before, Buddhism is also a system built by his disciples upon the personality of the Buddha himself, in which the spirit of the Master is more definitely affirmed. And this is what Zen has in its own way been attempting to do—to develop the idea of Enlightenment more deeply, positively, and comprehensively by the practice of dhyana and in conformity with the spirit of general Buddhism, in which life, purged of its blind impulses and sanctified by an insight into its real values, will be asserted.

Zen and, the Laṅkāvatāra

Of the many Sutras that were introduced into China since the first century A.D., the one in which the principles of Zen are more expressly and directly expounded than any others, at least those that were in existence at the time of Bodhi-Dharma, is the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. Zen, as its followers justly claim, does not base its authority on any written documents, but directly appeals to the enlightened mind of the Buddha. It refuses to do anything with externalism in all its variegated modes; even the Sutras or all those literary remains ordinarily regarded as sacred and coming directly from the mouth of the Buddha are looked down upon, as we have already seen, as not touching the inward facts of Zen. Hence its reference to the mystic dialogue between the Enlightened One and Mahākāśyapa on a bouquet of flowers. But Bodhi-Dharma, the founder of Zen in China, handed the Laṅkāvatāra over to his first Chinese disciple Hui-k‘ê as the only literature in existence at the time in China, in which the principles of Zen are taught. When Zen unconditionally emphasises one’s immediate experience as the final fact on which it is established it may well ignore all the scriptural sources as altogether unessential to its truth; and on this principle its followers have quite neglected the study of the Laṅkāvatāra. But to justify the position of Zen for those who have not yet grasped it and yet who are desirous of learning something about it, an external authority may be quoted and conceptual arguments resorted to in perfect harmony with its truth. This was why Dharma selected this Sutra out of the many that had been in existence in China in his day. We must approach the Laṅkāvatāra with this frame of mind.

There are three Chinese translations of the Sutra still in existence. There was a fourth one, but it was lost. The first in four volumes was produced during the Lu-Sung dynasty (A.D. 443) by Guṇabhadra, the second in ten volumes comes from the pen of Bodhiruci, of the Yüan-Wei dynasty (A.D. 513), and the third in seven volumes is by Śikshānanda, of the T‘ang dynasty (A.D. 700).[2.4] The last-mentioned is the easiest to understand and the first the most difficult, and it was this, the most difficult one, that was delivered by Dharma to his disciple Hui-K‘ê as containing the “essence of mind”. In form and in content this translation reflects the earliest text of the Sutra, and on it are written all the commentaries we have at present in Japan.

The special features of this Sutra, which distinguish it from the other Mahayana writings, are, to give the most noteworthy ones: first, that the subject-matter is not systematically developed as in most other Sutras, but the whole book is a series of notes of various lengths; secondly, that the Sutra is devoid of all supernatural phenomena, but filled with deep philosophical and religious ideas concerning the central teaching of the Sutra, which are very difficult to comprehend, due to tersity of expression and to the abstruse nature of the subject-matter; thirdly, that it is in the form of dialogues exclusively between the Buddha and the Bodhisattva Mahāmati while in the other Mahayana Sutras the principal figures are generally more than one besides the Buddha himself who addresses them in turn; and lastly, that it contains no Dharanis or Mantrams—those mystical signs and formulas supposed to have a miraculous power. These singularities are enough to make the Laṅkāvatāra occupy a unique position in the whole lore of the Mahayana school.

In this characterisation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, I am referring to the first Chinese text of Guṇabhadra. The two later ones have three new chapters in addition: one of which forming the first chapter is a sort of introduction to the whole Sutra, giving the main idea of what is discussed in the body of the text itself; the remaining two are attached to the end. Of these, the one is a short collection of Dharanis, and the other which is the conclusion is known as the Gāthā chapter written throughout in verse and summarises the contents of the whole Sutra. It has, however, no paragraph making up the “regular ending” in which the whole congregation unites in the praise of the Buddha and in its assurance of observing his instructions. There is no doubt that these three new chapters are of later growth.

The main thesis of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is the content of Enlightenment, that is, the Buddha’s own inner experience (pratyātmagati) concerning the great religious truth of Mahayana Buddhism. Most of the readers of the Sutra have singularly failed to see this, and contend that it principally explains the Five Dharmas, the Three Characteristics of Reality (svabhāva), the Eight Kinds of Consciousness (vijñāna), and the Two Forms of Non-Ego (nairātmya). It is true that the Sutra reflects the psychological school of Buddhism advocated by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, when for instance it refers to the Ālayavijñāna as the storage of all karmic seeds; but such and other references in fact do not constitute the central thought of the Sutra, they are merely made use of in explaining the “noble understanding of the Buddha’s inner experience” (pratyātmāryajñāna). Therefore when Mahāmati finishes praising the Buddha’s virtues before the whole assembly at the summit of Mount Laṅkā, the Buddha is quite definite in his declaration of the main theme of his discourse in this Sutra. Let us however first quote the song of the Bodhisattva Mahāmati since it sums up in a concise and definite manner all the essentials of Mahayana Buddhism and since at the same time it illustrates my statement concerning the union of Enlightenment and Love.

The hymn runs as follows:

“When thou reviewest the world with thy wisdom and compassion, it is to thee like the ethereal flower, and of which we cannot say whether it is created or vanishing, as the categories of being and non-being are inapplicable to it.

“When thou reviewest all things with thy wisdom and compassion, they are like visions, they are beyond the reach of mind and consciousness, as the categories of being and non-being are inapplicable to them.

“When thou reviewest the world with thy wisdom and compassion, it is eternally like a dream, of which we cannot say whether it is permanent or it is subject to destruction, as the categories of being and non-being are inapplicable to it.

“The Dharmakāya whose self-nature is a vision and a dream, what is there to praise? Real existence is where rises no thought of nature and no-nature.

“He whose appearance is beyond the senses and sense-objects and is not to be seen by them or in them—how could praise or blame be predicated of him, O Muni?

“With thy wisdom and compassion, which really defy all qualifications, thou comprehendest the ego-less nature of things and persons and art eternally clean of the evil passions and of the hindrance of knowledge.