Asian Religions, page 23
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Principles of Zen Buddhism
“Zen” is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character 禪 (Chan). The school first arose in China in the Tang and Song Dynasties, in response to the growing wealth and power of the great state-supported monasteries of the Chinese Empire. The first Chan cloisters were established in mountain retreats far from these recognized centers and, fortuitously, survived a major government persecution from 842 to 845 ce during which monastic wealth and properties were seized by the state and many monks and nuns were forcibly returned to lay life. At the same time Buddhist monks from Korea and Japan were carrying the tradition to their respective countries, inspired by Chan monastic reforms and meditation practices, in addition to the cosmological systems of Vajrayāna (Tibetan) Buddhism and Pure Land devotionalism. Institutionally, Chan took root in Korea (as Seon) and Japan (as Zen) and became the primary monastic tradition of those countries, while Pure Land Buddhism is now associated with congregational lay practice.
As a reform movement within the Buddhist tradition, Zen has distinct characteristics, which are expressed in rhetorical opposition to much that preceded it. A Chinese couplet is often cited as a summary description of Zen:
A special transmission beyond tradition Jiao-wai bie-chuan 教 外 別 傳
With no dependence on words and letters Bu-li wen-zi 不 立 文 字
Pointing directly to the human mind Zhi-zhi ren-xin 直 至 人 心
Seeing into one's nature and becoming Buddha. Jian-xing cheng-fo 見 性 成 佛
“Beyond words and letters,” Zen takes the Mahāyāna doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā), depicted in Zen as an empty circle (see Figure 25.1), and puts it into practice. We can think of the “practice of emptiness” in two ways:
Figure 25.1 The “empty circle” of Zen. © andylin / iStockphoto.
First, Zen affirms emptiness in a literal sense, symbolized by the “empty circle.” Zen undermines the traditional forms of Buddhism (institutional authority, the images and symbols of religious faith, the buddhas and bodhisattvas, the scriptures and their contents) through the affirmation of “formlessness” and “wordless teaching.”
Second, Zen promotes the idea of “interdependence” (pratītya-samutpāda) by affirming Buddhist practice in the context of everyday life and by cultivating a meditative attitude toward all activities. This focused attention (which is the primary meaning of the word chan) is described in Japanese as ippitsu-no-zen (一筆の禪), “one-stroke Zen.” Enlightenment can be experienced not only through the traditional practice of the holy Eightfold Path, which consists of ethics and formal meditation, but also through simple, mundane activities, from sweeping a courtyard to washing one's bowl after a meal, and through disciplines such as flower arranging (生け花, ikebana), the preparation of tea (茶の湯, chanoyu), and archery (弓道, kyudō).
Legends of the Patriarchs
The history of Zen Buddhism is steeped in myth. Its fantastical elements are central to the history of Zen in East Asia and have also captured the attention of Western orientalists since the mid-twentieth century to the present day. Modern scholars have made great strides in distinguishing historical reality from mythical imagination and have placed Zen in the context of Buddhist monastic and scholastic traditions. Yet the lyrical and inventive parables of Zen history and practice are central to its self-understanding, both in Asia and in the West. Within institutional settings based upon strict discipline, detailed rules of practice and daily life, and the ritual veneration of tradition, Zen mythology is, paradoxically, anti-authoritarian and iconoclastic. In this section we will examine the projected image of Zen as the “tradition beyond tradition.”
According to legend, the First Patriarch of Zen was a purely legendary figure with the Sanskrit name Bodhidharma (“Way of Enlightenment,” represented in Chinese as Pu-ti-da-mo 菩提達磨 and in Japanese as Daruma 達磨). Bodhidharma was said to have surfed from India to China on a rush-leaf, and then sat in a cave practicing meditation for years on end – to the point where his arms and legs fell off (a Japanese “Daruma doll” is a limbless piggy bank in the shape of Bodhidharma's head). In homage to his Indian roots, he is portrayed as a hirsute figure with a swarthy complexion. He is nicknamed “the wall-gazer,” in honor of his years of meditation on the cave wall.
When Bodhidharma was approached for instruction by a Chinese monk named Huike 慧可, he merely rolled his eyes – a form of instruction that came to be known as “transmission from mind to mind” (以心傳心, yi xin chuan xin). Subsequently this phrase refers to teaching based upon imitation and practice rather than verbal instruction – in martial arts, calligraphy, ink painting, archery, or any of the other Zen skills.
Another set of legends surrounds the Chinese monk Huineng (惠能, c. 638–713 ce), an illiterate wood-cutter whose insightful embrace of “wordlessness” was recorded (ironically) in The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch – an elusive and aphoristic text affirming concepts such as “no mind,” the “interruption of all thought,” and “direct practice.” Portraits of Huineng show him tearing traditional sūtras to shreds and cutting bamboo with “the knife that penetrates ignorance.”
Initially rebuffed when he attempted to enter a Chan cloister for instruction, Huineng returned three times before gaining admittance. (This episode is now routinized in Zen monasteries in East Asia: before being admitted, one must attempt three times, on three consecutive days, and be “refused” twice – one is only admitted on the third effort.) Finally permitted to enter the monastery, Huineng then served as the wood-cutter responsible for keeping the kitchen fires aflame.
The illiterate Huineng gained the “transmission of the lamp” of enlightenment in a poetry-writing contest. When a new patriarch was to be appointed by the Fifth Patriarch of Chan, all the monks assumed that a senior monk named Shenxiu (神秀) would be so honored. Indeed his poem was so profound that none of the other monks dared to make an entry of their own. Here is Shenxiu's poem:
The body is the bodhi tree Shen shi pu-ti shu 身是菩提術
The mind is like a clear mirror Xin ru ming-jing tai 心如明鏡台
At all times we must strive to polish it Shi-shi jin ti-shi 時時進涕視
And must not let the dust collect Mo shi you chen-ai 末使有塵埃
When the poem was read to him, Huineng remarked: “A marvelous poem indeed. But I have another one”:
Originally there is no bodhi tree Pu-ti ben wu shu 菩提本無術
The mirror has no stand Ming-jing yi wu tai 明鏡益無台
The Buddha nature is basically clean and pure Fo-xing chang qing-jing 佛性常清淨
Where is there room for dust? He chu you chen-ai? 和處有塵埃
Of course Huineng's poem, with its emphasis on the idea of “original enlightenment” and the “emptiness” of all conceptions, won the day and Huineng was given the robe of Chan authority.
Characteristics of Zen
What do these legends mean? What is distinctive about Zen? We will examine Zen from the perspective of four kinds of “emptiness”: the emptiness of authority, the emptiness of mind, the emptiness of activity, and the emptiness of enlightenment.
Emptiness of authority
The traditional aspects of Buddhism – scriptures, images, and monastic authority – are viewed with contempt.
Emptiness of Buddha Zen stories abound in enlightened figures mocking the symbols that the tradition held in highest regard, including the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Empty of substance or significance, the Buddha is deemed unnecessary for individual self-cultivation, his own enlightenment being accessible to all. As the modern Zen master Yamada Mumon (山田 無文, 1900–1988) remarked: “The Buddha exists for those who need the Buddha; the Buddha does not exist for those who do not need the Buddha” (quoted from the film Buddhism: Land of the Disappearing Buddha, from The Long Search television series, Episode 9, BBC 1977). Chan master Danxia Tianran (丹霞天然, 739–824) was stopping by the great monastery at Luoyang. Chilled by the winter frost, he took a wooden image of the Buddha Amitābha and set it aflame. Shocked, the monks at the temple asked how Danxia could destroy an image sacred to the Great Vehicle. Danxia replied: “I'm burning the image to get to the essence!” The monks asked: “What is the essence of the Buddha?” To which Danxia replied: “There is no essence! Bring me another to warm my ass!”1
Emptiness of dharma The teaching of emptiness requires no verbal instruction; it is “beyond words and letters.” Not only is the Sixth Patriarch portrayed tearing up sūtras; others are seen trying to read in the dark or to write on air (which signifies the futility of reading and writing). The traditional teachings are of no use to us now, and the verbalized dharma of scripture is replaced with direct, immediate experience.
Emptiness of Sangha Though Zen certainly established its own highly authoritarian system, it did so while reforming centuries of monastic practice. “A day without work is a day without food” (一日不做一日不食)2 reflects not only the value of physical labor, but also the self-sufficiency of the Zen monasteries. A new code was established, attributed to Baizhang (百丈, 720–814) and celebrating the value of physical labor. One of the reforms was the institution of the “medicine meal” in the evening, so named because the original monastic code prohibits any food after noon, “except for medicine.” When emphasis is placed upon physical labor, it would be unreasonable to expect monks to go all day without food! The phrase “medicine meal” is still used in Zen monasteries today as the name of the evening meal.
Emptiness of mind
Logical thought is viewed with hostility, as a hindrance to true understanding.
The “stick-and-shout method” of the School of Rinzai The Rinzai (臨濟) School, with Sōtō (曹洞), is one of two major Zen schools in Japan. It is named after the Chinese master Linji Yixuan (臨濟義玄), a ninth-century figure famous for “shouts and blows of his staff” in lieu of verbal instruction. Stories abound of his “direct method,” exercised for instance when he threw a monk into a river as the latter remarked “The river of Zen is very deep,” or when he choked a student to silence him when the latter attempted “to speak a word of Zen.” A “warning stick” (keisaku) is still employed in Zen monasteries to slap meditators who are drifting off to sleep, in three swift blows to one's back, between the neck and shoulder. The School of Rinzai repudiates all forms of verbal instruction in favor of personal experience.
Meditation on the kōan (公案) A kōan is a nonsensical statement or conversation between a Zen master and his student; it is designed to frustrate the logical processes of the mind. Said to have been created spontaneously by Chinese and Japanese Zen masters in the ninth to thirteenth centuries, kōans were eventually set down in collections such as the Wumenguan (無門關, The Gateless Gate). In Zen monasteries disciples are assigned a kōan by their masters and are instructed to “solve the unsolvable” as a way to penetrate, and ultimately transcend, all dependence on language and logic.
The Gateless Gate, a collection of 48 kōans, can be assigned the following typology:
The unanswerable question Examples:
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
“What was the appearance of your original face before your parents were born?”
“Why does the Western Barbarian have no beard?”
The question and answer (問答, mondō), or “encounter dialogue,” where the response is logically unexpected or paradoxical. Examples:
Q: “What is the path to no birth?”
A: “Last night I lost three coins by my bed.”
Q: “What is ‘Buddha’?”
A: “Dried shit-stick.”
Q: “How can I cultivate the original mind?”
A: “I call this a staff. What would you call it?”
The response of silence, “deafening like thunder” Examples:
In lieu of instruction, Master Juzhi (俱胝, ninth century) would simply hold a finger in the air. One day, observing a student doing the same, Master Juzhi sliced off the monk's finger with a dagger. “Why did you do that?” cried the student. Master Juzhi held up his finger in the air.
Master Baofu (保福, 860–928) was asked: “What is no mind?” After a long period of silence, Master Baofu asked: “What did you say?” The student repeated his question. “I'm not deaf!” the Master shouted.
Someone asked: “The patriarch Bodhidharma sat facing the wall. What was he trying to show?” The Master covered his ears with his hands.
I had the good fortune of “solving” the best known of all the mondōs, one frequently employed in Zen monasteries today:
Q: “Does a dog have Buddha nature?”
A: “Mu!” (無)
What does this kōan mean? The word mu (pronounced wu in Chinese) can mean simply “no” – so here it might mean no, a dog does not have Buddha nature (that is, the capacity for enlightenment). At a more abstract level, the character mu means “empty” or “emptiness” – so here it might mean “yes,” a dog does have Buddha-nature, and that nature is equated with emptiness.
How did I penetrate the kōan? Once when traveling in Japan, I played a game with an 8-year-old child as I was staying with the boy's family at a minshuku (民俗, a people's guesthouse or bed and breakfast). We were naming animals and the sounds they make on the family farm. Seeing a cat, the boy said “mi mi mi”; seeing a duck, he said, “weng weng.” When a dog crossed our path, the boy shouted, “Mu! Mu!” At that moment I achieved my own “Zen enlightenment”: the “answer” to the famous mu kōan was, simply, “woof!”
Since they were collected in major compendia such as The Blue Cliff Record (Biyanlu, 碧巖錄) and The Gateless Gate (Wumenguan, 無門關) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, kōans have been employed as historical records, hagiographic parables, and objects of meditation. Hardly “spontaneous” in their present use, kōans are assigned by the master and repeated daily as a focus of concentration.
We can say that kōans “make no sense.” This is, of course, their purpose. But the student must make every effort to understand and interpret them, in order to achieve a breakthrough. He (or she) must “hold the kōan in his belly, like an iron ball.” Frustration leads ultimately to sudden awareness of the “suchness” of existence, beyond language and logic. Rinzai Zen Master Hakuin (白隠, 1686–1768) says:3
If you take up one kōan and investigate it unceasingly, your mind will die and your will shall be destroyed. You face death and your gut feels as though it is on fire. Then suddenly you are one with the kōan … and you discover your true nature.
The “emptying of the mind” is also represented in the Zen tradition of the kare-sansui (枯山水, dry landscape) rock garden – such as the famous garden at Ryōanji (龍安寺), Kyōtō, a Rinzai Zen temple (see Figure 25.2).
Figure 25.2 The kare-sansui (枯山水, dry landscape) rock garden at Ryōanji (龍安寺). © Theodore Scott / iStockphoto.
Emptiness of activity
The emphasis here is on simplicity and spontaneity and on appreciation of the commonplace and ordinary:
“Buddha-nature” in all things and all activities;
the highest form of practice: “doing one thing at a time” (one-pointed Zen);
Zen arts: ikebana, cha-no-yu, haiku, ink-painting, calligraphy, archery, swordsmanship;
“transmission from mind to mind.”
In practice, the Zen school does not limit meditation to zazen (坐禪, “seated zen”) but applies the principles of meditation to all activities, through focused concentration. A number of Zen kōans and “encounter dialogues” illustrate this principle:4
“How wondrously profound this is: I draw water, I carry fuel.”
A student asked his master: “Every day we must dress and eat. How can we go beyond this?” The master replied: “We dress. We eat.” “I do not understand,” said the monk. “If you do not understand, put on your clothes, eat your food.”
A student asked his master: “I have studied with you these many years and have learned nothing.” The master replied: “When you brought me food, I ate it, didn't I? When you brought me drink, I drank it, didn't I? Look directly into it. If you think about it, you miss it.”
A Zen master tells this story: “The son of a thief wished to be instructed by his father in the arts of robbery. Taking him into the grandest house in the village, the father slapped the boy into a trunk and closed the heavy lid. Shouting ‘thief thief,’ he roused the village. The boy struggled out of the trunk, jumped from the second floor window, and ran for his life, only escaping by chucking a rock into the stream to throw his pursuers off his trail. When he returned home, he was furious with his father. ‘Why did you do such a thing? I could have been killed by that mob!’ ‘There,’ his father replied, ‘I have taught you everything I know.’ ”
Emptiness of enlightenment
It is not the gradual accumulation of merit that achieves liberation, but a sudden act of recognition – a totally “free” event. This is the emptiness of enlightenment.
Zen enlightenment is not “once and for all,” a one-time or life-ending event. In fact satori (悟り, the Japanese term meaning “awakening”) is repeatable, episodic, and transitory. Moreover, even though it may be preceded by years of preparatory work in the form of Zen practice and meditation, the experience itself goes beyond anything that has been done to bring it about. Of course, no direct descriptions of satori have been attempted, as such descriptions would violate the basic Zen principle of “wordless understanding.” But a few Zen kōans give a sense of its paradoxical nature:
