Zen and Japanese Culture introduction

 

It goes without saying that most authorities, Japanese and foreign, who write at all impartially and inteligently on the moral or cultural or spiritual life of the Japanese people, agree on the importance of the influence which has been exercised by Zen Buddhism on the building-up of the Japanese character. 

I have elsewhere quoted statements bearing upon this from the later Sir Charls Eliot and from Sir George Sansom as two most recent and authoritive foreigh writers: the one on Japanese Buddhism and the other on Japanese Culture.

It is more appropriate and necessary here to say a few words about Zen itself, as I imagine my readers have very little knowledge of it. This is, however, not a very easy task to do, for Zen is a difficult subject to comprehend for those who have no knowledge whatever of it either by hearsay or from reading, since Zen claims to be above logic and verbal interpretation, and again since it has never been made accessible to general readers.

As to those who are espetially interested in Zen, I would ask them to peruse some of my previous works on the subject. In the following, the barest possible sketch of it is given just enough perhaps to have a somewhat intelligent grasp of its influence on Japanese character and culture.

Zen is a form of Buddhism developed in Chaina in early T'ang, that is, in the eighth century. It's real beginning is much earlier, it started with the coming of Bodhi-Dharma to China from Southern India early in the sixth century. It's teaching is no other than the general teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, and what this teaches is of course that of Buddhism in general.

Zen proposes, however to teach the essential spirit of the Buddha himself discarding all the superficialities which have accumulated around the teaching of the founder during its couese of development in India, in Central Asia, and in China itself.

These "superficialities" may be ritualistic, doctrinal, and also due to racial psychology. Zen wants us to see directry into the spirit of Buddha. What is this spirit? What is that which constitutes the essential teaching of Buddhism? This is Prajñã and Karunã are Sanskrit terms. Prajñã may be translated "transcendental wisdom," and Karunã "love" or "compassion." Prajñã makes us look into the reality of things beyond thier phenomenality, and, therefore, when Prajñã is attained we have an insight into the fundamental significance of life and of the world, and cease from worrying about merely individual interests and sufferings.  

Karunã is then free to work its own way, which means that love, unobstructed by its selfish encumbrances, is able to spread itself over all things. In Buddhism it extends even to inanimate beings, for Buddhism believes that all beings, regardless of the forms they take in their present states of existance, are ultimately destined to attain Buddhahood when love penetrates into them.

Zen undertakes to awaken Prajñã found generally slumbering  in us under the thick clouds of Ignorance and Karma. Ignorance and Karma come from our unconditioned surrender to the intellect; Zen revolts against this state of affairs. And as intellection expresses itself in logic and words, Zen disdains logic and remains speechless when it is asked to express itself. The worth of the intellect is appreciated only after the essence of things is grasped. this means that Zen wants to reverse the ordinary course of knowledge and to resort to its own apecific method of training our minds in the awakening of transcendental wisdom(prajñã).

The following story told Goso Hoyen (Fa-yen; died 1104), of the Sung dynasty,will help us greatly in our understanding the Zen method and Zen spirit which have been described as being against teaching based on intellect, logic, and verbalism.

 "If people ask me what Zen is like, I will say that it is like learning the art of burglary. The son of a burglar saw his father growing older and thought, ’If he is unable to carry out his profession, who will be the bread-winner of this family, except myself? I must learn the trade.’
He intimated the idea to his father, who approved of it. One night  the father took the son to a big house, broke through the fence, entered  the house, and, opening one of the large chests, told the son to go in and pick out the clothings. As soon as he got into it, the lid was dropped and the lock securely applied.

The father now came out to  the court-yard, and loudly knocking at the door woke up the whole family, whereas he himself quietly slipped away from the former hole in the fence. The residents got excited and lighted candles, but found that the burglar had already gone. The son who remained all the time in the chest securely confined thought of his cruel father. He was greatly mortified, when a fine idea flashed upon him. He made a noise which soundedlike the gnawing of a rat. 

The family told the maid to take a candle and examine the chest. When the lid was unlocked,out came the prisoner, who blew out the light, pushed away the maid, and fled. The people ran after him. 

Noticing a well by the road, he picked up a large stone and threw it into the water. The pursuers all gathered around the well trying to find the burglar drowning himself in the dark hole. In the meantime he waas safely back bin his father's house. He blamed his father very much for his narrow escape. Said the father, 'Be not offended, my son. Just tell me how you got off.' When the son told him all about his adventures, the father remarked, 'There you are, you have learned the art.'"

 

 This radical method of teaching the art of burglary  aptly  illustrates the methodology of Zen. When a disciple asks his master to be taught in Zen, the latter may slap his face and exclaim, "What a good-for-nothing fellow you are!" When one approaches the master with the question, "I have a doubt about the truth which is said to liberate us from the bondage of the passions," or with some such questions, the master may take him before the entire congregation of the monks and declare, "Look, O monks, here is one who cherishes a doubt!" 

He may then push the poor monk away from his presence, while he himself nonchalantly retires to his own quarters. It appears as if doubting were criminal, or at least something one ought never to cherish where all is open for one's free and unobstructed inspection. If the master is asked whether he understands Buddhism, he will say. "No I do not." Further asked, "Who undrestands Buddhism then?" he will point at the pillar just outside his study.

When the Zen master makes show of the logician, he goes altogether contray to the usual method of reasoning and valuation. Not only in this case "Fair is foul and foul is fair," but "You are I and I am you." Facts so called are ignored, values become topsy-turvy.

 The Japanese fencing master sometimes uses the Zen method of training. When a disciple came to a master to be disciplined in the art of fencing, the master, who was in retirement in his mountain hut, agreed to undertake the task. The pupil was made to help him gather kindlings, draw water from the nearby spring, split wood, make fire, cook rice, sweep the rooms and the garden, and generally look after his household affairs. There was no regular or technical teaching in the art. After some tine the young man became dissatisfied, for he did not come to work as servant to the old gentleman, but to learn the art of swordsmanship. So one day he approached the master and asked him to teach him. The master agreed. 

The result was thet the young man could not do any piece of work with any feeling of safety. For when he began to cook rice early in the morning, the master would appear and strike him from behind with a stick. When he was in the midst of his sweeping, he would be feeling the same blow from somewhere, from an unknown direction. He had no peace of mind, he had to be always on the qui vive. Some years passed before he could successfully dodge the blow from whatever source it might come. But the master was not quite satisfied with him yet.

One day the master was found cooking his own vegetables over an open fire. The pupil look it to his head to avial himself of this opportunity. Taking up his big stick, he let fall over the head of the master, who was then stooping over the cooking pan to stir its contents. But the pupil's stick was caught by the master with the cover of the pan. This opened the pupil's mind to the secrets of the art, which had hitherto been kept away rfom him and to which he had yet been a stranger. He then for the first time really appreciated the unparallelled kindness of the master.

In this there is something of the Zen method of training, which consists in personally experiencing the truth whatever this may be, and not appealing to intellection or systemic theorisation. The latter busies itself with the detail of technique, and is consequently superficial and never leads to the central fact of the matter.

Theorisation may be all very well when playing baseball, building factories, constructing fortresses, manufacturing industrial goodsor murderous instruments of various kinds, but not with creating objects of art, or mastering arts which are the direct expressions of the human soul, or acquiring the art of living life true to itself.

Anything in fact which has to do with creation in its genuine sence is really "untransmittable," that is, beyond the ken of discursive understanding. Hence Zen's motto, "No reliance on words."

In this respect Zen is opposed to everything that goes by the name of sciense or scientific. Zen is personal while sciense is impersonal. What is impersonal belongs altogether to the individual and has no signification without yhe backing of his own experience. Sciense means systematisation, and Zen is just its reverse. Words are needed in science and philosophy, but they are a hindrance in Zen.

If words are needed in Zen, they are of the same value as coins in trading. We cannot wear coins to keep the cold away, we cannot eat coins to quench thirst or appease hunger. Coins are to be turned into real food, real wool, and real water when they are of real value to life. We are constantly forgetting this homely truth, and never cease hoarding money. In a similar manner we memorise words and play with concepts and think we are wise. "Wise" indeed we are, but this kind of wisdom never avails when, dealing with the realities of life. If it did is it not high time to have a millenium by now?