Zen Masters of Japan. Richard Bryan McDaniel
based more in folklore than in fact. Those apocryphal tales are included in this volume because, while they may have limited historical value, they have become part of an unofficial Zen canon—part of what I have called the “folk history” of Zen. For example, we not only have Hakuin’s autobiographical and instructional writings, we also have several records written by his students. In addition to those, there are a number of tales such as the story about the young girl who accused Hakuin of being the father of her child. While it is unlikely that these stories are based in actual events, they have become part of the folk history.
Because Zen came to permeate the cultural spirit of Japan in a way it did not do in China, more attention is paid to the setting and historical context of the tales than was paid to those in my first book.
As with that first volume, there is no new material in this collection. All the stories gathered here have been told in English elsewhere. And once more I have retained the story-teller’s prerogative of making minor embellishments.
In the first book, it was necessary to decide which of three possible renderings I would give of Chinese names. In this volume, I have chosen to use the Japanese forms of those names throughout, even in the Prologue. Where appropriate I provide the Pinyin Romanization in brackets.
Finally, I point out once again that Zen is, above all, a practice. There is more information about the practice of zazen in this book than there was in the first, but this still is not a book of instruction. For those readers interested in the actual practice of Zen, I recommend either Albert Low’s Zen Meditation: Plain and Simple [originally published as An Invitation to Practice Zen] or Robert Aitkin’s Taking the Path of Zen.
“Why did the First Patriarch come east?”
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| Portrait of Bodhidharma and Huike by Sesshu Toyo |
Prologue in China
“Zen” is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character “chan,” which, in turn, was the Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit word “dhyana,” usually translated into English as “meditation.” The etymology of the word reflects the steady eastward movement of the meditation school of Buddhism from India to China, thence to Japan, and eventually beyond Asia.
Legend has it that Zen was brought to China by an Indian monk named Bodhidharma, who was the 28th Patriarch—or “ancestor”—of the meditation school in that region. The first Patriarch had been the Buddha himself.
“Buddha” is not a name, but rather a title. It usually, but not always, refers to Siddhartha Gautama also known as Sakyamuni, the Sage of the Sakya Clan. The title means the “awakened” or “enlightened” one. Gautama attained awakening by meditation, and as a result, came to realize that his fundamental nature was no different from that of all existence. The teachings of Sakyamuni were originally intended to help other persons attain the same awakening, to become, like him, a “buddha.”
Bodhidharma began studying with his own teacher, the 27th Patriarch, Prajanatara, one thousand years after the death of the Buddha. Over time the Buddhist tradition had split into two major branches: the conservative Theravada (the Teaching of the Elders) which spread to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and the more liberal, but also at times more fanciful, Mahayana which spread north to Tibet, China, and Korea. It was out of the Mahayana tradition (and partially in reaction to it) that Zen would evolve.
By the time of Prajanatara and Bodhidharma, the Mahayana had also broken into a number of competing schools, many of which were speculative and abstract. Monks spent as much or more time analyzing the scriptures, known as sutras, as in meditating. Their faith had become theoretical rather than grounded in the experience of awakening that the Buddha had advocated, the experience the Japanese would later term kensho [ken, seeing into or understanding something; sho, one’s true nature].
Saddened by the deteriorated condition of Buddhism in India, Prajanatara suggested that Bodhidharma travel to China to determine if that land was a suitable environment in which to revitalize the meditation school which still sought to foster the experience of awakening in its practitioners. As a result of that journey, Bodhidharma is considered the First Patriarch of Chinese Zen.
Buddhism was already well established in the “Celestial Kingdom” when Bodhidharma arrived there, and Chinese Buddhists, as well as Daoists and Confucionists, would come to wonder how his teaching differed from that of other Buddhist sects. One of the formal ways in which that question was posed was to ask a Zen teacher, “Why did the First Patriarch come east?” What did Bodhidharma bring that had not already come to China?
The story of Bodhidharma’s arrival in China is recounted in the first koan in a collection known as the Blue Cliff Record [J: Hekiganroku]. A koan is usually an apparently nonsensical question based on an anecdote from the lives of the Zen masters of the past—primarily those in China. The question becomes the focus of a Zen student’s meditative practice and helps the student attain insight. While koans cannot be resolved through reasoning, an understanding of them can be achieved through intuition.
The story recounted in the Blue Cliff Record portrays Bodhidharma as a barbarian—both in the original meaning of the term (someone from elsewhere) and in the figurative sense. In the koan, Bodhidharma was given an audience with the Emperor of China, Wu Liang. The Emperor was a practicing Buddhist and proud of the many ways he had supported the tradition in his realm. When he learned that there was a visitor in his kingdom from the land where the Buddha had lived, he naturally invited Bodhidharma to come to the court. There, Wu described all he had done to promote Buddhism and asked, “What is your opinion? What merit have I accumulated as a result of these deeds?”
Bodhidharma’s reply was blunt and tactless: “No merit whatsoever.”
“Why not?” the Emperor demanded.
“Motives for such actions are always impure,” Bodhidharma told him. “They are undertaken solely for the purposes of attaining future rebirth. They are like shadows cast by bodies, following those bodies but having no reality of their own.”
“Then what is true merit?” the Emperor asked.
“It is clear seeing, pure knowing, beyond the discriminating intelligence. Its essence is emptiness. Such merit cannot be gained by worldly means.”
This was unlike any exposition of the Buddhist faith the Emperor had heard before, and, perhaps a little testily, he asked, “According to your understanding, then, what is the first principle of Buddhism?”
“Vast emptiness and not a thing that can be called holy,” Bodhidharma responded at once.
Wu spluttered: “What is that supposed to mean? And who are you who now stands before me?”
To which Bodhidharma replied: “I don’t know.” Then he left the court.
After leaving Wu Liang’s court, Bodhidharma took up residence in the Shaolin temple located on Mount Songshan. There he built a hermitage on the peak of Mount Shaoshi, where he practiced silent meditation while facing the wall of a cliff which rose in front of his hut. He came to be known locally as Biguan, the wall-gazing Brahmin, and the hut was known as the “Wall-gazing Hermitage.”
Unlike the largely academic Buddhism then common in China, Bodhidharma’s practice was grounded in seated meditation, zazen in Japanese [za to sit; zen meditation]. He described his Buddhism as:
A special transmission outside the scriptures;
Not dependent on words or letters;
By direct pointing to the mind of man,
Seeing into one’s true nature and attaining Buddhahood.