THE KOAN EXERCISE

AS THE MEANS FOR REALIZING
SATORI OR ATTAINING
ENLIGHTENMENT

PART  I

I. An Experience Beyond Knowledge

In the First Series of my Zen Essays (p. 331 f.) I have promised the reader in the Second Series to discuss fully the subject of 'koan'.¹ In fact, the koan system has effected a special development in Zen Buddhism, and is a unique contribution Zen has made to the history of the religious consciousness. When the importance of the koan is understood, we may say that more than the half of Zen is understood.

The Zen masters, however, may declare that the universe itself is a great living, threatening koan challenging your solution, and that when the key to this great koan is successfully discovered all other koans are minor ones and solve themselves, and, therefore, that the main thing in the study of Zen is to know the universe itself and not the problem of koan as set forward by the old masters. On the other hand, we can say this, that the universal koan is compressed in a nutshell into every one of the 'seventeen hundred koans', and when it is understood in a most thoroughgoing way the greatest one will also yield up its secrets.

In the little index finger of T'ien-lung² lies revealed the mystery of the whole universe, and in the 'Kwatz' cry of Lin-chi we hear the heavenly harmony of the spheres. However this is, I shall try in the following pages to inquire into the historical significance of the koan in Zen, its office in the realization of satori, its psychological aspect, its relation to the Nembutsu¹ as a form of the Buddhist experience, etc.

That the ultimate aim of Zen discipline is to attain what is known as 'Satori' in Japanese, and 'Sambodhi' or 'abhisamaya' (enlightenment) in Sanskrit, has already been explained in my previous writings. The Lankāvatāra Sūtra as a Zen text naturally emphasizes the importance of Satori, which is defined here as the svapratyātmāryajñāna-gatigocara, that is to say, 'the state of consciousness in which Noble Wisdom realizes its own inner nature'. And this self-realization constitutes the truth of Zen, which is emancipation (moksha) and freedom (yaśavartin). In order to make clear what is meant by self-realization, let me quote from the Avatamsaka Sūtra:²

'Sudhana asked: How does one come to this emancipation face to face? How does one get this realization?

'Sucandra answered: A man comes to this emancipation face to face when his mind is awakened to Prajñāpāramitā³ and stands in a most intimate relationship to it; for then he attains self-realization in all that he perceives and understands.

'Sudhana: Does one attain self-realization by listening to the talks and discourses on Prajñāpāramitā?

'Sucandra: That is not so. Why? Because Prajñāpāramitā sees intimately into the truth and reality of all things.

'Sudhana: Is it not that thinking comes from hearing and that by thinking and reasoning one comes to perceive what Suchness is? And is this not self-realization?

'Sucandra: That is not so. Self-realization never comes from mere listening and thinking. O son of a good family, I will illustrate the matter by analogy. Listen! In a great desert there are no springs or wells; in the spring-time or in the summer when it is warm, a traveller comes from the west going eastward; he meets a man coming from the east and asks him: I am terribly thirsty; pray tell me where I can find a spring and a cool refreshing shade where I may drink, bathe, rest, and get thoroughly revived?

'The man from the east gives the traveller, as desired, all the information in detail, saying: When you go further east the road divides itself into two, right and left. You take the right one, and going steadily further on you will surely come to a fine spring and a refreshing shade. Now, son of a good family, do you think that the thirsty traveller from the west, listening to the talk about the spring and the shady trees, and thinking of going to that place as quickly as possible, can be relieved of thirst and heat and get refreshed?

'Sudhana: No, he cannot; because he is relieved of thirst and heat and gets refreshed only when, as directed by the other, he actually reaches the fountain and drinks of it and bathes in it.

'Sucandra: Son of a good family, even so with the Bodhisattva. By merely listening to it, thinking of it, and intellectually understanding it, you will never come to the realization of any truth. Son of a good family, the desert means birth and death; the man from the west means all sentient beings; the heat means all forms of confusion; thirst is greed and lust; the man from the east who knows the way is the Buddha or the Bodhisattva who, abiding in all-knowledge has penetrated into the true nature of all things and the reality of sameness; to quench the thirst and to be relieved of the heat by drinking of the refreshing fountain means the realization of the truth by oneself.

'Again, son of a good family, I will give you another illustration. Suppose the Tathāgata had stayed among us for another kalpa and used all kinds of contrivance, and, by means of fine rhetoric and apt expressions, had succeeded in convincing people of this world as to the exquisite taste, delicious odour, soft touch, and other virtues of the heavenly nectar; do you think that all the earthly beings who listened to the Buddha's talk and thought of the nectar, could taste its flavour?

'Sudhana: No, indeed; not they.

'Sucandra: Because mere listening and thinking will never make us realize the true nature of Prajñāpāramitā.

'Sudhana: By what apt expressions and skilful illustrations, then, can the Bodhisattva lead all beings to the true understanding of Reality?

'Sucandra: The true nature of Prajñāpāramitā as realized by the Bodhisattva—this is the true definitive principle from which all his expressions issue. When this emancipation is realized he can aptly give expression to it and skilfully illustrate it.'

From this we can distinctively conceive that Prajñāpāramitā which emancipates is something which must be personally experienced by us, and that mere hearing about it, mere learning of it, does not help us to penetrate into the inner nature of Reality itself. Why, one may ask, cannot the truth of self-realization be made graspable by means of knowledge? This is answered in another place in the Avatamsaka Sūtra¹ by Śilpābhijñā to the following effect:

'The truth of self-realization [and Reality itself] are neither one nor two. Because of the power of this self-realization, [Reality] is able universally to benefit others as well as oneself; it is absolutely impartial, with no idea of this and that, like the earth from which all things grow. Reality itself has neither form nor no-form; like space it is beyond knowledge and understanding; it is too subtle to be expressed in words and letters.

'Why? Because it is beyond the realm of letters, words, speeches, mere talk, discriminative intellection, inquiring and speculative reflection; and again it is beyond the realm of the understanding which belongs to the ignorant, beyond all evil doings which are in accordance with evil desires. Because it is neither this nor that, it is beyond all mentation; it is formless, without form, transcending the realm of all falsehoods; because it abides in the quietness of no-abode which is the realm of all holy ones.

'O son of a good family, the realm of self-realization where all the wise ones are living is free from materiality, free from purities as well as from defilements, free from grasped and grasping, free from murky confusion; it is most excellently pure and in its nature indestructible; whether the Buddha appears on earth or not, it retains its eternal oneness in the Dharmadhātu. O son of a good family, the Bodhisattva because of this truth has disciplined himself in innumerable forms of austerities, and realizing this Reality within himself has been able to benefit all beings so that they find herein the ultimate abode of safety. O son of a good family, truth of self-realization is validity itself, something unique, reality-limit, the substance of all-knowledge, the inconceivable, non-dualistic Dharmadhātu, and the perfection of emancipation in which all the arts find their complete expression.'

Further down in the forty-fascicle Avatamsaka¹ we read this:

'Sudhana: Where is the abode of all Bodhisattvas?

'Mañjuśri: In the most excellent ultimate truth they have their abode. This is the truth that knows neither birth nor death, neither loss nor destruction, neither going nor coming; these are all words, and the truth has nothing to do with words; it is far beyond them, it is impossible to be described, it has nothing to do with idle reasoning and philosophical speculation. As it has from the first no words to express itself, it is essentially quiet, realizable only in the inner consciousness of the wise.'...

The distinction between mere learning or mere philosophizing and self-realization, between what is taught and teachable in words and what altogether transcends one's verbal expressions as it is to be innerly experienced—this distinction which is fundamental has been strongly insisted upon by the Buddha; and all his followers have never forgotten to emphasize this distinction so that the state of self-realization which they desired would never be lost sight of. They have, therefore, been taught to be always intensely vigilant over themselves as if their heads were on fire, or as if a poisonous arrow had deeply penetrated into their flesh. They have been urged strongly to endure what is unendurable, to practise what is the most difficult to practise in the life of an ascetic, in order that they may thus finally come to the realization of the highest truth which liberates them from the bondage of existence.

The importance of self-realization in the Buddhist life has thus been recognized by all the faithful followers of the Buddha, regardless of their doctrinal differentiations, Hīnayāna and Mahāyanā. However inexplicable and inexpressible the truth of self-realization is, all the teachings of Buddhism have centred around it, and Zen, as inheriting all that is innerly realizable in Buddhism, has faithfully transmitted its tradition by upholding satori against ritualism and erudition and all forms of mere philosophizing. If not for this fact, what is the use of the Buddha's appearing on earth? What is the meaning of all the discipline, of all the moral and spiritual exercises?

The following sermon by Szŭ-hsin Wu-hsin of Huang-lung (1044-1115)¹ gives vent to what is going on in the heart of every genuine student of Zen:

'O Brethren, to be born as a human being is a rare event, and so is the opportunity to listen to discourses on Buddhism. If you fail to achieve emancipation in this life, when do you again expect to achieve it? While still alive, be therefore assiduous in practising Dhyāna. The practice consists in abandonments. "The abandonment of what?" you may ask. Abandon your four elements (bhūta), abandon your five aggregates (skandha), abandon all the workings of your relative consciousness (karmavijñanā), which you have been cherishing since eternity; retire within your inner being and see into the reason of it. As your self-reflection grows deeper and deeper, the moment will surely come upon you when the spiritual flower will suddenly burst into bloom, illuminating the entire universe. The experience is incommunicable, though you yourselves know perfectly well what it is.

'This is the moment when you can transform this great earth into solid gold, and the great rivers into an ocean of milk. What a satisfaction this is then to your daily life! Being so, do not waste your time with words and phrases, or by searching for the truth of Zen in books; for the truth is not to be found there. Even if you memorize the whole Tripitaka as well as all the ancient classics, they are mere idle words which are of no use whatever to you at the moment of your death.'

Footnotes

1 Kung-an in Chinese is pronounced in Japan kō-an; literally, it means 'a public document'. It is said that there are 1700 koans to be solved by the Zen student before he can be called a fully qualified master.

2 Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), pp. 35-6/.

1 Buddhānusmfiti in Sanskrit and nien-fo in Chinese. It has a technical sense in Japanese Buddhism, and its relation to the koan exercise is discussed in the second part of this article.

2 The forty-fascicle Avatamsaka: Fas. XXXII. The passages quoted here do not occur in any other Avatarhsakas, nor in the Sanskrit Gan-davyūha. The forty-fascicle one being a later compilation contains much additional material.

3 Prajñāpāramitā and Aryajñāna may be considered synonyms.

1 The forty-fascicle one, Fas. XXXI. This is also a later addition.

1 Fas. XXXVIII. This is again missing in the other Avatamsakas and in the Gandavyūha.

1 Quoted from the Zen-Kwan Saku-shin (ch'an-kuan t'sê-chin). More about this interesting book later on.