12. The Importance and the Function of the Spirit of Inquiry

As has already been stated, the preparatory equipment of the Zen devotee before he takes up the koan exercise is:

1. To awaken a most sincere desire to be delivered from the bondage of karma, from the pain of birth and death;

2. To recognize that the aim of the Buddhist life consists in attaining enlightenment, in maturing a state of consciousness known as satori;

3. To realize the futility of all intellectual attempts to reach this aim, that is, to solve in a most living manner the ultimate problem of existence;

4. To believe that the realization of satori means the awakening of Buddhatā which lies deeply buried in all minds;

5. To be in possession of a strong spirit of inquiry which will ever urge a man to experience within himself the presence of Buddhatā. Without this fivefold equipment he may not hope to carry out the koan exercise successfully to its end.

Even when he is thus mentally qualified, he may not believe the koan to be the most efficient means to reach the goal. It may be that he is more attracted to the Shingon or T'ien-tai method of discipline, or to the recitation of the Buddha's name as in the Pure Land sects, or to the repetition of the Daimoku as in the Nichiren sect. This is where what may be termed his religious idiosyncrasies rule, which are due to his previous karma. In this case, he cannot be a successful follower of Zen, and his emancipation will have to be effected in some other way.

Even among Zen followers there are some who are no believers in the koan, regarding it as something artificially contrived; indeed, they even go further and declare satori itself to be a sort of excrescence which does not properly belong to the original system of Zen. Most Japanese adherents of the Soto school of Zen belong to this class of koan denouncers. This divergence of views as to the efficacy of the koan exercise and the experience of satori comes rather from the differences of philosophical interpretation given to Zen by the followers of the Soto and the Rinzai. As far as the practice of Zen is concerned, both the Soto and the Rinzai are descendants of Bodhidharma and Hui-nêng.

However this may be, one must believe in the koan if he is to disciplined in it and awakened by it to satori. Now the question is: How is a koan—at least the first koan—to be brought up into the field of consciousness so as to occupy its centre when one undertakes to solve its meaning? It evidently has no logical connotation, for its express purpose is to cut off every passage to speculation and imagination. For instance, when 'Wu' or 'Mu' is given to a Zen Yogin, how is he expected to deal with it? There is no doubt that he is not to think about it, for no logical thinking is possible.'Wu' does not yield any meaning inasmuch as it is not to be thought of in connection with the dog, nor for that matter with the Buddha-nature, either; it is 'Wu' pure and simple. The koan neither denies nor asserts the presence of Buddha-nature in the dog, although Chao-chou used the 'wu' on being asked about the Buddha-nature. When the 'wu' is given as a koan to the uninitiated, it stands by itself; and this is exactly what is claimed from the beginning by Zen masters, who have used it as an eye-opener.

So with 'the Cypress-tree'. It is simply 'the Cypress-tree', and has no logical connection with the question: 'What is the idea of the First Patriarch's visit to China?' Nor does it at all refer to the pantheistic view of existence, which is sometimes thought to be the world-conception of the Buddhists. This being the case, what mental attitude shall we take to the koan when it is given us as the key to the secrets of Zen?

Generally, the Chinese characters used in describing the mental attitude towards a koan are: t'i-ch'i, t'i-szŭ, t'i-to, chu, meaning, 'to lift', 'to hold up', 'to raise'; k'an, 'to see', 'to regard', 'to hold before the eye'; san, 'to be concerned with', 'to be in', 'to consult', 'to refer to'; san-chiu or t'i-chiu, 'to investigate', 'to inquire into'; kung-fu, 'to seek a clue', 'to search for a solution', 'to exercise one's mind on a subject'; yai, to 'examine'. All these terms purport to mean 'to keep a koan continually before one's mental eye so as to make one endeavour to find a clue to its secrets'.

These two processes, the holding up and the striving, may be considered one; for the sole object of holding up a koan before the mind is to see into its meaning. As this goes on, the meaning searched after objectively in 'Wu', 'Cypress-tree', or 'three chin of flax', exfoliates itself, not from the koan indeed, but from within the Yogin's own mind. This is the moment when the koan becomes perfectly identified with the searching and striving mind, and the meaning yields itself through this identification.

It may not thus be proper to say that the koan is understood, for at the moment of understanding there is no koan separate from the mind. Nor is it proper to assert that it is the mind that understands itself, for the understanding is a reflection, an aftermath; a mind is the reconstruction of the understanding. There is as yet no judgment here, no subject, no predicate; there is simply the exclamation, 'Ah!' The Chinese terms used in this connection are quite graphic: hê ti i hsia or p'ên ti i fa, which means 'one out-bursting cry'. The moment is thus: 'the bursting of the bag', 'the breaking up of the tar-casket', 'a sudden snapping', 'a sudden bursting', 'the bursting of the bamboo with a crack', 'the breaking up of the void', etc.

The word 'concentration' has been used very much in the koan exercise; but, in fact, concentration is not the main point, though it inevitably follows. The thing most essential in the exercise is the will to get into the meaning—we have at present no suitable expression—of the koan. When the will or the spirit of inquiry is strong and constantly working, the koan is necessarily kept without interruption before the eye, and all the other thoughts that are not at all cogent are naturally swept off the field of consciousness. This exclusion and sweeping off is a byproduct, it is more or less accidental. This is where the koan exercise is distinct from mere concentration and also from the Indian form of Dhyāna, that is, meditation, abstraction, or thought-cessation.

Two forms of concentration may be distinguished now; the one brought about as it were mechanically, and the other resulting inevitably, but in essence accidentally, from the intensification of an inquiring spirit. When concentration followed by identification is once attained either way, it necessarily ends in the final outburst of satori. But genuine Zen always requires the presence of a spirit of inquiry, as is shown in the following quotations.

Tai-hui, who was one of the earlier advocates of the koan, was always emphatic about this point; for we find references to it everywhere in his discourses known as Tai-hui's Sermons.¹ Consider such statements as the following: 'Single out the point where you have been in doubt all your life and put it upon your forehead.' 'Is it a holy one, or a commonplace one? Is it an entity, or a non-entity? Press your question to its very end. Do not be afraid of plunging yourself into a vacuity: find out what it is that cherishes the sense of fear. Is it a void, or is it not?'

Tai-hui never advises us just to hold up a koan before the mind; he tells us, on the contrary, to make it occupy the very centre of attention by the sheer strength of an inquiring spirit. When a koan is backed up by such a spirit, it is, he says, 'like a great consuming fire which burns up every insect of idle speculation that approaches it'. Without this stimulating spirit of inquiry philosophically coloured, no koan can be made to hold up its position before the consciousness. Therefore, it is almost a commonsense saying among Zen masters to declare that, 'In the mastery of Zen the most important thing is to keep up a spirit of inquiry; the stronger the spirit the greater will be the satori that follows; there is, indeed, no satori when there is no spirit of inquiry; therefore begin by inquiring into the meaning of a koan.'

According to Kao-fêng Yüan-miao,² we have this:

'The k oan I ordinarily give to my pupils is: "All things return to the One; where does the One return?" I make them search after this. To search after it means to awaken a great inquiring spirit for the ultimate meaning of the koan. The multitudinousness of things is reducible to the One, but where does this One finally return? I say to them: Make this inquiry with all the strength that lies in your personality, giving yourself no time to relax in this effort. In whatever physical position you are, and in whatever business you are employed, never pass your time idly. Where docs the One finally return? Try to get a definite answer to this query. Do not give yourself up to a state of doing nothing; do not exercise your fantastic imagination, but try to bring about a state of perfect identification by pressing your spirit of inquiry forward, steadily and uninterruptedly. You will be then like a person who is critically ill, having no appetite for what you eat or drink. Again you will be like an idiot, with no knowledge of what is what. When your searching spirit comes to this stage, the time has come for your mental flower to burst out.'

Ku-yin Ching-ch'in, late in the fifteenth century, has this to say regarding the koan exercise:

'"Searching and contriving" (kung-fu) may best be practised where noise and confusion do not reach; cut yourself off from all disturbing conditions; put a stop to speculation and imagination; and apply yourself wholeheartedly to the task of holding on to your koan, never letting it go off the centre of consciousness, whether you are sitting or lying, walking or standing still. Never mind in what condition you are placed, whether pleasing or disagreeable, but try all the time to keep the koan in mind, and reflect within yourself who it is that is pursuing the koan so untiringly and asking you this question so unremittingly.

'As you thus go on, intensely in earnest, inquiring after the inquirer himself, the time will most assuredly come to you when it is absolutely impossible for you to go on with your inquiry, as if you had come to the very fountain of a stream and were blocked by the mountains all around. This is the time when the tree together with the entwining wistaria breaks down, that is, when the distinction of subject and object is utterly obliterated, when the inquiring and the inquired are fused into one perfect identity. Awakening from this identification, there takes place a great satori that brings peace to all your inquiries and searchings.'

T'ien-ch'i Shui's¹ advice to students of Zen is this:

'Have your minds thoroughly washed off of all cunning and crookedness, sever yourselves from greed and anger which rise from egotism, and let no dualistic thoughts disturb you any longer so that your consciousness is wiped perfectly clean. When this purgation is effected, hold up your koan before the mind: "All things are resolvable into the One, and when is this One resolved? Where is it really ultimately resolved?"

'Inquire into this problem from beginning to end, severally as so many queries, or undividedly as one piece of thought, or simply inquire into the whereabouts of the One. In any event, let the whole string of questions be distinctly impressed upon your consciousness so as to make it the exclusive object of attention. If you allow any idle thought to enter into the one solid uninterruptible chain of inquiries, the outcome will ruin the whole exercise.

'When you have no koan to be held before your minds, there will be no occasion for you to realize a state of satori. To seek satori without a koan is like boiling sands which will never yield nourishing rice.

'The first essential thing is to awaken a great spirit of inquiry and strive to see where the One finally resolves itself. When this spirit is kept constantly alive so that no chance is given to languor or heaviness or otioseness to assert itself, the time will come to you without your specially seeking it when the mind attains a state of perfect concentration. That is to say, when you are sitting, you are not conscious of the fact; so with your walking or lying or standing, you are not at all conscious of what you are doing; nor are you aware of your whereabouts, east or west, south or north; you forget that you are in possession of the six senses; the day is like the night, and vice versa. But this is still midway to satori, and surely not satori itself. You will have yet to make another final and decided effort to break through this, a state of ecstasy, when the vacuity of space will be smashed to pieces and all things reduced to perfect evenness. It is again like the sun revealing itself from behind the clouds, when things worldly and super-worldly present themselves in perfect objectivity.'

According to Ch'u-shan Shao-ch'i:¹

'It is necessary for the uninitiated to have a kind of too wherewith to take hold of Zen; and it is for this reason that they are told to practise the Nembutsu, that is, to be thinking of the Buddha. The Buddha is no other than Mind, or rather, that which desires to see this Mind. Where does this desire, this thought, take its rise? From the Mind, we all say. And this Mind is neither a mind, nor a Buddha, nor a something. What is it then?

'To find it out, let them abandon all that they have accumulated in the way of learning, intellection, and knowledge; and let them devote themselves exclusively to this one question, "Who is it that practises the Nembutsu (namu-amida-butsu)?" Let this inquiring spirit assert itself to the highest degree. Do not try to reason it out; do not assume a state of mere passivity for satori to come by itself; do not allow yourself to cherish false thoughts and imaginations; do not let ideas of discrimination assert themselves. When your striving and seeking is constant, permitting no breaks and interruptions, your Dhyāna will naturally be matured, and your inquiring spirit (i-t'uan) brought up to the inevitable crisis. You will then see that Nirvana and Samsāra, the land of purity and the land of defilement, are mere idle talk, and that there is from the beginning nothing requiring explanation or commentary, and further that Mind is not a somewhat belonging to the realm of empirical consciousness and therefore not an object of mental comprehension.'¹

Tu-fêng Chi-shan,² who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, used to advocate strongly the awakening of an inquiring spirit, as is seen in the following passage:³

'If you are determined to escape birth and death, a great believing heart is first of all to be awakened and great vows to be established. Let this be your prayer: So long as the koan I am holding this moment is not solved, so long as my own face which I have even prior to my birth is not seen, so long as the subtle deeds of transmigration are not destroyed, I make up my mind most resolutely not to abandon the koan given me for solution, not to keep myself away from truly wise teachers, and not to become a greedy pursuer of fame and wealth; and when these determinations are deliberately violated, may I fall in the evil paths. Establishing this vow, keep a steady watch over your heart so that you will be a worthy recipient of a koan.

'When you are told to see into the meaning of "Wu" the essential thing to do in this case is to let your thought be focussed on the "why" of the Buddha-nature being absent in the dog. When the koan deals with the oneness of all things, let your thought be fixed on the "where" of this oneness. When you are told to inquire into the sense of the Nembutsu, let your attention be principally drawn on the "who" of the Nembutsu. Thus, turning your light of reflection inwardly, endeavour to enter deeply into a spirit of inquiry. If you feel that you are not gaining strength in this exercise, repeat the whole koan as one complete piece of statement from the beginning to the end. This orderly pursuance of the koan will help you to raise your spirit of inquiry as to the outcome of it. When this spirit is kept alive without interruption and most sincerely, the time will come to you when you perform, even without being aware of it, a somersault in the air. After experiencing this you may come back to me and see how my blows are dealt out.'

K'ung-ku Lung¹ seems to be an advocate of the Nembutsu as well as the koan, but as far as he advises his pupils to exercise themselves on a koan, he upholds the spirit of inquiry to be the sustaining force in the exercise. For he says that the koan is to be 'silently inquired into' (mo-mo t'san chiu), that the 'Wu' is to be 'made lucid' (ming) by 'furiously' (fên-fên-jan) attending to it; that students of Zen should apply themselves to this thought, 'This mind is kept working while the body continues its Maya-like existence, but where is it to rest when the dead body is cremated?' To find out where the oneness of things ultimately lies, the student must reflect within himself and inquire into the problem so as to locate definitely its whereabouts.¹

All these masters belonging to late Yuan and early Ming, when the koan system became a definitely settled method in the mastery of Zen, agree in keeping up a strong inquiring spirit as regards the meaning of the koan or the spirit itself that thus inquires. The koan is not just to be held up before the mind as something that gathers up like a magnet all one's mental energies about it; the holding must be sustained and nourished by the strong undercurrent of spiritual energy without whose backing the holding becomes mechanical and Zen loses its creative vitality.

We may question: Why is not the mechanical method also in full accord with the spirit of Zen? Why is the inquiring method to be preferred? Why is it necessary to keep up the spirit of inquiry throughout the koan exercise? Has it anything to do with the nature of satori itself that emerges from the exercise? The reason why the masters have all emphasized the importance of the inquiring spirit is, in my view, owing to the fact that the koan exercise started first to reproduce the Zen consciousness, which had grown up naturally in the minds of the earlier Zen devotees. Before these earlier men had taken to the study of Zen, they were invariably good students of Buddhist philosophy; indeed, they were so well versed in it that they finally became dissatisfied with it; for they came to realize that there was something deeper in its teachings than mere analysis and intellectual comprehension. The desire to penetrate behind the screen was quite strong in them.

What is the Mind, or the Buddhatā, or the Unconscious that is always posited behind the multitudinousness of things, and that is felt to be within ourselves? They desired to grasp it directly, intuitively, as the Buddhas of the past had all done. Impelled by this desire to know, which is the spirit of inquiry, they reflected within themselves so intensely, so constantly, that the gate was finally opened to them, and they understood. This constant knocking at the gate was the antecedent condition that always seemed to be present and that resulted in the maturing of their Zen consciousness.

The object of the Zen exercise is to bring about this intense state of consciousness, in a sense artificially, for the masters could not wait for a Zen genius to rise spontaneously,¹ and therefore sporadically, from among their less spiritually-equipped brothers. Unless the aristocratic nature of Zen was somewhat moderated, so that even men of ordinary capacity could live the life of a Zen master, Zen itself might rapidly disappear from the land where Bodhidharma and his followers had taken such special pains to make its root strike in deeply. Zen was to be democratized, that is, systematized.

Pao-nêng Jên-yang² says in one of his sermons: 'Should-ering a bag, holding a bowl, I have been pilgrimaging for more than twenty years all over the country and visited more than a dozen masters of Zen. But at present I have no special attainment to call my own. If I have, I can tell you, I am not much better than a piece of rock devoid of intelligence. Nor had those reverend masters of Zen whom I visited any special attainment which might benefit others. Ever since I remain a perfect ignoramus with no knowledge of anything, with no intelligence to understand anything. I am, however, satisfied with myself. Inadvertently carried by the wind of karma I find myself at present in the country of Chiang-nêng, and have been made to preside over this humble monastery and to lead others, mixing myself with people of the world. Here thus as a host I serve all the pilgrims coming from various parts of the country. There is enough of salt, sauce, porridge, and rice with which to feed them sufficiently. My time, thus engaged, is passed quietly, but as to the truth of Buddhism there is not even a shadow of it to dream of.'

If all Zen masters held themselves on to this exalted view of Zen Buddhism, who would ever be able to succeed them and uninterruptedly transmit to posterity their experience and teaching?

Shih-t'ien Fa-hsün (1170-1244) says:¹

'Very few indeed there are who can walk the path of our Fathers! In depth and steepness it surpasses an abysmal pit; Uselessly I extend the hand to help the passengers; Let the moss in my front court grow as green as it chooses.'

This view of Zen is what we must expect of course of a genuine Zen master, but when the moss of the Zen courtyard is never disturbed by the footsteps of any human beings, what will become of Zen? The path must be made walkable, to a certain extent at least; some artificial means must be devised to attract some minds who may one day turn out to be true transmitters of Zen.¹

The rise of the koan exercise was altogether a natural growth in the history of Zen. Being so, the function of a first koan must be to reproduce as it were artificially the same state of consciousness that was experienced by the earlier masters in a more spontaneous way. This means to bring the spirit of inquiry into a point of concentration or 'fixation'. The koan shows no logical clue to take hold of in an intellectual and discursive manner, and therefore an uninitiated Yogin has to turn away from logic to psychology, from ideation to personal experience, from what is his own only superficially to his inmost being.

The koan does not, indeed, make light of reasoning, that is, it does not try to check it by force; but as the koan stands before the Yogin like 'an iron wall and a silver mountain' against any advance of speculation or imagination, he has no choice but to abandon reasoning. He must find some other means of approach. He cannot yield up his spirit of inquiry, for it is that which makes him stronger and more determined than ever to break through the iron wall. When the koan is properly presented, it never crushes this spirit but gives it greater stimulation.

It was because of this inquiring mind that the earlier Zen devotees became dissatisfied with all the intellectual explanations of things, and that they came finally to a master and knew what they wanted of him. Without this perpetual urge from within, they might have remained well contented with whatever philosophical teachings were given them in the sūtras and śastras. This urge from within was thus never to be ignored even when the koan exercise came to replace the more spontaneous rise of Zen consciousness. San-ch'ing or i-ch'ing, which is no other than this urge or this inquiring spirit, is therefore now always kept in the foreground in the study of Zen. The master's advice: 'See where you are going to rest after death, after cremation!'; or 'Exerting all your mental energies, inquire into the final abode where the oneness of things returns'; or 'Awaken a great spirit of inquiry and see where the One returns; do not let this spirit vacillate or falter'; or 'See what kind of mental attitude it is, see what meaning is yielded here, be decided to search out all that is contained therein'; or 'Ask of your self, inquire into your self, pursue your self, investigate within your self, and never let others tell you what it is, nor let it be explained in words.'

When a Yogin grapples with the koan in this manner, he is ever alive to the spirit of Zen, and so is the koan. As the problem is a living one and not at all a dead one, satori which follows must also be a really living experience.

Metaphysically stated, we can say that a persistent appeal to the spirit of inquiry is based on a firm faith in the working of Buddhata in every individual being. It is in fact this Buddhata itself that leads us to inquire into the abode of the One. The keeping up of an inquiring spirit in Zen devotees means no less than the self-assertion of Buddhatā. Hence the statement that 'the greater the faith the stronger the spirit of inquiry, and the stronger the spirit of inquiry the deeper the attainment of satori'.¹

Faith and an inquiring spirit are not contradictory terms, but are complementary and mutually conditioning. The reason why the old masters were so persistent in keeping up a great spirit of inquiry in the koan exercise becomes now intelligible. Probably they were not conscious of the logic that was alive behind their instruction. The presence of Buddhata could only be recognized by a perpetual knocking at a door, and is not this knocking an inquiring into? The Chinese character which I have rendered 'spirit of inquiry' literally means 'to doubt' or 'to suspect', but in the present case 'to inquire' will be more appropriate. Thus tai-i will mean 'great mental fixation resulting from the utmost intensification of an inquiring spirit'.

Hakuin writes in one of his letters, in which he treats of the relative merits of the Nembutsu¹ and the koan: 'In the study [of Zen] what is most important is the utmost intensification of an inquiring spirit. Therefore, it is said that the stronger the inquiring spirit, the greater the resulting satori, and that a sufficiently strong spirit of inquiry is sure to result in strong satori. Further, according to Fo-kuo, the greatest fault [with Zen devotees] is the lack of an inquiring spirit over the koan. When their inquiring spirit reaches its highest point of fixation there is a moment of outburst. If there are a hundred of such devotees, nay a thousand of them, I assure you, every one of them will attain the final stage. When the moment of the greatest fixation presents itself, they feel as if they were sitting in an empty space, open on all sides and extending boundlessly; they do not know whether they are living or dead; they feel so extraordinarily transparent and free from all impurities, as if they were in a great crystal basin, or shut up in an immense mass of solid ice; they are again like a man devoid of all sense; if sitting, they forget to rise, and if standing, they forget to sit.

'Not a thought, not an emotion is stirred in the mind which is now entirely and exclusively occupied with the koan itself. At this moment they are advised not to cherish any feeling of fear, to hold no idea of discrimination, but to go on resolutely ahead with their koan, when all of a sudden they experience something akin to an explosion, as if an ice basin were shattered to pieces, or as if a tower of jade had crumbled, and the event is accompanied with a feeling of immense joy such as never before has been experienced in their lives.... Therefore, you are instructed to inquire into the koan of "Mu" (wu) and see what sense there is in it. If your inquiring spirit is never relaxed, always intent on "Mu" (wu) and free from all ideas and emotions and imaginations, you will most decidedly attain the stage of great fixation.... This is all due to the presence of an inquiring spirit in you; for without that the climax will never be reached, and, I assure you, an inquiring spirit is the wings that bear you on to the goal.'¹

One of the practical reasons why the mechanical method of holding the koan which is not accompanied by a spirit of inquiry is disclaimed by the masters, is that the devotee's mind becomes concentrated on mere words or sounds. This, however, may not be an altogether bad thing, as we may see later on, only that we cannot be sure of reaching, as maintained by Hakuin and others, the stage of the greatest fixation prior to the outburst of satori.

The presence of an inquiring spirit paves the way much more readily and surely to satori, because satori is what gives satisfaction to the inquiring spirit, but chiefly because the inquiring spirit awakens the faith which lies at the basis of our being. The Zen masters say, 'Where there is faith (hsin), there is doubt (i)', that is, where there is faith, there is an inquiring spirit, for doubting is believing. Let it be remarked that doubting or inquiring in Zen does not mean denying or being sceptical, it means desiring to see, to come in direct contact with the object itself, putting aside all that stands between the seer and the object. The devotee as yet has no idea as to the what of the object he wishes to see, but he believes in its existence or presence within himself. Mere description or intellectual explanation does not satisfy him, his faith is not thereby confirmed. The desire for confirmation, to see his faith solidly or absolutely established, as in the case of sense-perception, means the awakening of an inquiring spirit, and the importance of this is steadily maintained by Zen masters. If so, the mechanical repetition of the koan must be said not to be in accord with the spirit of Zen.

In a book called Po-sharfs Admonitions Regarding the Study of Zen (Po-shan san-ch'an ching-yü),² which belongs to late Ming, the question of an inquiring spirit (i-ch'ing) is discussed in detail. The following is an abstract.

In striving (kung-fu) to master Zen, the thing needed is to cherish a strong desire to destroy a mind subject to birth and death. When this desire is awakened, the Yogin feels as if he were enveloped in a blazing fire. He wants to escape it. He cannot just be walking about, he cannot stay quietly in it, he cannot harbour any idle thoughts, he cannot expect others to help him out. Since no moment is to be lost, all he has to do is to rush out of it to the best of his strength and without being disturbed by the thought of the consequence.

Once the desire is cherished, the next step is more technical in the sense that an inquiring spirit is to be awakened and kept alive, until the final moment of solution arrives. The inquiry is concerned with the whence of birth and the whither of death, and to be constantly nourished by the desire to rise above them. This is impossible unless the spirit of inquiry is matured and breaks itself out to a state of satori.

The method of maturing consists chiefly in:

1. Not caring for worldly things.

2. Not getting attached to a state of quietude.

3. Not being disturbed by pluralities of objects.

4. Being constantly watchful over oneself, behaving like a cat who is after a mouse.

5. Concentrating one's spiritual energy on the koan.

6. Not attempting to solve it intellectually where there are no such cues in it.

7. Not trying to be merely clever about it.

8. Not taking it for a state of doing-nothing-ness.

9. Not taking a temporary state of transparency for finality.

10. Not reciting the koan as if it were the Nembutsu practice or a form of Dhāranī.

When these cautions are properly followed, the Yogin is sure to bring the spirit of inquiry to a state of maturity. If not, not only the spirit refuses to be awakened, but the Yogin is liable to get into wrong ways and will never be able to rise above the bondage of birth and death, that is, to realize the truth of Zen.

The wrong ways into which the Yogin may fall are:

1. Intellectualism, wherein the koan is forced to yield up its logical contents.

2. A pessimistic frame of mind whereby the Yogin shuns such environments as are unfavourable to quiet contemplation.

3. Quietism, by which he tries to suppress ideas and feelings in order to realize a state of tranquillization or perfect blankness.

4. The attempt to classify or criticize according to his own intellectualistic interpretation all the koans left by the ancient masters.

5. The understanding that there is something inside this body of the various combinations, whose intelligence shines out through the several sense-organs.

6. And which by means of the body functions to perform deeds good or bad.

7. Asceticism, in which the body is uselessly subjected to all forms of mortification.

8. The idea of merit by the accumulation of which the Yogin desires to attain Buddhahood or final deliverance.

9. Libertinism, in which there is no regulation of conduct, moral or otherwise.

10. Grandiosity and self-conceit.

These, in short, are the ways of those whose spirit of inquiry is not sincere and therefore not in accordance with the spirit of the koan exercise.

It is by means of this i-ch'ing, 'spirit of inquiry', that we finally attain Hakuin's daigi (tai-i), 'great fixation' or 'a state of oneness', where a mountain is not seen as such, nor a sheet of water as such, for the reason that pluralities lose their meaning and appear to the Yogin in their aspect of sameness. But that too is merely a stage in his progress towards the final realization, in which a mountain is a mountain and a sheet of water a sheet of water. When this state of great fixation is held as final, there will be no upturning, no outburst of satori, no penetration, no insight into Reality, no severing the bonds of birth and death.

Footnotes

1 Tai-hui p'u-shuo.

2 1238-1295.

1 From Chu-hung's Biographies of the Famous Zen Masters of Ming.

1 Chu-hung's Biographies.

1 Pu-k'ê-tê, anupalabdha in Sanskrit.

2 His stanza on the Zen experience is recorded in Chu-hung's Biographies of the Famous Zen Masters of Ming:

'Here rules an absolute quietness, all doings subside;

Just a touch, and lo, a roaring thunder-clap!

A noise that shakes the earth, and all silence;

The skull is broken to pieces, and awakened I am from the dream!'

3 Quoted in the Ctfan-kuan ts'ê-chin ('Aids to Breaking Through the Frontier Gate of Zen').

1 From Chu-hung's Biographies.

1 Ghu-hung comments on Lung's view of the Nembutsu: When the question is concerned with the Nembutsu, Lung is not so particular about cherishing a spirit of inquiry as was generally done in his day. For he states in one of his letters that while, according to the master Yu-t'an, one is advised to inquire into the 'who' of the Nembutsu, this inquiring form of Nembutsu is not absolutely necessary, for just to practise it in one's ordinary frame of mind will be enough.

1 According to Kung-ku Lung: 4 Anciently, there were probably some who had satori without resorting to the koan exercise, but there are none nowadays who can ever attain satori without strenuously applying themselves to the exercise.'

2 Pao-nêng Jên-yang was a disciple of Yang-ch'i Fang-hui (died 1046). Before he became a Zen devotee he was a great scholar of T'ien-tai philosophy. When he came to Hsüeh-tou, who was a great figure in the Yün-mên school of Zen, the master at once recognized in him a future Zen master. To stimulate him, Hsiieh-tou addressed him sarcastically, 'O you great college professor!' The remark stung Jen-yang to the quick, and he determined to surpass in Zen even this great master. When he finally became a master himself, as Hsüeh-tou had expected, he once appeared in the pulpit and said: 'Behold, I am now in the tongue-pulling hell!' So saying, he was seen as if pulling out his tongue with his own hand and exclaimed: 'Oh! Oh! This hell is meant for liars.' Another time, seeing his attendant-monk offering incense to the Buddha, preparatory for a regular discourse to be given by the master, he said, 'Monks, my attendant has already given you a sermon,' and without another word he came down from the pulpit.

1 From his Sayings, Vol.II.

1 That Zen was something unapproachable from its first appearance in China can easily be evinced from the legend that Bodhidharma kept up his lonely silent meditation for nine years.

1 Quoted by Fo-chi I-an Chên in a Zen history entitled Hui-yüan hsü-liao.

1 Literally, 'thinking of the Buddha'.

11 From Hakuin's work known as Orate-gama, to which references are frequently made in this book.

2 Wu-i Yuan-lai (1575-1630) is the author.