4. Psychological Antecedents of Satori Prior to the Koan System—Some Practical Examples

Before proceeding further to see how the koan exercise came to be recognized as the necessary step towards the realization of satori in Zen Buddhism, I wish to inquire into the psychological equipments of those Zen masters who flourished before the time of the koan. When I speak of this as something indispensable in the mastery of modern Zen, it may be asked why it is so and what was done by the ancient masters prior to the development of the koan. The koan came in vogue towards the end of the ninth century—that is, about one hundred and fifty years after Hui-nêng.

During these years Zen was practised, satori was realized, and the transmission of the Buddha-mind successfully went on. No koans were needed for the masters to train their disciples. How did they come to the Zen realization? A state of things quite different from what we see in these modern days must have then prevailed. What are the conditions of the difference? This kind of inquiry is needed to elucidate the nature of koan, to find out what psychological role it plays in the Zen experience, and finally to see in what relationship it stands to the Nembutsu, which is the essence of the Pure Land teaching.

Here I wish to see what are these psychological equipments or antecedents that lead up to satori. As we have already seen, this state or what may be called Zen consciousness comes on in connection with the most trivial incidents such as the raising of a finger, uttering a cry, reciting a phrase, swinging a stick, slapping a face, and so on. As the outcome is apparently incongruous with the occasion, we naturally presume some deep-seated psychological antecedents which are thereby abruptly brought to maturity. What are these antecedents? Let us examine a few of the classical cases of satori as recorded in the annals of Zen.

The study of these antecedents is important, for there is no doubt that they determine the nature of the experience, and, from the practical point of view, the Zen masters can thereby give the necessary instructions to their pupils in the understanding of Zen. Among the questions that may be asked here are the following: What are the intellectual factors, if there are any, in the ripening of Zen consciousness? Has the will anything to do with the experience? Is there anything approaching auto-suggestion?

In the following pages I shall try to construct something definite and tangible in the psychological history of satori. This is in a way not an easy task, as there are no autobiographical records of any sort before the koan exercise came into vogue, nor are there any detailed and accurate objective observations on the process of consciousness prior to the outburst of satori. But something constructive may be gathered up even from the vague and fragmentary records left by the Chinese when they are sympathetically analysed.

i. The story of the interview of Hui-k'ê with Bodhi-dharma, the first patriarch of Zen in China, is somewhat veiled with historical inaccuracies and suffers much from its dramatic treatment, but even with these disadvantages we still have an intelligent account of the interview. For historical accuracy is not always the necessary condition for determining what actually took place. Whatever literary treatment the event receives later on also helps to understand the situation. We may well remember that the imagination often depicts so-called facts psychologically more truthfully than the historian's objective narration.

According to The Transmission of the Lamp Hui-k'ê (or Hui-k'o, 487-593)¹ was a liberal-minded, open-hearted sort of person, thoroughly acquainted with Confucian and Taoist literature, but always dissatisfied with their teachings because they appeared to him not quite thoroughgoing. When he heard of Bodhidharma coming from India, he went to Shao-lin Szŭ where the master stayed. He tried to get a chance to talk with him on the subject upon which he wished to be enlightened, but the master was always found sitting silently facing the wall.

Hui-k'ê reflected: 'History gives examples of ancient truth-seekers, who were willing for the sake of enlightenment to have the marrow extracted from their bones, their blood spilled to feed the hungry, to cover the muddy road with their hair, or to throw themselves into the mouth of a hungry tiger. What am I? Am I not also able to give myself up on the altar of truth?'

On the ninth of December of the same year, he stood in the fast-falling snow and did not move until the morning when the snow had reached his knees. Bodhidharma then took pity on him and said, 'You have been standing in -the snow for some time, and what is your wish?'

Replied Hui-k'ê, 'I am come to receive your invaluable instruction; pray open the gate of mercy and extend your hand of salvation to this poor suffering mortal.'

Bodhidharma then said: 'The incomparable teaching of the Buddha can be comprehended only after a long and hard discipline and by enduring what is most difficult to endure and by practising what is most difficult to practise. Men of inferior virtue and wisdom who are light-hearted and full of self-conceit are not able even to set their eyes on the truth of Buddhism. All the labour of such men is sure to come to naught.'

Hui-k'ê was deeply moved, and in order to show his sincerity in the desire to be instructed in the teachings of all the Buddhas, he cut off his left arm with the sword he carried and presented it before the quietly meditating Bodhidharma. Thereupon, the master remarked, 'You are not to seek this [truth] through others.'

'My soul is not yet pacified. Pray, Master, pacify it.' 'Bring your soul here and I will have it pacified,' said Bodhidharma.

After a short hesitation, Hui-k'ê finally confessed, 'I have sought it for many years and am still unable to take hold of it.'

Here Tai-hui makes the comment: 'Hui-k'ê well understood the situation in which he found himself after studying all the scriptures, and it was good of him that he gave the master a straightforward answer. The "thing", he knew, was not to be sought after with a purpose, or without a purpose; nor was it to be reached by means of words, nor by mere quietude; nor was it to be logically grasped, nor illogically explained. It was nowhere to be encountered nor was it to be inferred from anything; no, not in the five Skandhas, not in the eighteen Dhatus. He did well in answering this way.'

'There! Your soul is pacified once for all,' Bodhidharma confirmed.

This confirmation on the part of the master at once opened Hui-k'ê's eye of satori. Tai-hui again remarks: 'It was like the dragon getting into water, or the tiger leaning against the rock. At that moment, Hui-k'ê saw not the master before him, nor the snow, nor the mind that was reaching out for something, nor the satori itself which took possession of his mind. All vanished away from his consciousness, all was emptiness. So it was said that "Loneliness reigns here, not a figure in the monastery of Shao-lin.'' But did Hui-k'ê remain in this emptiness? No, he was awakened abruptly to a new life. He threw himself down over the precipice, and lo, he came out fully alive from certain death. And surely he felt then the cold shivering snow piled up in the temple court. As before, his nose rested above his upper lip.'¹

The characteristic points I wish to notice in the case of Hui-k'ê are: that he was a learned scholar; that he was not satisfied with mere scholarship but wished to grasp something innerly; that he was most earnest in his search for an inmost truth which would give peace and rest to his soul; that he was prepared to sacrifice anything for the purpose; that he devoted some years to the hard task of locating his soul so-called, for evidently he thought in accordance with the traditional view that there was a 'soul' at the centre of his being and that when it was grasped he would attain the desired end; that while Hui-k'ê's interview with Bodhidharma is narrated as if it were an event of one day or one evening, it is possible that some days or months of intense mental lucubration took place between it and the master's exhortation; that the statement 'I have not been able to take hold of my soul', was not a plain statement of fact but meant that the whole being of Hui-k'ê was thrown down, that is, he reached here the end of his life as an individual existence conscious all the time of its own individuality; that he was dead unto himself when the master's remark unexpectedly revived him—this can be seen from the remark as above cited, 'Loneliness reigns here, there is not a soul in the monastery of Shao-lin.'

This 'loneliness' is an absolute loneliness in which there is no dualistic contrast of being and non-being. The cry—for it was a cry and not a proposition—that 'there is no soul to be taken hold of', could not be uttered until this state of absolute loneliness was reached. It was also just because of this realization that Hui-k'ê was able to rise from it upon Bodhidharma's remarking, 'Pacified then is your soul!' When we carefully and sympathetically follow the course of events that led up to Hui-k'ê's satori, we naturally have to fill up in the way here proposed the gaps in the record of his life. My point of view will become clearer as we proceed.

2. The case of Hui-nêng (638-713),¹ who is regarded now as the sixth patriarch of Zen in China, presents some contrasts to that of Hui-k'ê so long as Hui-nêng is made out to be an unlearned pedlar. This treatment given to Hui-neng is in a way interesting as it reveals a certain tendency among followers of Zen who ignore learning and the study of sūtras. In Hui-nêng's case, however, there was a historical background which made him stand against his rival, Shên-hsiu,² who was noted for his wide knowledge and scholarship. In reality, Hui-nêng was not such an ignoramus as his followers wanted him to appear, for his sermons known as the Platform sūtra contain many allusions to Buddhist literature. All we can say of him as regards his learning is that he was not so erudite as Shên-hsiu. According to history, his first knowledge of Zen came from the Vajracchedikā sūtra. While he was peddling wood and kindling he overheard one of his patrons reading that sūtra. This inspired him and he decided to study Zen teachings under Hung-jên, the fifth patriarch of Zen. When he saw the master, the latter asked:

'Where do you come from? What do you want here?' 'I am a farmer from Hsin-chou and wish to become a Buddha.'

'So you come from the South,' said the master, 'but the southerners have no Buddha-nature in them; how could you expect to be a Buddha?'

Hui-nêng protested, 'There are southerners and there are northerners, but as to Buddha-nature, no distinction is to be made between them.'

If Hui-nêng had had no preliminary knowledge or experience of Buddhism he could not have answered like that. He worked under Hung-jên in the granary of the monastery as a rice-cleaner and not as a regular monk, and remained there for eight months. One day the fifth patriarch, wishing to decide on his successor, wished to see how much of his teaching was understood by his followers, who numbered above five hundred. The poem composed by Shên-hsiu, the most scholarly of his five hundred disciples, ran as follows:

'This body is the Bodhi-tree,
The soul is like a mirror bright;
Take heed to keep it always clean,
And let not dust collect upon it.'

Hui-nêng was not satisfied with it and composed another which was inscribed beside the learned Shên-hsiu's:

'The Bodhi is not like the tree,
The mirror bright is nowhere shining;
As there is nothing from the beginning,
Where can the dust collect itself?'¹

So far as we can judge by these poems alone, Hui-nêng's is in full accord with the doctrine of Emptiness as taught in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra, while Shên-hsiu's, we may say, has not yet quite fully grasped the spirit of Mahāyanā Buddhism. Hui-nêng's mind, thus, from the first developed along the line of thought indicated in the Vajracchedikā which he learned even before he came to Hung-jên. But it is evident that he could not have composed the poem without having experienced the truth of Emptiness in himself. The first inspiration he got from the Vajracchedikā made him realize the presence of a truth beyond this phenomenal world. He came to Hung-jên, but it required a great deal of trained intuitive power to get into the spirit of the Prajñāpāramitā, and even with the genius of Hui-nêng this could not have been accomplished very easily. He must have worked very hard while cleaning rice to have delved so successfully into the secrets of his own mind.

The eight months of menial work were by no means all menial;² a great spiritual upheaval was going on in the mind of Hui-nêng. The reading of Shên-hsiu's poem gave him the occasion for giving utterance to his inner vision. Whatever learning, insight, and instruction he had had before were brought finally into maturity and culminated in the poem which was the living expression of his experience. His Vajracchedikā thus came to life in his own being. Without actually experiencing the Prajñāpāramitā, Hui-nêng could not have made the statement which he did to Ming, one of his pursuers after he left Hung-jên. When Ming wanted to be enlightened, Hui-nêng said, 'Think not of good, think not of evil, but see what at the moment thy own original features are, which thou hadst even before coming into existence.'

The points which I wish to note in the case of Hui-nêng are:

a. He was not a very learned man though he was in fact well acquainted with several Mahāyanā sūtras. He was decidedly not one of those scholars who could write recondite and well-informed commentaries on the sūtras and sastras. His main idea was to get into the true meaning of a text.

b. The test which first attracted his attention was the Vajracchedikā, which was very likely most popular in his day. This sūtra belongs to the Prajñāpāramitā group. It is not a philosophical work but contains deep religious truths as they represented themselves to the Indian Mahāyānist genius. They are expressed in such a way as to be almost incomprehensible to ordinary minds, as they often seem contradictory to one another, as far as their logical thoroughness is concerned. Writers of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras are never tired of warning their readers not to get alarmed with their teachings, which are so full of audacious statements.

c. The object of Hui-nêng's coming to Huang-mei-shan was to study Zen and to breathe the spirit of the Prajñāpāramitā, and not to turn the rice mill or to chop wood. But there is no doubt that he did a great deal of thinking within himself. Hung-jên must have noticed it and given him occasional instructions privately as well as publicly, for we cannot think that all his five hundred pupils were left to themselves to understand the deep meaning of the Vajracchedikā, or the Lankāvatāra, or any other Zen literature. He must have given them frequent discourses on Zen, during all of which time Hui-nêng's mind was maturing.

d. It is probable that Shên-hsiu's poem was the occasion for Hui-nêng to bring out to the surface all that was revolving about in his deep consciousness. He had been seeking for ultimate truth, or to experience in himself the final signification of the Prajñāpāramitā. Shên-hsiu's poem, which went against its significance, produced in Hui-neng's inner mind a contrary effect and opened up a more direct way to the Prajñāpāramitā.

e. With Hui-nêng, Zen begins to shoot out its own native roots, that is to say, what used to be Indian now turns to be genuinely Chinese. Zen has become acclimatized by Hui-nêng and firmly rooted in Chinese soil. His treatment of Ming and his sermons at Fa-hsing monastery prove his originality.

f. What is most original with Hui-nêng and his school, and what distinguishes them from Shên-hsiu, is the emphasis they place upon the abruptness of satori. For this reason the school is known as Tun-chiao, meaning 'abrupt teaching', in contradistinction to Shên-hsiu's Chien-chiao, which means 'gradual teaching'. The former flourished in the south and the latter in the north, and this geographical distribution caused them to be also known as 'Southern School' (nan-tsung) and 'Northern School' (pe-tsung). The north tended to value learning and practical discipline, while the south strongly upheld the intuitive functioning of Prajñā, which takes place 'abruptly', that is, immediately without resorting to logical process.

Learning is a slow tedious journey to the goal; and even when it is thought that the goal is reached it does not go beyond conceptualism. There are always two types of mind, intuitive and ratiocinative. The intuitive type, which is generally represented by religious geniuses, is impatient over the conceptualistic tendency of the scholar. Thus naturally the abrupt school of Hui-nêng was at war in its earlier days with the gradual school of Shên-hsiu and later with the quietist movement of some of the Zen masters of the Sung. As the history of Zen proves, the abrupt school represents more truthfully the principle of Zen consciousness which has achieved such a signal development in China and Japan ever since the day of Bodhidharma. It was Hui-nêng who became conscious of this peculiarly Zen principle and did not fail to emphasize it against the sūtra-studying and the quiet-sitting type of Zen followers. In fact, the opposition between these two tendencies has been going on throughout the history of Zen.

3. Tê-shan (780-865), who is noted for his swinging a staff, was also a student of the Vajracchedikā before he was converted to Zen. Different from his predecessor, Hui-neng, he was very learned in the teaching of the sūtra and was extensively read in its commentaries, showing that his knowledge of the Prajñāpāramitā was more systematic than was Hui-nêng's. He heard of this Zen teaching in the south, according to which a man could be a Buddha by immediately taking hold of his inmost nature. This he thought could not be the Buddha's own teaching, but the Evil One's, and he decided to go down south. In this respect his mission again differed from that of Hui-nêng. The latter wished to get into the spirit of the Vajracchedikā under the guidance of the fifth patriarch, while Tê-shan's idea was to destroy Zen if possible. They were both students of the Vajracchedikā, but the sūtra inspired them in a way diametrically opposite. Tê-shan's psychology reminds us of that of St. Paul as he walked under the summer sun along the road to Damascus.

Tê-shan's first objective was Lung-t'an where resided a Zen master called Ch'ung-hsin. On his way to the mountain he stopped at a tea-house where he asked the woman-keeper to give him some refreshments. 'Refreshment' is tien-hsin in Chinese, meaning, literally, 'to punctuate the mind'. Instead of setting out the requested refreshments for the tired monk-traveller, the woman asked, 'What are you carrying on your back?'

He replied, 'They are commentaries on the Vajracchedikā'

'They are indeed!' said the woman. 'May I ask you a question? If you can answer it to my satisfaction, you will have your refreshments free; but if you fail, you will have to go somewhere else.'

To this Tê-shan agreed.

The woman-keeper of the tea-house then proposed the following: 'I read in the Vajracchedikā that the mind is obtainable neither in the past, nor in the present, nor in the future. If so, which mind do you wish to punctuate?'

This unexpected question from an apparently insignificant country-woman completely upset the knapsackful scholarship of Tê-shan, for all his knowledge of the Vajracchedikā together with its various commentaries gave him no inspiration whatever. The poor scholar had to go without his lunch. Not only this, he also had to abandon his bold enterprise to defeat the teachers of Zen; for when he was no match even for the keeper of a roadside tea-house, how could he expect to defeat a professional Zen master? Even before he saw Ch'ung-hsin, master of Lung-t'an, he was certainly made to think more about his self-imposed mission.

When Tê-shan saw Ch'ung-hsin, the master of Lung-t'an, he said, 'I have heard people talk so much of Lung-t'an (dragon's pool), yet as I see it, there is no dragon here, nor any pool.'

Ch'ung-hsin quietly said, 'You are indeed in the midst of Lung-t'an.'

Tê-shan finally decided to stay at Lung-t'an and to study Zen under the guidance of its master. One evening he was sitting outside the room quietly and yet earnestly in search of the truth. Ch'ung-hsin said, 'Why do you not come in?' 'It is dark,' replied Tê-shan. Whereupon Ch'ung-hsin lighted a candle and handed it to Shan. When Shan was about to take it, Hsin blew it out. This suddenly opened his mind to the truth of Zen teaching. Shan bowed respectfully.

'What is the matter with you?' asked the master. 'After this,' Shan asserted, 'whatever propositions the Zen masters may make about Zen, I shall never again cherish a doubt about them.'

The next morning Tê-shan took out all his commentaries on the Vajracchedikā, once so valued and considered so indispensable that he had to carry them about with him wherever he went, committed them to the flames and turned them all into ashes.¹

The case of Tê-shan shows some characteristic points differing much from those of the preceding case. Shan was learned not only in the Vajracchedikā but in other departments of Buddhist philosophy such as the Abhidharmakośa and the Yogācāra. But in the beginning he was decidedly against Zen, and the object of his coming out of the Shu district was to annihilate it. This at any rate was the motive that directed the surface current of his consciousness; as to what was going on underneath he was altogether unaware of it. The psychological law of contrariness was undoubtedly in force and was strengthened as against his superficial motive when he encountered a most unexpected opponent in the form of a tea-house keeper. His first talk with Ch'ung-hsin concerning the Dragon's Pool (Lung-t'an) completely crushed the hard crust of Shan's mentality, releasing all the forces deeply hidden in his consciousness. When the candle was suddenly blown out, all that was negated prior to this incident unconditionally reasserted itself. A complete mental cataclysm took place. What had been regarded as most precious was now not worth a straw.

Afterwards, when Shan himself became a master, he used to say to an inquirer, 'Whether you say "yes", you get thirty blows; whether you say "no", you get thirty blows just the same.' A monk asked him, 'Who is the Buddha?' 'He is an old monk of the Western country.' 'What is enlightenment?' Shan gave the questioner a blow, saying, 'You get out of here; do not scatter dirt around us!' Another monk wished to know something about Zen, but Shan roared, 'I have nothing to give, begone!'

What a contrast this is to all that had been astir in Shan's mind before his arrival at Lung-t'an! It does not require much imagination to see what sort of a mental revolution was going on in Shan's mind after his interview with the woman-keeper of the tea-house, and especially when he was sitting with his master, outwardly quiet but innerly so intensely active as to be oblivious of the approach of the darkness.

4. Lin-chi (died 866) was a disciple of Huang-po, and the founder of the school that bears his name (in Japanese, Rinzai). His Zen experience presents some interesting features which may be considered in a way typically orthodox in those days when the koan system of Zen discipline was not yet in vogue. He had been studying Zen for some years under Huang-po when the head-monk asked, 'How long have you been here?' 'Three years, sir.' 'Have you ever seen the master?' 'No, sir.' 'Why don't you?' 'Because I do not now what question to ask him.' The head-monk then told Lin-chi, 'You go and see the master and ask, "What is the principle of Buddhism?"'

Lin-chi saw the master as he was told and asked, 'What is the principle of Buddhism?' Even before he could finish the question, Huang-po gave him several blows. When the head-monk saw him coming back from the master, he inquired about the result of the interview. Said Lin-chi sorrowfully, 'I asked him and was beaten with many blows.' The monk told him not to be discouraged but to go again to the master. Lin-chi saw Huang-po three times but each time the same treatment was accorded to him, and poor Chi was not any the wiser.

Finally Chi thought it best to see another master and the head-monk agreed. The master directed him to go to Tai-yü. When Lin-chi came to Tai-yü, the latter asked, 'Where do you come from?'

'From Huang-po.'

'What instruction did he give you?'

'I asked him three times about the ultimate principle of Buddhism and each time he gave me several blows without any instruction. I wish you would tell me what fault I committed.'

Tai-yü said, 'No one could be more thoroughly kind-hearted than that dotard master, and yet you want to know where you were faulty.'

Thus reprimanded, Lin-chi's eye was opened to the meaning of Huang-po's apparently unkind treatment. He exclaimed, 'After all there is not much in Huang-po's Buddhism!'

Tai-yü at once seized Lin-chi's collar and said: 'A while ago you said you could not understand, and now you declare that there is not much in Huang-po's Buddhism. What do you mean by that?'

Lin-chi without saying a word probed Tai-yü's ribs three times with his fist. Tai-yü loosened his hold on Chi and remarked, 'Your teacher is Huang-po; I am not at all concerned with the whole business.'

Lin-chi returned to Huang-po who asked him, 'How is it that you are back so soon?'

'Because your kindness is much too grandmotherly.' Huang-po said, 'When I see that fellow Tai-yü, I will give him twenty blows.'

'Don't wait to see him,' said Lin-chi, 'have it now!' So saying he gave the old master a hearty slap.

The old master laughed a hearty laugh.

What attracts our attention in the present case is Lin-chi's silence for three years, not knowing what to ask the master. This appears to me to be full of significance. Did he not come to Huang-po to study Zen Buddhism? If so, what had he been doing before the head-monk advised him to see the master? And why did he not know what to ask him? And finally what made him so thoroughly transformed after seeing Tai-yü? To my mind, Lin-chi's three years under Huang-po were spent in a vain attempt to grasp by thinking it out—the final truth of Zen. He knew full well that Zen was not to be understood by verbal means or by intellectual analysis, but still by thinking he strove for self-realization. He did not know what he was really seeking or where his mental efforts were to be directed. Indeed, if he had known the what and the where, it would have to be said that he was already in possession of something definite, and one who is in possession of something definite is not far from truly understanding Zen.

It was when Lin-chi was in this troubled state of mind, wandering about on his spiritual pilgrimage, that the head-monk from his own experience perceived that the time had come for him to give some timely advice to this worn-out truth-seeker. He gave Lin-chi an index whereby he might successfully reach the goal. When Chi was roughly handled by Huang-po, he was not surprised, nor was he angered; he simply failed to understand what the blows indicated and was grieved. On his way to Tai-yü he must have pondered the subject with all the mental powers at his command. Before he was told to ask the master concerning the ultimate truth of Buddhism, his troubled mind was reaching out for something to lean on; his arms, as it were, were stretched out in every direction to grasp something in the dark. When he was in this desperate situation, a pointer came to him in the form of 'thirty blows', and Tai-yü's remark about 'a kind-hearted dotard master', which finally led him to grasp the object at which all the pointers had been directed. If it had not been for the three years of intense mental application and spiritual turmoil and vain search for the truth, this crisis could never have been reached. So many conflicting ideas, lined with different shades of feelings, had been in mêlée, but suddenly their tangled skein was loosened and arranged itself in a new and harmonious order.

Footnotes

1 The First Series, p. 191.

1 Tai-hui's sermon at the request of Yüng-yuan.

1 The First Series, p. 205.

2 Died 706.

1 According to the Tun-huang MS. copy of the Platform sūtra, the third line reads: 'The Buddha-nature is ever pure and undefiled.' This book, compiled by Hui-nêng's disciples, has suffered a somewhat vicissitudin-ous fate, and the current edition differs very much from such ancient copies as the Tun-huang MS. and the Japanese edition recently recovered at the Kōshōji monastery, Kyoto.

2 Is it not illuminating to note that Hui-nêng passed his life in a most prosaic and apparently non-religious employment while in the monastery, working up his mind to develop into the state of satori? He did not repeat the name of the Buddha, he did not worship the Buddha according to the prescribed rules of the monastery life, he did not confess his sins and ask for pardon through the grace of God, he did not throw himself down before a Buddha and offer most ardent prayers to be relieved of the eternal bond of transmigration. He simply pounded his rice so that it could be ready for his Brotherhood's consumption. This ultra commonplaceness of Hui-nêng's role in the monastery life is the beginning of the Zen discipline which distinguishes itself remarkably from that of other Buddhist communities.

1 See also the First Series, pp. 239, 247.