1. La Vallée Poussin, “Review of Outlines of Mahāyāna Buddhism,” 886.
2. Sharf, “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism.”
3. Faure, Chan Insights and Oversights; Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs; Snodgrass, Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West. Faure, Chan Insights and Oversights, 53, dubs this phenomenon “secondary Orientalism.”
4. Suzuki, “Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih,” 46.
5. Zen shisō shi kenkyū—dai ichi, SDZ 1:3.
6. Zen shisō shi kenkyū—dai ni, SDZ 2:4.
7. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Second Series), 81.
8. Zen shisō shi kenkyū—dai ichi, SDZ 1:3.
9. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, 90.
10. Akizuki, Suzuki Daisetsu no kotoba to shisō, 186. Also cited in Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness, 298.
11. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism, 125. Another balanced, probing, and detailed study of Suzuki’s approach to Zen and its significance is presented in Ogawa, Goroku no shisō shi, 392–446.
12. See the Suzuki, “Impressions of Chinese Buddhism,” 328.
13. This echoes Hakuin, who wrote, “It is said that the Zen gardens in China went to seed during the Ming dynasty, so that the true customs and style of the school were choked off completely. I can believe it. Here in our own country the Zen school is on its last legs as well.” Hakuin, The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Hakuin, 23.
14. Suzuki, “Review of H. Dumoulin: The Development of Chinese Zen after the Sixth Patriarch,” 52.
15. Suzuki, Letter to Chiang Yee, January 10, 1960, in SDZ 39:189.
16. Suzuki, Letter to Cornelius Crane, January 20, 1960, in SDZ 39:191. In this letter and the previous one to Chiang Yee, Suzuki was reacting negatively to Chang Chen-chi’s 1959 book The Practice of Zen. Chang Chen-chi also used the name Garma C. C. Chang.
17. Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy, 15–23.
18. Sueki, “Suzuki Daisetsu no reiseiron to sensō hihan,” 103–106. See also Moriya’s comments in her collection of Suzuki’s writings, Suzuki, Zen ni ikiru, 422–423.
19. See Victoria, Zen at War, 105–112; and Satō, “D. T. Suzuki and the Question of War.”
20. Suzuki, Zen ni ikiru, 419–423.
21. Victoria, “Zen as a Cult of Death in the Wartime Writings of D. T. Suzuki.”
22. Ives, Imperial-Way Zen, 101–107.
23. Suzuki letter to Iwakura Masaji, August 8, 1941. The translation cited is from Satō, “D. T. Suzuki and the Question of War,” 89. See also SDZ 37:25–26.
24. Akizuki, Sekai no zensha, 17–19. Akizuki’s account is based on a series of conversations with Suzuki during the last five years of his life. Hiji bōmon is one form of a covert Jōdo Shin confraternity. On Hiji bōmon, see Chilson, “Religion Concealed and Revealed.”
25. On Hōjō, see Sawada, Practical Pursuits, 188. Sawada provides an insightful analysis of the growth of lay practice during the incumbencies of Imakita and Sōen at Engakuji.
26. Suzuki, “Watashi no rirekisho,” 522; Sawada, Practical Pursuits, 188.
27. Akizuki, Suzuki Daisetsu, 32.
28. Suzuki Daisetsu, Imakita Kōsen, in SDZ 26:234.
29. Sawada, Practical Pursuits, 118–143, 161–162.
30. Ibid., 170.
31. On Shaku Sōen, see Jaffe, “Seeking Śākyamuni”; Mohr, “The Use of Traps and Snares.”
32. Letter to Yamamoto Ryōkichi, December 20, 1895, SDZ 36:66–67.
33. Much of the information concerning Suzuki’s life can be gleaned from the detailed chronology found in Kirita, Suzuki Daisetsu kenkyū kiso shiryō.
34. Letter to Yamamoto Ryōkichi, December 20, 1895, SDZ 36:66.
35. See Letter to Paul Carus, March 26, 1896, SDZ 36:73–74.
36. Suzuki, “Early Memories,” 107–108; also, p. 209 in this volume. Diacritics as in the original.
37. Ibid., 108.
38. Letter to Nishida Kitarō, September 23, 1902, SDZ 36:222. See also Moriya, “A Note from a Rural Town in America,” 58–68.
39. Suzuki, “Early Memories,” 108.
40. For example, in an interview conducted on June 12, 2003, Robert Aitken, reflecting on Suzuki’s legacy mentions that Suzuki did not continue his formal Zen study after his initial experience of kenshō at Engakuji in 1896. See Goldberg, D. T. Suzuki Documentary Project, Aitken Roshi, Robert: Interview at His Home, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 12, 2003.
41. Letter to Nishida Kitarō, December 20, 1897, SDZ 36:118.
42. Suzuki, “An Autobiographical Account,” 21. Published as “An Autobiographical Account,” this is an English translation by Steve Antinoff and Mami Chida from the Japanese Yafūryū-an jiden. This account, based on a recorded conversation with Suzuki for an NHK broadcast, was edited by Furuta Shōkin.
43. Akizuki, Suzuki Zengaku to Nishida Tetsugaku, 288. Akizuki’s account is based on interviews with Suzuki that originally were published in Chūgai nippō, a Buddhist newspaper, from 1964 to 1966.
44. Aitken Roshi, Robert: Interview at His Home, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 12, 2003, in Goldberg, D. T. Suzuki Documentary Project.
45. Donald Ritchie: Interview at Engakuji, March 16, 2004, in Goldberg, D. T. Suzuki Documentary Project.
46. Stirling, Zen Pioneer, 14–18. See also “Gaijin no tame no Zen dōjō,” 2.
47. Snodgrass, Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West, 246.
48. Ibid., 261–262.
49. See Furuta Shōkin’s editorial note in SDZ 18:405–406. Seiza no susume is found in chapter 1 in this volume.
50. James, “What Is an Emotion?,” 4. James’s essay was originally published in the journal Mind in 1884. Carl Lange, a Danish physiologist, independently advanced a similar thesis the following year.
51. SDZ 18:400. The translation is my own. See “A Recommendation for Quiet Sitting” in this volume, p. 7.
52. Snodgrass, Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West, 264–267.
53. Suzuki, “The Zen Sect of Buddhism,” 20.
54. Ibid., 19.
55. SDZ 18:243–390.
56. SDZ 18:245.
57. Suzuki, “Zen and Meditation,” pp. 11–13 in this volume. I thank Yoshinaga Shin’ichi for bringing this journal to my attention.
58. See Yoshinaga Shin’ichi, “Uiriamu Makugavan to Daijō Bukkyō Kyōkai,” 129–137.
59. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism.
60. Akanuma, Sasaki, et al., “Organization of the Eastern Buddhist Society,” 80.
61. Ibid., 81.
62. On Waley’s review of Suzuki’s Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), see Barrett, “Arthur Waley, D. T. Suzuki, and Hu Shih,” 116–121.
63. Suzuki, “Impressions of Chinese Buddhism.”
64. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Second Series), 291–321, 335–378.
65. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture. See Jaffe, “Introduction.”
66. Zen to Nihon bunka, in SDZ 11:5.
67. SDZ 8:1–223. The work was translated into English as Japanese Spirituality in 1972. See Suzuki, Japanese Spirituality.
68. Suzuki, Japanese Spirituality, 46–47.
69. “Kongōkyō no Zen” was published as a separate work in 1960 as part of Suzuki, Kongōkyō no Zen/Zen e no michi.
70. See “Dōgen, Hakuin, Bankei: Three Types of Thought in Japanese Zen,” chapter 6 in this volume.
71. From Zen shisōshi kenkyū—daiichi—Bankei Zen, translated in Bankei, The Unborn, ix. See also SDZ 1:7.
72. Suzuki, “Rinzai on Zen.”
73. Suzuki, Sengai: The Zen Master.
74. Suzuki, The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind.
75. Suzuki, Living by Zen. See also Letter to R. H. Blyth, December 18, 1945, SDZ 37:137–138.
76. For examples of these volumes, see Suzuki, Living by Zen; Suzuki, Field of Zen; Suzuki, The Awakening of Zen; and Suzuki, The Essentials of Zen Buddhism.
77. Suzuki, Letter to Paul Carus, August 26, 1895, SDZ 36:57–58.
78. Suzuki, Letter to Paul Carus, May 14, 1896, SDZ 36:75–76.
79. Suzuki, Letter to Nishida Kitarō, December 20, 1897, SDZ 36:118.
80. Letter to Nishida Kitarō, September 23, 1902, SDZ 36:222.
81. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 42.
82. Ibid., 42. Emphasis as in the original text.
83. On the ambiguity at the heart of William James’s Varieties, see Taves, “William James Revisited.”
84. Sharf, “Zen of Japanese Nationalism.”
85. Hakuin’s emphasis on the importance of kenshō (awakening) for both clerics and lay practitioners runs through his works. Note that Suzuki does not attribute his emphasis on satori explicitly to Hakuin, but one can see that Suzuki, like Hakuin, utilized many of the same Ming Dynasty collections of Zen writing, for example, the Changuan cejin and the Chanjia guijian, as the foundation for his understanding of koan. The former collection plays a particularly important role in Hakuin’s search to attain a deep understanding of Zen and a great awakening. In addition, Suzuki mentions the important role of Hakuin’s Orategama in his early Zen practice. What I am labeling a sort of proto-perennialism can be seen in Orategama, where Hakuin equates the sudden awakening attained when no-thought is produced with the “true place to which the sages of all three religions have attained,” that is, the Ultimate Good of the Confucians, the Nothingness of the Daoists, and Takamagahara (Heaven) of the Shintoists. See Hakuin, The Zen Master Hakuin, 91–92; HZHZ 9:359–360. (I have followed Suzuki in transliterating the title of the text as Orategama, but the HZHZ gives the pronunciation Oradegama.) In a second passage in Tosenshikō, a work on the unity of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto, Hakuin compares the understanding of the Way to the marrow and the names “Buddhism” and “Confucianism” to skin and fur. Those who understand the Way know the marrow and ignore the nominal differences between the teachings; those who are superficial see only that which is on the surface, that is, the skin and fur. HZHZ 12: 278.
86. Letter to Yamamoto Ryōkichi, December 20, 1895, SDZ 36:66–67. Suzuki states that Motora Yūjirō’s so-called great satori (daigo) was nothing more than a minor insight. In Suzuki’s autobiography, Yafūryūan jiden (SDZ 29:153), Suzuki writes that the publication of Motora’s article, which revealed what went on with Sōen in formal interviews caused a bit of a stir at Engakuji, for it breached the protocol for complete privacy concerning interviews with one’s teacher.
87. Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered, chap. 1, note 1.
88. Masutani, “Suzuki Daisetsu shi no ‘Zen to wa nan zo ya’ ni tsuite.”
89. Suzuki, “The Zen Sect of Buddhism,” 19.
90. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Second Series), 157. Although Suzuki frequently spoke of satori and Buddhist awakening as “mystical experiences”—one of his last English-language books was Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist—toward the end of his life he regretted calling Zen “a form of mysticism.” In his review of A History of Zen Buddhism by Heinrich Dumoulin, Suzuki wrote, “I cannot go further without remarking on the major contention of this book, which is that Zen is a form of mysticism. Unfortunately, I too used the term in connection with Zen. I have long since regretted it, as I find it now highly misleading in elucidating Zen thought. Let suffice to say here that Zen has nothing “mystical” about it or in it. It is most plain, clear as the daylight, all out in the open with nothing hidden, dark, obscure, secret, or mystifying in it.” Suzuki, “Review of Heinrich Dumoulin: A History of Zen Buddhism,” 124.
91. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 253–254. In a 1902 letter to a Christian interlocutor, William James wrote similarly, “The mother sea and fountain-head of all religion lies in the mystical experiences of the individual, taking the word mystical in a very wide sense. All theologies, and all ecclesiasticisms are secondary growths superimposed.” Letter to Henry Rankin, cited in Richardson, William James, 406.
92. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 145.
93. Ibid., 153.
94. Ibid., 118.
95. Ibid., 107. The essay was first published in The Eastern Buddhist (Original Series) 3, no. 1 (1924): pp. 1–31.
96. Ibid., 112–113.
97. Ibid., 113.
98. Ibid., 111.
99. Ibid., 114–115.
100. Ibid., 113.
101. Snodgrass, Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West, 264–267.
102. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), 7.
103. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 89.
104. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), 88.
105. Ibid., 124. British spellings and diacritical marks are as in the original text.
106. Ibid., 129. The romanization of Chinese names and terms follows Suzuki’s original text in citations in the introduction.
107. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 90.
108. Ibid., 157.
109. Ibid.
110. Ibid., 90–91.
111. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), 64–65.
112. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 24.
113. Ibid., 113.
114. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), 52. British spellings as in the original.
115. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), 52–53. British spellings as in the original.
116. Suzuki, Living by Zen, 52.
117. Suzuki, “Basic Thoughts Underlying Eastern Ethical and Social Practice,” 429.
118. David Cannadine, writing about the bases of human identities in history has observed wryly, “The real world is not binary—except insofar as it is divided into those who insist that it is and those who know that it is not.” Cannadine, The Undivided Past, 9.
119. James, “Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist?,” 249.
120. Yusa, Zen & Philosophy, 97.
121. Suzuki, “The Awakening of a New Consciousness in Zen,” 278–279; also, p. 139 in this volume.
122. Suzuki, “Zen and Psychology,” 6.
123. Suzuki, Fromm, et al., Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, 51; also, p. 171 in this volume.
124. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 284.
125. Ibid., 141.
126. Ibid. Suzuki is alluding to the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra in the reference to the “awakening of thought.” See, for example, the translation of the sutra in Buswell, The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea, 208.
127. Suzuki, Living by Zen, 51.
128. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 118–119.
129. Suzuki, “Basic Thoughts Underlying Eastern Ethical and Social Practice,” 434–435.
130. Seigel, The Idea of the Self, 541.
131. Nishida, Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness, 140.
132. Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness, 49.
133. Ibid., 42.
134. Nishida, Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness, 140.
135. Ibid.
136. On the importance of the Changuan cejin to Hakuin, see his autobiography, Wild Ivy (Itsumadegusa), translated by Norman Waddell, pp. 20–25. The Changuan cejin began circulating in Japan in the early Edo period and an edition in Hakuin’s honor was published by his disciples in 1762.
137. Wright, “Kōan History,” 211. Diacritical marks as in the original.
138. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 121–122. Italics in the original.
139. Ibid., 122. British spellings as in the original.
140. Ibid., 110.
141. Ibid.
142. Suzuki and Ueda, “The Sayings of Rinzai,” 106.
143. Ibid., 105. [Bokujū, aka., Chin Sonshuku/C. Chen Zunsu. RMJ]
144. Interview with Dr. Albert Stunkard at University of Pennsylvania Medical School, June 19, 2003, in Goldberg, D. T. Suzuki Documentary Project Collection.
145. Suzuki, Fromm, et al., Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, 55.
146. Ibid., 52–56.
147. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Second Series), 100–101.
148. See Asahina’s description of koan in Foulk, “The Form and Function of Koan Literature,” 38–39.
149. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 253.
150. Ibid., 326. See also Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 147.
151. Note, for example, the absence of any of Suzuki’s writing on Zen liturgy or monastic life in the new postwar anthologies edited by Christmas Humphreys, (Studies in Zen, The Field of Zen, and The Awakening of Zen) and William Barrett (Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki). The latter work was particularly influential in the United States.
152. Suzuki, Manual of Zen Buddhism, v.
153. Ibid.
154. Letter to Richard DeMartino, February 21, 1964, SDZ 39:351–353.
155. Letter to Lunsford Yandell, April 20, 1965, SDZ 39:384.
156. Letter to Cornelius Crane, January 29, 1960, SDZ 39:191–192.
157. Letter to Lunsford Yandell, April 20, 1965, SDZ 39:384.
158. Letter to Charles Moore, December 16, 1959, SDZ 39:183–184.
159. Suzuki, “Self the Unattainable,” chapter 12 in this volume.
160. Suzuki, “Preface,” vii. Case XIX is the case concerning “ordinary mind is the Dao.”
161. Suzuki, “Religion and Drugs,” 130.
162. Letter to Cornelius Crane, January 29, 1960, SDZ 39:190–192.
163. Hau Hōō published in 1916 a work, Gendai sōji Zen hyōron (An Appraisal of Imitative Zen), purporting to reveal the “answers” to koan in various streams of the Rinzai denomination. Kawaguchi, in his book calling for the reformation of Japanese Buddhism, Shōshin Bukkyō (True Buddhism), similarly mocked the formulaic answers to koan given during interviews with the Zen masters. Kawaguchi may well have been basing his information on Hau’s book. See Kawaguchi, Shōshin Bukkyō, 4:197–205.
164. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 121. British spellings as in the original.
165. Suzuki, “Dōgen, Hakuin, Bankei,” chapter 6, pp. 90–91, in this volume.
166. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 128.
167. Ibid., 128–129.
168. Letter to Christmas Humphreys, December 18, 1959, SDZ 39:185–186.
169. Suzuki and Ueda, “The Sayings of Rinzai,” 109. Suzuki most famously stated in an interview in 1958 that there was not yet a Westerner who had grasped Zen fully nor were there any books by Westerners that clearly described Zen. The interview has only been partially translated into English, however, and his statements must be understood in the context of Suzuki’s efforts until the end of his life to establish Zen in the West and help Americans and Europeans to better understand Zen. For a partial translation of the interview, made from audiotapes and the interview transcript in Japanese, see Hisamatsu and Suzuki, “Zen in America and the Necessity of the Great Doubt,” 19–23. For the full interview transcript, see Hisamatsu and Suzuki, “Amerika no Zen o kataru,” 16–29. The full interview makes the translated statements appear far less cynical than the incomplete citation.
170. Zuihitsu Zen, in SDZ 19:299.
171. Letter to Ruth Fuller Sasaki, January 14, 1954, SDZ 38:7–8. Albert Stunkard recalls Suzuki making similar statements with regard to the superficiality of the koan system in many instances and the emphasis on wisdom over compassion by many Zen teachers in Japan. Interview with Dr. Albert Stunkard at University of Pennsylvania Medical School, June 19, 2003, in Goldberg, D. T. Suzuki Documentary Project Collection.
172. Shore, “Akizuki Ryōmin’s ‘Patriarch Zen’ and the Koan,” 13. Shore translates Suzuki’s preface and the first chapter of Akizuki’s introduction to koan and Zen study in their entirety in the article. In his notes to Suzuki’s preface, Shore mentions the allusions to Nishida’s Hataraku mono kara miru mono e (1927) and Dongshan Liangjie’s Five Ranks.
1. The publication date of 1900 is given by the editors in SDZ 18:405 and conforms with the date of the first edition provided in the 1939 edition of “A Recommendation for Quiet Sitting,” published by Kōyūkan. Kirita, however, in Suzuki Daisetsu kenkyū kiso shiryō, 8, lists the work as published in 1899. I have followed the 1900 dating in SDZ and the Kōyūkan Eleventh Edition.
2. See James, The Principles of Psychology, in particular, the chapter on attention.
3. The two scholars are Carl Lange (1834–1900) and William James (1842–1910). The theory described by Suzuki is found in James’s 1884 essay, originally published in Mind, “What Is an Emotion?” See Richardson, The Heart of William James, 1–19. Lange published his work independently a year later. The theory subsequently became known as the James-Lange theory of emotion.
1. [It must not be supposed from this that Zen agrees with Hinayana in teaching that it is impossible to find out whether or not the Absolute exists, but simply that the idea of the supreme is not a thing to be dogmatized about or taken on faith but to be realized. Unlike Hinayana, Zen, far from being agnostic, is distinctly gnostic in as much as it teaches that every secret may be unlocked by a proper system of meditation.—Ed.] [This note is provided by the editor of The Mahayanist in the original text. RMJ]
1. 心華開発。
2. 撥転関捩子。
3. 心機煥発。
4. 心印単伝。
5. 少室六門集血脈論。
6. Xing means nature, character, essence, soul, or what is innate to one. “Seeing into one’s Nature” is one of the set phrases used by the Zen masters, and in fact the avowed object of all Zen discipline. Satori is its more popular expression. When one gets into the inwardness of things, there is satori. This latter however being a broad term, can be used to designate any kind of a thorough understanding, and it is only in Zen that it has a restricted meaning. In this article I have used the term as the most essential thing in the study of Zen; for “seeing into one’s Nature” suggests the idea that Zen has something concrete and substantial which requires being seen into by us. This is misleading, though satori too I admit is a vague and naturally ambiguous word. For ordinary purposes, not too strictly philosophical, satori will answer, and whenever jianxing is referred to, it means this, the opening of the mental eye. As to the sixth patriarch’s view on “seeing into one’s Nature,” see above under “History of Zen Buddhism.” [In Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 149–212. RMJ]
7. According to the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, translated into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa, A.D. 423, Vol. XXXIII, he was one of the three sons of the Buddha while he was still a Bodhisattva. He was most learned in all Buddhist lore, but his views tended to be nihilistic and he finally fell into hell.
8. 馬祖居南岳伝法院。独処一庵。唯習坐禅。凡有来訪者都不顧。師往彼亦不顧。師観其神宇有異。遂憶六祖讖。乃多方而誘導之。一日将甎於庵前磨。馬祖亦不顧。時既久。乃問曰。作什麼。師云。磨作鏡。馬祖云。磨甎豈得成鏡。師云磨甎既不成鏡。坐禅豈能成仏祖。乃離座云。如何即是。師云。譬牛駕車。車若不行。打牛即是。打車即是。又云。汝学坐禅。為学坐仏。若学坐禅。禅非坐臥。若学坐仏。仏非定相。於無住法不応取捨。汝若坐仏。即是殺仏。若執坐相。非達其理。馬祖聞斯示誨。豁然開悟。（古尊宿語録。）
9. That is, from the idea that this sitting cross-legged leads to Buddhahood. From the earliest periods of Zen in China, the quietist tendency has been running along the whole history with the intellectual tendency which emphasizes the satori element. Even today these currents are represented to a certain extent by the Sōtō on the one hand and the Rinzai on the other, while each has its characteristic features of excellence. My own standpoint is that of the intuitionalist and not that of the quietist; for the essence of Zen lies in the attainment of satori.
10. W. Lehmann, Meister Eckhart. Göttingen, 1917, p. 243. Quoted by Prof. Rudolf Otto in his The Idea of the Holy, p. 201.
11. 挙僧問趙州。学人乍入叢林。乞師指示。趙州云爾喫粥了也未。僧云喫粥了也。州云洗鉢盂去。其僧大悟。後雲門拈云。且道有指示。無指示。若道有指示。向伊道什麼。若道無指示。其僧因什麼悟去。文悦云。雲門不識好悪。恁麼説話。大似為蛇画足。与黄門栽鬚。翠巌文悦則不然。這僧与麼悟去。入地獄如箭射。（古尊宿語録四十一。）
12. [780–865. RMJ]
13. In Claud Field’s Mystics and Saints of Islam (p. 25), we read under Hasan Basri, “Another time I saw a child coming toward me holding a lighted torch in his hand, ‘Where have you brought the light from?’ I asked him. He immediately blew it out, and said to me, ‘O Hasan, tell me where it is gone, and I will tell you whence I fetched.’” Of course the parallel here is only apparent, for Tokusan got his enlightenment from quite a different source than the mere blowing out of the candle. Still the parallel in itself is interesting enough to be quoted here.
徳山。一夕於室外黙坐。竜潭問。何不帰来。山対曰黒。潭乃点燭与山。山擬接。竜便吹滅。山乃礼拝。（伝灯録巻十五。）
14. 馬大師与百丈懐海行次。見野鴨子飛過。大師云。是什麼。丈云野鴨子。大師云。什麼処去也。丈云飛過去也。大師遂扭百丈鼻頭。丈作忍痛声大師云。何曾飛去。（碧巌集。） [749–814. RMJ]
15. 道謙在路泣語元曰。我一生参禅業。無得力処今又奔波。如何得相応去。元告之曰。儞但将諸方参得底悟得底。円悟妙喜為儞説得底。都不要理会。途可替事。我尽替儞。只有五件事。替儞不得。儞須自家支当。謙曰五件者何事。願問其要。元曰著衣喫飯。屙屎放尿。駝箇死屍路上行。謙於言下領旨。不覚手舞足踏。元曰。儞此回方可通書宜前進。吾先帰矣。（続伝灯録第三十二巻。）
16. 潙山問。我聞汝在百丈先師処。問一答十。問十答百。此是汝聡明霊利。意解識想。生死根本。父母未生時。試道一句看。師被一問。直得茫然。帰寮将平日看過底文字従頭要尋一句酬対。竟不能得。乃自歎曰。画餅不可充飢。屡乞潙山説破。山曰。我若説似汝。汝已後罵我去。我説底是我底。終不干汝事。師遂将平昔所看文字焼却曰。此生不学仏法也。且作箇長行粥飯僧。免役心神。乃泣辞潙山。直過南陽。覩忠国師遺跡遂憩止焉。一日芟除草木。偶抛瓦礫。撃竹作声。忽然省悟。遂帰沐浴焚香。遥礼潙山。讚曰。和尚大慈恩踰父母。当時若為我説破。何有今日之事。乃有頌。一撃忘所知。更不仮修治。動容揚古路。不堕悄然機。声色外威儀。諸方達道者。咸言上上機。（五灯会元巻九。）
17. See the essay “Practical Methods of Zen Instruction,” [in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), 251–297. RMJ]
18. The lightning simile in the Kena-Upanishad (IV.30), as is supposed by some scholars, is not to depict the feeling of inexpressive awe as regards the nature of Brahman, but it illustrates the bursting out of enlightenment upon consciousness. “A—a—ah” is most significant here.
19. 山谷居士黄庭堅。字魯直。往依晦堂。乞指径捷処。堂曰。祗如仲尼道。二三子以我為隠乎。吾無隠乎爾者。太史居常如何理論。公擬対。堂曰不是不是。公迷悶不已。一日侍堂山行次時巌桂盛放。堂曰。聞木犀華香麼。公曰聞。無隠于爾公釈然。（五灯会元。巻十七。）
20. [1025–1100. RMJ]
21. 黄檗仏法無多子。
22. 窮諮玄弁若一毫置於太虚。竭世枢機。似一滴投於巨壑。
23. 馬祖次日陞堂。衆纔集。百丈出。巻却拝蓆。馬祖便下座。帰方丈。次問百丈。我適来上堂。未曾説法。儞為什麼便巻却蓆。丈云。昨日被和尚扭得鼻孔痛。祖云。儞昨日向甚処留心。丈云。今日鼻頭又不痛也。（碧巌集。）
24. This is spread before the Buddha and on it the master performs his bowing ceremony, and its rolling up naturally means the end of a sermon.
25. Toujiji, meaning “the verse of mutual understanding” which takes place when the master’s mind and the disciple’s are merged in each other’s.
26. It was originally a mosquito driver, but now it is a symbol of religious authority. It has a short handle, a little over a foot long and a longer tuft of hair, usually a horse’s tail or a yak’s.
27. 長慶稜禅師参雪峯。 忽一日捲簾。豁然大悟。述偈云。也大差。也大差。起簾来見天下。有人問我解何宗。拈起払子驀口打。（禅林類聚第十五巻。）
28. 五祖法演投機偈去。山前一片閑田地。叉手叮嚀問祖翁。幾度売来還自買。為憐松竹引清風。（五灯会元巻十九。）
29. 圜悟克勤偈云。金鴨香消錦繍幃。笙歌叢裡酔扶帰。少年一段風流事。祗許佳人独自知。（五灯会元巻十九。）
30. 永明延寿禅師。聞堕薪有声。豁然契悟。乃云。撲落非他物。縦横不是塵。山河並大地。全露法王身。（葛藤集。）
31. 楊億居士字大年。偈曰八角磨盤空裏走。金毛獅子変作狗。擬欲将身北斗蔵。応須合掌南辰後。（五灯会元巻十二。）
32. 衡州荼陵郁山主有頌曰。我有神（明）珠一顆。久被塵労覊鎖（埋没。）今朝塵尽光生。照見（破）青山万朶。（績伝灯録第十三。）
I have added six more such verses which may further help the reader to gain an insight into the content of satori.
李遵勗投機偈曰。学道須是鉄漢。著手心頭便判。直趣無上菩提。一切是非莫管。（五灯会元巻十二。）
張九成聞蛙鳴。豁然有省。作頌云。春天月下一声蛙。撞破乾坤共一家。正与麼時誰会得。嶺頭脚痛有玄沙。 （禅林類聚巻一。）
大灯国師偈曰。一回透過雲関了。南北東西活路通。夕処朝遊没賓主。脚頭脚尾起清風。（延宝伝灯録巻二十。）
夢想国師偈曰。多年掘地覔青天。添得重重碍膺物。一夜暗中颺碌甎。等閑撃砕虚空骨。（延宝伝灯録巻十九。）
太原孚上坐投機偈曰。憶昔当年未悟時。一声胡角一声悲。如今枕上無閑夢。大小梅花一任吹。（釈宗演著。碧巌録講話。第四十七則。）
蒙山異禅師曰。没興路頭窮。踏翻波是水。超群老趙州。面目只如此。（禅関策進。）
33. [992–1049. RMJ]
34. 説似一物即不中。
35. This is one of the most noted koan and generally given to the uninitiated as an eye-opener. When Jōshū was asked by a monk whether there was Buddha-Nature in the dog, the master answered “Mu!” (wu in Chinese), which literally means “no.” But as it is nowadays understood by the followers of Rinzai, it does not mean anything negative as the term may suggest to us ordinarily, it refers to something most assuredly positive, and the novice is told to find it out by himself, not depending upon others (aparappaccaya), as no explanation will be given nor is any possible. This koan is popularly known as “Jōshū’s Mu” or “Muji.” A koan is a theme or statement or question given to the Zen student for solution, which will lead him to a spiritual insight. The subject will be fully treated in the Second Series of the Essays in Zen Buddhism.
趙州因僧問。狗子還有仏性也無。師云無。又問一切還皆有。因甚狗子却無。師云有。
36. 阿誰与儞拕箇死屍到遮裏。
37. Another koan for beginners. A monk once asked Jōshū, “All things return to the One, but where does the One return?” to which the master answered, “When I was in the province of Seishū (Qingzhou), I had a monkish garment made which weighed seven kin (jin). 僧問趙州。万法帰一。一帰何処。州云。我在青州。作一領布衫。重七斤。
38. 五祖法演禅師（西暦千百四年寂） 自讃曰。百年三万六千朝。返覆元来是遮漢。
39. 解夏至南明。欽一見便問。阿誰与儞拖箇死屍到遮裡。師便喝。欽拈棒。師把住云。今日打某甲不得。欽曰。甚麼打不得。師払袖便出。翌日欽問。万法帰一。一帰何処。 師云。狗䑛熱油鐺。欽曰儞那裏学遮虚頭来。師云。正要和尚疑著。欽休去。（高峯録。）
40. He is the founder of the modem Japanese Rinzai school of Zen. All the masters belonging to this school at present in Japan trace back their line of transmission to Hakuin. [1686–1769. RMJ].
41. 大疑現前。Literally, “a great doubt,” but it does not mean that, as the term “doubt” is not understood here in its ordinary sense. It means a state of concentration brought to the highest pitch.
42. Gantō (Yantou, 828–887) was one of the great Zen teachers in the Tang dynasty. But he was murdered by an outlaw when his death-cry is said to have reached many miles around. When Hakuin first studied Zen, this tragic incident in the life of an eminent Zen master who is supposed to be above all human ailments troubled him very much, and he wondered if Zen were really the gospel of salvation. Hence this allusion to Gantō. Notice also here that what Hakuin discovered was a living person and not an abstract reason or anything conceptual. Zen leads us ultimately to somewhat living, working, and this is known as “seeing into one’s own Nature” (jianxing).
巌頭全豁禅師。常謂衆曰。老漢去時。大吼一声了去。唐光啓之後。中原盗起。衆皆避地。師端居晏如也。一日賊大至。責以無供饋。遂仆刃焉。師神色自若。大叫一声而終。声聞数十里。（伝灯録巻十六。）
43. Koans (gongan) are sometimes called “complications” (geteng), literally meaning “vines and wistarias” which are entwining and entangling; for according to the masters there ought not to be any such thing as a koan in the very nature of Zen, it was an unnecessary invention making things more entangled and complicated than ever before. The truth of Zen has no need for koans. It is supposed that there are one thousand seven hundred koans which will test the genuineness of satori.
44. Zuyuan (1226–1286) came to Japan when the Hōjō family was in power at Kamakura. He established the Engakuji monastery which is one of the chief Zen monasteries in Japan. While still in China his temple was invaded by soldiers of the Yuan dynasty, who threatened to kill him, but Bukkō was immovable and quietly uttered the following verse:
Throughout heaven and earth there is not a piece of ground where a single stick could be inserted;
I am glad that all things are void, myself and the world:
Honored be the sword, three feet long, wielded by the great Yuan swordsmen;
For it is like cutting a spring breeze amid the flashes of lightning.
仏光国師字子元。南宋徳祐乙亥秋。値変難。退過温之雁峰。次年重兵圧境。挙衆逃匿。師独兀坐堂中。兵以刃加頭。師怡然述頌曰。乾坤無地卓孤笻。且喜人空法亦空。珍重大元三尺剣。電光影裡斬春風。復為説法。衆生悚聞。悔謝作礼而去。（仏光録巻九。）
45. That is, sitting cross-legged in meditation.
46. 一槌打破精霊窟。突出那咤鉄面皮。両耳如聾口如唖。等閑触着火星飛。
47. This lively utterance reminds one of a lightning simile in the Kena-Upanishad (IV.30):
This is the way It [that is, Brahman] is to be illustrated:
When lightnings have been loosened—
a—a—ah!
When that has made the eyes to be closed—
a—a—ah!
So far concerning Deity (devatā).
Lightning flash is a favorite analogue with the Zen masters too; the unexpected onrush of satori into the ordinary field of consciousness has something of the nature of lightning. It comes so suddenly and when it comes the world is at once illumined and revealed in its entirety and in its harmonious oneness; but when it vanishes everything falls back into its old darkness and confusion.
48. 有定上座到参。問如何是仏法大意。師下縄床擒住与一掌便托開。定佇立。傍僧曰。定上座何不礼拝。定方礼拝。忽然大悟。（臨済録。）
49. 趙州示衆云。仏之一字。吾不喜聞。（趙州録。）
曇穎達観禅師。僧問。和尚還曾念仏也無。師曰不曾念仏。曰為甚麼不念仏。師曰。怕汚人口。（続伝灯録巻四。）
薬山惟厳。一日院主請師上堂。大衆才集。師良久。便帰方丈閉門。（伝灯録巻十四。）
百丈涅槃一日謂衆曰。汝与我開田。我為汝説大義。衆開田了。請師説大義。師乃展開両手。（伝灯録第九。）
達観禅師上堂。衆集定。首座出礼拝。師曰。好好問着。座低頭問話次。師曰。今日不答話。便帰方丈。（続伝灯録巻四。）
50. Baoci Wenqin, a disciple of Baofu Congzhan, who died 928 A.D.
51. （趙州従諗和尚問南泉曰。如何是道。泉曰平常心是道。）
報慈院文欽因僧問。如何是平常心合道。欽曰。喫茶飯随時過。看水看山実暢情。（五灯会元巻八。）
僧問長沙景岑。如何是平常心。師云。要眠即眠。要坐即坐。僧云。学人不会。師云。熱即取涼。寒即向火。（伝灯録第十。）
[The note number for this note is missing from the original text. I have placed it in what appears to be the appropriate place. RMJ]
The historicity of Bodhidharma is sometimes discussed, but as far as Zen is concerned the question has no significance. Zen is satisfied with the historical considerations that there was the beginning of Zen in China, that it started with some Buddhist teacher from India who had a special message for the Chinese Buddhists of those days, and that this message was not an ordinary one which could be transmitted in words or writings. All that is told or recorded of Bodhidharma in the histories of Zen and general Buddhism may or may not have been actual facts, and these can be left to the historians to investigate according to their own methods of study; but what concerns students of Zen is, “What is the message of the first teacher of Zen?” Hence this article.
1. 如何是祖師西來意
2. To say that this action or gesture explains is not quite correct, for it is not designed to convey a meaning outside the gesture itself. In case it is so designed, the latter is words uttered by the whole body, though not by certain portions of it, and conveys an idea. In the Zen action there is no such intention on the part of the master, and whatever perception or understanding there is in the mind of the pupil, it is the meaning of the latter’s own inner experience, and not of any outsider’s.
3. An instrument used for mending or making a fence.
4. A short epigrammatic verse consisting of seventeen syllables.
5. Most quotations in this article are taken from the work entitled Chanlin leiju in twenty fasciculi compiled in the year 1307. The title means “Zen materials (literally, woods) classified and collected.” The book is now very rare.
1. [Sarvajñatā = omniscience. RMJ]
2. For another example like this, see my Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), p. 35.
This is the second chapter of the author’s Zen shisōshi kenkyū, I (Studies in the History of Zen Thought, first series), Tokyo, 1943; included in the first volume of his Complete Works [SDZ 1:57–83. RMJ]. Unless otherwise noted, all footnotes are by the translator.
1. Bankei Zenji hōgo. See The Eastern Buddhist (New Series) 8, no. 2 [(1975): 113–129. RMJ] and The Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, rev. ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).
2. Tathagata, an epithet used for a Buddha, means “one who is thus come.”
3. The expression “sono-mama Zen” has been used, especially in Hakuin Zen, as a term of disapprobation.
4. The Eihei kōroku is a comprehensive collection of Dōgen’s lectures, sayings, and miscellaneous writings in Chinese.
5. A term used frequently in Dōgen’s writings indicating attainment of total freedom from all hindrances physical and mental. Its context will be given more fully below.
6. A collection of Dōgen’s talks and occasional remarks compiled by his disciple Ejō (1198–1280).
7. Originally, the designation Kanna (Kanhua, “examining the koan”) Zen was a term of reproach applied to the Daie Sōkō (Dahui Zonggao, 1089–1163) line of Rinzai (Linji) Zen by followers of the Sōtō (Caodong) master Wanshi Shōgaku (Hongzhi Zhengjue, 1091–1157) for its stress of koan study. The Daie faction in turn called Wanshi’s Zen Mokushō (Mozhao, “silent illumination”) Zen for its emphasis on sitting.
8. See the translation of SBGZ zazengi, The Eastern Buddhist (New Series) 6, no. 2 (1973): 127–128, for the full context of these remarks.
9. Wanshi’s Zazenshin (C. Zuochanzhen) is quoted in full and commented on in Dōgen’s work of the same name, Shōbōgenzō zazenshin. See below for a translation.
10. There were a great many works titled Zuochanzhen (Zazenshin, “Zazen Exhortation”), Zuochanming (Zazenmei, “Zazen Inscription”), and Zuochanyi (Zazengi, “Principles of Zazen“) in China. Dōgen mentions two that must have been particularly well known, being included in two of the principal Zen histories, the Jingde chuandeng lu (Keitoku dentō roku) and the Jiatai pudeng lu (Katai futō roku).
11. Shin is described as a needle or tool used by physicians in treating patients; to needle, to probe; by extension, to inscribe admonitions or precepts, or inscriptions themselves. Mei means to inscribe or carve; inscription.
12. For example, compilers of the previously mentioned Keitoku dentō roku and Katai futō roku.
13. Words in brackets are the author’s.
14. The four phrases quoted here are found in Dōgen’s SBGZ zazenshin: the first and third are from Wanshi’s Zazenshin (see translation below), which Dōgen quotes; the third and fourth represent Dōgen’s own paraphrase of Wanshi’s lines.
15. [Nishitani, “Emptiness and Time,” The Eastern Buddhist (New Series) 9, no. 1 (1976): 67, note 19. RMJ]
16. Words in brackets are the author’s.
17. These three expressions, genjō kōan, shikan taza, and tanden no zazen, are key terms in Dōgen’s Zen.
18. Eihei kakun: A two-fascicle work compiled by the Tokugawa Sōtō priest Menzan Zuihō (1683–1769) from Dōgen’s Eihei kōroku, comprising various admonitions for Zen practicers.
19. Gyōji: One of the key terms in Dōgen’s Zen. Title of a long two-part book of Shōbōgenzō.
20. See Hakuin, Hakuin’s Precious Mirror Cave, 83–114.
21. A standard work of the Japanese Sōtō school, giving the lives of over seven hundred Sōtō priests beginning with Dōgen.
22. Several of these are found in a work titled Shōgen kokushi itsuji jō (Anecdotes of Shōgen Kokushi). One story relates how Bankei left school and returned home early to avoid attending the calligraphy class that he disliked. His elder brother, who was the head of the family, remonstrated with him repeatedly to no avail. To get home Bankei had to cross a river, so his brother instructed the ferryman not to take Bankei across if he should return early. But when Bankei was refused, he simply said, “The ground must continue under the water,” strode right into the water, and struggled his way along until he emerged, out of breath, at the opposite bank.
Then he decided to commit suicide to avoid further conflict with his brother. He swallowed a mouthful of poisonous spiders and shut himself up in a small Buddhist shrine waiting for death. When after a while he realized he was not going to die, he returned home. Bankei Zenji goroku, ed. Suzuki Daisetsu (first edition 1941, Iwanami bunko), pp. 245–246. See also Living by Zen (Sanseidō, 1949), pp. 136–137.
23. In particular see “The Zen Sermons of Bankei Yōtaku,” part 2, The Eastern Buddhist (New Series) 7, no. 2 (1974): 130–133.
24. One of several compilations consisting of fragments of dialogues and biographical episodes from Bankei’s life that were made by his disciples. The exchange between Bankei and Unpo in question is found in Bankei Zenji goroku, pp. 207–209.
25. Cf. “Bankei’s Zen Sermons,” part 2, p. 130. “At that time, Daozhe was the only master who could have given me confirmation of my understanding in such short order. Now, as I reflect with some deliberation I can see that even Daozhe was not fully satisfactory. If he were only alive now, I could make him into a fine teacher. Unfortunately, he died too soon. It is regrettable.”
26. J. Zenkan sakushin: A collection of anecdotes of the ancient Chinese masters and short passages from a variety of Buddhist writings, compiled by the Ming Zen master Yunqi Zhuhong (Unsei Shukō). According to the biography of Hakuin by his disciple Tōrei, Hakuin, at a time of uncertainty in his religious life, was visiting a temple where the priest was airing his library of Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist texts. He closed his eyes and picked a book at random from among them. His hand chanced to fall on the Zenkan sakushin and he opened it to the story of how the Chinese Zen priest Ciming (Jimyō) had kept himself awake during long periods of zazen by sticking himself in the thigh with a gimlet. This is said to have instilled Hakuin with the resolve to continue his own practice in Zen until he too had attained Enlightenment.
27. Hakuin himself describes these events in a number of works. For an English translation of the account in the Orategama, see The Zen Master Hakuin, trans. Philip Yampolsky (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 117–120.
This unpublished article, which dates from about 1949, was written by Dr. Suzuki as a response to a question from Kusunoki Kyō, formerly one of his students at Otani University. We wish to thank Mr. Kusunoki for his cooperation in making it available to us. We also wish to thank the Matsugaoka Library of Kamakura for permission to use it here. Slight editorial revisions and footnotes have been added by the editors.—Eds.
1. Yunmen, 862–949. [864–949. RMJ] Founder of the Yunmen (Unmon) sect of Zen in the Tang dynasty.
2. Dr. Suzuki’s manuscript gives two alternative translations for this sentence: (1) This is another fine day; (2) One fine day succeeds another.
3. Yuanwu, 1063–1135. A Zen priest of the Song dynasty. His “comments” on this koan concerning Unmon occur in Case 6 of the Hekigan roku (Biyan lu). Related particulars about the comments and the authorship of the Hekigan roku may be found in Dr. Suzuki’s “On the Hekigan roku,” The Eastern Buddhist (New Series), Vol. I, No. I. pp. 5–9.
4. Chōen, n.d.
5. Dadian, 732–824.
6. Han Yu, 768–824.
7. Zhaozhou, 778–897.
8. Franz Pfeiffer, Meister Eckhart, trans. C. de B. Evans (London: John M. Watkins, 1924), p. 438.
9. By “first word,” which is a technical term with Zen masters, is meant the ultimate or fundamental experience from which all human intelligence starts. It is the Buddha’s primary insight of Bodhi, it is the content of satori, whereby all our conflicting ideas are reconciled. [Dr. Suzuki’s footnote.]
1. [I have corrected the third line of Tennyson’s poem. Suzuki left out the “I” at the beginning of the line. RMJ]
2. [Suzuki perhaps means śītavana. I thank James Marks for this comment. RMJ]
3. Shenme in Chinese. It may be translated “What?! What?!” [Suzuki has shimo. RMJ]
4. [d. 866. RMJ]
5. [745–828. RMJ]
1. Genesis 1:27–28.
2. Matthew 26:41.
3. The Transmission of the Lamp (Dentōroku), fas. VIII. See under “Nansen.”
4. [780–865. RMJ]
5. The Transmission of the Lamp (Dentōroku), fas. VIII.
6. John 8:58.
7. [745–828. RMJ]
8. The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. XIV.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. [769–835. RMJ]
12. The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. XIV.
13. The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. XV. This may be regarded as corresponding to the Christian God, though not as creator.
14. The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. XIV, under “Dōgo.”
15. Ibid.
16. The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. XIX.
17. The following are haphazardly culled from The Transmission of the Lamp.
18. The italics are mine.
19. Or transcendence, or escape.
20. Or, “Take good care of yourself.”
21. All these four mondo are quoted from The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. XVIII.
22. Quoted by A. S. Wadia in his The Message of Buddha (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1938), 170. [Author initials corrected by RMJ.]
23. Supplementary Volumes to The Transmission of the Lamp, fas. X.
24. A thing, an object, that which subsists.
25. The Shōrin (Shaolin) is the temple where Bodhidharma is said to have retreated after his unsuccessful interview with Wu the Emperor of the Liang, and spent nine years absorbed in meditation.
26. The Hekigan shū (Biyan ji).
1. Cf. “The Ten Oxherding Pictures,” IX [figure 11], entitled “Returning to the Origin, Back to the Source.” In the Laṇkāvatāra Sūtra, reference is also made to visiting one’s native town where every road is familiar. “A new consciousness” is not at all new. Hakuin (1685–1768) [1686–1769. RMJ] refers to Gantō, an ancient master of the Tang dynasty, while Kōsen (1816–1892) brings out Confucius as a witness to his satori experience. In Zen literature we often come across such expressions as “Back at home and quietly sitting,” “Like seeing one’s family in a strange town,” etc.
The term “new” may be permissible from the point of view of psychology. But Zen is mainly metaphysical, and it deals with a total personality and not parts of it. Rinzai talks about “the whole being in action” (zentai sayū). This is the reason why in Zen beating, slapping, kicking, and other bodily activities are in evidence. Concrete experiences are valued more than mere conceptualization. Language comes secondary. In Zen, consciousness in its ordinary scientific sense has no use; the whole being must come forward. The whole elephant is needed and not its parts as studied by the blind. This will be clearer later on.
2. An old Indian tradition states that if a man utters an untruth all his facial hair such as beards and eyebrows will fall off. Suigan has spent his summer talking about things that can never be talked about, hence his allusion to his eyebrows still growing.
3. Language deals with concepts and therefore what cannot be conceptualized is beyond the reach of language. When language is forced, it gets crooked, which means that it becomes illogical, paradoxical, and unintelligible from the viewpoint of ordinary usage of language or by the conventional way of thinking. For instance, the waters are to flow and the bridge is to stay over them. When this is reversed the world of senses goes topsy-turvy. The flowers bloom on the ground and not on rock. Therefore, when a Zen master declares, “I plant the flowers on rock,” this must sound crazy. This crookedness all issues from language being used in the way not meant for it. Zen wants to be direct and to act without a medium of any kind. Hence “Katsu!” or “Guan!” Just an ejaculation with no “sense” attached to it. Nor is it a symbol, it is the thing itself. The person is acting and not appealing to concepts. This is intelligible only from the inward way of seeing reality.
4. “Question and answer.”
5. It may interest you to know that there is no word in European languages, as far as I know, equivalent for the Japanese word oya. Oya is neither father nor mother, it means both and applies to either of them. Oya is the quality to be found in each and both of them. It has no sex; therefore, its relationship to us is not that of progenitor; it is love pure and simple, it is love personified. Cannot we say that in the Jewish and Christian conception of God as father one feels him somewhat cold, distant, and critical; and further that it is for this reason that Maria with Christ-child in her arms is needed to occupy an important niche in the Christian hierarchy? In Shin, Amida as oya-sama has nothing to do with the business of forgiving. We simply find ourselves in his grip when a new consciousness is awakened in us. Amida is neither father nor mother, he is oya, he is above sex, he is love itself.
6. Cannot I say that Christians wanted Christ and so they have him? And also that they still wanted his mother Maria and therefore they have her? Being Christ’s mother, she could not stay with us on earth, so she was made to go up to Heaven. Where Heaven is is immaterial. In our religious experience, what we in our logical way think to be the law of causation is reversed, the effect comes first and then the cause. Instead of the cause proceeding to the effect, the effect precedes the cause.
When a Shin Buddhist was asked, “Can Amida really save us?” he answered, “You are not yet saved!” Christians may have the same way of expressing their faith. They would tell us to have faith first and all other things will follow. Is it not a somewhat futile attempt on the part of the Christian theologian to try to prove the historicity of Christ and then to proceed to tell us that for this reason we must believe in him? The same thing can be said of the crucifixion and the resurrection.
One may ask: If it is faith that is needed first, why so many different expressions of it? One faith goes out to Christ, another to Krishna, and still another to Amida, and so on. Why these variations? And why the fighting among them as we actually see in history?
I do not know if my interpretation of the phenomena is sufficient, but a tentative one is that faith, as soon as it goes out to express itself, is liable to be conditioned by all accidental things it finds around it, such as history, individual temperaments, geographical formations, biological peculiarities, etc. As regards the fighting among them, this will grow less and less as we get better acquainted with all these conditioning accidents. And this is one of our aims in the study of religion in all its differentiations.
7. The statement that faith creates God may be misconstrued. What I mean is that faith discovers God and simultaneously God discovers the man. The discovery is mutual and takes place concomitantly. To use Buddhist terms, when Amida is enlightened all beings are enlightened, and when we are enlightened we realize that Amida attained his enlightenment whereby our rebirth into the Pure Land is assured. The objective interpretation betrays that the critic has not deeply delved into the matter.
8. From the point of view of the experience itself, its conceptualization, one may say, is an unnecessary luxury. But as long as we are human beings given up to the habit of intellectualizing, philosophy is inevitable, I believe. For one thing it is entertaining anyway. It is like dressmaking. The first utilitarian object was to keep the body warm. But as soon as we have what we call a dress and it assumes all independent existence it asserts itself and demands to develop itself regardless of its primary purpose. All kinds of dressing we have now. Its chief object is no more practical but altogether decorative, not only showing individual tastes but marking social distinctions with various purposes which have nothing to do with the utilitarianism of its origin. Philosophy or theology may not be so bad as the art of dressing or dressmaking, but there is something in it which reminds us of a similarity between the two.
9. [J. Chin Sonshuku; C. Chen Zunsu. RMJ]
10. While revising I feel I must add a few words here. This question with its intellectual contents must have been asked by Rinzai ever since he began his study of Buddhism. Why then this suggestion by Chin the Elder and Rinzai’s blind acceptance? An explanation will naturally be demanded.
When Rinzai began his Buddhist study, his mind must have been moving along the outward objective way, and the question had no more interest to him than a conceptual understanding of it. The Sutras and especially Shastras offer enough material to that end. But no religiously-minded people will find anything satisfactory here. A discursive understanding is not a spiritual experience, it is not the inward way of seeing into reality. If it were, Rinzai would never have come to Ōbaku.
When Chin the Elder offered this question he wanted Rinzai to see into its inward meaning, that is, to get a glimpse into the inward way of things. This comes to one only when there is no more bifurcation between subject and object, between the questioner and the question. Buddha had his Enlightenment when this identification took place. This is the awakening of “a new consciousness,” the turning away from objectivity, the going-back to one’s original source, the seeing of one’s own face which he has even before his birth. Therefore, Ōbaku’s beating has no meaning as long as we stand outside the inward way. Even after a third beating, Rinzai failed to grasp what was behind the beating, he could not get into the inward way. He was still an outsider.
The beating has nothing to do with the idea of giving one a warning or of expressing a disapproval. It is one of the means the Zen master uses to make the questioner turn in a new direction he has never yet experienced. Language may sometimes be resorted to and its effect is often electrifying. There are no fixed preestablished methods whereby the Zen students are brought to a satori experience. It depends upon the situation the master finds himself in. His decision flashes into his mind the moment the questioner approaches him. Sometimes he strikes him, sometimes harsh words are given, sometimes a senseless cry comes out of his mouth, as we read in the records of Zen history. The main point is to lead the students to the inward way.
The inward way will dawn upon one when Rinzai’s question and Ōbaku’s beating are “inwardly” related independent of their conceptual contents. Daigu’s “grandmotherly” comment too will come to light.
11. In reference to “the belly” I am reminded of Dr. Jung in his lectures given in London, 1915 (The Fundamental Psychological Conceptions. Edited by Mary Barker and Margaret Game for the Analytical Psychology Club, London, p. 7), where he speaks of some primitive people who “do not think.” According to them, “a man who thinks is crazy,” his thinking takes place in the head, whereas they think, if they at all do, in the heart or in the belly, and not in the head. Jung comments: “They are just about in the Homeric Age where the reign of the diaphragm (phren = mind, soul) was the seat of psychical activity.”
It may be primitive, but to locate “thinking” in “the belly” or “the heart” or the “diaphragmatic region” is quite significant. There is a sort of “thinking” which is done with the whole body or the whole “person,” and this “thinking” is beyond conceptualization. If we do, it is transferred into the ordinary plane of consciousness which we locate “in our most dignified head.” The diaphragmatic thinking is not an “emotional thought,” it does not belong in psychological categories we usually use in our text books. If we are to find a place at all for it we would call it psycho-metaphysical. When Rinzai poked Daigu’s sides it was not accidental, it was an instinctive response and there is a deep meaning in it.
Kanzan (Hanshan), a great Zen poet of the Tang dynasty, has this:
A soft breeze passes through the pines remote in the mountains;
The nearer I approach the sweeter the sounds are!
A master asks: “How best do you hear them?” A disciple answers: “Hear them with the belly.”
Avalokiteśvara is the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion with one thousand eyes and arms. A Zen man asks, “What will he do with so many eyes and arms?” Another answers, “It is like hunting for a pillow in the dark night.”
The Bodhisattva is supposed to see wherever help is needed and to act immediately. But the questions will be, “How does he use so many eyes and arms, all at once or each at a time? If they are used all simultaneously, how can they be coordinated? If each acts independently, what will the rest be doing in the meantime?” The Zen man naturally did not answer in the manner such questions are generally answered; he had his inward way of answering.
12. It will be interesting to note what a mystic philosopher has to say about this: “A man shall become truly poor and as free from his creature will as he was when he was born. And I say to you, by the eternal truth, that as long as ye desire to fulfil the will of God, and have any desire after eternity and God; so long are ye not truly poor. He alone hath true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing.” (From Eckhart as quoted by Inge in Light, Life, and Love.)
13. Symbol of emptiness (sunyata).
14. No extra property he has, for he knows that the desire to possess is the curse of human life.
1. See above [Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. RMJ] and also my Living by Zen (London: Rider, 1950), p. 24.
2. See my Studies in Zen (London: Rider, 1955), pp. 80ff.
3. See my Manual of Zen Buddhism (London: Rider, 1950), plate 11, facing p. 129, where the ideal Zen-man comes out to the market—that is, into the world, to save all beings. [Figure 12 (Ox-herding Picture 10) in this volume. RMJ]
4. See The Lankavatara Sutra (London: Routledge, 1932), pp. 38, 40, 49, etc., and also my Essays in Zen Buddhism, Series 3 (London: Rider, 1951), p. 314.
5. [1686–1769. RMJ]
6. See my Essays in Zen Buddhism, Series 1 (London: Rider, 1949), pp. 253ff. and 252.
7. Rinzai’s Sayings (Rinzai roku), compiled by his disciples, contains about 13,380 characters and is considered one of the best collections of Zen sayings, known as goroku. The Song edition of the text which appeared in 1120 is said to be a second one based on a much earlier edition which is however now lost. See my Studies in Zen, pp. 25ff.
For Bankei, see my Living by Zen, pp. 11ff. He was a strong opponent of the koan way of studying Zen which prevailed in his day. He was an elder contemporary of Hakuin, who knew nothing of him as far as we know.
8. The Knox version.
1.How is it that in the writings of Zen there is so little explicit concern expressed about cultural conditions, the organization of society, and the welfare of man? Associated with this question is the use of Zen (to find oneself ultimately) in the cause of death, as in swordsmanship.
Is there then in such a return to the self some danger of desensitization to the preciousness of every man? Do Zen masters and students participate in the social problems of the day?
2.What is Zen’s attitude toward ethics? Toward political and economic deprivation? Toward the individual’s position and responsibility toward his society?
3.What is the difference between satori and Christian conversion? In one of your books you say you think they are different. Is there any difference other than cultural differences in the ways of talking about it?
4.Christian mysticism is full of erotic images—is there any trace of that in satori? Or perhaps in the preceding stages of satori?
5.Does Zen have a criterion for differentiating genuine mystic experiences from hallucinatory ones?
6.What interest has Zen in the history of the individual, the influences of family, education, and social institutions in the development of the individual’s alienation from himself? Some of us have been interested in this in relation to prevention of alienation in the new generations by improvement in individual upbringing as well as social institutions. If we know what determines ill health, presumably we can do something about it before the adult crisis.
7.Does Zen give any thought to the kinds of developmental experiences in childhood that are most conducive to Enlightenment in adulthood?
8.In Zen the master seems to begin with the student without paying attention to the sense of him as he is, or at least he does not react to this explicitly and directly. Yet it is conceivable that such a man might be entering Zen out of vanity or a need to find a new God—of which he may be unconscious. Would it help him find the path if he were in touch with the truth of the fact that his own direction will only turn the experience to ashes?
Does a Zen master communicate his sense of the person and of the obstacles that might be in the way? Even if this does not tend to be done, is it conceivable that if it were done it might make it easier to reach the goal?
9.Do you feel that psychoanalysis, as you understand it, offers patients hope of Enlightenment?
10.What is the attitude of Zen toward images which might appear in the process of meditation?
11.Is Zen concerned with the problem of emotional maturity and self-fulfillment in man’s social existence, i.e., “interpersonal relationships”?
10. [Suzuki, Fromm, et al., Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, vii–viii. RMJ]
11. The wording has been partly modernized.
12. [A reference to a story in the “Heaven and Earth” (Tiandi) chapter of the Zhuangzi (in Wade-Giles, Chuang Tzu), in which a farmer rejects the use of a shadoof (that is, a well sweep; C. gao) to make irrigation of his fields easier because the scheming mind that invents and uses such devices destroys simplicity and spontaneity. See Chuang Tzu, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 134. RMJ.]
1. Sayings of the Elder Masters (Kosonshuku goroku), fas. 31.
2. [Suzuki probably means “avikalpajñāna.” I thank James Marks for this comment. RMJ]
1. Kanazawa is the capital of the Ishikawa Prefecture in the middle of the west coast. For 300 years it was under the jurisdiction of the feudal clan of Maeda, and Dr. Suzuki’s ancestors were physicians to the Lord Maeda’s court.
2. Hekiganroku, usually translated “The Blue Cliff Records.” One of the most important text books of Zen. See “The Blue Cliff Records,” trans. Dr. R. D. M. Shaw. Michael Joseph, 1961.
3. The Greek Orthodox Church.
4. Imakita Kōsen Rōshi was the predecessor of Sōen Shaku Rōshi at Engakuji, Kamakura, where he is buried. Dr. Suzuki has written a biography in Japanese.
5. Orategama, “my little iron kettle,” is a collection of letters written by Hakuin Zenji (1685–1769) [1686–1769. RMJ] to his disciples. See The Embossed Tea-kettle trans. Dr. R. D. M. Shaw. Allen and Unwin, 1963.
6. The Rōshi is the master of the Zen monastery who takes pupils in sanzen, personal interviews, and supervises their zazen meditation.
7. From Tokyo to Kamakura is thirty miles.
8. Daruma is the Japanese name for Bodhidharma (Sk.) or Damo (Chin.), the first Patriarch of Chan or Zen Buddhism who arrived in China from India in 520 A.D.
9. A koan is a word or phrase which cannot be “solved” by the intellect. It is given by a Roshi to his pupil to help him gain insight into reality, which lies beyond the reach of dualistic thought.
10. Musō Kokushi’s Last Words may be found in Suzuki, Manual of Zen Buddhism at page 182 of the 1st Edn.
11. A daikon is a very long and large white radish. A popular vegetable in Japan.
12. Shaku Sōen is known to the West by the name of Sōen Shaku as the author of Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, Chicago, 1906. He was the favorite disciple of Imakita Kōsen (see Note 4), and was only twenty-five when he received his master’s “seal” (inka). In 1893 he attended the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He later traveled in Europe.
13. Hōjō Tokimune was the Regent who in 1282 founded Engakuji, the Zen monastery north of Kamakura where Dr. Suzuki lived for many years in the sub-temple building, Shōden’an.
14. The Shariden building in Engakuji (see Note 13) is the only surviving example of Song dynasty temple architecture. It is quite small and severely plain. Although damaged in the great earthquake of 1923, it was later restored.
15. Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945). The great modern Japanese philosopher and an intimate friend of Dr. Suzuki’s since early youth. See A Study of Good, trans. V. G. Viglielmo (Tokyo: Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, 1960).
16. Sesshin. A period of intense meditation lasting one week.
17. Rōhatsu sesshin. Rō refers to the month, of December, and hatsu or hachi means the eighth. 8th December is traditionally regarded as the date of Buddha’s enlightenment. Everyone makes a special effort at this sesshin, which begins 1st December and ends early at dawn on the 8th, to become enlightened. Usually they go without sleep the whole time long in their earnest endeavor.
18. This would be the Rōhatsu sesshin of 1896.
19. Kenshō. “Seeing into the Self-nature.” Can be described as the first glimpse of satori or enlightenment.