Whatever may be this historical importance of work, Hyakujo must have had a profound knowledge of human psychology when he made work the ruling spirit of the monastery life. His idea of “No work, no eating”[f133][7.2] did not necessarily originate from an economic or ethical valuation of life. His sole motive was not that nobody deserved his daily bread if he did not earn it with the sweat of his face. True, there is a virtue in not eating the bread of idleness, and there have been so many Buddhists since the early days of Buddhism, who thought it a most disgraceful thing to be living on others’ earnings and savings, Hyakujo’s object, while it might have been unconsciously conceived, was more psychological in spite of his open declaration, “No work, no eating.” It was to save his monks from a mental inactivity or an unbalanced development of mind which too often results from the meditative habit of the monkish life. When the muscles are not exercised for the execution of spiritual truths, or when the mind and body is not put to practical test, the severance generally issues in inimical results. As the philosophy of Zen is to transcend the dualistic conception of flesh and spirit, its practical application will naturally be, dualistically speaking, to make the nerves and muscles the most ready and absolutely obedient servants of the mind, and not to make us say that the spirit is truly ready but the flesh is weak. Whatever religious truths of this latter statement, psychologically it comes from the lack of a ready channel between mind and muscles. Unless the hands are habitually trained to do the work of the brain, the blood ceases to circulate evenly all over the body, it grows congested somewhere, especially in the brain. The result will be not only an unsound condition of the body in general but a state of mental torpidity or drowsiness, in which ideas are presented as if they were wafting clouds. One is wide awake and yet the mind is filled with the wildest dreams and visions which are not at all related to realities of life. Fantasies are fatal to Zen, and those who practise Zen considering it a form of meditation are too apt to be visited upon by this insidious enemy. Hyakujo’s insistence upon manual work has saved Zen from falling into the pitfalls of antinomianism as well as a hallucinatory mode of mind.