The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and JapanNukariya, Kaiten
Religion
The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan
Nukariya, Kaiten
Buddhism -- China; Buddhism -- Japan; China -- Religion; Human beings -- Origin; Japan -- Religion; Zen Buddhism
What we merely observed before we now touch with heart as well. What
we knew in relation of difference before we now understand in
relation of unity as well. How things happen was our chief concern
before, but now we consider as well bow much value they have. What
was outside us before now comes within us. What was dead and
indifferent before grows now alive and lovable to us. What was
insignificant and empty before becomes now important, and has
profound meaning. Wherever we go we find beauty; whomever we meet we
find good; whatever we get we receive with gratitude. This is the
reason why the Zenists not only regarded all their fellow-beings as
their benefactors, but felt gratitude even towards fuel and water.
The present writer knows a contemporary Zenist who would not drink
even a cup of water without first making a salutation to it. Such an
attitude of Zen toward things may well be illustrated by the
following example: Sueh Fung (Sep-po) and Kin Shan (Kin-zan), once
travelling through a mountainous district, saw a leaf of the rape
floating down the stream. Thereon Kin Shan said: "Let us go up, dear
brother, along the stream that we may find a sage living up on the
mountain. I hope we shall find a good teacher in him." "No,"
replied Sueh Fung, "for he cannot be a sage who wastes even a leaf of
the rape. He will be no good teacher for us."
8. Zen is not Nihilistic.
Zen judged from ancient Zen masters' aphorisms may seem, at the first
sight, to be idealistic in an extreme form, as they say: "Mind is
Buddha" or, "Buddha is Mind," or, "There is nothing outside mind,"
or, "Three worlds are of but one mind." And it may also appear to be
nihilistic, as they say: "There has been nothing since all eternity,"
"By illusion you see the castle of the Three Worlds"; "by
Enlightenment you see but emptiness in ten directions."[FN#194] In
reality, however, Zen[FN#195] is neither idealistic nor nihilistic.
Zen makes use of the nihilistic idea of Hinayana Buddhism, and calls
its students' attention to the change and evanescence of life and of
the world, first to destroy the error of immutation, next to dispel
the attachment to the sensual objects.
[FN#194] These words were repeatedly uttered by Chinese and Japanese
Zenists of all ages. Chwen Hih (Fu-dai-shi) expressed this very idea
in his Sin Wang Ming (Shin-o-mei) at the time of Bodhidharma.
[FN#195] The Rin-zai teachers mostly make use of the doctrine of
unreality of all things, as taught in Prajnya-paramita-sutras. We
have to note that there are some differences between the Mahayana
doctrine of unreality and the Hinayana doctrine of unreality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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