The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan — John Shaqi
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
Tao Sin transmitted the Law to Hung Jan (Ko-nin), who being educated
from infancy, distinguished himself as the Abbot of the Hwang Mei
Monastery at Ki Cheu. The Fifth Patriarch, according to his
biographer, gathered about him seven hundred pupils, who came from
all quarters. Of these seven hundred pupils the venerable Shang Sin
(Jin-shu) was most noted for his learning and virtues, and he might
have become the legitimate successor of Hung Jan, had not the Kachaya
of Bodhidharma been carried away by a poor farmer's son of Sin Cheu.
Hwui Nang, the Sixth Patriarch, seems to have been born a Zen
teacher. The spiritual light of Buddha first flashed in his mind
when he happened to hear a monk reciting a sutra. On questioning the
monk, be learned that the book was
Vajracchedika-prajnya-paramita-sutra,[FN#42] and that Hung Jan, the
Abbot of the Hwang Mei Monastery, was used to make his disciples
recite the book that it might help them in their spiritual
discipline. Hereupon he made up his mind to practise Zen, and called
on Hung Jan at the Monastery. "Who are you," demanded the Fifth
Patriarch, "and whence have you come?" "I am a son of the farmer,"
replied the man, "of Sin Cheu in the South of Ta Yu Ling." "What has
brought you here?" asked the master again. "I have no other purpose
than to attain to Buddhahood," answered the man. "O, you, people of
the South," exclaimed the patriarch, "you are not endowed with the
nature of Buddha." "There may be some difference between the
Southern and the Northern people," objected the man, "but how could
you distinguish one from the other as to the nature of Buddha?" The
teacher recognized a genius in the man, but he did not admit the
promising newcomer into the order, so Hwui Nang had to stay in the
Monastery for eight months as a pounder of rice in order to qualify
himself to be a Zen teacher.
[FN#42] The book was translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva in A.D.
384. 417; also by Bodhiruci in A.D. 509, and by Paramartha in A.D.
592; then by Hiuen Tsang in A.D. 648. Many commentaries have been
written on it by the prominent Buddhist authors of China and Japan.
9. The Spiritual Attainment of the Sixth Patriarch.
Some time before his death (in 675 A.D.) the Fifth Patriarch
announced to all disciples that the Spirit of Shakya Muni is hard to
realize, that they should express their own views on it, on condition
that anyone who could prove his right realization should be given
with the Kachaya and created the Sixth Patriarch. Then the venerable
Sung Siu, the head of the seven hundred disciples, who was considered
by his brothers to be the man entitled to the honour, composed the
following verses:
"The body is the Bodhi-tree.[FN#43]
The mind is like a mirror bright on its stand.
Dust it and wipe it from time to time,
Lest it be dimmed by dust and dirt."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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