The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of MéijiGriffis, William Elliot
Religion
The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji
Griffis, William Elliot
Japan -- Religion
The introduction of the Zen, or contemplative sect, did, in a sense,
both precede and follow that of Shingon. The word Zen is a shortened
form of the term Zenna, which is a transliteration into Chinese of the
Sanskrit word Dhyana, or contemplation. It teaches that the truth is not
in tradition or in books, but in one's self. Emphasis is laid on
introspection rather than on language. "Look carefully within and there
you will find the Buddha," is its chief tenet. In the Zen monasteries,
the chair of contemplation is, or ought to be, always in use.
The Zen Shu movement may be said to have arisen out of a reaction
against the multiplication of idols. It indicated a return to simpler
forms of worship and conduct. Let us inquire how this was.
It may be said that Buddhism, especially Northern Buddhism, is a vast,
complicated system. It has a literature and a sacred canon which one can
think of only in connection with long trains of camels to carry, or
freight trains to transport, or ships a good deal bigger than the
Mayflower to import. Its multitudinous rules and systems of discipline
appall the spirit and weary the flesh even to enumerate them; so that,
from one point of view, the making of new sects is a necessity. These
are labor-saving inventions. They are attempts to reduce the great bulk
of scriptures to manageable proportions. They seek to find, as it were,
the mother-liquor of the great ocean, so as to express the truth in a
crystal. Hence the endeavors to simplify, to condense; here, by a
selection of sutras, rather than the whole collection; there, by
emphasis on a single feature and a determination to put the whole thing
in a form which can be grasped, either by the elect few or by the people
at large.
The Zen sect did this in a more rational way than that set forth as
orthodox by later priestcraft, which taught that to the believer who
simply turned round the revolving library containing the canon, the
merit of having read it all would be imputed. The rin-zō[24] found
near the large temples,--the cunning invention of a Chinese priest in
the sixth century,--soon became popular in Japan. The great wooden
book-case turning on a pivot contains 6,771 volumes, that being the
number of canonical volumes enumerated in China and Japan.
The Zen sect teaches that, besides all the doctrines of the Greater and
the Lesser Vehicles, whether hidden or apparent, there is one distinct
line of transmission of a secret doctrine which is not subject to any
utterance at all. According to their tenet of contemplation, one is to
see directly the key to the thought of Buddha by his own thought, thus
freeing himself from the multitude of different doctrines--the number of
which is said to be eighty-four thousand. In fact, Zen Shu or "Dhyana
sect" teaches the short method of making truth apparent by one's own
thought, apart from the writings.
The story of the transmission of the true Zen doctrine is this:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account