“Ōbaku answered him: ‘I seek nothing of Buddha, the Church, or of Man. I am in the habit of praying.’ The Emperor said: ‘What do you do it for?’ Ōbaku lost patience and struck him with his fist. ‘You rude fellow,’ cried the Emperor. ‘Since nothing exists, what difference does it make to you whether I am rude or polite?’ and Ōbaku struck him again. The Emperor retreated hastily.” In his old age Ōbaku visited his native village and stayed a year in his mother’s house, without revealing his identity. After he had set out again for his monastery, his mother suddenly realised that he was her son and went in pursuit of him. She reached the shore of a certain river, only to see him disembarking on the other side. Thereupon she lost her reason and flung herself into the water. Ōbaku threw a lighted torch after her and recited the following verses: _May the wide river dry at its source, to its very bed If here the crime of matricide has been done; When one son becomes a priest, the whole family is born again in Heaven; If that is a lie, all that Buddha promised is a lie._ Henceforward the throwing of a lighted torch into the bier became part of the Zen funeral ceremony; it was accompanied by the reciting of the above verses. Probably formula, ritual, and story alike belong to a period much more ancient than Buddhism. In the seventeenth century a Chinese priest named Ingen[8] carried the teaching of Ōbaku to Japan, where it now possesses nearly 700 temples. [8] 1592-1673 A.D. BASO. Baso was a master of the ninth century. One day he was sitting with his feet across the garden-path. A monk came along with a wheel-barrow. “Tuck in your feet,” said the monk. “What has been extended cannot be retracted,” answered Baso. “What has been started cannot be stopped,” cried the monk and pushed the barrow over Baso’s feet. The master hobbled to the monastery and seizing an axe called out “Have any of you seen the rascal who hurt my feet?” The monk who had pushed the barrow then came out and stood “with craned head.” The master laid down his axe. To understand this story we must realise that the wheel-barrow is here a symbol of the Wheel of Life and Death, which, though every spoke of it is illusion, cannot be disregarded till we have destroyed the last seed of phenomenal perception in us. RINZAI. Ōbaku, as we have seen, taught wisdom with his fists. When the novice Rinzai came to him and asked him what was the fundamental idea of Buddhism, Ōbaku hit him three times with his stick. Rinzai fled and presently met the monk Daigu. _Daigu_: Where do you come from? _Rinzai_: From Ōbaku. _Daigu_: And what stanza did he lecture upon? _Rinzai_: I asked him thrice what was the fundamental doctrine of Buddhism and each time he hit me with his stick. Please tell me if I did something I ought not to have done? _Daigu_: You go to Ōbaku and torture him by your questions, and then ask if you have done wrong!