Essays in Zen Buddhism
D.T. Suzuki
2,061 passages indexed from Essays in Zen Buddhism (D.T. Suzuki) — Page 19 of 42
License: Public Domain
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1617
To practise the principle of Zen, however, in every moment of life, that is, to grow fully saturated in the spirit of Zen is another question. One life may be too short for it, for it is said that even Śākyamuni and Maitreya themselves are yet in the midst of self-training.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1118
“While living one sits up and lies not, When dead, one lies and sits not; A set of ill-smelling skeleton! What is the use of toiling and moiling so?”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 480
Hence their antagonistic attitude later towards advocates of Zen Buddhism, for which however the latter were to a certain extent to be responsible, too.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1399
“There is a way to enter,” was the master’s instruction.[6.44] Gensha’s method was thus to make the seeker of the truth directly realise within himself what it was, and not to make him merely the possessor of a second-hand knowledge. “Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott,” declares Terstegen.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1502
And before I proceed further I wish to speak briefly of one of such ideals set before the eyes of all Zen students, for it is really the most important and noteworthy feature in the monastery life of Zen.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 295
The Sutra gives the main reason for this, which is that language is the product of causal dependence, subject to change, unsteady, mutually conditioned, and based on false judgment as to the true nature of consciousness. For this reason language cannot reveal to us the ultimate signification of things (_paramārtha_). The noted analogy of finger and moon is most appropriate to illustrate the relation between language and sense, symbol and reality.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1216
According to this advice, I dropped the matter altogether and sat quietly. But owing to the fact that the ‘Mu’ had been with me so long, I could in no way shake it off however much I tried. When I was sitting, I forgot that I was sitting; nor was I conscious of my own body. Nothing but a sense of utter blankness prevailed. Half a year thus passed.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 102
Did I not state in the beginning that Zen deals with facts and not with generalisations? And this is the very point where Zen goes straight down to the foundations of personality. The intellect ordinarily does not lead us there, for we do not live in the intellect, but in the will.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 324
The doctrine of Enlightenment leads to the inwardness of one’s spiritual experience, which cannot be analysed intellectually without somehow involving logical contradictions. It thus seeks to break through every intelligent barrier that may be set against it, it longs for emancipation in every form, not only in the understanding but in life itself. The unscrupulous followers of Enlightenment are thus liable to degenerate into votaries of libertinism.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 773
While the attainment of Buddhahood or Arhatship was the ultimate goal of his teaching, the Buddha was practical and always close to the facts of life and insisted in his ordinary sermons on a life regulated by moral rules. Nor had he any desire to disclose intellectually or metaphysically the content of Enlightenment which must be experienced but cannot be explained.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 133
There are many more topics with which one ought to be acquainted in the study of Zen Buddhism, and some of them, considered by the author the more important, will be treated in the second series of the Essays.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 949
The believing mind is not divided, And undivided is the believing mind— This is where words fail, For it is not of the past, future, or present.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1231
The concentration, however, may not be kept up to such an almost abnormal degree as in the case of Bukko. It may last just a second or two, and if it is the right kind of concentration and rightly handled by the master, the inevitable opening of the mind will follow. When the monk Jō (Ting) asked Rinzai,[5.42] “What is the ultimate principle of Buddhism?” the master came right down from his seat, took hold of the monk, slapped him with his hand, and pushed him away from him.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 997
Said the sixth patriarch, “If thou comest for the faith, stop all thy hankerings. Think not of good, think not of evil, but see what at this moment thy own original face doth look like, which thou hadst even prior to thy own birth.”[4.54]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1648
Do not commit yourselves to an error. There are no realities outside, nor is there anything inside you may lay your hands on. You stick to the literal meaning of what I speak to you, but how far better it is to have all your hankerings stopped and be doing nothing whatever!” etc., etc.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1023
Thus the Sutra recognises the two types of minds: with some the cleansing to a state of enlightenment can be obtained gradually after a long practice of meditation, perhaps through many a successive life; but to others it may come all of a sudden, even without previously conscious efforts. The division of the two schools as regards the abrupt realisation of enlightenment is based not only on the statements in the Sutra but ultimately on facts of psychology.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1811
5.16.道謙在路泣語元曰. 我一生參禪業. 無得力處今又奔波. 如何得相應去. 元告之曰. 儞但將諸方參得底悟得底. 圓悟妙喜爲儞說得底. 都不要理會. 途可替事. 我盡替儞. 只有五件事. 替儞不得. 儞須自家支當. 謙曰五件者何事. 願問其要. 元曰著衣喫飯. 屙屎放尿. 駝箇死屍路上行. 謙於言下領旨. 不覺手舞足踏. 元曰. 儞此囘方可通書宜前進. 吾先歸矣. (續傳燈錄卷三十二卷.)
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 965
But its metaphysical side came to be emphasised at the expense of the practical, and for this reason the Tendai philosophers were ever at war with the Zen, especially with the ultra-left wing which was inflexible in denouncing an appeal to ratiocination and literary discoursing and Sutra-learning. In my view the Tendai is a variation of Zen and its first promulgators may justly be classed as Zen masters though not of the pedigree to which belong Shih-t‘ou, Yüeh-shan, Ma-tsu, Lin-chi, etc.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1086
After Hui-nêng Zen was split up into several schools, two of which have survived even down to this day, in China as well as in Japan. The one represented by Hsing-szŭ, of Ch‘ing-yüan, (died 740), continues now as the Soto (Ts‘ao-tung) school of Zen, and the other coming down the line of Huai-jang, of Nan-yüeh (677–744),[4.66] is now represented by the Rinzai (Lin-chi) school. Though much modified in various aspects, the principle and spirit of Zen Buddhism is still alive as it was in the days of the sixth patriarch, and as one of the great spiritual heritages of the East it is still wielding its unique influence especially among the cultured people in Japan.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1873
[f25] Cf. such Sutras as the _Tevijja_, _Mahāli_, _Brahmajāla_, etc. in the Dīgha Nikāya. See also the _Sutta Nipāta_, especially the Atthakavagga, which is one of the earliest Buddhist texts in our possession at present. There we read about “Ajjhattasanti” (inward peace) which cannot be attained by philosophy, nor by tradition, nor by good deeds.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 805
“Penetrate into the ultimate truth of mind, And we have neither things nor no-things; Enlightened and not-enlightened—they are the same; Neither mind nor thing there is.”[4.13]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 218
Their efforts, there is no doubt, were honest and sincere, and when they thought they solved the difficulties or contradictions they were satisfied inwardly as well as intellectually. In fact they had no other means of egress from the spiritual impasse in which they found themselves through the natural and inevitable growth of their inmost life. This was the way Buddhism had to develop if it ever had in it any life to grow.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1326
Ummon once held up his staff and declared: “The whole world, heaven and earth, altogether owes its life and death to this staff.” A monk came out and asked, “How is it killed?” “Writhing in agony!” “How is it restored to life?” “You had better be a chéf.” “When it is neither put to death nor living, what would you say?” Ummon rose from his seat and said, “Mo-hê-pan-jê-po-lo-mi-ta!” (_Mahā-prajñā-pāramitā_).[6.21] This was Ummon’s synthesis—“the one word” of the ultimate truth, in which thesis and antithesis are concretely unified, and to which the four propositions are inapplicable (_rahita_).
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 253
But the Mahayanists, perceiving a deeper sense in Enlightenment as the most important constituent element in the attainment of the final goal of Buddhism, which is spiritual freedom (_ceto-vimutti_), as the Nikāyas have it, did not wish to have it operated in themselves only, but wanted to see it realised in every being sentient and even non-sentient. Not only this was their subjective yearning, but there was an objective basis on which the yearning could be justified and realised.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 494
They did not entirely abandon the old manner of speaking; for they refer to Buddha, Tathagata, Nirvana, Bodhi, Trikāya, Karma, transmigration, emancipation, and many other ideas making up the body of Buddhism; but they make no mention of the Twelvefold Chain of Origination, the Fourfold Noble Truth, or the Eightfold Righteous Path.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 682
To him paññā or prajñā was the most essential part of his doctrine, and it had to grow out of dhyana, and the dhyana that did not terminate in paññā was not at all Buddhistic. The boat was to be emptied indeed, but staying in an “empty house” (_suññāgāraṁ_) and doing nothing is blankness and annihilation; an eye must open and see the truth fully and clearly, the truth (_paramaṁ ariyasaccaṁ_) that liberates life from its many bondages and encumbrances.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 418
Their weakness is that they are willing to sacrifice facts for literary effects, for they are not very exact and scientific. Love of fine rhetoric and beautiful expressions has frequently drowned their practical sense, but here is also their art. Well restrained even in this, their soberness never reaches that form of fantasy which we encounter in most of the Mahayana texts.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 255
And it was due to this ultimate truth that we could lift ourselves above the dualism of matter and spirit, of ignorance and wisdom, of passion and non-attachment. Enlightenment consisted in personally realising the truth, ultimate and absolute and capable of affirmation. Thus we are all Bodhisattvas now, beings of Enlightenment, if not in actuality, then potentially.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1031
For him who has once had an insight into his own Nature, no special posture as a form of meditation is to be recommended; everything and anything is good to him, sitting, or lying, or standing. He enjoys perfect freedom of spirit, he moves along as he feels, and yet he does nothing wrong, he is always acting in accord with his Self-Nature, his work is play.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1757
When this is compared with the progress of the Zen mystic as is pictorially illustrated and poetically commented in the following pages, we feel that the comments were written expressly for Zen Buddhism.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 397
By thus transcending the intellectual condition, Paramārthasatya is realised, which is the ultimate truth, and which subjectively constitutes Pratyātmajñāna; it is also the eternally abiding law of the universe (_paurāṇasthitidharmatā_). This inwardly realised truth has many names as it is viewed in various relations in which it stands to human activities, moral, spiritual, intellectual, practical, and psychological.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1713
Another time he simply said, “Don’t you try to add frost over snow; take good care of yourselves, good-bye”; and went out.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1693
But we must all remember that such critics are entirely ignoring the fact that religion when transplanted adapts itself to the genius of the people among whom it is introduced, and that unless it does so it gradually dies out, proving that there was no life-giving soul in that religion.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 660
“Just, O king, as if in a mountain fastness there were a pool of water, clear, translucent, and serene; and a man, standing on the bank and with eyes to see, should perceive the oysters and the shells, the gravel and the pebbles and the shoals of fish, as they move about or lie within it: he would know: This pool is clear, transparent, and serene, and there within it are the oysters and the shells, and the sand and gravel, and the shoals of fish are moving about or lying still.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 460
“How can I escape the bondage of birth and death?”[2.5] Answers the master, “Where are you?” The Zen adepts as a rule never waste time in responding to questions, nor are they at all argumentative. Their answers are always curt and final, which follow the questions with the rapidity of lightning. Some one asked,[2.6] “What is the fundamental teaching of the Buddha?” Said the master, “There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool.” What a most matter-of-fact answer this!
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1819
6.17. 南泉因東西兩堂各争猫兒. 師遇之白衆曰. 道得即救取猫兒. 道不得即斬却也. 衆無對. 師便斬之. 趙州自外歸. 師擧前語示之. 趙州乃脫履安頭上而出. 師曰. 汝適來若在. 即救得猫兒也. (傳燈錄卷八.)
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1024
The point at issue however was not a question of time; whether enlightenment took place as an act of one moment or not, ceased to concern them; for the difference now developed into that of their general philosophical attitude and outlook towards the fact of enlightenment itself. The question of physical time has thus turned into that of psychology in its more profound aspect.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1911
[f63] The idea of performing miracles systematically through the power acquired by self-concentration seems to have been greatly in vogue in India even from the earliest days of her civilisation, and the Buddha was frequently approached by his followers to exhibit his powers to work wonders. In fact, his biographers later turned him into a regular miracle-performer, at least as far as we may judge by the ordinary standard of logic and science.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1708
“All the talk so far I have had—what is it all about any way? To-day again not being able to help myself I am here to talk to you once more. In this wide universe is there anything that comes up against you, or puts you in bondage? If there is ever a thing as small as the point of a pin lying in your way or obstructing your passage, get it out for me! What is it that you call a Buddha or a Patriarch? What are they that are known as mountains, rivers, the earth, sun, moon, or stars?
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 209
The essence of Buddhism must then lie in the Doctrine of Perfect Enlightenment. In the enlightened mind of the Buddha there were many things which he did not and could not divulge to his disciples. When he refused to answer metaphysical questions, it was not because the minds of the questioners were not developed enough to comprehend the full implications of them. If however the Buddhists really desired to know their master, and his teaching, they had to study the secrets of Enlightenment.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1597
I have three kinds of disciples: those who, vigorously shaking off all entangling circumstances, and with singleness of thought apply themselves to the study of their own [spiritual] affairs are of the first class. Those who are not so single-minded in the study, but scattering their attention are fond of book-learning, are of the second. Those who, covering their own spiritual brightness, are only occupied with the dribblings of the Buddhas and Fathers are called the lowest.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1014
“The teaching of all the Buddhas In one’s own Mind originally exists: To seek the Mind without one’s Self, Is like running away from the father.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 339
Nigrodha’s comment on the Buddha conclusively shows that the Buddha was a great disapprover of empty reasoning, devoting himself to things practical and productive of results, as well as that he was always earnestly engaged in meditation away from the world.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 863
The doctrine of the Two Entrances is evidently taken from the _Vajrasamādhi-sūtra_[f84]; and that of the Four Acts is an amplification of the second form of Entrance as is expounded in the Sutra. A comparison with the passage[4.29a] from it will make this point clear at once:
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1060
Hsüan-chiao first studied T‘ien-tai philosophy and later while reading the _Vimalakīrti_ he discovered his Self-Nature. Being advised to see the sixth patriarch in order to have his experience certified or testified, he came to Tsao-ch‘i. He walked around the master three times and erecting his staff straight stood before him. Said the master, “Monks are supposed to observe three hundred rules of conduct and eighty thousand minor ones; whence comest thou, so full of pride?”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 565
Enlightenment we can thus see is an absolute state of mind in which no “discrimination” (_parikalpana_ or _vikalpa_), so called, takes place, and it requires a great mental effort to realise this state of viewing all things “in one thought.” In fact our logical as well as practical consciousness is too given up to analysis and ideation; that is to say, we cut up realities into elements in order to understand them; but when they are put together to make the original whole, its elements stand out too conspicuously defined, and we do not view the whole “in one thought.” And as it is only when “one thought” is reached that we have enlightenment, an effort is to be made to go beyond our relative empirical consciousness, which attaches itself to the multitudinosity and not to the unity of things.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1879
[f34] This is the usual formula given as the qualification of an Arhat, to be met with throughout the Nikāyas.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1593
The lecture is a solemn affair. Its beginning is announced by a bell, which stops ringing as soon as the master appears in the hall where what is known as “Teisho”[f144][7.26] takes place.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1606
This seeing the master does not take place openly,[f148] the monk is required to come up individually to the master’s room, where the interview goes on in a most formal and solemn manner. When the monk is about to cross the threshold of the master’s room, he makes three bows prostrating himself on the floor. He now enters the room keeping his hands folded, palm to palm, before the chest, and when he comes near the master, he sits down and makes another bow.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 76
It is not that a thing called darkness is first taken out and another thing known by the name of enlightenment is carried in later, but that enlightenment and darkness are substantially one and the same thing from the very beginning, the change from the one to the other has taken place only inwardly or subjectively. Therefore, the finite is the infinite, and _vice versa_. These are not two separate things, though we are compelled to conceive them so, intellectually.