Essays in Zen Buddhism
D.T. Suzuki
2,061 passages indexed from Essays in Zen Buddhism (D.T. Suzuki) — Page 8 of 42
License: Public Domain
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1510
Whatever may be this historical importance of work, Hyakujo must have had a profound knowledge of human psychology when he made work the ruling spirit of the monastery life. His idea of “No work, no eating”[f133][7.2] did not necessarily originate from an economic or ethical valuation of life. His sole motive was not that nobody deserved his daily bread if he did not earn it with the sweat of his face.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 470
As the Mahayana Sutras and Shastras were translated in rapid succession by able, learned, devout scholars, both native and Indian, the Chinese mind was led to explore a region where they had not ventured very far before. In the early Chinese biographical histories of Buddhism, we notice commentators, expounders, and philosophers far outnumbering translators and adepts in dhyana so called.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 801
“This body from within the Formless is born, It is like through magic that all forms and images appear: Phantom beings with mentality and consciousness have no reality from the very beginning; Both evil and happiness are void, have no abodes.”[4.10]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 966
While there were thus in the sixth and the seventh century some other lines of Zen about to develop, the one started by Bodhi-Dharma was uninterruptedly carried on by Hui-k‘ê, Shêng-t‘san, Tao-hsin, and Hung-jên, who proved to be the most fruitful and successful. The differentiation of two schools under the fifth patriarch, by Hui-nêng and Shên-hsiu, helped the further progress of pure Zen by eliminating unessential or rather undigested elements.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1983
[f127] Another time a monk was told, “Hold on to your poverty!” Nan-yin Yegu’s (Nan-yüan Hui-yü) answer to his poverty-stricken monk was more consoling, “You hold a handful of jewels yourself.” The subject of poverty is the all-important one in our religious experience—poverty not only in the material but also in the spiritual sense.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1295
It is well-known that all mystics are fond of paradoxes to expound their views. For instance, a Christian mystic may say: “God is real, yet he is nothing, infinite emptiness; he is at once all-being and no-being. The divine kingdom is real and objective; and at the same time it is within myself—I myself am heaven and hell.” Eckhart’s “divine darkness” or “immovable mover” is another example.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1409
Rinzai distinguishes four kinds of “Kwats!”[6.47] The first according to him, is like the sacred sword of Vajrarāja; the second is like the golden-haired lion squatting on the ground; the third is like the sounding rod or the grass used as a decoy; and the fourth is the one that does not at all function as a “Kwats!”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 326
For freedom does not mean lawlessness, which is the destruction and annihilation of itself, but creating out of its inner life-force all that is good and beautiful. This creating is called by the Mahayanists “skilful device” (_upāya-kauśalya_), in which Enlightenment is harmoniously wedded to love. Enlightenment when intellectually conceived is not dynamical and stops at illumining the path which love will tread.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 57
When you realise it, you read deep into the spirit of Rinzai or Obaku, and their real kind-heartedness will begin to be appreciated.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1843
8.4. 福州大安 (died 883). 會問百丈云. 學人欲識佛. 如何是佛. 丈云大似騎牛覔牛. 師 (大安) 云. 識後如何. 丈云如人騎牛至家. 師云. 未審始終如何保任即得相應去. 丈云譬如牧牛之士執杖親之. 勿令犯人苗稼. (禪林類聚卷二十.)
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1652
“Hundreds of spring flowers; the autumnal moon; A refreshing summer breeze; winter snow: Free thy mind of all idle thoughts, And for thee how enjoyable every season is!”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 872
To my view, _pi-kuan_ has a far deeper meaning, and must be understood in the light of the following passage in the _Records_, which is quoted from a work known as the _Pieh Chi_[4.30] meaning some special document of prior existence:
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1929
That the ushering of Enlightenment is accompanied with the feeling of return or remembrance is also unmistakably noted by the writer of the _Kena-Upanishad_ (VI., 50):
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 828
The latter had more or less been given up, on the one hand, to philosophising, and, on the other hand, to practising contemplation. They were not acquainted with the direct method of Zen which was to see straightway into the truth of Enlightenment and attain Buddhahood without going through so many stages of preparation prescribed by the scholars.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 996
Ming tried to lift it but it was as heavy as a mountain. He halted, hesitated, and trembled with awe. At last, he said, “I come here to obtain the faith and not the robe. O my brother monk, pray dispel my ignorance.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 822
But whichever way she turned she would encounter him, east or west. She covered her face with her hands, and lo! she saw the Buddha between her fingers. This is beautiful and illuminating. What follows is the Zen way of treating the subject: A monk came to Ch‘i-an who was one of the disciples of Ma-tsu,[4.18] and asked: “What is the original body of Vairochana?” Said the master, “Would you mind passing that water-pitcher over to me?” The monk handed it to the master as asked.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 389
By tranquillity is meant singleness of purpose (or oneness of things), and by singleness of purpose is meant the entrance into the most excellent samadhi, whereby is produced the state of noble understanding of self-realisation, which is the receptacle of Tathagatahood (_tathāgatagarbha_).”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 616
And naturally there was no need for him to face these metaphysical problems that agitated the philosophers of his days; they were solved in him, when he attained his spiritual freedom and serenity, in their entirety, in their synthetic aspect, and not partially or fragmentarily—which should be the case if they were presented to the Buddha’s cognition as philosophical problems. In this light is to be read the _Mahāli Sutta_.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1525
Indeed, psychologically, there is a most intimate and profound relationship between a practical turn of mind and a certain type of mysticism; the relationship is not merely conceptual or metaphysical. If mysticism is true, its truth must be a practical one verifying itself in every act of ours, and, most decidedly, not a logical one, to be true only in our dialectics. Sings a Zen poet known as Hō-kōji:[f135][7.4]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1008
This was the beginning of Hui-nêng’s career as Zen master. His influence seems to have been immediate and far-reaching. He had many disciples numbering thousands. He did not however go around preaching and proselyting. His activities were confined in his own province in the south, and the Pao-lin monastery at Ts‘ao-ch‘i was his headquarters. When the Emperor Kao-tsung learned that Hui-nêng succeeded Hung-jên as one of Dharma’s spiritual descendants in the faith of Zen, he sent him one of his court officials with an imperial message, but Hui-nêng refused to come up to the capital, preferring his stay in the mountains. The messenger however wished to be instructed in the doctrine of Zen that he might convey it to his august master at Court. Said Hui-nêng in the main as follows:
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1839
7.43. 師上堂云. 此事如明珠在掌. 胡來胡現. 漢來漢現. 老僧把一枝草作丈六全身用. 把丈六全身作一枝草用. 佛即是煩惱. 煩惱即是佛. 問佛與誰人爲煩惱. 師云. 與一切人爲煩惱. 云如何免得. 師云. 得免作麽.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 29
One approaches the whole of history from a different standpoint.” You will observe here what sanctifying effects his prison life produced on his character. If he had had to go through a similar trial in the beginning of his career, he might have been able to produce far greater works than those we have of him at present.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1867
XXXII.) “Wherever Śramaṇa Gautama appears, no evil spirits or demons can approach him; therefore let us invite him here and all those evil gods [who have been harrassing us] would by themselves take to their heels.” (_Loc. cit._) It was quite natural for the Buddhists that they later made the Buddha the first object of Recollection (_smṛti_), which, they thought, would keep their minds from wandering away and help them realise the final aim of the Buddhist life.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1090
This acquiring of a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world is popularly called by Japanese Zen students “satori”[5.1] (_wu_ in Chinese). It is really another name for Enlightenment (_anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi_), which is the word used by the Buddha and his Indian followers ever since his realisation under the Bodhi-tree by the River Nairañjanā.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 350
When these intellectual operations too are quieted and the mind is simply concentrated on one point, it is said that we have attained the second dhyana, but the feelings of joy and peace are still here. In the third stage of dhyana, perfect serenity obtains as the concentration grows deeper, but the subtlest mental activities are not vanished and at the same time a joyous feeling remains.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1934
[f82] This is the most significant phrase in Dharma’s writing. I have left it untranslated, for later this will be explained fully.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 940
Ignorance begets the dualism of rest and unrest, The enlightened have no likes and dislikes: All forms of dualism Are ignorantly contrived by the mind itself. They are like unto visions and flowers in the air: Why should we trouble ourselves to take hold of them? Gain and loss, right and wrong— Away with them once for all!
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 471
The Buddhist scholars were at first quite busily engaged in assimilating intellectually the various doctrines propounded in Mahayana literature. Not only were these doctrines deep and complicated but they were also contradicting one another, at least on the surface. If the scholars were to enter into the depths of Buddhist thought, they had to dispose of these entanglements somehow.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1020
That the school of Shên-hsiu could not survive as a branch of Zen was natural enough, for Zen could not be anything else but an instantaneous act of intuition. As it opens up all of a sudden a world hitherto undreamed of, it is an abrupt and discrete leaping from one plane of thought to another. Hsiu missed the ultimate object of Zen when he emphasised the process to reach the end. As a practical adviser he was therefore excellent and full of merit.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 862
They however know also how to benefit others, and again how to glorify the path of enlightenment. As with the virtue of charity, so with the other five virtues [in the Prajñāpāramitā]. That the wise practise the six virtues of perfection is to get rid of confused thoughts, and yet they are not conscious of their doings. This is called ‘being in accord with the Dharma.’”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 381
“With thy wisdom and compassion, which really defy all qualifications, thou comprehendest the ego-less nature of things and persons and art eternally clean of the evil passions and of the hindrance of knowledge.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1448
There was another favourite movement often practised by Zen masters, which was to call out to the questioner or somebody else. One case of this has already been given somewhere else in another connection. The following are the typical and classical ones. Chu, the National Teacher, called out to his attendant monk three times, to which the latter responded regularly. Said the Teacher, “I thought I was not fair to you, but it was you that were not fair to me.”[f132][6.70] This calling and responding took place also three times between Mayoku (Ma-ku) and Ryosui (Liang-sui), which at last made the latter exclaim: “O this stupid fellow!”[6.71]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1057
Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, came out as a strong advocate of intuitionalism and refused to interpret the meaning of dhyana statically, as it were. For the Mind according to him at the highest stage of meditation was not a mere being, mere abstraction devoid of content and work. He wanted to grasp something which lay at the foundation of all his activities mental and physical, and this something could not be a mere geometrical point, it must be the source of energy and knowledge.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1085
So the Emperor had his words instead which he took for his spiritual guidance. The teaching [of the sixth patriarch] in detail is generally accessible to-day; all those who talk at all about Zen find their source of information in Ts‘ao-ch‘i.”[f103]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 213
Would he not come back among them in order to guide them, to enlighten them, to listen to their spiritual anguish? The value of such a grand personality as the Buddha could not perish with his physical existence, it ought to remain with us for ever as a thing of eternal validity. How could this notion be reconciled with the annihilation theory of Nirvana so prevalent among the personal disciples of the Buddha?
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1205
Though I was in the midst of a crowd or congregation I felt as if I were all by myself. From morning till evening, from evening till morning, so transparent, so tranquil, so majestically above all things were my feelings! Absolutely pure and not a particle of dust! My one thought covered eternity; so calm was the outside world, so oblivious of the existence of other people I was.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 43
Those who take them too seriously or those who try to read them into the very fact of life are those who take the finger for the moon. When we are hungry we eat; when we are sleepy we lay ourselves down; and where does the infinite or the finite come in here? Are not we complete in ourselves and each in himself? Life as it is lived suffices. It is only when the disquieting intellect steps in and tries to murder it that we stop to live and imagine ourselves to be short of or in something.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 223
When we transfer this separation from thought into reality, we encounter many difficulties not only intellectual but moral and spiritual, from which we suffer unspeakable anguish later. This was felt by the Buddha, and he called this mixing up Ignorance (_avidyā_). The Mahayana doctrine of Śūnyatā was a natural conclusion.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1453
The officer repeated the first question, whereupon the monk loudly and clearly called out, “O Haikyu!” Haikyu responded at once, “Here, sir!” “Where is the high priest now?” cross-questioned the monk. This opened the governor’s eye to the sense of the monk’s counter-question, in which he could now read the solution of his first query.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1136
Hyakujo (Pai-chang Huai-hai, 724–814)[5.14] one day went out attending his master Baso (Ma-tsu). A flock of wild geese was seen flying and Baso asked
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 750
“Myself subject to sorrow, but perceiving the wretchedness of things subject to sorrow and seeking after the incomparable security of Nirvana which is sorrowless, to that incomparable security I attained, even to Nirvana which is sorrowless.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 120
He also once lifted his staff before a congregation and remarked: “In the scriptures we read that the ignorant take this for a real thing, the Hinayanists resolve it into a nonentity, the Pratyekabuddhas regard it as a hallucination, while the Bodhisattvas admit its apparent reality, which is, however, essentially empty.” “But,” continued the master, “monks, you simply call it a staff when you see one. Walk or sit as you will, but do not stand irresolute.”[1.22]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 670
He did not shun the discussion of the metaphysical problems merely because they were metaphysical, but because they were not conducive to the attainment of the ultimate end of Buddhist life which is the purification of spirit and not the display of epistemological subtlety. Ignorance was to be dispelled in our inner experience, and not by intellectually understanding the principle of dependent origination whether expressed as the Paṭicca-samuppāda or as the Ariya-sacca.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 598
At this point the will has to make a heroic effort to enlighten itself, to redeem itself, without destroying the once-awakened consciousness or rather by working out the principle lying at the basis of consciousness. This was accomplished as we see in the case of the Buddha, and he became more than mere Gautama, he was the Awakened One and the Exalted and supremely Enlightened. In willing there is really something more than mere willing, there is thinking and seeing.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1432
An assertion is Zen only when it is in itself an act and does not refer to anything that is asserted in it. In the finger pointed at the moon there is no Zen, but when the pointing finger itself is considered, altogether independent of any external references, there is Zen.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 98
To give another instance: a monk asked the master Shin of Chōsa (Chang-sha Ching-ch‘ên), “Where has Nansen (Nan-ch‘üan) gone after his death?” Replied the master, “When Sekito (Shih-tou) was still in the order of young novitiates, he saw the sixth patriarch.” “I am not asking about the young novitiate. What I wish to know is, where is Nansen gone after his death?” “As to that,” said the master, “it makes one think.”[1.16]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1373
Tōsu Daido (T‘ou-tzu Tai-t‘ung),[6.39] of the T‘ang dynasty, who died in the year 914, answered “The Buddha,” when he was questioned, “What is the Buddha?” He said “Tao” when the question was, “What is Tao?” He answered “the Dharma” to the question, “What is the Dharma?”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1439
The swinging of a stick, the crying of a “Kwats!” or the kicking of a ball must be understood in this sense, that is, as the directest demonstration of life, no, even as life itself. The direct method is thus not always the violent assertion of life-force, but a gentle movement of the body, the responding to a call, the listening to a murmuring stream, or to a singing bird, or any of our most ordinary everyday assertions of life.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 716
After Resurrection the will is no more blind striving, nor is the intellect mere observing the dancer dance. In real Buddhist life these two are not separated, seeing and acting, they are synthesised in one whole spiritual life, and this synthesis is called by Buddhists Enlightenment, the dispelling of Ignorance, the loosening of the Fetters, the wiping-off of the Defilements, etc. Buddhism is thus free from the historical symbolism of Christianity; transcending the category of time.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 111
Some think that there is still an unknown region in our consciousness which has not yet been thoroughly and systematically explored. It is sometimes called the Unconscious or the Subconscious. This is a territory filled with dark images, and naturally most scientists are afraid of treading upon it. But this must not be taken as denying the fact of its existence.