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THE ZEN EXPERIENCE Thomas Hoover THE ZEN EXPERIENCE Thomas Hoover SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSICS, MENTOR, PLUME, MERIDIAN AND NAL BOOKS are published in the United States by The New American Library, Inc., 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019. First Printing, March, 1980 23456789 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bibliography Zen Buddhism--History. Priests, Zen--Biography. ISBN 0-452-25228-8 Copyright ©1980 by Thomas Hoover All rights reserved www.thomashoover.info PERMISSIONS Selections from Zen and Zen Classics, Vols. I and II, by R. H. Blyth (Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, copyright © 1960, 1964 by R. H. Blyth, copyright © 1978 by Frederick Franck), reprinted by permission of Joan Daves. Selections from Cold Mountain by Han-shan, Burton Watson, trans. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang, Ruth Fuller Sasaki et al., trans. (New York: John Weatherhill), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from Anthology of Chinese Literature, Cyril Birch, ed., Gary Snyder, trans. (New York: Grove Press, copyright © 1965 by Grove Press), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from Tao: A New Way of Thinking by Chang Chung-yuan, (New York: Harper & Row, Perennial Library, copyright © 1975 by Chang Chung- yuan), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selection from A History of Zen Buddhism by Heinrich S. J. Dumoulin, Paul Peachey, trans. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1962), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selection by Ikkyu from Some Japanese Portraits by Donald Keene (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979), reprinted by permission of author. Selections from Essays in Zen Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki (New York: Grove Press), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selection from The Sutra of Hui-neng, Price and Wong, trans. (Boulder: Shambala Publications), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Philip Yamplosky, trans. (New York: Columbia University Press), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from The Zen Master Hakuin by Philip Yamplosky (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from The Golden Age of Zen by John C. H. Wu (Taipei, Taiwan: Hwakang Book Store), reprinted by permission of author. Selections from The Zen Teaching of the Hui Hai on Sudden Illumination by John Blofeld (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972), reprinjted by permission of publisher. Selections from Zen Master Dogen by Yoho Yukoi (New York: John Weatherhill), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism by Chang Chung- yuan (New York: Vintage, 1969), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from Swampland Flowers by Christopher Cleary (New York: Grove Press, copyright © 1977 by Christopher Cleary), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind by John Blofeld (New York: Grove Press, copyright © 1958 by John Blofeld), reprinted by permission of publisher. Selections from Zen-Man Ikkyu, a dissertation by John Sanford, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, reprinted by permission of author. Selections from Zen is Eternal Life by Roshi Jiyu-Kennett (Dharma Publishing, copyright © 1976 by Roshi Jiyu-Kennett), reprinted by permission of author). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Philip Yampolsky of Columbia University, who reviewed the manuscript in draft and clarified many points of fact and interpretation. I also am indebted to the works of a number of Zen interpreters for the West, including D. T. Suzuki, John Blofeld, Chang Chung-yuan, and Charles Luk. In cases where this finger pointing at the moon mistakenly aims astray, I alone am responsible. CONTENTS Preface to Zen ….....................................................p.7 Taoism: The Way to Zen Lao Tzu Chuang Tzu Kuo Hsiang: A Neo-Taoist The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove The Buddhist Roots of Zen The Buddha Nagarjuna Kumarajiva Seng-chao Tao-sheng The Synthesis PART I. THE EARLY MASTERS ….........................................p.20 1. Bodhidharma: First Patriarch of Zen …............................p.20 2. Hui-k'o: Second Patriarch of Zen …...............................p.28 3. Seng-Ts'an, Tao-hsin, Fa-jung, and Hung-jen: Four Early Masters .p.33 4. Shen-hsiu and Shen-hui: "Gradual" and "Sudden" Masters...........p.41 5. Hui-neng: Sixth Patriarch and Father of Modern Zen ….............p.49 PART II. THE GOLDEN AGE OF ZEN 6. Ma-tsu: Originator of "Shock" Enlightenment …....................p.57 7. Huai-hai: Father of Monastic Ch'an ….............................p.67 8. Nan-ch'uan and Chao-chou: Masters of the Irrational …............p.75 9. P'ang and Han-shan: Layman and Poet …............................p.85 10. Huang-po: Master of the Universal Mind …........................p.98 PART III. SECTARIANISM AND THE KOAN 11. Lin-chi: Founder of Rinzai Zen …................................p.107 12. Tung-shan and Ts'ao-shan: Founders of Soto Zen …................p.118 13. Kuei-shan, Yun-men, and Fa-yen: Three Minor Houses …............p.127 14. Ta-hui: Master of the Koan …....................................p.135 PART IV. ZEN IN JAPAN 15. Eisai: The First Japanese Master …..............................p.144 16. Dogen: Father of Japanese Soto Zen …............................p.149 17. Ikkyu: Zen Eccentric …..........................................p.159 18. Hakuin: Japanese Master of the Koan …...........................p.169 19. Reflections …...................................................p.179 Notes ….............................................................p.182 Bibliography …......................................................p.214 THE ZEN EXPERIENCE _The sole aim of Zen is to enable one to understand, realize, and perfect his own mind. _Garma C. C. Chang PREFACE TO ZEN _Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius _ Some call it "seeing," some call it "knowing," and some describe it in religious terms. Whatever the name, it is our reach for a new level of consciousness. Of the many forms this search has taken, perhaps the most intriguing is Zen. Growing out of the wisdom of China, India, and Japan, Zen became a powerful movement to explore the lesser-known reaches of the human mind. Today Zen has come westward, where we are rediscovering modern significance in its ancient insights. This book is an attempt to encounter Zen in its purest form, by returning to the greatest Zen masters. Zen teachings often appear deceptively simple. This misconception is compounded by the Zen claim that explanations are meaningless. They are, of course, but merely because genuine Zen insights can arise only from individual experience. And although our experience can be described and even analyzed, it cannot be transmitted or shared. At most, the "teachings" of Zen can only clear the way to our deeper consciousness. The rest is up to us. Zen is based on the recognition of two incompatible types of thought: rational and intuitive. Rationality employs language, logic, reason. Its precepts can be taught. Intuitive knowledge, however, is different. It lurks embedded in our consciousness, beyond words. Unlike rational thought, intuition cannot be "taught" or even turned on. In fact, it is impossible to find or manipulate this intuitive consciousness using our rational mind--any more than we can grasp our own hand or see our own eye. The Zen masters devised ways to reach this repressed area of human consciousness. Some of their techniques--like meditation--were borrowed from Indian Buddhism, and some--like their antirational paradoxes--may have been learned from Chinese Taoists. But other inventions, like their jarring shouts and blows, emerged from their own experience. Throughout it all, however, their words and actions were only a means, never an end. That end is an intuitive realization of a single great insight--that we and the world around are one, both part of a larger encompassing absolute. Our rational intellect merely obscures this truth, and consequently we must shut it off, if only for a moment. Rationality constrains our mind; intuition releases it. The irony is that the person glimpsing this moment of higher consciousness, this Oneness, encounters the ultimate realization that there is nothing to realize. The world is still there, unchanged. But the difference is that it is now an extension of our consciousness, seen directly and not analytically. And since it is redundant to be attached to something already a part of you, there is a sudden sense of freedom from our agonizing bondage to things. Along with this also comes release from the constraints of artificial values. Creating systems and categories is not unlike counting the colors of a rainbow--both merely detract from our experience of reality, while at the same time limiting our appreciation of the world's richness. And to declare something right or wrong is similarly nearsighted. As Alan Watts once observed, "Zen unveils behind the urgent realm of good and evil a vast region of oneself about which there need be no guilt or recrimination, where at last the self is indistinguishable from God." And, we might add, where God is also one with our consciousness, our self. In Zen all dualities dissolve, absorbed in the larger reality that simply is. None of these things is taught explicitly in Zen. Instead they are discovered waiting in our consciousness after all else has been swept away. A scornful twelfth-century
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