Critical Sermons of the Zen Tradition Dr Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, at age 87. Photograph taken by the late Professor Hy¯od¯o Sh¯on¯osuke in 1976, at Dr Hisamatsu’s residence in Gifu. Critical Sermons of the Zen Tradition Hisamatsu’s Talks on Linji translated and edited by Christopher Ives and Tokiwa Gishin © Editorial matter and selection © Christopher Ives and Tokiwa Gishin Chapters 1–22 © Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-96271-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. 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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 10987654321 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 Together with Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, the translators dedicate this book to All Humankind in their Depth Humanity of No-Rank This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements ix Notes on the Contributors xi Foreword xv Kitahara Ryutar- o- Preface xxii Abe Masao Introduction xxv Yanagida Seizan Zen Talks on the Record of Linji Hisamatsu Shin’ichi 1 1 I Simply Couldn’t Open My Mouth 3 2 Who is Pure and Direct in His Behavior? 7 3 There’s Nothing Special in the Buddha-Dharma 15 4 After Realizing the Great Block of Awakening 20 5 Leaving after the Summer Retreat 25 6 The One True Person without Rank 29 7 Speak, Speak! 34 8 The Mind-Dharma is without Form and Pervades the Ten Directions 38 9 You, the Follower of the Way Right Now before My Eyes Listening to the Dharma 45 10 Independent of All Things 53 11 Not at all Thus 63 12 I Do Not Pay Homage to the Buddha or the Founding Teacher 69 13 True Insight 75 vii viii Contents 14 The Meaning of the Founder’s Coming from the West 82 15 The Three Vehicles’ Twelve Divisions of Teachings 89 16 The Instant You Open Your Mouth You’re Already 96 Way Off 17 No Dividing into Categories 104 18 The Four Classifications: A General Outline 111 19 The Four Classifications: First Half 119 20 The Four Classifications: Second Half 124 21 On the Way and at Home 130 22 The Buddha-Dharma is Deep and Mysterious 136 Notes 142 Index 159 Acknowledgements Like other projects of similar magnitude, this publication received support from numerous directions. Soon after the death of Dr Hisamatsu in 1980, Abe Masao played an instrumental role in initi- ating the translations of Hisamatsu’s talks on the Record of Linji. Norman Waddell, a member of the Eastern Buddhist editorial board, kindly holed up with Chris Ives for several days back in 1980 to help polish the translation of the first two talks. Over the following years, as the first fifteen talks were published serially in The Eastern Buddhist, Wayne Yokoyama provided – with his characteristic generosity – exten- sive editorial input and bibliographical help. Dan Yukie, also formerly of The Eastern Buddhist, followed suit with her unstinting administra- tive and logistical support. At several points Jeff Shore at Hanazono University provided editorial and logistical assistance as well. In 1990 the Japan Foundation awarded Chris Ives a fellowship that enabled the translators to work together on this book for three months in Kyoto. The University of Puget Sound provided him with a travel grant for a short trip to Kyoto in 1997 as well as a long-term typing grant; Carol Avery in the Department of Religion at Puget Sound deserves high praise for her superb typing – and retyping – of the manuscript through its many incarnations and her adroit handling of diacritics software, file exchanges, and reformatting. This project has also benefited from the generosity of Hanazono University and its two outstanding Zen Studies institutes: the Zenbunka Kenkyusho- (Institute for Zen Studies) and the Kokusai Zengaku Kenkyusho- (International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism). While teaching at Hanazono and working on this transla- tion, Tokiwa Gishin wrote the annotations for Hisamatsu’s talks and Yanagida’s introduction. Kitahara Ryutar- o- served as the main editor when Hisamatsu’s talks on the Record of Linji were first published by the Risosha- Publishing Company. The foreword to this volume, which is an abridged transla- tion of Kitahara’s postscript to the volume of Hisamatsu’s collected writings in which the talks were first published, as well as the preface by Abe Masao and introduction by Yanagida Seizan, outline Hisamatsu’s approach to Zen and the classical Zen text he explores in this book. ix x Acknowledgements The editors wish to thank Mr Kamibeppu Shigeru, Chief Editor of Hoz- okan- Publishing Company, for granting permission to publish this translation of Hisamatsu’s talks, for which Hoz- okan- currently holds the copyright; Mr Hisamatsu Sadaaki, inheritor of the author’s rights, for agreeing to this publication; Professor Inoue Takami, Secretary of the Eastern Buddhist Society, for permission to republish the translations of the first fifteen talks; and Professor Hirano Soj- o,- Director of the Zenbunka Kenky¯usho, holders of the copyright of Ruth F. Sasaki’s The Record of Lin-chi, portions of which were excerpted and adapted for this volume. Any mistranslations, or inaccuracies in the annotations, are the full responsibility of the translators, who hope they have given Hisamatsu’s words the faithful and dynamic rendering they deserve. Japanese name order The translators have followed the Japanese convention of ordering Japanese names with the surname followed by the given name, even when following an honorific: e.g. Professor Hisamatsu Shin’ichi. Notes on the Contributors Hisamatsu Shin’ichi (1889–1980) studied philosophy at Kyoto Imperial University from 1912 to 1915. After his graduation, he followed the advice of Nishida Kitaro,- the professor in charge of the Department of Philosophy at that time, and in November 1915 began Zen practice with Ikegami Shozan- of the Myoshinji- monastery. In the December retreat of that year he reportedly attained Awakening. He remained a layperson throughout his life. From 1919 Dr Hisamatsu gave lectures on the philosophy of religion at private universities in Kyoto. In 1935 he became a full-time lecturer in the Department of Letters at Kyoto Imperial University, and from 1937, as an assistant professor, he offered courses in Religious Studies and Buddhist Studies. In January 1941 he started the Kyodai- Shincha- kai, a Kyoto University student association for the study of “heart tea.” In April 1944 he founded Gakudo- Doj- o,- an association of Kyoto University students and alumni for the “study and practice of the Way.” He was promoted to full professor in 1946, and the following year he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Literature. In 1949 he retired from Kyoto University. From 1952 to 1963, as a professor at Kyoto Municipal University of the Fine Arts, he gave lectures on philosophy and religion. In the autumn of 1957 Dr Hisamatsu gave lectures as a visiting pro- fessor at Harvard Divinity School. During this period in the United States and then while traveling in Europe and India he had conversa- tions with philosophers, theologians, and specialists in other fields. In April 1960 he changed the name of Gakudo- Doj- o- to FAS Society, by which it has been known ever since. In January 1964, when the Zenbunka Kenkyusho- (Institute for Zen Studies) started in Kyoto, he served as an academic advisor together with D.T. Suzuki and Nishitani Keiji. In the 1970s and 1980s the Risosha- Publishing Company in Tokyo published Hisamatsu Shin’ichi Chosakushu-, an eight-volume collection of his writings. Between 1990 and 1991 Hoz- okan- Publishing Company in Kyoto put out a four-volume collection of his lectures on Buddhism, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi Bukkyo- Kogi- . Hoz- okan- also published a revised and enlarged collection of his collected writings in nine volumes from 1994 to 1996. xi xii Notes on the Contributors Dr Hisamatsu’s Zen to bijutsu (Bokubisha Publishing, 1958) was trans- lated into English by Tokiwa Gishin and published as Zen and the Fine Arts (Kodansha International, 1971). Translations of other writings have appeared in several journals, including The Eastern Buddhist, and several members of the FAS Society are compiling an anthology of his writings that have been translated into English. Kitahara Ryutar- o- is a senior member of the FAS Society. Starting in 1946, when he was student majoring in philosophy at Kyoto University, he devoted himself to Zen practice under the guidance of Dr Hisamatsu and acquired deep trust in him.