R.H.BLYTH 、 ZEN AND ZEN CLASSICS Volume Two History of Zen THE HOKUSEIDO PRESS TOKYO HEIAN INTERNATIONAL SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO ZEN AND ZEN CLASSICS Volume Two Two Moons, by Sengai & 推甘W ;二〇出T 來石秋o 月 Moon of autumn; Press the eyes, And two appear! Two naked children are rejoicing in the moon, raising their arms, but a third, with a belly-band, is pressing both eyes. He wilfully distorts the natural truth of things, their Buddha-nature, their oneness, and creates the world of duality and dichotomy. ZEN AND ZEN CLASSICS Five Volumes Vol. I General Introduction, From the Upanishads to Huineng Vol. II History o f Zen (Seigen Branch) Vol. Ill History of Zen, c o n fd (Nangaku Branch) Vol. IV M u m o n k a n Vol. V Twenty-Five Zen Essays (Christianity, Sex, Society, etc.) R. H. BLTTH ZEN AND ZEN CLASSICS Volume Two History of Zen THE HOKUSEIDO PRESS TOKYO HEIAN INTERNATIONAL SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO © 1964, by R. H. Blyth ALL RIGHTS RESERVED First Printing, 1964 Sixth Printing, 1 9 8 2 ISBN 0-89346-205-5 Published by The Hokuseido Press 3-12, Kanda-Nishl]dclio, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Heian International, Inc. P. O. Box 2402, South San Francisco, CA 94080 D edicated to S u z u k i D a ise t z W ho c an read W h a t I c a n ’t w r it e PREFACE This volume purports to be the History of Zen from Eno to Ummon, that is, of the Seigen branch of the double-forked tree of Zen, but what the reader actually gets is something better, a selection of the anecdotes concerning this line of patriarchs. It was from such stories that the Hehiganroku, Mumonkan, and S h o y d - ro k u were composed. These three works, as in the case of a selection of the best poems of the best poets, give us a somewhat partial and excessively lofty view of Chinese Zen geniuses. From the failures, and uncertain­ ties of great men we can get to know not only more of their whole character, but more of the nature of music or art or literature or life or Zen. To understand the world, we must go beyond it. To understand the Zen of the Chinese masters, we must transcend them, and it. This disrespect, this non-attachment to great­ ness, is very Zen, and what makes it unique. 4<Who created God?” is blasphemy or at least impudence and bad manners in Christianity, but not in Zen. In ordinary life, to blame or to praise, to be blamed or to be praised, to lose or to win,—all are disagreeable. But of the pairs, to blame, to be blamed, and to lose are the better. By reaction, they are more creative. The Zen masters are always speaking ill of one another, so as to avoid the sentimentality of Buddhism, that is, of human nature. The masters, we must admit, some­ times have too strong a desire to win, in other words, to teach. This again, as Mencius says, is the great fault of human beings. However, when we take all the anec­ dotes, not only those selected in the three great Zen books, we find the masters sometimes defeated, and viii Preface nearly always willing to be so if only their pupils learn something. As said before, the Hekiganroku and so on give us a rather false view of the Zen masters, and un­ fortunate in so far as they appear to be always right and the monks always wrong, or worse still, just dumb, in both senses of the word. We get the same feeling from the Gospels, and it is worth noting that what makes us respect and indeed love Christ more than any­ thing else is his reproving one who called him good, and telling us, “There is none good, but the Garbhadhatu.” It is usually said that k6an, m ond5,公案，問答， are incomprehensible. They are no more, and no less under­ standable than the poetry of Wordsworth, the music of Bach, the paintings of Klee. And suddenly to say, as almost all the commentators do, when they get into difficulties with the explanation, that you must do zazen in order to grasp the meaning, is not untrue, but if so, why make any explanation at all, since the essence escapes anyway? What distinguishes Ummon, for in­ stance, from Shakespeare and Mozart and Giotto, is the fact that every man has, or is supposed to have the Buddha nature, but not everyone has and not everyone is imagined to have, the poetical nature, the musical nature, the artistic nature. We are often told of a Zen master that he had for example a thousand disciples and of them twenty eight were enlightened. We may suppose that the remaining nine hundred and seventy two were lazy or stupid, but we may also suppose that they, or at least some of them, had no Buddha nature at all, just as some people, say about ninety eight per­ cent of the worlds population, have no musical nature at all. Enlightenment, seeing into one’s nature,見性， is one word, but human beings are infinitely various, and this man’s enlightenment is not the same as that man’s, though there may and must also be similarities. If we ask what the characteristics of a Christian are, we shall receive an answer from the proper quarters, but when we use these criteria in judging particular cases we shall often find it difficult to say, “This man Preface ix As, or, is not, a Christian，’’ in the profoundest meaning of the word. But, it may be urged, if Zen is the essence of all religion, including Christianity, and even Buddhism, and if it is moreover the essence of all art, poetry, music, and deep life, how can we make these distinctions? How is it possible that a man should be enlightened, and yet be unpoetical, unmusical, inartistic? It will be noted that we have omitted ‘immoral’. This sug­ gests that Zen, in the customary meaning of the word, that is, as the Chinese Zen masters would have used it, is after all moralistic, or that human beings are so, rather than musical, poetical, and artistic. The object of (Chinese) Zen is to transcend life and death, and, really to live. To die, to rot, and live until we do,—>how to per­ form this in the best possible way is the great problem of life. Zen solves it, not exactly moralistically, but by dying first, and then living. To do this requires moral force and stamina. An understanding of litera­ ture, good taste in art and music, even humour, have little to do with it, that is to say, with dying. But living, after we are once dead, really means being artistic, delighting in natural forms, entering into the nature of things through music. Thus, theoretically speaking, Chinese Zen was a preparation for life by dying, that is, by giving up our natural greediness, selfishness, ambi­ tion, liking-or-loathing. Theoretically speaking, Japa­ nese Zen was the application of Zen to living, to daily life, not the monkish discipline. The Chinese Zen master’s question was, “Can you die and drink a cup of tea?” The Japanese was rather, “Can you die and drink a cup of tea?" In Zen this double activity is known as “the sword that kills, and the sword that makes alive,” 殺人刀活人劍. What is, or shall be, European Zen? It is the further vivification, yet another resurrection. Christ said, “Ye must be born again,” but we may add, “Again and again.” To be born is to be given a body. To be born again is to make new use of that body, that is, to see X Preface into the life of things, see things, not see behind them. And every real seeing of another thing means a for­ getting of one’s self, the death of one’s own thingness. The Chinese (and Japanese) Zen monks never gave up their manhood, their sex, in order to see into the life of women. The anecdotes of the present volume are of men, for men. But a man is only a man when he looks upon, not mountains only, but women also, “With a loving eye.” A loving eye is a new-born eye, an eye that has died to its own pleasure merely. These three stages, Chinese, Japanese, European, in the history of Zen are, as said before, theoretical. In Chinese painting of the Tang and Sung dynasties we can see the application of Zen to art, or shall we not rather say of art to Zen? Christianity has always had its death and resurrection. What is lacking is the mediaeval idea of magnanimity, “great-souledness,” the ideal man towards whom we must consciously strive and from whom a good society is unconsciously created. As in the old mystery religions, every man is to die and be born again, but he must die in his own special way, and live in his own special way, for imitation, conformity, conventionality, is annihilation absolute. CONTENTS Page PREFACE vii Chapter I THE FIVE SECTS GOZU ZEN AND RoAN ZEN 9 ENo AND HIS DISCIPLES (Jinshu — Kutta Sanzo — Genkaku — Kataku 一 Seigen — Nangaku — S e k ito )........... 15 SEKITO’S DISCIPLES I (Tanka — Daiten — Choshi — Sekishitsu).................... 22 SEKIT6，S DISCIPLES II (Tenno — Ryotan — Tokusan — Ganto — Razan — Meisho —^ u ig a n )........................... 29 VI 39 seppg .