Chapter III: Part 3

If by virtue of Enlightenment Gautama was transformed into the Buddha, and then if all beings are endowed with Prajñā and capable of Enlightenment, that is, if they are thus Bodhisattvas, the logical conclusion will be that Bodhisattvas are all Buddhas, or destined to be Buddhas as soon as sufficient conditions obtain. Hence the Mahayana doctrine that all beings, sentient or non-sentient, are endowed with the Buddha-nature, and that our minds are the Buddha-mind and our bodies are the Buddha-body. The Buddha before his Enlightenment was an ordinary mortal, and we, ordinary mortals, will be Buddhas the moment our mental eyes[f29] open in Enlightenment. In this do we not see plainly the most natural and most logical course of things leading up to the main teaching of Zen as it later developed in China and Japan?

How extensively and intensively the concept of Enlightenment influenced the development of Mahayana Buddhism may be seen in the composition of the _Saddharmapuṇḍarīka_, which is really one of the profoundest Mahayana protests against the Hinayana conception of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. According to the latter, the Buddha attained it at Gayā while meditating under the Bodhi-tree, for they regarded the Buddha as a mortal being like themselves, subject to historical and psychological conditions. But the Mahayanists could not be satisfied with such a realistic common-sense interpretation of the personality of the Buddha, they saw something in it which went deep into their hearts and wanted to come in immediate touch with it. What they sought was finally given, and they found that the idea of the Buddha’s being a common soul was a delusion, that the Tathagata arrived in his Supreme Perfect Enlightenment “many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of æons ago,” and that all those historical “facts” in his life which are recorded in the Agama or Nikaya literature are his “skilful devices” (_upāya-kauśalya_) to lead creatures to full ripeness and go in the Buddha Way.[f30] In other words, this means that Enlightenment is the absolute reason of the universe and the essence of Buddhahood, and therefore that to obtain Enlightenment is to realise in one’s inner consciousness the ultimate truth of the world which for ever is. While the _Puṇḍarīka_ emphasises the Buddha-aspect of Enlightenment, Zen directs its attention mainly to the Enlightenment-aspect of Buddhahood. When this latter aspect is considered intellectually, we have the philosophy of Buddhist dogmatics, which is studied by scholars of the Tendai (_t‘ien-tai_), Kegon (_avataṁsaka_), Hosso, (_dharmalaksha_), and other schools. Zen approaches it from the practical side of life, that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

Seeing that the idea of Enlightenment played such an important rôle in the development of Mahayana Buddhism, what is the content of it? Can we describe it in an intelligible manner so that our analytical intellect could grasp it and make it an object of thought? The Fourfold Noble Truth was not the content of Enlightenment, nor was the Twelvefold Chain of Causation, nor the Eightfold Righteous Path. The truth flashed through the Buddha’s consciousness was not such a thought capable of discursive unfolding. When he exclaimed:

“Through birth and rebirth’s endless round,
Seeking in vain, I hastened on,
To find who framed this edifice,
What misery!—birth incessantly!

“O builder! I’ve discovered thee!
This fabric thou shall ne’er rebuild!
The rafters all are broken now,
And pointed roof demolished lies!
This mind has demolition reached,
And seen the last of all desire!”[f31]

he must have grasped something much deeper than mere dialectics. There must have been something most fundamental and ultimate which at once set all his doubts at rest, not only intellectual doubts but spiritual anguish. Indeed, forty-nine years of his active life after Enlightenment were commentaries on it, and yet they did not exhaust its content; nor did all the later speculations of Nāgārjuna, Aśvaghosha, and Vasubandhu, and Asanga explain it away. In the _Laṅkāvatāra_ therefore the author makes the Buddha confess that since his Enlightenment, till his passing into Nirvana he uttered not a word.[f32]

Therefore, again with all his memory and learning, Ānanda could not sound the bottom of the Buddha’s wisdom, while the latter was still alive. According to tradition, Ānanda’s attainment to Arhatship took place at the time of the First Convocation in which he was not allowed to take part in spite of his twenty-five years’ attendance upon the Buddha. Grieving over the fact, he spent the whole night perambulating in an open square, and when he was about to lay himself down on a couch all exhausted, he all of a sudden came to realise the truth of Buddhism, which with all his knowledge and understanding had escaped him all those years.

What does this mean? Arhatship is evidently not a matter of scholarship; it is something realised in the twinkling of an eye after a long arduous application to the matter. The preparatory course may occupy a long stretch of time, but the crisis breaks out at a point instantaneously, and one is an Arhat, or a Bodhisattva, or even a Buddha. The content of Enlightenment must be quite simple in nature and yet tremendous in effect. That is to say, intellectually, it must transcend all the complications involved in an epistemological exposition of it; and psychologically, it must be the reconstruction of one’s entire personality. Such a fundamental fact naturally evades description, and can be grasped only by an act of intuition and through personal experience. It is really the Dharma in its highest sense. If by “the stirring of one thought” Ignorance came into our life, the awakening of another thought must put a stop to Ignorance and bring about Enlightenment.[f33] And in this there is no thought to be an object of logical consciousness or empirical reasoning; for in Enlightenment thinker and thinking and thought are merged in the one act of seeing into the very being of Self. No further explanation of the Dharma is possible, hence an appeal to _via negativa_. And this has reached its climax in the Śūnyatā philosophy of Nāgārjuna, which is based upon the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā literature of Buddhism.

So we see that Enlightenment is not the outcome of an intellectual process in which one idea follows another in sequence finally to terminate in conclusion or judgment. There is neither process nor judgment in Enlightenment, it is something more fundamental, something which makes a judgment possible, and without which no form of judgment can take place. In judgment there are a subject and a predicate; in Enlightenment subject is predicate, and predicate is subject; they are here merged as one, but not as one of which something can be stated, but as one from which arises judgment. We cannot go beyond this absolute oneness; all the intellectual operations stop here; when they endeavour to go further, they draw a circle in which they for ever repeat themselves. This is the wall against which all philosophies have beaten in vain. This is an intellectual _terra incognita_, in which prevails the principle, “Credo quia absurdum est.” This region of darkness, however, gives up its secrets when attacked by the will, by the force of one’s entire personality. Enlightenment is the illuminating of this dark region, when the whole thing is seen at one glance, and all intellectual inquiries find here their rationale. Hitherto one may have been intellectually convinced of the truth of a certain proposition, but somehow it has not yet entered into his life, the truth still lacks ultimate confirmation, and he cannot help feeling a vague sense of indeterminateness and uneasiness. Enlightenment now comes upon him in a mysterious way without any previous announcement, and all is settled with him, he is an Arhat or even a Buddha. The dragon has got its eyes dotted, and it is no more a lifeless image painted on a canvas, but winds and rains are its willing servants now.

It is quite evident that Enlightenment is not the consciousness of logical perspicuity or analytical completeness, it is something more than an intellectual sense of conclusiveness, there is something in it which engages the entire field of consciousness not only by throwing light on the whole series of links welded for the purpose of solving the problems of life, but by giving a feeling of finality to all the spiritual anguish that has ever been so disquieting to one’s soul. The logical links however accurately adjusted and perfectly wrought together, fail by themselves to be pacifying to the soul in the most thoroughgoing manner. We require something more fundamental or more immediate for the purpose, and I maintain that the mere reviewing of the Fourfold Noble Truth or the Twelvefold Chain of Origination does not result in the attainment of the Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. The Buddha must have experienced something that went far deeper into his inmost consciousness than the mere intellectual grasping of empirical truths. He must have gone beyond the sphere of analytical reasoning. He must have come in touch with that which makes our intellectual operations possible, in fact that which conditions the very existence of our conscious life.

When Śāriputra saw Aśvajit, he noticed how composed the latter was, with all his organs of sense well controlled and how clear and bright the colour of his skin was. Śāriputra could not help asking him who was his teacher and what doctrine he taught. To this Aśvajit replied: “The great Śākyamuni, the Blessed One, is my teacher and his doctrine in substance is this:

“The Buddha hath the cause told
Of all things springing from a cause;
And also how things cease to be—
’Tis this the Mighty Monk proclaims.”

It is said that on hearing this exposition of the Dharma, there arose in the mind of Śāriputra a clear and distinct perception of the Dharma that whatever is subject to origination is subject also to cessation. Śāriputra then attained to the deathless, sorrowless state, lost sight of and neglected for many myriads of kalpas.

The point to which I wish to call attention here is this: Is there anything intellectually remarkable and extraordinary and altogether original in this stanza that has so miraculously awakened Śāriputra from his habitually cherished way of thinking? As far as the Buddha’s Dharma (Doctrine) was concerned, there was not much of anything in these four lines. It is said that they are the substance of the Dharma; if so, the Dharma may be said to be rather devoid of substance, and how could Śāriputra ever find here a truth concrete and efficient enough to turn him away from the old rut? The stanza which is noted for having achieved the conversion of not only Śāriputra but Maudgalyāyana, has really nothing characteristic of Buddhistic thought, strong enough to produce such a great result. The reason for this, therefore, must be sought somewhere else, that is, not in the formal truth contained in the stanza, but in the subjective condition of the one to whose ears it chanced to fall and in whom it awakened a vision of another world. It was in the mind of Śāriputra itself that opened up to a clear and distinct understanding of the Dharma; in other words, the Dharma was revealed in him as something growing out of himself and not as an external truth poured into him. In a sense the Dharma had been in his mind all the time but he was not aware of its presence there until Aśvajit’s stanza was uttered. He was not a mere passive recipient into which something not native to his Self was poured. The hearing of the stanza gave him an opportunity to experience the supreme moment. If Śāriputra’s understanding was intellectual and discursive, his dialogue with Ānanda later on could not take place in the way it did. In the Saṁyutta-Nikāya, iii., 235f, we read:

Ānanda saw Śāriputra coming afar off, and he said to him; “Serene and pure and radiant is your face. Brother Śāriputra! In what mood has Śāriputra been to-day?”

“I have been alone in Dhyana, and to me came never the thought: _I_ am attaining it! _I_ have got it! _I_ have emerged from it!”

Here we notice the distinction between an intellectual and a spiritual understanding which is Enlightenment. When Śāriputra referred to the cause of his being so serene, pure and radiant, he did not explain it logically but just stated the fact as he subjectively interpreted it himself. Whether this interpretation of his own was correct or not takes the psychologist to decide. What I wish to see here is that Śāriputra’s understanding of the doctrine of “origination and cessation” was not the outcome of his intellectual analysis but an intuitive comprehension of his own inner life-process. Between the Buddha’s Enlightenment which is sung in the Hymn of Victory and Śāriputra’s insight into the Dharma as the doctrine of causation, there is a close connection in the way their minds worked. In the one Enlightenment came first and then its expression; in the other a definite statement was addressed first and then came an insight; the process is reversed here. But the inadequacy of relation between antecedent and consequence remains the same. The one does not sufficiently explain the other, when the logical and intellectual understanding alone is taken into consideration. The explanation must be sought not in the objective truth contained in the doctrine of causation, but in the state of consciousness itself of the enlightened subject. Otherwise, how do we account for the establishment of such a firm faith in self-realisation or self-deliverance as this? “He has destroyed all evil passions (_āsava_); he has attained to heart-emancipation (_ceto-vimutti_) and intellect-emancipation (_pannā-vimutti_), here in this visible world he has by himself understood, realised, and mastered the Dharma, he has dived deep into it, has passed beyond doubt, has put away perplexity, has gained full confidence, he has lived the life, has done what was to be done, has destroyed the fetter of rebirth, he has comprehended the Dharma as it is truly in itself.”[f34]

This is why the _Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra_ tries so hard to tell us that language is altogether inadequate as the means of expressing and communicating the inner state of Enlightenment. While without language we may fare worse at least in our practical life, we must guard ourselves most deliberately against our trusting it too much beyond its legitimate office. 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.

If the Buddha’s Enlightenment really contained so much in it that he himself could not sufficiently demonstrate or illustrate it with his “long thin tongue” (_prabhūtatanujihva_) through his long peaceful life given to meditation and discoursing, how could those less than he ever hope to grasp it and attain spiritual emancipation? This is the position taken up by Zen: To comprehend the truth of Enlightenment, therefore, we must exercise some other mental power than intellection, if we are at all in possession of such. Discoursing fails to reach the goal and yet we have an unsatiated aspiration after the unattainable. Are we then meant to live and die thus tormented for ever? If so, this is the most lamentable situation in which we find ourselves on earth. Buddhists have applied themselves most earnestly to the solution of the problem and have finally come to see that we have after all within ourselves what we need. This is the power of intuition possessed by spirit and able to comprehend spiritual truth which will show us all the secrets of life making up the content of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. It is not an ordinary intellectual process of reasoning, but a power that will grasp something most fundamental in an instant and in the directest way. Prajñā is the name given to this power by the Buddhists, as I said, and what Zen Buddhism aims at in its relation to the doctrine of Enlightenment is to awaken Prajñā by the exercise of meditation.

We read in the _Saddharma-puṇḍarīka_: “O Śāriputra, the true Law understood by the Tathagata cannot be reasoned, is beyond the pale of reasoning. Why? For the Tathagata appears in the world to carry out one great object, which is to make all beings accept, see, enter into, and comprehend the knowledge and insight gained by the Tathagata, and also to make them enter upon the path of knowledge and insight attained by the Tathagata.... Those who learn it from the Tathagata also reach his Supreme Perfect Enlightenment.”[f35] If such was the one great object of the Buddha’s appearance on earth, how do we get into the path of insight and realise Supreme Perfect Enlightenment? And if this Dharma of Enlightenment is beyond the limits of the understanding, no amount of philosophising will ever bring us nearer the goal. How do we then learn it from the Tathagata? Decidedly not from his mouth, nor from the records of his sermons, nor from the ascetic practise, but from our own inner consciousness through the exercise of dhyana. And this is the doctrine of Zen.

_Enlightenment and Spiritual Freedom_

When the doctrine of Enlightenment makes its appeal to the inner experience of the Buddhist and its content is to be grasped immediately without any conceptual medium, the sole authority in his spiritual life will have to be found within himself; traditionalism or institutionalism will naturally lose all its binding force. According to him, then, propositions will be true, that is, living, because they are in accordance with his spiritual insight; and his actions will permit no external standard of judgment; as long as they are the inevitable overflow of his inner life, they are good, even holy. The direct issue of this interpretation of Enlightenment will be the upholding of absolute spiritual freedom in every way, which will further lead to the unlimited expansion of his mental outlook going beyond the narrow bounds of monastic and scholastic Buddhism. This was not however, from the Mahayanistic point of view, against the spirit of the Buddha.

The constitution of the Brotherhood will now have to change. In the beginning of Buddhism, it was a congregation of homeless monks who subjected themselves to a certain set of ascetic rules of life. In this Buddhism was an exclusive possession of the _élite_, and the general public or Upāsaka group who accepted the Threefold Refuge Formula was a sort of appendage to the regular or professional Brotherhood. When Buddhism was still in its first stage of development, even nuns (_bhikshuṇī_) were not allowed to come into the community; the Buddha received them only after great reluctance, prophesying that Buddhism would now live only half of its normal life. We can readily see from this fact that the teaching of the Buddha and the doctrine of Enlightenment were meant to be practised and realised only among limited classes of people. While the Buddha regarded the various elements of his congregation with perfect impartiality, cherishing no prejudices as to their social, racial, and other distinctions, the full benefit of his teaching could not extend beyond the monastic boundaries. If there was nothing in it that could benefit mankind in general, this exclusiveness was naturally to be expected. But the doctrine of Enlightenment was something that could not be kept thus imprisoned, it had many things in it that would overflow all the limitations set to it. When the conception of Bodhisattvahood came to be emphatically asserted, a monastic and self-excluding community could no longer hold its ground, a religion of monks and nuns had to become a religion of laymen and laywomen. An ascetic discipline leading to the Anūpādhiśesha-Nirvāṇa had to give way to a system of teaching that would make any one attain Enlightenment and demonstrate Nirvana in his daily life. In all the Mahayana Sutras, this general tendency in the unfoldment of Buddhism is vehemently asserted, showing how intense was the struggle between conservatism and progressivism.

* * * * *

This spirit of freedom which is the power impelling Buddhism to break through its monastic shell and bringing forward the idea of Enlightenment ever vigorously before the masses, is the life-impulse of the universe,—this unhampered activity of spirit, and everything that interferes with it is destined to be defeated. The history of Buddhism is thus also a history of freedom in one’s spiritual, intellectual, and moral life. The moral aristocracy and disciplinary formalism of primitive Buddhism could not bind our spirit for a very long period of time. As the doctrine of Enlightenment grew to be more and more inwardly interpreted, the spirit rose above the formalism of Buddhist discipline. It was of no absolute necessity for one to leave his home life and follow the footsteps of the wandering monks in order to reach the supreme fruit of Enlightenment. Inward purity, and not external piety, was the thing needed for the Buddhist life. The Upāsakas were in this respect as good as the Bhikshus. The fact is most eloquently illustrated in the _Vimalakīrti-Sūtra_. The chief character here is Vimalakīrti, a lay philosopher, outside the pale of the Brotherhood. None of the Buddha’s disciples were his matches in the depth, breadth, and subtleties of thought, and when the Buddha told them to visit his sickroom, they all excused themselves for some reason or other, except Mañjuśrī, who is Prajñā incarnate in Mahayana Buddhism.

That the lay-devotees thus asserted themselves even at the expense of the Arhats, may also be gleaned from other sources than the _Vimalakīrti_, but especially from such Sutras as the _Śrīmālā_, _Gaṇḍhavyūha_, _Vajrasamādhi_, _Candrottara-dārikā_, etc. What is the most noteworthy in this connection is that woman plays an important rôle on various occasions. Not only is she endowed with philosophising talents, but she stands on equal footing with man. Among the fifty-three philosophers or leaders of thought visited by Sudhana in his religious pilgrimage, he interviewed many women in various walks of life, and some of whom were even courtesans. They all wisely discoursed with the insatiable seeker of truth. What a different state of affairs this was when compared with the reluctant admission of women into the Sangha in the early days of Buddhism! Later Buddhism may have lost something in austerity, aloofness, and even saintliness, which appeal strongly to our religious imagination, but it has gained in democracy, picturesqueness, and largely in humanity.

* * * * *

The free spirit which wanders out beyond the monastic walls of the Brotherhood now follows its natural consequence and endeavours to transcend the disciplinary rules and the ascetic formalism of the Hinayanists. The moral rules that were given by the Buddha to his followers as they were called for by the contingencies of life, were concerned more or less with externalism. When the Buddha remained with them as the living spirit of the Brotherhood, these rules were the direct expressions of the subjective life; but with the Buddha’s departure, they grew rigid and failed to reach the inner spirit of their author, and the followers of Enlightenment revolted against them, upholding “the spirit that giveth life.” They advocated perfect freedom of spirit, even after the fashion of antinomians. If the spirit were pure, no acts of the body could spoil it; it could wander about anywhere it liked with absolute immunity. It would even go down to hell, if it were necessary or expedient for them to do so, for the sake of the salvation of the depraved. It would indefinitely postpone the entering into Nirvana if there were still souls to save and minds to enlighten. According to “the letter that killeth” no Buddhists were allowed to enter a liquor shop, or to be familiar with inmates of the houses barred from respectability, in short, even for a moment to be thinking of violating any of the moral precepts. But to the Mahayanists all kinds of “expediency” or “devices” were granted if they were fully enlightened and had their spirits thoroughly purified. They were living in a realm beyond good and evil, and as long as they were there, no acts of theirs could be classified and judged according to the ordinary measure of ethics; they were neither moral nor immoral. These relative terms had no application in a kingdom governed by free spirits which soared above the relative world of differences and oppositions. This was most slippery ground for the Mahayanists. When they were really enlightened and fathomed the depths of spirituality, every deed of theirs was a creative act of God, but in this extreme form of idealism, objectivity had no room, and consequently who could ever distinguish libertinism from spiritualism? In spite of this pitfall the Mahayanists were in the right in consistently following up all the implications of the doctrine of Enlightenment. Their parting company with the Hinayanists was inevitable.

* * * * *

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. If the Mahayanists remained here and did not see further into the real nature of Prajñā, they would have certainly followed the fates of the Friends of Free Spirit, but they knew how Enlightenment realises its true signification in love for all beings and how freedom of spirit has its own principle to follow though nothing external is imposed upon it. 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. But Prajñā is more than merely intellectual, it produces Karuṇā (love or pity), and with her co-operation it achieves the great end of life, the salvation of all beings from Ignorance and passions and misery. It now knows no end in devising all kinds of means to carry out its own teleological functions. The _Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka_ regards the Buddha’s appearance on earth and his life in history as the “skilful devices” of world-salvation on the part of the Supreme Being of Eternal Enlightenment. This creation, however, ceases to be a creation in its perfect sense when the creator grows conscious of its teleological implications[f36]; for here then is a split in his consciousness which will check the spontaneous flowing-out of spirit, and then freedom will be lost at its source. Such devices as have grown conscious of their purposes are no more “skilful devices,” and according to the Buddhists they do not reflect the perfect state of Enlightenment.

Thus the doctrine of Enlightenment is to be supplemented by the doctrine of Device (_upāya_), or the latter may be said to evolve by itself from the first when it is conceived dynamically and not as merely a contemplative state of consciousness. The earlier Buddhists showed the tendency to consider Enlightenment essentially reflective or a state of tranquillity. They made it something lifeless and altogether uncreative. This however did not bring out all that was contained in Enlightenment. The affective or will element which moved the Buddha to come out of his Sāgaramudrā-Samādhi,—a samadhi in which the whole universe was reflected in his consciousness as the moon stamps her image upon the ocean,—has now developed into the doctrine of Device. For the will is more fundamental than the intellect and makes up the ultimate principle of life. Without the “devising” and self-regulating will, life will be the mad display of a mere blind force. The wantonness of “a free spirit” is thus now regulated to operate in the great work of universal salvation. Its creative activity will devise all possible means for the sake of love for all beings animate as well as inanimate. Dhyana is one of those devices which will keep our minds in balance and well under the control of the will. Zen is the outcome of the dhyana discipline applied to the attainment of Enlightenment.

_Zen and Dhyana_

The term “Zen” (_ch‘an_ in Chinese), is an abbreviated form of _Zenna_ or _Ch‘anna_,[2.2] which is the Chinese rendering of “dhyāna,” or “jhāna,” and from this fact alone it is evident that Zen has a great deal to do with this practice which has been carried on from the early days of the Buddha, indeed from the beginning of Indian culture. Dhyana is usually rendered in English meditation, and, generally speaking, the idea is to meditate on a truth, religious or philosophical, so that it may be thoroughly comprehended and deeply engraved into the inner consciousness. This is practised in a quiet place away from the noise and confusion of the world. Allusion to this abounds in Indian literature; and “to sit alone in a quiet place and to devote oneself to meditation exclusively” is the phrase one meets everywhere in the Āgamas.

The following conversation between Sandhana, a Buddhist, and Nigrodha, an ascetic, which is recorded in the _Udumbarika Sīhanāda Suttanta_,[f37] will throw much light on the habit of the Buddha. Says Sandhana, “But the Exalted One haunts the lonely and remote recesses of the forest, where noise, where sound there hardly is, where the breezes from the pastures blow, yet which are hidden from the eyes of men, suitable for self-communing.” To this, the ascetic wanderer answers: “Look you now, householder, know you with whom the Samana Gotama talks? with whom he holds conversation? By intercourse with whom does he attain the lucidity in wisdom? The Samana Gotama’s insight is ruined by his habit of seclusion. He is not at home in conducting an assembly. He is not ready in conversation. So he keeps apart from others in solitary places. Even as a one-eyed cow that, walking in a circle, follows only the outskirts, so is the Samana Gotama.”

Again we read in the _Sāmañña-phala Sutta_[f38]: “Then, the master of this so excellent body of moral precepts, gifted with this so excellent self-restraint as to the senses, endowed with this so excellent mindfulness and self-possession, filled with this so excellent content, he chooses some lonely spot to rest at on his way—in the woods, at the foot of a tree, on a hill side, in a mountain glen, in a rocky cave, in a charnel place, or on a heap of straw in the open field. And returning thither after his round for alms he seats himself, when his meal is done, cross-legged, keeping his body erect, and his intelligence alert, intent.”

Further, in the days of the Buddha, miracle-working and sophistical discussions seem to have been the chief business of the ascetics, wanderers, and Brahman metaphysicians. The Buddha was thus frequently urged to join in the debates on philosophical questions and also to perform wonders in order to make people embrace his teaching. 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. When Chien-ku, son of a wealthy merchant in Nalanda, asked the Buddha to give his command to his disciples and make them perform for the benefit of his townspeople, the Buddha flatly refused, saying, “My disciples are instructed to sit in solitude quietly and to be earnestly meditating on the Path. If they had something meritorious, let them conceal it, but if they had faults, let them confess.”[f39]

An appeal to the analytical understanding is never sufficient to thoroughly comprehend the inwardness of a truth, especially when it is a religious one, nor is mere compulsion by an external force adequate for bringing about a spiritual transformation in us. We must experience in our innermost consciousness all that is implied in a doctrine, when we are able not only to understand it but to put it in practice. There will then be no discrepancy between knowledge and life. The Buddha knew this very well, and he endeavoured to produce knowledge out of meditation, this is, to make wisdom grow from personal, spiritual experience. The Buddhist way to deliverance, therefore, consisted in threefold discipline: moral rules (_śīla_), tranquillisation (_samādhi_), and wisdom (_prajñā_). By Śīla one’s conduct is regulated externally, by Samādhi quietude is attained, and by Prajñā real understanding takes place. Hence the importance of meditation in Buddhism.

That this threefold discipline was one of the most characteristic features of Buddhism since its earliest days is well attested by the fact that the following formula, which is culled from the _Mahāparinibbāna-Sutta_, is repeatedly referred to in the Sutra as if it were a subject most frequently discussed by the Buddha for the edification of his followers: “Such and such is upright conduct (_śīla_); such and such is earnest contemplation (_samādhi_); such and such is intelligence (_prajñā_). Great becomes the fruit, great the advantage of intellect when it is set round with earnest contemplation. The mind set round with intelligence is set quite free from the intoxications (_āśrava_), that is to say, from the intoxication of sensuality (_kāma_), from the intoxication of becoming (_bhāva_), from the intoxication of delusion (_dṛishti_), from the intoxication of ignorance (_avidyā_)[f40].”

Samadhi and dhyana are to a great extent synonymous and interchangeable, but strictly samadhi is a psychological state realised by the exercise of dhyana. The latter is the process and the former is the goal. The Buddhist scriptures make reference to so many samadhis, and before delivering a sermon the Buddha generally enters into a samadhi,[f41] but never I think into a dhyana. The latter is practised or exercised. But frequently in China dhyana and samadhi are combined to make one word, _ch‘an-ting_;[2.3] meaning a state of quietude attained by the exercise of meditation or dhyana. There are some other terms analogous to these two which are met with in Buddhist literature as well as in other Indian religious systems. They are _Saṁpatti_ (coming together), Samāhita (collecting the thoughts), Śamatha (tranquillisation), _Cittaikāgratā_ (concentration), _Dṛishta-dharma-sukha-vihāra_ (abiding in the bliss of the Law perceived), _Dhāraṇi_ or _Dhāraṇa_ (abstraction), etc. They are all connected with the central idea of dhyana, which is to tranquillise the turbulence of self-assertive passions and to bring about a state of absolute identity in which the truth is realised in its inwardness, that is, a state of Enlightenment. The analytical tendency of philosophers is also evident in this when they distinguish four or eight kinds of dhyana.[f42]

The first dhyana is an exercise in which the mind is made to concentrate on one single subject until all the coarse affective elements are vanished from consciousness except the serene feelings of joy and peace. But the intellect is still active, judgment and reflection operate upon the object of contemplation. 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. When the fourth and last stage is reached, even this feeling of self-enjoyment disappears, and what prevails in consciousness now is perfect serenity of contemplation. All the intellectual and the emotional factors liable to disturb spiritual tranquillity are successively controlled, and mind in absolute composure remains absorbed in contemplation. In this there takes place a fully-adjusted equilibrium between Samatha and Vipasayana, that is, between tranquillisation or cessation and contemplation. In all Buddhist discipline this harmony is always sought after. For when the mind tips either way, it grows either too heavy (_styānam_) or too light (_auddhatyam_), either too torpid in mental activity or too given up to contemplation. The spiritual exercise ought to steer ahead without being hampered by either tendency, they ought to strike the middle path.

There are further four stages of dhyana called “Arūpa-vimoksha” which are practised by those who have passed beyond the last stage of dhyana. The first is to contemplate the infinity of space, not disturbed by the manifoldness of matter; the second is on the infinity of consciousness as against the first; the third is meant to go still further beyond the distinction of space and thought; and the fourth is to eliminate even this consciousness of non-distinction, to be thus altogether free from any trace of analytical intellection. Besides these eight Samāpatti (“coming together”) exercises, technically so called, the Buddha sometimes refers to still another form of meditation which is considered to be distinctly Buddhist. This is more or less definitely contrasted to the foregoing by not being so exclusively intellectual but partly affective, as it aims at putting a full stop to the operation of Samjñā (thought) and Vedita (sensation), that is, of the essential elements of consciousness. It is almost a state of death, total extinction, except that one in this dhyana has life, warmth, and the sense-organs in perfect condition. But in point of fact it is difficult to distinguish this Nirodha-vimoksha (deliverance by cessation) from the last stage of the Aruppa (or Arūpa) meditation, in both of which consciousness ceases to function even in its simplest and most fundamental acts.

Whatever this was, it is evident that the Buddha like the other Indian leaders of thought endeavoured to make his disciples realise in themselves the content of Enlightenment by means of dhyana, or concentration. They were thus made to gradually progress from a comparatively simple exercise up to the highest stage of concentration in which the dualism of the One and the Many vanished even to the extent of a total cessation of mentation. Apart from these general spiritual exercises, the Buddha at various times told his followers to meditate on such objects[f43] as would make them masters of their disturbing passions and intellectual entanglements.

We can now see how Zen developed out of this system of spiritual exercises. Zen adopted the external form of dhyana as the most practical method to realise the end it had in view, but as to its content Zen had its own way of interpreting the spirit of the Buddha. The dhyana practised by primitive Buddhists was not in full accord with the object of Buddhism, which is no other than the attaining of Enlightenment and demonstrating it in one’s everyday life. To do away with consciousness so that nothing will disturb spiritual serenity was too negative a state of mind to be sought after by those who at all aspired to develop the positive content of the Buddha’s own enlightened mind. Tranquillisation was not the real end of dhyana, nor was the being absorbed in a samadhi the object of Buddhist life. Enlightenment was to be found in life itself, in its fuller and freer expressions, and not in its cessation. What was it that made the Buddha pass all his life in religious peregrination? What was it that moved him to sacrifice his own well-being, in fact his whole life, for the sake of his fellow-creatures? If dhyana had no positive object except in pacifying passions and enjoying absorption in the unconscious, why did the Buddha leave his seat under the Bodhi-tree and come out into the world? If Enlightenment was merely a negative state of cessation, the Buddha could not find any impulse in him that would urge him to exertion in behalf of others. Critics sometimes forget this fact when they try to understand Buddhism simply as a system of teaching as recorded in the Agamas and in Pali Buddhist literature. As I said before, Buddhism is also a system built by his disciples upon the personality of the Buddha himself, in which the spirit of the Master is more definitely affirmed. And this is what Zen has in its own way been attempting to do—to develop the idea of Enlightenment more deeply, positively, and comprehensively by the practice of dhyana and in conformity with the spirit of general Buddhism, in which life, purged of its blind impulses and sanctified by an insight into its real values, will be asserted.

_Zen and, the Laṅkāvatāra_

Of the many Sutras that were introduced into China since the first century A.D., the one in which the principles of Zen are more expressly and directly expounded than any others, at least those that were in existence at the time of Bodhi-Dharma, is the _Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra_. Zen, as its followers justly claim, does not base its authority on any written documents, but directly appeals to the enlightened mind of the Buddha. It refuses to do anything with externalism in all its variegated modes; even the Sutras or all those literary remains ordinarily regarded as sacred and coming directly from the mouth of the Buddha are looked down upon, as we have already seen, as not touching the inward facts of Zen. Hence its reference to the mystic dialogue between the Enlightened One and Mahākāśyapa on a bouquet of flowers. But Bodhi-Dharma, the founder of Zen in China, handed the _Laṅkāvatāra_ over to his first Chinese disciple Hui-k‘ê as the only literature in existence at the time in China, in which the principles of Zen are taught. When Zen unconditionally emphasises one’s immediate experience as the final fact on which it is established it may well ignore all the scriptural sources as altogether unessential to its truth; and on this principle its followers have quite neglected the study of the _Laṅkāvatāra_. But to justify the position of Zen for those who have not yet grasped it and yet who are desirous of learning something about it, an external authority may be quoted and conceptual arguments resorted to in perfect harmony with its truth. This was why Dharma selected this Sutra out of the many that had been in existence in China in his day. We must approach the _Laṅkāvatāra_ with this frame of mind.

There are three Chinese translations of the Sutra still in existence. There was a fourth one, but it was lost. The first in four volumes was produced during the Lu-Sung dynasty (A.D. 443) by Guṇabhadra, the second in ten volumes comes from the pen of Bodhiruci, of the Yüan-Wei dynasty (A.D. 513), and the third in seven volumes is by Śikshānanda, of the T‘ang dynasty (A.D. 700).[2.4] The last-mentioned is the easiest to understand and the first the most difficult, and it was this, the most difficult one, that was delivered by Dharma to his disciple Hui-K‘ê as containing the “essence of mind”. In form and in content this translation reflects the earliest text of the Sutra, and on it are written all the commentaries we have at present in Japan.

The special features of this Sutra, which distinguish it from the other Mahayana writings, are, to give the most noteworthy ones: first, that the subject-matter is not systematically developed as in most other Sutras, but the whole book is a series of notes of various lengths; secondly, that the Sutra is devoid of all supernatural phenomena, but filled with deep philosophical and religious ideas concerning the central teaching of the Sutra, which are very difficult to comprehend, due to tersity of expression and to the abstruse nature of the subject-matter; thirdly, that it is in the form of dialogues exclusively between the Buddha and the Bodhisattva Mahāmati while in the other Mahayana Sutras the principal figures are generally more than one besides the Buddha himself who addresses them in turn; and lastly, that it contains no Dharanis or Mantrams—those mystical signs and formulas supposed to have a miraculous power. These singularities are enough to make the _Laṅkāvatāra_ occupy a unique position in the whole lore of the Mahayana school.

In this characterisation of the _Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra_, I am referring to the first Chinese text of Guṇabhadra. The two later ones have three new chapters in addition: one of which forming the first chapter is a sort of introduction to the whole Sutra, giving the main idea of what is discussed in the body of the text itself; the remaining two are attached to the end. Of these, the one is a short collection of Dharanis, and the other which is the conclusion is known as the Gāthā chapter written throughout in verse and summarises the contents of the whole Sutra. It has, however, no paragraph making up the “regular ending” in which the whole congregation unites in the praise of the Buddha and in its assurance of observing his instructions. There is no doubt that these three new chapters are of later growth.

The main thesis of the _Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra_ is the content of Enlightenment, that is, the Buddha’s own inner experience (_pratyātmagati_) concerning the great religious truth of Mahayana Buddhism. Most of the readers of the Sutra have singularly failed to see this, and contend that it principally explains the Five Dharmas, the Three Characteristics of Reality (svabhāva), the Eight Kinds of Consciousness (_vijñāna_), and the Two Forms of Non-Ego (_nairātmya_). It is true that the Sutra reflects the psychological school of Buddhism advocated by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, when for instance it refers to the Ālayavijñāna as the storage of all karmic seeds; but such and other references in fact do not constitute the central thought of the Sutra, they are merely made use of in explaining the “noble understanding of the Buddha’s inner experience” (_pratyātmāryajñāna_). Therefore when Mahāmati finishes praising the Buddha’s virtues before the whole assembly at the summit of Mount Laṅkā, the Buddha is quite definite in his declaration of the main theme of his discourse in this Sutra. Let us however first quote the song of the Bodhisattva Mahāmati since it sums up in a concise and definite manner all the essentials of Mahayana Buddhism and since at the same time it illustrates my statement concerning the union of Enlightenment and Love.

The hymn runs as follows:

“When thou reviewest the world with thy wisdom and compassion, it is to thee like the ethereal flower, and of which we cannot say whether it is created or vanishing, as the categories of being and non-being are inapplicable to it.

“When thou reviewest all things with thy wisdom and compassion, they are like visions, they are beyond the reach of mind and consciousness, as the categories of being and non-being are inapplicable to them.

“When thou reviewest the world with thy wisdom and compassion, it is eternally like a dream, of which we cannot say whether it is permanent or it is subject to destruction, as the categories of being and non-being are inapplicable to it.

“The Dharmakāya whose self-nature is a vision and a dream, what is there to praise? Real existence is where rises no thought of nature and no-nature.

“He whose appearance is beyond the senses and sense-objects and is not to be seen by them or in them—how could praise or blame be predicated of him, O Muni?

“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.

“Thou dost not vanish in Nirvana, nor does Nirvana abide in thee; for it transcends the dualism of the enlightened and enlightenment as well as the alternatives of being and non-being.

“Those who see the Muni so serene and beyond birth, are detached from cravings and remain stainless in this life and after.”

After this says the Buddha: “O you, sons of the Jina, question me anything you feel like asking. I am going to tell you about the state of my inner attainment (_pratyātmagatigocaram_).” This is conclusive, nothing is left to discussion concerning the theme of the _Laṅkāvatāra_. The five Dharmas, the three Characteristics, etc., are referred to only in the course of the Buddha’s exposition of the principal matter.

The two later translations, which, as aforementioned, contain some extra chapters, are divided regularly in the one into ten and in the other into eighteen chapters, while the earliest one of Gunabhadra has just one chapter title for the whole book, “The Gist of all the Buddhawords.” The first extra chapter which is not found in Gunabhadra’s text is remarkable in this that it gives the outlines of the whole Sutra in the form of a dialogue between the Buddha and Rāvana, Lord of the Yakshas, in the Isle of Laṅkā. When the Buddha, coming out of the Nāga’s palace, views the castle of Laṅkā, he smiles and remarks that this was the place where all the Buddhas of the past preached regarding the excellent understanding of Enlightenment realised in their inner consciousness, which is beyond the analysis of logic and is not the state of mind attainable by the Tīrthya, Śrāvaka, or Pratyekabuddha. The Buddha then adds that for this reason the same Dharma will be propounded for Rāvana, Lord of the Yakshas. In response to this, the latter, making all kinds of costly offerings to the Buddha, sings in the praise of his insight and virtues: “O Lord, instruct me in thy system of doctrine which is based on the self-nature of mind, instruct me in the doctrine of non-ego, free from prejudices and defilements, the doctrine that is revealed in thy inmost consciousness.”

In the conclusion of this chapter, the Buddha reaffirms his doctrine of inner realisation which is Enlightenment: “It is like seeing one’s own image in a mirror or in water, it is like seeing one’s own shadow in moonlight or lamplight, again it is like hearing one’s voice echoed in the valley: as a man clings to his own false assumptions, he erroneously discriminates between truth and falsehood, and on account of this false discrimination he fails to go beyond the dualism of opposites, indeed he cherishes falsity and cannot attain tranquillity. 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_).”

From these quotations we can easily see why Bodhi-Dharma recommended this Sutra for the special perusal of his Zen disciples. But in order to impress the reader further with the great importance of the _Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra_ in the historical study of Zen in India and China, I quote a few more passages showing how the teaching of self-realisation is developed in the Sutra.

According to the author, the anuttara-samyak-sambodhi attained by the Muni of the Śākyas, whereby he became the Buddha, is realisable by transcending the ideas of being and non-being (_nāsy-asti-vikalpa_). This being the fundamental error—this cherishing of dualism—must be got rid of as the first necessary step to reach the state of self-realisation. The error comes from not perceiving the truth that all things are empty (_śūnya_), uncreated (_anutpāda_), non-dualistic (_advaya_), and have no immutably individualistic characters (_niḥsvabhāvalakshaṇa_). By the emptiness of things is meant principally that their existence being so thoroughly mutually conditioning, nowhere obtains the false notion of distinctive individuality, and that when analysis is carried to its logical consequence there exists nothing that will separate one object from another in a final way; therefore says the Sutra, “Sva-para-ubhaya-abhāvāt” (there exists neither one nor another nor both). Secondly, things are uncreated, because they are not self-created, nor are they created by an outside agency. Thirdly, as their existence is reciprocally conditioning, a dualistic conception of the world is not the ultimate one, and thus it is a mistake, due to this wrong discrimination (_vikalpa_), to seek Nirvana outside of Samsara (birth-and-death) and Samsara outside of Nirvana. Fourthly, this principle of mutuality means the denial of individuality as absolute reality, for there is nothing in existence that will absolutely maintain its individuality standing above all conditions of relativity or mutual becoming—in fact, being is becoming. For these reasons, we can realise the truth of Enlightenment only by transcending the first condition of intellection, which is, according to the _Laṅkāvatāra_, Parikalpa, or Vikalpa (discrimination). The warning against this Vikalpa which is the analysing tendency of mind, or, we may say, the fundamentally dualistic disposition of consciousness is the constant refrain of the Sutra, while on the other hand it never forgets to emphasise the importance of self-realisation which is attained by overcoming this fundamental tendency.