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Samurai

Nature Is The Mother Of All Things
Furthermore, man has come into existence out of Nature. He i...

Zen After The Downfall Of The Ho-jo Regency
Towards the end of the Ho-Jo period,[FN#90] and after the dow...

Poetical Intuition And Zen
Since Universal Life or Spirit permeates the universe, the po...

A Sutra Equal In Size To The Whole World
The holy writ that Zen masters admire is not one of parchment...

Origin Of Zen In India
To-day Zen as a living faith can be found in its pure form on...

The World Is In The Making
Our assertion is far from assuming that life is now complete,...

Zen And Supernatural Power
Yoga[FN#250] claims that various supernatural powers can be a...

The Resemblance Of The Zen Monk To The Samurai
Let us point out in brief the similarities between Zen and Ja...

The Development Of The Southern And Of The Northern School Of Zen
After the death of the Fifth Patriarch the venerable Shang Si...

Man Is Neither Good-natured Nor Bad-natured According To Su Shih
The difficulty may be avoided by a theory given by Su Shih ...

No Need Of The Scriptural Authority For Zen
Some Occidental scholars erroneously identify Buddhism with t...

Zazen And The Forgetting Of Self
Zazen is a most effectual means of destroying selfishness, th...

True Dhyana
To sit in Meditation is not the only method of practising Zaz...

There Is No Mortal Who Is Non-moral Or Purely Immoral
The same is the case with the third and the fourth class of p...

Zen Is Iconoclastic
For the followers of Bodhidharma, however, this conception of...

The Application Of The Law Of Causation To Morals
Although it may be needless to state here the law of causatio...

The Eternal Life As Taught By Professor Munsterberg
Some philosophical pessimists undervalue life simply because ...

How To Worship Buddha
The author of Vimalakirtti-nirdeca-sutra well explains our at...

The Establishment Of The Rin Zai School Of Zen In Japan
[FN#67] The Lin Tsi school was started by Nan Yoh, a pr...

Life In The Concrete
Life in the concrete, which we are living, greatly differs fr...

The Second And The Third Patriarchs

After the death of the First Patriarch, in A.D. 528, Hwui Ko did his
best to propagate the new faith over sixty years. On one occasion a
man suffering from some chronic disease called on him, and requested
him in earnest: Pray, Reverend Sir, be my confessor and grant me
absolution, for I suffer long from an incurable disease. Bring out
your sin (if there be such a thing as sin), replied the Second
Patriarch, here before me. I shall grant you absolution. It is
impossible, said the man after a short consideration, to seek out
my sin. Then, exclaimed the master, I have absolved you.
Henceforth live up to Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha.[FN#37] I know,
your reverence, said the man, that you belong to Samgha; but what
are Buddha and Dharma? Buddha is Mind itself. Mind itself is
Dharma. Buddha is identical with Dharma. So is Samgha. Then I
understand, replied the man, there is no such thing as sin within
my body nor without it, nor anywhere else. Mind is beyond and above
sin. It is no other than Buddha and Dharma. Thereupon the Second
Patriarch saw the man was well qualified to be taught in the new
faith, and converted him, giving him the name of Sang Tsung (So-san).
After two years' instruction and discipline, he[FN#38] bestowed on
Sang Tsung the Kachaya handed down from Bodhidharma, and authorized
him as the Third Patriarch. It is by Sang Tsung that the doctrine of
Zen was first reduced to writing by his composition of Sin Sin[FN#39]
Ming (Sin zin-mei, On Faith and Mind), a metrical exposition of the
faith.

[FN#37] The so-called Three Treasures of the Buddha, the Law, and
the Order.

[FN#38] The Second Patriarch died in A.D. 593--that is, sixty-five
years after the departure of the First Patriarch.

[FN#39] A good many commentaries were written on the book, and it is
considered as one of the best books on Zen.

Next: The Fourth Patriarch And The Emperor Tai Tsung (tai-so)
Previous: Bodhidharma's Disciples And The Transmission Of The Law[fn#31]

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