An officer of rank in the service of the late King of Prussia, having lost an amiable wife whom he tenderly loved, became quite inconsolable. Deeply wounded with his affliction, his mind was so absorbed in melancholy, that the transient pleas... Read more of The Prussian Dominoor Fatal Effects Of Jealousy at Scary Stories.ca

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Samurai

Zen And The Regent Generals Of The Ho-jo Period
No wonder, then, that the representatives of the Samurai clas...

The Progress And Hope Of Life
How many myriads of years have passed since the germs of life...

Idealism Is A Potent Medicine For Self-created Mental Disease
In so far as Buddhist idealism refers to the world of sense, ...

An Illusion Concerning Appearance And Reality
To get Enlightened we must next dispel an illusion respecting...

Where Does The Root Of The Illusion Lie?
Now let us examine where illusion lies hidden from the view o...

Life Consists In Conflict
Life consists in conflict. So long as man remains a social a...

Real Self
If there be no individual soul either in mind or body, where ...

The Ten Pictures Of The Cowherd
[FN#275] The pictures were drawn by Kwoh Ngan (Kaku-an), a...

Enlightened Consciousness Is Not An Intellectual Insight
Enlightened Consciousness is not a bare intellectual insight,...

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...

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

Buddha-nature Is The Common Source Of Morals
Furthermore, Buddha-nature or real self, being the seat of lo...

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

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

Thing-in-itself Means Thing-knowerless
How, then, did philosophers come to consider reality to be un...

Missionary Activity Of The Sixth Patriarch
As we have seen above, the Sixth Patriarch was a great genius...

The Ancient Buddhist Pantheon
The ancient Buddhist pantheon was full of deities or Buddhas,...

The Law Of Balance In Life
It is also the case with human affairs. Social positions hig...

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

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

The Social State Of Japan When Zen Was Established By Ei-sai And Do-gen

Now we have to observe the condition of the country when Zen was
introduced into Japan by Ei-sai and Do-gen. Nobilities that had so
long governed the island were nobilities no more. Enervated by their
luxuries, effeminated by their ease, made insipient by their
debauchery, they were entirely powerless. All that they possessed in
reality was the nominal rank and hereditary birth. On the contrary,
despised as the ignorant, sneered at as the upstart, put in contempt
as the vulgar, the Samurai or military class had everything in their
hands. It was the time when Yori-tomo[FN#79] (1148-1199) conquered
all over the empire, and established the Samurai Government at
Kama-kura. It was the time when even the emperors were dethroned or
exiled at will by the Samurai. It was the time when even the
Buddhist monks[FN#80] frequently took up arms to force their will.
It was the time when Japan's independence was endangered by Kublai,
the terror of the world. It was the time when the whole nation was
full of martial spirit. It is beyond doubt that to these rising
Samurais, rude and simple, the philosophical doctrines of Buddhism,
represented by Ten Dai and Shin Gon, were too complicated and too
alien to their nature. But in Zen they could find something
congenial to their nature, something that touched their chord of
sympathy, because Zen was the doctrine of chivalry in a certain sense.

[FN#79] The Samurai Government was first established by Yoritomo, of
the Minamoto family, in 1186, and Japan was under the control of the
military class until 1867, when the political power was finally
restored to the Imperial house.

[FN#80] They were degenerated monks (who were called monk-soldiers),
belonging to great monasteries such as En-ryaku-ji (Hi-yei),
Ko-fuku-ji (at Nara), Mi-i-dera, etc.

Next: The Resemblance Of The Zen Monk To The Samurai
Previous: The Characteristics Of Do-gen The Founder Of The Japanese So To Sect

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