Samurai The Law Of Balance
Nature governs the world with her law of balance. She puts t...
Zen After The Downfall Of The Ho-jo Regency
Towards the end of the Ho-Jo period,[FN#90] and after the dow...
Shakya Muni And The Prodigal Son
A great trouble with us is that we do not believe in half the...
Life And Change
A peculiar phase of life is change which appears in the form ...
Missionary Activity Of The Sixth Patriarch
As we have seen above, the Sixth Patriarch was a great genius...
Where Then Does The Error Lie?
Where, then, does the error lie in the four possible proposit...
The Ten Pictures Of The Cowherd
[FN#275] The pictures were drawn by Kwoh Ngan (Kaku-an), a...
Calmness Of Mind
The Yogi breathing above mentioned is fit rather for physical...
The Parable Of The Monk And The Stupid Woman
The confused or unenlightened may be compared with a monk and...
Change As Seen By Zen
Zen, like Hinayanism, does not deny the doctrine of Transienc...
The Fifth And The Sixth Patriarchs
Tao Sin transmitted the Law to Hung Jan (Ko-nin), who being e...
Retribution In The Past The Present And The Future Life
Then a question suggests itself: If there be no soul that su...
Idealistic Scepticism Concerning Religion And Morality
Similarly, it is the case with religion and morality. If we ...
Poetical Intuition And Zen
Since Universal Life or Spirit permeates the universe, the po...
The Fourth Patriarch And The Emperor Tai Tsung (tai-so)
The Third[FN#40] Patriarch was succeeded by Tao Sin (Do-shin)...
Sutras Used By Zen Masters
Ten Dai failed to explain away the discrepancies and contradi...
The Creative Force Of Nature And Humanity
The innate tendency of self-preservation, which manifests its...
Introduction Of Zen Into China By Bodhidharma
An epoch-making event took place in the Buddhist history of C...
The Method Of Instruction Adopted By Zen Masters
Thus far we have described the doctrine of Zen inculcated by ...
The Beatitude Of Zen
We are far from denying, as already shown in the foregoing ch...
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Zen And Idealism
Next Zen makes use of Idealism as explained by the Dharmalaksana
School of Mahayana Buddhism.[FN#197] For instance, the Fourth
Patriarch says: Hundreds and thousands of laws originate with mind.
Innumerable mysterious virtues proceed from the mental source. Niu
Teu (Go-zu) also says: When mind arises, various things arise; when
mind ceases to exist, various things cease to exist. Tsao Shan
(So-zan) carried the point so far that he cried out, on hearing the
bell: It hurts, it pains. Then an attendant of his asked What is
the matter? It is my mind, said he, that is struck.[FN#198]
[FN#197] Appendix, chap. ii., 'The Mahayana Doctrine of
Dharmalaksana.'
[FN#198] Zen-rin-rui-shu.
We acknowledge the truth of the following considerations: There
exists no colour, nor sound, nor odour in the objective world, but
there are the vibrations of ether, or the undulations of the air, or
the stimuli of the sensory nerves of smell. Colour is nothing but
the translation of the stimuli into sensation by the optical nerves,
so also sounds by the auditory, and odours by the smelling.
Therefore nothing exists objectively exactly as it is perceived by
the senses, but all are subjective. Take electricity, for example,
it appears as light when perceived through the eye; it appears as
sound when perceived through the ear; it appears as taste when
perceived through the tongue; but electricity in reality is not
light, nor sound, nor taste. Similarly, the mountain is not high nor
low; the river is not deep nor shallow; the house is not large nor
small; the day is not long nor short; but they seem so through
comparison. It is not objective reality that displays the phenomenal
universe before us, but it is our mind that plays an important part.
Suppose that we have but one sense organ, the eye, then the whole
universe should consist of colours and of colours only. If we
suppose we were endowed with the sixth sense, which entirely
contradicts our five senses, then the whole world would be otherwise.
Besides, it is our reason that finds the law of cause and effect in
the objective world, that discovered the law of uniformity in Nature,
and that discloses scientific laws in the universe so as to form a
cosmos. Some scholars maintain that we cannot think of non-existence
of space, even if we can leave out all objects in it; nor can we
doubt the existence of time, for the existence of mind itself
presupposes time. Their very argument, however, proves the
subjectivity of time and space, because, if they were objective, we
should be able to think them non-existent, as we do with other
external objects. Even space and time, therefore are no more than
subjective.
Next: Idealism Is A Potent Medicine For Self-created Mental Disease
Previous: Zen Is Not Nihilistic
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