Essays in Zen Buddhism
D.T. Suzuki
2,061 passages indexed from Essays in Zen Buddhism (D.T. Suzuki) — Page 23 of 42
License: Public Domain
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1906
Sabbābhibhū sabbavidū ’ham asmi, Sabbesu dhammesu anūpalitto, Sabbaṁjaho tanhakkhaye vimutto, Sayaṁ abhiññāya kam uddiseyyaṁ. Na me ācariyo atthi, sadiso me na vijjati, Sadevakasmiṁ lokasmiṁ na ’tthi me paṭipuggalo. Ahaṁ hi arahā loke, ahaṁ satthā anuttaro, Eko ’mhi sammasambuddho, sītibhūto ’smi nibbuto. Dīgha-Nikāya, XXVI.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1661
Ummon was not poverty-stricken, but lean and emaciated; for when a monk asked him what were the special features of his school, the master answered, “My skin is dry and my bones are sticking out.” Corpulence and opulence have never been associated with spirituality, at least in the East. As a matter of fact, they are not inconsistent ideas; but the amassing of wealth under our economic conditions has always resulted in producing characters that do not go very well with our ideals of saintliness.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1822
6.35. 五祖法演上堂云. 昨日有一則因緣. 擬擧似大衆. 却爲老僧忘事都大. 一時思量不出. 乃沈吟多時云. 忘却也忘却也. 復云教中有一道眞言. 號聰明王. 有人念者. 忘即記得. 遂云. 唵阿盧勒繼娑婆訶. 乃拍手大笑云. 記得也記得也. 覔佛不見佛. 討祖不見祖. 甜瓜徹蒂甜苦瓠連根苦. 下座. (五祖錄.)
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 733
The argument Aśvaghosha puts into the mouth of the Buddha against Arada (or Ālāra Kālāma), the Samkhya philosopher, is illuminating in this respect. When Arada told the Buddha to liberate the soul from the body as when the bird flies from the cage or the reed’s stalk is loosened from its sheath, which will result in the abandonment of egoism, the Buddha reasons in the following way: “As long as the soul continues there is no abandonment of egoism.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 135
According to them, Zen Buddhism is not Buddhism, it is something foreign to the spirit of Buddhism, and that it is one of those aberrations which we often see growing up in the history of any religion. Zen is thus, they think, an abnormality prevailing among the people whose thought and feeling flow along a channel different from the main current of Buddhist thought.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 967
That the school of Hui-nêng survived the other proves that his Zen was in perfect accord with Chinese psychology and modes of thinking. The Indian elements that had been found attached to the Zen of Bodhi-Dharma and his successors down to Hui-nêng, were something grafted and not native to Chinese genius.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 730
The Buddha does not consider the will blind, irrational, and therefore to be denied; what he really denies is the notion of ego-entity due to Ignorance, from which notion come craving, attachment to things impermanent, and the giving way to the egotistic impulses. The object the Buddha always has in view and never forgets to set forth whenever he thinks opportune, is the Enlightenment of the will and not its negation. His teaching is based upon affirmative propositions.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 891
Seeing that there was no further help to be given to the Emperor, Dharma left his dominion and retired into a monastery in the state of Wei, where he sat quietly practising the “wall-contemplation,” it is said, for nine long years, until he came to be known as the _Pi-kuan_ Brahman.[f90]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 258
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?
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1840
師示衆云. 迦葉傳與阿難. 且道達磨傳與什麽人. 問. 如二祖得髓. 又作應生. 師云. 莫謗二祖. 師又云. 達磨也有語. 在外者得皮. 在裏者得骨. 且道更在裏者. 得什麽. 問. 如何是得髓底道理. 師云. 但識取皮. 老僧者裏髓也不立. 云. 如何是髓. 師云. 與麽皮也摸未着. 問與麽堂堂. 豈不是和尙正位. 師云. 還知有不肯者麽. 學云. 與麽即別有位. 師云. 誰是別者. 學云. 誰是不別者. 師云. 一任叫. (趙州錄.)
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 661
The radical empiricism of the “Yathābhūtam” teaching of the Buddha is here graphically presented, which reminds us of the Buddha in the _Itivuttaka_, v. 109, describing himself as the spectator standing on the shore (_cakkhumā puriso tīre ṭhito_). To understand this simile intellectually will be sheer nonsense. The writer describes his mental attitude from a higher plane of thought which has been realised by him after a long training.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1473
“The interior is beautiful beyond words,” he continued, “permit me to show the way.” So saying he passed within; the gate closed after him; and before the astonished Emperor could speak or move, all had faded to white wall before his eyes, with not a trace of the artist’s brush remaining. Wu Tao-tzŭ was seen no more.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1166
A light touch of an ignited wire, and an explosion shaking the very foundations of the earth. In fact, all the causes of satori are in the mind. That is why when the clock clicks, all that has been lying there bursts up like a volcanic eruption or flashes out like a bolt of lightning,[f110] Zen calls this “returning to one’s own home”; for its followers will declare: “You have now found yourself; from the very beginning nothing has been kept away from you.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1271
“What is Zen?” This is one of the most difficult questions to answer, I mean, to the satisfaction of the inquirer; for Zen refuses even tentatively to be defined or described in any manner. The best way to understand it will be of course to study and practise it at least some years in the Meditation Hall. Therefore, even after the reader has carefully gone over this Essay, he will still be at sea as to the real signification of Zen.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 2013
Na vāsanair bhidyate cit na cittaṁ vāsanaiḥ saha, Abbinnalakshaṇaṁ cittaṁ vāsanaiḥ pariveshtitarṁ. Malavad vāsanā yasya manovijñāna-sambhavā, Pata-śuklopamaṁ cittaṁ vāsanair na virājate. Yathā na bhāvo nābhāvo gaganaṁ kathyate mayā, Ālayaṁ hi tathā kāya bhāvābhāva-vivarjitaṁ. Manovijñāna vyāvṛittaṁ cittaṁ kālusbya varjitam, Sarvadharmāvabodhena cittaṁ buddhaṁ vadāmyaham.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 146
We know that the acorn is so different from the oak, but as long as there is a continuation of growth, their identity is a logical conclusion. To see really into the nature of the acorn is to trace an uninterrupted development through its various historical stages. When the seed remains a seed and means nothing more, there is no life in it, it is a finished piece of work and except as an object of historical curiosity, it has no value whatever in our religious experience.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 89
They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it.” And this key to the royal treasury of wisdom is given us only after patient and painful moral struggle.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 274
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.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1012
If you want to see what is the nature of your being, free your mind from thought of relativity and you will see by yourself how serene it is and yet how full of life it is.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 873
“The master first stayed in the Shōrinji (Shao-lin-szŭ) monastery for nine years, and when he taught the second patriarch, it was only in the following way: ‘Externally keep yourself away from all relationships, and, internally, have no pantings (or hankerings, 喘 _ch‘uan_) in your heart;[f87] when your mind is like unto a straight-standing wall you may enter into the Path.’ Hui-k‘ê tried variously to explain [or to discourse on] the reason of mind, but failed to realise the truth itself.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 2001
[f141] _Shê-li_, is some indestructible substance, generally in pebble-form, found in the body of a saint when it is cremated.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 103
Brother Lawrence speaks the truth when he says (“The Practice of the Presence of God”), “That we ought to make a great difference between the acts of the understanding and those of the will: that the first were comparatively of little value, and the others, all.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 379
“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.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1589
There is a period in the monastic life, exclusively set apart for mental discipline, and not interrupted by any manual labour except such as is absolutely needed. It is known as great “Sesshin” (_Chê-hsin_)[f143][7.24] and lasts a week, taking place once a month during the season called the “Summer Sojourn” and the “Winter Sojourn.” The summer sojourn begins in April and ends in August, while the winter one begins in October and ends in February.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1959
[f105] According to the _Mahāparinirvāna-sūtra_, translated into Chinese by Dharmaraksha, A.D. 423, Vol. XXXIII., he was one of the three sons of the Buddha while he was still a Bodhisattva. He was most learned in all Buddhist lore, but his views tended to be nihilistic and he finally fell into hell.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1962
[f108] In Claud Field’s _Mystics and Saints of Islam_ (p. 25), we read under Hasan Basri, “Another time I saw a child coming toward me holding a lighted torch in his hand, ‘Where have you brought the light from?’ I asked him. He immediately blew it out, and said to me, ‘O Hasan, tell me where it is gone, and I will tell you whence I fetched.’” Of course the parallel here is only apparent, for Tokusan got his enlightenment from quite a different source than the mere blowing out of the candle. Still the parallel in itself is interesting enough to be quoted here.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1651
The Zen masters are more poetic and positive in their expression of the feeling of poverty, they do not make a direct reference to things worldly. Sings Mumon (Wu-mên)[7.37]:
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1520
It is my strong conviction that if Zen did not put faith in acting its ideas, the institution would have long before this sunk into a mere somniferous and trance-inducing system, so that all the treasure thoughtfully hoarded by the masters in China and Japan would have been cast away as heaps of rotten stuff.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 830
The author was the founder of a Vinaya sect in China and a learned scholar, who however was living before the movement of the new school to be known as Zen came into maturity under Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, who was nine years old when Tao-hsüan wrote his _Biographies_. The other source is the _Records of the Transmission of the Lamp_, A.D. 1004, compiled by Tao-yüan[4.24] early in the Sung dynasty.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1035
At the time of the erection as well as later, it was prophesied by Chih-yüeh (according to another authority by Paramārtha), during the Liang dynasty that some years later a Bodhisattva in the flesh would be ordained on this platform and deliver sermons on the Buddha’s “spiritual seal.” Thus the “Platform Sutra” means the orthodox teaching of the Zen given from this platform.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 266
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]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 48
In a word they mean that Zen has its own way of pointing to the nature of one’s own being and that when this is done, one attains to Buddhahood in which all the contradictions and disturbances caused by the intellect are entirely harmonised in a unity of higher order.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 986
Does this not evince the fact that the author was not altogether unacquainted with Mahayana literature? Probably he was not a learned scholar as compared with Shên-hsiu, but in the narratives of his life we can trace some systematic effort to make him more unlettered than he actually was. What, let me ask, do we read in this attempt at the hand of the editors?
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 825
“A special transmission outside the scriptures; No dependence upon words and letters; Direct pointing at the soul of man; Seeing into one’s nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1308
As long as the intellect is to move along the ordinary dualistic groove, this is unavoidable. It is in the nature of our logic that any statement we can make is to be so expressed. But Zen thinks that the truth can be reached when it is neither asserted nor negated. This is indeed the dilemma of life, but the Zen masters are ever insistent on escaping the dilemma. Let us see if they escape free.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1026
“While living, one sits up and lies not, When dead, one lies and sits not; A set of ill-smelling skeleton! What is the use of toiling and moiling?”[4.55]
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1436
The idea of direct method appealed to by the masters is to get hold of this fleeting life as it flees and not after it has flown. While it is fleeing, there is no time to recall memory or to build ideas. No reasoning avails here. Language may be used, but this has been associated too long with ideation, and has lost directness or being by itself.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1211
I felt as if freezing in an ice-field extending thousands of miles, and within myself there was a sense of utmost transparency. There was no going forward, no slipping backward; I was like an idiot, like an imbecile, and there was nothing but ‘Jōshu’s Mu.’ Though I attended the lectures by the master, they sounded like a discussion going on somewhere in a distant hall, many yards away. Sometimes my sensation was that of one flying in the air.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 877
The author of the _Rightful Transmission of the Śākya Doctrine_ interprets _pi-kwan_ as meaning the state of mind where “no external dusts get in.”[4.31] This may be all right, but we are not told where he finds the authority for this way of understanding. Had he in mind Dharma’s remark to Hui-k‘ê as recorded in the document known as _Pieh-chi_?
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1957
In this article I have used the term as the most essential thing in the study of Zen; for “seeing into one’s Nature” suggests the idea that Zen has something concrete and substantial which requires being seen into by us. This is misleading, though satori too I admit is a vague and naturally ambiguous word. For ordinary purposes, not too strictly philosophical, satori will answer, and whenever _chien-hsing_ is referred to, it means this, the opening of the mental eye.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1747
It was then that the eye was like the ear, and the ear like the nose, and the nose like the mouth; for they were all one and the same. The mind was in rapture, the form dissolved, and the bones and flesh all thawed away; and I did not know how the frame supported itself and what the feet were treading upon. I gave myself away to the wind, eastward or westward, like leaves of a tree or like a dry chaff. Was the wind riding on me? or was I riding on the wind? I did not know either way.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 39
But the history of thought proves that each new structure raised by a man of extraordinary intellect is sure to be pulled down by the succeeding ones. This constant pulling down and building up is all right as far as philosophy itself is concerned; for the inherent nature of the intellect, as I take it, demands it and we cannot put a stop to the progress of philosophical inquiries any more than to our breathing.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1066
Chih-huang was an adept in meditation which he studied under the fifth patriarch. After twenty years’ discipline he thought he well understood the purport of meditation or samadhi. Hsüan-ts‘ê, learning his attainment, visited him and said, “What are you doing there?” “I am entering into a samadhi.” “You speak of entering, but how do you enter into samadhi—with a thought-ful mind or with a thought-less mind?
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 452
Chwang-tzŭ did his best when he rode up in the air on the back of the Tai-p‘êng whose wings soared like overhanging clouds; and Lieh-tzŭ when he could command winds and clouds as his charioteers. The later Taoists dreamed of ascending to the heavens after so many years of ascetic discipline and by taking an elixir of life concocted from various rare herbs. Thus in China we have so many Taoist hermits living in the mountains far away from human habitations.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1421
When we go on like this, there may be no end to this way of treating the various “contrivances” devised by the Zen masters for the benefits of their truth-thirsty pupils. Let me conclude this section by quoting two more cases in which a kind of reasoning in a circle is employed, but from another point of view we may detect here a trace of absolute monism in which all differences are effaced.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 126
The foregoing sketch of Zen I hope will give the reader a general, though necessarily vague, idea of Zen as it is and has been taught in the Far East for more than one thousand years. In what follows I will try first to seek the origin of Zen in the spiritual enlightenment itself of the Buddha; for Zen has been frequently criticised for deviating too far from what is popularly understood to be the teaching of the Buddha as it is recorded especially in the Āgamas or Nikāyas.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1285
We lose trustful repose which we experienced when we blindly followed the traditional ways of thinking. Eckhart says that we are all seeking repose whether consciously or not, just as the stone cannot cease moving until it touches the earth. Evidently, the repose we seemed to enjoy before we were awakened to the contradictions involved in our logic, was not the real one, the stone has kept moving down towards the ground.
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1316
Later, in the evening Jōshu who was one of his disciples came back, when the master told him of the incident of the day. Jōshu at once took off one of his straw sandals and putting it over his head began to depart. Upon this, said the master, “What a pity you were not to-day with us, for you could have saved the kitten.” This strange behaviour, however, was Jōshu’s way of affirming the truth transcending the dualism of “to be” (_sat_) and “not to be” (_asat_).
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 1987
[f129] When this is literally translated, it grows too long and loses much of its original force. The Chinese runs thus: _hao li yu ch‘a t‘ien ti hsüan chüeh_. It may better be rendered, “An inch’s difference and heaven and earth are set apart.”
Essays in Zen Buddhism, passage 938
When they are not sound, the soul is troubled; What is the use of being partial and one-sided then? If you want to walk the course of the One Vehicle, Be not prejudiced against the six sense-objects.