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He was asked: "Can a layman with wife and children, one given over to the lusts of the flesh, achieve Buddhahood?" He answered:
"Provided he contemplate his own inner-nature, he will achieve Buddhahood. It does not matter about his lusts. Even a butcher can achieve Buddhahood, if he searches in his own heart."
"What," cried his listeners, "a butcher, who lives by taking life, and he achieve Buddhahood?" The master replied:
"It is not a question of the man's trade. If he has learnt to know his own nature he will be saved.
"I have come from India only to teach you that Buddha is Thought. I care nothing for monastic rules or ascetic practices. As for walking on water or through fire, climbing sword-wheels, fasting, sitting upright for hours without rest—all such practices are heretical; they belong to the World of Being.
"Thought, Thought, Thought! It is hard to seek. Expanding, it covers the whole world; shrinking, it is too small to lodge a pin.
"I seek the heart; I do not seek Buddha. For I have[11] learnt to know that the outer world is empty and untenanted."
Such was the teaching of Bodhidharma. It was Vedantic[3] rather than Buddhist. The terms "thought," "Buddha," etc., used by Bodhidharma correspond exactly to the brahman of the Upanishads. Mystic contemplation or yoga had been used by the Brahmins and was not unknown to the early Buddhists. But Bodhidharma was the first to insist upon it as the sole means of salvation.
Yet though his whole teaching turned on this "meditation" or "Zen," he left behind him no exact directions for the practice of it. Having shown the end, he left it to each individual to find his own means. Rules, dogmas and definitions were precisely what he set out to destroy.
Less than a hundred years after his death another Indian, Buddhapriya, came to China and there defined with exactitude and blunt materiality the various forms of meditation.
The transition from the spirituality of Bodhidharma to the grossness of his follower is, however, typical of religious history. The poetry of Christ turns into the theology of Paul; the hovel of Saint Francis into the mansion of Brother Elias.
He first describes the different attitudes in which Zen may be practised, with an exact account of the correct position for hands, feet, head, etc. The normal attitude of meditation, cross-legged, with upright back and hands locked over the knees is familiar to every one.
Zen could also be practised while walking and, in cases of sickness, while lying down. Buddhapriya's instructions are in the form of question and answer.
Question.—How does the Zen practised by heretics and by the other schools of Buddhism differ from our Zen?
Answer.—The Zen of the heretics is not impersonal. The Zen of the Lesser Vehicle is material. The Zen[12] of the Greater Vehicle only abstracts man and phenomena.
Question.—How ought one to set about practising Zen?
Answer.—First put far away from you all anger and malice, and fill your heart with kindness and compassion.
Question.—Can the beginner at once proceed to the contemplation of non-Being?
Answer.—By no means! He must by stratagems gradually enter in. I have never yet seen one who straightway achieved the vision of non-Reality. If for example he were meditating in this room he must first banish from his mind every part of the world except the city of Ch'ang-an. Next every building in the city except this monastery. Next, every room in the monastery except this cell, every object but himself, every part of himself except the end of his nose. Finally the end of his nose hangs in space like a drop of dew and on this nose-end he concentrates his mind.
This is only a preliminary exercise. There are others of the same kind. For example—persuade yourself that your navel is a minute rivulet running through the sands. When this conception is firmly achieved, you will see a bright light and ultimately, the body growing transparent, you will behold the working of your bowels.
Or again, regard your head as the top of a hollow pipe which runs straight down through your body into the earth. Meditate upon the top of your head, that is to say, upon the mouth of the drain-pipe, and then gradually ascend in your thoughts to a height of four inches above the head, and concentrate firmly on this conception. You will thus easily pass into the contemplation of non-Being, having performed the transition from elementary to complete Zen as comfortably as a workman climbs the rungs of a ladder.
Question.—Are there any signs whereby I may know that I have attained to Samdhi?[13][4]
Answer.—To be sure there are. Sometimes you will feel a sensation as of bugs or ants creeping over your skin; or again, it will appear to you that a cloud or mass of white cotton-wool is rising immediately behind your back. In neither case must you be discomposed or put out your hand. Sometimes it will seem as though oil were dripping down from your head and face; sometimes a light will shine from out of the ground you are sitting upon.
These are all preliminary signs.
Sometimes when you have been sitting for a long while and your back is aching, you will suddenly hear a sound of rapping with the fingers or a noise as of some one bumping against the door. Do not be disquieted. These are the Good Spirits of Heaven, come to warn you against sleep.
Again, it may happen that you have an agreeable sense of lightness and floating; this is a good sign. Beware, however, of a painful sense of lightness; for this may merely indicate flatulence.
Patches of heat on the body are a sign of Fiery Samdhi. A light filling the whole room is a premonitory sign of Zen; to smell strange fragrances not known on earth is a sign of whole and utter Abstraction.
Such and many more are the signs of Zen. The practicant must not heed them; for if by them he be encouraged or dismayed, all his work will be undone.
Question.—Can Zen be practised in a Buddha Shrine?
Answer.—No, indeed! Zen should be practised in a quiet room or under a tree or among tombs or sitting on the dewy earth.
Question.—Can Zen be practised by many sitting together?
Answer.—To be sure it may; but each must face his neighbour's back. They must not sit face to face. When there are many sitting together at night, a lamp or candle may be lit; but when there are few together, it ought not to be used.
Question.—Need I wear monastic vestments at my meditations?
Answer.—Vestments? Why, you need wear no clothes at all, if so be you are alone.
Zen was at first a purely personal discipline, non-monastic, non-ethical, not demanding the acceptance of any Scripture or any tradition. In modern Japan it has to some extent regained this character. In China the habit of quoting written authority was too strong to be easily discarded. The Zen masters soon began to answer difficult questions by quoting from the Buddhist Scriptures. Convenience dictated that practicants of Zen should live in communities and monasticism was soon established in their sect, as in every other sect of Buddhism. Questions of conduct arose, and Zen was squared with the contemporary ethical outlook; though in medieval Japanese literature wicked and cynical persons are generally depicted as adepts of Zen.
