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In cases where a Quaker meeting passes in silence, the members having meditated quietly for a whole hour, a very near approach to a Zen gathering has been made. But more often than not the Holy Spirit, choosing his mouthpiece with an apparent lack of discrimination, quickly descends upon some member of the meeting. The ineffable, which Zen wisely refused to express, is then drowned in a torrent of pedestrian oration.
Some, then, may turn to Zen as a purer Quakerism. Others will be attracted to it by the resemblance of its doctrines to the hypotheses of recent psychology. The Buddha consciousness of Zen exactly corresponds to the Universal Consciousness which, according to certain modern investigators, lies hid beneath the personal Consciousness. Such converts will probably use a kind of applied Zen, much as the Japanese have done; that is to say, they will not seek to spend their days in[26] complete Samdhi, but will dive occasionally, for rest or encouragement, into the deeper recesses of the soul.
It is not likely that they will rest content with the traditional Eastern methods of self-hypnosis. If certain states of consciousness are indeed more valuable than those with which we are familiar in ordinary life—then we must seek them unflinchingly by whatever means we can devise. I can imagine a kind of dentist's chair fitted with revolving mirrors, flashing lights, sulphurous haloes expanding and contracting—in short a mechanism that by the pressure of a single knob should whirl a dustman into Nirvna.
Whether such states of mind are actually more valuable than our ordinary consciousness is difficult to determine. Certainly no one has much right to an opinion who has not experienced them. But something akin to Samdhi—a sudden feeling of contact with a unity more real than the apparent complexity of things—is probably not an uncommon experience. The athlete, the creative artist, the lover, the philosopher—all, I fancy, get a share of it, not when seeking to escape from the visible world; but rather just when that world was seeming to them most sublimely real.
To seek by contemplation of the navel or of the tip of the nose a repetition of spiritual experiences such as these seems to us inane; and indeed the negative trance of Zen is very different from the positive ecstasies to which I have just referred. I say that it is different; but how do I know? "Zen," said Bodhidharma, "cannot be described in words nor chronicled in books"; and I have no other experience of Zen. If I knew, I might transmit to you my knowledge, but it would have to be by a direct spiritual communication, symbolised only by a smile, a gesture, or the plucking of a flower.
I need not therefore apologise for having given a purely external and historical account of Zen, a creed whose inner mysteries are admittedly beyond the scope of words.
Reproductions of Zen Paintings in Japanese art publications. (The Kokka and the other publications here referred to may be seen at the Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum; and at the Print Room of the British Museum.)
MOKKEI—Kokka. 37, 112, 122, 177, 185, 238, 242, 265, 268, 291, 293, 314.
RAS.—Shimbi Taikwan XX.
MOKUAN.—(Mokkei II).—Kokka 295, Shimbi Taikwan Vol. IX. (Nos. 21 and 22 in the collection of Chinese Paintings at the British Museum are probably by Mokuan.)
RYKAI.—Kokka 40, 114, 145, 152, 220, 227, 229.
RIKAKU.—Kokka 269.
MUJUN.—(An important thirteenth century Zen writer.) Kokka 243.
INDRA.—(A Hangchow priest, presumably an Indian; flourished c. 1280.) Kokka 35, 110, 223, 310. Shimbi Taikwan IX.
The Nikksh[11], a diary by the priest Gid, has the following entry under the year 1378 (month and day uncertain):
To-day Donfu[12] came, and we fell to talking of Mokuan. It seems that he was once known as Ze-itsu. But on becoming a pupil of the priest Kenzan[13], he changed his name to Mokuan. Afterwards he went to China and entered the Honkakuji[14], where he became the disciple of Ry-an[15] and was made librarian. Here he published at his own expense (lit. "selling his shoes") the Second Collection of Sayings by Korin.
Subsequently he lived at the Shtenji at Soochow, and was warden there under Nanso[16], dying soon afterwards.
When he first came to China he spent some time at the Jji Monastery at Hangchow and from there visited the Rokutsji on the shores of the Western Lake. This monastery was inhabited by the followers of Mokkei. The abbot greeted Mokuan with a smile, saying to him: "Last night I dreamt that our founder Mokkei came back again. You must be his reincarnation"; and he gave to Mokuan Mokkei's two seals, white and red. Henceforward he was known as Mokkei the Second.
Reproductions of paintings illustrating Zen legend.
(1) With tightly closed lips, as he appeared before the Emperor of China in 520. Masterpieces of Sessh, Pl. 47.
(2) Crossing the Yangtze on a reed. Perhaps the best example may be seen not in a reproduction, but in No. 22 of the original Chinese Paintings at the British Museum.
(3) Sitting with his face to the wall. He sat thus in silence for nine years in the Shrin Monastery on Mount Sung. Kokka 333.
Second Patriarch of the sect. Severed his own arm and presented it to Bodhidharma. In spite of his fanaticism (or because of it) the Founder did not at first regard him with complete confidence and recommended to him the study of the Langkvatra Stra, not considering him ripe for complete, non-dogmatic Zen. Eka waiting waist-deep in the snow for the Founder to instruct him. Masterpieces of Sessh, Pl. 45.
Sixth Patriarch. See above, p 15. Kokka, 289, 297.
Shimbi Taikwan, I, 13, shows him with his famous Zen stick. He is also sometimes depicted failing to answer an old market-woman's riddle; and tearing up his commentary on the Diamond Stra.
A painting by Indra (Kokka 173) shows him burning the wooden statue of Buddha at the Erin Temple.
The only writer who has made extracts from the works of Bodhidharma is Pre Wieger, whose remarks (in his Histoire des Croyances religieuses en Chine, pp. 517-528) show a robust and likeable bigotry.
Of Zen literature he says: "Nombre d'in-folio remplis de rponses incohrentes, insenses.... Ce ne sont pas, comme on l'a suppos, des allusions des affaires intrieures, qu'il faudrait connatre pour pouvoir comprendre. Ce sont des exclamations chappes des abrutis, momentanment tirs de leur coma."
