Online Book Reader

Home Category

The Way of Zen - Alan Watts [58]

By Root 542 0
personal monastic name. On the other hand, Hsüan-chüeh is Yung-chia Hsüan-chüeh, in Japanese Yoka Genkaku. But the Japanese writers usually employ his locality name, Yoka! On the whole, Suzuki uses locality names and Fung Yu-lan monastic names. Suzuki sometimes gives the Japanese form, and sometimes the Chinese, but uses a somewhat different way of romanizing the Chinese than Fung (or rather Bodde, the translator). Lin-chi I-hsüan (Rinzai Gigen) appears in Suzuki mostly as Rinzai and sometimes as Lin-chi, but in Fung he is Yi-hsüan! Dumoulin and Sasaki make some attempt at consistency by using only the Japanese forms, but then it is impossible at first sight to distinguish Chinese from Japanese individuals. Thus anyone who studies Zen from other than the original sources is confronted with a situation which makes historical clarity extremely difficult. Suzuki has been so widely read that most Western students of Zen are familiar with his usage, however inconsistent, and I do not want to confuse them further by such an attempt at consistency as calling Hui-neng by his locality name, Ta-chien. All I can offer is an index giving all the names. To make matters worse, there is also much confusion with respect to dates. For Shen-hui, Fung gives 686–760, Gernet 668–760, and Dumoulin and Sasaki 668–770.

24 This period is treated in detail in Dumoulin and Sasaki (1). Demiéville (2) has translated a Tun-huang ms. (Pelliot 4646) concerning a debate held at Lhasa c. 792–794 between a master of the Sudden Ch’an School and a group of Indian Buddhist scholars. The Ch’an master is identified only by the name “Mahayana” and there is apparently nothing to link him with the tradition descending from Hui-neng. His doctrine seems to be somewhat more quietistic than that of the Sixth Patriarch. The fact that the Indian scholars were astonished and repelled by his teaching suggests its purely Chinese origin.

25 Shen-hui Ho-chang I-chi. The Chinese text has been edited by Hu Shih, Shanghai, 1930.

26 I.e., the Dharmakaya, for which see above, p. 71. Full translations of the Cheng-tao Ke (Japanese, Shodoka) will be found in Suzuki (6) and Senzaki and McCandless (1).

27 Ch’uan Teng Lu, 5.

28 Ku-tsun-hsü Yü-lu, 1. 6.

29 Ibid., 1. 4.

30 In Suzuki (6), p. 123.

31 Wu-men kuan, 19.

32 Ibid., 1.

33 Ibid., 7.

34 Chao-chou Yü-lu, in Ku-tsun-hsü Yü-lu, 3. 13.

35 The somewhat misleading word “monk” seems to be the inevitable translation of seng,x though yun shui,v “cloud and water,” is a common and revealingly picturesque term for the Zen student, who “drifts like a cloud and flows like water.” But I am at a loss to find a concise English expression for this term.

36 In Chu Ch’an (1), pp. 16 and 18. Another partial translation appears in Suzuki (6), pp. 132–40.

37 In Chu Ch’an (1), pp. 42–43.

38 Ch’uan Teng Lu, 12.

39 Lin-chi Lu in Ku-tsun-hsü Yü-lu, 1. 4, pp. 5–6.

40 Ibid., p. 7.

41 Ibid., p. 11.

42 For a fuller description see below, p. 159. In its Japanese form Koan, the syllables are pronounced separately-Ko-an.

43 Jen-t’ien Yen-mu, 2.

44 Because my purpose is only to give enough of the history of Zen to serve as a background for its doctrine and practice, I am not entering into any full discussion of its history in Japan. The work of Dogen, Hakuin, Bankei, and others will be discussed in another context.

45 An example of this fusion may be seen in the T’ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih, a treatise of the Ming or perhaps Ch’ing dynasty, for which see Wilhelm (1).

46 Ku-tsun-hsü Yü-lu, 1. 1, p. 2.

47 It is true that a text known as the T’so-chan I, or “Directions for Za-zen,” is incorporated in the Po-chang Ching-kuei–the regulations for the Zen community attributed to Po-chang (720–814)–and that the regulations themselves prescribe times for meditation. However, we can find no edition of this work prior to 1265 (Suzuki), and it may even be as late as 1338 (Dumoulin). The existing version shows the influence of the Shingon sect, which is akin to Tibetan Lamaism and came to China during the eighth century.

48 See Suzuki (10), pp. 176–80.

Return Main Page Previous Page Next Page

®Online Book Reader