This text is replicated from an essay, Zen Buddhism by Alan Watts [1915 - 1973]: philosopher, writer, speaker, and self-styled 'philosophical entertainer' best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.
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Preface
This text is an extract from Zen Buddhism by philosopher, Alan Watts [1915 - 1973].
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Foreword
The substance of this essay, with several additions and alterations, was given as a lecture under the auspices of the Department of Religion at Beloit College, Wisconsin, in January, 1945. I am indebted, as ever, to Dr. D. T. Suzuki for his translations of original material, the greater part of those quoted being his unless otherwise indicated. I am also indebted for much general information upon the subject to the late Sokei-an Sasaki, Abbot of Jofuku-in, who lived and taught for many years in New York, though I do not wish to make him responsible for any of the opinions given lest they should be in error. Some of this information I owe also to Mrs. Sasaki, who let me read many of the manuscripts of his lectures and translations, and discussed them with me, though, for the same reason, I must not make her responsible either. It is a pleasure to me, however, to have this opportunity of expressing thanks to them all.
Alan W. Watts
Evanston, Illinois,
1946
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Zen Buddhism
There is nothing that men desire more than life - the fulness of life. Reality itself. In one form or another they try to possess it by every possible means, as happiness, as power, as joy, as wealth, as spiritual insight, and even as simple existence to which they cling with all their might for fear that it will be taken away. But one thing is certain: the harder you try to possess life, the faster it slips away from you, and the less you understand of its mystery. For life itself, whatever it may be, cannot be grasped in any form, whether of matter, of emotion, or of thought. The moment you try to hold it in a fixed form, you miss it. Water drawn from the stream is no longer living water, for it ceases to flow. This is what the Buddha meant in saying that the cause of all human misery was trishna or selfish craving, because trishna is the attempt to grasp life in some form, more especially in the form of one’s own personal existence. Man can only become alive in the fullest sense when he no longer tries to grasp life, when he releases his own life from the strangle-hold of possessiveness so that it can go free and really be itself.
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'.... one thing is certain: the harder you try to possess life, the faster it slips away from you, and the less you understand of its mystery. For life itself, whatever it may be, cannot be grasped in any form, whether of matter, of emotion, or of thought. The moment you try to hold it in a fixed form, you miss it.'
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In practice, almost all religions are attempts to grasp the mystery of life in either an intellectual formula or an emotional experience. Wherever it may be found, higher religion involves the discovery that this cannot be done, and that therefore man must relax his fearful grip upon life or God and permit it to possess him as, in fact, it does all the time whether he knows it or not. Zen Buddhism is a unique example of this kind of higher religion, and because the word 'Zen' indicates this very spiritual state of full liveliness and non-grasping, it is really impossible to define Zen. Nevertheless, Zen has a philosophical and religious history by means of which we can arrive at some suggestion of its meaning.
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The Background of Zen
As a specific type of Buddhism Zen is first found in China, being the peculiarly Chinese version of the kind of Buddhism that was brought from India by the sage Bodhidharma in about the year A.D. 527. Bodhidharma’s Buddhism was a variety of the Mahayana School which flourished in Northern India from some three to four hundred years after the time of the Buddha himself, who lived during the sixth century B.C. Passing to China, Mahayana Buddhism virtually died out in India within from five to six hundred years after Bodhidharma’s time. Bodhidharma’s school was known as Dhyana Buddhism, pronounced Ch’an in Chinese and Zen in Japanese, and though the nearest English equivalent of Dhyana is 'contemplation' this term has acquired a static and even dreamy connotation quite foreign to Dhyana. Dhyana, Ch’an or Zen means immediate insight into the nature of Reality or life. In contact with Taoism and Confucianism and the practical Chinese spirit, Dhyana Buddhism became Zen as we can recognise it today in the seventh century A.D., largely under the influence of Hui-neng [or Wei-lang], whose Tan-ching or Platform Sutra is one of its great foundation texts. From 713, when Hui-neng died, until the close of the thirteenth century, Zen underwent an intense development in China, exercising a profound effect upon Chinese art and culture. Ei-sai brought it to Japan in 1191, where it may be found to this day in its most vital form and where, too, it has had an extremely far-reaching effect upon the national culture.
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'In brief, Zen accounts for itself in the following way. Gautama Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Enlightened One, as the result of a profound spiritual experience, an immediate knowledge of Reality, which he realised while meditating under the famous Bodhi Tree near Gaya in Northern India.'
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In brief, Zen accounts for itself in the following way. Gautama Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Enlightened One, as the result of a profound spiritual experience, an immediate knowledge of Reality, which he realised while meditating under the famous Bodhi Tree near Gaya in Northern India. This knowledge, being ineffable [indescribable], could never be put into words, and all the Buddha’s verbal teaching was simply an indication or suggestion of its nature, a mere device [upāya] for awakening men to real insight. The knowledge itself was, however, directly and mysteriously passed on to Mahākāśyapa, the Buddha’s chief disciple, and thence through a line of patriarchs to Bodhidharma, who brought it to China, where it continued to be passed from teacher to teacher. Because this knowledge can never be written down Zen does not rely on scriptures, even though it may use them as devices. Words cannot convey it, just as they cannot describe colours to a blind man. Thus Zen is summed up as:
A special transmission [of insight] outside the scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing to the soul of man;
Seeing into one’s own nature.
To understand Zen adequately, however, we must realise that it is the fruit and synthesis of the most important trends in both Indian and Chinese religion.
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The Background of Zen
Indian religion has ever been characterized by the quest for 'that One thing, knowing which we shall know all.' In the Upanishads this 'One thing' is termed Brahman, the absolute Reality of the universe beyond all opposites. All ordinary things and experiences have opposites; life is opposed to death, pleasure to pain, joy to sorrow, light to darkness. These opposites are mutually necessary to one another, so that life is always limited by death, and joy by sorrow. But Reality itself has no opposite; it is advaita, non-dual, and the soul of man is only delivered from death and sorrow by realising its identity with Reality. For the Upanishads taught that Brahman is the true nature of ourselves and of all things. Not to realise this is ignorance [avidyā] and unhappiness, but to know it is true knowledge [vidyā] and a transcendental happiness which is eternal because, strange to say, it too has no opposite. Thus the religion of the Upanishads was more or less pantheistic,* believing that all forms and objects were in fact manifestations of the One Absolute.
* pantheism [n.] a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God.
Primitive Indian Buddhism also sought this Reality, but its way of approach was purely psychological. The Buddha felt that philosophical speculation about Reality was a waste of time and even a positive hindrance. Reality or Nirvana lay beyond all definition, and nothing was of importance but an immediate and intimate experience of it, and this could only be had by getting rid of trishna. Reality is here and now, but it is concealed by attempts to grasp it in this form or that.
Later Indian Buddhism, which is to say Mahayana, returned somewhat to philosophy, and took the traditional idea of Reality a step further. Whereas the Upanishads described this non-dual Reality as the One, Mahayana felt this term misleading. One is opposed to Many and None, for which reason Reality must transcend even one-ness. For the same reason, Mahayana went beyond pantheism. To say that all things are one is to reduce everything to something which is still short of non-duality, since, as we have seen, one-ness has an opposite and so cannot be the absolute. Furthermore, the very statement, 'All things are Reality,' contains an implied opposition between 'all things' and 'Reality.' In making such a statement we are uniting two things which are in no need of union. They are already united, and to try to create the union in thought or in feeling is to imply to oneself that it does not already exist. Nirvana [the state of Reality] IS saṃsāra [the state of ordinary life[ and the very act of trying to realise that they are one implies that they are not. In any case, Reality is not one; it is non-dual, having no opposite at all.
Therefore Mahayana spoke of Reality as tathātā, or thusness, and as śūnyatā, or the void, considered not as mere emptiness but as 'solid emptiness.' Śūnyatā resembles a crystal ball, which is visible to our eyes only because of what it reflects. Hold it up before the empty sky, and there seems to be nothing in it, but only because it is reflecting the emptiness of the sky. Its true nature remains unknown. As the crystal ball reflects images, the manifold universe appears spontaneously within Śūnyatā. 'There is nothing in it, but everything comes out of it.' Śūnyatā is the all-inclusive; having no opposite, there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. This was a philosophical theory expressing a spiritual and psychological state - the state of non-grasping or freedom from trishna. To thought and sense and feeling Reality is a void, for they cannot lay hold on it or keep it in any fixed form. But it is a living void, because all forms come out of it, and whoever realizes it is filled with life and power and the Bodhisattva’s love [karuṇā] for all beings.