Essays in Zen Buddhism · 9 of 66

Zen and Enlightenment: Zen and Enlightenment, Part 1

The origin of Zen, as is the case with all other forms of Buddhism, is to be sought in Supreme Perfect Enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi) attained by the Buddha while he was sitting under the Bodhi-tree, near the city of Gaya. If this Enlightenment is of no value and signification to the development of Buddhism, Zen then has nothing to do with Buddhism, it was altogether another thing created by the genius of Bodhi-Dharma who visited China early in the sixth century. But if Enlightenment is the raison d’être of Buddhism, that is to say, if Buddhism is an edifice erected on the solid basis of Enlightenment, realised by the Buddha and making up his being, Zen is the central pillar which supports the entire structure, it composes the direct line of continuation drawn out from the content of the Buddha’s illumined mind. Traditionally Zen is considered to have been transmitted by the Buddha to his foremost disciple, Mahākāśyapa, when the Buddha held out a bunch of flowers to his congregation, the meaning of which was at once grasped by Mahākāśyapa who quietly smiled at him. The historicity of this incident is justly criticised, but knowing the value of Enlightenment we cannot ascribe the authority of Zen just to such an episode as this. Zen was in fact handed over not only to Mahākāśyapa but to all beings who will follow the steps of the Buddha, the Enlightened One.

Like a true Indian the Buddha’s idea of ascetic meditation was to attain Vimoksha (or simply Moksha, deliverance) from the bondage of birth and death. There were several ways open to him to reach the goal. According to the Brahman philosophers of those days, the great fruit of deliverance could be matured by embracing religious truth, or by practising asceticism or chastity, or by learning, or by freeing oneself from passions. Each in its way was an excellent means, and if they were practised severally or all together, they might result in emancipation of some kind. But the philosophers talked about methods and did not give one any trustworthy information concerning their actual spiritual experience, and what the Buddha wished was this self-realisation, a personal experience, an actual insight into truth, and not mere discoursing about methods, or playing with concepts. He detested all philosophical reasonings which he called dṛishti or darśana, for they would lead him nowhere, bring him no practical result in his spiritual life. He was never satisfied until he inwardly realised the Bodhi as the truth immediately presented to his transcendental consciousness and whose absolute nature was so inner, so self-convincing that he had no doubt whatever in regard to its universal validity. The content of this Enlightenment was explained by the Buddha as the Dharma which was to be directly perceived (sandiṭṭhika), beyond limits of time (akalika), to be personally experienced (ehipassika), altogether persuasive (opanayika), and to be understood each for himself by the wise (paccattaṁ veditabbo viññuhi). This meant that the Dharma was to be intuited and not to be analytically reached by concepts. The reason why the Buddha so frequently refused to answer metaphysical problems was partly due to his conviction that the ultimate truth was to be realised in oneself through one’s own efforts; for all that could be gained through discursive understanding was the surface of things and not things themselves, conceptual knowledge never gave full satisfaction to one’s religious yearning. The attainment of the Bodhi could not be the accumulation of dialectical subtleties. And this is the position taken up by Zen Buddhism as regards what it considers a final reality. Zen in this respect faithfully follows the injunction of the Master.

That the Buddha had an insight of higher order into the nature of things than that which could be obtained through ordinary logical reasoning is evidenced everywhere even in the so-called Hinayana literature. To cite just one instance from the Brahmajāla Sutta in which the Buddha deals with all the heretical schools that were in existence in his days, he invariably makes reference after refuting them to the Tathagata’s deeper understanding which goes beyond their speculations “wriggling like an eel.” What they discuss just for the sake of discussion and to show the keenness of their analytical faculty about the soul, future life, eternity, and other important spiritual subjects, is not productive of any actual benefits for our inner welfare. The Buddha knew well where these reasonings would finally lead to and how trivial and unwholesome they were after all. So we read in the Brahmajāla Sutta: “Of these, Brethren, the Tathagata knows that these speculations thus arrived at, thus insisted on, will have such and such a result, such and such an effect on the future condition of those who trust in them. That does he know, and he knows also other things far beyond (far better than those speculations): and having that knowledge he is not puffed up, and thus untarnished he has in his own heart realised the way of escape from them, has understood, as they really are, the rising up and passing away of sensations, their sweet taste, their danger, how they cannot be relied on; and not grasping after any [of those things men are eager for], he, the Tathagata, is quite set free.”

While the ideal of Arhatship was no doubt the entering into Nirvana that leaves nothing behind (anupādhiśesha), whatever this may mean, it did not ignore the significance of Enlightenment, no, it could not do so very well without endangering its own reason of existence. For Nirvana was nothing else in its essence than Enlightenment, the content was identical in either case. Enlightenment was Nirvana reached while yet in the flesh, and no Nirvana was ever possible without obtaining Enlightenment. The latter may have a more intellectual note in it than the former, which is a psychological state realised through Enlightenment. Bodhi is spoken of in the so-called primitive Buddhism just as much as Nirvana. So long as passions (kleśa) were not subdued, and the mind still remained enshrouded in ignorance, no Buddhists could ever dream of obtaining a Moksha (deliverance) which is Nirvana, and this deliverance from Ignorance and passions was the work of Enlightenment. Generally Nirvana is understood in its negative aspect as the total extinction of everything, body and soul, but in the actuality of life no such negativist conception could ever prevail, and the Buddha never meant Nirvana to be so interpreted. If there were nothing affirmative in Nirvana, the Mahayanists could never have evolved the positive conception of it later. Though the immediate disciples of the Buddha were not conscious of this, there was always the thought of Enlightenment implied in it. Enlightenment attained by the Buddha after a week’s meditation under the Bodhi-tree could not be of no consequence to his Arhat-disciples, however negatively the latter tended to apply this principle to the attainment of their life-object.

The true significance of Enlightenment was effectively brought out by the Mahayanists not only in its intellectual implications but in its moral and religious bearings. The result was the conception of Bodhisattvaship in contradistinction to Arhatship, the ideal of their rival school. The Arhat and the Bodhisattva are essentially the same. But the Mahayanists, perceiving a deeper sense in Enlightenment as the most important constituent element in the attainment of the final goal of Buddhism, which is spiritual freedom (ceto-vimutti), as the Nikāyas have it, did not wish to have it operated in themselves only, but wanted to see it realised in every being sentient and even non-sentient. Not only this was their subjective yearning, but there was an objective basis on which the yearning could be justified and realised. It was the presence in every individual of a faculty designated by the Mahayanists as Prajñā. This was the principle that made Enlightenment possible in us as well as in the Buddha. Without Prajñā there could be no Enlightenment, which was the highest spiritual power in our possession. The intellect or what is ordinarily known by Buddhist scholars as Vijñāna, was relative in its activity, and could not comprehend the ultimate truth which was Enlightenment. And it was due to this ultimate truth that we could lift ourselves above the dualism of matter and spirit, of ignorance and wisdom, of passion and non-attachment. Enlightenment consisted in personally realising the truth, ultimate and absolute and capable of affirmation. Thus we are all Bodhisattvas now, beings of Enlightenment, if not in actuality, then potentially. Bodhi-sattvas are also Prajñā-sattvas, as we are universally endowed with Prajñā, which, when fully and truly operating, will realise in us Enlightenment, and intellectually (in its highest sense) lift us above appearances, which is a state designated by Nikaya Buddhists as “emancipation of mind or reason” (paññā-vimutti or sammad-aññā vimutti).

If by virtue of Enlightenment Gautama was transformed into the Buddha, and then if all beings are endowed with Prajñā and capable of Enlightenment, that is, if they are thus Bodhisattvas, the logical conclusion will be that Bodhisattvas are all Buddhas, or destined to be Buddhas as soon as sufficient conditions obtain. 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 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?

How extensively and intensively the concept of Enlightenment influenced the development of Mahayana Buddhism may be seen in the composition of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, which is really one of the profoundest Mahayana protests against the Hinayana conception of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. According to the latter, the Buddha attained it at Gayā while meditating under the Bodhi-tree, for they regarded the Buddha as a mortal being like themselves, subject to historical and psychological conditions. But the Mahayanists could not be satisfied with such a realistic common-sense interpretation of the personality of the Buddha, they saw something in it which went deep into their hearts and wanted to come in immediate touch with it. What they sought was finally given, and they found that the idea of the Buddha’s being a common soul was a delusion, that the Tathagata arrived in his Supreme Perfect Enlightenment “many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of æons ago,” and that all those historical “facts” in his life which are recorded in the Agama or Nikaya literature are his “skilful devices” (upāya-kauśalya) to lead creatures to full ripeness and go in the Buddha Way. In other words, this means that Enlightenment is the absolute reason of the universe and the essence of Buddhahood, and therefore that to obtain Enlightenment is to realise in one’s inner consciousness the ultimate truth of the world which for ever is. While the Puṇḍarīka emphasises the Buddha-aspect of Enlightenment, Zen directs its attention mainly to the Enlightenment-aspect of Buddhahood. When this latter aspect is considered intellectually, we have the philosophy of Buddhist dogmatics, which is studied by scholars of the Tendai (t‘ien-tai), Kegon (avataṁsaka), Hosso, (dharmalaksha), and other schools. Zen approaches it from the practical side of life, that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

Seeing that the idea of Enlightenment played such an important rôle in the development of Mahayana Buddhism, what is the content of it? Can we describe it in an intelligible manner so that our analytical intellect could grasp it and make it an object of thought? The Fourfold Noble Truth was not the content of Enlightenment, nor was the Twelvefold Chain of Causation, nor the Eightfold Righteous Path. The truth flashed through the Buddha’s consciousness was not such a thought capable of discursive unfolding. When he exclaimed:

“Through birth and rebirth’s endless round, Seeking in vain, I hastened on, To find who framed this edifice, What misery!—birth incessantly!

“O builder! I’ve discovered thee! This fabric thou shall ne’er rebuild! The rafters all are broken now, And pointed roof demolished lies! This mind has demolition reached, And seen the last of all desire!”

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.

Therefore, again with all his memory and learning, Ānanda could not sound the bottom of the Buddha’s wisdom, while the latter was still alive. According to tradition, Ānanda’s attainment to Arhatship took place at the time of the First Convocation in which he was not allowed to take part in spite of his twenty-five years’ attendance upon the Buddha. Grieving over the fact, he spent the whole night perambulating in an open square, and when he was about to lay himself down on a couch all exhausted, he all of a sudden came to realise the truth of Buddhism, which with all his knowledge and understanding had escaped him all those years.

What does this mean? Arhatship is evidently not a matter of scholarship; it is something realised in the twinkling of an eye after a long arduous application to the matter. The preparatory course may occupy a long stretch of time, but the crisis breaks out at a point instantaneously, and one is an Arhat, or a Bodhisattva, or even a Buddha. The content of Enlightenment must be quite simple in nature and yet tremendous in effect. That is to say, intellectually, it must transcend all the complications involved in an epistemological exposition of it; and psychologically, it must be the reconstruction of one’s entire personality. Such a fundamental fact naturally evades description, and can be grasped only by an act of intuition and through personal experience. It is really the Dharma in its highest sense. If by “the stirring of one thought” Ignorance came into our life, the awakening of another thought must put a stop to Ignorance and bring about Enlightenment. And in this there is no thought to be an object of logical consciousness or empirical reasoning; for in Enlightenment thinker and thinking and thought are merged in the one act of seeing into the very being of Self. No further explanation of the Dharma is possible, hence an appeal to via negativa. And this has reached its climax in the Śūnyatā philosophy of Nāgārjuna, which is based upon the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā literature of Buddhism.

So we see that Enlightenment is not the outcome of an intellectual process in which one idea follows another in sequence finally to terminate in conclusion or judgment. There is neither process nor judgment in Enlightenment, it is something more fundamental, something which makes a judgment possible, and without which no form of judgment can take place. In judgment there are a subject and a predicate; in Enlightenment subject is predicate, and predicate is subject; they are here merged as one, but not as one of which something can be stated, but as one from which arises judgment. We cannot go beyond this absolute oneness; all the intellectual operations stop here; when they endeavour to go further, they draw a circle in which they for ever repeat themselves. This is the wall against which all philosophies have beaten in vain. 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. Hitherto one may have been intellectually convinced of the truth of a certain proposition, but somehow it has not yet entered into his life, the truth still lacks ultimate confirmation, and he cannot help feeling a vague sense of indeterminateness and uneasiness. Enlightenment now comes upon him in a mysterious way without any previous announcement, and all is settled with him, he is an Arhat or even a Buddha. The dragon has got its eyes dotted, and it is no more a lifeless image painted on a canvas, but winds and rains are its willing servants now.