Abstract
For more than a quarter of a century, my learned friend, Dr. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, formerly of the Otani University, Kyoto, Japan, has been interpreting and introducing Zen Buddhism to the Western world. Through his untiring effort and through his many books on Zen, he has succeeded in winning an audience and a number of followers, notably in England. As a friend and as a historian of Chinese thought, I have followed Suzuki’s work with keen interest. But I have never concealed from him my disappointment in his method of approach. My greatest disappointment has been that, according to Suzuki and his disciples, Zen is illogical, irrational, and, therefore, beyond our intellectual understanding. In his book Living by Zen Suzuki tells us:It is this denial of the capability of the human intelligence to understand and evaluate Zen that I emphatically refuse to accept. Is the so-called Ch’an or Zen really so illogical and irrational that it is “altogether beyond the ken of human understanding” and that our rational or rationalistic way of thinking is of no use “in evaluating the truth and untruth of Zen”?
Chapter Note: Philosophy East and West. Apr., 1953. Vol. 3. No.1. pp. 3–24.
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Notes
- 1.
Suzuki, Living by Zen (Tokyo: Sanseido Press, 1949), p. 20.
- 2.
Essays in Zen Buddhism (London: Luzac and Company, 1927), Second Series, p. 189.
- 3.
These records include the following:
-
A.
Wang Wei 王维 (699–759), Liu-Tsu Nêng-Ch’an-Shih Pei 六祖能禅师碑 (“Biographical Monument of the Ch’an Master Hui-nêng”) in T’ang Wên Ts’ui 唐文粹, section 63.
-
B.
Tsung-mi 宗密 (died 841), Yüan-Chiao-Ching Ta-Shu Shih-I Ch’ao 圆觉经大疏词释义钞 (A Detailed Commentary on the Yüan-Chiao-Ching, Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment) in the Kyoto Supplement of the Tripitaka, I. xiv. 3b, containing biographical notes on Hui-nêng and Shên-hui.
-
C.
Tsung-mi, Ch’an-Yüan-Chu-Ch’üan-Chi Tu Hsü 禅源诸诠集都序 (General Preface to the Collection of Source-Material of the Ch’an Schools? “The Fountainheads of Ch’an”) in Taishō Tripitaka, 2015, 48.
-
D.
Chan-ning 赞宁 (918–999), Sung Kao-Sêng Chuan 宋高僧传 (The Sung Series of Biographies of Eminent Monks), Book 8, containing the biographies of Hui-nêng and Shên-hui.
-
A.
- 4.
Of these newly discovered materials—the Tunhuang Manuscripts—I wish to mention here only the following published ones:
-
A.
Shên-Hui Ho-Shang I Chi 神会和尚遗集 (The Surviving Works of the Monk Shên-Hui), consisting of three Tunhuang MSS. nos. 3047a, b, and 3488, of the Paul Pelliot Collection at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and one MS. no. S.468, of the Sir Aurel Stein Collection at the British Museum. Edited and published with a new biography of Shên-hui by Hu Shih, Shanghai, 1930. They are referred to in this paper as Shên-hui’s Discourses.
Acomplete French translation of Hu Shih’s edition of these four MSS. has been published by Jacques Gernet under the title “Entrêtiens du Maître de Dhyâna Chen-houei du Ho-tsö,” in Publications de l’école française d’Extrême-Orient, Vol. XXXI, Hanoi, 1949. Gernet has also published “Biographie du Maître Chen-houei du Ho-tsö,” in Journal Asiatique, Tome CCXXXIX, 1951.
-
B.
Ho-Tsê Shên-Hui Ch’an-Shih Yü-Lu 荷泽神会禅师语录 (Discourses of the Ch’an Master Shên-Hui of Ho-tsê), consisting of another Tunhuang MS. more or less corresponding to the Pelliot MS. no. 3047a published by Hu Shih. This MS. came to the possession of Mitsui Ishü of Japan, who, in 1932, made a collotype reprint of it for private circulation. In 1934, Suzuki collated the Ishü MS. with the Hu Shih edition and published a new edition in movable type under the above title. This MS. lacks the beginning parts (pp. 97–103 of Hu Shih ed.), but contains additional material at the end (pp. 49–67 of Suzuki ed.), including a sketch of the life-story of the Sixth Patriarch, Hui-nêng (pp. 60–64).
-
A.
- 5.
The School of Lankǎ was named after the Lankāvatāra Sūtra which its founder, Bodhidharma, was said to have told his followers to regard as “the only translated Scripture which, if followed in conduct, may lead to salvation.” The school was noted for the ascetic (t’ou-t’o, dhūta in Sanskrit) life of its followers, each monk allowing himself only one dress, one bowl and two needles, and begging one meal a day, and living under trees or in caves or hills far away from human dwelling places. See Hu Shih, “Lêng-Chia Tsung K’ao” 楞伽丛考 (A Study of the Lankā School) in Hu Shih Lun Hsüeh Chin Chu 胡适论学近著 (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1935), pp. 198–238.
- 6.
For a traditional account of Bodhidharma, see Suzuki, Essays, First Series, pp. 163–178. For a more critical account, see Hu Shih, “Development of Zen Buddhism in China,” The Chinese Social and Political Science Review, Vol. XV, no. 4, 486–489.
According to my studies, Bodhidharma arrived in South China about 470–475 A.D. and lived in China for about 50 years, mostly in the North. This view differs radically from the traditional story which says that he arrived in China in 520 or 527 and that he returned to India after only 9 years of sojourn in China.
- 7.
The doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment was first taught by the philosophical monk Tao-shêng 道生 who died in A.D. 434. See Hu Shih, “Development of Zen Buddhism in China,” The Chinese Social and Political Science Review, Vol. XV, no. 4. 483–485.
- 8.
See Suzuki’s translation of Bodhidharma’s teachings in Essays, First Series, pp. 178–181.
- 9.
A Note on the T’an-ching 坛经. The book called The Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch (Liu-Tsu T’an-ching 六祖坛经) or The Sūtra of Hui-Nêng which has been translated into English by Wong Moulam under the title of The Sūtra of Wei Lang (London; The Buddhist Society, 1944) is a work of dubious authenticity. It was probably originally composed late in the eighth century. But the original text has been greatly revised and greatly enlarged by later interpolations throughout the ages so that the current edition (on which the English translation was based) is about twice the length of the oldest text preserved in the Tunhuang caves and brought to the British Museum by Sir Aurel Stein in 1907. This earliest text is now accessible in the Taishō Tripitaka, 2007, 48, and also in Suzuki’s edition of 1934.
This earliest text contains about 11,000 Chinese characters. The current edition contains about 22,000 characters. So about half of the current edition of the T’an-ching represents the interpolations and additions of the last ten centuries.
Internal evidence shows that even the oldest text of Tunhuang is made up of two parts, the second half being apparently a later addition.
What can we say of the first half—the original text—of the T’an-ching? Twenty years ago I suggested that Shên-hui was probably the author, because the major ideas contained in it were undoubtedly taken from Shên-hui’s Discourses. I have ` modified my earlier opinion. I now suggest that the original T’an-ching was composed by an eighth-century monk, most likely a follower of Shên-hui’s school, who had read the latter’s Discourses and decided to produce a Book of the Sixth Patriarch by rewriting his life-story in the form of fictionized autobiography and by taking a few basic ideas from Shên-hui and padding them into Sermon of Hui-nêng.
- 10.
Liang Su, “On the T’ien-t’ai School,” in T’ang Wên Ts’ui, section 61.
- 11.
Suzuki, Essays, First Series, p. 317.
- 12.
Chêng Yü 郑愚 “Biographical Monument of Ling-yu,” in T’ang Wên Ts’ui, section 63.
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Chou, CP. (2013). Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method. In: Chou, CP. (eds) English Writings of Hu Shih. China Academic Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31181-9_22
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