Zen Buddhism

An interesting but exceedingly difficult problem is the one as to what place Zen Buddhism has in Japanese culture. The answer to this question is peculiarly difficult because Zen Buddhism is not and has not been the sole religion of Japan, but during the greater part of its long history in this land it has been closely bound up with Shinto and Confucianism; so that even today, though it is officially separated from Shinto, a great many Japanese are Shintoists, Confucianists and Buddhists at one and the same time. Some writers speak of Shinto as the root, Confucianism as the branches and leaves, and Buddhism as the flowers and fruit of the tree of Japanese civilization (Dumoulin and Heisig 45). This conception is not altogether wrong, for it is true that historically Shinto comes first, and that in organizing legal and educational institutions Confucianism has played a prominent part, and that finally the chief contribution of Buddhism lies in the realm of art, philosophy and religion. But since art, philosophy and religion are not only the flower and fruit of a civilization but also in turn become the root and branches of the succeeding stages, Buddhism has been a real part of the roots, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit of the Japanese tree of life. That is, its influence has been so profound that there is no aspect of Japanese life which has not been greatly modified by it.
Among the major contributions which Buddhism made to Japanese life we must place first and foremost the fact that it has been a vehicle of the higher civilization of the continent. This was true not only during its beginnings in this land when it so obviously was the means of bringing in the wealth of Korean and Chinese culture, but down to the Tokugawa period the Buddhist monks and priests continued to be the chief means by which Japan kept in touch with the rest of the world (Eliot 112). The point cannot be overstated, for just as truly as Christian missionaries from Europe and America have been the apostles of a superior civilization to the backward nations of the world, so have the Buddhists often been to Japan the messengers of progress and light. In a real sense has Buddhism been the "Light of Asia," and perhaps no part of Asia has received as much through it as has Japan (Eliot 115). However, it does not mean that Japan would have remained in darkness if it had not been for the religion of the Buddha. But the history of Japan having been what it was, it is correct to say that Buddhism has been a determining factor, and that the sources of Japanese culture have been either directly or indirectly mainly Buddhist.
In the field of art it is more correct to say that Zen Buddhism created certain branches of Japanese art than simply that it influenced them. Thus Japanese architecture, sculpture and painting are what they are because Zen Buddhism has made them so. Music and poetry have also been influenced, though perhaps to a lesser degree.
If in the field of architecture we were to remove from these pine-clad hills and valleys the Buddhist temples, monasteries and flights of stone steps leading up to them, very little of grandeur or beauty would remain. The average Japanese house seems to be a development of the primeval hut and as a work of architecture it cannot claim a very high place. What makes it attractive is not any architectural feature but rather the cleanliness, neatness and simplicity of the interior; or it may be its picturesque environment. The Shintō shrine, too, cannot be said to rank very high, though the shrine entrance, the Torii, may be regarded as a real work of art. But it is really only when we come to Buddhist buildings that Japanese architecture can make any claims.
In the field of sculpture Japan is relatively much richer, and it has many elements of Zen Buddhism. What existed of this art before the introduction of Zen Buddhism may be classed with the crude clay figures produced by most primitive peoples (Izutsu 54). It is surprising in what a short time really world masterpieces in bronze, clay and wood were produced. The world's largest bronze statue belongs to Japanese Buddhism of the eighth century. It is true that this does not rank so very high as a work of art, but there are many smaller relics of that period which do rank high. And not only during that first period did the Buddhist sculptor carve his ideals in wood and bronze, but all down through the centuries he dominated this art. The thousands and tens of thousands of images and statues which are to be found in temples, temple grounds, along the highways and byways, in cities, towns and villages, in valleys, on hills, mountain sides and mountain peaks, -- all these are the handiwork of the Buddhist artists (Izutsu 101).
And if Zen Buddhist ideals have guided the chisel and the knife, they have also inspired the pencil and the brush. In a land of such natural beauty as Japan one would naturally expect the painter to be inspired largely by his wonderful environment, but instead of that, practically all the older schools of painters were inspired by Chinese masterpieces introduced by Zen Buddhism. Thus one student of the subject says that "it may safely be asserted that not one in twenty of the productions of these painters, who to the present day are considered to represent the true genius of Japanese art, was inspired by the works of nature as seen in their own beautiful country." (Dumoulin et al 88). In fact the very neglect of perspective in landscape paintings and the "impossible mountains" in these are well-known characteristics (Eliot 76). It may be that the very exquisiteness of the scenery in Japan has made the artist despair of ever producing it on canvas, and so instead he seeks only to suggest it, leaving everything but a few bold strokes marking the outline to be supplied by the imagination.
Zen can be a religion without being religious. The live Zen quality thrives on indirection, not going obviously but deviously. This may explain the love of the dragon, lurking in bronze miniature on tiny islands in gardens; larger on eaves.
The oldest Japanese painting, dating as it is believed from the seventh century, is a mural decoration in Hōryūji, a Buddhist temple near Nara (Dumoulin et al 121). Practically all the leading schools down to the present day had their birth in a Buddhist atmosphere. Thus the great painters, Chō Densu and Jōsetsu, the most famous names in the most glorious period of Japanese painting, were Buddhist priests (Izutsu 45). The great men who succeeded them and founded independent schools, all kept true to the old traditions and preferred the models introduced from China by the Buddhist monks from century to century to the infinitely more perfect models which nature itself supplies to every artist in Japan. Thus while Zen Buddhism has created and nurtured the art of painting in Japan, it may also be said to have hindered the highest development in that it has imposed a slavish adherence to classic Buddhist models, and only occasionally have artists been able to break away from this tyranny, and paint as they really saw with their own eyes (Eliot 98).
The influence of Zen Buddhism on music, the most subtle of the arts, it would be difficult for any one not a real student of oriental music to estimate. One of the best authorities on the subject of the scale in Japanese music says that it consists "of five notes of the harmonic minor scale, the fourth and the seventh being omitted, because, as there are five recognized colors, five planets, five elements, five viscera and so on, there must also be five notes in music." (Dumoulin et al 99). Being written in the minor key its dominant note is that of melancholy and despair, and not that of joy and victory. Because of this, Japanese music, whether influenced by Zen Buddhism or not, is after all a real expression of that pessimistic philosophy of life of which Zen Buddhism is the best formulation. As one's understanding of this philosophy of life grows, one's ears also become more sympathetic with the music of it, and especially do one's ears respond to the one distinctively Buddhist instrument of Japan, namely, to the rich, mellow tones of the temple bell. Thus, "The suspended bell of Japan gives forth a voice of the most exquisite sweetness and harmony -- a voice that enhances the lovely landscapes and seascapes, across which the sweet solemn notes come floating on Autumn evenings, and in the stillness of Summer's noonday hazes. The song of the bell can never be forgotten by those that have once heard it. Their notes seem to have been born amid the eternal restfulness of the Buddhist paradise, and to have gathered, on their way to human ears, echoes of the sadness that prepares the soul for Nirvāna." (Eliot 143).
Japanese poetry, also, shows the influence of Zen Buddhism. It may be difficult to prove that the form of poetry has been much influenced but its contents reflect every aspect of Zen Buddhist thoughts and ideals. This is peculiarly true of the short stanzas called Tanka, consisting of not more than five lines and thirty-one syllables, and still more of the Hokku, consisting of only seventeen syllables (Izutsu 75). These short poems are really more like epigrams and so are apt vehicles of sentiments too deep for thought or ideals too lofty for many words. The favorite subject matter of these short poems are "the flowers, the birds, the snow, the moon, the falling leaves in autumn the mist on the mountains . . . and the shortness of human life," but the point of view from which these are treated is usually the Buddhist (Eliot 70). Thus the favorite cherry blossom is the symbol of the brave knight who does not cleave selfishly to this life; the moon is the symbol of the change to which all things are subject, the falling leaves in Autumn point the way of all life, and the shortness of human life is, of course, an ever-recurrent note in Buddhism; and the short stanza is especially well suited to give expression to a sigh over life's fleetingness.
Even the subject of love is dealt with in Japanese poetry from the standpoint of the Zen Buddhist doctrine of Karma. Thus lovers imagine themselves to be destined for each other because in their Karma preexistence they had loved; and the conjoint suicides so popular in this land are often inspired by the thought that the law of Karma will bring the lovers together in a future existence under more favorable conditions than the present (Izutsu 134).
Then a form of poetry which is distinctively Buddhist is the Wasan or Buddhist hymn. Though the Wasan is not ordinarily ranked very high as literature, occasionally these hymns rise to high levels and compare not unfavorably with our Christian hymns and songs (Dumoulin et al 95).
But if the influence of Zen Buddhism on Japanese life has been strong in the field of art, it has been perhaps even greater in the realm of philosophy and religion. In fact, it is very doubtful whether Shintō would have survived at all if it had been opposed by Zen Buddhism, and not incorporated into it; for Shintō was entirely too primitive to have satisfied much longer the growing intelligence of the Japanese (Eliot 77). Buddhism's victory might have been delayed but it would have been inevitable. And Confucianism, too, gained its hold in Japan largely because Buddhists propagated it. It was fostered by them because it supplemented the Buddhist teachings, especially in the field of practical ethics. Thus, as we have said, both Shintō and Confucianism had their place in Japanese life largely on terms laid down by Buddhism. This, of course, in turn affected Zen Buddhism and made it quite different in Japan from what it was in other lands. But still the genius of the religion of the Japanese people, especially in its higher intellectual and philosophical aspects, has been for centuries and still is today, more Buddhist than anything else.
What, then, are the chief contributions to the distinctively religious life of Japan which Zen Buddhism has made? First of all, Buddhism elevated and enlarged the conception of the Divine (Izutsu 85). Shinto rather referred to polytheism, and the Japanese had not yet advanced to the idea of the universal or the monistic whole. The elements of monism or monotheism found in present-day Shinto were not there when Buddhism first reached these shores; for, as we have said above, not until Buddhism had made itself felt was there even an attempt made to build up the various legends and myths of the native religion into a connected and reasoned whole (Dumoulin et al 116). But it is the very breath of the philosophy of Mahāyāna Buddhism to reduce the plurality of being to an all-embracing Divine Whole, and to regard the myriads of gods and individual beings as in some way the expression of the All-One (Eliot 45).
It is true, of course, that in popular Buddhism the gods of polytheistic Shinto and other cults have always played a prominent part; but even so, it must be admitted that Zen Buddhism did give the Japanese a loftier conception of the ultimate source of all reality than Shinto had (Izutsu 57).
Secondly, Zen Buddhism greatly enlarged the conception of man's destiny. The early Shinto ideal went very little beyond the conception of man as a creature of sense-experience. The gods were implored or propitiated in order that they might bestow upon the suppliant what he wanted for a prosperous and happy existence. And the happiness of existence lay not so much in the realm of an enriched personality, as in the realm of those things which satisfy the desires of the senses. What lay beyond the realm of sense or the point in time when the sense organs are dissolved in death, did not concern the early Shintoist so much (Dumoulin et al 59). Zen Buddhism, however, taught Japan that man's present life is but a moment of his existence and that the real life is more than the life of the body. In spite of the doctrine of the non-reality of the self, Zen Buddhism has impressed, through its doctrine of Karma, the thought of the far-reaching effects of the psychic forces in human life. It taught the Japanese to think of all things and to regard especially the individual human life in its relationship to the past and the future.
Thus it both minimized and magnified the place of man in the universe. It minimized man in that it exhibited him as but a fragment of the Whole. But it also magnified human life in that it showed that however small this fragment might be its destiny is wrapped up with the destiny of the Great All. To be sure, Zen Buddhism did not always have a very clear idea as to what this destiny might be, and often it seemed to be the destiny of Vacuity, but occasionally at least it held out to man a hope of a future life which was truly inspiring (Izutsu 74). And even in quarters where the hope of a larger future was not emphasized, or where it was left among the great uncertainties, the emphasis which such Buddhist thinkers placed on self-culture carried with it by way of implication the thought of a higher destiny; for what would self-culture mean if at the end of the road lay no real positive goal? That is, the schools in Japanese Buddhism which apparently denied the future life, after all, held out some sort of desired future to the individual and so ennobled the conception of man's destiny.
A third great contribution which Buddhism made to the religious and cultural life of Japan is the conception, or conceptions, regarding the way by which man can reach his higher destiny. Whatever have been the perversions of these conceptions -- the higher Buddhism has always insisted that it must be by way of obedience to the truth. Man must know the truth, and the truth shall set him free from the bondages of his little self into the liberty of the greater Something (Eliot 132). The doctrine of Karma, which runs all through Buddhist thought, on its better side means that this universe is under law. To know this law is to know the truth, and to obey the truth is to become superior to the law, or rather to direct the operations of the inexorable law in such a way as to bring man into a better and fuller life. Thus, Buddhism has always stood for the conception of a universe of rational laws which man must obey if he would advance into a larger and nobler life. This thought of obedience to the truth naturally leads us to the moral and ethical side of life in Japan.
The Zen -invented tea cult has long permeated Japanese culture, having taken the strenuous meditation practice of Zen, to gentle and soften it so that it can be enjoyed by everyone; thus spreading a mild degree of the aesthetic, moral and religious benefit of quiet sitting. The tea house in its garden is thatched and weathered, with cherished lack of ostentation. The influence of the avoidance of duality between the natural and the refined has kept Japanese houses close to nature and the love of wood; taking in the outside through sliding walls and outdoor decks. The half-dozen guests a tea hut will hold purify their hands with a Shinto dipper of water dripping into a hollow stone from a bamboo pipe before they enter, crouching through a low door that makes them all equal (Izutsu 163). Over the door on the inside will be a Zen saying, in characters so archaic and calligraphic that few can read them without being told what they are. Burned on a board they may say: "Bamboo is green, flowers are red," or something like "Water is water," to express the Zen feeling that things are the way they are, and that that is good (Izutsu 165). Above the bare branch arranged in the alcove will hang a scroll with a black-ink painting of a landscape faintly suggested, at one of the four seasons, and a brief poem in keeping. The verses and the painting, illustrating and supporting each other, are done with similar brush strokes. The writing on the scroll, in thirty-one or seventeen syllables, is like a condensed sonnet, just suggesting an image and a thought. The manner of the brush is quite as important as what is written. I
In Japan to learn to write is also to learn to paint, and people may all their lives go on practicing and improving their strokes, making them more their own. Patient discipline is the price of the spontaneity sought, as all Zen training is for the sake of simplicity. The variation attainable in thickness and thinness of line, vigor and delicacy of curving and straightening, is endless. The barest characters are hardest, allowing no hiding in complexity. So Zen imbues the means of communication. Whatever it says, it first of all is (Izutsu 178).
While the tea guests sit quietly they admire the scroll and the restrained arrangement of flower or branch. The hostess comes through a low door, and sets down her tray to slide the door to. Her kneeling motions are to be appreciated, and the delicate utensils she handles in the right order: the cloth, the tea caddy, the bamboo whisk. The kettle bubbles with the sound of flowing water, or of a breeze in the pines. Sweets are passed. The climax of the ceremony comes when the honored guest is served a bowl which he will first offer to the friend on each side, then hold up to look at, but not too high, not to risk a slip (Izutsu 117). The bowl must be old, with a dull loveliness, perhaps a bit rough and unsymmetrical, but sturdy and with a story of other owners (Izutsu 118). After turning it to right and left, the guest takes the first of his three and a half swallows of the foaming green liquid. Little is said. It is something like a communion service, without a priest except for the hostess; a meditative and intimate sharing of a bit of food and drink. Medieval warriors found in this ceremony a welcome respite, as business men do today.
The spread of Zen in this accessible and friendly form compensates immensely for the remoteness of monasteries and the relegation of temples. Centering in the bowls themselves the art of ceramics developed; flower arrangement, poetry, calligraphy and painting have been motivated by what is on view in the alcove; architecture and landscape gardening have gone out from the tea house and its setting. Using the central experience of preparing and taking nourishment, Zen civilized Japan.
Thus, Zen Buddhism was both a vehicle of a higher civilization and itself the expression of such a civilization in Japan. Naturally its influence on the cultural life of the nation was incalculable. Thus the first really deep-going influence which Zen Buddhism exerts upon Japan is that it encourages Japanese people to think more profoundly upon the problems of human life. With the coming of Buddhism the Japanese language was raised into a real medium of education and culture. A very large per cent of the present vocabulary came either directly from Zen Buddhism or was added from the Chinese to give an adequate expression of the new ideas which came in the train of the new religion. The spread of the art of reading and writing, and thus education in general, was largely due to the influence of the Zen Buddhists. Zen Buddhism elements are present in Japanese logic, psychology and philosophy. And what was true in the early days remained true for centuries; namely, that whatever the Japanese knew of philosophy and science they owed largely to Zen Buddhism. This intellectual development accounts for the fact that when Western culture came to Japan in the modern period the Japanese were able to assimilate it in such a surprisingly short time, and that today there are Japanese scholars in every field of learning who can hold their own with the scholars of any nation. In short, Japan has been a cultured nation for centuries and she owes to Zen Buddhism a great debt for the major part of this culture.
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