Zen Buddhism

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: William Heinemann LTD

Page 60

THE BIRTH OF ZEN BUDDHISM 39 At a later stage we shall see how this virile, stern yet laughing philosophy of life produced in Japan great art, great warriors and a culture second to none. Cradled by a warrior class, it is not surprising that Zen in Japan is violent in the means employed. But are we not all warriors? As the Buddha is given as saying in the Canon of the Southern School,
"We wage war, O Bhikkhus; therefore are we called warriors. . . . For lofty virtue, for high endeavour, for sublime wisdom, for those do we wage war. Therefore are we called warriors.” We must take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm; only then shall we find that we have never left it.
Buddhism recognises no authority for a spiritual truth; hence its tolerance. But the transmission of the doctrine is regarded as of great importance. Each Zen Master must be sanctioned by his Master, and he who teaches without such sanction is regarded as heterodox. Thus, through all the changes of Japanese national life, from the feudal system which extended into the nineteenth century to a modernism based on American patterns, still the tradition is kept high, and if the means of arousing understanding are today less violent, the Roshi or Zen Master is a man of tremendous spiritual development, and claims to be in the direct line of the Buddha's direct experience. The power of the light within must vary with the individual; the lighting of the lamp is the purpose of Zen Buddhism, and the light is Zen.
If only for the sake of tidiness, I must finish this chapter with a brief description of the coming of Zen to Europe.
In 1906 the Open Court Publishing Company of