p. 41

　　 Therefore, if the master is found making his own straw-sandals, or plastering the wall, or reading the suutras, or drinking tea, a monk will approach and ask questions. Likewise, when the master catches his disciples engaged in cutting grass, gathering wheat, carrying wood, pounding rice, or pushing the wheelbarrow, he presses them for answers by asking questions which are apparently innocent but are inwardly full of deep metaphysical or spiritual meaning. Joshu's [20] treating all equally with a cup of tea regardless of the monk's status is one of the most noted examples. The master may ask casually whence a monk comes and, according to the answer he proposes, the master deals with the monk variously. Such may be called the practical lessons of Zen.

　　 If Zen had developed along the intellectual line of speculation, this would never have happened. But Zen moves on praj~naa-intuition and is concerned with an absolute present in which the work goes on and life is lived. Around this absolute present Zen study is carried on. The moral value of anything or any work comes afterward and is the later development when the work already accomplished comes out as an object of study detached from the worker himself. The evaluation is secondary and not essential to the work itself while it is going on. Zen's daily life is to live and not to look at life from the outside -- which would necessarily result in alienating life from the actual living of it. Then there will be words, ideas, concepts, etc., which do not belong in Zen's sphere of interest.

　　 The question of profanity or sacredness, of decorum or indecency, was the result of abstraction and alienation. When a question comes up, Zen is no longer there but ten thousand miles away. The masters are not to be detained with such idle discussions as to whether a thing is conventionally tabooed or not. Their objective is not iconoclasm, but their way of judging values comes out automatically as such from their inner life. The judgment we, as outsiders, give them is concerned only with the bygone traces of the Zen life, with the corpse whose life has departed a long time ago. Zen thus keeps up its intimate contact with life. I would not say that the Indian mind is not like this, but rather that the Chinese mind is more earth-conscious and hates to be lifted up too high from the ground. The Chinese people are practical in this sense, and Zen is deeply infused with this spirit. Hui-neng never stopped pounding rice and chopping wood. Pai-chang (Hyakujoo) [21] was really a great genius in organizing the Zen monastery on this principle of work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20. The Transmission of the Lamp, fasc. 10, under Chao-chou Ts'ung-shen.
21. The Transmission of the Lamp, fasc. 6, under Pai-chang Hui-hai.

p. 42

V
　　 Hu Shih is no doubt a brilliant writer and an astute thinker, but his logic of deducing the Zen methodology of irrationalism and "seeming craziness" out of the economic necessity of getting support from the powerful patrons is, to say the least, illogical and does not add to his rationalistic historicism. While referring to "these new situations and probably many others," Hu Shih does not specify what those "probably many others" were. Probably he did not have time to go over the "historical setting" of those days when "many others" came up and forced the Zen masters to resort to their "mad technique" instead of carrying on the old method of "plain speaking." [22]

　　 But can we imagine that the Zen masters who really thought that there were no Buddhas and no bodhisattvas, or that, if there were any, they were no better than "murderers who would seduce innocent people to the pitfalls of the Devil," could not be free to refuse any form of patronage by the civil authorities? What logical connection could there be between the Zen masters courting the patronage of the powers and their invention of "some other subtle but equally thought-provoking way of expressing what the earlier masters had said outspokenly"?

　　 Is the stick-swinging or the "Ho!" any subtler than the earlier masters' outspokenness? I wonder what makes Hu Shih think that the "Ho!" or "the stick" is not so "outspoken" but "seemingly crazy." To my mind, they -- "Ho!" and "the stick" -- are quite as outspoken, plain speaking, as saying "No Buddhas!" "No clinging to anything!" etc. Yes, if anything, they are more expressive, more efficient, more to the point than so-called "plain and unmistakable language." There is nothing "crazy" about them, seemingly or not seemingly. They are, indeed, one of the sanest methodologies one can use for either demonstrating or instructing the students. Is it not silly to ask what a Buddha is when the questioner himself is one? What can an impatient master do to make the questioner realize the fact? An argument leads to a series of arguments. There is nothing more effective and short cut than giving the questioner the "thirty blows" or a hearty "Ho!" Though much may depend on the questioner and the situation which brings him to the master, the master does very well in appealing to this "seemingly crazy" method. It goes without saying that the "Ho!" and "the stick" do not always mean the same thing. They have a variety of uses, and it will take a deep Zen insight to comprehend what they mean in different situations. Rinzai (Linchi I-hsuan) distinguishes four kinds of "Ho!"