Hsing-yen Chih-hsian was a disciple of I-san (Kweishan Ling-yu 溈山靈祐, 771-834). Recognizing his aptitude for Zen, I-san once asked Kyoogen (Hsing-yen): "I am not going to find out how much you know from book-learning and other sources. What I want you to tell me is this: Can you let me have a word (i chu 一句 ) from you before you came out of your mother's body, before you came to discriminate things?

"A word" (i chu) is something one cannot shuo po (explain fully) however much one may try; nor is it a thing which one can pass on to another. Zen

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23. See "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China," this issue, p. 21.
24. The Transmission of the Lamp, fasc. 11.

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wants us to grasp this, each in his own way, out of the depths of consciousness, even before this became psychologically or biologically possible for us. It therefore, is beyond the scope of our relative understanding. How can we do it? But this was what I-san, as a good Zen master, demanded of his disciple.

　　 Kyoogen did not know how to answer or what to say. After being absorbed in deep meditation for some time, he presented his views. But they were all rejected by the master. He then asked I-san to let him have the right answer. I-san said, "What I can tell you is my understanding and is of no profit to you." Kyoogen returned to his room and went over all his notes, in which he had many entries, but he could not find anything suitable for his answer. He was in a state of utter despondence. "A painted piece of cake does not appease the hungry man." So saying, he committed all his notebooks to a fire. He decided not to do anything with Zen, which he now thought to be above his abilities. He left I-san and settled down at a temple where there was the tomb of Chuu Kokushi (Chung, the National Teacher). One day while sweeping the ground, a stone happened to strike one of the bamboos, which made a noise; and this awoke his unconscious consciousness, which he had even before he was born. He was delighted and grateful to his teacher I-san for not having shuo chueh 說卻 what the i chu was. The first lines of the gaathaa he then composed run as follows:

"One strike has made me forget all my learning;
There was no need for specific training and cultivation."

　　 When I-san did not explain the i chu away for Kyogen, he had no idea about educating Kyogen by any specific device. He could not do anything, even if he wished, for his favorite disciple. As he then told him, whatever he would say was his own and not anybody else's. Knowledge could be transmitted from one person to another, for it is a common possession of the human community. Zen does not deal in such wares. In this respect Zen is absolutely individualistic.

　　 There is one thing I would like to add which will help to clarify Hu Shih's idea of Chinese Zen.

　　 Hu Shih must have noticed in his historical study of Zen in China that Zen has almost nothing to do with the Indian Buddhist practice of dhyaana, though the term Zen or Ch'an is originally derived from the Sanskrit. The meaning of Zen as meditation or quiet thinking or contemplation no longer holds good after Hui-neng (Yenoo), the sixth patriarch. As I have said, it was Hui-neng's revolutionary movement that achieved this severance.

　　 Hui-neng's message to Chinese Buddhism was the identity of praj~naa and dhyaana. Shen-hui (Jinne) was most expressive in giving voice to this theme. He was more intellectual in his understanding of Zen than Baso, Sekito, and others. That was one of the reasons Shen-hui's school lost its hold on the Chinese mind. The Chinese mind does not tend to be intellectual or, rather,

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metaphysical, and Zen, as the native product of the Chinese mentality, abhors this strain of intellectuality in its study. The Rinzai way of handling Zen is in better accord with the spirit of Zen and goes well with the Chinese liking for practicality and going more directly to the objective. At all events, the essential character of Zen, which is based on the identity of praj~naa and dhyaana, is pointed out in quite an intelligible manner by Shen-hui. This has already been touched on in the preceding pages.

　　 Before Hui-neng, this problem of the relationship between dhyaana and praj~naa was not so sharply brought to a focus in China. The Indian mind naturally tended to emphasize dhyaana more than praj~naa, and Chinese Buddhists followed their Indian predecessors without paying much attention to the subject. But when Hui-heng came to the scene, he at once perceived that praj~naa was the most essential thing in the study of Buddhism and that, as long as dhyaana practice was always brought forward at the expense of praj~naa, the real issue was likely to be neglected. And then dhyaana came to be confused and mixed up with `samatha and vipa`syanaa, tranquilization and contemplation, which were a great concern of followers of the Tendai (T'ien-t'ai) school. I do not think Hui-neng was historically conscious of these things; he simply wanted to proclaim his praj~naa-intuition. The situation was accentuated when Shen-hsiu, or, rather his followers, loudly protested against the Hui-neng movement, which was headed by Shen-hui (Jinne). There are still many Buddhist scholars who are confused about Chinese Zen and the Indian Buddhist practice of dhyaana.