What, then, is the identity-doctrine of Hui-neng? How did it contribute to the later development of the various schools of Zen Buddhism? To answer these is more than I can manage in this paper. [2] Let me just refer to Shen-hui. While Shen-hui was engaged in discussion with Ch'eng, the Zen master, on the subject of identity, Shen-hui remarked to Wang Wei 王維 , who was the host, "When I am thus talking with you I am the identity of dhyaana and praj~naa." [3] This gives the doctrine in a nutshell, or it may be better to say that Shen-hui himself stands here as the practical demonstrator of it. From this identity naturally follows Ma-tsu's famous dictum, "My everyday thought is the Tao" (heijoo-shin kore michi; in Chinese, p'ing ch'ang hsin shih tao 平常

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2. I have treated these problems in the third volume of my "History of Zen Thought." The book is in Japanese and is still in MS.
3. Suzuki's edition of Shen-Hui Sayings [or Discourses], pp. 31-32.

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心是道). This is explained by him thus: "Everyday thought means to be doing nothing special; it means to be free from right and wrong, to be free from taking and giving up, to be free from nihilism as well as externalism, to be neither a saintly nor an ordinary man, neither a wise man nor a bodhisattva. My going-about, standing, sitting, or lying-down; my meeting situations as they rise; my dealing with things as they come and go -- all this is the Tao." [4]

　　 To give a few more examples of the identity-doctrine as it developed later:

　　 A monk asked Kei-shin of Choosha 長沙景岑 (Changsha Ching-ts'en), who was a disciple of Nansen Fugwan 南泉普願 (Nanch'uan Pu-yuan, died 834), "What is meant by 'everyday thought'?" Kei-shin answered, "If you want to sleep, sleep; if you want to sit, sit." The monk said, "I do not understand." Kei-shin answered, "When hot, we try to get cool; when cold, we turn toward a fire."

　　 A monk asked Kei-shin, "According to Nansen, the cat and the ox have a better knowledge of it than all the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future. How is it that all the Buddhas do not know it?"
　　 Kei-shin answered, "They knew a little better before they entered the Deer Park."
　　 The monk: "How is it that the cat and the ox have a knowledge of it?"
　　 Kei-shin: "You cannot suspect them."[5]

　　 This mondoo 問答 will be understood better when I try later to distinguish two kinds of knowledge, relative and transcendental. Hu Shih may think this is a "crazy" kind of Zen methodology to make the monk realize the truth by himself in a most straightforward way.

　　 In one sense, this way of looking at life may be judged to be a kind of naturalism, even of animalistic libertinism. But we must remember that man is human, and the animal is animal. There must be a distinction between human naturalism and animal naturalism. We ask questions and wait and decide and act, but animals do not ask questions, they just act. This is where they have one advantage over us and, yet, this is where they are animals. Human naturalism is not quite the same as animal naturalism. We are hungry. Sometimes we decide not to eat; sometimes we even decide to starve to death, and here is human naturalism, too. It may be called unnaturalism.

　　 There is, however, through all these naturalistic affirmations or unnaturalistic negations, something that is in every one of us which leads to what I call a transcendental "yes" attitude or frame of mind. This can be seen in the Zen master when he asserts, "Just so," or "So it is," or "You are right," or "Thus things go," or "Such is the way," etc. In the Chinese the assertion runs: shih mo 是麼, or chih mo 只麼, or ju shih 如是, or ju tz'u 如此, or chih che

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4. Tao Yuan 道原, Ching Te Ch'uan Teng Lu 景德傳燈錄 (The Record of the Transmission of the Lamp), fasc. 28.
5. Ibid., fasc. 10.

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shih 只遮是. These do not exhaust all the statements a Zen master makes in the expression of his "yes" frame of mind or in his acceptance of the Buddhist doctrine of suchness or thusness (tathataa) or of emptiness (`suunyataa).

　　 Strictly speaking, there cannot be a philosophy of suchness, because suchness defies a clear-cut definition as an idea. When it is presented as an idea, it is lost; it turns into a shadow, and any philosophy built on it will be a castle on the sand. Suchness or chih che shih is something one has to experience in oneself. Therefore, we might say that it is only by those who have this experience that any provisional system of thought can be produced on the basis of it. In many cases such minds prefer silence to verbalism or what we may call symbolism to intellectualization. They do not like to risk any form of misunderstanding, for they know that the finger is quite liable to be taken for the moon. The Zen master, generally speaking, despises those who indulge in word- or idea-mongering, and in this respect Hu Shih and myself are great sinners, murderers of Buddhas and patriarchs; we both are destined for hell.