Science teaches us abstraction, generalization, and specialization. This has warped our view of human beings to the extent that we put aside the living concrete and for it substitute something dead, universal, abstract, and, for that reason, the existentially non-being. Economists have the "economic man," and politicians the "political man," and historians perhaps the "historical man." These are all abstractions and fabrications. Zen has nothing to do with the dead, with abstractions, logic, and the past. I wonder if Hu Shih agrees with me in this statement?

　　 By this time, I hope my meaning is clear when I say that Zen is not exhausted by being cozily placed in a historical corner, for Zen is far more than history. History may tell much about Zen in its relation to other things or events, but it is all about Zen and not Zen in itself as every one of us lives it. Zen is, in a way, iconoclastic, revolutionary, as Hu Shih justly remarks, but we must insist that Zen is not that alone; indeed, Zen still stands outside the frame.

　　 For instance, what is it that makes Zen iconoclastic and revolutionary? Why does Zen apparently like to indulge in the use of abusive terms, often highly sacrilegious, and also to resort to unconventionalities, or to "the most profane language," even when they do not seem absolutely necessary? We cannot say that Zen followers wanted to be merely destructive and to go against everything that had been traditionally established. To state that Zen is revolutionary is not enough; we must probe into the reason that makes Zen act as it does. What is it, then, that incited Zen to be iconoclastic, revolutionary, unconventional, "profane," and, I say, irrational? Zen is not merely a negativistic movement. There is something very positive and affirmative about it. To find this, I have to be a kind of historian myself, I am afraid.

　　 Zen is really a great revolutionary movement in the world history of thought. It originated in China and, in my opinion, could not arise anywhere else. China has many things she can well be proud of. This I mean not in the sense, of cultural nationalism but on the world level of the develop-

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ment of human consciousness. Until about the time of Hui-neng (died 713) Buddhism was still highly colored with the Indian tint of abstract thinking. The Chinese achievements along this line were remarkable indeed, and I think such Buddhist philosophers as Chih-i and Fa-tsang are some of the greatest thinkers of the world. They were Chinese products, no doubt, but we may say that their way of thinking was stimulated by their Indian predecessors and that they were the direct descendants of A`svagho.sa, Naagaarjuna, and Asa^nga, and others. But it was in Zen that the Chinese mind completely asserted itself, in a sense, in opposition to the Indian mind. Zen could nor rise and flourish in any other land or among any other people. See how it swept all over the Middle Kingdom throughout the T'ang and the Sung Dynasties. This was quite a noteworthy phenomenon in the history of Chinese thought. What made Zen wield such a powerful moral, intellectual, and spiritual influence in China?

　　 If any people or race is to be characterized in a word, I would say that the Chinese mind is eminently practical in contrast to the Indian mind, which is speculative and tending toward abstraction and unworldliness and nonhistorical-mindedness. When the Buddhist monks first came to China, the people objected to their not working and to their being celibates. The Chinese people reasoned: If those monks do not work, who will feed them? No other than those who are not monks or priests. The laymen will naturally have to work for non-working parasites. If the monks do not marry, who are going to look after their ancestral spirits? Indians took it for granted that the spiritual teachers would not engage in manual labor, and it was most natural for them to be dependent upon laymen for their food, clothing, and housing. It was beneath their dignity to work on the farm, to chop wood, to wash dishes. Under these social conditions Zen could not arise in India, for it is one of the most typical traits of Zen life that the masters and disciples work together in all kinds of manual activity and that, while thus working, they exchange their mondoo on highly metaphysical subjects. They, however, carefully avoid using abstract terms. They utilize any concrete objects they find about them in order to be convinced of the universality of truth. If they are picking tea leaves, the plants themselves become the subject of discourse. If they are walking and notice some objects such as birds or animals, the birds or animals are immediately taken up for a lively mondoo. Not only things living or not living but also the activities they are manifesting are appropriate matter for serious inquiry. For Zen masters, life itself with all its dynamism is eloquent expression of the Tao.