p. 19

　　 It is a rare treat find in the April, 1953, number of Philosophy East and West a controversy between such learned scholars as Hu Shih and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki about the philosophy which one calls Ch'an and the other Zen. [1] Suzuki is a Buddhist and Hu a pragmatist. The one finds transcendentalism and the other finds naturalism in the same masters, even in the same passages. For Hu, the "Chinese reformation of revolution within Buddhism" of the eighth century consisted in the Ch'an men's renunciation of ch'an as meditation in some celestial sense, and their celebration of what is "plain and profane." He interprets these men as saying, both when they were clear and when they became enigmatic, that life and nature, on the level of their actual immediacy, have a worth beyond words -- as far beyond as if transcendent.

I
　　 The dispute is, perhaps, about that subtle aspect of truth which is not so much a matter of fact as of taste. It seems to be a question of emotional tone whether chih should be translated as "knowledge" with Hu or as "praj~naa-intuition" with Suzuki, because the former tones down and the latter tones up. The first may strike the mind's ear as too, intellectual, cool, pedestrian; the second as too fancy. For Suzuki, Buddhist philosophers are after a grasp of suchness or thusness, which may be called "pure experience." This is a neutral expression, toning neither up nor down; and it is so used by William James. It would seem acceptable to Hu Shih as "pure selfconsciousness" would not be, which Suzuki equates with "pure experience." [2] Suzuki objects that Hu's historical approach, impressive as it it, comes at Zen from without. But if Zen flourished as Ch'an in China from A.D. 700 to 1100, the historical approach would appear indispensable; and Suzuki admits: "I have to be a kind of historian myself, I am afraid." [3] He is divided between feeling that no words can do justice to Zen and thinking they may

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1. Hu Shih, "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method," and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, "Zen: A Reply to Ho Shih," Philosophy East and West, III, No. 1 (April, 1953).

2. Ibid., p. 32.

3. Ibid., p. 39.

p. 20

help; that he and Hu are both sinners in being word-men, [4] in believing that words can dispel misunderstanding "in regard to what Zen is in itself apart from its historical setting." [5] If Zen is not merely a phenomenon of a remote period but a continuing inner experience, history cannot have the last word about it. If, however, Zen is the "pure experience" that even a pragmatist may have, his knowledge about it does not preclude acquaintance with it.

　　 One should hesitate to write about Zen, now that Suzuki has said there are "two types of mentality: the one which can understand Zen and, therefore, has the right to say something about it, and another which is utterly unable to grasp what Zen is." [6] But this is an intellectualistic-conceptual dichotomy foreign to Zen. And Suzuki has also said that Zen is something that each man must grasp in his own way. "In this respect Zen is absolutely individualistic." [7] Whatever it may be in itself, it seems worth while for a Westerner, upon discovering Zen, to make what he can of it and take what he can assimilate, even though he cannot swallow it whole. It has been various enough to have several interpretations. Orientals still interpret it differently. Is it a mysterious truth beyond understanding, about the world and salvation, as Suzuki more and more would have it, or, as Hu sees it, is it a plea for intellectual emancipation from anything but trying "to be an ordinary human being, having nothing to do"? [8] But if the earthy Ch'an of Hu is not the heavenly Zen that Suzuki has come to offer, Hu does concede that the teaching of Ch'an ceased to be plain-partly for the reason that teaching may be more effective when the learner has to figure it out for himself. If "all the ink in the universe" cannot teach it, perhaps there must be the baffling koan, the stick, the shout, "the traveling on foot." If we cannot agree with Suzuki that "there is no conveying at all" we may accept his saying, "there are no prescribed methods." [9] And we may find that his own procedure shows Zen to be more vital, more human, and easier to appreciate than some of his statements suggest.

　　 "Zen is life," he has said simply. He means that Zen "contains everything that goes into the make-up of life," including poetry, philosophy, morality, any life-activity; in short, every experience that is not limited. He does not mean that Zen is hidden in life, having to be ferreted out: "all is manifest, and only the dim-eyed ones are barred from seeing it." [10]

　　 This joyous utterance is at the beginning of his article in the second number of Philosophy East and West, where he refers to the first number to