Without dependence on words and symbols;
Directly pointing at the heart of man;
Seeing into one’s nature and the attaining of Buddhahood.
One of Zen’s most famous stories concerns a monk called Dazu Huike, who wanted to be a disciple of Bodhidharma. The legendary Zen founder showed little interest, however, famously sitting for years in front of a cave wall at Shaolin, so after repeated rejections Huike cut off his arm to prove his sincerity. The painting of Huike Offering His Arm to Bodhidharma was done by Sesshu Toyo in 1496.
The emphasis on experiential knowledge is a vital element of Zen, and Shakyamuni’s appointment of Mahakashyapa was the first in a teacher-disciple transmission of wisdom that has continued to the present day. In each case, the enlightenment of a disciple has to be verified by a master, and the lineage of such masters is a matter of importance in Zen.
Bodhidharma, or Daruma, remains a living presence in Zen temples, where pictures of him are often displayed. Many of these show him meditating in a cave, for tradition holds that he sat for nine years facing a cave wall in the mountains at Shaolin. Such was his determination not to fall asleep that he plucked out his own eyelids, as a result of which he is depicted with fierce features and bulging eyes. It is also said that he meditated so long that his legs and arms dropped off, which explains why Daruma dolls in Japan are shaped like a ball.
Transmission to Japan
As Chan Buddhism took hold in China, it was much influenced by Daoism, absorbing some of its thinking along with symbols and deities. Several favorite Zen anecdotes concern Daoist sages, and the often quoted “He who speaks does not know; he who knows does not speak” derives from Lao Tzu. By the ninth century, different Schools of Chan had appeared, amongst which was that of Linji Yixuan, known in Japan as Rinzai (d. 866). His school was characterized by the severity of its practices, which were rooted in zazen (sitting meditation) and the study of koan (Zen riddles). At its heart was a belief that the rational self was an illusion and not the final arbiter of truth.
Meanwhile, in Japan a meditation hall had been established in Nara as early as the seventh century, and later a form of zazen was introduced to the monks on Mt Hiei. However, these early transmissions did not develop into a separate teaching, and it is only with Myoan Eisai (1141–1215) that Zen is considered to have taken hold in Japan. At the time, religion in the imperial capital was dominated by the eclectic Tendai and the esoteric Shingon sects. With the onset of mappo in Japanese Buddhism in the eleventh century, thought to be a time of degeneracy in Buddhist practice, many people had turned to belief in salvation through Amida, who vowed to receive in his Pure Land all those who called on him.
The arrival of Zen in the early 1200s coincided with the coming to power of the samurai. A military government had been set up at Kamakura in 1187, which proved fortuitous for the new sect, as warriors and monks shared similar values—austerity, endurance, subjugation of self, fearlessness in the face of death. (Buddhists, however, both clerics and the laity, took a pledge not to kill.) The shogunate saw a political advantage in promoting Zen as a means of weakening other sects (Tendai, in particular, had an independent army of warrior-monks). The Hojo clan, the power behind the shogun, saw in the new Zen culture an alternative to that of the aristocracy. With the adoption of Zen in this way, it seemed that the Buddhist sects had all carved out a niche for themselves: “Tendai for the emperor, Shingon for the aristocracy, Zen for warriors, and the Pure Land sect for the masses,” was a popular saying.
The first temple to practice Zen in Kyoto was Kennin-ji, in 1202, but because of fierce pressure by the monks of Mt Hiei the monastery was forced to remain nominally part of Tendai. (It was only under the sixth abbot that it became fully Zen.) One of the early disciples at Kennin-ji, Eihei Dogen (1200–53), who had studied in China with a master from the Caodong School (J. Soto Zen), broke away to set up a temple in the south of Kyoto. The Tendai sect again acted to suppress a rival, prompting Dogen to leave the capital altogether after being offered land in what is present-day Fukui Prefecture, where in 1243 he founded Eihei-ji. It helps explain why Rinzai came to dominate Kyoto while Soto looked elsewhere.
The Gozan System
Major temples in China were often named after the mountain on which they were situated. In this way, ‘mountain’ came to be used as another word for temple. The Gozan system, literally ‘Five Mountains,’ referred to the official patronage of five major temples, and the Chinese model was taken up by the shogunate in Kamakura. In return for the donation of estates, the regime gained important rights, such as the power to appoint abbots, supervise standards and monitor financial affairs. The benefits to the temple thus came with a loss of independence.
The system started with five Kamakura temples (all Rinzai), and was then extended to Kyoto. In its final form, which was never rescinded, it consisted of five Kamakura temples and five Kyoto temples, with Nanzen-ji given supreme status above the two groupings. The Kyoto five comprised Tenryu-ji, Shokoku-ji, Kennin-ji, Tofuku-ji, and Manju-ji (now a subtemple of Tofuku-ji). Two notable exclusions were Daitoku-ji, which asked to be exempted to retain its independence, and Myoshin-ji, which chose to prioritize the practice of meditation.
In the Muromachi period (1333–1573), known as ‘the Golden Age of Zen’, the Ashikaga shoguns made Kyoto their capital and were powerful patrons of the Gozan temples. As a result, they became important centers of imported items and ideas, such as Neo-Confucianism. It inspired a period of creative vigor, exemplified by the Chinese ink paintings with their use of empty space. Gozan literature flourished, too, with an outpouring of poetry, treatises, diaries, commentaries and biographies, all written in Chinese. The new way of thinking—directly pointing at the heart of things—affected a range of art forms, from calligraphy and garden design to the tea ceremony, flower arrangement and Noh (whose creative genius, Zeami, was influenced by Soto Zen).
The arts of peacetime were halted by the destructiveness of the Onin War (1467–77), which devastated Kyoto and has been called one of the most futile wars ever fought. It started as a battle of succession to Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, founder of the Silver Pavilion, but with the passage of time the original cause was forgotten as rival armies stampeded across Kyoto. Fire raged throughout the city, and the mighty Zen complexes suffered along with everything else. As a result, most of the structures visible today date from rebuilding in the sixteenth century or later.
The civil war heralded a breakdown of central power, as Japan entered a period of Warring States when regional warlords vied with each other for power. Without the backing of a powerful shogun, the Gozan system fell into disarray, though ironically Zen as a whole prospered in the misfortune. The independent temples of Daitoku-ji and Myoshin-ji were boosted by donations from regional warlords for the establishment of subtemples. At the same time provincial rulers set up branch temples in their capitals. The top generals of the age received on the spot guidance from powerful Zen priests, who acted as negotiators or gave training in martial arts. Takuan Soho, briefly abbot of Daitoku-ji, is a famous example, drawing on Zen techniques to give much valued advice about swordsmanship.
Detail of one of the huge columns that support the Sanmon gate at Nanzen-ji. Hewn out of a zelkova in 1628, the column shows evidence of the passage of centuries.
The poet Hanshan and his friend Shide were a pair of eccentrics who lived near China’s Mt Tiantai. Known in Japan as Kanzan and Jittoku, they became a popular subject in Zen painting. Kanzan lived in a cave and is depicted with a scroll to indicate his poetry, while Jittoku was a foundling who worked in the temple kitchen and passed food to his friend.
The Edo Period and Modernization
With a return to stability under the Tokugawa shoguns, the country entered more settled times in the Edo Era (1600–1868). To counter the threat of Christianity, every family in the country was obliged to register with a Buddhist temple,