..續本文上一頁 of a stone hitting a bamboo. A Zen Master named Mumon spent six years of hard discipline and meditation with the famous koan ”Mu” (nothingness) without any result. One day he heard the beating of the drum announcing meal-time, and all of a sudden he had satori.

　　Examples of this kind of ”sudden” awakening or ”sudden” attainment of arahantship are not lacking also in Pali Commentaries. An acrobat named Uggasena attained arahantship standing, perilously balanced, on the top of a bamboo pole in the course of performing risky acrobatics when he heard from the Buddha an utterance almost like a Zen koan:

　　Let go in front;

　　Let go behind;

　　Let go in the middle,

　　Gone beyond existence,

　　With a mind freed everywhere,

　　Thou comest not again to birth and decay.

　　A thera named Usabha, who was living in a cave in a forest at the foot of a mountain, was one morning overwhelmed by the glorious beauty of the forest and the mountains (vanaramaneyyakam pabbataramaneyyakam) and attained arahantship. Mahanama Thera, living on a mountain, was thoroughly disgusted with his life because he was not successful in getting rid of such impure thoughts as lust, and at the moment when he was about to commit suicide by jumping from the top of a rock, he attained arahantship.

　　Prince Vitasoka, a younger brother of Emperor Asoka of India (third century B.C.), was a pupil of Giridatta Thera and was well-versed in the Dhamma. One day he took the mirror from his barber while the latter was trimming his beard, saw his face in it and attained a stage of sotapatti (stream entrance), as he was seated in that very seat. Later he became a bhikkhu under his teacher Giridatta Thera and became an arahant in due course.

　　Bhagu Thera, in order to overcome his drowsiness, went out of his room, and when he was getting into the cloister for meditation (cankama, walk) he fell down, and there and then he became an arahant. Similarly, a theri (nun) of advanced age, named Dhamma, on her way back from alms-begging fell down on the ground. Suddenly and unexpectedly her mind was emancipated.

　　Siha Theri, the sister of General Siha, did not, even after seven years of hard striving in meditation, achieve her peace of mind. Thoroughly disappointed and depressed with her inability to realise the liberation of mind from defilements, she decided to commit suicide by hanging herself. tying a rope to the branch of a tree, she put the noose around her neck. Suddenly she was awakened to Truth and became an arahant.

　　Patacara Theri, who had already realised the stage of sotapatti, was endeavouring to attain to higher stages. One day she was washing her feet with water from a pot. The water flowed a little and sank and disappeared in the dry ground. Again she poured water on her feet, and this time it went a bit further and disappeared. The third time water flowed still further and vanished in the ground. Seeing this, she was utterly absorbed in the thought of impermanence, how aggregates appear and disappear. While she was lost in this thought, she saw the Buddha speaking to her: ”One day”s life of a person who perceives the rise and fall (of conditioned things) is better than that of a person who lives one hundred years without perceiving it.” There and then Patacara attained arahantship. Although the attainment of awakening or enlightenment or emancipation, related in these Theravada and Zen stories, seems to be ”sudden”, it is, in fact, not really so. In these and many other examples, the so-called ”sudden” awakening occurs only after a long and hard discipline, training, striving and practice, if not in this life, perhaps in some previous lives according to Buddhist teaching and belief. It is ”sudden” only in the sense that it cannot be predicted or scheduled and decided that, after so many weeks or months or years of discipline and meditation, enlightenment will occur on such and such a date at such and such a time. It occurs at a moment most unexpected, in a manner never anticipated, sometimes almost dramatically. But this moment arrives as a result of a long and hard training and striving. Zen teachers themselves admit ”that not everyone can be expected to have the training required for attainment of the exquisite moment of satori”.

《Zen and the Ten Ox-herding Pictures》全文閱讀結束。