..续本文上一页would respond regularly, "Yes, master". Finally the master remarked, "I thought I was in the wrong with you, but it is you that is in the wrong with me". Is this not simple enough

　　 -- just calling one by name

　　 Chu”s last comment may not be so very intelligible from an ordinary logical point of view, but one calling and other responding is one of the commonest and most practical affairs of life. Zen declares that the truth is precisely there, so we can see what a matter-of-fact thing Zen is. There is no mystery in it, the fact is open to all: I hail you, and you call back; one "Hallo!" calls forth another "Hallo!" and this is all there is to it.

　　Ryosui was studying Zen under Mayoku, a contemporary of Rinzai, and when Mayoku called out, "O Ryosui!" he answered, "Yes!" Thus called three times, he answered three times, when the master remarked, "O you stupid fellow!" This brought Ryosui to his senses; he now understood Zen and exclaimed: "O master, don”t deceive me any more. If I had not come to you I should have been miserably led astray all my life by the sutras and shastras". Later on Ryosui said to some of his fellow-monks who had been spending their time in the mastery of Buddhist philosophy, "All that you know, I know; but what I know, none of you know". Is it not wonderful that Ryosui could make such an utterance just by understanding the significance of his master”s call

　　Do these examples make the subject in hand any clearer or more intelligible than before

　　 I can multiply such instances indefinitely, but those so far cited may suffice to show that Zen is after all not a very complicated affair, or a study requiring the highest faculty of abstraction and speculation. The truth and power of Zen consists in its very simplicity, directness, and utmost practicalness. "Good morning; how are you today

　　" "Thank you, I am well" -- here is Zen. "Please have a cup of tea" -- this, again, is full of Zen. When a hungry monk at work heard the dinner-gong he immediately dropped his work and showed himself in the dining-room. The master, seeing him, laughed heartily, for the monk had been acting Zen to its fullest extent. Nothing could be more natural; the one thing needful is just to open one”s eye to the significance of it all.

　　But here is a dangerous loophole which the students of Zen ought to be especially careful to avoid. Zen must never be confused with naturalism or libertinism, which means to follow one”s natural bent without questioning its origin and value. There is a great difference between human action and that of the animals, which are lacking in moral intuition and religious consciousness. The animals do not know anything about exerting themselves in order to improve their conditions or to progress in the way to higher virtues. Sekkyo was one day working in the kitchen when Baso, his Zen teacher, came in and asked what he was doing. "I am herding the cow", said the pupil. "How do you attend her

　　" "If she goes out of the path even once, I pull her back straightway by the nose; not a moment”s delay is allowed". Said the master, "You truly know how to tale care of her". This is not naturalism. Here is the effort to do the right thing.

　　A distinguished teacher was once asked, "Do you ever make any effort to get disciplined in the truth

　　"

　　"Yet, I do".

　　"How do you exercise yourself

　　"

　　"When I am hungry I eat; when tired I sleep".

　　"This is what everybody does; can they be said to be exercising themselves in the same way as you do

　　"

　　"No".

　　"Why not

　　"

　　"Because when they eat they do not eat, but are thinking of various other things, thereby allowing themselves to be disturbed; when they sleep they do not sleep, but dream of a thousand and one things. This is why they are not like myself".

　　If Zen is to be called a form of mysti…

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