III. Taoism and Zennism
The connection of Zennism with tea is proverbial. We
have already remarked that the tea-ceremony was a
development of the Zen ritual. The name of Laotse, the
founder of Taoism, is also intimately associated with the
history of tea. It is written in the Chinese school manual
concerning the origin of habits and customs that the
ceremony of offering tea to a guest began with Kwanyin,
a well-known disciple of Laotse, who first at the gate of
the Han Pass presented to the "Old Philosopher" a cup
of the golden elixir. We shall not stop to discuss the
authenticity of such tales, which are valuable, however,
as confirming the early use of the beverage by the Taoists.
Our interest in Taoism and Zennism here lies mainly in
those ideas regarding life and art which are so embodied
in what we call Teaism.
禅与茶的关系是广为人知的了。我们已经谈论到茶艺是禅礼的延伸。道家的创始人老子，也和茶的历史有密切的联系。中国的教科书里载有以茶待客的习俗开始于关尹，他的一个著名弟子，在汉口献金茶于老子。我们不应该停下来讨论这类故事的真实性；然而它们有助于确认早期道家对茶的使用。我们这里对道和禅的兴趣主要集中在所谓的“茶道”中保藏的对生活和艺术的观念。
It is to be regretted that as yet there appears to be no
adequate presentation of the Taoists and Zen doctrines
in any foreign language, though we have had several
laudable attempts.
Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author
observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a
brocade,--all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of
colour or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is
there which is easy to expound? The ancient sages never
put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in
paradoxes, for they were afraid of uttering half-truths.
They began by talking like fools and ended by making
their hearers wise. Laotse himself, with his quaint humour,
says, "If people of inferior intelligence hear of the Tao, they
laugh immensely. It would not be the Tao unless they laughed
at it."
The Tao literally means a Path. It has been severally translated
as the Way, the Absolute, the Law, Nature, Supreme Reason,
the Mode. These renderings are not incorrect, for the use of
the term by the Taoists differs according to the subject-matter
of the inquiry. Laotse himself spoke of it thus: "There is a thing
which is all-containing, which was born before the existence
of Heaven and Earth. How silent! How solitary! It stands alone
and changes not. It revolves without danger to itself and is the
mother of the universe. I do not know its name and so call it
the Path. With reluctance I call it the Infinite. Infinity is the
Fleeting, the Fleeting is the Vanishing, the Vanishing is the
Reverting." The Tao is in the Passage rather than the Path. It
is the spirit of Cosmic Change,--the eternal growth which returns
upon itself to produce new forms. It recoils upon itself like
the dragon, the beloved symbol of the Taoists. It folds and
unfolds as do the clouds. The Tao might be spoken of as the
Great Transition. Subjectively it is the Mood of the Universe.
Its Absolute is the Relative.
It should be remembered in the first place that Taoism, like its
legitimate successor Zennism, represents the individualistic
trend of the Southern Chinese mind in contra-distinction to the
communism of Northern China which expressed itself in
Confucianism. The Middle Kingdom is as vast as Europe and
has a differentiation of idiosyncrasies marked by the two great
river systems which traverse it. The Yangtse-Kiang and Hoang-
Ho are respectively the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Even
to-day, in spite of centuries of unification, the Southern
Celestial differs in his thoughts and beliefs from his Northern
brother as a member of the Latin race differs from the Teuton.
In ancient days, when communication was even more difficult
than at present, and especially during the feudal period, this
difference in thought was most pronounced. The art and poetry
of the one breathes an atmosphere entirely distinct from that of
the other. In Laotse and his followers and in Kutsugen, the
forerunner of the Yangtse-Kiang nature-poets, we find an
idealism quite inconsistent with the prosaic ethical notions of
their contemporary northern writers. Laotse lived five centuries
before the Christian Era.
The germ of Taoist speculation may be found long before the
advent of Laotse, surnamed the Long-Eared. The archaic
records of China, especially the Book of Changes, foreshadow
his thought. But the great respect paid to the laws and customs
of that classic period of Chinese civilisation which culminated
with the establishment of the Chow dynasty in the sixteenth
century B.C., kept the development of individualism in check
for a long while, so that it was not until after the disintegration
of the Chow dynasty and the establishment of innumerable
independent kingdoms that it was able to blossom forth in the
luxuriance of free-thought. Laotse and Soshi (Chuangtse) were
both Southerners and the greatest exponents of the New School.
On the other hand, Confucius with his numerous disciples aimed
at retaining ancestral conventions. Taoism cannot be understood
without some knowledge of Confucianism and vice versa.
道家观念的种子可能远在老子，也就是老聃，出现之前就有了。中国的上古资料，尤其是易经，蕴藏有他的思想。中国文明的上古时期在公元前十六世纪周朝的建立而达颠峰，这段时间对礼法和制度的极度尊敬导致了个人主义长期停滞不前。所以一直要等到周朝解体、诸侯丛生的时候，道家才能在自由思想的繁荣中开花成长。老子和庄子都是南方人，都是新学派的伟大旗手。在另一方面，孔子和他的众多弟子致力于保持祖宗理法。没有一些儒家的知识是无法理解道家的，反之亦然。
We have said that the Taoist Absolute was the Relative.
In ethics the Taoist railed at the laws and the moral codes
of society, for to them right and wrong were but relative
terms. Definition is always limitation--the "fixed" and
"unchangeless" are but terms expressive of a stoppage of
growth. Said Kuzugen,--"The Sages move the world."
Our standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of
society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance
of communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the
individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the
mighty delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People
are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly.
We are wicked because we are frightfully self-conscious.
We nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth
to others; we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell
the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the world
when the world itself is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is
everywhere. Honour and Chastity! Behold the complacent
salesman retailing the Good and True. One can even buy a
so-called Religion, which is really but common morality
sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive
marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap, --a prayer for
a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable citizenship.
Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real
usefulness were known to the world you would soon be
knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer.
Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so much?
Is it not but an instinct derived from the days of slavery?
The virility of the idea lies not less in its power of breaking
through contemporary thought than in its capacity for dominating
subsequent movements. Taoism was an active power during the
Shin dynasty, that epoch of Chinese unification from which we
derive the name China. It would be interesting had we time to note
its influence on contemporary thinkers, the mathematicians,
writers on law and war, the mystics and alchemists and the later
nature-poets of the Yangtse-Kiang. We should not even ignore
those speculators on Reality who doubted whether a white
horse was real because he was white, or because he was solid,
nor the Conversationalists of the Six dynasties who, like the Zen
philosophers, revelled in discussions concerning the Pure and
the Abstract. Above all we should pay homage to Taoism for
what it has done toward the formation of the Celestial character,
giving to it a certain capacity for reserve and refinement as
"warm as jade." Chinese history is full of instances in which the
votaries of Taoism, princes and hermits alike, followed with
varied and interesting results the teachings of their creed.
The tale will not be without its quota of instruction and amusement.
It will be rich in anecdotes, allegories, and aphorisms. We would
fain be on speaking terms with the delightful emperor who never
died because he had never lived. We may ride the wind with
Liehtse and find it absolutely quiet because we ourselves are
the wind, or dwell in mid-air with the Aged one of the Hoang-Ho,
who lived betwixt Heaven and Earth because he was subject
to neither the one nor the other. Even in that grotesque apology
for Taoism which we find in China at the present day, we can revel
in a wealth of imagery impossible to find in any other cult.
But the chief contribution of Taoism to Asiatic life has been in the
realm of aesthetics. Chinese historians have always spoken of
Taoism as the "art of being in the world," for it deals with the
present--ourselves. It is in us that God meets with Nature, and
yesterday parts from to-morrow. The Present is the moving
Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the Relative. Relativity seeks
Adjustment; Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies in a constant
readjustment to our surroundings. Taoism accepts the mundane
as it is and, unlike the Confucians or the Buddhists, tries to find
beauty in our world of woe and worry. The Sung allegory of the
Three Vinegar Tasters explains admirably the trend of the three
doctrines. Sakyamuni, Confucius, and Laotse once stood before
a jar of vinegar--the emblem of life--and each dipped in his finger
to taste the brew. The matter-of-fact Confucius found it sour,
the Buddha called it bitter, and Laotse pronounced it sweet.
The Taoists claimed that the comedy of life could be made more
interesting if everyone would preserve the unities. To keep the
proportion of things and give place to others without losing
one's own position was the secret of success in the mundane
drama. We must know the whole play in order to properly act
our parts; the conception of totality must never be lost in that of
the individual. This Laotse illustrates by his favourite metaphor
of the Vacuum. He claimed that only in vacuum lay the truly
essential. The reality of a room, for instance, was to be found
in the vacant space enclosed by the roof and the walls, not in the
roof and walls themselves. The usefulness of a water pitcher
dwelt in the emptiness where water might be put, not in the
form of the pitcher or the material of which it was made.
Vacuum is all potent because all containing. In vacuum alone
motion becomes possible. One who could make of himself a
vacuum into which others might freely enter would become
master of all situations. The whole can always dominate
the part.
These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories
of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu,
the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage
in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and
exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum,
while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final
struggle. In art the importance of the same principle is
illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something
unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea
and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention
until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum
is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your
aesthetic emotion.
He who had made himself master of the art of living was the
Real man of the Taoist. At birth he enters the realm of dreams
only to awaken to reality at death. He tempers his own
brightness in order to merge himself into the obscurity of
others. He is "reluctant, as one who crosses a stream in
winter; hesitating as one who fears the neighbourhood;
respectful, like a guest; trembling, like ice that is about to melt;
unassuming, like a piece of wood not yet carved; vacant,
like a valley; formless, like troubled waters." To him the three
jewels of life were Pity, Economy, and Modesty.
If now we turn our attention to Zennism we shall find that
it emphasises the teachings of Taoism. Zen is a name
derived from the Sanscrit word Dhyana, which signifies
meditation. It claims that through consecrated meditation
may be attained supreme self-realisation. Meditation is one
of the six ways through which Buddhahood may be reached,
and the Zen sectarians affirm that Sakyamuni laid special stress
on this method in his later teachings, handing down the rules to
his chief disciple Kashiapa. According to their tradition Kashiapa,
the first Zen patriarch, imparted the secret to Ananda, who in
turn passed it on to successive patriarchs until it reached
Bodhi-Dharma, the twenty-eighth. Bodhi-Dharma came to
Northern China in the early half of the sixth century and was the
first patriarch of Chinese Zen. There is much uncertainty about
the history of these patriarchs and their doctrines. In its
philosophical aspect early Zennism seems to have affinity on
one hand to the Indian Negativism of Nagarjuna and on the
other to the Gnan philosophy formulated by Sancharacharya.
The first teaching of Zen as we know it at the present day must be
attributed to the sixth Chinese patriarch Yeno(637-713), founder
of Southern Zen, so-called from the fact of its predominance
in Southern China. He is closely followed by the great
Baso(died 788) who made of Zen a living influence in Celestial
life. Hiakujo(719-814) the pupil of Baso, first instituted the Zen
monastery and established a ritual and regulations for its
government. In the discussions of the Zen school after the
time of Baso we find the play of the Yangtse-Kiang mind
causing an accession of native modes of thought in contrast
to the former Indian idealism. Whatever sectarian pride may
assert to the contrary one cannot help being impressed by the
similarity of Southern Zen to the teachings of Laotse and the
Taoist Conversationalists. In the Tao-teking we already find
allusions to the importance of self-concentration and the
need of properly regulating the breath--essential points in the
practice of Zen meditation. Some of the best commentaries
on the Book of Laotse have been written by Zen scholars.
Zennism, like Taoism, is the worship of Relativity. One
master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the
southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the
comprehension of opposites. Again, Zennism, like Taoism,
is a strong advocate of individualism. Nothing is real except
that which concerns the working of our own minds. Yeno,
the sixth patriarch, once saw two monks watching the flag
of a pagoda fluttering in the wind. One said "It is the wind
that moves," the other said "It is the flag that moves"; but
Yeno explained to them that the real movement was neither
of the wind nor the flag, but of something within their own
minds. Hiakujo was walking in the forest with a disciple when
a hare scurried off at their approach. "Why does the hare fly
from you?" asked Hiakujo. "Because he is afraid of me," was
the answer. "No," said the master, "it is because you have
murderous instinct." The dialogue recalls that of Soshi (Chaungtse),
the Taoist. One day Soshi was walking on the bank of a river
with a friend. "How delightfully the fishes are enjoying themselves
in the water!" exclaimed Soshi. His friend spake to him thus:
"You are not a fish; how do you know that the fishes are enjoying
themselves?" "You are not myself," returned Soshi; "how do you
know that I do not know that the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
Zen was often opposed to the precepts of orthodox Buddhism
even as Taoism was opposed to Confucianism. To the
transcendental insight of the Zen, words were but an
incumbrance to thought; the whole sway of Buddhist scriptures
only commentaries on personal speculation. The followers of
Zen aimed at direct communion with the inner nature of things,
regarding their outward accessories only as impediments to a
clear perception of Truth. It was this love of the Abstract that
led the Zen to prefer black and white sketches to the elaborately
coloured paintings of the classic Buddhist School. Some of the
Zen even became iconoclastic as a result of their endeavor to
recognise the Buddha in themselves rather than through images
and symbolism. We find Tankawosho breaking up a wooden
statue of Buddha on a wintry day to make a fire. "What
sacrilege!" said the horror-stricken bystander. "I wish to
get the Shali out of the ashes," calmly rejoined the Zen.
"But you certainly will not get Shali from this image!" was the
angry retort, to which Tanka replied, "If I do not, this is
certainly not a Buddha and I am committing no sacrilege."
Then he turned to warm himself over the kindling fire.
禅经常与正统佛教的条文相左。对禅的彻悟来讲，语言不过是思想的累赘；所有的佛教经文不过是个人思虑的议论。禅的修行者寻求与事物的内在本质的直接交接，认为它们的外部琐物不过是通往澄澈的真理的障碍。正是这种对抽象的偏好导致了禅宗比较经典佛教流派的色彩缤纷，更喜欢黑白的绘画。禅宗努力从自身中而不是从雕像和符号中寻找佛的存在；一些人甚至因此而叛经离道。我们听到过丹霞和尚在一个严冬里打破一个佛像生火的故事。“亵渎啊！”旁边的人吓坏了。“我想从灰中找到舍利子”，丹霞平静的回答。“但是你绝不会从这尊佛像中找到舍利子！”对这句驳斥，丹霞的回答是，“要是我找不到，这个肯定就不是佛了。那么我就谈不上什么亵渎”。于是他就转向跳跃的火苗取暖去了。
A special contribution of Zen to Eastern thought was its
recognition of the mundane as of equal importance with the
spiritual. It held that in the great relation of things there was
no distinction of small and great, an atom possessing equal
possibilities with the universe. The seeker for perfection must
discover in his own life the reflection of the inner light. The
organisation of the Zen monastery was very significant of this
point of view. To every member, except the abbot, was assigned
some special work in the caretaking of the monastery, and
curiously enough, to the novices was committed the lighter
duties, while to the most respected and advanced monks were
given the more irksome and menial tasks. Such services formed
a part of the Zen discipline and every least action must be done
absolutely perfectly. Thus many a weighty discussion ensued
while weeding the garden, paring a turnip, or serving tea.
The whole ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen conception of
greatness in the smallest incidents of life. Taoism furnished the
basis for aesthetic ideals, Zennism made them practical.
禅对东方思想的一个特殊的贡献在于它认为尘世和灵界同样的重要。它认为在事物的极限相关中无大无小，一个原子和整个宇宙拥有同样的机遇。完美的追寻者必须在自身的生活中发现内在之光的反射。禅宗寺庙的组织结构突出反映了这一点。除了主持之外的每一个人都分派了维护庙宇的特定工作。有意思的是，小徒弟们分配的是轻活，而粗重的工作分给德高位重的大和尚们。这类服务成了禅的纪律的一部分，而每一点细节都必须完成的尽善尽美。所以在庭院除草、萝卜去皮或端水沏茶中都带有严肃的讨论。整个茶道的理念都建立在这种生活中的渺小蕴含着伟大的禅理上。道家提供了这种美学的基础；禅将之实现。