“Empty-handed go, and behold the spade is in my hands;
I walk on foot and yet on the back of an ox, I am riding;
When I pass over the bridge,
Lo, the water floweth not, but the bridge doth flow.”
This is the famous gatha of Jenye (Shan-hui, A.D. 497-469), who is commonly known as Fudaishi (Fu-tai-shih) and it summarily gives the point of view as entertained by the followers of Zen. Though it by no means exhausts all that Zen teaches, it indicates graphically the way toward which Zen tends. Those who desire to gain an intellectual insight, if possible, into the truth of Zen, must first understand what this stanza really means.
Nothing can be more illogical and contrary to common sense than these four lines. The critic will be inclined to call Zen absurd, confusing, and beyond the ken of ordinary reasoning. But Zen is inflexible and would protest that the so called common sense way of looking at things is not final, and that the reason why we cannot attain to a thorough-going comprehension of the truth is due to our unreasonable adherence to a “logical” interpretation of things. If we really want to get to the bottom of life, we must abandon our cherished syllogisms, we must acquire a new way of observation whereby we can escape the tyranny of logic and the one-sidedness of our everyday phraseology. However paradoxical it may seem, Zen insists that it is not the water, but the bridge that is flowing under your feet.
These are not, however, the only irrational statements Zen makes. There are many more equally staggering once. Some may declare Zen irrevocably insane or silly. Indeed, what would our readers say to such assertions as the following?
“When Tom drinks, Dick gets tipsy”
“Who is the teacher of all the Buddhas, past, present and future? John the cook .”
“Last night a wooden hone neighed and a stone man cut capers.”
“Lo, a cloud of dust is rising from the oceans, and the roaring of the waves is heard over the land.”
Sometimes Zen will ask you such questions as the following :
“It is pouring now, how would you stop it?”
“When both hands are clapped a sound Is produced : Listen to the sound of one hand”
“If you have heard the sound of one hand, can you make me hear it too”
“When we see about us mountains towering high and seas filling hollow places, why do we read in the sacred sutras that the Dharma is sameness and there is nothing high, nothing low?"
Have the followers of Zen lost their senses? Or are they given up to deliberate mystification? Have all these statements no inner meaning, no edifying signification except to produce confusion in our minds? What is Zen through these apparent trivialities and irrationalities really driving us to comprehend? The answer is simple. Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs.
We generally think that “A is A” is absolute, and that the proposition, “A is not-A” or “A is B” is unthinkable. We have never been able to break through these conditions of the understanding; they have been too imposing. But now Zen declares that words are words and no more. When words cease to correspond with facts, it is time for us to part with words and return to facts. As long as logic has its practical value it is to be made use of, but when it fails to work, or when it tries to go beyond its proper limits, we must cry, “Halt!” Ever since the awakening of consciousness, we have endeavoured to solve the mysteries of being and to quench our thirst for logic through the dualism of “A” and “not-A”; that is, by calling a bridge a bridge, by making the water flow and dust arise from the earth, but to our great disappointment we have never been able to obtain peace of mind, perfect happiness and a thorough understanding of life and the world.
We have come, as it were, to the end of our wits. No further steps could we take which would lead us to a broader field of reality. The inmost agonies of the soul could not be expressed in words, when lo! light comes over our entire being. This is beginning of Zen. For we now realize that “A is not A” after all, that logic is one sided, that illogicality so called is not in the last analysis necessarily illogical, what is superficially irrational has after all its own logic, which is in correspondence with the true state of things.”Empty-handed I go, and behold the spade is in my hands! By this we are made perfectly happy. For the time ever since the dawning of the intellect. The dawning of the intellect did not mean the assertion of the intellect but the transcending of itself. The meaning of the proposition “A is A” is realized only when “A is not A”. To be itself is not to be itself—this is the logic of Zen and satisfies all our aspirations.
