stupendous pomp.

His successor, Fujaku, at first remained at the Kingchau monastery where he had been Shinshū’s pupil. But in 724 the irresolute Emperor Ming-huang, who had proscribed Buddhism ten years before, summoned Fujaku to the Imperial City. Here princes and grandees vied with one another in doing him honour. “The secret of his success,” says the historian,[7] “was that he seldom spoke and generally looked cross. Hence his rare words and occasional smiles acquired in the eyes of his admirers an unmerited value.” He died at the age of 89. On the day of his interment the great streets of Ch’ang-an were empty. The whole city had joined in the funeral procession. The Governor of Honan (one of the greatest functionaries in the State), together with his wife and children, all of them clad in monastic vestments, followed the bier, mingling with the promiscuous crowd of his admirers and disciples.

Religion was at that time fashionable in the high society of Ch’ang-an, as it is to-day in the great Catholic capitals of Munich, Vienna or Seville. When I read of Fujaku’s burial another scene at once sprang into my mind, the funeral of a great Bavarian dignitary, where I saw the noblemen of Munich walk hooded and barefoot through the streets.

I shall not refer again to the Northern School of Zen. One wonders whether the founders of religions are forced by fate to watch the posthumous development of their creeds. If so, theirs must be the very blackest pit of Hell.

Let us return to the Southern School, always regarded as the true repository of Zen tradition.

ŌBAKU.

Ōbaku lived at the beginning of the ninth century, and was thus a contemporary of the poet Po Chü-i. He enjoyed the patronage of a distinguished statesman the Chancellor Hai Kyū, of whom the Emperor said, “This is indeed a true Confucian.” It is to the Chancellor that we owe the record of Ōbaku’s conversations, which he wrote down day by day. I will make a few extracts from this diary:

“The master told me that when he was studying with Enkwan, the Emperor Tai Chung came dressed as a monk. The master happened to be in the chapel prostrating himself before an image of Buddha. The Emperor, who thought he had learnt the lesson of Zen idealism, said to him: ‘There is nothing to be got from Buddha, nothing from the Church, nothing from Man; for nothing exists. What do you mean by praying at your age?’

“Ōbaku answered him: ‘I seek nothing of Buddha, the Church, or of Man. I am in the habit of praying.’ The Emperor said: ‘What do you do it for?’ Ōbaku lost patience and struck him with his fist. ‘You rude fellow,’ cried the Emperor. ‘Since nothing exists, what difference does it make to you whether I am rude or polite?’ and Ōbaku struck him again. The Emperor retreated hastily.”

In his old age Ōbaku visited his native village and stayed a year in his mother’s house, without revealing his identity. After he had set out again for his monastery, his mother suddenly realised that he was her son and went in pursuit of him. She reached the shore of a certain river, only to see him disembarking on the other side. Thereupon she lost her reason and flung herself into the water.

Ōbaku threw a lighted torch after her and recited the following verses:

Henceforward the throwing of a lighted torch into the bier became part of the Zen funeral ceremony; it was accompanied by the reciting of the above verses. Probably formula, ritual, and story alike belong to a period much more ancient than Buddhism.

In the seventeenth century a Chinese priest named Ingen[8] carried the teaching of Ōbaku to Japan, where it now possesses nearly 700 temples.

BASO.

Baso was a master of the ninth century. One day he was sitting with his feet across the garden-path. A monk came along with a wheel-barrow. “Tuck in your feet,” said the monk. “What has been extended cannot be retracted,” answered Baso. “What has been started cannot be stopped,” cried the monk and pushed the barrow over Baso’s feet. The master hobbled to the monastery and seizing an axe called out “Have any of you seen the rascal who hurt my feet?” The monk who had pushed the barrow then came out and stood “with craned head.” The master laid down his axe.

To understand this story we must realise that the wheel-barrow is here a symbol of the Wheel of Life and Death, which, though every spoke of it is illusion, cannot be disregarded till we have destroyed the last seed of phenomenal perception in us.

RINZAI.

Ōbaku, as we have seen, taught wisdom with his fists. When the novice Rinzai came to him and asked him what was the fundamental idea of Buddhism, Ōbaku hit him three times with his stick. Rinzai fled and presently met the monk Daigu.

At that moment Rinzai had a Great Enlightenment.

Rinzai substituted howling for Ōbaku’s manual violence. He shouted meaningless syllables at his disciples; roared like a lion or bellowed like a bull. This “howling” became a regular part of Zen practice, and may be compared to the yelling of the American Shakers. Upon his deathbed Rinzai summoned his disciples round him and asked which of them felt capable of carrying on his work. Sanshō volunteered to do so. “How will you tell people what was Rinzai’s teaching?” asked Rinzai. Sanshō threw out his chest and roared in a manner which he thought would gratify the master. But Rinzai groaned and cried out, “To think that such a blind donkey should undertake to hand on my teaching!”

It was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that Zen most completely permeated Chinese thought. Upon the invasion of the Mongols[9] many Zen monks from Eastern China took refuge in Japan; the same thing happened during the Manchu invasion in the seventeenth century. But by that time Zen had a serious philosophic rival.

In