when collecting multiple enlightenment certificates was prohibited, so that a
disciple could be dharma heir to only one master. In 1703 central authority in
Soto was confirmed by the shogunal administration, and its rules of succession
were enforced by law (Dumoulin, 1990: 336).
Koan practice became increasingly bureaucratized not only at the top but
for the rank and file as well. Hakuin, the last famous Rinzai master, sought to
reinvigorate Zen in the early 1700s. Proselytizing among the common people,
he opposed intellectualism as too elitist for these audiences. This intellectualism
he identified not with koan but with the practice of silent enlightenment and
its doctrine of no-mind; this practice, he declared, along with the nembutsu
syncretism that had crept into popular Zen, was responsible for the current
decline of Zen in Japan (Dumoulin, 1990: 383–386). Fighting for his sect’s
identity, Hakuin stressed what was organizationally most distinctive about
Rinzai. Koan practice was something to be carried on everywhere, continu-
ously occupying one’s consciousness. To this end, Hakuin systematized koan
into sequences. Pursuit of freshness nevertheless led to another layer of routi-
nization. Among his successors, the result was a scholasticism which catego-
rized koan by form and content, making them into an educational curriculum
that could be pursued throughout one’s career. The issue of koan versus silent
enlightenment recapitulated a conflict which had taken place in Chinese Zen
during the 1100s, at just the time when Ch’an was fading from social promi-
nence (Dumoulin, 1990: 383). These were long-standing structural alternatives
for the meditation specialists: the elitist-intellectual path and the path of
assimilation to everyday life, including common work. In the Tokugawa a third
path emerged mixing the two: koan practice as an educational routine.
The conception of enlightenment changed in correspondence with these
external changes in monastic careers. The old, undifferentiated conception of
enlightenment was increasingly refined. Distinctions were made between “lit-
tle” and “great” enlightenment (Dumoulin, 1990: 139, 373). Masters imposed
increasingly stringent requirements. Hakuin, in the early 1700s, had a classic
ecstatic experience. Following normal procedure, he formed his enlightenment
verses for presentation, but several masters refused to confirm his experience;
finally he submitted to a master who put him through eight months of koan
meditation, together with laughs, insults, and blows, before allowing him to
collect his own disciples.^16 Merely solving one koan was no longer enough, as
in the tales of the original Ch’an masters; a series of koan must be passed.
Other forms of practice escalated as well. In the early 1700s we hear of monks
undertaking well-measured ascetic feats, such as a strict 1,000–day retreat,
which secured one’s reputation and resulted in invitations to head important
temples (Dumoulin, 1990: 338).
Hakuin eventually became famous, both as an organizational leader in the
344 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths