BUDDHISM IN JAPAN 261him to devise a comprehensive system of koan study, drawing on many tradi-
tions, that has served ever since as the universal Rinzai curriculum.
Hakuin's own dramatic experiences as a meditator led him to agree with
Tsung-mi (see Section 8.5.2) that satori was a sudden event that then had to
be cultivated through further practice. He classified the koans of the classical
tradition into five grades, based on-interestingly enough-the system of five
ranks formulated in the Chinese T'sao-tung school. These were supposed to
take the meditator to total Awakening through five stages of realization of the
interpenetration of principle and phenomena: the Apparent within the Real,
the Real within the Apparent, Coming from within the Real, Arrival at Mu-
tual Interpenetration, and Unity Attained. The purpose of the first-stage koans
was to gain kensho (insight into one's own true nature). This was the sudden
Awakening that was then to be cultivated through further study. Although
Hakuin drew almost entirely on classical koans for his instruction, he devised
a first-stage koan that has since become one of the best known in the Zen
repertoire: "What is the sound of one hand?"
Hakuin taught his lay followers various syncretic teachings-including
some Pure Land practices-but he was strong in his insistence that Zen monks
should devote themselves totally to koan study, leaving no time for art, litera-
ture, or other secular pursuits. True koan study, he said, had to be based on a
strong moral foundation and required three basic attitudes: great belief in the
koan, great questioning of one's assumptions, and great aspiration and perse-
verance. He was strongly critical of the "silent illumination" approach, by
which he was probably referring to the teachings of Bankei and what had be-
come of Soto Zen. His analysis of the psychological dynamics of the practice,
along with his map of the practice itself, is now the established norm in the
Rinzai tradition. ·AU present-day Rinzai masters take him as a model and trace
their lineage to him.
One other important development in the Tokugawa period that was to
have a long-term effect on Japanese Buddhism was the work of the nationalis-
tic scholar Yamaga Soko (1622-85) in formulating the ideals ofbushido, the
Way of the Warrior. This was a code of military virtues, drawn from various
strands of Japanese tradition, intended to justify the continued existence of a
largely idle samurai class. In essence, bushido was a Confucian code, in that
the warrior's duty was to be as effective as possible in going to battle for his
ruler. Although it had no relation to Buddhist ethics, it picked up what the
Japanese perceived as the Zen style: a quick and total awareness of the present,
so free from distracting thoughts and dualisms that the swordsman attained a
state of mushin (no-mind), at one with his sword. Japanese writings on Rinzai
Zen that appeared in the West in the early twentieth century asserted a deep
connection between Rinzai and bushido, but the warrior code itself never
gained popular currency or connection with Zen institutions in Japan itself
until the end of the nineteenth century.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, pressures from inside and out-
side Japan made the tight Tokugawa control over the society more and more
untenable. Millennial cults appeared, and pro-Shinto forces asserted their