up a tile and started rubbing it on a stone. Mazu asked,
“What are you doing, Master?” “I am polishing this tile to
make a mirror,” Huairang replied. “How can you make a
mirror by rubbing a tile?” exclaimed Mazu. “How can one
become a Buddha by sitting in meditation?” countered the
master (Dumoulin, 1963, p. 97f.).
Linji (d. 866) led his numerous disciples toward enlight-
enment by continuing and enlarging the use of shouting, ad-
ding to that his own favorite method of beating disciples.
The “shouting and beating” Chan of Linji was not intended
as punishment or random mischief. Experience had taught
Linji that harsh and unexpected encounters with “reality”
could lead more quickly and certainly to enlightenment than
endless lectures and discourses.
An unrelenting giant among Japanese Zen masters was
Hakuin (d. 1769). Born in a “degenerate” period of Bud-
dhism in Japan, Hakuin revived the Rinzai form of Zen
begun by Linji, particularly emphasizing the investigation of
ko ̄ans and “sitting in the midst of activity.” Throughout
Hakuin’s life he attacked forms of “silent-illumination Zen,”
which he consistently referred to as “dead-sitting.” In his
youth, Hakuin tells us, his ko ̄an meditation was poor, and
as a result he engaged in dead-sitting until his Zen-sickness
was cured by the instruction of an insightful teacher, the her-
mit Hakuyu. As a result, Hakuin was totally uncompromis-
ing in his insistence of a right understanding of meditation;
his ironic and acerbic tone seems to have been inherited from
the harsh patriarchs and Zen masters of the past:
How sad it is that the teaching in this degenerate age
gives indications of the time when the Dharma will be
completely destroyed. Monks and teachers of eminent
virtue, surrounded by hosts of disciples and eminent
worthies, foolishly take the dead teachings of no-
thought and no-mind, where the mind is like dead
ashes with wisdom obliterated, and make these into the
essential doctrines of Zen. They practice silent, dead sit-
ting as though they were incense burners in some old
mausoleum and take this to be the treasure place of the
true practice of the patriarchs. They make rigid empti-
ness, indifference, and black stupidity the ultimate es-
sence for accomplishing the Great Matter. (Yampolsky,
1971, p. 170)
It has been argued that the ultimate purpose of the Zen
master is one thing alone: to produce a disciple who can carry
on the teaching and preserve the transmission of the Dhar-
ma. The lineages of many famous monks became extinct
after a generation or two because they had no disciples to
hand down their teachings.
The biography of Bozhang (d. 814) states: “He whose
view is equal to that of his teacher diminishes by half his
teacher’s power. He whose view exceeds that of his teacher
is qualified to transmit the teaching.” Hakuin was keenly
aware of the necessity of producing a worthy disciple and in
fact sanctioned several of his own pupils to carry on his
teaching. Armed with spiritual powers and techniques for
guiding others in their quest for enlightenment, the Zen
master “smashes the brains of monks everywhere, and pulls
out the nails and knocks out the wedges.” With typical Zen
irony Hakuin describes the worthy successor he has pro-
duced who is qualified to transmit the teaching: “Without
the least human feeling he produces an unsurpassedly evil,
stupid, blind oaf, be it one person or merely half a person,
with teeth sharp as the sword-trees of hell, and a gaping
mouth like a tray of blood. Thus will he recompense his deep
obligation to the Buddhas and the Patriarchs” (Yampolsky,
1971, p. 39).SEE ALSO Authority; Leadership.BIBLIOGRAPHY
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