Furthermore, they liken one who remains in the exalted position of Buddhaship to a man bound by a gold chain, and pity his state of bondage. It is an isolated instance in the whole history of the world’s religions that holy scriptures are declared to be ‘no more than waste paper’ by religionists, as done by Zen masters.įourthly, Buddhist as well as non-Buddhist religions regard, without exception, their founders as superhuman beings, but the practitioners of Zen hold the Buddha as their predecessor, whose spiritual level they confidently aim to attain. Thirdly, Buddhist denominations, like non-Buddhist religions, lay stress on scriptural authority but Zen denounces it on the ground that words or characters can never adequately express religious truth, which can only be realized by mind consequently it claims that the religious truth attained by Shakya Muni in his Enlightenment has been handed down neither by word of mouth nor by the letters of scriptures, but from teacher’s mind to disciple’s through the line of transmission until the present day. In the second place, in spite of its historical antiquity, ideas entertained by its advocates are so new that they are in harmony with those of the New Buddhists accordingly the statement of these ideas may serve as an explanation of the present movement conducted by young and able reformers of Japanese Buddhism. In the first place, it is as old as Buddhism itself, or even older, for its mode of practicing Meditation has been handed down without much alteration from pre-Buddhist recluses of India and it may, on that account, provide the student of comparative religion with an interesting subject for his research. The object of this work is to show how the Mahayanistic view of life and of the world differs markedly from that of Hinayanism, which is generally taken as Buddhism by occidentals, to explain how the religion of Buddha has adapted itself to its environment in the Far East, and also to throw light on the existing state of the spiritual life of modern Japan.įor this purpose we have singled out of thirteen Japanese sects the Zen Sect, not only because of the great influence it has exercised on the nation, but because of the unique position it holds among the established religious systems of the world. And to investigate her faith is not to dig out the remains of Buddhist faith that existed twenty centuries ago, but to touch the heart and soul of Mahayanism that enlivens its devotees at the present moment. To study her religion, therefore, is to penetrate into Mahayanism, which still lies an unexplored land for the Western minds. Thus Japan seems to be the best representative of the Buddhist countries where the majority of people abides by the guiding principle of the Northern School.
#SAMURAI MEDITATION FULL#
Even in Japan alone it has differentiated itself into thirteen main sects and forty-four sub-sects and is still in full vigor, though in other countries it has already passed its prime. It is hardly justifiable to cover the whole system of Buddhism with a single epithet ‘pessimistic’ or ‘nihilistic,’ because Buddhism, having been adopted by savage tribes as well as civilized nations, by quiet, enervated people as well as by warlike, sturdy hordes, during some twenty-five hundred years, has developed itself into beliefs widely divergent and even diametrically opposed. But with regard to the Northern School very little is known to the West, owing to the fact that most of its original texts were lost, and that the teachings based on these texts are written in Chinese, or Tibetan, or Japanese languages unfamiliar to non-Buddhist investigators. The chief tenets of the Southern School are so well known to occidental scholars that they almost always me an the Southern School by the word Buddhism. The former, based mainly on the Pali texts is known as Hinayana (small vehicle), or the inferior doctrine while the latter, based on the various Sanskrit texts, is known as Mahayana (large vehicle), or superior doctrine. Buddhism is geographically divided into two schools - the Southern, the older and simpler, and the Northern, the later and more developed faith.
0 kommentar(er)
