The Japanese Spiritual Worldview

Chapter Two

Zen — Simplicity and Intuition

第二章 — 禅・簡素と直観

Introduction — From Impermanence to the "Here and Now"

As we saw in the previous chapter, Buddhism brought to Japan a sense of time: impermanence. All things shift, and nothing remains. Upon this sensibility, in the Kamakura period, another form of Buddhism comes across the sea from the continent. Zen.

Zen deepened the sensibility of impermanence in a singular direction. If all things pass, where is anything certain to be found? Zen sought it not in the past, nor in the future, but in the single instant of the "here and now," and within the depths of the self. And from this search was born Japan's singular aesthetic — an aesthetic of "subtraction," which honours simplicity, gives life to empty space, and grows richer by paring away.

This chapter is the first axis of this essay. What is Zen? Why is it "subtraction"? And how does it differ from the spiritual world of the West? Here we wish to depict the source from which it spread to the way of the warrior and the way of tea.

I. The Coming of Zen — The Single Point of Zazen

Zen was transmitted to Japan in earnest in the thirteenth century, the Kamakura period.1 Two streams were brought by two monks who had crossed to Southern Song China to study: the Rinzai school, transmitted by Eisai, and the Sōtō school, transmitted by Dōgen.12

The word "Zen" derives from the Sanskrit dhyāna — meditation, quiet contemplation.3 True to its name, Zen places zazen (seated meditation) at its root.4 It does not chant sutras over and over, nor invoke the name of the Buddha. It simply sits — and stakes everything on this single point.

The two schools differed in how they faced zazen. The Rinzai school takes up a kōan — a question given by the master that cannot be solved by logic — and probes it within zazen, aiming at awakening.45 A kōan such as "Listen to the sound of one hand clapping" brings reasoning thought to an impasse and leads beyond it, to an intuitive realisation. The Sōtō school, meanwhile, holds to the shikantaza ("just sitting") that Dōgen taught — the act of single-mindedly sitting is itself awakening.6

Different though the methods were, both aimed at the same end: to look directly into one's own nature — kenshō, "seeing one's nature."4

II. The Structure of Subtraction — Manifesting the Buddha Within

Here lies the heart of Zen. And it has the structure of "subtraction."

The teaching of Zen is distilled into four phrases. Furyū monji — the truth cannot be set down in words. Kyōge betsuden — it is transmitted outside the scriptures, from master to disciple, as experience. Jikishi ninshin — it points directly to the human heart. Kenshō jōbutsu — seeing one's own nature, one becomes Buddha.7

What these four speak of is one thing. The Buddha is not somewhere outside. Buddha-nature is, from the first, inherent within oneself. It is merely covered over by craving and attachment. Practice, then, is not the new acquisition of something. It is the letting go of ego and attachment, the paring away of what conceals, the manifesting of the clear heart that was there all along — that is the practice of Zen.8

It does not add. It reduces.

This structure of "subtraction" is the key to understanding Japanese spiritual culture. One arrives at one's true form not by piling things up toward completion, but by removing the superfluous. This reversal of thought spreads from Zen into every corner of Japanese culture.

III. Outside, or Within — Two Directions of the Spirit

The singularity of this "subtraction" stands out when set beside the spiritual world of the West.

In the prologue, we contrasted the Japanese kami with the monotheistic God. In monotheism, God is "outside" the world and transcends man. In Japan, the kami is immanent "within" nature, close at hand. This contrast of "outside or within" appears, just as it is, in the very form of salvation and awakening.

In the monotheistic worldview of the West, the human being is incomplete, and salvation is given "from outside" — through faith, or through grace — by way of a relationship with a transcendent God. The gaze of the soul turns outward, toward the God on high. Its direction is outward, upward.

Zen faces the very opposite direction. Salvation — awakening — is not given from outside. It is, from the first, within the self. The gaze turns not toward an outer transcendent but into the depths of one's own inwardness. Its direction is inward, into depth.

Here lies a fundamental contrast between two spiritual cultures. The one piles up faith toward an outer transcendent and seeks to draw near. The other removes the covering before its inner nature and seeks to return. A path that adds from outside, and a path that pares from within. This contrast is not a matter of which is superior. It is the fact that the world holds two such different directions of the spirit, standing side by side.

And the path Japan chose was the one that went inward, paring away. This choice would give birth to Japan's singular aesthetic.

IV. The Beauty of Paring Away — The Richness of Empty Space

Zen's "subtraction" did not remain within practice alone. It became art, became garden, and shaped the very aesthetic of Japan.

Among the culture that came to Japan with Zen was ink-wash painting (sumi-e).9 In this painting, which renders the world in but two colours — the black of ink and the white of paper — the empty space, where nothing is drawn, carries the greater meaning.9 As in Hasegawa Tōhaku's Pine Trees screen, the empty space spreading between the trees calls forth mist, atmosphere, countless unseen pines — by not drawing, it speaks all the more richly.10

The garden that crystallised this thought in its purest form is the karesansui (dry landscape garden), developed in Zen temples.11 A garden without water. Composed of white sand and stones alone, this space, by "subtracting" water, makes water all the more felt.11 By using the fewest of materials to make a state of near-nothingness, it raises up, in the heart of the beholder, mountains, water, a whole cosmos.12 The stone garden of Ryōan-ji is its summit.

Not the lavishness of the gilded Kinkaku-ji, but the depth of the Ginkaku-ji, profound because it is simple.12 "Precisely because there is nothing, one feels the highest beauty" — this reversal of thought.12 The philosopher Hisamatsu Shin'ichi grasped the artistic aesthetic of Zen as the fusion into one of several elements — simplicity, asymmetry, and others.13 To find beauty not in completeness or sufficiency but within deficiency and the unfinished — this is the aesthetic that Zen nurtured in Japan.13

Conclusion — To the Warrior, to Tea

What we have seen in this chapter is the first axis of this essay — Zen.

Zen, come in the Kamakura period, sought truth in the "here and now" and in the inwardness of the self. Its heart lay in the structure of "subtraction" — paring from within rather than adding from outside. This was the very opposite of the Western spirit that turns toward an outer transcendent; it was a direction turned inward. And this subtraction crystallised in the empty space of ink painting and the simplicity of the dry garden, shaping Japan's singular aesthetic.

This spirit of Zen did not remain among the monks who sat in zazen alone. It spread, deeply, into two worlds.

One is the world of the warrior. Living next to death, the warriors found their own way of life in the Zen spirit that holds to the "here and now" and lets go of attachment to life and death. In the next chapter, we proceed to what the meeting of Zen and the warrior brought forth — the way of the warrior.

The other is the world of tea. The simplicity of Zen and the spirit of "one encounter in a lifetime" would in time become the way of tea, and give birth to wabi and sabi, the summit of Japanese beauty. That we shall depict in the fourth chapter.

Zen is a single spine running through every axis of Japanese spiritual culture.

Notes & Sources

This is the second chapter of the white paper "The Japanese Spiritual Worldview." The facts stated rest on the sources cited. The contrast "West = an outer transcendence / Japan = an inner nature" is a typological ordering meant to help in grasping the tendencies of two spiritual cultures; we note that diverse positions exist within Christianity and within Buddhism alike, and that no judgement of superiority is intended. This essay treats Zen not as an object of faith but from the side of its historical influence upon the Japanese sense of beauty and spiritual culture. Primary sources (Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō, etc.) will be reinforced in future revisions.

Footnotes

  1. "Zen Buddhism," Wikipedia (on Zen being officially transmitted to Japan in the thirteenth century [Kamakura period]; on Rinzai Zen brought by Eisai and Sōtō Zen by Dōgen, both having crossed to Southern Song China; and on its spread from the Kamakura period onward chiefly among warriors and common people). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/禅宗 ↩ ↩2

  2. "What is Zen Buddhism? Japan's Three Great Schools and Their History," Choge Blog (on Zen being transmitted in the Kamakura period by Eisai and Dōgen; on the three schools — Rinzai, Sōtō, Ōbaku; and on Zen's influence across Japanese culture: tea, the martial ways, garden art). https://www.choge-blog.com/history/zensou/ ↩

  3. "What is Zen Buddhism?," Choge Blog (on "Zen" deriving from the Sanskrit dhyāna [meditation, quiet contemplation], transliterated in China and settling in Japan as zen). https://www.choge-blog.com/history/zensou/ ↩

  4. "An Introduction to the Rinzai School," Tōkō-ji (on Rinzai Zen transmitted by Eisai some 800 years ago [Kamakura period]; on probing the kōan within zazen and labour, aiming at awakening and kenshō through dialogue with the master; and on Zen as the general term for schools rooted in zazen). https://www.d-tokoji.com/rinzai001/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. "On the Schools — Rinzai School, Shōkoku-ji Branch," Shōkoku-ji (on Rinzai transmitting the kanna Zen that seeks awakening through the kōan, Sōtō the mokushō Zen of zazen alone; and on Hakuin Zen's emphasis on the practice of resolving "the problem of the self as a present, living existence here and now"). https://www.shokoku-ji.jp/reference/shuha/ ↩

  6. "What is Zen Buddhism?," Shōsō-shiki (on the Sōtō school's emphasis on shikantaza, and on Rinzai and Ōbaku practising the kanna Zen that probes the truth). https://www.osohshiki.jp/column/article/1980/ ↩

  7. "The Aesthetic of Subtraction in Zen Art" (on the four sacred phrases of Zen — furyū monji, kyōge betsuden, jikishi ninshin, kenshō jōbutsu; on the essence lying in experience beyond logical thought and unable to be set in words; and on gazing at the clear heart innate to man and finding the Buddha within). https://pixy10.org/archives/post-4617.html ↩

  8. "The History of Ink-Wash Painting: Did Zen Change Japan's Culture and Art?," Suiboku Navi (on Zen as the practice of letting go of ego and attachment to live now in nothingness, attaining awakening through zazen alone, without need of words). https://sui-boku.com/zen ↩

  9. "The Museum as Empty Space," A Curator at a Small Museum (on Zen bringing ink-wash painting, calligraphic traces, the tea rite, the dry garden and architecture to Japan; on the empty space, undrawn, carrying great meaning in two-colour ink painting; and on Sesshū being a Zen monk of Shōkoku-ji). https://note.com/gakugeiin/n/n1a9a1e0715d6 ↩ ↩2

  10. "On the Empty Space in the Japanese Tradition," non-standard world (on Hasegawa Tōhaku's Pine Trees screen leaving empty space between the trees, the space calling forth atmosphere, mist, and unseen pines, giving an unlimited expansion of the image). https://www.non-standardworld.co.jp/5510/ ↩

  11. "On the Empty Space in the Japanese Tradition," non-standard world (on the dry garden developed in Zen temples making water felt by subtracting it, and on the mitate worldview that calls to mind a water surface from white sand and pebbles). https://www.non-standardworld.co.jp/5510/ ↩ ↩2

  12. "The Aesthetic of Subtraction Seen Through Wabi-Sabi," DAIKOKU Takayuki (on the dry garden as an aesthetic of subtraction that evokes nature through a near-nothingness of the fewest materials; on the luxury-in-plainness of Ginkaku-ji; and on the reversal "precisely because there is nothing, one feels the highest beauty"). https://k-daikoku.net/wabi-sabi/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. "The Seven Elements of Zen Art That Complete the Beauty of Deficiency" (on the philosopher Hisamatsu Shin'ichi grasping the Zen aesthetic as the fusion of seven elements — simplicity, asymmetry, etc.; and on the beauty of deficiency and the unfinished as an aesthetic peculiar to Japan. Source: Masuno Shunmyō, Zen and the Garden as Zen Art). https://pixy10.org/archives/18390119.html ↩ ↩2