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  Text originally published in 1957 under the same title.

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  Publisher’s Note

  Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

  We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

  ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES: A COLLECTION OF ZEN AND PRE-ZEN WRITINGS

  COMPILED BY

  PAUL REPS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Contents

  TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

  COMPILED BY PAUL REPS 5

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR 5

  FOREWORD 6

  101 ZEN STORIES 8

  1. A Cup of Tea 10

  2. Finding a Diamond on a Muddy Road 10

  3. Is That So? 11

  4. Obedience 12

  5. If You Love, Love Openly 12

  6. No Loving-Kindness 13

  7. Announcement 13

  8. Great Waves 13

  9. The Moon Cannot Be Stolen 14

  10. The Last Poem of Hoshin 14

  11. The Story of Shunkai 15

  12. Happy Chinaman 17

  13. A Buddha 17

  14. Muddy Road 18

  15. Shoun and His Mother 18

  16. Not Far from Buddhahood 19

  17. Stingy in Teaching 19

  18. A Parable 20

  19. The First Principle 21

  20. A Mother’s Advice 21

  21. The Sound of One Hand 22

  22. My Heart Burns Like Fire 23

  23. Eshun’s Departure 23

  24. Reciting Sutras 23

  25. Three Days More 24

  26. Trading Dialogue for Lodging 24

  27. The Voice of Happiness 25

  28. Open Your Own Treasure House 25

  29. No Water, No Moon 26

  30. Calling Card 26

  31. Everything Is Best 26

  32. Inch Time Foot Gem 27

  33. Mokusen’s Hand 27

  34. A Smile in His Lifetime 27

  35. Every-Minute Zen 28

  36. Flower Shower 28

  37. Publishing the Sutras 28

  38.Gisho’s Work 29

  39. Sleeping in the Daytime 30

  40. In Dreamland 30

  41. Joshu’s Zen 30

  42. The Dead Man’s Answer 31

  43. Zen in a Beggar’s Life 31

  44. The Thief Who Became a Disciple 32

  45. Right and Wrong 32

  46. How Grass and Trees Become Enlightened 32

  47. The Stingy Artist 33

  48. Accurate Proportion 34

  49. Black-Nosed Buddha 34

  50. Ryonen’s Clear Realization 34

  51. Sour Miso 35

  52. Your Light May Go Out 36

  53. The Giver Should Be Thankful 36

  54. The Last Will and Testament 36

  55. The Tea-Master and the Assassin 37

  56. The True Path 37

  57. The Gates of Paradise 38

  58. Arresting the Stone Buddha 38

  59. Soldiers of Humanity 39

  60. The Tunnel 39

  61. Gudo and the Emperor 40

  62. In the Hands of Destiny 40

  63. Killing 41

  64. Kasan Sweat 41

  65. The Subjugation of a Ghost 41

  66. Children of His Majesty 42

  67. What Are You Doing! What Are You Saying! 42

  68. One Note of Zen 43

  69. Eating the Blame 43

  70. The Most Valuable Thing in the World 44

  71. Learning To Be Silent 44

  72. The Blockhead Lord 44

  73. Ten Successors 44

  74. True Reformation 45

  75. Temper 45

  76. The Stone Mind 45

  77. No Attachment to Dust 46

  78. Real Prosperity 46

  79. Incense Burner 47

  80. The Real Miracle 47

  81. Just Go To Sleep 48

  82. Nothing Exists 48

  83. No Work, No Food 48

  84. True Friends 49

  85. Time To Die 49

  86. The Living Buddha and the Tubmaker 49

  87. Three Kinds of Disciples 50

  88. How To Write a Chinese Poem 50

  89. Zen Dialogue 50

  90. The Last Rap 51

  91. The Taste of Banzo’s Sword 51

  92. Fire-Poker Zen 52

  93. Storyteller’s Zen 52

  94. Midnight Excursion 53

  95. A Letter to a Dying Man 53

  96. A Drop of Water 54

  97. Teaching the Ultimate 54

  98. Non-Attachment 54

  99. Tosui’s Vine gar 55

  100. The Silent Temple 55

  101. Buddha’s Zen 55

  THE GATELESS GATE 57

  1. Joshu’s Dog 60

  2. Hyakujo’s Fox 61

  3. Gutei’s Finger 62

  4. A Beardless Foreigner 62

  5. Kyogen Mounts the Tree 63

  6. Buddha Twirls a Flower 63

  7. Joshu Washes the Bowl 64

  8. Keichu’s Wheel 64

  9. A Buddha before History 65

  10. Seizei Alone and Poor 65

  11. Joshu Examines a Monk in Meditation 66

  12. Zuigan Calls His Own Master 66

  13. Tokusan Holds His Bowl 67

  14. Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two 68

  15. Tozan’s Three Blows 68

  16. Bells and Robes 69

  17. The Three Calk of the Emperors Teacher 69

  18. Tozan’s Three Pounds 70

  19. Everyday Life Is the Path 70

  20. The Enlightened Man 71

  21. Dried Dung 71

  22. Kashapa’s Preaching Sign 72

  23. Do Not Think Good, Do Not Think Not-Good 72

  24. Without Words, Without Silence 73

  25. Preaching from the Third Seat 74

  26. Two Monks Roll Up the Screen 74

  27. It Is Not Mind, It Is Not Buddha, It Is Not Things 74

  28. Blow Out the Candle 75

  29. Not the Wind, Not the Flag 76

  30. This Mind Is Buddha 76

  31. Joshu Investigates 77

  32. A Philosopher Asks Buddha 77

  33. This Mind Is Not Buddha 78

  34. Learning Is Not the Path 78

  35. Two Souls 79

  36. Meeting a Zen Master on the Road 79

  37. A Buffalo Passes Through the Enclosure 79

  38. An Oak Tree in the Garden 80

  39. Ummon’s Sidetrack 80

  40. Tipping Over a Water Vase 81

  41. Bodhidharma Pacifies the Mind 81

  42. The Girl Comes Out from Meditation 82

  43. Shuzan’s Short Staff 83

  44. Basho’s Staff 83

  45. Who Is He? 83

  46. Proceed from the Top of the Pole 84

  47. Three Gates of Tosotsu 84

  48. One Road of Kembo 85

  49. Amban’s Addition 85

  10 BULLS 87

/>   1. The Search for the Bull 89

  2. Discovering the Footprints 90

  3. Perceiving the Bull 91

  4. Catching the Bull 92

  5. Taming the Bull 93

  6. Riding the Bull Home 94

  7. The Bull Transcended 95

  8. Both Bull and Self Transcended 96

  9. Reaching the Source 97

  10. In the World 98

  CENTERING 99

  What Is Zen? 106

  REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 107

  COMPILED BY PAUL REPS

  101 ZEN STORIES

  THE GATELESS GATE

  10 BULLS

  CENTERING

  Here, in one volume, are four original sources for Zen, four books of what would be Zen scripture if Zen had such things as scriptures. The first book, 101 Zen Stories, shadows the experiences of scores of Zen masters and students during the past seven-hundred years. It records the outward occasion of numerous "enlightenments"—the achievement of satori—and it tells too, of many who failed to achieve it. The second book, The Gateless Gate, is the famous Mumonkan, a collection of forty-eight Zen koans, those ultimate riddles whose sincere contemplation may redeem the mind, open it, attain for it a second birth. Found in 10 Bulls is a commentary on the stages of awareness, the progressive steps leading toward the instant of enlightenment. The illustrations to 10 Bulls are by one of Japan's leading woodblock artists. The fourth book. Centering, is a transcription from the ancient Sanskrit of a four-thousand-year-old teaching, still surviving in Kashmir, that may well be the roots of Zen. For the reader already familiar with Zen, this book should serve as a desirable volume of source readings; for the reader not familiar with it, it should be an ideal introduction.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PAUL REPS, the compiler, is an American who has spent a great deal of his life abroad, mainly in India, Norway, and Japan. He is a student of comparative religions and is the author of several books of poems and prose. Each of the first three parts of ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES appeared as a separate volume in the 1930s under Mr. Reps’ name.

  NYOGEN SENZAKI, who collaborated with Paul Reps in the transcription of the first three parts of the present volume, is a Buddhist scholar of international renown. He was born in Japan and very early became a “homeless monk,” wandering the land and studying at various monasteries. Shortly after the turn of the century he came to California where he has lived ever since.

  FOREWORD

  This book includes four books:

  101 Zen Stories was first published in 1939 by Rider and Company, London, and David McKay Company, Philadelphia. These stories recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries.

  The Gateless Gate was first published in 1934 by John Murray, Los Angeles. It is a collection of problems called koan that Zen teachers use in guiding their students toward release, first re-corded by a Chinese master in the year 1228.

  10 Bulls was first published in 1935 by DeVorss and Company, Los Angeles, and subsequently by Ralph R. Phillips, Portland, Oregon. It is a translation from the Chinese of a famous twelfth-century commentary upon the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment and is here illustrated by one of Japan’s best contemporary woodblock artists.

  Centering, a transcription of ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, first appeared in the Spring 1955 issue of Gentry magazine, New York. It presents an ancient teaching, still alive in Kashmir and parts of India after more than four thousand years, that may well be the roots of Zen.

  Thanks are due the publishers named above for permission to gather the material together here. And most of all am I grateful to Nyogen Senzald, “homeless monk,” exemplar-friend-collaborator, who so delighted with me in transcribing the first three books, even as that prescient man of Kashmir, Lakshmanjoo, did on the fourth.

  The first Zen patriarch, Bodhidharma, brought Zen to China from India in the sixth century. According to his biography recorded in the year 1004 by the Chinese teacher Dogen, after nine years in China Bodhidharma wished to go home and gathered his disciples about him to test their apperception.

  Dofuku said: “In my opinion, truth is beyond affirmation or negation, for this is the way it moves.”

  Bodhidharma replied: “You have my skin.”

  The nun Soji said: “In my view, it is like Ananda’s sight of the Buddha-land—seen once and for ever.”

  Bodhidharma answered: “You have my flesh.”

  Doiku said: “The four elements of light, airiness, fluidity, and solidity are empty [i.e., inclusive] and the five skandhas are no-things. In my opinion, no-thing [i.e., spirit] is reality.”

  Bodhidharma commented: “You have my bones.”

  Finally, Eka bowed before the master—and remained silent.

  Bodhidharma said: “You have my marrow.”

  Old Zen was so fresh it became treasured and remembered. Here are fragments of its skin, flesh, bones, but not its marrow—never found in words.

  The directness of Zen has led many to believe it stemmed from sources before the time of Buddha, 500 B.C. The reader may judge for himself, for he has here for the first time in one book the experiences of Zen, the mind problems, the stages of awareness, and a similar teaching predating Zen by centuries.

  The problem of our mind, relating conscious to preconscious awareness, takes us deep into everyday living. Dare we open our doors to the source of our being? What are flesh and bones for?

  PAUL REPS

  101 ZEN STORIES

  Transcribed by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

  These stories were transcribed into English from a book called the Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the thirteenth century by the Japanese Zen teacher Muju (the “non-dweller”), and from anecdotes of Zen monks taken from various books published in Japan around the turn of the present century.

  For Orientals, more interested in being than in busyness, the self-discovered man has been the most worthy of respect. Such a man proposes to open his consciousness just as the Buddha did.

  These are stories about such self-discoveries.

  The following is adapted from the preface to the first edition of these stories in English.

  Zen might be called the inner art and design of the Orient. It was rooted in China by Bodhidharma, who came from India in the sixth century, and was carried eastward into Japan by the twelfth century. It has been described as: “A special teaching without scriptures, beyond words and letters, pointing to the mind-essence of man, seeing directly into one’s nature, attaining enlightenment.”

  Zen was known as Ch’an in China. The Ch’an-Zen masters, instead of being followers of the Buddha, aspire to be his friends and to place themselves in the same responsive relationship with the universe as did Buddha and Jesus. Zen is not a sect but an experience.

  The Zen habit of self-searching through meditation to realize one’s true nature, with disregard of formalism, with insistence on self-discipline and simplicity of living, ultimately won the sup-port of the nobility and ruling classes in Japan and the profound respect of all levels of philosophical thought in the Orient.

  The Noh dramas are Zen stories. Zen spirit has come to mean not only peace and understanding, but devotion to art and to work, the rich unfoldment of contentment, opening the door to insight, the expression of innate beauty, the intangible charm of incompleteness. Zen carries many meanings, none of them entirely definable. If they are defined, they are not Zen.

  It has been said that if you have Zen in your life, you have no fear, no doubt, no unnecessary craving, no extreme emotion. Neither illiberal attitudes nor egotistical actions trouble you. You serve humanity humbly, fulfilling your presence in this world with loving-kindness and observing your passing as a petal falling from a flower. Serene, you enjoy life in blissful tranquillity. Such is the spirit of Zen, whose vesture is thousands of temples in China and Japan, priests and monks, wealth and prestige, and often the very formalism it would itsel
f transcend.

  To study Zen, the flowering of one’s nature, is no easy task in any age or civilization. Many teachers, true and false, have purposed to assist others in this accomplishment. It is from innumerable and actual adventures in Zen that these stories have evolved. May the reader in turn realize them in living experience to day.

  1. A Cup of Tea

  Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

  Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

  The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

  “Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

  2. Finding a Diamond on a Muddy Road

  Gudo was the emperor’s teacher of his time. Nevertheless, he used to travel alone as a wandering mendicant. Once when he was on his way to Edo, the cultural and political center of the shogunate, he approached a little village named Takenaka. It was evening and a heavy rain was falling. Gudo was thoroughly wet. His straw sandals were in pieces. At a farmhouse near the village he noticed four or five pairs of sandals in the window and decided to buy some dry ones.

  The woman who offered him the sandals, seeing how wet he was, invited him to remain for the night in her home. Gudo accepted, thanking her. He entered and recited a sutra before the family shrine. He then was introduced to the woman’s mother, and to her children. Observing that the entire family was depressed, Gudo asked what was wrong.

  “My husband is a gambler and a drunkard,” the housewife told him. “When he happens to win he drinks and becomes abusive. When he loses he borrows money from others. Sometimes when he becomes thoroughly drunk he does not come home at all. What can I do?”

  “I will help him,” said Gudo. “Here is some money. Get me a gallon of fine wine and some-thing good to eat. Then you may retire. I will meditate before the shrine.”

  When the man of the house returned about midnight, quite drunk, he bellowed: “Hey, wife, I am home. Have you something for me to eat?” “I have something for you,” said Gudo. “I happened to be caught in the rain and your wife kindly asked me to remain here for the night. In return I have bought some wine and fish, so you might as well have them.”