Hakuin Zenji also Hakuin Ekaku (1689-1769), one of the most important Japanese Zen masters of the Rinzai school. He is often referred to as the father of modern Rinzai Zen, since he gave new impetus to the Rinzai school which had been gradually deteriorating since the 14th century and reformed it. He systematized kōan training and emphasized once again the importance of zazen, the practice of which had been more and more eclipsed by intellectual preoccupation with Zen writings. In his famous praise of zazen (Hakuin Zenji zazen-wasan), he extolls the importance of “sitting in meditation” for the actualization of enlightenment, which is the goal of the way of Zen (also mujōdō-nō-taigen). Hakuin’s sekishu, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is the best-known kōan stemming from a Japanese master. The ingenious Hakuin Zenji was not only an outstanding Zen master, but also an important painter, master of calligraphy (shōdō), and sculptor. His ink paintings are among the most renowned works of Zen painting.
At the age of seven or eight Hakuin visited a Buddhist temple with his mother. He heard a discourse by the temple priest in which the torments of hell beings as described in a sūtra were so graphically presented that young Hakuin could not shake off the horrifying vision of hell. He resolved to become a monk and to come to the state of a man whom “fire could not burn and water could not drown.” His parents opposed his aspiration to become a monk, but at fifteen he left home and entered a monastery. There day and night he recited sūtras and venerated the buddhas. At nine teen he read the story of the great Chinese Ch’an (Zen) master Yen-t’ou Ch’üan-huo (Jap., Gantō Zenkatsu). The thought that even so great a master of the buddha-dharma could not escape a painful death caused him for a time to lose all faith in the truth of Buddhism. He absorbed himself in the study of literature in order to cover over his torturesome doubt.
After his first experience of enlightenment (kenshō, satori) at the age of twenty-two, which came as he heard a sentence from a Buddhist scripture, his desire to attain peace of mind (anjin) only became deeper, and he dedicated himself with complete devotion to practice with the kōan mu. Completely absorbed by this kōan, one day he experienced profound enlightenment upon hearing the sound of the temple bell. All his earlier fears and doubts were wiped away and he cried out, “Wonderful, wonderful! There’s no cycle of birth and death that one has to go through! There’s no enlightenment that one has to strive after! The seven hundred kōans transmitted from ancient times haven’t the least worth! ” His experience was so overwhelming that he believed it was unique in the world. “My pride rose up like a mighty mountain; my arrogance swelled like a tidal wave,” he writes in one of his most famous letters (Orategama 3). He set off to see Master Dōkyō Etan in order to tell him about his experience. But Dōkyō saw the nature of his state and did not confirm his experience. In the following years, during which he submitted Hakuin to severe Zen training, Dōkyō referred to him again and again as a “poor cave-dwelling devil” whenever Hakuin tried to tell him about his profound insights. Hakuin had further enlightenment experiences but was not confirmed by Master Dōkyō, who obviously saw the great potential of the young monk and wanted to drive him on to a more profound experience of Zen. Eventhough, as it seems, Hakuin never received inka-shōmei from Dōkyō and truly understood his dharma teaching as he himself said only years after Dokyo’s death, today Hakuin is considered to have been Dōkyō’s dharma successor (hassu).
Hakuin’s style of Zen training, which was further developed in certain details by his student and dharma successor Tōrei Enji (1721-92), by the latter’s dharma heir Inzan Ien (1751 -1814), and by Takusu Kōsen ( 1 760- 1 8 33), sets the standard up to the present time for the Rinzai school. According to Hakuin, there are three essentials of the practice of zazen: great faith (dai-shinkon), great doubt (daigidan), and great resolve (dai-funshi). He stressed the importance of kōan practice and arranged the traditional kōans into a system in which the practioner has to resolve kōans in a particular order according to their level of difficulty. The kōan mu and then later his sekishu he regarded as the best hosshin-kōan (kōan). After the successful conclusion of kōan training, marked by the conferral of a seal of confirmation, there should follow, as the masters of the Rinzai Zen in the tradition of Hakuin emphasize, a several-year period of solitary life, which serves for the deepening and clarification of the experience of the confirmed one before he makes his appearance as a master.
Hakuin also stressed the importance of a strictly regulated monastic life and in the tradition of Pai-chang Huai-hai-daily physical work. He regarded this work (samu) as part of meditation practice, which should continue during the everyday activity of the monastery and outside the monastery.
In his Orategama he writes on the importance of “practice in action”:
What I am saying does not mean that you should do away with your sitting in stillness and place priority on finding an occupation in which you can continue your practice. What is worthy of the highest respect is pure kōan practice, which neither knows nor is affect ed by either stillness or activity. Thus it is said that the monk who is practicing properly walks but does not know that he is walking, sits but does not know that he is sitting. In order to penetrate to the depths of one’s own nature and realize a true living quality that is preserved under all circumstances, there is nothing better than still absorption in the midst of activity.
(Trans. from Yampolsky 1971, 15-16)
Hakuin was the abbot of several Zen monas teries, among them Ryūtaku-ji in Shizu-oka province, which has remained one of the most important Zen monasteries in Japan up to the present. Today it is one of the few monasteries in Japan in which authentic Zen in the manner of Hakuin is still a living tradition. Hakuin’s voluminous writings are among the most inspiring of Japanese Zen literature. (Selected writings from his work are available in English translation in Yampolsky 1971, and Shaw 1963.)
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Hakuin Zenji documents
Books on Hakuin Zenji
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