The way
105-582: The way The "goal" Background Chinese texts Classical Post-classical Contemporary Zen in Japan Seon in Korea Thiền in Vietnam Western Zen A kōan ( / ˈ k oʊ æ n , - ɑː n / KOH -a(h)n ; Japanese : 公案 ; Chinese : 公案 ; pinyin : gōng'àn [kʊ́ŋ ân] ; Korean : 화두 ; Vietnamese : công án )
210-401: A gōng'àn . Thus, by the time of Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163), this practice was well established. Dahui promoted and popularized the practice extensively, under the name of "observing the phrase zen" ( kanhua chan ). In this practice, students were to observe ( kan ) or concentrate on a single word or phrase ( huatou ), such as the famous mu of the mu-kōan , and develop
315-437: A kōan . According to Hori, a central theme of many kōan is the 'identity of opposites': [K]ōan after kōan explores the theme of nonduality. Hakuin's well-known kōan , "Two hands clap and there is a sound, what is the sound of one hand?" is clearly about two and one. The kōan asks, you know what duality is, now what is nonduality? In "What is your original face before your mother and father were born?"
420-563: A Chan master would cite a story about a famous master and then demand that his students comment." Later on, certain questions (like: "Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?") developed independently from the traditional stories and were used in the same fashion. Schlütter also notes that "most commonly used gongan in the Song originally came from the influential Transmission of the Lamp , although
525-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
630-446: A corollary to this, Ta-hui warned that the intellectuals who in his day were the ones most interested in kōan meditation would be the least likely to succeed at it, given their tendency to think. His advice to them, therefore, was to cease completely any effort to resolve the kōan and "to give up the conceit that they have the intellectual tools that would allow them to understand it." The primary effort required in this enterprise
735-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
840-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
945-628: A great fire that consumes all who come near it. What is called "the special transmission of the Vulture Peak" was the transmission of this; what is called the "direct pointing of Bodhidharma at Shao-lin-ssu" is this. In later periods like the Ming dynasty , Chinese Chan developed in different directions, such as incorporating Pure Land elements and the re-introduction of an emphasis on the study of scripture. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )
1050-615: A highly literary approach, such as ascribing specific meanings to the cases, or become too involved in book learning. Dahui Zonggao is even said to have burned the woodblocks of the Blue Cliff Record , for the hindrance it had become to the study of Chán by his students. During the late Song dynasty (11th–12th century), the practice of assigning specific gōng'àn to students for contemplation had become quite common and some sources contain examples of Zen masters (e.g. Touzi Yiqing) who became enlightened through contemplating
1155-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
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#17327978712531260-594: A minute ago?" The patriarch answered, "What I have told you is no secret at all. Once you have realized your own true self, the depth (in Zen) rather belongs to you!" Emyo said, "When I was at Obai with the other monks, I never realized what my true self was. Now you have dispersed the clouds of my ignorance to realize it, just like a man capable of discerning warm and cold by tasting water. From now on you are my teacher!" The patriarch said, "We both have Obai for our teacher. Guard your own self!" Mumon's Comments: We should say that
1365-472: A new contemplative technique, he also invented a whole new kind of Chan in the process." Whatever the case, Dahui was extremely influential in shaping the development of the Linji school in the Song. Dale S. Wright also writes that Dahui: [...] maintained that the hua-t'ou had no meaning and that any intellectualization, any conceptual thinking at all, would obstruct the possibility of break- through. As
1470-491: A poem, Metaphysical Insomnia Jazz Mumonkan xxix , inspired by the Original Face-koan: Of Course I could go to sleep right here With all the lights on & the radio going (April is behind the refrigerator) Far from the wicked city Far from the virtuous town I met my fragile Kitty In her greeny silken gown fairly near the summit of Nanga Parbat & back again, the wind flapping
1575-399: A sense of "great doubt" within until this ball of doubt "shattered", leading to enlightenment. Dahui's invention was aimed at balancing the insight developed by reflection on the teachings with developing śamatha , calmness of mind. This idea of observing a key phrase or word was Dahui's unique contribution, since the earlier method of gōng'àn contemplation never taught the focusing on
1680-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
1785-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
1890-453: A single word, nor did it teach to develop a "ball of doubt that builds up before finally shattering." According to Wright, instead of focusing on the full narrative of a kōan , Dahui promoted "intense focus on one critical phrase, generally one word or element at the climax of the kōan ." Dahui also taught that meditation on just one huatou of a single gōng'àn was enough to achieve enlightenment, since penetrating one gōng'àn
1995-411: A specific lineage or school. This formal authorization or confirmation ({{|zh|印可|yìn kě}}, Japanese: inka , Korean: inga ) was given by their teacher and was often part of a process of " dharma transmission " ( Chinese : 傳法 ) in a specific lineage. This formal act placed the "confirmed" Chan master in a special unique position as an interpreter and guide to the gōng'àn . The importance of
2100-455: A thing, would be a booming, buzzing confusion, a sensory field of flashes of light, unidentifiable sounds, ambiguous shapes, color patches without significance. This is not the consciousness of the enlightened Zen master. Gōng'àn literature developed at some point in between the late Tang dynasty (10th century) to the Song dynasty (960–1279), though the details are unclear. They arose out of
2205-501: A thing, would be a booming, buzzing confusion, a sensory field of flashes of light, unidentifiable sounds, ambiguous shapes, color patches without significance. This is not the consciousness of the enlightened Zen master. Zen masters have commented on the original face: "Sweep away thoughts!" means one must do zazen . Once thoughts are quieted, the Original Face appears. Thoughts can be compared to clouds. When clouds vanish,
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#17327978712532310-680: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
2415-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of
2520-470: Is a compound word, consisting of the characters 公 ('public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable') and 案 ('table; desk, altar; (law) case; record; file; plan; mandate, proposal.') According to the Yuan dynasty Zen master Zhongfeng Mingben ( 中峰明本 1263–1323), gōng'àn originated as an abbreviation of gōngfǔ zhī àndú ( 公府之案牘 , Japanese kōfu no antoku —literally
2625-512: Is a story , dialogue , question, or statement from Chinese Chan Buddhist lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Zen Buddhist practice in different ways. The main goal of kōan practice in Zen is to achieve kenshō (Chinese: jianxing 見性), to see or observe one's buddha-nature . Extended study of kōan literature as well as meditation ( zazen ) on a kōan
2730-638: Is a major feature of modern Rinzai Zen. They are also studied in the Sōtō school of Zen to a lesser extent. In Chinese Chan and Korean Seon Buddhism, meditating on a huatou , a key phrase of a kōan , is also a major Zen meditation method. The Japanese term kōan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word gong'an ( Chinese : 公案 ; pinyin : gōng'àn ; Wade–Giles : kung-an ; lit. 'public case'). The term
2835-722: Is a term in Zen Buddhism , pointing to one's real essence or Buddha-nature , one's 'real face'. The phrase "original face" originates in Huangbo 's Chuanhsin fayao (857) and the Hui-sin edition (967) of the Platform Sutra : When you're not thinking of anything good and anything bad, at that moment, what is your original face? This question appears in case 23 of the Mumonkan : CASE 23. ENO'S GOOD AND EVIL Eno ,
2940-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
3045-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
3150-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
3255-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
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3360-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
3465-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
3570-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
3675-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
3780-593: Is none other than one's original face. Even what we call 'father and mother' are names of traces that have already arisen. The man who has conclusively realized the Buddha Mind abides at the source of father and mother, and that's why we speak of [that which exists] 'before father and mother were born.' This 'before they were born' is none other than the Unborn; so the Buddha Mind is the same as your original face. . . ." The American poet Philip Whalen has written
3885-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
3990-446: Is presented in the imagery of paired opposites. The phrase "your original face" alludes to the original nonduality. Comparable statements are: "Look at the flower and the flower also looks"; "Guest and host interchange". According to Victor Hori, it is not "pure consciousness", as it is often understood in western thinking, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception": [A] pure consciousness without concepts, if there could be such
4095-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
4200-455: Is the 'table' or 'bench' an of a 'magistrate' or 'judge' kung . Gong'an was itself originally a metonym—an article of furniture involved in setting legal precedents came to stand for such precedents. For example, Di Gong'an ( 狄公案 ) is the original title of Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee , the famous Chinese detective novel based on a historical Tang dynasty judge. Similarly, Zen kōan collections are public records of
4305-665: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as
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4410-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
4515-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
4620-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
4725-415: The kōan was eliminated in the focus on a single point", that is the hua-t'ou (which was said to have no meaning), such a practice became a śamatha -like zazen practice (which even resembles Caodong silent illumination ), even if this was never acknowledged by the masters of the Linji school in the Song. Furthermore, Wright also argues that this practice was anti-intellectual since all learning
4830-663: The àndú ('official correspondence; documents; files') of a gōngfǔ ('government post')), which referred to a "public record" or the "case records of a public law court" in Tang dynasty China. Kōan / gong'an thus serves as a metaphor for principles of reality beyond the private or subjective opinion of one person, and a teacher may test the student's ability to recognize and understand that principle. Commentaries in kōan collections bear some similarity to judicial decisions that cite and sometimes modify precedents. An article by T. Griffith Foulk claims: Its literal meaning
4935-615: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered
5040-462: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
5145-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
5250-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
5355-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
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#17327978712535460-617: The hagiographical Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp (Chinese Jǐngdé Chuándēnglù , early 11th century). Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323), a Chinese Chan master who lived at the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty , revitalized the Chinese Linji school . Zhongfeng put a strong emphasis on the use of gōng'àn , seeing them as a "work of literature [that] should be used as objective, universal standards to test
5565-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
5670-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
5775-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
5880-480: The Original Face; It will not disappear even When the universe is destroyed. "What's called one's 'original face' is also none other than the Unborn Buddha Mind. What you have from your parents innately is the Unborn Buddha Mind alone—there's nothing else you've got innately. This is an expression left behind by a master of old in his attempt to make people realize the fact that the Unborn Buddha Mind
5985-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
6090-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
6195-474: The collections of the recorded sayings of Chán masters and "transmission" texts like the Transmission of the Lamp . These sources contained numerous stories of famous past Chán masters which were used to educate Zen students. According to Morten Schlütter "it is not clear exactly when the practice of commenting on old gongan cases started, but the earliest Chan masters to have such commentaries included in
6300-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
6405-524: The essence of enlightenment, since "its verification was always interpersonal. In effect, enlightenment came to be understood not so much as an insight, but as a way of acting in the world with other people." This mutual inquiry of past cases gave Zen students a role model and a sense of belonging to a spiritual family since "one looked at the enlightened activities of one's lineal forebears in order to understand one's own identity." The practice also served to confirm an individual's enlightenment and authority in
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#17327978712536510-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure
6615-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
6720-533: The genre was called niangu ('picking up the old ones'), and when poems were used to comment, the genre was termed songgu ('eulogizing the old ones'). Further commentaries would then be written by later figures on these initial comments, leading to quite complex and layered texts. The style of these Song-era Zen texts was influenced by many Chinese literary conventions and the style of "literary games" (competitions involving improvised poetry). Common literary devices included: There were dangers involved in such
6825-432: The hundreds and thousands of bodhisattvas of the three realms and ten directions . This principle accords with the spiritual source, tallies with the mysterious meaning, destroys birth-and-death, and transcends the passions. It cannot be understood by logic; it cannot be transmitted in words; it cannot be explained in writing; it cannot be measured by reason. It is like the poisoned drum that kills all who hear it, or like
6930-423: The insight of monks who aspired to be recognized as Ch'an masters". He also promoted Dahui's famous kanhua chan method of meditating on a huatou and influenced several Japanese Rinzai masters of the time who came to China to study with him, including Kosen Ingen, Kohō Kakumyō, Jakushitsu Genkō (1290–1367). According to Zhongfeng: The koans do not represent the private opinion of a single man, but rather
7035-485: The language of law. Originally, such a story was only considered a gōng'àn when it was commented upon by another Chán master, i.e. when it was used as a "case" study for enlightenment. This practice of commenting on the words and deeds of past masters also served to confirm the master's position as an awakened master in a lineage of awakened masters of the past. According to Schlütter, these stories were also used "to challenge Chan students to demonstrate their insights:
7140-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,
7245-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
7350-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
7455-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
7560-420: The material in the recorded sayings collections of individual Song Chan masters consists of the master quoting ("raising"; ju ) a story about a famous past Chan figure's encounter with disciples or other interlocutors and then offering his own comments on it. The stories held up for comment came to be referred to as gongan, "public cases," or guze , "old model cases," both terms borrowed, it would seem, from
7665-649: The moon appears. The moon of suchness is the Original Face. Thoughts are also like the fogging of a mirror. When you wipe away all condensation, a mirror reflects clearly. Quiet your thoughts and behold your Original Face before you were born! Cease practice based On intellectual understanding, Pursuing words and Following after speech. Learn the backward Step that turns Your light inward To illuminate within. Body and mind of themselves Will drop away And your original face will be manifest. You cannot describe it or draw it, You cannot praise it enough or perceive it. No place can be found in which To put
7770-403: The notable sayings and actions of Zen masters and disciples attempting to pass on their teachings. The popular Western understanding sees kōan as referring to an unanswerable question or a meaningless or absurd statement. However, in Zen practice, a kōan is not meaningless, and not a riddle or a puzzle. Teachers do expect students to present an appropriate response when asked about
7875-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
7980-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
8085-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
8190-591: The phrase "father and mother" alludes to duality. This is obvious to someone versed in the Chinese tradition, where so much philosophical thought is presented in the imagery of paired opposites. The phrase "your original face" alludes to the original nonduality . Comparable statements are: "Look at the flower and the flower also looks"; "Guest and host interchange". Kōan are also understood as pointers to an unmediated "Pure Consciousness", devoid of cognitive activity. Victor Hori criticizes this understanding: [A] pure consciousness without concepts, if there could be such
8295-536: The practice of going to a private interview with one's Zen master ( sanzen ) where one has to prove one's understanding of kōan "is the real point of the whole exercise". Some of the key Song-era gōng'àn collections are: These texts mostly draw and develop stories which are found in other sources, mainly the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (Chinese Zǔtángjí , mid-10th century), and
8400-486: The prayer-flags "IT IS THE WIND MOVING." "IT IS THE FLAG MOVING." Hypnotized by the windshield swipes, Mr. Harold Wood: "Back & forth; back & forth." We walked beside the moony lake Eating dried apricots Lemons bananas & bright wedding cake & benefits forgot "IT IS THE MIND MOVING." & now I'm in my bed alone Wide awake as any stone Keith Kumasen has commented on this poem. The American Buddhist musician Stuart Davis has recorded
8505-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
8610-592: The recorded sayings attributed to them appear to be Yunmen Wenyan and Fenyang Shanzhao (947–1024)." According to Robert Buswell , the gōng'àn tradition "can be viewed as the products of an internal dynamic within Chan that began in the T'ang and climaxed in the Sung." By the beginning of the Song era, Chan masters were known to use these stories in their sermons, as well as to comment on them and to use them to challenge their students. Schlütter also writes: [M]uch of
8715-468: The role the kanhua technique played in standardizing Chan practice. He argues that this contributed to the routinization of the tradition, resulting in a loss of some of the more open and creative aspects of earlier Chan. According to Kasulis, the rise of gōng'àn contemplation in Song-era Zen led to a greater emphasis on the interaction between master and student, which came to be identified as
8820-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
8925-428: The sixth patriarch was in an emergency. This revelation of his, however, resembles the deed of an overly protective grandmother, who peeled a fresh lichi (a dessert fruit), removed its stone and put it to her grandchild's mouth ready for him to swallow. You describe it in vain, you picture it to no avail, Praising it is useless, cease to worry about it at all. It is your true self, it has nowhere to hide, Even if
9030-410: The sixth patriarch, was pursued by Monk Emyo up to Daiyurei. The patriarch, seeing Emyo coming, laid the robe and the bowl on a rock, and said to him, "This robe represents the faith. Is it to be fought for by force? You may take them now." Emyo went to move the bowl and the robe and yet they were as heavy as mountains. He could not move them. Hesitating and trembling, Emyo asked the patriarch, "I come for
9135-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
9240-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
9345-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
9450-400: The subsequent transmission histories also became sources of gongan ." Over time, a whole literary genre of gōng'àn collection and commentary developed which was influenced by "educated literati " of the Song era. These collections included quotations of encounter-dialogue passages (the "cases", gōng'àn ) with a master's comment on the case attached. When a prose comment was added,
9555-540: The teacher student relationship is seen in modern Japanese kōan training which always requires an authorized teacher ( rōshi or oshō ) in a specific lineage who has the ability to judge a disciple's understanding and expression of a gōng'àn . In the Rinzai Zen school , which uses kōan extensively, the teacher certification process includes an appraisal of proficiency in using that school's extensive kōan curriculum. According to Barbara O'Brien,
9660-401: The teaching, not for the robe. Please enlighten me!" The patriarch said, "What is primordially Emyo (i.e., your true self), if you do not think this is good nor do you think this is evil?" At that moment Emyo was greatly awakened. His whole body was covered with sweat. Emyo cried, bowed, and said, "Is there or is there not any other (deep) significance (in Zen) than your secret words and teachings
9765-808: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Original face The "goal" Background Chinese texts Classical Post-classical Contemporary Zen in Japan Seon in Korea Thiền in Vietnam Western Zen The original face
9870-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
9975-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
10080-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
10185-405: The universe is annihilated, it is not destroyed. This koan is transformed in the question What did your face look like before your parents were born? According to Victor Hori, the "original face" points to "the nonduality of subject and object": [T]he phrase "father and mother" alludes to duality. This is obvious to someone versed in the Chinese tradition, where so much philosophical thought
10290-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
10395-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
10500-425: Was a negative one, "nonconceptualization,"... As Robert Buswell explains, this emphasis on non-conceptual meditation on a gōng'àn meant that "there is nothing that need be developed; all the student must do is simply renounce both the hope that there is something that can be achieved through the practice as well as the conceit that he will achieve that result." Wright argues that since "the narrative structure of
10605-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
10710-680: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
10815-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
10920-460: Was penetrating into all of them. He went even further, arguing that this new meditation technique was the only way of achieving enlightenment for Chan practitioners of his day. Thus, Schlütter writes that "in this insistence, he was unusual among the Song Chan masters, who generally tended to take a rather inclusive view of Buddhist practice. It is therefore fair to say that Dahui not only developed
11025-400: Was to be renounced in the practice of kanhua chan . According to Wright, this development left Chinese Chán vulnerable to criticisms by a resurgent neo-Confucianism. According to Mario Poceski, although Dahui's kanhua Chan (in which one focuses on a huatou ) purports to be a sudden method, it essentially consists of a process of gradually perfecting concentration. Poceski also observes
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