Hakuin Ekaku

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

Beings are buddha from the beginning; there is nothing to seek outside

No creator GodStated explicitly

Hakuin does not speculate about a creator. His hymn in praise of seated meditation, the Zazen wasan, opens with the formula that sums up his position: beings are buddha from the beginning, like water and ice, and apart from beings there is no buddha. The ultimate is not a separate being to be addressed, but one's own nature, which is to be seen (kenshō); the hymn compares whoever seeks it far away to someone standing in water and crying out with thirst. Hakuin also preached to lay devotees of Kannon and Amida and did not despise those devotions, but in the letters gathered in Orategama he places them within the same path: invocation is worthwhile if it leads to seeing one's own nature.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

To see one's own nature is to see that this nature is no nature

There is no permanent selfStated explicitly

Hakuin speaks constantly of seeing one's own nature (kenshō) and of the original face, which might suggest a hidden true self. But his Zazen wasan specifies that when one turns inwards and bears witness to one's own nature, that nature turns out to be no nature at all: the gate then opens in which cause and effect are one. What is found is not a substantial subject but the identity of beings with the buddha, like water and ice. In the Yasenkanna he gives that expression a bodily sense: the lower belly, the waist, the legs and the soles of the feet are the original face. The self to be broken through is the one that clings; what remains is not another self.

Why do we suffer?

We wander through the six realms through the darkness of our own ignorance

Ignorance of what we areStated explicitly

Hakuin's Zazen wasan puts it in an image: beings, not knowing that the buddha is near, seek it far away, like someone in water crying out with thirst, or like the son of a rich man lost among the poor. The cause of circling through the six realms of rebirth is the darkness of one's own ignorance, and from darkness into darkness the path goes on. We suffer, then, because we do not see what we already are. Hakuin also knew another suffering, which he recounts in the Yasenkanna and in Itsumadegusa: the «Zen sickness», physical and nervous exhaustion caused by forced practice, which he cured with the inward contemplation that brought energy down to the lower belly.

What happens after death?

One must die the great death on the cushion to stop fearing the other

Dying each day to the knownInferred from their doctrine

Death shaped Hakuin's vocation. In Itsumadegusa he tells how as a child, on hearing a sermon about the hells, he was terrified and sought in religious life a way to escape them. His mature answer is not a description of the hereafter but kōan practice, which leads to great doubt until the practitioner, as the traditional formula he makes his own says, finds under great doubt the great awakening. The Zen tradition calls that breakthrough the «great death»: the end of the clinging self, here and now. Hakuin, who painted and brushed the character «death», presented the urgency of death as the driving force of practice, without abandoning the framework of the six realms that the Zazen wasan takes for granted.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

Under great doubt lies great awakening, and practice continues after it

Through disciplined practiceStated explicitly

Hakuin teaches a path of intense effort centred on the kōan. The practitioner must concentrate on a case, Zhaozhou's mu or the one he himself devised, the sound of one hand, until great doubt forms, a mass of perplexity that absorbs the whole mind; under great doubt lies great awakening, he repeats, with a formula he makes his own. In Sekishu onjō he explains why he prefers his kōan for arousing that doubt in beginners. But kenshō is not the end: Hakuin insists on the practice that follows awakening, which deepens understanding and turns it into compassion, and he fiercely attacks the Zen of quietude that settles for a state of calm.

Is a teacher necessary?

He thought he had awakened until his teacher showed him otherwise

IndispensableStated explicitly

Hakuin learned the need for a teacher at first hand. In Itsumadegusa he tells how after his first awakening, in 1708, he thought himself the greatest practitioner in three hundred years, until old Shōju, with whom he spent a few months, dismantled his pride with mockery, blows and kōans he could not resolve. From then on he considered it indispensable for awakening to be tested by an authentic teacher, and criticised those who considered themselves realised without that verification. In Kaiankokugo he champions the line of transmission of Daiō, Daitō and Kanzan as authentic Japanese Zen, to which he tied his own teaching. He trained many disciples, and his kōan system, transmitted from teacher to disciple, is still in use in Rinzai.

Is the world real?

This very place is the lotus land; this very body is the buddha

Manifestation of the divineStated explicitly

Hakuin does not deny the world in order to seek another. His Zazen wasan ends with the formula that condenses his vision: this very place is the lotus land and this very body is the buddha. The Pure Land is not elsewhere, and the world of confusion, seen from awakening, turns out to be the same one in which the way is realised. The hymn prepares this by affirming that when one bears witness to one's own nature, which is no-nature, the gate opens in which cause and effect are one, and the form of no-form is taken as form. Hakuin made that affirmation of the everyday world part of his teaching to lay people, with popular songs, paintings and stories that carry the doctrine into daily life.

What is love?

Awakening is proved in compassion: practice continues to save others

Boundless compassionInferred from their doctrine

For Hakuin, kenshō that stays within oneself is incomplete. He insists on post-awakening practice, whose meaning is the bodhisattva mind: working tirelessly for the good of all beings. His own life shows it. He devoted his last decades to teaching monks and lay people with means within anyone's reach: paintings, calligraphy, songs for grinding grain and lullabies. In Hebiichigo he addresses rulers to warn them about greed, luxury and the suffering of peasants, and in Yabukōji he defends meditation for those who govern. Compassion is for him not a feeling but the necessary consequence of having seen one's own nature.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

Karma is real, but awakening opens the gate where cause and effect are one

Karma and choiceInferred from their doctrine

Hakuin wrote no treatise on freedom, but his teaching takes the framework of karma for granted and uses it for moral ends. His childhood terror of hell, which he recounts in Itsumadegusa, arose from a sermon on the consequences of actions, and in his stories for lay people, such as that of the filial piety of the Takatsuka daughter, he extols virtue and warns against evil. At the same time, the Zazen wasan presents awakening as the moment when the gate opens in which cause and effect are one, and the path of karma ceases to bind. Freedom does not consist in escaping causality but in realising it awake; and getting there requires the determined effort of practice.

Why meditate or pray?

Concentrate on the kōan until great doubt bursts open

Returning to the source of the IStated explicitly

For Hakuin, meditation is not stillness but intense inquiry. The practitioner takes a kōan, Zhaozhou's mu or the sound of one hand, and holds it at the centre of attention, seated or in the midst of any activity, until great doubt forms: a total perplexity in which the questioner and the question fuse. When that mass breaks apart, one sees one's own nature. Hakuin fiercely attacked the Zen of quietude that is content with a state of calm, and in Orategama he holds that practice in the midst of activity is worth far more than practice in repose. For the practitioner's health he also prescribed naikan, a contemplation that brings energy down to the lower belly.

Can reason know the ultimate?

Intellect does not reach it: it must be broken in great doubt

The ultimate lies beyond the mindStated explicitly

Hakuin knew the texts well: he read and commented on the Chinese masters, wrote in classical Chinese and glossed the Heart Sutra and the Blue Cliff Record. But his method starts from the premise that discursive understanding does not reach one's own nature. The kōan, especially the sound of one hand, is built so that reason cannot solve it: the practitioner must exhaust his resources until great doubt forms and, when it breaks, a direct knowing appears. In Dokugo shingyō he comments on the Heart Sutra with biting remarks that do not explain but shake the reader. Study has its place, but subordinate to the experience of awakening and to its testing by the teacher.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

Practice amid activity far surpasses practice in repose

Contemplation in actionStated explicitly

Hakuin, who spent most of his life in a small rural temple at Hara, did not preach flight from the world. In Orategama, written as letters to a feudal lord, to a sick monk and to other correspondents, he holds that practice in the midst of activity is worth far more than practice done in repose, and that the kōan must be sustained while working, governing or looking after the household. He addressed rulers in Hebiichigo to warn them about the suffering of peasants, and ordinary people with work songs and paintings. He trained monks rigorously, but his ideal was not the closed monastery, but awakening lived out in any occupation.