Muso Kokushi - Dream conversations: On Buddhism and Zen

ABOUT THE BOOK

Dream Conversations is a collection of a renowned Japanese masters written replies to questions about the true nature of Zen. In short, simply worded teachings, Muso Kokushi (12751351), also known as Muso Soseki, exposes common misconceptions with unprecedented clarity, offering psychological insights designed to lead the reader into the depths of authentic Zen experience. These incisive teachings will be especially valuable for todays Zen students, as they struggle with their own confusion and misunderstandings about the true path of Zen.

THOMAS CLEARY holds a PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. He is the translator of over fifty volumes of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Islamic texts from Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Pali, and Arabic.

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Dream Conversations

On Buddhism and Zen

Mus Kokushi

Translated and edited by
Thomas Cleary

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2014

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

1994 by Thomas Cleary

Cover art: The Peasants, by Sengai (17501837). Courtesy of Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mus Soseki, 12751351.

[Much mondshu. English]

Dream conversations on Buddhism and Zen/Mus Kokushi: translated and edited by Thomas Cleary.

p. cm.(Shambhala Centaur editions)

eISBN 978-0-8348-2942-8

ISBN 0-87773-992-7

1. Zen BuddhismDoctrinesEarly works to 1800. I. Cleary, Thomas F., 1949 . II. Title. III. Series.

BQ9268.M8513 1994 93-39949

294.3927dc20 CIP

Contents

E ight hundred years ago the history of the Japanese nation and people was altered forever. Impatient with an effete, self-absorbed aristocracy, the upper-class military elite established its own central paragovernment, thus inaugurating a series of martial regimes that were to keep Japan in thrall for centuries to come.

Seating their government in Kamakura, hundreds of miles from the ancient imperial capital in Kyoto, the chief warlords of the new order also distanced themselves from the culture of the old aristocracy. Patronizing Zen Buddhism and neo-Confucianism, newly imported from China, the Kamakura government sought to revolutionize the culture of Japan in such a way as to undermine both the material and spiritual foundations of the old order.

This influx of Chinese culture from the splendid Southern Sung dynasty was boosted in the late thirteenth century by the fall of that dynasty to the Mongolian conqueror Kublai Khan. Chinese refugees from the mainland to Japan during those times included people of culture and learning, even some Zen masters, who were cordially welcomed by the leaders of the military government.

Not all of the reverberations of contemporary events in China were welcome in Japan. Once the whole of continental China had been taken by the Mongol warriors, Kublai launched further invasions, to the south and the east. Invasion forces reached southern Japan by sea in the late 1270s and early 1280s, to be repelled once, it is said, by a kamikaze (spiritual wind), a natural storm defending the rocky coast from aggression, and once by a valiant collaborative defense staged by heroic warriors from all over Japan.

Ironically, the salvation of Japan from the Mongolian invasion also planted seeds of the downfall of the military regime. Under feudal custom, successful valor in battle was rewarded by land grant. So many were the illustrious deeds of the Japanese heroes in the defense of the nation from Kublais fleets, however, that there was no way to compensate them all adequately in the traditional manner under the conditions of the time.

The resulting drain on natural resources and the inevitable disgruntlement of some warrior clans helped to undermine the stability of the regime. Civil wars eventually broke out, and the imperial house even attempted to recover some authority from the military rulers. When the dust cleared temporarily in the 1330s, a new group of warriors had attained sufficient dominance to establish a new military government. In contrast to the earlier regime, these new shoguns made their capital in Kyoto, the old imperial city, and attempted to further develop the Zen-based new high culture in closer harmony with classical Japanese Buddhist culture.

The first of the Kyoto shoguns was Ashikaga Takauji. While military and political rivalry persisted between the new shogun and his younger brother, Ashikaga Tadayoshi, the two demonstrated greater harmony in the domain of cultural reconstruction and development. Both warriors became disciples of Mus Soseki, one of the greatest Japanese Zen masters of the age. Under Muss Zen influence, commercial and cultural relations with China were expanded, the classical doctrines of ancient Japanese Buddhism were reconciled with Chinese Zen and other religious developments, and new schools of literature and art flourished, thus boosting the evolution of Japanese civilization during a critical time in its political history.

This Zen master Mus was teacher not only of the shogun but also of the emperor, from whom he thus received the honorific title of Kokushi, or National Teacher. So great was the repute of Mus Kokushi, in fact, that he was thus entitled by several successive imperial courts; including posthumous honors, Mus was awarded the title Kokushi by no fewer than seven emperors.

Raised from childhood in the esoteric Shingon (Mantric) school of Japanese Buddhism, Mus later studied Zen with both Chinese and Japanese Zen masters. His first Zen teacher, I-shan I-ning, had been an ambassador from Yuan dynasty China; he was also the Zen teacher of Sesson, one of the greatest painters in Japanese history. Muss main Japanese teacher, Koh, had been an imperial prince who left the worldly life to learn Zen from Wu-hsueh Tsu-yuan, another transplanted Chinese master. Mus himself became a highly skilled teacher, producing more than fifty enlightened disciples, a most unusual number.

Muss teaching was largely based on the great Tsung Ching Lu (Source Mirror Record), a massive Chinese collection of extracts from the Buddhist canon combining the teachings of the various schools with the message of Zen. Although this comprehensive text still exists, it is unfortunately no longer studied in Japanese Zen schools, which subsequently became alienated from orthodox canonical Buddhism and involuted into cultic sects.

Most of what is known of National Teacher Muss teaching is today found in Much Mond, or Dream Conversations, which is a collection of Muss written replies to questions of Ashikaga Tadayoshi about Buddhism and Zen. Written in an easy, nontechnical style, Dream Conversations explodes misconceptions about Zen with unprecedented clarity, replacing standard myths with fundamental psychological insights and exercises designed to lead the lay individual into the depths of Zen experience.

This volume presents the first English translation of National Teacher Muss letters. Although the language and style of the original text are very easy for those well versed in Japanese culture, nevertheless some of the material deals with matters of strictly local concern, and the diction is often somewhat prolix in order to buffer the impact of the Zen barb on a military leader in a feudal regime. Some discussions, therefore, bear on issues that are no longer relevant, or are couched in terminology proper to a world view that no longer exists in Japan and has never existed in the West.