directly with it we must get out of the window. It is a mere stray
fly that is always buzzing within it, struggling to get out. Those
who spend most of their lives in the study of the Scriptures, arguing
and explaining with hair-splitting reasonings, and attain no higher
plane in spirituality, are religious flies good for nothing but their
buzzing about the nonsensical technicalities. It is on this account
that Rin-zai declared:[FN#109] 'The twelve divisions of the Buddhist
Canon are nothing better than waste paper.'


[FN#108] Mahaprajnyaparamita-sutra, vol. 425.

[FN#109] Rin-zai-roku.



2. No Need of the Scriptural Authority for Zen.

Some Occidental scholars erroneously identify Buddhism with the
primitive faith of Hinayanism, and are inclined to call Mahayanism, a
later developed faith, a degenerated one. If the primitive faith be
called the genuine, as these scholars think, and the later developed
faith be the degenerated one, then the child should be called the
genuine man and the grown-up people be the degenerated ones;
similarly, the primitive society must be the genuine and the modern
civilization be the degenerated one. So also the earliest writings
of the Old Testament should be genuine and the four Gospels be
degenerated. Beyond all doubt Zen belongs to Mahayanism, yet this
does not imply that it depends on the scriptural authority of that
school, because it does not trouble itself about the Canon whether it