[paragraph continues] History of Religions (1908); when, some twenty-five years ago, I asked a Soto priest to give me instruction, he began his lectures by a course of expositions of the Hannya Shingyo, or Paramita Hridaya Sutra. Nearly all the Soto priests whom I have known have been learned men; I think I may say the same of all the Rinzai priests with whom I have become acquainted. It is difficult to talk with them on purely spiritual issues, because they hold that Truth is not communicated orally from mouth to ear, but, without the intermediary of words, by a kind of wireless telegraphy from heart to heart. Zen wa zeni nashi, Monto mono wo shiradzu. "The Zen priests have no money," says the proverb, "the Monto (Shinshu) priests no understanding."

The Zen sects have always been more or less influenced by Confucianism. Indeed, I have heard them described as being more Confucianist than Buddhist--au obvious exaggeration of facts. But the Zen monks sat loose to the teachings of the Sutras, which their: first Founder had taught them to look on with suspicion, and in their office as teachers they required some mental food to take the place of the discredited books. Confucianism had never been looked upon in Japan as being antagonistic to Buddhism, and Kobo Daishi (even if it was not Shotoku) had spoken of Buddhism, Taoism (Shinto), and Confucianism as the three legs of the tripod on which rested the

religious and temporary welfare of Japan. Confucianism had from the earliest times in historical Japan been looked upon as the religious philosophy of the man-at-arms or the man of affairs, and the bid which, under the patronage of the Hojo Regents, the Zenshu teachers made for the suffrages of the samurai was likely to be all the more acceptable if it came strongly seasoned with a Confucianist flavour. The establishment of the Zen corresponded with the entry into China of the improved and refined Confucianism of the Chinese reformer Chuhi, or Shushi (to give him his Japanese name), and the two systems may be said to have made common cause in their attempts to influence the religious thought of the military and governing classes.