THE MIDDLE WAY

HUNG JEN, the fifth patriarch of the Dhyana sect in China, who died in 675 A.D., had many disciples. One day he made an announcement to them, saying that whoever was capable of giving a satisfactory proof of his thorough comprehension of Buddhism would succeed him in religious authority. And its outcome was the following two stanzas, the first by one of his most learned disciples and the second by his humble rice-pounder, who, however, was awarded the prize and came to be known later as the sixth patriarch.

"The body is the holy Bodhi tree,
The mind is like a mirror shining bright;
Exert yourself to keep them always clean,
And never let the dust accumulate."
* * *

"No holy tree exists as Bodhi known,
No mirror shining bright is standing here;
Since there is nothing from the very first,
Where can the dust itself accumulate?"
* * *

The thesis I am going to expound this evening is that these two views of Buddhism must be reconciled and harmonized in order to walk on the middle path of truth. But before doing so go

let me acquaint you with the story of the blind men and the elephant.

There was once a powerful king in India, who called all his blind retainers together to his court, and then brought out one of his largest elephants before them, asking what they thought of it. Being born blind, of course they had never seen an elephant, and now in obedience to the royal command they all came around the animal. Each of them touched only a certain portion of the huge body and came to the hasty conclusion that the portion he handled was really the entirety of the beast.

Those that touched the tail thought the elephant was like a broom; those that touched the leg thought it resembled a huge column; those that touched the back imagined the elephant had a body with the shape of a gigantic drum; those that handled the ear thought it reminded them of the wing of a bird; those that touched the tusk thought it had the shape of a flail. Though thus none of them could describe the complete and exact figure of the elephant, each was narrow-minded enough to insist on the verity of his testimony. The king was very much amused to see how utterly they failed to comprehend the object and how fruitless their quarreling was.

Even so, says the Buddha, is the way most of us look at the truth and quarrel over it. Buddhists may think that Buddhism is the whole