s face
to a wall, for nine years, by which time, says the legend, his legs had
rotted off and he looked like a snow-image. During that period, people
did not know him, and called him simply the Wall-gazing Brahmana.
Afterward he had a number of disciples, but they had different views
that are called the transmissions of the skin, flesh, or bone of the
teacher. Only one of them got the whole body of his teachings. Two great
sects were formed: the Northern, which was undivided, and the Southern,
which branched off into five houses and seven schools. The Northern Sect
was introduced into Japan by a Chinese priest in 729 A.D., while the
Southern was not brought over until the twelfth century. In both it is
taught that perfect tranquillity of body and mind is essential to
salvation. The doctrine is the most sublime one, of thought transmitted
by thought being entirely independent of any letters or words. Another
name for them is, "The Sect whose Mind Assimilates with Buddha," direct
from whom it claims to have received its articles of faith.

Too often this idea of Buddhaship, consisting of absolute freedom from
matter and thought, means practically mind-murder, and the emptiness of
idle reverie.

Contrasting modern reality with their ancient ideal, it must be
confessed that in practice there is not a little letter worship and a
good deal of pedantry; for, in all the teachings of abstract principles
by the different sects, there are endless puns or plays upon words in
the renderings of Chinese characters. This arises from that antithesis
of extreme poverty in sounds with amazing luxuriance in written
expression, which characterizes both the Chinese and Japanese languages.

In the temples we find that the later deities introduced into the
Buddhist pantheon are here also welcome, and that the triads or groups
of three precious ones, the "Buddhist trinity," so-called,[26] are
surrounded by gods of Chinese or Japanese origin. The Zen sect,
according to its professions and early history, ought to be indifferent
to worldly honors and emoluments, and indeed many of its devotees are.
Its history, however, shows how poorly mortals live up to their
principles and practise what they preach. Furthermore, these professors
of peace and of the joys of the inner life in the S[=o]-t[=o] or
sub-sect have made the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years of Meiji, or
A.D. 1893 and 1894, famous and themselves infamous by their
long-continued and