BOOK

Zen in English Literature and OrientalClassics, by R. H. Blyth. (Tokyo, 1942, The Boku·seido Prus. 446 pp. Yetl 4.00)

"Zen is the most precious posses ion of Asia.But it is not Yes, and it is not No.' This state­ment is arrived at by putting the first and theIllst sentences of t he book together. It is at thesarno time a "definition" of Zen which the authorwuuld subscribe to without hesitation, becausethere can be no defining of Zen. Known answersto "\Vhat is Zen~" are "Zen," or "Not Zen," or"The tree in the garden," or what ~'ou will. Aslong as there is any urge for dcfinition left. in you,yon may have a lot of things but no Zen. There·foro this book, written by one apparently thorough.Iy initiated in Zen, is not an attempt at describingwhat Zen is.

While from the intellectual point of \"iew ~ome

previons J,.'11owledge is needed before t.akulg up.Professor Blyth's work. the reader willderive pleasure and profit from it evenif he has never heard the IIlV teriousword "Zen:' ]n t hat case he ';ll1st not.try to underst.and what Zen is. Hemust be content with enjoying thequotations and texts and with gettingacquainted with the author himself, amind deeply versed in Western andOriental wisdom, gifted with poetic andnarrative power, and equipped with ill.nUlnernble quotations from sources of1111 kinds. Then the unexpected may happen:just by following up the author's thought life,I bo rcader may finally <:'xperience a sort ofenli~htenrnent on Zen and Eastern philosophy asa wholo.

Profcssor Ulyth rejoice~ over his relellSe fromthe bondllge of mere lugic through Zen. Havillghad the veil torn irorn his eves. ho is convincedthat ho is now facing the real'things-big or small-as they ure: pathetic.. happy, heroic, or miserable."Buddl1a is the tree in tIle gorden," or "toiletpaper" (p. 110). as the Zen sages ha\"e it; in any easethere must be nO ideas, no words. It is better tothillk or Buddha as a mere Kothing, or 8.8 thc nextinsignificant thing to hand, than to hanker aftervain mind·pictures of Buddha or anything clsc.As a Chinese Dlaster suys: "Fishcs swim in thewater, bllt. do not think of it; birds fly ill the wind,hut llre not aware of it." \Vhen such "dire('lncsS"is reached, the tbought.life will be sound andthere will be Zen. So the author quotes Goethein the original: "Alles De'lken ZUllO Dctlken hilft"ichls; fIlun mU88 von ~\'atur richlig sci", .~oda88 dieyulen Eillfiille immer u:ie freie Ki"der Colles vor11/'" d.<18Iehe,~ und uns zurofe,l.· Da si"d wir!" OrShakespellrc: "This above all: to thine own self1>0 true/nnu it must follow as the nigllL the Ullj'/thou canst not then be false to any man."

To Europeans, Zen may come in handy too:"It, WQB the power of Zen that enabled Drake tofinish his game of bowls and tben defeat the

REVIEW

Armada." There W88 no "stoicism" in Drake.as one might presume. He simply did not "think,"i.e .• his mind did not stop at mere thinking; therewas no breach, but continuity; be WtLS direct andnatural, therefore he played and then fought, ea<:hat the proper time.

Another inst.ance of how t.he author illustratesthe Zen attitude as expressed in European literatureis his remarks on DOll Quixole. Blyth feels thathe is the first t·o have explained this lit~rBry figuresatisfactorily by having recourso to the Zen wayof life as a mealls of comparison:

"This freedom of the mind, freedom of the will,consisls in following one's illstillcts. disdoining allCRUseS nnd cffccts. all rationalizing, to act like lifeitself which lives the life of life.

'This is the point,' replied Don Quixote, 'thisis rho essellee of my manner of life: for a knighterrant to run mad ~r some actual reason or

other-there would be nothing praise·worthy or meritorious in that! Theperiection of it consists in rillming madwithout the least constraint or neces­sity.'

But for all this t.alking and bOI\8Lingthere is nothing of egotism in DonQllixote. He is ill a state of M'luJ"(."), a state in which he himself, isnothmg; he seeks nothing for himself.his personulity is always dissolved in thevalor and glory of the action itself. So

when Sancho says

'These are more than twenty and we onlytwo... .' '1 am worth a hundred,' repliooDon Quixote,

and we feel that this is an understatement; he isworth more tllOn u hWldred in any combat."

To lise t.he words of a Zen classic, "\Ve do Za.Zen, not to get. anything, but \() throwaway nilwe have and to throwaway even the idea that wearo t.hrowing something away."

This is but a tiny part of what Professor Blythhas t·o say llbout a great many subjects; but inmeditating 011 his quotation of the Fifth ZenPatriarch we grasp a good deal of what he h88 inmind: "Perfect EnJightenment meaDS spontaneousrealization of j"our Original Nature."

.Professor Blyth taught at the Keijo ImperialUni\-ersil.y and was introduced to Uuddhisrnthrough Abbot Kayama. The author himselfmakes the following persollal comment: '"r111,,-riling about animals] I feel that 1 nJU !'lpea.kingof my life.line, for 1 came through Buddhism 10

Zen by virtue of my love for them... whichembraces without effort or self-consciousness themost "naggle.toothed dogs, slit-eared ClltS, snakesand so on." And further on: """hen you loveone per80n properly you love all. If you reallylove, your own dog, you love all dogs, all livingcreatures:'

BOOK REVIEW

Drei Deutsche in Nippon (Three Germans inNippon), by E7",L'inJahn. (Tokyo, 1943, J-Iakusui.•haPubl£.yhi7lY Cu. 77 pp.)

Readers of The XXtl~ Century will recall ErwinJahn's article "Three Men \Vho Were Right"published in November 1942. The aut.llOr hasnow brought out .LI. atl,ractive hooklet, in Germandculing ill 1Il0re tlotail with tllcse three men, namely,Kampfer, Siebold, and Uiilz.

The fact that the present world war is beingfought out in virtually aLI parts of the globe hasmade it very difficult to follow events withoutmaps covering the zones of military operations.

The publishers have rendered newspaper readersin East Asia a distinct service by offerin/! thisIVnr Attn.,.. which contains t.en multicolored mapsof the most important war zones in clear offsetprint.

Whatever, after reading the book, one may feelabout Zen or the author's interpretation of it, tbewealth of quotat,ions and their explanation mayopen to mOJ1Y rea<lers a new approach to the gemsof Chinese, Japanese, lind European literature.\Ve may not learn to apprCC'iate the "Zen" inGoethe or Shakespeare as Zen ("in so far as men liveat all, they livo by Zon. Wherever there is apoetical action, a religiolls aspiration, a heroicthought, a union of Nature within a man and theNature without, t,here is Zen"). but we will ap­pre<'iate them anew, and Cervantes, Dante, \Vords.worth, and B bevy of outstandiug ,I u.panese andChinese W:l woll. Tho book IUust be praised as theingoniOllH and origilllil effort of a great and genorollsmind.-P.

BRIEFLY NOTED

War Atlas. (SIumyha;. 1913, Jlax ::.roaster &:Co. 14 pp. CRB $JOO,OOj

• • •

ON THE SCREEN

Song of Autumn. In t,he leading parts: Koo1"ih·loo and Chen Juen.juen. Directed by Shu::llieh.

Cloud Over the Moon. Tn the leading parts:"'RUg Tan-fon, Gung Chiu.hsia, Chiang \Vang,IlJld Yen Djuen.

Up till now, all Chinese film stars with sufficientdraw in themselves, unllided by strong stories orcasts, have been women. Heuce overy Chinesepicture is centered around a prominent actre&!.TI,e above two recent films mnv uo of interest astentative experiments against this star system.

SOW] of A. ulumn, a young romance which endsin t.ragedy, features Koo Yih·loo. a capable lea<lingman but no matinee idol, and Chen Juen·juen, aforlller child star, now in the "awkward age."In her tlrst adolescent role she makes the sen­sat.ional leap from bauyish antics to il.licit love andmiscarriage. Tho picture has boon duly publicizedas the first Chinese film on the critiMI subject ofadolescence.

Tho Hophisticut.ed comedy Cloud Over the .Yoo,~

depends on the quantity of its minor talents forits attraction. It. gives us the beauty of WangTan-fon, the singing of Glmg Chiu.hsiu, the nctingof ChilUlg Wnng, and the personality of Yen Djuen.Pushed to great extremes, its economy of special­i7.at.ion results in un unsettling putchiness. Thelight ing is good only when Miss Wang is the subjectof photography; the sound effect is never at itsbest when ~iss Gung is not singing.

Sony of A /uumll, in addition 1.0 being tcchnicallysuperior to t he other, I,ns a plot of the most pre­vailing type und so starts out with the ad\'antageof feeling sure of il.s lludiellce-young 10\'0. serious,violent, lyrical. \\'hut llood somo expllUlution istbe modern Chinese aver'ion to hoppy endings.

Fifty years ago, nearly all popular plays andnovels ended in marriag ftoll in muss weddings.Tragic endings are especially scarce in the theatersince plays are often performed nt. private parties,

birthdays, or weddings. and a tragedy would bean ill omon to the occasion. Furthermore, Chinesefiction, held in disdain by the public, was mountto entertain, not t.o "hold lip a mirror to life."A tragic endulg creates a seuse of want whichmay evoke a disproportionate amount of broodingon the part of the audience. This fear is justifiedby the lasting wave of depression followinJ:( uponthe popularization of t.he no\'el A Dream in the UedChnmber, in which the heroine dies and the I,erobecomes II. monk. Millions of "red addicts" pinedaway in an imaltinary world of delicato woes andpicturesque diseases. The fashion has not yetpu.ssed ill t,he imerior of China_

With the renunciation of all traditions at thO'turn of the century, the Chinese were liberatedfrom tho marriage vows in the last act. Intoxi­cated with the new realism, authors and play­wrights take care always to part the hero llndheroine. The film. makers have grown SO self­cOl18Cious about weddings t.hat when a C'.ollple­have to be married t hey are merely shown fueingthe dawn together, LL wan smile on their lips.

The avorage Chinese lllldience denies a storydepth and signiflClluce unloss it is a t,ragedy or aMtire. In these circumstances, those who workon a comedy cannot help feeling silly, which 110·

doubt cOIlt.ribute~ much to thoir failuro.

Although the Chinese in their present moodlook down on laughter, the natural urge for itaccounts for the superauulldance of comic relief intheir tragedies. As in S07/(/ uf AUttt'll7l, the dire<:lol'often has t,rouble with t.he adjustment of mood.The hero leaves • hanghai to divorce his dis·reputable wife in order to marry his mistreS8. Hereturns in a bright, gay atmosphere. is teased andcongratnlated upon his prospective fatherhood.The comic interlude is too long-drawn.out to actas a dralnatic complement to the shock of t.hedenouement, in which he learns of hia mistrcss'sdeath.

The clo e minglinu: of tragedy and comedy ocC'uralso in Cluud OL'er the Moon, but with different results ..

76 THE XXth CENTURY

Here the comedy lapses so natllmlly int,o tearsthat we can consider the tragedy a more con~uenceof thought-the basio comedy being thoughtlel!8,nonJlOlU!ical. The story concems two eetll of wife.hushand, and secretary. Ono of the wive!! ilUSpoct.sI,cr husband of being unfaithful. On the otherhund. a secret8!")'-an irreproaclaaulo spinster--­ill insulted by her employer's wilo because of IIOmeslight. miswlderstandlllg, Wocping furiou8ly, sheresigns. 'fheae grievous episodes aro by far thebest managed in tho picturo,

1110 8010 comic high light---ilomo embo.rrallaingcomplications about a fur wrap-is borrowed fromtho American film Day/im~ Wife. For tho rest oft.ho fun the film fulls back on the henpecked hus.band who looks after the children. and th elderlyflirt who overdreS8os in the style of Cannen Miranda

hamly a convincing figure in China.Similarl)'. t.he wife.versue·secretary situation is

still rare in China. Owing to t.he complicatednatul'O of the language, ChinOlle secretarial workrequires much literary and practical knowledgewhic'h, unlike shorthand And typing, is not withinIhe /'Onch of t.he a\'erago educated woman. Tlll~

few women secretaries there are do not enjoyenough responsibility and intimacy to deeervo thotitle of "office wife."

In contrallt to Clqud Over eM Moon, Song 01Autumn preeentll tho likoly situation of t.ho univer·lIil.y boy in love with tho waitr'Ollll in tho collegerest~mrant. Like man)' other Chineeo lItudent.., heis already married. While he gOO8 to Canton toobtain a divorce. the waitreflll--8Orely persecutedbecaUllO she is pregnant-ruAhea hylltericaUy into ..lltorm, stumbles, and dies of a miaca.rriage.

Tho scones in Canton are gratifyingly real be·CAUIIO the faces are typically Cantoneeo and thewife's dresses bear noticeable touches of BongkongfMhions. The director has a strong IIOnlle ofdesign. Alive to the pictorial and emotional valuesin su h e\'e!")'dBy objectll WI a calendar pioture, anold-fashioned taslIOled lamp. and a bed curtain, heu them well in his sensitive portrayal of middle·class lif a field hardly explored by Chinese films."'hioh are g nerully preoccupied with the moremelodmnlati,; stations of riches and rugs.-EiloenChang.

DOCUMENTS

Tn n "1'url. """rI- on J,me 6, 19.,J. i" B-r/in. Reida MillUler lor Ar.....elllfllIlI ....""""'lon, Proleuor Dr. AlNrt S~r, rwderw accou,u of 1M prueTuII/ale 0) (Ja-null. a rma7/le'll<I. J:J ere )ol/ow 80"W! quotuti.o/w:

During the last few months America hM pub.lillhed figuree [on armament production] whiohclaim an increase within a yoar of ten. twenty.and even IUt)· times tho fonner production. Whenour own armaments were raised from peace levelto war le\'el, we also had productions which I'OlMl

ten· and twenlyfold within a short time. But,8.~ our annAInent. production has. since 1941. beenat n uniform lovel requiring tho full strengUl ofour economic st ruct urc, it is no longer ea.8)' forWI to achieve considemble incroa'l('8. If inCrea80Sof 109\' raJ time lu\\"o bet>n achie\'lxl in spite o[this fa ,t, theStl increases mUHt be judged by ontirelydifferent stundards as regards figures as well 68

v(Llne.

In ahort. th sober result of our lremendollllefforts is more or 1088 I~ follow8.

(I) Amt/lunitioll. In May 11l·!3 alone, morethan 6.3 times as much ammunition W68 producedas the average mont,hly production of 1041. thatis 10 eay: in May we produced more tons of am·munit.ion than in 1941 in six monUIa. Thill resultwas achieved wilh only a 50-per-cent incre080 inworkers, a 132.per-cent incl'0886 in crude "teel.anti 57 per ccnt le:!3 oopper. and only 2 per centmore aluminwn. ThWl, with a fraction of ad·ditional labor and material, ....e produced lMlveraltimell the quant it y of ammunition. For over)' tOil

of amnllmition, we n:-quire todny on an averageonly a quarter of tho lahor. less than half the pigiron. a twelfth of the copper. and a sixth of thealwninum .••.

(2) Arm". The production of aU gtJWl. beginningwith t.lle 3.7·centimeter caliber, WIUI increased by400 per cent. in Mayas compared with the averagemontbly produclion of 19·41. Since 1941 the num­ber of workmen h88 been increased by 43 per centand the oonsumption of crude steel by 78 per conI.while the monthly consumption of oopper has beenreduced by hali and that of aluminum haa beendecreased to almost ono tenth • • • .

(3) 7'he Tank Arm. . •.. }o'or obvious roeeollll,the main effort was devoted to increaaing theproduction oi henry tankll. _nit guns, tanksNo.4. and Tiger t.anu...• In May alone weproduced more heM')' tanks than in the whole of1941. ..•

One thing, however, is more important than thonumber of planes, arms. tanks. or ammunitionproduced: it is the improvement of exillti.ng weap'ons. mac.le polI8ible by the continuous applicationof our greater war experience, and the inventionof completel)' new weapons. I.n the p~nt. war.which is so closely linked up with science andengineering. quanlities cannot only be balancedb)' better qualil.y but even defooted••.•

We shall place at the dispoea1 of the front newarma, Dew tanks, aircraft, and U.boatll, in quantiti08which will enable our IIOldiere. with their supremepertlOnal superiority in fighting agaillllt Ottr enemy.not OW)' to survive this atruggle but to gain finalvioto!")'. Tbe front expectll this from UIl--we shallfulfill this grave duty placed upon our shoulders.We pledge this to thoee who had to give theirIiv08 in Ihis iltruggle. Their sacrifico will not havebeen in \'ain.