Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/255

THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR to the force of education and the incentive of tradition there was a transcendental influence. Buddhism supplied it. The tenets of that creed divide themselves, broadly speaking, into two doctrines, salvation by faith and salvation by works, and the chief exponent of the latter principle is the Zen sect, which prescribes "meditation" (zazen) as the vehicle of enlightenment. The student here approaches ground where the sceptic will refuse to follow; yet it is ground that has been trodden by countless feet through numerous generations, and no rational man can deny all validity to the testimony of so many disciples. At first, according to the evidence of devotees, the hours devoted to meditation in the ordained position bring to the imagination only a succession of mundane images. But gradually this chain of rambling thoughts grows more and more tenuous, until at last its links cease to be visible, the state of "absorption" supervenes, and the mind is flooded by an illumination which reveals the universe in a new aspect, absolutely free from all traces of passion, interest, or affection, and shows written across everything in flaming letters the truth that for him who has found Buddha there is neither birth nor death, growth nor decay. Lifted high above his surroundings, he is prepared to meet every fate with indifference. Whatever analysis psychologists may apply to this mental condition, its attainment seems to have been a fact in the case of the bushi of the 227