[In the following essay, Hakutani notes similarities and contrasts in the precepts of Zen Buddhism and the American Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.]

Fascinated by the Mysticism of the East, Emerson adapted to his own poetical use many allusions to Eastern religions. From time to time, however, one is surprised to find in his essays an aversion to Buddhism. This "remorseless Buddhism," he writes in his Journals, "lies all around, threatening with death and night.… Every thought, every enterprise, every sentiment, has its ruin in this horrid Infinite which circles us and awaits our dropping into it." Although such a disparaging remark may betray the young Emerson's unfamiliarity with the religion, as a critic has suggested [Frederick Ives Carpenter, in Emerson and Asia, 1930], this passage may also indicate Emerson's aversion to the concept of nirvana. For Emerson, the association of nirvana with an undisciplined state of oblivion to the self and the world is uncongenial to his stoicism and self-reliance.

But, when he declared, "The Buddhist… is a Transcendentalist" (Complete Essays), he meant that Buddhism, unlike a religion, is a philosophy that emphasizes the primacy of the spiritual and transcendental over the material and empirical. Zen Buddhists, unlike the believers of other sects in Buddhism, are urged to achieve Buddha-hood within them, an advice which sounds a great deal like the one given by Emerson, who urges his readers to think not for the sake of accomplishing things, but for the sake of realizing their own world. The achievement of godhead within rather than its discovery elsewhere is echoed in Whitman's poetry as well. In "Song of Myself ' Whitman admonishes the reader: "Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,/You must travel it for yourself [Leaves of Grass]. In "Passage to India," too, Whitman defines God not as the wonder of the world, but as a journey.

In analyzing the mystery of God, Emerson, and Whitman both seem to be emphasizing man's independence from God's power and influence. For them, an individual must achieve enlightenment by himself or herself even at the risk of losing the sight of God, and this is somewhat akin to the doctrine of Zen. Unlike the other sects of Buddhism, Zen is not a religion which teaches the follower to have faith in a monolithic deity. Like American transcendentalism, Zen teaches one a way of life completely different from what one has been conditioned to lead. The instructional tenet inherent in Zen is manifested in a form of colloquy used by a Zen master and his disciple. In some aspects, Zen's method of teaching resembles Whitman's in his poetry and can be compared to the forms of lecture and essay adopted by Emerson.

In Zen, every individual possesses Buddhahood and all he or she must do is to realize it. One must purge one's mind and heart of any materialistic thoughts and feelings, and appreciate the wonder of the world here and now. Zen is a way of self-discipline and self-reliance. Its emphasis on self is derived from the prophetic admonishment Gautama Buddha is said to have given to his disciples: "Seek within, you are the Buddha." Zen's emphasis on self-enlightenment is indeed analogous to American transcendentalism, in which an individual is taught to discipline himself or herself and look within because divinity resides not only in nature but in man.

But there are certain differences between Zen and American transcendentalism. Satori in Zen is an enlightenment that transcends time and place, and even the consciousness of self. It is a state of mu, nothingness. The state of nothingness is absolutely free of any thought or emotion; it is so completely free that such a consciousness corresponds to that of nature. This state of nothingness, however, is not synonymous with a state of void, but functional. And its function is perceived by the senses. If, for example, the enlightened person sees a tree, he sees the tree through his or her enlightened eye. The tree is no longer an ordinary tree; it now exists with different meaning. The tree contains satori only when the viewer is enlightened; Buddha exists in nature only if the follower achieves the Buddha in himself or herself. For Emerson and Whitman, on the contrary, God exists in nature regardless of whether man is capable of such intuition.

Emerson's and Whitman's disenchantment with religion, I submit, can be demonstrated in their poetry. The farther they departed from the religious conceits the deeper they delved into their natural, social, or philosophical concerns. This partly accounts for the facts that Emerson left the pulpit and that Whitman seldom attended church as a worshiper. Just as Zen, an unconventional Buddhistic doctrine, found its aesthetic expression in the arts, American transcendentalism found its expression in poetry.

What Zen and haiku, the quintessence of Japanese poetry, share is a vision of the harmonious relationship man can have with nature. A Zen-inspired haiku, like a Zen painting, scarcely deals with dreams, fantasies, or concepts of heaven; it is strictly concerned with the portrayal of nature—mountains, trees, birds, waterfalls, and the like. For the Zen poet, nature is a mirror of the enlightened self; one must see and hear things as they really are by making one's consciousness pure and clear. What the haiku poet perceives has little to do with true or false, gain or loss, good or evil, war or peace, life or death. Nor does the haiku relate itself with the Buddha or one's ancestry. In short, what is described in it is not the poet's object, but the poet's subject. This principle can be illustrated even by one of the lesser-known haiku by Basho (1644-1694): "How cool it is,/Putting the feet on the wall,/An afternoon nap" (trans, mine). Basho is interested in expressing how his feet, anyone's feet, would feel when placed on the wall on a warm summer afternoon. The subject of the poem is none other than the pure sensation of how the feet feel. The poet does not want to convey any emotion, any thought, any beauty; there remains only poetry, only nature.

One of the reasons for the opposition of Zen poetry to metaphor and symbolism is that figurative language might lessen the intensity and spontaneity of a newly perceived sensation. Such language would not only undermine originality in the poet's sensibility, but resort to intellectualization and what Yone Noguchi (1875-1947) [in Through the Torii, 1922] calls "a criticism of life," which traditionally Japanese poetry was not. This poetics can be shown by Basho's famous haiku, "Old Pond": "An Old pond,/A frog plunges,/The sound of water" (trans. mine). Though one may think a frog is an absurd subject for poetry, Basho focuses his attention on the scene of an autumnal desolation. The pond is perhaps situated on the premises of an ancient temple whose silence suddenly is broken by a frog plunging into the deep water. Basho is not suggesting that the tranquillity of the pond means death, or that the frog symbolizes life. He is perceiving the sensation of hearing the sound bursting out of the sound-lessness. This haiku is not a representation of good, truth, or beauty; there is nothing particularly good, true, or beautiful about a frog's jumping into water.

What a Zen poet like Basho tried to express is that man can do enough naturally, enjoy doing it, and achieve peace of mind. This fusion of man and nature is called spontaneity in Zen. The best haiku poems, because of a linguistic limitation (a haiku consists of only seventeen syllables), are inwardly extensive and outwardly infinite. A severe constraint imposed on one aspect of haiku must be balanced by a spontaneous, boundless freedom on the other. From a Zen point of view, such a vision is devoid of any thought or feeling. Ezra Pound, who cherished Eastern poetics in general, called this vision an image. To him an image is nevertheless an intellectual and emotional mode of expression. "It is," Pound writes, "the presentation of such an image which gives that sudden sense of liberation; that sense of freedom from time and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art" (Literary Essays).

In Zen art, nature is the mirror of man. Zen practice calls for the austerity of the mind; one should not allow one's individuality to control action. "Drink tea when you are thirsty," writes Yone Noguchi [in The Story of Yone Noguchi, 1914], "eat food in your hunger. Rise with dawn, and sleep when the sun sets. But your trouble will begin when you let desire act freely; you have to soar above all personal desire." This tenet of Zen, which teaches man to emulate nature, was one of the Taoist influences upon Zen. Lao Zse said: "Man takes his law from the earth; the Earth its law from Heaven; Heaven its law from Tao; but the law of Tao in its own spontaneity." The twin deeds of man—naturalness and spontaneity—are in Zen the means by which man can be connected with the absolute, the achievement of satori.

Artists' fascination with and emulation of nature is amply reflected in Zen art. Unlike certain arts in the West, Zen-inspired art abhors sentimentalism, romance, and vulgarity. While Zen art refrains from the negative aspects of life, it seeks a harmony between man and nature. The fusion of man and nature is reflected in a haiku by Kikaku (1661-1707): "Autumn's full moon:/Lo, the shadows of a pine tree/Upon the mats!" The beauty of the moonlight in autumn is not only humanized but intensified by the shadows of a pine tree that fall upon the man-made tatami mats. Kikaku's poem constitutes an image of the coexistence of man and nature. The harmony of man and nature has, in effect, resulted in the intensity of beauty that cannot otherwise be enjoyed.

It is this revelatory and emulating relationship nature holds for man that makes Zen akin to American transcendentalism. The basis for such a comparison is the enlightenment one achieves in relating one's spirit to that of nature; Zen calls the enlightenment satori while Emerson defines it as one's awareness of the over-soul. In "The Over-Soul," Emerson describes this state of mind as a boundless sphere in which "there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens." No sooner does the consciousness of self disappear than the over-soul appears on the scene, as Emerson writes, "man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins." To Emerson, the over-soul is so pervasive "a light" that it "shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all" (Complete Essays). In his essay, "Nature," this light is so powerful that one becomes "a transparent eyeball" which cannot see beyond one's state of mind. In Zen, on the other hand, one is taught to annihilate this eyeball before satori is attained. It seems as though Emerson would empower God to conquer the faithful while allowing them to cling to their own individuality.

For Emerson, then, because divinity resides in each and all, individuality has a divine sanction. In his writing the consciousness of self has a corollary to such disciplines as stoicism and self-reliance. "Give All to Love" is an admonition that stoical self-reliance must be kept alive underneath one's passion: "Heartily know/When half-gods go,/The gods arrive" (Poems). As long as we rely on others, "half-gods," we cannot reach our enlightenment. In Zen doctrine, however, self-reliance would preclude our attainment of satori, for the consciousness of self means that we are not completely free of our thoughts and feelings and have not identified ourselves with the absolute.

Much like Emerson, Whitman inspires the reader to seek enlightenment in self as he says in "Song of Myself "I am made for it to be in contact with me." The "I" consists of all the senses the person possesses, as well as his emotional and intellectual faculties; the "me" is the essential, real identity, as opposed to the physical, actual "I." As Emerson calls this identity divine, depicting it as an all-powerful light, Whitman regards it as mystical. While Emerson's divine light permeates each and all in the universe, Whitman's is not so abstruse as Emerson's. What Whitman finds in himself can be found in anyone else. The humanistic and democratic spirit in Whitman rejects the conventional antitheses of man and woman, friend and foe, bride and prostitute. Even though Whitman's means of reaching this state of mind differs from that of Zen, his motto remains similar to what Zen indoctrinates its followers: only by severing oneself from the mundane world of good and evil, love and hate, life and death, can one reach the essential self.

Another striking similarity between Zen and Whitman is that the state of enlightenment is not as "intuitively" realized as it is in Emerson. In the tradition of Zen instruction the attainment of satori is as practical as is actual human life. When the young Bassui, who later became a celebrated Zen priest in Japan in the fourteenth century, asked his master, "What's the highway to self-elevation?" The master replied, "It's never stop." Failing to understand, Bassui persisted: "Is there some higher place to go on to?" The master finally answered, "It's just underneath your standpoint." The Zen master's pronouncement, "never stop," recalls Whitman's last passage in "Song of Myself," "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,/Missing me one place search another" or the last lines in "Passage to India": "O brave soul!/O farther farther sail!/O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?/O farther, farther, farther sail!" Whitman's final statement in "Song of Myself—"If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles"—echoes the Zen master's: "It's just underneath your standpoint."

Whether man can achieve godhead through intuition as Emerson says, or through deed and discipline as do Whitman and the Zen master, the ultimate goal of man is to discover his or her place in the totality of the universe. Emerson, in a moment of exaltation, can envision a transparent eyeball merging into a divine light, an image of infinity and oneness. "Passage to India" is Whitman's demonstration of monism: the world is one, spirit and matter is one, man and nature is one. In "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," the people separated by time and space are united in an image of sea-gulls.

This concept of unity and infinity is also the basis for Zen's emphasis on transcending the dualism of life and death. Zen master Dogen (1200-1254), whose work Shobogenzo is known in Japan for his practical application rather than his theory of Zen doctrine, observed that since life and death are beyond man's control, there is no need to avoid them. Dogen's teaching is a refutation of the assumption that life and death are entirely separate entities as seasons are. Whitman similarly seeks a reconciliation between life and death: his feat of turning the bereavement in "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" into a celebration of death is well known, but less known is his idea of death given in "A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim." To Whitman, the dead soldier in this poem appears no less divine than the savior Christ; they both represent the living godhead. Whitman and a Zen Buddhist thus refuse to believe in the dualism of man and God, life and death.

From this comparison of Zen Buddhism and American transcendentalism the justification of their otherwise inexplicable stylistic similarities and differences readily unfolds. Basho's haiku on a frog leaping into the water, quoted earlier, evokes an image of unity and infinity. Basho is said to have awakened to his enlightenment when he heard the sound bursting out of silence; he realized, in Noguchi's words, "life and death were mere change of conditions". [The Spirit of Japanese Poetry, 1914]. The Chinese painter Lian Kai's "Sakyamuni Descending from the Mountain of His Awakening" or the Japanese painter Sesshu's "Landscapes of Fall and Winter" also exhibits a Zen artist's view of infinite silence. "In the best 'Noh,'" Ezra Pound notes, "the whole play may consist of one image. I mean it is gathered about one image. Its unity consists in one image, enforced by movement and music" ["Vorticism," The Fortnightly Review, 573 (1914)].

In common with Zen art, many of Emerson's poems contain images of tranquillity that suggest not only silence but freedom from agitation of the human spirit. Emerson discovers a fresh rhodora in the woods, "where sea-winds pierced our solitudes" (Poems). "Concord Hymn," in its quiet compactness, alludes to death and eternity. In "The Humble-Bee," Emerson leads himself to "gulfs of sweetness without bound/In Indian wilderness found." "Wood-Notes, I" also abounds in images of infinity and death: "When sea and land refuse to feed me, 'T will be time enough to die." Both "Seashore" and "Two Rivers" present symbols of the boundless spirit which, transcending time and space, flows through all things.

In some of Whitman's poems calm imagery dominates their form as well. The "Lilacs" poem, an elegy for Lincoln, abounds in quiet passages and subdued music: the poet's song and the bird's song, as if in a musical recitation, lead one's heart to a sense of infinity and peace, to "Dark mother" and "lovely and soothing death." "On the Beach at Night" shows how a child's awe at the vast universe is mitigated by the idea of immortality and infinity. "A Noiseless Patient Spider" can easily be compared to a haiku, which has a single, concentrated image such as a bird on a withered branch. In Whitman's poem a spider noiselessly spreads his gossamer thread in "measureless oceans of space,/… seeking the spheres to connect them,/Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold."

Other poems by Whitman, however, are not entirely conducive to the calmness and liberation found in Zen poetry. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" thrives partly on the passages that suggest peace of mind, but the theme of the poem is the mystical unity of the people who have crossed and will cross the East River over the generations. Uniting the people separated in time and space is accompanied by robust passages in contrast with the subdued ones that dominate "Lilacs." Actions portrayed in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," in particular, are propelled by the scenes that suggest playing the trumpet and the trombone. The music to which such passages allude are the opposite of the kind heard in a noh play or haiku.

The liberation in Zen, moreover, implies one's liberation from man-made laws, rules, and authorities. "America, My Country," in which Emerson airs his disparaging remarks about England while singling out America's lacks, expresses this spirit of liberation. The argument against his own priesthood in "The Problem" also is buttressed by this spirit of liberation, a desire in him which remains unstated in the course of the argument. For Emerson, liberation results from man's desire to adhere to nature's laws: how a woodbird weaves her nest, how a shellfish outbuilds her shell, how a pine-tree adds new needles to her old leaves.

Liberation for Zen also requires that a person liberate self from normality, equilibrium, or perfection. This definition of liberation explains that Zen art shuns full circles, even numbers, balanced squares. The Zen-styled calligraphy calls for uneven strokes and rugged lines that reflect simplicity, spontaneity, and uncouthness found in nature. In the traditional Chinese and Japanese paintings the only color used is black in various shades, for such coloring reflects the simplicity of nature and the lack of polish. If anything, Zen aesthetics calls for less symmetry, parallelism, and fullness. Whitman's poetic form, then, is least reminiscent of Zen's. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is full of round or patterned shapes and figures: "beads," "round masts," "slender serpentine pennants," "the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels," "scallop-edg'd waves," "seagulls oscillating their bodies."

By contrast, Emerson's poetry is aphoristic in its conception and truncated in its form. Its rhythm, despite the prevailing rhymes, is sometimes uneven. "Days," one of his briefest but richest poems, consists of intriguing images, mysterious events, and sudden movements. Silent and muffled like "Barefoot dervishes," days, daughter of time, look hypocritical and deceptive to man. Marching "single in an endless file," days offer him according to his wish gifts which serve his needs: "diadems," "fagots," "bread," "kingdoms," "stars," "sky." The garden where Emerson watches a day's procession is depicted as "pleached," suggesting disorder and wildness. In the end the Day quickly departs "silent," and Emerson reads her scorn under "her solemn fillet" (Poems). In the "Wood-Notes" poem, which I have noted in passing, Emerson encounters nature, puzzles over her workings, and leaves them alone: "Tints that spot the violet's petal,/Why Nature loves the number five, I And why the starform she repeats:" (italics added). That Emerson accepts nature as it is with all its enigmas is the attitude of Zen. Such an attitude clearly is conveyed in his poems: his lines are often short and cryptic as Whitman's are long and avowed. Emerson's style is markedly in common with what is called in Japanese yugen. Yugen has all the connotations of modesty, concealment, depth, and darkness. In Zen painting, woods and bays, as well as houses and boats, are hidden; hence these objects suggest infinity and profundity. Detail and refinement, which would mean limitation and temporariness of life, destroy the sense of permanence and eternity.

Whitman, on the other hand, expounds the idea of infinity in various ways. It appears in "Song of Myself as a continuous cycle of life and death, for which "grass" and "dirt" figure as a pair of symbols. In "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" the boy discovers the meaning of life, which is death. In "Passage to India" God is discovered within the human soul, defying time and space. In each poem Whitman chooses various symbols in reaching a central idea of his own. While his approach is expansive as well as refined, Emerson's is concentrated upon a single scene, a single image, a single object. "The Rhodora" is about a flower found in the American forest in opposition to "the rose" admired in English poetry. Emerson's flower lacks splendor and grandeur because "its leafless blooms" are "in a damp nook" and "the purple petals" are fallen in "the sluggish brook" (Poems). Such a scene provides Emerson with a "fresh" picture as a haiku about a lonely crow would lead the reader to the world of infinity.

The vision of infinity and eternity in Zen art also is represented by the imagery of age. Buddha's portrait hung in Zen temples, as Lian Kai's "Sakyamuni" suggests, shows the Buddha as an old man in contrast to the young figure typically shown in other temples. Zen's Buddha looks emaciated, his environment barren: his body, his tattered clothes, the aged tree standing nearby, the pieces of dry wood strewn around, all indicate that they have passed the prime of their life and function. In this kind of painting the old man with thin body is nearer to his soul as the old tree with its skin and leaves fallen is to the very origin and essence of nature.

This aesthetic principle, based upon agedness, leanness, and dimness, can be applied to Emerson's poetry. His use of paradox and irony, evident in such poems as "Brahma" and "Hamstreys," is not entirely characteristic of Zen poetics, but it has an affinity with the Zen artist's predilection for the ideas and images that suggest age and maturity. Emerson's use of aphorism and understatement in "Days" and "Grace" betrays a manner of imparting wisdom and restraint to his words. Despite his rhetorical eloquence, which is uncharacteristic of Zen poetry, "Each and All" and "The Problem" both abound in abstractions, suggesting experience and wisdom. Among his poems "Give All to Love" is perhaps the closest to the spirit of Zen in form and content, because the poem resembles the colloquy practiced in Zen Buddhism, in which the master gives his disciples advice, and because Emerson's outlook on life is stoical.

If Emerson's style has the elements of age, leanness, and dimness, Whitman's has a distinct taste for youth, robustness, and brightness. As in "Song of Myself," the people depicted in his poetry generate the optimism apparent in his ideas and attitudes. His style mirrors his mood of expansion and exuberance in contrast to Emerson's austerity and stoicism. Those long catalogues, typical of a Whitmanesque poem like "Song of Myself," come from his affinity for the common people and the spirit of freedom and abandonment. Some of Whitman's later poems, however, convey the meaning of the experience and trial in one's life that matures with age. "Prayer of Columbus" is focused on the great admiral stranded on the island of Jamaica, with whom Whitman identifies himself. His hands and limbs growing "nerveless," the poet-speaker declares, "Let the old timbers part, I will not part." "The Dismantled Ship," one of Whitman's last and shortest poems, is an unrhymed five-line poem reminiscent of the tanka. Whitman's poem catches a glimpse of "An old, dismasted, gray and battr'd ship… rusting, mould-ering." The battleship, stripped of its technology and power, is now sunk "In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay/On sluggish, lonesome waters." The admiral and the battleship, whose long careers have met their challenges and accomplished their great deeds, and whose bodies now turn into nature, both provide the poem with concise images of age and experience. As in Zen art, Whitman's fascination with age and fulfillment is expressed with grace and humility.

As a whole, however, Whitman's poetry is far more natural, spontaneous, and expansive than Emerson's. In terms of literary expression, Emerson is least Zen-like in his poetic style if the reader looks for the elements of naturalness. But if one has a taste for the style of age and grace, an Emersonian poem might sound like a noh play or haiku. Similarly, a Whitmanesque verse sounds like a haiku in one way but not in another. Emerson and Whitman are both regarded as transcendentalists, but needless to say they are not cut from the same cloth. The two men share many views about human life, but their poetic styles are poles apart. It is not surprising that Emerson's and Whitman's poems, their reminiscences of Zen philosophy notwithstanding, do differ in their stylistic resemblances to Zen poetry.

American transcendentalism, as epitomized by Emerson and Whitman, and Zen Buddhism seem to have in their teaching similar manifestations about human life. Both philosophies instruct humans how to find peace of mind and happiness on earth. To explain the method of self-reliance Emerson puts it in a form of command: "Insist on yourself; never imitate" {Complete Essays). In expounding a theory of happiness Whitman insists in "Song of Myself that one must reject the conventional dualism of man and woman, friend and foe, good and evil. Zen masters would not disagree with such teachings, for they believe that one's model of life can be found in the world of people and nature rather than in religious dogma.

A Zen Buddhist, Emerson, and Whitman all agree that one's responsibility ultimately rests on self. From Zen's point of view, human beings can be happier by adhering to nature's laws than clinging to theirs. To Emerson, because God resides in man as well as in nature, man can rely on self to be happy. The Zen discipline, in which woman must sever the self from the human laws, is a severe discipline to anyone just as Emerson's stoicism is a frustrating experience to many. For Whitman, as his exuberant attitude to nature shows, man is inferior to nature where man can achieve godhead more readily. The Zen Buddhist and the American transcendentalist seem to share the belief that one has a capacity to participate fully in real life and that life is what one makes here and now.

Zen Buddhism and the ideas of Emerson and Whitman, however, differ in the means by which woman can attain the state of mind we call peace and happiness. Zen's doctrine of satori calls for the follower to annihilate self to reach the state of mu so as to liberate self from the habitual way of life. In Zen, one must destroy not only individuality but God, Buddha, Christ, any prophet, or any idol because it is only the self, no one else, that can deliver the person to the state of mu. To Emerson and Whitman, on the contrary, one destroys neither God nor individuality; one believes not only in God but in oneself. Emerson's self-reliance, therefore, is opposed to Zen's concept of the state of nothingness. Whitman's denial of dualism in human life, on the other hand, while it resembles Zen's indifference to good and evil, life and death, man and nature, is similar to Emerson's self-reliance. For both Emerson and Whitman, unlike Zen, believe that their vision of life not only emanates from God but derives from humanity's intuition and reason.