11.  The Development of the Southern and of the Northern School of Zen.

After the death of the Fifth Patriarch the venerable Shang Siu, though not the legitimate successor of his master, was not inactive in the propagation of the faith, and gathered about him a number of enthusiastic admirers.  This led to the foundation of the Northern school of Zen in opposition to the Southern school led by the Sixth Patriarch.  The Empress Tseh Tien Wa Heu,[FN#45] the real ruler of China at that time, was an admirer of Shang Siu, and patronized his school, which nevertheless made no further development.

[FN#45] The Emperor Chung Tsung (Chu-so, A.D. 684-704) was a nominal sovereign, and the Empress was the real ruler from A.D. 684 to 705.

In the meanwhile the Sixth Patriarch, who had gone to the South, arrived at the Fah Sing Monastery in Kwang Cheu, where Yin Tsung (In-shu), the abbot, was giving lectures on the Mahayana sutras to a number of student monks.  It was towards evening that he happened to overhear two monks of the Monastery discussing about the flag floating in air.  One of them said:  “It is the wind that moves in reality, but not the flag.”  “No,” objected the other, “it is the flag that moves in reality, but not the wind.”  Thus each of them insisted on his own one-sided view, and came to no proper conclusion.  Then the Sixth Patriarch introduced himself and said to them:  “It is neither the wind nor the flag, but your mind that moves in reality.”  Yin Tsung, having heard these words of the stranger, was greatly astonished, and thought the latter should have been an extraordinary personage.  And when he found the man to be the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, he and all his disciples decided to follow Zen under the master.  Consequently Hwui Nang, still clad like a layman, changed his clothes, and began his patriarchal career at that Monastery.  This is the starting-point of the great development of Zen in China.

12.  Missionary Activity of the Sixth Patriarch.

As we have seen above, the Sixth Patriarch was a great genius, and may be justly called a born Zen teacher.  He was a man of no erudition, being a poor farmer, who had served under the Fifth Patriarch as a rice-pounder only for eight months, but he could find a new meaning in Buddhist terms, and show how to apply it to practical life.  On one occasion, for instance, Fah Tah (Ho-tatsu), a monk who had read over the Saddharma-pundarika-sutra[FN#46] three thousand times, visited him to be instructed in Zen.  “Even if you read the sutra ten thousand times,” said the Sixth Patriarch, who could never read the text, “it will do you no good, if you cannot grasp the spirit of the sutra.”  “I have simply recited the book,” confessed the monk, “as it is written in characters.  How could such a dull fellow as I grasp its spirit?” “Then recite it once,” responded the master; “I shall explain its spirit.”  Hereupon Fah Tah began to recite the sutra, and when