Humer in Zen: Comic midwifery

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Humer in Zen: Comic midwifery

By Conrad Hyers

Philosophy East and West

Volume 39, no. 3 1989 July P.267-277

(C) by University of Hawaii Press

P.267

One of the early Buddhological debates was over the
question of whether the Buddha ever laughed, and if
so in what manner and with what meaning. This debate
ranks somewhat above the celebrated medieval
Christian debate over how many angels could
comfortably dance on the head of a pin. In many
respects the Buddhist debate is characteristic of
scholasticism wherever it may be found, yet it has
very important consequences--so important that they
affect the way in which the whole of Buddhism is
perceived, conceived, and actually lived and
practiced.

There were those among the Buddhist scholastics
who clearly would have preferred to believe that the
Buddha never laughed at all, especially after his
enlightenment experience at Bodhgaya. The Buddha's
wisdom and the Buddha's mission seemed to require
the ultimate in seriousness, gravity, and solemnity.
There was no objection to the suggestion that the
youthful Siddhartha Gautama had laughed during his
self-indulgent period in his father's palace. In
fact, laughter might well be seen as a
characteristic expression of the frivolity and
sensuality of his early life, prior to his discovery
of the Middle Way and the Four Noble Truths.
Laughter seems inextricably bound up with the young
Gautama's self-indulgence and with the very sources
of suffering later identified by the Buddha as ego,
desire, attachment, ignorance, bondage, and so
forth. Relative to the fundamental problem of
suffering (dukkha), laughter seems to represent the
hollow, superficial, and finally empty levity of
momentary delight (sukhu), foolishly evading and
ignoring the deeper issues of life and death.(1)

Such misgivings over the association of laughter
and humor with serious and especially sacred
concerns are by no means peculiar to Buddhist
scholastics. The German philosopher G. F. Meier
offered a warning on the subject that expresses
sentiments that criss-cross centuries and cultures:

We are never to jest on or with things which, on
account of their importance or weight, claim our
utmost seriousness. There are things... so great and
important in themselves, as never to be thought of
and mentioned but with much sedateness and
solemnity. Laughter on such occasions is criminal
and indecent.... For instance, all jests on
religion, philosophy, and the like important
subjects.(2)

The association of laughter and humor with the
lower, sensual regions is also very common. Western
medieval physiology determined that the seat of
laughter is the spleen.(3) This not very
intellectually or spiritually promising location
likely derived from the abdominal associations of
laughter, which seems to well up from some dark,
abysmal region. Laughter belongs, it seems, to the
lower levels of our being, in association with the
stomach, intes-

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tines, sex organs, and bladder. This seems further
verified inasmuch as three of the most common topics
of comic conversation are the earthen trinity of
food, sex, and evacuation. Even words of praise and
commendation relative to laughter and humor often
place the comic sensibility on this mundane and
sensual level, as in the encomium offered by
Gottlieb Hufeland:

Laughter is one of the most important helps to
digestion with which we are jesters and buffoons,
was founded on true medical principles... for the
nourishment received amid mirth and jollity is
productive of light and healthy blood.(4)

Given such earthy associations, and the common
assumption that lauehter does not belong in holy
places or serious disputations, it is understandable
that the Buddhist scholastics might have preferred
to disassociate the Buddha entirely from laughter in
his post-enlightenment life and teaching. The
difficulty is that some sutras seem to suggest, if
not state outright, that on such and such an
occasion the Buddha laughed.

The scholastic attempt at resolving the apparent
contradiction between laughter and an enlightened
state began by distinguishing between six types of
laughter. The classification appears to have derived
from the fourth-century C.E. Indian theatrical
treatise of Bharata, who had arranged the spectrum
of smiling through laughter in hierarchical fashion
from the most reserved expressions to the most
raucous. The context of Bharata's discussion was an
identification of the various types of laughter
deemed appropriate in dramatic acting, as people of
different status in society were being portraved.

On Bharata's dramatic scale, the highest and
noblest form of laughter is sita, a faint
smile--serene, subtle, and refined. The next highest
is hasita, a smile which slightly reveals the tips
of the teeth. The third type is vihasita, a broader
smile accompanied by modest laughter. The fourth is
upahasita, a more pronounced laughter associated
with a movement of the head, shoulders, and arms.
The fifth is apahasita, loud laughter that brings
tears to the eyes. And the sixth is atihasita,
uproarious laughter accompanied by doubling over,
slapping the thights, "rolling in the aisles." and
the like. It was understood by Bharata--and
recommended accordingly--that only the first two,
most restrained forms of laughter were appropriate
to the higher castes and to people in authority; the
middle two categories were typical of people of
middling rank, ability, and importance; while the
last two were characteristic of the lower castes and
people of an uruly and uncouth character.(5)

Given this hierarchical schema it is predictable
that the Buddhist scholastics would incline to the
view that the Buddha had only indulged in sita, the
most reserved, tranquil, and circumspect form of
laughter--actually, in terms of the English word, no
laughter at all. only a barely perceptible smile.
Sita is the level at which one approaches the
spiritual, the transcendent, and the sublime. It is
manifested by the Buddha at all only because he is
standing at the

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threshold between the unenlightened and the
enlightened, like the yogic state of bhavamukha
where one sees with both physical and spiritual
sight. The Buddha sees the juxtaposition and the
contradiction of the unenlightened and enlightened
states. From this vantage point the world of
sa^msaara, maayaa, and avidyaa has the appearance of
a comedy or "ship of fools," as the Buddha looks
back upon the folly of the unenlightened. Relative
to this world the Buddha "laughs" in the exalted
sense of sita. This is the gist of the view that
prevailed among the Buddhist scholastics, and has
persisted by and large throughout the Buddhist world
since.

ZEN ECCENTRICITY

With this historical setting and predisposition in
mind, what is especially striking about the Zen
Buddhist tradition, in both its Chinese and Japanese
forms, is that in its literature, art, and religious
practice, what one often encounters is the opposite
of sita, namely, the fifth and sixth and supposedly
lowest levels of laughter, offered both as authentic
expressions of Buddhist enlightenment and evidence
of the authenticity of the enlightenment. In Zen,
Bharata's aristocratic and spiritualistic schema
seems abruptly to have been stood on its head.

Zen anecdotal records contain frequent reference
to "loud roaring laughter": of the master in
response to a foolish statement by a monk, or of a
monk in experiencing a breakthrough to
enlightenment, or of the master in attempting to
precipitate such an experience. In the Zen anecdotal
records, too, there are many tales in which the
master is depicted behaving in ways we might
associate with clowns or fools. Seppo was noted for
his three wooden balls, which he would roll about in
response to questions. Baso and Rinzai were both
noted for their shouting and their use of a "lion's
roar." Baso once shouted at a monk so loudly that he
was deafened for three days--but also enlightened.
Gutei was noted for responding to questions by
lifting up a finger (the records do not say which
finger). The Soto master Ryokan intentionally took
that name because it means "Great Fool,'' and he was
noted for his odd behavior and Zen foolishness. Zen
anecdotes from both China and Japan are replete wtih
tales of eccentric acts and seemingly foolish
sayings or responses, from Joshu's sandals on his
head to Nansen's killing the cat to Gutei's
amputation of the finger of an attendant who
imitated his one-finger Zen.

In Zen art, too--supposedly religious art--one
often finds figures of Zen zanies, such as Kanzan
and Jittoku, or the dancing, pot-bellied Hotel, or
the Three Laughing Sages. Such figures seem more
raucous than reverential, Kanzan and Jittoku were
Zen monks of the seventh century, one an eccentric
poet and the other simply foolish, who are not only
commonly depicted in Zen art but depicted laughing
hilariously with the fifth or sixth degree of
laughter on Bharata's barometer-laughing in the full
freedom of laughter and laughing as if privy to some
cosmic joke. Another favorite of the Zen

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artist has been Hotel, whose Chinese name, Pu-tai,
literally means "linen sack." He was a jolly,
rly-poly monk of the tenth century who traveled
from village to village, playing with children,
bringing them trinkets and sweetmeats in his sack,
like an Oriental Santa Claus, and otherwise using
his sack as a sleeping bag. Yet another favorite
theme has been the Three Laughing Sages. The
reference is to the story of a Taoist hermit who for
thirty years had faithfully kept a solemn vow never
to cross a mountain stream that separated him from
the "world," but when he was accompanying two
visiting hermits on their departure, he was so
enthralled with their conversation that he
inadvertently walked across the stream with them,
whereupon all three burst out in hearty laughter.

Observations such as these once led D. T. Suzuki
to claim that "Zen is the only religion or teaching
that finds room for laughter."(6) While that is an
exaggeration, the suggestion of a prominent place
being given to laughter, humor, and the comic
perspective in the Zen tradition warrants a closer
look, particularly in view of the limited place
assigned to these by Buddhist scholasticism. This
essay will focus upon two related functions of humor
in Zen, as examples of ways in which the Zen
tradition self-consciously employed and developed
humor: (1) humor as a technique for reversing and
collapsing categories, and (2) humor as a technique
for embracing opposites. In the conclusion, a
non-functional level of humor will be discussed: (3)
humor as an expression of enlightenment, liberation,
and inner harmony.(7)

First, a word about humor as a spiritual
technique. Buddhism recognizes a variety of methods,
called upaaya, which are an accommodation to the
condition and needs of the person and the context in
which the teaching is delivered. So if one requires
a justification for the presence of humor in Zen,
one may call it a species of upaaya. Some forms of
humor in Zen, furthermore, may be seen as instances
of the "direct pointing'' and "sudden realization"
methods emphasized in Zen, especially the Southern
School and its Rinzai branch. Enlightenment may be
likened here to "getting the point of a joke''--a
sudden insight breaking into consciousness (kenzsho)
and a sudden release of the tensions produced by
ego, desire. attachment, and ignorance (satori). One
sees the foolishness of these sources of suffering
and experiences a sense of freedom from their grasp.

From this perspective, humor in Zen is often a
kind of comic midwifery in the Socratic sense of a
technique for precipitating (or provoking) an inner
realization of the truth. Zen shares, with the
Socratic view, in a doctrine of recollection: that
the teacher does not deliver the truth as a stork
might be thought to deliver a baby, but in the sense
that a midwife comes to deliver the baby. That is,
enlightenment, and its wisdom and compassion, come
not from without but from within. Humor in this
context is one of a variety of maeutic techniques
(upaaya) that might be effective in bringing the
Buddha-dharma to conscious awareness and existential
realization.

P.271

THE COMIC REVERSAL AND COLLAPSE OF CATEGORIES

A Zen anecdote that has been circulating recently
tells of a contemporary Zen master who lay dying.
His monks had all gathered around his bed, from the
most senior to the most novice monk. The senior monk
leaned over to ask the dying master if he had any
final words of advice for his monks. The old master
slowly opened his eyes and in a weak voice
whispered. "Tell them Truth is like a river." The
senior monk passed this bit of wisdom in turn to the
monk next to him, and it circulated around the room.
When the words reached the youngest monk he asked,
"What does he mean.'Truth is like a river'?" The
question was passed back around the room to the
senior monk who leaned over the bed and asked,
"Master, what do you mean, 'Truth is like a river'?"
Slowly the master opened his eyes and in a weak
voice whispered, "O.K., Truth is not like a river."

There are some immediate similarities between
the humorous effect of this anecdote and the logical
method of Naagaarjuna--and significantly Naagaarjuna
is cited as one of the precursors of Zen in dharma
succession from the Buddha. Naagaarjuna's method may
be seen as an attempt to demonstrate the equivalence
of alternative philosophical positions and.
countering each by the other, to reduce alternative
philosophical positions to an absurdity. The intent
is not to show that existence is absurd after the
manner of the French existentialists, but to point
up the absurdity in trying to grasp after and cling
to reality by means of this or that philosophical
position.

The humor in this Zen anecdote is an example of
reducing a line of inquiry to an absurdity so that
one is jolted into moving beyond the boxes and
labels within which one hopes to capture and
incarcerate reality. Perhaps thereby will be
effected a direct and immediate realization of the
truth which is beyond nama and ruupa (name and
form). The function of the humor here is analogous
to the frustration of reason and intellection in the
koan--as in Hakuin's "What is the sound of one hand
clapping? " Or Joshu's "Does a dog have
Buddha-nature?"--where one expects the answer from
any food Mahaayaanist to be "Yes," yet Joshu answers
"No" (wu/mu). If one had expected the answer to be
"No," Joshu would likely have responded "Yes."

One Zen mondo has a monk asking, "Where is the
Buddha now?" The anticipated answer would be, "The
Buddha is in Nirvaana." The answer given. however,
is: "The Buddha is taking a shit!" Master Sengai,
noted for his many humorous sketches and
caricatures, produced a sumi-e entitled. "The
One Hundred Days' Teaching of the Dharma." The
sketch, however, does not depict the Buddha soberly
instructing his disciples, but rather a naked little
boy leaning over, farting! Another of Sengai's
sketches shows a bullfrog sitting, as if in
meditation, but with a smirk on his face. The
accompanying calligraphy reads: "If by sitting in
meditation one becomes a Buddha..." (then all frogs
are Buddhas).(8)

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Santayana argued that at the heart of the comic
lies a confusion of categories, ordinarily kept
distinct, like applying the formulae of theology to
cooking, or employing the recipes of cooking in
theology.(9)Humor delivers something very different
from one's expectations--the comic surprise. In the
process, humor breaks down the categories with which
we would divide up experience into such dualities as
sacred and profane, sublime and ordinary, beauty and
ugliness, and even nirvaa.na and sa^msaara.

In fact, a major emphasis in Zen life and
teaching is upon this kind of reversal in which not
only are opposite terms interchanged, but often one
of these terms is very lofty and the object of
desire, while the other is lowly and the object of
the desire to avoid. A monk once asked Sozan, "What
is the most prized thing in all the world?" Sozan
answered, "A dead cat.'' The surprised monk
exclaimed, "Why is a dead cat to be prized at all?"
Sozan replied, "Because no one thinks of its
value."(10)

In such comic reversals all categories are
turned upside down, and thus relativized and finally
collapsed. The prize is given to the ugliest man in
town; fools are declared wise; a child is named pope
for the day; Buddhas are found in bullfrogs. The
effect is that of challenging the whole valuational
structure of the discriminating mind, like the fool
who spurns a proffered diamond and picks up a common
pebble instead, admiring and fondling it as if it
were the most precious of stones.

THE COMIC EMBRACING AND UNITING OF OPPOSITES

A closely related function of humor in Zen is that
of embracing and uniting opposites. There is a kind
of humor which separates one thing from another and
elevates one group over another--as is the case with
racist and sexist and ethnic jokes. But the uses of
humor in Zen have an opposite intention. Zen humor
moves toward inclusiveness and nonduality.

There is a surprising correlation here between
Zen humor and the traditional symbolism and effect
of the clown. One of the specialties of the clown
figure has been the embracing and uniting of
opposites. Sometimes this is played out by a clown
due. as in the European circus where the white-faced
clown, with graceful movement and gorgeous attire,
is juxtaposed with the bumbling Auguste, wearing
disheveled and mismatched clothing. Sometimes this
is played out by a single clown, who incarnates
opposites in solo paradoxicality. Chaplin is one of
the best known modern examples of this comic
capacity. In the role that he played through most of
his film career, the Tramp, the secret of the
popularity and profundity of that ambiguous figure
was that he was not simply a tramp but a Gentleman
Tramp. Chaplin had ingeniously put together the
bowler hat, dress coat, and walking cane of the
English aristocracy with the baggy pants and floppy
shoes of the gutter bum. In this way he embraced and
united in a single image the top and the bottom of
the social order. He was both gentleman and tramp
and neither gentleman

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nor tramp. One minute he would stand tall, put on
airs and social graces, and order people about, and
the next minute he would be groveling in the dust,
awkward and uncouth, meekly kowtowing to everyone or
hiding behind women and children. In terms of
Bharata's theatrical classifications. Chaplin as
clown figure contained both sita and atihasita. He
embraced and united the whole human spectrum in a
humorously schizophrenic yet marvelously singular
figure.(11)

Zen humor functions in this way--as in the case
of the Chinese monk who wore a Buddhist robe, a
Confucian hat, and Taoist sandals as a way of
breaking out of religious stereotypes and labels,
confusing and confounding fixed identities, and
symbolizing thereby some higher unity of the Chinese
traditions.(12)Reality, Truth, Wisdom--these cannot
be imprisoned in the pigeonholes of ordinary
consciousness, which aims to understand by the
method of divide and conquer.

The following is not a Zen story, but it is
revealing of this comic capacity for uniting not
only opposites but opposites perceived as being in
irreconcilable opposition, and thus of the utility
of the comic perspective in pointing toward a
nondualistic perspective. In Mexico there are two
cities which have disputed between themselves for
some time their rival claims to the bones of the
national revolutionary hero, Benito Juarez. The two
skeletons were examined by experts, and in the
process it was noted that one skeleton was larger
than the other. This observation eventually led a
wit to propose an amicable resolution of the
disputed claims. The suggestion made was that the
larger skeleton was indeed that of Juarez when he
died of apoplexy at the age of 66. The smaller
skeleton was that of Juarez at the age of thirteen!

This is a Zen solution. And it is not unlike a
koanic enigma and its solution. While taken
literally the proposed compromise might not have
provided an enduring solution, it nevertheless
illustrates the comic impulse and its difference
from the tragic impulse. The tragic impulse is to
separate things out from each other, carefully
discriminating one thing from another, often in
terms of opposites. The tragic mentality is not only
dualistic, but radically dualistic, to the point of
dividing reality into opposites which are placed in
opposition. Thus out of the history of tragedy (both
in the theater and in real life) comes the tragic
collision, the agon as the Greeks called it, between
protagonists and antagonists. Forces are pitted
against one another, with both sides dedicated to a
stubborn and unyielding defense of their principles,
if need be to the last soldier, and unwilling to
seek compromise or accommodation--not even to see
truth, beauty, and goodness in the other side.

Comedies, on the other hand, tend toward
inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness,
reconciliation rather than rigid and militant
polarization. Shakespeare's tragedies, for example,
end in death and destruction as the forces in
collision produce a vicious cycle of mutual
annihilation. Shakespeare's comedies, on the other
hand, end with parties reconciled, with marriages,

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feasts, and celebrations. Similarly in ancient
Greece, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Antigone place
principles, laws, and persons in increasingly
irreconcilable conflict, the culmination of which
can only be alienation, despair, and mutual or
self-destruction. while Aristophanes' Lysistrata,
which begins with two cities that have been in
interminable warfare (Athens and Sparta?), by the
end of the play has the soldiers of both cities
abandoning the futile fray for the bedrooms of wives
and lovers. Hence, the familiar dictum that
tragedies end in funerals while comedies end in
weddings.

By comparison with the tragic vision of life Zen
may be said to be fundamentally comic. The Zen uses
of humor share the comic inclination to move toward
reducing tensions, overcoming conflicts, and
including opposites sites in some larger unity. In
so doing, Zen reflects both the traditional Indian
Buddhist critique of dualism and the Chinese vision
of a harmony of opposites, as in the yang/yin
cosmology. In Zen the Chinese dragon smiles and the
Indian Buddha roars with laughter.

HUMOR AS AN EXPRESSION OF LIBERATION

It would be remiss, however, to present Zen humor
only as a technique, an upaaya. There is a higher,
nonfunctional level of humor where humor exists for
itself and not just in the service of some other
end. This level is, in fact, the logical conclusion
of the two functions of humor that have been
discussed, since they are aimed at collapsing
categories and uniting opposites. Humor as a
technique is an expression of tension, of the
tensions created by dualities, discriminations, and
oppositions of various sorts, In Buddhistic terms,
these tensions are in turn the result of forces such
as ego, desire, attachment, ignorance, and bondage.
But humor at its highest and fullest is an
expression of liberation and freedom. It arises, not
out of inner tension. but inner harmony. It arises,
not out of the illusions of maayaa or the ignorance
of avidyaa or the graspings and clingings of
sa^msaara, but out of the awakenings of bodhi.

This is clearly the most dynamic and
self-contained form of humor, It does not proceed
from a position of weakness, but of strength. It
moves with a force that flows from unity rather than
conflict and strife, from wholeness rather than
division and alienation. Such humor is the laughter
of enlightenment and liberation, as in the case of
the Chinese monk, Shui-lao, whose master kicked him
in the chest, resulting in a satori. Afterwards the
monk said. "Ever since the master kicked me in the
chest I have been unable to stop laughing."(13)

Something of this spirit is reflected in the
story of the late Zen master Taji, who lay dying.
One of his disciples, recalling the fondness the
roshi had for a certain cake, went in search of some
in the bake shops of Tokyo. After some time he
returned with the delicacy for the master, who
smiled a feeble smile of appreciation and began
nibbling at it. Later as the master grew visibly
weaker, his disciples asked if he had any departing
words of wisdom or

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advice. Taji said, "Yes." As they drew closer, so as
not to miss the faintest syllable, Taji whispered,
"My, but this cake is delicious.'' With those words
he died.(14)

Here is neither a cynical humor, born of
resignation and despair, nor a defiant humor, making
some last gesture of rebellion against the
meaninglessness of life, "head bloody, but unbowed"
(W. E. Henley). Nor is this a sarcastic and bitter
humor, mocking the disruption or cessation of the
"best-laid schemes of mice and men" (R. Burns). The
spirit is quite different. This is a humor of
acceptance, a final "yes" to the opportunity of
life, albeit transient. It expresses the joy of
life, and of the smallest particulars of life,
without at the same time frantically clutching after
life. As Master Dogen said: "In life identify
yourslf with life, at death with death. Abstain from
yielding and craving. Life and death constitute the
very being of Buddha....You must neither loathe one
nor covet the other."(15) From this perspective we
may speak of a humor of non-ego and non-attachment,
which is therefore free to embrace death as well as
life, the Buddha along with a mouthful of cake.

One of the scholastics with which this essay
began, Buddhadatta, argued in his Abhidhammaavataara
that while the Buddha did smile (sita), the source
of his smile was the degraded (anulaara). not the
subtle (anolaarika) , that is, the folly of
unenlightened perception and behavior, from the
vantage point of enlightenment.(16) Yet the source
of such a smile must be larger than this, in fact
primarily the subtlety and subliminity of the
positive truth now perceived (anolaarika) rather
than the negative truths of suffering which one now
understands retrospectively (anulaara). The Buddha's
smile is born of higher understanding and true
liberation. It is first and foremost the smile of
wisdom, not a smile over ignorance.

To speak otherwise is to make of the Buddha's
laughter a laughter of superiority relative to the
inferiority of those still caught within maayaa,
avidyaa, and sa^msaara. This would place Buddhist
humor on the level of the Hobbesian definition of
humor: "a sense of glory arising from a sudden
conception of some eminency in ourselves by
comparison with the infirmity of others."(17)
Buddhadatta's laughter over the degraded, in itself,
would be the laughter of pride in one's superiority
and therefore would stand in contradiction to the
supposed insight into and release from the bondage
of ego, desire, and attachment that is associated
with enlightenment. Laughter at one's former
ignorance is one thing, but laughter over the
ignorance of others expands and reinforces one's
pride. Even laughter at one's former foolishness is
only part way to the true humility of
self-forgetting.

The great Rinzai master Hakuin says in his
Orategama that, following his first satori at the
age of twenty-four, his sense of elation soon turned
into self-congratulatory pride. "My pride soared up
like a majestic mountain, my arrogance surged
forward like the tide. Smugly I thought to myself:
'In the past two or three hundred years no one could
have accomplished such a mar-

P.276

velous breakthrough as this.'" Confident in his
attainment, he then sought out his master Shoju to
tell of his glorious enlightenment. Shoju was not as
impressed and, after testing him with a koan,
twisted Hakuin's nose and said to him: "You poor
hole-dwelling devil! Do you think somehow that you
have sufficient understanding?'' After this incident
Hakuin reports: "almost every time he saw me, the
Master called me a 'poor hole-dwelling devil.'"(18)

Much later (and wiser) , Hakuin painted a
self-portrait. He was now a roshi in his own right
and with a growing reputation. Instead of presenting
himself in the idealized form of an enlightened one,
or even in the realistic image of an austere zenji,
Hakuin sketched himself as a bald, fat, cross-eyed,
hunchbacked old man. The poem which he inscribed
above the self-portrait is even more revealing:

In the realm of the thousand buddhas
He is hated by the thousand buddhas;
Among the crowd of demons
He is detested by the crowd of demons ...
This filthy blind old shavepate
Adds more ugliness to ugliness.(19)

There is yet another dimension to this highest
level of laughter and humor, and that is compassion
(karu.naa). Here one sees the marvelous unity of
wisdom and compassion, so emphasized in the
Mahaayaana ideal of the Bodhisattva. Humor in this
context not only expresses a higher knowledge which
sees through the foolishness of the desiring self;
it also expresses a benevolent compassion toward all
those caught within the vanities and anxieties of
that foolishness. The "passionate inwardness''
(Kierkegaard) of the seeker becomes the
compassionate inwardness of the finder. As Lama
Govinda has expressed it:

The Buddha's sense of humour--which is so
evident in many of his discourses--is closely bound
up with his sense of compassion; both are born from
an understanding of greater connections, from an
insight into the interrelatedness of all things and
all living beings and the chain reactions of cause
and effect. His smile is the expression of one who
can see the "wondrous play of ignorance and
knowledge'' against its universal background and its
deeper meaning. Only thus is it possible not to be
overpowered by the misery of the world, or by our
own sense of righteousness that judges and condemns
what is not in accordance with our own
understanding, and divides the world into good and
bad. A man with a sense of humour cannot but be
compassionate in his heart, because his sense of
proportion allows him to see things in their proper
perspective.(20)

Such humor goes beyond Buddhadatta's laughter over
the degraded (anulaara) or even the joyful laughter
of one who has found wisdom (anolaarika); it is the
laughter of compassion, which seeks the
enlightenment of others and their liberation.
Otherwise one's own supposed insight into and
freedom from ego, desire, attachment, and ignorance
would be a self-contradictory hypocrisy.

P.277

A contemporary Ch'an master, Hsuan Hua,
concluded his talk at the end of a sesshin, or week
of intensive meditation:

Now we have finished, Everyone stand and we will
bow to the Buddha three times to thank him. We thank
him, because even if we did not have a great
enlightenment. we had a small enlightenment. If we
did not have a small enlightenment, at least we
didn't get sick. If we got sick, at least we didn't
die, So let's thank the Buddha.(21)

NOTES

1. Shwe Zan Aung, The Compendium of Philosophy,
a translation of the Abhidhammattha-Sangaha, rev.
and ed. by Mrs. Rhys Davids (London: Luzac, 1910).
pp. 22-25.

2. Georg Friedrich Meier, Thoughts on Jesting
(1794), ed. Joseph Jones (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1947), pp. 55-56.

3. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus
Rerum 5.41.61.

4. Cited in Conrad Hyers, The Comic Vision (New
York: Pilgrim Press, 1981), p. 20.

5. Bharata, Naatya Shaastra VI, vv 61-62.
Cf. Shwe Zan Aung, Compendium, pp. 22-25.

6. D. T. Suzuki, Sengai, The Zen Master (New
York: New York Graphic Society, 1971), p. 147.

7. For a fuller discussion of the issues, see
Conrad Hyers, The Laughing Buddha: Zen and the Comic
Spirit (Wolfeboro, N.H.: Longwood Academic Press,
1989).

8. For a reproduction and discussion of a number
of Sengai sketches, see D. T. Suzuki, Sengai, The
Zen Master.

9. George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (New
York: Scribner's, 1986), p. 188.

10. Charles Luk, Ch'an and Zen Teaching (London:
Rider and Co., 1961), vol. 2, pp. 171-172.

11. For an interpretation of the clown in its
Western context, and of Chaplin in particular, see
Conrad Hyers, The Comic Vision, chaps. 3 and 9.

12. Charles Luk, Ch'an and Zen Teaching (London:
Rider and Co., 1960), vol. 1,p. 144.

13. John C. H. Wu, The Golden Age of Zen
(Taipei: National War College, 1967), p. 100.

14. Philip Kapleau ed., The Wheel of Death (New
York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 67.

15. Ibid.,p.9.

16. Shwe Zan Aung, Compendium, p. 26.

17. Cf. Conrad Hyers, The Comic Vision, pp.
30-31.

18. Hakuin Zenji, Orategama, in Philip
Yampolsky, The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 118.
For a fuller discussion of conversion experiences in
Zen, see Conrad Hyers. Once-Born, Twice-Born Zen:
The Rinzai and Soto Schools of Japan (Wolfeboro.
N.H.: Longwood Publishing Group, 1988), chapters 1
and 2.

19. Isshuu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Zen
Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan-Study in
Rinzai (Lin-chi) Zen (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
World, 1966), pp. 124-125.

20. Lama Anagarika Govinda, The Way of the White
Clouds (London: Hutchinson, 1956), p. 177.

21. Vajra Bodhi Sea 1, no. 3 (October 1979): 40.