The Zen sect did this in a more rational way than that set forth as
orthodox by later priestcraft, which taught that to the believer who
simply turned round the revolving library containing the canon, the
merit of having read it all would be imputed. The rin-z[=o][24] found
near the large temples,--the cunning invention of a Chinese priest in
the sixth century,--soon became popular in Japan. The great wooden
book-case turning on a pivot contains 6,771 volumes, that being the
number of canonical volumes enumerated in China and Japan.

The Zen sect teaches that, besides all the doctrines of the Greater and
the Lesser Vehicles, whether hidden or apparent, there is one distinct
line of transmission of a secret doctrine which is not subject to any
utterance at all. According to their tenet of contemplation, one is to
see directly the key to the thought of Buddha by his own thought, thus
freeing himself from the multitude of different doctrines--the number of
which is said to be eighty-four thousand. In fact, Zen Shu or "Dhyana
sect" teaches the short method of making truth apparent by one's own
thought, apart from the writings.

The story of the transmission of the true Zen doctrine is this:

"When the blessed Shaka was at the assembly on Vulture's Peak,
there came the heavenly king, who offered the Buddha a
golden-colored flower and asked him to preach the law. The
Blessed One simply took the flower and held it in his hand, but
said no word. No one in the whole assembly could tell what he
meant. The venerable Mahahasyapa alone smiled. Than the Blessed
One said to him, 'I have the wonderful thought of Nirvana, the
eye of the Right Law, which I shall now give to you.'[25] Thus
was ushered in the doctrine of thought transmitted by thought."