We shall take the story “Innen und Aussen”, written in 1919 and published a year later, as example. At that time, Hesse was yet to hear of Chan or Zen Buddhism. In the story, the character called Erwin is the mouthpiece of Hesse. He pronounces the maxim: nothing is external; nothing is internal; because what is external, is internal. We shall compare this passage with the teaching of Hui Neng (638-713), the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism, who established the southern branch of Chan, of which Yünmen school is derived. He said: “…to those whose hearts and words are good and for whom the internal and external are one, meditation and wisdom are identified. Self-enlightenment and practice do not consist in argument.” In other words, if one Quoted from Wm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-Tsit Chan, Burton Watson (eds.), Sources of Chinese practices meditation, inside and outside are one and the same.
As a matter of fact, if we juxtapose Hesse’s Siddhartha and Patriarch Hui Neng’s teaching, we would gain the impression that they were paraphrasing each other. As we are familiar with Hesse’s novel, I shall quote Hui Neng: in my system … absence of thought has been institute as the main doctrine, absence of phenomena as the substance, and nonattachment as the foundation.26 From the samanas, Siddhartha learnt meditation by thinking. In the world of children he becomes attached to possessions, and in his final stage he has to overcome the attachment to his son. Only can he reach the stage which he calls awakening. What is this awakening other than self-enlightenment?
Patriarch Hui Neng even explains, indirectly of course, why Siddhartha has to learn from the river instead of following the way of Govinda. Hui Neng says: