#gateless gate

[jamabushi]

Each day, Master Zuigan called out to himself, “Master!” And he would answer, “Yes!”

[wisdom-and-such]

— The Gateless Gate. 12th Century. China

[rainbowtwo]

Encountering the Gateless Gate

‘The paradoxical dance of seeking and finding wears different costumes in different traditions. In Zen it’s usually known as the gateless gate. Until you crack the combination and pass through, you can’t fully understand the meaning of the great Zen teachings - but then all your mental effort inevitably proves fruitless before this enigmatic and impenetrable barrier. You need to bring your whole being, not just your mind, to the process and allow the paradox to transform you from the inside. Many Zen koans pose some version of this paradox, disorienting the mind and evoking an answer from another dimension of knowing.

Consider the well-known Mahayana teaching: All beings are inherently enlightened, but because of their attachments and distorted views they can’t realize this fact. I can still remember how these words short-circuited my mind the first time I heard them. Hmm, I mused, if we can’t realize it, then how can we possibly say we’re enlightened? But if we’re really enlightened, why can’t we realize it?

As a neophyte practitioner, I understood these words to mean that deep down inside me there was this enlightened nature that I somehow needed to discover and meditation was a kind of excavation project designed to unearth it. For years I kept digging, sitting intensive retreats, contemplating koans, emptying my mind to make room for the influx of awakening. I was spurred on in this archaeological exploration by my teachers, who offered encouragement in private interviews and lavished authority and cachet on those who passed koans quickly. Eventually I just wore myself out with the digging, so I set aside my shovel (and my monk’s robes) and went back to living a more ordinary life. Yet the paradox continued to gnaw at me, silently, from the inside.

The fact is, once you’re gripped by the core paradox and recognize that consensus - that everyday reality is merely a reflection of some deeper truth that’s close at hand but hidden from view - you’ve embarked on a search that you can never really abandon, no matter how far you seem to stray. The Zen masters say that encountering the paradox is like swallowing a red-hot iron ball you can neither disgorge nor pass through. Until you digest this ball, you can never be completely at peace.

Throughout the centuries zealous Zen students have meditated long hours struggling to resolve this paradox, only to return home and discover their “original face.” In the Rinzai Zen tradition, practitioners bellow mu (the key word from one of the most important koans) for hours in their fervor to break through the gate, and the traditional stories are filled with notable examples of those who took their practice to even greater extremes, standing in the snow for hours, sitting at the edge of the precipice, walking on foot from master to master. “Monasteries are places for desperate people,” my first Zen teacher used to say, by which he meant people whose suffering, urgency, or intensity drives them forward on their long and often lonely search.

Many centuries ago, the Persian mystic poet Rumi described his own divine desperation in these words:

I have lived on the lip

of insanity, wanting to know reasons,

knocking on a door. It opens.

I’ve been knocking from the inside!

Judging from this poem, Rumi struggled for a long time to penetrate the paradox with his mind, but the door eventually opens by itself, almost in spite of his efforts, and reveals that he’s been living in the secret chamber all along. Rumi’s epiphany when he discovers that he’s been looking from the inside out mirrors the surprise, relief, and delight of those seekers who wear themselves out attempting to unravel the paradox and drop to the ground, exhausted - only to discover that they’ve never strayed from home, even in their most desperate moments. “No creature ever falls short of its own completeness,” says Zen master Dogen. “Wherever it stands it does not fail to cover the ground.”

Needless to say, this intense longing to crack the code and reveal the truth at the heart of reality is as ancient and universal as humankind itself. You could say that it’s in our DNA. According to the Sufis, God said to the prophet Muhammad, “I am a hidden treasure, and I want to be known.” In His yearning to be loved and experienced, God set in motion an evolutionary pattern that reached its pinnacle in the human capacity for spiritual awakening. God, or Truth, in other words, is seeking to awaken itself through you, to see itself everywhere through your eyes and taste itself everywhere through your lips. “That which you are seeking,” wrote an anonymous sage, “is always seeking you.”’

- Stephen Bodian, Wake Up Now: A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening.

[jamabushi]

If you meet a Buddha, you will kill him. If you meet a patriarch, you will kill him. Though you may stand on the brink of life and death, you will enjoy the great freedom.

[allyouknowisalie]

One day Deshan kept asking Longtan for instruction till nightfall. Longtan finally said, "The night is late. Why don't you go to bed." Deshan thanked him, made his bows, raised the door curtain and left. Seeing how dark the night was, he turned back and said, "It's pitch black outside." Longtan lit a lantern and handed it to Deshan. Just as Deshan reached for it, Longtan blew it out. At that Deshan came to sudden realization and made a deep bow. Longtan asked, "What have you realized?" Deshan replied, "From now on, I will not doubt the words of the old master who is renowned everywhere under the sun." The following day Longtan ascended the rostrum and declared, "There is a man among you whose fangs are like trees of swords and whose mouth is like a bowl of blood. Strike him and he won't turn his head. Someday he will settle on the top of an isolated peak and establish my way there." Deshan brought his sutra commentaries and notes to the front of the hall, held up a torch and said, "Even if you have exhausted abstruse doctrine, it is like placing a hair in vast space. Even if you have learned the vital points of all the truths in the world, it is like a drop of water thrown into a big ravine." He then burned all his commentaries and notes. After making his bows, he left.

Gateless 28

[lifestapestry]

Joshu asked Nansen, “What is the Way?” Nansen answered, “Your ordinary mind, that is the Way.” Joshu said, "Does it go in any particular direction?’’ Nansen replied, “The more you seek after it, the more it runs away.” Joshu: “Then how can you know it is the Way?” Nansen: “The Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is illusion. Not knowing is lack of discrimination. When you get to this unperplexed Way, it is like the vastness of space, an unfathomable void, so how can it be this or that, yes or no?” Upon this Joshu came to a sudden realisation.

Mumonkan, or Gateless Gate. Case 19

[niceguythougthsandworries]

Case 19. Nansen's ordinary mind

Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?" Nansen answered, "Your ordinary mind--that is the Way." Joshu said, "Can it be grasped (for study)? " Nansen replied, "The more you persue, the more does it slip away." Joshu asked once more, " How can you know it is the Way?" Nansen responded, "The way does not belong to knowledge, nor does it belong to non-knowledge. Knowledge is illusion. Non-knowledge is beyond discrimination. When you get to this Way without doubt, you are free like the vastness of space, an unfathomable void, so how can you explain it by yes or no?" Upon hearing this, Joshu was awakened.

Mumon's comment: The question Joshu asked was dissolved by a stroke. After being enlightened, Joshu must further his pursuit 30 more years to exhaust that meaning.

Hundred flowers in Spring, the moon in Autumn, The cool wind in Summer and Winter's snow.

If your mind is not clouded with things, You are happy at any time.

[the-dewdrop-read-deep]

The Koan of Baso's Very Mind

The Koan of Baso’s Very Mind

“If we explain the word ‘Buddha’ we must rinse our mouths for three days afterwards.” – Wumen Huikai Baso’s Very Mind is the 30th case or koan in the Mumonkan, The Gateless Barrier, a collection of koans compiled in the 13th century by Rinzai master Wumen Huikai (known as Mumon Ekai in Japan). The 48 koans in the collection are all sourced from well-known scenes and moments through the history…

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