Sekiso asked: “How can you proceed on from the top of a hundred-foot pole?” Another Zen teacher said: “One who sits on the top of a hundred-foot pole has attained a certain height but still is not handling Zen freely. He should proceed on from there and appear with his whole body in the ten parts of the world.”
Mumon’s comment: One can continue his steps or turn his body freely about on the top of the pole. In either case he should be respected. I want to ask you monks, however: How will you proceed from the top of that pole? Look out!
The man who lacks the third eye of insight
Will cling to the measure of the hundred feet.
Such a man will jump from there and kill himself,
Like a blind man misleading other blind men.
Tosotsu built three barriers and made the monks pass through them. The first barrier is studying Zen. In studying Zen the aim is to see one’s own true nature. Now where is your true nature?
Secondly, when one realizes his own true nature he will be free from birth and death. Now when you shut the light from your eyes and become a corpse, how can you free yourself?
Thirdly, if you free yourself from birth and death, you should know where you are. Now your body separates into the four elements. Where are you?
Mumon’s comment: Whoever can pass these three barriers will be a master wherever he stands. Whatever happens about him he will turn into Zen.
Otherwise he will be living on poor food and not even enough of that to satisfy himself.
An instant realization sees endless time.
Endless time is as one moment.
When one comprehends the endless moment
He realizes the person who is seeing it.
A Zen pupil asked Kembo: “All Buddhas of the ten parts of the universe enter the one road of Nirvana. Where does that road begin?”
Kembo, raising his walking stick and drawing the figure one in the air, said: “Here it is.”
This pupil went to Ummon and asked the same question. Ummon, who happened to have a fan in his hand, said: “This fan will reach to the thirty-third heaven and hit the nose of the presiding deity there. It is like the Dragon Carp of the Eastern Sea tipping over the rain-cloud with his tail.”
Mumon’s comment: One teacher enters the deep sea and scratches the earth and raises dust. The other goes to the mountain top and raises waves that almost touch heaven. One holds, the other gives out. Each supports the profound teaching with a single hand. Kembo and Ummon are like two riders neither of whom can surpass the other. It is very difficult to find the perfect man. Frankly, neither of them know where the road starts.
Before the first step is taken the goal is reached.
Before the tongue is moved the speech is finished._
More than brilliant intuition is needed
To find the origin of the right road.
Amban, a layman Zen student, said: "Mu-mon has just published forty-eight koans and called the book Gateless Gate. He criticizes the old patriarchs’ words and actions. I think he is very mischievous. He is like an old doughnut seller trying to catch a passerby to force his doughnuts down his mouth. The customer can neither swallow nor spit out the doughnuts, and this causes suffering. Mu-mon has annoyed everyone enough, so I think I shall add one more as a bargain. I wonder if he himself can eat this bargain. If he can, and digest it well, it will be fine, but if not, we will have to put it back into the frying pan with his forty-eight also and cook them again. Mu-mon, you eat first, before someone else does:
“Buddha, according to a sutra, once said: ‘Stop, stop. Do not speak. The ultimate truth is not even to think.’”
Amban’s comment: Where did that so-called teaching come from? How is it that one could not even think it? Suppose someone spoke about it then what became of it? Buddha himself was a great chatterbox and in this sutra spoke contrarily. Because of this, persons like Mu-mon appear afterwards in China and make useless doughnuts, annoying people. What shall we do after all? I will show you.
Then Amban put his palms together, folded his hands, and said: “Stop, stop. Do not speak. The ultimate truth is not even to think. And now I will make a little circle on the sutra with my finger and add that five thousand other sutras and Vimalakirti’s gateless gate all are here!”
If anyone tells you fire is light,
Pay no attention.
When two thieves meet they need no introduction:
They recognize each other without question.