The Gateless Gate

Has a dog Buddha-nature?

Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.

Keichu, the first wheel-maker of China, made two wheels of fifty spokes each. Now, suppose you removed the nave uniting the spokes. What would become of the wheel? And had Keichu done this, could he be called the master wheel-maker?

However profound the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this enlightenment it is like one drop of water to the great ocean.

The Gateless Gate (無門關, Mandarin. Wumenguan, Japanese. Mumonkan) is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by Chinese monk Wumen (無門).

Quotes

• A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip.
  • Chapter 0.

• Has a dog Buddha-nature?
  This is the most serious question of all.
  If you say yes or no,
  You lose your own Buddha-nature.
  • Chapter 1.

• To understand clearly one has to have just one eye.
  • Chapter 2.

• When you can give the right answer, even though your past road was one of death, you open up a new road of life.
  • Chapter 5.

• Keichu, the first wheel-maker of China, made two wheels of fifty spokes each. Now, suppose you removed the nave uniting the spokes. What would become of the wheel? And had Keichu done this, could he be called the master wheel-maker?
  • Chapter 8.

• The path does not belong to the perception world, neither does it belong to the nonperception world. Cognition is a delusion and noncognition is senseless. If you want to reach the true path beyond doubt, place yourself in the same freedom as sky. You name it neither good nor not-good.
  • Chapter 19.

• However profound the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this enlightenment it is like one drop of water to the great ocean.
  • Chapter 28.

• Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving."
  The other said: "The wind is moving."
  The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."
  • Chapter 29.

• When the question is sand in a bowl of boiled rice, the answer is a stick in the soft mud.
  • Chapter 31.

Zen caveats

The term for caveat used here is also sometimes translated as "warning", or "admonition", and can also mean "needle" or "probe".

• Following the rules and protecting the regulations is binding oneself without rope.
• Moving freely vertically and horizontally without obstruction is the way of outsiders and the nightmare army.
• To preserve the heart mind and to purify it by letting impurities settle to the bottom in quiescence is the perverted Zen of silent illumination.
• Neglecting the written records with unrestrained ideas is falling into a deep pit.
• To be awake and not ignorant is to wear chains and shoulder a cangue.
• Thinking good and thinking evil are the halls of heaven and hell.
• A view of Buddha and a view of Dharma are the two enclosing mountains of iron.
• A person who perceives thoughts as they immediately arise is fiddling with spectral consciousness.
• However, being on a high plateau practicing samadhi is the stratagem of living in the house of ghosts.
• To advance results in ignoring truth; to retreat results in contradicting the lineage.
• Neither to advance nor to retreat is being a breathing corpse.
• Just say, how will you walk?
• You must work hard to live in the present and, to finish, all the more. I do not advise the unfortunate excess of continual suffering.

See also

• Buddhism
• Gautama Buddha
• Zen proverbs

External links

• Translation of The Gateless Gate