No Is Not the Opposite of Anything
A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Has the dog buddhanature or not?” Zhaozhou said, “Mu.” This famous two-sentence story is the first step on the classic koan path. Zhaozhou expresses his enlightenment in one syllable: Mu—No. What is this no? What question does it really answer? What is an answer anyway? The American Zen teacher Melissa Myozen Blacker, like this Mu itself, helps us cut through the clutter and get straight to the heart of the matter.
A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Has the dog buddhanature or not?” Zhaozhou said, “Mu [No].”
According to the teachings of Zen, everyone and everything has buddhanature, or the nature of being inherently awake. There are no exceptions to this. All sentient beings have the capacity to realize their own nature, and even nonsentient beings express it. Why, then, does the monk in this koan ask his question? And why does Zhaozhou answer him in the negative?
These questions point to the koan quality of the interchange. There is something here that disturbs, that provides a sense of not knowing, of being unsure. The ordinary cognitive mind struggles with understanding. Wumen’s commentary that follows this koan in the Gateless Gate collection is a step-by-step guide to understanding not only the koan, but also how to proceed in the actual moment-by-moment practice of Zen. Let’s look at it line by line.
For the practice of Zen, it is imperative that you pass through the barrier set up by the ancestral teachers.
The practice of Zen is not simply the practice of zazen, or sitting meditation. The true practice, and the only way we can really “pass through the barrier,” is to learn to integrate what we experience while we practice zazen into every moment of our lives. This is not casual or intellectual study, but requires every fiber of our being. In each moment, our practice of Zen is actualized and made available to us. The barrier is something we encounter when we imagine that the life we’re presently living is somehow lacking—that this life is not a life of practice. Passing through means seeing through a construction of our own making. The ancestral teachers are our ancestors in Zen, and they are also the embodiments of the living, breathing truth of this moment, who accompany us on our way through the barrier. They are rocks, stones, grass, birds, people, cars, you and me.
For subtle realization, it is of the utmost importance that you cut off the mind road.
It is easy to misunderstand the phrase “cut off the mind road.” Wumen is not asking us to stop having thoughts, but to stop following them. To stop following thoughts resembles Dogen’s advice: “to study the self is to forget the self.” When we forget the self we stop putting a construction we call the self at the center of our lives. Similarly, when we watch the pattern of thoughts that arise moment after moment we can follow them to their origins, which turn out to be nothing more than fantasies, constructions of the mind. Seeing through these fantasies and constructions, we discover a world beyond thought, in which rain is only rain, not words or stories about rain. We come back to our true life, our true self. The “subtle realization” that Wumen mentions here is nothing more than this recognition of our naked, unborn self, alive to this moment, alive to the world as it is, not as we think or construct it to be. This smell, this taste, this touch, sight, sound (with no description in the way), this life, in this moment, and we along with it—perfect and complete.
If you do not pass through the barrier of the ancestors; if you do not cut off the mind road—then you are a ghost clinging to bushes and grasses.
If we are honest with ourselves, we can see how our usual life of the mind can resemble the condition of ghosts, helplessly floating and unable to engage with the world, clinging to what is useless, attached to objects everywhere. How can we avoid this attaching, this floating like a ghost and clinging? First of all we must recognize and even embrace this ghostlike nature in ourselves—how our minds wander “west of river, south of the lake” and how we cling to whatever presents itself to us as a temporary resting-place. The bushes and grasses are our habitual thoughts, our empty entertainments, anything that distracts us from this moment unobstructed by opinions and constructions. Even our relationships with those we love can take on the quality of uselessness or distractions if we fall into taking people for granted, unable to see them as they are, but as we want them to be. We cling to what cannot serve us, to what is fundamentally unable to nourish us. We are blind to the life that surrounds us, the life that, as the Tibetans say, is “kindly bent to ease us.”
What is the barrier of the ancestral teachers? It is just this one word, Mu, the one barrier of our faith.
This one word, Mu, cuts through all of the many knots of thinking that make up the working of our minds. Everything that can be conceptualized is, at the least, somewhat removed from reality, and at the most, complete delusion. “People these days,” says Zhaozhou in another story, “see this flower as though in a dream.” To wake up, to recognize one’s own buddhanature, and the awakened nature of all things, even dogs, demands direct perception, direct seeing, direct intimacy. Just No, just Mu, as a temporary skillful means, leads us to a moment, and to a life, where we exist in the world without commentary, without interpretation. This is the skill of Zhaozhou, who kindly and directly points out the deluded monk’s confusion, as he cuts through what may be, at root, the heartfelt question: “Do even I have buddhanature?” In asking, the monk reveals his folly, but also his tender heart, brave enough to ask, ready to be cut through.
When you pass through this barrier, you will not only interview Zhaozhou intimately, you will walk hand in hand with all the ancestral teachers in the successive generations of our lineage, the hair of your eyebrows entangled with theirs, seeing with the same eyes, hearing with the same ears. Won’t that be joyous?
Wumen here describes one of the most tempting aspects of practice—the opportunity to find true, intimate companionship, in the company of people living and dead who have penetrated into this great matter. On one level, he’s tempting us with a dualistic notion—that there are “special” people—whereas in reality, once we have touched the real nature of things, everything and everyone becomes our best friend. What’s the difference between that cloud, the sound of that bird, Mahakashyapa smiling? And this is the very closest intimacy—seeing with their eyes, hearing with their ears—closer than tangled eyebrows. As the Sufis say, we long for the Friend, and even this longing is a trace of the Friend’s constant presence.
Is there anyone who would not want to pass this barrier?
Wumen is enticing us again here: enticing us with a promise of entry into a new world, a new way of being. This way is unimaginable until we actually experience it, live in it, and yet we tend to create expectations surrounding “passing through the barrier,” waking up to reality. What will it be like? Will we be happy all the time, peaceful, content, serene? What will it feel like to heal the separation that has become so familiar to us, that seems so real—the separation of our opinion of ourselves from our true self. To live as a “true person of no rank” in Linji’s phrase, to blend in with and ride the flow and current of our lives, is something everyone has tasted at some point—perhaps briefly and therefore unremembered and certainly unintegrated, or maybe profoundly and life-shatteringly, but then abandoned in the demands of consensual reality. “Isn’t there anyone who wants to?” Wumen asks. “Don’t you want to experience your wholeness, your birthright?”
So then, make your whole body a mass of doubt, and with your 360 bones and joints and your 84,000 hair follicles, concentrate on this one word Mu.
Here we have even clearer instructions, but how do we accomplish this? Wumen is talking here about complete concentration, but not in the way we are used to. Working with Mu or No takes not only our mind but also our entire body to accomplish itself. He is pointing to something beyond idle or even serious contemplation. We must merge completely with the question physically as well as mentally. We must breathe, touch, smell, see and taste No. There can be no cracks in this seamless work of cultivating a great doubt, a huge curiosity. What is No? Only No, only mu. The body and mind become the bodymind and there is nothing but the question.
Day and night, keep digging into it.
Every moment devoted to this practice—this is what Wumen asks of us. What kind of a life can we lead if we are truly digging into our practice day and night? This is the life of one fabric, perhaps not yet realized, but enacted. We are instructed to do what we can’t yet experience. Like St. Paul’s “pray without ceasing,” our devotion to practice prepares the ground for a seamless life. We are truly cultivating an empty field in which seeds of reality, through hearing teachings and experiencing life as directly as we can, begin to take root at the deepest place, eventually to blossom into wakefulness—into the opening of the mind’s eye. Nothing but Mu, at every moment, filling our conscious and then our unconscious minds—every thought accompanied by this one word, which functions as a standin for a reality that is essentially nameless. Temporarily, everything becomes Mu, everything becomes No: every smell, sight, taste, and sound, everything we touch and think. There is no time off—there is only this one thing, called, for the time being, No.
Don’t consider it to be nothingness. Don’t think in terms of “has” or “has not.”
In fact, it is the nothingness that fills the universe. Mu or No reveals the essential nature of things, if we persist in using No constantly, faithfully, at every turn of the mind. How are we to understand something that is not the opposite of anything? The mind is forever making this and that, good and bad, has and has not. No is a single response to this dualism. It is the sound of the single hand, the original face. It is alone and has no quality of singleness. It accompanies, defines, and is one with everything. Can we find a place where this one thing doesn’t exist? In No everything comes alive, a voidness full of possibilities, and a fullness that is completely empty. The mind keeps trying to understand, and with each attempt, we must relentlessly answer with this single word, which means everything and has no meaning. This wonderful companion, dear No, dear Mu, leads us away from the suffering implicit in duality.
It is like swallowing a red-hot iron ball. You try to vomit it out, but you cannot.
Obsessing on some thought or series of thoughts, something that torments us and sticks to us like glue or Velcro, is a common experience for many of us. Here Wumen is inviting us to substitute something more helpful for these useless constructions. We must relate to No as we relate to something that completely preoccupies us. As strange as it may seem, we must become obsessed on purpose. This unusual instruction is a skillful means that directs us toward freedom. Just as the obsessive thought eventually unwinds itself, unsticks itself, often in a moment of sudden clarity, so No opens up, and what was foggy and muddy becomes lucid and apparent. This opening is only possible because of our mind’s devotion to this one thing. Working with No is a discipline that trains our mind to be centered and one-pointed. It can feel painful or annoying because we must actually feel the stuckness, which is nothing more than the impossibility of understanding what is real with the dualistic mind.
Gradually you purify yourself, eliminating mistaken knowledge and attitudes you have held from the past.
All of the mind’s constructions of reality have been acquired through a lifetime of learning how the world seems to work. These learnings are extremely useful in navigating the world of consensual reality, and without them we would be fairly helpless and would find it difficult to function. But they tend to obscure the actual workings of reality, especially if we trust them as real, rather than know them for what they truly are. To know that these constructions are representations of what is real but are not actually real is to be emancipated, to be freed to lead a life of bare attention to what is so. This freedom is the promise of No, and it is what is realized in the moment of the mind’s awakening. Here it is, with nothing extra—just this, just this. No lights or heavenly choirs or even blissful states of mind compare to this feeling of rejoining our original mind, the mind that has always been present but has been obscured by our acquiring of seemingly helpful delusions.
Inside and outside become one, and you are like a dumb person who has had a dream. You know it for yourself alone.
The natural ripening of a person on this path may be so gradual as to be unnoticed, or so sudden as to feel like an explosion. Trusting this process of awakening, we begin to taste the experience of oneness, which is frankly indescribable. No matter how hard we try, we can’t communicate this feeling, which is so unlike our previous life, our familiar construction of reality, that we may liken it to dreaming. But we have actually woken up to our true life, and we are struck dumb, wordless, in an experience that can’t be described by the ordinary words we have used all our lives. It feels impossible to talk about this new, freshly felt life of realization, which is so amazing in its simplicity and ordinariness. The subtlety of this part of the path is misleading because it is actually not at all subtle. The profundity of the shift in consciousness, when outer and inner become one, must simply be lived, not described—but recognized, of course, by others on the same path.
Suddenly Mu breaks open. The heavens are astonished; the earth is shaken.
In another translation, Wumen describes this breaking open as the disintegration of the ego-shell. How could this cause such a powerful surge in personal energy, enough to shake the heavens and the earth? This shell of ego is of course a false construction, and as it drops away or wears away, the true self emerges, vividly alive and strong. This is the freedom of oneness, as Shakyamuni Buddha meant when he said, “In heaven above and earth below, I alone am.” This is not a oneness that is exclusive, because it can’t be—it includes everything, without exception. It draws on, joins with, truly is everything, and therefore is inexhaustible. Sometimes the idea of breaking open can seem frightening—after all, what are we to make of a phrase describing the loss of an identity we have held dear for so long? We have been fooled into identifying with a small, limited self, and cannot imagine a sense of ourselves as bigger without more ego getting formulated. We do not become nothing in this disintegration process, this breaking open—we become what we truly are.
It is as though you snatch away the great sword of General Kuan.
This path leads us to a life where we can truly meet each event, each person, each thing intimately and directly. This intimate directness has no hesitation in it. We perceive clearly, and we move or stay still according to circumstances. Like this ancient warrior Kuan, we are firm and direct, but not violent or wild. We encounter any barrier with an embracing heartfulness. The great warrior is calm and centered, full of wisdom and compassion—a bodhisattva.
When you meet the Buddha, you kill the Buddha. When you meet Bodhidharma, you kill Bodhidharma.
Some of us pull away from this seemingly violent concept of killing, so it is important to understand that what is being killed is constructions and stories—false differentiation. What is the difference between you and a buddha? We cause so much harm to ourselves by separating ourselves, by making high and low! Buddhanature, the wisdom of Zen masters, is all here, now, present and available, but concealed. In the process or moment of awakening, this wisdom is clearly and undeniably revealed.
At the very cliff-edge of birth and death, you find the Great Freedom.
In the boundless freedom of awakening, there are no dualities. Life as opposed to death doesn’t exist. Each moment contains both and neither, and thus they are transcended, and we attain independence from them. To be truly alive is to know this at the deepest level.
In the six worlds and in the four modes of birth, you can enjoy a samadhi of frolic and play.
What this life could be and what burdens us seem to promise something completely different. How can we roam freely in the midst of all conditions and states of being, the six worlds and four modes of birth, which include difficulties as well as pleasures, joy and delight as well as suffering? The six worlds in Buddhist mythology include heaven and hell, the realms of hungry ghosts, animals, fighting spirits, and human beings, and the four modes of birth are from the womb, the egg, moisture, and metamorphosis. Wumen is telling us that we can now enjoy every circumstance, remaining fully present and focused wherever we go and with whatever we encounter. This is a life that encompasses and embraces everything. A life of ease and freedom, of frolic and play, is possible when everything is recognized as a part of everything else.
So, how should you work with it?
Here Wumen once again arouses our Way-seeking mind with his question, offering us the instructions that will lead us to freedom. It is important to realize that, until we awaken, we can’t know what awakening is. And yet we desire this state we do not know—we yearn for it. Wumen knows this from his own experience. Here he is playing with our greed—beckoning us on into an unknown land. So much of initial practice is based on greed and desire—for enlightenment, happiness, power, serenity, or any one of a countless number of conceptualizations that are all we can imagine of the real thing. Wumen’s use of our desire is truly compassionate, like in the Buddha’s story of a father trying to get his children out of their burning house by laying out all their favorite toys on the grass. We come to his instructions eagerly, not really knowing where they will lead us. And we become grateful for everything that keeps us on this path, even our wanting mind.
Exhaust all your life-energy on this one word Mu.
The mind naturally wanders, and is filled with imaginary constructions of reality that bear some resemblance to the actual nature of reality but are never the thing itself. Wumen is giving us clear medicine for the ailment of being removed from the real. Teach the mind, relentlessly, to focus on one thing. He asks us to bring all of our energy, everything with nothing left over, to one point. Not letting the attention lapse allows us to make our mind a seamless fabric of this one thing. In a way, No is a substitute for something that is unnamable. In this practice, we give it a temporary designation, and we stay with this temporariness with all our might. Never letting the other constructions take root, we devote ourselves to this particular construction, simply returning to one thing, to No or Mu, again and again, until this practice of returning becomes one of abiding.
If you do not falter, then it’s done! A single spark lights your dharma candle.
You and the universe are not separate. In penetrating No, penetrating Mu, in realizing our part of the essential wholeness of reality, we free ourselves and the light of clarity that has been obscured and now is released. There is just this one thing, penetrating everywhere. “In heaven above and earth below, I alone am.” This is not our personal light or our personal dharma candle. It is the light that has always been present. We come alive to the fullness of our being, and everything else shines with its own light. Just Mu, just No—just this.