A Question in the Zen Texts
I
My friend opened a thin yellow volume of that marvellous text which proclaims at sight the patience of the Buddhist engraver. Movable Chinese types may be very useful; but the best of which they are capable is ugliness itself when compared with the beauty of the old block-printing.
“I have a queer story for you,” he said.
“A Japanese story?”
“No,—Chinese.”
“What is the book?”
“According to Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters of the title, we call it Mu-Mon-Kwan, which means ‘The Gateless Barrier.’ It is one of the books especially studied by the Zen sect, or sect of Dhyâna. A peculiarity of some of the Dhyâna texts,—this being a good example,—is that they are not explanatory. They only suggest. Questions are put; but the student must think out the answers for himself. He must think them out, but not write them. You know that Dhyâna represents human effort to reach, through meditation, zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression; and any thought once narrowed into utterance loses all Dhyâna quality.... Well, this story is supposed to be true; but it is used only for a Dhyâna question. There are three different Chinese versions of it; and I can give you the substance of the three.”
Which he did as follows:—