Mumonkan / Wumenguan · CASE 47
Tosotsu's Three Barriers
The Gateless Gate
Case
Tosotsu Yue set up three barriers for students: “You push aside the grass and investigate the mystery solely to see your nature. Right now, Venerable, where is your nature? “Only after recognizing your own nature do you escape birth and death. When the light of your eyes falls, how do you escape? “Once you have escaped birth and death, you know where you are going. When the four great elements separate, where do you go?”1
Verse
In one thought, observe immeasurable kalpas; the events of immeasurable kalpas are precisely now. Now see through this one thought— see through the person who is seeing now.
Footnotes 1
- The four great elements are earth, water, fire, and wind, the traditional constituents of the body. “Where do you go?” is the case's question, not evidence that the text establishes a surviving personal entity. ↩
About this version and its sources
- Full source citation
- 兜率三關 — CBETA T2005: T48n2005_p0298c20–p0298c30.
- Method
- Direct critical-edition translation from the cited received base text. Source claims, hagiography, uncertainty, and unresolved readings remain identified in the notes and project record.
- Editorial uncertainty
- Independent philological and reader review remain pending.
- Rights
- Project translation © Tulsa Zen Center Critical Edition contributors. Source text is cited by edition; redistribution policy requires final organizational approval.
- Revision identifier
- 7afc3b0d0a52
Wumen's commentary
If you can give three turning words to these questions, you can be master wherever you are and, meeting conditions, be the source. If not: coarse food easily fills the belly; carefully chewing, it is hard to grow hungry.