Jōshū's Four Gates

Engo's commentary on the case

In general, when studying Zen and asking about the Way, clarify and investigate yourself. Above all, do not select among words and phrases. Why? Have you not heard Jōshū say, “The highest way is not difficult; it only rejects choosing”? Or Unmon criticize Zen students who gather in groups, muttering that one expression is superior and another is a phrase struck out on the body itself? They do not know that the ancients, within the gate of expedient means, established phrases from necessity for beginners who had not clarified the ground of mind or seen their nature. The patriarch came from the west, singly transmitting the mind seal, pointing directly to the human mind, seeing nature and becoming Buddha. Where was all this entanglement? You must cut off language and see truth beyond convention. Break through, and you are like a dragon finding water or a tiger leaning against a mountain. Among long-practiced elders, seeing without penetration or penetration without clarity is called requesting instruction. If seeing is penetrated, the request concerns moving through phrases without obstruction. A longtime practitioner requesting instruction is like handing a ladder to a thief. In reality the matter is not in words. Unmon said, “If it were in words, do the three vehicles and twelve divisions of teaching lack words? Why would Bodhidharma have needed to come west?” Among Fenyang's Eighteen Questions, the monk's question is called “testing the host” and also “probing and extracting.”³ It is extraordinary. Anyone but Jōshū would have struggled to answer. The monk asked, “What is Jōshū?” Jōshū, an expert in the fundamental matter, immediately said, “East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, North Gate.” The monk continued, “I did not ask about that Jōshū.” Jōshū said, “Which Jōshū did you ask about?” Later people call this “nothing-to-do Zen,” and it has deceived many. The monk asks Jōshū and Jōshū names the four gates, so they say he answered only with the city of Jōshū. Understand it that way and even a village bumpkin understands Buddha-dharma better. It destroys Buddha-dharma, substituting a fish's eye for a bright pearl: similar, but not the thing itself. This mountain monk says, “It is not south of the Yellow River; it is right north.” Is that something to do or nothing to do? You must be careful. Record-keeper Yuan said, “Only with the final phrase does one reach the locked barrier. The point of the south-pointing needle is not in verbal explanation.” Wind every ten days, rain every five; the country secure, people content in their work, singing with full bellies—this is called a peaceful time, called nothing to do. It is not blindly declaring “nothing to do.” You must pass the pivot, emerge from the thorn forest, stand clean and naked, bare and washed free, then once again resemble an ordinary person. Something to do or nothing to do—either is possible. Moving every way at once, you never cling to nothing or fixate on something. Some say, “Originally there is not a speck of anything. When tea comes, drink tea; when food comes, eat.” This is a great lie: claiming attainment and realization without having attained or realized. They never penetrated inquiry. When others speak of mind and nature, mystery and subtlety, they call it crazy talk and say there was never anything to do. One blind person leads a crowd of blind people. Before the patriarch came, where did anyone call heaven earth or mountains water? Why, then, did he come? What do teachers in every community speak of when they ascend the hall or enter the room? If all of it is discriminating calculation, only when emotion and calculation end does one see through. Then heaven is still heaven, earth earth, mountains mountains, water water. An ancient said: Mind is the root; phenomena are dust. Both are like marks upon a mirror. At this ground one naturally stands clean and naked, bare and washed free. Yet by the ultimate standard, even this is not a secure place. People misunderstand and fall into a realm of unconcern: they do not bow to buddhas or burn incense. It resembles the matter, but in its whole substance it is not. At first questioning they seem ultimate; press them and they break into seven flowers and eight fragments. They sit with an empty belly and a lofty heart. When the thirtieth day of the twelfth month arrives, they beat their breasts with alternating fists—but it is too late.⁴ The monk asked this way and Jōshū answered this way. How will you search it out? Thus will not do; not thus will not do. What, finally? This is the difficult point. Setchō therefore picks it up and shows it directly before your face. Once, while Jōshū sat, an attendant announced, “The great king has come.” Jōshū suddenly straightened: “Ten thousand blessings, Your Majesty!” The attendant said, “He has not arrived yet, Reverend.” Jōshū said, “You said he had come.” Nanchan commented, “The attendant knows only to announce the guest, unaware that he himself is in the imperial realm. Jōshū enters the weeds seeking someone and, without noticing, covers his body in mud.” Do you know this solid point? Look at Setchō's verse. Jōshū's response to the occasion resembles the diamond king's sword. Deliberate, and it cuts off your head; often it exchanges your eyes right before your face. The monk dared to stroke the tiger's whiskers by posing the question. It resembles making trouble where none existed, yet his phrase contains a working. Because he displayed the working, Jōshū did not betray the question. Jōshū also answered by displaying the working. He did not contrive it. People who have penetrated naturally share the same track; it seems arranged in advance. An outsider once held a small bird and asked the World-Honored One, “Is the bird in my hand dead or alive?” The World-Honored One straddled the threshold and asked, “Am I going out or coming in?” The outsider had no words and bowed.⁶ This resembles the present case. The ancients' bloodline continued unbroken. Thus it is said: the question is in the answer; the answer is in the question. Setchō saw through in this way and said: Within the phrase he displays the working; it comes straight at the face. The phrase holds a working as though it bore two intentions—asking about a person and asking about an environment. Jōshū did not alter a hair: “East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, North Gate.” The śakara eye is free of the finest dust. This versifies Jōshū taking away both person and environment. He displays the working in the phrase and answers. This is called having working and environment together: the instant it turns, it illuminates through the monk's heart and guts. Without this, Jōshū could not have stopped the question. Śakara eye is a Sanskrit expression, Engo says, meaning the firm eye or diamond eye. It sees without obstruction. It not only perceives a hair a thousand miles away; it determines crooked and straight, gain and loss, distinguishes the occasion, and recognizes fortune and danger.⁷ Setchō says: East, west, south, north: gates face one another. Countless turning hammers cannot strike them open. Since the hammers are countless, why can they not open the gates? This is Setchō's seeing. How will you people get the gate open? Investigate carefully.