無門關 1.6

1.6

The Buddha's words take mind as the source, and gatelessness as the Dharma gate. Since it is gateless, how on earth do you pass through? Have you not heard it said: What enters through the gate is not the family treasure; what is obtained from conditions is subject to arising and decay from beginning to end? Such talk is very much like raising waves where there is no wind, or gouging into healthy flesh to make a wound. How much more so when clinging to words and phrases, seeking understanding: swinging a staff to strike the moon, scratching an itch from outside the boot—what connection does that have? In the summer of the wuzi year of Shaoding [1228], Huikai was head monk at Longxiang in Dongjia. Because patch-robed monks requested instruction, I thereupon took the gong'ans of the ancients to serve as tiles for knocking at the gate, guiding students in accordance with their capacities. Before I knew it, as they were transcribed, they formed a collection. From the first, they were not arranged in any sequence; together they make forty-eight cases, collectively titled The Gateless Barrier. If you are a fellow who pays no heed to peril or demise, and charges straight in with a single blade, eight-armed Nata could not hold you back. Even if the four times seven of the Western Heavens and the two times three of the Eastern Land were to appear, they could only watch your dust and beg for their lives. If you hesitate, it will be like watching a horseman through a window: in the blink of an eye, you have already missed it. A gāthā says: