PREFACE
by Mumon
Our teaching makes our mind the principle and the gateless gate its very gate. Since it is the gateless gate, how can one pass through it?
Are you not aware of the insight that purports,”Those who have entered the gate are no family treasures. What is gained as a result of cause and effect has beginning and end, and thus will become nothing.” Such remarks are like raising up waves in the windless ocean, or gouging a wound into healthy skin.Those who cling onto words are fools who believe that they can catch the moon with a stick or can scratch their itchy foot through a leather shoe. How can they “see” reality as it actually is?
In the Summer of the first year of Jotei (1228) Ekai (Mumon) was lecturing on koan of the ancient masters to the monks at the monastery of Ryusho temple in East China. He intended to use the koan as bricks for battering the gate in order to inspire the pursuer of Zen according to his ability. His notes were unwittingly collected. There is no order as to the beginning or the end. In total there are 48 cases, now called “The Gateless Gate.”
If anyone, like eight-armed Nata who bravely goes straight forward, ventures into Zen practice, no delusion will disturb him. The Indian and Chinese patriarchs will beg for their lives in his commanding presence. If, however, he hesitates even a moment, he is just a person that watches from a narrow window for a speedy horseman to pass by and misses everything in a wink.
“The Great Way has no gate,
A thousand roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate,
He freely walks between heaven and earth.”