Gateless Gate 21

145
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #21
Yunmen's Kanshiketsu

Personnel

• YUNMEN Wenyan (Ummon Bunen, 864-949, 13th gen), disciple of Xuefeng
• an unnamed monk

Case

A monk asked Yunmen in all earnestness, “What is Buddha?”
Yunmen said, “Shit-Stick” [Kanshiketsu].

Note: Kanshiketsu: A dry spoon-formed stick once used in the restroom.
Wumen's Comment

It should be said of Yunmen that he was too poor to prepare even the plainest food and too busy to write a draft. Suddenly he took up the shit-stick to support the gate (of Buddhism). You can see how the Dharma has decayed.

Wumen's Verse

Lightning flashing,
Sparks shooting from a flint;
A moment's blinking –
It's already missed.

Another mention of Shitstick (Aitken)
From The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Linji:

Linji took the high seat and said, “On your lump of red flesh, there is a person of no rank going in and out of your faces. If you beginners have not yet proved that one—look! Look!”
A monk stepped forward and asked, “What is the true person of no rank?”
Linji descended from the high seat and seized him. The monk hesitated. Lin-chi pushed him away and said, “The true person of no rank — what a dried shitstick!”

Other Examples of Yunmen's One-Word Replies

MONK: “What is the talk that transcends Buddhas and Patriarchs?”
YUNMEN: “Kobyo!” (Rice cake!) [See BCR77/BOS78]
MONK: “No thought has been stirred. Is there any fault there, or not?”
YUNMEN: “Shumi-sen!”” (Mount Sumeru!) [See BOS19]
MONK:A monk asked Yunmen, “What is the pure and clear Dharma-body?”[2] YUNMEN: "Kayakuran." (Flowering Hedge.) [See BCR39]
MONK: “What is the eye of satori?”
YUNMEN: “Fu!” (Pervading!)
MONK: “If one kills his father and mother, he will make a confession before Buddha. If he kills Buddhas and Patriarchs, how can he confess?”
YUNMEN: “Ro!” (Revealed!)

Aitken's Comment

Apparently the term was used as an epithet — as in “You shithead!” (And see Linji, above). Please don’t try to work on this kōan — or any kōan — by logic. If you say, “Everything is Buddha, shit is one thing, therefore shit is Buddha” — then you are off the mark. You miss it completely. Nor does the point lie merely in the succinctness of Yün-men’s presentation. Don’t suppose because Zen responses are often brief that brevity is the essence of their significance. Polonius said, “Brevity is the soul of wit”—but actually it is not. Brevity is often the form of wit, but what is its soul?

Li-An's Comment (Cleary)

A statement that startles the crowd is indeed a statement that startles the crowd; an extraordinary matter is undeniably an extraordinary matter. Great Master Yunmen could be said to have been strong and stern for a time. You should avoid biting in here.

Cleary's Comment

The koan at hand deals with the manifest world, and is of the same kind as GG18, which featured Yunmen's disciple Dongshan Shouchu. Thought and language are impoverished in comparison to the richness of the direct experience of suchness. Yunmen's reply seems crude, but it shows the impossibility of accurately depicting absolute reality in any relative terms. It is impossible to describe this infinity in words, so Yunmen simply notes something near at hand to represent what is everywhere. Yunmen's reply alludes to a story in the Daoist classic Chuang-tzu involving a series of questions and answers regarding the whereabouts of the Dao, or natural law. The Daoist master acknowledges the omnipresence of the Dao, even in an object so lowly as a piece of dung. Yunmen's baffling skills in getting his mind to work on several levels of meaning with lightninglike speed reflect something of the liberation of complete Zen mastery.

Guo Gu's Comment

When you read this case, how did you feel when encountering Yunmen's response? What happened when you read that Buddha was a toilet cleaner? Did that startle or shock you? Did it make perfect sense? Did it stop you in your tracks? What gut response did you have to the word shit? “Yuck!” is the ordinary response. We all have ideas about what we see, what we hear, what we touch and smell. If we get caught up in our ideas, we miss the point. We don’t really see things the way they are. We see our own story about these things, and then we get all agitated and irritated.
Cut to the chase and ask, “What is buddha?” The monk asking may have been wondering, “Who am I? Am I a buddha? I don’t feel like a buddha....I’m still unclear about myself.” When Yunmen had told Muzhou, "I'm still unclear about myself," Muzhou had responded, "A useless piece of crap!” These questions -- “I’m unclear about myself,” “What is buddha?” “What is buddha-nature?” “Who am I?” are all so useless, yet so wonderful.
“Who is the master?” or “What is Wu?” or “Who am I?” This is a ridiculous question, yet you have to come face-to-face with it, earnestly work through it, and personally realize how ludicrous this question is. Your intellect won’t help you here — you know that already. When you have vexations and are troubled, do concepts like “I shouldn’t be troubled” or “Just put down vexations” actually help? Not so much. So you have to sincerely question until you’ve personally resolved the question. Until you can break through the shell of self-grasping, you have to ask silly questions such as “What is buddha?” or “What is a human being?” or “A dry shitstick?” without using your intellectual, rational thinking, biases. Instead, the key is earnestness.

A Sufi Dialog (Low)

The disciple asked the master, “Supposing we see refuse or carrion, will you say that it is God?”
The master replied, “God, in his exaltation, forbid that he should be such a thing! Our discourse is with him who doth not see refuse to be refuse or carrion to be carrion; our discourse is with him who hath insight and is not altogether blind.”

Dahui's Exhortation (Low)

Just bring up this saying, "dried shit!" When all your machinations suddenly come to an end, then you’ll awaken. Don’t try to get realization from the words or try in your confusion to assess and explain.

John Donne Quote (Low)

God is so omnipresent that God is an angel in an angel, a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw.

Low's Comment

In the East, the question what is Buddha? was equivalent to what is God? or what is of ultimate meaning in our lives? It is only out of a mind completely involved in the moment, too busy, as Wumen would say, that the truth of dried shit could have exploded. We are so proud of our opinions about religion, politics, and current affairs, opinions we think of as a mark of a rich personality, that we have to make judgments, we have to establish orders and classes, ranks, and levels. Sweep it all aside in one moment and then, “What is dried shit?” Once we take our confused and unhappy minds and shift them onto dried shit, the mind that is afraid of death, that is upset and depressed, that has to get it all sorted out, that is so clever, will no longer operate.

Sekida's Comment

Kanshiketsu is at once both private and polluted. But in samadhi there is no private or public, no pure or polluted.
"What is Buddha?" As with many Zen questions, even such a simple and straightforward question as this can be asked in a number of different contexts: (1) a beginner seriously asks what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism; (2) a monk who has achieved advanced understanding demonstrates his condition by asking a question; (3) in Dharma battle the questioner tries to examine his opponent’s condition while also revealing his own condition by his choice of question and his tone of voice and manner; (4) such questions and answers form a means of intimate exchange between a teacher and his principal disciple. In the present case, each of these contexts is possible.
In the first: perhaps the student is imagining the glorious image of the Buddha pervading the whole universe. The answer “Kanshiketsu” comes like a blow to smash such an image. This kind of answer is called “breaking the thinking stream of consciousness.”
In the second: Yunmen adapts himself to the condition of the questioner. This kind of answer is called “following the ebb and flow of the tide.”
In the third: Yunmen partly adapts himself to the question and partly counterattacks.
In the fourth: Yunmen and his questioner are chatting pleasantly. Questions and answers of that sort are called “heaven meets earth as the lid does the chest.” Both minds are in unison; “kanshiketsu” corresponds to the Buddha as a lid fits the chest it was made for. Heart meets heart in warmth and intimacy.
"Kanshiketsu!" The shout followed the question as the echo of a bell comes back from the hillside. Yunmen has nothing prepared, no set opinion or fixed frame of mind. He is entirely innocent. He adheres to nothing. He is supremely free.

Senzaki's Comment

"What is Buddha?" The monk was asking for a God-conception of Buddhism, if I were to express it in Christian terminology. The religious experiences of Buddhism, however, are quite different from those of Christianity, and the term God is not adequate to interpret any of them. For Buddhism, there is a whole, which you can call the universe or you can name God. The Buddhist notion of ultimate being is absolute and transcendent. It is called Dharmakaya or Buddhakaya, or merely “Buddha” for short. The monk was asking about this Buddha. . Our faith is to believe in our essential oneness with Buddha.
“Dried dung” is a Chinese slang term meaning “good-for-nothing.” “What is Buddha?” “Good-for-nothing.” Can you beat that?
When the Dharmakaya is most concretely understood, it becomes the Buddha, or Vairochana, or Amitabha. Buddha means “the enlightened one,’ and this may be understood to correspond to “God is wisdom.” Zen teachers crush this postulated wisdom and blow away such an illusory light, in order to have pupils look within. The minute you say the word "realization," or "Buddha" you are surely not in the mind that the word stands for. We serve tea to wash such an unclean mouth and purify the inner treasure in silence. “What is Buddha?” Throw away such an idea, and reflect your inner self.

Master Daie's Comment (Shibayama)

What is the shit-stick? It can neither be grasped nor tasted. When you have intense inner struggle, you are in the right course of training.

Shibayama's Comment

"What is Buddha?" The monk is not asking about dogmatic Buddhist views or philosophical concepts of Buddha. What he asks about is Buddha as the fact of one’s realization experience. He wants to know it and get it.
"Shit-stick!" Just a shit-stick! For Master Yunmen, here, the whole universe was a shit-stick; he himself was a shit-stick. No room is there for such an idle distinction as dirty and clean.
To know the truth as an idea or a concept Is one thing, and to have the actual experience of Truth in oneself which makes one declare that “each and every thing is Buddha,” is quite another. Between the two there is all the difference in the world. If one lacks this inner experience of realization, his wonderful thought is without reality, just like a painted lion. This realization experience is essential. Whether the Master’s reply is “Three pounds of flax” or “A shit-stick!” is of secondary significance depending on external conditions. The Zen Master tries with a mondo to awaken the student to this realization experience and let him attain a new and creative Zen personality in order to live freely in this world. This is the sole aim of koan studies.
Yunmen's reply would also root out any possible preoccupation in the student’s mind such as “‘virtuous Buddha, inviolable holiness” and the like, and would lead him directly to the absolute spirituality, utterly lucid and transparent.

Yamada's Comment

If you are doing your zazen in perfect absorption, upon hearing this question and answer you can attain realization in an instant.
The saying of the Caodong (Soto) sect is: "Caodong, the farmer." For the Linji (Rinzai) sect, it is: "Linji, the general." And for the Yunmen (Unmon) sect it is: “a red flag fluttering in the distance (on top of a far mountain).” It can be seen clearly from a great distance, but is very difficult to reach. The words and phrases in Yunmen's Dharma combat are extremely subtle and of appealing excellence.
"Kanshiketsu!" First, this answer fits the question very snugly. Second, kanshiketsu has the power to cut off all conceptual thoughts. Third, the answer must have fitted the degree of consciousness of the monk. Yunmen’s kanshiketsu isn’t dirty. Neither is it discolored or smelly. Kanshiketsu has no odor, no concept, no ideas attached to it. It is Mu! It is Whack! It is masagin. Is kanshiketsu the same as masagin? Is kanshiketsu the same as our essential nature? Is there any difference? You must scrutinize this yourself, even if it takes you thirty years. Then one day you will realize that kanshiketsu is nothing other than the whole universe! This will bring you the greatest peace of mind. But to tell you the truth, all this has nothing in particular to do with kanshiketsu. Just “ka” is enough, or even only “n.” Just cry “ka” with your whole being and you will see that there is nothing but “ka” in the whole universe. Nothing remains outside of it. It is your essential nature; it is the whole universe, and you must come to this realization by living experience.
Yunmen has eliminated all kinds of possessions and become totally poor. He has no concepts, no philosophies, no ideas, nothing at all. In his world there is not even a speck of a cloud.

Hotetsu's Verse Hotetsu's Verses on Koans

What is the meaning
Of the sound of a man shouting,
Four beats, accenting the first and third?
A single measure, and the performance is done.

What is the meaning of a dried shit-stick,
Disgusting, useful,
As reliable as the human need of it?
A single swipe, and the performance is done.

Doesn't this beauty break
Your heart?

Appendix: Alternate Translations

Case

A monk asked Yunmen in all earnestness, “What is Buddha?” Yunmen said, “Shit-Stick” [Kanshiketsu].

Aitken: A monk asked Yun-men, "What is Buddha?" Yun-men said, "Dried shitstick."

Cleary: A monk asked Yunmen, "What is Buddha?" Yunmen said, "A dry turd."

Guo Gu: When a monk asked Yunmen, "What is Buddha?" Yunmen said, "A dried shitstick."

Hinton: A monk asked Cloud-Gate Mountain, "What is Buddha?" Cloud-Gate answered, "Dry shit-stick!"

Low: A monk asked Ummon, "What is Buddha?" Ummon replied, "Kanshiketsu!" (a shit stick).

Sekida: A monk asked Ummon, "What is Buddha?" Ummon replied, "Kanshiketsu!"

Senzaki: A monk asked Ummon, "What is Buddha?" Ummon answered, "Dried dung."

Shibayama: A monk asked Unmon, "What is Buddha?" Unmon said "A shit-stick!" (Kan-shiketsu!)

Verse

Lightning flashing, /Sparks shooting from a flint; /A moment's blinking – /It's already missed.

Aitken: A flash of lightning, /sparks from flint; /if you blink your eyes, /it's already gone.

Cleary: A flash of lightning, /A flint struck spark; /If you blink your eyes, /You've already missed it.

Guo Gu: Like a flash of lightning /Or sparks struck from flint, /In the blink of an eye, /It is already gone.

Hinton: Bright lightning-flash, /spark off struck flint: /blink once and it's all /gone vanishing way.

Low and Sekida: Lightning flashing, /Sparks shooting; /A moment's blinking, /"Missed forever."

Senzaki: Lightning flashes. /Sparks shower: /In the blink of an eye /You have missed it.

Shibayama: A flash of lightning! /Sparks struck from a flint! /If you blink your eye /It is gone.