Gateless Gate 38

203
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #38
A Buffalo Passes through a Window

Personnel and Date

• WUZU "Qingyuan" Fayan (Goso Hôen, 1024-1104, 20th gen), disciple of Baiyun Shouduan
Date guess: ca. 1086

Case

Wuzu said, “For example, it's just like a great cow passing through a latticed window. Her head, horns, and four legs have passed through. Why is it that her tail can't pass through?”

Wumen's Comment

If in regard to this you are able to turn yourself upside down, attain one single eye, and utter a turning word, you will be able to repay the four obligations above and help the living beings of the three realms below. If you are still unable to do this, reflect again on the tail; then you will be able to grasp it for the first time.

Wumen's Verse

If it passes through, it will fall into a ditch;
If it turns back, it will be destroyed.
This tiny little tail –
What a strange and marvelous thing it is!

Aitken's Comment

Your head, horns, and four legs all have passed through the gate of Zen practice. But something doesn’t pass. A Zen master I have known for more than thirty years tells his students, “I have never passed Mu.” Well, as you know, Mu is the first kōan for most Zen students. My friend has taught the entire Zen curriculum for decades and many of his students have completed their study with him. Yet he says that he himself has not yet passed the first gate — not entirely, that is. His tail has not yet passed through. He has, however, passed this kōan about the tail. As Dōgen says: “When the Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When the Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.” Dogen's genjokoan also says, “No trace of realization remains and this no-trace is continued endlessly,” refers to the fact that anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, peerless omniscient wisdom, is still incomplete. It is commonly said in Zen monasteries that Śākyamuni is only halfway there and is still sitting hard in the Tusita Heaven.

Cleary's Comment

Japanese Zen masters consider this koan one of the most difficuh to penetrate, so they usually take it up in a comparatively advanced stage of study. One reason for this is that the question involves examination of very subtle barriers to enlightenment. In advanced Zen, special attention is focused on the problem of mental obstruction by the feeling of knowing, or being conscious of consciousness.
Something of the point can be seen by the following procedure:
a) Forget thoughts, even as they occur.
b) Use the leeway thus created to let the mind merge with space as a total field of awareness.
c) View the totality itself as the "tail" that has "not yet passed through."
d) Observe the consciousness of awareness itself as the "tail that has not yet passed through."

A Related Tale (Cleary)

Wuzu had already studied with ten Zen masters before he came to Master Baiyun, and he was under the impression that he had understood and realized Zen. His object in continuing Zen studies was to test himself and also to test the masters. One day Baiyun told him that several Zen practitioners had just arrived, adding that all of them had experienced Zen awakening, could explain it, could understand Zen stories, and could comment on them. Pausing a while, Master Baiyun finally said, "But they're still inadequate. You tell me why."
Unable to fathom this mystery, Wuzu wondered about it constantly for seven days. Finally one night he understood and all at once "let go of what he had been treasuring," forgetting his subjective feeling of completeness and realizing the true infinity of enlightenment. This is what is called "the wind of unburdening" in Zen language. It is what you turn to when you realize why "the tail hasn't passed through."

Guo Gu's Comment

Why is it that you can’t shake yourself free even though you are already free? Why is it that you are not at peace despite your good health, friendships, possessions, status, wealth, and even love? The problem lies in the “I,” or self-referentiality, having, lacking, good, bad—whatever props you up will stem from upside-down thinking. To turn right side up is to be without the coloration of self. Free, everywhere. Everywhere, free. As long as your self is at the center of the world, at the core of your experiences, you see everything as outside — including yourself. You make a “thing” out of everything inside and out. More than anything else, this creates a deep yearning for some ultimate something that you can hold on to. Yet you do not have the slightest clue as to what this ultimate something is. Wumen calls this the tail. This tail is the “I” that creates all the props you use in your life. Investigate this tail and ask, over and over again, “Why can’t the tail go through? Why can’t the tail go through?” How does the buffalo’s tail pass through? Turn yourself right side up. Clear your eyes. Look! The buffalo is already out!

Low's Comment

Many people have this “if only” feeling about themselves, about their bodies, about their personalities: if only I were taller, shorter, thinner, fatter, had a bigger nose, a smaller nose. If only I were more outgoing, less noisy, more loving, more independent. Everything is fine, the head, horns, four legs, and body all have got through. But that tail. If only. ..! The problem is not how to get rid of I, but how to throw the bath water away without losing the baby. What is this I? As one works on this question it ultimately seems nothing more than a viewpoint. Nisargadatta likened it to a pinpoint hole in a sheet of paper. It is in the paper but not of the paper. Furthermore, its presence is its absence. The more one denies it, the more one affirms it, because denial requires a viewpoint no less than affirmation. However, this viewpoint is the tiny tail, and within it we must make the turnabout of which that Mumon speaks. It is a turnabout from seeing the world to being the world, from knowing something to knowing.

Sekida's Comment

A buffalo passes by the window. In the practice of zazen you must experience the Great Death. The activity of consciousness dies away in absolute samadhi, First sensation drops away, then body and mind fall away.
His head, horns. and four legs all go past. His body goes past. That is, obserbing ego (the first nen), reflecting ego (the second nen), and integrating ego (the third nen) all go past.
Why can't the tail pass too? Samadhi itself never passes away. But what is found in samadhi? Jushu-zammai, or self-master, is what is discovered. But how can you notice it while the activity of your consciousness has ceased. Retention (the direct past) is reflected upon and perceived, and you become aware of it. This topic has bween regarded as the most difficult of Hakuin's "eight difficult cases," but I seem to have given it an easy interpretation. However, have I not simply replaced the tail, which sound mysterious, with jishu-zammai, which sounds reasonable? Here is an instance of the sophistry of words. Unless you really master jishu-zammai, you have reached no real solution to the problem. However you look at it, this tail is a monster.

Senzaki's Comment

A Zen monk renounces the world and breaks the bondage of physical and mental attachments. He may pass a number of koans. He may understand the meaning of the scriptures. He may even preach as a teacher. He is like the escaping buffalo. His horns, head, and hoofs are all free, but a tail — some little thing — is caught by something, and he has not yet gained full emancipation. A monk may have been accumulating the gold pieces of meditation for twenty years, yet he might lose them overnight at the beautiful smile of a woman. Others may live together for many seasons as a harmonious Sangha, but a storm of anger may sweep away the peace and make them enemies of each other. Vanity, pride, self-conceit, envy, jealousy, and other emotions — each looks so small that one usually does not notice it. You Zen students talk of delusions and illusions collectively, and may think that you are free from all obstacles to enlightenment. Each of you, however, is forgetting your own tail. Horns, head, and hoofs — you are not partially out. Your whole body, including the tail, walks freely between heaven and earth.

A Related Sutra (Senzaki)

There is a sutra that was translated into Chinese in which a king asks Buddha to interpret a dream. The king dreamed that an elephant escaped from an enclosure. Its nose, ears, body, and feet were out, but the tail was caught by something.
The Buddha tells the king, “This dream predicts that monks in later periods may renounce the world, but they will not be able to free themselves from desires, passions, and attachments to fame and glory." The sutra emphasizes the moral precepts, while the koan warns of the danger of self-certification, both morally and intellectually.

Shibayama's Comment

What in the world does the buffalo symbolize? What is it that is given the temporary name of a buffalo? Whether your Zen eye is opened to see through it or not is the first barrier of this koan.
“The huge tame buffalo leisurely passed through the window, yet why is it that its tiny tail cannot pass through?” With this extraordinary question Master Wuzu cuts asunder all possible reasoning on the part of all the Zen students in the world. From olden times this demand, “Why is it?”’ has been greatly revered as the ultimate secret of Wuzu’s Zen. In other words, it is the bleeding cry of compassion trying to eradicate the cause of human ignorance all at once. Now you tell me, why is it that its tail cannot pass through the window?
This tail is nothing else than the formless form of Reality.

from Mumon's Verse on GG 23 (Shibayama)

You may describe it, but in vain,
Picture it, but to no avail.
When the world collapses,
“It” is indestructible.

Dogen's Verse (Shibayama)

This world is but the tail of a buffalo passing through a window.
The tail is the mind,
Which knows neither passing nor not-passing.

Master Eisei's Comment (Shibayama)

It is impossible to measure how high the sky is; yet the mind soars above it. It is impossible to fathom how deep the earth is; yet the mind plunges further than that. It is impossible to surpass the light of the sun and the moon, yet the mind goes beyond it. How boundless is this mind!”

Master Daito's Comment (Shibayama)

How can there be any public office that has no secrecy? How can there be any water that has no fish?”

Hakuin's Verse (Shibayama)

Always the same is the moon before the window.
Yet if there is only a plum branch,
It is no longer the same.

Hakuin's Comment (Shibayama)

Wuzu likes the tail that cannot pass through. As for me, I like the tail that can pass through.

Unnamed Old Zen Master's Verse (Shibayama)

The summit of Wuzu people can hardly reach.
Those who reach it have to grope their way through clouds, in a fog.
Night falls, and the half-moon is seen among the pine trees.
The village to the south is dark, the village to the north is shrouded in mist.

Yamada's Comment

What does the cow mean? I think all of you can easily see that it is another name for our essential nature. So in this koan Mu is appearing in the guise of a cow.
What does the window mean? Literally, of course, it is the latticed window of the cow shed. But here it means the three realms, the three delusive worlds of sensuous desire, form, and no-form. Living creatures who are dwelling in these worlds have not yet realized their own essential nature, the world of oneness. They are bound by dualistic ideas and thoughts, such as subject and object, delusion and enlightenment, saints and ordinary beings, good and bad, right and wrong, and are unable to free themselves from these traps.
Now, what do you think the head, horns, and four legs mean? They are all the knowledge and experience we have acquired since birth. In other words, they are the concepts, philosophies, ethics, and even the theories of Zen, which cling a posteriori to our essential nature.
“The head, horns, and four legs have passed through the window” means that all concepts and ideas and the like which were adhering to our true nature have been totally eliminated. Now the cow has freed herself from the delusive realms. She has realized that every concept produced by thinking is totally void. She has realized the essential world.
Why can the tiny tail not pass through the window? Because its existence still remains. After we have realized that all phenomenal things are empty, what remains as existence? There is simply standing up or sitting down, drinking, eating, writing, reading, laughing, crying, and so forth.
In order to grasp true realization, we must destroy and overturn the practical world, which is based on the dualistic opposition of subject and object. In Zen training this is called killing self-consciousness. When we have wiped it out, all of a sudden a great new life appears. Then, for the first time, we can recognize the world of empty oneness which cannot be seen by our two physical eyes. It can only be seen by the single mind’s eye—the eye of satori.

Hotetsu's Verse (After the Translations)

It’s a magic act:
Passing a bovid through a lattice.

Or, no illusionist’s performance,
It’s a roving work animal
Passing a farmer’s view-frame.
Or escaping his pen.

So: the tail.

Is the illusion incomplete?
Is the liberation constrained?
Or is the tail obscured
behind the limits of the view-frame?

It flicks the flies.

Hotetsu's Verses on Koans

Appendix: Alternate Translations

Case

Aitken: Wu-tsu said, “It is like a buffalo that passes through a latticed window. Its head, horns, and four legs all pass through. Why can’t its tail pass through as well?”

Cleary: Wuzu said, "It is as if an ox had passed through a window screen: Its head, horns, and four hooves have all passed through; why can't the tail pass through?"

Guo Gu: Wuzu said, “It is like a water buffalo passing through a window frame. Its horns and hooves have all passed through. Why can’t the tail pass through?”

Hinton: Fifth-Patriarch Mountain said: “It’s like a water buffalo passing your window. Nose, horns, four hooves: they all lumber slowly by. But then, how is it the tail never goes past?”

Low: Goso said, “A buffalo passes through the window. His head, horns, four legs all go through. But why can’t the tail go through also?”

Sekida: Goso said, “A buffalo passes by the window. His head, horns, and four legs all go past. But why can’t the tail pass too?”

Senzaki: Goso said, “It is like a buffalo that gets out of his enclosure. His horns, his head, and his hoofs all pass through. Why can't his tail also pass through?”

Shibayama: Goso said, “To give an example, it is like a buffalo passing through a window. Its head, horns, and four legs have all passed through. Why is it that its tail cannot?”

Yamada: Goso said, “For example, it's just like a great cow passing through a latticed window. Her head, horns, and four legs have passed through. Why is it that her tail can't pass through?”

Verse

Aitken: Passing through, falling in a ditch;/ turning beyond, all is lost./ This tiny little tail —/ what a wonderful thing it is!

Cleary: If it goes on past, it falls into a pit;/ If it comes back, then it is spoiled./ This little tail/ Is very strange indeed.

Guo Gu: Passing through, it falls into a pit./ Turning back, it dies./ This tail/ Is indeed very strange!

Hinton: If it goes past, it falls into a ditch./ If it comes back, it’s all shambles./ A wisp of t ail: seen with absolute/ clarity, what strange wonder it is

Low: Passing through, it falls into a ditch;/ Going back, it is lost./ This tiny tail,/ What a strange thing it is!

Sekida: Passing by, it falls into a ditch;/ Coming back, all the worse, it is lost./ This tiny little tail,/ What a strange thing it is!

Senzaki: If the buffalo gets out, he will fall into the trench./ If he turns back, he will be butchered./ That little tail/ Is a very strange thing.

Shibayama: If it passes through, it falls into a ditch;/ If it turns back, it is destroyed./ This tiny tail,/ How extremely marvelous!

Yamada: If it passes through, it will fall into a ditch;/ If it turns back, it will be destroyed./ This tiny little tail –/ What a strange and marvelous thing it is!