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Tou-Shuai's Three Gates, a Zen commentary
Cinorjer
Veteran
Are you in the mood for a little koan talk today?
People have asked me what is my favorite koan. There are a thousand of these little mind hooks out there, and I've created a few myself, but one set stands out in my mind both for the breathtaking genius behind them, and that they were the hook that finally dragged my mind to some comprehension of what my Teachers were trying to say. It is called Tou-Shuai's Three Gates. It is actually a set of three koans, supposed to be answered in order.
Zen Master Tou-shuai was a Chinese Zen Master of the Rinzai tradition. He made three gates to test his students' progress.
"Cutting ignorance grass and sitting Zen is wishing to see true nature. Then where is your nature now?"
"So now you understand your nature and comprehend life and death. When you die, how then will you be reborn?"
"So you finally have freedom over life and death and also understand where you return to. When the four elements disperse, where then do you go?"
First gate: I must explain that "cutting ignorance grass" is slang for cutting the hair, and in a broader sense stands for becoming a monk and symbolically cutting away all attachments. It is the active life that complements the passive sitting in meditation that combines to make up a monk's practice. So the first gate is a simple question, but one that puts the student on the path you must travel. So what is your answer? If you want to find happiness, then where is it hiding now?
Many people come on this board, both young and old, and I can hear the pleading in their questions as they talk about how unsatisfied they are with their lives, how their college or job or relationships aren't giving them any happiness. They are all asking, where is the path to happiness? I was so frustrated, when I first started sitting Zen. That Teacher was so calm, so collected, so confident, everything I wanted desperately to be, that I wanted to scream at him at times. I wanted to see the world through his eyes, and he kept telling me to open my own eyes, instead. So what is your answer? If you want to see Buddha nature, where is your nature now?
I won't talk so much yet about the second and third Gate. They are statements of how understanding must unfold, how the seeds of comprehension must lead to further questions and further understanding. You don't suddenly "get it" and transform into a Buddha like some superhero shouting "Shazam!" You simply begin to realize, "Oh, that's what it means!" as you continue to travel the path.
Interested in people's own comments on the famous koan.
People have asked me what is my favorite koan. There are a thousand of these little mind hooks out there, and I've created a few myself, but one set stands out in my mind both for the breathtaking genius behind them, and that they were the hook that finally dragged my mind to some comprehension of what my Teachers were trying to say. It is called Tou-Shuai's Three Gates. It is actually a set of three koans, supposed to be answered in order.
Zen Master Tou-shuai was a Chinese Zen Master of the Rinzai tradition. He made three gates to test his students' progress.
"Cutting ignorance grass and sitting Zen is wishing to see true nature. Then where is your nature now?"
"So now you understand your nature and comprehend life and death. When you die, how then will you be reborn?"
"So you finally have freedom over life and death and also understand where you return to. When the four elements disperse, where then do you go?"
First gate: I must explain that "cutting ignorance grass" is slang for cutting the hair, and in a broader sense stands for becoming a monk and symbolically cutting away all attachments. It is the active life that complements the passive sitting in meditation that combines to make up a monk's practice. So the first gate is a simple question, but one that puts the student on the path you must travel. So what is your answer? If you want to find happiness, then where is it hiding now?
Many people come on this board, both young and old, and I can hear the pleading in their questions as they talk about how unsatisfied they are with their lives, how their college or job or relationships aren't giving them any happiness. They are all asking, where is the path to happiness? I was so frustrated, when I first started sitting Zen. That Teacher was so calm, so collected, so confident, everything I wanted desperately to be, that I wanted to scream at him at times. I wanted to see the world through his eyes, and he kept telling me to open my own eyes, instead. So what is your answer? If you want to see Buddha nature, where is your nature now?
I won't talk so much yet about the second and third Gate. They are statements of how understanding must unfold, how the seeds of comprehension must lead to further questions and further understanding. You don't suddenly "get it" and transform into a Buddha like some superhero shouting "Shazam!" You simply begin to realize, "Oh, that's what it means!" as you continue to travel the path.
Interested in people's own comments on the famous koan.
0
Comments
2. -.............- ( I don't understand 2. is it about the method, or how do I wish to be reborn ??)
3. Nowhere.
2. throw shoe on ground. spit on it.
3. walk around barefoot.
meow
Nature is usually out in the woods with the trees and squirrels and whatnot. However, sometime the squirrels come into the city so it is sometime in the city too. They like to eat nuts and berries.
- No, to be honest I never am.
“Where is my true nature now?”
- This is where I would most likely stop, and be silent.
We would have to see what happens next.
In the unlikely case we get to question three:
“Where then do you go?”
- This is where simply going out the door seams tempting. But I’m not sure.
Bell rings, end of conversation.
Better luck next time.
1. when cutting ignorance grass, just cutting ignorance grass. when sitting zen, just sitting zen. what is the nature you are taking about?
2. Sun will still rise in the East.
3. Everywhere.
As my teacher says, you can say whatever you want but you have to show the koan to me
you don't understand your nature if you die; the unshakeable deliverance of the heart is unborn
in the Pali canon. Where does a fire go when the wood is gone? Does not apply.
but yes, no one has shoes but they will seek shoes until the realize there is no shoe.
but to say there are shoes and to say there aren't shoes is the same thing.
Lol oh zen you make the dogs go bark bark.
You talk rubbish, but at least you're having fun.
"True nature", "self nature", "original nature", etc., all hark back to the Nirvana Sutra. Suppose you're dealing with someone who isn't interested in late Mahayana developments. What do you teach them?
"True nature", "self nature", "original nature", etc., all hark back to the Nirvana Sutra. Suppose you're dealing with someone who isn't interested in late Mahayana developments. What do you teach them?
While koans must be demonstrated, not answered, one can comment on them. The collections do have an interesting selection of various Master's comments for each one. For instance, a comment from another Master on the koan above:
Whatever you are doing, there is your nature(Zen Master Wu-Mun)
What I love is that in the three Gates, each following question contains a clue to the previous answer. So the first Gate asks, where is your nature now? And the second Gate says, all right lets assume you've answered the koan. If you understand your nature, you have transcended life and death. That does not mean your body does not die, only that you see past the illusion that there is a self that begins at conception and ends with death. You begin to understand that this self is not separate from everything else going on. This is when students start saying things like, "I am one with the universe!"
But then Tou-Shua issues a new challenge. Think you've "got it?" All right then, if there is no abiding self, then what gets reborn?
And thus the student continues to walk the path to the third Gate.
I'm curious as to how a Zen teacher would respond if you answered him with straight doctrine, as in "How will you be reborn?" "Through ignorance, grasping and aversion."
One of the things that I always appreciate about kong-an practice is the great relief it is to at last meet somebody in your life who asks you, “Who are you?” You’re stuck and you don’t know, but you’re happy. I think other people feel this relief too.
I recall one funny example of seeing this relief in a video clip of Zen Master Seung Sahn’s teaching in Europe. In the film he’s giving a first or possibly second interview to several people at once, all from different countries. With his Zen stick in hand he pokes them each in the belly asking them one by one, “When you die, where do you go?” Of course nobody could answer. There’s a tension in the room which is visible on the faces of these Zen students. After none of them can answer, he says to the group, “OK. You ask me.” They look puzzled, like, “You’re gonna TELL us??” Then they all look at him and ask together, “When you die, where do you go?” With those bright eyes of his, he says, “To the cemetery!!!” You can hear the laughter and see this relief come over their faces as if to say, “Oh my God! Is that all?”
In that moment they realized they don’t have to try and figure it out, and they could just be with “don’t know.” If you keep it really simple and in this moment then the questions we have about life and death are quite approachable. You allow yourself to just see, or hear, or smell. Then it’s very wonderful and for that moment the question and the answer dissolve in the act of you just doing something 100%. When you give up the feeling that you have to be right or you have to have the answer, then it’s fun and great to have the “gift of the question itself,” as Zen Master Soeng Hyang just called it.
That’s the thing–it’s not about finding the answer to some question such as, “When you die, where do you go?” or “Who are you?” It’s the question itself which is the gift.