Customer Reviews

Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan

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No, please don't burn this book after reading it (as proposed in review #1, above) that would show a great misunderstanding of Zen and a total lack of respect for this book -- a splendidly helpful manifestation (form) of the unmanifest(formless). Zen is seeing, knowing and living Reality in all everyday dealings -- including growing intellectually and spiritually from the reading and intensive study of a superb book like this one.
A practical suggestion: read this book slowly and truly spend time on each "case" presented. As you find the sentences and paragraphs which truly lift the veil and shine truth directly into your eyes -- use a red pen to mark off the individual servings of this brilliantly prepared spiritual dinner. Only this way will you be able to return again and again and easily enjoy the entire feast.
For those who will never have the opportunity to work personally with a Zen master, this is a very satisfying alternative.

This is a great book and I love it, but I might have to burn it out of respect for the Ancestral Patriachs!

Zen master Zenkei Shibayana has done a great job in guiding the reader through what has been, for more than 7th century, one of the most rigorous training exercise in Zen: the koans in the "Gateless Barrier" or "Mumonkan," without the reader's having to become a training Zen monk. He did this out of his "elder's mind" (in Japanese: roshin) and out of his "grandmotherly heart" (robashin in J), for the tradition has always been to keep koan exercises strictly between the teacher and the student. (There are no correct answers, per se, to these koans and the exercise is only complete under the supervison of a teacher). And for the real purists like Shuan who wrote the preface to "Momonkan", they would urge us to "throw it away without waiting for me to do so. Let no drop of it fall into the world." In this regard, Shuan paled when compared to Ta-hui (Chinese spelling) who took the decisive step of burning every copy of the so-called frist book of Zen, Hegiganroku (Blue Cliff Record in Chinese), which had been written by a member of his teacher's school, he could find. They both would have made Bodhidharma, the first Chinese Chan Patriach, proud - if that's possible, who wrote the famous gatha (a Buddhist poem): Transmission outside doctrine, No dependencies on words, Pointing directly at the mind, Thus seeing oneself truly, Attaining Buddhahood (Trans by Lucien Stryk & Takashi Ikemoto, in the Penguin Book of Zen Poetry).

So, perhaps this reviewer has relied too much on words already. What the pursuer of the Way needs to do is to simply practice, be that zazen or just "carrying water and chopping wood" in our daily life with complete awareness and mindfulness.

Finally, I would just echo a comment by another writer in another Amazon review that it would help a lot, in any translation of Chinese work, if the Chinese characters of the names and poems cited were included with the translation.

This book surely refined my understanding of Zen, and it is doing so every time I read it. As a Zen Monk of the Rizai Zen Sect in Austria, I got one of the koans of this sacred old book from my Roshi to meditate with it and become enlightened one day.
Zenkei Shibayama Roshi is acknowledged as an excellent interpreter of this wonderful koan collection from the 13th century, and to comment this book was his life's work. He passed away soon after finishing his work at the age of 74.
In our Zen Monastery, we deeply appreciate this outstanding master's work.
If this book has nothing to teach you anymore, you maybe grew out of books at all.

Gassho,
Soshin Wolfgang Drechsler

This is simply the best commentary I have read on the Mumonkan. I first read it several years ago, and recently adopted it as the text for a zen reading group I run. We spent 13 weeks reading and discussing the book every week, and it was universally acclaimed by the group. It is a must for anyone interested in the subject.

this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read. shibayama has reached a high degree of freedom through his understaning of 'it' and this comes across as one reads his commentary, however he displays an attachment to 'it', in my opinion.(as did mumon/wu men) i have never encountered such freedom in the writings of any modern authors of zen books. infact i was really thrilled to read this book.

the mumonkan is a tremendous tool for losening up and freeing the mind from conceptual and accepted norms and values (knots). this book would have been worth reading alone for its text of the original mumonikan, but especially for the letters at the end which are very important, though not part of the actual main body of the text with its koan stories.

there will be students of zen who read the collection of koans in this book, common to ch'an/zen buddhism (see shoyo roku, hekigan roku)and they will not realise that wu men and shibayama believed that 'it' is the key to them all. they will focus on the first koan 'mu' and struggle to see that a dog does not have buddha nature. 'it' actually is not the ultimate key to the koans. it is a tool in freeing up the mind. infact a dog has no buddha nature is 'it', so too a dog has buddha nature is 'it', this is because there are always more than one way to approach a problem. the truly liberated/free mind is able to see this. my ability to liguistically say "it isnt it" proves that 'it' is not the ultimate. the ultimate embraces and yet is beyond language (True Love).

actually, 'is' is also a very strong root concept that denotes existence or non existence, but as with 'it', it can be a-moral and lead ultimately to nihilism. "it is", it isnt, this is, this isnt, this 'is' it, that 'is' it. life is what 'is', what 'is' is what 'is', if is what is, it is what is, what is is what is. "what is" the cause of suffering? "what is is what is, just so". what am i doing right now? i am using the computer is what is, how do i feel? i feel fine is what is. what will i be doing in the future? i will be living or dead is what is (this is the way things are/what is). and yet though future is spoken of it is only what is, future is not future, future is what is. ie what is that matters. now is what is, but future also is what is and past is what is. perhaps this almost gets to the very root of the problem, seeing that everything 'is', even 'isnt'. without conceptualising. a wise man has said that conceptualising is what is, so is non conceptualising. non conceptualising is what is, both are "what is". "what is non-conceptualising? non conceptualising is what is" perhaps one of the greatest mysteries is: "this is it". what is this is it? this is it is what is. simplifying this is it is... consciousness, self, subject, identity, being, and placement. what is what is? what is is what is. why is my life quite easy? my life is not easy, it is what is. what is what is? what is is is. what is suffering? suffering is what is, what is is what is. i think you will find that 'is' is a little closer to enlightenment than 'it'. what is the truth? the truth is neither subjective nor objective, what is is what is. or subjective is what is, or objective is what is. you ask me "what is?" i tell you what is is what is. what is what is? what is 'is' what is. just so!

ultimately i have chosen one attachment as the ideal supreme ultimate and see this as 'true love', beyond all concept, yet within concept and generally limited to experience, being and action, infact true love is what is, but it is also what isnt. love can be talked about, but it is very elusive. i do not have the knowledge, nor the wisdom, nor much experience to talk about that most elusive and most precious thing of all... True Love. to talk of it would be to dress it/him/her etc etc etc in dirty rags. sufice it to say... True Love is what is and what isnt!

"it is good, it is evil" proves that 'it' and 'is' are both limited (mixed).

'it' itself is a koan that leads to further freedom once understood. without the tutelage of someone like shibayama, such truths and freedoms would never be possible in the lives of students, or ordinary people such as myself.

its been a while since i read this book, which has been an instrumental stepping stone across the river in my own mental way. i will try to say a little about wu men kuans golden key... 'it'!:

'it' is, 'it' isnt, this is 'it', this isnt 'it', that is 'it', that isnt 'it', i am is 'it', you are is 'it', 'it' is coming, 'it' is going, 'it' is seated, 'it' is standing, 'it' is large, 'it' is small, 'it' is unborn, 'it' is born, 'it' is undying, 'it' dies, 'it' is a buddhist, 'it' is a christian,'it' is an atheist, 'it' is reason, 'it' is faith,'it' is foolish, 'it' is wise, 'it' is happy, 'it' is sad, 'it' meditates, 'it' does not meditate, 'it' burns the sutras, 'it' reveres the sutras, 'it' sleeps, 'it' wakes, 'it' eats, 'it' works, 'it' rests, 'it' is everything, 'it' is nothing. coming 'it' goes, going 'it' comes, eating 'it' sleeps, sleeping 'it' eats, nothing is everything all are true all are false in living 'it' dies and dying 'it' lives, eating 'it' sleeps and sleeping 'it' eats. living 'it' dies and dying 'it' lives, truth is normal, truth is a lie, a truth eaten cannot die, should you sleep you will wake, in dreaming you partake of that which is alive, in the depths of your sorrow you cannot survive, living i find, dying i live, eating i survive, dying i give. what cannot be a place without a place being. in receiving a truth, a gift i give of all that is a lie, one understanding another not, why give to truth when you cannot. spot.

this book is a useful tool in liberating the mind, but in itself only points towards the answer to our questions, it is not, nor does it contain the answer, perhaps this was shibayamas intention. he gives a little encourgement to guide us on our path.

seek and you will find, if you seek a certain kind of truth you will find it, if you seek a certain kind of lie you will find it. if you seek ultimate truth you will find it. if you seek to delude yourself you will. we find whatever we seek, if its emptiness we find it, if its fullness we find it. infact, such is the nature of logic, you can prove or disprove anything with it. logic is a donkey led by a carrot, you are the carrot, the donkey is the logic. wherever you lead your logic is wherever it follows/goes.

the problem with such mental freedom is that it can lead one into nihilism, the arch bug-bear of the buddha, at root of all knowledge there needs to be the constraining anchor of love, or 'loving kindness' as the buddha put it. otherwise we become the monster, as have many of genius.

in retrospect, my appreciation of wu-men's 'it' has grown. it can be seen as a linguistic/actual root of is and isnt. a non-dualism. what is the opposite of 'it'? there is no opposite to it and yet it is the root of is and isnt! it is a cool little word. its compactness reveals to some degree its common importance. only two letters, as is 'is', but not as compact as 'i' hey? it will bring freedom of mind, but its truly the heart that really matters and emotional freedom is far more important.

if we introduce emotion, then 'he' or 'she' is more emotive than it. 'he' is, is more meaningful than 'it' is. if emotion is considered to be meaningful, and it must be. emtionality is itself "time+ feeling + truth". without awareness of emtion one will be unaware of the truth of a matter or person. as said by lao tse, "the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees". emotionality is the core source of truth. the truest of all... the very truth itself at its purest is true love.

may all who read these words find their mind, heart and insight leap to a high level of understanding. and once having attained balance, reach forward towards perfection (possibly forsaking balance for perfections sake)... true love, amen.

love, tom xxx.