841Uif

THE COMMENTARY ON MU I 77your own mind. This way has been shown, with the greatest kindness,by Mumon.Let us now consider Mumon's comment. He begins by saying:"In the practice of Zen ...." Zazen, receiving dokusan (i.e., privateinstructions), hearing teishthese are all Zen practice. Being attentivein the details of your daily life is also training in Zen. When yourlife and Zen are one you are truly living Zen. Unless it accords withyour everyday activities Zen is merely an embellishment. You mustbe careful not to flaunt Zen but to blend it unpretentiously into yourlife. To give a concrete example of attentiveness: when you step outof the clogs at the porch or the kitchen or out of the slippers of thetoilet room, you must be careful to arrange them neatly so that thenext person can use them readily even in the dark. Such mindfulnessis a practical demonstration of Zen. If you put your clogs or shoes onabsent-mindedly you are not attentive. When you walk you muststep watchfully so that you do not stumble or fall. Do not becomeremiss !But I am digressing. To continue: " . . . you must pass through thebarrier-gate set up by the Patriarchs." Mu is just such a barrier. I havealready indicated to you that, from the first, there is no barrier. Everythingbeing Buddha-nature, there is no gate through which to go in orout. But in order to awaken us to the truth that everything is Buddhanature,the Patriarchs reluctantly set up barriers and goad us intopassing through them. They condemn our faulty practice and rejectour incomplete answers. As you steadily grow in sincerity you willone day suddenly come to Self-realization. When this happens youwill be able to pass through the barrier-gate easily. The Mumonkanis a book containing forty-eight such barriers.The next line begins: "To realize this wondrous thing called enlightenment. . . ." Observe the word "wondrous." Because enlightenmentis unexplainable and inconceivable it is described as wondrous." . .. you must look into the source of your thoughts, thereby annihilatingthem." This means that it is useless to approach Zen fromthe point of view of supposition or logic. You can never come toenlightenment through inference, cognition, or conceptualization.Cease clinging to all thought-forms ! I stress this, because it is thecentral point of Zen practice. And particularly do not make the mistakeof thinking enlightenment must be this or that.