What's your original face
before your mother and father were born?
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
What time would it be if all clocks stopped?
How is it that someone who plunges into the sea
and counts all the sands
is sitting on top of a needle?
How will you step up
from the top of a hundred-foot flagpole?
How do you go straight ahead
on a narrow mountain path
which has ninety-three curves?
How is it that someone who plunges into the sea
and counts all the sands
is sitting on top of a needle?
How will you step up
from the top of a hundred-foot flagpole?
How do you go straight ahead
on a narrow mountain path
which has ninety-three curves?
It is like a water buffalo (an ox) that passes through a window screen.
Its head, horns, and four legs all pass through.
Why can’t the tail pass through?
Do you see the rabbit's horn?
Do you see the rabbit's horn?
What is the straight within the bent?
When the many are reduced to the One,
to what is the One reduced?
to what is the One reduced?
******
Empty-handed I go and lo!
the spade handle is in my hand.
In a well that has not been dug,
Water is rippling from a spring that does not flow;
There, someone with no shadow or form,
Is drawing the water.
On top of a flagpole, a cow gives birth to a calf.
When I pass over the bridge the water flows not,
but the bridge flows.
Entering fire, he is not burned,
entering water he is not drowned.
Ride your horse along the edge of the sword
Hide yourself in the middle of the flames
Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in fire
The sun rises in the evening.
Put out the fire a thousand miles away.
Hide you body in the Big Dipper.
the spade handle is in my hand.
In a well that has not been dug,
Water is rippling from a spring that does not flow;
There, someone with no shadow or form,
Is drawing the water.
The ground that is not dark or light.
The tree that has no roots.
The valley that has no echo.
The tree that has no roots.
The valley that has no echo.
On top of a flagpole, a cow gives birth to a calf.
When I pass over the bridge the water flows not,
but the bridge flows.
Entering fire, he is not burned,
entering water he is not drowned.
Ride your horse along the edge of the sword
Hide yourself in the middle of the flames
Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in fire
The sun rises in the evening.
Stop the sound of a distant temple bell.
Put out the fire a thousand miles away.
Turn a somersault on a needle's point.
Hide you body in the Big Dipper.
Today is the eighth day of the month,
tomorrow is the thirteenth.
tomorrow is the thirteenth.
******
To see into the koan
we must see into ourselves.
-Albert Low
only one koan matters
you
-Ikkyu
we must see into ourselves.
-Albert Low
only one koan matters
you
-Ikkyu
