The Buddha’s teaching takes mind as its principle and no-gate as its dharma gate. Since it is gateless, how does one pass through it? Have you not heard it said: “What enters through a gate is not a family treasure. What is gained through conditions is subject, from beginning to end, to formation and decay.” To speak in this way is much like raising waves where there is no wind, or cutting into sound flesh to make a wound! How much less is there any relevance in clinging to words and phrases, seeking intellectual understanding, striking at the moon with a stick, or scratching an itch through one’s boot!

In the summer of the wuxi year of the Shaoding era, Huikai was head of the assembly at Longxiang in Dongjia. At the request of patch-robed monks seeking instruction, he took the koans of the ancients as tiles for knocking at the gate, guiding students according to their capacities. They were then copied down, and before he knew it, they had formed a collection. They were not originally arranged in any sequence; altogether there are forty-eight cases, collectively called “The Gateless Gate.” If you are a true person, disregarding danger to life and limb, you will charge straight in with a single blade; even Nata with his eight arms will be unable to stop you. Even the twenty-eight patriarchs of India and the six patriarchs of China will have no choice but to flee at the mere sight of you and beg for their lives. But if you hesitate, it is like watching a rider pass by through a window: in the blink of an eye, the opportunity has already slipped away!

Verse: The great Way has no gate; A thousand different paths lead to it. Pass through this barrier, And you alone stride beneath heaven and earth.