The Gateless Gate (Mandarin Chinese 無門關, Wúménguān, Japanese 無門関, Mumonkan), sometimes translated as The Gateless Barrier, is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans ("public cases" popularly but mistakenly thought of as insoluble riddles).
It was compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Master Wumen Huikai (無門慧開, Japanese Mumon Ekai, 1183–1260) during the Song Dynasty.
The title has a double meaning and may also be understood as Wumen's Barrier because Wumen's name, which literally means "no gate," is the title's first two characters.
Then I knew intuitively, innately by instinct!
Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen.
A classic edition includes a 49th case composed by Anwan in 1246. Wuliang Zongshou also supplemented the volume with a verse of four stanzas composed in 1230 about the three barriers of Chan Master Huanglong Huinan.
Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the Chinese Buddhist canon has not included The Gateless Gate, but Wumen's disciples brought the work to Japan, where it has been reprinted many times.
It is collected in volume 48 of the Taishō Tripiṭaka [1]. Along with the Blue Cliff Record and the oral tradition of Hakuin Ekaku, The Gateless Gate is a central work much used in Rinzai Zen School practice.
Five of the koans in the work concern the sayings and doings of Zhaozhou; four concern Ummon. The common theme of the koans and Wumen's comments is the inquiry and introspection of dualistic conceptualization. (See Mahayana-Hinduism's nondualism or Advaita Vedanta).
Satori (Japanese 悟り) is a Japanese Zen Buddhist term for "awakening," "comprehension," "understanding" [1], or "insight" (an epiphany, a sudden moment of "clear-seeing" or vipassana, liberating insight). The word derives from the Japanese verb satoru [2, 3]. In the Zen Buddhist tradition, satori refers to a deep experience of kenshō[4, 5], "seeing into one's true nature" [that true nature being the Three Marks of Existence that lead to enlightenment/bodhiin Theravada Buddhist terms]. Ken means "seeing," shō means "nature" or "essence" [4]. Satori and kenshō are commonly translated as "enlightenment," a word that is also used to translate bodhi, prajñā ("wisdom"), and Buddhahood. More
To suddenly see clearly into the nature of things
Each koan epitomizes one or more of the polarities of consciousness that act like an obstacle or wall to theinsight.
The student is challenged to transcend the polarity that the koan represents and demonstrate or show that transcendence to the Zen teacher.
Structure and contents
The text was originally prepared by Wumen as a record of his teaching during a monastic training period held at Longxiang Temple (now Jiangxin Temple in Wenzhou) in the summer of 1228.
Wumen selected the 48 koans and commented on and added a verse for each koan. As was customary in China at the time, an edition might have additions of text inserted by a subsequent owner or publisher.
The best-known version of the text is from the Japanese woodblock edition made from the 1246 manuscript edition that contains the following sections. More
Continued: Siddhartha had previously turned his back on fundamental "meditation" (lit., jhana/dhyana, the pleasant meditative absorptions that unite the mind in a highly coherent state called samadhi), thinking instead that the path must be one of penance, suffering, striving, austerities (tapas[blaming the body as if it were in control of the mind]), self-torture, self-abnegation, and manly (virile) effort (viriya) when it is really the Middle Way that avoids both extremes of hedonism and self-torture. (There is such a thing as "sane asceticism" undertaken with a competent monastic).
He one day realized that he had been avoiding the bliss and pleasure (piti) of absorption as if it were like sensual pleasure. Realizing that it is utterly unconnected to the ordinary pleasures of the senses, he allowed himself to pursue these eight super states (the four material and four immaterial absorptions). This provided the temporary purity of mind/heart necessary for breaking through and realizing the ultimate truth of mentality and materiality, of mind and body.
The five phenomena (form; feeling, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness) are referred to as the Five Aggregatesclung to as self throughout the Buddhist sutras and commentaries of the Pali canon and are the focus of the world-famous Heart Sutra, the favorite Mahayana Buddhist text nearly no chanter of the Sanskrit seems aware of.
What we take to be real is an illusion, whereas what is in fact verifiably real is at a more basic level of reality. What we have been calling "mind" all along breaks down to feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Cittas or "mind moments" are the ultimate constituents of these impersonal processes. And what we have been calling "body" is not "me" or "mine" but ultimate matter (the Four Elements or qualities and characteristics of particles called kalapas).
It is completely mistaken to assume that the Buddha's use of the term "Four Elements" has anything to do with the ancient Greek or classical Indian understanding. There are not four "things" in matter. Instead, there are four categories of characteristics/processes or potentialities of matter: fluidity, density, support, temperature... for a total of 12 traits or states of material phenomena.
This is a practical, tangible, realizable reality (Four Elements Meditation by Pa Auk Sayadaw) not a theory of particle physics. This is about name-and-form (nama-rupa) not Western science. It is personally verifiable here and now. It is not going to win anyone a Nobel Prize in theoretical physic or microbiology. It is a PRACTICE of clear-seeing (vipassana), not a theory or paradigm to be argued about so that one becomes entangled in a thicket of views.
When one sees this directly, the mind/heart let's go, and one is freed. Free from what? Free from delusion, free from ignorance about these things, free from identity and personalization, free from suffering (pain, disappointment, unfulfillment, distress). So every five-minute version of the life of the Buddha should include these eleven elements:
Raised in privilege and comfort
Feels lack (unhappy, unfulfilled)
Renounces position, power, privilege
Sets off on spiritual quest for ultimate truth
Learns meditation (jhana practice) and yoga (restraints, practices, pacification of mind and body)
Avoids the tempting extremes of penance and sensual pleasures
Gains stillness (samadhi) through the absorptions
Emerges from jhana and takes up fourfold mindfulness (of body, feeling, mind, and mind-objects)
Practices Dependent Origination
Awakens to the ultimate truth that all things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal
Letting go (real renunciation takes places) and light dawns, knowledge-and-vision arise.
Imagine pausing in the middle of chaos and suddenly feeling a wave of calm wash over mind and body. That’s the surprising reality many people experience when they embrace mindfulness (Buddhist sati).
In a world that never seems to slow down, mindfulness offers a rare and precious gift: the ability to be completely present.
It’s not a fleeting fad or a mystical ritual.
Instead, it is a simple yet profound [formerly Buddhist] practice that science now shows can literally reshape our brains and boost our chances for success.
The idea that focusing on our breath or paying attention to our surroundings in the moment could change our brain may sound unbelievable, but the evidence is mounting:
Mindfulness is not just about feeling better; it’s about training our mind for resilience and greatness. More
Tonight commemorates three (possibly four) amazing events in the life of the Buddha. It was his birthday under the month of Vesak's moon one year. Twenty-nine years later, it was the night he decided to let go and renounce it all to go on a quest for enlightenment to make an end of suffering for everyone. (This would mean that his son Rahula had the same birthday). Six years after that, under the full moon of the same month, he experienced the great awakening of a supremely enlightened teacher. Then 45 years after that, under that very same moon, he made an end of all further rebirth and suffering by reclining into final nirvana. All that happened on full moon of this night, different years, same moon. Because he was reborn, because he renounced, because he practiced without giving up, Siddhartha became the Buddha, which means "the Enlightened One." Without this full moon, without these trees (a different kind of tree being involved in each event (sal, banyan, bodhi, and twin sals), would it have happened? We can only hope it would have. The way the story (told as an allegory) of the Buddha's life gets retold, it would be safe to say that Siddhartha became the Buddha in the last watch of the night, at dawn (with the dawning of insight) after a long, dark night of struggle with Mara* and his legions of ogres (yakkhas).
Light arose, knowledge arose = enlightenment.
What does it mean that the wandering ascetic Siddhartha Gautama (Siddhattha Gotama), 35, having renounced his palace and kingdom six years earlier, at age 29, had a Great Awakening (maha-bodhi)?
It means that after six years of struggle as a yogi learning the meditative absorptions but following the wrong path of penance through severe austerities (tapas), made a profound breakthrough to the ultimate Truth.
Having nearly died in his strenuous efforts to overcome the mental defilements, blaming the body as if it were the slave's fault that the master was all along the defiled one dragging it along, it occurred to Siddhartha to not be averse to pleasure. So long had this been his custom that it seemed wrong even to delight in the bliss of absorption (the jhanas, samma-samadhi). Realizing that such supersensual pursuits are blameless, not connected to sensuality, and followed by the wise, he pursued them and found what had eluded him for so long.
While his five wandering ascetic companions thought he had softened and given up, he set off on his own with the help of the milkmaid Sujata and her servant. They nursed him back to health, feeding him solid food. This disgusted his companions -- eating over fasting, receiving dana (donations) from the hand of a woman. Was this any way for a recluse, hermit, and wandering spiritual nomad to behave?
How did Siddhartha become "the Buddha"?
Scythians (Sakas) of Gandhara
It was! Not only did Siddhartha realize that the body was not the enemy but a potential vehicle to enlightenment, his dingy and clouded mind brightened, and he was able to think more clearly. He realized that he had been avoiding the very Path that avoids both extremes of hedonism on the one hand and severe asceticism on the other, the Middle Way.
He recalled that age 7 he had spontaneously entered such an absorption at the Spring Festival while his father, the King Suddhodana (a Scythian/Shakyian chieftain in the Saka Land called Kapilavastu or Kapilavatthu), was engaged in the ploughing ceremony.
That absorption was possible because he was left alone under the shade of tree by his nannies, who were more interested in joining the festivities. Left to his own devices, he did what he had always done in past lives -- enjoyed the serenity of samatha meditated. (It's interesting that the words samana, "wandering ascetic," and samatha, "calm meditation," are so much alike since one is primarily engaged in the other).
This may have made him a "saint" (holy man, sadhu, bhagavan) in the eyes of his fellows at the time, but it in no way made him a "saint" (arahant, arhat, enlightened one) in the Buddhist sense. For that, Siddhartha used the foundation of serenity, with the temporary mental purity it provided, and added insight (vipassana or "clear seeing") practices. Namely, he entered one or more of the eight absorptions, emerged, and practiced systematic mindfulness (satipatthana) on one of four themes, today referred to as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. This was the Dependent Originationpractice he rediscovered, as other buddhas before him had found.
Asking the question, "Why is there suffering (dukkha, disappointment, pain, misery)?" he realized the answer lay in a causal chain of 12 links: Present suffering is due to... list of the 12 causes. The general realization is that ALL things arise from causes: "When this is, that comes to be. When this is not, that does not come to be." So to put it less simply:
Why is there aging, decay, death (dukkha, loss, woe)?
It is because there is rebirth. Why is there rebirth?
It is because there is becoming. Why is there becoming?
It is because there is clinging. Why is there clinging?
It is because there is craving (greed, desire). Why is there craving?
It is because there is feeling (sensation). Why is there feeling?
It is because there is contact. Why is there contact?
It is because there is sense (the six sense bases). Why is there sense?
It is because there is name-and-form. Why is there name-and-form?
It is because there is consciousness. Why is there consciousness?
It is because there is volitional formation [karma, fabrication, construction, intention, choices, doing]. Why is there volitional formation?
It is because there is ignorance (delusion, illusion, unknowing).
Therefore, IF ignorance (avijja) is the problem, what is the solution? The solution is enlightenment (clearly seeing how things really are) because this leads to letting go. Who would be interested in such a trap after seeing the danger, folly, and emptiness inherent in it? This letting go (nekkhamma, abandoning, releasing, relinquishing, internal-renunciation) at such a profoundly foundational level) is why the Truth sets one free. It is not an act of willful doing.
We cannot will ourselves to let go of everything with our heads (intellect) and expect that the heart will really follow suit. Try it. If it were so, any smart person could be free just by study and an intellectual grasp or understanding. It is because once we see Truth as it is (things as they really are), the letting go happens naturally.
EXAMPLE: Imagine being a little boy. You see your older brother holding a fat burger in front of everyone craving it, begging for it, ready to fight each other to get it. You see it, want it, and are ready to beg or fight for it yourself -- you can't help it -- but you're smart. So you reason with him, "Brother, let me have it; you love me, and we're brothers, and you would do anything good to help your brother, as brothers do. So let me have it."
"No, Dummy, get out of here!" he says to you, as older brothers like to say. He knows you. He knows you're going to beg and fight and plead like a clingy dummy like all the rest of them. So out of love, he tells you the secret, which he knows there's no possible way you're going to believe just by him telling you. So he simultaneously tells you and shows you: "It's poop in the center, look." What happens to your craving, clinging, and desire right at that instant? It evaporates, shrinks back, is replaced by disgust and letting go (of that desire), completely abandoning it. That wouldn't have happened if he had just TOLD you. But since you saw it yourself, there's no doubt. And you know he loves you and wants the best for you, and he is holding it away from everyone. "What, but, how?" you stutter, but who cares how or why or when? There's only the what. And the what is that it's poop. Where has all your desire gone for it? He has liberated you from the flesh-craving, from that clinging, from that avarice for food of any kind, until your customary delusions and hungers return.
SLIDE: Worms poke out of hamburger on lettuce
That example is too harsh. So let's change it. Let's say, what he shows you is not directly poop between buns but a microscope slide of what's really in flesh-burger: worms, rot, traces of feces and salmonella, pus, uric acid, sweat, mucus... Now where's your craving, your clinging, your desire? You realize he really does love you and has been telling you all along, but until you saw it with your own eyes, you would've never believed it. You've been eating this cr*p the whole time. That's what flesh is; that's how the sausage (churned burger) is made. *Vomit* You feel love and gratitude for your brother for NOT giving you what you were sure you wanted and begged for and were ready to fight for. You feel love for him because instead he gave you what you didn't know you needed so desperately -- wisdom and compassion. Out of compassion for you, he shared his wisdom by giving you a "clear seeing" of what was really there all along.
It is like dropping a feather (or a modern plastic bag) into a fire. It shrinks back, pulls away, retracts by a natural reaction. It does not will to shrink away. It just does. The heart/mind will let go of all conditioned (composite) "things." And there is only one [unconditioned element] that is not a thing and therefore does not have all the faults and attributes of things -- and that is nirvana.
I was obscured by clouds, then all became clear.
Nirvana (nibbana) is not enlightenment (bodhi) as so many scholars and ordinary people seem to loosely equate. Awakening gives a glimpse of what has never before been seen in this entire Round of Rebirths (samsara), this Wheel of Life and Death: real freedom (liberation) from any further rebirth or suffering. The dependently originated formation (fabrication, construction) of these Five Aggregates clung to as "self" is no more -- and one is completely freed. This comes in stages, which may all happen following after the other or be spread out over as many as seven more rebirths. These are the Paths and Fruits (magga-phala), the stages of enlightenment, of those who have become the "noble ones."
Mara ("Death," "Obstacles," "Defilements") Devaputra in Buddhism is a malignant being of light (a Satan figure), a king of the ogres (yakkhas), who tried to stop Prince Siddhartha from Awakening (becoming enlightened and liberated from the SensualSphere) by trying to seduce him with his "daughters" (Lust, Discontent, and Passion) and an army of ogres.
In various legends, visions of beautiful women are said to be Mara's daughters [1]. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara is the personification of Death, rebirth, and sensual desire [2].
Western Buddhist monk Ven. Nyanaponika Thera has described Mara as "the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment" [3].
(Sri Lanka Tourism) The Vesak festival commemorates three events in the Buddha’s life: his birth, his enlightenment, and his passing. It is a joyful season in Sri Lanka.
It is a festival of light that dispels the darkness of ignorance and a time to recall his teachings, the Dhamma, of wisdom, compassion, and peace.
This Vesak, let us appreciate humanity and practice peaceful coexistence that will raise us to greater heights.
To good health!
Bodhi ("enlightenment"), what does it actually mean? with scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi
Isn't the homelife harder than the left-home life?
(Daniel Aitken) Watch the full episode at dharmachats.com.
In this Dharma Chat, renowned American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk and translator of the Pali canon Bhikkhu Bodhi (one of Wisdom Quarterly's root-teachers through his scholarship, BPS.lk editorship, and one-on-one communications, the New Jersey born/California-trained Jewish-Buddhist Dr. Jeffrey Block, Ph.D., Claremont, who still teaches us and leads us in meditation every Wednesday eveninglive from Chaung Yen Monastery in Carmel to our base in Los Angeles) sheds light on the meaning of his own monastic Buddhist name, "Bodhi." Join him as he unveils the multifaceted nature of the word bodhi(awakening to the ultimate truth and thereby realizing complete liberation as nirvana).
Bhikkhu Bodhi, if the Buddha means "the Enlightened One," what does buddha mean?
Expectations impede attainment of enlightenment
Enlightened (bodhi-fied persons) are not called buddhas because that term is reserved for two very rare and special types of awakened individuals, the private (nonteaching self-awakened) and public (supremely self-awakened teaching) buddhas. Other "noble ones" are noble disciples (enlightened students), whose experience of enlightenment is the same as the buddhas with the difference that buddhas have other additional knowledges and powers like the dasa-balas or "Ten Powers of a Tathagata") which distinguish a supreme (samma-sam-bodhi) teacher from his successful students who have awakened to the same ultimate truths by pursuing the path he has pointed out. It may sound like a technical difference between these three kinds of individuals, "Enlightened Ones," as it were but it is key to comprehending how extraordinarily rare a supreme-enlightened-teaching buddha is, how rare and extraordinary pacceka-buddhas (nonteaching buddhas with the same knowledge but not the capacity to teach), and how relatively less rare (but still extraordinarily rare) disciple-arahants ("enlightened beings") are.
What does "Buddha" mean? An article by Bhikkhu Bodhi may change some minds
(Doug's Dharma) Let's take a look at a recent article by American scholar-monk and Pali canon translator Bhikkhu Bodhi on the meaning of Buddha and his related realization.
Some contemporary scholars have argued that bodhi ("enlightenment") should be translated as "awakening" and the historical Buddha should therefore be understood to mean "the Awakened One."
Bhikkhu Bodhi prefers a different option, and we'll see why.
00:00 Intro to the dispute
05:17 1. English definitions of the terms
07:48 2. Looking at Pāli language usage
08:56 3. Early metaphors and similes
14:08 A hidden irony or contradiction [by analogy bodhi is spoken of as enlightenment or awakening, whereas
NOTE: A recent article by Western Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Anālayo calls Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of this term into question. Doug Smith has done a follow up video discussing that response here:
Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark — amzn.to/3yGFLgy
☸️ FREE MINI-COURSE at the Online Dharma Institute: onlinedharma.org.
🧡 Find this material useful? Check out Doug's Dharma's Patreon and get fun benefits like exclusive videos, audio-only versions, and extensive show notes: dougsseculardharma
Ego Podcast (Buddhism) Feb. 23, 2025: Buddhism Explained. Experience a wisdom that permanently transforms – not just temporarily soothes. When we hear the word “wisdom,” we often imagine calming, wise sayings that bring a temporary sense of peace.
But the Buddha’s wisdom goes far beyond that. This video explores how the Buddha’s teachings offer a transformative training of the mind/heart -- a real path to ending suffering (disappointment, pain, misery) rather than merely providing comforting words. Discover:
Beyond the Surface:
How conventional wise sayings compare with the deep, practical training offered by the Buddha.
The Buddha’s approach to identifying suffering as stemming from our own desires and cravings.
The Real Problem and True Transformation:
Why true wisdom demands dissecting (analyzing) the mind to see the real causes of suffering.
How the Buddha’s insight into the nature of craving (tanha) and clinging (upadana) leads to genuine liberation (nirvana).
The Training of Wisdom:
The role of the Noble Eightfold Path and threefold training (virtue, concentrated calm, and insight) in cultivating lasting inner peace.
Practical steps to replace superficial wisdom with a transformative, embodied understanding.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Introduction: Beyond Wise Sayings
03:00 – The Limitations of Conventional Wisdom
07:00 – The Buddha’s Diagnosis: Suffering and Craving
12:00 – Transformative Training: Virtue, Concentrated Calm, and Wisdom
17:00 – Realizing True Liberation and Ending Suffering
Join the journey:
If ready to move beyond mere words and into a practice that truly transforms the mind, please like, share, and subscribe for more in-depth explorations of Buddhist wisdom and its practical application. #BuddhaWisdom #BuddhistTeachings #TrueTransformation #Mindfulness #Enlightenment
I remember studying the doctrine of Dependent Origination(D.O.), hoping to determine a "first cause," a prime mover, the beginning of everything. Taken in an academic way, one might conclude that it all began with ignorance (avijja or avidya,"unknowing"). It made sense. IF everything is an illusion (maya), as Hinduism says, ignorance would be the first cause. Of course, it didn't really make sense but only remained academic.
Years later, speaking with someone who had attained the first stages of enlightenment (yes, such a thing is possible today), I of course asked what the breakthrough was: absorption (jhana), insight (vipassana), stillness (samadhi)?
I was baffled to be told that it was actually "the practice of Dependent Origination." I had to stop myself from saying, "But Dependent Origination is not a practice, just a theory of everything and how it all began..." I bit my tongue and instead asked, "How does one practice that?"
It goes back to what the wandering ascetic Siddhartha was doing in the forest that time. He pursued his great spiritual quest with the question, "Why do we suffer?" or "What is the cause of suffering so that we can end it?"
He was finally practicing the absorptions, or jhanas, which purified his mind until with "clear seeing," he asked, "What is the cause of present suffering (aging, decay, death)?"
He understood that it was rooted in rebirth, and he saw that rebirth is rooted in other things (becoming, clinging, craving, feeling, contact, senses, body-mind, consciousness, formations), back and back into past lives. And why were there formations? Ignorance is the answer. That having been, this came to be.
The ascetic Siddhartha traced it all the way back, seeing how things co-arise: With the arising of this, that arises. When this is not, that does not come to be. This is how he became the Buddha, "the Enlightened One."
I remembered how the Buddha had warned Ananda not to underestimate Dependent Origination. Ananda made the mistake of saying that he thought it was clear and obvious. "Do not say so, Ananda, do not say so." Dependent Origination is deep and profound and seems so to one who understands. It is on account of not seeing this that both he and all of us have wandered through samsara for so very long.
Dependent Origination is the vivid counterpart to the mind-bending doctrine of no-self (anatta). People necessarily misunderstand that doctrine -- according to their inclination, either as eternalism or annihilationism (both of which are wrong) -- because they have never understood Dependent Origination, which can be understood as a very general principle ("suchness") or a very specific practice.
"Practice, what practice?" I asked. See a proficient meditation master such as Pa Auk Sayadaw or any of his awakened student-teachers. Until it is put into practice, there will be no realization (liberating insight), no liberation (moksha), no enlightenment (bodhi), and no nirvana.
How the Buddha solved the mysterious riddle of life | His greatest teaching
(SEEKER TO SEEKER) The Buddha's greatest discovery, Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppada, aka conditioned cogenesis, conditional coarising, interdependent arising), reveals the profound mechanics of life, suffering (dukkha, disappointment), and liberation (moksha, nirvana).
This essential doctrine shows how all experiences arise from interdependent causes and conditions, unraveling the roots of our struggles and pointing to the path to ultimate freedom.
This video breaks down the 12 causal links of existence and their deep implications for our understanding of "self" and reality. #buddha#buddhism #philosophy #enlightenment#dharma#dhamma
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
%20wiki.jpeg)
.jpg)
#/media/File:Astasahasrika_Prajnaparamita_Mara_Demons.jpeg){kind=link}