2Case 2

師問南泉：「如何是道？」泉云：「平常心是道。」師云：「還可趣向不？」泉云：「擬即乖。」師云：「不擬爭知是道？」泉云：「道不屬知不知。知是妄覺，不知是無記。若真達不疑之道，猶如太虗，廓然蕩豁，豈可強是非也？」師於言下頓悟玄旨，心如朗月。

Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, "What is the Way?"

Nanquan said, "Ordinary mind is the Way."

Zhaozhou said, "Then can I head toward it?"

Nanquan said, "Reach for it and you've already missed."

Zhaozhou said, "If I don't reach, how do I know it's the Way?"

Nanquan said, "The Way has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is just blankness. When you truly arrive at the Way beyond all doubt, it's wide open as empty space, vast and clear, without edges. How could you force it into right and wrong?"

At these words Zhaozhou broke through to the depths of it, and his mind was like a bright moon.

Pointer

This is the exchange that cracked Zhaozhou open, and it became famous enough to land in the Gateless Gate as case 19. The "Way" is what every monk in the hall is straining toward: awakening, the point of the whole life. Nanquan's answer, "ordinary mind is the Way," sounds like comfort but sets the trap. Zhaozhou tries to do the obvious thing and head toward it, and Nanquan tells him the heading-toward is itself the miss, because aiming at the Way turns it into one more object outside you. Then he closes the last exit: knowing it is delusion, not knowing it is mere blankness, so you can't think your way in either. What you do with that is left sitting on the page, the way it sat with Zhaozhou until his mind went clear as a moon. The teacher who made him this way walks all through the next case.