禅Muin Soin

saying

The One Matter

Daitoku-ji Temple Records

Muromachi Period Japan

Traditionally attributed

Text

Muin addressed his students: 'All the questions that Rinzai masters have ever asked — the mu, the sound of one hand, who was your face before your parents were born — these are not many questions. They are one question wearing many costumes. Learn to recognize the costume and you will never answer the question. Stop recognizing it and the question may answer you.'

license: public_domain

Attribution

Lineage: Rinzai

By Muin Soin

From Daitoku-ji Temple Records

Sources

  • contentZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation

    Zen project editorial

    Daitoku-ji temple records; cf. Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, Vol. 2, pp. 160–162

    Daitoku-ji Temple Records: The One Matter

No per-field confidence has been recorded for this teaching yet. Treat individual claims with the caution appropriate to the source list below.

Attribution status: traditional — see editorial policy for what this means.

1 supporting citation on record (see Sources above).

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