Dried Dung

Text

A monk asked Ummon: "What is Buddha?" Ummon answered him: "Dried dung." Mumon’s comment: It seems to me Ummon is so poor he cannot distinguish the taste of one food from another, or else he is too busy to write readable letters. Well, he tried to hold his school with dried dung. And his teaching was just as useless. Lightning flashes, Sparks shower. In one blink of your eyes You have missed seeing.

tr. Nyogen Senzaki, Paul Reps, 1934

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Yunmen Wenyan
• Commentator
  Wumen Huikai

Lineage: Yunmen

By Yunmen Wenyan

• Bells And Robeskoan
• Ummon's Sidetrackkoan
• Why Put on Your Robe?proverb
• Yunmen's One-Word Barriersdialogue
• Every Day Is a Good Daysaying

From Mumonkan

• Every Season Is a Good Season
• Preface to the Gateless Barrier
• The Wild Fox Koan
• Joshu's DogCase 1
• Hyakujo's FoxCase 2
• Gutei's FingerCase 3
• A Beardless ForeignerCase 4
• Kyogen Mounts the TreeCase 5
• Buddha Twirls a FlowerCase 6
• Joshu Washes the BowlCase 7

Sources

• contentMumonkan (Gateless Barrier) — Senzaki & Reps translation, 1934

  Nyogen Senzaki, Paul Reps (trans.)

  Case 21, Mumonkan

  Mumonkan case 21: Dried Dung