Four Questions That Are One

Text

Seung Sahn taught that all the questions of Zen resolve into four, which are themselves one. What am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? How shall I help others? When the first question is answered completely, not by thinking but by your whole life, the other three answer themselves. This is why practice cannot be only sitting. Every moment of your life — getting on the bus, chopping vegetables, meeting someone who is angry — is asking the first question. The complete answer is a complete human being.

tr. After Seung Sahn, 'The Compass of Zen' (1997), ed. Hyon Gak Sunim

license: fair_use

Attribution

• Attributed To
  Seung Sahn

Lineage: Kwan Um

By Seung Sahn

• What Are You?koan
• Only Don't Knowpractice-instruction
• Only Don't Knowproverb
• Just Do Itproverb
• Vow Before Wisdomproverb

Sources

• contentThe Compass of Zen

  Seung Sahn

  The Compass of Zen (Shambhala, 1997), opening framework on the four questions

  The Compass of Zen: Four Questions That Are One