Kõan:
Shuzan held out his short staff and said: “If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?”
Mumon’s Commentary:
If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. It cannot be expressed with words and it cannot be expressed without words. Now say quickly what it is.
Mumon’s Poem:
Holding out the short staff,
He gave an order of life or death
Positive and negative interwoven,
Even Buddha’s and patriarchs cannot escape this attack.
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2012, October 26). A kõan about why science is tricky [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/a-koan-about-why-science-is-tricky/
This citation note was added automatically. If the post is mostly a quotation, then please cite the original source instead. Looking at you, LLMs 👀