Mumonkan

CASE 11. JOSHU'S HERMIT Joshu went to a hermit's and asked, "What's up? What's up?"(="Have you any Zen?") The hermit lifted up his fist. Joshu said, "The water is too shallow to anchor here," and went away. Joshu visited the hermit once again a few days later and said, "What's up? What's up?" The hermit raised his fist again. Then Joshu said, "Well given, well taken, well killed, well saved." And he bowed to the hermit. Mumon's Comment: The raised fist was the same both times. Why was one accepted, the other rejected? Just say, where is the confusion between the two? If you can answer this by a word of true comprehension, then you realize that Joshu's tongue has no bone and that he can absolutely freely use it. Even though this is so, the hermit might have seen through Joshu both times. If you wonder whether the first hermit be superior (or inferior) to the second, then you have no one eye. His eye is a meteor, Zen's movement is like lightning. The sword that kills the man, is the sword that saves the man.