This sounds altogether out of reason, but in fact Zen abounds with such graphic irrationalities. “The flower is not red, nor is the willow green”—is one of the best known utterances of Zen, and is regarded as the same as its affirmative: “The flower is red and the willow is green.” To put it in logical formula, it will run like this: “A is at once A and not-A.” If so, I am I and yet you are I. An Indian philosopher asserts that _Tat twam asi_, Thou art it. If so, heaven is hell and God is Devil. To pious orthodox Christians, what a shocking doctrine this Zen is! When Mr Chang drinks Mr Li grows tipsy. The silent thundering Vimalakīrti confessed that he was sick because all his fellow-beings were sick. All wise and loving souls must be said to be the embodiments of the Great Paradox of the universe. But I am digressing. What I wanted to say was that Zen is more daringly concerte in its paradoxes than other mystical teachings. The latter are more or less confined to general statements concerning life or God or the world, but Zen carries its paradoxical assertions into every detail of our daily life. It has no hesitation in flatly denying all our most familiar facts of experience, “I am writing here and yet I have not written a word. You are perhaps reading this now and yet there is not a person in the world who reads. I am utterly blind and deaf, but every colour is recognised and every sound discerned.” The Zen masters will go on like this indefinitely. Basho (Pa-chiao), a Korean monk of the ninth century, once delivered a famous sermon which ran thus: “If you have a staff (_shujo_, or _chu-chang_ in Chinese), I will give you one; if you have not, I will take it away from you.”[6.9] When Jōshu, the great Zen master of whom mention was repeatedly made, was asked what he would give when a poverty-stricken fellow should come to him, he replied, “What is wanting in him?”[f127][6.10] When he was asked on another occasion, “When a man comes to you with nothing, what would you say to him?” his immediate response was, “Cast it away!”[6.11] We may ask him, When a man has nothing, what will he cast? When a man is poor, can he be said to be sufficient unto himself? Is he not in need of everything? Whatever deep meaning there may be in these answers of Jōshu, the paradoxes are quite puzzling and baffle our logically trained intellect. “Carry away the farmer’s oxen, and make off with the hungry man’s food,” is a favourite phrase with the Zen masters who think we can thus best cultivate our spiritual farm and fill up the soul hungry for the substance of things.