It is related that Ōkubo Shibun, famous for painting bamboo, was requested to execute a kakemono representing a bamboo forest. Consenting, he painted with all his known skill a picture in which the entire bamboo grove was in red. The patron upon its receipt marvelled at the extraordinary skill with which the painting had been executed, and, repairing to the artist’s residence, he said: “Master, I have come to thank you for the picture; but, excuse me, you have painted the bamboo red.” “Well,” cried the master, “in what colour would you desire it?” “In black, of course,” replied the patron. “And who,” answered the artist, “ever saw a black-leaved bamboo?” When one is so used to a certain way of looking at things, one finds it so full of difficulties to veer round and start on a new line of procedure. The true colour of the bamboo is perhaps neither red nor black nor green nor any other colour known to us. Perhaps it is red, perhaps it is black just as well. Who knows? The imagined paradoxes may be after all really not paradoxes. III The next form in which Zen expresses itself is the denial of opposites, somehow corresponding to the mystic “via negativa.” The point is not to be “caught” as the masters would say in any of the four propositions (_catushkotika_): 1. “It is A”; 2. “It is not A”; 3. “It is both A and not-A”; and 4. “It is neither A nor not-A.” When we make a negation or an assertion, we are sure to get into one of these logical formulas according to the Indian method of reasoning. As long as the intellect is to move along the ordinary dualistic groove, this is unavoidable. It is in the nature of our logic that any statement we can make is to be so expressed. But Zen thinks that the truth can be reached when it is neither asserted nor negated. This is indeed the dilemma of life, but the Zen masters are ever insistent on escaping the dilemma. Let us see if they escape free. According to Ummon,[6.12] “In Zen there is absolute freedom; sometimes it negates and at other times it affirms; it does either way at pleasure.” A monk asked, “How does it negate?” “With the passing of winter there cometh spring.” “What happens when spring cometh?” “Carrying a staff across the shoulders, let one ramble about in the fields, east or west, north or south, and beat the old stumps to one’s heart’s content.” This was one way to be free as shown by one of the greatest masters in China. Another way follows.