The masters generally go about with a kind of short stick known as shippé (_chu-pi_), or at least they did so in old China. It does not matter whether it is a shippé or not, anything in fact will answer our purpose. Shuzan, a noted Zen master of the tenth century, held out his stick and said to a group of his disciples:[6.13] “Call it not a shippé; if you do, you assert. Nor do you deny its being a shippé; if you do, you negate. Apart from affirmation and negation, speak, speak!” The idea is to get our heads free from dualistic tangles and philosophic subtleties. A monk came out of the rank, took the shippé away from the master’s hand, and threw it down on the floor. Is this the answer? Is this the way to respond to the master’s request “to speak”? Is this the way to transcend the four propositions—the logical conditions of thinking? In short, is this the way to be free? Nothing is stereotyped in Zen, and somebody else may solve the difficulty in quite a different manner. This is where Zen is original and creative. Ummon expressed the same idea with his staff, which he held up, saying,[6.14] “What is this? If you say it is a staff, you go right to hell; but if it is not a staff, what is it?” Hima’s (Pi-mo) way somewhat deviated from this. He used to carry a forked stick and whenever a monk came up to him and made a bow, he applied the stick on the neck of the monk, and said,[6.15] “What devil taught you to be a homeless monk? What devil taught you to go round? Whether you can say something, or whether you cannot say anything, all the same you are to die under my fork: speak, speak, be quick!” Tokusan (Tê-shan) was another master who flourished a stick to the same effect; for he used to say[6.16]: “No matter what you say, or what you say not, just the same thirty blows for you?”