Kyōgen (Hsiang-yen),[6.19] a disciple of Isan (Wei-shan), with whom we got acquainted just now, said in one of his sermons: “It is like a man over a precipice one thousand feet high, he is hanging himself there with a branch of a tree between his teeth, the feet are far off the ground, and his hands are not taking hold of anything. Suppose another man coming to him to propose a question, ‘What is the meaning of the first patriarch coming over here from the west?’ If this man should open the mouth to answer, he is sure to fall and lose his life; but if he would make no answer, he must be said to ignore the inquirer. At this critical moment what should he do?” This is putting the negation of opposites in a most graphically illustrative manner. The man over the precipice is caught in a dilemma of life and death, and there can be no logical quibblings. The cat may be sacrificed at the altar of Zen, the mirror may be smashed on the ground, but how about one’s own life? The Buddha in one of his former lives is said to have thrown himself down into the maw of a man-devouring monster, in order to get the whole stanza of the truth. Zen being practical wants us to make the same noble determination to give up our dualistic life for the sake of enlightenment and eternal peace. For it says that its gate will open when this determination is reached. The logical dualism of “to be” (_asti_) and “not to be” (_nasti_) is frequently expressed by Zen masters by such terms of contrast as are used in our daily parlance: “taking life” and “giving life,” “capturing” and “releasing,” “giving” and “taking away,” “coming in contact” and “turning away from,”[6.20] etc. Ummon once held up his staff and declared: “The whole world, heaven and earth, altogether owes its life and death to this staff.” A monk came out and asked, “How is it killed?” “Writhing in agony!” “How is it restored to life?” “You had better be a chéf.” “When it is neither put to death nor living, what would you say?” Ummon rose from his seat and said, “Mo-hê-pan-jê-po-lo-mi-ta!” (_Mahā-prajñā-pāramitā_).[6.21] This was Ummon’s synthesis—“the one word” of the ultimate truth, in which thesis and antithesis are concretely unified, and to which the four propositions are inapplicable (_rahita_). IV