We now come to the third class I have styled, “Contradiction,” by which I mean the Zen master’s negation, implicitly or expressly, of what he himself has stated or what has been stated by another. To one and the same question his answer is sometimes “No,” sometimes “Yes.” Or to a well-known and fully-established fact he gives an unqualified denial. From an ordinary point of view he is altogether unreliable, yet he seems to think that the truth of Zen requires such contradictions and denials; for Zen has a standard of its own, which, to our common-sense minds, consists just in negating everything we properly hold true and real. In spite of these apparent confusions, the philosophy of Zen is guided by a thorough-going principle which, when once grasped, its topsy-turviness becomes the plainest truth. A monk asked the sixth patriarch of the Zen sect in China, who flourished late in the seventh and early in the eighth century, “Who has attained to the secrets of Wobai (Huang-mei)?” Wobai is the name of the mountain where the fifth patriarch, Hung-jên used to reside, and, it was a well-known fact that Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, studied Zen under him and succeeded in the orthodox line of transmission. The question was therefore really not a plain regular one, seeking an information about facts. It had quite an ulterior object. The reply of the sixth patriarch was, “One who understands Buddhism has attained to the secrets of Wobai.” “Have you then attained them?” “No, I have not.” “How is it,” asked the monk, “that you have not?” The answer was, “I do not understand Buddhism.”[f128][6.22] Did he not really understand Buddhism? Or is it that not to understand is to understand? This is also the philosophy of the _Kena-Upanishad_. The self-contradiction of the sixth patriarch is somewhat mild and indirect when compared with that of Dōgo (Tao-wu). He succeeded to Yakusan (Yüeh-shan Wei-yen, 751–834), but when he was asked by Gohō (Wu-fêng) whether he knew the old master of Yakusan, he flatly denied it, saying,[6.23] “No, I do not.” Gohō was however persistent, “Why do you not know him?” “I do not, I do not,” was the emphatic statement of Dōgo. The latter thus singularly enough refused to give any reason except simply and forcibly denying the fact which was apparent to our common-sense knowledge. Another emphatic and unequivocal contradiction by Tesshikaku (T‘ieh-tsui Chiao) is better known to students of Zen than the case just cited.[6.24] He was a disciple of Jōshu (Chao-chou). When he visited Hōgen (Fa-yen Wên-i, died 958), another great Zen master, the latter asked him, what was the last place he came from. Tesshikaku replied that he came from Jōshu. Said Hōgen, “I understand that a cypress tree once became the subject of his talk; was that really so?” Tesshikaku was positive in his denial, saying, “He had no such talk.”