When a monk asks who is the Buddha, the master points at his image in the Buddha Hall; no explanations are given, no arguments are suggested. When the mind is the subject of discourse, asks a monk, “What is mind, anyway?” “Mind,” says the master.[2.5] “I do not understand, Sir.” “Neither do I,” quickly comes from the master. On another occasion, a monk is worried over the question of immortality. “How can I escape the bondage of birth and death?”[2.5] Answers the master, “Where are you?” The Zen adepts as a rule never waste time in responding to questions, nor are they at all argumentative. Their answers are always curt and final, which follow the questions with the rapidity of lightning. Some one asked,[2.6] “What is the fundamental teaching of the Buddha?” Said the master, “There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool.” What a most matter-of-fact answer this! That inevitable formula of Buddhism, the Fourfold Noble Truth, apparently has no place in the scheme of Zen teaching, nor has that persistently enigmatic statement in the _Prajñā-Pāramitā_, “taccittam yaccittam acittam,” threatens us here. Ummon (Yün-mên)[2.7] once appeared in the pulpit and said, “In this school of Zen no words are needed; what then is the ultimate essence of Zen teaching?” Thus himself proposing the question, he extended both his arms, and without further remarks came down from the pulpit. This was the way the Chinese Buddhists interpreted the doctrine of Enlightenment, this was the way they expounded the _Pratyātmajñanagocara_ of the _Laṅkāvatāra_. And for the Chinese Buddhists this was the only way, if the inner experience of the Buddha were to be demonstrated, not intellectually or analytically, nor in supernatural manners, but directly in our practical life. For life, as far as it is lived _in concreto_, is above concepts as well as images. To understand it we have to dive into it and to come in touch with it personally; to pick up or cut out a piece of it for inspection murders it; when you think you have got into the essence of it, it is no more, for it has ceased to live but lies immobile and all dried up. For this reason, Chinese minds, ever since the coming of Bodhi-Dharma, worked on the problem how best to present the doctrine of Enlightenment in their native garment cut to suit their modes of feeling and thinking, and it was not until after Hui-nêng (Yeno) that they satisfactorily solved the problem and the great task of building up a school to be known thenceforward as Zen was accomplished.