Produced by Delphine Lettau, David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) The Gateless Barrier By LUCAS MALET NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1900 _Copyright, 1900_, by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. _Preface_ "What is the book?" "According to the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters of the title, we call it _Mu-Mon-Kwan_, which means 'The Gateless Barrier.' It is one of the books especially studied by the Zen sect, or the sect of Dhyâna. A peculiarity of some of the Dhyâna texts--this (story) being a good example--is that they are not explanatory. They only suggest. Questions are put, but the student must think out the answers for himself. He must _think_ them out but not write them. You know that Dhyâna represents human effort to reach, through meditation, zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression; and any thought narrowed into utterance loses all Dhyâna quality.... Well, this story is supposed to be true; but it is used only for a Dhyâna question...." LAFCADIO HEARN. "_Exotics and Retrospectives," pages 83, 84._ _The Gateless Barrier_ I Laurence leaned his arms upon the broad wooden hand-rail of the bulwarks. The water hissed away from the side. Immediately below it was laced by shifting patterns of white foam, and stained pale green, violet, and amber, by the light shining out through the rounds of the port-poles. Further away it showed blue black, but for a glistening on the hither side of the vast ridge and furrow. The smoke from the funnels streamed afar, and was upturned by a following wind. The great ship swung in the trough, and then lifted--as a horse lifts at a fence--while the seas slid away from under her keel. As she lifted, her masts raked the blue-black night sky, and the stars danced in the rigging.