_One morning, as Chao-chou was receiving new arrivals, he asked one of them, "Have you been here before?" "Yes," the latter replied. "Help yourself to a cup of tea," he said. Then he asked another, "Have you been here before?" "No, Your Reverence, this is my first visit here." Chao-chou again said, "Help yourself to a cup of tea." The Prior of the monastery took Chao-chou to task, saying, "The one had been here before, and you gave him a cup of tea. The other had not been here, and you gave him likewise a cup of tea. What is the meaning of this?" Chao- chou called out, "Prior!" "Yes," responded the Prior. "Help yourself to a cup of tea!_"21_ _ Behind this possibly deceptive simplicity, however, there must have been a penetrating intelligence, for a very large number of his anecdotes were important enough to become enshrined in those famous collections of koans the Mumonkan and the Blue Cliff Record. One of the best known is the following: _A monk asked, "Since all things return to One, where does this One return to?" "When I was in Tsing-chou, I had a robe made which weighed seven chin [pounds]" replied the Master.22 _The answer is a perfect example of "no-thought," the anti-logic condition in which rationality is disengaged. To attempt to subject it to analysis would be to miss the entire point. An even more famous koan, and one that has become the traditional starting point for beginners, is the following: _A monk asked Chao-chou, "Has a dog the Buddha Nature?" Chao-chou answered, "Mu._"23_ _Here the word _mu_, meaning "nothingness" or "un," is an elegant resolution of a perplexing Zen dilemma. Had Chao-chou answered in the affirmative, he would have been tacitly instigating a dualistic view of the universe, in which a dog and a man are allowed to be discussed as separate objects. But to have responded negatively would have been to even more strongly betray the Zen teaching of the Oneness permeating all things. An answer was called for, but not an explanation. So the master responded with a nonword--a sound that has been adopted in later Zen practice as symbolic of the unity of all things. This wisdom made Chao-chou such a legend in his own lifetime that many monks from the south came north to try to test him, but he always outwitted them, even when he was well past a hundred. Perhaps it would be well to round out his story with a garland of some of the exchanges he had with new monks: _A new arrival said apologetically to the master, "I have come here empty-handed!" "Lay it down then!" said the master. "Since I have brought nothing with me, what can I lay down?" asked the visitor. "Then go on carrying it!" said the master.24 One day Chao-chou fell down in the snow, and called out, "Help me up! Help me up!" A monk came and lay down beside him. Chao-chou got up and went away.25 A monk asked, "When a beggar comes, what shall we give him?" The master answered, "He is lacking in nothing."26