Passing Through the Gateless Barrier

Gateways to awakening surround us at every moment of our lives. The whole purpose of kōan  ( gong’an , in Chinese) practice is to keep us from missing these myriad opportunities by leading us to certain gates that have traditionally been effective for people to access that marvelous awakening. The forty-eight kōans of the Gateless Barrier (Chinese: Wumenguan ; Japanese: Mumonkan ) have been waking people up for well over eight hundred years. Chan teacher Guo Gu provides here a fre