A Dog Has Buddha Nature 1

A monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master:
"Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?"
Joshu answered: "Mu."
[Mu is the negative symbol in Chinese, meaning "No thing" or "Nay."]

The paragraph above is a Zen koan quoted in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones - A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, Compiled by Paul Reps. Published by Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

Tao David's Comment: First of all, "Joshu" is the Japanese name for the Chinese Zen Master Chao-Chou (778-897). "Mu" is a Japanese word. The Chinese word is "Wu."
But let us not quibble. Anyone who has spent time around dogs knows that they have Buddha-nature. It's just that sometimes neither the dogs nor the people know it.

A Dog Named Blue, 1976-1992
Photographs, 1987-1992

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Last modified March 31, 1996
Copyright © 1996 by David M. Savage
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