If we are to catch the big bodhi-fish in the sea of samsara—hopefully to become Buddhas—we will need a good fishing pole and the proper bait. The fishing pole will have to be a special one, a dhyāna or Zen fishing pole. We will also need some special bait for our hook. But what kind of bait will attract our bodhi-fish? It can't be just any bait from a run-of-the-mill bait shop. We have to go the Mumonkan Bait Shop. It’s somewhere near the Twilight Zone last I remember!
The owner, Mumon 無門 sells only one kind of bait. It’s the bait of wúniàn 無念 (no-mentation). Yes, I know, it’s a very strange bait but works every time! Many Zen masters in old China and a few elsewhere used this bait.
One important thing we have to keep in mind is that the Zen fishing pole is not the bodhi-fish. The pole is something made, a constructed thing while the bodhi-fish is not a thing at all. It is transcendent. Those who have pulled the magnificent bodhi-fish out of these dark waters can attest to this fact.
Unfortunately, Zennists today who want to catch the bodhi-fish worry more about their Zen fishing pole than the bait. Most haven’t even bothered to go to the Mumonkan Bait Shop to obtain the bait of wúniàn. Without this special bait how can these Zennists expect to catch the bodhi-fish? Hasn’t the Buddha said that the best Zen (dhyāna) pole is still constructed and whatever is constructed and produced by our human effort is impermanent and subject to cessation? The bait is key! It is unconstructed. What else can attract the bodhi-fish?
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